X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers are going by the digital edition.
X-MEN: This is the fifth volume of just-plain-X-Men, although confusingly the legacy numbering continues from the last run of Uncanny X-Men.
COVER (PAGE 1): The residents of the Summers House (plus the visiting Corsair) in the Blue Area of the Moon. More of that inside.
PAGES 2-3: A flashback to Charles Xavier giving Scott Summers a pair of ruby quartz glasses to control his optic beams. It’s a metaphor for Xavier giving Scott the confidence to embrace what makes him superhuman, of course – plus, there’s a parallel being drawn with the leader of Orchis, Killian Devo, but we’ll come to that. Scott’s visor can be seen sitting on a stand in the corner of the room.
Scott seems unsure that the glasses will work, but it was established way back in the 1960s “Origins of the X-Men” back-ups that Scott got his ruby quartz glasses at the orphanage, long before he met Xavier. (The original explanation was that he was given them to control headaches; a 1980s retcon brought Mr Sinister into the picture,) So if this is meant to be the first time Scott uses ruby quartz, it’s a retcon. Maybe he’s just unsure about trusting a new pair.
PAGE 4: Laid out like one of the House of X / Powers of X data pages, but it’s a typical Marvel recap page with headshots of the cast.
PAGE 5: Credits, still in the HoXPoX style. The Krakoan text above the X (simply reads “X-Men”, and the word above the credits is “one”.
The issue title is “Pax Krakoa”, playing on “Pax Americana” (the notion that American dominance brought comparative world peace in the latter 20th century). Basically, it’s positioning Krakoa as a superpower.
The small print in the bottom right reads “Mutants of the world unite”, referring to the famous line from the Communist Manifesto (“Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains”). That fits both with the mutant liberation theme, and with the theme of individuals becoming part of a larger whole. Not subtly, but it does.
PAGES 6-17: Cyclops, Storm, Magneto and Polaris attack “the last Orchis stronghold on Earth”, bring it down, and liberate the people who Orchis were holding in stasis tubes – all of whom are mutants except for one…
Orchis. Orchis were the main villains in House of X, where they were trying to build Sentinels in space in what they apparently considered an act of self-defence against humans. HoX played up the parallels with the X-Men and the vicious cycle of escalation rather more, and made them come across as somewhat more sympathetic and understandable. This bunch, in contrast, are demented extremists. Base leader Dr Mars rejects the idea of wiping the database to stop it falling into X-Men hands, and opts instead for a suicide scheme of turning everyone into an ape. We don’t actually see what happens to the apes (Magneto deals with them off panel), but presumably that precious database falls into the X-Men’s hands.
“The last Orchis stronghold on Earth.” The term “stronghold” is significant as part of Hickman’s cosmology of cosmic societies from Powers of X, though that’s not something Storm herself would recognise in using the term.
Cyclops and Storm. Storm’s a bit zealous at the start of this scene, isn’t she? Granted that these guys are Sentinel builders, she keeps talking about Orchis as “conquered people”. She also berates Orchis for keeping people in stasis – “How little they must think of themselves to treat others this way” – despite having voted to do something broadly similar to Sabretooth in House of X #6.
Cyclops gives a somewhat more measured inspirational speech about how the X-Men are winning because mutants are the future and no amount of Orchis science and technology is going to stop that. In the context of the wider Hickman project, this is dramatic irony – Powers of X tells us that in fact, a technology-driven posthumanity always wins in the end.
The stasis tubes. Most of them hold mutants, though they all seem to be new characters. The two gold and silver figures are specifically drawn to our attention in the next scene, so they’re probably important – otherwise they seem to be randoms. We’re not told why Orchis were holding them, but presumably some sort of experimentation was in mind.
The unnamed non-mutant. This is Serafina, a character from Mike Carey’s run. She was one of the Children of the Vault (as Storm seems to realise) – a community who had been locked inside a sealed vault where time was accelerated relative to the outside world, so that 6,000 years passed for their society while 30 years passed outside. This is why Polaris detects “massive atemporal development”. Although the Children were said to be a separate species on account of their genetic drift, their actual superpowers were attributed to advanced technology. In other words, they’re posthumans, just like Powers of X warned about. Serafina, in particular, had technology interfacing powers, making her the most posthuman of all.
