Destruction

“X of Swords: Chapter 20”
X-Men #15
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Mahmud Asrar
Color art by Sunny Gho

“X of Swords: Chapter 21”
Excalibur #15
Written by Tini Howard
Art by Mahmud Asrar and Stefano Caselli
Color art by Sunny Gho and Rachelle Rosenberg

“X of Swords: Chapter 22”
X of Swords: Destruction
Written by Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard
Art by Pepe Larraz
Color art by Marte Gracia

• And so it ends! For me this hit just the right balance of hitting the beats I expected based on foreshadowing and structure while throwing enough curveballs to keep the plot suspenseful and interesting. 

• The most surprising part of the finale is the simple fact that Apocalypse made it out of the story alive! It felt a lot like this storyline was meant to end tragically for him, but instead he comes out of this story as both the character who ends the conflict and liberates the mutants of Arakko, but also gets a happy ending in reuniting with his wife and children in Amenth. He got everything he wanted, and he earned it by letting go of his ego. It’s amazing to think that in a little over a year Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard completely transformed Apocalypse from megalomaniacal arch villain with an incoherent philosophy into a sympathetic protagonist with a poignant backstory that explains a lot of what he’s done in the past but mostly points to interesting new directions for the character, whether he’s played as a hero or antagonist. This is a transformation on par with Chris Claremont fleshing out and adding depth and pathos to Magneto through the 1980s. 

• And as Apocalypse gets everything he set out to accomplish, Opal Luna Saturnyne maneuvers everything in place to achieve victory over Amenth but quite definitively is denied the one thing she desires – Brian Braddock as both Captain Britain and her lover. Her role in this story is interesting, never quite conforming to protagonist or antagonist, and ending with an acknowledgment of her broken heart. 

• X-Men #15 reestablishes the formal existence of the X-Men, which is a funny thing to say about the fifteenth issue of a comic book series called X-Men. There was some implication that anyone who was in action under Cyclops’ command was by default the X-Men, but the text pages in this issue show that the team was being phased out by the Krakoan government in favor of giving military power to the captains and X-Force (“the FORCE initiative”) for defense needs. But here we have Cyclops and Jean Grey deciding that there needs to be X-Men to act heroically without the hindrance of the Quiet Council’s politics. Jean is forced to step down from her seat on the council, which slightly disappoints her though she seems far more excited about creating a new sort of X-Men. It seems that the “anybody who needs to be an X-Man is an X-Man” approach will continue in a more formalized way, but likely with a more defined core group starring in Hickman’s flagship.

It feels more exciting for this development to happen as a response to a major crisis, and for it to come at a cost for Jean Grey. In retrospect the first year of Hickman stories was mostly setting narratives in motion and establishing the status quos of Krakoa, but now that we’ve got that all firmly in place the series can actually move forward with the most obvious element back in the mix – a team of superheroes. And Hickman is not hedging on the superhero thing, Cyclops and Jean Grey are presented as truly brave and idealistic people with pure motives, and the X-Men is a force for unambiguous good as a counter to the more pragmatic and morally dubious actions of the Quiet Council. This very earnest and retro portrayal of heroism feels as refreshing as any of Hickman’s more radical premises. 

• Jean Grey’s forced exit from the Quiet Council and Apocalypse going off to Amenth marks the first shift in the Krakoan government, and I’m curious to see what the council does to replace them. I think it’s quite possible they don’t replace Apocalypse on the Autumn seats, given that he has not given up his position and he’s the man who reunited Krakoa and Arakko and liberated the Arakkii from Amenth. It’s a given that Jean will be replaced, presumably by another traditional X-Men member, as that was more or less the point of the Summer seats. Archangel seems to be a likely candidate, or maybe Banshee? Iceman doesn’t feel right, Beast is the head of the mutant CIA, Wolverine wouldn’t want it, and most everyone else is busy. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get someone like Mirage in the mix, to represent the mutants of the Sextant. 

• And what of Betsy Braddock? The ending establishes that she is the one true Captain Britain henceforth and that there is a new Captain Britain Corps of infinite versions of Betsy throughout the multiverse, much to the chagrin of Saturnyne. The text page at the end of X of Swords: Destruction indicates that our Betsy – Betsy Prime – is “missing,” which is quite an improvement over her presumed death in Excalibur #14. But we don’t see this, as this is setting up the next arc of Excalibur. That book should be quite interesting going forward, between the contentious relationship between Betsy and Saturnyne, and how much this story fleshed out the realms of Otherworld. I’m quite looking forward to seeing more of Sevalith and The Crooked Market in particular. And hey, what about Mercator?

• Isca the Unbeaten did turn to join the X-Men once the tide is turned by Apocalypse claiming the mantle of Annihilation, but I feel like it’s a fumbled beat. She doesn’t actually DO anything in this moment, she is simply shown feeling the compulsion to switch sides. It’s one of the few beats in Destruction that feels sort of inert. But it will be interesting to see what becomes of Isca – she is remaining on Arakko, and hence will be living on Earth. I imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of the Arakkii’s acclimation into Krakoan society through her eyes. It’s bound to be a very complicated process. Millions of Arakkii have been liberated from the hellish dominion of Amenth, but will they actually interpret this as such? It looks like they might just be going from being the vassal state of Amenth to the vassal state of Krakoa.

• The merging of Krakoa and Arakko represents the next stage of expansion for mutant society, loosely following the stages of societal types laid out in Powers of X. It seems very likely that the overall Hickman story follows Krakoa as it moves up through these ranks, and the next step is probably expanding into the cosmos in alliance with the Shi’ar. The “next” teaser at the end of Destruction certainly points in this expansionist/imperialist direction: Reign of X. 

