Powers of X #4 annotations
As always, there will be spoilers, and page numbers are going by the digital edition.
PAGE 1 (COVER): Professor X, wearing Cerebro, surrounded by the floating heads of various X-Men from the present and “Year 100” timelines. Most of them are recognisable, and perhaps the others are more of the “Sinister line” mutants from Year 100 (Rasputin and North are both there, for example). The solicitation version of this cover shows that the guy partly obscured by the logo is orange and has a fin on his head, so I’m drawing a blank there. None of this has anything much to do with the story inside.
PAGE 2: The opening epigraph is another Professor X quote, not taken from anything in the issue. The significance isn’t clear, beyond the obvious point about making difficult choices driven by need.
PAGE 3: The credits. The story title is “Something Sinister”, which is self-explanatory. The small print in the bottom right reads “Sinister with the cape”, referring to the (familiar) version of Mr Sinister who replaces his predecessor in the course of the issue.
PAGES 4-9: “Year One.” Professor X and Magneto visit Bar Sinister – an entire island community of Mr Sinisters – and try to get him to focus his efforts on mutant DNA. A “Sinister with the mutant gene” kills the previous Prime Sinister, takes control, and agrees to a partnership.
Year One: We’re back – more or less – to the format of the earlier issues, which went through the “Year 1”, “Year 10”, “Year 100″ and Year 1000” time frames. But there’s no Year 100 section in this issue, presumably because the X-Men of Year 100 died last issue.
Mister Sinister: Right, deep breath. Mister Sinister is one of the A-list X-Men villains, and is generally portrayed as an amoral scientist obsessed with genetics in general, mutants in particular, and the Summers family most of all. His name and costume are, obviously, wildly over the top. By all accounts, Chris Claremont’s original idea was that Sinister was an eternal child (both physically and mentally) and that “Mr Sinister” was the body through which he interacted with the outside world. In other words, he was meant to look a bit wrong. But writers in the 90s took him at face value, and eventually the Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix miniseries (1996) gave him a proper origin story as Victorian scientist Nathaniel Essex, who becomes obsessed with evolution and gets powers from Apocalypse.
Hickman’s version of the character, however, draws primarily on Kieron Gillen’s stories in the Utopia-era Uncanny X-Men (2011-12) where Sinister became interested in creating multiple Sinisters and creating an entire hive-mind species that was basically just versions of him. This was presented in Gillen’s stories as a new direction for Sinister, but Hickman appears to have Sinister doing something essentially similar much, much earlier. A key plot point of Gillen’s stories was that creating all these extra fully-powered Sinisters required a vast power source – as in, a Celestial or Phoenix – so if Sinister is producing an entire community at this stage, he must presumably have access to a pretty impressive power source. Hickman used this version of Sinister in his Secret Wars series, and of course it also fits with the hive-mind theme of his story.
Gillen’s Sinister was notably more eccentric and flamboyant than other takes on the character (or at least, he was eccentric and flamboyant in a less conventionally supervillain-ish way), and Sinister’s behaviour here follows in that line.
Bar Sinister: Sinister’s island – one of an awful lot of islands in this series. A version of the island, looking much like this, appeared in Secret Wars. It seems to be made of red crystal – presumably the ruby quartz that (per retcons) a disguised Sinister supplies to Cyclops to help him control his powers.
“Bar sinister” is a faux-heraldic term supposedly coined by Sir Walter Scott and intended to imply illegitimacy – it’s a play on “bastard” and “bend sinister” (which is a real heraldic term).
Xavier’s wheelchair: For some reason, Xavier is in the floating wheelchair that he didn’t start using until 1991.
Sinister’s library: Sinister’s obsession with cataloguing the world’s DNA comes up from time to time. Most recently, Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda (2018) claimed that he had actually completed it somehow. Xavier seems mainly concerned to have a comprehensive database of mutant DNA from which (presumably) to clone new mutants when needed. We’ve seen mutants emerging from pods in the start of House of X #1.
“I have seen the future and this cause – mutantdom – is yours”: Magneto is referring to the role that Sinister played in cloning mutants during Moira’s ninth life – although the data pages have strongly implied that far from making mutantdom his cause, he betrayed the mutants. Although Xavier and Magneto probably have a better plan than just relying on this obvious flake to co-operate, Sinister is likely to complete the database simply for his own obsessional reasons. But trusting the entire database to him seems, er, bold.