Serafina claims here that she emerged from the Vault “before [she] was fully cooked”, because “wild gods [were] loose in the world”. The Children’s actual motivations in the Carey stories weren’t always entirely clear, but broadly they seemed to believe that they were the rightful inheritors of the world. Note that Magneto – who knows what happened in Powers of X – suggests that the wild gods are mutants, and wants to chase after her until Cyclops overrules him.
Serafina did not have the photo-negative look when we last saw her. That’s new, and it’s a plot point. Nor does the story give any clue of what Orchis wanted with her, bearing in mind that she’s not a mutant – though maybe they just couldn’t tell the difference.
PAGES 18-22. The X-Men bring the liberated mutants back to Krakoa and Dr Cecilia Reyes checks over them.
Cecilia Reyes. A mutant doctor who’s been a member of the cast on and off since 1997. Basically the go-to X-Men medic these days, if the injuries aren’t exotic enough to call for a full-blown scientist character. Reyes is basically a non-combatant; her power is a force field.
Magneto. The children of Krakoa idolise him, and he rather enjoys the adulation. This doesn’t seem entirely healthy – and note that he gets much more attention than the other X-Men, perhaps because he’s willing to play along.
Polaris and Cyclops. Scott invites Lorna to join the Summers family reunion, pointing out that Alex will be there; the significance here is that Lorna and Alex were a couple for years. Scott talks about the birth of his son. That’s Cable, of whom more later. It’s the second somewhat-inspirational speech Scott has given in this issue, and Lorna politely questions how much of it is for show.
PAGES 23-26. Killian Devo arrives on the Orchis Forge to take charge of the operation. Generally, this scene takes us much further back to the parallels between the X-Men and Orchis which we saw in House of X. Devo talks about the Orchis Forge as a refuge (in similar terms to Krakoa) and uses the same “Look at what they have done” line, in reference to the Orchis dead, that House of X used about mutants.
Killian Devo. This is the first time we’ve seen him, but in the data pages of House of X #1, he was named as Orchis’s director. He’s said to be 63, and before he was in Orchis, he was affiliated with STRIKE (a UK organisation from Captain Britain which was broadly aligned with SHIELD). He clearly sees Orchis as the good guys, cheerfully rattling off all the reputable organisations where his staff worked in the past, and grudgingly conceding that there are also ex-HAMMER and -Hydra staffers (whom he considers a “lesser evil”). He personally designed the Orchis refit of the station, but hadn’t arrived by the time the X-Men attacked – he does seem to feel some personal responsibility for the deaths that ensued. Karima indicates that, despite the X-Men’s attack, the Orchis Forge is still conducting some sort of “experiment” (our attention is drawn here to the former location of the Mother Mold), for which Devo is necessary.
Devo also appears to be somewhat posthuman – he has cyborg arms and has some sort of visor fitted to his head. He tells us later that this allows him to see despite natural blindness. Visually, there are parallels both with Xavier and Cyclops, in terms of the permanent eye-covering.
PAGES 27-31. At the Summer House, the Summers family entertain the visiting Starjammers. Aside from the actual content, one thing to notice here (and throughout) is the shift of scale from House of X. That book was concerned with the huge social changes brought about by Krakoa; X-Men shifts focus down to the level of smaller groups.
The Summer House. A home for the Summers family next to the Blue Area of the Moon. We’ve seen it before in House of X #3, when the X-Men set off for their attack on the Orchis Forge. It was mentioned in Powers of X #5 as the location of one of Xavier’s back-up “cradles”.
Interestingly, Cyclops has chosen not to have his home on Krakoa itself, though the Summer House is a Krakoan habitat with a link to the main island. We’re told later that the Summer House is on the Blue Area of the Moon; its main significance for the X-Men context is that this is where Jean Grey “died” as Dark Phoenix. Which seems like an odd place to set up home.
The Summers family. Traditionally portrayed as one of the most important mutant bloodlines. We’ll come back to the history of individual characters if it turns out to matter in future issues, but the permanent residents are:
- Cyclops himself, obviously.
