The New Testament Of Irene Adler

“All Mankind’s Woes”
“The New Testament of Irene Adler” 
Immortal X-Men #2-3
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Lucas Werneck 
Color art by Dijjo Lima (R.I.P.)

“All Mankind’s Woes” mainly serves to establish Hope Summers’ role in this story as she becomes the newest member of The Quiet Council thanks largely to the machinations of Exodus, who considers her to be a messiah. For the uninitiated, Hope was introduced in a 2007 crossover story called Messiah Complex in which she was the first mutant child born following the Scarlet Witch’s “no more mutants” hex in House of M. As a result many factions of mutants and anti-mutant forces took an interest in her, and Exodus was among those who believed her to be a messiah. She was brought to the future and raised as Cable’s adopted daughter – hence the Summers surname – and she looks like a young Jean Grey because for a long time she was heavily hinted to be a reincarnated Jean. She eventually made good on her messiah status by using the Phoenix to bring back mutants at the end of Avengers Vs. X-Men, but that now seems like a lesser work compared to Jonathan Hickman making her the leader of The Five, the group who have collectively made mutants effectively immortal and have resurrected thousands of mutants in a short span of time. 

As you can see, Hope is a character with a lot of baggage. She’s also a character who Kieron Gillen has used extensively before, and he’s by far the writer who has done the most to make her a distinct person rather than a plot device. She was the star of his short-lived series Generation Hope, and was a regular cast member in his original Uncanny X-Men run. Gillen’s Hope is very much the pragmatic hard-ass Cable raised her to be, but she’s also a genuinely good and humble person who chafes at the adulation of people like Exodus. The second issue reestablishes all this in her actions – her power makes her thrive on teamwork,  she’s decisive and ruthless in her plan to stop Selene, and she inadvertently repays her debt to Exodus by informing him that the extent of his power is determined by how much others believe in him. It seems like it probably won’t be a good thing that Exodus, a zealot with cult leader tendencies and omega level powers, learns this about himself. But I like the dynamic Gillen is setting up here – a political alliance, a budding friendship, two mutants who requires other people to make them powerful. It’s an intriguing way to explore the “cult of personality.” 

“The New Testament of Irene Adler” is Gillen’s deliberate echo of Jonathan Hickman and Pepe Larraz’s now classic “The Uncanny Life of Moira X” in House of X #2. That story set up Moira and Destiny as parallel figures, and so this time we get a look into Destiny’s life. Gillen is largely connecting the dots on what other writers have put down over the years – most especially the work of Destiny’s co-creator Chris Claremont – but he does some interesting work in fleshing out the character’s romantic relationship with Mystique, which was largely left to subtext and cryptic Comics Code work-arounds for the majority of her publication history. The most crucial bit of continuity surgery performed in this issue is explaining Destiny’s murder by Legion during Claremont’s original Uncanny X-Men run and how that connects to Hickman’s reinvention of both her and Moira. It all fits together perfectly though I suppose it was already implied by Hickman – Destiny was aware through her visions of the future that she had to die for the Krakoa project to happen, and in retrospect she understands that the reason was Moira’s intense fear of her. 

Whereas the Moira story showed us paths Moira had already taken, this Destiny issue naturally gives us a glimpse of what may come down the line. Hickman and Gillen are both very sharp and deliberate writers, but the difference between them is best illustrated by the depiction of these things in text – Hickman gives us an elaborate timeline filled out with historical events, while Gillen gives us an abstract double page spread with events presented as evocative titles, like track names from an album or a catalog of Marvel trade paperbacks that have yet to be published. Hickman is concrete and meticulous like the scientist Moira, Gillen is artsy and lyrical and well-suited to the prophet Destiny. 

There are three very important things established by Destiny’s flood of new visions of probable timelines. The first is her vision of Gillen’s forthcoming event AXE Judgment Day, and Destiny imploring the other council members to trust her visions in order to protect themselves from a coming Eternals attack. The second is that she becomes aware of Sinister’s use of cloned Moiras, which she deduces is the reason every timeline she sees cuts off abruptly, and this all emphasizes how high the stakes of this story are now that as she puts it, “the universe is a snow globe tossed between the hands of a gin-addled child.”  The third is that every vision of the future Destiny has does not include Mystique, which is a nice reversal of Hickman’s “The Oracle.” Mystique only wanted to bring Destiny back, Destiny only wants to keep Mystique around. Both writers present these women as cold, calculating, ruthless self-described terrorists, but they really know how to make you root for their love. 

• Speaking of Mystique bringing Destiny back, the third issue addresses Mystique’s conspiracy in Inferno in a Quiet Council meeting, which gives Xavier the opportunity to whine about the others nitpicking the decisions he, Magneto, and Moira had to make in order to create the nation of Krakoa. I empathize with him, but the self-pity and passive-aggression is very unappealing and exactly why so many of the other characters have come to loathe him. It’s a good character beat, and also gives us an interesting moment in which the always judgmental Kate Pryde admonishes him for being cruel to Mystique. The traditional X-Men members in the cast – Kate, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler – have largely taken a backseat in Gillen’s story thus far, and it’s just nice to see one of them voice an opinion that is not fully on the same page as Xavier. 