• Pepe “The God” Larraz delivers some truly astonishing pages in Destruction, this time shifting gears from the more atmospheric world building of the previous two Larraz issues to focus more on busy fight scenes in which he’s require to draw a staggering number of characters like a modern George Perez. His storytelling is excellent here, nailing all the big dramatic beats with great claritiy and potent emotion. His work on this storyline cements his position as the best and most exciting currently working for Marvel Comics, though nearly all the runners up – Mahmud Asrar, R.B. Silva, Rod Reis, Phil Noto, Joshua Cassara – also provided art for the story, and Carmen Carnero and Stefano Caselli stepped up in a major way for this too. 

Truth

“X of Swords: Chapter 12”
X-Men #14
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Leinil Francis Yu with Mahmud Asrar
Color art by Sunny Gho

“X of Swords: Chapter 13”
Marauders #14
Written by Gerry Duggan and Benjamin Percy
Art by Stefano Caselli
Color art by Edgar Delgado

• I was wondering how Mahmud Asrar was handling the deadline crunch of seemingly getting put on a third of last week’s Stasis special while being assigned to draw four other issues in the crossover, but now we know the answer: He only drew the framing sequences of this issue, and the majority of the issue is made up of repurposed Leinil Francis Yu pages from X-Men #12. Jonathan Hickman has made use of the old “reuse the art” trick before, but this is a particularly bold move, reframing the history of the mutants of Arakko as told to Apocalypse by Summoner from the perspective of Genesis. Whereas Summoner was trying to mislead and trap Apocalypse, Genesis is telling him the hard truth of things. It’s like hearing the same song played in a different, far more melancholy key. 

This creative decision is as artful as it probably was quite pragmatic, though it does make you wonder what the compensation deal was like for Yu in this situation.

• It’s interesting to see where Summoner and Genesis’ accounts differ and converge, with some bits of their stories perfectly aligning on particular panels. The most blatant deviations come towards the end of the story, with Genesis revealing that the demons of Amenth had bred captured mutants to create a hybrid warrior race and the demon conjuring Summoners, and that Genesis indeed killed the prior host of Annihilation and was obligated to wear the Golden Helm of Amenth and command its armies. And though she put this fate off for many years, she eventually gave in and all of Arakko succumbed to Amenth. This led to the conquest of Dryador, and onward to the next goal of taking Krakoa. The final text page of this issue is heartbreaking, spelling out the truth of Arakko: The mutants there are “prisoners in their own land,” oppressed by the Amenthi hybrids, the Summoners, and the Golden Helm. What was previously implied is now very clear – Arakko must be liberated from Amenth and the mutants loyal to Amenth. 

• Isca the Unbeaten plays an interesting role in this story – her power to never lose compels her to side with inevitable victors, which directly led to her sister Genesis being corrupted by Annihilation and Arakko falling to Amenth. She’s a narrative echo of Cylobel from Powers of X, who was bred by Nimrod to betray her fellow mutants, but the notion of people who are genetically compelled to turn against their own is an odd and potentially contentious theme for Hickman’s macro story. However, just as Cylobel turns against Nimrod, it seems very likely that Isca will side with Krakoa by the end of this story. But whereas this is a redemptive act for Cylobel, wouldn’t this just be another convenient turn of events for Isca? And besides, how exactly is surrendering one’s loyalties not a form of being beaten? 

• The “vile schools” of mutant-Amenthi hybrid warriors is another echo of a plot point from Powers of X – the breeding of chimera as a warrior class of mutants by Mister Sinister. And what’s going to be the comic in this storyline to really engage with the vile schools? Hellions, the series featuring Mister Sinister as the lead.

• There’s such a sad poetry in Apocalypse having to face this brutal survivalist ethos he’s been living with for centuries from the perspective of now having Krakoa, and seeing in Krakoa a real possibility of true mutant culture and prosperity that is entirely alien to these Arakki people who can only see a zero sum game of survival or destruction. Genesis sees only softness and weakness in Apocalypse and Krakoa, but she has lost all context for true civilization. The Arakki fight merely to conquer and survive in their miserable lives, but the people of Krakoa have something to truly treasure and protect.  Genesis is blind to the power of that motivation. 

• Marauders #14 is a welcome tonal shift from X-Men #14, reorienting the story back to the perspective of the X-Men swordbearers as they meet their counterparts from Arakko for the first time at a banquet hosted by Saturnyne. Much of the story focuses in on Storm, who carries herself with absolute confidence as she rebuffs the romantic advances of Death, and on Wolverine, who is openly contemptuous of Brian Braddock for not taking advantage of Saturnyne’s love for him to prevent the tournament. There’s also a fantastic little scene in which the Krakoan captains Magik and Gorgon look for weaknesses in their opponents and test Isca, who manages to spook even them. 

• Stefano Caselli noticeably steps up his game for this issue, and really outdoes himself in drawing the surreal banquet hall of the Starlight Citadel. He does some stellar work with body language and facial expressions through the issue, and is particularly impressive in how he conveys so many distinct personalities and interpersonal dynamics in the party scenes. He was very well cast for this sequence of the story. 

• Since starting this site I’ve paid a lot more attention to X-Men comics fandom, and doing that can be like stepping into a weird alternate universe in which everyone dislikes Wolverine and finds him boring. I can’t relate. But this issue, as with most Wolverine comics written by Benjamin Percy, makes a great case for why he’s such a widely beloved character. His brutish no-bullshit attitude is a necessary contrast with the pomp and circumstance of Saturnyne’s banquet and the absurd formality of her contest. When he stabs her on the last page it is a genuinely cathartic moment, even though it’s quite clear there’s no way he’s successful in this tactic. 

