X-MEN: MARVELS SNAPSHOTS #1, is the latest in a series that showcases Marvel’s greatest characters through the eyes of ordinary people. This latest installment of the tour through the Marvel Universe spearheaded by Kurt Busiek, returns to the debut of the Fantastic Four and reveals the monumental effect it had on Scott Summers, an “ordinary” teenager.
This untold chapter in the life of Scott Summers, who would one day go on to was once a lonely teenager stuck in a sinister Nebraska orphanage, overcome with questions about his past and fears about his future. But all that changes when the dawn of the Marvel Age breaks, and Scott witnesses the Fantastic Four in action, awakening his heroic instincts long before he dons an X-Men costume.
Writer Jay Edidin, who also co-hosts the popular X-Men podcast Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, talked to Marvel.com about making his Marvel Comics debut with this extraordinary tale of self-discovery!
Edidin, who has created a community of X-Men fans through his podcast, when asked how he hopes to contribute to the X-Men mythos as a writer said, that being asked to write this story was a bit of an anxiety dream come true.
“On one hand, I know this continuity and character backward, forwards, and upside down. On the other hand, it’s going to be embarrassing as hell if I don’t stick the landing.”
This story also allowed Edidin to work with his favorite member of the X-Men, Scott “Cyclops” Summers. When asked how he brought this love for the character to the page. I really enjoy how far Scott Summers is from the popular concept of a Super Hero,?and especially a Super Hero who’s also a leader. He’s not a people person, or at all charismatic. He’s a compulsive contingency planner and heavily coded as neurodivergent. In general, he’s off-model in ways that make him unappealing to some readers, but also intensely relatable to a lot of people who don’t find many Super Heroes to relate to.”
Edidin also stated that as a trans writer, that the story at least for him, at least to me, was very much a trans story.
“Something Kurt and I discussed a lot early on was the extent to which Scott’s situation at the orphanage—being stuck in a world, life, and identity that feel perpetually and subtly off?from his own perceptions and experience—has a lot in common with gender dysphoria, and particularly my experience of it as someone who worked that stuff out on the late end of the learning curve.
So, the question becomes: how do you manage to spin a hopeful and uplifting story out of that? And the answer is that you make it a story about Scott figuring out some fundamental parts of who he is. There’s no “happily ever after” here—we know that, because we know where his story goes next—but there’s agency, and that makes a world of difference.”
Jay also talked that working with Busiek on the project.
“I’ve been working with him on and off for as long as I’ve worked in comics, about 15 years, this was the first time he’d edited me. It was an incredibly challenging master class in both comics writing and editing, and I really hope I get the chance to do it again.”
Read Full interview with Jay Edidin here:
Writer Jay Edidin Explores Scott Summers’ Heroic Destiny in ‘X-Men: Marvels Snapshots’
X-Men: Marvels Snapshots
Written by: Jay Edidin
Drawn by: Tom Reilly
Colors by: Chris O’Halloran
Cover by: Alex Ross
X-Men: Marvels Snapshots lands on shelves and digital platforms in September 2020.