The good people at Marvel Comics have steadily been extending their reach into the music world and have now announced that psych princes the Flaming Lips will appear in a forthcoming issue of the company's retro-modelled X-Men '92 series.
The comic book's sixth issue, which comes out in August, features a cross-promotional story line in which the X-Men show up at a Flaming Lips concert. The cover, as you can see up above, finds Wayne Coyne and the rest of the band staring at Wolverine, who has apparently just savaged robot bounty hunter Death's Head.
"Being in an X-Men comic where they (the X-Men themselves) actually run security at one of our shows... I should have written a song about that," Coyne told Billboard. "I mean... before it really happened."
The book, which throws Marvel's comic continuity back to the mutant superhero group's early '90s glory days, also features an appearance from alt-rock group the Toadies, who, at this point, would be two years away from delivering their 1994 breakthrough, Rubberneck.
"As an X-Men fan since 1977 this is a dream come true," Toadies bassist Doni Blair said. "Five-year-old me would do a Kool-Aid spit take on this news."
It's explained that X-Men '92 co-writers Chris Sims and Chad Bowers had initially been joking around about the potential of an X-Men/rock world crossover, alluding to '90s-period comic stunts. Quickly, they decided to roll with the gag by reaching out to bands they had admired.
"The Flaming Lips and The Toadies are two of my favorite bands, and each had a profound impact on my musical tastes growing up — Rubberneck for the Toadies, and The Soft Bulletin and really everything behind it for the Lips," Bowers said. "Getting to reference not just the bands, but the music and what those songs meant to us is pretty surreal, and unlike anything either of us imagined we'd be doing on X-Men '92. Now if we can just convince Marvel to let us keep [the Lips'] Steve Drozd on the team when this arc's over..."
The Flaming Lips and Toadies cameo are just the latest music-geared cross promotion from Marvel. Last year, the company produced a number of variant covers in which heroes and villains restaged the covers of classic hip-hop albums. Even before that, rap outfit Run the Jewels had been celebrated on covers of Howard the Duck and Guardians of the Galaxy.
The comic book's sixth issue, which comes out in August, features a cross-promotional story line in which the X-Men show up at a Flaming Lips concert. The cover, as you can see up above, finds Wayne Coyne and the rest of the band staring at Wolverine, who has apparently just savaged robot bounty hunter Death's Head.
"Being in an X-Men comic where they (the X-Men themselves) actually run security at one of our shows... I should have written a song about that," Coyne told Billboard. "I mean... before it really happened."
The book, which throws Marvel's comic continuity back to the mutant superhero group's early '90s glory days, also features an appearance from alt-rock group the Toadies, who, at this point, would be two years away from delivering their 1994 breakthrough, Rubberneck.
"As an X-Men fan since 1977 this is a dream come true," Toadies bassist Doni Blair said. "Five-year-old me would do a Kool-Aid spit take on this news."
It's explained that X-Men '92 co-writers Chris Sims and Chad Bowers had initially been joking around about the potential of an X-Men/rock world crossover, alluding to '90s-period comic stunts. Quickly, they decided to roll with the gag by reaching out to bands they had admired.
"The Flaming Lips and The Toadies are two of my favorite bands, and each had a profound impact on my musical tastes growing up — Rubberneck for the Toadies, and The Soft Bulletin and really everything behind it for the Lips," Bowers said. "Getting to reference not just the bands, but the music and what those songs meant to us is pretty surreal, and unlike anything either of us imagined we'd be doing on X-Men '92. Now if we can just convince Marvel to let us keep [the Lips'] Steve Drozd on the team when this arc's over..."
The Flaming Lips and Toadies cameo are just the latest music-geared cross promotion from Marvel. Last year, the company produced a number of variant covers in which heroes and villains restaged the covers of classic hip-hop albums. Even before that, rap outfit Run the Jewels had been celebrated on covers of Howard the Duck and Guardians of the Galaxy.