Marvel’s Wacky X-Men Story Explained with Bonus Mark Millar Hissyfit

The newest of Marvel’s “We Are the X-Men” promos came out yesterday, this time featuring X-Man and Jubliee. Yes, Jubilee from the ’90s cartoon. Oh, and she’s a vampire.

?Between the appearance of Vampire Jubilee and Blade, comics fans now think that the X-Men will be fighting vampires (still no clue what Elektra and Spider-Man are doing in those ads, though). Comics writer Mark Millar also thinks this — but since he’s also currently writing an Ultimate Marvel vs. Vampires story which he’s literally been talking about for years, with the first issue coming out a mere two months after the assumably vampire-filled first issue of this X-Men storyline, Millar has lost his shit. He posted this rant on his own message board yesterday:

I’m just starting Ultimate Avengers 3, issue 5, and it’s the arc I’m maybe most proud of. As trailered forever, this is vampires in the Ultimate Universe attacking mutants and Blade brought in to help the Avengers as heroes go down one by one.
Now someone’s sent me a link to an X-Men event out two months previous that’s exactly the same idea.
Seriously.
What do I do? This is what JRJR and I were going to do 5 years ago before Enemy of the State and I’ve been talking about it in interviews (and on here) since Ultimate Avengers launched. Blade’s even on the cover to issue 1 as I’ve been excited about this since I had Blade painted on an ice cream truck in 1978.
I don’t want to pull the issues as they’re part of a complex plot that runs through my entire four arc run, but I’m almost finished now. I’m writing issue five of six and they’re really, really good.
How the Hell did this happen? It wouldn’t have been as big a deal if I hadn’t started the series yet, but it’s almost done and just going to look foolish following an X-Men event. Am honestly just so disgusted with this as I’ve talked about it many times.

That’s only a small part of it, actually; head to Robot 6 to read the whole thing. Since then, Millar has taken the post down and talked to Marvel, and now says he doesn’t think “it’s as bad as it looked earlier,” and he expects “this can be fixed fast.”

I don’t know that I would have been that impressed with the X-Men fighting vampires anyways, but Marvel fucking up and allowing two almost identical major events to run practically simultaneously? Funny! And even if it’s not true, Millar still had a major, very public hissyfit denounced his publisher before bothering to talk with them and even checking to make sure what the real deal was. Fun!