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There is an oft-repeated belief that Cyclops was the villain of the Revolution era of X-Men comics—the period mostly written by Brian Michael Bendis that includes Uncanny X-Men volume 4, All New X-Men, and to a lesser extent, Jason Aaron’s Wolverine and the X-Men. That belief is wrong.

The transition from Gillen X-Men to Bendis X-Men happens by way of one of Marvel’s annual editorially-mandated Summer(s) events, in this case Avengers vs. X-Men. In that crossover, the two teams square off over the impending threat of the Phoenix Force returning to Earth—the X-Men say they’ll handle it, but the Avengers insist (despite evidence) that the X-Men are unable to do so. Things take a turn when Iron Man builds a special gun to shoot the Phoenix, and instead of killing it, splits it into five pieces that are each hosted by a different X-Man. Those five began by using their newfound power in a beneficial way, choosing to repair environmental damage, establish sustainable crops to combat world hunger, etcetera.

Of course, this is altogether too much progress for the persistent present of superhero comics, too much change and not enough illusion of it. As such, the Phoenix Force had to corrupt its hosts, turning them arrogant if not outright evil, and culminating in Cyclops reuniting all five disparate pieces into one, as its singular host. With that power, he killed his father figure, Xavier, on the world stage, before being defeated by the combined might of the X-Men and the Avengers, then incarcerated.

It’s shortly after this that Bendis’ run picks up. In the pages of Uncanny X-Men, Scott is liberated from jail by Magneto, Emma Frost, and Magik, and they become a sort of through-the-looking-glass version of the original X-Men concept; a team dedicated to saving those who hate and fear them. The difference, in this case, is that under Scott’s direction, they mobilize to save newly emerging mutants from a far more aggressive strain of anti-mutant hysteria, in one case literally intercepting police officers attempting to detain a young mutant who hadn’t actually committed a crime.

It’s not a stretch to say that Scott’s stance is more militant. That’s evident in the first issue’s cover, both in the limited color palette and in the disconcerting composition, up to and including prefacing the book’s title with an imperative to join. Add to that the fact that his teammates are two explicitly coded former-and-sometimes-again villains, plus one literal queen of a dimension of demons, and you have a book identity that is built around the very idea of a fight. Because the books of the era are predicated on a schism in the beliefs of various X-Men about the correct path forward, it’s certainly fair to say that Cyclops is the antagonist of the time, especially given that he’s semi-responsible for the death of the character who generally is the authoritative voice in choosing that path. The camps are, largely: Scott and his Uncanny team, operating out of a secret base and rescuing mutant teens, Beast (later Kitty Pryde) and the time-displaced original five X-Men, and Wolverine’s new Jean Grey School for Higher Education, a renamed Xavier School that has reopened to give young mutants a chance to be students and kids instead of paramilitary operatives.

It’s an interesting balance of moving parts; Scott cares less about pontificating and more about doing the work of saving mutants, soldier that he is. Beast (who already has a couple of genocides under his belt by this point) thinks Scott is out of control and brings their younger, more idealistic selves forward in time in order to convince him, somehow, to correct his path. Wolverine, also an eternal soldier and following an arc that had him unknowingly murdering his own offspring, has grown tired of an environment where kids are consistently traumatized by being forced to fight battles that adults should be handling. Everyone’s convinced that their path is the correct one, that the others are worse than wrong, and everyone’s refusing to compromise in any fashion.

The primary way that we can identify Scott’s role in all of this is through his new design; following the events of AvX, Cyclops debuts a new suit, black-and-red instead of his (and the X-Men’s as a whole) traditional blue-and-gold. Meanwhile, Wolverine is still in the Astonishing-era update of his classic tiger-stripe duds, and Beast remains blue and furry, albeit more ape-like. Marvel Comics have long played with color theory on a conceptual basis; going back to the 1960s, when heroes generally wore the primary colors (or the colors of the American flag) and villains or monsters generally wore purples and greens; they bucked the trend by coloring Hulk according to those conventions despite him being the star of a book. Cyclops’ look is a modern variation on that; we are generally societally conditioned to see a dark blue uniform as some kind of pacifying authority—cops, soldiers, characters like Superman, Captain America, and even traditionally Cyclops himself, you name it. By contrast, black and red are the colors of noir and violence.

Further leaning into this is the selection of artist; Chris Bachalo has a history with X-Men and also with presenting humanoid figurework in various degrees of monstrousness. His Cyclops (above) is a man for whom the nickname “Slim” makes sense, tall, lanky, with costume lines that enhance that. Still, Cyclops has worn a lot of different costumes over the years, so on the surface, a new suit is nothing new, except for perhaps the most divisive update to his identity. Gone is the traditional bulky visor over his eyes, replaced instead by a mask that contains the same functionality in a sleeker fashion, resulting in a large red X over his face.

It’s a powerful symbol, not least because as the man who ended Xavier’s life, wearing the letter that indicates both Xavier and his entire cause is both ballsy and a clear definitive statement. In a time when again, Beast and Wolverine are both looking largely traditional, Cyclops’ outfit says “I am the future of mutantkind. I AM the X-Men.” The black and red of it echoes that—those have always been the colors of the X-Men emblem itself, even as the costumes were blue and gold. They’re colors of violence, as I said, but they’re also the colors of the cause itself, instead of the cause’s soldiers. He’s declaring his allegiance to mutants not just in his actions, in his team affiliations and rhetoric, but in his very identity as a mutant.

This thread is carried forward in the HoXPoX era by some major alterations to his design; first, while Bachalo’s costume details remain, his new suit is differing shades of blue. Whereas red is generally a warm color, one associated with anger, blue is the opposite; it’s cool and calming. Additionally, the red X mask is gone, replaced by his traditional visor now that Xavier is once again alive and has taken the X over his face instead. The messaging is clever here; the cooler colors say “I’m calmer now,” the visor says “I’m happy to let others lead, but the costume detail says “I’m still that Cyclops, the one who started a revolution.” The Revolution and HoXPoX suits are statements in a continuing conversation.

That’s borne out in the dialogue too; much has been made of the panel where he addresses the Fantastic Four in House of X #1, and his stance is generally the exact same as his Bendis-era one: Scott’s here for mutants, end of story, and he’ll fight anyone he has to in order to protect them. The difference this time around is that Xavier and the entire rest of the mutant population on Earth are on the same page.

As such, while there’s a semi-common assertion that Cyclops is the villain of the Bendis era, I’m inclined to wholly and categorically reject that line of thought. It’s established text that mutants are a marginalized population, even if they are not necessarily a perfect metaphor for marginalization in real life.

Additionally, the X-Men function best when their powers are thematic in nature; less successful runs forget that truism, but when it’s invoked it’s devastatingly effective as a storytelling device. Consider Kitty Pryde at the time of her creation; textually the X-Men’s viewpoint character, meant to be a surrogate set of eyes for the reader within the story. So too do her phasing powers render her insubstantial, incorporeal, immaterial; any of us could imagine literally stepping into her shoes while she’s still in them, and thus she could be any of us.

Similarly, Cyclops’ power is simplistic enough; he fires destructive force beams from his eyes. But it’s the way his personality has shaped around that power that makes him interesting. Causes love a leader who looks unimpeachable, one with clear eyes. Cyclops subverts that by nature of his power and the disability that they create for him; people cannot look him directly in the eyes, categorically. The closest they can come is if he is wearing glasses instead of his visors, but even those have the chilling, depersonalized effect of, say, a highway patrolman sporting reflective aviator lenses (I suspect this is part of why fans often refer to him as being a cop, when he’s anything but). On top of that is the way that Cyclops was taught to use his powers. He doesn’t just fire his beams directly, although that is always an option. He is a literal genius at spatial geometry, able to calculate ricocheting trajectories in motion, on the fly. This is the subtler side of his power—he can literally see all the angles.

That’s an ability that not only makes him an effective planner, it’s also something that lends credence to his stance when he announces himself as the future of mutantkind. If there is a path forward, Scott can see it, even if no one else can.

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The third season of X-Men: The Animated Series is a showcase of all the qualities that make the series memorable in their distilled, purest forms. Season-long plots? Here in spades. Multi-episode story arcs? We’ve got four of those, including adaptations of both The Phoenix Saga and The Dark Phoenix Saga told across nine episodes in […]

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For decades, the Invincible Iron Man has been a character defined through constant cycles of self-destruction and reinvention, rising above the problems of today to look towards tomorrow. But what becomes of this hero when he is confronted with an ever-darkening future? How will he reckon with the impossible choices he’s made? And how much of himself will he lose along the way?

In 2006, Marvel Comics released Civil War, an event that fractured the superhero community and forever changed the trajectory of its characters. Brought to life through writer Mark Millar and artist Steve McNiven, Civil War is still seen as one of the most polarizing comics ever made, drawing from real-world tragedies and events while doing very little to comment on them in an insightful way. While the event was (and is) still maligned by many, its aftermath saw a number of major shifts within the Marvel Universe, namely the death of Captain America, the founding of the “Fifty-State Initiative,” and Iron Man’s ascension as the head of the global intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s this era, largely penned by the father-and-son writing team of Charles and Daniel Knauf, that would take the armored avenger into some of the darkest stories of his history, warping a hopeful icon of the future into a man tormented by the darker world that he helped build.

Primarily known for their work in television, the Knaufs arrived at Marvel with a definitive plan for their favorite character, building on the new status quo of 2005’s Extremis while grounding Iron Man through a focus on present-day politics and international espionage. Staying on for 21 issues between 2006 and 2008, the Knaufs’ tenure on the character was short but incredibly impactful, putting decades’ worth of storytelling under a new lens, and building a legacy that would haunt the character for years to come.

THE LONG WAY DOWNNowadays, the genius billionaire playboy philanthropist Tony Stark is a household name, thanks in a large part to Robert Downey Jr.’s depiction in the mega-franchise that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Iron Man is also a character with a varied, complex history, one intrinsically tied to America’s relationship with science fiction. Debuting at the height of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, Iron Man began as a pretty shameless propaganda icon; an embodiment of the “superiority” of western innovation. While Stark’s background as a billionaire industrialist would remain the same, the underlying tone and scope of his adventures would change over the decades, with more high-concept fantastical adventures through the ‘70’s, a focus on recovery and reinvention through the ‘80’s, and a whole bunch of weirdness in the 90’s. I’m not gonna talk about it. It’s bad.

Each era is distinct in its subject matter, but they all serve the same underlying message: that technology is a form of empowerment, giving us the tools to better ourselves and the world at large. While this approach would continue up through Kurt Busiek and Sean Chen’s seminal run on the character, America’s relationship to superheroes, technology, and authority figures would start to shift in the early 2000’s, with the hero steadily taking on the themes and aspects of this newer, more frightful age. While Extremis effectively made Iron Man a post-human superhero, later stories (including 2006’s New Avengers and The Inevitable) would explore the real effects of this change, moving Stark away from his superhero roots to combat all manner of threats from the information age.

This friction between the old and new world of superheroes could come to a head in Civil War, with Iron Man’s support of the Superhuman Registration Act turning him on his fellow heroes, and leading to his ascendance as the new head of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s within this new status quo that the Knaufs’ entire run takes place, setting Iron Man’s elevated status against his own inner doubts to cast a new light on everything that’s unfolded over the past decade and beyond.

“Stark is not like Bruce Wayne. You can’t just put your finger on some external event that created him,” muses Daniel Knauf. “It’s a lot of things– his sense of alienation, his guilt and frustration at man’s unerring tendency to war, his substance abuse, his intelligence.

I think the problem with Tony is he likes to think if he can just take a step forward he’ll leave all that behind him. That’s his greatest strength as sort of a futurist and inventor…but it’s also his biggest weakness. You don’t come away unscathed from a situation like ‘Civil War’ or the loss of so many friends. All those incidents, losses and tragedies are nipping at his heels.”

If Civil War was the ham-fisted exploration of national tragedy, muddling its message and focusing on the spectacle of its destruction, the Knaufs’ run on Iron Man does the exact opposite, using the event’s aftermath to explore the transformation of the armored avenger as both a character with decades of history, and a symbol of the culture that shaped him.

(From Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #16 by Daniel Knauf, Charles Knauf, and Roberto De La Torre)WITH IRON HANDSThe biggest change in the Knaufs’ approach to Iron Man is the more realistic perspective they give to the hero and his surroundings. Since its foundation, the Marvel Universe has always been seen as a heightened version of “the world outside your window,” with its creators using characters and concepts to explore real-world issues through a colorful, fantastic lens. Grittier takes on superheroes were pretty much standard in the 2000’s, but rather than using it to ground their hero, the Knaufs would use their hybrid-realist approach to give a bigger weight to the commentary behind their story. Iron Man has always acted as a conduit for our relationship to technology in a given age, and through the Knaufs’ murky spy epic, he is transformed into a frightful reflection of a post-crisis America: a hero robbed of his humanity through his reliance on the weapons of war.

(From Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #15 by Daniel Knauf, Charles Knauf, and Roberto De La Torre)These elements of sci-fi and spycraft have been with the character since his beginnings. This isn’t even the first time he’s worked alongside S.H.I.E.L.D. But by using the fear and paranoia of the War on Terror, the Knaufs are able to shift the commentary behind the title from an aspirational fantasy to a darker cautionary tale, subverting the character’s pro-military origins and interrogating how far the hero (and the country he represents) have really come in half a century. The majority of these stories are brought to life through penciller Roberto De La Torre, whose shadowy, ultra-detailed lines show the emotional weight behind Stark’s mission, coupled with a color palette that’s slowly overcome with shades of deep red and gold (courtesy of Dean White, Edgar Tadeo, and Joel Seguin) to show the hero slowly being consumed by his alter ego. It’s a subtle but chilling twist on the character’s identity: once seen as a means of moving beyond his past mistakes, the Iron Man has become what Stark hates most about himself: the face of a military-industrial machine built to keep the peace through fear.

The writers waste no time in exploring this new status quo for the character. In place of fights with lone supervillains like the Titanium Man or the Living Laser, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. opens with Stark and his organization pursuing augmented terrorists on a global scale. The book’s opening issues have a very procedural tone, steering clear of political commentary in favor of giving time to Stark and the military hierarchy he’s a part of. At first glance, the book’s presentation even gives it a bit of a pro-initiative (and by extension, pro-patriot-act) slant, but this starts to change over the course of the series, using Stark and his allies’ actions to critique America’s history of shady military intervention. Each encounter only heightens the paranoia within S.H.I.E.L.D., prompting Stark to run illegal operations to chase down leads, and keep an uneasy alliance with doctor Maya Hansen to suppress her work on Extremis. It’s a paranoia rooted in real-world tragedy as well as the character’s history. While it’s no secret that Civil War’s story drew heavily from the September 11th terror attacks and the rise of the Patriot Act, the Knaufs use Stark’s development as a character to make the comparison more personal, mirroring the hero’s past traumas and desire for control with America’s own militarization in the 2000’s, and repeatedly calling this shift into question.

(From Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #18 by Daniel Knauf, Charles Knauf, and Roberto De La Torre)Iron Man has always been a character defined through his flaws, but the book’s relentless approach, coupled with marvel’s onslaught of ongoing events, use these flaws to completely tear the hero apart as he digs himself deeper with each mistake. Stark’s personal feelings for Maya blind him to her betrayal, an attempt to pacify the Hulk leads to his return as “the world-breaker,” corruption inside The Initiative leads to the death of a young hero, and Extremis, the enhancile that re-invented Iron Man, is transformed into a biological weapon that leads to the deaths of Stark’s friends.

Through these innumerable consequences, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. becomes the ultimate meditation on self-destruction and science fiction, channeling our fear of the future into Iron Man and giving him the means to confront the mistakes he’s made head-on.

“He’s deeply flawed. And the roots of those flaws are complex and internal, which is how things are generally in real-life,” Knauf states.

“He built this suit to protect him from the world, and in doing so he built a prison, which is very interesting to me. It’s a trap a lot of people fall into: the more they try to protect themselves from the world, the more escape-proof a prison they build for themselves. I liked the thematic potential of that.”

If the run’s first half explores a hero corrupted by the system he’s trying to reform, its latter half sees Iron Man brought face-to-face with that very corruption. stripped of his Extremis powers by S.H.I.E.L.D. and plagued by visions of the people he’s failed (long story), Stark begins to uncover the links between the Initiative, the government, and the global conspiracy they’ve been hunting, all orchestrated by one of his oldest enemies…and unfortunately, this is where the book’s commentary starts to fall apart a little.

While most of the run acts as an examination of America’s part in the war on terror, the reveal of long-time villain The Mandarin as puppet master is a baffling choice, especially given the character’s reliance on “foreign enemy” tropes from Iron Man’s pro-military origins. Paired with the hero’s temporary ousting from S.H.I.E.L.D. the story’s climax might come off as a little cheap, letting Stark resume his old heroics without facing any lasting consequences. Of course Marvel’s world has never been a direct copy of the real world, but a heightened version of it, with creators exploring larger societal issues through simpler battles of good vs evil. Some nuance is bound to be lost in the translation. Still, given how much of the run builds itself on Iron Man accepting the weight of his mistakes, transplanting all of his guilt onto a convenient bad guy feels kind of like cheating.

It’s also possible that this is all in the service of a larger message that got lost in the shuffle between creators. While the Knaufs would leave the title on a high note with issue #28, the book’s final arc under Stuart Moore is spent walking back this victory, with Stark meditating on the human cost of the world he helped build. Once the symbol of an aspirational future, Stark has been transformed into something alien and unrecognizable; a hero who’s traded his humanity for the illusion of safety. The villains of tomorrow are gone for now, but the legacy of what was lost to beat them will haunt the hero forever.

(From Iron Man: Director of SHIELD #32 by Stuart Moore, Carlo Pagulayan, and Steve Kurth)SALVAGING A FALLEN HERODespite the massive impact it had on Iron Man and the Marvel Universe at large, the legacy behind Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. is complicated to say the least. The run was largely denounced as character assassination during and after its initial release, with readers assuming the book’s story continued the angle of Civil War, which tried (and failed) to argue in favor of Iron Man’s proto-fascist regime. A lot of this can be attributed to an unwillingness to fully commit to the political commentary present in the stories, with the Knaufs downplaying real-world parallels in favor of a more sympathetic take on the character. Of course, saying something isn’t political doesn’t actually make it so.

All art is a product of the culture and perspectives of its time, and by shifting Iron man from another sci-fi adventurer into the icon of a broken nation, the story becomes a commentary on how acting out of fear can have lasting consequences on the individual and the world at large. Subsequent creators would continue to build on this commentary through developments like Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign, with supervillains taking over S.H.I.E.L.D. and using Stark’s resources to terrorize his fellow heroes, something that still plagues the character today. It’s fitting that these events all tie back to a character defined through cycles of destruction and reinvention, giving the people who grew up in this climate the means to process the fear and prejudice of the time, while envisioning a path forward.

While not well-received in its day, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. demonstrates the importance and weight of a character like Iron Man, elevating him into the symbol of a conflicted and war-torn America before paving the way to a more traditional redemption arc under Matt Fraction. We can’t move ourselves or our heroes forward without confronting our failures, no matter how large. This process can be painful. But it’s through this pain that we can finally start the long road to recovery…and make ourselves and our future into something worth fighting for again.

Sources:https://www.cbr.com/the-invincible-iron-dan-daniel-knauf-talks-iron-man/

https://www.cbr.com/waxing-shellhead-2-knaufs-talk-iron-man-director-of-s-h-i-e-l-d/

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Avengers Assemble, the 10-part finale of Jason Aaron’s 80-issue-plus Avengers run that began in 2018 finally came to an end in April. More than the end of his run, it was the culmination of a longterm build that began early on his run and, then, specifically in Avengers #50 (or, if you’re inclined to count it, Free Comic Book Day 2021: Avengers/Hulk). The focus of Avengers and the launch of a spinoff Avengers Forever directly led to this finale with multiversal Avengers, traveling through time to thwart Mephisto’s schemes, and, generally, feeling like the book was on a treadmill until the real story could actually begin. Which is why, when Avengers Assemble finally began, it felt so underwhelming. Over a year and 23 issues (not to mention the pre-issue 50 issues that set up various elements of the story through subplots in Avengers) the payoff is a meandering, inconsistently paced story featuring bad guys that won’t stay defeated despite looking quite dead for… ‘reasons’ until Deus Ex Machina and good guys win! At least, that was my first impression.

In rereading Avengers Assemble and the issues that preceded it, my view has tempered. That initial backlash has subsided, to an extent. Reading from Avengers #50 on through Avengers Assemble Omega over a few days, various threads connected better, some beats landed better, and the general shape of what Aaron achieved was more apparent. However, other, new flaws were also revealed. Avengers Assemble is a deeply flawed story that aims for a timeless, epic feel and falls well short. But, the ways in which it fails fascinate me. Aaron ends his Avengers run with a story about Mephisto scheming to kill everything backed by multiversal variations of himself and a small group of villains that are opposed by a shockingly small army of Avengers led by the very first Avengers villain. It’s almost an achievement for something this weird to read so mediocre.

But, Avengers Assemble is not only the end of this specific run on a specific franchise. It is the last major work for Marvel by the sole remaining Architect (technically, Jonathan Hickman left; that he came back does not change that), a group of five Marvel writers that I can’t seem to escape writing about. Consisting of Brian Michael Bendis, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Hickman, and Aaron, they dominated Marvel for, roughly, the decade or so between 2004 and 2016. The culmination of their collaborations was Avengers vs. X-Men, which they co-wrote. After that event, over the ensuing half-decade, all of them left Marvel save Aaron. He was the final Architect and this is, according to him, his last major Marvel work for the foreseeable future.

I will begin with Avengers Assemble and, eventually, get to architecture…

Authenticity and AbstractsThe success of Avengers Assemble and its build largely lie in how much you believe in the idea of the Avengers presented in these comics. It feels ingenuous to point at Aaron favouring his chosen cast of Avengers as a negative given that is how every team book writer in the history of superhero comics has approached their epic stories. Part of the fun of these books is seeing which characters writers select to be on their team. Who are their Avengers? Their Leaguers? Their X-Men? And, to a point, Aaron’s run worked with that idea well enough. But, I would argue that it becomes something different when your story centres on an “Avenger Prime” gathering an army of Avengers from across the multiverse and, if anything, your Avengers cast gets narrowed, drawing on the extensive history of the group as little as possible. Instead of going beyond his core team of Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Starbrand, Echo (the new Phoenix), and Ghost Rider (other characters like Namor, Valkyrie, Blade, and Nighthawk are part of the team at various points in this large story, but, I would argue that they are largely incidental in the grand scheme of the story, itself a different problem), Aaron focuses as intensely on that group to build his story up. If you see multiverse versions of characters not them, then it’s only as a quick background appearance, for the most part. The history of the Avengers is narrowed to such a fine point that it barely exists as far as this story is concerned.

There’s a sense of the rich and lengthy history of the Avengers being erased in Avengers Assemble. Compare it to the Heroes Return three-part story that began the Kurt Busiek and George Perez Avengers run, a story that found a place for, literally, every character who had been an Avenger to that point, or even The Avengers Finale, where, after destroying the Avengers in Avengers Disassembled, Brian Michael Bendis teamed with a long lineup of artists to eulogise the group and honour its past triumphs, Avengers Assemble is somewhat hollow. Aside from the Avengers from Earth-818, the only variations we see in Avengers Assemble from the ‘Pillars’ (variants of the core cast I noted above) come as background panel fodder in Avengers Assemble Alpha drawn by Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, and Alex Sinclair. Jump ahead to the siege on Avengers Tower in the God Quarry by the Mephisto Army in part three of the story, Avengers Forever #12 (drawn by Aaron Kuder, Mark Farmer, and Frank Martin), and those background Avengers don’t even make an appearance. Nor do they for the rest of the story. It is a shockingly small group of Avengers, mostly bolstered by the Howling Commandos and Carol Corps for numbers. But, what it doesn’t do is showcase Avengers history.

Avengers Assemble provides a version of the ‘real’ Avengers. The Avengers that matter.

That narrow focus presents another problem: by building around such a small subset of Avengers, the core cast of Avengers is diminished. What makes the versions of these characters so special when they’re surrounded by endless variations of themselves? When Captain America settles into a role as a faceless soldier in the Howling Commandos, the ‘grunts’ of the multiversal Avengers army, how is he different from any of his fellow Steve Rogers? What makes him special? They become part of an idea of what the Avengers mean as far as Aaron is concerned here, but that turns them from characters into abstracts. The Captain America of our Marvel Universe (616) becomes another representation of the Platonic Ideal of Captain Americas and the same applies to the rest. Should they fall, a slightly different looking version of them would rise to take their place. While Aaron’s Avengers never placed a premium on character development, losing them in the faceless sea of themselves is anti-development.

Aside, of course, from the Avengers in his cast that have no alternates. Those are the characters that get spotlight issues (Valkyrie, Nighthawk… before them, (She-)Hulk and Blade) in the build up to Avengers Assemble. In actually giving those characters some development and advancement, Aaron does fit into Avengers history, a part of the lineage where characters like Hawkeye, the Scarlet Witch, Vision, Wonder Man, Black Widow, Hercules, the Black Knight, Hank Pym, the Wasp, and Luke Cage among so many others were made Avengers and given the focus in favour of Marvel mainstays. As I alluded to earlier, the writer ‘playing favourites’ with certain characters is all part of the fun. And, by the end of Avengers Assemble, Aaron does give special moments to some of his pet characters; yet, many of these characters get lost in the shuffle. Just as much as the characters with endless variations disappear, so too do the likes of Valkyrie and Nighthawk. Made smaller against the singular, small idea presented here of what the core of the Avengers is. They aren’t ‘Pillars.’ They’re just there, random Avengers part of one of three teams all vying for a spotlight.

Ancient and AntithesisJason Aaron’s Avengers run begins with a splash page drawn by Ed McGuinness, Mark Morales, and David Curiel depicting the Stone Age Avengers. The captain reads “Earth. One million years ago.” Odin is front and centre, raising a cup of mead with his left hand, Mjolnir in his right. He’s backed up by Phoenix, Black Panther, Iron Fist, Starbrand, Ghost Rider, and the Sorcerer Supreme. Actually, sorry, the run begins with the cover of Avengers #1 by the same art team that shows the initial cast of the title in the same pose (albeit with an extra member) with specifically connected characters in the same position: Thor, Black Panther, Ghost Rider, and Dr. Strange. Turn the cover to the first page and it’s like a fade out to the past, from the Avengers of now to the very first Avengers. This is the moment where the Avengers became a little less special. A little less noteworthy. A little less historic. The Avengers became less.

The introduction of the Stone Age Avengers is the first hint that Aaron’s view of the Avengers is one of a lineage where the heroes that we know are not unique. It’s a misguided approach best summed up by the fact that it has Odin occupy the same role as Thor: the Mjolnir-wielding Asgardian protecting the Earth. It takes a key element of Thor in his love of Earth and his inability to choose Asgard over it and dilutes it needlessly. That is the Stone Age Avengers in a nutshell. Each one waters down a character from the present Marvel Universe in some way and Aaron doubles down on the idea in Avengers #57-62, the “History’s Mightiest Heroes” arc.

Attempting to travel back to the time of the Stone Age Avengers, the present Avengers are waylaid by Mephisto at various times, encountering past versions of Sorcerers Supreme, Ghost Riders, Starbrands, and Phoenixes until they can actually get where they’re trying to go. Various unknown-until-now heroes whose stories somehow never came up that take the idea of the Marvel Age of Heroes and make it more and more insignificant. What has always been a burst of champions just when Earth needs them, a miraculous confluence of power and might in the service of good becomes a nonstop line of The Way Things Have Always Been Actually. I understand that Aaron does it to place the Avengers and other heroes within a legacy that makes them part of something bigger, but all it does it take away parts of what make them so special.

Part of the power of the stories of characters like Jean Grey and her struggles with the Phoenix is that a cosmic force sought her out. Beginning with Avengers vs. X-Men, the Phoenix has been a trick that Aaron keeps returning to, including the Stone Age version, Echo as the new present day Phoenix, a Dark Phoenix in the Multiversal Masters of Evil, the future Old Man Phoenix, and, in Avengers #59, an old west Phoenix as well. If it keeps happening, what makes Jean so special? If there have always been Avengers, what makes the present day versions matter so much? Why are they special or key to winning the day? In the rush to showcase the Avengers throughout history and across the multiverse, Aaron never clarifies that point.

Instead, they’re set down next to the Stone Age Avengers to battle the Multiversal Masters of Evil (after the two Avengers teams fight one another, of course) before eventually moving on to the God Quarry to stop Mephisto’s final plan. Some members play larger roles than others, but they mostly exist to take up space that could be used by the present day Avengers or outshine them in various ways. Once you add in the multiversal Avengers, the insistence on three specific groups of Avengers creates storytelling chaos that Aaron is never able to rein in entirely.

The ‘Pillars,’ as they were known, made up the incredibly low key Avengers team defending the God Quarry from Mephisto’s army. Gathered by Ghost Rider (the All-Rider), a Deathlok, and Ant-Man Tony Stark, the group never actually coheres as a team proper. Part of that is by clear design, part of that seems to be a lack of focus in establishing them as a central focus of Avengers Assemble despite them being the only other Avengers to fight alongside the regular team and the Ten-Thousand-BC team. Based around five Avengers, no true explanation for the choices are ever provided. In the past, the central core of the Avengers, the group that best exemplifies what the Avengers are, have typically been the founders plus Captain America: Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, and Wasp. Here, Aaron selects a team based around the core group of Avengers from his run up until the point where Black Panther departed due to events in his monthly title: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Thor, T’Challa, and Carol Danvers with the All-Rider acting as the bridge between two Avengers teams.

The Tony Stark, as mentioned, is from Earth-818 and is that world’s Ant-Man. That world is ruled by the brutal Wastelord, the Black Skull (Red Skull with a Symbiote). The All-Rider and a Deathlok help eliminate the Black Skull and, then, multiversal variants that come to that world to take his place. Like many Tony Starks that we would see, this one is an alcoholic, and a builder. What sets him apart, though, is that he’s an archaeologist. This is a Tony Stark that does not look to the future; he looks to the past. When we meet him, we see that he’s been gathering powerful objects from the past in the hopes of using them. He’s actually the final ‘Pillar’ recruited, working as one of the gatherers until it comes down to finding a Tony Stark.

The first actual recruit is in Avengers Forever #6, a T’Challa from a world where Killmonger from the Multiversal Masters of Evil wiped out Wakanda and T’Challa was sent away in a rocket ala Kal-El. He scraps together a vibranium suit and tries to take on Killmonger, but is defeated. Launched into a star, the vibranium reacts somehow and turns him into a literal Superman, the Star Panther. After the Tony Stark that looks to the past instead of the future, the introduction of a superpowered T’Challa, a character normally associated with relying on his intelligence and training, begins to suggest a pattern at play in these ‘Pillars.’

It’s confirmed a couple of issues later in issue seven where Aaron focuses on the Thor Odinson of Earth-56337, an unworthy Thor taunted by the presence of Mjolnir, which stalks him. Unable to wield the hammer at key moments, he’s haunted by his failures and by the way that hammer will not leave him alone, following him wherever he goes. This Thor is a cross between the unworthy version from Aaron’s Thor run and the Endgame Thor (overweight and bearded). Finding himself in the ruins of K’un-Lun, the only survivor of the Masters of Evil, the Thunderer, trains Thor in the art of the Iron Fist. Eventually, Thor develops into the God of Fists, choosing to eschew Mjolnir, marking himself as purposefully unworthy, in a way. These ‘Pillars’ are purposefully opposite versions of the Avengers from Earth-616. Not in the moral sense that’s typically associated with opposite alternate versions of characters. Instead, they’re opposites in choices and motivations, while remaining heroes. A Tony Stark that looks to the past, a T’Challa that has superhuman strength and flight, a Thor that willingly turns his back on being worthy of Mjolnir…

And Steve Rogers that don’t lead, but follow. In the previous issue of Avengers Forever, Aaron and Kuder tell a solid story about four Steve Rogers brought to an unknown place where they continually get a chance to escape through an obstacle course of sort. At first, only one of them attempts it and, slowly, over time, they form a small unit and manage to succeed as a group. The big reveal, of course, is that it’s a test for them to join the Howling Commandos group of Steve Rogers to fight for Avengers Tower. While always a soldier, a key element of Captain America is his singular existence. He was never one of a legion of super-soldiers. He was always the sole one, thrust into a position of leadership and uniqueness instead of the faceless conformity of most soldiers.

The Carol Danvers issue ends in a similar fashion with the revelation of a Hellicarrier full of variants that form the Carol Corps. If Steve Rogers makes up the army, Carol Danvers is the air force. This ‘Pillar’ is less an opposite than a throwing up of the hands and giving the easiest version of the character possible. It’s an anti-climax after a really affecting issue focusing on an enslaved Carol that dreams of flying and featuring some of Kuder’s best line work and compositions. The panel of Carol flying after breaking free is one of the best moments of the entire run, honestly. A perfect moment of pacing and execution that I have to mention.

Unfortunately, the ‘Pillars’ never get a true chance to shine. They have some small moments in Avengers Assemble that don’t amount to much. Their usage against the Mephisto army is somewhat misplaced while both teams of Avengers from Earth-616 (past and present) fight the Multiversal Masters of Evil as every member of the ‘Pillars’ that we focus on (save any of the Steves) has a direct connection to the Masters of Evil. Ant-Man’s world was ruled by the Black Skull, Star Panther fought Killmonger, Thor’s Asgard was burned by the group, and the Carol whose story we’re told lived under the Dark Phoenix. The group of multiversal Avengers seems assembled to be the counterparts of the Multiversal Masters of Evil, yet they never fight one another. It’s a baffling creative decision after the eventual conflict is foreshadowed in each of their origin stories.

More than that, the ‘Pillars’ team is largely overshadowed not just by the two Earth-616 Avengers team, but by King Thor’s granddaughter and Old Man Phoenix who join the battle at the God Quarry at the end of part three of Avengers Assemble and really make their presence known in part five, almost single-handedly taking down the majority of the Mephistos. Aside from acting as grunts against the Mephistos, their inclusion is fairly minor. The single largest moment any of them get is when Star Panther punches a hole through Doom the Living Planet after the Mephistos are supplanted by the All-Doom’s forces. Just as the present day 616 Avengers seem there simply to deliver the Starbrand for a key moment at the end of the story, the ‘Pillars’ group is there to get the All-Rider to the Tower for his moment at the end.

Like the Stone Age Avengers, the ‘Pillars’ don’t come across as essential enough to the story to warrant as much time and attention in the build-up to Avengers Assemble as they received. Basically, the entire run of Avengers Forever until that point (11 issues) is devoted to the ‘Pillars’ and the payoff is minimal. They aren’t set against their natural counterparts, the Masters of Evil, nor is much made of the fact that they are set in opposition to the Avengers of Earth-616. Given how purposeful Aaron’s choices in determining specifically which variants of each character would be chosen for this group, the idea of two teams of Avengers representing polar opposites conceptually working together to defeat this evil might have come up. It did not. It’s so overlooked that calling it subtext would be a generous reading.

Instead, both the ‘Pillars’ and Stone Age Avengers are just large enough of distractions to ensure that the Avengers that have been the stars of Aaron’s run are pushed aside and not given a central enough role. The three teams along with the extras that show up along the way all make for a muddled mess of heroes where no group of characters is given enough time and space to make a true impact.

Antagonists and AssemblerAs alluded to, the big bads of Avengers Assemble are Mephisto and the Multiversal Masters of Evil. Mephisto turned up fairly early in Aaron’s run, teased endlessly, and even directly responsible for the Heroes Reborn alternate reality. The entire run pointed toward him at the very end with a suitably large scheme. That Mephisto has largely been a bit of an also-ran villain, more style than substance, lessened his threat not a bit. Forget the time that he was Thanos’s lackey… or Loki’s lackey… or the many, many times he was defeated in his own realm at the height of his power. This time would be different and, instead of showing this, Aaron told us this. Again and again. An entire storyarc about Moon Knight conquering the world was about the threat of Mephisto (two Moon Knight variants appear in Avengers Assemble in minor roles). By the time the title reaches Avengers #50, the entire focus is on Mephisto and his master plan.

Part of his plan is enlisting Doom Supreme to weaken and subjugate Earths across the multiverse. This All-Doom does so by recruiting his own Masters of Evil team: the Black Skull, King Killmonger that wears the Asgardian Destroyer armour, Dark Phoenix and her mindless berserker Logan slave, a Norman Osborn that rips the heads off Ghost Riders to use as bombs called the Ghost Goblin, and Kid Thanos. They go from Earth to Earth, often strangling any burgeoning heroes in their cribs, basically, bragging about the ease with which they slaughter Odins and Thors and Phoenixes and Steve Rogers and every other hero. This group, over the course of the issue building to Avengers Assemble and the story itself, present two specific problems.

The first is that, instead of drawing upon villains typically associated with the Avengers, Aaron either chose ones associated with specific Avengers in their solo adventures or well known Marvel villains. Only Thanos has a history of specifically fighting the Avengers enough to be called an ‘Avengers villain.’ The rest are associated with specific heroes, some not part of the Avengers during the Aaron run. Typical Avengers villains like Ultron, Kang, Baron Zemo, Graviton, Count Nefaria, or even Loki aren’t chosen for the group. With Mephisto’s large role in the story and him not necessarily being an Avengers-specific villain, putting together a team of largely non-Avengers villains gives it less impact. The group seems placed into a role that doesn’t necessarily suit the chosen characters. The Masters of Evil conjure up specific images of Avengers villains, particularly for those who have read stories like Under Siege and this group does not fit that, undercutting the idea of them as the ultimate opposing force in the multiverse to the Avengers.

The second problem is that, after their continual build as world beaters and slaughters of an endless parade of the heroes we know… they’re defeated by those same heroes. They’re made out to be such huge, unbeatable foes that, when they are taken down, it undercuts everything we’ve been told and seen. Or, in at least one case, possibly more, they’re defeated and replaced with identical versions so easily that we know with certainty that not all are unique or actually as powerful as they’re made out to be. How truly threatening is the Black Skull when he can be defeated by the All-Rider and, the next time we see the Masters of Evil, a new, identical version of him is in the group? Now, that could be purposefully done to suggest to the reader that these guys aren’t as dangerous as they like to brag that they are – except they do ravage the dozens (hundreds?) of worlds that they say they do. There’s no sense of consistency in how truly powerful they are. Nor does their defeat, on the whole, come in such a way as to feel earned through a massive struggle and breaking through limits as is typical of heroes that overcome overwhelming threats.

Ultimately, they’re simply pawns of Mephisto, as are the rest of the Mephistos. The Mephistos suffer from what I refer to as ‘The Citadel of Ricks Problem’ where the main Rick in Rick and Morty is an unstoppable badass and all of his alternate reality selves are not. They are easily misled, fairly foolish, and cannon fodder in any episodes they appear in. A whole army of Mephistos should pose a threat and, for about an issue or so, they almost seem like they will until they are routed and largely defeated. At least, when the 616 Mephisto is revealed as the most powerful, Aaron does explain that as him feeding off the energies of the Earths that the Masters of Evil conquered. Perhaps the most understated element of Avengers Assemble is the joke at the heart of Mephisto’s plan to end all existence. He talks of growing weary and bored as ruler of his private Hell, but it always reads as he’s tired of being a devil so easily outclassed consistently. The only way he can truly win is to go for broke and destroy all of reality by unleashing the anti-matter-like foundational energy kept locked away in the God Quarry. Any scheme that could put him in a position of power would require more temperance and invite defeat; only truly suicidal nihilism has a chance in hell of succeeding. And, of course, it doesn’t.

In the end, Mephisto is a bit of a letdown as the built-up villain of Aaron’s entire run. The justification for wiping out existence doesn’t quite land and he himself is not much of a threat. He’s easily and repeatedly beat down – though, in a clever twist, often purposefully, leaning into his tendency to be defeated. He becomes less the central threat and the point on which the multiverse-threatening McGuffin turns. There’s no emotional satisfaction in his defeat. It’s almost fait accompli that he will lose and return to his hell, adding on yet another layer of meaninglessness.

If there’s one thing that could possibly justify the revelation that a Loki is the fabled Avenger Prime, the pinnacle of Avengers, manning the Tower in the God Quarry, tasking Deathloks, and assembling Avengers to protect the multiverse, it’s the past interactions of Loki and Mephisto as, lacking a better term, frenemies. Their shared history is of alliances quickly brokered and quickly dissolved, constant attempts to one-up one another, and races to see who can backstab one another the quickest. The idea that it’s a Loki standing between Mephisto and his goal has a ring of truth to it. But only just.

Aaron’s decision to have the central figure of the Avengers in the multiverse be Loki is the most misguided one of his run. It seeks to take the idea that, because the Avengers formed to stop Loki’s schemes, he is the unifying figure in their history and turns that into a positive action. The last word on Loki accidentally creating the Avengers should have been the gag in Thunderstrike #21 where his attempt to pit Thunderstrike against She-Hulk results in him facing down those two heroes in addition to War Machine and the Scott Lang Ant-Man, causing him to scream “Not again!” faced with the legacy versions of the original team. That Loki led to the creation to the Avengers is to his eternal shame and regret. When Aaron had Loki brag about the times he brought the Avengers together back in issue eight of this run, the appropriate reaction is to roll your eyes.

Moreover, due to the addition of the Stone Age Avengers and the endless variations of the multiverse, an important question is raised: if there have always been Avengers, why does their formation to battle Loki in Avengers #1 matter at all? Various elements of Aaron’s story structure undercut one another far too easily. Every new bit of Avengers lore and history that puts them into a superhuman continuum stretching back to 10000 BCE makes the fact that they formed to defeat Loki that much more meaningless.

Adding insult to injury, the revelation that Avenger Prime is the Lokiest Loki, one that managed to take the throne of Asgard, prevent the formation of the Avengers, and, then, kill his entire universe genuinely goes nowhere. It’s a shock tactic that adds nothing of value to the story from that point on. Avenger Prime brings the Stone Age and present day Avengers to the God Quarry, throws out a magic blast or two and, largely, fades into the background. The revelation is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, because, for all he contributes to the story, Avenger Prime could have been literally any character. His identity is rooted in hollow symbolism that Aaron positions as more and more irrelevant as the story continues.

Apex and AwesomeTwo concepts weigh on Avengers Assemble and the stories that lead to it: the idea of the best version of a character and the love that Jason Aaron has for ‘cool’ ideas. The former is new, while the latter is, as Michael Cole would say, ‘vintage Aaron.’ Within the context of a multiverse story, it’s easy to see the temptation a writer faces to introduce the ‘best’ versions of characters. It’s a quick and seemingly effective way to make the story bigger, better, and hit harder. You think you’ve seen an Avengers story before? Well, here comes the Apex Avengers from across the multiverse to take on the ultimate Multiversal Masters of Evil, all of whom are the most powerful and deadly versions of these already overpowered Marvel villains! Sounds great, right? The problem, of course, is that, once you introduce that idea, you need to follow through with it and actually do something interesting with it. Unfortunately, Aaron doesn’t do too much with the ‘best’ versions of characters except introduce them, tell us that they are the best, and, then, they either take a backseat or get defeated. In some cases, it’s not entirely clear if the characters are meant to be the ‘best’ versions or not. Are the ‘Pillars’ the best? Are they simply the opposites of the best? No true explanation is given when they’re brought together.

There are, however, two ‘best’ versions of characters that somewhat live up to their reputations: Doom Supreme and the All-Rider. Aaron puts the work into establishing Doom Supreme as the ultimate Doom, particularly in Avengers Forever #5 where his history is given along with the way that he collects and breaks Dooms from the Earths the Masters of Evil ravage. While much of what separates him from other Dooms is left to a hand-wave of being exceedingly powerful, Aaron imbues him with the proper attitude and perspective, always setting himself apart from the Masters of Evil and, then, supplanting Mephisto as the grand threat in Avengers Assemble with his army of Dooms. Unfortunately, they suffer the same fate as the army of Mephistos is how easily they’re cast aside and defeated – though, he proves a tougher opponent. The smartest thing that Aaron does is never has the Earth-616 Doom appear, leaving open the idea that Doom Supreme would not actually measure up to the Doom that we know. Leaving open Doom Supreme’s unchallenged greatness seems counterintuitive, but it makes it plausible that he is the greatest Doom only because he hasn’t met the true Doom Supreme.

The transition from Ghost Rider to All-Rider for Robbie Reyes is another successful ‘best’ version by Aaron. Like Doom Supreme, it’s because the work is put in to show again and again just how great he is. From the first Avengers arc, Aaron has done a consistent job of building up Ghost Rider as incredibly powerful and, often, integral to the Avengers’ success. The idea that he can ride anything is an interesting one that Aaron revisits in interesting ways, like him ‘riding’ the Black Skull’s Symbiote. There’s an element of prophecy and fate to Robbie’s role in saving the multiverse that verges on happening because it’s said enough times so it must be true, granted; largely, it works because Aaron finds enough ways to show it. Even small touches like the revelation that this is the only Robbie Reyes to become Ghost Rider in the entire multiverse give credence to his singular greatness. My only real quibble is that the All-Rider’s action to save the multiverse doesn’t exactly hinge on his specific powers. It’s a sacrificial move that, like the identity of Avenger Prime, could have been anyone. If the All-Rider is diminished, it’s only by the denouement.

Related to the idea of characters being the ‘best’ is Aaron’s obsession with awesome ideas. His work is filled with them, small and big moments that exist only to produce a reaction of “Aw, cool!” Ka-Zar showing up as a herald of Galactus to sic the big guy on Doom the Living Planet? A Deathlok possessing the dead Celestial? Thor’s granddaughters raining down a whole host of Mjolnirs? These and a host of other moments pop up through Avengers Assemble with the expressed purpose of being awesome. Some work, some don’t. I would argue that, too often, they’re distractions that get in the way of telling a clear, unified story. The best of them catch you off guard while feeling organic; the worst seem like they were welded on with no regard for logic.

If Aaron has always had a weakness as a writer, it’s been his inability to tell those two from one another. It’s also part of his charm. He can’t help but think that the Orb is the greatest character of all time or that the only better than one Phoenix is four. Or that Thor becoming the ‘God of Fists’ is an amazingly cool concept. Even when I can’t help but roll my eyes, I’m somewhat charmed by the sincerity of Aaron’s enthusiasm for genuinely dumb ideas that he thinks are awesome. As much as I want to write many of them off, Avengers Assemble wouldn’t be an epic Aaron finale without them.

Affectation and ArchitectureAs critics Vishal Gullapalli and Ritesh Babu pointed out two years ago on this very site, Jason Aaron’s Avengers is based largely in replicating the format of Grant Morrison’s JLA. Big action, attempts at iconic character beats, and pointing towards an apocalyptic threat to conclude things. Post-issue 50, Aaron adds in another Morrison work as a primary influence, Multiversity. Avengers Assemble specifically reads like Aaron took the final arc of JLA, “World War III” and combined it with Multiversity. The “World War III” similarities lie specifically in the confrontation with a much-talked-about bad guy with Mephisto taking the place of Mageddon, the weapon of the Old Gods that created death and war wherever it goes. This central villain figure is paired with the Multiversal Masters of Evil acting as the second iteration of the Injustice Gang. The Stone Age Avengers are akin to the Justice Society, while the ‘Pillars’ group is like the Justice League team assembled in Multiversity of variants of familiar heroes from across the multiverse.

The lack of balance in Avengers Assemble when compared to “World War III” and Multiversity is the largest problem. Taking two robust, complete stories and smashing them together creates an overstuffed story that doesn’t allow for the proper focus. While Morrison was always good about giving many characters their moments, they also knew to keep a sharp focus on a small group of key characters – preferably the ones that readers would think of as key characters. By “World War III,” their JLA cast has ballooned, but that didn’t stop that story from honing in on the original seven from the beginning of the run.

The second version of the Injustice Gang actually points to the flaw in Aaron’s Multiversal Masters of Evil. The first version of the villain group was made up exclusively of one-to-one counterparts of the JLA from their solo adventures. When that team failed, Lex Luthor opted to gather a group of villains that nearly defeated the JLA by themselves. That second iteration was made up exclusively of villains from earlier JLA stories (save Killer Bee, who was an updated version of a class Justice League villain). Instead of basing his Multiversal Masters of Evil around villains from his Avengers run until that point, Aaron copied the idea of random solo villains thrust together and it comes off disjointed.

Morrison’s focus on his core group of seven (while still giving small moments to other Leaguers) provides the emotional connection necessary for “World War III.” As readers focus in on a smaller group of characters, the stakes feel bigger. Avengers Assemble never gives that same human-level perspective that allows the scale and scope of the story to hit home. Multiversity works the same way in its bookend issues, focusing on a very specific singular team, while the one-shot issues create a stacking effect of the evil being wrought. The disconnected nature of each is what gives the impression of the larger scheme at work. Aaron attempts that in the recruitment of the ‘Pillars,’ but since there is no true, meaningful payoff to that, the same effect isn’t created. We get the sense of the evil done by the Masters of Evil across the multiverse, yet it feels disconnected from the events of Avengers Assemble.

Perhaps the most damning failed emulation of Morrison comes at the end of Avengers Assemble when Aaron uses the Stone Age Phoenix and present day Starbrand to heal the multiverse. It recalls elements of Final Crisis, Multiversity, and even the end of Morrison’s New X-Men where Jean healed the timeline in her love of Scott. In Morrison’s work, moments like this are transcendent and meaningful. In Avengers Assemble, the scene lacks an emotional core and element of poetry to land the same way. In a somewhat sad/fitting bit, Aaron’s inability to include Black Panther in Avengers Assemble despite that being the obvious plan does recall Morrison constantly changing their plans to accommodate the events of various characters’ solo titles.

Beyond the basic problem that Jason Aaron is not Grant Morrison and cannot write the same as them, there are others. As Vishal and Ritesh argued at length, Aaron’s attempts to apply DC-style logic to Marvel’s premier hero group does not work. The construction of the two universes is so different that what works in a DC story actively diminishes Marvel heroes in theirs. At this point, DC is built on lineage and legacy and, while Marvel has elements of that, it’s much more about the spontaneous eruption of 20th century American ingenuity and power. Although, as Ritesh recently argued in his examination of DC’s Crisis stories, applying DC concepts to Marvel can work quite well when done correctly.

The larger problem is that I’m not sure what Aaron is trying to accomplish. In Morrison’s stories, the goal was to showcase the heroes of his story. From that perspective, it seems like Avengers Assemble would be about showcasing the idea of the Avengers and the specific group of Avengers as they exist now triumphing over evil in an epic battle. That’s not what happens, though. It sort of happens. You can see Aaron actively struggling to make it happen, but something gets in the way. And it’s not that Aaron’s Avengers include characters like Ghost Rider, Starbrand, Valkyrie, or Nighthawk. It does in that he’s trying to mimic Morrison stories centred around the foundational core of the Justice League with Avengers that are not anyone’s definition of the foundational core. Nonetheless, he still has Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor as central characters, and those are the big three of the Avengers. If he had pulled in his focus to them, he might have been able to pull it off.

But, he couldn’t pull in his focus, because this isn’t just the culmination of Aaron’s Avengers run, it’s also the culmination of his work at Marvel. That’s why so much of the story is given to Thor’s granddaughters and Old Man Phoenix. Or why Ghost Rider is a central figure in saving the multiverse. Or the inclusion of a Kid Thanos straight from the pages of Thanos Rising. The punishment of Mephisto to be back in his hell with Orb at his side is entirely about Aaron putting a favourite character of his in one more time. Avengers Assemble packs in as many references and characters from his time at Marvel as he can manage. Instead of being a good Avengers story, it’s a mediocre Aaron story. While Morrison’s stories were conclusions to runs or stages of their career, they never had the weary quality that Avengers Assemble possesses where, in the effort to shoehorn in his pet characters and the sad nihilism of his big villain’s plot, there’s a sense of Aaron being done. It’s been around 15 years of writing for Marvel consistently, the last decade largely as the last holdover from the previous era that was built by him and his fellow Architects. As the last one standing who had never left Marvel, always balanced his creator-owned ambitions with his company duties, the end of this Avengers run is like the final nail in that time’s particular coffin.

In some spots, Aaron manages to integrate his past work into Avengers fairly well. While it’s easy to forget, the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider was a Big Deal since the first arc of this run, making his central role from issue 50 and on a logical continuation. Or, adding Valkyrie to the Avengers lineup is a solid way to take the lead from arguably Aaron’s most beloved run and giving her a role in the final leg of Avengers. Prior to Avengers, Aaron had three major in-canon non-Star Wars Marvel runs: Ghost Rider, Wolverine/Wolverine and the X-Men/Amazing X-Men, and Thor (sorry, fans of his Hulk run). The first and the last are represented well in Avengers Assemble, while the middle one gets the odd nod here and there. One of the best tip of the caps comes from learning that Mystique is the Dark Phoenix of the Masters of Evil, and actually took the Phoenix from Old Man Phoenix, calling back to a major conflict from his Wolverine run. Had all of these details been either as well integrated as Ghost Rider was throughout the entire run of Avengers and Avengers Forever, or kept as a minor wink to long-term fans, then Aaron might have kept the balance of the story intact. Instead, he overstuffed it and threw off the balance of the three Avengers teams by dramatically increasing the roles of characters from previous runs.

The worst thing that I can say about Avengers Assemble is that it revealed that Jason Aaron had little new or interesting to say, in the end, about the Avengers. The 10-part story is slowly paced, lacks focus, doesn’t follow through on seemingly integral characters, lacks a genuine feeling of high stakes, and relies on you taking every statement about the greatness of characters at face value without the comics doing anything to back it up. It reads like a story by a writer who is Done. And, honestly, after 15 years at Marvel, he should be. The most excited Aaron has sounded in a while has been his most recent newsletter where he talks about his Marvel exclusive being done and looking towards more creator-owned work aside once a few minor things come out over the next few months. I’ve been a fan of his going back to Ghost Rider, adore his Thor run, and stuck with Avengers out of sheer loyalty and hope that he could land it. He didn’t. And that sucks. I hope that if/when the next time we see Jason Aaron’s name on a work-for-hire comic, it’s with a renewed excitement and sense of purpose.

The post The Final Architect: The End of Jason Aaron’s Avengers and a Marvel Era appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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“The Sacred Heart”

Credits: Si Spurrier writes; Lorenzo Tammetta and Phillip Sevy draw; Rain Beredo colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Gho

I’m very pleased Si Spurrier’s Nightcrawlers mini ended up being the most event-essential in its final entry, and it’s the one that had the most detailed world-building—with its contributions on the mystic side of things baffling some readers who couldn’t see how any of it could ever fit into the main thrust of the narrative. Whoops!

Not only is this issue one of the most event-critical—we get some fun surprises along the way! Right away, fans will be mystified by what appears to be Galactus possessed by a Spirit of Vengeance. The last entry from Spurrier for this event goes down swinging, and it’s a sight more impressive than the other entries for Year 1000. That’s no small thing when the friendly competition is Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing.

SPOILERS AHOY

At the start, Spurrier still has enough page real estate to throw off speculative alt-universe notions such as the Silver Mercator (Mr. M meets and Silver Surfer) and the Low Key Corps (perhaps a nod to the Loki of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, maybe a riff on the Council of Cross-Time Kangs or the recent TV series). The Spineless Gamers of the Casino Entropic seem to nod to Mojo and Duggan’s Gameworld (X-Men). The bizarre Peregrine Child is actually a Jed MacKay creation from 2021’s Death of Doctor Strange. Historically parasitic and exploitative, the Mojos and the Brood aren’t put out by the ruinous Sinisterization of known space.

What’s really wild is the Phoenix Egg, introduced toward the end of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run. But here in the far future, Mother Righteous treats it like just another artifact for her centuries-old collection. And this is in line with all the other artifacts that have gone into the making of her Reliquary Perilous.

But most striking are this bleak future’s few recognizable survivors. First off, Nemesis’ final form is a hoot!

However, he’s not just a starship; he’s also been cloning the Nightkin for almost a millennium—but with increasingly diminishing returns. Of course, Mother doesn’t need them smart or even particularly effective; all she needs is easily duped followers. And their willing and credulous suicidal sacrifices, which as revealed here, has allowed Nemesis’ spores to get up close to the forcefield around Sinister’s stolen lab. Still, though, it’s Nightkin’s unquestioned beliefs that have been slowly weakening the field’s imperviousness. Apparently, Mother’s patience is one of her superpowers.

And somehow, while Auntie Fortune (the Domino Nightkin chimera) died long ago, she’s persisted for centuries as an undead specter—only to be the last of the Nightkin to sacrifice herself at Mother’s command. Auntie Fortune’s demise is unquestionably the most poignant moment this issue; the callous waste of 50 generations of life is felt. Presumably, the longest-serving Nightkin’s sacrifice packed enough abject faith to break the Unus field, although it was already weakened by the Juggernaut bullet’s impact(!).

Now recall that Storm in Sins of Sinister #1 mentioned that the Spirits of Vengeance left Earth by Year 10; well, apparently, they went full cosmic by finding their new home in Galactus—a cosmic principle of reality who was quite put out by the universal Sinisterization. But just like the event’s audience Mother isn’t invested in this reality’s survival, unlike her hangers-on. So, she enjoys Galactus’ assassination via Juggernaut-as-relativistic-space-rocket just as much as we do! Recall that the Quiet Council used Cain, egregiously and hilariously, to assassinate Thanos in the long ago, so Mother is just watching shots line up, while it was Destiny who placed the prize in the line of fire 900 years ago.

That’s right—Destiny did in fact see beyond her own death! Not only did she know Storm would kill her (via Khora), but she knew that the cosmic wormhole transfer of the Worldfarm would place it in the path, eventually, of the speeding Juggernaut. So, apparently, mutantdom’s preeminent precog was never duped, after all.

One wonders if she also foresaw the actions of the last players on the board—Mother, Moira, Sinister…

Certainly, Mother didn’t foresee Moira foiling her centuries-long masterplan at the last moment. However, will Moira’s own plan simply echo Mother’s? After all, whichever of these mad geniuses resets the timeline could do so in her favor, with all the knowledge gained from the past thousand years.

Actually, it’s the righteous return of Wagnerine, seeking to rescue her golden babe from Mother’s clutches, that kicks off her comeuppance—and then Moira finishes off Wagnerine’s vengeance.

Now, for the event’s final chapter, will we see Wagnerine, perhaps teaming up somehow with Rasputin, foil Moira’s plans? She’d probably need to be a lot more clued in than she is currently for her to be effective as her reality ends. Still, as Banshee tells her, it does matter that they’ve regained what they lost (his freedom, her child) before the final curtain falls. Life’s meaning is no different in such a doomed reality than it is for us or anyone anywhere in the multiversal simulation doohickey.

Even so, as long as Wagnerine gets to keep her baby, both they and Rasputin IV will hopefully make it to the present-day Earth-616—because they’re interesting new characters with potential, and it doesn’t seem like they would be leaving anything behind in Year 1000 even if it weren’t going to be erased. But it will be, so… they certainly seem to be of more interest than, say, Nate Grey and Sugar Man. Can’t ya just see them relaxing with a drink in the company of AoA Blink in the Green Lagoon?

Nightcrawlers #3 is new Marvel artist Lorenzo Tammetta’s second issue for Marvel (after the recent Murderworld: Game Over one-shot)—although he hasn’t yet had the chance to do full interior art. Still, I do vastly prefer what we see her after Vitti’s scratchy, grungy work on Year 1000. Tammetta seems to bring more versatility and expressiveness, and I look forward to seeing what he does next (Scarlet Witch #6, actually). If you enjoy the crisp, classic stylings of Terry Dodson, Stuart Immonen and the like, you’ll be looking out too!

Also new to Marvel, Phillip Sevy recently drew a Marrow-centered arc for X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic (#75-79) with ace writer Zac Thompson.

NEXT: The Sins of Sinister finale – Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1

The post “Sins of Sinister” Part 10: Nightcrawlers #3—in Review! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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The Krakoan Era of X-Men comics has done tremendous work invigorating, resetting, creating, and returning characters. Magneto is the only major character in the franchise to die a Permanent Death. How could one of Krakoa’s founders and a principal X-Men character be taken off the board indefinitely? Moreover, why?

Magneto’s journey across this era mimics a full day. House of X & Powers of X are the dawn of his new epoch. He awakens, rinses himself clean of his past, and heads out into the world as a New God. From there, he spends the bulk of the daytime adjusting to Krakoa and its ramifications for his people, his family, and himself. During the daytime of his Krakoan story, Magneto tries to “build something…A great work. The great work” as he later tells Fisher King. That day at work is hard, harder than he imagines and, as dusk settles in, Magneto is left “shattered to pieces.” The evening of Magneto’s tale sees the breakdown of his triumvirate with Moira and Charles, the Trial he endures with his family, and the loss of trust between himself and his fellow Mutant. At night, Magneto lays down to rest but “[he does] not fear a life that ends” because he has raised up a new generation of political leaders to carry on and improve his legacy should he not wake from his sleep.

He did not wake.

That is how Magneto was taken off the board, but the reason why is more subjective. The Krakoan Era has revealed a lot about the three “traditional” leaders of Mutantkind that form the Autumn Seats of the Quiet Council: Apocalypse revealed his true self, [A], and the deep Mutant history that comes with him; Xavier has allowed power and secrets to reveal the depths of his narcissism and egomania; and Magneto struggles between his classic self (vicious, egomaniacal, and grandiose) and his best self (familial, heroic, and commemorative). His best self wins out in the end.

Since his story has come to a close, for now, I wanted to develop a comprehensive reading order for Magneto. Each issue below characterizes Magneto and his relationship with various characters. To that end, I have marked each issue with “thematic signifiers” to help guide reading. “Founders” marks issues that focus on Magneto and Prof. X and/or Moira X. Often, these issues demonstrate Magneto out front as statesman with Prof X., working in the shadows with the founding triumvirate, or both. Issues marked “Family” illuminate the complex familial relationships between Magneto and his relatives. Over the course of the Krakoan Era, his relationships with his daughters are an absolute treat, highlighting the importance of healing intergenerational trauma, and demonstrating the diversity of familial relationships people may have. While not family, Cyclops, Jean, Storm, and eventually Legion and Hope are marked as “Heirs” to Magneto’s name. They aren’t simply leaders of Mutantkind like the Quiet Council, but Mutants who take on Magneto’s legacy by charting their own course and developing new blocs and movements within Mutant politics, specific to the Krakoan Era. Interactions with the current leaders of Krakoa are denoted as “QC” for the Quiet Council.