• Lucas Werneck continues to impress, rising to the challenge of large scale action and montages of future events, while excelling at character expressions and body language in council debates. I’m fond of Werneck’s wide variety of line weights on any given page, ranging from the ultra-fine to thick chunky outlines to emphasize extreme depth of field, a bold figure placement, or a somewhat surreal effect. His page design also tends to feel loose and spacious, which helps to alleviate the density of Gillen’s text. It all comes out balanced rather nicely – issues that feel more generous with plot and detail than most other Marvel series, but with a visual style that makes it feel breezy rather than heavy. 

• Oh right, there’s a vision of what Exodus can become once trillions of people feed him with their belief. Even with him going after and destroying an evil Sinister…seems bad! I’m very much looking forward to seeing more on this topic. 

The Left Hand

“The Left Hand” 
Immortal X-Men #1
Written by Kieron Gillen
Art by Lucas Werneck
Color art by David Curiel

Immortal X-Men #1 flows so gracefully from where Jonathan Hickman left off in Inferno while firmly introducing a new era for the franchise more generally that it’s now even more baffling that Marvel insisted on lodging X Lives/X Deaths of Wolverine between the two stories. In every way that the latter story fumbles through plot points and inadequately “yes, ands…” Hickman’s story, Immortal X-Men artfully builds on what came before while reestablishing Kieron Gillen as an X-Men writer. 

But this is no surprise, as a major strength of Gillen’s work-for-hire writing is a skill for respecting what other writers have laid down while adding new ideas and value to the ongoing story. The best example of this is what Gillen did for Mister Sinister in his first X-Men run – he effectively fully reinvented the character while using what had come before, and the Sinister we’ve known through the Hickman era is very much the flamboyant Victorian eugenicist creep that Gillen gave us. Gillen picks up the Sinister baton once more, but in a totally new context provided by Hickman – he’s a major political figure in the mutant nation, he’s been instrumental in making mutants effectively immortal, and he’s cooking up ideas for chimera gene mash-ups. 

Gillen quickly reminds us of some elements of his Sinister that have been largely glossed over more recently, such as the fact that he electively became a mutant through extensive cloning of his own body and that he has no care for mutants beyond being genetic fodder for his experiments. By the end of this issue we see that Sinister has been using mindless clones of Moira McTaggert in a scheme to send information from his future selves back to the present so he can have advanced knowledge of events. He’s essentially approximating the precognitive powers of his rival Destiny, but with a difference – while she sees branching timelines ahead of her, he’s working on more empirical evidence of things that have actually happened to him, albeit in varying versions of his lived experience. It’s already shown to be a faulty system in a council vote scene, but a very intriguing development for the character and a clever spin on the utility of Moira’s powers. 

But why would Sinister see Destiny as a rival? This is unclear as of yet, though the opening pages of this issue establish that the two knew one another in England in the wake of World War I, and that she told him a secret that unexpectedly killed his clone body. The scene is a deliberate echo of the Xavier/Moira park bench scene from Powers of X – the setting, the casual conversation, the woman with great knowledge passing it on the arrogant man in a way that shatters his worldview. 

Destiny refuses to share the secret with Mystique, presumably to protect her from words so destructive they could leave Sinister dead and gasping “you’re a ghost, you’re a ghost” as he passed. But what does that mean? I don’t have a good guess at the moment, but I’m intrigued by the seemingly mystical effect of her words. The title of the issue – “The Left Hand” – would suggest that what we’re seeing with Destiny and Sinister here is a conflict between two opposing systems of magic. That, along with the sequence in which Selene reminds us of how “mutant magic” works, makes me think that “magic” could be somewhat literal here. 

Destiny’s prophecies and Sinister’s messages sent back to himself through the Moira clones also make me think of the evocative recurring phrase from Grant Morrison’s New X-Men: “Are these words from the future?” 

Aside from Sinister’s machinations the main plot point of this issue is Magneto stepping down from the Quiet Council in order to do whatever it is he’ll be doing on Arakko in Al Ewing’s X-Men Red, and his seat on the council being taken by Hope Summers largely due to the political maneuverings of Exodus. Hope makes sense in this book for three reasons – it makes sense for The Five to have a representative especially given their previous conflicts with the council in X-Force, Hope’s direct role in making mutants effectively immortal clicks into the title of the series, and this is a character who was central to Gillen’s previous work in this sandbox on Generation Hope and Uncanny X-Men. 