Stasis

“X of Swords: Chapter 11”
X of Swords: Stasis
Written by Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard
Art by Pepe Larraz and Mahmud Asrar
Color art by Marte Gracia

• The issue opens with more dazzling worldbuilding from Pepe Larraz, who establishes the look of five kingdoms within Otherworld in five evocative half-page panels. I’m particularly impressed by his design for the angular and minimalist architecture in the Kingdom of Sevalith throne room and the dusty junk shop vibe of Jim Jaspers’Crooked Market. I also love his designs in Saturnyne’s Starlight Citadel, particularly the quasi Deco aesthetics of the elevator scene at the end of the issue. Larraz’s raw draftsmanship is extraordinary, but the way he pulls in visual reference points from the more stylish ends of art and design history really pushes him over the top – even a lot of his most impressive peers can’t step to the casual sophistication of his post-House of X pages. 

• The parliament scene at the top of the issue further teases the question of what’s going on in Mercator, this time all but confirming that the realm has been taken over by the nearly omnipotent omega mutant Absolon “Mr. M” Mercator. The design of the unnamed representatives of Mercator is very creepy, recalling the sort of faceless enigma figures of Grant Morrison and Richard Case’s Doom Patrol but also ceremonial religious garb, kind of an ultra-goth Catholicism thing. Mercator is a very obscure character that has not been used in many years, so I get the impression Hickman and his writing staff will be reinventing him quite a bit – there’s not really anything from his previous appearances to suggest conquering realms and lording over these sort of solemn weirdos is something he’d be into. But hey, if you’re all-powerful, why not play god? This may turn out to be the most literal exploration of Magneto’s “you have new gods now” annunciation at the start of Hickman’s run. 

• Mahmud Asrar’s pages in this issue depict the gathering of the Swordbearers of Arrako and introduce a few as-yet unseen characters – Redroot the Forest who turns out to be a rough analog to Cypher as the “voice of Arrako,” Pogg Ur-Pogg who’s basically an endlessly greedy crocodile-like monster from Amenth, and the somewhat inscrutable warrior Bei the Blood Moon. The most intriguing scene involves Famine and Death recruiting the ancient White Sword of the Ivory Spire, who has a complicated backstory that puts him at odds with Annihilation and the Horsemen going back centuries. I’m not that invested in the details of this so much as I find it interesting that Saturnyne’s selection of Arraki swordbearers are not at all a united front. Aside from White Sword’s ancient vendetta, there’s also the bad blood between War and Solem, and the non-mutant Pogg Ur-Pogg mostly seems like an agent of chaos who does not care at all about the Arraki mutants. Is this Saturnyne’s way of sabotaging the Arraki champions and giving favor to Krakoa and Avalon? 

• The issue ends on the reveal that the Golden Helm of Annihilation is worn by none other than Apocalypse’s wife Genesis, which isn’t at all surprising – like, I just kinda figured this was the case just from looking at early promo images and the plot has been unsubtly gesturing towards this all along – but it does land with the appropriate emotional impact on Apocalypse, for whom this is indeed a soul-shattering shock. Hickman and Howard continue to make Apocalypse a genuinely empathetic figure, and at this point it’s quite moving to see him process such immense disappointment and betrayal. They’ve succeeded in making this character an underdog and having that reversal be poignant in that his whole reason for being for all these years was his disdain for underdogs. 

History

“X of Swords: Chapter 9” 
Excalibur #13
Written by Tini Howard
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Nolan Woodard

“X of Swords: Chapter 10”
X-Men #13
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Mahmud Asrar
Color art by Sunny Gho

• This issue of Excalibur features guest art by R.B. Silva, who turns in his last X-Men interior pages for the foreseeable future as he moves on to become the regular artist on Fantastic Four. His work here is typically excellent and brings the grandeur, atmosphere, melodrama, and romanticism that’s in Tini Howard’s stories but missing from usual artist Marcus To’s pages. Howard’s plot moves along the macro story of X of Swords but plays out like a self-contained fairytale in which Saturnyne pits Betsy and Brian Braddock against one another in a ploy to strip Betsy of the mantle of Captain Britain and return it to her beloved Brian, but it all backfires on her in the end. By the end of the issue Betsy is affirmed as the one true Captain Britain and wields Saturnyne’s Starlight Sword, and Brian becomes Captain Avalon, retains his Sword of Might, and is given a new role as the protector of his brother Jamie’s realm in Otherworld. It’s a happy ending, at least for now. Howard’s narration at the end doesn’t bode well for the Braddocks. 

• X-Men #13 is more of a fable. The story is mainly focused on a flashback to Apocalypse’s life on Okkara that fills us in on what his wife Genesis was like, and shows us what actually happened as she and their children took off with Arrako into Amenth. The story we’ve seen before, which presented Apocalypse as a more decisive and heroic figure, is inverted – he was left behind by Genesis, who deemed him not strong enough to join them. His mission over all these years was given to him, to make the world strong enough to stand against the hordes of Amenth. Suddenly everything about Apocalypse makes sense, and the power-hungry despot is now a tragic romantic figure. 

• This issue establishes that the mask of Annihilation effectively is Annihilation – or, more accurately, the Golden Helm of Amenth. The wearer of the helm controls the hordes of Amenth, but the helm controls the wearer, which must be fit enough to be worthy of it. Apocalypse must face the avatar of his own cruel survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and likely rescue his beloved wife from its influence. It’s hard to imagine he’ll make it through this; it would feel like a cheat for this to not end in tragedy for the newly sympathetic archvillain. 

