X-Men: Red #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: RED #12
“Storm Warning”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Jacopo Camagni
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer & production: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White.
COVER / PAGE 1. Jon Ironfire in the foreground, with Nova, Sunspot and Storm surrounding him, and an image of the White Sword in the background.
PAGES 2-6. Flashback: The White Sword frees Jon Ironfire and sends him to Arakko.
Essentially, the White Sword knows that Genesis’s forces are coming and that he’s going to wind up under her control. He sends Jon Ironfire away with his sword, partly to save Jon, partly to alert Arakko, and partly to keep the sword itself out of Genesis’s hands.
The White Sword and Genesis‘s back story was covered in “X of Swords”. Basically, the Sword and his personal army of 100 champions battled the enemy forces on Amenth for centuries, with the Sword using his omega healing powers to resurrect them all daily. On page 3, the White Sword refers to Genesis’s shifting alliances in the past. Originally, she led the forces of Arakko in their battle against the demons of Amenth – the Sword regards them as bringing up the rear. Later, she fell under the control of Annihilation, via its demonic helmet, and led the Amenth forces against the White Sword.
That was the position going into “X of Swords”. At the end of that crossover, in X of Swords: Destruction, Genesis’s estranged husband Apocalypse freed her from Annihilation by taking the helm himself, and then resisted Annihilation’s control long enough to surrender her forces. Saturnyne then turned the helm into a staff. Most of the population of Arakko were then transported to Earth along with Arakko itself, while Apocalypse and Genesis went back to Amenth to rule it. The White Sword and his champions also returned to Amenth.
The White Sword claims here that Saturnyne deliberately cursed the staff. Here’s what she actually said in Destruction:
“Nothing changes in regard to what’s required. Whoever wields the helm controls the world. And that world most certainly does need controlling. But this will make it more manageable. Still corrupting, of course – there’s no satisfying that appetite, but at least now it won’t have direct dominion over the wielder.”
Saturnyne offered to turn it into a sword, but Genesis rejected that. Saturnyne then chose the staff form herself, despite Annihilations’ protests. She did tell Annihilation that “This is a better look for you, and a deeper lure if you want it.” The White Sword seems to suggest here that in its staff form, Annihilation is actually able to influence more people than before.
Jon Ironfire. Apparently the first of the Sword’s 100 champions, but also a close friend before that; the Sword clearly indicates here that Ironfire, at least, was not viewed by him as cannon fodder, but as someone he was actively protecting. Jon refers to him with evident affection as “Blue”.
“Tell them all – but especially the Seat of Loss…” Right now, that would be Storm. The Seat of Loss is supposed to be consulted when battles are lost. White Sword probably doesn’t know who the current occupant is, and really does just want Jon to bring it to the attention of the appropriate Ring member.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGES 8-15. Flashback: The White Sword’s champions fight Genesis’s army.
The First Horsemen of Apocalypse are back together, serving their mother Genesis again. Death, in particular, has been hanging around with the vampires of Otherworld over in Excalibur and Knights of X. The other three did return to Amenth after “X of Swords”; Pestilence and Famine were shown in Excalibur #22 acting as the regents of the Otherworld realm of Dryador (annexed by Amenth at the start of “X of Swords”).
Summoners are basically mutants who control monsters in Arakko. One of them showed up in X-Men #2 near the start of the Hickman run.
“Where is your husband?” The White Sword doesn’t get an answer to this question, but it’s a very good one. What did happen to Apocalypse? Presumably, he hasn’t fallen under the control of Annihilation and he’s been sidelined somewhere.
Purity was the White Sword’s sword as seen in “X of Swords”. Genesis is evidently very keen to get hold of it, which is presumably why she goes out of her way to suggest that it might be the White Sword’s only chance. He’s not falling for it.
Quite why Purity is so significant hasn’t previously been explained, but Jon tells us later on that it’s essentially an embodiment of the pure concept of cutting, and capable even of cutting a portal between realities. Which sounds quite useful in the wrong hands.
“Arakko calls you, General.” Genesis appears to be positioning herself as the representative of the true Arakko.
PAGES 16-18. The Brotherhood of Arakko listen to Jon’s story.
The Red Lagoon. Sunspot’s group are using his Red Lagoon bar as a temporary base because the Autumn Palace was destroyed by Vulcan in issue #10.
Dryador is the former water world that was turned into a desert wasteland by Arakkii/Amenthi invaders at the start of “X of Swords”.
Blightspoke is another of the Otherworld realms – basically a dumping ground for detritus from failed realities. Poor Jon seems to have taken the most uncomfortable route possibel through Otherworld.