- Wolverine, who is not a member of the Summers family. I’ll come back to that.
- Jean Grey / Marvel Girl, Cyclops’s wife and fellow founding X-Man. (Or ex-wife, depending on whether you think their marriage ended on her death – we don’t establish here how they regard their current relationship.)
- Alex Summers / Havok, Cyclops’ brother, and an X-Man on and off since the late sixties.
- Gabriel Summers / Vulcan, the third Summers brother who was born in outer space and never knew his relatives until X-Men: Deadly Genesis came along. After Ed Brubaker’s run, Vulcan was shunted off to Marvel’s cosmic titles and the X-books pretty much forgot about him until now. He spent some time as the Emperor of the Shi’ar, and as near as I can tell, he was last seen in War of Kings #6, where he vanished in battle with Black Bolt. (Black Bolt long since returned from the same apparent death, so there’s no particular reason why Vulcan wouldn’t have survived too.) He’s behaving like a grandiose Silver Age villain in this story, but it seems to be partly tongue in cheek. There’s obviously a back story to be filled in here.
- Nathan Summers / Cable, the son of Scott Summers and Madelyne Pryor (who later turned out to be a clone of Jean Grey). Nathan grew up in a far future dominated by Apocalypse, where he was raised by a time travelling Scott and Jean as seen in the miniseries Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix. Cable was the quintessential early nineties guns and ammo character, but this is a divergent version of Cable who first appeared in the recent Extermination miniseries, and had his back story fleshed out in the recent X-Force. In very broad strokes, when the teenage X-Men from the Silver Age spent an extended period in the present day (in All-New X-Men and X-Men Blue), this eventually caused disruption to the timeline that led to Cable travelling back in time decades early to sort it all out and to get rid of the older, original Cable who ought to have dealt with it but failed to do so. So this is a younger Cable but, sharing the back story of the original through to his late teens – as such, he still recognises Scott and Jean as his parents.
- Rachel Summers / Prestige, the daughter of Scott and Jean from the alternate future timeline of Days of Future Past, who travelled back in time to become a permanent resident here. She’s been a member of the X-Men and Excalibur on and off since the 80s. She was a Hound in the DOFP timeline, which she likes to remember with the spikes on her costumes (mentioned here); the tattoos on her face are connected with that as well. The codename Prestige comes from X-Men Gold.
Hickman largely avoided characters with time-travel back stories, like Cable and Prestige, in House of X. Cable, in particular, comes from a timeline in which events don’t seem to pan out as seen in Powers of X – Apocalypse rises to dominance instead.
The visitors are the Starjammers, space pirates and general adventuring swashbucklers:
- Christopher Summers / Corsair, the father of Scott, Alex and Gabriel, abducted by aliens when Scott and Alex were children. He’s a regular human.
- Raza, the cyborg
- Ch’od, the big strong reptile guy.
- Hepzibah, the skunk-woman, who is Corsair’s partner.
For present purposes you really don’t need to know anything about the last three beyond the fact that they’re Corsair’s regular entourage.
PAGES 32-33. Data pages on the Summer House, largely with a floor plan, though also confirming that Vulcan has been a bit of a troublemaker. There’s a story coming with him, clearly. The Summer House has two empty bedrooms, though it’s not clear who they’re being reserved for, if anyone. Recall that Mr Sinister’s gossip column in Powers of X #4 suggested that there might be still more Summers brothers.
That column also implied that Wolverine was having an affair with someone “married with a kid”, with the full knowledge of her husband, who was “up to much the same, and more.” This now seems to be Jean, the kid being Cable, and the husband being Cyclops. Look closely at the floor plan: not only is Jean’s bedroom between Cyclops and Wolverine (something that isn’t obvious from the numbering of the legend), but those three bedrooms have connecting doors which are missing from all the other rooms. As for Cyclops’ own affairs, the obvious candidate would be a resumed relationship with Emma Frost.
PAGES 34-35. Corsair is worried about the X-Men’s ambitious new direction, and Cyclops reassures him. Pretty self explanatory.
