The Broken Land

“The Broken Land,” “Man on Fire,”
“Loss,” “Three Short Stories About Death”
X-Men Red #1-4
Written by Al Ewing
Art by Stefano Caselli (#1-3), Juann Cabal, Andrés Genolet, Michael Sta. Maria (#4)
Color art by Federico Blee

X-Men Red is a very bold and new kind of X-Men series, one with a premise that would have been entirely inconceivable prior to 2020. This is the series exploring the culture of the Arrakii mutants introduced in X of Swords, who now reside on a terraformed Mars that has been declared the capital of the solar system without consulting with any of the humans who happen to live there. Storm has emerged as the Regent of Arrako, and is the first Earth mutant to become part of the Great Ring, the Arrakii equivalent of the Quiet Council. She remains on that council, though Magneto has quit to take up residence on the red planet. Sunspot is also living on Arrako and appears to be gradually working towards some personal agenda, and Cable is there along with Abigail Brand, continuing on from where Ewing’s previous X-Men series SWORD left off. (Whoops, sorry, I meant to write about that after it concluded but never did. It was mostly very good.)

Ewing spends some time developing the members of the Great Ring, but the book is really about the Krakoan mutants and how they adjust to living with totally different customs and the question of how much they should attempt to shape the future of a people they have no history with. 

Sunspot initially seems the most eager to bring a bit of Earth culture to Mars, but it’s his way to play dumb while gradually working towards something bigger in plain sight. He and Brand are the mutants with the widest perspective – his experiences with the Shi’ar make him think on a galactic scale. But while Sunspot sees a universe full of opportunities, Brand can only see a great game of grim intergalactic politics and is plotting to decrease the wider influence of both Arrako and Krakoa.

Storm, always a person of great integrity, rejects her regal trappings and finds herself reliving the time she defeated Callisto in battle and took on leadership of the Morlocks but on a far grander scale. Practice has not made it any easier, and she seems to be so occupied by maintaining her credibility and spinning the plates of her many responsibilities that she can’t devote enough time to figuring out exactly what the now overtly evil Brand is up to. 

Magneto, on the other hand, comes to the red planet utterly humbled and broken, and finds himself accidentally accruing power and joining the Great Ring after defeating Tarn the Uncaring, the Arrakii’s answer to both Hitler and Mengele, in a duel. This story, which plays out in the third issue, is where Ewing makes it clear what kind of series he’s writing. It’s brutal and thrilling, and one which constantly tests the mettle of its leads. Magneto’s triumph over Tarn is one of the most exciting things I’ve read in a superhero comic in years. Ewing and Stefano Caselli pace the sequence masterfully, leaving room for suspense even after Sunspot uses Isca the Unbeaten’s power to never lose against her in order to make Magneto’s victory a foregone conclusion. Tarn, one of the best new mutant X-Men villains in years, had already been developed by Zeb Wells in Hellions and Ewing in SWORD, so his loss carries weight particularly in light of the Arrakii’s rejection of mutant resurrection. It hard to be Tarn for this plot beat to work – someone formidable, endlessly cruel, and already established to be the most hated man on Arrako. 

At the end of the third issue Ewing positions Magneto not just as a member of the Great Ring, but as a hero to all Arrakii for slaying Tarn. By the end of the fifth issue – which I’ll write about later on – circumstances shift power to Magneto’s seat on the Ring. It seems to me that Ewing is gradually writing a story in which Magneto gets to live the dream of his younger self as a beloved leader on an entire planet of mutants, but it’s all cursed. As we move ahead with this series it seems that the tension will be the question of what happens as Magneto acclimates to power in this world, and how it may pit him against his allies Storm and Sunspot. It looks a lot like Ewing is slowly building a situation in which Magneto may actually find himself in direct conflict with Charles Xavier and the X-Men, but in a totally fresh way. 