“I’ve played around with introducing that aberrant gene into my superior genetic structure… and let me tell you – I didn’t like the results.” We’ll come back to this when we get to the data page. We don’t find out precisely what the undesirable “results” were, though – is it something to do with Sinister’s mental state?
“The Sinister with the mutant gene.” This Sinister is dressed in the original, 80s/90s Mr Sinister supervillain costume. He’s Sinister Classic, in look if not in personality.
“I need you to forget why you’re doing it … until the day I tell you to remember”: This sounds a lot like a device to explain why the massive retcon isn’t reflected in people’s’ thought balloons.
PAGES 10-12: Two data pages (plus more of the wisdom of Stan Lee) in the form of a gossip column from Mister Sinister. The “Red Diamond” title refers to the symbol on Sinister’s forehead, and the Krakoa letter at the top is just an S. Most of these, I suspect, are foreshadowing for points much later in the Hickman run. But the small print does read “lies”, so maybe we shouldn’t take it entirely at face value.
“Sinister Secret #1”: This looks like it’s just gibberish, but who knows?
“Sinister Secret #2”: Probably a reference to Jumbo Carnation, the mutant fashion designer who was seemingly killed by muggers in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men #134 (2003). He was a bit part character, but he’d be one of a number of characters to inexplicably return from the dead in this series. He was also an early example of a character presented as creating a specifically mutant culture, which would fit with Magneto’s stated aims for Krakoa (and probably Professor X’s too).
“Sinister Secret #3”: The “deceased redheaded pretender” who “made a pact with the devil” is Madelyne Pryor, Sinister’s clone of Jean Grey. Her deal with the devil – or more accurately the demon N’Astirh – was the plot of 1989’s crossover “Inferno”, in which they led a demon invasion of earth. Madelyne did die at the end of that story, but she was later restored by Nate Grey in X-Man #5 (1995). I’m not quite sure why Sinister thinks she’s dead – perhaps he doesn’t regard the revived Madelyne as real. So far as I can tell, the “real” Madelyne Pryor – as opposed to a counterpart from another timeline – was last seen in X-Men #12 (2014), a Brian Wood story where a bunch of other villains raised her from the dead again, and she promptly wandered off to become a dropped plot.
Interestingly, House of X #4 also used the very specific term “pretender” in reference to another redhead, the Scarlet Witch.
“Sinister Secret #4”: Foreshadowing. Something washed ashore on Bar Sinister and we should look out for it.
“Sinister secrets revealed!” Sinister says that where he got his mutant gene isn’t interesting (though do we believe him?), but that the identity of the mutant is: John Proudstar, the original Thunderbird. Thunderbird joined the X-Men as part of the big shake-up in 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1 only to get killed off in the X-Men’s next mission, although his younger brother Warpath did go on to be a major character. Thunderbird isn’t an obvious choice for Sinister, given his mundane powers. Depending on when these Year One segments are happening, though, is the implication that Sinister had done something with Thunderbird before he even joined the X-Men?
For completeness: there’s already a story which shows Sinister getting additional powers after acquiring a sample of mutant DNA. It’s Gambit #14 (2000), in which Gambit and Courier go back in time and meet an early Sinister, who keeps a sample from Courier and apparently uses it to get his shape-changing powers.
“Sinister Secret #5”: “He’s the best there is at what he does” is obviously Wolverine, who’s had that tag line attached for years. Wolverine is apparently having an affair with a married woman, who has a child, and whose husband is having an affair too. Way too early to guess who those might be, if it’s anything more than a red herring.
“Sinister Secret #6”: The “progerian” (i.e., prematurely aged) mutant is the X-Men’s student Ernst, who made a secret deal with Sinister in exchange for his promise to clone a new body for No-Girl, as seen in the 2015 miniseries Spider-Man & The X-Men. Through Ernst, Sinister acquired “a DNA sample from every student and faculty member of the Jean Grey school… a nearly complete genetic catalogue of the next generation of the mutant race”, or so he claimed. Apparently he still has it.
“Sinister Secret #7”: The “two brothers [who] jumped out of a plane” are Scott and Alex Summers, the future Cyclops and Havok, who parachuted together from their parents’ plane to escape the attacking Shi’ar. See e.g. the flashback in Uncanny X-Men #144 (1981). Sinister himself first hinted at the existence of a third Summers brother in X-Men #23 (1993), and X-Men: Deadly Genesis (2006) finally established that a third Summers brother, Gabriel, had indeed been born after their parents’ abduction. Gabriel became Vulcan and went on to appear mainly in the Marvel cosmic titles, though chances are we’ll be seeing him again. Sinister hints here that there could be even more siblings.
