Marvel Teases Mystery Character for X-Men X of Swords Crossover

Marvel’s “Dawn of X” relaunch has been shattering fans’ expectations at essentially every turn, providing an epic and radically different take on Marvel’s X-Men characters. The upcoming “X of Swords” crossover event is set to showcase that in a major way, while also dipping a bit more into the X-Men’s cosmic and ancient history. The Swordbearers of Arakko are expected to factor into that — and one of its most mysterious members just got the spotlight. Over the weekend, Marvel debuted a preview image for the upcoming X-Men #12, which features the masked member of the Swordbearers, with a redacted line over their name. The photo proclaims that “a staggering secret will forever redefine Apocalypse’s future” within the issue.

X-Men #12 will be written by Jonathan Hickman, with art by Leinil Francis Yu. The issue is expected to serve as a prelude to “X of Swords”, an event that will illustrate how wide-ranging and diverse the “Dawn of X” line has been thus far.

“We are still in the beginning stages of everything, because I intentionally knew that maybe people were going to take a little while to find their books,” Hickman told ComicBook.com when talking about “X of Swords” earlier this year. “And maybe it was going to take us a little while to figure out how we were all going to make all this work together. And what we found is that some people are jogging, some people are sprinting. None of it feels like failure, right? We’re kind of still just playing around.”

“Now, I will put a stop to that at some point, because we have bigger and broader things that we’re going to do. But while we’re still discovering interesting things about the books — and we have a couple of new books that are getting ready to start that really work that way — I think we should just keep playing,” Hickman continued. “The moment it feels stagnant, though, I’m just going to absolutely take an ax to it and be like, ‘No, it’s time to pivot hard.’ Jordan [White] and C.B. and everybody at Marvel knows what we’re doing. We just don’t know when we’re going to do it.”

Are you excited for X-Men’s “X of Swords” crossover? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

X-Men #12 will be released in September.