COMICS: Rick Remender Talks The End Of UNCANNY X-FORCE And Links To UNCANNY AVENGERS

I'm now doing "Uncanny Avengers" and "Captain America" and I realized that in order for me to do those and not want to blow my brains out, I might have to walk away from "Venom," "Secret Avengers" and "Uncanny X-Force." That was a bummer because I put so much into building them and getting the trains out of the station. I love all the characters, but that's just the reality. With "X-Force," I feel like this final story, which I'm very excited and have been building towards for a while now, pretty much wraps up everything we've been doing. It says everything I wanted to say about a kill squad while also really digging into the X-Universe that I loved so much as a kid growing up. So it really did come down to the fact that it was time to get off the stage. Hopefully, I'll be able to stick a nice landing with "Final Execution" and people will really enjoy it, so the series will never have that part where it tapered and stopped being as good. That's the upshot. You do your best work -- and we all have -- and then you wrap things up and walk away from it.

Yes, the only reason he moved out of the book for a little while was because I had a conversation with Jason Aaron at one of the Marvel retreats where it sort of occurred to me that when you have a 12-13 year old version of Apocalypse and one of your team members runs a school for gifted youngsters you can't hold onto that piece [Laughs]. When Jason and I were talking, it became very apparent that it doesn't make any sense for Evan to hang out in Cavern X and say, "You guys are going off to murder somebody? Can I watch TV?" and then have the rest of the cast say, "Sure, kid." So it was just a logical decision that he would go to the school and move over to Jason's book for a little while. That didn't mean I had to set aside my plans for Evan. Jason and I have always been in close contact about how the character was going to be developed and handled, and this story is a big part of it. I'd say this is act two for Evan more than act three. Things are going to go crazy here in a big, big way, but wherever he ends up after this, Evan's story is not done.

I've worked all this out. We're going to be seeing a lot of the mythology of Apocalypse carry on into "Uncanny Avengers" moving forward. It's not quite a blood line. Apocalypse was the first mutant and thus was chosen by the Celestials to protect and care for the other mutants and to make sure that the humans didn't wipe them out before they had an opportunity to flourish. That was his cosmically granted charge. Before him, there were Neanderthal versions of these evolutionary caretakers. I don't have a word for them. Jerome Opena and I designed a Celestial symbol for them because that seemed cooler. I call them evolutionary caretakers. Every species has one and every new emerging species has one. Basically, the Celestials come down and go, "Hey you. Here's this armor and some super powers. Make sure nothing bad happens." The Celestials don't know about Evan, though. Normally the Akkaba Society does a whole ceremony where they call the Celestials to come give you your power and your armor. In this case, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants have unearthed an old armor that Apocalypse wore, which will grant Evan the same powers since he's a clone of Apocalypse. That's what we're seeing here.

"Final Execution" does take place before "Uncanny Avengers." I've loosely sort of have it placed happening after the end of "AvX," and before "Uncanny Avengers." If you look at what happens in any "X-Force" arc. It really comes down to the fact that they unfold in about a day. When I added it all up "The Dark Angel Saga," from the point where they left the AoA, got back and dealt with everything, only about 24 hours had passed in that entire story. So these tales might end up being eight or nine issues, but when you look at how much time passes in the story, it's not much. The only real thing I really have to make sure this is interconnected with is "Wolverine & the X-Men." The stuff coming out of "Wolverine & the X-Men" at the same time usually takes place prior to "X-Force." Then there's "Final Execution" and "Uncanny Avengers" takes place after "Final Execution."

Our final issue of "X-Force" won't be out until December at this point, so we have about two and a half months between the time "Uncanny Avengers" launches and "Uncanny X-Force" ends. I don't want to tip my hat or give away the ending, but you'll see Wolverine is a changed person who is slightly more reflective and troubled by something mysterious. When you do see what it is a month later it will be nice, and the first "Uncanny Avengers" arc is so fast, big and explosive there isn't a time for, "What have you been up to, Wolverine?" The Red Skull plot and the way that story moves forward all happens in a period of 24 hours.

This does move forward. There are huge things coming in the world of X-Force that I can't go into, but I am not writing them [Laughs]. Some incredibly talented, really smart guys are coming in to pick up this corner of the Marvel Universe. I will say the reaction people have had to "Uncanny X-Force" has been amazing and the reason I'm able to continue to make these comic books is because people have enjoyed this series and have been so vocal about it. The plans the new teams have moving forward are so exciting, I'm really heartbroken that I won't be involved in what's happening. What we've done here is breaking off into a lot of huge stuff. So if you're a fan of X-Force, you're about to have a lot of cool choices.