“Sinister Secret #8”: Completely straightforward: Apocalypse has routinely surrounded himself with Four Horsemen, and he’d happily go back to the originals given the chance.
“Sinister Secret #9”: Something about a “non-couple couple” who’ve been “apart so long” that “friends are expecting … fireworks.” No idea who he’s referring to there, given that Rogue and Gambit are now married.
“Sinister Secrets Revealed”: Another mention of the Inferno crossover.
“Sinister Secret #10”: Sinister is claiming to have replaced somebody with a pawn at an early stage. This looks like another massive retcon in the offing.
PAGES 13-20: Year 10, and “months ago” Professor X brings Cypher to Krakoa to introduce them. Cypher uses his language powers to talk to the island, which tells its origin story. This is the set-up to House of X, but there’s a lot to unpack here.
Professor X is not wearing the Cerebro helmet here, the first time we’ve seen him unmasked in the modern time frame. This does indeed seem to be him – though that in itself raises questions, since he was in a different body when he returned from the dead in Astonishing X-Men #6 (2017). His safari outfit here is worryingly reminiscent of Cassandra Nova’s outfit in her first appearance, New X-Men #114 (2001). How he got back in touch with the X-Men, or at least Cypher, remains a mystery. Cypher was most recently seen hanging around in the supporting cast of Daredevil during the Charles Soule run.
Krakoa: We’ve seen plenty of Krakoa already in this series, but there are some points here worth noting – again, there are discrepancies here with established history. Cypher calls Krakoa “the secret island where mutants come to die”, which was indeed its role in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) – but that story ended with the X-Men firing Krakoa into space. Other Krakoas showed up later, presented as having grown from seeds or cuttings or so forth, but this Krakoa seems to be positioned as the original. Perhaps Hickman is relegating the Giant-Size Krakoa into an offshoot, like some of the others we’ve seen. The X-Men had a pet Krakoa on their grounds in Wolverine and the X-Men, for example.
Note that on page 15, the plants Cypher is touching are infected with the techno-organic virus in the following panel. But we know from the Year 100 scenes – if it’s the same timeline – that Krakoa ends up absorbing him.
Krakoa can “speak”, but only at a very broad and general level. X-Men: Deadly Genesis retconned Krakoa into being a dumb monster, and Wolverine and the X-Men made it more like a pet; Krakoa’s intelligence level here is broadly in line with that take.
The origin of Krakoa: And now, Hickman goes completely off the reservation, continuity-wise, giving us a story in which Krakoa is one half of the primeval land Okkara, which was torn into two – Arakko and Krakoa – by some sort of demonic/magical invaders. Those invaders then get repelled by Apocalypse and the first Horsemen. Okkara, Arakko and Krakoa are all anagrams of each other, and none of the names seem to have any inherent significance. (“Krakoa” was presumably meant to evoke the Indonesian island Krakatau. “Okkara” is a craft brewery in the Faroe Islands, but I’m pretty sure Hickman’s not thinking of that…)
This is not Krakoa’s established origin story, which has usually involved hinting that it was mutated by radiation from nuclear tests – see most recently Journey into Mystery: The Birth of Krakoa (2018). But those stories can be read – with a bit of squinting – as involving Krakoa being altered or awoken by the bomb. This also seems to fit with various references in earlier issues that implied Apocalypse was older than previously suggested – though we’ve yet to find out how that would square with stories depicting his childhood in ancient Egypt.
PAGE 21: A data page on “Current Krakoan systems.” We’ve already seen the involvement of Cypher, Sage, Trinary and Beast. Black Tom Cassidy is normally a villain, but a low-level one – he has a part-wooden body, which probably explains why he’s been selected for a role interfacing with Krakoa.
PAGES 22-27: The Year 1000 time frame. The mutants – who can’t be assimilated directly into the Phalanx – have come up with the idea of downloading themselves into machines so that at least a copy of them can become immortalised in the great collective. After establishing that it works, they wait to find out whether the Phalanx will accept it.