Similarly, “GR” marks interactions with the Great Ring of Arakko. These two thematic signifiers often demonstrate Magneto’s political maneuvering, for better or worse, and tend to be ripe with exquisite banter and charm. Frequently paired with “GR” is “Brotherhood” for the Brotherhood of Arakko. The “night” of Magneto’s life cannot be understood without seeing him building the Brotherhood of Arakko with Storm and giving his legacy and the legacy of a “Brotherhood of Mutants” to her and Sunspot. “Community” marks the issues that demonstrate what Magneto means to his people and show him interacting with the broader community, negatively or positively. Lastly, “Illuminati” designates important interactions with the Illuminati. While never a member, Magneto is clearly of their caliber in the Krakoan Era and outright challenges their positions and authority in a time of Mutant ascendancy.

Here is the Krakoan reading order for Magneto:

Magneto: DawnThis is the beginning of Magneto’s journey into the Krakoan EraHouse of X & Powers of X 1-6 (Founders, Community)

The dueling books, House of X & Powers of X, are absolutely necessary for the Krakoan Era and Magneto’s journey, specifically. The story radicalizes Prof. X into a compromise with Magneto that will protect Mutantkind while also utilizing their resources to benefit humankind. We see the secret triumvirate between Moira X, Magneto, and Prof. X form, and learn the lengths they will go for their Krakoan Dream. Though we see his darkness with the triumvirate, we also see Magneto proud of the leap forward Mutantkind has taken and his resolve to protect their dreams.

Daytime – Covering the Dawn of X and most of the Reign of X, this is Magneto’s time in the sun. He is building his nation-state and building his relationships with his family, community, and heirs.

X-Men #1 (Heirs, Family, Community)

While Magneto is not the main focus of this issue, he shows off his strength while assisting Storm and Cyclops in a fight against Orchis. In that moment and later on the island, Magneto is a mythic hero, Herculean in strength and stature, but as the Krakoan Age continues he is increasingly humanized and is far more likely to stand next to or take orders from Cyclops and Storm than fly above them. Polaris and Cyclops discuss how renewed he is and that reflects the healing that Krakoa can bring, if allowed.

X-Force #2 (Founders, Heirs)

Xavier’s assassination is a moment of hardening for Magneto. It represents his worst fears about the Krakoa experiment, but he doesn’t let those fears capture him. Instead, Magneto gives Jean her great mission: Proving Krakoa’s feasibility by resurrecting Xavier. Through this mission, Jean embodies Xavier’s declaration “No more.”

X-Force #3 (Founders)

After Charles is resurrected, X-Force begins to form. Charles and Magneto give Jean and the rest of what becomes X-Force a new mission: Destroy Krakoa’s enemies and deny all of it. The Founding Fathers of Krakoa encourage the darker natures of these Mutants just as their triumvirate with Moira X encourages them.

X-Men #4 (Founders, QC, Heirs)

X-Men #4 is one of the all-time best X-Men issues because it shows [A], Magneto, and Prof. X flexing on humans in their bastions of elitism. Magneto is confident and sexy as he checks the Davos attendees while eating steak. He even makes time to help Cyclops as they prevent another assassination attempt. Beyond the confidence, this issue shows growth from Magneto as he didn’t turn to violence in response to the threat of violence. He doesn’t need petty violence to demonstrate that humans have New Gods; he just tells them they do.

X-Factor #1 (Family, QC)

X-Factor #1 shows Magneto doing the business of governing with his fellow Quiet Council members, but it also uses his relationship with Polaris, or lack thereof, to foreground her character arc. Their relationship would be furthered in X-Factor #4, but the audience sees just how little connection they have. He can’t even describe her personality when asked. Magneto becomes an audience surrogate in the moment as they both begin a journey to understand who Polaris is and how she will relate to her father going forward.

X-Men #6 (Founders, QC)

While this issue is primarily a Mystique spotlight, it shows the darker, dehumanizing side of Xavier and Magneto. From statesmen in X-Men #4 to co-conspirators here, this issue shows the ugly side of Krakoa, the alliance of its founders, and the shadow the 10 Lives of Moira X casts on their outlook. Despite the good found in Krakoa’s ascension, when with Prof. X and Moira X, Magneto seems to shift from hero of Mutantkind to puppeteer. He more resembles Prof. X’s peers in the Illuminati than an X-Man.

X-Men/Fantastic Four #1-4 (Founders, QC, Illuminati)

“It is a current priority for the mutant nation of Krakoa to protect and nurture its greatest natural resource: Omega level mutants”. That imperative pushes Magneto and Prof. X into conflict over the allegiance(s) of Franklin Richards. Kate Pryde acts as the humanizing foil to these two because she sees Franklin Richards as a person not just a “natural resource” in service to Krakoa. Once again, the objectifying tendencies of the Founding Fathers is put on display. It is furthered when they confront Mr. Fantastic about his “x-gene masking” technology that he employed on Franklin. Prof. Xavier removes the idea from his mind and, through his ruthlessness, reminds the audience that he is as serious and committed to Krakoa as Magneto.

Wolverine #3 & #4 (Community)

These issues are not italicized because they are not essential to Magneto’s journey in Krakoa but do feature the complicated but sometimes amicable relationship between Wolverine and Magneto. Seeing the ever-serious Master of Magnetism be jovial and joyous over drinks and later embarrassed by Wolverine in The Grove was humanizing and a reminder that, for all his grandeur, he is still just a man.

X-Men #11 (Community)

Jonathan Hickman perfectly spotlights Magneto as both a hero to his people and am admirable superhero for the audience. The utilization of the Empyre event here is brilliant and should be the standard. Magneto is commanding, sexy, and even funny in this issue. If a reader couldn’t buy into Magneto as a hero before, this is the issue to point them to. His viciousness and brutality are in service of a greater good, the embodiment of Krakoa’s promise.

X-Factor #4 (Founders, QC, Family)

X of Swords represents the first test of Krakoa with [A]’s secret, magical schemes revealed, Resurrection Protocols endangered, and the threat of Amenthi invasion looming. Once again, the darker, colder side of Magneto is revealed in his interactions with Polaris and [A]. He seemingly can’t help being unempathetic as Polaris struggles to remember the prophecy and [A] lays close to death in the Healing Gardens. It is hard to observe after issues like X-Men #11 where Magneto’s love for his people is on full display, but that duality is what makes him a compelling character.

X-Men #13 (QC, Family)

This is another non-essential issue where Magneto is a minor character. That said, we have a wonderful moment of Magneto supporting Polaris as she restraints [A] during his physical outburst. It contrasts X-Factor #4 by showing him as a supportive and collaborative father.

X-Men #15 (QC, Heirs)

The choice to separate the X-Men from the Quiet Council is born here. While other Quiet Council members, like Sebastian Shaw, care little for the personal pressure Jean Grey and Cyclops are under with Kid Cable in the Contest of Swords, it is clear that Magneto and Xavier empathize. They also recognize that they do have a nation to govern and cannot risk the collapse of the Krakoan government in Otherworld. The Founding Fathers take the rejection of the Quiet Council’s rules and desires by Scott and Jean with a smile; their “children” have grown up and are stepping out into the world ambitiously.

X-Men #16 (QC, GR, Founders, Heirs)

There is always something delightful about seeing Magneto and Prof. X humbled after so many moments of grandeur and grandstanding and this issue is chock-full of that. The arrival of Arakko and its millions of Mutants shocks them, Isca’s rebuke on their Krakoan Goodwill Trip, and Cyclops and Jean rejecting their council invitations are all great reminders that the Founding Fathers are just men attempting to play a great game, not gods orchestrating their master plan. It is an important moment for Magneto and Prof. X to be reminded that Cyclops and Jean are the next generation of Mutant leaders in their own right, not obedient successors.

S.W.O.R.D. #1 (Community)

Valerio Schiti and Al Ewing open this issue with Magneto flying himself to the S.W.O.R.D. station in case anyone needed a reminder that he’s a badass. We also have some adorable interactions with Kid Cable who serves as the audience surrogate as he fanboys over Magneto. Most importantly, the conversation between Magneto and Abigail Brand sets the stage for X-Men: Red and the eventual confrontation between Brand and Storm, one of Magneto’s heirs.

S.W.O.R.D. #2 (Community)

S.W.O.R.D. #2 offers multiple moments of reflection from characters like Fabian Cortez and Frenzy. These serve as reminders that Magneto isn’t just a contemporary character or hidden away in The Grove; he is a major figure in Mutant culture who has influenced and impacted the lives of multitudes of characters.

S.W.O.R.D. #5 (QC)

Building from issue #2, Magneto gives Fabian Cortez the chance to speak about the Murder No Man law of Krakoa. This issue feels like an entertaining Congressional hearing as Fabian understands himself to be the star, only to find himself embarrassed by Magneto, Peepers, and breakout star Khora of the Burning Heart. Magneto’s performative nature is on full display but so is his growth from the days of being manipulated by Mutant Snake Oil Salesman, Fabian Cortez.

Way of X #1 (QC, Community)

Nightcrawlers’ anxieties surrounding Crucible bring him into conflict with Magneto. Spurrier’s writing positions Nightcrawler as being sensible and Magneto as being brutish and violent but then flips the script. Nightcrawler’s earlier dismissal of Lost and his rejection of Crucible have led Magneto to perform the violent ritual. There is plenty to be said about Magneto’s propensity for violence and the violent nature of Crucible in general, but Nightcrawler’s inaction is also a choice with serious consequences for Lost. It is easy for him to philosophize with the Quiet Council or in the Narthex, but the hard, dirty work of nation-building and governing happens out in the world.

X-Men #20 (Founders, QC)

The Founding Fathers once again objectify Mystique in their quest to stop Nimrod and prevent Destiny’s resurrection. The idea that Prof. X and Magneto were holding Mystique’s wife hostage was disgusting on its face, but the reality that it was in service of Moira X’s anti-Mutant designs is even more tragic. It’s almost Shakespearean that Prof. X and Magneto are preventing Destiny’s return when she is the one who will save Mutantkind from Moira. Their trust in Moira X turns them into clownish puppets, but their disdain for Mystique turns them into cruel ones.

Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto (QC, Illuminati)

With the knowledge of the Hellfire Gala and Planet-Sized X-Men in mind, Giant-Sized X-Men: Magneto is an early preview of the lengths Magneto will go to serve his people. His relationship with Emma Frost is deepened here as they engage as equal rulers of Krakoa and exchange favors. The turn in their relationship in Inferno would be surprising if it were Magneto by himself but it is with Prof. X and Moira X, which always renders people into pieces on a chessboard. Similarly, Namor treats Magneto like a subject of his kingdom and not an equal. Ideally, this would remind Magneto to not be like Namor and center the personhood of his fellow Mutant, but it will take more tragedy and distance from Charles Xavier for that shift to take place.

X-Men #21 (Founders, Illuminati)

After building Mykines, Magneto strolls into the Hellfire Gala in kingly regalia. Though dressed like a ruler, he is not treated like one by Namor who chooses the Illuminati over Mutantkind. There’s a beautiful irony to Namor’s belief that he is better than Krakoa. What he thinks is “just an island” later becomes one piece of “a single archipelago in a sea of stars” in Planet-Size X-Men. Though disrespected, Magneto maintains a quiet confidence because he is playing a much bigger game than Namor could ever imagine.

Hellions #12 (Family)

The Hellfire Gala offers moments of relationship building and engagement between a variety of Krakoans. Seeing Polaris and Magneto interact or, more hilariously, Magneto interact with the Hellions is a treat. The self-serious Master of Magnetism, on the biggest night in Mutant culture, is not a good fit for the likes of Nanny, the Orphan-Maker, or Havok

Planet-Size X-Men (Founders, QC, GR, Heirs, Community)

Once again, Magneto is center stage as he does what he does best: Use his powers to build for Mutantkind. From planning to execution, the terraforming of Mars is Magneto’s brainchild. He understands the scale that Mutants must work and think at to survive this new age. Planet-Size X-Men feels like the synthesis of Magneto’s prior story beats from being rejected by Isca the Unbeaten to building Mykines island for Emma Frost. He works in concert with his fellow Omega-level Mutants to resurrect the cold, red dirt of Mars to provide refuge for his Arakkii cousins, but also lets his ambitions flourish as Krakoa declares the planet the Capital of the Sol System. In terraforming Mars, Magneto also creates the physical space for Storm’s ascent as the Voice of Sol and the building of her own major faction of Mutantkind.

S.W.O.R.D. #6 (Heirs, Family)

The portions of this issue about Storm don’t seem to directly relate to Magneto’s journey, but her ascent to Regent of Arakko and Voice of Sol is critical to his later stories. Storm is becoming a historical leader of Mutantkind much like Prof. X, [A], and Magneto just as Magneto begins his journey into the winter of his life. The arrival of the Scarlet Witch and her death, later in X-Factor #10, send him down the path that leads to his retirement to Arakko, submission to Storm as a leader, and eventual heroic death.

X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation (Founders, QC, Heirs)

Like S.W.O.R.D. #5, The Onslaught Revelation deals with Magneto’s legacy as a leader through Fabian Cortez and, like S.W.O.R.D. #6, deals his children in Onslaught. Way of X begins with Magneto challenging fellow Quiet Council member, Nightcrawler, to be a man of action, and, in The Onslaught Revelation, Nightcrawler returns the favor. Though not the central character of Way of X and The Onslaught Revelation, Magneto’s legacy is at their heart. It was Magneto’s Acolytes that introduced the world to the bereft Fabian Cortez who leeches off of Magneto in spite of his additive power. Fabian’s downward spiral after being fired in S.W.O.R.D. #5 manifests here as he finally faces his actions and his own emptiness. Similarly, The Onslaught Revelation deals with Magneto’s offspring like S.W.O.R.D. #6, but this time it’s Onslaught himself. In some ways, The Onslaught Revelation offers a prelude to Inferno by forcing the audience to deal with messes that Magneto and Charles create when they’re together. Their blind spots in Resurrection Protocols and in the culture of Krakoa threaten to burn the entire island down, but thankfully Nightcrawler is looking for snakes in the garden of Eden. Moreover, Charles’s ultimate blind spot, Legion, helps Nightcrawler by creating an astral Eden for his fellow Mutants to heal in. Magneto will come to need Legion and his Altar during Judgment Day; solidifying another heir to his legacy.

Trial of Magneto, written by Leah Williams, art by Lucas Werneck, David Messina and Edgar Delgado, lettering by Clayton CowlesMagneto: EveningThe following issues see a breakdown of the boundless joy of Krakoa and darkness fall over Magneto and his great work. These issues cover the end of Reign of X into the Destiny of X eras.X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #1-5 (Founders, Family, QC, Heirs)

Throughout the Krakoan Era, we have seen Magneto battle between his darker nature and his heroic, idealized self. The viciousness with which he fights his fellow Krakoans, nearly kills Prof. X, and denigrates Polaris is both real and a mask he wears to hide the pain of the death of the Scarlet Witch. More than her actual death, Magneto is grieving their painful and traumatic relationship. Her redemption is only through trial and more pain, and the only way he can execute his plan is by dressing in his all-black costume and feigning murderous contempt. It’s an act of masochistic self-flagellation to convince everyone that he might have killed his daughter and obscure their deeper scheme. He believes he can take their hate. It is clear by his tears at the end of issues #5 that he cannot and that his violent tantrum is all performance to hide the pain of not being an adequate father to any of his children, particularly Wanda. His inadequacy has gotten her killed in a scheme that, like all of his and Charles’s schemes, never goes as well as planned. This series is the chickens of his publication history coming home to roost and an omen for the burns to come in Inferno. While Scarlet Witch is redeemed and Magneto is exonerated, it’s important to note that this is done through sacrificing Toad, another piece on the chessboard. Lastly, we see the relationship between Hope Summers and Magneto develop as she asserts her own capacity as the catalyst for Krakoan Resurrection.

Hellions #18 (QC)

Much like X-Men #15, the readers of Hellions #18 are caught between the emotional attachments to the cast and the recognition that Krakoa must be a place of laws. It’s painful to watch the Quiet Council sentence Nanny and the Orphan-Maker to the Pit of Exile while understanding that these are the consequences within the unjust criminal system of Krakoa. While not essential, this issue sets the stage for Victor LaValle’s Sabretooth and the further breakdown of trust in the Founding Fathers. There’s also an important moment between Emma Frost and Magneto at the end wherein they recognize that Mr. Sinister is “a cancer” within their society and will only cause them further harm. Like Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto, we see what could be an equal relationship between the two, and a possible triumvirate with Prof. X, but Magneto’s participation in the Parents of Krakoa (Moira X and Prof. X) will always make that impossible.

Inferno #1-4 (Founders, QC)

While fighting Nimrod and Omega Sentinel with Prof. X is one of Magneto’s finest and most badass moments, he is otherwise unheroic in Inferno. Magneto is too caught up with the other Parents of Krakoa, their secrets, and their dehumanizing puppetry to act in an ethical manner towards Emma Frost, Mystique, or Destiny. In fact, Magneto and Prof. X even extend their paternalism to Moira X as they track her movements because she is “too important to lose,” only for them to lose her to Mystique and Destiny. There’s something funny about Magneto trying his hand at grand schemes with Charles and failing so spectacularly; it’s not in his nature. He is a warrior and, at the best of times, he is a hero. Inferno punishes him in a Shakespearean manner for abandoning what makes him great just like in The Trial of Magneto. He burns bridges with other Quiet Council members, turns Moira X into an enemy of Mutantkind, and gets himself killed attempting a Game of Thrones that he has neither the skill nor inhumanity for. It is sad to read the same man who, in X-Men #1, promised the children of Krakoa that he would protect the island from all enemies nearly cause the downfall of Krakoa through his conspiracies against his fellow Mutants.

Sabretooth #1-5 (Founders, QC, Community)

The twilight of Magneto’s Krakoan story is rooted in an over attachment to Prof. X and his methods. Their relationship feeds Magneto’s worst instincts and the criminal punishment system of Krakoa is no exception. The Founding Fathers believe that they have the carceral system of Krakoa under control but, as we see in Inferno and Trial, they are not remotely in control. Sabretooth shows how the news of The Pit of Exile and the “judicial system” of Krakoa stains Prof. X’s reputation, but the same can be imagined for Magneto. The difference is that Magneto’s reputation is balanced by great acts like defending the island during Empyre and terraforming Mars.

Immortal X-Men #1 & #2 (QC, Heirs)

Magneto’s retirement from Krakoa and replacement on the Quiet Council by Hope Summers demonstrate a hero in pain. It’s not clear that Magneto ever realizes that his pain is caused by living in the realm of conspiracy and politics, not in his living on Krakoa itself. He has forgotten that he is a mythic hero, but he never loses his heroic instinct to protect the island. His fight with Storm against the kaiju foreshadows their Mutant Circuits later in X-Men: Red but also the renewed focus on their relationship. With Storm, he performs his last great acts in the eyes of Krakoa and prepares to pass the torch to her. She sees his greatness despite the secretive games he has played with the Quiet Council.

Magneto: NightMagneto’s “night” is dark as he lives out his last days before laying to rest. All of his actions and stories in the Krakoan era are synthesized as he prepares to pass his legacy on to the next generation.X-Men: Red #1-4 (GR, Heirs, Community, Brotherhood)

With Storm as the leader of the Brotherhood, Magneto is able to focus on his true role: Being a hero to his people. Magneto’s heroic acts aren’t simply fighting with the Arakkii against the Progenitors. His deepest act of heroism is killing Tarn the Uncaring, who effectively ran concentration camps during the Amenthi occupation of Arakko. Magneto becomes the hero he needed during his time in Auschwitz. Though he sees his retirement to Arakko as an admission of failure, Magneto is actually freeing himself from conspiracies and games and can fall into his nature as a hero. His journey mirrors Storm’s as she rejects being the “Queen of Mars” to be something better and more natural to her: A hero. Magneto claims himself “a fool” and “a failure” with “nothing to say…nothing left” but in that bereft state, he is able to find his true self. With that at the fore, he deletes his backup and becomes a warrior, a hero of Arakko.

A.X.E. Judgment Day #1 (QC, GR, Brotherhood, Heirs)

Magneto makes a small cameo in A.X.E. Judgment Day #1 which is expanded upon in X-Men: Red and subsequent A.X.E. issues. What’s most important is that his final day starts by relaxing with Cable and Storm; he feels joyous and content prior to Nightcrawler’s arrival. The news of the looming Eternals threat makes Magneto serious because he understands that like humans, the Eternals are threatened by Mutantkind’s ascension. Powerful but marginalized people stepping into the fullness of their power will always threaten the traditional hegemons, and Magneto knows that deeply. Issue #1 of this event also introduces audiences that have not been reading Eternals by Kieron Gillen to Uranos the Undying, the ultimate enemy for Magneto. Similarly, the audience is prepared for the role that Cyclops and Jean Grey will play defending Krakoa while Storm leads the defense of Arakko. His heirs are prepared to lead and protect their people.

X-Men: Red #5 (GR, Brotherhood)

The attack on Arakko was known already but the consequences for Magneto were despair inducing. The Hour of Uranos is filled with horror and destruction as he lays siege to Arakko, the great trauma of their people. For Magneto, the industrialized mass murder that Uranos unleashes is the return of his great trauma too and he will not stand for it. In this moment, he does not stand alone as he fights with the Great Ring but also the Brotherhood that he created with Storm and Sunspot fights for Planet Arakko and its guests. It is further developed in issue #6 but Magneto is executing the first Omega-level Mutant Circuit among Arakkii Mutants in years, possibly centuries. Though they do not succeed in stopping Uranos or his armories, it is narratively critical that the institution they built holds fast for Arakko even without Storm and Magneto leading them. Especially without Magneto to lead them. In this hour of horror, Magneto’s heart is ripped from his chest meaning that the Brotherhood will have to carry on long after his death. For Magneto and Arakko, night has fallen.

X-Men: Red #6 (GR, Heirs, Community, Brotherhood)

Though Storm begins this issue leading the defense of Arakko, it is truly The Hour of Magneto. Magneto pulls off his greatest feat thus far: Using his magnetism to pump the blood in his body as a replacement for his heart. Yes, that is his greatest skill with his magnetism because it requires finesse and pure conviction. To be the Master of Magnetism is to resuscitate oneself and continue to fight even as die. This is the culmination of Magneto’s story. It’s not the grand acts of moving The Peak or building Emma an island; it’s fighting past death to defend a planet of Mutant refugees from a genocidal madman. Being that Uranos has returned to The Exclusion, Magneto and the rest of Arakko must focus on saving as many people as possible and defeating Urano’s death machines. To that end, Magneto and Storm take their rule breaking to new heights as she syncs her powers with his to keep him alive and boost his output. It is beyond a Mutant Circuit; they have become one interdependent fighting force. It is an act of grandeur and humility that embodies the night of Magneto’s life. He is full of power and skill yet willing to sublimate his ego to be the hero that Arakko and Earth need.

Legion of X #6 (Heirs)

Some of this issue takes place at the beginning of the attack on Arakko wherein Legion fights Uranos. Like many young men, Legion desires a hero’s death, to be a legend in martyrdom, in the hopes that maybe then he will have purpose and also acknowledgement by his father. Instead that title goes to Magneto, and it should. It’s the older, wiser members of the community that should give their lives to protect it, not the young people with so much more life to live and such recklessness that they might throw their lives away. As Magneto marches off to his death, he leaves the defense of Arakko to Legion because he is the only one who can do it. Between destroying the death machines and securing people in The Altar, Legion is the only one who can provide the violence and safety needed to survive Judgment Day and Magneto trusts him. In that moment, Legion inherits Magneto’s legacy on Arakko.

A.X.E. Judgment Day #4 (GR, Heirs, Illuminati, Community)

Magneto appears in this issue after Uranos begins to burn the world to the ground. The perpetrator of omni-genocide is faced with the survivor of two genocides and his heir. It is important to note that Storm and Magneto would not have been able to fight Uranos in his armories if not for Tony Stark. Despite the tensions with the Illuminati at the first Hellfire Gala, years of villainy by Magneto himself, and years of strife between Mutants and Humans, it is through collaboration that they save the world. Magneto is not shrouded by the darker portions of his nature or delusions of the supremacy of Mutantkind. He is driven by his core desire to be a hero and the recognition that Uranos is his devil. Most importantly, despite all of the scheming with Prof. X and Moira X, Magneto remains true to his word and allows himself to die. He fights like a man that does “not fear a life that ends.” He leaves the world and the audience with the best of himself and is rewarded with the sight of the daughter he thought lost, Anya. The Progenitor eulogizes him astutely by saying “I think if all were like him, there would be no need for men like him”.

X-Men: Red #7 (GR, Heirs, Brotherhood)

“In the heart of the Earth” Magneto gives Storm his legacy. He has watched as she renewed the name “Brotherhood of Mutants,” took him at his lowest, and pushed him to be a hero of Arakko. In the night of his story, Storm lays Magneto to bed with the promise to keep his dream alive when she wakes in the morning. Much like the Curse of the Quiet Council, knowledge of Moira X, Magneto gives Storm a charge that is as much a duty as a curse: She must protect Krakoa and Mutantkind from Prof X. With Moira X sided with Orchis and Magneto dying, Charles has no countervailing force. Magneto has always been the equal and opposite force to Prof X.; he is willing to be understood as “bad” for Mutantkind just as Prof. X is willing to do anything to be understood as “good.” Storm is the synthesis of their wills, much like Jean, Legion, and Cyclops. Moreover, Storm has led the “undesirable” Mutants that Prof. X never could or would, whether that’s the Morlocks or the Arakkii. She has seen the need to be more than just a “good Mutant” but a hero, like Magneto.

Storm takes this legacy right to her and Magneto’s foil: Isca the Unbeaten. Isca who stands alone, Isca who has betrayed Arakko more than once, Isca who cannot see beyond herself. Storm makes clear that they would all fight Isca even if they would lose, like Magneto just did with Uranos. Isca cannot be beaten but she will never know what it is to be a hero. Fisher King, Magneto’s close friend, makes this clear by challenging her “to a contest of understanding” where the winner “is the one who most truly understands the meaning of loss.” It is important that Fisher King, possibly Magneto’s first human friend in decades, challenges Isca. Like Magneto, he is not afraid of a life that ends and, further like Magneto, he knows loss. Magneto’s shadow looms large as Isca resigns from the Great Ring; he was more of Arakko than she ever was because he could lose and has lost so much, so many times. While she betrayed the Great Ring and killed Idyll, Magneto jumper-cabled himself back to life to keep fighting for his Arakkii cousins; while Isca denigrated others for being weak or ugly or small, Magneto stood tall for those who could not; while Isca and Tarn violated their fellow Mutants in the Abyssal Prisons, Magneto honored his people killed in the Holocaust and on Genosha by taking down Uranos; and while Isca murdered Sunspot for challenging her, Magneto embraced his former student’s challenge and stood against Tarn for all of Arakko.

Storm’s last act recognizes Magneto’s troubled time as a Founding Father by yielding the Seat of All-Around-Us to Lodus Logos. She lets the Arakkii’s greatest artist and dreamer decide their future and embraces Magneto’s legacy by taking the Seat of Loss, his last title, to stand when all else on Arakko has fallen, just as he did.

The post Magneto (Krakoa Era) Reading Order & Analysis! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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“Our Nine-Hundred-Years-and-Counting Mission”

Credits: Kieron Gillen writes; Alessandro Vitti draws; Rain Beredo colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Jesus Aburtov

A millennium into the Sinister Era—or rather, 900 hundred years into the Exodus Dominion (speaking only in the religious sense)—and our plucky heroes, Mister Sinister and his devoted servant Rasputin IV, are winding dramatically toward the conclusion of their centuries-long star romp, whose grim relentlessness must surely echo in tone the source of this issue’s epigraph, literature’s most embittered picaresque, Voltaire’s Candide. The 1759 French novella is most pointedly a rebuttal of Leibniz’s belief that our world must surely be the best of all possible worlds; this is actually the opposite a “multiverse” theory, since Leibniz was saying only one world is, it is this one and since God made this one world, why, it must surely be the best there could possibly be—so, Candide’s cast parades through a sequence of real-world horrors, which they mostly happily rationalize as simply integral to God’s miraculous natural order. And if our reality is so great, what does that say about the lesser options that might have been? Here’s an answer:

Welcome to Sinister X-Men: Warhammer!

Imagine the most loathsome anti-life tendencies of religiosity multiplied throughout the galaxy via Prayerworlds, each a world engine of mindless devotion wrenched from tortured meatpuppet prayerbots to feed a giant Exodus—whose greatest enemy is the next closest Exodus on his own Prayerworld. Warhammer goodness, indeed. The Warhammer universe Emperor is somewhat akin to what we see here from Exodus, in that each day, a thousand souls are sacrificed to sustain his immortality and thus his endless war against heretics, and even mutants! There is no individuality left in this war-ravaged reality (A few years ago, Gillen himself wrote a Warhammer title for Marvel).

But Gillen also continues with his little nods to Star Trek—with the “mission log” narration and even the title (though Star Trek’s missions were typically only five years). The Marauder starship Sinister and Rasputin IV fled in last issue has lost the rest of its crew almost a millennium later. And the survivors are looking ragged. Vitti’s scratchy, shadowy art sells the decrepitude of this grim nowhere future (It’s not clear, though, what we’re supposed to make of the Marauder’s the organic-looking encrustations. Perhaps they’re small bits of the Uedo growths eating up Sol System? Ick).

In the opening scene, the Marauder is in low orbit around an Exodus Prayerworlds, and Rasputin IV teleports into what seems to be its central “cathedral” (for lack of another word) following a clue, which she does glean, telepathically, from one of the tormented clones in endless prayer in their fluid-filled sac—“We should be on the same side.” Sinister remembers Destiny’s words all too well. Again, this was basically just homage to Warhammer, although Vitti also draws a neat parallel between Exodus on his throne and Sinister ensconced in his pilot’s seat: ultimately, each in their own way seems broken, without a real future.

Indeed, the entire universe at this point seems without a real future: Xavier brain fleets battle Sinister bots deployed by Emma’s Red Diamond; the “Materialist Colossus’ citadels” guard against demonic incursions from Magik’s Limbo; and Kate Pryde and her marauding “packs” are literal space pirates—these days, she sounds like a real jerk. Odd Quiet Council additions, Namor and Beast aren’t up to anything special (Beast’s abject subjugation to Emma, as her “Court Scientist,” is somewhat amusing. But really, everything has come to very little cause for amusement).

Destiny’s message sends the Marauder to a moldering satellite that’s survived for a thousand years. From it, Rasputin IV retrieves a wax cylinder whose encoded message can be played via a phonograph—just as Sinister had left one for Destiny in the late 1800s (as seen in Immortal X-Men #8). However, it doesn’t seem like she had an actual vision of her death at that earlier point, only assuring him that she must be dead and his lab hidden again if he’s received this ghostly echo out of the deep past.

Although Destiny has called for her and Sinister to be on the same side in the past, this is the first time she’s flatly stated, “I will join you”—should he succeed in resetting the timeline. She’s desperate, but I doubt that she wouldn’t still have plenty of tricks to play on this diamond fool.

In the message, she refers to Nathaniel Essex’s grief in losing his young son to illness, which, as seen in Peter Milligan’s Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix (1996), is what triggered his embrace of Apocalypse’s (Celestial) technological transformation into Mr. Sinister.

Rasputin listens in on Destiny’s message, which calls out Sinister’s ultimate goal “to become a Dominion,” which Destiny assures him is doomed to failure. Her final words of advice are “Give up,” as in figure out how to reset this reality. Until now, his right-hand warrior had been under the impression they were going to save the universe, not destroy it. Rasputin’s shattering sense of betrayal, followed by abject abandonment, neatly parallels Wagnerine’s fate over in Spurrier’s Nightcrawlers.

To be clear, then, if we’re rooting for the heroes in this event, we the readers should be hoping their reality, however horrific from our standpoint, survives and wins, against all odds, some kind of rebirth.

And isn’t “against all odds” exactly what makes our pluckiest heroes most sympathetic to us?

Interestingly, the last page gives us a voice that must belong to Mother Righteous calling out to Rasputin drifting in the void…

The real surprise this issue is that Moira is still alive, and once he’s rid of Rasputin IV, Sinister finds her, following “Irene’s dance steps.” Emma, grown gloriously vapid in her Cyttorak ruby form, learns from Court Scientist Beast that the fugitive pair are alive and pinged.

This will undoubtedly lead the Red Diamond forces to the World Farm, where the Marauder has been downed by a now Odin-like Jon Ironfire—and Sinister, Moira and the last remaining Doombot seem to be his captives. Although surely, Sinister’s conniving ways could get the better of him…

NEXT time in: Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #3

The post “Sins of Sinister” Part 8: Immoral X-Men #3—in Review! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Steve Orlando’s Marauders #10-12—Annotated!Marauders #9-12

Credits: Steve Orlando writes; Eleonora Carlini draws; Matt Milla colors; Travis Lanham letters; covers by Peach Momoko (#9-10) and Kim Jacinto (#11-12).

This is the final of three annotated entries on the recently ended Marauders volume 2, a whirlwind of cosmic and timey-wimey adventure that perhaps tried to do too much in too little time and space (ironically enough!)—but should provide plenty of worthwhile fodder for further mutant adventures.

The first entry annotates issues #1-5; the second covers issues #6-9.

Here, we look at the wrap-up to the title’s main story, about the human/mutant Threshold society—which also, oddly enough, contains the seed of the origin of Krakoa itself! Unfortunately, without the rest of this gonzo deep-time history, it’s very unclear what the storytellers were trying to achieve with Threshold. Seriously, given the ease with which Mars was terraformed… why not just give them a whole new planet, which they can verify isn’t already home to indigenous life and won’t be open to damaging time paradoxes. Perhaps there was a plan here, but for the foreseeable future, we just won’t know.

That said, whatever your feelings about this title, no one can deny our storytellers here took big swings and wild risks to do something different. In an industry where nothing is ever guaranteed, they took bold moves to see how far they could get before the corporate guillotine fell. If the series wasn’t for you, hopefully, you didn’t sink much, if any, cost into it—and if you still like X comics years down the line, who knows, maybe someone will take some of the most interesting material laid out here and give it another go in a story that can run its course. Sometimes, it never happens, but if it feels relevant to the right creator, the raw story stuff from prior runs does get told, even if it’s piecemeal, by different creators over time. That is just the biz.

Marauders #9-10—“Here Comes Yesterday” finaleBefore the ultimate revelation on Threshold society, we have the first bomb-drop: In their war of survival against the anaerobic “Unbreathing,” the Thresholders created the bacterial weapons that Cassandra identifies as Arkea and Sublime! The latter was introduced in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men Annual and played a critical antagonistic role throughout their run. Sublime’s “sibling” was the primary antagonist of Brian Wood’s X-Men volume 4, perhaps the most forgettable iteration of the title; “she” was killed there, only apparently. In the long ago, these “siblings” fought for control of Earth, ending with the “sister” exiled to outer space.

It was the weapons, we learn, that wiped out their makers. In issue #10, Cassandra handily defeats them both at the same time. From here, we can assume that over the next two billion years, Arkea and Sublime eventually reformed and remembered themselves—or however that’s supposed to work!

Unfortunately for Cassandra, Kate plans to leave her in the past (with Emma’s support apparently), and Grove has agreed to her captivity at Threshold (The climactic action here feels very rushed and obscure).

Cassandra, after all, is just about the worst Marvel villain ever, and one among her 16 million kills was Kate’s father Carmen (as revealed in 2002’s X-Men Unlimited #36). It’s a nice twist that stranding her somewhere she couldn’t easily return from was the whole reason Kate really invited her on to the team. She had us all fooled for a hot minute! Emma, of course, is a survivor of Genosha, and Cassandra’s status as mutant is very sketchy, anyway. Jean in X-Men: Red volume 1 did, however, turn her into a defender of mutantkind; a little too pat, if you ask me.

Even so, Kate does emphatically acknowledge that without Cassandra with them in the past, none of them would have survived. She was the key—but by the same token, she will only ever answer to herself alone, and that is Kate’s ultimate concern.

Looking back at issue #8: Not yet knowing the Thresholders originally came from her own near future, Kate is determined to travel back in time to save Earth’s “first” mutants. Tempo has an interesting argument for why traveling further back in time is safer from time paradoxes—because messing about in the deep past allows for the overall arc of history to self-correct. Hmmm… You almost had me there, Steve!

Oh, and apparently Sublime and Arkea’s names were born of them hearing the time-traveling Marauders use them 2 billion years ago—so there’s a time paradox!

The team travels back in time from Cooterman’s Creek, the X-Men’s late ’80s Australian Outback base, which is here said to have been the site of Threshold—which is strange, because until now, we were told that Threshold society spanned a continent. Two billion years ago, that would have been Gondwanaland.

Issue #9 fully introduces Threshold’s “defector,” “Nightfount,” who’s clearly—Stryfe! More importantly, this is the debut of the Thresholder… Grove! More on her in a moment.

And we’re also introduced to the notion of the Seed, the name for the box Kate received in the annual—which is a later version of what we see here in issue #9, in the deep past. Eventually, we know, she will place a map of Krakoa in it—leading her earlier/present-day self to Cassandra. Theia says the Thresholders came from this little mysterium container, opening in the birthing sea and filling it with life. As such, this is another hint this integrated society of mutants and humans come from the future. The title’s last two issues fully answer the Seed’s mystery.

Still, we can infer here that Kate’s future self will create the Threshold’s Seed…

Issue #10 reveals a little: Stryfe’s plan was to kill off the Thresholders and reshape history himself—although why he had to wait until Threshold existed to travel back in time for this end… well, whatever. Time travel never makes sense. And if this Stryfe born of genetic information sent back in time means there are others, essentially clones (of clones of clones, etc.), up and down the timestream, well, what do you expect?! Duggan already acknowledged in Cable that this most operatic of ’90s villains is our fave clonal chaos agent. The question, though, is that if Kate didn’t send this bozo back in time via the Seed, who did?

(Note also that Blaquesmith pops up in our first splashy look at Threshold in issue #4. Did he have his eye on “Nightfount?” And who put him into the Seed? Or maybe this future time traveler arrived elsewise?)

This is the arc’s final issue, the series is now ended—and the apparent big bad, Stryfe, has simply vanished! Maybe he’ll un-merge from Amass at some point?

Actually, I don’t think Orlando was really going for a big bad in this arc. The story was Threshold.

Grove is the real revelation here: It turns out she’s the future Okkara. That’s right! She will one day become an island (She kind of reminds me of Nature Girl, too, but anyway)! Readers can’t say there wasn’t foreshadowing, for Amass in issue #8 did say he thought Krakoa seemed familiar (And it’s no accident that the Quiet Council meets in a chamber of the same name, but there’s no deeper connection, except for potential recognition that the real governing body of Krakoa is itself, which perhaps also harbors within Thresholder minds).

Theia and Amass are left behind when the Marauders leave, to live out their natural lives—but they’re resurrected, along with Crave, upon their return. Hurrah!

Marauders #11-12—“Pre-Genesis”The government of Santo Marco, an embarrassingly anonymous “tea cup nation” of Latin America (debuting in 1964’s X-Men #4, as a short-lived fiefdom for Magneto), has been using the mutant Feedback (real obscure Beta Flight member, Alpha Flight #118-130, 1993) to power their electrical grid. This atrocity has backfired at the start of the issue, with Feedback’s powers overloading and causing a huge explosion, killing and injuring many innocents and ruining infrastructure. Initially, the Marauders believe the disaster was caused by a mutant terrorist attack.

After helping with crisis relief, the team travels to Genosha’s Hammer Bay (where we see the memorial that Toad, Polaris and others built back in Morrison’s New X-Men #132)—where Kate declares her plan to resurrect the Genoshan dead (whose remains are still there on the shattered island), including the humans who died there. Polaris will shape the box, Cerebra will scan Genosha for DNA, which will go in the Seed, and Tempo will send it way back in time (which isn’t at all how Tempo’s powers “traditionally” work, lol).

Genoshan survivor Wicked (from Claremont’s 2004 Excalibur) shows up to contact the “necroplasm” of the dead—not the ghosts, who she acknowledges are currently in the Waiting Room (“passing notes”), but rather their “manifestations” from the moment of death. This means they can ask and get consent before sending each dead individual off to the deep past to be resurrected there as part of Threshold. Significantly, this death whisperer did once summon Carmen Pryde’s (necroplasmic) spirit for Kate, on Hanukkah (2018’s Merry X-Men Holiday Special, the story “Never Again” by Claremont and the Dodsons); and she sees him again here in Marauders #11.

The necroplasmic Carmen (not his ghost!) appears here again, along with other Genoshan, er, necroplasms, to help Kate create the map that then goes in the Seed box. With that incomprehensible plot tie-up squared (?), the team goes back in time again, presumably now a really long time before Threshold’s emergence, since it wouldn’t have popped up overnight. As to how the anachronistic humans and mutants adapted to primordial Earth and then achieved the social and technological sophistication to create their city-state, well—maybe this, too, is supposed to be a story for another day?

For that matter, what exactly was the point of Threshold, except, incidentally (from the in-universe POV), providing a time-paradox origin for Krakoa?

There are some touching moments here, but for this reader, the glaring holes in this truncated story neutralized my overall appreciation for the storytellers’ outsized ambitions. Perhaps, one day, another run by Orlando or someone else will give us the bigger picture. For now, I have to say, this one missed the trees for the forest. Then again, if creators only took risks when the timing was just right for guaranteed success, well, little of substance would ever get created!!!

A quick note on Bushwacker dust-up in issue #12: New character Esera Seanoa is said by Cerebra to be Northstar 2099’s great-granddad; he’s one of the mutant artists Bushwacker had been targeting. Again, we get this scene to tell us that we might expect an intermittent build toward the Marvel 2099 universe, someday, as that future’s past becomes the present’s near-future—right?

NEXT: There are never too many possibilities, right?!The post Steve Orlando’s Marauders—Annotated, Part 3! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Marauders #6-8

Credits: Steve Orlando writes; Eleonora Carlini (#7-8) and Andrea Broccardo (#6) draw; Matt Milla colors; Ariana Maher letters; covers by Kael Ngu (#6-7) and Peach Momoko (#8).

This is the second of three annotated entries on the recently ended Marauders volume 2, a whirlwind of cosmic and timey-wimey adventure that perhaps tried to do too much in too little time and space (ironically enough!)—but should provide plenty of worthwhile fodder for further mutant adventures.

The first entry annotates issues #1-5; the third covers issues #9-12.

While the last entry speculates on where the title’s deepest revelations, regarding the origins of Krakoa itself, might be headed beyond Marauders #12, this one 1) provides some backstory reference for each Marauder, per their character-revealing therapy sessions; 2) covers the obscure pulls Orlando utilizes for the B plot (which unfortunately likely won’t get picked on again for quite a while); and 3) lays out the basics of the title’s main story, about the human/mutant Threshold society 2 billion years ago.

Marauders #6: “Even Odds of Destruction,” a peripheral A.X.E.: Judgment Day tie-inIf this issue hadn’t been an event tie-in, it would’ve been a downtime moment, and it’s clearly in homage to a 1992 classic, X-Factor #87 by Peter David and Joe Quesada—“X-Aminations,” wherein each teammember sits down for therapy with Dr. Leonard Samson to discuss traumas new and old, much like Orlando does here with his Marauders, returning from deep space.

For the Marauders’ therapy, another ’90s callback is their therapist—Birdy, who debuted in X-Men #6 (1992) by Scott Lobdell and Jim Lee, as a captive of Sabretooth with quite the case of Stockholm syndrome, also appearing in the first Sabretooth mini, by Larry Hama and Mark Texeira, where she died at the hands of Sabretooth and Mystique’s son Graydon Creed, because he hates his dad so much and it was the era for fridging women characters left and right. A mutant empath, she’s a natural in her new role on Krakoa, and she’s officially on Nightcrawler’s Legionaire team (Legion of X #3-4, 9) and also appeared in infinity comic X-Men Unlimited #44 by Orlando, her first Krakoa-era appearance, alongside the Marauders as a kind of crisis relief worker (From this latter issue’s emergency team, Triage also reappears in Marauders #11 for healing those wounded from Santo Marco’s Feedback/reactor disaster; see below).

Birdy tries talking each member of the team through their A.X.E.: Judgment Day moment. First, Bishop is haunted by his dead friends and XSE colleagues Malcolm and Randall (see Uncanny X-Men #282-287).

In Aurora’s mindscape, we see her myriad personalities. She fought the very obscure, mind-controlling Headlok in 1990’s Alpha Flight #93-94 by Fabian Nicieza. The Progenitor’s bizarre choice of avatar here deals out real-world Inner Active Cards, which actually look pretty neat; the art for this set, he says, is by “prophetic mutant painter” Nemesio Pietri, of Orlando favorite District X (#6-12, 2004) by David Hine.

The Progenitor appears to Tempo as the deceased Sumo, her erstwhile teammate from the MLF; he debuted in 1990’s New Mutants #93, very early Liefeld days, only to be killed by Cable in 1992’s Cable: Blood and Metal #1 by Fabian Nicieza and John Romita, Jr.

[Tempo’s mention of an MLF run-in with New Warriors villain Eugenix is new, an untold story.]Kwannon’s daughter was introduced as a digitized mind in the universally panned Fallen Angels (2019), and the only copy of her consciousness was destroyed at the end of the much-missed Hellions by Zeb Wells.We also get a reminder of why Akihiro has been given a new codename, albeit one that really doesn’t work: Daken is Japanese for “mongrel,” a racist slur.

As for the Brimstone Love/Theater of Pain B plot, introduced in Orlando’s 2021 Marauders Annual #1 (preceding the title’s first issue) unfortunately, this never goes anywhere due to the title’s abrupt cancellation. Alas! But here, we see Lockheed (Kate Pryde’s bestie alien friend from 1983’s Uncanny X-Men #166 on) has been keeping an eye on the Theater of Pain, led by a pre-2099 Brimstone Love, who doesn’t show up again until issues #11-12. No doubt, Orlando’s aim was for a larger story than what we got. This bizarre cult is anti-Krakoan but pro-integrationist (à la the Xavier of yore), although their methods are rather sadistic.

The villainous Brimstone Love of X-Men 2099 popped up sporadically throughout the mid-’90s.

Unfortunately, the most memorable aspect of this unfinished plot is that it is simply stuffed with rando ’90s pulls. As it never found its feet, its core justification, this truncated plot thread reads as though written by an overexcited fanboy just throwing out references that for beg for a handbook for most readers. I know that Orlando must have had much more planned here, but we may never know.

In the annual, the one recognizable mutant member of the Theater (beside Love himself) was the Morlock Carver. Now, we find Scratch, originally a goose-stepping servant of the Red Queen Madelyne Pryor of parallel universe 998, introduced in late-stage X-Man (#63, 67-70) at that time by Warren Ellis. His power is his immunity from other mutants’ powers. Survivor of a failed assassination, knives to the brain, he lives on in a state of perpetual bloodthirsty rage.

[We never learn who the poor mutant corpse is on the table!]Here, we also see Dirtnap, the mouse with a red smiley face on its back. This mutant once appeared human until he used his mutant absorption power on a rat, while in flight from a savage Wolverine, and so he got stuck (in his debut, 1995’s Wolverine #95 by Larry Hama; see also Hama’s Generation X #33-39). He was never depowered, though! At least not until his seeming death at the hands, er, claws, of Daken, um, Fang, in Marauders #11.Issue #7 gives us the Mr.-Fantastic-like Stringfellow, former Sunspot bodyguard, slain by Scratch. Stringfellow’s first and only other appearance is Claremont’s 2004 X-Treme X-Men #35.

And that’s the Theater of Pain’s mutant roster—yikes! In fact, we can go ahead and wrap up the wrap-up on Brimstone and his followers in the title’s last two issues, where it’s just a nub of a B plot that never took off: Fang brings in forgotten (body horror) mutant Johnny Dee for help in his revenge quest against Brimstone. Dee can create voodoo dolls of those whose DNA he’s consumed via his sentient chest mouth; yeah, weird (see David Hine’s X-Men: The 198 and Civil War: X-Men, mid-2000s). Krakoan amnesty must have got this erstwhile terrorist released from jail. A bizarre pull, but Orlando does love him some David Hine—and it all works in Brimstone’s grisly defeat!

Might the Theater of Pain return in Orlando’s “epilogue” to his run, in the June release of the one-shot Before the Fall – Mutants’ First Strike?

Issue #7’s other bookend offers a new plot thread, this one featuring the villainous shrink Judas Traveller, who debuted in the much ballyhooed “Clone Saga” (Web of Spider-Man #117, 1994)—although Orlando did reintroduce the mutant telepath slightly earlier with foreshadowing in Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird and more fully in infinity comic X-Men Unlimited #45. For unknown reasons he’s joined up with Orchis and commands a high-ranking position. He hasn’t been seen since Marauders #6.

We covered 2099’s Cerebra in the first annotation entry. She reappears next issue, where she helps resurrect the three Threshold mutants, and in issue #12, where she fights Bushwacker alongside Psylocke and Aurora. Hopefully, the mutant biometricist finds her full potential going forward.

Per issue #12, Bushwacker, originally a Daredevil villain (debuting in 1987’s Daredevil #248, a classic from Ann Nocenti), did indeed once enjoy hunting down mutant artists, although outside the Nocenti run, this wasn’t something other creators focused on with the scuzzy assassin. Still, it works—and Psylocke gets to psychically turn him into a harmless artist himself (small comfort to those he’s killed, though). This scene seems to function merely as a reminder that the 2099 Cerebra should still be in play going forward.

Marauders #7-10—“Here Comes Yesterday,” pt1This arc’s title is in homage to Grant Morrison’s final New X-Men arc, “Here Comes Tomorrow.”

In an action-packed vignette that’s not a prologue, the Marauders visit the town of Captain America, NE (from Mark Waid’s Captain America #695, 2017), which was rechristened after Steve Cap rescued it from white supremacists; now, it’s been taken over by the Watchdogs, a right-wing militia that debuted in 1987’s Captain America #335 by Mark Gruenwald (they played a scarily relevant role throughout the rest of Gruenwald’s beloved Cap run and reappeared for much of the excellent Ta-Nehisi Coates era).

The mutant “meatcastle” Horsepower debuts here, unless you count his Orlando 2099 version (from Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #5). He is very ’90s, and not in an exciting way. It might be interesting to see how Cerebra reacts to this mutant she’ll know decades later.

This arc really starts with the resurrection of the Thresholders Theia, Amass and Crave, previously stored digitally on the “timedrive” that the team recovered in issue #5. This is where Cerebra’s biometric powers come in handy; she can also create backups of mutants out of range of Cerebro.

Bishop randomly has foreknowledge of an obscure but critical moment almost 2.5 billion years ago, which will play a role in the plot going forward (not that he would know that yet!). The Great Oxidation Event that wiped out most of ancient Earth’s anaerobic life is not common knowledge, however fascinating. But then, maybe Bishop’s curiosity about the past encompasses more than just fanboy X-Men lore.

Anyhow, even with the Aaron Avengers retcon of the Progenitor’s death on Earth four billion years ago being responsible for the eventual emergence of superpowered Earthlings, the Threshold society existing many hundreds of millions of years before Homo erectus makes zero sense.

Furthermore, the Thresholders somehow evolved from the primordial soup without being attacked by vengeful anaerobic sentients until they were an extremely advanced civilization. That really defies logic!

That’s okay! Cassandra knew they were hiding something from the beginning—and we’ll find out what soon. Still, it’s nice to see erstwhile time refugee Bishop welcoming more such refugees, albeit from the deep past (Oddly, Theia looks very Shi’ar, but it’s great that she and Tempo might have a shot…).

NEXT: The conclusion to Orlando and Carlini’s Marauders—and the mystery of Threshold…The post Steve Orlando’s Marauders—Annotated, Part 2! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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“No Hope”

Credits: Al Ewing writes; Andrea Di Vito draws; Jim Charalampidis and Rachelle Rosenberg color; Ariana Maher letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Jesus Aburtov

SPOILERS AHOY!

Mystique certainly comes off far better this issue than Destiny—finally! And Irene’s death by Khora here is quite a relief; she’s played her bit at this point. Mystique’s last words to her—“If you love something, set it free, Irene”—are the best we’ve got from her at least since Hickman’s early Krakoa days.

Raven’s break with Destiny, free from being an eternal “keepsake in her vault,” and her heroic last stand against Sinister’s forces are crushing blows to Destiny’s fragile ego—at which point, she really is done.

We heard mention of Mystique’s Freedom Force in Immoral X-Men #2, where Hope reported her death off-panel—quite the bomb-drop considering this entire alt future exists not simply because of Sinister but Destiny’s fear that any other future timeline would’ve had her losing Mystique. Well, in this time, she did get to be with her for 100 years! That’s better than anyone else gets, right?

(Mystique’s Freedom Force here is a true rebel outfit, but her original team of the same name, which had Destiny as a member as well, was anything but; it was a tool of the NSA and Val Cooper. Debuting in 1985’s Uncanny X-Men #199, it also included Blob, Pyro, Avalanche and, best of all, Spiral. The inclusion of Hercules and (a female) Nova in this alt future version is an homage to Ewing’s Guardians work, but including the Arakkii Sevyr Blackmore is a nice rando pick from Percy’s Wolverine.)

But of course, now Destiny wants out—bawling that she’s lost “everything,” directly comparing this loss with the destruction of Earth and Arakko and the near-total Sinisterization of her own species. At this point, I hope we can say we’ve all had enough of her nonsense. Goodbye, Destiny of X! Seriously, she’s little better than Moira.

So, when will we get Storm of X???

Well, it won’t be in the “Sins of Sinister,” clearly (although, who knows what Year 1000 will bring in April), so it’ll have to be after “Fall of X”—but I sure hope Al Ewing writes it. We need some more cosmic storms!

In Immoral X-Men #2, we heard about the Interstellar Compact of Marvel’s major cosmic empires allying against the Red Diamond forces, but here we get the first mention that Orbis Stellaris is behind the alliance, which we can expect to be well and truly done when we jump to Year 1000. Orbis’ powerbase is effectively neutered by issue’s end with Storm’s sublime heist of not just Sinister’s lab but the entire World Farm (and its Progenitors); cutting all life support, he kills his minions, but will he himself survive? Regardless, he seems to be out of the game for good. His plans for “Dominion” are shattered.

Why “No Hope,” then? Because Storm’s dead, of course, burned out from opening the wormhole that swallowed a star-system-sized construct. And how the heck did she manage that? I wonder if her sorcery was boosted at all by her omega mutant power, or whether it was “just” Khora’s own power amplification. Regardless, Storm does have an established “sorcerous line,” going back to 1985’s New Mutants #32, wherein Magik and Dani Moonstar time travel to ancient Egypt and meet Ashake, ancestral sorceress of Ororo. Also mentioned here is Ayesha—not the onrece latively well-known cosmic female counterpart of Adam Warlock, but the Rain Queen of Balobedu of the Hyborian Age, 10,000 BCE, i.e., Conan’s age. She’s only ever been mentioned once in the comics, 2007’s Marvel Tarot #1, which reported that she served as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme for 4000 years, following a great mage battle for the honor. So, yeah, that’s no mean lineage (Amun and Hauhet, however, are two of the eight primordial Egyptian gods)!

Of course, it was 1983’s Magik miniseries written by Claremont that established Storm as a powerful sorceress in old age, in the alternate future in Limbo in which she was trapped with Illyana and lived out the rest of her life.

By the way, in the climax of Old Woman Storm’s electric speech, she does grand homage to her lost friend Jean Grey: “I offer you fire! And a life incarnate!” echoes Jean’s debut as Phoenix in Claremont’s X-Men #101.

What other goodies do we get this issue? Another Ewing favorite, Noh Varr (the erstwhile Marvel Boy) is still alive, another Old Man. He appears to be one of Storm’s top commanders, and he has always known his way about a space opera venue, so that makes sense. He’s now adopted the title of Accuser, which is funny (Ronan’s the most well-known Kree to have taken up this role of judge and executioner or whatever). Destiny’s own starship is the Ananke, named for the Greek serpent goddess of Fate, or Necessity; that’s apt enough. It’s amazing how long-lived everyone is here—Jon Ironfire, Khora of the Burning Heart, although Cable/Xilo (now “X-Man,” lol) is no surprise (AoA Nate Grey had a long-running late ’90s solo title as X-Man, despite never really going by that name).

Ganna, aka Shockjock, is new; seems like she could be a powerhouse. Will she be more than a one-off?

Destiny’s last stand shows us how her power might be weaponized in the field: She envisions a victory against Orbis in his giant starship Dyson sphere, and this vision is boosted by Khora, which Cable reads telepathically, as he broadcasts it to the other X-Fighters, essentially mapping out their tactics for them—basically a self-fulfilling prophecy in the heat of battle. (The Star Wars homage is heavy here, as the rebellion’s fighter pilots go up against the Death Star of Orbis’ great orb.)

[Love how Storm’s classic tiara has been recast as an Omega-style symbol on that starship.]

Of course, there’s an inconsistency here with Destiny’s powers, right? Fundamental to Moira’s narrative and the Destiny Diaries, and many other stories besides, is that Irene can see past her own death—but here, Storm is fooling everyone that she intends to reboot the timeline (and it’s questionable her explosives, however powerful, could have breached the Unus barrier around the Moira lab with absolute certainty). Destiny should’ve been able to see through Storm’s ruse. So, how do we no-prize this? Ororo’s sorcery!!! And hey, that aspect of her powers is in play here, so… hell yeah, let’s go with that.

Now, why doesn’t Storm want to destroy this timeline? The unwillingness to destroy a universe, no matter how broken from our perception, or Destiny’s, or Earth’s, is perfectly in line with Storm’s character historically. And it’s the same with her swearing off resurrection, which she did much readily than Magneto (remember, she’s never died until now).

Mother Righteous shows up for a page, trying to glom onto Ironfire’s faith in Storm. More interesting is Ironfire mentioning his backstory with Storm in the mysterious Genesis War (sometime before Year 10). But she’s actually there, astrally, to “watch the show,” this stage of the war that she claims “proves her right.” I think we can take this to mean Storm’s use of magic in taking out the cosmically science-minded Orbis. She’ll be hoping (perhaps quite literally) for the same in her final push to crack the Moira lab and/or achieve her own version of “dominion.”

In the meantime, the World Farm will become the next Arakko… Can’t wait for Year 1000!

Re: the pop sci-fi homages, I’ve seen fan comps mapping Star Trek homages onto Gillen’s Immoral X-Men and Star Wars homages onto Ewing’s Storm & the Brotherhood—but that is much too programmatic for these great storytellers. Sure, the nods to these properties are there, but so are other ones, mixed in throughout! In a CBR interview last December, Gillen said each time period would comp with different well-known venues or styles: cyberpunk for Year 10, “evil Star Trek” for Year 100, and (most titillating of all)“the operatic, gothic vibe of Warhammer 40,000” for Year 1000 (Gillen has written some comics for this franchise, as well). But that was Gillen speaking.

Shortly after, Ewing had his own CBR interview, where he said “instead of cyberpunk, my +10 is a near-future ‘squad of outsiders take on the dystopia’ story. Instead of Star Trek, my +100 is Star Wars or maybe Buck Rogers. And +1000 is taking that Warhammer feel […] and telling a kind of far-future-Camelot story about a heroic last stand against impossible odds and the importance of hope. So I guess it’s like Transformers: The Movie.” So, basically, as good storytellers, they have their influences and inspirations, but there is nothing so programmatic as any kind of one-to-one correspondence going on.

In January, Spurrier had his CBR interview, and it’s his response to the comp question I like best by far: Nope. No, thank you. That is all much too reductive to be of any interest to me. Spurrier’s interest is in overarching themes, one for each era. Still, he says, “If it’s references you want, there’s a lot of A Canticle of Leibowitz here.” Seriously, check out the link; what he has to say should have anyone on the fence appreciate his work more.

That said, we are clearly building up a surprising hagiography in each mini: Gillen has Exodus kill off Hope in establishing his own kind of Sinisterized imperial mutant church; Spurrier has Mother creating her own kind of cynical religion, with Wagnerine as the “apostate,” which in turn could take on greater religious significance here; and Ewing has made an unintentional martyr of Storm. If I were pressed to subscribe to faith in anything here, it would obviously be to Storm Messiah—so let’s get it rolling on already! Bring on what is…

NEXT: Year 1000, part 1—Immoral X-Men #3

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Credits: Gerry Duggan writes; Joshua Cassara arts; Guru-eFX colors; Clayton Cowles letters; covers by Martin Coccolo (#15, #17), Giuseppe Camuncoli (#16) with colors by Jesus Aburtov (#15-16) an Neeraj Menon (#17)

“Collapse Theory” / “The Mutant We Left Behind” / “Size Matters”This three-issue Children of the Vault arc is the first Forge-centric story we’ve had in many years, and it’s three issues! Granted, it’s not entirely focused on Forge, but this was a major spotlight for the character, albeit not exactly the most flattering one!

For 21st-century readers who know that Forge (birth name unknown) is a Cheyenne Native American but don’t understand why he’s never depicted as connecting with his heritage, Claremont’s foundational work with the character will show you his fraught relationship with his cultural upbringing. Forge’s limelight is pretty much restricted to the Claremont run, especially in the years after his 1984 debut in Uncanny X-Men #184, (also Rachel Summers’ fourth ever appearance and Selene’s fifth—foundational indeed!). There was also Howard Mackie’s late-stage X-Factor run of the late ’90s, really the last gasp for Forge fans.

If you’re pressed for time and want some wonderful audio entertainment instead, I highly recommend checking out Connor Goldsmith’s recent Cerebro episode on Forge with guest Josh Trujillo, comics writer for Adventure Time, Captain America, Rick and Morty and most recently Blue Beetle, as well, and also part Cheyenne himself.

Here we can say, long story cut much too short, Forge sees himself as a man of science and technology who wants nothing to do with the very real mysticism that was part of his upbringing as a shaman in training. And the devastating trauma behind this aversion at least seems mostly unrelated from more fraught territory that white writers like Claremont and after were not prepared to deal with, that is, those all-too common stories of white society nearly wholesale destruction of indigenous culture and the tortured process of assimilation, which has frequently involved much self-shame and even hatred while white people look on oblivious (speaking as someone whose family encompasses both perspectives in the long history of Southern poverty, and I certainly don’t feel equipped to this story from a Native (Choctaw and Cherokee) perspective, either).

Forge’s personal story treads more lightly over the history of white genocide against Native Americans, although Claremont certainly acknowledged the reality as far as comics of the time would allow (which was far more than most creators back then), and instead focuses on his experiences in the Vietnam War—something many Americans of all colors would have identified with less than a decade after the US defeat and withdrawal there (much more disastrous even than the tragic chaos of our pullout from Afghanistan*).

After losing a hand and leg in a “friendly fire” B-52 attack, Forge called on his abilities as a mystic and, utilizing the souls of his dead comrades all around him, summoned the Adversary to kill enemy soldiers as they closed in on the bomb-devastated area. The cost of summoning a chaos demon? His fallen friends tormented eternally in a hell dimension, apparently. To be clear, though, this was a decision he made during an unimaginably horrifying trauma—in excruciating pain, rage and fear in a foreign jungle at night. Add to that, Forge’s subsequent horror and desolation at his own knee-jerk reaction.