PAGES 36-38. Back on the Orchis Forge, Devo speaks to Alina Gregor about the death of her husband. The parallels with Krakoa continue – Alina reveals that she has a way of bringing her husband back. This seems to involve a ruby quartz crystal in some way (which would suggest a connection with Sinister), and implies that Alina believes she can restore him from back-up just like the mutants are doing. If that’s right, then it would cast doubt on whether the X-Men really do need those five combined (though Moira seemed to think so in her journal).
PAGES 39-40. The Krakoan text on the trailer page reads “NEXT: ARAKKO.” That was the name of the other island which was supposedly split off from Krakoa in ancient times.
If Krakoa is supposed to be Heaven, couldn’t it be that certain characters are being given everything they want, in order to keep them happy.
There cannot be conflict in Heaven.
It goes along with Lorna’s talk with Scott.
He’s in Heaven, and gets everything he wants, so he must be happy all the time, right?
Old Man Xavier is telling Scott and Logan, you both want Jean, that’ll make you happy, fine, you both get Jean. Wear her out.
Don’t fight with each other anymore.
You can all have whatever you want.
Oh, and Scott wants Emma too.
Fine. Emma will go along with that.
There. Everyone gets what they want. Now, keep quiet and keep doing the stupid resurrected mutant chant.
Thanks Chris V. I missed that part about humans being allowed.
We share the same opinion on Bachalo, so not looking forward to that, but I’ll give it a shot.
“The only thing we could conclude is that Moira didn’t have mutant powers in those other realities.”
Imagine in other alternate realities, Moira is a mutant and keeps rebooting those realities with her death as well.
Krzysiek Ceran> Unless some heavy retconning takes place, I think it’s impossible for Vulcan to have been restored from ‘Emperor Vulcan’ era. Or even Deadly Genesis era. The data pages say that so far only Xavier has the ability to copy minds with Cerebro. Xavier was depowered in Deadly Genesis. He received his powers back in the finale of The Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t have Cerebro in space – and even if he did, there was virtually no time for him to do that between regaining his powers and being sent back to Earth with half of the team.
I think you misunderstood “only Xavier can copy” – that meant copy *back* into a clone, Cerebro runs the backups all by itself.
Krzysiek Ceran>…wait, having written all that I now remember that Cerebro can copy minds only thanks to Forge upgrading it as such and that meeting looked like it was supposed to take place around X-Men #1 (1991). But that can’t be right – Destiny died before that, but Xavier sounds in PoX#6 like he has the ability to resurrect her only chooses not to because of Moira.
Hickman said in the AiPT interview that Forge’s costume in that scene was a cockup, and ignore it.
Chris V> It’s been stated that Krakoa will allow humans on the island, so long as they have a mutant sponsor and get acceptance. … Considering Scott’s prestige and the fact that Corsair is Scott’s father and not a bigot, I’m sure that Corsair could get permission to visit Krakoa.
Wasn’t it that a (sponsored) human could visit the Krakoa biomes/embassies (like the one on the Moon), but no human could visit *Krakoa*?
I didn’t think so, but I may have misunderstood.
I remember someone in the comments mentioning about Jubilee’s baby.
Jubilee must bring the baby to Krakoa, or she’s not living on Krakoa, itself.
I remember the story saying something about how Krakoa could reject any non-mutants, if it chose, even if the human had a sponsor to visit.
What happens to the bodies?
When the X-Men die, like in the assault on Orchis, what happens to the bodies? Surely they’re not just floating in space or lying decapitated on the station floor?
Do you think there might be a Damage Control-type of X-Team who goes to collect the bodies? Maybe a teleporter? Or do you think they turn to genetic sludge?
I’m a little worried that these bodies might start to pile up. Or, you know, what happens if people start collecting the bodies and selling them on eBay or to people like the U-Men? Or flat out clone them.
I’m sure it’ll be addressed somewhere.
@Ben
“Do you think there might be a Damage Control-type of X-Team who goes to collect the bodies?”
Maggot to the rescue!
Is a retcon? I always tough inherent in a retcon should be an explanation for the previous contuinity. Otherwise it’s just an overwrite.
@Dabrokepope
“Is a retcon? I always tough inherent in a retcon should be an explanation for the previous contuinity.”
