Amazing X-Men #1 annotations
AMAZING X-MEN vol 3 #1
“Flight”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Mahmud Asrar
Colourist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: The core cast, with Cyclops supporting Schwarzchild.
This is the third series to be called Amazing X-Men. The first was the miniseries which stood in for X-Men during the original “Age of Apocalypse” event back in 1995. The second was an ongoing series which ran for 19 issues in 2013-2015 – it’s the one that opens with Nightcrawler returning from the dead.
This one is the stand-in for X-Men during “Age of Revelation”. To all intents and purposes, last week’s one-shot X-Men: Age of Revelation Overture was the real first issue of this series, and this story picks up the plot in progress: Cyclops and Beast have been transported into the bodies of their future selves in ten years’ time, with Revelation ruling a “mutant land” which is spreading across America. They promptly got attacked by Wolverine, with only Cyclops, Beast, Animalia (Jen Starkey), Glob Herman and Schwarzchild escaping. That’s where this issue picks up.
There are five “Age of Revelation” tie-in issues this week, but on the face of it, the only other one to advance the overall plot significantly is World of Revelation #1, an anthology title which includes Bei’s distress call to Apocalypse being received on Arakko. We’ll cover Binary #1 and Laura Kinney, Sabretooth #1 in separate posts, since they’re stand-ins for ongoing titles, but they seem to be free-standing stories within the Age of Revelation world. Longshots #1 is just a wacky comedy book.
PAGES 1-4. The remaining AoR X-Men take stock.
“You don’t know what we’ve sacrificed for this…” We established in X-Men: Age of Revelation Overture that this timeline’s version of Glob Herman is a hardened soldier. Quite aside from that, though, he clearly doesn’t have much time for Cyclops, and certainly shows no signs of viewing him as a great leader. This might all be connected with the fact that in his timeline Cyclops failed to stop the rise of Revelation, but he was working with that Cyclops anyway. Moreover, Cyclops was told in Overture that he had been brought to this timeline precisely because his leadership skills were valued. Despite that, none of the local characters actually seem to place much stock in them. At any rate, we don’t know at this stage what Glob’s “sacrifice” is, but we can make an educated guess. I’ll come back to that.
“The only way you’re getting home now is by making sure Schwarzchild stays alive long enough to hook up with our agent in Philly.” Again, we don’t know what Glob Herman’s referring to here. Philadelphia is Revelation’s capital city, though.
3K. In the two lead-in one-shots, we were told that Revelation had blamed the X-virus which created “this mutant land” on 3K, but that it was actually his own creation. Schwarzchild says that 3K reacted to this by going underground and abandoning his “X-Men”. Again, it sounds like we should expect to find out what happened to 3K later on.
“Xorn became my teacher then.” Presumably because he and Schwarzchild both have powers involving black holes.
“I never thought Ramsey had it in him.” This is an odd comment from Beast, because he’s a clone created after the fall of Krakoa using the archived memories of a Beast from early-1980s continuity. As such, he’s never really known Doug Ramsey. Nonetheless, other dialogue in this scene seems to clearly indicate that this is indeed the real Beast, since he’s the one picking up on the hints that he’s being lied to.
Animalia and Hank are heading towards being a couple in the mainstream timeline, which is why Hank is not especially surprised to learn that it happened in Animalia’s past.
“Ms Starkey is acting as if I had replaced my future self… which is surely not the case, as my future self had already been Babeled…” In Overture, the AoR X-Men claimed that Scott and Hank had overridden the minds of their AoR counterparts, who had previously been turned into Babels by Revelation – that is, punished by the loss of language. This flatly contradicted Age of Revelation #0, where we saw them both, and Scott was talking. This scene strongly indicates that the bit about Babels was a lie.
We know from other issues this week that Babels do exist – we see them in Binary and in World of Revelation. So apparently Hank and Scott were not Babels. Why lie about it? An obvious possibility is that this isn’t a mind-swap story, and the bit about overwriting their AoR counterparts was true. That would explain Glob and Animalia’s attitudes, and Glob’s reference to “sacrifice”. It would also fit with the indication at the end of Age of Revelation #0 that the main objective here is to arm Scott and Hank with information and then send them back in time to change the course of history, and it would explain why there isn’t a strand of this story covering events in the present day. It doesn’t really explain why there’s a need to lie to Scott and Hank about their future selves’ sacrifice, though – perhaps it’s to engage them emotionally in the need to stop Revelation?
“I haven’t been able to make psychic contact with Jean, and no one can tell me what’s happened to her or the Phoenix.” This is covered in Binary #1: Jean is dead (or at least believed to be dead). Carol Danvers is the new host of the Phoenix, and she’s been using it to keep the X-virus at bay from a human town. It seems highly unlikely that the AoR X-Men are genuinely unaware of this.
PAGES 5-7. Revelation brings Wolverine to heel.
So Wolverine did indeed escape Xorn’s black hole in Overture. He remains silent in this scene, and doesn’t have the metal face mask that he usually wears in this timeline – the art conspicuously avoids showing us his face. This is odd, since his healing factor is obviously working, and it’s hard to imagine what could have happened to him that wouldn’t have either healed or been destroyed along with his clothes.