• Mahmud Asrar shifts his art style a bit for this issue – his linework is a bit thicker with chunkier blacks and more negative space, occasionally somewhat resembling the style of Mike Mignola. This is very effective in his depiction of the Golden Helm of Amenth and his evocative renderings of Okkara and war with the creatures of the dark world. Asrar is particularly good at conveying Apocalypse’s deep, centuries-old sorrow. His enormous bulk, once so intimidating, now looks like a manifestation of his overcompensation, and of the incredible weight of the loneliness and grief he carries with him. The first panel of the penultimate page, in which we see him looking down at his reflection in a pool of water before gathering the parts of his sword The Scarab, is a moment where we see him in a fully honest moment. There’s no one to observe him, no audience for his shows of strength, and so you see him without the clarity of purpose that was driving him for ages. In that panel he’s a sad old man who has been betrayed by his lost children, and must face the possibility that he’s wasted his long life. 

Creation

“Creation”
X of Swords: Creation
Written by Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard
Art by Pepe Larraz
Color art by Marte Gracia

I’m shifting format slightly for this one, this is all going to be in “some notes” format.

• Pepe Larraz’s return to X-Men a little over a year after the end of House of X is as auspicious as it ought to be – the triple-sized opening chapter of a major crossover, as befitting an artist who has emerged as a defining – and more importantly redefining – artist on this franchise. Larraz’s pages here are top quality and play to his strengths in world-building and his raw talent for drawing evocative environments, nuanced body language, thoughtful page layouts, and perfectly paced and composed dramatic moments. It feels like a gift to read pages as well illustrated as this – the level of craft is above and beyond, particularly in a thing like the opening panel of the issue in which he effectively depicts a vast army with incredible elegance and economy of line. 

• The issue re-uses, recontextualizes, and in some cases alters the pages previously seen in the Free Comic Book Day special promoting this event. The tarot reading sequence feels right as the proper beginning of the story rather than merely a trailer for it, and I appreciate them using the obscure mutant Tarot’s interpretation of the cards drawn as a text page. It’s a clever bit of hand-holding for those of us who are either only dimly aware of tarot or totally ignorant. It’s interesting to note that the figures on The Hanged Man card have been changed somewhat – Banshee to Siryn, Glob to Rockslide, Trinary to Summoner – but I suppose that’s simply a result of plot revision. 

• Archangel was mostly played as a joke in his Angel persona in Empyre: X-Men, so it’s nice to see him depicted more seriously in this story, where his extremely fraught relationship with Apocalypse is foregrounded to highlight that while he’s essentially the protagonist of this crossover the X-Men have a very bad history of being traumatized by him. 

• It’s also nice to see Monet once again at the forefront of a story, as she drives much of the action plot in the second half of the issue in which the X-Men confront Saturnyne. Between this, House of X, Empyre X-Men, and Giant Size X-Men: Storm, Monet has been positioned as a major X-Men character and this makes a lot of sense – she’s a character with a big personality and a diverse list of extraordinary powers, making her an obvious person to place on the front lines of any battle. I like the way the typically haughty Monet is set up as a foil to the even haughtier Saturnyne here, and her casual mention that she’d be interested in taking Saturnyne’s job at some point. Maybe that’s just a funny line, or maybe it’s foreshadowing – we’ll just have to wait and see. 

• In the lead-up to X of Swords we were led to believe that Apocalypse was the one pulling all the strings, but as we see in this issue he’s been manipulated just as much as he’s been manipulating the mutants of Krakoa. His Caesar-esque betrayal by Summoner and his the Horsemen is hardly a surprise but still hits with some emotional resonance and we’re fully aware of what a crushing disappointment this is for Apocalypse after centuries of waiting to be reunited with his lost family. And of course, at the end of this issue we see that Saturnyne has been playing everyone all along, and has set up a conflict for her amusement or potential gain in which he’s only just a pawn. It looks like a big part of this story will be Apocalypse being forced into true humility. 

• At least a third of this story is rooted in the Captain Britain mythos developed by Alan Davis, Alan Moore, and Chris Claremont in the 1980s – most obviously the presence of two Captains Britain in Betsy and Brian Braddock, but also Saturnyne, the Starlight Citadel, and Otherworld. The map of Otherworld is intriguing, with references to expected characters like Jamie Braddock, Roma, and Merlyn, but also a few somewhat unexpected characters from this mythos like Mad Jim Jaspers and The Fury. The most surprising thing here is the suggestion that the missing all-powerful omega mutant Absolon “Mister M” Mercator is most likely the “unknown” regent of a realm called Mercator.

• The biggest curveball in this opening chapter by far is the revelation at the end of the issue that somehow S.W.O.R.D., the intergalactic intelligence agency created by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday in Astonishing X-Men, is somehow part of Saturnyne’s scheme. I can barely even speculate on how that fits into all this with Arrako and Amenth and Otherworld, but I like the feeling of having no idea where this plot is going. 

• As the issue ends we learn that the macguffin driving the plot of this crossover will be some kind of tournament between the swordbearers of Arrako and Krakoa, and we’re given the name of ten swords that will be wielded by X-Men who’ve been indicated on either the Ten of Swords card in the reading early in the issue or the covers of forthcoming issues.

Some of the swords are obvious – Magik possesses the Soul Sword, Cable recently acquired The Light of Galador in his solo series, Cypher is bonded with Warlock. The Sword of Might would be Brian Braddock and the Starlight Sword would be Betsy Braddock. Skybreaker would be for Storm and The Scarab would be for Apocalypse given their respective themes as characters. Gorgon has a history with Grasscutter and Godkiller in previous Hickman comics, and I would assume Magneto would take the latter if just for the pompous name. Muramasa, a blade infused with Wolverine’s soul, is obviously meant for him, which is troubling as that one also appears as the 11th sword of Arrako. Hmmm.