Fisher King takes surprisingly badly to Jon Ironfire, and Storm makes sure to flag up that this is out of character for him. Fisher King is normally a wise elder figure, after all. But he’s also an embodiment of a less aggressive conception of Arakkii society compared to the White Sword’s champions, who are so extreme they didn’t even fit in regular Arakkii society in the first place. It’s maybe also significant that the champions have a history of routine resurrection – something which we’ve been told in no uncertain terms is generally frowned upon in Arakkii society. That was the whole point of Storm and Magneto giving up their ability to resurrect.
At the same time, Jon invokes the “Where were you?” mantra which was frequently directed at Storm by Arakkii characters in the early part of the series.
Nova, bless him, doesn’t seem to realise how traumatic his back story has become – despite it being central to Al Ewing’s take on him.
PAGES 19-21. Genesis arrives on Arakko.
Arakko Prime here apparently means the location of the original Arakko, i.e. the living island that was the counterpart to Krakoa. It was blasted into this state by Uranos during the A.X.E.: Judgment Day crossover.
The Okkara Gate is new, but it’s worth noting that “Okkara” was the name of the single island that split into Arakko and Krakoa aeons ago.
Genesis has evidently been led to believe that the destruction of Arakko during Judgment Day reflects the failure of its current rulers, which may have had something to do with her succumbing to Annihilation’s influence.
Marianna Stern is the High Priestess of Coven Akkaba from Excalibur and Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain – Reuben Brousseau gets used much more often as the Coven’s leader figure, but they seem in principle to be equals. She’s h Their association with Orchis is new, I think, though hardly a surprise.
PAGE 22. Data page: a memo from Marianna Stern to Orchis’s “Director” (presumably still Killian Devo).
Marianna was evidently hoping for an outright invasion or at least a larger force than just Genesis on her own.
PAGE 23. Data page: speaks for itself, really.
PAGE 24. Trailers.
Am I the only one who felt this came off as borderline-unreadable? All that nonsense about magic staves and demons and Otherworld lore (which Ewing’s prose somehow makes even more insufferable than it was in X of Swords) seems like such a pointless tangent
Diana, I cannot comment directly on this issue because I haven’t read it, but that’s certainly the impression I get from the summary here! From a distance, my impression is all of this Arakko stuff is a giant load of science fantasy nonsense that has little if anything to do with the X-men. Or maybe a nice little contrasting metaphor intended to highlight some of the current X-issues, which then some madman expanded into full-fledged comics.
This all feels really weird. The Krakoa era seems like it was an amazing opportunity to explore the rich back roster of X-characters — but instead they’ve spent years introducing completely new characters as fast as they could.
I didn’t find the issue impenetrable although I had to dig a bit to recall finer details from Hickman’s X-Men and X of Swords. Really, really missing Stefano Caselli’s art here, too; Jacobo Camagni isn’t nearly dynamic enough for the expectations Caselli’s on this book. His cartoony Storm in particular reminds me of Eleonora Carlini’s style on Marauders, which was meh. (His Genesis, by contrast, is quite impressive and is unambiguously Black as hell, more of this please.)
And any implication that extra mayo weak sauce Excalibur doormat Marianna Stern is somehow manipulating Genesis–a shrewd, millennia-old, über-Omega mutant warlord–feels cheap and unearned. If Red is pivoting to be a bit more magic-oriented, Mother Righteous would have made a bit more sense here based on her mounting threat credibility, but who knows how Fall of X is going to play out?
I rather enjoyed the small, unexpected touches of affection/possible romance between Ironfire and White Sword.
Super mixed bag all around this month. Far from my favorite issue of Red.
Bad issue. We’ve got a war looming between one-dimensional bad guys who have no real motivation, against one-dimensional “good” guys who canonically are pathetic jobbers, of whom maybe one has a personality (Fisher King). And now with the intervention of Clan Akkaba, another one-dimensional set of bad guys without personalities, who are now allied with Orchis, a one-dimensional group of bad guys, where three of them have personalities.
Just… so what? Who cares about any of these losers? Remember how Thunderbird’s theoretically in the cast? Cable? Wrongslide? Wiz Kid? Frenzy? Remember how Mysterium was a major plot point? Ewing keeps on throwing new story points and characters into the mix and isn’t developing any of them except Storm and Sunspot.
Al Ewing is increasingly reminding me of late 80s Marv Wolfman, someone who earned a blank cheque from prior success to do whatever he wanted without editorial interference, and it is to the detriment of the coherence and focus of the work. Jon Ironfire feels like the Danny Chase of the X-books.