Nah, I think the meaning and function is pretty fluid. Ala Wikipedia:
“Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which established facts in a fictional work are adjusted, ignored, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which breaks continuity with the former.”
Comic Book Resources liberally applies the term in its analysis of Waid’s History of the Marvel Universe series:
https://www.cbr.com/marvel-universe-vietnam-war-retcon-sin-cong-conflict-world-war-ii-punisher-fantastic-four/
Everything felt so off in this issue I can’t say I enjoyed it much. Funny that Scott seems to have conveniently forgotten the horrors his son had to endure were caused by Apocalypse and not by humans. No bad talking your dictators!
I told you! I friggin’ all of you right here in this comment section…
https://www.housetoastonish.com/?p=4166#more-4166
I told you something like this was inevitable. Jean and Logan having a sexual relationship. Didn’t expect it under these sort of circumstances but we’ve finally arrived at that point.
Some of you deluded yourselves into thinking Jean’s new direction in X-Men Red might actually last. Some of you laughed.
Well, who’s laughing now? HEEHAAAHHAAA!!!
It’s not like this is the first time that the X-Men have forgiven big, bad villains for doing horrible things, simply because they are mutants.
Claremont’s run continually treats most mutant characters as if they are redeemable.
Magneto has been continually accepted back in to the X-fold, no matter what he did in the past.
Even trying to kill Wolverine in the most horrible way possible was forgiven after “Fatal Attractions”.
I mean, on one hand, I like the idea that Xavier’s dream involves forgiveness and compassion.
It was always based on the idea that individuals can change.
However, Magneto never really changes for long, and Xavier keeps accepting him.
On the other hand, I’m sure it’s old man Xavier again.
“Scott, I gave you Jean. Just forgive Apocalypse. Wolverine has forgiven Magneto for trying to kill him. I’m sure you can forgive Apocalypse for making a mistake. Don’t make me take Jean away from you.”
Again, Magneto has been on the side of the mutated angels for 15 years now. 🙂
For me the most egregious example of completely unearned forgiveness happened in Brian Wood’s X-Men, where the team takes in and teams up with Sublime. Somebody (Rachel?) even has a terrible romance subplot with him if I recall correctly. And they basically don’t even mention U-Men, Weapon Plus or anything the character has been involved in or directly responsible for.
Well 15 years in real time, that’s only like three months in comic book time.
Magneto also was pretty vicious spreading around his righteous anger in his so series. I loved that series, even tho it got derailed by Axis and then shut down because of Secret Wars.
I know Magneto has been accepted for years now.
However, it’s not like he doesn’t go crazy every so often and try to kill all humans.
Only later to be given a hug by Xavier and accepted again.
Even during the Magneto solo series (by Cullen Bunn), which I really loved, it was basically Magneto as a “mutant version of the Punisher”.
I’m not sure I’d call that version of Magneto reformed.
He just wasn’t trying to kill everyone or rip out Wolverine’s skeleton.
Anyway, my broader point is that giving Apocalypse a chance isn’t out-of-character for the X-Men.
Is the cliffhanger hinting at Nimrod? Could that not be the crystal in his head?
Well. To be fair. What has Apocalypse ever really accomplished? He gave a makeover to several X-Men, of which only Angel was actually bothered by it, but apart from that… aren’t all his triumphs relegated to alternate timelines/universes/possible futures? What is the net result of all his plotting in the present of the main universe? He’s a pretty sorry villain results-wise, isn’t he? I think Wolverine killed more people than him.
(God, after that ridiculous ending to Inhumans vs X-Men Emma has probably killed more people than him. And a pony).
(This post is mostly informed by X-Plain the X-Men, I haven’t read many stories from the 90s).
@Krzysztof
This never occurred to me and it’s kinda hilarious. Chuck’s stillborn twin sister grew up a splat in a sewer, and she still murdered 16 million people in two issues. How does this asshole get away with calling himself “Apocalypse?” Over thousands of years, he’s done less to screw with human evolution than the steampunk version of Dr. Frankenfurter has done in a few decades. His only lasting accomplishment is giving a bunch of B-list characters edgier superpowers.
In Hickman’s S.H.I.E.LD. Apocalypse did help fight off Brood invasion way back in ancient Egypt. Perhaps his effectiveness is cyclical and modern Apoc is at a nadir point.
