Marvel is in the midst of a relaunch of its X-Men line of comics called “From the Ashes,” which began earlier this month with the launch of X-Men #1 from Jed MacKay and Ryan Stegman, and has continued for the past three weeks with the launches of Phoenix #1 last week, and NYX #1 this week. Well, in the back of the first issue of X-Men #1, there was a QR code (a “quick-response” code is a printed code that, when scanned by the camera on your mobile phone, takes you to a webpage on the internet). These codes take you to an extra page from the issue, which teases future storylines.

Phoenix #1 and NYX #1 also have the codes and the bonus pages (NYX #1’s bonus page introduced the new Post-Krakoan “Quiet Council”), and Marvel not doing a big announcement ahead of time has led to some confusion over what these pages are intended to be, but X-Men editor Tom Brevoort addressed the issue on his Substack, explaining that they are intended as “bonus pages” as part of the relaunch.

How are the pages like bonus pages?

Responding to a reader question in his popular weekly Substack newsletter, Brevoort explained what the intent is with these pages:

[It] was a bonus page to begin with, an extra page—we didn’t scale back the contents of
X-MEN #1
in order to do it. And it gave us a page whose contents we could conceal until the day of release, thus avoiding any early spoilers. You’ll find that we’re doing similar pages in most of the new X-launches. They’re a little free bonus, a little extra—sort of a modern day equivalent of that “Things To Come” page that ran in the first issue of the
Claremont/Lee X-MEN #1.

Here is the aforementioned “Things to Come” page from X-Men #1 in 1991.

Fans are split on how much these pages are just “extra” to the story, and how much they would be “necessary” for future issues. That likely will be made clear when the second issues of these series come out, and we see how much the writers repeat the information revealed on the bonus page.

Will the pages be included in the trade paperback collections of these issues?

In his most recent Substack newsletter, Brevoort responded to a fan who noted that they were not a fan of the QR code “bonus page,” and Brevoort explained his reasoning even more, while also explaining how the pages will be handled in future trade paperback collections:

I think that’s fair,
Leigh
. But in this era of early spoilers, I love that this approach gives us the opportunity to hold onto some plot points right up until the day the title ships. So you’ll see the pattern repeated in most of the other X-Launches of this era. We will include those pages in the eventual collected editions, though, for those who don’t own a phone.

He then added that they might even begin to include the pages in the second printings of these issues (but not X-Men #1, as that has already gone to a second printing).

So this is not a case of “Every Marvel comic will now have its final page only online,” like some of the fan reaction to it have said on social media, and it doesn’t even sound like this will be going past these initial launch issues of each title.

Source: Tom Brevoort via Substack