As with Sinister, Hope was not created by Gillen but was largely defined by him, and so it makes sense he’d want to write her again given her “messiah” role is less a matter of narrative contrivance threading together three major X-Men crossovers and more her day-to-day job in mutant society. It should be interesting to see how she fits into this, and the suggestion that her role will directly lead to catastrophe is very intriguing. Her presence certainly does point in the direction of the Phoenix Force becoming a factor in the story, particularly as the front cover teases this with a Phoenix emblem on the empty chair at the center of Mark Brooks’ homage to The Last Supper. 

One of the most promising elements of Gillen’s new run is the writer’s interest in developing Exodus, a character with a bizarre backstory dating back to the Crusades and a crucial role in the Quiet Council who often seemed like a low key insidious presence in Hickman’s X-Men. Exodus is a zealot – “a man with an unyielding code” as Xavier says in Powers of X – and a man of faith who apparently observes a sort of mutant-centric Catholicism based on his knowledge that Jesus Christ was “The Nazarene Mutant.” Exodus sees Hope as the messiah, which is at least part of why he went out of his way to bring her into the running for Magneto’s seat without consulting the rest of the council. As with most of Exodus’ actions since the beginning of the Quiet Council his behavior is noble but there’s a lingering ominousness about him. He always seems to be quietly working a long game, which makes a lot of sense for a guy who’s lived as long as he has. The scale of his life gives him a patience that the younger mutants on the council simply do not possess, and since the impact of very long lives is clearly a major topic of this run I expect that to come into greater focus in regards to him as we move along.

Miscellaneous notes: 

• Lucas Werneck has stepped up his art game quite a bit for this issue, though I think the reality may be that he was simply given some time and encouragement to execute these pages on the level of the work he displays on his Instagram. Werneck’s style here strikes me as a pleasing blend of R.B. Silva and Adam Hughes, and his skill for drawing facial expressions and body language are well suited to a series in which a lot of the scenes will be people having conversations around tables. He’s also good at allowing a bit of implied space and breathing room to pages that may otherwise feel overly dense. 

• Gorgon makes a brief cameo in this issue that suggests the character has settled into something more closely resembling the Gorgon we knew before his death in Otherworld, which is a major relief since the last time the character appeared he was a yelping lunatic slicing up an ice cream stand in Simon Spurrier’s abysmal Way of X. 

• The one place this issue really left me wanting was Colossus basically being around to say “yes” and “no” in a few votes. It’s obvious there will be more room to explore his new role in all this in subsequent issues, but I’m just very eager to get his point of view on all this. Does he feel bewildered by this? How engaged is he? Does he actually understand that he’s a pawn for Xavier here and compromised by his brother Mikhail in X-Force? Colossus is another character Gillen has written quite a bit, so I’m curious to see his take on where he’s at today. 

• The text pages in this issue really do a lot to emphasize this as a jumping-on point for new readers as well as the starting point for a new phase of the story across the line. One page early on spells out the major secrets that are moving story along – the threat of humans at large learning of mutant immortality, a recap of Inferno including the revelation that while Orchis was created by Omega Sentinel she and Nimrod do not care at all about the fate of humans, and that Abigail Brand is collaborating with Orchis. The pages at the end updating the map of Krakoa from HOX/POX is also quite helpful, as is the updated org chart for Orchis. Seriously, after the extent to which X Lives/X Deaths was hostile to new readers, this all comes as a major relief. 

Solve For X

Inferno #2
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Stefano Caselli
Color art by David Curiel

Mystique dominates this issue, appearing on around 75% of the pages as the story shows how she manipulated her way into resurrecting Destiny and getting her voted on to the Quiet Council in the seat vacated by Apocalypse. As a shape shifter Mystique gets what she wants by never appearing to be what she really is, and in this issue we’re nudged to consider something that’s been right in front of us the whole time: Maybe Mystique and Destiny are actually the heroes of this story, and not the antagonists? After all, their invention in Moira MacTaggert’s third life is what put her on a course towards creating the nation of Krakoa, and their combination of foresight and information gathering via infiltration appears to be the only thing that’s giving the mutants an advantage over what appears to be the inevitable attack of Orchis and Nimrod in the next issue. 

As Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men story comes to a close it looks like each of his three tentpole events asks us to consider that the worst person we know has made a great point – first with Magneto realizing his dream of a united and superior mutant nation, second with Apocalypse’s survivalist ethos proven to be justified, and now with Mystique and Destiny securing the future by any means necessary just as they were trying to do in their first major storyline Days of Future Past. 

At this stage of the story our protagonists Moira MacTaggert, Charles Xavier, and Magneto appear to be hamstrung by their pragmatic natures. They cling to a sense of control over their grand designs and scramble to adjust to the unexpected chaos introduced by Mystique and Orchis. All three of them are tripped up by their arrogance and pride, though only Xavier and Magneto seem to be aware of this being one of their shortcomings. There’s no question in the narrative that what they’ve done to create Krakoa has been a net positive, but we now see the limits of their vision, particularly as they let Emma Frost in on the big secret and it all looks terrible from her perspective. 