@Krzysztof
“Well. To be fair. What has Apocalypse ever really accomplished?”
Are we just counting Apocalypse’s direct actions, or anything he eventually caused to happen? Because Archangel wiped out an entire town and its population in order to make Tabula Rasa in Uncanny X-Force, and the Apocalypse Twins murdered tens (hundreds?) of thousands of their formerly-mutant-turned-human followers in Uncanny Avengers, not to mention murdered a Celestial in order to bring another Celestial by to step on the earth.
And given the number of alternate worlds or possible futures Apocalypse himself conquered, and given that he can’t do so in the prime one by the sheer conceit of ongoing superhero comics, I’d say he’s a pretty major threat.
Krzysztof Ceran
Oh shit I remember that. Fucking Brian Wood.
I remember that book of his coming out and what felt like the nadir of the X-line when it felt totally directionless.
Now that the focus has shifted from societies to individuals, this is where I have to side with the detractors of HoX/PoX. That series was fascinating; this one, at least in its first issue, is just off-putting.
@Job
I feel like your argument actually works for me. Archangel and the Twins were more affective Apocalypses than Apocalypse himself. 😉
(I’m not seriously saying that Apoc is prime X-Men material just because he can’t accomplish anything as a villain, by the way. I just find it funny.)
Just re-read Mike Carey’s opening X-Men arc, and I had completely forgotten Serafina has machine-interface powers. So naturally Hickman would use her as that fits with his themes in HoXPoX.
@trininomad
I don’t think Nimrod has been built yet Moira’s tenth life (he’s supposed to spawn from the Mother Mold the X-Men dropped into the sun). The ruby looks like it’s another parallel with Cyclops’s visor. I wonder if Orchis recovered any of the bodies of the dead X-Men and are reverse-engineering the cloning process.
@CJ
Well they would have Cyclops’ body at least. So maybe it is that. Clone Fiesta
I wonder when is Hickman going to use Danger. Considering the man/mutant/machine triangle he seems to be putting at the center of his story, I’d expect her to pop up sooner rather than later.
@trininomad
“Is the cliffhanger hinting at Nimrod? Could that not be the crystal in his head?”
Considering the lion about how Dr. Gregor’s husband was Orchis’ “hunter,” I’d say almost certainly.
CJ-Yes, I’m pretty sure that Trininomad was saying that the ending hinted that Dr. Gregor’s husband is going to be used to somehow create the Nimrod.
So, no, the Nimrod doesn’t exist in the current time-line yet, but it seems that the Nimrod is still going to be created.
Back to Jean and the love triangle really quick: I think we need to let this play out a little bit, because it can go many different ways. Maybe it’s a story about Jean’s assertiveness and sexual agency. Maybe it’s a story about Scott and Logan’s machismo, using Jean’s character lazily as an object of their desire. Or maybe it’s something completely different and new — the sexual implications could be a smokescreen.
Fact is, Jean is clearly different in this new dawn, and she’s received enough page time that it’s certain we will eventually get to dive into the character. Hickman also mentioned that she won’t remain in this costume, so we are due for a story there.
@Krzysiek Ceran
I was wondering that too, in one of the other threads! Like, would Krakoa even consider her a mutant or just hardware? (I’m sure Madison Jeffries really wants to know.)
@YLu and @Chris V
That’s a good point, especially about the hunter line–though it must suck for Moira IX and those X-Men since all that intel came at a high price, or for the result to be postponing it just a little. (Inevitability of killer AI, I guess)
In any case, the Claremont-era Nimrod would also be a good fit in this series. He was even a vigilante for a while and fought Juggernaut. It even helped Jamie Rodriguez’s kid do his homework if I remember correctly. He’d be a somewhat sympathetic anti-mutant antagonist, just like Gregor’s husband. Plus: Rachel has a history with him.
Rachel and Nimrod relationship!
I don’t think this makes sense with Moira’s past lives, but it would be kind of interesting if Moira’s actions in this life was the impetus for the Nimrod’s creation.
She thought it was the creation of the Mother Mold that lead to the creation of a Nimrod.