He had so much power on call, and the first time he really used it, it did not go well for anyone—except that he lived, albeit with horrific survivor’s guilt. So, yeah, he swore off the magic after that. And as a mutant techno-genius, he built himself some gloriously chrome prostheses, proud of his (lightly) cyborg nature now.

So, when you look at Forge and think, Oh, there’s that techy quad squad jock, there is a lot of pain that went in to making this Tony Stark of Krakoa.

That brings us to his morally muddy and murky decision-making regarding Caliban in Duggan’s X-Men. But Duggan knows what he’s doing with Forge like no one since Claremont. Forge’s opening epigraph, where we see him framing Krakoa as of a kind with the modern militarized nation-state, i.e., his employers in the US national security apparatus during the 1980s, answering to the likes of the NSA’s Valerie Cooper and the NSC’s Henry Peter Gyrich. In his 1984 debut, he had recently created a superpower neutralizer for the DOD, which many fans since have found suspect if not simply an act of extreme naivete. However, partly because Marvel no longer has the rights to concurrent ROM titles, readers forget or aren’t aware that he created this weapon to be used against the inimical space threat of the Dire Wraiths, a major story that bled into many ongoing titles of the day. In 1985’s ROM #65, Forge and ROM use the Neo-Neutralizer, massively scaled up from the handgun, to banish the evilly mystical Wraithworld (already in Earth’s orbit) to Limbo; that was indeed the whole point of the invention—to halt an alien invasion. But Gyrich’s intention was to turn it on Earth itself, to wipe out superhumans in one blast; of course, the heroes stop him.

All this isn’t to say that Claremont’s Forge stories don’t deal in the unforeseen consequences of innovation weaponized—this is so much of what they’re about. But the point is that Forge is not a self-hating mutant nor stupidly gullible; Earth was facing annihilation, and he made a hard decision to create a devastating weapon, which, yes, pretty quickly backfired. Yet Earth’s survival was guaranteed; it just didn’t happen in an X title!

Duggan’s story is something of an homage, then, to Claremont’s foundational Forge narrative, albeit with probably lighter consequences; it’s unlikely Caliban as a piece of technology* will have the tortured history that Forge’s Neutralizer has had. But his instrumentalization of another human being (potato potahto), whatever Caliban’s alleged, i.e., uninformed, willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good, offers up an undeniably unsavory side to his extremely utilitarian perspective.

*Caliban’s mutant power is tracking other mutants, and apparently his sentience is required to make this work, unlike the other mutants’ DNA in this strange chimera-harness: Mystique’s and presumably Tempo’s (Although, I have to say, the shape-changing is way underutilized in the actual story).

Love it or hate it, Duggan has done something new and different with a once central X-Man who’s been neglected for far too long. This story (unlike whatever Forge was doing in Percy’s X-Force—i.e., nothing substantive) will give subsequent creators a lot to work with. I definitely do not see it as character assassination, but it is very troubling, rather in line with his characterization historically, when anyone has cared to develop it.

But you can bet there’s more to come from Duggan’s Forge! The biggest thing, at least with consequences beyond any one character, is Project Blackbox (as Xavier mysteriously called it in conference with Forge back in the 2022 Hellfire Gala issue, also by Duggan). If any outside party discovered this invention, what government or other adversarial agency wouldn’t want a Matrix-style simulation trap outside an enemy’s front door? Well, it’s far from the first time we’ve seen a simulated reality in a comic book, let alone pop culture generally, but while it’ll contain the Children of the Vault for the time being, what happens when they themselves hack it? After all, isn’t that an inevitability? Hope Forge thought of some fail-safes!

I mean, if the Children have access to any mutant DNA, and they would, they should manage to figure out a way out of Forge’s “vault” (which allows only mutants to pass through), once they get past the simulation trap. And Serafina now knows that the world outside is not what it seems. In fact, Serafina’s whereabouts after this arc may be closer to Krakoa than anyone suspects…

Issue #16’s last page is Forge’s field notes, where he “humbly suggests” Tony Stark and Reed Richards be clued into to Project Blackbox’s existence at the Vault site in South America. That’s a good start! After all, the Children are a serious global threat.

[The frightening dreams of the Children in their Matrix simulation.]Obviously, there are many other things happening in these issues! All of them are beautifully drawn by Cassara, whose work on this title I largely prefer over what he did with Percy on X-Force and X Lives; we get to see what he can do outside of Percy’s relentless grimdark.This arc is a follow-up to my favorite part of Hickman’s X-Men run—issues #18-19, in which Synch and Wolverine (Laura) escape the Vault, centuries after they’d entered it with Darwin in issue #5. Darwin’s fate remained a mystery, except for Synch’s knowledge that the Children had captured him and were running some sort of ghastly experiment on him to benefit their own evolutionary adaptations; and we’re talking comic-book style evolution here, meaning they can now evolve even faster (and considering the acceleration of time inside the Vault, that’s really fast). Laura’s apparent death occurred off-panel, as she fought back and allowed Everett to make for the exit, but we do see him killed, albeit just outside the Vault, where he’s able to shoot off a telepathic message to Xavier, allowing for his full backup at the moment of his demise.

Everett saw what was happening to Darwin, which was extreme torture, but he couldn’t say he was dying, however much he’d like to have him back (as through resurrection). But he was certain that Laura had died, and so she was resurrected. Of course, she doesn’t have any memory of what happened in the Vault, like her and Darwin’s centuries-long love for one another.

Or, at least many of us assumed Darwin wasn’t resurrected, since we haven’t seen him since. However, Forge, when finding Laura, says, “I thought the Five only accidentally resurrected one mutant, not two.” Three mutants were, in fact, resurrected in Hickman’s X-Men #19, we just didn’t see the third, who remained unnamed—meaning, we couldn’t verify Darwin’s resurrection.

At the end of Duggan’s X-Men #16, however, Forge finds that now millennia-old Laura in the Vault, albeit in an induced coma. The team assumed that, using his mutant-tracking Caliban vest, he’d find Darwin, but alas, we still don’t know what happened to him. So, now we have two Lauras!

Of course, Scout is a clone of Laura, but they do not share the same memories. These two Lauras do have one identity in common, up until the “original” Laura’s entry into the Vault. Obviously, Synch is ecstatic that his love has returned.

Why would Duggan make this story decision? In-universe, instrumentalist Forge feels his higher priority is finding Darwin—he has the means to retrieve only one mutant from the Vault. Is this twist in the story justified? In any case, Forge’s confirmation of the “original” Darwin’s continued existence comes later, when in issue #17, he appears to Forge in a simulated vision (of a utopian city-state version of Krakoa, appealing to Forge) that matches Project Blackbox’s persuasiveness—he has long since uploaded his mind into the Vault’s computer system.

Now, if you think about this issue’s last data page, a medical report from Cecilia Reyes, the implication is that Darwin somehow transferred himself to Forge’s mind (“Now Forge’s backups are larger than some of our most powerful telepaths”) and then left Forge, unseen of course, for presumably elsewhere on Krakoa, leaving his erstwhile host’s latest backup back to normal (“within the expected strike zone”).

Where is he now? Again, we haven’t seen him since. Still, Darwin was rescued from the Vault! It turns out, mission accomplished anyway! And hey, this isn’t the first time a Marvel character meets their alt future self!

Or, maybe Forge’s abnormally large backup coming out of the Vault wasn’t Darwin hitching a ride but Serafina. After all, she is a mind-controlling technopath, as demonstrated to devastating effect with Cannonball in her debut arc, way back in X-Men vol 2 #188-192 by Mike Carey and Chris Bachalo (2006). Those cables plugging into Forge before his utopian vision of Krakoa, wherein he briefly communes with the digitized Darwin, could well have been Serafina’s. She certainly looks much more “advanced” from the last time we saw her, so the notion that she, too, could stow away inside another mind does not seem far-fetched. That could mean the mutant nation is now open to sneak attack from both Nimrod and the Children. Thus, the “Fall of X?”

Anyhow, it is, of course, highly unlikely that Old Woman Wolverine (er, Talon?) will live out the year. But who knows. Seriously, Old Man Logan stuck around a lot longer. The more important question is whether both Lauras die and have their backups merged into the subsequent resurrected Laura. That would be a jarring experience, but hey, even this would be far from the first such identity merge in Marvel Comics (looking at you Jean/Maddie!).

The post X-Men #15-17 in Review—Return to the Vault! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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“Four-Letter Words”Credits: Kieron Gillen writes; Andrea Di Vito draws; Jim Charalampidis colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Jesus Aburtov

SPOILERS AHOY!

A hundred years into the Sinister Era, the Quiet Council has brought its war against neighboring empires nearly to its conclusion—at the edge of Pax, as in Pax Britannica, “peace under British imperial rule,” or Roman, or Sinister and his EsseX factors!

And of course, the role of the Council’s martial command is filled by Hope, who is looking increasingly like her father, the now Xilo-esque Cable. Her mission log offhandedly mentions having killed Mystique, but we’ll have to wait till Ewing’s entry up next to find out whether that’s true (If so, it would sure upend Destiny’s whole reason for wanting to be in this timeline!). She’s forged a chimeric planet-buster to destroy interstellar empires, and it’s hard to imagine a mutant WMD that could top her L-bomb, combining astronomical teleportation from Lila Cheney, nuclear fission from Firestar, mass manipulation from Harry Leland and size alteration from Micromax.

Hope’s starship crew are likely run-of-the-mill chimerae who don’t have to worry about upstaging their messiah captain. (For a deep Easter egg, note that Gillen’s first Generation Hope story arc–way back in 2010!–was titled “The Future Is a Four-Letter Word;” he’s got a soft spot for the character whom he did so much to define.)

But we do see an exciting new chimera who will upstage all the Sinisters—Rasputin IV!

Unfortunately, this is not the same Rasputin IV we gushed over in Hickman’s 2019 Powers of X. Fortunately, the Sinister future’s first stable five-gift chimera is still a kick-ass character, and moreover Gillen delves much more into Rasputin IV’s chimeric nature than we saw previously (After all, she was much more a mystery than anything clearly defined on the page, before she was eaten by a black hole). So, fourth time the charm (as in four generations of the Rasputin chimera) and four letters—the G, T, C and A of DNA. And hey, there are four Sinisters, or there were, although indeed, we know who the real one is if we’ve read our Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix* (Peter Milligan and John Paul Leon, 1996—where Nathaniel Essex, not a clone, receives his modern form from Apocalypse). We see Super-Skrull’s last stand with four Ronan hammers, as well. Is that all the fours here accounted for?

No, wait! The future is a four-letter word—and it’s Rasputin IV! Er. What I mean to say is, she is the hope of the future! …Or at least, Sinister’s future. Well, let’s hope she gets to be more than that. You bet she will.

Unlike Sinister’s four-letter science, Mother’s magic makes use of the whole alphabet. Another sly dad pun from Kieron (As for the best visual gag here, we have Sinister Xavier looking very much like the fascist Nick Fury/Cap villain, Baron von Strucker, directly comping the Red Diamond empire with Hydra).

*The four-gift chimerae, like the L-bombs, were always unstable, we’re told. Indeed, they were hopeless! Sinister has outdone himself with a five-gifter. And the rest of the Council thinks so too: They believe that he’s reached his final limit in further progress with chimera engineering. He knows the ax is about to fall.

Mother’s surprise visit indicates the further cross-pollination between the three event minis, which we should expect more of from here on out, but even more than the Council’s threats, perhaps, Mother puts him on notice. This is her first ever to the Red Diamond Sinister, who does have the human Essex’s memories from well before he created four divergent clones of himself, indeed pre-dating his encounter with Apocalypse, also (from whom he got his posthuman powers to begin with). The result, though, is that he’s now as clued-in to the reality of the situation as his remaining “siblings,” which gives him a leg up compared to literally everyone else.

Returning to Rasputin IV, her five gifts come from Colossus, Kate Pryde (“a stable pair”—what a hoot that is!), Unus the Untouchable, Quentin Quire (instead of Jean Grey) and Wolverine Laura. Quire’s omega telepathy is indeed sensible, since we do know what’s wrong that Grey strain—which Hope mentions earlier in the issue. Like Jean, she “doesn’t clone well.” As revealed in Claremont “Inferno” classic Uncanny X-Men #241 (1989), Jean clone Madelyne Pryor’s X genes weren’t activated until the Phoenix Force paid her a visit (the flashback there is chronologically before her Uncanny #168 debut).

That vat of Hope parts in the Reliquary Arbor—yeesh! Btw, what is it with Sinisters and Reliquaries these days…?

What Gillen also leaves tantalizingly unclear is whether the difficulty with cloning and resurrecting Hope has to do with the Phoenix, as well. After all, per another classic Gillen comic from way back, Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #10 (2012), Hope’s future involves becoming an avatar for the Phoenix. That was over a decade ago, publication-wise, so who knows—and since 2012’s AvX, such avatars no longer seem so uniquely destined; they’re just your favorite comic book characters amped up with cosmic powers. This mystery, however, is of course beyond the purview of the present event!

I think Gillen is just having fun writing another Hope-centric comic, with little Easter eggs and references to his earlier work—as with the first villain Hope shot (Sinister) as an X-Man; see Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #2, part 2 of “Everything Is Sinister!”

But that doesn’t mean he can’t kill his darlings! Surprisingly, Sinister Exodus bumps off the gloating messiah easily enough—having realized that he is the church and a messiah’s death only strengths that foundation of belief. So, in a sense, all those zombified chimerae among her starship crew do upstage Hope, after all! Recall, too, that Hope’s body parts are sufficient to allow the resurrections to continue.

Speaking of zombified crew, those on the little starship Rasputin IV commandeers after Sinister frees her from his “genetic chains” and begs her to “Save us from my sins.” We’ve never seen Essex so camp-free, but really he’s hamming it up admirably for his simple saint-like heroine.

Immoral X-Men #2 is equally a Rasputin-IV-centric comic, where she is, again, the true hope…

Just as Wagnerine will prove Mother’s ultimate archnemesis, at least in this alt reality, Sinister may end up on the wrong side of Rasputin IV’s Soulsword (and where he got that for her I’d like to know!)—but so far, their master-servant relationship is much less tragic.

Let’s see how the next five—er, I mean, 900 years go! (After a few centuries on that little starship, they’re going to eventually need some space from each other.)

Art-wise, Andrea Di Vito’s entries are my favorite so far, and his consistency these past two issues bodes well for what’s…

NEXT: Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #3—Storm lives!

The post “Sins of Sinister” Part 6: Immoral X-Men #2—in Review! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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“There is no ‘The’ future. There is no Destiny.” – Destiny

It’s an age of reckoning for mutantkind. Krakoa has grown from an isolated island nation into an empire that spans the cosmos, but even the strongest empires can fall to the weaknesses inside their walls. The heads of this prosperous new society have endured an inferno…but the sparks of something greater have just been lit.

In 2019, writer Jonathan Hickman launched the X-Men into a bold new status quo through House of X/Powers of X, following the mutants as they forged a new nation and fought to change a seemingly immutable future. Working with countless collaborators, Hickman would continue this master narrative across the Dawn of X and the Reign of X, with each new writer adding their own voice to the story of Krakoa. However, the office would suffer a major shakeup in 2022, with Hickman announcing his departure in the wake of the upcoming Inferno event, leaving his plans for the line seemingly unfinished. But what some saw as an ending, Hickman’s collaborators saw as a beginning. Building on the foundation the writer had helped create, this team would work to forge their own ambitious new chapter, shaped through countless ideas for “the Mutant Metaphor,” and the heroes who embody it.

For the first time, the X-Men have the power to choose their destiny, leaving the question…what comes next?

(Spoilers for each title and the line-wide story to follow)

The Death of Futures PastSuperhero comics have always been cyclical by nature, built around revolving teams of writers, artists, and editors building on decades of existing stories. Jonathan Hickman’s departure from the X-Office was far from sudden, in fact, the writer had helped lay the groundwork for the line’s next chapter through the development of his Inferno miniseries, with many of the line’s updated plots reflected within the event itself. That said, the transition still had its share of growing pains after Hickman’s departure, with many coming to a head in the line’s immediate follow-up event: The X Lives/X Deaths of Wolverine.

Picking up in the immediate aftermath of Inferno, X Lives is both a coda and pastiche of Hickman’s time on the line, even using HoX/PoX’s dual narrative structure to track the journeys of Wolverine and Moira X, each on their own mission to save their versions of the future. Unfortunately, X Lives/X Deaths doesn’t have HoX/PoX’s deftness for continuity, with so many timelines crossing over each other that it becomes hard to decipher what anyone’s doing here. Omega Red’s mad, I guess? Plot-wise, it’s a big continuity-jumble that raises as many questions as it answers, but read in the larger context of the line it becomes something incredibly sincere: an event-long send-off to the creator who laid the foundation for what was to come.

(From X Lives/X Deaths of Wolverine, by Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara)While the aftermath of X Lives/X Deaths is pretty messy, just kinda dropping the long-running Phalanx plot and rendering Moira into a cackling supervillain, what’s done has been done. Much like under Hickman, the X-Office have kick-started an all-new status quo of their own. In place of HoX/PoX’s singular mission of survival, mutantkind’s future has become a series of branching possibilities, shown through the eyes of Destiny, a former outsider to Krakoa. These nebulous visions are still a far cry from the eternal paradise Krakoa is supposed to be, but the underlying theme of this change is clear: confronting the failings that led to Hickman’s Inferno has fundamentally changed the nation, and as a result, the mutant identity has evolved on its own.

In place of the larger war with Orchis, which blurred the lines between Krakoa and its enemies, we see a bigger focus on the “Mutant Metaphor” than ever before, with titles throughout the line showing mutants finally transcend the norms that held them back. While Vita Ayala and Rod Reis’s New Mutants has explored themes of identity and trauma since the Dawn of X, their final few issues see mutants evolving beyond that trauma, as Illyana Rasputin uses her community to give old villains and young mutants closure and peace. These themes of reclamation and transformation continue across the rest of the line, with mutants working to redefine themselves as individuals and parts of the larger Krakoan nation. Steve Orlando and Eleonara Carlini’s relaunched Marauders sees Kate Pryde and crew jumping into the past to reclaim the species’ history. Other titles have been transformed entirely. Following Nightcrawler’s attempt to found a mutant church, Si Spurrier and Jan Bazaldua’s Legion of X sees the Mutants working to build an entirely new approach to justice, transforming Krakoa’s 3 laws into something less rigid and more interpretive:

“I’ve wanted to do a precinct-style ensemble story since I first read HOUSE OF X,” states Spurrier. “For the first time, the Marvel Universe has this densely packed, beautifully volatile population of super-humans, all in one place. It needs peacekeepers, sure…but you don’t get far in Krakoa if the limit of your imagination is beating people up or reaching for a gun. Mutant civilization needs those who think differently.”

If the X-Line under Hickman was the story of a great society undone by the evils done in its name, Destiny of X acts as a complete transformation, with countless creators celebrating Krakoa’s impact while working to shape it into something less morally gray.

(From AXE: Judgment Day, by Kieron Gillen and Ivan Fiorelli )Mutantkind’s public image undergoes a major evolution in this chapter, depicted in all its glory through Kieron Gillen’s Judgment Day crossover, with the X-Men taking their place alongside the Avengers and Eternals in a grand 3-pillar event, and, for the first time, sharing their nation’s gifts with the outside world.

It’s hard to understate the meaning of this moment, especially within an event built around critiquing morality. Orchis and its allies still remain, and as a whole, Krakoa is still an imperfect system. But for the first time, the mutant nation has opened itself up to the rest of the world, and forged a connection they had thought impossible. This focus on connection has become the X-Line’s driving force post-Inferno, allowing the many voices of the X-Office to transform the nation of Krakoa beyond its original scope. But even still, Hickman’s influence looms large, as the mutant nation’s many secrets start to poison its people.

Paradise LostSince its beginnings, the “Krakoan Era” of X-Men has largely been seen as Hickman’s vision, mostly through the tone, themes, and overarching story the author oversaw through Inferno. While this dynamic would change leading into the writer’s departure, Destiny feels wholly defined by Hickman’s absence. Instead of lone plots carried across the entire line, Destiny’s story feels more thematic in nature, as each title delves into the lives of people chafing against Krakoa’s supposedly perfect society. Debuting directly after X Lives/X Deaths, Victor LaValle and Leonard Kirk’s Sabretooth is a complete inversion of the more heroic elements of the line, using the evolution of the pit to show how Krakoa’s leadership has only grown closer to their human enemies, creating an expansive prison to hold anyone who they believe threatens the nation:

“I’ve enjoyed the Krakoa era, in part, because it’s never been hidden that the villains remain villains. They haven’t had a change of heart, if anything it’s the heroes who have to do the most changing,” states LaValle. “It was easy…to understand or accept why Sabretooth went down…but I wanted the other mutants to be people who readers wished would receive mercy or understanding…and then they don’t. The point wasn’t to say that Xavier or Magneto are evil, but to say that if “justice” is capricious then it isn’t true justice. The history of X-Men comics…is one of wrestling with serious political and cultural issues so this seemed like the perfect lane for me to be in if I wanted to bring these issues up.”

This division between Krakoa’s leadership and its people has been a mainstay of the X-Line since its relaunch. However, through Destiny’s increased focus on individual stories instead of an overarching narrative, this schism feels more pronounced than ever before. Nyla Rose, Steve Orlando, and David Cutler’s Thunderbird one-shot gives an especially deep look into the struggles of Krakoa’s outsiders, with a recently-resurrected John Proudstar fighting to reconcile his place in a community that feels completely alien to him.

(From Giant-Size X-Men: Thunderbird, by Nyla Rose, Steve Orlando, and David Cutler)This theme of individual heroes fighting their own system only grows more apparent with each title, as more and more of Krakoa’s institutions begin to exploit the very people they were made to protect. Alongside Adam Kubert, Federico Vicentini, Robert Gill, Christopher Allen, and Edgar Salazar, Benjamin Percy uses the dueling stories of Wolverine and X-Force to show the progression of Krakoan special ops from necessary evil to fascistic puppeteering, as Hank McCoy’s oversight of X-Force grows crueler and colder, even regressing Wolverine to a state similar to his days in Weapon X. Tini Howard and Bob Quinn’s relaunched Knights of X expands on this theme even further, as Betsy Braddock’s party of heroes finally break their ties with the self-interested Majestrix Saturnyne, becoming a roving band sworn to protect the Mutants of Otherworld. However, the deepest look into the nation’s failings comes through Al Ewing and Stefano Caselli’s X-Men Red, which turns the mutant world of Arakko into an interrogation of colonialism and exploitation, pitting Storm’s more heroic Brotherhood of Mutants against Abigail Brand and the imperialism of S.W.O.R.D.:

“The X-Office is unique in that at the macro level, we’re all telling one story, with more…cohesion than I think you’d find anywhere else…” muses Ewing. “We’ll see (this) in X-Men Red. Storm’s someone who always…questions authority, even her own if necessary. Crowns and thrones represent a kind of unquestioned, unrepresentative power that I just can’t see her being tempted by at all. But she’s not shying away from her responsibilities, either — to the planet or to the people. It’s hopefully obvious…that there are two different ideological approaches at work here. Are they going to be part of Arakko society, or are they another team coming in from outside?”

As Krakoa’s heroes continue to evolve beyond the constraints of their nation, these critiques become another defining factor for the X-Line, kicking off a series of revelations that recolor everything we’ve experienced so far. With more and more of Krakoa’s enemies stepping into the light, the line’s grandest revelation finally comes into focus: the nation’s worst enemies have come from within.

A Snake In The GardenWhile much of Destiny of X’s stories are focused on moving beyond the framework Hickman put in place with HoX/PoX, its third act reveal takes it all back to Krakoa’s foundation, and a question that’s hung in the air since the formation of the quiet council: can mutantkind put aside its old divisions to serve a greater good?

To many, the nation is a troubled but worthwhile paradise, allowing mutants young and old to find peace and meaning through a community of their own. Krakoa’s Quiet Council, however, tells a different story. The effects of Moira’s betrayal have only worsened post-Inferno, with the shaky unity of earlier chapters giving way to countless conflicting agendas. The splintering of Krakoa’s leadership is charted further through Kieron Gillen, Lucas Werneck and Michele Bandini’s Immortal X-Men, which follows each member of the Quiet Council as they try to hold on to their own plans while their nation continues to change around them. It’s clear that some members are more dedicated to the idea of Krakoa than others, but Gillen uses Immortal to go even deeper, hopping across time to explore a plot point that had been seeded in the beginnings of Hickman’s run: a betrayal literal centuries in the making.

(From Immortal X-Men by Kieron Gillen and Lucas Werneck)Through a series of revelations, Gillen takes a number of concepts from Hickman’s tenure and inverts them, retracing Mister Sinister‘s path as he slowly shapes Krakoa’s history to his own terrifying ends:

“In some ways, Sinister is a wonderful dark mirror to Krakoa,” muses Gillen. “The mutant circuits are some of the best stuff…in this era, the idea that there are ritualized ways that mutants help each other, and that’s what Sinister does with the chimera, but it’s utterly unethical. Sinister literally objectifies people. (He) is a colonialist and an exploiter, and…having someone as bad as (him) on the Quiet Council is a reminder of the deal they made to have all of this. What I think the mutant story is about, or superhero stories generally, is a way to dramatize things that feel like something. Sinister is implicit for the original sin of any form of nation-building. There is always something nasty in the room you’ve got to deal with, and in this case, it’s that guy.”

Through Sinister’s corruption of Krakoa, the X-Office are able to definitively move beyond their predecessor’s vision, taking the subtext of previous chapters and elevating it into a battle for the soul of the Mutant Nation. Through connection and collaboration, the species has transcended the systems of hate and fear that kept them down. But does all the good Krakoa gives to its people outweigh the evils its founders have committed? And do the nation’s imperfections render it unfit to continue?

While a common critique of the era was that the “X-Men are bad guys now,” the creators behind the line have a more balanced answer in mind. Just like in the real world, no nation arrives perfect. Progress isn’t something that’s seized all at once, but built up over time, with different generations adding great works of their own.

Jonathan Hickman and his grand plans for Krakoa are gone, but his successors have set a promising new foundation through Destiny of X, highlighting the many stories of the nation’s people and setting the stage for a conflict where they’ll all have a part to play. For a moment the Krakoan empire is thriving, but it’s only a matter of time before its founders’ many sins finally catch up with them.

Sources:https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/x-men-red-al-ewing-interview-marvel-destiny-of-x/

https://www.cbr.com/marvel-gillen-immortal-x-men-interview/

https://ew.com/books/kieron-gillen-teases-the-krakoan-politics-of-immortal-x-men/

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/destiny-of-x-news-drops-today-break-the-internet-si-spurrier/

https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/x-men-red-al-ewing-interview-marvel-destiny-of-x/

https://aiptcomics.com/2022/04/18/x-men-monday-152-al-ewing-x-men-red-1/

https://aiptcomics.com/2022/07/18/x-men-monday-victor-lavalle-sabretooth-2/

https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/x-men-sins-of-sinister-kieron-gillen-interview-marvel/

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The roaring and immediate success of the first season of X-Men: The Animated Series skyrocketed the Fox to the top of the Saturday morning television charts and made the nascent network a serious competitor of ABC, NBC, and CBS in the ratings game for the first time. This triumph naturally meant the pressure was on to maintain excitement for season two. The series writers had to balance the high-quality storytelling that made the first season a smash hit with increased scrutiny from the Fox higher-ups over their precious new property. As related in X-Men: The Art and Making of the Animated Series, the series creators received a mandate from above “that the series could no longer be ‘serialized’: Each episode must stand alone.”

This presented a significant change from the structure of the show’s first season, which threaded connective tissue throughout its thirteen episodes to tell a story of the X-Men’s fight against humanity and the Sentinel program. With the directive against serialization, the writers had to work to find a middle ground that satisfied the bosses without completely sacrificing the comics-style long-form storytelling that set the series apart.

The NarrativeWhere season one plots regularly planted seeds that informed the larger arc, season two’s focus is primarily on expanding the world of the X-Men and fleshing out the backstories of individual team members. Nearly every member of the team – with the notable exceptions of Professor X (off doing Savage Land things) and Jubilee (understandable, given how heavily she was featured in season one) – receives a spotlight episode exploring their life outside the Xavier School. Each of these installments then features a tag at the end progressing the story of Xavier and Magneto trapped in the Savage Land, all of which eventually connect to the two-part episodes that begin and end the season. These episodes are all about season two’s real “Big Bad,” revealed to be Mister Sinister, as was suggested at the end of the season one finale. While the intervening episodes challenge each member of the X-Men individually, it’s Sinister’s obsession with the potential within the genetics of the X-Men in general and Cyclops and Jean Grey in particular that most directly threatens the team as a whole at the front and back ends of the season.

The Key EpisodesThe second part of the opening story, “Till Death Do Us Part, Part 2,” introduces a number of threads that have a substantial impact on the X-Men in their sophomore season. The X-Men are forced to face antagonists on two fronts, first taking on the anti-mutant Friends of Humanity, led by Graydon Creed, before having to rescue the newly-married Cyclops and Jean Grey from Mister Sinister and his Nasty Boys. The latter make their first proper appearance here and are immediately memorable, thanks to the unique powers on display and some very distinctive voice work, most notably by Chris Britton as Sinister. This episode also has some great Evil Morph action as he impersonates Professor X before luring him and Magneto to the Savage Land to kick off the B-plot that runs all season long.

After this two-parter, over half of the remaining episodes are standalone tales diving deeper into the histories of individual team members. The best of these for my money are “Repo Man” and “A Rogue’s Tale,” which focus on Wolverine and Rogue, respectively. There’s an argument that these were the two most fleshed out X-Men in season one, and they get the most engaging stories this time around as well. In Logan’s episode, he is lured back to Canada by Department H and we are treated to an appearance by Alpha Flight and a nicely distilled version of Wolverine’s Weapon X origins. Rogue, meanwhile, is forced to confront repressed memories of her time with Mystique and the Brotherhood of Mutants, which included a mission during which she permanently absorbed Ms. Marvel’s powers – and a portion of her psyche – and put the hero in a coma. Both episodes do a great job connecting this version of the X-Men to the Marvel Universe at large, and pretty accurately adapt key elements of both characters’ origins.

“Mojovision,” the season’s 11th episode, offers something completely different in tone from anything the series has done to this point. The bouncy score gives this episode a playfulness befitting of this lighter take on interdimensional content creator Mojo, and the animators are clearly having a great time paying homage to ‘80s TV as the X-Men are put through the paces to boost Mojo’s ratings.

It all comes to a head in the season two finale, “Reunion, Part 2,” which reveals the identity of the mastermind controlling the Savage Land (duh, it’s Mr. Sinister). With the combined might of the Nasty Boys and the Savage Land Mutates, Sinister is able to capture all of the X-Men and spends plenty of time vamping and pontificating about his plan to mix all of their genes to create an army of super-mutants. Classic Sinister stuff! Throw all of the wildest elements of the Savage Land into the pot – Ka-Zar, Zabu, and Sauron all make significant appearances – and this finale serves as a great payoff for expanding the X-Men’s world all season.

Standout MomentsWolverine copes in the Danger Room: X-Men: The Animated Series Wolverine loves nothing more than to pine after Jean Grey. He’s a lonely, pained man whose prized possessions include a framed photo of his love (and uh, her boyfriend), which he likes to caress when he’s feeling down. So it should come as no surprise that Logan does not take Scott and Jean’s wedding – which opens season two – very well at all. In fact, his response is to violently decapitate a robotic doppelganger of Cyclops in the Danger Room. My favorite part of this scene is that Wolverine took the time to get into his full wedding tux before deciding to go berserk on the Scott-bot.

Apocalypse looms large: Apocalypse is only featured in the two-part “Time Fugitives” story that serves as an only OK sequel to season one’s “Days of Future Past,” but he nonetheless has an (ahem) outsized presence. After the X-Men discover his plot to infect the Earth’s population with a mutated plague and destroy the virus – though unnamed, this is clearly the show’s version of the Legacy Virus of the comics – Apocalypse rages as he is wont to do. He grows to an enormous height and seemingly kills the mutant heroes (don’t worry, time-traveling Cable undoes it!). It’s a brief moment, but one that hammers home just how much of a threat he poses.

Graydon Creed’s downfall: The mutant-hating Friends of Humanity feature heavily throughout season 2. They are frequently shown committing terrorist acts and working to manipulate events such that mutants take the blame and public opinion turns against homo superior. It’s the grandest form of comeuppance, then, when Wolverine puts two and two together and realizes that the group’s leader, Graydon Creed, is Sabretooth’s son – truly, how many unrelated snarling men named Creed could there be in this world? In front of Graydon’s followers, Wolverine projects a hologram of Victor in front of his son and, his mutant lineage exposed to his followers, Graydon breaks down into hysterics.

Wolverine & Ka-Zar ride a pterodactyl: Thanks to his new buddy, Ka-Zar, Wolverine learns pretty quickly that there is no better way to get around the Savage Land than on the back of a pterodactyl. The two wild men storming Magneto’s old citadel on a flying dinosaur is a sight to make any X-Men fan smile. It’s a testament to the show’s writers’ love for the comics that they dove head first into some of the strangest corners of the X-Men and Marvel universe in season two.

Standout CharactersThere are guest stars aplenty from the wider X-Men and Marvel worlds in season two, and a lot of them have quite memorable appearances. Mr. Sinister is an obvious pick here given his status as the season’s overarching villain, and he makes an outsized impression. He is quite the menacing figure, with the distorted quality of his voice, his design – which includes sharp teeth that are not seen in the comics – and the cadre of minions he has collected to torment the X-Men.

As I’ve mentioned, season two adds some truly out-there characters to the animated series’ world, so Sinister is by no means the only guest star that deserves a highlight here. Mojo appears in only one episode, but his corner of the multiverse is unique among the rest of the conflicts the X-Men deal with. What drives him – the never ending quest for higher ratings – makes him unpredictable and a standout among the mutants’ other more terrestrial foes.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t call out some of the characters who stand out mostly because of the, shall we say, insane choices made in their vocal performances. Let’s start with two of the Savage Land Mutates, Amphibius and Brainchild. Amphibius – who is exactly what you would expect him to be, a bipedal frog man – speaks with the dulcet tones of a coffee grinder at the bottom of the ocean. It is a truly horrible sound. Brainchild’s voice, meanwhile, hits a pitch fit to shatter glass, making him somehow more annoying than Nasty Boy Ruckus, whose power is to literally scream. Alpha Flight’s Puck takes the cake for silliest voice on the heroes’ side, as he manages to sound less intimidating than he looks by a factor of ten.

Comic Book InspirationWhile some classic elements of X-Men history make their way on screen – I’m thinking mostly of the pretty faithful telling of Rogue’s backstory from Avengers Annual #10 and Storm’s history with the Shadow King – season two pulls an impressive amount of inspiration from storylines and characters that had only recently debuted in X-Men comics at the time of production; so if you ask me, the best era to turn to if you’re looking for some context on this season is the X-Men comics from the early ‘90s. The big bad of the season, Mister Sinister, reemerged leading/babysitting the Nasty Boys in 1991’s X-Factor #75 by Peter David, less than two years before season two premiered, after a three-year Inferno-related absence. Omega Red, villain of the Wolverine and Colossus-centric episode, “Red Dawn,” similarly appeared for the first time in late 1991 in John Byrne and Jim Lee’s X-Men #4.

These aren’t even the most recent of the new incarnations that populate season two, and with the decades of comics history available, it’s a testament to the X-Men’s soaring popularity at the time that the writers drew so heavily from contemporary stories in their adaptation. Graydon Creed makes his first comics appearance in Uncanny X-Men #299, by writer Scott Lobdell with art by Brandon Peterson, which hit spinner racks in April 1993, a mere six months before the second season premiere. And the X-Ternal worshiped by the Assassins and Thieves – or as Gambit would say, Teeves – Guilds of Gambit’s past doesn’t debut until October 1993’s Gambit #1, by Howard Mackie and artist Lee Weeks. The character was so new in fact that the series’ artists had no design from Marvel for the character that would eventually become Candra the X-Ternal, so the ethereal being that appears in “X-Ternally Yours” is, per Eric and Julia Lewald, “the only completely original model…designed for the show.” Quite frankly, though, it might have been wise to look elsewhere for a Gambit-centric story, as the X-Ternal is ill-defined as a character, which helps to make “X-Ternally Yours” easily one of the weakest episodes of the season.

In “Time Fugitives,” a two-parter with no direct equivalent in the comics as far as I can tell, Bishop and Cable independently travel back to the ‘90s to fix their respective presents. This is an ambitious story – the first episode is told from Bishop’s perspective, while Cable is the point-of-view character of the second – and thus a lot of credit should be given to the writers for trying something bold. But “Time Fugitives” tries to do a lot, and I think it fails to excel at any single one of them. Not only does this serve as a sequel to the excellent “Days of Future Past” episodes from season one. Not only does it pull in the ongoing Graydon Creed/Friends of Humanity conflict and introduce the show’s version of the Legacy Virus – which had been recently introduced in X-Force. It also recontextualizes its adaptation of Cable – who was featured fairly prominently in the first season as a generic soldier with ties to Genosha – to align better with his characterization in Cable comics of 1993 as a freedom fighter from the future battling against the forces of Apocalypse. There is a lot of fun stuff in these two episodes, and again, the ambition is commendable, but the story told fails to equal the sum of its parts.

Final ThoughtsOverall, season two feels like a natural progression for X-Men: The Animated Series. With so many characters to juggle, it was important for the series to find time to spotlight each X-Man. The season effectively builds out the team members’ backstories and adds depth to what are already visually engaging and interesting characters. The fact that it does so using largely contemporary early-’90s source material means the show thoroughly captures the tone and aesthetic of the X-Men at the time. This focus on character combined with the show’s willingness to dive head first into some of the strangest, most out-there aspects of the X-Men’s universe makes for a truly enjoyable sophomore year.

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“The Apostate”

Credits: Si Spurrier writes; Andrea Di Vito draws; Jim Charalampidis colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Jesus Aburtov

Veteran Marvel artist Andrea Di Vito blows us away this issue with his best work to date. Readers may be familiar with his stint on Larry Hama’s five-issue Wolverine: Patch mini last year, where his bold linework and dynamic figurework were on full display, as well—but here, he gets to fully flex his fantasy/sci-fi stylings thanks to Si Spurrier’s wildly imaginative scripting for our first foray into the far future of “Sins of Sinister.”

SPOILERS AHOY!

Of course, 100 years into the Sinister-infected Earth isn’t as unimaginable as a millennium hence, which we’ll get with the third issues of our three minis—but a horrific alien apocalypse has already come and gone from our dear dead homeworld, and we are fully into Sinister mutant terror in space. At first, I thought it odd that our first foray into the 100-year-plus chapter would be Spurrier’s heavily magic-themed book, but now it makes perfect sense: In issue #2, we finally get to see what sort of super-powered malevolence Mother Righteous is easily capable of; it’s clear that she is going to prove a formidable antagonist not just to the other Sinisters but whatever remains of the resistance. And while a lone wolf for the time being, Wagnerine (a chimera of Nightcrawler and Wolverine, of course) finds herself by issue’s end as one of Mother’s enemies. Her many decades of service in the role a morally neutral magical artifact pirate and thief, plus the anguish of her experience as a grieving mother in the final pages, provide so much ground for future character work—and so far, she deserves to emerge from this event as the breakout new character (especially when you consider the lack of real distinctiveness we as readers are expected to be satisfied with when it comes to Marvel pushing for those they want to be the next breakout). It would be fascinating to see her escape this reality and return to the current 616 to see her interact with both Nightcrawler and her longtime comrade Banshee, to say nothing of her existential war against her tormentor.

Note also that Wagnerine’s baby daddy is Summernight, meaning that through the blessed Nightgene, Wolverine and Cyclops have now canonically had a child! Also, like Sinister stealing baby Nathan, Righteous has likewise abducted yet another Summers baby! She’s not so different, after all.

As for Summernight’s fate here, there’s much going on that isn’t yet spelled out, but while it appears that those Nightkin who don’t die in the field eventually fall back under the sway of their original Sinisterization, and Mother Righteous has constructed a rite of passage for euthanizing each chimera at this point: They teleport into the impenetrable face of Sinister’s stolen lab at the Worldfarm. Over the decades, we see that thousands of skeletons have amassed in close orbit around that black sphere.

The bones of true believers are nothing if not holy, right? Think of what Mother is building that might need a great deal of belief built up around it for it to work. We’ll return to this below.

Of course, while Wagnerine has a much clearer backstory than another alt-future chimera that X fans have been clamoring for more of since Rasputin IV’s few and only appearances in 2019’s Powers of X, we might expect that the event’s next installment, Immoral X-Men #2, will steal some of Spurrier’s thunder. Regardless, Spurrier has done an amazing job introducing and building up a new character, and Wagnerine will deserve just as much clamoring as Rasputin IV (it’s not clear yet how she could be the same chimera we’re familiar with). I can only hope Wagnerine will reappear before the event’s penultimate chapter, which will be the next and last issue of this mini, as well. Despite her ridiculous name, she deserves to be more than a tragic figure of rage and loss that doesn’t break out of her home timeline, a reality we will inevitably leave behind very quickly once the event is over. At the least, every villain needs their archnemesis, and Mother Righteous has hers right here.

Still, Nightcrawlers #2 makes this dystopian future AU as memorable as possible, from the mystic angle, especially. While I wasn’t completely sold on the notion that an artifact hunt would amount to all that much in this heavily science fictional reality, Spurrier and Di Vito really do sell the equal importance here of Marvel’s mystical elements, alongside the cosmic. For of course, would-be universe conquerors must be equally prepared to take on the Shi’ar and Otherworld—and we see both dealt with this issue, albeit briefly but brutally and beautifully (in terms of diabolically creative ingenuity).

We also get a one-page flashback telling us what happened with Legion sometime in the past: Something of a god now, or close enough, he raptured into a kind of noetic transcendence, definitively turning down the paltry offer of a transparently mercenary alliance from Mother Righteous. Who knows how many mutants David saved, sheltered inside the Altar in his mind, at the edge of astral infinity. Perhaps we will see this omega mutant gone singularity once more, when it comes time to topple the Dominion of the most dangerous Sinister left standing (inside a pod, perhaps)!

But Nightcrawler’s Krakoan home, the Narthex, is still around, now as the prow of a grand starship, where the Nightkin and Mother Righteous have made their space-faring home, apparently safe from space wars.

(The Narthex name refers not just to the entrance to an ancient church, but to the symbolic use it was put to in such a church: Tellingly, it was the closest some penitents were allowed to get to the church’s sanctuary, which is to say the furthest point. In other words, Kurt wasn’t merely devout in naming his home, but painfully self-deprecating, unsurprisingly. No wonder this trait remains dominant among his descendants.)

The present action of the story, though, is Asgard’s fall to Sinister Magik and her bizarre forces, above all the Frost Giants, which appear to be chimeras of Jotunheim’s traditional denizens amalgamated with Iceman, Colossus and possibly Emma Frost. But a Thor in absolute despair just calls them “Fimbulwinter,” the winter to end all winters, as prelude to Ragnarok. In Sins of Sinister #1, Magik’s Muspel sword sundered Asgard from Midgard. Ninety years later, she returns with some of the wildest chimeras yet seen, with recognizable elements from Sabretooth, Archangel, Chamber, Cyclops/Eye-Boy, possibly Omega Red and who knows what else (Abyss of AOA?).

And the grimly beautiful cover does not lie: The stars are villains stealing an old man’s hammer! But they’re not really villainous; the Nightkin operate under Mother’s orders without rancor or even passion. Yet they’re not quite satisfied with just being her tools. Their ambivalent potential here makes them interesting. For decades, they’ve been stealthily making off with mystical artifacts from already dying venues, civilizations beyond Earth, their doom sealed as soon as they become active targets of the Quiet Council. They’ve been “Dancing between the raindrops of war,” as Wagnerine poetically describes in her narration. Sometimes, they announce their intention before the Sinister invasion has begun (Otherworld); others, the end is already actively at hand (the Shi’ar, Asgard, Xandar). All this booty will go into some crucible out of which Mother Righteous will somehow forge her so-called Reliquary Perilous, which I’m sure we’ll see next time. She seems to magically smelt these objects down between her bare hands.

(The cover does lie, however, in that none among the Nightkin is worthy of lifting Mjolnir. Within, we see that they made off with the hammer courtesy of a Lost/Nightcrawler chimera, able to use her gravity powers to walk off with it. Also note the silly airburst Heirburst Bomb pun—three powerful heirs in one, with Legion-style big hair, no less.)

To achieve this end, Mother has forged her Nightkin minions—whose numbers Vox Ignis has grown throughout the decades since Nightcrawlers #1, by repeating the mystical ambush we saw them perform there, releasing the Quiet Council’s Nightcrawler-themed chimeras from Sinister Red Diamond control. Amazingly, their creator appears to have been making so many of them that he only recently noticed that they were escaping his control; of course, much has already slipped his grasp. While 90 years on, Wagnerine is still very much in her prime, given her healing factor, the only one remaining from her cohort appears to be Auntie Fortune (perhaps given Domino’s luck?), and with Mother Righteous faking the death of Wagnerine’s baby, she seems to making quite a gamble given all the other chimeras’ infertility. She must be getting close to finishing her Reliquary, which we can assume requires faith to become operational. Knowing it would take decades, though, she cynically manipulated her minions’ deep religious sensibility, engineering narrowly cultic beliefs that will likely backfire on her. Instead of the three laws of Krakoa, she’s concocted a perverse send-up as the foundation of her sway over the chimeric clones of Nightcrawler; this is the “heist liturgy,” the “countdown credo:”

1. Blessed Be the Nightgene.

2. Blessed Be the Reliquary Perilous.

3. Blessed Be The Spark.

Mother’s further insults to Kurt that we see this issue are her possession of the Hope Sword his adoptive mother pulled from his chest (in Legion of X #10) and her, well, murdering the sad monster that he had long ago become.

Again, this isn’t just ornamental world-building. Mother needs others’ faith in her for her agenda to work. With the blessed Nightgene bones crowding around Sinister’s lab and Wagnerine’s stolen baby who we see full of the Spark’s light, she must be getting close to making her Perilous Reliquary operational…

Or maybe it’ll take another 900 years?

Wagnerine turning “apostate” and escaping the Narthex will prove the biggest detriment to Mother’s plans, and again, if Mother escapes this future, I hope the apostate outlasts this event as well.

In the Council’s destruction of worlds, Spurrier takes the cake so far for most inventive one-off uses of chimeric monstrosities. This is the wonderful thing about AUs (alternate universes)—the only limits to imaginative destruction are whatever can destroy such a universe; this sandbox can burn to ash. But hopefully, a few refugees make it Earth-616; at least Wagnerine! Maybe the unlikeliness of this happening makes it that much more compelling.

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Marauders #1-5Credits: Steve Orlando writes; Eleonora Carlini draws #1-4, Andrea Broccardo on issue #5; Matt Milla colors; Ariana Maher letters; covers by Kael Ngu

By turns poignant and silly, rousing and baffling, Steve Orlando’s Marauders is, regardless of your stance, chock-full of fascinating pulls from and allusions to Silver and Bronze Age X-Men comics—and of course, the greatest era of all, the x-treme ’90s. Steve is trying to do a lot with this title, cramming in all he can as if he might not get to keep it for more than a year; and these days, who knows. He’s in the big leagues now and making a name for himself at Marvel, the chance of a lifetime. So, he’s got to make his mark quick, and do it splashy, garish and even ghoulish—because that’s what we remember, plus his distinctive surname that keeps popping up on covers across the MU. Nowadays, even seasoned vets aren’t guaranteed more than half a year on any given title, so Steve’s frenetic penchant for everything and the kitchen sink makes sense—indeed, it’s strategic.

Really, who can say—We might be witnessing the stewing up of the primordial soup of the Orlando-verse, just as there was the Hickman-verse of the 2010s and now the Ewing-verse coming to fruition in the 2020s. Will the 2030s be Steve Orlando’s?

Again, who knows—but Steve is clearly having a lot of fun giving fans old and new endless Easter egg hunts, and all this mulching could one day become a lush wild garden from which to pick many a season’s harvest. And whether or not he is one of those future gardeners (Elder of the MU or not), he’s still bequeathing those creators much to chew on if time is taken to unpack his compressed ideas and oddball character beats.

That said, I’m betting that the Shi’ar elements, particularly Xandra, will be more fully folded into the story of Krakoa later this year with the “Fall of X.”

So, let’s look at some of what he’s been drawing from and see if we can suss out where it all might be going… starting with Marauders #1-4. At the very least, you’ll discover or rediscover some fun comics, however classic or pure rubbish or both, along the way.

The question for Orlando is what he might do with all this mulch, when a majority of these obscure pulls get more focus instead of feeling like tossed off moments that have the feel of gratuitous referentiality.

That said, the first arc does open with such a moment that is definitely saved by the poignancy of its pathos…

Marauders vol 2 #1-5: “Extinction Agenda”The second volume of Marauders opens with the new team rescuing the obscure mutant Fever Pitch who debuted as a teen member of the Dark Beast’s Gene Nation in 1999’s Generation X #50 by Jay Faerber and Terry Dodson. With only twenty appearances since, he’s certainly an obscure Orlando ’90s pull. Seemingly killed by X-Man in his second appearance, he next popped up in Joe Casey’s brief Uncanny run (#402-406, 2002) where powerful illusionist Lady Mastermind Martinique Wyngarde had mind-controlled several thuggish mutants into serving X-Corps, Banshee’s fascist mutant police force in Europe, with Sean the one brutally controlling Mastermind himself; once she found her moment, her enthralled minions rampaged through the streets of Paris to undermine mutantkind’s public image. This walking man on fire with no face must have been a favorite of mid-2000s writer David Hine, for he had him keep his powers after M-Day, and he was a supporting cast member of Hine’s X-Men: 198 and Civil War: X-Men minis. Grisly fate sealed as the 2000s got grimmer, he was abducted by human terrorists the Sapient League, injected with the Legacy Virus and dropped off in Wyoming where his powers went haywire, and he exploded, killing hundreds of innocents including himself. However, he apparently did survive, albeit as electromagnetic energy—a science fantasy specter.

Another Hine pull we see is Gregor Smerdyakov, pulled from 2004’s District X, wherein he gradually evolved into a sentient tree, per his X gene activation, and bearing a “boost fruit” activating or enhancing mutant powers. He’s never even had another mention until Orlando’s Marauders—Smerdyakov fans everywhere are, of course, beside themselves with ecstatic surprise and a confidence-boosting sense of geekdom recognition. Best of all, their guy now gets to be a vital team player.

Now, anyone who read Grant Morrison’s fan-favorite New X-Men run from the early 2000s remembers Cassandra Nova, who debuted in the run’s first issue, #114, which was followed by her genocide via Sentinels of 16 million mutants on Genosha. A few writers have indirectly attempted to use her again, but really she was trapped inside the shapeshifty Shi’ar bio-computer named Stuff (since New X-Men #126) until she wasn’t—many years later in Tom Taylor’s X-Men: Red, where she tried for a terrorist comeback, only to be bested by the recently resurrected Jean Grey. Morrison had originally intended for her to undergo reform within the bio-computer, but that plot thread was left dangling; Taylor got her there otherwise, but the end result was the same: Cassandra Nova’s repentance seemed genuine, and now Orlando is going to develop this further, while reminding us that this wicked spirit twin of Charles Xavier remains wickedly unpredictable and terrifyingly powerful but now on the side of mutantkind.

And she did in fact conquer the Shi’ar empire (while possessing her dear brother’s body) in New X-Men #122-126—all off-panel too!

Bishop mentions his erstwhile paramilitary outfit, the XSE, from his native dystopian alternate future; teammates and friends Randall and Malcolm who arrived with him in the present day of 1991’s Uncanny #282 by Whilce Portacio and John Byrne were soon killed while hunting their quarry Trevor Fitzroy. Bishop’s memories are haunted by these two, as we’ll see in “Judgment Day” tie-in issue #6.

Orlando indirectly references Bishop’s character assassination during the late 2000s, when he turned evil and hunted Cable and baby Hope across myriad dystopian futures, believing only Hope’s death would prevent his own broken future. It was not a good look, and Marvel has since pretended it never happened. Since Marauders #1, there have been a few superficial acknowledgments of that dark period, but it’s probably best if we all just forget about it—it was insanely out of character.

The following is a little Easter egg from the first issue’s second data page, a recorded conversation between Mr. Sinister and Doctors Cecilia Reyes (who debuted in 1997’s X-Men #65 but is sadly underserved currently, on the page, despite being critical to Krakoa’s Healing Gardens) and Nemesis:

Nemesis was indeed originally known as Doctor Death during 1993’s Invaders vol 2 #1-4 by Roy Thomas. But when he next appeared, in Matt Fraction’s late 2000s Uncanny run, it was under his current alias (starting with issue #504); he’s played a supporting role ever since, although after Si Spurrier’s 2014 X-Force (vol 4), his presence faded until 2019. While Fraction gave him a somewhat deeper backstory (born 1906), in Thomas’ original conception James Bradley was portrayed as a domestic US agent for the Nazis, persuaded to join the Reich by how much he felt his heroic genius undervalued by his own government; indeed, his Battle-Axis team he composed of other disillusioned superheroes. Pretty weird, huh? Now, they don’t seem to have been depicted as antisemitic or even racist—they simply wanted the US to withdraw and become isolationist. Of course, in the real world, ideological isolationism is never so cartoonishly simple. However, as soon as he showed up in the Fraction era, readers were assured he’d long been making good by establishing himself, under the Nemesis name, as a fearsome Nazi hunter.

But why this background? Probably, it was Fraction being the deep Marvel head that he is, and knowing that Roy Thomas had wanted to use the Golden Age Doctor Nemesis from the short-lived Timely Comics (from whose ashes Marvel later emerged)—though editorial had kept him from using this heroic figure for Nazi employ. In other words, Fraction’s intention was to rehabilitate this character absolutely no one else cared about and made him a mutant genius to boot! Like I said, strange.

That’s what we love about Marvel, though, right?!

Whereas Oracle has been around since 1977’s X-Men #107, which first introduced the Imperial Guard, and was forced to serve the usurping Emperor Vulcan (Gabriel Summers), like fellow Guardsmen (as seen in the 2007/2009 minis X-Men: Emperor Vulcan and X-Men: Kingbreaker), the quite short-lived Delphos is rather obscure. Her first and only appearances were 2000’s Inhumans #3-4 by Rafael Marin and Jose Ladronn followed by Tini Howard’s Secret X-Men #1. This obscurity makes her ideal as a sleeper agent for Orlando’s retcon of an ancient Shi’ar sect that views its authority as superseding the Imperial Majestrix or Majestor (indeed, preceding the Empire’s existence), “when the Shi’ar were little more than galactic raiders”—as shown later in Marauders #4.

The Stygian mutiny, which Delphos mentions dismissively, was sparked on a Shi’ar colony world (homeworld of the Stygians) by the empire’s disastrous financial policies, as seen in Hickman’s X-Men #17. Having Storm save Empress Xandra’s life and symbolically defend a rapacious empire was an odd choice, especially because the clash of values between these intergalactic allies has never been adequately addressed.

The first Shi’ar to appear in comics, in X-Men #97, the oddly named Eric the Red always felt like he was meant to be someone else—at least as a double agent inside S.H.I.E.L.D. or the US armed forces, spying or who knows what at Emperor D’Ken’s behest. But we never see him in any other guise than the future-retro leather-and-steel kink that actually feels just a bit more family-friendly on the closing page of Marauders #1. As far as we know, his strength, hypnosis, and blastin’ powers come from his techno-barbarian armor, so he’s gotten an upgrade here. His new outfit comes with more super-science tech and flamboyance. Snazzy.

For the more numerous and obscure but titillating callbacks and creative remixing in Marauders #2-3, I recommend seeing my earlier review of these issues, where you’ll find all the relevant annotations laid out And if you want more on Eric the Red’s history since the Claremont days, including his Crystal Claws, which is referenced in Marauders #4, see my first-issue review.

In Marauders #4, we have a wildly obscure reference to Lupak gland, an extra-dimensional organ that’s home to the soul of each Lupak (the sort of Wolverine-ish aliens debuting in the classic X-Men #107, 1977, in the person of Fang, along with the rest of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard). The strange notion of this gland was introduced much later, in Charles Soule’s Wolverines (2014-2015), but in Orlando’s Marauders, we see that the Kin keep the gland of their living Chronicle, a grimly happily imprisoned Lupak, in physical space, which is odd since this allows Akihiro to easily destroy it—and thus the Kin’s Chronicle historical record. That seems like a lapse in security protocols on their part.

Presumably just for fun, Claremont and Cockrum in the classic X-Men #107 did have Wolverine steal and wear Fang’s costume after his own is ruined. In Marauders #5, another Lupak offers it and the moniker to Akihiro, who did tussle with the Fang of the mid-2010s in Wolverines. Honestly, this feels silly, and it’s hard to imagine this sticking, even if we move on from “Daken.”

Oddly, the very obscure Elder of the Universe the Obliterator is shown in Marauders #4 to be a hired thug, albeit with doomsday weapons (which won’t prove sufficient against the Thresholders), of the Shi’ar of yore. Maht Pacle debuted in 1987’s Silver Surfer vol 3 #4 by Steve Englehart; he’s the sole survivor of his kind after he wiped them all out himself, but his immortal Elder status made him an Overman over and above his fellow mortals. He’d been missing from publication for almost a quarter century until briefly in 2016 with Al Ewing’s Contest of Champions, but just a couple months ago, superb artist Patrick Zircher used him in his Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic arc, aptly titled “The Doomsday Man.”

The Avalon station went down in flames when “Age of Apocalypse” son of Apocalypse Nemesis (née Holocaust) randomly attacked after getting the boot from his destroyed home reality. His battle with Acolyte leader Exodus hastened the station’s destruction. See 1995’s X-Men #42-43 by Fabian Nicieza. And that is a pretty random place for a time-frozen Threshold refugee pod to pop up from the primeval past!

Years later in publication time, his unfortunate name was retconned to Nemesis, and he found himself booted from the AoA reality to the 616 without the AoA crystal containment suit allowing him to maintain his form; in his next 616 appearance, in X-Force #49, Sebastian Shaw hired him to capture X-Force (which he did, quite easily) in exchange for a new suit of armor—the one we see in Marauders #4-5. Now, clearly, Orlando or editorial just wanted readers to recognize everyone in this time-jump to Avalon to appear instantly recognizable (even the Acolytes did not appear then in their trademark costumes, and three of four of them weren’t in X-Men #42-43). Maybe the Marauders’ time-traveling caused everyone’s memories of this past event to change, or… Really, who cares? The basics are still more or less consistent.

The adolescent Shi’ar Warbird is from Jason Aaron’s Wolverine & The X-Men (2011-2014) but since then, she’s never really made much of an appearance. Her childhood backstory in slavery and sexual exploitation is rather troubling material to work with, however removed exoticized in the context of far-off space opera, which certainly doesn’t make it any less problematic—but perhaps she’ll get a new lease on comics notoriety with something a bit more interesting to offer now, since Cassandra, after being bonded with and healed by Zzxz, the mutant symbiote previously enslaved to the Kin Crimson (see the issue #1 review link above), passes it on, clearly in agreement with the symbiote’s apparent wishes, to Warbird’s martial use.

Somnus in Marauders #5 says Aussie-martial artist Red Lotus (from early in Claremont’s X-Treme X-Men) taught him martial arts in a night, via Somnus’ his oneiromantic time dilation. He’s later seen sleeping with Imperial Guard Neutron, clearly a new recruit after the previous one’s death in Ewing’s S.W.O.R.D. #9 (he’s from Stygia, which planetary culture we briefly touched on above).

Lastly for now, at the very end of Marauders #5, an alternate version of the 2099 universe mutant Cerebra shows up, newly resurrected on Krakoa (as we find out in issue #6), where she died upon arrival from 2099, carried into the past by a medium-young () Cable (whom we don’t get to see here; sigh)—except, you can totally see him and Cerebra’s first appearance, where she is indeed mortally wounded by a Sentinel, in Orlando’s recent Spider-Man 2099: Exodus #5, penultimate issue of his “Spider-Man 2099” event.

The Cerebra from the original early ’90s 2099 universe debuted as a member of the future-dystopia X-Men in 1993’s X-Men 2099 #1, and a couple years later she founded X-Nation, which was actually a small group of mutants who were allowed to live in a city-state ruled by the Doom of 2099.

Both Orlando’s Earth-2099 Cerebra and the original Earth-928 version from the ’90s have the ability to detect the presence of other mutants telepathically (X-factor detection); however, the “original” could also manipulate others’ (autonomic) nervous systems while the one we get in Marauders can record DNA and minds—just like the Cerebro helmets (since the Krakoa-era retcon revealed that’s what they’ve been doing for many years now, thanks in large part to Forge).

But why two separate 2099 realities? Simple: The original got pretty dated (And it didn’t evolve over time since that universe didn’t enjoy any new stories beyond the ’90s)! Credit for the new 2099 belongs to creators Nick Spencer and Viktor Bogdanovic (typically a DC artist), with 2019’s 2099 Alpha #1, which kicked off a brief, two-month mini-event that was unfortunately rather forgettable. Overall, Orlando’s crack at this venue suffered from a similar flaw: Too broad a canvas in too short a window. That is, of course, simply the way the game must be played nowadays, if you want to revive a whole slate of neglected material. It probably didn’t convince many of an urgent need or interest for a revisit any time soon, but at least it’s updated for the 2020s now—though if neglected again for too long, we’ll need another update in 30 years. After that, this separate timestream will be on a swift approach for its vanishing point in the real-world 2099!

NEXT: A quick continuity therapy dive followed by a deep time quest against microbial tyranny—Marauders #6-10!

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“The Bond Age” (with the dad puns, Kieron?!)

Credits: Kieron Gillen; writes; Paco Medina draws; Walden Wong and Victor Olazaba ink; Jay David Ramos and Chris Sotomayor colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Gho

Immoral X-Men #1 (of 3) is another excellent set-up chapter for “Sins of Sinister”—though to my surprise, it’s not as immediately strong, for me, as the previous two entries, Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1, the sublime follow-up, from Storm’s perspective, to the opening Sins of Sinister one-shot, and Nightcrawlers #1, which introduced the surprisingly affecting Nightkin and threaded in an intriguing occult magic element to a future dystopian venue that typically goes all in with the post-cyberpunk sensibility without the leavening that fantasy tropes lend to the everyday Marvel Universe; indeed, magic is a kind of x-factor for this sort of event, which we’ll see play out throughout the Nightcrawlers mini. In any case, this is Gillen’s second entry, and it really does read like Chapter 2, with Gillen settling into the groove of his new Sinister-ized Council, giving us a wicked character study of the Sinister-twisted Emma.

