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Artist Leinil Yu has announced that this week's X-Men #12 marks his last as the ongoing series' regular interior artist. Yu has been the main artist for X-Men since it launched in the 'Dawn of X' era alongside writer Jonathan Hickman. Yu plans to continue as the series' cover artist, however.
"X-Men #12 is my last gig as interior artist," Yu tweeted. "Will continue as cover artist. Thank you for all your support encouragement. Enjoy the issue!"
X-Men #12 told the story of the separation of Krakoa and Arakko in one of the lead-in issues to the upcoming line wide X-Men crossover 'X of Swords,' the first major crossover of the 'Dawn of X' era.
X-Men #13, 14, and 15 have been solicited to include interior art from Mahmud Asrar, though it's unclear if Asrar will be the new series artist, or if someone else will come on following December's just solicited X-Men #15, the first of the post-'X of Swords' issues solicited for the series.
Yu has worked on the X-Men and associated spin-off characters for years, including a previous X-Men run alongside legendary X-Men writer Chris Claremont, who will himself return to the X-Men later this year.
"I think I've vastly improved as an artist since 20 years ago when I had the privilege of working with Chris Claremont," Yu told Newsarama in 2019 when X-Men was launching. "I had a lot of shortcomings as an artist and it was a struggle. Right now, I feel I'm more artistically equipped for Jonathan Hickman's amazing vision."
X-Men #13, with a cover by Yu and interiors by Asrar, is due out October 21.
Leinil Yu has drawn X-Men stories on-and-off for three decades now, including many that are read and re-read today. Check out our list of the best X-Men stories of all time here.