This issue of Inferno is illustrated by Stefano Caselli, one of the two primary artists of the Marauders series and one of Hickman’s earliest Marvel collaborators back on Secret Warriors and then later on Avengers during the Time Runs Out phase. It makes sense that Caselli was assigned this issue of the series – the narrative doesn’t really demand anything particularly iconic or imaginative, and the plot is mainly a series of conversations that play to his strengths in drawing faces and body language. It’s meat-and-potatoes art, but like… high quality meat and well-prepared potatoes. 

• Mystique’s scheme to revive Destiny is revealed in this issue, and it turns out we already watched most of it in the previous issue, which raises the question of whether or not Xavier and Magneto even attempted to wipe out the possibility of her rebirth as demanded by Moira. The surprising element is that Mystique fulfilled the psychic transfer requirement by imitating Xavier and manipulating Hope into doing it for the first time with “his” encouragement. There’s something rather sweet about this moment – it plays on Hope’s emotional vulnerabilities but also comes across as a kindness, a show of faith in her talent and capabilities. The scenes that follow with Mystique taking care of Destiny as she copes with being overloaded by the past and future rushing into her mind at once is more bittersweet, particularly as Destiny realizes the degree to which Mystique had become unmoored and unhinged in her absence. I hope whichever writer inherits Mystique and Destiny after this story spends some time unpacking this, it’s very ripe.

• Emma Frost is bribed into voting for Destiny because Mystique has stolen something she was desperately seeking – a seemingly sacred item called the Kara Katuça, which she was attempting to  acquire from the unnamed hidden society introduced in a conspicuously random scene at the Hellfire Gala in Hickman’s final issue of X-Men. It’s an odd thing to wedge into the story at this late stage – we only have around 40 or so pages left to go – but I suspect this thing with a name that translates to “black box” in Turkish may end up as a deus ex machina device in battling with Nimrod.

• Emma Frost is the first mutant to be let in on the secret of Moira MacTaggert in a scene that is set by the Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre in Paris, the same place where Xavier and Magneto recruited her as the first member of the Quiet Council back in Powers of X #5.  (Also, more obviously, the depiction of Emma reading Moira’s mind is a direct visual callback to Xavier doing the same in Powers of X.) 

This makes some sense of why Hickman placed Moira in Paris – this scene was very likely sketched out from the start – and the deliberate recurrence of the sculpture makes me wonder why it was chosen to appear in these pivotal scenes. The first time around I thought the work, which is believed to have been created to commemorate a naval victory, was just a nod to Emma taking to the seas in Marauders. But at this stage it seems more like it’s setting her (or Moira, who is more directly visually contrasted with the sculpture on panel) up to be the “goddess of victory” at the end of this arc. The first issue certainly telegraphed a savior role in the first scene, in which we see Emma resurrect Magneto and Xavier presumably after a disastrous Nimrod/Orchis attack to come in the next issue. 

As for the scene itself, Emma quite understandably is furious to have been strung along as she has been through all of this, just as Mystique was upon realizing Magneto and Xavier were playing her for a fool. But she also understands how serious the situation is, and I suspect as we move through the end of this story and into the X-world beyond Inferno that this is the start of her taking on an even larger leadership role.

• The most startling moment of this issue comes in a rather quiet scene between Omega Sentinel and Nimrod in which she tells the developing AI that she’s been monitoring its progress and that it is ready to see what she really is. This line is also the epigraph at the start of the issue, and the previous issue also opens with a line from Omega Sentinel as the epigraph. This strikes me as the set up for what could be a Rabum Alal-level reveal in the third issue, and made me realize that through all of this I have never once given any thought to Omega Sentinel or her presence in the story from the very first issue of House of X.

I went back through all of her scenes and the pattern is clear – from her first lines she is constantly critiquing Orchis and telling them that their plans are likely to end in disaster. Her role as a critical observer is ambiguous, and it’s unclear if she serves any particular master. Director Devo and Doctor Gregor seem to defer to her, but do not answer to her. The alternate timeline version of Omega Sentinel works in tandem with Nimrod but their relationship is also ambiguous, as it defers to her at some points. Her perspective is consistently cold and seemingly neutral. 

So what might she really be? Hickman’s story has an odd recurring theme of characters who are programmed in some way to betray – Cylobel in Powers of X is genetically altered to do this, Isca the Unbeaten’s power dictates that she do this. The alternate Omega remarks on this theme as it’s introduced. The odds seem good that Omega Sentinel will be compelled to betray Orchis, but I don’t think it will be in favor of the mutants. I think it’s more likely that she represents the interests of what will eventually become homo novissima. As a human fully bonded with machines she’s certainly a form of post-humanity. And it makes a lot of sense for this major theme to come around to some sort of conclusion at the end of Hickman’s run. 