While every page doesn’t feel essential in the way that the opening oversized one-shot had, this issue does some fine character work, not just with Emma but the Sinister-ized Xavier and of course Sinister himself. This chapter opens with what seems to be the very last remnants of resistance, led by Nick Fury, Jr., preparing for a bold assault—that immediately turns out to be their death courtesy of Xavier’s telepathy, never used so dastardly as here: While the targets are desensitized, they’re sent plummeting to their deaths from the heights of a skyscraper. Obviously, the moment has nothing to do with them and everything to do with poor ol’ Chuck, still partially himself, holding to the dream, but unable to see another way but Sinister’s.

??????????But we’re effectively reminded this issue that these once majestic heroes are not under the sway of Sinister himself but the Sinister virus—and exploring the ramifications of this, increasingly to Sinister’s own dismay, will be the remit of the Immoral X-Men miniseries.

And the way Gillen recasts Emma, under the Sinister thralldom, is boldly unpleasant. Readers who don’t remember Claremont’s original White Queen, or who’ve been happy to forget she ever existed, might be taken aback that their diamond-skinned fave has taken such a (delightfully) nasty heel-turn here. But I think it works; after all, Emma’s character has never been free of cynicism, and she did once gleefully participate in much of the nastiness of the Hellfire Club of her own accord (contra the best forgotten Bollers solo series that gave early 2000s readers a damnably inauthentic account of this complex powerhouse), however much she did come from a place of trauma. Note in this reversion, her condescending view of “the children,” which folds her profound latter-day protectiveness (over her charges and by extension all mutants) back into that deep cynicism of old.

Of course, she’s been taking full advantage of Sinister’s chimera work, hilariously unbeknownst to Sinister himself. There’s a delightful inevitability of character here, but regardless, it’s still a surprise to see Emma regrow her shattered arm from her “Logan patch,” an inspired pun that isn’t too obvious (Her reference to Sinister “disarming” her before is to Gillen’s classic “Everything Is Sinister” arc, Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #1-3, 2011).

(Interestingly, she also doesn’t see Sinister’s chimeras as sentient beings; they’re just “living statues” to her, and indeed, except for the Nightkin over in Nightcrawlers, what we’ve seen in this alt future so far seems like a far cry from those we saw in Powers of X quite different reality. I wonder if we’ll get to explore this contrast, or whether some version of POX’s chimeric Rasputin will emerge out of this new paradigm. Immoral X-Men #1 briefly introduces us to the Nasty Boys, from X-Factor #75, 1992, each amalgamated with Cyclops, a fun callback to a particularly cartoonish, and fun, Sinister creation of the ’90s.)

Also crucial to this miniseries, however, is that the Quiet Council doesn’t know that Sinister still has at least one advantage up his tasselly cape: They’re entirely clueless about his Moira lab, which if they knew about, as he acknowledges to his ill-fated clone (always keeping a one on hand as a sounding board that is wretchedly easy to dispose of)—they’d all want their hands on. So, he is perhaps unintentionally heroic here in withholding the most frightening reality weapon imaginable from a fractious council of Sinisters.

Still, the hilarity of this situation remains fresh and surprising as the consequences of Sinister’s coup d’etat continue to evolve: It is astonishingly dim-witted for a mad scientist to turn everyone he’s surrounded by, most of them much more powerful than himself, into eccentric amalgamations of his own amoral self. Obviously, that’s going to backfire!

Hopefully, the next two issues give us other perspectives on what remains of the far-future Quiet Council.

This issue does give us some tantalizing set up for what the next one is likely to have in store: The data page from Hope clarifies what we’ve already been expecting since Sins of Sinister #1: The expectation that intergalactic imperial superpowers will inevitably gang up on the runaway Sinister-ized Earth, which Sinister of course doesn’t care about, much to the bafflement of his supposed minions, because they don’t know about his reset option. In any case, we should expect to see in Immoral X-Men #2 at least the aftermath of an attempt by a vast alliance of Shi’ar, Kree and Skrull forces to destroy the world Sinister has created, whatever the cost.

[The quietly obvious is, of course, that Sinister will help maintain the status quo for the powerful mutant Sinisters he’s created.]The only real knock against this issue, if I must quibble, is that Paco Medina’s art feels rushed this time. There was a hint of that in Nightcrawlers #1, but it was so minor, it didn’t merit bringing up in review then. And I really enjoy what Medina has to offer, especially in his past work with Al Ewing (U.S.Avengers), so this is actually just a critique of industry work scheduling. I know what three consecutive Medina issues can look like, and this isn’t it—meaning there was a rush to get these books through production. And that seems strange since one would think there would’ve been plenty of time set aside for this fairly self-contained event production-wise. Any artist doing three books in a month is very impressive, but the ideal of course is that they’re given time to make each one a home run.This not being the case by the time we get to Immoral X-Men #1 is attested to by the necessity of not one but two inkers stepping in this issue, when Paco Medina typically inks his own pencils. There’s also credit for an additional colorer, the excellent Sotomayor; still, the extra hands are telling.

I’m quibbling about this now to get it out and not harp on it again when we get to Andrea Di Vito and Alessandro Vitti’s respective third issue in a month (March and April, respectively). In fact, I would rather wait for the best an artist can do than rush them to keep to an industrial schedule. How many fans feel likewise? It’s hard to say. My entry into comics as a small child was as a budding artist taught by my father, (who had once drawn the fashion section of the Chicago Sun-Times when that was a thing artists did). But neither Marvel nor DC is the place for the healthiest long-term schedule for the typical artist (not everyone can be a Mark Bagley).

Yet we can reasonably expect the event’s final issue, Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1, to be a visual knockout, though I’m curious to see how the art duties are going to be split up between the two credits we have for it: Lucas Werneck (who drew the opening chapter, as well as Immortal X-Men) and Paco Medina.

NEXT: Nightcrawlers #2!

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“Voices of Fire”

Credits: Si Spurrier writes; Paco Medina draws; Jay David Ramos colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Jesus Aburtov

Spurrier’s Nightcrawlers mini promises to bring the magic and mysticism to this semi-blockbuster X event (semi because not all the titles are involved)—which is both expected and unexpected, because while we’ve seen the sorcerous Mother Righteous in the pages of Legion of X, and everyone for at least a few months now has correctly assumed she’d unmask as the fourth “suit” of Sinister among the mainline Essex clones, we don’t really know what it means or how exactly it will play out as this mash-up of mad science and sorcery is explored in her full identity and origin. But the time has come… almost.

SPOILERS AHOY!

Like Ewing and Medina’s Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1, Spurrier’s first “Sins of Sinister” entry is much worldbuilding setup and suggestive mystery. I do think the former was more successfully executed; partly that’s just the Ewing magic, but it’s likely also that Spurrier is continuing unresolved story threads from the most recent issues of Legion of X.

But the presence of three of the Sinister “suits” in Nightcrawlers #1 had me thinking about these characters more generally, as well.

One, it’s hilarious that the (“Nightkin”) minions of Mother Righteous immediately offed Doctor Stasis. After all, this event isn’t a Gerry Duggan joint! (Doctor Stasis’ debut was in Duggan’s ongoing X-Men.) But really, I never liked this first intimation of other Sinisters; the revelation of the club tattoo beneath the mask was, to this reader at least, groan-inducing.

And yet I think Orbis Stellaris (the Sinister of spades, or swords—more on Tarot card theory below) is great, but only because Ewing has him ensconced in the still titillating and mysterious cosmic Ewing-verse venue of the Worldfarm, and he clearly has cosmic-sized ambitions toward Dominion.

For her part, Mother Righteous is a fascinating addition because she is Sinister somehow transfigured into astral mistress of magic, a radical shift from the masculine wands (diamonds) and swords (spades) energy of the gendered male Sinisters to the impossible to pin down feminine flow of hearts (cups or rivers; and please understand that none of this gender talk should be taken as biological essentialism). She is indeed strikingly, almost certainly intentionally, similar to the occultic mythic figure of “The Scarlet Woman” praised by notorious occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) and his Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn—which is in all likelihood the referent in Immortal X-Men #8 when the Nathaniel Essex of the 19th century rambles on to Destiny about his visions of the future to come.

In other words, the original Essex also worshiped at the occultic altar of the Scarlet Woman, at least symbolically if not as a socially active occultist—which, who knows! There’s some fun potential for story!

Legion of X #1 was titled “Do What Thou Wilt,” taken from a famous Crowley/Golden Dawn dictum, whose second half is “shall be the whole of the law” (which, hey, has as well a Khonshu connection for Moon Knight heads out there; obviously, pop culture creators have been enamored of Western occultism for a long time). These real-world occult connections are actually how Mother Righteous’ identity was sussed out ahead of time by astute fans—plus, again, the original Essex laying out two telling visions of combating the eventual rise of AI: “the science of the stars” (Orbis Stellaris is a giveaway here) and “science-tamed superstition” (Sinister turned sorceress, i.e., Mother Righteous).

(The other options he foresaw were, respectively, human and mutant stratagems—thus, Sinister focused on mutants and Stasis prefers working with humans, as Duggan has made clear in X-Men, specifically of the Orchis variety nowadays—and this is why Dr. Clubs is out of the running in “Sins of Sinister”: humans have in this future become a dead-end.)

Have we touched on Tarot cards yet? Okay—we’ll return there in a sec!

First, let’s assess what we think of these four Sinisters because it seems like the strength of this event, at least how each reader is going to make that judgment for themself, is going to come down to how compelling they are as nemeses of one another and of the mutants who retain autonomy (which could turn out to number far more than what we see at the event’s opening). For me, I like these figures conceptually but beyond the Sinister we’ve all known and loved since… well, we can just say, Gillen’s classic 2012 story “Everything Is Sinister” (Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #1-3), they don’t hold any interest as fleshed-out characters with compelling personalities. Are their interesting contrasting conceptual angles enough?

Based on the strength of the creators involved—probably yes!

Orbis Stellaris is interesting only because of his ambition to achieve Dominion intelligence status, probably via unconventional means (which options are briefly alluded to in Nightcrawlers #1’s second data page), but obviously what will be most compelling will be how the remaining autonomous Krakoans (including Storm and co., but also possibly Destiny and Mystique) work this to their own advantage. Mother Righteous has potential, but I have no idea yet what use she might make of “the instruments of the gods,” mystic artifacts that include the Siege Perilous, Mjolnir, the Eye of Agamotto, etc. (they’re not even in her possession yet; this will be the mission of her Nightkind—see below). Of course, he of the Red Diamond will continue to play a central role in the Gillen-written material, and that is sufficient to make those pages sing, increasingly with the happy relief of a heaping dose of comedy (Gillen is making the Krakoa Sinister more of a buffoon with every issue, and it is a delight).

Okay—‘nuff speculation. This first Spurrier issue of the event is good, but I’m not feeling it quite as much as the last two, by Gillen and Ewing, respectively. But each of these issues is still in set-up mode, and I’m just happy to be along for the ride right now.

So, what are some noteworthy details and Easter eggs in Nightcrawlers #1?

Ten years on from now, Vox Ignis (the two-in-one entity of Banshee and the Spirit of Variance) are still working for Mother Righteous (whom the Spirit sincerely calls “Mother”). David (Legion) is still in a coma due to his father’s vile (but oh so “well-meaning”) betrayal, via his neural Daedalus device. Kurt (Nightcrawler) is still a drooling monstrosity (as we already saw in Sins of Sinister #1)—but Sinister has become bored with this “pet” and had him removed to Xavier’s original Westchester School (which has long since been converted to Sinister’s main cloning facility) and placed under the care of Doctor Nemesis (who’s just as chained as the sleepy beast).

Oh! And Nemesis still has a giant fun-guy head—from Margali Szardos’ sorcery in Legion of X #9.

[Hilariously, Nightcrawler is apparently fed on a diet of semi-sentient Uedo protein—from the villainous Kenji Uedo (Zero) of Gillen’s 2010/2011 Generation Hope series, if you were wondering when he was going to show up again! This substance seems to be lacking his psi powers.]Margali’s sorcery, specifically her mythomantic spell (which we saw at work throughout Legion of X #7-10, transforming mutants so that they looked like mythic creatures) has still been in effect for ten years, affecting any mutant the Sinister of Krakoa has genetically tampered with—until Mother Righteous figured out how to break it (possibly by ritually killing Margali, which seems strongly visually implied, though the art is ambiguous, and there’s no textual explanation regarding this wordless flashback). Obviously, as far as Sinister’s plans for Krakoan chimeras, this would be a major, decade-long setback! But with that curse removed, he’s recently been able to create from Nightcrawler’s X gene, the “Nightkin.”Just as clearly, Stasis is upset that she’s given the Krakoan Sinister a leg up by breaking the spell, which again, as we saw in LOX #10, Margali had worked out with Orchis. Of course, Mother Righteous’ aim here was self-interest, her method for this sorcerous breakthrough obviously kept dark from Vox Ignis—who is surprised when their “Scream o’ Change” breaks the enthrallment of Sinister’s newly created Nightkin. However, we’ll see by issue’s end the “Sinister Strain” threatens to reassert control of the freed chimeras. Again, we don’t know how Righteous is performing this sorcery as she’s still very much behind the scenes; Vox Ignis and then the freed Nightkin’s role is to be her cat’s-paws and thieves.

Mother Righteous has become quite the thief-master—of orphan thieves, no less! She really is bringing back 19th century London!

The Nightkin aren’t just chimeras connected by way of Nightcrawler’s genetics; somehow, there’s something about Nightcrawler and his quality of hopefulness, the Spark, that they share in. Is it just that they’ve been freed of the “Sinister Strain” or has it been with them since they were hatched on what’s left of Krakoa?

Taking on the MU’s magic angle, Spurrier may have more goodies in store for this event—or not. Seemingly, Doctor Strange (or whoever the current Sorcerer Supreme might be) has fled Earth for Otherworld; at least all the “occult eejits,” as Banshee calls them, have gone that route. At the opening, Vox Ignis is already hunting or scavenging for “items of power,” as part of Mother Righteous’s overall strategy, which otherwise remains unexplained, except her intent, with these gathered relics, to somehow create what she calls the Reliquary Perilous, “a holy weapon” to “purge the Sinister Strain from the heart of eery mutant—with the white-hot fire of faith.”

Speaking of, there’s a callback to Margali’s discovery and theft of the Hopesword from Kurt’s soul in LOX #10, where Margali pairs faith with “fanaticism,” dismissing both in favor of the power of hope (not hers, which is probably nonexistent now, but her foster son’s). In contrast, in Nightcrawlers #1, Mother Righteous denigrates hope’s “shoddy currency” while favoring faith’s potential as a commodity in trade. At first, this sounds vague, but it becomes clear enough that she fetishizes artifacts of mysticism (to what specific end we don’t yet know)—though her sorcerous practices clearly have a kind of black market value, as she intimates when meeting with her fellow Sinister “brothers” (Orbis and Stasis) at the former Summer House on Luna: “Spells…sacrifices…deals.”

Dismissing Mother’s “fuzzy huckster magic” as remotely any kind of threat to his Dominion ambitions, Orbis also tells her that “the sword does not fear the cup,” another arrogant dismissal—based an analogies drawn from the Tarot: In the Tarot’s four suits, Swords are analogous to mind, Cups to heart; a classic duality. (Traditional playing card suits are, in other words, substituted for more esoteric meanings—Wands (spirit/fire) for Diamonds and Pentacles (body/nature/abundance) for Clubs.) And these occult symbolic systems are really showing up throughout the work of not just Spurrier but Ewing (with his Defenders material, as well; and a respectful use of Kabbalah has been prominent for him too), and of course, Tini Howard mapped out and named the “X of Swords” event likewise. Of course, each Tarot suit has many, many, many more fascinating qualities than what those unfamiliar might surmise from just the schema laid out by each of these villainous clones; after all, this tradition has been built and elaborated upon for several centuries now, with a particularly sophisticated symbolic layering occurring during the Enlightenment era and once again during the Decadent/Theosophical 1880s-1900s.

We end with what Righteous must’ve known would be a suicide mission on the part of one of her Nightkin: a recon attempt on the living (genetically Unuscione) force field around Sinister’s stolen Moira lab sequestered within the Worldfarm. Effectively, Spurrier chooses his young teen Spidey-’Crawler chimera, “Wallcrawler,” to ’port to his doom against the field’s unforgiving surface. There’s a strong sense here that this was a deliberate tragedy to foster a deep feeling among the grieving Nightkin of having blood in the game, binding them strongly to Mother Righteous’ quest—whose self-interested nature she hides behind speechifying on the selfishness of those she claims they can’t work with, like Storm.

Only one person here is clearly beginning to doubt her—Vox Ignis; and with the Spirit’s deep bond with her, the likelihood of rebellion from that quarter will be hard-fought.

NEXT: Immoral X-Men #1 by Gillen & Medina!

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Storm & the Brotherhood #1 is an exciting start to the trio of three-issue miniseries that will form the core of the “Sins of Sinister” event. Of course, overall the story here isn’t a radical departure from the prologue, Sins of Sinister #1, which covered a lot of groundwork in its double-size format. Still, it’s beautifully told, and there are surprise twists by the end. Judging from this issue, we can expect the other #1’s will also establish the Year 10+ status quo for this Sinister-dominated future before giving us a twisty cliffhanger leading us to a ninety-year jump—and then skipping on 900 years for the final issues. This is going to be heady stuff.

“Storm’s Seven” (echoes of Ocean’s Eleven)

Credits: Al Ewing writes; Paco Medina draws; Jay David Ramos colors; Ariana Maher letters; design by Tom Muller with Jay Bowen; cover by Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Gho

Impressively, the amazingly talented Paco Medina (regular artist on Al Ewing’s New Avengers, 2014) has drawn each of the mini’s #1’s—so the visuals for Year 10+ will be consistent. This is unique for an event, but already the event’s very structure is highly original, mirroring the timeline format of Hickman’s Powers of X but with a fun-house-mirror twist, for this is a radically different but instantly recognizable future timeline.

One element of instant recognition for you “Age of Apocalypse” fans out there is Sugar Man, whom we already saw in Sins of Sinister #1; Storm & the Brotherhood starts with the same scene, the destruction of Arakko/Mars (by Sinister’s forces), now drawn in Paco Medina’s chic dynamic style, rather than Caselli’s. Recall that this atrocity was five years into the Sinister-dominated future…

Another five years on, so +10 Years from the present Earth-616, Storm and her Brotherhood are off to break into Sinister’s lab beneath Moira’s Muir Island complex, with the aid of Destiny and Mystique… SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW.

Sins of Sinister #1 ended with Sinister realizing someone had stolen his Moira clone lab, and in this issue we find out who pulled it off and how. What’s wonderful about this is that takes the three most prominent fan speculations, which most of us saw as mutually exclusive—but here Ewing neatly ties them all together with an agonizing twist of the knife in Machiavellian treachery.

Destiny and Mystique almost gleefully betray Storm and the Brotherhood after the latter break into and steal the lab for them—and they’re in cahoots with… Orbis Stellaris?!

In Sins of Sinister #1, after Storm fled the Sinister-fied Council (sometime before Arakko’s destruction), Destiny and Mystique approached her with the offer of an alliance—and she allowed herself to be convinced that it wasn’t the time right then for an Arakkii assault against Sinister’s Krakoa. As we find out here, she still marshaled her forces, but Sinister got the jump on her and Arakko; the resulting atrocity saw the loss of Storm’s closest allies (including Sunspot, Nova and the Great Ring), except for Cable, Khora and Wiz Kid; indeed, the Arakkii seem to have been almost completely wiped out—although (multiple?) Ora Serrata apparently slaughtered her own people as a Sinister ally or lackey (it’s just the one panel, so who knows).

So, Storm & the Brotherhood opens some five years later (in a new venue, Asteroid S, hidden in the rubble that was once Arakko) with Storm, looking more regal than ever, questioning Destiny’s motives. After all, the only explanation for Destiny being wrong in her advice is that her predictions are woefully fallible or they’re not at all.

The woman appearing as Destiny, however, keeps mum—until a member of the Brotherhood debuting here for the first time, Jon Ironfire (of the molten metal blood), impales her, revealing Mystique, who of course gets better right quick (But then, this turns out not be Raven, after all! See below).

And now, we find out how Sinister’s Moira farm went missing: Destiny and Mystique’s plan is for Storm and her Brotherhood to bust infiltrate the Muir Island complex, specifically, the secret underground facility Sinister has kept there since the present day (and about which only Destiny and Mystique know). Inside, they’ll destroy the clones and reset the current timeline to Earth-616’s present-day reality (which means saving Arakko too).

With Destiny and Mystique, things do not go according to plan, naturally. They merely let Storm think that she’s gotten to the bottom of their ruse with the reveal of Raven posing as her wife. The reality is far worse, and our heroes suffer for it.

To be clear, Destiny and Mystique are the primary antagonists of this issue, and Destiny heads in particular will be upset how self-centered she comes off here—but it’s entirely unsurprising given her history. However, there is the bigger question of what she’s trying to gain for mutantkind, since she clearly did hew to ideals once upon a time. But who is she now? That’s a question for issue #2.

Once the team has bodyslid to Muir Island, Ironfire does begin questioning Mystique, but oddly enough, Wiz Kid intervenes to derail this voicing of doubt.

Another Brotherhood member unfamiliar to readers is Quick—given name Loolo—who has been seen once before, in X-Men Red #6, where she’s a small child protected by NASA scientist Craig Marshall while Uranos’ forces wreak havoc across Arakko. We see here that she adopted his surname sometime after that.

The interstitial page providing the team roster gives us some titillating info not found elsewhere in the issue: After Arakko’s destruction, Cable “bonded with the collective mind Xilo to become living history.” Fascinating—but again, we don’t know what this means in practice yet. But the old man is definitely looking a bit, um, rooty.

On Muir Island, the team is set upon by a delightfully nasty pack of Sinister chimeras: an amalgamation of Maggot and Marrow—throwin’ bone daggers with maggoty piranha mouths!

The team finds another sort of chimera below ground in Sinister’s lab; a black “living forcefield” surrounding the unseen Moira clone farm, it was created from the genes of Unus the Untouchable (or erstwhile Acolyte Carmella Unuscione, his daughter)—possibly along with samplings of Skids and Armor.

Jon Ironfire has impressive showing here, and apparently he fought in something called the “Genesis War,” which Storm experienced as well—so it’s something that occurred in this alt-future timeline. Hopefully, we’ll find out more about this next time!

That’s right: Apocalypse and Genesis might show up… Or we’ll at least get an alt-future flashback. After all, if they’re still around, why aren’t they in the fight now, too?

Wiz Kid wows everyone by simply teleporting the Moira clone farm elsewhere, forcefield and all, seemingly so that they can penetrate it at their leisure—but it turns out that Takeshi probably died years ago, unknown to all but Destiny and Mystique—who’s taken his place in all that time since—and the Mystique figure nearby is simply a hard-light hologram!

Storm’s Brotherhood is left betrayed and humiliated; Storm herself is at death’s door, likely crippled. And the Moira clones have been whisked away all the way to the far-off World Farm of the Progenitors, that is, Orbis Stellaris’ home base—where Destiny takes tea through her mask while gazing on at scenes from dystopian and mad-science venues beamed in on floating screens.

Her companion, the Sinister of Spades, has his own designs—and they are Dominion…

This is not a double-sized issue, and there’s only the one plot thread, albeit sufficiently complex for now, and it’s actually nice that the dramatic action is clear, complete and coherent. This is unusual for an event comic and a good sign for the issues to come. What’s most exciting, of course, is where all these twists and turns will be taking us—and how the three miniseries narratives braid together by the end. The event’s trajectory remains delightfully unpredictable, and we still have vast tracts of space and time to cross with our faves turned on their heads and made strange by Sinister doings.

NEXT: Nightcrawlers #1 by Si Spurrier and Paco Medina

The post Sins of Sinister, Part 2: Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1—in Review! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Si Spurrier writes; Netho Diaz draws; Sean Parsons and Álvaro López ink; Federico Blee, Java Tartaglia and Ruth Redmond color; Clayton Cowles letters; covers by Ben Harvey

Catching up late with the first arc of Legion of X (#1-5) after not making it past the first issue, I was surprised with how enjoyable the reading experience was—certainly benefiting from reading it all in one go. And now, I’ve found the second mini-epic, a mere four issues (#7-10), a much greater accomplishment, making this title one of the best Big 2 titles of 2022—bearing in mind that it threads deeply into the ongoing Krakoa narrative. That said, what Si Spurrier has done with the Krakoan material, going all the way back to Powers of X (2019) in swiftly but thoroughly developing further the Warlock and Phalanx threads that Hickman left and mining Spurrier’s own more recent material on Legion and his father Xavier’s fraught (non)relationship (and the general vibe of Xavier being the worst kind of jerk), comes together beautifully, effectively and dramatically. I’m not sure of Legion of X’s future, since the only Spurrier/Legion solicit we have post-“Sins of Sinister” is May 3’s X-Men: Before the Fall – Sons of X one-shot, which looks to be the full conclusion of this storyline, with art by Phil Noto.

In fact, it’s unclear when exactly Legion of X #7-10 takes place. Kurt has horns but no further mutations in the “Sins of Sinister” lead-up, Immortal X-Men #9-10 by event architect Kieron Gillen—whose Sins of Sinister #1 features, five years into the Sinister-dominated future, a Nightcrawler fully mutated into animal-like monstrosity. But if this Legion of X arc takes place between the reveal of Sinister’s post-Hope-resurrection possession of the psychics of the Quiet Council and that alt-future dystopia, then how do we get such pathos between Xavier and David in issue #10 here? My guess is, as we saw even at the +10 Year point in the event’s opening one-shot, those who were possessed so early on still mostly exhibit their normal agency and apparent autonomy.

In other words, Sinister probably didn’t see a reason to show his hand on Xavier’s strings too soon and interfere with the father’s interactions with his son, from initial egregious betrayal to joining together in a mutant circuit to save David’s mind and thus the Altar and everyone still in it from the Technarch shark from the Astral Plane.

However, we can assume, unfortunately (given the fact that only three X titles are on pause for this event and just the nature of solicits), that the future of Sinister dominion will reset to a point somewhere in the midst of Kurt’s current travails, as he continues to mutate in a fit of terrifying mythomancy… We know Gillen and Ewing’s titles will continue but what about Spurrier? The Before the Fall – Sons of X one-shot looks like a potential conclusion.

So, irony of ironies, Legion of X, a title I once dismissed may be over just as I realized what I was missing. Then again, it’s best to go out on a high note than stretch a story out just because that’s what fans want. Regardless, what Si Spurrier does next will undoubtedly be very much worth following (he’s grown by leaps and bounds as a writer and storyteller since his Legion-centric X-Men Legacy (volume 2) a decade back)—and this hard to please reader will be happy to follow.

(There could also be some timey-wimey knottedness between Legion of X #10, the Nightcrawlers mini and the Sons of X one-shot; we just don’t know yet. We should expect Mother Righteous to be a throughline, regardless.)

FULL REVIEW: SPOILERS ABOUND

Double Trojan HorsedIf there’s one serious flaw in this story arc, it’s that new artist Netho Diaz does not sell the sublime terror of the technoid angler fish-like Technarchy predator coming for Krakoa and David’s mind (including the Altar). But Spurrier’s storytelling here is strong enough that readers can still feel the distressing weight of this threat, whose coming was effectively foreshadowed early in the arc (along with a hint as to Pauli’s killer in the previous one, occurring as it did on the astral plane, where machine entities appear more organic).

Much more impressively, Spurrier does an excellent job portraying with care and ultimately cathartic pathos a character flaw that is often all too easy to resort to these days, Xavier’s absolute stupidity as both a father and a decent human being: For he dropped his son David into a withering catatonic state with a minuscule device embedded in him as soon as the Professor showed up on his (the Altar’s) doorstep. So, not only is the one person who could fend off this astral attack out of action at the worst possible moment, the betrayal inherent in the debilitating device’s design is heartbreaking:

Issue #10’s interstitial excerpt from Xavier’s diary tells us how this Daedalus device works, and its worst aspect is that its attack state is “triggered by a moment of pride, pleasure or pain.” Now, when Xavier shows up to visit David, his son is clearly taken aback but happy, as if his father wants to see the wonderful home he’s made for himself and so many Krakoans looking to heal themselves and/or relax. It’s David’s moment to feel perhaps for the first time in his life proud, and as they take a tour, he feels the same emotion from this man whose attention he’s always wanted when it could be, very reasonably, on his terms (not seen as an invalid or an unintentional/uncontrolled hazard to others). He’s pleased, perhaps even pained by this belated visit—which, however genuinely felt on Charles’ part, is also primarily a dastardly ruse.

It’s even more heartbreaking that Xavier’s betrayal is preceded by this psychic call from Blindfold, showing Xavier implicitly how much recognition David deserves, especially from the sort of father that the Professor simply isn’t capable of being (while Magneto did very, very briefly fill that role before he died recently).

The tragedy here is effective, and Ben Harvey’s issue #10 cover captures well the textbook tragic nature of it: It’s Xavier’s idiotic hubris, his belief that David was out to get him, to endanger Krakoa, the good Professor’s countless “children,” that leads to the critical endangerment of his entire life’s work in this moment—except, the denouement and temporary resolution is in fact happy enough, as he belatedly realizes his mistake and, uniquely here, acts as a amplifying conduit for David’s vastly diminished powers—a mutant circuit that allows Legion his triumph against both the Technarch and his father’s stupidity in one sublime, heartbreaking instant.

(Notably, Daedalus recalls the gifted inventor of Greek myth whose son Icarus disobeyed his warnings and used one of Daedalus’ inventions to fly too close to the sun. Parallels? Well, the father does blame himself for the fiery tragedy. Perhaps Spurrier is adding a revisionary subtext as well: Xavier wants to force his son to stay grounded, to be kept under control—but this too leads to the father’s humiliated regret.

Painfully tragic as well is the heroic fate of Forget-Me-Not, who in issue #10 proves his incredible worth to us readers if not his friends. His instantly forgotten sacrifice to save Krakoa, albeit at the cost of Warlock, who was already compromised, will certainly haunt Spurrier’s Krakoan tales going forward.)

TechnomancyHowever (and speaking of Greek myth), Xavier isn’t the only one in this story arc to infiltrate a sacred space with a Trojan Horse: Unwittingly, Warlock has come back from the astral plane, where his father was killed (albeit far distant from the Altar, which is a vanishingly small speck in that ethereal realm), carrying Nimrod into the heart of Krakoa—almost literally. After all, Warlock’s techno-organic substance has been integrated with Krakoa’s since Xavier dropped Doug/Warlock off on Krakoa to work on interfacing with the living island way back in that Powers of X flashback (the full revelation of which occurs in Hickman’s Inferno).

Note that Doug feels his soul breaking with the loss of his connection to Warlock, as the latter is sequestered and absorbed by Nimrod, and Kurt suffers a parallel setback when his foster mother makes off with his hope in the shape of (the never-before-seen) Hopesword, “hollowing” him out (more on this below).

Hey, there’s even a parallel between Warlock as a mutant Technarch, his mutancy being greater awareness and the capacity to self-reflect and empathize, and the Spirit of Variance, whose mutation is a similar swerve away from the two-dimensional single-mindedness of his forebears, the Spirits of Vengeance.

[Kurt’s windowless, doorless and thoroughly monadic home gets a name (Narthex) and further description here than before, at the moment of its brutal outside infiltration (by Sentinels via a Nimrod-possessed Warlock) and subsequent near total ruin.]There is a lot to chew on with Legion of X, which is highest praise, even when the art sometimes lets us down. I’ll need more time to think on what Spurrier is doing with father issues here: Xavier is terrible and delusional when it comes to being a father (failing his real son and puffing himself up as the patriarch of all Krakoans), and Warlock never got much from his father (Magus), but he can reflect on that traumatizing tyrant with pity and some degree of sorrow at the news of Magus’ death—and the Phalanx is ultimately their shared progenitor, and their the worst sort of patriarchy, however synthetic and seemingly inhuman.But it’s not just patriarchs who get a bad rap in these issues…

And this is before we even get to Mother Righteous.

Further, beyond the central themes, Spurrier has provided a number of brief memorable moments drawing from past character dynamics, all of which we won’t get to here, but suffice to say, these beats are a sheer delight for longtime X fans. Lastly—anyone notice how Spurrier has subtly deepened our understanding of the Phalanx in their higher-dimensionality? Perhaps this will have some bearing on Nightcrawlers in “Sins of Sinister?” And maybe Mother Righteous is having visions of astral cherry plums for values of Dominion… Do we even need to wonder?

(Oh, and by the way: Did anyone notice Nimrod now has the keys to Krakoa?)

MythomancyOf course, I’ve jumped ahead to issues #9-10, so let’s step back two issues and see where we left off, first, with Kurt bereft of his brief fling with Weaponless Zsen (LOX 1-5)—who left him with a portrait of his true self, which so far has been for Kurt’s eyes only. When issue #7 opens, we’re surprised to find he’s grown horns, so it wouldn’t have been unreasonable at all to think this was something to do with the portrait’s truth-telling (for Zsen’s power is to show the core truth of whomever via their portraiture, literal or psychic/astral). However, by story arc’s end, we discover the provenance of his “demonic” transformation lay with his mother, his adoptive one, that is: Margali Szardos (who debuted in 1980’s X-Men Annual #4).

[The character reactions here are slyly telling, and looking back on this makes me feel sorry for both Nemesis and Pixie, who is certainly outclassed by Margali of the Winding Way.]Yet the devastating reality of Zsen’s portrait of Kurt, kept all this time in his home (the Narthex, which is key to this arc; more below), is strongly hinted at in issue #9—when Forget-Me-Not, before his death that will be forgotten by everyone for a time, sees it and radios back to his mates a couple of salient details: Nightcrawler appears “hollow” and “there’s a sword.” And the very next issue, Margali draws a sword out of her foster son, the never-before-seen Hopesword, thus stealing something crucial of his very essence. So, Margali’s attacks that have turned many mutants into mythic monsters have resulted, at least in Kurt’s case, in transformations that aren’t just random; her distorting magic reveals something about her victim’s inner nature.Undoubtedly, we’ll get more clarification on all this with the Before the Fall – Sons of X one-shot this May. Notably, in line with the making-monsters-of-outcasts theme, Kurt’s team discovers Margali in Ingolstadt, Germany, the Bavarian town where Frankenstein’s monster was created.

But why has she so horrifically attacked her own adopted son? As suggested by the Winding Way data page in issue #10, Margali is not in her right mind because she’s caught up in an esoteric ebb and flow of thaumaturgical power (i.e., sorcery). (We’ll get more into Kurt’s adoptive mother with a review of Sons of X in May, but suffice to say here that much of her post-X-Men Annual #4 story can be found in the last years of the original Excalibur, especially issues #76-77 and #96-103). Regardless, she’s really done a number of Nightcrawler, Nemesis and the whole team (awesome that Spurrier’s new Black Knight joined up, even if she’s barely surviving the experience).

Effectively devastating work this time around, Mr. Spurrier. Kudos. Let’s hope he stays in the X Office for as long as he has story to burn.

(For previous CBH reviews of LOX, we covered the opening arc and the excellent “A.X.E.” tie-in issue.)

NEXT: Nightcrawlers!

The post Legion of X #7-10 in Review—Sins of their Parents! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Ben Percy writes; Robert Gill draws; Guru-eFX colors; Joe Caramagna letters; Josh Cassara and Dean White kill the hell out of the covers, the only thing worthwhile here—all else is zombified compulsion

The last time I could give Mr. Percy’s Krakoan CIA title the benefit of the doubt was probably just before the Percy-helmed pseudo-event X Lives/X Deaths of Wolverine. Since then, both X-Force and Wolverine, but particularly the former and longer-running title, have taken embarrassing nose-dives.

I might check out the nearly finished, five-part “Beast Agenda” over in Wolverine once it’s all up on MU and report back here. But after this mid-game report on X-Force*, that’s it for me—until the true end, when we can all look back and marvel at Percy’s braided-narrative masterpiece, for the shaggiest of shaggy dogs that we already know it to be.

Impressively, it’s Wolverine*’s longest arc so far, consecutively, that is—guess that qualification is necessary! But the Danger and then Kraven debacles were each a waste of four whole issues, so my hopes aren’t up. Of course, “Beast Agenda” will segue into “Weapons of X,” about which Beast dropped a real heavy hint in an issue #31 data page that will titillate only the Percy diehards. These will likely prove to be a single “epic,” for what that’s worth.

So how the heck is it that Mr. Percy, a talented horror turned science-fantasy techno-thriller novelist, has managed to gobble up so much Krakoan real estate (i.e., page space) for so damn long? Sales, dummy! Wolverine and X-Force sell like crap print-job guns given a cheap chrome finish with fake blood splatter. Honestly, I haven’t looked at sales numbers in months now, but anything with “Wolverine” in the title will always be a top seller for Marvel, and the X-Force property is typically solidly (upper) mid-tier sales-wise.

Pretty sweet gigs if you get ’em—sweeter still to hold on to them for a hot minute.

One way of doing that is by coasting. There isn’t a high demand to take real risks and make bold moves when a mediocre job that superficially hides its mediocrity by continually deploying wild ADD-like turns to the cast and plot.

By far the most positive aspects of Percy’s overall Krakoa tenure have been: 1) the rise of artist Josh Cassara on X-Force (culminating with X Lives before he moved on to his current gig with Duggan on X-Men); 2) the return of legend Adam Kubert to Wolverine (it’s just too bad the stories haven’t matched his genius, though of course it’s far from the first time); and 3) the all-too-brief Krakoan tour of another rising star, Federico Vicentini, with X Deaths and Wolverine #24-25 (before moving to Miles Morales: Spider-Man with talented new writer Cody Zigler).

Following X Lives/X Deaths, new talent Robert Gill has become X-Force’s regular artist, and while he gets top marks for consistency, I don’t find his work inspiring or even much engaging. A great story could still shine through, but here, we just see how stripped the story’s inner workings actually are—it all adds up to nothing more than a cheap toy for dour boys. Mr. Percy knows his audience, I guess. I know they are not my people, whoever they are; they’re likely half my age or younger, so why go on with this.

Well, here indeed is the most interesting takeaway:

Mr. Percy as the author of these two titles almost perfectly echoes recent Vita Ayala New Mutants antagonist Amahl Farouk under the thrall of the poisonous Shadow King—or rather his centuries-long memory of being the Shadow King’s puppet. In other words, Percy’s constant cynicism and fatalism regarding Krakoa is akin to someone habitually reacting from a traumatized state. I have no interest in psychoanalysis here, but when Amahl’s fearmongering and that found throughout the pages of X-Force and Wolverine can be paraphrased almost identically, it’s impossible not to take note and wonder why the fictional character is sent packing for long-term therapy and the one-note writerly persona* Mr. Percy developed in the X Office continues to occupy space on this island that most fans and creators don’t actually think of as utopia (outside the Percy titles, oddly enough), but rather a place to experiment with new ideas and arrangements. Over and again, Mr. Percy uses Wolverine and co. to hammer home that “nothing is forever” in order to justify not trying to seize that fleeting opportunity to do things differently for however long is possible.

Before he realizes he’s free of the Shadow King, Amahl insists that mutants must never, not for a moment, lose sight of the threat posed by humanity and be armed and ready against them (an us-vs.-them mentality)—and the entire Krakoan experiment is a coddling waste of time. It’s all strikingly similar to the throughline of Percy’s X titles.

Percy’s X titles are actually good examples of cynicism and fatalism coming to the same thing—hopelessness. But what does save* them from messaging just negativity is the humbling sense of duty characters like Logan (with his “bushido” ways) and even Domino convey (not, of course, Beast).

[Though one wonders why a prominent recipient of Logan’s indefatigable sense of honor must be someone so patently despicable. How long are we supposed to keep mucking about in the irony of it all?]See, when someone says to me “nothing lasts forever,” I think: “We better start having fun while we can,” meaning, “Let’s try something different, surprising, new.” To this reader at least, Ben Percy as a writer is stuck like frozen mud in a single formula, a dour persona that at times is very eloquent about his dourness and the meager charms of being the sourpuss at the party—which is almost always portrayed with heavy-handed visual and verbal gestures at dissolution and hedonism. Artist Josh Cassara’s had a hand here, and his art is stunning and very effective in establishing a gothic noir atmosphere. I love it. And the debut of the Green Lagoon—that splash page is an absolute classic (X-Force #9). But over time, the tonal insistence has worn thin, and only in the pages of Percy’s titles do we find this fixation on Green Lagoon as dive bar and site of Sage’s alcoholic dissipation (which has only recently been touched on and not well; see below). It’s also just very explicit in these books that people relaxing and having a good time in a place that feels safe are hopelessly delusional; it’s a bit much.(Sure, we see party people in Spurrier’s Legion of X, but they’re far from seeming dissolute. Soft? Maybe. Yet that’s the point of retreating to the Altar for a time, to let your guard down and relax. Leah Williams isn’t exactly plumbing the depths of pathos with X-Terminators, but it feels like a well-earned vacation.)

It’s as if Percy has a beef with what he sees as hedonism, when it, or just people enjoying themselves, is sprinkled throughout the franchise, but in his books it’s framed as an embarrassingly delusional state that everyone on the island is suffering from—and only Logan and the mutant CIA (excepting the bloated Beast, I guess) can see through the gauche haze to the true red tooth and claw savagery of the real world.

(And why is it only in Percy’s titles that we see apparently dangerous wild beasts endemic to the island? Note that they seem scary almost always because they’re already in a death-match with Wolverine; there was that one that was stalking Beast—which frankly just seemed like commonsense pest control, before Logan swooped in.)

When you beat that drum over and again, you either sound like a Republican or someone who’s suffered too much and hasn’t found the opportunity to begin relaxing from a perpetual fight or flight state—after shaking out all those fear toxins, however long that takes. We are halfway through Percy’s Krakoa tenure, and there has been no let up in the grim, joyless relentlessness of his tonal and narrative cynicism.

Still, the Cassara covers are tops.

(Look at Forge recently: In Duggan’s X-Men, he’s thinking about the future possibilities of life on Krakoa; we got nothing even close to that when he was an X-Force cast member. Not in the least; not for one panel—although I will give a very small and brief one a generous reading; see below.)

Again, I am not talking about Percy as a person here at all but as a writer. By all accounts, he’s a great guy, which is wonderful. But the storytelling persona he’s developed for these titles isn’t. Back to an earlier nod, he is truly a talented genre novelist; his recent “space metal turns people into metahumans” series of novels is a lot of fun—highly recommended for the sf thriller set.

How does he keep enough of his comics readers engaged and not bored to tears by this stylistic monotony? Structurally, he’s all over the place, so he must be keeping followers sufficiently distracted by the novelty of a new foe every other month interspersed with a rotating rogues gallery powered by menacing suggestion rather than actually compelling and thematically relevant character work. Plus, his two titles are where to go for mindless bloodletting—so let’s not underestimate the appeal of juvenile puerility. Percy wears that badge with honor, so I’m sure he wouldn’t be offended by this charge. Maybe he even revels in such complaints.

So… moving on… For those of us who just want to keep track of Krakoan doings, what are the dirty deets from X-Force 2022 that we might hang our hats on?

Hmmm… There’s very little here with which one can try to even begin building steam from a grain of salt; except, as any seasoned reader knows, the most sublime baroque epics can be read even from rat entrails. So, what’ve we got in these hoarfrosted guts?

Quite literally: Ground up Deadpool, though somehow his head is one piece—from which a baby’s body grows, though he needs a veg body suit courtesy of Black Tom to get back in the fight with Kraven’s clone. Oh vey (And we’re talking ice bear guts here, to be fair).

Note that Kraven’s clone offhandedly slays Jay Guthrie (aka Icarus), one of the Guthrie siblings, in X-Force #32; this kid! He already suffered a wretched murder in a Purifiers/Nimrod scheme years ago in 2006’s New X-Men #26-27 by Kyle and Yost—a dark era that was not kind to such as this gentle emo Kentuckian angel boy. Neither is Mr. Percy above a little cartoon sadism, albeit in a flip and knowing mood (characteristically, he’s a master of grimdark nostalgia with a wink and a nod; his style isn’t really grimdark).

The only redeeming content in X-Force 2022 is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment:

Forge exited X-Force with the Cerebrax debut, issue #27, before moving on, to Duggan’s X-Men Year 2, where already he’s been utilized and portrayed in a much more compelling manner than anything Percy came up with over the past handful of years. His X-Force departure is almost entirely a waste (bowing out from the title with his brains scooped out for a snack), except it’s very briefly noted that he opted to die fighting in the Arena’s Crucible ritual after Moira depowered him with his own neutralizer gun in X Deaths #4. But since Trial of Magneto introduced the Waiting Room (which is accessible to depowered mutants without experiencing death), there’s been no other mention of anyone opting for the Crucible.

Is this an error, then? No! This is Forge we’re talking about! And this is the deepest characterization that Percy has offered him in this title; it’s barely anything, and the reasoning is entirely unspoken, implicit. You just have to know his character. It’s the same reason he kept his prosthetic limbs; not because they’re cool and full of useful gadgetry (although there is that): The brilliant mutant inventor keeps these reminders of the self-inflicted tragedy in Vietnam that cost him an arm and a leg after he used his training as a mystic(!) to call down a horde of demons on the Viet Cong who had just slaughtered his company, but the price paid for unleashing this supernatural violence was his own fellow soldiers’ very souls. It was in the heat of battle, and he was spurred by the thought of avenging their deaths, but in the process, he eternally damned them. There is a lot of history to this man that we haven’t seen in years (see particularly Uncanny X-Men #227), but if you ever wonder why he spends all his time tirelessly working for the cause of Krakoa as well as punishing his body with those gym squats—look to that foundational trauma and his notorious invention for the US government(!), the neutralizer gun (UX #184-186, an absolutely classic sequence made confusing by the “Wraith War” references, since Marvel no longer has the rights to the ROM comic series).

Seriously, this is the only worthwhile panel in nine issues of X-Force, and it’s barely even there. And maybe I’m giving even this a very generous reading here—of course, otherwise, as Forge’s bow-out from the title? This is lame, lame, lame; Mr. Quad Squad, or rather this once fascinatingly complex Native American caught between two worlds in all their trauma and wonder, needs an apology.

Moving on, let’s acknowledge what we all know: Beast is ludicrously incompetent at his job as CIA chief. It’s wild to me that Xavier’s given carte blanche to someone so clearly unqualified for this position. And why, oh why is the Krakoan “CIA” so damn small? This has to be the most understaffed state security agency in the history of intelligence agencies; just saying.

Now, we won’t get hung up on quibbling little inconsistencies, but one or two pop up every other issue—and this doesn’t seem to be a problem in Percy’s novels, so… idk, these are monthly comics and the IP isn’t his, so whatever.

(A slightly trickier inconsistency is Beast arguing for the destruction of Omega Red’s backups to prevent his resurrection for all time; this ignores the existence of the Waiting Room. There’s the issue of Russia as adversary as well, but perhaps that’s out of Percy’s hands with real-world geopolitics right now; however, even before Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, Percy’s use of an actual dictatorship as vague foe in a comic book was already a bad idea—and comics history is littered with this folly, whatever the ideology, for the result is always without fail an ideological morass that dates poorly quickly.)

It’s very dissatisfying that Sage only begins to take a first step in undermining Beast’s authority in issue #27, and at that point, her biggest challenge turns out to be her alcoholism, which has been a consistent theme throughout the title but never dealt with until recently—and I can only say as someone who grew up around alcoholics, Percy does not move or impress here. Fictional treatments of addiction can come in all forms, and they don’t necessarily need to be handled with “sensitivity,” depending on what the author wants, but it’s never been clear what Percy’s intention is with this, like most of his themes, outside “poison,” yeah!

(Speaking of: Sevyr Blackmore, Arakkii pirate of the acid fluids—ooh, yeah, he’s pure “poison!” Really? This is Percy’s second addition to Arakko following Solem? Is he actually supposed to be compelling, or are we just looking at more sophomore shenanigans with a nostalgic yen for ’90s rad bad vibes? Yeeaah.)

That Beast knowingly pushed Sage further into her alcoholism (explicitly acknowledge in issue #34) is just eyeroll inducing at this point. Beast’s reputation is now far worse than almost any non-Nazi-themed villain. Surely, he is beyond redemption no matter what ingenious fantasy solution some future creator devises. Never mind his frigging “prison moons” (issues #34-35), very reminiscent here to Nazis and other ghouls experimenting in varieties of sadistic body horror.

Shall we go on to a giddily drunken Sage introducing Omega Red to the Danger-Room-like Shadow Room that can be used privately to indulge his most sadistic fantasies as a coping mechanism for his addiction?

Nope!

Obviously, Sage’s plan to use Omega Red as a secret weapon/double agent against Mikhail Rasputin isn’t going to work out with Mikhail’s brother and sleeper agent Colossus on the Council.

Colossus is back in X-Force soon, meaning Percy’s Mikhail/Chronicler plot with him will likely wrap sometime in the next year or two; his time in Immortal X-Men was the most passive he or any X-Man has ever been in an ongoing X book—weird. He was just a secret camera back to Russia, I guess. That said, Piotr does say in an issue #27 data page that the more Russian mutants on the island the better for Krakoa geopolitically in relation to Russia, and several issues later, he gets his wish when Red ferries back a shipload of mutant asylum seekers from Russia. Is this part of Mikhail’s plot? Probably.

How’s any of this different from what the Marauders have already been doing for years now and why is Beast upset about this one instance out of what must surely be an ongoing process? Only Percy knows. Krakoa’s already shown far more outreach to humanity than Beast’s disingenuous attempt in X-Force #30.

For newer readers, note that Beast’s on-off relationship with Abigail Brand started in the early 2000s with Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men run, where she debuted. But never has whatever they have going on with one another been so ick.

As for Cerebrax… Nope!

Quentin Quire? Nope!

Logan suddenly distrusting Krakoa in the wake of Quentin’s disappearance? Nope!

Percy has done nothing in X-Force to make Quentin Quire interesting. He’s potentially compelling, but certainly not here. He disappears after taking out Cerebrax, seemingly dead and un-resurrectable. Boo-hoo (He must be the only omega obsessed with being the “omega of omegas,” which, embarrassingly for him, seems to completely misunderstand what being an omega means).

(After all, somebody somewhere is the omega of lame. One omega cannot out-omega another; the point is that there’s only one omega–or merely strictly equally capable omegas, I guess–for each category of ability.)

The Cuckoos are written as vapid teen girls more interested in parties than taking anything seriously, which is ludicrously out of character for them. The notion that they’d ignore a warning from Jean is nonsensical. Percy is incapable of writing with any interest from a younger perspective. His teen characters are simply flat and without interest (and that includes Quentin, despite Percy’s half-baked efforts there).

Having absorbed Polaris’ powers, Cerebrax contorts Wolvie’s adamantium Magneto-style à la X-Men #25 (1992), albeit without leaching it all off. Both the earlier incident and this one belie the fact that this metal is supposed to be, by definition, indestructible—here, we see its structural integrity radically warped (i.e., destroyed).

Kraven’s clone for four issues? Nope!

Deadpool’s head on a stick? Nope!

A decade from now, X-Force 2022 will be a black hole most Marvel and/or mutant heads pass over, and Percy seems to understand that whatever his original plans for both series, this is now their fate as he coasts to the finish line. Before last year, he had already established Beast as reprehensible; recent issues have merely become fodder for a litany of further crimes.

All the same, Wolverine must be one of the toughest titles to write for because almost everything about Logan’s character is so rigidly set—and Percy’s solution has been to double down on his sourpuss nature, which means he’ll be that much harder to work with for any future writer wanting to try a different tack. So, the Wolverine we have now is too terminally himself, an immortal cussed Sisyphus.

So much for reading into the ice bear’s rimey entrails. Don’t be masochists, kids—drop these titles while you’re ahead; forget the sunk-cost fallacy and be kind to yourself and your wallet!

NEXT: Check back with the last issue of X-Force sometime next year, after it’s all up on Marvel Unlimited.

The post X-Force 2022 in Review! Where Krakoa Keeps Selling Out appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Ben Percy writes; Federico Vicentini draws; Frank D’Armata colors; Cory Petit letters; issue #25 backup story art by Greg Land, Juan Ferreyra and others; covers by Adam Kubert and Frank Martin Jr.

As ever, this little Ben Percy Wolverine arc shows us Logan’s continuing obsession with suffering. Not pain, as he would have us believe—because that, like pleasure and the sensation of hot and cold and so on, is transitory. And sure, that’s an easy thing to say when you don’t deal with it chronically, but we all know that is not and never has been the case with Wolverine*. The acute pains of violence fade very quickly for him. It’s the fixation on the wound, the role of the aggrieved sufferer, for which Logan has a passion that is literally undying.

(*The rare exceptions are very hard to recall out of his many thousands of tales in circulation.)

These A.X.E.: Judgment Day tie-ins do not impact the main event in the least. Percy makes the occasion excuse enough to 1) work out Wolverine’s attempt to justify his continued existence in the face of all those for whose deaths he’s responsible, either directly or indirectly, and 2) contrast Solem’s hedonist way of life with Logan’s ultimately heroic stoicism. (In fact, many of those “dead” we see have already been resurrected on Krakoa).

What will hinder Logan is his intense but by now intensely monotonous self-loathing. If he can stay true, however, to his nobler callings, knowing that he’s needed to spare the world further senseless deaths (which, I know, seems like some wild logic), he’ll pass (of course, he ultimately does).

That Logan is allotted two issues and thousands of miles of travel to justify himself before the Progenitor isn’t meant to be noteworthy. That’s just how Percy wanted to tell his story, dammit!

You’ll also find plenty of Percy/Wolvie philosophizing along the way; very deep stuff depending on your age, I guess.

Of course, the point here, as in the event itself, is that whoever’s being judged is in fact working to justify their own existence to themselves; they pass by being true to their sense of self, even if they’re otherwise “villainous.”

Thus, the Hellbride, fresh from Hell seeking revenge against Wolverine and Solem, will be judged on how she follows through with her vengeance. Yet the twist for her is that: Why should she care? Her home is perdition, and she’d be happy to see the world join her and her father. So, the Progenitor is happy enough to allow her to antagonize Logan as he and his unlikely partner make for the North Pole to slay a god; clearly, this doesn’t even come close to playing into the main event—but the cussed Canuck had to try.

Rising star Federico Vicentini’s art is gorgeous as ever. His linework is crisp and almost entrancingly dynamic. There’s an occasional sketchiness, but for me that just adds to the sense of frenetic action. It never looks confusing or befuddled to this eye at least.

In return for helping him, Solem has Logan’s pledge to help him kill the vengeful Hellbride and the Beast, who of course want Logan dead too; actually, the Beast’s interest here is remote, given his dismissiveness toward his daughter, who’s really taken on the revenger role. Jilted, aggrieved and raised in captivity, she’s far more interesting than her pops has ever been—and she essentially stages a coup against her father. So, kudos there, Mr. Percy!

The Beast here is the infernal demon worshiped by the Hand. His daughter is among his most loyal of servants, and this Hellbride was recently jilted at the Hell altar with Solem’s murder of her mortal (ninja) fiancé and Logan and Solem made off with two Muramasa blades (forged in Hell by demonic blacksmith Muramasa; relevant backstory: 1988’s Wolverine #1-3; 2006’s Wolverine #40; 2020’s Wolverine #6 and X-Force #13–the Hellbride’s only previous appearance), these last from “X of Swords.” Percy seems to flub in issue #24 when referring to the blacksmith as Logan’s “teacher;” they just made a deal over a sword.

(Logan secured the blades from the tricksy tipplin’ Solem back in Wolverine #16. As an aside, the Beast debuted in Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz’s 1986 classic Elektra: Assassin.)

Satisfyingly enough, everyone’s intentions go sideways: The Hellbride is felled by a blizzard before finding her quarry, Logan insists killing her in this state would be dishonorable and Solem, despite his irritation here, acquiesces, reluctantly conceding Logan’s point but with a hint at surprising sincerity (of course, he’ll eventually turn out to have a heart too, don’t you doubt it! Mr. Percy is a big softie, eh).

Yet we still get lots of Logan viewing himself and life in the worst possible way, of course. We’ve had years of this now from Mr. Percy, decades more from Wolvie.

Seeing that his infernal pawn seeks her own Satanic glory (how Paradise Lost!), the Progenitor had already prepared its own hoary, sword-wielding avatar of the frozen wastes, siccing it now on Logan and Solem, but the demoness suddenly joins the fray, furious that she might be cheated of her vengeance. Yet the trio actually make a killer team, and she’s impressed with Solem’s showing—who returns with her to Hell, possibly, indeed most likely, for some experimental hedonism (or at least the old college try on the part of this heterodox Arakkii poet-warrior; odd that his stabs at inspired verse find Mr. Percy at his most clichéd, but he seems to hoard the best bits for the cussed Canuck).

Yet Logan does see a change in the Hellbride that surely no one else would have without his narration:

“Punishment’s in her blood. And if you understand doing wrong…”

Once more—Percy briefly picks up a dangling plot thread, gives it a small twist and lays it aside to move on … to “The Beast Agenda”! Oh, you know what’s gonna happen there, right? Nope. Fool me once…

Is it odd that Cap didn’t pass while Logan does here? Not really. Wolverine’s identity isn’t bound up with that of the United States, and he’s always and ever focused on the basic duties of protecting mutants and other loved ones, basically following bushido in the process, every day.

Except when it’s time for a “Bar Brawl!”

The 25th-issue celebration backup celebrates Logan’s eternal flight from his own woundedness, his inability to move on and heal. And we said enough on this last time!

(He reflects, “Time can get slippery for me,” which for him and those who never learn to heal from the past is the same as saying: time is a flat circle. Indeed, Logan does not believe that real change is possible.)

Note that Flamingeaux makes her comics debut here; previously, she appeared in Percy’s podcast drama Wolverine: The Lost Trail.

NEXT: The beginning of the end for the other Beast, the one we all know and loathe now? Fool me twice …The post Wolverine #24-25 in Review—Enemy of Himself! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Ben Percy writes; Adam Kuberts draws covers & interiors; Frank Martin colors; Cory Petit lettersHow Many Ways Can Percy Play the Faux Grimdark?So, what did Wolvie get up to after, um, saving the time-stream or whatever in X Lives and X Deaths of Wolverine (Jan-Mar 2022)? His busy scribe Ben Percy took a backseat and called old Wade Wilson to phone in the lines for several issues. But in fact the notorious Merc with the Mouth mouthed nothing but pure Percy-isms throughout this four-month arc, never quite sounding like his mordantly buoyant self, cratered and a-boil as it is with those unsightly, indefatigable cankers. It’s Percy’s characteristic mordancy that wins through, the deep bass gravel having long since popped and shredded any sense of buoyancy; however cartoonishly irritating or genuinely leavening the generic loaf of two-dimensional slapstick violence, Deadpool’s trademark levity is inevitably missing from his run-on patter here.

And the title’s tonal message is no different than it’s been since the start: Being Wolverine sucks; his very being is suckled by the sour milk of endless trauma, and that’s what fans have long since been conditioned to with him. Logan as he is will always be caught and frozen inside all the old wounds, as he stares down that abyss, one ragged cave opening up beneath another ad nauseam.

Yet when he’s out supposedly having a good time, as we’ll see in the celebratory issue #25’s backup story, “Bar Brawl,” his drink of choice may be booze—but he’s frozen in time just the same as always. There, he reflects, “Time can get slippery for me,” which for him and those who never learn to heal from the past is the same as saying: time is a flat circle. Indeed, Logan does not believe that real change is possible.

Yep! That’s Percy on vacation—and taking his favorite toxically masculine trauma puppet along for the ride. So, what really happened while the boys went out to play (afraid to face the far more refreshing challenges of making a go at co-creating paradise)?

Why is it that he (along with his amanuensis, Mr. Percy) insists, with that fistful of gravel in his gullet, on either running away from the challenge of building a new way of life or endlessly protesting that it will only ever amount to the shadowy (i.e. unresolved) savagery of the old ways, that is, of our consensus reality (here, in the “authentic” violence of the “real” world we share and co-create, surely at our pleasure, dear reader)? Of course, someone so mired in wallowing in his own trauma, cementing thereby his unique sense of self born out of such extremity (“always and evermore more traumatized than thou, you mediocre schlubs, stuck on your all-too ordinary traumas”) is not going to rise to the challenge of changing his life, much less helping anyone else find a fresh path forward, to see anew with the eyes of innocence … and thus chance, true risk, the playfulness of giving something, anything but further suffering, a try.

Is this really an ungenerous reading for this 50-year-old character always stuck in the same groove?

In other words, Logan has no spark. He wakes to die, endlessly. Truly, he is the metahuman formula for waking death in life, an existence benumbed. What stock character has so mastered the numbing of sorrow and made such easy addicts of us? All he wants to do is forget, and so he repeats, zombie-like, compulsively.

The best we get from Wolvie these days is the knowing but hollowed-out comedy of the most extreme we have every right to expect from the best there is at the worst possible way of life. We’re thoroughly conditioned to just watch this guy get shredded, literally, over and again. And we applaud that he still practices his bushido way or whatever philosophy his scribes have appropriated for him and watered down through an Orientalist filter and mashed up with whatever else required pop culture stylings (it’s all just part of the genre mash, I guess).

If there’s a service that Percy has given us in his limited but restlessly recombinatory portrayal of this macho compulsion to endlessly self-destruct while clenching so cussedly to one’s trauma loops it’s that this is basically what our enervated culture of endlessly re-pulped masculinity demands of our male bodies sustained, miraculously, by synthetic “nutrients” and a tired, weathered script of bitter expectations—a bunch of crap typed up by bored tearless and barren content creators shackled to their sole security in the world, corporate benefactors long since lobotomized by big-data marketing strategies.

Ben, seriously! Why are you willfully fixated on this abyss? Your dream funhouse of distorted mirrors has become a trap—the cartoonish distortions of grizzle and blood toned masculinity have long since reified, calcified and frozen into airlessness.

Is it time for a Morrison-ian wanderjahr, perhaps? Just a thought from a brother on the far side of all this deadpan grimdark slapstick cartoon schadenfreude, this much too hard-candied, cavity-cracking grief aestheticized into an idealized retro-action flick, grey and gritty, and gauzily filtered in style and tone.

Within such a self-limiting scope, the aesthetic perfection here and throughout this title is impressive in so far it’s so willfully wallowing in its own knowing cliches. Impressive?

Come for the Kubert Splatterpunk, Gothic and NoirYet this arc, possibly my least favorite of the title’s current iteration so far, is still worthwhile, at least for free on Marvel Unlimited, and better than most mainstream comics out there. And Ben Percy is very talented and accomplished, even more so as a novelist. It’s the willfulness of his self-limitation in terms of range and tone that’s a bit puzzling, when he has such mastery of his material—like he has a particular yen for, or beef with, all the (limited) permutations of toxic masculinity.

