At a press conference today Marvel Comics announced that writer Brian Wood, creator of DMZ, one of the consistently interesting and groundbreaking comic sagas of recent years, has signed on to write Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega, one of the key miniseries to emerge from the Schism event that sundered the X-Men. 

 

In the five issue miniseries, which debuts in January, Wolvie has to deal with the immature and rebellious Quentin Quire (aka Kid Omega), whose telepathic powers give him an edge against Wolverine.  The growing conflict between the two increasingly puts Logan in the position of one of the X-Men’s “grumpy old men” as he confronts the younger generation of mutants whose powers are far greater than their abilities to control their emotions.

 

Wood explained that a number of younger characters such as Armor, Rachel Grey, and Bling will be included in Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega, and it appears that he plans on mining generational differences between the X-Men to provide the basis for the character-driven storytelling that characterizes his work. 

 

When asked how he would adapt his style of writing to superhero work, Wood replied, “I write a script and Janine (editor Janine Schafer) tells me how to make it more superhero.”