A Crooked World

“The Unspeakable and the Uneatable I and II,” “Schools of Magic,”
“A Crooked World,” “Blood of the Changeling,” “The Beginning”
Excalibur #7-12
Written by Tini Howard
Art by Marcus To (8-12) and Ed Santos (7, 8)
Color art by Erick Arciniega

The break in publishing as a result of the pandemic was rough on all of the series in the Dawn of X line, but I think it had the worst impact on Excalibur as it was entering a run of issues introducing Saturnyne and Otherworld that demanded a more immediate memory of a fairly tangled narrative web involving multiple realities. I think Howard’s story is relatively straightforward in its plot beats, but the plain aesthetics of Marcus To and Erick Arciniega’s art get in her way by doing pretty much nothing at all to give the reader visual cues that we are looking at different realities, which makes the story more difficult to follow as a casual reader than it ought to be. Arciniega could have done a lot to get this across, but no – the colors are basic and utterly devoid of vibes. To’s art is fine with fundamentals and quite good when it comes to rendering faces, but he seems entirely incapable of drawing compelling backgrounds or conveying atmosphere, which is a big problem on a fantasy series. He’d be fine on most mainline Marvel books or even on another current X-Men series like New Mutants or X-Factor, but he continues to hobble Howard’s ambitious ideas. 

The good news is that in Excalibur #12 Howard pays off on the majority of the narrative threads she’d been seeding through the first 11 issues of the series. The issue centers on Apocalypse as he and Rictor enact a ritual creating a gateway to the long-lost Arrako, with Gambit unknowingly completing the spell by dispatching the disembodied form of his old enemy Candra. The plot is satisfying enough, particularly as lead-in to X of Swords, but the best thing here is Howard’s thoughtful characterization of Apocalypse. 

Her Apocalypse is blithe in his monomaniacal pursuit of reaching Arrako, expertly exploiting everyone – his old friends the Externals, his new coven in Excalibur, Saturnyne of Otherworld – to get what he needs. The reader is encouraged to side with Apocalypse in terms of his goals but to also reckon with the degree to which he is a sociopath. In this issue we see exactly what becomes of people when they stop being of use to him, and it opens up the question of what will happen when Excalibur – or the Quiet Council of Krakoa – is no longer of value to his quest. She and Hickman are very much on the same page with Apocalypse, and I think it’s clear that this nuanced redefinition of the character will end up being part of the legacy of this run of comics that makes it into Marvel’s movie universe down the line.

Amenth

“Amenth”
X-Men #12
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Leinil Francis Yu
Color art by Sunny Gho

“Amenth” is a tremendously ambitious issue focused almost exclusively on world-building in advance of the X of Swords epic beginning next week. It’s quite a lot to take in. In 14 pages we’re presented with Summoner’s abridged history of centuries of a mutant society stranded in the fallen world of Amenth after the “Twilight Sword” of “the enemy” split Okkara into Krakoa and Arrako. We learn that the mutants of Arrako are led by Genesis, the wife of Apocalypse. Genesis was betrayed by a fellow mutant and killed by Annihilation, the god of Amenth. As we enter X of Swords, Apocalypse is called on to liberate the surviving mutants of Arrako from the siege of Annihilation and the hordes of Amenth. We’re left with some question of Apocalypse’s motives at the time of Okkara’s split, and his motives now. 

It’s all very good set up for the next big story, and establishes the most radical changes to X-Men mythology since House of X/Powers of X. The notion of an entire separate lost mutant society with centuries of history is wild, as is the revelation that Apocalypse is not the first mutant but rather the first of the second generation of mutantdom. There’s still quite a bit of story ahead in X of Swords, but it seems to me that the likely result of that story is the first level up in mutant society in terms of the galactic scale presented in Powers of X #2. It’s the next step in the evolution of Krakoa as a society towards greater scale as the macro story moves along – the alliance with the Shi’ar being an eventual logical step, and I suspect we’ll eventually see Krakoa ascend to some stage of “worldmind.” And then, maybe in the end…the Phalanx. 

This is Leinil Francis Yu’s final issue as the regular artist on this series and his work in conveying the grand scale of this plot is outstanding. Hickman’s plot is extremely demanding, with pages in which every other panel represents major historical moments on a large scale, and Yu delivers without making it all feel too heavy and overwhelming. I particularly like the way he drew the sequence with Genesis entering palace of Annihilation – it feels both Biblical and alien, and full of small details that suggest yet more history to be told. Yu has been a mainstay of Marvel Comics – and of X-Men projects – for over 20 years, and his work on this past year of X-Men with Hickman has been a career pinnacle for him. They’ve worked together on Avengers in the past, and in that series he was also pushed to draw sci-fi on a grand scale. It’s another example of Hickman seeing what an artist is truly capable of and pushing them to the next level. 

Onwards to X of Swords! 

The Reading

X-Men: Free Comic Book Day 2020
Written by Jonathan Hickman and Tini Howard
Art by Pepe Larraz
Color art by Marte Gracia

Every year Marvel issues a special Free Comic Book Day comic designed to hype up whatever major event is coming along, and the headlining story in this year’s edition is basically a trailer teasing the first X-Men crossover of the Hickman era, X of Swords. Even aside from hyping up the next big arc, this issue is exciting if just because it reunites Hickman with Pepe Larraz, the artist of House of X. The two have a remarkable creative chemistry, and Larraz has asserted himself as the definitive artist of this X-era. The pages, which rely heavily on his gift for character design and evocative environments, feel like home. 