Why is it always toxic? To be clear, I think masculinity can be an untold number of things, but Percy is interested mostly in the negative and constrictive variety, in diagnosing heteronormative masculinity’s ills, which are already quite familiar, at least superficially, to most North Americans. Percy’s perceptiveness here is sharp but, again, willfully self-limiting, as if averse to taking risks and creating examples of modes of being more constructive, dynamic and open (which we are seeing quite a bit of in this franchise—with Vita Ayala and Charlie Jane Anders on New Mutants; Al Ewing on X-Men: Red; and Steve Orlando on Marauders).

As always, Adam Kubert’s layouts are a beauty to behold, knowingly cinematic and usually fully realized even if not always his figurework turns flat and sketchy in some places, especially in the middle.

Forgetting that Deadpool’s on the cover (hopelessly wishing he’d never appear in another X title), I almost thought the opening sequence—a kinetic cinematic rendering of motorcyclist Logan with artsy gutters reminiscent of light poppy ’70s psychedelia—would prove the lead-in to a thoroughly neo-noir adventure.

Nope! Oh, well.

To be clear, though, this is a far cry from the doldrums of the worst Deadpool “romp.” And Percy gets to do his ’90s Liefeld homage while still being 100% his deadpan tongue-in-cheek Minnesottan self.

Kubert does bring something of a cinematic mashup to the whole arc, but the emphasis is on genres and eras that long ago lost their charm. Another ’80s buddy action flick, now with excess splatterpunk fx? Hard snooooozzzzzze—at least this is on MU if I ever really want to subject myself to it again? To each their own.

Kubert’s art is still tops throughout, even if it’s lacking here and there just a couple issues in. He still excels over most of the industry, even now; very few of the younguns got game like Kubert.

(It’s worth noting that his cover art for issue #23 echoes his 1994 Wolverine #88 cover featuring Deadpool in the same pose impaling Logan on his trademark swords.)

On the other hand… there is something about all this that works really well: Allow Mr. Percy his break from higher ambitions (well-deserved even while X Lives/X Deaths quickly proved underwhelming; it didn’t stint on being effortful), and let’s say he’ll have his part in the inevitable showdown between machine intelligence and the Krakoan state. If this is the start of something, this arc’s finale at least (issue #23; see below for more on this one) will be worth a reread. Even otherwise, there are threads left dangling—for whoever wants to square Danger and the X-Men, one more time. And yet, isn’t that exactly the problem with both this title and Percy’s X-Force??? Whatever else their faults, both do give us retro-action galore.

Perhaps the payoff for these series really is just around the corner. Or it’s not! Fool me twice… It seems Percy is open to tossing up new spinning plates that have thematic relevance with the rest of the franchise even while expressly acknowledging that they may not have anywhere to land—see below for DP’s footnote on Hickman’s flash-in-the-pan Sidri subplot; remember that?!

Deadpool & Danger’s Dirty DeetsDeadpool is not remotely a founding member of X-Force—but debuting in New Mutants #98, months away from the title’s relaunch as X-Force, he was part of the regular cast, as nemesis and irritant. Thank you, Rob. We’re just eternally grateful (You did give us Shatterstar and impossibly beef-bubbled Daddy Cable).

As an alum of the Weapon X school of torture, Wade was infused with Wolverine’s DNA—blessing him with that cartoonish healing factor, which is also, of course a curse, cosmetically, as it is not for Wolverine (who’s cursed by it in a manner more purely inward/existential). Deadpool is not a mutant, just as those antagonists who vivisect mutants and graft on their genetics or parts to take on their powers are not. Deadpool’s case is simply faux sad and hopeless.

Blind Al developed Stockholm Syndrome with her longtime captor Deadpool way back in his first ongoing; she not too reluctantly became his irascible surrogate mother. Beyond that foundational era from Joe Kelly, she’s rarely appeared.

The Legacy House’s Madripoor auction of the mindwiped Maverick and what seemed to be Logan’s hand, the CIA’s Delores Ramirez in attendance, occurred back in issues #9-10.

Danger was once indeed the Xavier Mansion’s Danger Room, as revealed in her debut arc in Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run (#7-12). It was revealed there that Xavier always knew this piece of Shi’ar tech to be sentient but kept mum about it until she rebelled. Thereafter, she infrequently haunted the X-Men, returning either as ally or nemesis but always as a kind of guilty conscience, bearing the burden of guilt that really is Xavier’s alone (but ol’ Chuck’s rarely around to take responsibility for what’s his—huh, funny that).

(Danger’s debut story, “Dangerous,” kicked off with a young depowered student, Wing, committing suicide in the Danger Room. As of Leah Williams’ X-Factor #4, he was recently resurrected and living on Krakoa.)

Now, with AIs being on the outs with Krakoa in this new era, Danger’s reintroduction here could have been put to really interesting use. She was once an X-Man, after all, which is more than Deadpool can say! She even had a place on X-Factor for a hot minute.

Yes, there could have been something here—perhaps in the way that Zeb Wells reintroduced the Right and Cameron Hodge, with Nanny secretly adopting one of the Right’s “baby” AIs. That was an amazing story, short, sweet, sad and fierce. Percy doesn’t even come close to trying for this.

But we do get an answer to the nature of Logan’s seeming hand. No, it’s not a Larry Hama-era easter egg (duplicate Logan skeleton from a parallel timeline)—it’s Danger’s own baby!

Basically, in trying to retrieve his supposed “hand” from the CIA, Wolverine and Deadpool (who’s helping because he wants a spot on the Krakoan X-Force; wild) are caught in the crossfire as Danger attempts to rescue her offspring or whatever from Ramirez (sending an army of X-Men-themed robots after the suits, and later Logan and his hanger-on once they track her down (courtesy of Blind Al’s surprising connections) to the abandoned Xavier Mansion—Danger’s once and future home.

Why did Ramirez want the hand in the first place? She wanted Danger to make those mutant-themed bots for the CIA’s own nefarious purposes. Danger’s baby was collateral.

But why else might Danger agree to make X-Men-lookalike robots?

Logan’s narration in issue #23 criticizes the idea of “going home again,” and while he’s not explicitly criticizing Danger, I guess that’s the idea?

(Remember the Sidri infesting the old school back from Hickman’s Giant-Size: Nightcrawler? Yeah, that never went anywhere—which Percy, through an interstitial page from DP in issue #23, acknowledges. Yeah, that over-sized comic, it was a waste of your money. Hope you read it on MU!)

Along the way, Maverick and Weasel (another early Deapool mainstay, DP’s tech guy) steal the briefcase containing the “hand” from Logan and DP because they* think it contains those Shi’ar logic diamonds that have acted as mostly meaningless plot macguffins since issue #13 of this title.

His recent history is briefly footnoted; see Joe Kelly’s Spider-Man/Deapool* of the late 2010s.

Ultimately, Danger reiterates her motherly feelings toward the X-Men who used to daily use her facilities, never knowing she was in fact watching over them as a sentient being. So, she has her X-Men robots, and they can all be one big happy family again—though now she won’t scruple to keep them safe from herself or her old programming as the Danger Room, metastasized across the whole otherwise abandoned Mansion.

Kudos to Percy for this creepy sci-fi/Shirley Jackson mashup! Unfortunately, it took a lot of nonsense to get this one appropriately gothic and uncanny moment at the old ruins of Xavier’s on a gloomy starless night.

We could’ve perhaps spent more time with this and less with the ’80s splatterpunk action movie stylings—after all, Deadpool wraps up the rest of what happened that night for us while reading the comic book of it and sunning on a Krakoan beach next to Blind Al, who’s feeling much better now thanks to wonder drugs that Logan would of course given her regardless of DP’s assist (and really it was Blind Al’s help throughout that allowed Wolverine to get resolution on that missing “hand” and the rest of it with Danger).

Still, DP gets his chance at being an X-Forcer—appearing next in X-Force #30.

Who says that cussed Canuck can’t be a swell nice guy? Percy reminds us that Logan does in fact always act from the heart—whether out of hurt or affection, he’s all love muscle. Awww.

NEXT: The Progenitor gives Logan more of a chance than anyone else on Earth. Awww. And we finally get some solid Solem moments, mostly to tell us more about how noble our cussed Canuck is. Awww. See, Percy just wants us to love on that lovable unlovable macho mush-mush. So adorbs.

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Try to imagine a solution to everything; not just the problems of the world, or the universe, but everything in existence. How do we reach this perfect world? And what will it cost to bring that vision to life?

Since their creation at the hands of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the Fantastic Four have stood as a monument to our limitless hope and imagination: a family bound together through a shared love of adventure. While the team shared countless stories over the years, taking them to the fringes of the unknown, even hope can start to dwindle over time. Decades of fear brought on by the information age would lead to a darker vision of the future, but it would be Marvel’s Civil War that ultimately fractured the four, with Reed Richards’ role in Iron Man’s regime driving a wedge between himself and his family. While talented writers like J. Michael Straczynski and Dwayne McDuffie would take steps to reunite the team, readers were still looking for someone to bring back what made them great in the first place: their desire to explore the unknown, and build the foundations of a better tomorrow.

This return to form would arrive through writer Jonathan Hickman, and a sprawling three-year run that would leave ripples across the entire Marvel Universe, re-establishing the Richards family as its beating heart. Pulling from the team’s past, present, and future, Hickman and an extensive team of artists, inkers, colorists and letterers would deliver a saga that would redefine the Fantastic Four, both as the world’s greatest comic magazine, and the family behind it all.

It Always Begins The Same Way…Even the grandest stories have to begin somewhere, and for writer Jonathan Hickman, the story of his Fantastic Four begins with one man: Reed Richards. Arriving on the book in 2009 with little knowledge about the team, Hickman began devouring the book’s previous stories, where he found two major sources of inspiration: the FF’s dual identity as both team and family, and Reed’s transformation into a colder, more pragmatic figure. While comics in the early 2000’s had been embracing a darker tone for some time, Reed’s involvement in Marvel’s Illuminati and Iron Man’s pro-registration forces were seen as a complete betrayal both in and out of fiction, with the rest of the FF leaving him behind as his desire for a perfect world boiled over into an obsession. Countless writers would address this shift, with Straczynski and McDuffie having Reed and Sue rebuild their marriage while Mark Millar would bring back the team’s high-concept adventures. But for Hickman, Reed’s turn showed something deeper: a shift in his outlook from boundless optimism to something colder and darker. Something that Reed would have to confront within himself for the team to move forward.

(From Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #5 by Jonathan Hickman, Sean Chen, Lorenzo Ruggiero, and John Rauch)Picking up in the wake of Marvel’s Dark Reign, Hickman’s run begins with an incredible discovery: traveling through dimensions on a device called “the bridge,” Reed has come into contact with his multiversal counterparts, who have banded together into a “Council of Reeds,” determined to prevent threats and solve problems on a universal scale. While Hickman had seeded this concept in an earlier (much weirder) story, the writer would spend his first arc defining the Council and what they represent within Reed: his struggles between his own humanity and the greater good he desperately wants. These inner struggles are elevated through Dale Eaglesham’s art, which draws heavily from the imagery of rugged adventurers like Tom Strong and Doc Savage: idealized figures dedicated to the mission above all.

“Reed is more intimidating and forceful, and less the nerdy professor,” Eaglesham states.
“I want villains to be afraid of him physically as well as of his mind. That is not to say I want to wash the humor or any goofiness out of Reed or his relationships, far from it. I want to maintain that, but add to it the imposing presence of a brilliant scientist and powerful superhero. This combination (is) a lot of fun to explore.”

Across these events, Hickman draws a parallel between Reed and his father Nathaniel, another great thinker who left his family to serve what he saw as a higher purpose. It’s this tension that becomes the bedrock of Hickman’s first arc: Which is worth more? Duty, or family?

(From Fantastic Four #570 by Jonathan Hickman, Dale Eaglesham, and Paul Mounts)Through the Council and their actions, the writer elevates Reed into something more mythic than the standard superhero: a great man driven to do great works. Hickman has returned to the concept of “the great man” throughout his career, but Fantastic Four delivers his most pointed commentary on it: Reed’s dedication to science is admirable, but becomes dangerous and self-destructive when left unchecked. Without his family, he is lost…compromised.

“I’ve certainly grown to love him more, but Reed’s my favorite character,” states the author. “Because of Civil War and all the stuff that had happened, he was kind of a dick, right? Reed’s responsible for a lot of stuff – he’s always had all these plans of how to make things work, and if you think about it, he’s been wrong a lot. I felt like I had to fix Reed in a way, and make him a more likable character again.”

Using the council, Hickman takes this character flaw to its natural conclusion, with the group’s machinations bringing about its own destruction; their good deeds crushed under the weight of countless necessary evils. But even in failure, there is hope. While the Council’s obsession traps them in their mission, Reed manages to find a better way, not just embracing his family, but letting them take up his mission alongside him.The path to greatness isn’t just family or duty, but a combination of both. Nobody can build a better world on their own. They need help.

(From Fantastic Four #572 by Jonathan Hickman, Dale Eaglesham, and Paul Mounts)The Prime ElementsThe FF’s dual role as team and family has been a huge part of their stories for decades, but the mix of one versus the other can change depending on who’s writing. For Hickman, the priority was re-balancing the book’s prime elements, setting the Richards’ tight-knit family drama against sprawling universe-hopping adventures.

“I’ve read more FF in the last two-to-three months than I had in my entire life,” recounts the writer. “One of the things that became pretty clear to me was that the Ultimate Fantastic Four title has had a big impact on the regular series. Fantastic Four is about fantastic adventures and the family, but when Ultimate FF was launched, it kind of turned into a science explorers type book. The physics of something isn’t the heart of the book. That’s not what I think we need to get back to. To me, Fantastic Four is about the family structure…it’s about wild, chaotic, fantastic ideas, as opposed to how things work in a functional world.”

While the book’s second arc feels like a return to the classic Lee-Kirby era (complete with family squabbles and little green men), the writer also has something much bigger at play, with countless threads converging into a mysterious prophecy built around the past, present, and future of the Richards family. Four cities, each an inversion of Reed’s “perfect society,” begin appearing across the Marvel universe, with the dark costs of each threatening everything in their path. Long story short, the FF’s enemies have evolved, and overcoming these threats means the group will have to change, too. Free of the Council, Reed and the team meet these new threats with boundless imagination, rejecting the cynicism of the larger scientific community to build a foundation of their own.

What follows is a complete transformation of the FF, as new members join the team, long-dormant plots finally come back into play, and each of the founding members develop larger roles in the Richards’ ever-growing family unit.

As these threads continue to spin Hickman’s master story for the book, the sheer scale of what’s at stake finally comes into focus, as the unshakeable optimism of this new FF starts to collide with each new threat, leaving ripples across the universe. Only one force can prevail here. Hickman’s made it clear that the Richards family is the key to averting disaster, but how can hope endure when everything seems destined to end? How can one family survive a world…where everything dies?

Everything DiesSince his beginnings on the title, Hickman has built his Fantastic Four around two dueling philosophies: the FF’s hope in a better tomorrow, and the grim realities of the universe…everything that begins must also end.

As the team fights threats from across their history, the events in Franklin’s doomsday prophecy continue their march to a horrifying conclusion. This isn’t just another superhero punch-em-up, it’s a war against fate, against an end that seems increasingly inevitable. In sharp contrast to the Kirby-esque iconography of the earlier run, this third arc feels more real, tangible, and human, thanks in part to Steve Epting and Neil Edwards’ more realistic pencils. A far cry from the rugged icons we’ve seen before, the FF’s humanity becomes more apparent than ever as they’re slowly overwhelmed by the forces of a hopeless universe.

Hickman even brings back Nathaniel Richards as a living embodiment of this flawed outlook, revealing his hand in the creation of the Council of Reeds and the countless crises that have spiraled out of their actions. Acting out of his own self-preservation, Nathaniel has only doomed his family, a mistake that forces him to come to terms with his failings as both a father and a scientist.

This wave of nihilism hangs over the book’s third arc, splitting the founding members and pushing them to their limits to achieve the impossible: Reed returning life to a dying star, and Sue holding off a civil war in Atlantis, leaving Johnny and Ben standing between the kids of the Future Foundation and the endless hordes of Annihulus. Some are rewarded for their faith, and for a moment, the writer even hints that everything will work out in the end. But as he’s been saying since the beginning, things are about to change for the Fantastic Four. Even a team built on hope can’t last forever in a universe that devours it. Something has to give, and when it finally does, it enacts a terrible cost.

If Hickman’s earlier stories were a re-invention of what came before, his third arc’s finale, fittingly titled “three,” is his ultimate act of change for the team. Following the surviving members through a month of mourning, the writer and artist Nick Dragotta see the Fantastic Four broken beyond repair for the first time, with Reed, Sue, and Ben all lingering on their own personal abyss.

The loss of Johnny Storm has fundamentally changed everything about the Fantastic Four and what they represent, but Hickman’s crises are still on the horizon, and it’s clear that the Richards family are the only ones who can stop it all. But how does a family endure when its been broken apart? What keeps us going when the world gets too dark to bear? For the writer, that answer is hope. Hope that we can continue to evolve, to push past the impossible, to leave a better tomorrow for the next generation. Hope that what was lost can always be found again.

(From Fantastic Four #588 by Jonathan Hickman, Nick Dragotta, and Paul Mounts)Sources:

https://www.cbr.com/best-things-about-jonathan-hickmans-fantastic-four-run/#a-fantastical-exploration-of-ego

https://www.cbr.com/nycc-hickman-and-eaglesham-talk-fantastic-four/

https://web.archive.org/web/20131110034440/http://www.newsarama.com/1925-jonathan-hickman-secret-warriors-the-ff-and-more.html

http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news-columns/marvel-then-jonathan-hickman-and-family-matters/

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Just take a moment to think about what might’ve been now if Magneto hadn’t given his pledge Arakko. With things as they are, Storm, ever uncompromised, has a real chance of helping right reality again.

“Everything Is Sinister”

Credits: Kieron Gillen writes; Lucas Werneck draws, along with guests Geoffrey Shaw, Marco Checchetto, Juan José Ryp, David Baldéon, Federico Vincentini, David Lopez, Joshua Cassara and Stefano Caselli; Bryan Valenza colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Leinil Francis Yu

Welcome to the biggest X event since House of X and Powers of X!

Okay, maybe it’s not the biggest—both X of Swords and A.X.E.: Judgment Day beat it hands down there. Despite that, I will wager here at the very start that this is the big story that will both tie directly back into Hickman’s original HOX/POX vision for this new era of Marvel’s merry mutants and shoot forward into mutantkind’s next major epoch, the “Fall of X” starting in early May.

Obviously, the little gut shot of Inferno is a contender, but that was Hickman’s envoy with a final revelation for ensuing creators to run with.

Here, as we see teased at the end of Sin of Sinister #1, we’re in a deep structural echo of Powers of X that promises to distort the original in exciting and unexpected ways. Following this opening one-shot, we’ll get three three-issue minis followed by the concluding one-shot Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1, which subtitle also echoes the POX AI-cosmology. Each mini’s #1 will take place ten years into this alt Sinister-verse, each #2 will be set 100 years into it and each #3 will take us to +1000 years. Obviously, however, this is not POX’s future dystopia, and yet Gillen is still taking us somewhere that fans of Hickman’s earlier event and of course 1995’s classic “Age of Apocalypse” will readily recognize, with a fine sense of inevitability and much unpredictable fun to satisfy any mutant-centric alt-reality fan.

(There’s also a riff early on in SOS1 where, 10 years from the present, Sinister resurrects a handful of mutants in a direct parody of Xavier doing the same in House of X #1—“To me, my me’s.” How did this happen? See two sections below, where spoilers abound!)

Still, Sins of Sinister could reveal a direct Inferno connection if Sinister turns out to be(come) the so-called “trickster Titan” (“betrayer and coward of its brother and sister machines”) that from a possible future—and acting against its brethren’s purely machinic interests—sent Omega Sentinel back in time in order to ensure the establishment of Orchis (which is only ambivalently allied with machine intelligence; Inferno* #3.

A Titan is the AI power grouping just below Dominion level, as seen in Powers of X*.

Overall TakeawaySins of Sinister #1 is a double-+-size one-shot in the tradition of inaugurating many a comics event, and so while regular Immortal X-Men artist Lucas Werneck does excellent work throughout, it’s less that he needed assistance with this oversized project than the number of non-gratuitous (well-utilized) splash pages presented an opportunity for other fine artists to flex in portraying brief but highly original snippets of this Sinister alt reality future.

It will inevitably draw comparisons with the classic one-shot that kicked off the “Age of Apocalypse” event, X-Men Prime from Fabian Nicieza, Scott Lobdell and a bevy of artists. That wild opening chapter immersed readers directly in a bizarre and frightening alt future without any explanation, in medias res. Back then, the franchise’s popularity was at its all-time high, so such a bold move wasn’t a crazy risk; it was enthralling—and everyone (at least all us Magic-playing middle-schoolers) ate it right up.

But that Gillen takes his time in Sins of Sinister #1 showing us how we get from present-day Krakoa (following Sinister’s condemnation to the Pit for trying to kill the entire Quiet Council; Immortal X-Men #9-10) to a future of Sinister dominion certainly isn’t any less of a bold move. There’s a direct through-line from Gillen’s Immortal X-Men tenure and Hickman’s Powers of X; this isn’t the case with “AoA,” which really seemed to come out of nowhere, infusing fresh excitement in the faltering, post-Claremont line.

It is too bad that Marvel’s not going all-in with every title in the X line committing to Gillen’s Sinister vision, but then again, this is a very different era—and at least we can bank on this event being not just a bit smaller but also higher quality overall, tighter, leaner and hopefully just as memorable, if not more so, because of it. And yet, “Sins of Sinister” will certainly be of an immediate piece with the larger whole of Destiny of X.

Still, if you haven’t been keeping up with every X-title in the last few years—totally okay! As mentioned, we’re looking at a direct callback to Hickman’s HOX/POX, a masterclass for any comics fan. And then, it’s helmed by Gillen and spinning out of his ten issues of Immortal X-Men (of course, A.X.E.: Judgment Day happens during the middle of this and does have ramifications; you can just read the core event series, which goes down pretty quick, all on Marvel Unlimited now); and writers Al Ewing and Si Spurrier are penning two of the minis, each one a distorted, alt future fun-house of their current respective ongoings (Ewing’s X-Men: Red, a follow-up to his S.W.O.R.D. and Spurrier’s Legion of X, which does follow on from his Way of X mini).

Of course, the Sinister element in POX goes all the way back to Gillen’s first foray into the X line—specifically, his classic revamp of the character in Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #1-3 (2012), the short arc known as “Everything Is Sinister”! Obviously, Gillen is calling back to his own work here, as well. And I for one believe that story is always worth a quick reread; it’s an absolute hoot, over the top just like we all love Sinister.

All told, this is still quite a few comics in the background, but not nearly the entirety of the recent X line, and almost every fan and critic following these titles and creators in particular will agree that they’re giving us the best of an all-around strong franchise (and while Spurrier’s had his detractors, I think in time they’ll mostly come back to the collected Legion of X with fresh eyes—despite my reluctance, this already happened to me recently; further, whereas many readers might reasonably prefer, say, Vita Ayala’s more focused, character-rich storytelling, Spurrier’s style is proving wildly fruitful, if seemingly unfocused in the moment, when he has a broad canvas and lots of runway).

What makes their work the best in the line right now? Gillen, Ewing and Spurrier are consistently offering the richest material to chew into with the dramatic chops to make it all hit home with maximum impact.

(Actually, I would definitely include Victor LaValle and his work on the recent minis Sabretooth and Sabretooth and the Exiles—but the very smart and entertaining narrative with a strong moral core that he’s been building across these titles is still as yet on the periphery of the overall Destiny of X architecture; hopefully, his exile tales prove highly relevant to this year’s Fall of X. The same goes for the line’s second extraordinary blessing from the world of novelists of fantasy, sci-fi and horror, Charlie Jane Anders, and her ongoing work with New Mutants.)

SPOILER-STUFFED Synopsis Follows…As for Sins of Sinister #1, the twist toward the end is a wonderful though inevitable surprise—where readers have the delight in recognizing that, of course, Sinister isn’t quite up to snuff when it comes to master plans, unlike, say, Thanos or Doom. He just isn’t quite that scary!

Over a decade ago, Gillen gave us the most frighteningly powerful and, above all, exquisitely campy Sinister yet in Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #1-3; “Everything Is Sinister” debuted the stunning notion of Sinister-as-system that X-Men Legacy scribe Mike Carey briefly revisited but that Hickman really ran with in all-new directions in Powers of X—opening the way for Gillen’s return to the character.

However, now, as we’ll see here, Sinister starts off infecting and reprogramming powerful mutants while allowing them, even in this state of thralldom to retain the integrity of their recognizable individuality, however unfree—unlike Carey’s excellent “Sins of the Father” (X-Men Legacy #211-214), where Xavier narrowly escapes being completely taken over and, presumably, eradicated.

But at the start of SOS1, all that seems certain is that Sinister has won; he has thoroughly conquered Earth. We also find out why he was so hell-bent on assassinating Hope: It turns out that she was, unconsciously, the key to preventing Sinister’s reprogramming of every resurrected mutant; take her out of the equation, and his plans could go forward without a hitch. Well, he did achieve his mission in Immortal X-Men #9, so then, it wasn’t just ol’ Charlie who’d been infected in issue #10 but the three other council telepaths—and from there, anyone else who underwent the Five’s Resurrection Protocols.

Now, it’s pretty amazing that in the five-year gap during which Sinister effectively takes over the world, Storm never dies, nor does she suspect anything, apparently, until most of that time has passed. Whatever. It works for the story.

We don’t yet know why Sinister then felt the need to lobotomize Krakoa, but it does enrage Sinister-mutated humanity against those who are blamed for the crime of the loss of their now forever-lost dead—Orchis; however, it’s hard to imagine the status quo (Orchis’ popularity with humans) not reverting back post-Sins of Sinister. Perhaps Krakoa’s vegetal complexity is too much Sinister’s schemes? In any case, the mutants have Wanda’s Waiting Room always and forever (RIP Wanda!).

Humanity, however, will provide sufficient cerebral mass for the eventual creation of a Sinister Dominion, as a hive mind that will, ideally, rival the Dominions of the Phalanx (Omega Sentinel’s “trickster” ally?).

(Orchis, robo-Moira and Nimrod go down real easy here, which doesn’t inspire confidence in their status as a credible threat going forward!)

As part of the series of splash pages gloriously dominating the second half of the issue, page 34 shows us that Waiting Room now ruled by Krakoa’s ambassador to Hell’s “Infernal Parliament,” Sebastian Shaw (undoubtedly with backup from Magik who now, along with Namor and the Beast, sits on the QC (in lieu of Mystique, Destiny and Sinister himself).

(You can bet Magneto in whatever astral form he’s in now is not hanging around the Waiting Room turned Hell.)

With Sinister’s evil code now running the human world, infected humans presumably continue infecting those last few pockets and individuals left free and, of course, their own offspring.

The future-history splash-page sequence kicks off with the hilarious assassination of Thanos—his head cored by a miniaturized Juggernaut shot from a gun fired by a Domino-inspired Hope. Cain and the corpse are lost to the timestream (which is also a nice oblique nod to Thanos’ current whereabouts post-Eternals).

Again, many of these splash pages are simply a reason for the guest artists to flex and for Gillen to feed us delightful nods and Easter eggs that run the gamut of the Marvel Universe.

In the midst of this catastrophic future, Storm finally gets wise; we don’t know how exactly, but what matters is that she comes to her last QC meeting prepared to fend off a Sinister psi-attack—essentially warded by Lactuca of Arakko’s Great Ring (see recent issues of X-Men: Red for more on this enigmatic Arakkii).

Nightcrawler’s future monstrousness is clearly an extrapolation from his current disarray in Legion of X, and it will continue on, no doubt, into Spurrier’s Nightcrawlers mini. Gillen and Werneck are effective here in showing, albeit very briefly, how devastating this years-long deception must feel to Storm.

When Storm finds herself with the missing Mystique and Destiny, the latter says exactly what she’s said several times now to Sinister, going back decades: “We must be on the same side.” Maybe this time, she can mean it without qualification? Certainly, she’s the far more compromised figure in this new alliance.

But with Arakko/Mars literally destroyed, Storm and company are going to have a much harder time of it acting as the most serious resistance to Sinister (Don’t cry, though—Sugar Man’s back; huzzah! ).

By the end of the issue, we see that Sinister (again, unlike Thanos or Doom) does not have tight control over his pawns, at all: He’s suddenly outvoted on taking the fight to those intergalactic powers that want to preemptively crush the burgeoning loose cannon the Sinister/mutant-dominated Earth has now become. While it’s a war that can’t be won by the mutants, the Krakoans show themselves to still be who they have always been—hopeless heroes, each with their own irascible individuality.

After all, Sinister didn’t want them to lose that individuality because that was exactly what made them useful as puppets. That plan has now gone awry!

So, he escapes to his Muir Isle, Moira-clone farm base (this is the first time we learn of its location, which is merely a bit of sardonic fun on Sinister’s part)—only to discover that it’s been completely stripped and stolen. This means he can no longer kill the current Moira and reset reality to his preferred “save point” (allowing him to start his grand experiment over again with all the knowledge and advantage he’s gained during the ongoing timeline; the Sinister scheme here delightfully echoes Claire North’s First Fifteen Lives of Harry August in the disasters wrought there upon the myriad reiterations of a 20th century concatenated with too many anachronistic technological advances).

Likeliest candidates for this brilliant heist? Obviously, Mystique and Destiny are foremost. But perhaps Moira herself has returned for her own brand of revenge… Or the other Suits of Sinister are still out there, evading the Diamonds Let the endgame begin!

NEXT: Sinister’s Dominion +10 YearsThe post Sins of Sinister #1 Review—The World Magneto Didn’t Live to See appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Si Spurrier writes; Jan Bazaldua draws; Federico Blee colors; Clayton Cowles letters; covers by Dike Ruan and Matthew Wilson

Despite series writer Si Spurrier’s smorgasbord of ideas for Legion of X, little of which comes into focus until the last issue of the first arc (likely to happen again with the conclusion of the second, issue #10), Spurrier has one simple message throughout, which may or may not help readers appreciate it more:

Love, or Liebenden (German for “Lovers”), defeats (Ever)war.

(“A Canticle for Liebenden,” a riff off the sci-fi classic A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller, Jr. is the title of issue #5; “Everwar” is what the Arakkii call the centuries of conflict with Amenth.)

Review:When these early issues were coming out, I’d already checked out with issue #1—but rereading them now on Marvel Unlimited, I find them worth returning to a few times over; however, I’m still not going to invest in getting the trade. If the rest of the series turns out to be more memorable, then we’ll see.

Obviously, we now know that some of the material here will be essential to understanding upcoming event Sins of Sinister, with zany Si Spurrier and superb artist Paco Medina penning the Nightcrawler miniseries, one-third of the event’s trio of three-issue minis. Leaving aside the dire spoiler-iness of solicits, it’s logical that Legion of X’s subtly antagonistic mystery figure with the British accent, Mother Righteous, will play something of a Sinister role; after all, event architect Kieron Gillen’s Immortal X-Men villain is Sinister and the third writer involved, the cosmo-spectacular Al Ewing, has revealed another of Essex’s earliest clones, Orbis Stellaris (in “the suit of spades”), in his X-Men: Red.

In other words, after the top-tier “dueling aces” of Immortal X-Men and X-Men: Red, the current X title with the most immediate relevance is indeed Legion of X, however much you can or cannot stand the pace of Spurrier’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink storytelling style.

Frankly, sometimes a talented creator’s best hope when working on licensed properties (as opposed to creator-owned material) is to generate a bunch of wild ideas for whatever time they have on a given title and so leave it to subsequent creators to pick up whatever threads seem most fruitful—mix-n-match as they will. Almost a year in, this seems to be the case with Legion of X. Hence, if you read it as a zany ideas generator, you’re probably following Spurrier’s intent; thus, he’s succeeded with his remit as far as he views it.

My primary criticism of the book at the start of 2023 is its confusion of protagonists: The Legion title was quickly revealed to be Nightcrawler-centric—but occasionally still also Legion’s spotlight. But last summer, the most prevalent complaint about the series was its tone-deafness concerning social justice issues around crime and punishment, where the alternative intentional society of Krakoa was supposed to be providing models for, well, alternatives to the way we do things so badly in our own reality. The glaring hypocrisy, always intentional on Hickman’s part, was the existence of the Pit and Xavier’s ready willingness to condemn whoever even mildly displeased him … (Had Sinister tendencies already taken over???) However, Legion of X was supposed to provide yet another alternative. It’s right there in the first issue’s solicit:

Krakoa has its laws—but does it have justice? To remain a mutant sanctuary, Krakoa must safeguard itself against those who would damage its peace or traumatize its people. The lost must be found, and the wicked must face redemption—or retribution.

Okay, well—maybe that was the first issue, but apparently Spurrier didn’t think this was his remit for the title as a whole, however it wholly comes together or not. This quote’s last sentence would appear to reference fascinating (but still quite unknown) new mutant Lost (from Spurrier’s Way of X), and the rest of it (which is quite detailed, revelatory of why as a reader I detest solicits!) mentions the other characters “on the beat” (phrasing that refers only to cops, though it’s not otherwise explicit there): Nightcrawler, Pixie (“on point”) and Juggernaut (“a one-man riot squad”).

[First and last briefing at the precinct, issue #1]Just bear in mind, the storytellers on licensed properties do not write the solicits. Yet still, editorial must’ve had some idea from the author as to what the series was to be about! (Was Spurrier pressed in duress to give some accounting of what he, as a clearly experimental and thus process-oriented teller, would’ve rather left unaccountable?)So, it’s perfectly understandable that the popular critique centered on Spurrier’s apparent tone-deafness here: He provides no real, substantive alternative community policing, much less ideas for retribution, or restitution, even once the Krakoan bad guy/chaos-maker, a sorry nobody named Switch, is apprehended (and then executed without Kurt’s knowledge, essentially by his lover, the Arakkii Weaponless Zsen).

And yet taking in the first arc only now, this reader at least left behind any expectation for diligence and depth on this particular hot-button topic with that first issue. I knew there’d be nothing gained there, so simply read to enjoy what could be enjoyed. In doing so, I found more than expected—indeed, too much!

That said, the finest feature of this first arc is the way it almost comes together in issue #5, which however, of course, leaves several mysteries unresolved—though they happily remain, I believe, tantalizing enough.

Yet what it all means? As stated above: Liebe trumps Krieg. For all Spurrier’s zaniness, pretty simple, nein? Well, this might be what formal thematic closure there is to the first arc, but it’s pretty clear that the point is really: To dwell in possibility (to cop a phrase from the inimitable Emily) is the victory against the Death—that is closure. Looking back at the Spurrier oeuvre, isn’t closure itself really the nemesis behind and haunting the scenes, beleaguering the questing artist in the market of a medium increasingly favoring just that, that closing down of possibilities, of interpretive reader response?

Do I read too generously? Perhaps that’s a question that doesn’t yet know what reading can be.

To bring it back to mutant brass tacks, the fan-relevant deets: Legion of X offers the finest characterization of Nightcrawler since … a really long time! Hickman in Powers of X and X-Men #8 gave us his character in choice snippets, amplifying by implication in those all-too-brief moments. Spurrier, however, operates expansively, that is, in a Romantic mode that (however much it, as such, succeeds or not) is pitch perfect for our swashbucklin’ romancer (Imagine how perfect, too: Kurt Wagner as German Expressionist, and depicted in that way. There is the potential of this in the art of Bazaldua).

Think, too, of Spurrier’s new seemingly gonzo creation, the Spirit of Variance—that is, of chance operations; of hazarding a try at something new, different; of breathing in the renewal of the ever-renewing Spark.

Read Spurrier as a writer in the Romantic mode, where the fragment replaces the totality of formal structure (and thus the deadly dry air of closure), and you will have a high fun time. Oddly, though, he reads as more inspired upon reflection rather than in the moment.

Certainly, he is not playing second fiddle to the more formally realized operatics of Gillen’s Quiet Council and Ewing’s Great Circle. Spurrier is writing exactly the series he wants; its import is in another direction; hopefully, we’ll get to see how these three visions of the X mythos converge and compliment and contrast with another in “Sins of Sinister”—of course, in an alt-reality fun-house mirror kind of way. In fact, I’ll bet this event is going to excite new or lapsed readership to Legion of X, when it resumes in, presumably, May.

Here are some useful notes on this arc for readers:First off, while this isn’t a knock against Spurrier’s story, it is a bit irritating that issue #4 cover’s features Loki—false advertising! But in the comic itself, (Silver Age) Loki’s (shadowy) presence is briefly suggested, exciting readers to read on…?

The deity Tumult, “The Trickster Chimaera” (issue #4), is an amalgamation of various tricksters out of Earthling mythology, courtesy of Ora Serrata—both his Inquisitor-style persecutor and initial worshiper. Throughout this arc, until the final issue, he protected his second follower, the opportunistic body-hopper Switch, in what was referred to as a “No-Place” on Krakoa; however, it seems clear that Tumult’s powers are what hid this space from even Warlock’s awareness (Warlock being enmeshed with Krakoa’s). So, this wasn’t another of Xavier/Moira/Magneto’s hidden, “tumorous” No-Places.

At Nightcrawler’s encouragement, Tumult broke out of this space by realizing he was allowed to serve himself and not just be a tool of those who created or made offerings to him.

Having swapped bodies with the body-hopper, Tumult left Arakko in Switch’s body as Switch was slain, apparently, in Tumult’s giant form, in the Circle Perilous. Only time will tell if Spurrier or another picks up his story and deepens it with greater interest. This character would seem to have some interesting potential in a fictional universe that really only has one prominent trickster god, Loki; it will just take the right hands to bring out something original and worthwhile. With his traumatic entry into the world and his anomie (both in the sense of being cast adrift from the certainty of a tradition and of being restless and uncertain from a lack of purpose or higher ideals), this “patchwork”* deity is already more human than divine—he’s relatable.

(Interesting that in Way of X, the apparent shadowy threat there was the Patchwork Man, who turned out to be Legion himself—ahem, him selves*… And who is more patchwork than he???)

As it is, Tumult’s reason for being here is to reveal Ora Serrata’s hollow zealotry and hypocrisy. He is still, unsurprisingly, a child—newborn in the world.

[No one seems to question too closely the almost overwhelmingly bizarre presence of these magic mirrors, courtesy of Mother Righteous, who remains mostly behind the scenes. The possessed Banshee also clearly receives that Hand of Glory from the sorceress (see issue #2).]Ora Serrata summoned this amalgamated deity using limited magical abilities conferred, in an esoteric pact or Faustian bargain, by Mother Righteous (who eloquently enough insists on gratitude from those who receive her questionable gifts—and becoming her hanger-on, as with Banshee and the Spirit of Variance, seems to be the deepest of her satisfactions, so far). Ora’s creepy design fits perfectly with her duties (presumably self-conferred) as the embodiment of Arakko’s domestic law enforcement, such as it is (“justice” for the Arakkii centers on the challenges that take place in the Circle Perilous); her eye at least feels as if it has a panoptic surveillance power (thinking here of the 18th-century “Enlightenment” conception of the carceral Panopticon, amalgamated with the zeal of the Spanish Inquisition, despite the Arbitrix’s screed against gods).The body-hopping “skinjacker” Switch is a deep cut from the late ’90s, fan-favorite John Francis Moore run on X-Force (issues #87-90). He was one of the so-called New Hellions, basically just mutant terrorists (and not under Emma’s purview, although one of her erstwhile Hellion students, Tarot, was on the team, as was ex-New Mutant Magma). No one’s going to be missing him—and he, much like Tumult, is in the story to serve Spurrier’s thematic interest, with Kurt as the vehicle.

Kurt is the appropriate vehicle for questions of moral crime, or sin, and punishment—and redemption; above all, though, Spurrier wants our swashbucklin’ hero to do some shadow work, for which it’s past time, what with not just his codename but his very appearance. It was enough in the early years that Claremont, working off Dave Cockrum’s original visual design, wanted to make a point about being a mutant: Appearing different, or devilish in the eyes of simple-minded yokels, doesn’t mean you can’t be a nice guy, and Nightcrawler is the nicest, most wholesome X-Man ever. But there’s a danger of a Mary Sue there, someone who’s too perfect, too well-rounded, too balanced. I commend Spurrier’s ambition here to explore Kurt’s deeper psychic terrain.

As to the massacre Ora Serrata unleashes in the Altar once Kurt catches her out in her lies and conspiracy to sow chaos via her hounding of Tumult, it’s wild to me that Krakoa did not seek any sort of retribution or even restitution. Well—death is not the end; still, that giant eye seems like a hard though swift way to go (however temporarily).

There are a few interesting lead-ins to the next arc, which is even clearer in hindsight, months later: Zsen leaves Kurt with a portrait of his true self, of which we see only Kurt’s shocked and humbled reaction; Warlock is alarmed at some kind of techno-organic “blooms,” bright little flakes sticking to Juggernaut—who says they “just kinda … drift in outa the Astral Plane” (recall that in the first issue we learned that Magus, Warlock’s father/tyrannical progenitor was slain by Nimrod, which atrocity echoed through “dreamspace,” surprising Legion, who didn’t think “synthetic intelligence” had any kind of presence there; presumably, Xavier is surprised as well); Nightcrawler’s investigative team is now on the case of Paulie’s murderer, who we saw only briefly in issue #4, just his purple arms and rectilinear word balloons—indicating some kind of artificiality, perhaps something techno-organic (he had come to retrieve Switch’s psyche that had been trapped in a kind of jar and watched over, oddly, by Paulie).

Lastly, I do personally prefer Xavier as arrogant but hapless heel rather than Sinister-possessed diabolical mastermind (Immortal X-Men), but the best would be seeing the latter version defeated through his own hilarious idiocy, like so…

NEXT: Nightcrawler wrestles with his devilishness and goes digging in his own dirt—fitting for one named after a worm! Worm! Worm! (Sheesh, those literal-minded Arakkii cannot stand anyone not having the most flowery, byzantine names, like Ora Serrata (hour of sawing? golden sawtooth?), Lodus (Lodos as in muck and mire?) Logos, even Lactuca; she’s what, an amoeboid fungus or a lettuce, or just something else to do with milk?

The post Legion of X #1-5 in Review: A Canticle for Liebenden appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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One of the fun and interesting – or infuriating, take your pick – things about reading Star Wars comics from the era of this collection is the way they interact with what counts as current canon. Published by Dark Horse Comics in the early 00s, the stories collected in Star Wars Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed vol. 3 have been deemed non-canonical “legends” relative to the stories being told in the current comics from Marvel, as well as the movies and streaming series of the Disney era. They were also published in the early 2000s, just before or right around the release of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Which means they are indirectly non-canonical in a different way: by virtue of having been created before Attack of the Clones, they can’t reference later events, such as the Clone Wars or the details of Anakin’s fall to the dark side.

The end result is a batch of stories that function more as a historical curiosity than anything – both because of the timing of their creation and because, ultimately, the level of craft involved is largely workmanlike and of its time. It’s doubtful that anyone is going to read the stories collected in this volume and be enticed by sparkling scripts, the mind-blowing plots, or stunning art, because they contain very little of those things. These are stories crafted to simply tell entertaining stories in a familiar, well-loved setting and for the most part, they succeed in that goal. But they do little to rise above the circumstances of their creation. Yet that’s not to say they are entirely devoid of value or entertainment, as a closer look can reveal.

The Adventures of Quinlan and AaylaLaunched in 1998 ahead of the release of The Phantom Menace as the first new ongoing Star Wars comic since the original 1977 Marvel book, the simply-titled Star Wars spent the next several years serving as the flagship series of Dark Horse’s comics set in a galaxy far, far away. Specifically, it explored the era of the Prequels between Phantom Menace and the then-upcoming Attack of the Clones, and started to hit their stride with the arrival of writer John Ostrander and penciler Jan Duursema in issue #19, as the pair began chronicling the adventures of Jedi Quinlan Vos, his apprentice Aayla Secura (whose comic book adventures caught George Lucas’ eye, leading to her being written into canon in Attack of the Clones) and their reluctant occasional ally Vilmahr “Villie” Grahrk.

To varying degrees, both those creators and their notable characters are featured in the issues of Star Wars collected in this volume, issues #36-#45, which comprise three different stories, though rarely do all three elements (Ostrander, Duursema, and Quinlan/Aayla) come together. First up is the “Stark Hyperpace War” in issues #36 through #39, written by Ostrander with Davidé Fabbri on pencils, in which the Jedi Council gets drawn into a galactic conflict over the control of the medicinal bacta. Notably, it is a conflict that is not a “full scale war” like the upcoming Clone Wars and that is, frankly, the most interesting thing about it, watching Ostrander try to thread the needle between presenting a sweeping large scale action story that pulls in some of the most powerful and significant of Jedi, while still leaving enough room for it not to overshadow the Clone Wars (or even something like the Yuuzhan Vong War then unfolding in the Star Wars novels). For the most part, he succeeds, though in meeting his goals, he ultimately has to tell a somewhat restrained story that doesn’t quite hit as hard as it could.

Star Wars #40-41 covers “The Devaronian Version”, a story which centers on Villie, a Devaronian (those are the devil-looking aliens, one of whom first appeared in the New Hope cantina) bounty hunter who becomes an uncomfortable sidekick to Quinlan throughout Ostrander’s run. Villie is in many ways the spiritual ancestor of someone like Honda Ohnaka from Clone Wars and Rebels (or even Han Solo or Lando Calrissian), a character operating in the shadows of the Star Wars universe with just enough integrity to reluctantly help the heroes, but not so much they quite become out-and-out heroes. “The Devaronian Version” offers Villie’s take on his recent adventures with Quinlan after he’s accused of going soft and being in the pocket of the Jedi. It’s a story largely played for laughs (or, at least, “amused chuckles”), and it does that job well enough. At just two issues, it also doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Finally, Star Wars #42-45 features “Rite of Passage,” a story which finds the band back together again as Jan Duursema returns to the series and both Quinlan Vos and Aayla Secura return to the spotlight. Duursema is the unsung hero of Dark Horse’s Star Wars stories, consistently bringing strong storytelling fundamentals and a keen eye for design to her work, and “Rite of Passage” gains from the narrative relevance of chronicling the events which lead to Quinlan becoming a Jedi Master and his Padawan Aayla elevated to the rank of Jedi Knight. Their promotions make the story an appropriate bookend for the series; while Ostrander and Duursema will in later issues continue the adventures of Quinlan and Aayla and pickup on plot threads laid down in “Rite of Passage,” that story marks the last time the series’ will be playing in the pre-Attack of the Clones timeline; as of issue #46, the series becomes “Star Wars: Republic” and begins chronicling tales set in the post-Attack of the Clones era, telling stories set amidst the events of the Clone Wars. The Ostrander/Duursema, Quinlan/Aayla combo, combined with the narrative relevance, elevates “Rite of Passage” ahead of the other Star Wars stories collected in this volume.

Jedi QuestIn addition to the ten issue run of Star Wars, Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 3 includes two other stories set in the same era. Jedi Quest is a four issue limited series starring Obi-Wan Kenobi and a young Anakin Skywalker. Like the others in this volume, it takes place between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, and is one of the few stories from this era to really embrace the dynamic of a relatively young Obi-Wan and Anakin learning to work together (issue #1 opens with Obi-Wan taking Anakin to the planet Illum, where he constructs his first lightsaber). In it, they become embroiled in a plot to take down an intergalactic slave ring, which involves Anakin being captured and forced back into slavery for a time. Needless to say, it can read a bit heavy at times, but it’s also the story that reads as the most “of its time,” both in its style and its limitations born of when it was written in the context of the larger Star Wars narrative.

Writer Ryder Windham does an effective job of wringing out as much pathos from Anakin’s circumstances as he can, flashing back to his time on Tatooine and featuring some unrevealed snippets of his life with his mother. At the same time, it all reads much differently in hindsight, with the benefit of just how big a deal Anakin’s abandonment of his mother would come to play in the character’s fall to the Dark Side across the remaining Prequel Trilogy. It’s difficult to read the story and not feel like those connections could be tighter/more explicit, even though of course they can’t be, because Windham had no idea of the details of what was to come in Anakin’s story (there’s also a more amusing accidentally-predictive bit in issue #4, in which we see that Obi-Wan has a blue collar pre-Dexter Jettster contact in the bowels of Coruscant).

Art in Jedi Quest comes from Pop Mhan, an artist whose style very much tapped into the manga-esque influence that permeated comics in the late 90s. While his faces occasionally devolve into asymmetry and there can be an unfinished sketchiness to some of his figures, he manages the sequential action well enough. But the style alone and its ties to a very specific post-Joe Madureira era of American comic book art adds a dated feeling to the whole thing. Ultimately, Jedi Quest is emblematic of the volume as a whole, as it’s difficult to read as anything other than a historical curiosity.

A Tale of Two Bounty HuntersThe final story collected in Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 3 was originally presented as a pair of super-sized 64 page one-shots, one dedicated to Jango Fett, the other to Zam Wesell, the then-new bounty hunters characters poised to debut in Attack of the Clones (as “preview players,” both characters also received special pre-release action figures as well). Written by Ron Marz with art by Tom Fowler (Jango Fett) and Ted Naifeh (Zam Wesell), the story told across the two issues tells of the bounty hunters teaming up first to steal an ancient relic from an alien temple, then to stop that relic from being used to destroy the planet of Coruscant. Marz does his best to use the extra pages to imbue the two characters with some semblance of personality, though of course he’s more successful with Jango, thanks to the lineage of the character and his relationship to Boba than with Zam, who ultimately goes on to be little more than a plot point in Attack of the Clones (Marz does takes advantage of the medium to do a lot more with Zam’s shapeshifting abilities than the film ultimately does, though, which is fun).

The most notable thing about Zam Wesell is, ultimately, that it showcases the death of Yarael Poof (the Jedi Master with the head like a fleshy Q-tip), thereby explaining his absence from the Jedi Council in Episode II. Jango Fett, however, features perhaps the most memorable art of the entire volume, from Tom Fowler. His work is lush and painterly, and lends an almost storybook-like vibe to the issue, which is appropriate for its tale of Indiana Jones-esque tomb raiding. The story is fairly routine and overly long, but it’s gorgeous to look at.

The Menace RevealedIt’s difficult to recommend a volume like this to anyone but diehard Star Wars fans (and they’ve probably already read these stories), featuring as it does a less-than-fertile storytelling era hamstrung by the limitations of the franchise at the time (knowing what’s come in the Dark Horse era almost makes reading this volume worse, as the volume comes right to the cusp of some genuinely good stories set during the Clone Wars, even if they, too, are non-canonical legends).

Yet at the same time, the volume is not without its charms: the work from Ostrander and Duursema is solid, and while the ones includes in this Epic Collection may not represent the best Quinlan Vos/Aayla Secura stories, they’re still entertaining entries that prove the staying power of those characters. In and around some messy art, Jedi Quest does some interesting things by exploring Anakin’s past as a slave and how that’s impacting his development as a Jedi. And while somewhat ponderous, the Jango Fett/Zam Wesell two-hander does at least feature some of the most evocative art of the volume in at least one of its (overlong) chapters.

Are these the best Star Wars stories put out by Dark Horse during their long stewardship of the franchise? Certainly not. But in revisiting them, it becomes clear they do represent, warts and all, a snapshot of a very specific time, for both comics and the Star Wars franchise. And there’s some entertainment to be had in looking at that snapshot and seeing the kinds of stories that arose from the trends and limitations of that time.

The post Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Menace Revealed Vol. 3 TP Review! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Kieron Gillen writes; Lucas Werneck draws; David Curiel colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Mark Brooks

SPOILERS AHOY!!!

Another chapter in the X-Men mythos titled “Hated and Feared”—huzzah!

I suppose the twist this time is that by the end we’re to understand that it’s merely Xavier himself who’s being referred to here, for he wants to be hated and feared—even by his own fellow mutants!

Now, I can see that for newer readers, or those less familiar with Xavier’s inward trajectory over the decades, this issue might feel authentically revelatory. It could also be that I’ve long tired of ol’ Chuck! But while there was little surprising about how Gillen portrayed the good Professor in this Xavier-spotlight chapter (remember, that Stan and Jack’s X-Men #1 explicitly lays out Professor X’s mission as combating powerful evil mutants, like Magneto), it feels, for this reader at least, somewhat at odds with his current portrayal elsewhere, as in Legion of X, where he seems much less aware of how he’s coming across, even to old friends like Nightcrawler (much less toward his own son). There’s no sense there that Charles is trying to be suspicious with them. In other words, Gillen’s portrayal here gives Xavier too much a sense of self-control. But I’m not saying that’s his intent—which would mean something is missing from this specific issue’s portrayal.

Gillen revealed in a recent very excellent interview with CBH editor-in-chief Dave Buesing that he actually wrote this issue before any of the other Immortal X-Men material, so maybe that’s why it slightly clashes with the way Xavier has increasingly been portrayed as an arrogant idiot. Here, his arrogance is masterly, even, apparently, supremely well-intentioned. However, this is, after all, Xavier’s own view of himself—so fair enough! But again, in other titles currently, he does not seem aware of how suspicious or disingenuous he’s acting; his bald-faced lies are fooling no one. So, maybe this portrayal works better as shedding light on older representations of Professor X, but once more, if you’re deeply familiar with his character history, it’s unsurprising. However, it is nice to see his self-awareness, especially after seeing none of the Professor’s interiority since, well … the Mike Carey run?!?!?! That is a long time. Since his 2018 resurrection, he’s been simply gnomic.

The thing is, though, I like ol’ Chuck portrayed as entirely bumbling in his idiot hubris—and that is the only way I enjoy reading him. I believe to my core that one of the great misses of the Claremont run (and this is no fault of Claremont!) is that Claremont’s wish to permanently send off Charles, not even halfway through his 16-year tenure, never came to pass. With a largely nostalgic creative staff and chief editorship during that era, it’s no surprise this didn’t happen; and yet that doesn’t mean some of us aren’t justifiably tired of Xavier’s continued existence. The man should be laid to rest!

What’s most noteworthy about this issue for this reader, aside from the brilliant twist at the end of course(!!!), is that Immortal X-Men is at its best when Gillen is spotlighting those characters less defined. My least favorite issues, although all of them are great relative to at least 98% of current superhero fare, are the spotlights on Emma, Kurt and, above all, Kate (issue #9 was not a spotlight for her in any meaningful way). I’ll now include this Xavier chapter in this list too. Again, they’re not bad issues by any means; however, the ones for me to revisit many times are the rest: those that focus on Hope, Exodus, Shaw, and above all Destiny (and Mystique) and Sinister.

(Sinister and Irene really were the stars of Mystique’s issue, which is why that one succeeds amazingly, despite Raven being firmly in the backseat there (even as Sherlock Holmes!); yet she had already come into focus very refreshingly for Destiny’s spotlight, where she’s of course Irene’s other half. My top favorite issues have been #s 1, 3 and 8; after that, it’s #s 2, 5 and 6. Of course, the rest are strong on dynamic plot and plot-wise surprises, but they don’t have the character craft of my favorites—although they have it in spades compared to most superhero comics. A clear exception here is Nightcrawler, who since Legion of X #5 has been coming across much more interestingly in that title from Si Spurrier.)

Okay! On with the rest of the very good (but not, for me, astoundingly) issue #10…

Despite some brief hemming and hawing at the start about the viability of Krakoan Resurrection sans Hope, she—and Exodus, Emma and Xavier—are of course quickly resurrected, courtesy of Synch syncing up with Hope’s corpse—a nice twist! Is this a misstep? It might end up being one if we learn that the most essential individual of the Five wasn’t as absolutely critically necessary as she’s been built up to be, and in this very title!

This issue also features the return to Mister Sinister’s Sinister London, a kitsch pocket-city of cod Victoriana stashed away in some Moloid caverns beneath Alaska—which, yes, involved Sinister exterminating the locals, though it was in turn destroyed shortly after its debut (see Gillen’s Uncanny X-Men #14-17), and on top of it was built another villain town (in 2014’s Iron Man vol 5 #27-28, also by Gillen). In the aftermath, it appears its original faux-aristocratic lord rebuilt (that man’s virus’s resources are impressive).

Speaking of Sinister being a virus, how exactly does one imprison such an entity?

Well, given this issue’s surprise ending—you can’t!

How much of a surprise is this, though? Gillen is clearly writing in homage to Mike Carey’s classic story wherein Sinister is revealed to have embedded his essence or “psychic matrix” or whatever is the DNA of several children, Charles Xavier, Cain Marko, Sebastian Shaw and Carter Ryking, to safeguard his bid for immortality—and perhaps with stolen powers to boot, predicting that at least a couple of these kids would grow into powerful mutants (see 2008’s X-Men: Legacy #211-214, an arc titled “Sins of the Father,” which certainly resonates with we’re about to venture in 2023).

Unfortunately, this time Werneck’s art felt a bit rushed, though it’s still impressively dynamic and moody where appropriate. But there’s something oddly muted about the action, which goes by very quickly; probably this is due to Xavier’s deadpan narration—and the fact that all his (and Gillen’s) nods to history, schematic references to Magneto, the original X-Men and then the 1975 iteration, don’t give us anything radically new or surprising.

Is it that surprising that Xavier has placed a psychic kill-switch in those world leaders who could easily launch nuclear missiles? Not really! In fact, that is the least nefarious thing he’s ever done! It’s down right commendable, of course it is!

What’s more surprising is that Xavier actually wants to appear suspicious because he does consider himself a real global threat. The icing on the cake here is the implication that he put together the X-Men to combat not just the obvious “evil” mutants we’re used to, starting with Magneto—but potentially the good Professor, as well, in case he does go bad (and, of course, we’ve seen this old chestnut before).

The real surprise here is saved for the end: not even so much Sinister captured and imprisoned in the Pit with relative ease…

No, the real revelation here is Sinister’s possession of Xavier, the last-page reveal.

Of course, Xavier has just spent the entire issue telling us, the readers, how potentially dangerous he is and that the X-Men are trained in taking out the most powerful mutant baddies. Ergo, Sinister’s possession is certain to be unsuccessful—but oh, the damage we’ll get to enjoy along the way.

In other words, I do not believe that Sinister is merely monologuing through Xavier in Xavier’s narration this issue, although it’s possible some of the sinister tone is perhaps Sinister’s—but has the good Professor ever needed outside help in that department? Nope!

Now, I won’t bet the barn on this. After all, we don’t know how Charlie got to be possessed by Sinister. What if he did it on purpose? Maybe he’s more in control here than we think. That’s something to ponder on!

Perhaps Claremont’s dream of giving Xavier the funeral he’s long deserved will finally bear fruit? (Clearly, this reviewer has never been much of a fan of dry ol’ Chuck.)

It’s also interesting that the imprisoned Sinister doesn’t seem to suspect that “he’s” possessed Xavier. Deploying the scare quotes is a way of underscoring that we don’t know Sinister-as-system is located. Remember, we’ve seen Sinisters slay each other and stand in each other’s place with none the wiser. So, what the hell do the Krakoans really think they’re doing by just throwing one Sinister body in the Pit? Surely, his clonal nature is no secret to them.

Yet presumably, someone on Krakoa gets up to something between now and Sins of Sinister #1, unless that’s where we see how we get from Earth-616 to whatever supposedly “Age of Apocalypse” style reality we’ll be visiting for what I hope a few glorious months of gonzo yet sublime dystopic weirdness.

Here’s a starting guess: The Sinister-possessed Xavier visits Sinister’s Moira farm and instantiates the reality he believes best suits him; along the way, we’ll see Charles fighting for his soul à la Dan Slott’s Peter Parker (back when Doc Ock did that deathbed bodyswap).

There is a nice subtle moment toward issue’s end, just after Sinister has been consigned to the Pit, when Nightcrawler (currently horned) sighs in relief at Sinister’s incarceration, not merely showing how universally loathed and feared the villain is (for Kurt is the last person we’d expect to be relieved about anyone going to Krakoan jail, right?)—but this image is juxtaposed with Destiny telling his mother it’s time for them, just the pair of them, to get out of Dodge. Irene is seeing something she’s not going to share with anyone else. And we better believe it’s real bad.

If there’s one clear misstep this issue, it’s a forgettable passage early on about being a father, primarily an adoptive one, as with Xavier toward his younger wards, Cable, seen here carrying a dead Hope to her resurrection, and even Sinister, who hasn’t experienced true fatherhood since he, or the human he once was, lost his young boy well over a century ago, but has been a twisted creator and/or overlord to myriad mutants and clones. Gillen seems to be reaching for something that doesn’t quite bear out in these pages, again contributing some sense of last-minute compression—before the big event!

NEXT: Mr. Sinister is perfectly content?! The universe is going to melt?! Just who believes these darn solicits anyway?!The post Immortal X-Men #10 in Review – Coming Up Diamonds! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Credits: Tini Howard writes; Bob Quinn draws; Erick Arciniega colors; Ariana Maher letters; stunningly gorgeous covers, the real highlight here, from Yanick Paquette and Alejandra Sanchez Rodriguez.

To whatever degree you do or don’t enjoy the foundational Claremont-and-Davis Excalibur run (1988-90), as a mash-up of various genre settings and modes, it was unusual in the mainstream comics landscape. For readers who grokked to it, Claremont and Davis were playfully subverting the superhero genre while allowing in outside genre elements and, of course, a playful but earnest exploration of sexuality—apparently too subtle for some fans to pick up on, while that apparent subtlety dazzled others with its colorful boldness. Excalibur has even inspired a fun reread podcast, Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, Oh Wow!, hosted by a trio of academics enthused by the iconic title’s sexually coded antics.

To step into those shoes following Claremont and Davis’ departure would’ve been a daunting task, and unsurprisingly, no one has ever been up to it—except for Davis himself a few years later. Still, Tini Howard does come next closest; yet her effort remains a far cry from the ebullient wit and zing of that original run.

Not that it needs to be the same, but comparisons are inevitable. Following “X of Swords,” several issues of Howard and To’s Excalibur were excellent, especially in portraying Betsy and Kwannon’s fraught dynamic and the return of Malice. But like most of the Krakoan-era titles pushing toward the two-year mark, there was an increasing sense of floundering or disarray before a muted wrap-up and big relaunch that, inevitably, met an increasingly circumspect enthusiasm from the fans.

With Knights of X #1-5, Howard and new series artist Bob Quinn (who did amazing work on Way of X and Cable: Reloaded), had comparatively scant real estate to give us a bang-up adventure, which was good after too many issues of Excalibur and not enough focused development and payoff. By far, the only thing that made this incidental miniseries (it was an ongoing that was quickly canceled) is the first kiss between Betsy and Rachel—even while the build up to their romance has been almost entirely lacking (More on this strangely not particularly romantic ship below). At the very least, the storytellers gave us what many of Rachel’s fans have known since her early days with Claremont’s X-Men: She will clearly never be into dudes (Just don’t you dare marry these two off now, Disney! Oh, but does anyone really think we’ll get to see either of these ladies date as lesbians? Nope, this is the new brand, and they’re going to stick to it because that’s branding).