I get the exact opposite impression from Ewing; he’s been strung along since the late run Immortal Hulk controversy, he’s stuck doing little mini-series half the time, and his planned third Defenders mini-series was rejected in favor of some shitty legacy books. If anything I get more the feeling of late DC Grant Morrison who is still slightly willing to play ball but is increasingly making it clear in their work how much they no longer enjoy doing this.
(But unlike those which have a clear throughline the Arrako shit in this does suck, to be clear)
I wouldn’t blame Ewing. It’s this whole direction under Krakoa. Hickman set up an interesting core premise based in turning the X-Men into science fiction rather than superheroes. Then, instead of making a straight line between the ideas established in House/Powers up to Fall of X, we have had so many sidetracks along the way. I’m not blaming this on Hickman leaving either, as this started with “X of Swords”. It’s as if no one can concentrate on any one thing during the Krakoa-era and the writers (all of them) feel a need to pile more and more on top of those ideas first established by Hickman, with nothing become fleshed out.
I think the take away from this is that Genesis is at the very least working with Orchis. I too doubt Marianna Stern is successfully manipulating anyone, but that’s not really important, the two sides each have something to gain, and Clan Akkaba gets us back to the stalled Apocalypse plots from the early Krakoan era, just as the Scrivener and Orchis plots are coming to a head in the other books.
Project Orson is presumably a reference to Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast. Not just because of the war and Mars connections but also as a nod to the urban legend that many listeners were fooled into thinking it was a genuine news broadcast and that Mars was actually invading.
This wasn’t as strong as the usual issue of Red, what with the book’s dynamic cast being absent for most of it, but I still liked it a lot. Ewing’s deft touch with characterization gets you instantly invested in new arrivals like Jon Ironfire and the White Sword.
Worth noting that the first page is a homage to Jim Steranko’s opening page from Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1!
I quite liked this one, though I’m also all-in on this series focusing on the culture of Arakko rather than standard superhero stuff. “Not there, but somewhere” has been a recurring motif too.
Also curious about Jon Ironfire’s first name!
@Jenny
While I agree that I don’t get the impression Ewing has particularly more freedom than the typical established writer, I don’t know about ‘strung along.’ Within a few months, the guy will be doing four ongoing Marvel series at once. (Thor, Venom, Avengers Inc, X-Men Red.)
For the record, the runes on page 21 don’t appear to mean anything. They aren’t Norse Futhark (either version), or Tolkien’s Angerthas.
If it was a substitution cipher, like “Krakoan”, I would have expected at least *some* doubled letters (especially as a plaintext would be likely to include “Marianna” or “Akkaba”), and there are none.
Moreover, there are a large number of repeated “words”, as if the image was created with a lot of cut-and-paste. (Though traditional magic spells *are* big on reptition.)
Disagree about page 1 being a Steranko homage (https://www.comicbookdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Nick-Fury-1-Page-2.jpg). Both are splash pages featuring a shot of a roughly rectangular building rising high above the viewer’s level. But they share nothing else in common. If an homage was intended, I’d expect to see a few more elements reflected to some degree, such as having writing on the side of the building.
Yes, I found this one surprisingly unreadable too. It’s disappointing that they’ve gone back to the X of Swords characters and stories – do we really need to revisit the days when Arakko’s population consisted of four or five sub-one-dimensional characters like The White Sword and Pogg-Ur-Pogg? Can’t we just sweep them under the carpet and enjoy the new, more rounded Arakko?
Thor does seem to be an indication of Ewing being let out to roam again. But there was definitely a period of time following Joe Bennett nearly tanking Immortal Hulk where it felt that editorial had it out for him, because before that he had been working on big linewide events and creating his own mythos, but then after that he got relegated to mini-series work, one shots, and as I mentioned, he had a third Defenders series that just straight up got rejected despite both previous installments being critically acclaimed.
@Jenny, that’s interesting, I knew Bennett turned out to have some vile politics, but never saw anything about Marvel actually threatening to take him off Immortal Hulk or cancel it. Was that a possibility at any point?
It seemed like Marvel and Ewing said nothing until the run was over, at which point Ewing condemned Bennett on Twitter (I have sympathy for Ewing, but am glad he did say something in the end. It must have been heartbreaking as a creator).
Nothing was ever said, as far as I’m aware, I think Marvel just sort of went “screw it” and just let it get finished with him on. I’m mostly going off what I’m reading in between the lines (with Ewing especially; his final letter in Immortal Hulk says without outright saying that having this happen to his seminal work basically broke him and made him unable to care about his biggest achievement).