I do appreciate the notion of Omega Sentinel not being what she seems coming up in an issue largely focused on Mystique getting what she wants by not seeming to be what she is either. It now seems like Omega and Mystique have been placed in parallel through the entire story as thematic echoes. 

• Colossus is revealed as the new 12th member of the Quiet Council at the end of the issue, which feels like a sensible move, particularly as he fills out what is essentially the X-Men table. This would feel like a fairly unremarkable element if not for the oddly ominous final panel, which tigthens in on his face as Xavier announces “in him, we can trust.” It seems to deliberately signal that something’s not right here but I don’t think we actually have enough space in the plot for there to be some Colossus twist, particularly as this is the first we’ve really seen of Colossus in Inferno or Hickman’s entire story to date. There was a similar move in the previous issue in the ascension of Bishop to Captain Commander, and my sense is that Hickman is stoking paranoia but both characters are poised for big heroic moments. 

• Next issue looks to be rather brutal and bleak as Nimrod and Orchis are prepared to strike. I can’t wait to see the chaos. 

Season Of Change

Inferno #1
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Valerio Schiti
Color art by David Curiel

Before reading this issue I had a feeling of vague dread about it, nervous that the end of Jonathan Hickman’s run on X-Men was premature and a bad compromise that kept more mediocre comics moving along while denying the promise of what we had been told was a long term three act story. I’m still a little sore about that possibility, but the first issue of Inferno is such a strong and exciting start to paying off plot threads started in House of X and Powers of X that whatever happens down the line, this story will probably feel like a satisfying conclusion. 

Let’s just go scene by scene…

• The opening sequence calls back to the opening of House of X, but with Emma Frost reviving Xavier and Magneto. A cool bit of symmetry and foreshadowing. The cover of Inferno #2 seems to directly refer to this sequence, but given Hickman’s aversion to covers that spoil plot action it’s probably like how a few covers of Powers of X referred to plot from previous issues. 

• The text pages updating us on Orchis’ aggressive advances in scale and the mutants’ failed attempts at attacking the Orchis Forge do a nice job of establishing that the stakes have been raised and many things have been happening since we left off from Hickman’s X-Men series. It essentially serves the same effect as the opening scrolls in the Star Wars movies, advancing plot that you don’t really need to see and throwing you into an action sequence set up by this information. This information also gives us a tiny pay off to Broo becoming king of the Brood, a plot point from X-Men that was probably intended for something bigger and more dramatic. Oh well, at least it’s not a total loose end. 

• X-Force’s attack on the Orchis Forge introduces Nimrod and shows how easily it can dispatch mutants as formidable as Wolverine and Quentin Quire. This is another matter of establishing stakes, but more importantly it sets up the Orchis leads Devo, Gregor, and the Omega Sentinel trying to figure out how it is that they’ve been assaulted by the same mutants over and over again. Gerry Duggan’s X-Men series has been teasing at Orchis learning of mutant resurrection but this sequence is far more interesting in that their speculation is further off the mark – Devo is doubtful of the mutants making a scientific breakthrough – and not quite grasping the scale of what has been accomplished with the Resurrection Protocols. A lot of the tension in this issue comes from Orchis lacking a lot of information but having acquired enough data to be right on the verge of figuring out some potentially catastrophic things. 

• We flash back to Mystique and Destiny confronting and murdering Moira MacTaggert in her third life, recreated by Valerio Schiti in a direct panel to panel copy of the memorable sequence illustrated by Pepe Larraz in House of X #2. Hickman has used this trick before, most notably in his Fantastic Four run in which Carmine Di Giandomenico redrew Steve Epting’s excellent scene depicting The Human Torch’s supposed death. The variance in the scenes comes on the fourth page in which we get some new dialogue from Destiny that we certainly could not have been privy to prior to later reveals in House of X and Powers of X. The ending of the scene has a significant change in dialogue that suggests that the Larraz and Schiti versions of this sequence are presented from different perspectives and memories – probably Moira’s the first time since that one focuses on her fear and pain, and Destiny’s in this one since it focuses more on her message and vision of the future. 

• We see Moira in her present life, somehow holding the burned research book from her third life. Hickman and Schiti make a point of showing us this thing, which given our current understanding of how Moira’s lives work simply should not be possible. Hmmm.

• Moira’s movement triggers an unusual spike in Krakoan gateway activity that leads the Orchis network – which we see includes the ape scientists from X-Men #1 and Hordeculture from X-Men #3, two more random loose threads from the series that it’s nice to see in the mix here – to realize that Moira’s location is unique and presumably both important and deliberately hidden. The spike was likely caused by her use of a No-Space, a mutant technology that would be unknown to Orchis as well as nearly all living mutants. Hordeculture, who we learn has been instrumental in Orchis’ understanding of Krakoan biological technology, figure it out: Moira has two totally different portals. X-Force’s intelligence agents discover that Orchis is on to something, but you get the horrible feeling that this won’t be enough.