It didn’t exactly end on a high note as the conclusion was rushed—which particular problem isn’t the fault of the writer; it’s an unenviable job writing a monthly that could be canceled at any moment because the sales don’t match other books starring Wolvie, Spidey, Cap and so on. But the final issue is quite incoherent: There’s clearly a gap between issue #4 and the conclusion, and the Mordred plot is summarily dropped (and Gambit’s return from issue #3’s “death” is only very partly explained away).

All is tidied away in a cavalcade of dei ex machina. Our Betsy will now run her Corps from the region formerly known as Mercator (presumably temporarily renamed, “Fort Krakoa”—original) and bow to none. Rachel’s ability to monitor the Multiverse is what allows Betsy’s freedom from Otherworld management (whether from Saturnyne, Roma or Merlyn).

The main problem here is that however much Howard expanded Otherworld, what we now have is a range of distinct fantasyland venues, some imbued with tropes of horror, either classically gothic or sci-fi dystopic, and others straight out of, well, a very flat, paint-by-numbers Arthuriana and Victoriana with trivial gestures at current sensibilities. Despite vague potential in Betsy and Saturnyne’s feud, there’s little that’s exciting or genuinely funny about this on-the-nose dynamic, the closest we get to humor in this mini. That sort of comic opera can be really fun and diverting; here, it’s just irritable and dull. So, different fantasylands stitched together but not exactly mingling with any kind of fascinating dynamic are simply static backdrops to the blunt and blocky “quest” narrative of a handful of individuals, only one of whom (Meggan) is actually of Otherworld. There are no transgressive elements to rouse the tired tropes Howard has been employing since the start of her Excalibur.

The interactions we do get between the different fantasy realms are entirely schematic and abstract. There are alliances in a war between fear and tolerance, hatred and acceptance—but we have almost no sense of who lives in these places, except for the entirely stock peasant folk of Otherworld. And that is about as dull as you can get in this genre. Ewing has done far more with his Arakkii communities with far less page space.

Knights of X continues the trend from Howard’s Excalibur of aiming for only the most superficial version of a genre mash-up, a mere stitching together of different fantasy venue backdrops, which, frankly, could be from any number of other genres of the fantastic—their individual character and composition doesn’t matter because they’re simply not the real focus. The tritest of tropes, easily recognizable to all readers, are deployed time and again entirely in service to the narrative of another Krakoan super-team, in this case, one that has never gelled (arguably, though, none of them has, with the knock-out exception of Wells’ Hellions).

Indeed, the one fantasy artifact given a critical role in the story, the Siege Perilous, has long been established as central the X-Men mythos. It is of Otherworld, but its notoriety wasn’t established until the Outback Era of Claremont’s Uncanny run, where it was a gift (and, of course, a sort of curse) from Roma after she helped the X-Men fake their deaths and relocate to the Australian Outback; the period closed with the team stepping through the Siege’s magical portal and coming out very different and far elsewhere—and amnesiac, as they lived their “heart’s desire,” however twisted (as with Betsy ending up in an Asian assassin’s body; cringey Orientalism aside, there was also Havok ending up as a fascist Genoshan stormtrooper).

??????????In other words, Howard is primarily troping on a thoroughly X-Men trope—while the stock fantasy tropes deployed in creating the anodyne Otherworld backdrop are little more than wallpaper (The Siege Perilous also functions as a get-out-of-jail-free card for Gambit who never really “died” in issue #3*). The reverence with which this artifact is treated here is very much at odds with Claremont’s depictions of it, but that’s okay, as long as current storytellers can sell it; Howard’s endeavor here was curtailed with the title’s cancellation.

(*And yes, Gambit was indeed very briefly Apocalypse’s Death in the oddball and all-but-forgotten run from Peter Milligan in the mid-2000s.)

To be clear, I am all for more queer content in mainstream comics; the more the merrier. But here, there’s nothing exciting about the relationships depicted. There’s very little romance. Maybe it’s Disney corporate that is tolerant only so long as it’s given the anodyne veneer of the “family friendly,” but spicy romancing you will not find in these pages. This mini is kiddy fare firmly in the worst version of a hard G-rating. However, as it’s Howard’s name attached to this project, and the fantasy tropes are not under censorship and yet are as lacking as the story’s romantic excitement, in the sense of both adventure and passion, readers can only assume that Howard is the one playing it all too dreadfully safe.

The frustratingly mild exception here is the one pseudo-revelatory kiss of the series, the first one shared between Betsy and Rachel—which has been expected since the beginning of Howard’s Excalibur, meaning quite a long time now! The real problem here, beside the delay (which I’m sure can be blamed on corporate), is that Howard did very little to build their dynamic in a way that make this moment feel earned and exciting; it only pays off to prior fans of these two characters, not for readers getting to know them during the Krakoa era. And even then, it’s founded on very little shared page space, so it’s likely that most avowed X-heads aren’t going to remember all that clearly. Again, no effort has been made to convince us that the pair will click, that this choice isn’t as random as it seems right now; and to be clear, I’m all for shipping them, but it’s the writer’s job to make it convincing, inevitable, natural. Fandom has done more to persuade others that this is their destiny than the writer has.

That said, Betsy and Rachel’s dynamic duo status can really be seen, virtually for the first and last time, in the “House of M”-tie-in arc in 2004’s Uncanny X-Men #462-465 from Chris Claremont and Alan Davis (See Brian Wood’s fortunately brief X-Men run a handful of years later for a bit more—or not!).

An equally bedeviling problem for this couple’s future is that Rachel, who has the most interesting origin among the Summers mutants, is the least developed among their number—or rather, her character growth starts and stops with Claremont and Davis, that’s it.

We do finally get some juicy background on the realm ruled, mysteriously, by Absolon Mercator, a nobody, virtually, in X-Men lore—a too-powerful Omega matter-manipulator (see District X and X-Men The 198). Per issue #3, it was Apocalypse who granted Mr. M sovereignty over this desert waste just for safeguarding the Siege Perilous, with Apocalypse’s implicit revelation as to the mutant provenance of the artifact, which is a new twist.

Of only vaguest interest is that the portal has somehow become fused with the entire Mercator demense. They are one and the same; so, the Siege Perilous is now a landscape, a fantasy wasteland, where hallucinatory psychodramas can be acted out in an ulterior kind of reality.

One issue features each character very briefly battling personal demons by way of the Siege Perilous, but don’t expect anything nearly so edgy or enlightening as what Arcade had Mastermind do to the heroes of Zeb Wells’ Hellions. Instead, seasoned readers learn nothing new, and even for the newly initiated, there’s little of interest, it all goes by so quickly and schematically. If you’ve been reading since “Dawn of X,” you’ve probably picked up a fair amount since 2019, and there are no startling or essential developments here—except for the long-predicted, frustratingly delayed Betsy-and-Rachel kiss (scant water from corporate’s stone-dry lips of avarice, perhaps).

Where Immortal X-Men and X-Men: Red are each subverting conventions in their own delightful ways, Knights of X is simply paint-by-numbers, stitching standard superheroics to entirely stock genre fantasy. Most unfortunate is that the vaguely D-&-D-style “quest” team never really gels. Perhaps Howard’s remit with her upcoming Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain solo series will allow her to tell a more focused story made all the more compelling for its focus on a single character arc.

The post Knights of X #1-5 in Review appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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X-Men: Red #10 credits:

Al Ewing writes; Stefano Caselli and Jacopo Camagni draw; Federico Blee colors; Ariana Maher letters; cover by Russell Dauterman and Chris Sotomayor (note the one nonmutant there, Ewing’s fave toy soldier, Nova!)

Spoilers ahoy…

Called it! (Well, if you can call my cryptic parenthetical suggestion at the top of our last X-Men: Red review calling it—since who wants to spoil a nasty fun surprise, right?) Orbis’ “sinister” nature wasn’t too surprising given the mystery surrounding his Earthly origins. It was perfectly in line with all the suspense around revealing the whereabouts of the two other Essex “suits,” as it were (after the reveal of Dr. Stasis as a kind of Essex of Clubs).

Now we’ve got the Essex of Spades revealed beneath that golden geodesic, looking the worse for wear, we’re just missing a sinister Hearts (Yes, I know—there’s only one Sinister! A whole system of them. Apparently, the others haven’t gone as far in becoming a sadistic aristocratic virus nostalgic for bloodless Victoriana).

The title, “The New Age,” taken from the verse of Lodus Logos on the opening page, resonates most with the speech from Sobunar at the end, speaking to a paradigm shift among the Arakkii, toward a society of mutual aid and empowerment through egalitarian fellowship.

Those verses from Arakko’s poet laureate that open the issue—well, Arakko’s never had much leisure time for developing into anything resembling a cultural dynamo. Or perhaps the actual author of this poem is simply a much stronger storyteller. Logos’ lines might resemble something like epic poetry, but that’s a daunting task for a modern-day writer to pull off. It could be that Arakkii verse has yet to find its footing in translation (into a global language that has almost entirely lost its own sense of that mode of primeval epic). Certainly, a poet declaring “Were you there? I was there! / If you were there / You’d need no telling” doesn’t exactly shore up the poet’s stature as language-maker, unless there’s some larger irony the translator hasn’t translated for us.

The two narrative strands we left off with last time—Vulcan attacking the Diplomatic Zone and then confronting Storm in the Autumn Palace; and Cable and co. getting tripped up on their interstellar raid of the Progenitor’s World Farm, secretly Orbis Stellaris’ HQ—don’t converge, but each does wrap up nicely—with not a moment to spare, just in time for “Sins of Sinister” kicking off at the end of January.

Vulcan’s Last StandBack on Arakko, tracking across slagged swathes of it as Vulcan pummels Storm with his fire, to no avail, he makes the dubious argument that he’s got the upper hand since she’s pledged herself not to resurrect. As if Krakoa is going to be resurrecting Gabe after this epic temper tantrum (Not that he’ll even get that option as we’ll see)!

Up on the Keep above Arakko, Abigail realizes her one remaining Krakoan ally Mentallo has all along played double agent—no surprise there! From his perspective, she was certainly no longer MVP material, but it is a nice surprise to see who the higher bidder is: Sunspot! Who once bought and repurposed A.I.M. Again, this is unsurprising, but there’s a fine inevitability to all this, and it’s a Krakoa-era culmination of Ewing’s celebration of our coolly calculating playboy who likes to play so dumb and fun that his enemies never see him coming until his checkmate move (Mentallo’s low-level psi power allowed him to act as relay for Xandra, who shielded Brand from seeing what her surveillance tech did show her: The Autumn Palace was not empty; Storm was right in front of her all along).

[Caselli’s expressiveness adds so much to the storytelling that’s too often missing elsewhere with mediocre artists who don’t push themselves or are too distracted with spectacle; Caselli does both.]And here’s a background Mentallo-Sunspot connection: Flumm worked for the A.I.M.-ruled Barbuda during Secret Avengers vol 2, though he didn’t seem to be around for Bobby’s island coup—but maybe he was still on the payroll?Brand’s rationalizations for dirty dealing don’t win her any sympathy, not even among hard-nosed Arakkii who might agree on the perils of strong neighbors—but they, significantly, are in the process of really changing their ways, as we see further nods toward that this issue from Sobunar and Lodus.

Unsurprisingly, though, the wily Abigail escapes—using a nice surprise, Cable’s own “bodyslide” tech (which she lifted from Kid Cable back in Ewing’s S.W.O.R.D.). Also surprising is that when she bodyslides “somewhere very secret,” the Fisher King is already there, just chilling, waiting to deliver her a dire warning:

What’s exciting here is that there’s something totally unexpected in store for Brand. She has every reason to now be terrified—though, who knows, perhaps if she survives, she’ll become a better version herself? Well, at the moment, I’d put her hopes for this at the same level as her skeezy black-ops boyfriend. Also surprising is the Fisher King’s knowledge and mentioning of her true surname: Thanriaguiaxus. The last bit, “Axus,” is the name of her homeworld, also new info, though she referred to the place back in S.W.O.R.D. #11. The name isn’t out of nowhere, however: Her half-brother was introduced way back in the debut issue of the first S.W.O.R.D. volume (2009): Lothithanriaxiaxus (with a mouthful like that, it’s no wonder he hasn’t reappeared).

Down on Arakko, Storm has allowed Vulcan to start exhausting himself while leading him into a trap laid by herself and her friends:

Lodus provides the finishing touch with “a mysterium throne” encasing Vulcan—so that while he lives, he’s no longer a threat to anyone. It is here that Sobunar affirms the new path for his people: embracing help, both allowing themselves to receive it from their Krakoan friends and providing it to one another.

Weirdness in SpadesLast issue it seemed that the three sinister aliens who had vivisected Vulcan after finding him in the Fault (see the end of “War of Kings” and Hickman’s X-Men #10) were puppets, perhaps even creations, of Orbis Stellaris. This time, we see that they were only barely under his control; he’s freaked out as everyone else that this diabolical trio might now vivisect the cosmically powerful Manifold and thereby undo the universe—which they clearly don’t care for, being from some other reality.

Cable telekinetically draws back the techno-organic virus sample that Orbis stole and tampered with (see issues #2 and 8)—and he goes for a classic ’90s X-Force look with the chunky Liefeldian/anime-style armor. But the freaky aliens are also able to manipulate this “glory of the Phalanx contagion” at a distance, although they themselves don’t appear in any way associated with or infected by the dreaded Phalanx.

Fortunately, Manifold receives something of a deus an Arakkii omega ex machina in the wandering person of Lactuca, who knows the whereabouts of everything everywhere—quite a power to have on call! He even mentions them sharing a parent*, though perhaps this is just metaphor. Their powers aren’t the same, exactly, but they certainly have cosmic similarities. Lactuca’s presence is enough for Eden to situate himself without having to see the sky or know what the surrounding space looks like with his own eyes.

With that, he handily banishes the alien trio, folding them away who knows where: “All the way outside”—which he admits is probably where they’re from. Freaky.

He then manages to “fold” everyone back aboard their ship, which Wiz-Kid is still flying, chased by Progenitors—who destroy the craft and believe all aboard killed, not realizing that Eden’s managed to squirrel them all back home, now that he’s got his bearings (and even though he’s clearly exhausted).

Orbis, clearly not used to being disadvantaged, hasn’t made a good showing of his supposed might since he piloted that headless Progenitor in the previous issue. With his gold ball lodged in a wall, he opens the egg to reveal a sickly and emaciated Nathaniel or Nathan Essex! He’s got a spade tattooed on his brow, so now all we’re missing is the “hearts” Sinister.

Hmmm… Y’all remember Miss Sinister? Well, of course, she wouldn’t make sense as the reveal for “hearts,” but don’t discount the notion that the “hearts” Sinister could be a woman. That would surely rankle the other misogynist Essexes!

And if we look at the reveals so far, we’ve got Doctor Stasis from Duggan’s X-Men and Orbis Stellaris here; meanwhile, Gillen’s Immortal X-Men is Sinister-centric. Now, of the three volumes involved in “Sins of Sinister,” we’re missing a reveal from Legion of X. Ipso facto—“Why is Mother Righteous,” eh?

Of course, Cable and co. had to jump ship before this reveal, but Zsen did manage to use her power (perhaps to her own surprise) to a useful purpose in the field, painting the truth—in this case, of what’s hiding beneath Orbis’ sinister space-opera disco ball. What she retrieves isn’t depicted except through Cable’s report, but if the image of a Victorian steampunk scientist accompanied by playing cards doesn’t connect any dots for him, it certainly will for the Quiet Council (Guess all these Essexes are yet another blank spot in history for the boy from the far future, eh?).

NEXT: Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #1!The post X-Men: Red #10 Review – Evil in Spades appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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[Funny how Irene especially looks nothing like this in the comic itself! Woo-hoo! Mark Brooks cheesecake!]

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

“The Curious Case of Dr. Essex and Mr. Sinister”

(Notably, Robert Louis Stevenson died a year before Immortal X-Men #8’s primary setting—dundunduuuunnn!)

Credits: Kieron Gillen writes; Michele Bandini* draws; David Curiel colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Mark Brooks.

*Bandini has been killing it on this title with issues #4, 5 and 8. And I for one would love to see him become the main series artist.

As epigraph, the Nietzsche quote* taken out of context clearly speaks to Essex/Sinister’s character; here’s another pithy take on fate from a slightly later European intellectual, Carl Jung, saying something similar but with deeper, wiser insight: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” Less projection, more wisdom, eh? But these four monsters of super-genius-level id are perhaps beyond fate, indeed; or even though in their inhuman post-humanity, they may not have anything like human minds as we understand them, their fates are still already sealed as mere engines of Thanatos.

This quote is actually likely one of the countless statements falsely attributed to Nietzsche, even though it sounds* Nietzschean enough. It certainly expresses his often gleefully aggressive intellectual energy (justifiably battling against 19th-century German Pietism).

In fact, Jung claimed Nietzsche went mad (which he did!) because the great iconoclast identified too much with his idealized self (Zarathustra, let’s call him)—the impossibly outsized vision of that superman destiny. He also experienced war trauma and picked up a few battlefield diseases, and likely suffered from a type of dementia that induces a series of mini-strokes; still, perhaps Nietzsche’s inflated self-expectations were among the stressors leading to this terminal breakdown. He was definitely too intense for everyday living, not unlike another 19th-century madman, Dr. Nathaniel Essex.

Of course, the Nietzsche “quote” is devastatingly apropos to Sinister’s current scheme: He’s proved himself perfectly capable of brutally perverting Moira’s (“fate’s”) nature to his own ends with his Moira clone farm. But Moira is nothing compared to Destiny—in terms of unshakeable resolve across lifetimes.

The “quote” also happens to be from the classic Mike Carey X-Men Legacy run, from issue #214, where another one of those irritating Charleses (Darwin, Babbage, Xavier) delivered the pompous line to Sinister while cleverly foiling Sinister’s long-seeded scheme to take over Xavier’s body and so live again (Later, Gillen leveled up the diabolical geneticist to a “system,” meaning he was now to be seen as non-localized, not limited to any one body—although Charles’ or Shaw’s would have been quite an acquisition at the time).

[In case you need an image to break up this block of text: Mystique as Rosie the Riveter!]Does this epigraph, however, speak to Destiny? After all, she has typically been framed as unable to change the possible outcomes she sees—just move toward the one most preferable to her (and thus mutantkind). But Gillen’s work has been showing us greater nuance here, with the foundation laid by Hickman: Irene sees lifetimes of (alternate) possibilities, fading off into vaguer potentials, seeing great structures of narrative working themselves out differently across different timelines…Destiny follows her own necessity. Unlike Moira, she does not see her nature as a curse. Indeed, as her gift blossomed, beyond the early trauma of losing her mundane (worldly) sight, she gave herself over to it and so came to dwell in possibility and, further, potentiality. Her lifeline turned myriad, an unwalled garden of endlessly forking paths. This sounds overwhelming to us, but we’ve never had even the hint that Irene regrets who and what she is.

She even got to play the true genius behind England’s greatest detective—hah! (While also having Sherlock Darkhölme all to herself, of course. For clever criminal Irene Adler’s debut under the pen of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, see his 1891 “Scandal in Bohemia.”)

Let’s not forget! This is Mystique’s issue, after all (Sure, it is! Moving on…).

By 1943, Sherlock is, of course, just another popular pulp icon, and Irene has descended into the darkness of the 20th century’s techno-scientistic horrors. So the living stealth weapon Raven is left to her own devices when it comes to finding out what her longtime lady is up to in the bowels of Alamagordo, New Mexico (site of the first nuclear weapons testing two years later, in 1945). Xavier’s father, Dr. Brian Xavier, was established as a resident research scientist way back in 1965’s X-Men #12—at a time when the X gene was thought to be triggered by radioactivity. Well beyond this dated pulp use for the venue, it was inevitable that further X-mythos mysteries would accrue around this unremarkable Silver Age origin.

One noteworthy instance we’ve already mentioned: Mike Carey’s X-Men Legacy plot (above). Such stories spin out of Fabian Nicieza’s 1992 X-Men #12, and most of this material, including the Black Womb, is (with soap-operatic dark delight) a Nicieza production (I think Carey was the first to pick up on it after Nicieza left the franchise in the early 2000s).

For more on the Black Womb Project, see my Sinister piece from our HOX/POX deep dive last year. Note here that in Immortal X-Men #8, there’s no mention in this 1940s venue of anyone named Xavier, Marko, Shaw or Ryking—all characters that Nicieza had involved in Dr. “Milbury’s” experiments. First, Gillen nodding so explicitly to an already overly complex, decades-long subplot still very much unfinished would have been distracting; just the direct acknowledgement of this half-forgotten storyline is great, especially with Gillen’s formal restraint overall, allowing the present story its own space to breathe (wonderfully cinematic, as usual with this top-tier title). Second, though, leaving those names out for now is simply the smart thing given the nature of Marvel’s sliding timescale and the fact that nobody has a clear grip on when or even where exactly Charles is supposed to have been born at this point (for attentive readers, see the oddly confused and confusing X Deaths of Wolverine).

Oops—we’re losing track of Mystique again! This is her story, right? It’s more Destiny’s from Raven’s POV. After all, Raven was indeed off doing her own thing (as seen, for instance, in Jason Aaron’s Wolverine but also Larry Hama’s Sabretooth vol 1) for much of the 20th century—and all that sexy spy and bandit stuff doesn’t have much to contribute to the current Krakoan architecture; they were just fun comics, lol—boohoo, where have my funsies gone? Well, remember Amanda Mueller, the Black Womb? Now, she was a hoot and a half—and all that got started almost a quarter-century ago now, in Nicieza’s Gambit #13 (2000) (Again, see the above CBH link for more on that whackadoo).

Nicieza brings Destiny into the 1940s Black Womb scene in his 2001 X-Men Forever mini, specifically issue #4—where, again, Mystique is quite peripheral. Indeed, Immortal X-Men #8’s 1943 scene is a rehash of the Nicieza flashback (“timejump”) story there.

Jumping further back in time, Immortal takes us to 1895 London, where Destiny and Mystique first meet Essex (whose wife died in the 1850s, in Peter Milligan’s Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, 1996, the mini that provided Sinister his Victorian and Apocalyptic origins). He fully became Sinister in 1859, thanks to Apocalypse’s ministrations—so we’re almost four decades on from that point! The last page shows us that our mad Dr. Jekyll has (d)evolved quite a bit since then. (Note: “Essex Factors” comes from the Milligan title; for more, see again my previous Sinister origin piece. I think “Essex men” is first used here!)

[Interesting use of the term “demimonde” from our evasive Dr. Jekyll.]Also, the Ripper serial murders had already ended almost a decade before 1895, so why set this scene then? (This year in London is notorious for the utter humiliation and arrest of poor Oscar Wilde, but that’s not relevant here!) And note that the Milligan mini ended with an 1882 epilogue while Nicieza’s retconning picks up in the abovementioned Gambit #13—with Essex fronting as a doctor in NYC in 1891. Oops? (Notably, Sherlock Holmes “died” in Dec 1893, in “The Final Problem” by Conan Doyle.)What matters here is that the diamond-browed Sinister is not exactly the original Essex. The former is a brute with Essex’s own self-aggrandizing, amoral genius while the latter is wasting away in madness, yet they do share the same body. Yet it seems likely that his murderer was one of his post-human clones, perhaps the one of diamonds? But then how did they split? It wouldn’t be surprising if Apocalypse’s Celestial tech allowed for that. So, what happened to the original’s corpse—did Mystique and Destiny take it for themselves or leave it in the asylum cell?

Perhaps something else is going on. After all, Essex appearing dead shouldn’t automatically mean we should believe it—this is an (Esse)X-Man comic!

Is it also strange that here in 1895, Irene definitively says mutants and Essex are not on the same side, but back in Immortal #1, she approaches him in 1919 with that very hope. Well, so what? Consistency isn’t exactly a human virtue; no more is it a mutant one! But don’t forget, when this issue opens, 24 years later, in the bowels of the Black Womb project, she says she and “Nathaniel” (at least the Sinister version!) are working together toward a common end.

Again, what matters for now is that Irene in 1895 already foresees the modern Krakoan nation, freighted with imagery out of The Book of Matthew: “You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can’t be hidden” (Envisioning Krakoa as such is also another clear counterpoint between this mutant paradise and world capitals that have worldly religious significance, especially in this case D.C.).

As to that oddly least famous of irritating Charleses—Babbage—see this Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry for more on the designer of the first theoretical computer (on paper). An excellent what-if steampunk novel detailing the full emergence of Victorian-Age AI is The Difference Engine by cyberpunk grandaddies William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. For more of a focus Ada Lovelace, the poet Lord Byron’s daughter (“illegitimate”) and an icon for the suppressed female scientific genius, see John Crowley’s poetic historical Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land. It’s worth noting that Lovelace and Babbage’s exchanges were entirely intellectual, and she did develop the programming that could have instantiated modern computing over a century earlier than our own historical reality—except she died in her 30s relatively unknown and, more importantly, there was no technology at the time remotely capable of making this a real possibility.

(Note that Babbage’s first computational design was for a so-called Difference Engine, but it was succeeded by his Analytical Engine—which Lovelace improved on, which I believe Babbage—or almost anyone else—was entirely unaware of, an ignorance aided by the unquestioned universal misogyny of the age).

The big excitement this issue is, of course, the splash-page cliffhanger, which carries Duggan’s revelation of the club-browed Doctor Stasis quite a bit further—and more effectively in just one issue, with the promise of ripping right along for the next two issues, in the lead-up to, dun-dun-duuunnn: “Sins of Sinister,” hell yeah.

And guess what?! The OG Essex is long dead, long live Sinister! Long live the Sinister System! Oy vey.

There’s a wonderful sense in this final page of the beginning of something of a (four-in-)one-person Great Game, both dreadful and exhilarating.

NEXT: Will fate finally catch up with Sinister in his creepy Hyde-y hole???The post Immortal X-Men #8 in Review! How Mr. Hyde Escaped Dr. Jekyll appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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[covers by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson]Credits:X-Men: Red #8 – Al Ewing writes; Madibek Musabekov draws; Federico Blee colors; Ariana Maher letters

X-Men: Red #9 – Stefano Caselli draws

8: “Mission to the Unknown”Cable in free fall combat with a giant future-o Mysterio? Nah. What is this? How did we get from A.X.E. to this?! Well, hey dummy, that’s Orbis Stellaris way up there! He just got a big ol’ body since we last saw him in issue #4—and yeah, I guess he identifies as a he, only while he looks like a glittering beachball himbo, he’s really just a scummy interstellar weapons-dealing sleazeball, one of Abigail Brand’s partners in space crime (first appearing in Ewing’s S.W.O.R.D. #6 as a member of another Ewing creation, the Galactic Rim, sort of the EU of the galaxy, economically at least; or that’s what Hercules said in 2021’s GOTG #15!). Also, Orbis’ origins are Terran, per a data page in S.W.O.R.D. #11, but it seems very few know this about him; outwardly, he presents as an inscrutable alien.

(Hmmm. Why make the mysteriously orbed Orbis from Earth originally? I wonder if there’s a surprise under that inscrutable geodesic! Of course, it just wouldn’t do to have a big unrelated reveal before the winter X-event kicks off, right?)

So, Ewing is getting right back to the title’s pre-A.X.E. plot, minus Magneto. It seems like Cable will now be the cast’s old white alpha male, but he is awesome, we haven’t seen enough of him in recent years and anyway, who better to take down Brand? Beto and Takeshi, of course!

These two issues focus on the culmination of Brand’s secret plot and switch back and forth between Cable and his crew driving into deep space to track down the sample of techno-organic virus Brand stole from him (in issue #2) and a calamitous meeting of galactic powers at Arakko’s Diplomatic Ring.

The story opens with Cable recruiting Weaponless Zsen, whose budding mercenary career has stalled out somewhere in deep space, at Gosnell’s Bar (a Ewing GOTG venue), where she’s wasting time with a pair of lame-wad Rocket and Herc wannabes (actually, Blackjack O’Hare is one of Rocket’s “fellow” Halfworlders, while the full origin of Otherone, aka Prince of Power, is too goofily complex to go into here; suffice to say here that this sweet meathead is the current possessor of the Power Stone, one of the six Infinity Gems; see Ewing’s GOTG Annual #1).

Zsen’s last appearance was Legion of X #5 (she’s a Spurrier/LOX character), where she left Arakko to become an interstellar merc—just before Uranos’ planet-wide attack, over which she expresses regret here that she missed out on the epic call to action. Remember, this seemingly young lady is no stranger to war (like all her fellow Arakkii). X-Men: Red #6 clearly implied that her father is the Fisher King, with whom she’s on the outs according to the opening scene here; that is a tale for another time.

While her father is truly “weaponless” in the Arakkii sense, meaning he has no mutant powers, Zsen is superpowered, only her power-set doesn’t have battlefield application, supposedly; yet being able to “paint the truth” (Legion of X #1) could surely be put to some ingenious martial use—though on the other hand, it should be perfectly okay to have a power entirely detached from any agenda or conflict. Instead, because she has chosen or (more realistically) been conditioned to a life of fighting, she wields fearsome arm blades, for which she says she “paid dearly;” considering she received them from the Locus Vile, there’s surely untold horror and pain behind that stock phrase.

However, Cable tells her here that her mutant powers do have a conflict application, but what he’s thinking will have to wait—until issue #10, presumably!

Khora, whom we just found in issue #6 is Zsen’s sister, first teamed up with Cable in Cable: Reloaded, also by Ewing, and I look forward to Zsen brought into the fold of the X-Men: Red cast. She apparently has drama with both her father and her sibling (who, yes, assassinated royal Snarks at Brand’s behest; see S.W.O.R.D. #5).

As Cable readies his crew to go after Brand “the long way ’round,” we switch to the Diplomatic Zone, where Gladiator, Paibok (the “Power Skrull”), Frenzy and Nova are already in attendance at the Ring. Empress Xandra is on her way, Super-Skrull is too violently angry to attend and Storm is mysteriously absent—call that last Chekhov’s loaded gun conspicuously absent from the stage.

Per the data page, the meeting’s been called over a dispute between the Kree/Skrull Alliance and the Shi’ar, which we’ll find out is Brand’s doing, although the cause of the Skrulls’ grief is quite real. From her station, Brand watches the drama remotely, the sleazy simp Metallo at her side. It is odd that Hulkling would send those parties who would express the most justified grief over the tragedy at Shapeless Ridge (which here receives its first full explanation after brief allusions in previous Ewing stories Rocket #5 and Empyre #3, 6; Super-Skrull apparently chose not to attend of his own accord). Hulkling’s peaceable attitude suggests that he might not be aware of what’s going on? After all, while Empress Xandra is there, there’s no mention of her opposite number’s absence.

Xandra surprises everyone by conceding that, yes, the Shi’ar decades ago fed false information to the Kree to get them to attack a defenseless Skrull hospital while believing it was a legitimate terrorist target. How timely in speaking to our own present-day wars of empire. She says it’s one of her empire’s Ten Shames, which were introduced as a concept in Steve Orlando’s first Marauders arc, where the Empress proved effective and quite different from her predecessors in getting out in front of these imperial atrocities rather than continue to cover them up (and stockpile the shame and secrecy and distrust associated).

Back with Cable’s team, we see him and Takeshi briefing the rest of the crew on discovering Brand’s secrets while she was dead. They know she’s working with or rather playing with Orchis, while also teaming up with other unsavories across the galaxy, like Orbis Stellaris (as first seen in S.W.O.R.D. #9-10). First, the team is to go after that stolen T-O virus sample, and it turns out it’s in the possession of the Progenitors whom Cable died fighting back in issue #2 (when Brand surreptitiously sampled his virus). So, they’re rocketing into deep space to raid the Progenitors’ World Farm, which was first introduced in Ewing’s 2017 Royals, where they were depicted as far more powerful and cosmically godlike than what we’ve seen in this title (Gotta love, though, that Ewing really seems in charge of his own cosmic Ewing-verse at this point!).

Hilariously, Cable offhandedly comments that he’s had decades to think about Brand’s scheming since, after all, he was just a teenager at the start of the Krakoa era, haha (Also note that an Einstein-Rosen bridge is a theoretical type of wormhole in space connecting A-Z without passing through the rest of the alphabet)!

At the World Farm, many cosmic mysteries start coming together, including the bizarre trio of aliens Hickman briefly introduced in X-Men #10, the ones who held an unconscious Vulcan captive and psionically vivisected him to plant some kind of timebomb of eldritch evil in the witless hothead. Here, Cable’s team learns as much as readers were given in that baffling issue of X-Men but not much more—yet.

[The Progenitors’ Orbis’ World Farm in “the gulf between the galaxies”]Vulcan, whom Brand has been treating as her idiot but godlike trump card or checkmate piece, now crashes the diplomatic cluster-fudge by declaring himself Emperor of the Shi’ar once more and ready for war with anyone who say him nay. Recall: Tarn killed him back in issue #3, and his resurrection apparently triggered the collapse of the outward shell that was covering over whatever evil juju the aliens had put in. And of course, Orbis is in on this, too—since he’s running the World Farm, mwahahahahaha!!!If Brand knew about the specifics of Orbis’ evil alien vivisecting of Vulcan, she’s even more pompous and high on her own swagger than we thought: A completely unhinged Vulcan not in control of himself is not something anyone should want unleashed, especially not in proximity to the planet that they’re supposedly fighting in defense of. Pretty f-ing stupid—such drama, such fun, such fire!

This first cliffhanger is followed by a data page detailing in brief the what and how of Brand’s scheming. Notable references include her twisted “on/off” relationship with the equally despicable Beast, dating back to Joss Whedon’s mid-2000s Astonishing X-Men; the Vescori who infested the old S.W.O.R.D. station during “X of Swords;” Brand quitting Alpha Flight at the end of the “Empyre” event (a great epilogue there in Empyre: Aftermath Avengers #1); her replacement Henry Gyrich, whom she murdered in S.W.O.R.D. #11; her use of Ewing’s Krakoan Six in issue #1 to secure mysterium that she then turned into currency (playing the heroes at this point); using the Arakkii Khora to assassinate claimants to the Snark throne during the title’s early issues; and Knull from the “King in Black” event’s many tie-ins, which gobbled up way too much page real estate during S.W.O.R.D.’s early issues.

Her long-term plan since the rise of Krakoa has been five-phase: Cultivate and Prepare Useful Allies (Krakoa; Beast; Vulcan; Orbis); Seize Opportunities (help along the terraforming of Mars post-XOS; engineer interstellar economic collapse post-Empyre); Consolidate Power (refurbish S.W.O.R.D. station with Krakoan backing; use mysterium to save interstellar economy and get a seat on the Galactic Council; use the Six to unwittingly further interstellar chaos that Brand can reorder to her liking; pitch Arakko Mars as Sol System’s power center; ally with Orchis as useful idiots); Trigger Crisis (Arakkii/Terran establishment friction; resurrect an insane Vulcan; leak the Shi’ar’s role in “Shapeless Ridge” atrocity; during diplo talks unleash “Emperor” Vulcan—lots of death, intergalactic war); Crisis Becomes Advantage (hilariously, she thinks she can “guilt” the X-Men into booting the Arakkii back to Amenth—the hubris! Vulcan’s brothers will feel bad about being fooled by their crazed long-lost sibling; Brand’s S.W.O.R.D. will absorb Orchis, which will then become wholly docile; and speaking for Sol System, she’ll make everything just peachy keen in this far-flung corner of the galaxy—right).

9: “Return of the King”But which king is that, now?

On the cover, we see Brand playing her intricate chess game, apparently pausing with a broken Storm piece in hand. If she thinks she’s broken anyone, especially Ororo of the Storm—well, she’s got another thing comin’!

Given last issue’s cliffhanger, the narrative starts with a brief flashback to the immediate past…

We open with a memo from Xavier to the Council, which lets us know how much old Chuck has been bamboozled by Brand in getting Vulcan resurrected now that star Omega Magneto is permanently gone. Hilariously, he claims in writing that he would never tamper with anyone’s memories, yada yada yada—unless an “absolute necessity” conveniently presents itself. Oh, how often it has, Charles!

Everyone with any visions of power in this era, even the “good” guys, are drinking their own Kool-Aid.

Stunningly, Vulcan’s husk snatches his engram from Xavier (“he took it from me,” through gritted teeth). Cyclops, too, has been taken in by Xavier’s reckless approach. And that is, um, pretty damn weird, considering the history there (see especially X-Men: Deadly Genesis, which also debuts Vulcan). Havok is, oddly, the voice of reason here—wild (though, come to think of it, he has been much on the receiving end of Quiet Council stupidity, most recently in Hellions). (Note that no one else but Legion, as far as we know, has been able to complete their own resurrection process.)

It appears Vulcan flew straight to Arakko for his meeting with his mad imperial destiny. His first question is for Deathbird: “How’s my son?” Her pregnancy was revealed after his supposed death in “War of Kings” (see 2014’s X-Men #18, the doldrums of the Guggenheim run), but the child wasn’t mentioned again until Hickman’s New Mutants #5—and then nada since. Guggenheim had his multi-species geneticist cabal from across nearby galaxies, the Providian Order, experiment on Deathbird’s unborn babe. Oy vey. Very likely, that’s what she’s referring to here. No doubt, the next time this thread is picked up on we’ll have another cosmic super-baby!

Nova correctly accuses Gabriel of “starting a galactic war for kicks” (2009’s “War of Kings,” which also saw the death of Lilandra, Gabriel’s usurpation of the Shi’ar throne and much more chaos).

And yes, John Byrne established in Fantastic Four #249 that Gladiator is powered by self-confidence, something of a riff on Superman, unsurprisingly (this alien superman always had a similar powerset).

It’s interesting that Brand as master schemer is much more effective than her boyfriend, at least as written by Percy over in X-Force; Beast just comes off as an irritating though homicidal buffoon.

While fireworks are popping off at the Diplomatic Ring, Cable’s crew battles Orbis Stellaris who has commandeered the body of a Progenitor—who, again, have really been taken down a peg in this narrative. Apparently, he even created the trio of ghoulish aliens that we saw in Hickman’s X-Men #10, which is a bit deflating, as well. But who knows, there probably is more to them; they do seem to have their own thing going on, and Orbis’ own nature, whatever it is exactly, doesn’t appear to be inherently superpowered. Again, though, we don’t know at this point.

Back the Ring again, Vulcan beats everyone handily, stealing their energies, before going in for the kill—assassinating Xandra in a wash of fire. But instead of the Empress in the throne, it’s another fire-eater, Beto!

Now, this here is the return of the king, the Sun King of the embiggening cosmic Ewing-verse, the king of no one was paying attention to this apparently himbo playboy—until too damn late! Remember when Bobby bought A.I.M. back in Ewing’s New Avengers and leveled-up as a peer among Earth’s Mightiest? Yeah, not even Sunspot-and-Cannonball diehard Hickman saw that one coming when he tossed that duo into the big leagues at the start of his Avengers tenure a decade ago.

Now, we get Sunspot’s plan, a hilarious counterpoint to Brand’s as laid out last issue. One glaring point of contrast is just how clear it’s becoming that Brand has been much, much, much too clever for her own good (though her ill in this regard means everyone else’s keisters out of the fire, so to speak):

Beto’s plan is devastatingly simple: Check My Reflection (of course, “Style remains vital”); Work Out Brand’s Next Move (his sophisticated read on Brand looks so obvious, it makes you wonder how she ever got as far as she has); and What Would I Do?—Evil Version (putting himself in Abigail’s jackboots) and Non-Evil (brainstorm a few chill ideas, cross ’em off till he gets to the most stylish option: “Empress is me in an image inducer? Boom”)—Boom. Hot Tub (“no secrets” there!)—Boom.

This is Beto’s “steaming pile of secrets” deployed (see issue #6’s best one-liner).

This is: “Roberto accomplished.”

This is one gutsy checkmate, or really a psyche-out. Vulcan is just mad for that throne, so he bugs out before he can do any more damage (most of which has been illusory, thanks to Beto’s tricksy scheme) and goes a-hunting for the Empress—thinking she’s holed up in Magneto’s Autumn Palace.

But hoo boy is he going to find a different empress altogether. Of course, Brand has, once again, underestimated Storm. That’s where you know all along she was going to trip on her own laces.

What a banger trio of splash pages this issue! As Dave said of this issue, Ewing’s (and Caselli’s) mike drops just keep hittin’! What a delight. Next time in X-Men: Red: The culmination of Ewing’s Krakoa work so far?! Hope so! Because after that, it’s time to go sidewise into alterity with “Sins of Sinister,” 2023!

The post X-Men: Red #8-9 in Review: The Marvel Cosmic Ewing-Verse Continues to Embiggen & Embolden! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Welcome back to our multipart reread of Marvel’s big 2022 summer event, “A.X.E.: Judgment Day”; first, we looked at the leadup to this apocalyptic ruckus, and then we dove in with the first event issue and tie-ins, with a side piece on Exodus, star of the tie-in Immortal X-Men #5. Last time, we covered Judgment Day #2-3 and Death to the Mutants #1-2.

This time, we cover—a triple terror:

Immortal X-Men #6: Kieron Gillen writes; Lucas Werneck draws; David Curiel colors; Clayton Cowles letters; cover by Mark Brooks.

X-Men: Red #6: Al Ewing writes; Stefano Caselli draws; Federico Blee colors; Ariana Maher letters; cover by Russell Dauterman and Matt Hollingsworth.

Legion of X #6: Si Spurrier writes; Rafael Pimentel draws; Federico Blee colors; Cowles letters; cover by Dike Ruan and Matthew Wilson.

“The Devil’s Party”Sebastian Shaw’s Immortal X-Men spotlight issue, appropriately titled “The Devil’s Party,” works almost entirely as a Judgment Day tie-in, opening with Sinister talking Destiny into the attack on the Progenitor, already seen in Judgment Day #3—but their discussion is more fleshed out here. Destiny’s full awareness of the risk involved is on display here, and she follows Sinister’s urging to keep it a secret from the others.

It’s pretty obvious, though, that Destiny is making her own decisions here, and Sinister is simply trying to get on her good side, for the time being.

With Destiny unrealistically minimizing the risk of human cities being destroyed (in bad faith, that is), Shaw votes yea (the likelihood of which doubled with Destiny’s lie). He’s got little sentiment for humans, but he doesn’t like to see potential capital destroyed for little gain—no one present seems to think an attack against the Progenitor will win them much beyond the very short term.

(Mystique, of course, would’ve been a bit happier if she knew humans were certain to die horrifically.)

Anyway, per Judgment Day #3, we know the Krakoan attack will be shunted into an illusion generated by the Progenitor, who shows them all how easily they would be defeated. Destiny then fails the Progenitor’s judgment, in the guise of Mystique, which is interesting: In failing to live up to her own vision for mutantkind, she feels that she’s failed her wife, first and foremost. Or, perhaps she fears her only love’s will to destruction?

Yeahhh… You got a handful, Irene!

In any case, Destiny’s own “fearful” self-damnation contrasts nicely here with Shaw’s not-so-secretly grim and bitter conviction that he is irreparably of “the devil’s party”—poetically reflected in the epigraph from high-medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas: The damned envy the good and so wish them damned, as well, to make them feel better about not doing anything responsible to improve their own chosen fate. That is this issue’s theme, with Shaw as its centerpiece, an excellent choice for this Judgment Day tie-in.

In his poker face here, Shaw could be either smugly self-confident that he has no one to fear (lol) or silently unsettled by what might be in store for him. In fact, even when judgment does come later this issue, he manages to have it both ways, just barely; after all, he finally really loses his cool.

With this issue mostly from his perspective, we see that Shaw still views those around him patronizingly, which is hilarious only because all of the council members, and pretty much everyone on Krakoa, have all long since outpaced and overshadowed him—while he still believes himself possessed of some King energy. Hah! The poor child.

Seriously, though—the poor child. Abused and neglected, he remains a man-child ill disguised in the clothes and comportment of an aristocrat, one who believes they are excellence itself (aristos). But while this is overall another excellent issue of Gillen’s Immortal X-Men, it’s also telling of Shaw’s character that it is also the least interesting so far. There’s only so much you can do with a figure who comes off as mediocre and rather tired relative to everyone else in the cast, and the page real estate here is so limited. Still, Gillen does wonders where he can, as always. At least the creative team is truly excellent!

Emma Frost is also truly excellent—Shaw’s one-time “protégé,” though of course he actually treated her, abused her, as an exploited showgirl, essentially. All the same, the White Queen justly views herself as having always been untouchable.

But it’s the false god’s judgment of Emma that comes next—and she is, unsurprisingly, (self)judged by the shades of those precious students of hers who have died (always horrifically) while under her mentorship (See Negasonic Teenage Warhead, slain by Cassandra’s Sentinels on Genosha but since revived; and before that, the OG Hellions).

Mentioned by Shaw later in the issue, briefly regretting his “loss” of her, Sage (once known as Tessa when spying on the Hellfire Club at Xavier’s behest, one of Chuck’s most compromising decisions, by far) is also excellent—and has long since outstripped her former employer/exploiter/abuser.

Shaw’s long since deceased father, Jacob, was introduced in flashback 2000’s X-Men: Hellfire Club #3-4 where writer Ben Raab had him looking for other mutants for a secret Sinister client. And it is this man whom Shaw is determined, both unconsciously and now very consciously, to become—a sad-sack man and sorry excuse of a father who excelled in being a run-of-the-mill, broken and hollow aristocratic man trapped within and obsessed with his own schemes to repair his colonial, patriarchal family fortune.

From my perspective, if Shaw is of “the devil’s party,” the devil is pretty damn dull. No thanks to all that!

The highlight of this issue has only a little to do with Shaw himself as we revisit Exodus’ temporal paralysis or confusion from Judgment Day #1/Immortal X-Men #5. As we see here, it turns out this was also when Exodus received his judgment—which is very unusual in that everyone else shares in the experience, as well. Was Bennet’s life truly imperiled here? Regardless, he passed, likely because, as we’ve seen previously, he is led by his rock-solid beliefs, however (zealously) heterodox, more than his heart, despite the pain that self-denial brings.

However, Shaw does appear to save him from the Progenitor’s (only partly illusory?) inferno, which speaks not to Shaw’s heroism—but to the fact that he still believes himself capable of checkmating his way into taking the reins of the Krakoan state, through his shady wheeling and dealing. He’ll not “risk losing one of our biggest guns.”

[No mean consideration for Shaw here that rescuing everyone means saving Exodus from himself, i.e., momentarily punching his lights out.]

In other words, even more than with Sinister, keeping Shaw close (but relatively cowed) can only be a win for the Krakoan project—until it backfires (Though it’s hard to imagine it backfiring anywhere near as spectacularly as it most certainly will in Sinister’s case). For now, even the surprised Exodus seems to be taken in, or at least too taken aback to have taken Shaw’s rescue of him as anything other a surprise show of nobility (excellent, indeed).

Yet Shaw himself fails the Progenitor’s judgment, in the guise of Emma—whom he has never truly seen as anything other than a reflection of his own sad and broken narcissistic ego. He projects himself so much that he’s just not that interesting as a character, let alone the fact that he’d be miserable to hang with. Ick. Still, he’s probably outraged that he failed, seeing himself as entirely consistent in his (damnable) values, forever misunderstanding his own self-coddled misery.

Even so, Shaw’s work for himself remains for now, it seems, largely a boon to Krakoa—as with his meeting at issue’s end with Eros. Of course, it probably helps that Warren (Angel) is hanging about, overhearing whatever the two are saying. We don’t know exactly what the deal is, but that’s not the point (The protests outside the NYC Club have turned into looting and riots, but everyone behind the gates seems cozy enough at present).

The issue ends enigmatically with Shaw returning to an excised heart and an occultic pentagram created by Selene (currently dead; see Immortal X-Men #1)—a virtual chthonic goddess whom he can’t help but frame with typical misogynistic condescension—in order to summon Selene’s latest hot find—Mother Righteous, from Spurrier’s Legion of X. With a kind of power allowing her to travel the astral plane and grant desires or desirous things to chosen individuals, she’s perfect for a magicked summoning.

Including, for instance, summoning for aid in a surprise attack on Krakoa with a kaiju-like beast come raging out of a reactivated External Gate, none of which Sinister with his Moira-clone farm foresaw (see Immortal X-Men #1). Will Shaw’s lame attempt at negotiating/“seducing” Mother Righteous lead to something similarly disastrous and unforeseen? It seems with Sinister and Shaw making bigger moves that Xavier’s strategy of “keeping your enemies close” is about to backfire—and the rest of the Council will be caught in the fire and fumes.

“The Hour of Magneto”On Arakko, “The Hour of Magneto” begins—and here in X-Men: Red #6, some true king energy shines forth, in Magneto’s last stand, in protecting his adopted people against a techno-barbarist genocidaire. But before that kicks off, we must check in on our planet-wide cast…

First, we open with a human NASA scientist innocently interacting with local Arakkii youth—which is surprising, given the exclusive nature audiences have been given regarding this new MU culture. Ewing is working at making them more relatable and sympathetic—and succeeding wonderfully, and organically.

Storm clearly loves her adopted people, as well, however imperfect and damaged—really, because of that! (Just as she loved the Morlocks back in the early ’80s—except for whatever reason Claremont’s Uncanny never followed through on Storm’s clear responsibility for the Morlocks’ well-being after winning leadership from Callisto in issue #170. Now, she gets to make up for that, on a much grander scale, thanks to Ewing’s stewardship of her character here).

Awesomely, as Storm takes the fight to Uranos’ “toys” of death and destruction, she forms what could almost* be seen as a power circuit with two other Omegas of the Great Ring—Lactuca of the Stars and Sobunar of the Depths; intriguingly, that means these are warriors of above, below and all around (Storm’s place is the Seat of All-Around-Us—until next issue—Lactuca’s is the Seat of Above-Us and Sobunar’s is the Seat of Below-Us).

*Almost a power circuit, but not quite—because as we see later this issue, in its climactic moment, that taboo mutual interplay of power is finally broken for the Arakkii after many millennia, courtesy of Storm and Magneto, with their sublime king/queen energies (see below).

Utilizing his power in the terraforming of Mars, Sobunar can water entire worlds with his bodily fluids, which are also rich in their own marine ecosystems. Pretty cool.

Lactuca is able to locate anything and anyone anywhere in either the 616 universe or the entire multiverse (that much isn’t yet known)—but this feels not too dissimilar from Gateway and Manifold’s knowledge (although they express this awareness through different power-sets). She shows Storm where the defenders of Arakko are at (well, Isca too)…

Apparently, Genesis, Apocalypse’s ancient wife and Arakko’s erstwhile ruler, held some antipathy for mutant power circuits, so this sort of synergy has long been alien to the Arakkii; she was also intolerant of the mysteriously watchful Night Seats, unsurprisingly—she considered spycraft “weak,” from her stance as hardened battlefield warrior. More fool her, considering how she ended up, a tool of Annihilation. In fact, Night supported Idyll the Ancestor in trying to prevent her from marching on Amenth, and that was when, in Genesis’ intolerance, she banished them from the Great Ring; see Hickman’s X-Men #12-14, 16 and, later this issue, the data page on the Night Table’s history.

We get a glimpse of the ever-fascinating Fisher King, with an inner narration reveal that his previous name was psionically excised from his mind so that he could avoid detection by the Vile Omnipaths (likely Tarn the Uncaring’s personal gestapo). With the revelation later this issue that he has a seat at the heretofore entirely secretive Night Table, we can presume that the erasure of his name, and certainly more than that, was meant to conceal his Great Ring status from those Omnipath agents. But being powerless, how can he sit on the Great Ring? Because, apparently, he is a limitless master of metaphors of loss and negation: There is “no limit to the nothing I had.” How rich!

[This issue debuts the mysterious, Nightcrawler-esque Syzya.]

That said, no one at the Night Table is an Omega; that would be against the rules. This is a clever retcon, sort of, of Hickman’s first schematic of the Great Ring back in X-Men #16, where it was said that none but Omegas could have a seat: “It has never happened—it never will.” But there was already a sense of someone protesting too much! After all, Genesis had banished the Night Table and would not speak of them (see note above).

However, the Fisher King’s thinking to himself here in the past tense, about being “the Omega of having nothing”—so there’s certainly more that we just haven’t been clued into yet! “I fought them [the Vile Omnipaths] with nothing.” Fascinating: There’s way more to him than the nothing the Fisher King presents.

The wretched Unbeatable one we’ll return to next time, when she appears self-defeated at last, thanks largely to the Fisher King’s ability to speak so powerfully the language of loss and negation.

Note Beto’s delightful interior line: “I am a gorgeous pile of secrets.” One such secret is that he has a seat at the Night Table, revealed later in the issue.

Here and then in the data page on the Night Table’s history, we learn that Khora of the Burning Heart’s father must be the Fisher King (quite a surprise!) and that her sister is Weaponless Zsen from Spurrier’s ongoing Legion of X (she, too, is “weaponless,” that is, powerless, like him).

(Note that Cable and Wiz-Kid, who presumably also died with the rest of the Keep’s personnel, have resurrected and are back aboard the Keep. Somewhat hilariously, Brand is experiencing being a mere husk for the first time (“I have never been this vulnerable”). Also comically, Nova pops up here and later on defending his new home, all while believing himself to be the only responsible warrior on the planet—although he has borne more than anyone, any hero, should ever have to in defending the entire universe; see most of his stories of the past twenty years!)

Last but not least, before Magneto’s hour really kicks off, we have Lodus Logos, who really gets to show off his metal-spewing power—“Metal, my voice. Vengeance, my desire.” In fact, he’s also a poet, and next issue Storm will hand over to him the Seat of All-Around-Us, and thus the Regency of Sol, as she, in mourning, takes up the Seat of Loss in Magneto’s place. Lodus’ vacated Seat of Dreams is now vacant.

The poor, much diminished historian Xilo stands behind him; infinitely poorer by far now are the Arakkii themselves, since Uranos has literally decimated, i.e., genocided, their history by decimating Xilo’s collectivist hive-mind body. Regardless, they and Lodus Logos later accept that it’s time for a change up of Arakko’s “old ways”; this doesn’t justify Uranos’ atrocities, of course, but it is something of a silver lining: Perhaps the Arakkii’s stories of themselves had become too rigid and stale.

The resilient Xilo will grow again, just as the Arakkii will be revitalized—that is the promise of Ewing’s work. His Fisher King creation is, in many ways, a kind of viewpoint character for the audience, guiding us through this strange land; and he knows his people are “Too set in [their] old ways…” Change will come quick now.

The story this issue moves forward as the Night Table, now fully identified (Sunspot, the Fisher King and Syzya), approaches the dying king who yet stands—Magneto.

Syzya is a new Arakkii character; with her power of teleportation accompanied by smoke, this third member of the Night Table (beside the Fisher King and Sunspot) bears some resemblance to Nightcrawler—which Magneto acknowledges on-panel here. But unlike Kurt Wagner (perhaps?), she was “born of smoke and swiftly caged” (Another occupant of Night is mentioned: “One born with eyes of fire that saw truths terrible and wonderful.” This might be someone who died during “X of Swords,” and Beto is now in their place).

Forgiving and wise beyond his years, Beto sincerely defers to his erstwhile headmaster, Magneto, who then turns to the Fisher King, following the revelation of the Night Table’s existence and identity: “Here I was thinking our meeting [in issue #1] was a happy coincidence.” And in that first issue, Sunspot was already implying he had a number of plans in the works; so, voila.

Our heroes keep fighting against Uranos’ frustratingly regenerative death machines, a Sisyphean task. But we get to see, in one of their final acts together, Magneto and Storm form an Omega power circuit, Ororo of the Storm supercharging the Master of Magnetism—and this absolutely shocks the Arakkii watching, because again, power circuits have long, long, long been banned (under Genesis’ rigid battlefield ethos): “This is a societal rule not bent, but shattered—explosively, gloriously.” But this intimacy is not an act of romantic love (though it is certainly borne out of a hard-won and loving trust)—this is two warriors acting to utterly destroy the enemy and protect their people.

(“Once, I struck him with lightning, and he used that to empower himself at the expense of my life force.” You can see this in the classic Uncanny X-Men #150, which was the story that really was the first step in Claremont’s evolution and rehabilitation of Magneto’s character. “He took it from me then…now I offer it freely.”)

Again, Lodos and Xilo speak of new beginnings, a reset to their culture and history, not just among ruins—but in the explosive light brought by the younger blood of Earth’s mutants (funny to call Magneto young, but hey, he’s a bare stripling compared to some Arakkii, and their society has very much remained frozen, until quite recently).

Magneto’s last stand, alongside his radically changed and now truest Brotherhood, continues and concludes in Judgment Day #4. But that’s for next time; here, we have one more extraordinary tie-in to cover.

“Holding the Line”(Note that Legion of X #6’s cover has nothing to do with the issue’s content beyond the appearance of Uranos and Legion.)

This story does take place during Judgment Day #4, which we’re holding off on covering until next time; because this is not an event-essential tie-in, it doesn’t matter for now—except that there is mention of Magneto’s death (see issue #5). Sorry if that’s really spoiler-y at this late point!

The issue opens with Legion telling the Progenitor of Uranos’ recent attack on Arakko (from Legion’s perspective, that is), and we actually saw the start of this Legion-centric story when Uranos appeared to have killed David in the sky, unseen by anyone below, in X-Men: Red #5. But, in fact, he did not. The data page here shows how geographically localized the attack was, which isn’t at all how Eweing and Caselli depicted it earlier (in hindsight, this simply seems to be devastating misdirection rather than any kind of error on their part).

This series has justifiably received flak over its messy lack of focus. From here on, however, it seems that Spurrier is simply going to make Legion the center of the narrative, with Nightcrawler backgrounded somewhat, at least for the time being. However, we do see another angle on Kurt squirreling Isca away from the Great Ring, lest she kill anyone else there (for his efforts, he receives a dislocated arm, then dumps her in Sobunar’s teeming ocean).

The Progenitor, in some ways similar to Legion in his godlike aspects, sees David as “Universe destroyer. Universe creator”—which points to David’s potential as something far greater than Celestial-tier. After all, he helped create one alt-universe timeline (“Age of Apocalypse”) and really created another (“Age of X”).

David Haller is far less likely than anyone else in the cast to get embroiled in typical superheroics—however, these are exceptional times on Arakko. And he must “hold the line” himself, never believing he could defeat Uranos but simply hoping to allow Kurt enough time to safely evacuate Arakkii (using his teleportation power to the excruciating utmost), thanks some power-ups from Legion, and the refugees remain safe in Legion’s Altar (an astral pocket dimension for, apparently, deeply restorative Krakoan R&R and his not-a-police dept.; again, Legion of X has largely had an identity crisis in its raison d’être).

Tellingly, as the two combatants are about evenly matched, David might’ve done more than hold the line, but he wouldn’t have saved as many of his fellow mutants then—though he might’ve rescued more that were going to be killed with Uranos’ continued attack. Oh well! Decision-making in wartime is always tragic.

[Before the first actual blow is struck, whatever that might mean here, David seems to make Uranos have some fun as they test out their matched power levels.]

Also telling is that Legion is much more gung-ho about defending the folks in his Altar space than Krakoa and the Krakoans outside the Altar; perhaps all that simply reminds him too much of his broken father—rather, definitely it does.

[Brand-spanking-new Marvel artist and Legion of X fill-in Rafael Pimentel really gets to flex here!]

Legion reflects on he has in fact been literally annihilated—“Lost from memory. From time itself.” And he’s not going to do a repeat (see here for my mostly unflattering take on Spurrier’s X-Men: Legacy, or not ). Hopefully, this can also be taken as a meta promise from Spurrier that he’s going to do better this time, which, yeah, of course; every creator of any ambition always wants to live up to that challenge.

(But yes, this is the series in which Banshee has been (jokingly?) gifted/cursed with the “Spirit of Variance” by Spurrier’s wry Mother Righteous. Lucky for Legion, though, Sean does save him from Uranos at a critical moment.)

With Uranos’ attack on the Altar routed, Legion returns to the Great Ring, which puts us just after the end of X-Men: Red #6. Speaking to a more admirable father figure, to David’s eyes, he accepts the recognition he receives from Magneto—although back in Way of X #2, he’d rejected Magneto’s attempt to recruit him to terraform Mars alongside other Omega mutants. Clearly, David is becoming gradually more integrated and thus, confident in who he is, what he wants and who his people are.

Magneto tells the young prince to “hold the line,” and so David does, destroying Uranos’ machines left and right, with stunning speed but in that time the warrior-king he’s come late to admiring has already fallen. And yet he still has some growing up to, admitting that he envies “the hero’s death” (“the martyr’s crown was already claimed”), which isn’t quite the real takeaway here—it’s that he is worthy, without qualification. But at least it seems he’s on the path now toward recognizing that truth himself.

Again, the issue ends with news of Magneto’s death (Judgment Day #5). The closing data page reads simply: “Magneto Was Right”—echoing Morrison’s legendary anti-Magneto run; however, now, the sentiment is not at all ironic.

Legion of X #6 is one of the most poignant stories Spurrier has ever written for Marvel. It ends with a sense that David will increasingly look to the fallen king (Magneto) for the inspiration and guidance never received from his biological but almost wholly absent father (Xavier).

Of course, David’s judgment by the Progenitor here is quite well timed. He passes—and an echo rises from Spurrier’s decade-old X-Men: Legacy run, the best damn line he wrote there: “I rule me.”

Even his remaining self-doubt is part and parcel, it seems, of his integrity, while some ambiguity does remain, especially if we continue to consider the Progenitor’s judgment as a mirror held up before the judged—the Celestial reflecting back what that individual sees in themselves.

NEXT: A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4-5; X-Men: Red #7 and Immortal X-Men #7.The post The A.X.E.: Judgment Day Reread Part 4—The Top-Tier Triple-Six Tie-Ins! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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X-Men Epic Collection: X-Cutioner’s Song features the collective X-Men titles at arguably their most tumultuous time. Less than a year before the earliest issues collected in this volume were published, the X-Men were at the height of their powers, coming out of a successful linewide relaunch led by superstar artists which propelled the books to record-breaking sales. Yet less than halfway through this volume, those creators are gone, left to start a new comic book company in what is sometimes called the “Image Exodus.” A new batch of creators, most untested in such a bright spotlight, were then forced to learn on the job while picking up the pieces left behind by the exodus, while also somehow crafting those pieces into the next semi-annual crossover event story to bring all the various X-Men titles together to tell one cohesive story.