There’s an obvious question of why it has to be a machine intelligence to be uploaded, and what’s wrong with the techno-organic virus – which Hickman made a point of showing us with Cypher earlier in the issue.
The sequence: Apparently just a string of words used to test whether the mutant persona has been successfully uploaded. But presumably it has more significance than that: “There was a city on the mountain, and behind it the sun shone brightly as it expanded to consume the city, the mountain, the world.” This seems like it might have something to do with the Mother Mold being dumped into the sun in House of X.
The Phalanx: These far-future Phalanx are said to be the “forerunners” (whatever that means) of a galactic empire that is “believe[d]” to dominate the known universe. The speaker acknowledges that this is all very vague and metaphorical, and so it must be if there’s some doubt about the very existence of an all-encompassing empire. The implication seems to be that the Phalanx are all-pervasive and that the lower species are “free” of their empire simply by being beneath their notice.
PAGE 28: Another quote from Xavier, similar to the opening one.
PAGES 29-31: The reading order, and the trailers: “NEXT: SOCIETY” and “THEN: FOR THE CHILDREN”.
I find all the crazy hype for this series more baffling with each issue of backstory/futurestory where nothing really happens.
My sinking feeling that Life 6 is going to end up as the 616 deepens.
Two relatively meaningless popular culture references that who knows might be relevant:
1. Simon Bar Sinister is Underdog’s main villain, the Luthor to his Superman.
2. Krakatoa, East of Java was a late 1960s adventure movie starring Maximilian Schell involving a race to get treasure off the island before it blows up.
One figures it may have been in the back of Claremonts mind when he created Krakoa.
(The movie was also just referenced in the new Tarantino film.)
The retcons don’t make any sense, vis a vis Moira though.
She can change her own actions with each life.
She can’t retroactively change continuity so that Apocalypse was really “as old as the planet”.
Nothing Moira does to change her own timeline is going to change something like the origin of Krakoa or Apocalypse.
I’m more concerned, at this point, that Hickman isn’t going to have the time or space to explain away more of these questions.
He’s got tons of space. These two minis are just the prologue, and on top of that he’s setting up a bunch of spin-out books.
I confess that I initially puzzled over Sinister Secret 8 and concluded “they’re bringing back Six Pack???”
> “Sinister Secret #5”:
The general suspicion seems to be that the woman is Jean (the kid being Kid Cable or Rachel), the husband is Cyclops, and he’s “up to much the same” with Emma. Which would be… rather dull, shall we say.
> “Sinister Secret #9”:
Bleeding Cool seems bizarrely convinced this is Jubilee and X-23. Now Jubilee/fireworks, I can see. WTF X-23 has to do with it… I don’t get it.
> “Sinister Secret #10”:
This one, I’d agree with Bleeding Cool on – that the “Sinister with the mutant gene” that Xavier mindwiped was replaced with an unmindwiped version who knew exactly what was going on.
> Professor X is not wearing the Cerebro helmet here, the first time we’ve seen him unmasked in the modern time frame. This does indeed seem to be him – though that in itself raises questions, since he was in a different body when he returned from the dead in Astonishing X-Men #6 (2017).
Well, kinda. “X” was meant to have remade Fantomex’s body… somehow… into a younger version of his own (hence why he didn’t have Fantomex’s healing factor when he was stabbed). All that really needs is that his hair’s fallen out again (or even that he’s shaved it) for recognisability.
Didn’t Professor X lose his hair at a really young age?
Something to do with his mutation, I think.
I seem to remember him getting picked on at school, and by Cain, for going bald.
I’m pretty sure he was already bald when he was in Korea with Cain.
I don’t think he remade his body younger than a high school age individual.
The Sinister-replaces-himself theory does make sense. Going back to Scott/Jean/Emma seems a bit obvious, though.
“Fireworks” as Jubilee does make sense, but if she’s paired with anyone, it’s usually Wolverine.
Yes, Xavier lost his hair as a teenager. That was established way back in X-Men #12 (1965).
@Chris V
Bald characters in comics often have hair envy (e.g., when Lex Luthor had himself transferred into a younger, healthier body and posed as his own son, he insisted his scientists fix the whole baldness thing. And proceeded to have long hair *and* a full beard as “Lex II”).
If Xavier had a choice, I don’t see him trying to give himself functional hair follicles would be exceptionally weird. Nor them proceeding to fail the same way the originals did in short order.
Luthor is also an egomaniac.
