A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants Spins Out of Marvel’s Judgment Day Crossover Event (Exclusive)

This summer sees the debut of Marvel’s next big event series A.X.E.: Judgment Day, pitting the Avengers, X-Men, and Eternals against each other in a complicated conflict. As Judgment Day officially kicks off in July, there will be a series of tie-ins to help flesh out the story. ComicBook.com can exclusively reveal one of these tie-ins, A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants. The three-issue miniseries comes from Judgment Day writer Kieron Gillen (Eternals, Immortal X-Men) and artist Guiu Vilanova (S.W.O.R.D., Eternals). 

Of course, the title of the Judgment Day tie-in alludes to some dark darks for Marvel’s mutants. The cover of the first issue is by Esad Ribić and features many of the central characters from the Avengers, X-Men, and Eternals. Gillen is very aware of how fans may perceive the book’s title, which is very much the hook of the story.

“What an unfriendly title, yeah? Imagine how ugly it sounds when it’s on the lips of people you once considered your friends of a million years,” Gillen said. “Death to Mutants is about what mainstream Eternal Society is doing to try to crush the mutant flowers of Krakoa, while our heroic Eternals try to work out what the hell they can do about it.” 

Guiu added, “When you hear the words ‘Marvel crossover,’ ‘Kieron Gillen,’ and ‘Death to the Mutants’ in the same sentence, the only thing that comes to your mind is ‘Stop talking, I’m in!’ Haha! This is going to be amazing!”

Free Comic Book Day: Avengers/X-Men #1 sets the stage for Judgment Day, and will also include stories for the X-Men’s second annual Hellfire Gala by writer Gerry Duggan and artist Matteo Lolli, and the debut of Blade’s daughter Bloodline by writer Danny Lore and artist Karen Darboe. “There’s a classic metaphor to describe the Marvel Universe – a toybox, which creators take toys out of, play with and put back. I get it, but it’s never quite how I’ve seen it – I think ‘play’ in another way. I think of a music shop, with all these instruments with their different qualities suggesting different songs, different stories,” Gillen previously explained. “For all the Marvel instruments I’ve played, I’ve never written an event.”

“Writing an event is something different. It’s not like playing an instrument. It’s having all the instruments in the Marvel music shop. That’s not like writing a song. That’s like writing a symphony. I looked at everything in Eternals and Immortal X-Men and everything else all the X and Avengers writers have done and thought… yeah, this is an event. In fact, an event is the only way to do justice to this.”

You can check out the cover and solicitation for July’s A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants #1 below.

A.X.E.: DEATH TO THE MUTANTS #1 (OF 3)

KIERON GILLEN (W) • GUIU VILANOVA (A) • Cover by Esad Ribić

The mutants are Deviants. Eternals are coded to correct excess deviation. The mutants are eternal, Mars colonizers, ever-spreading. Eternals know what they should do. Our heroes don’t want to, but can they resist the murderous designs coded into their body as surely as any Sentinel? And if they can’t, can anyone survive the coming judgment?