I think it was just a matter of Ewing finishing up his projects at Marvel (being head of creative for the Empyre big event, Immortal Hulk coming to an end), and maybe feeling burnt out after the end of Immortal Hulk. Hickman wanted to bring Ewing in as one of the writers on the X-books, which happened with SWORD, then the X-line got thrown in to disarray when Hickman announced he was quitting.
Marvel gave him the anniversary minis for Ant Man and Wasp, plus the Nick Fury anniversary one-shot. Marvel wouldn’t have given him books that were heavily advertised if they wanted to bury him. He was most likely just waiting for a main title to open up to get the chance at guiding another character again.
Ahem. Al Ewing went straight from finishing IMMORTAL HULK in October 2021 to starting VENOM, an ongoing series with Bryan Hitch, the following month.
It’s weird that everyone’s trying to rationalize editorial doing something to hamper Ewing’s writing, and not entertaining the possibility that he writes his fair share of bad books.
@Josie: Not that weird, fans always rationalize their faves not being at their best.
To be fair, editorial does have to shoulder at least *some* of the blame for how messy the line has been since HoXPoX… but Ewing’s failure to make the Arakki more than the Second Coming of the Neo is all on him
I liked both Antman/Wasp minis so have hope for this new (detective?) book with Wasp
For the record I’m not rationalizing this as “editorial has it out for Ewing,” (I don’t even quite think it’s that cut and dry). I truly do think this introduction to whatever arc is next is probably the worst thing Ewing’s written for Marvel since Royals, and even though I like him pretty much more than any other X-Men author he’s not perfect.
My whole point was more I don’t think he’s quite the editorial darling that Marv Wolfman was and that it’s not a case of “he gets to do whatever he wants.” I should have made more clear that when I refer to the editorial stuff I’m mostly speculating; I could very well be wrong (aside from the Defenders thing which he said himself in a newsletter).
To be fair, what writer could make anything interesting of Arakko? Even Grant Morrison wouldn’t want to touch such terrible characters. Ewing is one of the very few writers Marvel has left I consider to be worth reading (along with Gillen and Hickman), but even I groaned and decided to skip X-Men: Red (Immortal X-Men is the only X-book I still read) after discovering it was going to be about that mess.
The concept makes no sense with the direction we found out Hickman was headed with Krakoa and Moira. Moira wanted to trap mutants and stop the births of any more mutants…Oh, but there’s an entire planet full of less interesting mutants now. Moira should have given up at that point.
I believe that bringing the Arakko mutants to Earth was Howard’s idea rather than Hickman, considering Hickman showed zero interest in any of them after “X of Swords”. Hickman should have vetoed the idea though. Not least because there was never anything interesting about the concept.
Jenny-What were the sales like for the Defenders series? Defenders has never been a strong-seller for Marvel. It could be that Marvel turned down more Defenders comics simply due to the sales not being at a level that would make it worth publishing more Defenders books.
Not entirely sure about sales numbers, and I’m bad at finding that sort of information. I do vaguely remember the second one selling worse than the first, but about average middle of the road Marvel numbers otherwise.
I think the art hurts this issue more than the writing. And it’s still the most compelling the White Sword has ever been. Which isn’t a lot.
Very much a prologue, but I have no reason to think it won’t pick up next issue.
I can’t imagine Defenders doing much for the casual fan. It’s a gorgeous book, but one that threatens to be unreadable if you’re not interested in what Ewing is doing. It’s not too surprising Marvel felt safer prioritising something else over a third volume.
For what it’s worth, I agree Ewing has some not-great work to his name, but when he hits, I think he’s among the best writers in the industry right now. That said, while I’m very much looking forward to Immortal Thor, I cannot over-emphasize the whiplash I felt from being super excited that the writer who just finished up Immortal Hulk was going to be writing the X-Men to getting the actual finished product, i.e., a book that barely features the X-Men.
I don’t care about Arrako. I don’t care about the Arraki. I’m glad they tried to do something new with the franchise, I sincerely believe it needed freshening up. But I want to read about the X-Men in my X-Men books. New characters are fine, vital to keeping things interesting, but can I get to know one before you hit me with fifty?
@Chris V: There are *plenty* of writers who could have made something interesting of Arakko – from a structural/narrative viewpoint, it’s not all that different from introducing a new class of young mutants at the Xavier Institute.
The problem is that we’re in the Data Page era, where characters are treated as chess pieces rather than actants in a story. So of course Lactuca and Sobunar and the rest of them have been around for years without a single personality trait to share between them.