• Moira returns to her No-Space to be confronted by Magneto and Xavier, which gets a huge amount of exposition out of the way. Moira has become understandably embittered by her isolation, and resentful of these men have been surveilling her while also failing to stop the emergence of Nimrod. The crux of this scene is Moira reiterating that as she sees it, the two greatest threats to their mission are Nimrod and Destiny. She instructs them to use their knowledge and privilege to wipe out the possibility of her resurrection, which they appear to carry out separately. The sequence with Xavier collecting Destiny’s preserved genetic materials from Mister Sinister is presented quite ominously, with Sinister appearing even more Satanic than usual. This calls to mind the promise of his betrayal in Powers of X, in that he knows far more than Xavier realizes, and that Moira emphatically did not want Xavier and Magneto to form a partnership with him, aware of what other versions of Sinister did in her previous lives. 

• A text page establishes that Black Tom Cassidy, whose powers allow him to commune with Krakoa’s living flora, has been suffering from seemingly psychotic episodes and dreaming of both being consumed by the island and machinery moving under his skin. This is an ominous lead-in to a scene with a rather chipper Cypher waking up to meet with his two best pals in the world – Krakoa itself and Warlock, a techno-organic creature related to the Phalanx. We see an echo of the sequence from Powers of X in which Cypher seems to infect Krakoan flora with the techno-organic virus, but this time it appears more benign. This panel – in which we see Cypher’s mutant hand, a living machine, and vegetation in apparent harmony – is also essentially another version of Black Tom’s nightmarish vision. File under foreshadowing. 

• We see a ceremony in which Storm coronates Bishop as the new Captain Commander of Krakoa, as Cyclops steps down from the position as lead captain. Cyclops will remain a captain, but Storm is surprised – “normally you’ve never given these things up without a fight,” a low-key nod to the classic Uncanny X-Men #201, which Hickman previously had Storm reference upon Cyclops’ resurrection in House of X #5. The scene also establishes Psylocke as Gorgon’s replacement and emphasizes the captains’ increasing independence from the Quiet Council’s supervision. 

• The final scene is a Quiet Council sequence in which Moira’s urging to remove Mystique from power leads Xavier and Magneto to a rather ineffectual and wishy-washy suggestion to the rest of the council to consider the possibility of stepping down if they…like, want to, or something? It’s clear that they have not really thought this through, and Nightcrawler and Sebastian Shaw are particularly dubious of the proposition. This move entirely backfires as Mystique moves to replace Apocalypse’s seat on the council with…Destiny, who enters the council chambers very much alive. This startling cliffhanger is essentially Hickman’s equivalent to Grant Morrison’s Xorn reveal in New X-Men – “X-Men emergency indeed, Charles…the dream is over!” 

But of course Mystique, a master of manipulation and subterfuge armed with the foresight provided by her dead wife, would be several steps ahead of Xavier, Magneto, and Moira. And all you need to do is look at the Winter table of the Quiet Council to glean how she pulled this off – Mister Sinister would have the means and the knowledge to tip her off, and Exodus has the telepathic power necessary to activate a Cerebro unit. Flash back to Magneto telling Moira of the composition of the Winter table – “it’s where we parked all of our problem mutants.” It’s also worth noting that Schiti’s art in the Quiet Council scene depicts barren branches and leaves falling from Krakoa’s trees. Winter has come.

(By the way, there’s a neat bit of symmetry in that Destiny seems poised to occupy the third seat on the Autumn table, and the corresponding seat on Arakko’s Great Ring is occupied by their precognitive mutant Idyll.)

And of course the specific things Moira was trying to avoid – Nimrod coming online and Destiny being resurrected – have come to pass in large part because her actions have either accelerated the timeline or forced the issue. And while Nimrod is an unambiguous nightmare, it actually remains to be seen whether or not Destiny will be the problem Moira fears or if she simply represents a threat of having her motives and methods undermined that’s more personal than structural. 

Schiti’s work on this issue is some of the best of his career to date, and it’s clear that he’s done his best to level up to the demands of the story and to absorb some of Pepe Larraz and R.B. Silva’s stylistic decisions to keep a sort of visual continuity with House of X/Powers of X. Schiti does some outstanding work depicting facial expressions and body language – just look at Sinister’s delight upon Destiny’s entrance, and how Xavier’s body shifts from a defeated slump to a stiff and anxious posture upon seeing her. He also does nice work with Hickman’s recurring image of reflected faces, particularly Sinister’s ghoulish eyes on Xavier’s helmet and Xavier and Magneto on Destiny’s featureless and inscrutable metal mask. 