It fits his character perfectly that he’d be concerned with an “imperfection”, like lacking hair.
I’m surprised he didn’t wear a toupee in the comics, instead of letting anyone see that he was bald.
It’s never been shown that Professor X is exceedingly concerned with his appearance.
He gets the ladies just fine with his bald head. He knows what he’s doing.
I always thought Luthor kept himself bald as a way to be constantly reminded of his hatred of Superman, since he “caused” Luthor to go bald by blowing chemicals on him.
(One of the fewthings I didn’t like with the Donner films is Hackman only being bald as a final gag.)
The person with the fin could be Squidboy, of all people. Colors don’t quite match though.
>>The solicitation version of this cover shows that the guy partly obscured by the logo is orange and has a fin on his head, so I’m drawing a blank there. None of this has anything much to do with the story inside.<<
Looks like a grown up version of Sammy Paré, Squid Boy.
The mutant-machine fusion with Cypher seems to be a solution to the dilemma in Year 1000. How long has he been portrayed with a Warlock / techno-arm? This isn’t Douglock, is it (tied with Adam the X-treme for worst X-name)?
I wonder how HoX/PoX squares away with Deadly Genesis (itself a big recon about Krakoa). In issue #6, Vulcan’s team fights (and largely dies to) an unforeseen volcano-esque creature that wasn’t in Giant-Size X-Men, and it looks a little like the chasm enemy creatures shown in this issue.
Also, Moira exhibits a lot of disillusionment and incredulity about how dodgy Xavier is. She’s concerned about Xavier even wiping her own mind, would risk sending her students to save his. I wondered if _this_ could be the schism that could have separated her from Magneto and Xavier, but it seems to have happened too early for that to be the case.
SanityOrMadness: Don’t forget that there was another redheaded pretender with the X-Men:
Dark Phoenix.
Because why massively retcon things only halfway?
And the fin-guy on the cover has to be Sammy Pare from Austen’s run–although man, is Hickman really trying to revisit that? (It could only help Nightcrawler’s origin story…)
I love that HoXPox now has a tag.
>>I’m not quite sure why Sinister thinks she’s dead – perhaps he doesn’t regard the revived Madelyne as real. So far as I can tell, the “real” Madelyne Pryor – as opposed to a counterpart from another timeline – was last seen in X-Men #12 (2014), a Brian Wood story where a bunch of other villains raised her from the dead again, and she promptly wandered off to become a dropped plot.<<
Madelyne turned up in X-Men Blue #10-12, where she was eventually sent back to hell of some sort.
Which reminds me, since Beast has all the memories of his teen self from that era, does he have magic powers now?
Secret 5: I actually thought of Wolverine and Madelyne for this one, since she’s actually had a child (unlike Jean who might at some point). Also fits with all the other references to her in this issue.
Secret 9: Could this non-couple be Charles and Moira? We haven’t actually seem them together in the present at all, and they’ve got to reunite at some point in this series.
Also, I assume the demons that split Okkara in half are related to Madelyne and Inferno in some way. Just to keep things tidy.
The Madelyne in X-Men: Blue #10-12 isn’t “our” Madelyne, though the story never explains that very clearly. It doesn’t help that her whole plan is to bring together Madelynes from various timelines, and she talks about them as if they were all the same character.
However, she does say in issue #11 that her powers have diminished since she arrived on this earth, so evidently she came from somewhere else. On top of that, the “real” Madelyne didn’t have massive horns or a forked demon tail. It looks like she was meant to be the Goblin Queen from Secret Wars: Inferno, who survived that series and was transformed in the same way in the closing pages.
And yes, the new origin of Krakoa does seem to have enough demons in it to explain why we’re suddenly talking about Inferno again – though what any of this has to do with the rest of the series is a mystery at this point.
Regarding Lex Luthor, it was established in the silver age that he can’t wear a wig because it gives him some kind of allergic reaction. There’s no reason Professor X wouldn’t want to embrace being hairless – it carries all kinds of implications of a higher evolutionary state.
The first thing I thought for the non-couple couple was Scott and Jean, but then I figured Xavier and Moira was more logical – and since next week’s issue is highlighted red in the reading order list, that’s when they’ll meet and we’ll see fireworks.
The bigger picture of the role of machines and AI in this series is starting to emerge.
Why do machines always try to wipe out mutants when they emerge? Because, as established last week, machines are the children of both humans and mutants – they are the next stage in evolution.