@Diana: The new class of mutants is an interesting comparison, but I think it also helps point to a wider issue with the line since Morrison and/or the movies opened up the school.
We’ve had multiple books with multiple new young casts since then – New X-Men, Young X-Men, Generation Hope, Wolverine and the X-Men, the second Generation X team – plenty of whom have gained fan interest, only to be doomed by low sales or relaunches as the cycle repeats again with another new class and the last lot disappear.
I know this is hardly unique to the X-Men, but it feels like widening their playing field (from a school with no students to a school with a few to a school with hundreds to a small island to a big island to a planet) keeps throwing up this creator tendency to bring in new characters who rarely stick. Perhaps it is the inevitable result of a greater focus on telling a story about an entire societal group within the confines of a superhero comic?
I’m not sure what current writers would have done better than Ewing. Hickman didn’t make them worth reading about with the brief time he wrote the characters. Duggan, Howard, and Percy have failed to write anything interesting with established characters. Spurrier’s Legion of X has gotten a lot of negative criticism. I don’t think they would do anything better with Arakko than Ewing.
Arakko isn’t like a “new class of mutant students”. That’s the tested formula for X-Men comics. Lee and Kirby introduced that as the concept. Claremont reintroduced that as the concept. The comparison with the Neo is much more apt. This is an ancient society and culture which is based in Social Darwinism. There’s no comparison between dumping these interchangeable warrior caste, supposedly all-powerful, supposedly ancient beings onto the X-books versus introducing new young mutants joining a class.
One involves moments like, “this young mutant loves the musical stylings of Ariana Grande while thinking that Nirvana is so old and tired…ha, ha”. The other requires the fleshing out of their entire way of life. I’m not saying that a writer couldn’t accomplish this task, but would it be in any way something that someone would care to read? Maybe a few (John Norman books have a niche audience), but it’s certainly not what I want to read about in X-Men comics.
There’s a reason why many writers on X-books want to return to the formula of introducing new young mutants wanting to learn how to use their powers (as listed by Another Sam above) while no writer has wanted to touch the Neo again.
@Another Sam: Sales aren’t the only metric for success here, though. I’d argue a far more important qualifier is whether the characters prove popular enough to stick around after their original runs are over (say, the difference between M or Husk versus Mondo or Skin post-Generation X). Plenty of the Academy X/Jean Grey School cast have faded into obscurity over the years, but quite a few of them are still around. Not only do I doubt that any Arakki has that kind of longevity, no one other than Ewing seems remotely interested in writing about them now. Not Gillen, not Duggan, not Percy, not even a miniseries or Unlimited writer. When Ewing leaves, it’s a fair bet Arakko will leave with him.
@Chris V: If you want an example of how it could’ve been done better, you don’t need to look far – Gillen’s been doing that for a year now. We’ve had 12 issues of Immortal X-Men spotlighting every Quiet Council member, showing us who they are, their motives, how their plans and agendas intersect, all while a scheme is running right under their noses.
Any competent writer with an understanding of basic characterization could have done the same for the Great Ring, using the POVs of each member to show us a different aspect of Arakki culture/society. That might have done a lot to prevent the one-dimensional monotony that’s defined most of Red so far (“You were not there! You have a place in the Broken Land! You are of Arakko! Challenge! Challenge!”)
It wouldn’t even be a new practice for X-Men: we understood the Morlocks through Callisto, Caliban and Masque. We understood Genosha through Jenny Ransome, Philip Moreau and the Genegineer. I don’t know that Ewing specifically has that in him, considering he keeps forgetting his own characters (look at the cast list for SWORD and then see how many of them actually had anything to do during that series or throughout the Brand arc). But someone else could have done it.
I think that shows that no one was interested in using Arakko except Ewing. None of the other writers were interested in them, which is why they never should have been brought to Earth. Hickman didn’t want to use them, so they shouldn’t have continued to exist after “X of Swords”.
You are going by the assumption that there is anything inherently interesting in Arakko’s culture.
The examples you gave are all humans. Gillen is working with characters who have existed for 30, 40, 60 years already.
The Morlocks were the equivalent of writing homeless people. While Claremont did flesh out the personality of certain Morlocks, he admitted it was a mistake to have an entire society of Morlocks. He planned for a handful of homeless mutants living under the city. It was a reason he decided to do the “Mutant Massacre” arc, so he could get rid of most of the extraneous Morlocks.
Genosha, the same. Claremont was influenced by apartheid South Africa when he created those characters. It was something that a writer and readers could be made to understand.