That they not only succeeded but, in the process, crafted one of the better X-Men crossovers of all time, was never guaranteed. But a combination of talent and the lift that came from working with some of the most popular characters in all of comics ultimately won out. Before “X-Cutioner’s Song,” there was a legitimate question as to whether the X-Men were popular because people liked the characters, or if they were popular because creators like writer Chris Claremont and artist Jim Lee were crafting their stories. The Image Exodus offered an opportunity to answer that question,

While the record breaking sales of X-Men (vol. 2) #1 would never be met again, the post-Image Exodus X-books, buoyed by a popular cartoon and accompanying action figure line, continued to dominate the comic book marketplace, becoming a key source of revenue for Marvel even as the speculator bubble of the early 90s burst and corporate chicanery led to things like layoffs and bankruptcy. Thus, X-Men Epic Collection: X-Cutioner’s Song captures the point in time in which the question of whether or not the X-Men could not only survive but thrive without the likes of Lee and Claremont is both raised and answered. It captures the point in time in which the X-Men become self-sustaining, when it is made clear that people love their stories regardless of who was crafting those stories.

Looming ExodusThe first third of X-Men Epic Collection: X-Cutioner’s Song represents the last gasp of the ’91 relaunch and whatever ideas artists Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio (working with scripter Scott Lobdell) had brought to the books when they were handed complete control. If these stories feel a little warmed over, like their chroniclers had perhaps moved on to more enticing things, well, that was likely the case.

Though one of his more famous images adorns the cover of this collection, Jim Lee only draws two issues contained therein, X-Men (vol. 2) #10-11. Those issues present the long-teased Longshot/Dazzler/Mojo story Lee had presumably been planning since the start of his run, referenced as it was in the “coming soon!” pinup that adorned one of the X-Men (vol. 2) #1 variants and teased via subplot pages in the earlier Omega Red story. It’s hard to believe that what we get in this story is what Lee intended, as the whole thing is a relatively slapdash affair that sees Mojo II (a character who appeared briefly in an annual, and on a trading card) team-up with the X-Men to usurp Mojo, a relatively major shakeup of this little corner of the X-universe that is treated mostly as an afterthought. It doesn’t help that with Lee presumably busy getting WildC.A.Ts ready to launch for Image, both issues feature a shorter main story drawn by Lee, with a backup story by a different artist (starring Maverick, the hot character find of 1991 whom Lee introduced in the previous volume and never really took off as a character). Scott Lobdell, had been scripting Lee and Portacio’s plots after John Byrne bailed, is the sole credited writer of X-Men #11; presumably, he’s executing Lee’s vision of the story’s conclusion, but technically, Lee doesn’t even finish plotting his final story.

Whilce Portacio’s run as penciller/plotter on Uncanny X-Men ends with a similar whimper, albeit more of a character-driven one. His final issues, Uncanny X-Men #289-290, are pure soap opera. Quiet issues with minimal action (a brief fight involving Iceman and the cybernetic ninjas Portacio introduced in his earlier X-Factor run aside), Portacio goes out focusing on character drama, as Iceman introduces his non-white girlfriend to his bigoted father, Archangel angsts about his metal wings, the newly-introduced Bishop struggles to fit it, and Forge proposes to Storm, only to inexplicably quit the team not because she says no, but because she doesn’t say yes fast enough.

In its way, it feels as much like a student turning in their homework on the last day before summer vacation as Lee’s Mojo/Longshot story (the escalation in the Forge/Storm relationship in particular comes out of nowhere; presumably, Portacio intended to build up to it over time and simply rushed the ending on his way out), but the focus on characterization lingers more than the bog-standard toothless media satire of the X-Men story. There’s also a mild charge in the juxtaposition of the kinetic energy of Portacio’s pencils with a plot that largely amounts to “people talking about their problems.”

Missing ImageOnce Portacio and Lee handed in their final issues on their way to helping launch a brand new creator-driven comics publisher, Marvel and editor Bob Harras had to scramble to find replacement creators. Writer Scott Lobdell was a natural fit, having already been scripting both series, and was given full reign over Uncanny X-Men. Fabian Nicieza, who had served a similar scripting role making sense of Rob Liefeld’s plots over on X-Force before Liefeld also left for Image, was tapped to write X-Men. The search for new regular artists continued, with a pair of fill-in artists working on the immediate post-Image Exodus stories.

In X-Men #12-13 Nicieza kicks off his run with a two-part story exploring Professor Xavier’s past via the introduction of a new villain, Hazard. He is a contemporary of Xavier whose father worked alongside Xavier’s father (as well as Juggernaut’s father) in the past. He has wrist gauntlets that fire little wires that he uses his power to electrify, and has barely appeared in comics outside this introductory arc. Drawn by Art Thibert, Jim Lee’s inker earlier in the series, the whole story reads like a frighteningly-effective copy of what the book had been doing before Lee’s departure: Nicieza captures the book’s “tease a mystery-answer the mystery with another mystery” plotting style, while Thibert does his best to imitate Lee’s look. Squint, and you’d be forgiven for assuming Lee remained on the book (which is likely the effect Thibert was instructed to generate). X-Men will shortly begin to develop its post-Lee identity, but in issue #12 and #13, it’s simply treading water.

Over in Uncanny X-Men, Scott Lobdell is joined by penciler Tom Raney for a three-part story involving Colossus’ brother Mikhail and the Morlocks. It is largely a deck-clearing exercise of a story: Portacio had re-introduced Mikhail but done little with him; this story wipes him off the board, as well as the Morlocks, for a second time (they had previously been nearly eradicated during the famous “Mutant Massacre” crossover, then surged back). Lobdell also makes a point in the course of the story to put to rest Archangel’s troubled relationship with his wings and the transformation he underwent as a result of events kick-started by “Mutant Massacre.”

How much all this deck-clearing was Lobdell’s idea and how much came from Bob Harras, I do not know. But the Morlock story, while probably half an issue to an issue too long, is entertaining in spite of/in addition to the behind-the-scenes machinations. It features a rare field mission for Professor X and some fun Jean Grey/Archangel interactions (in which Jean essentially tells her old friend to get over himself). The Tom Raney art is also particularly well-suited to the story, as he turns in a coterie of grotesque Morlocks running amok in New York City. MeMe, the newly-introduced Morlock with the power to absorb other people into his person, remains a haunting image.

X-Cutioner’s SongEver since the aforementioned “Mutant Massacre” in 1986, the X-books had participated in a semi-annual crossover event. Prior to the launch of the titular “X-Cutioner’s Song” in this collection, the last such event had been 1990’s “X-Tinction Agenda” (in 1991, the summer crossover was passed over in favor of the linewide relaunch that introduced the second X-Men title and new creative teams across the books). As such, newly-christened writers Scott Lobdell and Fabian Niceiza not only had to keep the books running after their previous creative drivers left, but orchestrate an event uniting the four “main” X-books (including Nicieza’s X-Force and X-Factor, the series helmed by Peter David since the relaunch), bringing the casts of the four series together for the first time since 1990. That they pulled it off under the circumstances is impressive; that the result stands as one of the better X-Crossovers of all time is even more impressive.

“X-Cutioner’s Song” takes as its starting point plotlines introduced in Nicieza and Liefeld’s X-Force and the mystery surrounding the relationship between Cable, X-Force’s militant leader-from-the-future and his archenemy Stryfe, the armor clad villain who mysterious looks just like Cable (as well the mystery of the pair’s possible relationship to Cyclops and Jean Grey of the X-Men). The crossover opens with a banger of a hook, as Stryfe — posing as Cable — shoots Professor X at a Lila Cheney concert. This would-be assassination sets off a collective hunt for Cable and X-Force — the former New Mutants, one-time wards of the X-Men, who have cast their lot with Cable and his theoretically-more-aggressive-than-the-X-Men approach to fighting supervillains — by the X-Men and the government-sancitioned X-Factor which leads to a general airing of grievances amongst the disparate characters for the first time in two publication years. Meanwhile, Cyclops and Jean are captured by Mister Sinister and handed over to Stryfe, who also targets a revived Apocalypse. As the X-Men and X-Factor come to realize Cable is being set up and gradually accept the help of X-Force to locate their missing teammates, the exact relationship between Cable, Stryfe, and the Summers family comes to the fore, ending in an explosive climax on the moon.

The crossover succeeds — and stands the test of time, despite its very early 90s trapping, including the fact that each issue originally came polybagged with an exclusive trading card — in several ways. In the context of the time it was published and what was happening in the X-Books leading up to it, the story gets a charge from featuring the first reunions between these characters in years, moments like X-Factor member Wolfsbane confronting her former New Mutants teammates in X-Force, or kewl bad boys Wolverine, Bishop, and Cable teaming up for the first time. It’s also a story which features appearances from all the major X-villains at the time (Stryfe, Apocalypse, and Mister Sinister, along with their respective teams of henchmen; Magneto was, at this point in time, considered dead), something no other X-Men crossover had yet done.

“X-Cutioner’s Song” is also a remarkably tightly-constructed crossover. Each of the four main X-books contributes three issues to the story. At twelve chapters, the story breaks down into three distinctive four part acts: the hunt for Cable and X-Force in act one, the reveal of Stryfe and his agenda in act two, and the final battle/climax in act three. Each chapter (and act) flows seamlessly into the next, even as the creative team changes, yet each chapter can stand alone as showcasing a specific moment or plot beat important to the overall story. Thus, it works on both a macro and micro level.

The crossover also features perhaps the most consistent art of any X-Men crossover to date, with all four series’ artists drawing all three of their respective crossover issues. Greg Capullo was already making a name for himself as the post-Liefeld artist on X-Force as the crossover began, and his work is probably the strongest of the bunch. X-Factor was between artists at the time (Larry Stroman had left the book, future Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Quesada was incoming) so Jae Lee provides three issues of moody, atmospheric art that elevates the overall story by being so distinctively-different from the rest of the art.

As for the Lee and Portacio-less X-Men titles, Adjectiveless X-Men debuts its new regular artist with the start of the crossover, as Andy Kubert comes aboard, the beginning of a lengthy and defining run on the title for him. The pencils from the still-young Kubert are a bit rougher than his later work, but his overall style is on full display, as well as his strong grasp of storytelling fundamentals. At the same time, Brandon Petersen debuts on Uncanny X-Men; like Art Thibert, he is doing a bit of a Jim Lee riff, and his work is probably the weakest of the four artists, if only because it’s the least stylized/personalized of the bunch.

All in all, the combination of its narrative novelty, consistent formalism, and strong, distinctive art makes “X-Cutioner’s Song” not only the standout story of this collection, but one of the top X-Men crossover events of all time.

Song’s EndIt’s worth noting that one of my personal favorite issues, the epilogue to “X-Cutioner’s Song” in Uncanny X-Men #297, is absent from this collection, forced out by the demands of the Epic Collection modeling. It is slated to be included in the forthcoming subsequent volume (X-Men Epic Collection: Legacies), but its absence directly after the crossover’s conclusion is missed, as it delivers a bittersweet but uplifting grace note to the story.

That is a minor demerit on what is an otherwise strong collection of X-Men stories from a fascinating moment in the franchise’s existence. It’s not often that you can sit down with one collection of stories and see a fundamental shift in a series’ publication history unfold around those stories, but that’s what happens with X-Men Epic Collection: X-Cutioner’s Song. From the last gasp of the best-selling linewide relaunch, to the scramble to keep the series’ at the top of the charts while dealing with the gut punch of the Image Exodus, to the impressive accomplishment of a remarkably well-executed crossover by creators still finding their way on the books, this volume reflects one of the most significant moments in time for the X-Men.

While the stories at the first half of the volume, as Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio seemingly phone it in followed by Scott Lobdell, Fabian Nicieza and their artistic collaborators scrambling to keep the ship afloat, are perhaps lacking when removed from their historical context, the titular story in the back half of the volume more than makes up for it as a grade-A X-Men crossover. As news of the Image Exodus broke, the question of whether or not the X-Men needed the likes of Whilce Portacio and Jim Lee to thrive both creatively and commercially was immediately raised. While superstar writers and artists as big (or bigger) than the Image founders would certainly one day grace the pages of Uncanny X-Men and X-Men again, “X-Cutioner’s Song” definitively answers that question by showing that, ultimately, the X-Men were more than capable of transcending creative tumult to capture the attention of readers regardless of who was writing or drawing their stories.

The post X-Men Epic Collection: X-Cutioner’s Song Review! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Welcome back to our multipart reread of Marvel’s big 2022 summer event, “A.X.E.: Judgment Day”; first, we looked at the leadup to this apocalyptic ruckus, and then we dove in with the first event issue and tie-ins, with a side piece on Exodus, star of the tie-in Immortal X-Men #5.

Credits:

A.X.E.: Judgment Day #2-3: Kieron Gillen writes; Valerio Schiti draws; Marte Gracia colors; covers by Mark Brooks.

A.X.E.: Judgment Day: Death to the Mutants #1-2: Gillen writes; Guiu Vilanova draws; Dijjo Lima (R.I.P.) colors issue #1, Alex Guimarães on #2; Travis Lanham letters; covers by Esad Ribic.

X-Men #13: Gerry Duggan writes; C.F. Villa draws; Matt Milla colors; Martin Coccolo cover.

Clayton Cowles letters all but Death to the Mutants.

Judgment Day #2 opens by introducing the six ordinary people whose reactions to the ongoing apocalypse we’ll be following, mostly for one page per issue, for the rest of the event. Of course, we’ve already met Jada. Each character represents a different emotional reaction to, initially, the news of mutant “immortality” and then to the Progenitor’s plan to judge the whole world and the heroes’ apocalyptic fight against this Frankenstein god.

Significantly, the chimerically revived Progenitor does see these people, as it presumably sees everyone in the world, individually, as themselves here, apparently without pre-judging them, which is more than could be said of most of us about in the world (Using the term half-jokingly here, but regarding the Progenitor’s scavenged Frankenstein’d parts, see issue #2 page 12’s montage and the notes on that below).

Turning to Krakoa and continuing from Immortal X-Men #5, we see Exodus fighting Syne the Memotaur, one of the kaiju-like Hex—and whose name plays off “minotaur” but to what end is unclear. Nevertheless, it’s a dope visual. Of course, Krakoa’s ancient knight of X slays this particular “dragon,” who unfortunately returns later in the issue, at the cost of a human’s life: Arjun, one of our six viewpoint humans. His widow will take his place in the narrative.

Note that while Syne is much more ancient than the already seemingly ageless Exodus, she seems psychologically immature by comparison: Eternals do not mature in any meaningful way; if anything, they fall prey to cynicism (Sersi; Druig)—rather than growing into anything resembling wisdom (even Phastos, who certainly exhibits such positive attributes, was designed that way; he didn’t grow into them).

Cyclops actually has written “kaiju” protocols, per an Immortal #2 interstitial, which also referenced Celestials—and “kaiju” would seem close enough to “a skyscraper-sized centaur,” except that it also “generates its own attack fauna.” Devastating. Scott is such a good boy-scout, though, we can be sure that he updated his files as soon as this fight was wrapped up!

Exodus is peeved about non-mutant heroes helping them, and a few pages later the Avengers seem to flee, evoking Exodus’ ire even more—even though he hadn’t wanted them there in the first place! But in reality, Cyclops asked Earth’s Mightiest to leave in order to help ordinary people around the world endangered by tsunamis generated by the raging Syne slamming her fists into the ocean floor, even endangering the mantle. Jean broadcasts the threat level to some of the heroes present, but not most—thus, Exodus and Destiny’s sniping at the Avengers’ backs as they bounce.

(For anyone not following Jason Aaron’s Avengers, Namor has indeed joined up; the Phoenix currently resides in Echo; the new Starbrand is a child; and this Nighthawk is a creation of Mephisto at the request of (a resurrected) Agent Phil Coulson (weird). Don’t worry about any of this—A.X.E., oddly enough, is not really an Avengers event! The only Avengers that seem to actually matter to it are Iron Man and Cap).

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Except—the Avengers’ HQ throughout the Aaron run has been the corpse of the Progenitor, which died eight billion years ago when it came to Earth already infected by Celestial nemeses the Horde. But if Ajak can revive this dead god of hers, she believes (or rather, assumes) it will put Druig back in his place—and it’s very likely that she presumes the Progenitor’s actions will benefit her personally in some way, or award her recognition, because Ajak’s role within the Eternals’ extremely small and insular society is priestly. It’s not that she’s pettily self-centered; instead, and perhaps far more dangerously, she’s intensely zealous—and like most zealots (Exodus comes to mind!), unable to recognize the egoism of their supposedly selfless beliefs.

And then there’s Sinister. He helps revive and recreate the Progenitor but is at least entirely frank about being a selfish bastard. Of course, both Ajak and Stark really should’ve been taking him seriously when he says he’s the only one that actually signifies. This is not someone you want on your team, no matter what. The Quiet Council will be learning that glaringly obvious lesson soon enough…

Ajak does accuse Sinister of “transgressing against the Celestials,” not that this will stop her from using him, as she believes, in her single-minded pursuit (more fool her)—but this accusation does recall the classic story that every Sinister fan loves: Gillen’s own “Everything Is Sinister” arc (Uncanny X-Men #1-3, 2011-2012), which recast Sinister’s character into something fans could finally get behind as a delightfully vile villain.

For a summary of this extravagant turn for the adorably despicable eugenicist, see this character synopsis from CBH’s HOX/POX reread. The specific Celestial he violated was the Dreaming Celestial, which provides some of the components that will go into remaking the Progenitor, as seen on page 12; see below.

Page 12 is a double-page montage showing us the makings of Ajak’s new god, the components that will be melded to the Progenitor’s corpse: Arishem the Judge, known by classic Eternals readers as the Celestial who judged with a thumbs-up or -down, was last seen in Avengers #1, killed by one of the Dark Celestials; the Dreaming Celestial (aka Tiamut) was once condemned by their Celestial fellows to an endless slumber on Earth (Kirby’s OG Eternals) but later woken by the Deviants (Gaiman’s run), left as an unmoving statue in San Francisco, where the dastardly Sinister overhauled him for his own sinister purposes (Gillen’s classic Uncanny X-Men #1-3); the Destroyer was revealed to have been, all along, an anti-Celestial weapon in Thor #300.

We also see Gillen’s Ajak motif of her trying to challenge her Celestial programming even while there’s ambiguity about how much that resentful rebelliousness had been programmed into her from the start, millions of years ago.

There are also references to Christopher Cantwell’s excellent recent Iron Man run, wherein Tony took on the Power Cosmic and King in Black #3, which saw him piloting a dead Celestial; the Pym/Ultron reference here is ironic given Ultron’s rebellion against his creator—with that Frankenstein-ian history about to repeat in spectacularly apocalyptic fashion.

Interestingly, on page 17 (digital), Sinister drops a hint that he knew Howard Stark back in the day—which wouldn’t be surprising, but I don’t think anyone’s ever mentioned this connection before. Kudos, Kieron! Sounds like a tall tale to be told.

When the Frankenstein’d Progenitor comes online at issue’s end, the epic event battle readers were expecting to play out across the rest of this blockbuster limited series effectively ends. And thank god, indeed! Gillen had a much more interesting story to tell, which really gets started in issue #3…

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But first, let’s check in on the woefully misnamed Death to the Mutants #1—whose first page feels like Gillen trolling, idk, the corporate suits or something; beyond that point, this miniseries had little to do with the Eternals trying to wipe out the Krakoans, but rather one group of (heroic) Eternals trying to stop another faction of (dastardly) Eternals from wrecking the entire planet.

The miniseries is narrated by the Machine (with the blue caption boxes, not the pink of the Progenitor), telling us this is indeed a continuation of Gillen’s Eternals.

This is the second Eternals-centric story of the event, following the prologue Eve of Judgment. Rising artist Guiu Vilanova continues to advance by leaps and bounds, and it makes sense that with his fill-in spots on Gillen and Ribic’s Eternals, he would pick up art duties for this brief miniseries. The most jarring thing here in relation to the event’s core series, however, is the unusual lack of vibrancy to Dijjo Lima’s colors. Regardless, RIP Dijjo Lima—he was known for his vivid palette, which next issue’s colorist Alex Guimarães does follow up on.

What’s nice here for Eternals readers is that we see more than just Sersi as the Eternals’ heroic figurehead; rather, we get the whole gang back from the prematurely ended ongoing, wherein Sersi’s place is critical but not central (as a former Avenger, however, she is the most famous Eternal). But in the overall event, she does seem to be the star among her fellow Eternals (which again, historically, does make sense).

Phastos’ fury at Ajak’s creation of a new god is rooted in his well-intentioned but wildly desperate attempt (during the first arc of Gillen’s Eternals) to simply end his people outright due to their resurrection process being inherently morally corrupt, a secret kept from most of the Eternals, all a product of their creators or “gods,” the Celestials. In Judgment Day #3, we see Phastos willing to preemptively shut down their new god, entirely at odds with the quietly zealous Ajak—both characterizations wholly consistent with the Gillen run.

Overall, while Gillen’s done the best he could wrapping up his Eternals series in various event one-shots and this miniseries, it’s still a bit a choppy and compressed—what’s amazing, though, is that he made it work at all. The crux of this first issue is the heroic Eternals’ mission to, well, corporealize ancient Deviant ghosts who were destroyed with much of Lemuria by the Celestials’ Second Host about 20k years ago; their goal is to “gather eyewitness testimony to the nature of the Celestials,” hoping this help Ajak create a god who’s more “clement.” Hah, well. Well, maybe, in the end, they succeeded?

Then, Ikaris has a surprise bright idea (that will also take the heat off the Deviants, whom he wants to protect from Druig and Uranos)—enlist renegade Eternal Gilgamesh’s help in infiltrating the enemy. His “stealth suits,” which allow Gilgamesh and his “Forgotten” renegades to hide out in the Machine’s “subspace tunnels”; thus, the infiltration is a success. Druig’s arsenal and his psi-assault on Krakoa/Xavier are temporarily neutralized.

But in X-Men #13 (the next tie-in to read), we actually see this accomplishment owes just as much to the X-Men stealing into Uranos’ armory.

In line with his dour attitude about his own kind throughout Gillen’s Eternals, Ikaris ends this issue, unsurprisingly, with a message to Druig, which overrides the miniseries’ own title: “Death to the Eternals.”

Of course, it is important to Ikaris (and the other heroic Eternals) that they not get any of their fellows killed, in order to prevent a human dying in their place as they resurrect via the Machine (Also, note the clear badass callout to the Psylocke-trademark psi-blade, used to displace a piece of Zuras’ brain—which, critically, does not kill him, only knocking him out for some time, helping to break Druig’s attack on Krakoa).

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The best thing about X-Men #13 is the art of rising star C.F. Villa (Black Cat). What’s oddest, though, is Magik’s depiction here is out of step with the end of Vita Ayala’s New Mutants run, which in-universe is supposed to take place before the Gala—which precedes this event. And yet, she appears in Duggan’s tie-in as no differently than the start of “The Labors of Magik” arc in New Mutants. Oh well!

Overall, though, this is issue all about battle action; there’s not much else going on—the new team doesn’t really gel in Duggan’s scripting—but otherwise, it’s mindless fun that fills out more of the event’s hot battles than most other tie-ins (excepting X-Men: Red and, on the Eternals’ side, Death to the Mutants). X-Men #13 actually meshes well with A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants #1, where the Eternals help stall Druig’s attack on Krakoa; we get the X-Men side of that here, as our mutant heroes continue fighting for their homeland by infiltrating Uranos’ armory themselves, at last defeating the threat of the Hex.

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Death to the Mutants #2 picks up on Ikaris’ inner conflict as a self-hating Eternal, which is also of course directed against the genocidal Druig—while Ajak continues to zealously believe in a kind of redemption. Glancing briefly further ahead to the event epilogue A.X.E.: Judgment Day Omega, it’s clear that her vision wins the day, albeit in a surprising and difficult manner. More on that later.

This issue does take place during Judgment Day #3, which should be read first—especially as it’s the debut of the Frankenstein’d Progenitor in its judgmental capacity. We’ll look briefly at issue #3’s highlights below, including the surprise return of Eros (Starfox), which the last scene of Death to the Mutants #2 fleshes out a bit more, as well.

Most importantly for this issue, we also see the Kro-led Deviants join the Krakoans in the fight against Druig’s forces on Krakoa. So, while the Eternals are internally divided, a bad sign for the enemy, and their heroic faction’s glancing alliances with the mutants are primarily wartime conveniences, we see something deeper and stronger in the alliance between these two kinds of “deviant” outcasts. Hopefully, we’ll get more exploration of this in future stories beyond the event!

For one, the Deviants can use the Krakoan gates—which doesn’t necessarily mean they’re actually the same as mutants, but there is some overlap. After all, the X gene exists as a result of Deviant evolution, but so too do human mutates (like the FF and Spidey); they gifted their ability to adapt and change to humanity, however much they also often suffer for own free-ranging evolutionary gifts (Per Gillen’s Eternals, this is how and why the Celestials designed the Deviants’ nature as they did).

It would also just be fun to see Kro and Emma interact more!

Issue #2 does force the attentive reader to ask: Are the Progenitor’s individual judgments consistent? But if we’re really paying attention, the obvious answer is simply, “No, and who cares—because the Progenitor is not nor has any Celestial ever been an actual god.” Calling them “space gods” is fun, but they are no more divine than any other nonmagical/non-mythic sentient in the Multiverse, period (Indeed, the no one anywhere in the MU appears to be an infallible divinity, not even the one potential candidate, the One-Above-All, not after Ewing’s brilliant twist of the One-Below-All being the shadow side of that godhead, which, frankly, is just honest spiritual wisdom; there is no perfection nor perfect judgment from on high!).

Even saying that the Progenitor is judging individuals by their own standards (the rationale for Cap’s failure) doesn’t hold up as entirely consistent, even though it puts a fine point on Cap being in a crisis of faith as national hero while Cyclops, however self-critical he may be, is unquestionably fighting for his people—forever framed an “endangered species” (although this, too, can be easily problematized; and of course, Scott’s judgment is crafted by Duggan, not Gillen, in X-Men #14, a decent issue but not event-essential, much less so than the fairly incidental issue #13).

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Going with the notion that individuals are being judged by their own standards, let’s look at who gets judged in Judgment Day #3: Somewhat similar to Cap in having set unrealistically high expectations for themselves, Emma, Destiny and Mystique each fail the Progenitor’s judgment; like Cyclops, however, Kro passes (as also seen in Death to the Mutants #2)—highlighting the fact that these two men are simply fighting for their people and do not inflate their roles beyond that basic but highly admirable warrior function.

Also significant this issue is the way the present Krakoan council members vote to destroy the Progenitor, which passes five-to-three, with one member abstaining—Emma. Xavier is temporarily dead from psi-war, and Storm is back on Arakko. Traditionally “villainous” (or self-interested or motivated only by “tribalism”), Mystique, Destiny, Shaw and Exodus vote to attack, but somewhat surprisingly, Hope goes along with them (yet don’t forget the unforgiving post-apocalyptic wastelands of her childhood*). Unsurprisingly, the heroic Kate, Kurt and Piotr^ vote against an act of aggression of doubtful efficacy and high risk to their fellow Earthlings (^Of course, Colossus is still, um, compromised, not that you’d be blamed for not remembering with how dormant that particular Percy plot-thread has become!).

Hope’s decision is clarified in Immortal X-Men* #6: She’s given to understand there’s risk involved but isn’t aware how high it is—and of course, zealous puppy-dog Exodus unquestioningly follows her lead anyway. Also, Xavier isn’t around to talk her out of her inclination. Like Hope, Shaw is willing to vote yea when the potential of destroying human cities is minimized; however, it’s likely that his reasoning is economic rather than humanitarian! After all, he is a global businessman.

(Btw—good thing Sinister was whisked away by Ajak and remains, throughout the event, far away from his Moira farm, right?!)

Much of this issue is given over to spectacular apocalyptic imagery as the Krakoan contingent arrives at the North Pole to attack the Progenitor head-on. It all turns out to be a gruesome illusion, sufficient warning that conventional superheroics will not work. (Initially, we get a vividly terrifying moment of the heroic Eternals turning on the other heroes as their Celestial-programming activates to protect their cherished “god.”

At the end of issue #3, the Eternals’ surprise 11th-hour savior is revived from the Exclusion (Eternals Limbo, essentially): Eros, code-named Starfox when joining the Avengers during the early ’80s Stern Avengers run (the franchise at its best ever until Bendis disassembled and wholly remade it during the 2000s). However, previously, he was not portrayed as androgynous or gender-fluid/ambiguous; rather, he was depicted somewhat as a straight man’s imagining of a sort of effete Don Juan/godly playboy—totally unsexy, unerotic. Stern and others, bumbling with this character, simply presented him, perhaps unwittingly(?), as utter sleaze. Dan Slott’s 2000s She-Hulk run fumbled in the other direction without any sense of real redemption (Starfox’s earthly superhero romancing has pretty much been confined to Shulkie, and it was pretty ick, which, hey, wasn’t too dissimilar from Aaron’s handling of Jen’s weird relationship with Thor; argh).

Hilariously, his warden in the Eternals limbo, the Exclusion, does not seem to care much about this particular very low-level security-threat ward of hers. His status as a Titanian Eternal (like Thanos, an outsider) and erstwhile Avenger simply makes him a clever choice for Sersi (who really is, among the Eternals anyway, the main hero of this event; Ikaris is next, while Ajak is the problematic crux).

Eros was probably locked not just because he’s Thanos’ brother (whose parents are also in the Exclusion simply because they conceived Thanos!): In Donny Cates’ 2019 Guardians run, Eros’ body was the vessel for the return of Thanos, his consciousness taking over his brother’s body. But as the process finalized, Gamora slew her poor, hapless uncle to halt the resurrection of Thanos (who’d previously been killed, again by his adopted daughter, in 2018’s Infinity Wars Prime).

Intriguingly, this same scene plays out in a bit more detail at the end of Death to the Mutants #2, where Jack of Knives is not simply escorting Sersi to retrieve the imprisoned Eros for some kind of simple fee (as implied in Judgment Day #3); rather, they’re shown as initially somewhat fearful of going against Druig and the Exclusion’s warden—and* receiving a failing grade from the Progenitor. Sheesh! Sersi’s deal to them is that they get a future to live.

(*Recall that Jack is nonbinary.)

Jack of Knives keeps a lot of blades on hand. One is this “possibility-blade” allowing them to strike at anything perceived as weakness—such as the Exclusion warden’s pride (at keeping her prisoners locked up), allowing them to “slice an arterial wound in time and space” to infiltrate the Exclusion and open Eros’ cell. A poetic weapon; pretty cool.

NEXT: The Top-Tier Triple-Six Tie-Ins—Immortal X-Men #6; X-Men: Red #6 and Legion of X #6.The post The A.X.E.: Judgment Day Reread Part 3 appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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Black Panther (2005) #21 cover by Gary Frank and Dean WhiteIn my previous Omnibussin piece, I charted the ways Marvel could collect Black Panther’s comics from the mid-70s to the mid-90s in omnibus format. It was a complex process, despite T’Challa not having too many comics to his name back then… or perhaps because of it! With the entire piece dedicated to that era, I promised I’d return to cover the modern material, which is—as is often the case—quite a bit easier. As I teased last time, however, though modern collections tend to focus on a single author or run and are thus much more easy to envision, there are a few surprises left.

I already enumerated every Black Panther omnibus Marvel is releasing this year in great detail in my last piece, but let’s quickly recap: all the classic material is either published or mapped; the upcoming Black Panther by Christopher Priest Omnibus Vol. 1 will start off what’s considered the modern revival of the character and title; and Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Omnibus and Wakanda: World of Black Panther Omnibus encompass every Black Panther comic of note since 2016. And so, we’re left with a 15-year old gap between the middle of Priest’s run in 2001 and where Black Panther’s status quo was left off in 2015 just before Coates relaunched the series.

Black Panther (2005) #39 art by Jefte Palo and Lee LoughridgeCollecting the rest of Christopher Priest’s renowned—though not uncontroversial—run isn’t particularly complicated: the first volume stops with issue #33, which means the second one should take us from issue #34 to the very end, #62. This run includes the return of the fearsome M’Baku; an alternate future story; a sequel to the great ‘Enemy of the State’ storyline found in the first volume, which includes a team-up with Wolverine; and the “death” and return of T’Challa, an absence during which the American cop Kasper Cole takes over the Black Panther mantle for a while (not the title’s finest hour). There is more to it than that, however: there’s a Priest-written Incredible Hulk crossover; a Western-set Thor story Priest wrote years before under his original name, James Oswley, which he revisits in Black Panther #46-47; and the cult 2003 comic The Crew, featuring a team-up of black characters, including Josiah X, the son of Isaiah Bradley from Truth: Red, White & Black (which was sort of adapted into the Disney+ Falcon and the Winter Soldier miniseries). To these I would also add the 13-page story Priest wrote with artist Mike Perkins for 2018’s Black Panther annual, which looks back on his run of almost two decades before from a contemporary perspective, again starring US State Department liaison to Wakanda Everett Ross, who was the protagonist early on in Priest’s run (and who everyone knows as CIA agent Everett Ross in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, played by Martin Freeman).

Black Panther by Christopher Priest Omnibus Vol. 2, with artists Sal Velluto, Joe Bennett, Jorge Lucas, Jim Calafiore, J. Torres, Ryan Bodenheim, and Patrick Zircher, would then comprise—in this order—Black Panther (1998) #34-35, Incredible Hulk (1999) #33 (1st story), Black Panther #36-45, Thor (1966) #370; Black Panther #46-49, #57-58, #50-56, and #59-62 (issues #57 and #58 take place earlier in the timeline, between issues #49 and #50); The Crew (2003) #1-7; and Black Panther Annual 2018 (1st story). This would make it at least 893 pages, or likely around 920 with extras—which is relatively comparable to the first volume, at 840 pages.

Black Panther (1998) #34 by Christopher Priest and Jim CalafioreIt’d be an understatement to say Priest revitalized the Black Panther title. No one before or since has had such a long continuous run on the book, and his work thankfully served as a springboard so that the King of Wakanda wouldn’t be off of the spotlight for decades at a time ever again—this is especially true after his appearance in the MCU, of course, but Priest got the ball rolling. Stan and Jack may have created the character, but they didn’t do much with him—not even Jack Kirby, whose dozen-issue run on the character when he returned to Marvel is at best described as visually stimulating, but not known as a great take on the character or title, to say the least. Don McGregor wrote the best (and the most) Black Panther stories of the 20th century, and he was the one who truly defined the essence of T’Challa and Wakanda, but he never got to write an ongoing book with ‘Black Panther’ on the title. Then comes Priest. Regardless of the problematic elements in the book that may have seeped into it due to his politics or how the book lost a lot of its luster when an American cop took over the mantle of an African king, the truth is that, when we take into consideration Black Panther’s uneven track-record before Priest, what he did can’t be ignored.

Whoever took over the title next would have a nearly impossible task set before them. American film screenwriter, director, producer, and comic-book writer Reginald Hudlin was chosen to take up this challenge, and it must be said he did so with remarkable success. Priest had taken a radical approach with his run: it often experimented with the format of comic book storytelling, and it was quite provocative in its contents too, at least for what’s expected from a typical Marvel superhero book. In contrast, Hudlin went for a more streamlined, standard style, with the cinematic scope typical of the early 2000s. This is so much the case that the first arc in his run, with superstar artists John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson, and colorist Dean White, is a bit of a soft reboot: a modern retelling of T’Challa’s origin story that changes enough details (and a few important bits too!) that many assumed it wasn’t ‘canonical’ until the book continued and intermingled with the rest of the Marvel universe—let’s just say it’s an alternate telling of his origins and leave it at that.

Black Panther (2005) #2 by Reginald Hudlin, John Romita Jr, Klaus Janson, and Dean WhiteThis retold origin story is most known for something else, however: it’s the first appearance of Shuri, the young sister of T’Challa (half-sister in the comics) and future Black Panther, just like she ended up being in the MCU, albeit prematurely due to the tragic death of T’Challa actor Chadwick Boseman. You may be asking yourself “What do you mean her first appearance?” Well, you read that right. If you only know Black Panther from the movies, you might assume Shuri has always been an integral part of the mythos, but the character was introduced in 2005, forty years after the debut of T’Challa and Wakanda—and except for her being quite plucky, she initially bears little resemblance to her MCU precocious tech genius / comic relief persona (after the movie, the comic’s Shuri was made to be closer to the movie version—which is ironic, since the Shuri of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is much more recognizable to comics readers).

Black Panther (2005) #9 by Reginald Hudlin, David Yardin, Jay Leisten, and Dean WhiteHudlin’s original Black Panther run continues up to issue #38, chiefly with artists Scot Eaton, Francis Portela and Ken Lashley. It includes several highlights: a House of M tie-in; an X-Men crossover in which T’Challa reconnects with his childhood flame Ororo Munroe, better known as Storm of the X-Men; several superhero team-ups with the likes of Falcon, Shang-Chi, Luke Cage, Blade, Brother Voodoo, and Monica Rambeau; T’Challa and Ororo finally getting together and even tying the knot just before the superhero Civil War; epic encounters with the super-leaders of the Marvel Earth, such as Doctor Doom, Namor, and the Inhumans; a crossover with the Fantastic Four setting up the newly married couple taking over Reed Richards and Sue Storm’s role in the classic team in their own book (an underrated—and undercollected—run written by the late Dwayne McDuffie); and finally a return to Wakanda just in time to face one of his greater nemeses: Erik Killmonger, N’Jadaka, who was so memorably played by Michael B. Jordan in 2018’s Black Panther film… and hey, maybe elsewhere (I’m not gonna spoil anything!).

Although that’s the end of Hudlin’s original run, the title continues on for three issues with a new writer who’s never written Black Panther before. And it’s a tie-in to a huge event. None of this sounds exciting, I know… but believe me, it is! In fact, it’s one of the best short stories to get anyone hooked to the essence of the character—and of Wakanda. During the Secret Invasion event (which is getting a Disney+ adaptation soon), the shapeshifting Skrulls invade the Earth… including Wakanda, which might not have been their best idea. Jason Aaron and Jefte Palo crafted a remarkable three-issue tale in which T’Challa and all Wakandans defend their land against the Skrulls in what’s probably the best Secret Invasion tie-in there is. More than anything else, it’s the perfect showcase of how cunning and shrewd T’Challa can be (an essential aspect of the character that I thought was sadly missing in the MCU) and of Wakanda’s resilience.

Black Panther (2005) #39 by Jason Aaron, Jefte Palo, and Lee LoughridgeYou might have picked up I repeatedly referred to Hudlin’s “original” run, and that’s because, while Aaron wrote that short Secret Invasion arc, Hudlin and artist Ken Lashley were busy revitalizing the title with not just a new issue #1 but a new Black Panther. In the aftermath of the Skrull invasion which Tony Stark very publicly failed to avoid, the United States of America was now under a “dark reign” as Norman Osborn (formerly the Green Goblin) took control of the nation’s security apparatus. During this Dark Reign era, the superheroes were the criminals running from the law. It was different for T’Challa, a head-of-state… but it didn’t turn out to be so different in practice, as diplomatic immunity couldn’t save him from the fury of Doctor Doom.

In six issues, Hudlin took T’Challa from his highest point to his lowest—and while the King of Wakanda picked up the pieces, his sister Shuri took up the mantle of the Panther and Wakanda’s throne for the first time. At this point, writer Jonathan Maberry and artist Will Conrad took over the series for its remaining six issues, after which the story of Shuri as Black Panther and Doctor Doom’s machinations against Wakanda culminated in the six-part Doomwar limited series with artist Scot Eaton. Maberry, with artist Gianluca Gugliotta, would write his four-issue epilogue to the saga of Shuri as Black Panther in ‘Klaws of the Panther,’ in which she teamed-up with Wolverine and Black Widow to take on Black Panther’s original villain: Klaw.

Black Panther (2009) #1 by Reginald Hudlin, Ken Lashley, Paul Neary, and Paul MountsOne could conceivably map a Reginald Hudlin omnibus in such a way that his entire run on the title was collected in a single volume—everything he wrote, and nothing he did not. Naturally, this would also include Hudlin’s 2010 four-part Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of our Fathers miniseries with artist Denys Cowan, which tells the story of how Captain America got his Vibranium shield during World War II thanks to an adventure in Wakanda with the Black Panther at the time, King Azzuri, T’Challa’s grandfather. Additionally, just as I said I would include Priest’s contribution to the 2018 annual in his second volume, I’d include Hudlin’s in this, too. However, that would be a huge volume—and one that’d exclude Aaron’s Secret Invasion run and, most critically, the conclusion to the Shuri saga Hudlin himself started. In my eyes, it makes much more sense for Marvel to publish a Hudlin-centric omnibus collecting his original run starting on 2005, including the Flags of our Fathers miniseries and the 2018 annual story, focusing on T’Challa as the Black Panther, leaving enough material for a shorter omnibus focused on Shuri’s era:

Black Panther by Reginald Hudlin Omnibus, with Scot Eaton, Francis Portela, John Romita Jr., Ken Lashley, Denys Cowan, as well as Jason Aaron and Jefte Palo, would include—in this order—Black Panther (2005) #1-7, X-Men (1991) #175, Black Panther #8, X-Men #176; Black Panther #9-38, Annual #1, and issues #39-41; Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of our Fathers #1-4, and Black Panther Annual 2018 (3rd story). This would make the volume a minimum of 1147 pages—around 1200 at most, once we consider credits, extras, and the like.

Black Panther (2009) #5 by Reginald Hudlin, Ken Lashley, Paul Neary, and Paul MountsThis mapping would allow Marvel to publish an omnibus all about Shuri’s time as Black Panther; and what better time is there than now for that—let’s use that MCU synergy for good! As well as the 2009 twelve-issue run and the Doomwar and Klaws of the Panther limited series that followed it, I would include a short story in the Age of Heroes miniseries that put a cap on the Dark Reign era and, in this case, served as an epilogue of sorts to the war between Shuri and Doom, between Wakanda and Latveria. Since this is not a big book, I would top it all off with the final two issues of Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive (don’t worry about it for now!), in which Shuri reunites with her brother, who at this point has self-exiled in the United States of America.

Black Panther: Shuri Omnibus, by Jonathan Maberry, Reginald Hudlin, Ken Lashley, Scot Eaton, Denys Cowan, Gianluca Gugliotta, and Will Conrad, would comprise Black Panther (2009) #1-12, Doomwar #1-6, Age of Heroes #4 (1st story), Klaws of the Panther #1-4, and Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #528-529. This would make it 582 pages at least—not many more than 600 overall, which is pretty compact for an omnibus but perfectly respectable. Also, frankly, normal people who may want to get to know Shuri’s time as Black Panther because of the movies—not crazy collectors like me (and probably you)—would be much more likely to buy a collection like this if the book doesn’t weigh a ton and doesn’t cost $125 USD.

Black Panther (2009) #11 by Jonathan Maberry, Ken Lashley, and Paul NearyAnd don’t you worry, I haven’t forgotten about Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive. What is that, you may ask? How could a Black Panther comic—a title that’s notably never had many long runs—possibly be at issue #528 suddenly? Glad you asked. While Shuri was busy being Black Panther, things weren’t going so great for T’Challa… but they were going even worse for his old friend Matt Murdock, Daredevil—look up the Shadowland event if you want to know more. Long story short: T’Challa ended up taking the role of Daredevil—not his superhero mantle per se, but his role as protector of Hell’s Kitchen. And he took over Daredevil’s book and numbering, too; from Daredevil #512 we go to… Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513. Comics are weird and impenetrable, but hey, what can I say? That’s part of their charm! Writer David Liss, with artists Francesco Francavilla, Jefte Palo, Shawn Martinbrough, and Michael Avon Oeming, wrote the street-level Black Panther book for almost twenty issues and through a name-change to Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive; for his final issues, T’Challa gets his own tagline, instead of using Daredevil’s classic one (which was the only connection to the Daredevil book in the actual title, but that was then gone, in case it wasn’t confusing enough).

If you haven’t heard about this era of Black Panther it’s because it’s not particularly well-remembered, but that doesn’t mean it’s not without its charms: it’s always great to see T’Challa go down to the street-level, especially in a country like the USA, which is so different from his. There are adventures against vampires, Kraven the Hunter, Hate-Monger, the White Wolf, Lady Bullseye, and Kingpin; Fear Itself and Spider-Island tie-ins; and the aforementioned reunion with his sister, Shuri, Wakanda’s official Black Panther. It’s not a classic, but it’s fun!

Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive Omnibus by David Liss, Francesco Francavilla, Jefte Palo, Shawn Martinbrough, and Michael Avon Oeming would contain Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513-523; and Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #523.1 and #524-529. This would be a short volume: at least 396 pages, and likely no more than 420.

Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513 by David Liss and Francesco FrancavillaIn terms of comics titled Black Panther, these stories published as late as 2012 would take us to the present, as there wouldn’t be another proper Black Panther title until Ta-Nehisi Coates revived the book and revitalized Wakanda in his renowned run starting in 2016, which has already been collected. But that isn’t the end of the story. Just like Black Panther: The Early Years Omnibus collects (and my hypothetical The Later Years would collect) Black Panther’s appearances in books that are not his own but are key to the history of the character, there is an opening here for a book covering that gap between 2012 and 2016, which was a crucial era for Black Panther: life-changing things happened to T’Challa, including his relationships to Storm, Namor and many other characters; the developments with Shuri during this era are key to understand what’s going on at the start of Coates’s run; Wakanda went through several incidents that affect it to this day, including in the MCU; and, to put it plainly, this is one of best-written eras for T’Challa, despite him not having a book of his own. How could this be? Who is responsible for this?

In my previous piece, I teased “a surprise omnibus that Marvel may never publish but they totally should, because it would have some of Black Panther’s best modern stories written by one of the best comics writers.” I left you all with the question of “who’s the best Black Panther writer who never wrote a Black Panther-titled comic.” This is what I was talking about.

And the answer is superstar comics writer Jonathan Hickman.

Secret Wars (2015) #8 by Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribić, and Ive SvorcinaAfter ending his critically acclaimed Fantastic Four run in 2012, Jonathan Hickman co-wrote the controversial (yet vital for T’Challa!) 2012 event Avengers vs. X-men, just before taking on the dual titles of Avengers and New Avengers between 2013 and 2015, culminating in what’s widely considered one of Marvel’s best comics events ever (the best outright, by many fans!): 2015’s Secret Wars. Except for Avengers vs X-Men, every comic I’ve mentioned here is some of the best comics I’ve ever had the pleasure to read—and even AvX has its moments, especially the parts Hickman wrote to set up future happenings in the world of Black Panther.

What I’m suggesting here isn’t the typical omnibus collection, especially for modern material, which tends to collect runs based on eras or authors —after all, Hickman’s Fantastic Four and Avengers runs are already collected in two beautiful pairs of omnibuses (which I couldn’t recommend any more highly), and Secret Wars has its own oversized hardcover. So what is it, then? I admit it would be unprecedented for Marvel to do this, but what I’m actually suggesting is for them to collect Black Panther’s entire involvement in the Avengers-adjacent Illuminati team under the pen of Hickman, picking and choosing from his runs in this three-year span to tell the coherent story of T’Challa in this period. Not just picking and choosing issues, but picking and choosing within issues. This isn’t a theoretical exercise: I went ahead and did it, using my purchased digital copies of these comics to create my personal digital omnibus of exactly what I’m envisioning here, and it reads beautifully. If an artist were to create custom Black Panther covers for this collection, I’d bet that one could scarcely tell this isn’t truly Hickman’s Black Panther book.

New Avengers (2013) #25 by Jonathan Hickman, Kev Walker, and David KurielWe would open with the first story in 2006’s New Avengers: Illuminati by Brian Michael Bendis and his frequent artist collaborator Alex Maleev, set many years earlier (soon after the early 1970s Kree/Skrull war). Despite it being written by someone else and taking place in the past, it’s a fundamental prologue to everything that’s to come, as it sets up T’Challa’s involvement in the secretive supergroup… or rather, his initial refusal to become involved at all!

Then we would jump forward to 2012, to a two-part story late in Hickman’s Fantastic Four run in which Mr. Fantastic travels to Wakanda with the entire Future Foundation. While the kids have their fun, Reed Richards and T’Challa face Anubis and his own panther god, Bastet, who decrees what T’Challa’s status quo will be during Hickman’s entire Avengers run: Shuri will continue ruling Wakanda and being the Black Panther of the living… but she also makes T’Challa a true Black Panther again; a Black Panther of the dead, the ruler of Wakanda’s necropolis.

Avengers vs X-Men #7 by Matt Fraction, Olivier Coipel, and Mark MoralesThis is the place we find T’Challa in during Avengers vs X-Men, the event that first seriously pits T’Challa against Namor the Sub-Mariner. I will not spoil what happens here, but suffice it to say by the end of it T’Challa vow to kill the king of Atlantis when he has the chance and Namor has more than earned it. Of this event, I would only include the relevant issues—and the relevant pages within some issues, in a few cases. There’s also a notable story in the tie-in miniseries AVX: VS, which expands on what this war between the Avengers and the X-Men means for the relationship between T’Challa and his wife Ororo, Storm of the X-Men. These aren’t happy days for T’Challa.

In Hickman’s ensuing New Avengers run, he picks up the threads of T’Challa’s appointment as King of the Dead and AvX‘s tragic events in Wakanda. This title runs alongside the slightly more standard Avengers book (though it’s still Hickman, so expect some weirdness!) and focuses on the Illuminati regrouping for a new cosmic threat… and this time T’Challa can’t afford to say no. In fact, he hosts the group himself in his new kingdom, Wakanda’s necropolis.

New Avengers (2013) #22 by Jonathan Hickman, Kev Walker, and Frank Martin Jr.Did I mention Namor, his new mortal enemy, is one of the Illuminati? Some of the best moments in this remarkable run are about the enmity between the two, as well as T’Challa’s attempts to keep the Illuminati secret from Queen Shuri and Wakanda… especially as he’s inviting Wakanda’s number one enemy to the country, and he can’t publicly say why. I would include the entire opening arc of New Avengers in this volume, as well as parts of the Infinity event, in which Thanos and his hosts invade Wakanda (this was partly adapted to the MCU in Avengers: Infinity War).

After this, I’d include a selection of Black Panther-focused issues in which T’Challa is forced to compromise his own morals further and keep more secrets from Shuri and Wakanda while trying to combat the upcoming universe-ending threat, while his rivalry with Namor grows and grows until it explodes in one of the best Black Panther moments of all time. This is also around the time when the fate of Shuri is decided in what’s also one of her all-time moments, and a critical one to fully appreciate where Coates picks up the character in his run.

New Avengers (2013) #24 by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti, and David CurielThis all leads to 2015’s Secret Wars. The event co-stars T’Challa and it pits him against Doctor Doom once again, with Namor as an unlikely ally, so I’d collect a fair amount of it, including much of the epilogue, as it calls back to Hickman’s first stories with T’Challa at the start of his New Avengers run, in the first pages of this would-be volume. If I haven’t emphasize it enough, despite this being an eclectic collection on paper I assure you it would read as a beautifully rounded story, as well as it being pivotal for the future of T’Challa, Shuri and Wakanda.

Black Panther by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus, with co-writers Brian Michael Bendis, Jason Aaron, Matt Fraction, and artists Steve Epting, Esad Ribić, Mike Deodato, Valerio Schiti, Kev Walker, Stefano Caselli, Dustin Weaver, Jerome Opeña, Adam Kubert, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Jim Cheung, Tom Raney, and Olivier Coipel, would collect New Avengers: Illuminati (2006) #1 (1st story), Fantastic Four (1998) #607-608, Avengers vs X-Men #2, AVX: VS #5 (2nd story); Avengers vs X-Men #6-8 and #9 (pages 6 and 9-10); New Avengers (2013) #1-7 and #8-9; Infinity #2 (pages 25-28); New Avengers #10-11; Infinity #5-6; New Avengers #12, #16-22, #23 (pages 1, 8-9, and 14-22), #24 (pages 1-10, and 17-31), and #25; Avengers #39 (pages 1-6), New Avengers #28 (pages 14-20), Avengers #40, New Avengers #29; Avengers #41 (pages 4-6 and 10-20), #42 (pages 5-6 and 10-11), #44 (pages 17-18); and Secret Wars #1, #3-4, #6 (pages 7-9, 17-20), and a selection of pages from #7-9 (in the Secret Wars Oversized Hardcover collection, these three closing issues are reordered significantly and collected as a single one; it’s a considerable improvement, too, so this hypothetical omnibus would collect pages 1-9 and 36-67 of that collected version of the final Secret Wars issue, which is a modified version of the originally published three final issues.) Despite the complex contents, this omnibus would only be a minimum of 961 pages, and likely no more than around 1000 with all the usual extras.

Secret Wars (2015) #7 by Jonathan Hickman, Esad Ribić, and Ive SvorcinaNow, do I believe Marvel is likely to publish such a specific selection of issues (and even pages within issues) anytime soon? Of modern material, no less, which is so rarely published in excerpts. To be frank, I believe it’s nearly impossible. But damn it, they should! And I think that’s reason enough to map it here—as a reading order, if nothing else… though, of course, if anyone were to ask me nicely, I’d happily show them my digital version in an entirely legal, ‘sharing a book with friends’ kind of way (no, I’m not putting it up online for just anyone to see).

These are some of T’Challa’s best years this century, with stories crucial to what came after. Believe me: if you were to read absolutely every omnibus Marvel has published (and those I have mapped up to the as-yet-imaginary Black Panther: Shuri Omnibus and Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive Omnibus) and then you jumped to the existing Coates omnibus, you’d be nearly as lost as if you’d never read any Black Panther beforehand—a lot happens in those three years. To be fair, Coates does a good job of introducing the characters and the world to an unfamiliar audience, so you’ll “get it,” but if you’re invested enough in this character and his world to collect his entire publication history up to this point in omnibus format, I’d imagine you would want to experience some of the most important developments in his life firsthand instead of through Coates’s exposition (which, to be honest, can be quite dry early on).

New Avengers (2013) #24 by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti, and David CurielWith these five omnibuses, I have now mapped everything Marvel could conceivably omnibize under the Black Panther banner—including one that’s more of a dream omnibus than anything I expect Marvel to publish. With Black Panther behind us, my next Omnibussin piece will probably tackle She-Hulk, which is long overdue. To be honest, the MCU synergy got me a bit late in this case, but hey, we should always make time for She-Hulk, right? After that, who knows? As always, if you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to share them below!

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This essay, both a review of Immortal X-Men #6* and an excursus on erstwhile C-lister Exodus now reborn under Kieron Gillen’s absolutely brilliant stewardship, is a pendant piece to our “A.X.E.: Judgment Day” reread here at CBH—following the introductory entry and the first deep dive on the event’s early chapters.

*Credits: Kieron Gillen writes; Michele Bandini draws; David Curiel colors; Clayton Cowles letters.

Black Knight: Exodus credits (1996): Ben Raab writes; Jim Cheung pencils; Andy Lanning inks; Tom Zuiko colors; Richard Starkings letters (This one-shot discussed extensively below).

So—wow, a whole article on Exodus? That Crusading bigot? Welllll—let’s start by risking minor controversy and say not every soldier on Crusade a thousand years ago was necessarily any one thing. After all, do we judge each person enlisted in the US imperial armed forces as a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist and racist? If we’re going to immediately judge the ancient Grand Duc Bennet du Paris as a racist zealot, we need to think about how we in the modern West view ourselves and those around us: Do we or our enlisted, one and all, need to be subjected to the same blanket judgment? That word, obviously, couldn’t be more apropos here with this most literal of apocalyptic events under discussion. Isn’t much of what Gillen’s done with this event encouraging us to think about how we judge ourselves and others—and humanity, generally?

Of course, you will ask: Are we still talking about a Parisian Grand Duke of the High Middle Ages who certainly didn’t need to go on Crusade for desperate financial reasons or any other personal excuse—except aristocratically self-aggrandizing religious zealotry and pomposity? That would be the assumption; but Exodus’ backstory, such as we have it on page, is almost entirely confined to a very obscure 1996 one-shot, Black Knight: Exodus, by Ben Raab and a young Jim Cheung (right at the start of his career and already doing excellent work—no wonder he became a superstar). For whatever reason, this story bears no hint of the young Bennet du Paris’ specific actions or even motivations, beyond a simplistic piety, in taking part in the Crusades; rather, he’s motivated by the promise of a hidden-treasure quest in the Egyptian desert (geographically, quite far removed from the scope of actual historical Crusaders), and his close bond (“closer than a brother”) with the man who has always seemed to be his one true love, the Black Knight Eobar Garrington, for whom Exodus still holds a hopeless, solitary candle—and for whose mortal fate, centuries ago, he continues to feel intense guilt (as we’ll see in Immortal X-Men #6).

Anyhow, maybe I’m already preaching to the choir? I’ve heard many current X-fans are big Exodus stans now, which speaks to Gillen’s genius more than anything the character has shown previously—although, clearly, there’s always been the potential; Gillen just tapped into it like no one had before. Previous writers seem to have got stuck with the idea that an ancient, pious Crusader must necessarily just be a real stick in the mud. How self-limiting! Of course, most ’90s comics writers weren’t exactly dynamic storytellers.

However, long-time readers expressed some bafflement with at least one aspect of Exodus’ backstory as presented in Immortal X-Men #5—his brief, mysterious encounter with the Phoenix a thousand years ago, which had never before been mentioned. But, I have a read on that, which makes perfect sense to me. More on that below!

The issue opens with Exodus wondering why he’s lost in a 12th-century flashback (after the 1099 Siege of Jerusalem)—a memory of nearly dying in the desert, his first meeting with another mutant just ahead of him: “I am a half mile short of being reborn. Apocalypse waits for me.” He’s still just Grand Duc du Paris, but his new master, whose name indeed means “revelation” (literally, an “uncovering” or “unveiling”), will inspire the young man to take his own Greco-biblical name, originally referring to a military expedition, solemn procession or death or departure—the last meaning here making it fitting for the Greek translation of the title of the Jewish book of the Torah telling of the Israelites’ flight from Egyptian slavery.

(Of course, one could argue that little is “fitting” in the largely antisemitic Greco-Roman appropriation of Judaism.)

However, present-day Exodus’ voice-over reference to “Apocalypse” as “revelation” isn’t actually referring to En Sabah Nur. No, even for those who don’t know his backstory, Exodus is pointing to something else, the alpha and omega of his post-Christian faith…

Never before seen in Exodus’ backstory, the Phoenix appears before him in the desert, without a host. Fitting, as the mythical firebird was worshiped in ancient Egypt, whose deserts Bennet wandered into searching for the treasure reputed to be hoarded in the mysterious “Eternal Pharaoh’s” “Tower of Power.” He’ll discover that “Pharaoh” is named Apocalypse, as he finds himself in a land called Akkaba (Which, according to Marvel geography, is over 800 miles from Jerusalem, a long way on hoof and foot! Or 600 if you can hop on a boat across the Red Sea).

Hopefully, we see more on this in future Exodus stories, but Gillen is working subtly here: The Phoenix boosted Hope Summers’ powers at the climax of Avengers vs. X-Men (#12), assisting her and Wanda with activating thousands of mutants worldwide (after years of post-M-Day “Decimation”). She was even named “the White Phoenix” there—and earlier, after the Phoenix first entered her at the beginning of the event, Gillen had an alien robot call her another “Phoenix Messiah.” Remember, a decade ago, Gillen was one of the formative writers for Hope (Uncanny X-Men and Generation Hope).

Significantly, while during her early years, from “Messiah Complex” to “Second Coming,” Hope was often depicted with portents of the Phoenix, when Gillen and Bendis started shaping her character around AvX, she was very ambivalent, not infrequently hostile, toward the Phoenix—a clear choice to mark her as having a distinctly skeptical or adversarial attitude toward the cosmic force in contrast to the young Jean Grey possessed by the Phoenix for the first time.

After a look at Exodus’ mutant-centric translation of The Book of Exodus (hilarious concept), we’re back in the present, shortly after page 9 of Judgment Day #1, where Storm’s about to depart Arakko for Krakoa at Destiny’s call for a council meeting on her dread Eternals vision, minutes before the Uni-Mind attack—which arrives halfway through this issue and causes Exodus to lose himself in his deep-time memories. This mnemonic affliction of his has never really been explored, at least not with this level of attention, and hey, even if you’re not an Exodus fan (surely*, rising star Anthony Oliveira isn’t the only keeper of the flame for this sad gay boy^!), this formally perfect issue will make him hard to resist as a quietly heartbroken soldier of the mutant faith, and Hope in particular.

^Or at least for Exodus’ modern-day rehabilitation as Krakoan Crusader on Hope’s leash.

*Exodus 1:12.

Exodus doesn’t have much backstory despite being a thousand years old, or even roundedness, because there have been so few storytellers since his 1993 debut (X-Factor #92, during “Fatal Attractions”) who’ve shown any interest in really delving into who he is, where he’s been and just why he is the way he is. But Gillen and Bandini’s work here is excellent, all 2020s audiences need to know about him, for now—which is only possible in such a short amount of space as he’s had only ~130 appearances.

Black Knight: Exodus—THE Exodus BackstorySensibly, then, Gillen draws heavily from the only story featuring a pre-modern Marvel Universe Exodus, still: 1996’s Black Knight: Exodus one-shot by Ben Raab and a Jim Cheung. Black Knight Dane Whitman and fellow Avenger and would-be lover Sersi* were seeking a way back home from another universe but somehow ended up on the Earth-616 of a thousand years ago—nearish Akkaba, the ancient Egyptian town and birthplace of En Sabah Nur (several millennia before, though he’ll show up here, too). However, according to the positively youthful Bennet du Paris, they’re in “the hinterlands of Palestine” (so maybe in the Sinai?).

*Sersi is portrayed here with a degree of wilting sentimentality that you just can’t square her characterization before and after as the immortal cynic down to party away the ages. Gillen’s version is certainly truer to form.

Dane’s consciousness or spirit lands in the Black Knight of that time, Eobar Garrington—who retains control and primary awareness while yet feeling deeply disoriented and unanchored from his reality. Sersi has to spend quite a while getting Dane to emerge as the dominant persona; the trick was her kissing him and thereby “coaxing” Eobar’s soul from his body, which “grants him the eternal peace he fought a lifetime to achieve.” So: euthanasia? His peaceful-looking soul form does express his gratitude. Most importantly, he gave her permission with his brave willingness to sacrifice himself so that his descendant might live*.

(Early in the issue, Sersi’s thoughts provide context for all this twisty strangeness: “This is the era to which Dane’s persona was once yanked—and mystically submerged beneath that of his ancestor, Eobar Garrington, the second Black Knight. […] Dane spent almost five years inhabiting his progenitor’s body [often at war, on crusade].” Somewhat confusingly, he’s experiencing a sliver of that time all over again (which must mean there are now two of him in Eobar?). Dane originally lost himself to Eobar’s existence right after Marvel’s first crossover, 1973’s “Avengers/Defenders War” (the brief epilogue in Defenders #11). 1982’s Avengers #225-226 sees Dane restored to the present day; now abandoned, Garrington’s corpse appears briefly, as well. As a minor retcon insert, the 1996 one-shot story directly precedes his 1982 return and* fits in with ongoing continuity in 1996 as the two Avengers return to their own present. Whatever—this isn’t a Black Knight essay!)