The familiarity of Larraz’s line is helpful in grounding the issue, which otherwise pushes the reader off the deep end into unfamiliar territory. The opening pages introduce Apocalypse’s original Horsemen, who he lost when Okkara was split into Krakoa and Arakko centuries ago. I’m not certain exactly what happens in these pages, but it establishes them as powerful and brutal characters who seek Opal Luna Saturnyne, the Omniversal Majestrix of Otherworld. There’s certainly some missing threads here, but the Horsemen and the lost island of Arakko being connected to Otherworld makes more sense of Apocalypse’s machinations through Tini Howard’s Excalibur series. It’s all starting to click together. 

The remainder of the issue teases out the rest of the story as Saturnyne does a tarot reading to get a sense of what may be coming to her. Hickman, Howard, and Larraz provide a feast for speculation, particularly in the final three cards. I’m not going to indulge in that for now, but I will say I’m quite pleased that Archangel, Banshee, and Penance are being positioned as prominent characters in this story after being largely absent from the first wave of Dawn of X books, and that Storm seems to have a major plotline in this arc. This, along with Giant Size X-Men making Storm central to the ongoing Children of the Vault thread, gives me hope that after many years of being sidelined we may be entering a phase when Storm is restored to her proper place as a crucial character in this franchise. 

Crucible

“Lifedeath”
X-Men #7
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Leinil Francis Yu
Color art by Sunny Gho

Let’s start with audacity of the title. Given that this is an issue about an event called Crucible that is mentioned by name many times over, it would be sensible to simply call the issue “Crucible” or similar. But no, Jonathan Hickman can’t quite ever be bold enough, so he named it “Lifedeath,” after one of the most famous and acclaimed Chris Claremont stories in which Storm struggles with life after losing her powers. It makes sense: This is an issue about what becomes of the million mutants who lost their powers to the Scarlet Witch’s “no more mutants” spell in House of M, and how to be reborn with their powers they must first die. It’s the core dilemma of the original Storm arc taken to a new extreme, with Nightcrawler and Cyclops on the margins of the story pondering the spiritual implications of the Krakoan resurrection protocols. 

Hickman takes his time doling out hints of what Crucible is through the first half of the issue, indicating the solemn intensity of the occasion and how heavily it weighs on the other characters. The context is revealed as we see Exodus explain the reason for the event to a group of mutant children around a fire in the forest, emphasizing the great evils of the Scarlet Witch and the horrors she inflicted on mutantdom with just three words. The children repeat language from the text pages referring to the Scarlet Witch and M Day in House of X #4 – “the pretender,” “NO MORE” – and suggest that an emerging part of Krakoan culture is the vilification of Wanda Maximoff and, by extension, the Avengers. This indoctrination makes sense, particularly given the extreme lengths the Krakoans must go to rectify her deeds, but the reader is aware that Scarlet Witch is still written as a heroic figure in Avengers comics. It now seems inevitable that she will enter this story at some point and have to reckon with a mutant nation indoctrinated to think of her as a Hitler figure. 

This scene is the first indication of what Hickman is planning for Exodus, a somewhat underdeveloped villain created in the 1990s that he’s placed on the Quiet Council. The main thing about Exodus is that he’s from the distant past – he was raised in the 12th century but held in stasis by Apocalypse for centuries – and that he’s a zealot who aligned with Magneto’s most extreme beliefs but was more harsh and unyielding. It would seem that Exodus’ zealotry is being positioned as a parallel to Nightcrawler’s spirituality here, as we see Nightcrawler wrestle with moral questions and decide that he must start a mutant religion for those questioning their faith in the context of Krakoan culture and the implications of endless rebirth. If the pure and heroic Nightcrawler is offering a theology based on kindness, forgiveness, and pursuit of peace, Exodus is clearly fostering a more violent and unforgiving fundamentalism in his young followers.

In the final third of the issue we see that Crucible isn’t merely about a depowered mutant dying to be “made whole” in resurrection, but rather a sacrement informed by Apocalypse’s “survival of the fittest” ethos. Melody Guthrie, the younger sister of Cannonball and Husk, must face the hulking and enormously powerful Apocalypse in a duel in which he taunts and tests her. The mutants of Krakoa don’t want to deal with mass suicide of depowered mutants – they want a show of dedication to fight for their people. They must be found worthy. 

This makes sense, but is also sort of troubling. The ritualistic nature of this speaks to both Apocalypse and Exodus’ roots in the distant past, and shows how their taste for bloody sacrifice and symbolism is shaping the emerging culture of Krakoa. This is another contrast with Nightcrawler’s sensibilities as a Catholic – he’s a very New Testament sort of guy, after all. It will be interesting to see how his hippie-ish brand of Christianity informs a new religion based upon many ideas that his culture has disproven, or at least called into question. 

Some notes:

• Hickman continues to tease the details of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Emma Frost’s apparently bisexual polycule situation. I realize some would love for this to all be spelled out and made full canon, but I actually prefer him sketching this out in ways that suggest something as filthy and overtly queer as the reader wants it to be. Don’t get hung up on the plausible deniability, get excited by how far he’s willing to go to suggest that Wolverine and Cyclops are regularly fucking each other. 

• I love that Cannonball, always an incredibly normal and down-to-earth dude, is just getting used to raising a family in the alien Shi’ar culture and comes home to discover that everyone he knows has created a new culture that’s maybe twice as strange. But hey, his dead siblings are alive, so he’s he to complain? 

• We finally see Warlock separated from Cypher’s arm and it’s very odd and creepy. It’s hard to tell whether this is hinting at something bad, or just showing us that Cypher is just a really weird guy with very unusual friends. 