Arakko has no such backstory. They are completely alien beings. Have you ever heard the complaint that almost no one knows how to write believable alien characters in fiction? Because they are writing something that is vaguely based on humanity…because that is all we truly understand, human society and culture. It’s a fine line to walk. If you make the Arakko characters too much like humans, it ruins the premise. So, how can you show a culture which has no basis in anything understandable to humanity?
Once again, though, that’s based in the idea that Arakko has anything inherently interesting about it. It does not. The characters were created to be one-dimensional by Hickman. It’s in their design, the same as the Neo. To stray too far from their one-dimensional core is to fundamentally change the characters, to humanize them, which is not the purpose of Arakko. It is meant to be alien.
@Another Sam re: Defenders: I totally agree. I was really interested in Ewing’s first mini. I liked the cast, was excited for Cloud’s return, enjoy Ewing and Rodriguez, etc. But I couldn’t sustain interest in a story that meta. The characters felt like an after-thought to the grand design of the Marvel universe, which I couldn’t care less about.
@everyone re: Arakko: I was under the impression that Planet Arakko was created by Hickman only to be subsumed into a Dominion at some point. And maybe they’re still destined for destruction/ascension, which is why no one’s bothering to give them personalities.
@Chris V: I’m not sure I follow your logic here – the Arakki are about as “completely alien” as the Shi’ar, the Skrulls or the Kree (or Klingons and Romulans, for that matter). The X-Men haven’t had an era in the last forty years that didn’t at least dabble in bird-people politics; is it really so inconceivable that a writer could take a flat Hickman concept and give it some life by writing them as characters rather than a monolithic society based on Itchy and Scratchy?
I don’t believe Hickman had anything to do with “Planet Arakko”. It was created by Duggan in the “Hellfire Gala”, and by that point, Hickman was already well on his way out the door.
The idea of a planet full of Omega mutants on Mars does bring to mind Moira’s Life Nine, where Sinister’s Omega-class chimeras formed a hivemind collective and collapsed Mars into a singularity. The problem would be that the Arakkoans are opposed to collective involvement.
(Maybe that was why the Dominion was red which rejected Sinister.)
@Thom H.: You might be getting mixed up with (what else) a data page from HoXPoX which said that in Moira’s ninth life, Mars imploded into a singularity after some kind of Sinister-related shenanigans. Fans are speculating that the Dominion we see at the end of Sins of Sinister is in fact that previous iteration (though he was supposedly executed by the machines in that timeline)
Diana-The Shi’ar aren’t really believable as aliens though. They’re a Victorian imperialist culture using all the tropes from late-19th/early-20th century Space Opera/planetary romance. I don’t find the Shi’ar to be interesting characters either. What makes them interesting? How many Shi’ar individuals have been fleshed out other than Princess Leia…I mean Lilandra? I wouldn’t be interested in reading an ongoing series starring the Shi’ar either. They’re ok when they show up every so often for a plot.
It’s the same with Arakko. There’s nothing inherently interesting in the concept. If the X-Men interacted with them once in a while for a plot, I guess they’d be fine in the same way as the Shi’ar. The problem is they have their own monthly series and the reader is expected to care about them.
The way I break it down…Howard has had four years to make Coven Akkaba even partially believable and has absolutely failed. In that same amount of time, no one can still figure out the point she is trying to make with Betsy as Captain Britain.
Meanwhile, Duggan has managed to ruin Orchis by turning them into one-dimensional, evil supervillains. People say that Hickman has no grasp of characterization, but he actually managed to make an anti-mutant group compelling. Duggan came along and ruined that in a scant few months.
Percy has had nearly 50 issues to explain why Beast is suddenly evil, and clarify if he’s meant to be an idiot or a brilliant Machiavellian schemer…yet has failed to get to this basic point.
I’m not going to fault Ewing for failing to do anything interesting with a terrible idea in twelve issues.
An Immortal X-Men style X-Men Red, focusing on each of the Great Ring in turn, would have been interesting (to me, anyway), but let’s face it, it also would’ve been cancelled after five issues. You can string out the tension of how Colossus will mess up everything for twelve issues. Sobunar, not so much. You need to have Storm, Magneto and Sunspot at the core of this book or it doesn’t get off the ground.
I thought, from the early issues, that we were going to have a series where the X-Men/Brotherhood are our leads, Fisher King’s the token Arrakii member who is there to be our tour guide and provide exposition as we explore and flesh out this alien society, and the others are antagonists or extras. Instead, said alien society was blown up in short order before explaining how it worked in the first place aside from issuing challenges, and a lot of page space has been wasted on tertiary characters who aren’t doing anything much. Do we really need Nova in this book? Here’s a real challenge: describe Khora’s personality. The Arrakii are designs and concepts instead of characters. Which is fine if they’re just recurring antagonists like the Shi’ar, but not if the series is centrally about their culture.