In reality, it was the X-Men killing Dr. Gregor’s husband that was the impetus for the creation of a Nimrod.
It could play in to Moira thinking she is in control of everything, because of her mutant power, but in reality, maybe her arrogance (thinking she can manipulate everything) is causing things to keep getting worse.
“Or maybe it’s something completely different and new — the sexual implications could be a smokescreen.”
Unless it gets revealed that Logan and Scott haven’t been fighting over Jean this whole time but rather fighting their lust for each other…I mean, really, where else can they go with this?
“In any case, the Claremont-else era Nimrod”
I guess we all forgot about the Nimrod circa X-force when Nicieza was writing the title back in the 1990s…
Yeah, it was Show’s corporation that had the government contract to produce the Nimrod project, as far as Claremont left things.
Now, Shaw is on Krakoa.
Maybe it was those 1990s-era military budget cuts. They gave up on the Nimrod project.
Then, after 9/11/01, they weren’t interested in starting up the Nimrod project again.
So, the research was privatized, with Orchis taking up the Nimrod project in the private sector.
You can just say that some of the government contracted scientists working on the Nimrod project during the X-Force story-line went to work for other agencies when the budget cuts came around.
So, some of the ex-SHIELD agents working for Orchis now could have been some of the scientists working on project Nimrod originally.
I loved HoxPox but found this pretty lukewarm. I understand the narrowing the scope but without the ambition it just reads like a regular X-men comic. Not bad, but not nearly as exciting.
@Bob
There’s a great scene in the AMC Preacher series with a battle between two angels who are immediately resurrected in new bodies when they die… except they’re locked a hotel room, which rapidly fills up with piles of identical corpses.
@Krzysiek
Hsave we seen the Apocalypse twins on Krakoa? They have some potential to be interesting if developed. I dunno, mostly I just liked those character designs.
“Unless it gets revealed that Logan and Scott haven’t been fighting over Jean this whole time but rather fighting their lust for each other…I mean, really, where else can they go with this?”
Transcendental meditation? Helping each other cope with the yet undocumented, but altogether likely, psychological issues caused by pod-birth? Planning a devious plot to undermine creepy uncle Xavier? I like your suggestion best, though.
Nimrod – yeah, I hadn’t thought of it, but after I read the issue plenty of people were saying it looks like Gregor’s coming back as him.
“but presumably that precious database falls into the X-Men’s hands.”
This part (of the issue) made no sense to me. They thought their choice was either wipe the database, or ‘sacrifice themselves’ (they knew it was irreversible?) and probably lose it anyway? Did they just massively overestimate the power of apes?
I don’t think you can say Bishop’s future cause was taken care of by stopping the X traitor, since all the stuff about Hope came up later as his new cause. Then again, we had Cable’s future wiped out by Apocalypse’s defeat, even though he came back anyway, soooo…?
(Forgot to move on to newer comments)
“Magneto has been continually accepted back in to the X-fold, no matter what he did in the past.
Even trying to kill Wolverine in the most horrible way possible was forgiven after “Fatal Attractions”.”
This comment made me realise for the first time that Hickman (and all the X writers between ’96 and Moira’s death) has been missing the chance to retcon Onslaught as Moira’s fault. How did he come about? The Magneto mindwipe by Xavier, where SOMEHOW Magneto’s darkness manifested as some kind of psychic entity and was able to add Magneto powers to Xavier’s own. And who had been messing with Magneto’s physiology in an effort to prevent his violent tendencies???
Apocalypse has also created atrocities throughout the millennia, one of which was creating Sinister, who is partly responsible for Inferno. What is odd is that they allow him in when technically he is not a mutant.
Re: Apocalypse
From Wikipedia:
“Layton intended to reveal this character to be the Daredevil villain the Owl on the final page of X-Factor #5.”
Ivan> Fact is, Jean is clearly different in this new dawn, and she’s received enough page time that it’s certain we will eventually get to dive into the character. Hickman also mentioned that she won’t remain in this costume, so we are due for a story there.
No, he said that she’d be wearing a green & yellow version of a costume which originally wasn’t green & yellow (excluding team & Phoenix costumes, that means either the Jim Lee or X-Men Red suits, I suppose) in a story Russell Dauterman’s drawing.