• The title Inferno is, of course, repurposed from the major crossover event headed up by Louise Simonson and Chris Claremont in 1988. This is also obviously an echo of Hickman’s prior repurposing of Secret Wars for the finale of his Fantastic Four and Avengers mega-stories. The title suits the story in the sense that everything is about to burned down either literally or figuratively by a scorned woman – Mystique in this story, Madelyne Pryor in the original. But it’s also worth noting that the original Inferno was unique in that all of its story threads – the mystery of Madelyne Pryor, Magik and Limbo, Mister Sinister and the Marauders, X-Factor believing the X-Men to be dead – effectively concluded all major plot threads Simonson and Claremont had established starting around 1983. Maybe this establishes a tradition that can carry into future comics and the movie franchise: “Inferno” doesn’t have to be a particular story, but rather a spectacular crisis that pays off on years of plotting. 

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. 

I Am Not Ashamed

“I Am Not Ashamed”
House of X #6 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Pepe Larraz
Color art by Marte Gracia and David Curiel

The opening sequence of “I Am Not Ashamed” resolves a big question from the first issue of House of X: How did Charles Xavier, who had always preached an assimilationist dream of peaceful coexistence, arrive at the isolationist solution of creating the Krakoa nation-state? The first issue took place in the immediate aftermath of Xavier’s psychic message to the world, and in this issue we get to see that speech in full. Xavier offers his pharmaceutical miracle drugs to humanity in exchange for Krakoan sovereignty, but explains that while he was once inclined to present this as a gift, it will now come at a price and with conditions after being disillusioned by humanity’s genocidal actions against mutants. The change of heart makes sense, and issue #4 laid a lot of the groundwork for this by emphasizing the emotional impact of these genocides on Xavier. Like most everything in House of X/Powers of X, it’s all cause and effect, and it’s a natural evolution of Xavier’s characterization rather than a betrayal of anything that came before.

One of the key narrative shifts in House of X is in reestablishing Charles Xavier as the leader of mutantdom, and as a mostly benevolent and decent man with a big dream. He’s still got some dubious morality and a god complex, but he’s firmly positioned as the protagonist of the story. Much like Chris Claremont, Scott Lobdell, and Grant Morrison before him, Jonathan Hickman presents Xavier as an inspirational visionary rather than as an unethical and manipulative creep, as he was portrayed through much of the past decade and a half. Hickman played on this history a lot through this story, giving the reader reason to be freaked out by Xavier and assume the worst. But at least for now, we can take Xavier to be a good person with honorable goals who is doing what he believes is best for his people, and for the world at large. 

The bulk of the issue depicts the first meeting of the Quiet Council of Krakoa, and the establishment of the nation’s first laws as the group decide the fate of Sabretooth. The scene does a good job of asserting the value system of the X-Men – mutants must never kill humans, mutants must multiply and thrive, Krakoa is sacred – and gives Pepe Larraz plenty of room to flex on drawing the body language and facial expressions of the assembled cast. The long shots establish a lot of character detail in physical gesture and bearing, and tighter talking head shots convey volumes about personality in what characters do with their hands as they speak. Even without following the dialogue, you get the gist of the conversation in how they move – Mister Sinister’s flippant cruelty, Storm’s seriousness, the thoughtful quasi-spirituality of Exodus, Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw’s different shades of blue blood haughtiness, and Mystique’s impatient, dismissive demeanor. 

A highlight of the scene is when she interjects to taunt her son Nightcrawler for his religion – their relationship is never mentioned, but her callous disdain for the boy she abandoned is very apparent. Nightcrawler’s thoughtful and kind-hearted reply to her question asked in bad faith is a good argument for nurture mattering more than nature, as he’s clearly a much better man for never being raised by this deeply nihilistic woman. 

The final sequence is a celebration of the establishment of Krakoa, and feels a lot like the Ewok celebration conclusion of Return of the Jedi. Larraz also shines here, as he conveys a lot of character beats without the support of dialogue. The scene depicts joyful post-resurrection reunions, a conciliatory moment between Wolverine and his nemesis Gorgon (who has been given a key military leader role), and gives a suggestion of the new dynamic of Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Emma Frost in a cleverly illustrated sequence in which Jean begrudingly passes Emma a beer. It will be fun to see where Hickman goes with this – are we basically going to get an Archie/Betty/Veronica dynamic, or will this get more progressive in its sexual politics? A bit of both would be fun. We’re beyond “human laws” now, but it remains to be seen what gets defined as mutant sexuality, particularly in light of the mandate to procreate. 

Some notes:

• We finally get to see Moira X in the present day, though only in a cameo in her No-Space. But what is she up to these days? Why is she in hiding, even from Krakoa? And does anyone besides Charles Xavier and Magneto know about who she actually is and her role as the chief architect of this grand scheme? 

• It seems that this panel gives us our first glimpse of Doctor Killian Devo, the director of Orchis. I’m particularly excited about this character, and appreciate that Hickman has made the new main villain of the X-Men a guy called DOCTOR DEVO. Stan and Jack would be very proud! 

• I had assumed that we’d get back to Orchis in this issue, but we’ll clearly move on to finding out what their plan is following the destruction of their D̶e̶a̶t̶h̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶r̶ Mother Mold in Hickman’s X-Men series. 

