Uncanny X-Men #1: The Endling and The Outliers Explained by Gail Simone (Exclusive)

Who or what is the Endling? That’s the question in the just-launched Uncanny X-Men #1 by writer Gail Simone and artist David Marquez. The issue begins with a trio of X-Men — Rogue, Gambit, and Wolverine — facing off against Sadurang the God-Snake in Teotihuacán. A Dormammu disciple with Doctor Strange’s Eye of Agamotto, the dragon uses the former Sorcerer Supreme’s all-seeing eye to offer an ominous glimpse into the X-Men’s future: “Something ruinous,” Sadurang hisses. “‘Endling.’”

“‘Endling’ means it’s the last of a species. So, we have someone whowants to be the last of the species of mutants, and that’s probably all Ishould say,” Simone, offering her own ominous tease, told ComicBook. “It might become an issue.”

The word appears again when the X-Men are summoned to a children’s hospital in Mississippi, where they meet a cancer-stricken young fan named “Harvey X.” A low-level precog and telepath, Harvey suffers a psychic stroke as he warns Rogue: “They’re coming. You have to help them. One of them is the Endling.”

With Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters seized and turned into a prison by the mutant-hating Warden Ellis, the X-Men retreat to Haven: an orphanage in Gambit’s native Louisiana. Just as Rogue questions if they’re X-Men — or if there even is an X-Men anymore after Krakoa — Wolverine senses a group of four wild young mutants on the run and in need of help.

Solicitations for upcoming issues refer to the four mutants as “the Outliers.” They include Calico (Becca Constance Simon-Pinette), who has a psychic connection with her horse, Ember; Jitter (Sofia Yong), who has the mutant power to “hyper-focus” any talent or skill for one minute; Ransom (Valentin Correa), a mutant with a black hole in place of his heart; and Deathdream (Hotoru), able to switch between a state of life or one of death at will to summon souls and the power of the unliving in his ghost-like “death state.”

But is one of them the Endling who will destroy all mutantkind? Or is it the monstrous creature hunting them? Simone won’t say, but does note the shadowy mutant killer is “a really horrific villain” after the Outliers.

“Of these four new characters, some of them do not even admit thatthey’re mutants. Some of them don’t want to be. Some of them do, andthey’re just learning about what their abilities are, and we learn withthem throughout the story,” she said.

“We don’t know if they’re good or bad. We don’tknow which side of that they fall on yet,” Simone continued. “And I wanted to give them whatI call invisible mutations, which we’ll compare to an invisibledisability so that when you look at them, you cannot tell they’remutants. It’s not like they have blue skin or claws that pop out. Sothat’s one of the reasons why some of them may deny that they are mutantat all because it just doesn’t seem like the other mutants that arearound. They have more modern, today-type problems.”

Uncanny X-Men #1 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.