Weirdly, the Arrakii character who feels most like an actual character who might outlive this era is Solem. Percy gave him some actual backstory on-panel, established a relationship with a core X-Man, a unique place in Wolverine’s rogues gallery, and a very simple high concept – guy with adamantium skin vs. guy with adamantium bones and claws.
I feel like folks are ignoring that the main cast of Red is almost entirely non-Arakki Earth mutants. It’s only a series starring aliens in the sense Star Trek is. Which is to say is, yeah it is but also not really.
It’s blowing my mind the pattern of outrage against the Krokoan Era books are coming from people who openly admit that they aren’t even reading them and are only reading these annotations. Because if you were reading Red, there is no comparison between the far more interesting Arakki under Ewing’s pen than Claremont’s Neo, not even close.
And with LaValle’s Sabretooth trilogy (?) on hold and Vita out of the X-Office, Ewing is the only white writer who has even bothered to invest the time, energy, and care into properly giving a society clearly coded as indigenous people of color their proper due. From the perspective a person of color, his intentional exploration of colonialism, democracy, and racial politics *with actual people of color in the cast* is the most work any writer has done in years to move the X-Men–a great universe, but still mostly a universe of white characters–beyond simple allegory.
I mean, let’s actually look at what Ewing has deftly navigated in the last year since the launch of Red:
• Storm confronting her hubris and abandoning one-person rule
• Brand’s elaborate scheming with Orbis Stellaris and Orchis
• Arakki society gradually evolving into a representative democracy
• Vulcan the Puppet King
• Magneto’s journey of rediscovery and death
• The legitimization of Arakko as a diplomatic superpower
• Tarn’s increasing threat credibility and removal from the Great Ring
• The humanization of Isca
• Storm and Magneto’s dedication to Arakki customs
• Sunspot the counter-schemer
• Cable engineering a hostile takeover against Brand
• Wrongslide’s growth into his own identity
• Revelation of the Night Seats
• The Arakki’s evolving affinity for teamwork
That’s an impressive number of plots to thoughtfully flesh out in the 11 issues preceding this week while being–once again–interrupted by 2 line-wide events (AXE and SoS). I don’t know how anyone can accuse Red of being boring, or even sensibly suggest that there exists a unicorn writer who could have done a far more admirable job than Ewing under these circumstances.
(Additionally, major props to Ewing and his canny ability for importing characters and plots from other books and actually DOING something with them.)
And of course it’s still not perfect. There is still so much more I would love to learn about Khora of the Burning Heart, or Lactuca, or Lodus Logos. But how many other well-established X-characters were just floating around the periphery before someone decided to do a spotlight on them and add some desperately-needed dimensions to them? (Spoiler alert: All of them.) Trashing Red for not accomplishing in a year what other, more popular characters have had the benefit of decades to do is setting some unrealistically high expectations.
Obviously, it’s still possible for someone to have actually read the same book I am and arrive at a completely different conclusion. That’s great. If you’re not able appreciate what care and development has been put into a group of new characters who’ve had maybe a year’s worth of development in literally the only book that is explicitly focusing on them…well, the 60+ years’ worth of legacy are right there for you all in IXM and Duggan’s X-Men. But to declare Red a waste of time based on one mixed-to-weak transitional issue that is *clearly* being used to set up Fall of X in some way (in a book that apparently some of you aren’t even actually reading) is beyond ludicrous.
@ylu: And yet the first half of this issue revolves around characters who aren’t. It’s Arakki lore that doesn’t even directly involve the majority of those Earth-based protagonists.
@Moonstar Dynasty: All I’ll say to that is that you’re being incredibly generous to Ewing by suggesting that he’s “thoughtfully fleshed out” even half the points you’ve raised. But hey, maybe my expectations are a bit too high, forgive me for thinking a data page flashback and one page of circular logic doesn’t constitute “the humanization of Isca”, or that one dialogue exchange between Sunspot and Wrongslide isn’t enough to qualify as “growth into his own identity”. If you like it, more power to you, but let’s not give the book or its writer more credit than is actually due.
I have loved how effective and efficient Wrongslide’s limited appearances have been. We see that this is not at all the same ex-bully-turned-happy-go-lucky extrovert that he was in his original incarnation as Rockslide, but a quieter, more pensive guy grappling with that the fact that people look at him as a walking corpse of someone they once knew. And then he intentionally re-appropriates a a pun that asshole kids name him to make it his own. This stuff matters whether you choose to believe so or not.