The Accolade of Betsy Braddock

“The Accolade of Betsy Braddock” / “A Tower of Flowers” / “Three Covenants” / “Fall Back and Think of England!” / “Panic on the Streets of London” / “Watch the Throne” 
Excalibur #1-6
Written by Tini Howard
Art by Marcus To
Color art by Erick Arciniega

Serial stories don’t always click right away, but you can usually tell when an ongoing story has the potential to grow into something better as it goes along. Tini Howard’s Excalibur series seems like one of those to me. Howard is relatively new to writing for comics, and while she hardly comes off as green, it’s clear enough that she’s still in the process of learning on the job and finding her voice. In working on this series she’s essentially being mentored by Jonathan Hickman, and as she is now she reminds me a lot of Hickman when he himself was being mentored by Brian Michael Bendis in the early days of his career at Marvel. You can sense intelligence, passion, and ambition in the writing, but it’s muffled somewhat. Howard is good with dialogue and clever with her concepts, but there’s something missing or buried in the mix at the moment. My theory is that in playing “by the book” in pacing her plot in these issues, she’s denying a more peculiar personal narrative rhythm that would be more enticing. But you need to master the rules to break them well, so maybe that’s just what this arc is for her. 

Excalibur is the series in the new X-Men line that is exploring the concept of “mutant magic,” and is expanding on ideas set in motion by Jonathan Hickman that reimagine Apocalypse as a mutant mystic with ancient scores to settle. These elements of the plot are very interesting and entertaining, and I particularly enjoy the way Howard portrays Apocalypse as a man with an elaborate agenda that involves constantly manipulating the Excalibur crew to his own advantage, but also as a figure who is generally benevolent to the other leads despite having been their archenemy up until recently. 

The series is also about Betsy Braddock taking on her twin brother Brian’s role as Captain Britain in the wake of her ceding her identity as Psylocke to her former host body Kwannon following them splitting off into two separate people. Betsy has been one of my favorite X-Men characters for a long time, but I’m pretty cold on this version of the character – largely because I’ve never found the Captain Britain mythos at all interesting, but also because a lot of the body horror and complex identity issues that went along with the baggage of her living in another woman’s body was very intriguing to me. The version of Betsy in this story feels like someone different from the character I had some investment in. She’s more of an ordinary superhero now.

But as much as I’m personally bored by the Captain Britain-ness of it all, Howard hits those marks with full commitment. I appreciate how fully she’s leaping into the fantasy elements of this series, but feel that her efforts are undermined by Marcus To’s art. To is a strong draftsman who is particularly good at drawing body language and facial expressions, but his work lacks style and flair. His pages are highly functional but sort of drab and ordinary, and do a poor job of conveying the exotic beauty of Krakoa or the more spectacular fairytale imagery he’s called upon to illustrate when the story goes full-on fantasy. There’s no poetry in his linework. He’d probably do well with a more traditional comic series that focused more on comedy or soap opera, but he’s all wrong for a book like this which needs you to buy into high drama and wild imagery. 

This problem reminds me of the early phase of Chris Claremont’s work on the original New Mutants series, where he was paired with industry legend Sal Buscema for about a year before Bill Sienkiewicz took over and radically redefined the style and tone of the book. Buscema, like To, was an incredibly talented draftsman with a clean and old-fashioned style. But his dependable style was at odds with the aims of the series – it was stodgy instead of youthful. Sienkiewicz’s offbeat and highly distinctive style brought out the tensions in the series, and opened Claremont up to exploring elements of horror and abstraction that added a new dimension to a comic about mutant teenagers. Howard’s Excalibur needs this sort of aesthetic shift. The mysticism needs to be emphasized with atmosphere and style. It should feel more surreal, more fantastic. To is far from a bad artist, but he’s not serving the material well and gets in the way of the reader fully believing in Howard’s magic. 

Summoner

“Summoner”
X-Men #2
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Pencils by Leinil Francis Yu
Inks by Gerry Alanguilan
Color art by Sunny Gho

“Summoner” is clearly built to continue some momentum from other recent X-Men comics – we’re still spending time with Cyclops and time-displaced children Rachel and Cable, there are references to the events of the New Mutants and X-Force comics from last week, and the plot advances the Arrako/Apocalypse/missing Horsemen thread from Powers of X – but the actual content of the issue feels more like coasting. 

That’s fine, since we’re still finding our bearings and getting used to how familiar characters behave in the new status quo. In the case of the leads in this issue, we’re still seeing Cyclops form a traditional family unit out of his bizarre set of blood relations. It’s maybe slightly weird that the other characters don’t call attention to this, but it makes a lot of sense that Rachel and Cable – who is a teenager at the moment, having killed the older version of himself in Extermination – would be eager to finally have the dad they always wanted. You know, a dad who is physically only about 10-15 years older than either of them, but a dad nevertheless. 

I quite like Hickman’s take on Cyclops. He’s leaning into the character’s rich and complicated back story without directly referring to it, and presents him as though all the bizarre facts of his life are just lived reality and weird to others but mundane to him, kinda like someone who's been a celebrity all their life. As a reader fully aware of the context and subtext, it all reads as “this is a total weirdo” and “this is a capable leader who’s seen it all and isn’t easily rattled.” Kind of a chicken-or-egg thing with him, really. Hickman has fun with Cyclops’ dialogue too, allowing the character to poke fun at his weird life and history of bad decisions based in horniness. And then there’s this line, which shamelessly panders to everyone who was VERY HYPE about the layout of his house on the moon in the previous issue…

The rhythms of this issue feel similar to the more low-key world building issues at the early stages of his Avengers run. It’s a straight-forward adventure, but the meat of the issue is in establishing some new concepts by having the heroes encounter it in the field. In the case of this issue, it’s the notion of “Summoners,” the magic-wielding heroes of Arrako, the lost twin of Krakoa. At the end of the issue a fragment of Arrako merges with Krakoa, and the Summoner meets with Apocalypse, who clearly intends to bring back the rest of Arakko and make Krakoa whole again. This is not tremendously thrilling in and of itself, but it’s reasonable to assume this is headed towards some climactic resolution in the near future. Hickman seems very aware of that, and wisely leans on jokes to make this a fun read. (I quite like the callback to Sunspot’s “…and that’s why people love me” from last week’s New Mutants in the Cable dialogue. Maybe this is going to be a runner?)

