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Okay, I am going to tell a little story. It's one I have saved for the last couple years, almost nobody knows about it. But it lives in my heart. I don't know how others will feel about it, maybe something, maybe nothing. It's about the Uncanny X-Men. 1/

Okay, for whatever reason, during the Axel Alonso era of Marvel, I almost never got asked to work there for reasons I am not sure of. My Marvel work was successful and I had success at DC and elsewhere. I just assumed my stuff didn't fit their editorial needs, no big deal. 2/

For some reason, they started offering books after the EIC change, lots of different books, most of which I had to turn down at the time due to prior commitments. But I did WANT to do Marvel stuff, I love the universe. Tom Brevoort asked me to write a Jessica Jones book and we just clicked. 3/

Then he asked me if I would consider writing the Uncanny X-Men. This was a big deal to me, it was my favorite book for agest. I knew the book was hard on writers and they were ending the massively brilliant Krakoa era, so it would be tricky. I asked if I could think about it. 4/

I started thinking about the things I missed from my favorite eras of the X-Men. So I came up with several things I would like to do, never thinking for a moment they would all get approved. It's a major franchise, companies can be a bit skittish. So I offered what I hoped to do. 5/

They wanted a new base for the team, and I thought about that a lot. They had some things they wanted, all of which I thought were pretty exciting. But a new base, that was a big deal. A great opportunity. I started thinking about surviving trauma. And I started thinking about New Orleans. 6/

I thought about New Orleans surviving Katrina, how that was just an impossible calamity. I was obsessed following the stories of survivors and what they went through, and how much of it was preventable and CERTAINLY much of the effects could have been less brutally traumatizing. 7/

Above all, I thought of people losing their homes and having to leave people and pets and entire legacies behind just to protect themselves. Endless little and humongous tales of heroism, some of which went almost unheralded. 8/

And of course, bystanders saying hateful, impossibly cruel things about the people who lived through this, even the people who did NOT live through this. Pure hate and malice, mixed with misinformation. 9/

I don't mean to sound simplistic, but I always thought the thrill of the X-Men wasn't their torment, it was their survival. It was that they stick up for each other, they fight, but if you come for one of them, they will kick the living **** out of you and then go have a beer. 10/

I asked editorial about the idea of the base being in New Orleans and steeped in New Orleans lore, which is a story of living well despite calamities, which is the most X-Men thing ever and a big chunk of why I think they mean so much to so many. 11/

They still have their differences, but they share one thing that's right in the bones--they are mutants. And being a mutant binds them all. There are nomads and outcasts in the mutantverse, but no one is ever turned away forever, not really. 12/

And I miss books having a supporting cast that doesn't wear capes, so I wanted a family at the base that weren't X-Men, current or former, to be a little bit of the heart, soul, and stomach of the cast. I thought about this stuff a lot. 14/

So we have the St. Juniors family, father Marcus, mother Alice, and daughter Chelsea St. Juniors. They are the home that the Uncanny X-Men keep returning to. 15/

If you have read the book, you know that Chelsea has such a good heart, that she even loans Calico her stuffed dinosaur, her best friend, so that Becca won't be quite so scared. The dino's name is Tuffy. 16/