Ewing took an afterthought non-consequence of X of Swords and empowered him with small character interludes that made him matter (and his contribution to the Vulcan trap card is made more satisfying as a result of this autonomy). Additionally, it reinforces the themes of identity and chosen names that Howard and Ayala have managed really well in the Krakoan books.
I just finished X-Men Red 12. I agree that this issue wasn’t as good as most of the rest have been, but it was still entertaining. I wondered why there were over 40 comments here, figuring it would be people speculating about Apocalypse or something. Wow, I did not expect all this vitriol toward one of the two best comics in the line.
I don’t need the Arakki to all be 3-dimensional, fleshed out characters. Having a few key ones is fine. I really like Fisher King, and Isca’s story was emotionally affecting. Ora Serrata, Weaponless Szen, and Lodus Logos show promise. Yes, I would like more characterization for Khora, too, and maybe a few more. As it stands, however, they are supporting characters that I hope get fleshed out more.
I do think Ewing has too many plots and characters to address adequately unless he writes the series for 20+ more issues. I’m worried his run won’t be as long as I want it to be. Given the great plotting and dialogue in X-Men Red, it’s a small price.
Even Al Ewing has a high bar to clear when it comes to making most of the Arakkoans and their culture interesting, and so this was, in my opinion, a weaker issue.
But I’d rather read a subpar Ewing book than an average Percy or Howard book (and I’d rather read those than even the best Chuck Austen or Rob Liefeld…)
I think Moonstar, while incredibly generous in their assessment, is pretty spot on nonetheless regarding Ewing’s contributions and efforts.
I still wish we could have gotten more of S.W.O.R.D. with the idea of the mutant space program, the investigation into mysterium, the character dynamics, and of course Brand’s secret agenda. If anything, the problem with Ewing’s series is that he gives us an incredibly interesting status quo, and then it gets imploded far too quickly… and I’m not sure how much of that is on him and how much on editorial/line-wide mandates. Certainly, I’d have loved to see a more leisurely development of the Brotherhood on Arakkoa with Storm, Magneto, Bobby, Fisher King, before Judgment Day blew it all to Hell.
@Diana: to each their own, but I was moved by Ewing & co’s work with Isca. She went from smug and condescending to vulnerable (the circular logic scenarios you allude to) to anguished when she can’t stop herself from attacking her allies due to her powers. I went from liking the concept but not the character to feeling bad for her when she was broken. There were no big soliloquies or arguments, the actions served to build my understanding of Isca and the way her power affected her.
@Moonstar Dynasty: I do agree that the use of Arakko to explore a more diversely coded society within the X-Men universe is long overdue, and credit to Ewing for engaging with it. If that aspect of the book has been meaningful to readers, than it’s obviously doing something right and should hopefully provide a template for other stories going forward.
The thing that baffles me though, is why we needed Arrako at all. My assumption upon the launch of the Krakoan era was that any new characters would naturally be terrestrial mutants from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds who might present differing perspectives on how Krakoa should be governed and what its purpose could be.
It seemed like an obvious means to explore and explain life on the island, whilst also opening up the mutant world outside of Westchester for when we inevitably return to it. I feel like we missed out on a lot of worldbuilding partially because they decided to build another world entirely.
I think for some of us here it’s not always about the specific quality of a given issue (Ewing has certainly penned some quality ones during his time on.the book), but an ongoing frustration with the botched opportunities of the new era. That probably means that when a story drops that’s a bit of a lemon, it’s easier to feel like you’re justly airing your wider grievances (i.e., exactly what I have done here). It is a bit mean, perhaps, in retrospect. The Krakoan era is not for everyone, but if you’re enjoying it, more power to you. I hope no one here has felt like they are being slammed for their tastes.
@Mike: “Anguished” is another one of those things I’m just going to have to chalk up to projection and Ewing’s popularity, because what I saw on the page was Isca smiling and being her usual smug self as she ripped Idyll’s head off or broke Kurt’s arm. Then Fisher King hits her with “This sentence is false” and apparently we’re supposed to be genuinely moved by that?
This is why I’m genuinely perplexed that readers seem satisfied with Ewing’s approach here, and giving it so much more than what’s actually in the book issue-to-issue. I was enjoying the Brand/Vulcan/Shi’ar politics, essentially continuing the storyline from SWORD, but I’m not here for X of Swords II: United We Stand