He’s also said, separately, that everyone on Krakoa has wardrobes full of their old costumes (“mutant clothes, not human clothes” as he put it) and there’s a directive that artists can pick whichever one they want to draw as a general rule.
[He also attributed Jean wearing the miniskirt to Phoenix’s reasons for doing so in UXM #137. Not quite sure why that would apply, but…]
“The Moira retcon has put constraints on distant futures for the X-Men. You can classify those futures as 1) Moira is somehow still alive (like Life 9 or Life 6), 2) Moira never existed, 3) Moira died before she turned 13, or 4) Moira was depowered as an adult.”
Leaving aside the time-traveler question, by this logic the only possible end state of Hickman’s run that leaves most of X-Men continuity intact is #4. I’m placing my bet right now on Moira depowering *herself* after locking in some desirable timeline.
Alternately, a universe indistinguishable from the main 616 and containing a non-mutant Moira could slam into and replace this one, or everything happening here could turn out to be a simulation taking place over and over inside The World. But the more interaction the new X-books have with the main 616, the less those theories work.
Shawn Lion-This version of Sinister genetically engineered himself to have mutant DNA (taken from Thunderbird).
It was already mentioned in House of X.
That’s why Krakoa allowed Sinister to arrive on the island.
As far as his mutant-hating past…it’s already been stated that Moira was against trusting Sinister, but Xavier and Magneto felt that Sinister was absolutely essential for their plans.
Basically, it’s a “deal with the Devil” type of scenario.
Alternately, Moira comes to realize she is the cause of mutants having such a horrible future.
She decides it’s for the best that she dies for the final time in life eleven.
She makes sure to die before her teenage years in life eleven.
Without Moira being alive, everything on Earth-616 happens exactly as it did before, only without the interference of Moira.
Moira isn’t that important to the Marvel Universe.
Maybe there are some superficial changes to the history of the X-books. That’s all.
Otherwise, it’s like a reset back to the point before Krakoa was formed.
The history of the X-Men as we knew it from Earth-616 is basically the same, just without the revelations from Hickman’s run.
1. Being a genetically engineered human through mutant DNA doesn’t definitively make Mr. Sinister a mutant. The idea of a mutant gene is just so silly. Can anyone implant themselves with a mutant gene (whatever that’s meant to be) and be considered a mutant? I’d consider them an altered human.
2. Canonically Mr. Sinister got a sample of mutant DNA from a shape-shifter named Courier before Professor X was even born. This happened in Gambit’s first ongoing and it was actually a pretty clever story in terms of setting up the Gambit-Sinister connection.
I think someone else mentioned the U Men in one of these threads. Would the U Men be considered mutants by Krakoan standards? What about humans on Mutant Growth Hormone? I don’t think it’s all that old fashioned to say mutants need be “natural” by definition.
That is true that Sinister already did genetically engineer himself using a mutant’s genetics during the Gambit series.
I forgot about that.
It was revealed that Apocalypse didn’t give Essex the ability to shape-shift.
I think the bigger question is, what about albino people?
As far as the U-Men, did any of them actually gain powers from their organ transfers?
I got the idea that they were a crazy cult, and were just harvesting mutant organs.
I expect that they all die as soon as they implant the mutant organ in to their own body.
How is someone supposed to gain Cyclops’ ability to shoot optic beams from his eyes simply by implanting Cyclops’ eyes in to their own head?
Won’t they just end up blind?
@Karl_H
And it wouldn’t be hard to depower herself since she knows how to make a cure already from Life III.
Scary to think that someone like Leech is Moira’s greatest fear, second to Destiny or Blindfold.
Re: Mutant Sinister
I could have misunderstood the whole thing, but I didn’t take it as Sinister implanting himself with an X-gene (as he did in the Gambit series) so much as, in the process of Sinister creating all these different versions of himself, a random Sinister coming out with an unforeseen mutation, thereby making him a mutant.
This would make him as “natural” a mutant as the clone of a genetically modified immortal scientist can be, I guess? Or at least something different from the U-Men.
But, again, I could have misunderstood the whole thing.