Note that back in PoX #2 the most basic unit of interstellar society is “machine,” a unit of 1. You have to be a machine just to register on the scale – that’s why the Phalanx want to ascend machines and not mutants.
This ascension business is going to end with the machines turning on mutants yet again once they have ascended and wiping them out yet again.
Aww, I didn’t mind Squidboy. He was maybe the only slightly compelling bit in Austen’s run. His inevitable fridging serving to double down Juggernaut as a bad guy when he realised being a good guy didn’t work 🙂
And given how Hickman seems to be leaning into all aspects of continuity, why not? He’s obviously done his reading of a lot of mini series, one offs and solo titles too. For example, weren’t X-23,Jubilee and Gambit a little trio for a time?
Not really – Gambit acted as X-23’s friend/travel buddy in Marjorie Liu’s series, but Jubilee only appeared in one arc of that, I think? Though it was a lovely story and the pair of them (Laura and Jubes) had a very fun relationship. (Laura and Gambit were great as well).
(I miss that series. I’m glad Taylor brought Gambit along for the finał showdown in Madripoor in his All-New Wolverine series. Can’t remember if Jubilee was there as well. )
CJ> The mutant-machine fusion with Cypher seems to be a solution to the dilemma in Year 1000. How long has he been portrayed with a Warlock / techno-arm? This isn’t Douglock, is it (tied with Adam the X-treme for worst X-name)?
Cypher’s TO arm is new, but technically he’s been transmode-positive ever since his resurrection, even if it was immediately hand-waved into remission.
Thom> Secret 9: Could this non-couple be Charles and Moira? We haven’t actually seem them together in the present at all, and they’ve got to reunite at some point in this series.
I’d buy that for a dollar. Makes much, much more sense than Jubes-23
Secret 9: I thought ‘kids’ was probably suggesting a New Mutant or Gen-Xer. Fireworks would then suggest Jubilee, but “Is the UNIVERSE ready?” sounds like it should be bigger scale.
Cannonball and Smasher have a universal SCALE relationship, he’s a rocket, and it’s a Hickman thing, but I don’t think they’ve been apart that much. Boom-Boom?
“This also seems to fit with various references in earlier issues that implied Apocalypse was older than previously suggested”.
This is the first time I’ve thought there is something to this. Okkara was “Ancient before that word existed, but not yet old in the way that THEY were old.” – ‘They’ being the demons? Everything about this part suggested something older than the Egyptian era.
The thing with Arakko and Krakoa sounds similar to the thing that came up a few years back with Sublime coming to the X-Men because he was being pursued by his sister from the dawn of time. Can’t remember exactly when that was, was it the all-female X-Men team?
Of course, it’s also similar to Charles and Cassandra Nova and might be pure coincidence.
Given his love of New Universe, Hickman having something that says “UNIVERSE” makes me suspicious. 😉
For #9, I feel like the obvious choice is Jubilee and Synch. We’re seeing mutants get resurrected en masse, including Mondo and Chamber, so Synch coming back is easy enough.
Jubilee having an unrequited crush on Synch was a running bit of business in Generation X, hence non-couple couple and the “kids are all right” references. And then he was briefly in a relationship with M when he died. Throw in all she’s been through since then (losing her powers, becoming a vampire, adopting a kid) and things could go sideways. Plus, y’know, fireworks.
I feel like the demons, machine hivemind, and techno-organic virus stuff will end up dovetailing with Apocalypse being extra ancient (remember that he is, in part, an entity that possesses host bodies and also a user and maybe host of the TO virus), and Illyana’s Limbo having been completely infected by TO.
“non-couple couple”
If Husk wasn’t killed off, it could also be a reference to Husk and Chamber, who had crushes on each other throughout Generation X and never acted on it much…but whose to say she won’t be resurrected?
Didn’t N’astirh end up infected by the T-O virus before he died during Inferno?
Seems like a link to the Phalanx and man/machine ideas Hickman is using, right?
He was indeed.
My two cents on the “non-couple couple”… I was thinking Moria and Apocalypse. They may have been a couple in a past life but are not a couple as far as anyone was concerned before HoXPoX.
I do think Jubilee and Wolverine would be interesting too (they’re not a couple in the romantic sense but are a couple).
It’s strange that of all the “secrets” this one seems to be stirring up the most conversation.