• Stefano Caselli, who has already done strong work on Marauders, SWORD, and Inferno, has risen to the occasion of Ewing’s plots. He’s very good with pacing and drama, and in depicting nuance in facial expressions. I was particularly impressed by a page in the third issue in which Magneto cycles through facial expressions in nine panels, his agitation subtly emphasized by the equally sized panels not neatly fitting into a grid. 

• Federico Blee’s color art is essential to this series, his bright palette of mostly warm colors always signaling to the reader that they’re on a planet with a very light and atmosphere. He does a lot of work to make sure everything feels alien and surreal and geologically pristine, and maintains a sharp contrast with scenes set in the cold lighting of Brand’s space station or the more blue-green hues of Krakoa. It’s incredibly thoughtful work, something which ought to raise his profile as a colorist in the medium. 

• The guest artists on the fourth issue are well chosen, and fit Ewing’s established MO from his past work on Immortal Hulk and Guardians of the Galaxy of making sure that shifts in art style are matched to shifts in narrative style. In this case, we get three vignettes on the theme of death before… well, we’ll get to that later. Juann Cabal and Andrés Genolet both do fine work in that issue, but I was most impressed by Michael Sta. Maria. I wasn’t familiar with his art before this issue, but I’d be quite happy for him to return to this book. 

Sworded Out

“Sworded Out”
X-Men #16
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Phil Noto

• The end of this issue introduces a new structural conceit for the X-Men – Cyclops and Jean Grey will be the leaders, and the rest of the members will be voted in by the citizens of Krakoa. The concept is basically an inversion of a tradition from the Legion of Super Heroes – rather than the leaders be voted in, it’s the actual membership of the team. It looks like we won’t see how this plays out for a little while as the new team will be revealed at the Hellfire Gala, but it does seem like an idea that is going to backfire on Cyclops and Jean in some way. But in any case, it’s very pointedly different from the complete lack of democracy that went into the creation of the Quiet Council, and everyone involved is going into this new iteration of the X-Men with some understanding that the Council and the X-Men will come into conflict at some point. 

• This issue also establishes the new status quo of Arakko, which is now on Earth as a result of Apocalypse’s bargain with Saturnyne at the end of X of Swords. Arakko – as a sentient body of land, and as a people – refuses to merge with Krakoa. Isca the Unbeaten is revealed to be one of the leaders of Arakko, and though she sits as part of a governing body, her power to never lose essentially makes her the de facto ruler of the nation as she always gets her way. She meets with Xavier and Magneto and peacefully but bluntly explains that the people of Arakko are hardened by centuries of war and will not be able to shake that off any time soon. 

Phil Noto’s art on this very talky scene is carried in large part by his very thoughtful coloring in which Xavier and Magneto wear their black and white clothing on a cool green background while Isca is surrounded by red and brown foliage that matches the earth tones of her armor. Noto also does a good job of conveying how gentle and effete Xavier is, framing him as small and distant in the frame as he clutches a Krakoan flower. I think this choice may have had a lot to do with how much dialogue he has in those panels, but it’s very effective in contrast with the tight shots of Isca that make her appear strong, confident, and unflappable. 

• The most important bit of news on the Arakko front is buried somewhat in the issue, as Cypher reminds the Quiet Council that there’s roughly twenty times as many Arakki mutants as there are Krakoan mutants. The immediate implication of this is that this would be quite bad for Krakoa should the two nations come into conflict, but the bigger problem is more obviously what is going to happen once the rest of the Earth finds out that a nation of several million battle-hardened mutants from a hell world now reside on the planet with them. I suspect that once this news gets to Orchis it will lead to the activation of Nimrod and the deployment of the machines being built in Sentinel City on Mercury, and this will go very, very badly for the mutants of Arakko. I suspect that one way or another only a massive tragedy on Arakko and the heroic intervention of the X-Men will unite the Krakoans and Arakki. 

• I do hope we get to see some Arakki mutants venture out into Earth and decide they like it a lot better than the nightmare they were trapped in. Seems reasonable, right? Surely some nature will beat out nurture here. 

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.