• I filled in the map of the primary Krakoa in the Pacific Ocean with the names of locations for my own purposes, but here it is for you too. It’s just a lot easier to take in at a glance this way. Note the friendly tip of the hat to George R.R. Martin!

• We’re nearing the finish line of HOX/POX now, and there’s still a lot to be resolved in the final issue of Powers of X. Like, what will happen when the mutant consciousness archived becomes part of the Phalanx? What happened in Moira’s 6th life, and why has that been a secret? How did Moira find out about the true potential of Krakoa? And do all of those questions actually tie together? The finale of House of X is hopeful and optimistic, but there’s a nagging sense that the finale of Powers of X will show us the hidden cost of all this, or introduce a narrative catch that complicates everything we’ve seen. 

For The Children

“For the Children”
Powers of X #5 (2019)
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by R.B. Silva
Color art by Marte Gracia

It’s a bit strange to slow narrative momentum to a crawl in the final third of a 12-issue story, but here we are with a 10th issue that feels like an epilogue following the double climaxes in the middle of the story and the previous issue’s triumphs and revelations. “For the Children” is a series of four conversations that mostly fill in details and set up plot to come, mostly with regards to establishing the new purpose of the Hellfire Club and setting up the premise of Gerry Duggan’s Marauders spin-off. There’s some light intrigue in terms of teasing out the membership of the Quiet Council of Krakoa, but it would seem that question was mostly answered by this bit of promotional art by Mike Deodato from a few months ago. 

The plot is inert, but the exposition is necessary and gives Jonathan Hickman some space for pleasing character moments. It’s nice to see the often marginalized Forge take on a big role as Cypher has in previous issues, though it’s hardly surprising given Hickman’s consistent interest in scientists and engineers through his body of work. It’s fun to see Hickman revisit Namor, the prickly and extraordinarily arrogant anti-hero of his New Avengers run. The extended sequence in which Xavier and Magneto recruit Emma Frost into their grand scheme fills in some crucial information about the X-Men’s pharmaceutical business that has been simmering in the background since House of X #1, and provides a crucial beat in which a very intelligent character voices skepticism of their master plan with a nod towards previous disastrous iterations of the “mutant island nation” notion on Genosha and Utopia. 

The final sequence in the distant future offers some plot movement, but the acceptance of Nimrod’s mutant archive into the Phalanx galactic hive mind is rendered with about as much drama as someone swiping a debit card and waiting a few moments for approval while having a vague concern about their checking account getting overdrawn.  Nimrod the Greater provides a huge amount of exposition regarding the evolution of machines and societies. There’s a few lines that nudge the reader to notice the parallels with the main plot about the establishment of the Krakoan nation-state – “a society so advanced that it collapsed in on itself,” “we asked for sovereignty, but with it came an unexpected price” – but it’s all just setting us up for the reveal of what happens when mutation and mutant culture is absorbed and assimilated into the Phalanx. It’s interesting, but not particularly exciting. 

R.B. Silva shows some signs in this issue of strain in keeping up the demanding schedule of producing six consecutive issues of Powers of X in what seems like a relatively tight window of time. His work is still quite good, but you can observe some cut corners – copy/pasted panels, more panels without backgrounds. I suppose some of this comes down to the extremely talky nature of Hickman’s script, and in fairness, Silva goes to town on drawing the holographic sea life of Forge’s home in Dallas. There is a slight blunder in that Silva draws Forge in his Jim Lee-era costume despite this sequence with him and Xavier apparently taking place long ago – this error seems to be addressed by blacking out his X belt buckle, though it’s still a generic X-Men uniform years before he’s a member. It’s no big deal, though.

Notes and observations:

• Magneto really hitting that “grow to an inferno” line hard, just in case the reader didn’t quite pick up on how aggressively Hickman was laying down the notion of an “Inferno” sequel in POX #4. 

• The covers for POX #4 and #5 are reversed in terms of their relationship to actual plot developments in each issue, but I figure this was done to throw off reader speculation. It worked on me! 

• The Forge/Xavier discussion about building Cerebro is the first scene of the series that perhaps didn’t really need to be dramatized, where all the information could’ve been conveyed in a text page. Still, it’s nice to get a moment with Forge and to observe Xavier as he advances his ambitions. And of course, we get a reminder that Xavier has off-world connections to the Shi’ar empire, and possesses something called “logic diamonds.” Surely all very useful information for later. 

• Emma Frost, Xavier, and Magneto meet at the Louvre by the Nike of Samothrace, a surviving masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture depicting the Greek goddess of Victory. The statue, which is believed to be created to commemorate a victory of the navy, would seem to foreshadow Frost’s forthcoming nautical adventures in Marauders in which the Hellfire Club will become, as she puts it in this issue, “the East India trading company of mutantdom.” 

• So Moira X has a No-Place, eh? I’m just dying to see what she’s been up to in the present day.