In advance of the second printing—and issue #3, which hits stands on December 4—we got to chat with the captain himself, writer Gerry Duggan, to see what he has to say about the crew he's assembled. See where Captain Kate, Storm, Iceman, Bishop, Pyro, and Lockheed might be navigating to next and check out exclusive art from issues #3 and #4!

MARAUDERS was the first book set in the X-Men’s new world that wasn’t written by Jonathan Hickman and the response to it was fantastic. This is a book that you pitched well over a year ago, so how did it feel for you to have fans finally read your vision and respond to it in such a positive way?

It's true we had a long runway for these stories, and I'm thrilled that fans are enjoying their first tastes of these new books. I was really inspired by what Jonathan, R.B. and Pepe were swinging at with HOUSE OF X and POWERS OF X and just tried to have fun with some big swings in MARAUDERS. I'm glad it's landed so well—it's supposed to have landed well. Marvel sorted me with some wonderful artists and trusted me with some of the biggest characters. The world expands and the spotlight will begin to move around now.

I feel like every issue of MARAUDERS is another debut for a character or a new big idea. I think that's what the X-Men books really are now. Huge cannons that shoot big ideas. X-fans have not disappointed, we've all felt your love. I hope they enjoy the voyage we have planned. Stefano Caselli joins us for some very rough seas in arc two.

Pyro is a character that’s been around for decades and has appeared in numerous media adaptations, but this is his first time appearing in an ongoing title consistently as part of a main cast. What was it like to take a character that fans love and really be able to flesh him out for the first time?

He's historically been a black hat, and one with a particularly cruel power set, so it's been fun to see what he's up to when he's not crisping people. He was a character in need of some adventure, and I've been happy to help provide. My job is to have fun, so that my artist has fun, so that our readers have fun, but I'm also here to stress/challenge the characters. They're all going to have different crucibles.

I love the X-Men so much. They were my jam growing up. I've gotten to live out a lot of dreams, and getting to stretch on a little bit of Jonathan's Krakoa and have some fun is probably the biggest line item removed from my bucket list.