The XXY Universe
Aleph Press
this mean? Absolutely nothing, since the mailing list and web site have
always been open to the public. But now we're going to publish our stuff
to the fanfic posting places, like Outside the Lines and
alt.comics.fan-fiction. :-)
You ask, what is the XXY Universe? Or even if you don't ask, I'll tell
you anyway. :-) The premise of the XXY Universe is simple: an alternate
timeline where all the mutants were born of opposite sexes. So Carolyn
Xavier (Dr. X) and her nemesis Polaris (aka Erika Magnus) have organized
the groups X-Factor and the Mutant Menace, respectively, as of the first
story. The humans, for the most part, did not swap. Spiderman is still
Spider-*Man*, Bruce Banner is the Hulk, Dr. Doom is still Victor and not
Victoria, and, which has more impact on the X-verse, Mr. Sinister is
still Nathaniel Essex. (No, Sinister is not a mutant and never was.) A
few humans did change-- Moira MacTaggert became Malcolm Kinross, Corsair
is now Christine instead of Christopher (and why are the kids still
called Summers? Beats me; ask Kielle) and people who had kids with
mutants, such as Gaby Haller, changed sex so that they still could (thus,
Gabe Haller.)
Another factor which we introduced to simplify matters is that time
travel works differently in XXY; it's damn near impossible. So a lot of
storylines that depend on time travel simply don't happen. Natalie
Summers hasn't come from the future to try to change it. Neither has her
older brother Ray. Danielle Haller is sane and would never get it into
her head to try to assassinate Erika Magnus in Israel 20 years ago, but
if she tried, she couldn't do it; thus, no AOA. And so on.
Unlike most shared universes, we are *not* doing XXY in comic book
format. That means there is no Issue #1, 2 and so forth, no X-Men series
(in fact there's no X-Men, it's X-Factor, but you know what I mean.) It's
a prose story format, it jumps around the timeline depending on what
people feel like writing (we have ongoing a Fantastic Four story, a New
Mutants story, and lots of other bits and bobs from all over.) We did it
by having individual people request characters to do the altered
histories for; these people have "dibs" on these characters and get to
govern what important stuff happens in their lives. If you'd like to
check out what we're doing in more detail, see the fan art and the
character writeups, and maybe join the mailing list, come on over to the
ugly homepage at http://alara.dreamhost.com/xxy.html .
I am the editor of XXY. I cannot give blanket archiving permission
because the stories are not all mine. I will say that I would like anyone
who archives any XXY story, with the author's permission of course, to
include a link to our web site so people can find out more about the
universe.
And now, we present the "first" story, in which John Grey joins X-Factor
and the young superhero team fight their first mission against Polaris at
Cape Citadel-- XXY: First Genesis.
--
Be good, servile little citizen-employee, and pay your taxes so the rich
don't have to.
--Zepp Weasel
Alara Rogers, Aleph Press
al...@netcom.com
All Aleph Press stories are at http://alara.dreamhost.com .