How would Sinister know about Moira and Apocalypse?
That relationship was wiped out when Moira died and was reborn.
Only Moira would have any memory of that life.
@Chris V
Sinister’s a telepath.
Yeah Allan, I immediately thought of Jubilee and Synch when I read that too. It would be nice to see Synch (and Skin) back! I remember reading a recent interview with Hickman where he said Generation X was the team he loved growing up, so far we’ve only seen M and Husk on that space X-Men team. I have a feeling there’s more to come.
We must’ve been collecting around the same time. My first issue as a teen collector was X-Men #36 (Synch’s first appearance?) and I remember the Chris Bachalo art in Gen X #5 and #6 (Synch, Skin, and Jubilee rescuing Emma Frost from Gene Nation) being some of his very best.
The solicitations said of this issue: “As Cerebro does as it was intended to do, Sinister does what he does best and the future comes to an end.” Trying to square that away with what actually happened in this issue…
I have no idea why the Cypher scene was in this issue and not HoX #1. Everything we’ve seen in this series already implied or conveyed everything we saw in this scene.
Hickman is really bad at choosing how and when to provide certain information.
@CJ
“My first issue as a teen collector was X-Men #36 (Synch’s first appearance?) and I remember the Chris Bachalo art in Gen X #5 and #6”
Ha, my first X-Men issue was Uncanny #316 (the first part of the story). I hope Hickman is planning to use Banshee in a greater capacity. Dude was part of the 1975 team for 30 freaking issues and is remembered as a footnote.
Given how long the series and franchise has been published, 30 issues is a footnote…
My recollection is that the Maddy in X-Man was revealed in Warren Ellis’ arc to be an alternate universe Jean that wanted Nate for some purpose or another.
The Maddy from the X-Men Blue story was, I believe, from the Inferno Secret Wars mini—I seem to recall that in both books she had her pet demonic Nightcrawler.
When I eventually thought “Jubilee” after seeing “fireworks”, Synch was the first person that came to mind.
Yeah, I was happy to see Banshee in HoX #1. It’s been like 13 years since he died, although I hope his “mute and half-dead” phase is over.
Besides, as someone who was romantically involved with Moira almost from the very beginning (around the Proteus issues?), I wonder if any of Banshee’s relationship with her is part of the retcon.
Maddy in X-Man was originally just a portion of Nate’s energy taking on a life of its own. She remained an ally until Ellis retconned her in Counter-X, and in neither case was it “our” Maddy.
@Job — the Krakoa backstory seems likely to lead directly into current-life Apocalypse plots, as well as at least two of the ongoing series, based on cover art. I think that would have been a lot to take in for HoX 01.
I’m also very curious about Doug’s sly TO-touch; sure seems to me like it was done behind Xavier’s back, and wonder where that’s going to go.
@Ivan: yes, especially since Cypher was left alone on Krakoa for months. Seems like he might have his own agenda baked into Krakoa’s “systems.”
There’s a lot of that going around, too. Who are we meant to be suspicious of at this point? “Charles” and his clones, Mystique, Sinister, Cypher…
“Our” Madelyne came back during the Fraction run, right? Around Uncanny #500-511. Did she die again at the end of that, or is she still running around somewhere?
That’s before the Brian Wood arc. Matt Fraction’s story ends with Madelyne dying again, in Uncanny #511.
wwk5d: [i]Given how long the series and franchise has been published, 30 issues is a footnote…[/i]
There’s a lot of truth to that. On the other hand, the All-New, All-Different X-Men are one of those lineups with a certain iconic status (although Banshee is definitely at the “less iconic” end compared to Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus).
Also, as CJ points out, if you’re going to center everything around Moira, Sean is a character whom it makes a lot of sense to use extensively.
Besides, he’s one of the first boldly gender-nonconforming named characters in comics…
@Ivan
“I think that would have been a lot to take in for HoX 01.”
HoX #1 didn’t tell us much of anything. Much of it was vague for the purpose of being vague. This is exactly my criticism of Hickman. He doesn’t know how and when to convey information and story beats. He dumped all the exposition of Moira in the third (essentially) issue, when she had previously appeared in only a single scene and had no understood importance in the story yet. Meanwhile, he gives us the scene of Doug agreeing to translate Krakoa when it’s obvious from the Krakoa language all throughout the books and Doug’s merging with Krakoa in the future that he’s already done this.