Leinil Yu’s art leaves a bit to be desired in terms of depicting facial expressions but he excels at illustrating freaky monsters and exotic terrain, and that’s what really matters in this issue. His best image in this issue, in which the trio of X-Men ride through tall grass towards the Summoner in the distance, is very striking in its simple, elegant composition and owes a lot to the cinematic tradition my friend Sean T. Collins calls “monumental horror.” The monsters are cool looking, but this shot is genuinely creepy. 

This Is What You Do

“This Is What You Do”
Powers of X #3 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

“This Is What You Do” is an issue that dials back expectations somewhat. After four consecutive issues of game-changing plot and dense world building, this issue zooms in on a particular plot thread – the year 100 X-Men’s suicide mission to take down Nimrod – and focuses on shading in established ideas and delivering a plot payoff that firmly establishes the stakes of the next sequence of the story in which Cyclops leads a team against Orchis in the hopes of preventing the creation of Nimrod altogether. The big reveal at the end of the issue that this is all taking place in Moira’s 9th life ties together most of the plot action in the first act of the story, explaining how Xavier knew to have Mystique apprehend the Orchis plans that set in motion Cyclops’ mission. 

The reveal is excellent and I particularly like Moira 9’s death scene as she’s killed by Wolverine to get on with her mission in her 10th life. “This is what you do,” she tells him as he readies himself to stab her, a turn on his classic “the best there is at what he does” catchphrase that feels both oddly hopeful and grimly fatalistic about Wolverine’s role in any narrative. Moira has a perspective on him that’s closer to that of the audience than anyone in the story. (The scene also visually echoes Wolverine’s mercy killing of Jean Grey in Grant Morrison’s “Planet X” arc.) 

The trouble is, at least on my end, is that I’ve spent enough time trying to predict the plot of this story that I’d already figured out that the “future” was in Moira 9’s lifetime. There is a nice sense of validation in correctly parsing the clues, but it’s been a lot more fun to be entirely surprised with plot developments, as I was last week with the Phalanx reveal in the far future storyline. I can’t imagine I’ll be able to resist further speculation as it is a big part of the fun of following all of this, but I have to keep in mind that it’s most enjoyable when Hickman is several steps ahead of me and catches me off guard. 

This is not to say there weren’t any surprises in this issue. The introduction of the human Church of Ascendency and their ritualistic transformation into cyborgs at the top of the issue provides some backstory for the plot in the distant future plot thread with the Nimbus worldmind and the Phalanx. It’s also a bit jarring for Cardinal and Rasputin to apparently die along with the rest of the future X-Men so early in the story after such an auspicious debut, though it would not be unreasonable for them to pop up again one way or another. But given Jonathan Hickman’s stated love of “The Phalanx Covenant” and prominent use of characters and concepts for that story, the fate of these characters may be a nod to the way Scott Lobdell gave Blink a memorable debut in that story only to quickly kill her off and have her reappear in a different and even better form shortly afterward in “Age of Apocalypse.” 

Apocalypse’s role in this story is interesting. The Moira 9 timeline is essentially an inverted “Age of Apocalypse” in which Apocalypse, under the influence of his consigliere Moira, takes the Magneto role in the story as the flawed replacement for Charles Xavier, and Nimrod replaces him as the despotic monster presiding over a dystopia. This Apocalypse is still very much Apocalypse-y right on down to having four horsemen, but he’s also rather noble and willing to sacrifice his supposedly eternal life in order to complete a mission to give hope to the mutants of Moira’s next lifetime. His final battle with Nimrod is poignant and echoes the Magneto/Apocalypse duel at the end of “Age of Apocalypse,” except for the lack of catharsis. Magneto got to rip Apocalypse in half while he gloated at him; Apocalypse just gets womped on by four Nimrods at once before the singularity unleashed from Xorn’s black hole skull seems to swallow up pretty much everything. 

“This Is What You Do” breaks some rhythms established by the previous issues, most obviously by deviating from the HOX/POX/HOX/POX pattern, and the established format of Powers issues showing us story in each of its four eras. This works out pretty well in terms of keeping the story from feeling too rigid in its rhythms, and allows for some traditional superhero action after a lot of rather cerebral info dumps and talky scenes. There’s a terrible tendency in contemporary comics, particularly those produced by Marvel, for action to be doled out in a way that suggests the writer is merely servicing genre conventions and giving the artist something “fun” to draw, and this is very much not that. Hickman and R.B. Silva provide big payoffs and high drama, and present action scenes fully grounded in the horror of violence. They effectively convey the bravery of these X-Men and the cold cruelty of their robotic enemies.

Silva’s art continues to evolve into an increasingly expressive and nuanced style as he moves through this series. He’s clearly having a lot of fun with his inking process – there’s a liberal usage of Ben-Day dots for shading, judicious deployment of digital blur effects, and a clever use of fingerprints in rendering Wolverine’s scorched body in the final sequence. I love the way both he and Pepe Larraz are combining the best elements of digital and physical illustration to produce pages that convey a slickness with an underlying loose kinetic energy of pencil and ink on paper.