The young Bennet and his best and only bestie Eobar here are surprisingly mercenary in their motivations. They’re on crusade for the booty; or they’re goals might be slightly different, as Bennet’s sense is that the destination will bring them great power (and so, for him, it will!)—and they believe this prize is to be found in little old Akkaba. With Eobar’s temperament increasingly odd (his double persona), Bennet takes the hidden-treasure quest solo, striking out across the Egyptian desert, where he nearly dies, only roused from fatal surrender by a booming voice out of nowhere challenging him “to become one of the strong” if Bennet can but surmount the perilous conditions he’s exposed himself for the sake of his acquisitiveness. Accepting the challenge, the young man is abruptly attacked, and in reaction, his X gene activates for the first time.

Thus begins Apocalypse’s attempt to seduce Bennet to his side as a powerful servant, naming him Exodus.

Looking for Eobar’s bosom buddy, Dane/Eobar and Sersi are captured and brought to Akkaba, where Exodus already appears the man we know today. Yet he thoughtlessly regurgitates the Social Darwinism of his master, really mostly just enjoying being super-powerful. Yet after being ordered to kill the Black Knight, he refuses, judging Apocalypse nothing other than a “false god.” His erstwhile master (known at the time as the “Eternal Pharaoh”) stole Bennet’s newly activated powers and put his disobedient servant into a coma that would last a millennium—until Magneto found the abandoned temple where he still lay (which was never visualized on-panel until the brief image in Immortal* #5).

*Of course, the finer detail that Gillen brings out is that while Apocalypse may be the Adversary (and thus, as core to his nascent mutant religion as Satan is to Christianity), Exodus still must struggle with the fact that Apocalypse’s beliefs are built on lifting up his (mutant) family, when Exodus’ heart is with a human here in the ancient past (though, as he sees it, perhaps the divine moves in mysterious ways, for instance, through an Ebony Blade; oh, you sad, hopeless boy!).

Note that nowhere in Black Knight: Exodus does the Phoenix or anything like it appear, and Exodus appears there in the costume he’s wearing in his 1993 awakening (X-Factor #92). Immortal X-Men #5 depicts him in attire that seems more fitting for the era. But looking back at the 1996 one-shot, it’s fascinating that Exodus’ narration reflects his tendency—now exacerbated by the Uni-Mind attack—to become unanchored in memory, experiencing a deep disorientation not unlike what Dane experienced back during the Crusades, in the body of his ancestor Black Knight. Of course, it’s also what you’d expect from an ancient time-sleeper; as no one’s really explored Exodus’ interiority before*, this new facet feels like the first real foothold future stories might find with the character (While this kind of memory slippage probably occurs to his elders, Apocalypse and Selene, as well, it’s likely not much of an impairment—perhaps because they’re far too seasoned to be psychologically susceptible, or maybe Exodus is more like Steve Rogers, still existentially caught between two eras. Obviously, Logan’s swiss-cheese identity has already really hollowed out this trope on an industrial scale, but a subtler approach could make it interesting again).

A rare exception here the Mike Carey era mentioned below—and especially his 2007 X-Men Annual* (vol 3 #1) with Mark Brooks—which is also just an excellent comic from an underrated run (and a prelude to “Messiah Complex”).

But the biggest difference between Gillen’s medieval Exodus and Ben Raab’s is 1) the sincere piety that’s largely missing from Black Knight: Exodus; that origin story struggled in its sympathy for a character who in 1996 was still very much a villain. And 2) there was no sense there that Bennet and Eobar were anything more than friends (whose basis for friendship Ben Raab wasn’t even interested in fleshing out at all), but the more you look into Exodus’ Marvel history—and it’s even in his majestic poise—it’s obvious that Exodus is naturally one for the purple. And the way Gillen depicts this side of the character is delightfully frank and subtle (Hopefully he finds a modern-day man who’s less of a heel).

One minor-ish retcon significant to the “A.X.E.” plot is Gillen’s reframing of Sersi and Exodus’ psi duel toward the end of Black Knight: Exodus. In a flashback to that in Immortal X-Men #5, we get the sense that the telepathic nature of their battle allowed Exodus to glean a good deal of knowledge about the Eternals.

Once More, from Acolyte to Apostate (and Back Again)Before Exodus knows Magneto is in fact gone (slain by Uranos), Bennet had long since dismissed him as “not a messiah” (but still a prophet!), a painful, protracted process begun with Xavier’s mindwipe of Erik in 1993’s X-Men #25 (the “Fatal Attractions” climax). The spiraling disarray of the Acolytes’ faith, by and large a consequence of Magneto’s vengeful egoism (as witnessed in the convoluted series of catastrophes following his reawakening: the promise of a mutant-ruled Genosha betrayed and ruined by despotism, lies and civil war), ultimately faded out with nary a whimper on page after Genosha’s annihilation and Magneto’s apparent death, courtesy of Cassandra Nova. Magneto’s eventual unhappy reunion with two of his most loyal Acolytes, Frenzy and Exodus, in his desperate search for a means of healing and reviving a brain-damaged Xavier, served as a mutual recognition by all parties that the grandeur of a religion centered on a magnetic demigod was well and truly dead. This drama was the central genius of Mike Carey’s run, when X-Men was retitled as X-Men: Legacy* with issue #208—the best X-Men comics between the Morrison and Hickman eras. Exodus officially dissolved the Acolytes and denounced his own mutant name in issue #225, but he continued to struggle with realigning his fundamentally religious temperament with the swift-moving chaos of the present state of mutant affairs, with unimpressive and unflattering results (see issue #261).

In the late 1990s. The start of Morrison’s New X-Men* in 2001.

Exodus had already suffered from such undistinguished fecklessness during the earlier “Messiah Complex,” which saw the birth of Hope, whom he put his faith in from the start as the new messiah. But now that she’s a young woman, she can have a say in how he views her, or at least how he acts in her name. Not despite but because of this new dynamic, Exodus’ character is now at the threshold of a transformation from sad and rather hopeless C-lister to a grandeur for which he’s always dressed the part, with purplish pomposity; yet in Gillen’s hands, his solemn conviction could prove genuinely inspiring to his fellow mutants.

“I will never kneel as long as she stands.”

The Immortal Knight of X Blazes ForthFollowing Jack of Knives’ failed attempt against Hope’s life, thanks to Logan, the council members snap to, fighting their way free from the Uni-Mind’s initial attack. Emma’s nose bleeds, likely from her psi-defense.

Then it’s time to go on offense: Emma, Exodus and Hope (copying Exodus’ psi powers). In his own mind, Exodus realizes his full potential as a warrior by visualizing this super-science, kaiju battle in a manner that makes sense to him as a medieval knight. Even his comrades become, respectively, a jagged diamond shield and the flaming sword of his faith. And that “many-headed beast,” the Uni-Mind? A fearsome dragon. But slaying dragons, as Exodus well knows, is a true knight’s calling.

The data page that follows this depiction of Exodus’ mental battlespace provides a striking contrast that makes both perceptions of the “psychic engagement” that much more powerful. Another impressive design by Tom Muller shows us, abstractly yet dynamically, the Krakoan heroes “breach the surface e-psi-dermis,” a serindipitous neologism delightfully showing off that light-on-his-toes Gillen genius.

Driving deep into the Uni-Mind’s own defenses, in a kind of cosmic battlespace now, Exodus meditates still, even on the brink of defeat, having pushed himself so far, but he’s meditating on his people’s closest brush with extinction—“wiped away by the red witch” (Wanda). But, a masochistic warrior for his faith, he dives deeper, coming to terms with his past (“tempted by a mortal sin,” Apocalypse’s self-serving brutality) and the sublime reformation his faith (renewed in the vision of mutantkind’s collective future as embodied and, in fact, guaranteed by Hope), Exodus’ revealed truth rooted in his own ancient encounter with a revelation that he could not yet parse: “I remembered the fire in the desert.”

Assuring Hope as she’s taken aback by the sudden appearance of the skyscraper-high Hex, Exodus lifts off, still meditating on the coming dawn of a new mutant religion (while giving a respectful though heretical nod to that “Nazarene Mutant”), seeing himself as another Saint Peter, the rock of the messiah’s church and yet “the rock in the hand of Cain,” as well—a rock of zeal, for cutting down and building up, a soldier of faith.

Immortal Faith and Torment—That Beautifully Sad Gay BoyIs it odd, though, that he doesn’t see himself rather as the rock in the hand of David (as he slew Goliath)? Well, maybe Exodus is reminding us, and himself, that he was once a Crusader driven by the promise of secret plunder—and was then “tempted by the devil” (Apocalypse) to kill the Black Knight Eobar, “the man who was closer than a brother to me.” In other words, Exodus’ remorse lives on, as if he had killed his love and been stained by the mark of Cain.

More on this with the Progenitor’s judgment of Exodus in the next issue…

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe recently experimented with a new format and dropped the so-called “Special Presentation” Werewolf By Night on Disney Plus. The special is a delightful addition to the ever-expanding MCU, using a taut hour-long runtime to introduce audiences to the titular lycanthrope and other key but obscure characters from the comics – most notably, plant monster Man-Thing and monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone. The special further sets itself apart with a well-executed tone that pays tribute to classic horror films of the Universal Monsters era. Werewolf By Night stands out at a time when superhero media – and MCU content in particular – needs entries that are more than just retreads of a tried-and-true formula.

As the credits rolled on Werewolf By Night, I started to think about what made this first MCU Special Presentation work and other, new-to-the-MCU characters from the pages of Marvel comics would be a good fit for the format. In my mind, this could be due to the possibility of seeing a brand new corner of the MCU, the potential to showcase a specific genre, or a character that historically has a niche role in the comics and thus lends themselves to a self-contained introduction.

So with those general guidelines in mind, allow me if you please to put my Kevin Feige-style baseball cap on and propose five characters who could be interesting at the center of a future MCU Special Presentation, and the comics that could serve as inspiration for their stories.

Silver SurferFull disclosure: No more than two days after I started making notes for this article – with the noble herald of Galactus at the top of my list – rumors started doing the rounds that a Special Presentation focused on the Silver Surfer may very well be in the works. Sounds like good ideas are contagious, because Norrin Radd is a perfect candidate for a one-off special.

Upon his comic book introduction in Fantastic Four #48, Silver Surfer is serving a singular purpose in the Marvel Universe – searching out planets for Galactus to devour and thus sustain his life force. He is a tragic character – a slave to his master and, though he’s been granted the Power Cosmic in order to fulfill his duties as herald, the Surfer is powerless to change his circumstances. This brooding, haunted intergalactic traveler is a long-awaited addition to the MCU, and I would love to see his existence acknowledged even before he inevitably shows up in the Fantastic Four cinematic franchise.

As for the story his Special Presentation should tell, the Surfer’s most interesting conflict, in my opinion, is internal. That means no need for a galactic antagonist for him to throw cosmic bolts at. Instead, Marvel could do something quieter – for example, they could draw inspiration from the pages of the 1982 Silver Surfer one-shot written by Stan Lee with pencils by John Byrne. In that story, the Surfer escapes the cosmic barrier Galactus erected to keep him imprisoned on Earth. He returns to his home planet Zenn-La only to find its civilization in ruins thanks to Galactus, who leeched the planet’s energies in a rage after the Silver Surfer allied himself with the Fantastic Four against his master. There is a lot more going on in the second half of the one-shot than could or should be included in a Special Presentation – namely a showdown with everyone’s favorite MCU Disney+ rumor, Mephisto – but the first half is a great exploration of the Surfer’s past.

This narrative framework allows for a clean re-telling of the Surfer’s origin as Galactus’ herald, and gives the Surfer many opportunities to brood handsomely over the fact that his sacrifice did not save his home after all. A streamlined version of this story could be used for Surfer’s Disney+ introduction – wistful for his home while searching for Galactus’ next meal, he returns to find Zenn-La a shell of its former self and reflects in flashback on the actions that got him here. Galactus would only be hinted at or shown in the abstract – no cloud monsters though, of course – but his presence would be felt throughout as we get to know his herald.

Ka-Zar, Lord of the Savage LandAs a dinosaur and X-Men nerd from way back, I’ve long loved the Savage Land, so I’ll be honest – my choice of Ka-Zar here has way more to do with his place of residence than with Kevin Plunder himself. The Savage Land is a location unlike any other we’ve seen in the MCU to date – a tropical oasis in Antarctica hidden from the outside world where all manner of prehistoric life still thrives and coexists with various human and non-human societies. We’re deep into the age of the MCU embracing the weird, and there are very few locations on the Marvel Earth as strange as Ka-Zar’s home. And thanks to the introduction of Namor and Talokan in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, we now have precedent that major countries/civilizations exist on Earth, unbeknownst to the rest of the world.

As for the man himself? I don’t think MCU Ka-Zar needs a full-fledged origin story. He should already be a prominent figure in the Savage Land, playing the role of peacemaker between tribes and living a life with his wife, Shanna (with, of course, plenty of screen time given to his companion sabretooth tiger, Zabu). This dynamic is established nicely in Ka-Zar, written by Mark Waid with art by Andy Kubert. As is true of most Savage Land stories in my experience, that series involves plenty of dinosaur-wrangling and a central threat stemming from the outside world. It’s a simple, straightforward formula that would work perfectly for an hour-long special and provide plenty of opportunities to show the Savage Land in all its prehistoric wonder.

Great Lakes AvengersWhile the MCU has introduced dozens of individual heroes over the years, there is a real dearth of actual teams in this universe outside of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and the Guardians of the Galaxy. So how about a Special Presentation highlighting a superhero group as they try to fill the void left by the Avengers after the events of Endgame? We’re clearly due for some new teams in the upcoming Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four movies, but I’m envisioning something a little more…hapless. That’s where the Great Lakes Avengers come in.

The MCU’s first foray into straight-up comedy with She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was, in my opinion, quite successful, and I’d love to see that approach taken with a team. The Great Lakes Avengers fit the bill perfectly for a comedic special, thanks to their bizarre powers and general goofiness. What’s more, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law already introduced a version of Mr. Immortal, the GLA’s leader. And while his characterization there strayed from the well-meaning but out-matched Craig Hollis from the comics, it wouldn’t be too difficult to take the live-action version and imbue him with a healthy dose of regret for his two-timing ways such that he decides relocate somewhere low-key like Milwaukee, find some allies, and try his hand at the hero game.

The vibe I’m looking for is very much in line with the GLA’s first appearance in West Coast Avengers #46, written and drawn by John Byrne. In their introduction, Mr. Immortal and fellow GLA members Flatman, Doorman, Big Bertha, and Dinah Soar are gung-ho for the chance to fight crime, and use their somewhat grotesque abilities to foil a bank robbery. In the comic, the group’s unsanctioned use of the Avengers name draws the attention of Hawkeye and Mockingbird, who take the raw superheroes under their wing. In the current version of the MCU, though, no Avengers team exists, and I like the idea of a group of wayward, untested superhumans trying to fill that vacuum to comedic effect.

Sentry“The man with the power of a million exploding suns” is to say the least a complicated character. He’s been something of a cheat code in the comics since his creation in 2000, getting the call when Norman Osborn needs a trump card or a World War Hulk needs stopping. I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time wondering if the Sentry, with his uber-specific backstory and incalculable powers, will ever make it into the MCU. He’s only headlined a handful of comics in his 22-year history and doesn’t exactly have a varied rogue’s gallery; his worst enemies are The Void and, well, himself. So with the MCU’s big-screen entry’s focused on properties with franchise potential, he strikes me as too one-note for a movie (especially considering Captain Marvel already did a version of the amnesiac hero rediscovering their true self), and certainly has limited application for any potential sequels.

But now we have the Special Presentation concept, and I think Sentry is perfect for a one-off story. The best place to draw from for inspiration is undoubtedly the series in which he made his first appearance: The Sentry (and accompanying spin-offs), by writer Paul Jenkins and artist Jae Lee. In those pages, Bob Reynolds, alcoholic and unhappy, begins to faintly recall a life as the Sentry, the first and most powerful superhero the world had ever seen. Unsure if these are truly memories or just the delusions of an addict, Bob probes his suspicions further and contacts heroes he remembers as friends and allies – Mr. Fantastic and the Hulk chief among them. He gradually regains access to his repressed powers and discovers (and disables) the device responsible for the mass hypnosis that erased him from the memories of everyone on Earth. He also discovers that he and his archenemy The Void – the ultimate darkness, capable of devouring the universe – are somehow one and the same, leading Sentry to the realization that he has to sacrifice his place in the world yet again in order to save it from himself.

That self-sacrifice should be an essential component of any MCU adaptation of the Sentry. I don’t think the other MCU heroes necessarily need to have a presence in an effective version of his story (probably don’t have the budget for an RDJ cameo anyway!). Sentry could be presented as the first and only superhero of the day through Bob’s tortured fragments of memory. But as he uncovers more about his past and why no one else remembers the Sentry, Bob decides that the most heroic thing he can do for the world is to keep the Void at bay by keeping the Sentry hidden.

GambitI couldn’t in good conscience put a list like this together without including at least one honest to goodness X-Man. There are a number of mutant candidates who would make for an entertaining Special Presentation, but I’m most drawn to the idea of spending an hour or so with Gambit for a few reasons. First, at his core, Remy LeBeau is a thief, and a special focused on a thief means a heist. Heists are fun! The MCU needs more heists. Gambit’s origin and eccentric supporting cast would allow for an exploration of New Orleans and its seedy underbelly, replete with warring clans and colorful characters like Remy’s estranged wife Bella Donna Boudreaux. I’m desperate to see the rival Assassins and Thieves Guilds in conflict over some mysterious MacGuffin that both parties need a skilled mutant to steal.

Considering that this should be an individual story for Remy, it makes sense to look to some of the solo Gambit series that have been published over the years. In my reading, though, I found that no single series had the vibe I’m envisioning; rather, there are two series that focus on separate elements of Gambit’s story that I’d love to see melded together for the MCU. The first is the 1993-1994 Gambit miniseries written by Howard Mackie with art by Lee Weeks. This mini is all about Gambit’s family and the two New Orleans Guilds from his past as they all vie for an elixir that grants long life. There is Guild lore, Cajun accents, and costumes galore that would all bring a unique and delightful palette to the MCU. But no heists! Fortunately, writer James Asmus and artist Clay Mann dive head first into Gambit the thief in their 2012 Gambit solo series. This book sees Gambit strike out from the X-Men and indulge his mischievous instincts with some high-stakes thieving that, naturally, gets him in over his head. A combination of these aspects of Gambit would make for a wildly different character introduction than we’ve seen to this point in the MCU.

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Welcome back to our multipart reread of Marvel’s big 2022 summer event, “A.X.E.: Judgment Day”; previously, we looked at the lead-up to this apocalyptic ruckus, as well as the basics you need to know about the Eternals—as this entire story really is event architect Kieron Gillen blowing up the narrative he started with his brilliant but criminally underselling (and thus prematurely ended) Eternals run.

Note that spoilers will follow. From here, we’ll assume you’re caught up on the event’s core narrative.

This time, we’re looking at A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1 by Kieron Gillen, Valerio Schiti, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles; Immortal X-Men #5 by Gillen, Michele Bandini, David Curiel and Clayton Cowles; and X-Men: Red #5 by Al Ewing, Stefano Caselli, Federico Blee and Ariana Maher. Covers by, respectively: Mark Brooks & Sabine Rich; Giuseppe Camuncoli & Jesus Aburtov; Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson.

A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1“I do not yet exist. I am of such power that I can speak to you even now.” – This event’s opening lines are ominous yet inviting: “There is much you need to know. Come. Learn, along with me. Who are the heroes here? We will find out” (Of course, the question after the event might be: If the Progenitor somehow existed virtually before its creation, wouldn’t it have been able to peer into the future? Maybe it always knew that it would put the world back to rights, except for all the property damage. Enough quibbling!).

These lines only become more ominous once we’re actually introduced to their speaker in Judgment Day #2 (Btw, Valerio, is that Lorna out on the NYC streets in everyday-civilian chic or just a celeb lookalike?).

Many readers understandably misread these opening captions as belonging to Gillen’s narrator throughout his Eternals run—the Machine, who will instead pop up again narrating A.X.E.: Death to the Mutants #1-3. It’s interesting that these two drastically different but related figures are the event’s two narrators in parallel; we’ll have to see if there’s anything more to this as we move along.

The issue’s opening scene, Tony and Sersi’s dinner date recalls the flirty duo sharing another rooftop meal in Eternals #5—but in that earlier scene, Sersi was playing Tony to smoke out “renegade” Eternal Gilgamesh (who believed his fellow Eternal was there to kill her hapless date) while here, the manipulation is reversed, with Stark setting up his erstwhile^ teammate for his current Avengers mates to nab her. Interrogating her back at Avengers Mountain, the Iron Avenger alludes to the Eternals sneaking into Earth’s Mightiest HQ “last month”—i.e., Eternals* #10-12, which closed the series with Thanos defeated and Druig taking his place as Prime Eternal, meaning Druig’s tenure turns out to be very short-lived, especially for an Eternal.

During that interrogation, Iron Man notes that “something’s coming,” which likely refers to both the Hex making the rise from the ocean depths as well as Uranos’ armories preparing to open.

*Note the view of the X-Men’s Seneca Gardens Treehouse canopy in the near background.

Avengers #314-375, 1990-1994—a considerable time! Toward the end she fell in love with Black Knight Dane Whitman; for more on that here, see the section on Immortal X-Men #5 below…

The second scene looks in on the official X-Men team in their Seneca Gardens (Central Park) Treehouse and the crowd of protestors making a ruckus below; now that the immortality secret is out (X-Men #12), mutantkind is back to its classic status as feared and hated. We focus in on one woman in the crowd, grieving over her recently passed daughter, who will be one of the six humans we follow, one page for all each issue starting with issue #2—showing their varying reactions to the revelation of mutant immortality, Druig’s brutal show of Eternal power and the Progenitor’s judgment of every person on Earth. In her grief, the bereaved mother Jada teeters on despair, but she never turns to hatred born of fear; among the adults here, she’s the most relatable for any empathetic reader. That’s probably why she’ll soon be getting to offer Cap a cup of coffee and a brief chat (Judgment Day* #5).

*Actually, in issue #2, the aging Arjun dies with Ikaris’ resurrection, and his widow takes his place as one of these six ordinary humans.

[Cyclops’ line finishes on the next page: “…it’s not as if everyone has stopped killing mutants.”]

Turning to Nightcrawler and his mother and her wife on Krakoa, it’s worth noting Krakoa’s population appears to be almost exactly the same as it was during the 2019 “Dawn of X” era—I guess Quentin Quire has been keeping the Five too busy to make greater headway there!

(And note that Arakko’s population is then given to be at one million, although Cypher has said previously, when Arakko rejoined Krakoa (Hickman’s X-Men #16), that the Arakkii outnumbered the Krakoans twentyfold—at 4,000,000. Go figure. Maybe Wanda’s been getting up to old shenanigans again, on the DL, or the Arakkii pastime of deadly dueling has gone totally haywire. Much more likely: Post-Hickman, corporate or editorial was like, yeah, we might have the movie rights now, but that’s still too many mutants about.

Note that even without the numerical revision mutantkind’s footprint is much smaller than it was before Genosha’s destruction by Cassandra Nova’s Sentinels in 2001’s New X-Men #115.

(Now, though Uranos’ mass killing of Arakkii is initially made to appear a total genocide, a caption at the end of X-Men: Red #5 notes that Uranos has killed “98% of all life in a fifty-mile radius,” though his death machines wreak their own havoc elsewhere. Still, with deaths at over 10,000, this revised population size of one million makes that tragedy all the more acute for the Arakkii, more than 1% of their people gone. Imagine >3,000,000 Americans dead in an hour; pretty bad!)

On Arakko, Magneto says mutantkind has surpassed the Eternals as Earth’s “new gods,” which echoes Gillen’s Eternals (as well as the first arc of Jason Aaron’s Avengers); see again the brief description last time of the Eternals’ Celestial-programmed purpose (related to battling the Celestials’ nemeses the Horde), a task long since accomplished in the modern MU, making the Eternals a sort of unnecessary appendix (and possibly just as deadly in their useless lingering ).

Notably, however, Druig’s reading of the Eternals’ Celestial-programmed principles that allows him to see mutants as Deviants who have become excessive/out of bounds is clearly a bad-faith interpretation—and even when he knows he’s failed, he digs in catastrophically, freeing Uranos on Earth, without limits (Judgment Day #4). Before that disastrously craven decision, he’s already expecting a negative judgment from the Progenitor (Death to the Mutants #2).

Judgment Day #1 does a good job of presenting Druig in his very new role as Prime Eternal (Eternals #12) and the contrast between his hidden motivations (naked self-interest) and his speechifying, addressing both his people and nonmutant humanity (cynically playing up ideological fearmongering to divide and distract and thus justify the use of world-shattering destructive power; timely stuff these days).

Note Druig’s dig at Xavier’s worldwide telepathic address in House of X #1 after he hijacks human tech for his own global pronouncements to us silly mayflies: “I could use telepathy, but we consider that intrusive and crass” (which is also how he considers humanity itself). Still, is hacking everyone’s phones that much of a relief? Sure, I wouldn’t want Xavier in my brain, but who’d want yet another creep up in their devices?

Presumably continuing their initial encounter at the end of the X-Men: Hellfire Gala one-shot, Moira meets Druig at the now Eternals-run Damocles Foundation—a fun Easter egg for continuity nerds. This company debuted in 1998’s X-Force #77-79 and popped up a handful of times over the next twenty issues (during John Francis Moore’s fan-favorite run); the organization was secretly established by Eternals and Deviants who, reacting in horror to the Cold War arms race, believed they must band together with humans who are equally conscientious about not destroying themselves and the world and, from this small alliance, create their own superhumans to bring peace to Earth; suffice to say, they failed. Flash forward 25 years, and now we see that at some point, Druig or some other mainstream Eternal reined in the breakaway triple alliance, flawed idealism replaced by pure cynicism.

The now murderously psychopathic Moira confers with the cold snake Druig on how to strike at the heart of Krakoa: Attack the Council psionically, with the Eternals’ Uni-Mind (the collective merging of Eternals as energy-forms, which, yes, they’ve always been able to do), take out the Five (Jack of Knives’ job, thankfully foiled, except for Egg’s temporary death) and send the ultimate WMD to Arakko (knowing the Arakkii shun Krakoan resurrection).

The top panel of page 19 (digital) correlates with the much more detailed climax of Immortal X-Men #5, where Emma, Hope and Exodus go on psychic defense against this force—psi warfare has rarely felt so dramatic and dynamic.

Several pages later, Cable’s resurrection follows his death by Uranos as seen in X-Men: Red #5, and we see the immediate aftermath of Uranos’ Arakkii massacre on the next page—including, atop a pile of skeletons, Magneto’s battered helmet and Dayspring’s skull crushed to dust in his killer’s hand, as the last few seconds count down for this world-killer before he’s teleported right back to his Eternal cell.

It’s gut-wrenching that Arakko has to be the present-day instance of Uranos’ genocidal brutality to show us how devastating it would be should he escape the confines of his cell for more than his allotted hour here, when the Arakkii still haven’t fully shone on the page yet in all the complexity of their living society—following centuries of untold hardship, and knowing that they won’t be resurrected (And of course, Druig will free Uranos when he sees his defeat coming, but we don’t see nearly as much of the grim, grisly details).

However, what’s surprising after Moira’s dramatic entrance into Druig’s domain in the Hellfire Gala issue is that Druig is already in the process of attacking Krakoa and Arakko. So, basically, Moira is just an epic heel, once again! But she’ll get her turn, an opportunity that must be forced upon her by Nightcrawler, to attack the Progenitor, opportunistically jumping on the bandwagon with all the real heroes (Immortal X-Men #7 and Judgment Day #6). What she did bring to the table at Damocles was her knowledge of the Five.

[Might the fascinating Jack of Knives have potential as a Wolvie foe, giving Solem a run for his money?]I do have one quibble with the idea that Uranos destroyed all the gates on Arakko back to Krakoa: Wouldn’t there be seeds held in reserve scattered across the red planet in case of an emergency? That’s, um, a pretty epic fail in basic statecraft and security.But note the vast “X” Uranos had time to make of all those bones; that lurid memento mori is a message for which Immortal X-Men #5 has a strong though subtle rebuttal, in the shape of Exodus’ millennial zeal, in exaltation of Homo superior.

The event’s first issue ends with the only previously mentioned Hex (see Gillen’s Eternals #1 and 7) emerging out of the ocean depths. These Kirby-esque kaiju will keeping Krakoa busy for a minute. But it’s hard to imagine most of humanity not freaking out about those “towering death machines” regardless of who they’re hunting.

Meanwhile, Ajak and Makkari have come to Avengers Mountain—Ajak plans to rewrite their programming, so her fellow Eternal Druig will be forced, via that rewriting, to give up his genocidal attack. As seen throughout Gillen’s Eternals, Ajak’s existential melancholy and frustration lead up to this moment where she’s looking for her people to escape that kind of deeply encoded mastery of their lives. But as we see throughout the rest of the event, she’s an ancient religious figure who continues to act as an apologist for traditional Eternal faith (worshiping Celestials), even as she agonizes in doubt and resentment while also telling herself that these crises are still just tests of faith, a faith that she’s programmed to identify with as Celestial creation Ajak. There’s some subtle Gillen satire of religiosity here: She ends up making a god whose word she believes will provide the answers she needs and will follow, even as she begins to realize she’s created a monster, with the help of two other monsters of hubris, however differently aligned, Stark and Sinister. Zealotry is a broad tent that welcomes the morally grey, or just plain evil, for its purposes.

It’s better to keep your zealots subordinate and in check…

Immortal X-Men #5This issue’s title, “Meditations on the X,” echoes the Christian “Meditations on the Cross”—a name put to countless theological collections on the nature of Christ, the Crucifixion and Christianity, generally. So, Gillen’s revision perfectly encapsulates the former Crusader Bennet du Paris’ transition to a nascent religion exalting Homo superior, after sleeping away the centuries since his last Crusade turned to heretical wonder (X-gene activation), revelation (subsequent fealty to the ancient mystery and power of Apocalypse), heartbreak and irreparable loss (refusing Apocalypse’s command to slay his best friend and unlikely love, the Black Knight Eobar Garrington, thus betraying his master, who then drained his new powers and forced the young Exodus into an endless sleep, entombed).

Granted, this tie-in’s story is quite tangential to the A.X.E. narrative—except… Gillen clearly continues to be fascinated by the religious and mythic themes coursing through much of his work, and Immortal X-Men #6 will see Exodus’ mutant-centric piety converge dramatically with his personal passion (the long-dead Eobar) and the Progenitor’s judgment (perhaps the most unusual instance in the event; more on that next time). Plus, while Al Ewing’s X-Men: Red tie-ins are most critical to the event’s tragedies (more on that below), Immortal X-Men #5-7, by way of their character portraits, speak to Judgment Day’s themes most directly; unsurprising, with Gillen’s hand on the tiller of this existential apocalypse.

However, as I believe Immortal X-Men #5 is such a perfect instance of Gillen’s mastery of the medium, whatever one’s feelings on Exodus, we have a pendant piece on this issue, specifically on the backstory that Gillen makes use of in subtly rehabilitating Exodus’ characterization for the modern age. Read it here!

For Exodus really is the perfect viewpoint character among the Council to start out Immortal X-Men’s A.X.E. tie-ins: He’s taken center-stage among his fellows because, oddly enough, he has more experience with the Eternals than anyone else present—he’s at least vaguely familiar with Sersi from a brief but intense encounter a thousand years ago. However, since that chance meeting culminated in a telepathic duel between young mutant and ageless Eternal*, Bennet’s still, artisanal waters run deeper than most readers might assume.

*A witch indeed in the medieval Crusader’s eyes ablaze with ardent zeal, especially as she steals his man!

In the opening present-day scene, Xavier tells the Council that Forge discovered a “Celestial technology energy signature” involved in Sinister’s super-science abduction, matching it with that present in the town Little Hollow when the Eternals rescued its inhabitants from Thanos’ weaponization of the Machine operating below the Earth’s surface, as seen at the end of Gillen’s Eternals.

He also notes that Krakoa certainly wasn’t expecting a fight with the Eternals—which also works as metacommentary on the fact that the buildup for this event in-universe was really all in the Eternals.

But this event is tragically well-timed for Krakoa since, as Emma notes, mutantkind is at a crisis point with “all the big dogs” off-world (Apocalypse and Magneto, but also with Storm divided between two planets) and the fact of Krakoan resurrection out in the open, however ill-understood.

Before the Council know they’re under attack, Exodus is plunged more deeply into his millennial past—about which, again, see more here. But he realizes, even as he struggles to maintain a foothold in the now, that Druig’s Uni-Mind forces is trying to drown Krakoa’s leadership in their own individual psyches.

While Exodus and the rest of the Council fight their way back to being present, Logan saves the savior and perhaps most critical member of the Five, returning us to pages 22-23 of Judgment Day #1.

Then it’s time to go on offense: Emma, Exodus and Hope (copying Exodus’ psi powers). In his own mind, Exodus realizes his full potential as a warrior by visualizing this super-science, kaiju battle in a manner that makes sense to him as a medieval knight. Even his comrades become, respectively, a jagged diamond shield and the flaming sword of his faith. And that “many-headed beast,” the Uni-Mind? A fearsome dragon. But slaying dragons, as Exodus well knows, is a true knight’s calling.

The data page that follows this depiction of Exodus’ mental battlespace provides a striking contrast that makes both perceptions of the “psychic engagement” that much more powerful. Another impressive design by Tom Muller shows us, abstractly yet dynamically, the Krakoan heroes “breach the surface e-psi-dermis,” a serendipitous neologism delightfully showing off that light-on-his-toes Gillen genius.

As to how this sublime moment plays out from the perspective of Exodus, in his genuinely earned resilience and self-actualized chivalry (unlikely as that sounds), again, read the details here!

“I remembered the fire in the desert.”

With the Eternals’ Uni-Mind skewered like a kebab, Exodus turns his attention to the other dragons attacking Krakoa, the kaiju-like Hex (It’s just too bad we didn’t get to see whatever kind of aneurysm this must’ve caused the Uni-Mind Eternals! ).

X-Men: Red #5While Exodus on Krakoa battles with fist, faith, mind and memory, the Planet Arakko is utterly devastated, in Ewing and Caselli’s “Hour of Uranos.”

And where Camuncoli’s cover features mutantkind’s most zealous “wise man” ablaze with revitalized power, Dauterman gives us a once and future mutant messiah as a freshly flensed skeleton, courtesy of Uranos (himself a resolutely grim and unsexy prince of the air).

We open once more after Judgment Day #1 page 9, after Kurt’s arrival at the Great Ring from Krakoa (carrying along Destiny’s impending dire prophecy) and Storm’s departure for same. Uncharacteristically unaware of just how imminent their doom is, now one minute away from touchdown, Abigail Brand arrives next, bearing the same grim warning about the Eternals’ intentions. Also uncharacteristic is her deference to Arakko’s own expertise, specifically Idyll’s precog ability; yet the tongueless seer doesn’t even look up. So, Ora Serrata translates her silence:

We’ll see how this plays out in Judgment Day #4 and X-Men: Red #7.

As for Brand, wherever her fealty really lay, she feels as much urgency to stop Druig’s Eternals as much as any intelligent sentient in the solar system—and the Arakkii will need all the help they can get.

Page 21 of Judgment Day #1 showed us Cable’s communique to the Quiet Council interrupted by Uranos; here, we get a bit more of that briefing before Uranos’ attack.

Devastatingly, everyone knows which way this battle will go when Isca defects, choosing to decapitate Idyll, which—is a choice.

When Ewing and Caselli’s X-Men: Red started, I was so excited to find out more about each member of the Great Ring, but moments into issue #5, they’re tossed into the shredder, and none emerge unbattered. The only Arakkii among them to die, though, is Idyll—which makes sense story-wise: An Omega precog (meaning they’re far more powerful than Destiny) is a tough ingredient to include in an ongoing series. They need to be backgrounded or their ability would perpetually dominate, and that’d quickly become boring; anyway, Idyll’s father, of the same name, last seen in “X of Swords,” seems exactly the same power-wise but is presumably currently with Apocalypse and Genesis.

But it’s effectively ominous, horrific even, that Isca immediately switches sides, decapitating Idyll before Nightcrawler smartly takes her off the board with some well-timed BAMFs! We can accept that she’s helpless in switching loyalties to the winning side but, surely, just like Uranos, she chooses how to interpret her own programming. In other words, Idyll’s execution is still on her shoulders; she chose that. And I think it’s pretty clear that X-Men: Red has been billing her not as a villain but simply as someone who sucks, really a loser—smug, arrogant, without sincere loyalty or any code of honor. Her comeuppance is imminent with this latest bitter betrayal. And she won’t even relish passing the Progenitor’s judgment, her mouth full of ashen grapes by then (issue #7).

Next this issue, we get our first modern-day glimpse of Uranos outside his secure cell—terrifying.

Readers following in real-time had to anticipate Legion of X #6, as noted on the recap page, to find out how this issue’s events played out from the perspective of that second Arakko-based title, after the whole event was almost over! That Legion-centric story, the best of Si Spurrier’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink series thus far, is so excellent (however nonessential) exactly because it’s so focused and lends touching poignancy to the core event narrative while deepening some of the event’s central thematic motifs. If only the rest of Legion of X ultimately proves as powerfully memorable…

After the title page, we’re already 30 seconds into Uranos’ attack, with almost 12,000 Arakkii already dead. Then his armories open in the skies over inhabited Arakko: Sadly, the first community we see attacked is the Morrowlands, the artists’ colony from issue #2; next, those fleeing through the typically empty Valley of the Fallen, with its giant statues of Apocalypse and Genesis, cut down by a giant robot whose rampage will continue for some time; the devastation is all over: Olympus Mons (mountain), Argyre Planitia (plains) and S.W.O.R.D.’s Keep (sky; along with their HQ, the Keep’s personnel, including Abigail’s mutant team, are apparently annihilated—no survivors).

Then we zero in on more intimate fights, first with Ora Serrata attacking Uranos, which doesn’t go well, unsurprisingly. Since Uranos’ adherence is to the Eternal principles and not Arakkii law, he’s unaffected by Ora’s Omega “existence erasure” power (or “weapon,” to use the Arakkii’s word for mutant powers), which only works on those who are subject to Arakko’s legal system—a strange but sensible limitation for someone who would otherwise be a godlike basilisk (see X-Men: Red #2 and Legion of X #1 for more on her). Here, we learn that if her giant eye mount is damaged, she can’t use her weapon/power.

Legion then takes on Uranos—that’s what we’ll see more of, as a flashback, in Legion of X #6.

Here, we also see reference to the rarity of mutant circuits on Arakko—which is surprising given all the time they’d fought for their lives in Amenth; you’d think mutant circuit tactics would be a way of life. Then again, so many Arakkii were living as prisoners, for generations apparently, with the Locus Vile ruling over them, that they may be an atomized society in many respects. And yet they share a solidarity that seems meant to contrast with the Western-dominated cultures of individualism that many Krakoans come from. (Obviously, there’s still so much of Arakkii existence that has yet to be fleshed out.)

After Uranos rips out Magneto’s heart(!), Cable steps into the breach, with a big whopping gun, of course; despite its ridiculous size, he’s almost instantly incinerated.

Great Ring member and Arakkii historian Xilo gives it the old college try—the first time we’ve seen them do anything since literally fertilizing Mars’ dead soil in Planet-Size X-Men. At first, it seems like they’ve been killed, but we’ll see later this issue that they’re just badly injured. However, as a kind of hive-mind entity composed of countless tendrils, their mutilation, which we see as a severe diminishment in their size, results in a massive loss of Arakko’s history.

Nuts to that! I mean, we haven’t even really begun to explore that history yet, and now it’s mostly gone?! Well, to be fair to Ewing and any other Arakkii storytellers, that still leaves more material than Marvel could reasonably tackle anytime soon.

The three X-Men: Red tie-in issues do an excellent job of subtly presenting the idea that whoever occupies the seat of loss when Arakko is on the ropes inevitably takes more of a leadership or figurehead role, acting as a kind of mascot for all the underdog Arakkii. Thus, next issue’s “Hour of Magneto” will also kickstart Arakko’s road to restitution, their direction cemented in X-Men: Red #7 when Fisher King takes his place and Roberto reveals his clever machinations for a stealth takeover of the Great Ring with his allies.

Clearly, Isca’s imminent comeuppance and the radically altered nature of the Great Ring by event’s end will speak to the dead Idyll’s cryptic prophecy…

Attentive readers might pick up on the clue in the Fisher King’s comment this issue that “night has fallen”—intimating that he’s already part of the Great Ring with a seat on the Table of Night.

Metal-spewer and people’s poet Lodus Logos really starts to shine here, in this grimmest of hours. And we gradually see more use of the mysterious Lactuca throughout the Arakkii tie-ins the event, including Legion of X #6.

Cable had already been offed in issue #2, but Abigail’s never been killed before. Of course, she’s been hoping to avoid resurrection since that entails Xavier possibly looking into her memories as he downloads her personality into a hatchling husk. In any case, the Cable-Brand confrontation is right now popping off—see X-Men: Red #8-9. The rest of the Brotherhood will get in on the fight before the series takes a hiatus for “Sins of Sinister” early next year.

Earth’s first Nova, Dick Rider, a Ewing fave from his tenure on Guardians of the Galaxy (2020-2021), is still hanging about the Diplomatic Zone and is here in the fight. He’s clearly going to be a permanent member of this title’s cast. He’s the good soldier who’s been through all kinds of hell since Annihilation 15 years ago. This issue, he tries and fails to save some Kymellians, the horsey aliens from Power Pack in the 1980s.

Called away to Krakoa before the issue opens, Storm will feel quite guilty, again and more so than ever now, for not being with the Great Ring when Uranos and his armories first strike Arakko. She returns next issue, ready to fight side-by-side with her peer and surprisingly close friend Magneto.

“The Hour of Magneto Begins” – next time, in X-Men: Red #6Next: Death to the Mutants, eh? More to the point: The Progenitor ComethThe post The A.X.E.: Judgment Day Reread, Part 2 appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

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The release of 2018’s Black Panther was a bit of a surprise hit for Marvel Studios. One good reason we know that is that the publishing arm of Marvel did not bother to prepare a single hardcover collection in time for the film’s release—something they’ve begun to do for all of their movies. Marvel vowed to do better next time around, and they have: where once there were no Black Panther omnibuses, now three have been released in a span of a few months, just before the release of the much-anticipated sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. And another one’s on the way! But Black Panther has a long comics history, so these don’t even begin to cover all his adventures: what omnibuses are left? What will they contain? That’s what we’re here to find out!

T’Challa’s first appearance in Fantastic Four (1961) #52 by Stan Lee and Jack KirbyBefore we map what’s missing, we should review what we’ve got, starting with Black Panther: The Early Years Omnibus, which encompasses the early stories of T’Challa from his 1966 Fantastic Four debut in the hands of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to his later adventures with the first family, Captain America, Daredevil, and the Avengers, culminating in his first solo tale in the pages of Jungle Action. If you’re raising an eyebrow at that title, you should: up to that point, the title was a forgettable throwback to fifties comics which merely reprinted old racist jungle-themed stories in which Tarzan-like white men became the saviors and conquerors of “uncivilized” tribes. Don McGregor was aghast that such stories were still being published and resolved himself to fix that, adhering to the jungle adventure theme but with a black protagonist, the existing T’Challa, the Black Panther. In 1973, with pencilers Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, and Billy Graham, and early work by inkers Klaus Janson and Bob McLeod, McGregor wrote one of the earliest long-running stories in Marvel—and one of the best, too. Although no one can doubt Stan and Jack created the character, McGregor was the one who provided him with an inner life and an ensemble of Wakandan characters—as well as a Wakanda that started to feel like a real country instead of King T’Challa’s personal high-tech theme park/fiefdom. If you want to know Black Panther’s origins as originally told, and some of his most iconic stories up to the mid 1970s, this is the volume for you.

Modern Black Panther design by artist Brian StelfreezeWith T’Challa’s “earliest years” well-covered, Marvel decided to take a different tack with the next two omnibuses they released—the opposite tack, in fact, collecting the most recent material instead. Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Omnibus includes every Black Panther comic solely written by the famous author and journalist, from 2016’s iconic relaunch to 2018’s cosmic saga, with artists that greatly elevate the material, including Brian Stelfreeze, Chris Sprouse, Daniel Acuña, Kev Walker, Ryan Bodenheim, and Jen Bartel. If what you want is a modern Black Panther that you’ll largely recognize from the MCU, this is definitely the way to go, although in the early issues Coates—a first time comics writer—is clearly still getting acclimated to the medium.

Coates’s relaunch of the title, coinciding with T’Challa’s MCU debut in Captain America: Civil War, was such a success that it spawned a myriad different Black Panther (or more generally Wakanda-related) miniseries and one-shots: Wakanda: World of Black Panther Omnibus can be seen as a companion to Coates’s volume, as it contains every single contemporary ancillary comic, some of which are co-written (or co-plotted) by Coates himself. This packed 1376-page omnibus includes, amongst many other comics, Rise of the Black Panther by Evan Narcisse, Paul Renaud and Javier Pina, which retells T’Challa’s origin; Black Panther: World of Wakanda by Roxane Gay, Alitha Martinez, and Roberto Poggi, which follows from Coates’s opening arc by expanding on the revolution of the Dora Milaje (some of these characters and concepts are present in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever); the short-lived Shuri ongoing title by Nnedi Okorafor, Vita Ayala, Leonardo Romero, Paul Davidson, and Rachel Stott; and much more. With such a huge anthological volume, it’s not surprising some of the stories aren’t exactly stellar, but the omnibus may be worth it just for the fact that it collects World of Wakanda in oversized hardcover format, as well as other overlooked gems, such as Black Panther Annual 2018 and The Last Annihilation: Wakanda.

Black Panther (1998) #1 by Christopher Priest and Mark TexeiraThe fourth Black Panther omnibus hasn’t been released yet but is coming soon: Black Panther by Christopher Priest Omnibus Vol. 1 will include the first half of Priest’s complex yet acclaimed late 90s-early 2000s run. If this is not only your entry point to T’Challa but to comics in general, it may not be the best way to go—especially early on in the run, Priest utilizes time jumps more often than Cable of the X-Men time travels, which is saying something. It makes for a complicated reading experience, but an immensely satisfying one if you’re paying close attention.

These volumes finally gave hardcover collectors and Black Panther fans something, anything. It can’t be repeated enough how ridiculous it is there was no Black Panther omnibus until 2022. But there is much more Black Panther to collect, with gaps spanning decades, so let’s get to it.

We should start at the beginning: Black Panther: The Early Years was first announced as Black Panther: The Early Marvel Years Vol. 1, which promised a sequel volume—or more. That’s no longer the case, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are many Black Panther comics left to “omnibize” between the mid-70s and the late 90s (between Black Panther: The Early Years and Black Panther by Christopher Priest Vol. 1). I would name this volume—or set of volumes—Black Panther: The Later Years, for lack of a better title. But what would it collect, exactly?

Black Panther (1977) #2 by Jack KirbyThere are several ways to “map” this era and we’ll look at all of them in detail. The Early Years didn’t merely collect T’Challa’s first appearance in Fantastic Four and his first solo adventure in Jungle Action (the contents of his first softcover Epic Collection, Panther’s Rage), but also every major appearance in-between, including almost every Avengers issue in which he co-starred prominently. One would assume the following volume would follow the same formula… but it’s not as easy as that. Merely by putting the next two Epic Collections together into an omnibus, we would have a volume of more than 900 pages, but—unlike The Early Years—it would only focus on Black Panther-starring comics: Jack Kirby’s “inventive” (but nearly unreadable) 15-issue run upon his brief return to Marvel in 1977; Ed Hannigan and Jerry Bingham’s famous three-part Marvel Premiere story in which T’Challa faces the Ku Klux Klan; Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s short flashback tale which first established the childhood encounter between T’Challa and Ororo Munroe, to be later known as Storm of the X-Men; Peter B. Gillis and Denys Cowan’s dark 1988 miniseries which saw Black Panther battle apartheid in Azania, a fictional South Africa analogue; McGregor’s return to the character in Marvel Comics Presents, with all-time artist Gene Colan, on a “Panther’s Quest” that takes the title character to actual aparthaid South Africa, where he must save a family member he’d thought long-dead; a short solo adventure by Sandy Plunkett; Don McGregor’s third and final “Panther’s” saga, the beautiful 1991 “Panther’s Prey” with artist Dwayne Turner; Walter Simonson’s first and only time writing T’Challa, with returning artist Denys Cowan, in Marvel Fanfare; and a few other unremarkable short stories of the era starring T’Challa.

Black Panther battles aparthaid in McGregor and Colan’s “Panther’s Quest”This would be the compact version of a Later Years volume, a simple stitching-together of two existing softcover collections blown up to oversized hardcover format:

Black Panther: The Later Years Omnibus (Compact Edition), largely by Don McGregor, Jack Kirby, Ed Hannigan, Peter B. Gillis, Gene Colan, Dwayne Turner, Jerry Bingham, and Denys Cowan, would collect, in this order: Black Panther (1977) #1-15, Marvel Premiere (1972) #51-53, Marvel Team-Up (1972) #100 (2nd story), Black Panther (1988) #1-4, Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #13-37 (2nd stories), Solo Avengers (1987) #19 (2nd story), Black Panther: Panther’s Prey #1-4, Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #1 (7th story), Marvel Fanfare (1982) #60 (1st story), Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #148 (3rd story), and Fantastic Four Unlimited #1 (2nd story). This compact version would be at least 923 pages, and around 20-to-50 more with extras.

As you might have picked up, this is not my ideal mapping for a mid-70s to mid-90s Black Panther omnibus. It’s not outrageous—it’d be perfectly acceptable, just as the Epic Collections it’d be mapped after are. But it would miss on a lot of stories—some of them better Black Panther stories than the ones that’d be collected in such a compact version, even if they are part of an existing regular title and T’Challa is merely a guest star. I was ecstatic that The Early Years collected most of his key Captain America, Daredevil, and Avengers appearances of the sixties and early seventies, and I think he deserves the same treatment for his next chronological volume.

T’Challa and Namor face each other for the first time in Defenders #84The easiest way to go about this would be to extend the “compact” volume with the Black Panther stories that should absolutely be included in any truly worthy expanded collection of the era. The first (and most essential) of these would be a three-part story in Ed Hannigan and Don Perlin’s Defenders run, which has T’Challa and Namor the Sub-Mariner—and Wakanda and Atlantis—facing off for the first time. This is the beginning of a complex relationship that will develop through the years, sometimes as allies and other times the most bitter of enemies. With Namor and his nation being introduced to the MCU in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, this inclusion is a no-brainer. Next up, there is Peter Gillis, Ralph Macchio, and Jerry Bingham’s Iron Man Annual #5, in which Tony Stark helps T’Challa fight off Killmonger once again; Ann Nocenti and Chuck Patton’s Daredevil #245, in which the titular character and T’Challa, who are old friends at this point, fight about what to do with a former Wakandan gone rogue; 1998’s Ka-Zar #17, in which Christopher Priest introduces Everett Ross (played by Martin Freeman in the movies), who essentially becomes the protagonist of his Black Panther run that would fit right after this volume; and finally a highlight from Joe Casey and Jose Ladrönn’s incredibly underrated era of Cable: issue #54 has T’Challa team up with Cable against Ulysses Klaw. With Ladrönn’s art being so reminiscent of Jack Kirby and T’Challa facing his original villain, I can imagine no better way to end the volume before passing the baton to Christopher Priest with Ka-Zar #17 and Priest’s omnibus.

T’Challa meets Cable in Cable #54Black Panther: The Later Years Omnibus (Extended Edition), largely by Don McGregor, Jack Kirby, Ed Hannigan, Peter B. Gillis, Gene Colan, Dwayne Turner, Jerry Bingham, and Denys Cowan, would include Black Panther (1977) #1-15, Marvel Premiere (1972) #51-53, Defenders (1972) #84-86, Marvel Team-Up (1972) #100 (2nd story), Iron Man Annual #5, Daredevil (1964) #245, Black Panther (1988) #1-4, Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #13-37 (2nd stories), Solo Avengers (1987) #19 (2nd story), Black Panther: Panther’s Prey #1-4, Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #1 (7th story), Marvel Fanfare (1982) #60 (1st story), Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #148 (3rd story), Fantastic Four Unlimited #1 (2nd story), Cable (1993) #54, and Ka-Zar (1997) #17. This extended version would be over 1091 pages.

Although I’d be more than happy with such an omnibus, personally I lean towards splitting The Later Years into two separate volumes, allowing for many other T’Challa stories in that twenty-year period. Some of these are hidden gems, while a few of them would admittedly be there mostly for the sake of completion, but they are all Black Panther-centric enough to deserve being collected if Marvel decides to follow the same formula they did for The Early Years.

As well as everything in the “extended” version I outlined, this first of this two-part completist set would include the following: before Kirby’s run, Jim Shooter and Sal Buscema gave the spotlight to the Black Panther in Avengers #159, in which T’Challa returned from a long absence to save the whole team from Graviton in a very Batman-like way; in issue #169, with Sal Buscema still as the artist, Marv Wolfman pens a story focusing on how Black Panther, Captain America, and Iron Man defuse the same situation in different ways, highlighting their differences; a two-part Thing / T’Challa / Brother Voodoo team-up in Tom DeFalco, Roger Slifer, and Ron Wilson’s Marvel-Two-In-One; a Spider-Man team-up by Steven Grant and Gene Colan; John Byrne’s Fantastic Four #241, in which SHIELD seeks the family’s help for a mission in Wakanda; a fascinating early encounter between King T’Challa and Doctor Doom as monarchs in Steve Englehart’s and Keith Pollard’s otherwise unremarkable Fantastic Four run; and a story highlighting Black Panther and Bill Foster’s Giant-Man (Laurence Fishburne in Ant-Man and the Wasp) in a West Coast Avengers annual (set during the convoluted Evolutionary War saga, but don’t worry about it). The first volume would end with McGregor and Colan’s “Panther’s Quest,” which seems fitting as the last big story in The Early Years is McGregor’s first saga, “Panther’s Rage.”

T’Challa saves the day in Avengers #159 by Jim Shooter and Sal BuscemaBlack Panther: The Later Years Omnibus Vol. 1 (Complete Edition), by Jack Kirby, Don McGregor, Ed Hannigan, Peter B. Gillis, John Byrne, Steve Englehart, Chris Claremont, Ann Nocenti, Roger Silfer, Gene Colan, Jerry Bingham, Denys Cowan, Don Perlin, and Ron Wilson, would comprise Avengers (1963) #159 and #169, Black Panther (1977) #1-15, Marvel Two-In-One (1974) #40-41, Marvel Team-Up (1972) #87, Marvel Premiere (1972) #51-53, Defenders (1972) #84-86, Marvel Team-Up (1972) #100 (2nd story), Fantastic Four (1961) #241, Iron Man Annual #5, Daredevil (1964) #245, Fantastic Four #311-312, Black Panther (1988) #1-4, West Coast Avengers Annual #3 (1st story), and Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #13-37 (2nd stories). This first volume of the complete set would have a minimum of 960 pages.

The second volume would start with Solo Avengers #19 and end with Ka-Zar #17, with everything in the extended version of The Later Years between those issues as well as several very “nineties” additions… by which I mean they’re of varying quality but always of some historical significance. First, there is T’Challa’s intervention in the oft-forgotten 1991 Knights of Pendragon Marvel UK title, which I wouldn’t have seriously considered as a possibility if not for the fact that the entire run was recently remastered and collected in omnibus format. A more obvious inclusion is the three-part “The Vibranium Vendetta” saga, a story running across 1991’s annuals for the Spider-Man titles by David Michelinie, Guang Yap, and Marie Severin: Black Panther, Spider-Man, and Iron-Man face the threat of a stolen formula for synthetic Vibranium created by the evil Roxxon Corporation, in a long adventure involving the villains Kingpin, Ghost, and Ultron. Avengers #356 is a bit of an oddity, as it’s part of a much larger story in Bob Harras and Steve Epting’s “The Gathering” saga (it’s very nineties, but I recommend it!), but it still fits here, as it sees the story move to Wakanda as T’Challa faces a mysterious yet familiar foe… the Coal Tiger. That name may ring a bell to those who know the story of Black Panther’s creation, but I won’t spoil it here! Then, there is a two-issue tale in Scott Lobdell and Scott Kolins’s short Excalibur run, in which Black Panther teams up with the titular UK-based X-Men-adjacent team, as well as Captain America and Iron Man (at the time, Jim Rhodes), against a new threat trying to seize the throne of Wakanda. Next up, Deathlok #22-25 is a significant addition as one of the few stories here written by a black person, the late Dwayne McDuffie: the black cyborg Deathlok finds himself in Wakanda and becomes embroiled in a four-part adventure at the side of T’Challa against Moses Magnum.

This final Later Years volume should also include Captain America #414-417, set near the end of Mark Gruenwald’s decade-long run on Captain America, with art by Rik Levins and M.C. Wyman, in which T’Challa, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, and Diamondback team up with Ka-Zar against AIM on the Savage Land. Although the backup story in Fantastic Four Unlimited #1 would be collected in any version of The Later Years, this completist edition would also include the main story by Silver Age veterans Roy Thomas and Herb Trimpe, as it co-stars T’Challa. This leads to many other Fantastic Four appearances in this era, as well as in the spin-off title Fantastic Force, which co-stars the young Wakandan superhero Vibraxas. Very much like in the case of Deathlok, as Marvel’s original black superhero T’Challa also becomes involved in the adventures of the young black superhero Night Thrasher, in a story by Kurt Busiek, Steve Mattsson, and Art Nichols. The volume would be closed out by Black Panther’s appearances in Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz’s Thunderstrike #20 and Ralph Macchio and Robert Brown’s Over The Edge #6, a Daredevil/Black Panther team-up against classic T’Challa villains Killmonger and Klaw.

Black Panther and Spider-Man team up in The Vibranium VendettaBlack Panther: The Later Years Omnibus Vol. 2 (Complete Edition), by Don McGregor, Dwayne McDuffie, Mark Gruenwald, Tom Brevoort, Dan Abnett, Mike Kanterovich, John Tomlinson, David Michelinie, Scott Lobdell, Christopher Priest, Walter Simonson, Joe Casey, Kurt Busiek, Dwayne Turner, Gary Erskine, Rik Levins, Dante Bastianoni, Guang Yap, Scott Kolins, Paul Ryan, Ron Lim, Denys Cowan, Jose Ladrönn, Marie Severin, Steve Epting, and Ron Frenz, would have the following contents: Solo Avengers (1987) #19 (2nd story), Black Panther: Panther’s Prey #1-4, Marvel Super Heroes (1990) #1 (7th story); Knights of Pendragon (1991) #14-16, #17 (pages 17-18), and #18; Marvel Fanfare (1982) #60 (1st story); Amazing Spider-Man Annual #25, Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #11, Web of Spider-Man Annual #7 (1st stories); Avengers (1961) #356, Excalibur (1988) #59-60, Deathlok (1991) #22-25, Captain America (1968) #414-417, Marvel Comics Presents (1988) #148 (3rd story), Fantastic Four Unlimited #1, Fantastic Four (1961) #390 (pages 16-17) and #391 (page 12); Fantastic Force (1994) #1, Night Thrasher #18, Thunderstrike (1993) #20 (1st story); Fantastic Force #4 (page 11), #5 (page 15), #10, and #14-15; Over the Edge #6, Cable (1993) #54, and Ka-Zar (1997) #17. This second and finale volume of the complete edition set would have at least 950 pages.

I’ve provided several mapping options: a compact one, an extended one, and a complete one split between two volumes. But what kind of “omnibussin” would this be if I’m not also betting on what mapping Marvel will realistically go for? As I mentioned earlier, the compact one is sufficient, but it pales in comparison to the approach found in The Early Years and skips several key stories. On the other end of the spectrum, the complete edition in two volumes is my ideal version, but I admit it’s not likely—I’m sure Marvel would rather skip some of that 1990s material I delineated, just like they skipped several Black Panther appearances I’d have ideally included in The Early Years (I still can’t believe they skipped T’Challa giving Falcon his Vibranium wings!) Taking everything into consideration, the extended edition is what I imagine Marvel might plausibly map… although I wouldn’t be surprised if they add a few stories from my complete edition as well, such as The Vibranium Vendetta across 1991’s Spider-Man annuals.

The modern material is, as usual, much more simple to map, as these collections tend to be much less anthological, focusing on a single author or a single run instead. Still, there are almost two decades of comics between Black Panther by Christopher Priest Omnibus Vol. 1 and Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates Omnibus, so I will return in a few days with my mapping for Priest’s second volume (it’s not just the rest of the run!), the Hudlin and Shuri era, and more… including a surprise omnibus that Marvel may never publish but they totally should, because it would have some of Black Panther’s best modern stories written by one of the best comics writers. I’ll leave you with a tantalizing question: who’s the best Black Panther writer who never wrote a Black Panther-titled comic? Find out in the next installment of Omnibussin!

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The first volume of Eternals by Kieron Gillen and Essad Ribic is a revelation in a couple ways. For one, it manages to completely reorient the Eternals’ relationship with humanity by revealing that their signature immortality comes at the cost of human life, the very beings they believed they were intended to protect, a revelation […]

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This piece continues from last time our discussion of the first half of Jim Shooter’s 1970s Avengers run. Here, we’ll cover his “Nefaria Supreme” or “Nefaria’s Lethal Legion” arc with artist John Byrne. Next up will be the epic “Korvac Saga,” drawn by George Pérez and closing out this relatively brief era that nevertheless stood […]

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Krakoa – the new nation that Charles Xavier announced to the world in House of X #1 – was a fresh start for mutantkind. It heralded an era of mutant sovereignty and a unification of purpose that had never existed before among those with an X-gene. It’s a brand new world, but there are some […]

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It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? Marvel has a long history of replacement heroes–we’ve seen Rhodey step in to be Iron Man, the mantle of Captain Marvel has been passed down, both Falcon and Winter Soldier have been Captain America. Right now we even have Doctor Strange’s wife Clea subbing in to lead her first […]

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[cover by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson] The literally biggest X-Men book of the year so far has arrived! And it’s…mostly decent. X-Men series writer Gerry Duggan is juggling a lot of material here, and while it doesn’t entirely gel, he’s probably done the best that could be done given the demands of this special […]

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In October 2012, Marvel rebranded their entire line of comics under the “Marvel Now” banner, an era that would effectively last for three years until 2015’s Secret Wars. It’s a fan favorite era of comics, under the editorial reign of Axel Alonso, with titles like Hawkeye, Superior Spider-Man, Thor: God of Thunder, and Jonathan Hickman’s […]

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