Revelation seems to have correctly anticipated that “all you went through” will have shaken his control over Wolverine – which could refer to him escaping the black hole, or to being made to fight the X-Men. Controlling Wolverine seems to be a remarkably difficult exercise for Revelation – nobody else has been able to resist him at all, but with Wolverine he has to yell repeatedly, and needs three of his Choristers to boost his powers.
The three Choristers here are Fabian Cortez (Revelation’s first Chorister, per AoR #0), Khora (also shown in that issue) and Chance, who had a prominent role in the 1980s Fallen Angels miniseries, but hasn’t been seen since. Cortez is openly nervous that Revelation is puting himself in unnecessary danger – this partly fits with his characterisation as a geek, but he’s also been with Revelation for years by this point and must have seen this before. It’s possible that the risk is specifically Revelation’s initial attempt to control Wolverine without an outside power boost.
Why is Wolverine unusually resistant to Revelation’s power? Possibly because he’s a creature of instinct and spends so much of his time operating without language; as such, he may be less susceptible to Revelation’s language-based manipulation. Come to think of it, what’s Primal from Generation Hope up to in this timeline.
PAGES 8-12. The X-Men arrive at the former Graymalkin Prison.
The prison has been levelled by Revelation, with Corina Ellis being crucified and left to rot outside. Apparently, Revelation saw more symbolic value in destroying it as a prison than in restoring it as a piece of mutant heritage. But it’s also implied that Ellis committed a mass slaughter of mutant prisoners, who continue to haunt the ground, and that this is why nobody has been able to get in and do anything about it; Glob pretty much says outright that Ellis’s body was left hanging there because nobody could get in to do anything with it, rather than as an intentional symbol.
Deathdream from Uncanny X-Men is present, and says that he hasn’t aged because he’s dead. However, he clearly has a physical body, so he’s apparently referring more to an aspect of his powers. Deathdream isn’t leaning into his emo goth persona anywhere near as much here (though he does claim to like it here with the dead) – but that’s consistent with the way that persona is starting to fall away in Uncanny.
PAGES 13-18. Wolverine attacks again.
Deathdream claims that he has always been afraid of Wolverine, who is of course a regular character in his home book. I don’t think we’ve really seen any sign of this, but it’s certainly easy to imagine Deathdream finding Wolverine particularly impossible to connect with.
Wolverine beheads Deathdream. Since we know that he can come back from the dead, it’s possible that this isn’t terminal, although we don’t know much about Deathdream’s ability to reconstitute himself from serious physical damage. At any rate, the practical effect is that Deathdream is no longer holding the ghosts at bay, and they seem to get in Wolverine’s way. Is it possible that he was deliberately going for the most counterproductive target?
PAGES 19-20. The X-Men teleport into Providence.
This is a seemingly normal city, but the AoR X-Men are terrified of the place, and the story about the teleporter going wrong seems likely to be true. Providence is under the control of Darkchild, with Juggernaut as her henchman, and she describes it as a “colonial holding of Limbo”.
In Age of Revelation #0, we were told that Magik had died when the X-Men broke Fabian Cortez out of jail, but “the Darkchild did not”. It seems that she’s succumbed entirely to her Darkchild persona. This sits awkwardly with recent storylines in Magik, where the Illyana and Darkchild personas have largely reconciled. AoR #0 also said that Juggernaut had quit the team after Illyana’s death; he seems to have become demonic himself.
Standing next to them, and looking entirely unhappy to be there, is Psylocke. In Overture, she was an agent of Revelation, sent to kill Bei. After Psylocke impaled her, Bei indicated that she was going to tell Psylocke something, which we didn’t hear: “In telling you the truth, I will take my revenge. Because once you hear my words, your life will be over as well.” Psylocke then vanishes from the story, although Revelation assumes that she was obliterated by Bei’s “doom note” power.
I totally called Chance as a viable recruit for Doug’s stable of power enhancers.
Speaking of mutants who deal with ghosts, whatever happened to Wicked from that Excalibur run set on Genosha? She’d be perfect for this sort of thing as well.
So far so interesting, though a lot remains to be seen and explained. And I’m definitely convinced there are way too many tie-in and ancillary minis for this event.
Primal was in World of Revelation (the Wiccan & Hulkling) on Doug’s side along with Catseye.
“I never thought Ramsey had it in him.”-Well, that does seem a likely statement if this Beast knows of Doug as the introverted kid who used to get kicked out of arcades with Kitty. I wouldn’t have expected him to end up as Apocalypse either.
“The X-Men are terrified of the place(Providence).”-Yeah, because they know it’s Lovecraft Country.
I have to wonder if it IS a body swap and Future Scott and Future Hank are doing something in the present that Scott and Hank would object to.
So was Doug responsible for the 3K Gene Bomb? The only evidence we have is Magneto’s and Schwartzchild’s word- and we know they lied about Future Scott and Future Hank being Babels. In World of Revelation, Doug claimed that he DIDN’T release the X-virus, he merely stopped Wiccan from curing it years later. It’s possible Beast’s line “I never thought Ramsey had it in him” is meant to suggest that Doug DIDN’T release the X-virus.
It’s nice that Scott has realized that debriefing Schwartzchild about 3K could be useful.
Again, it’s ridiculous how the combined powers of the X-Men are useless against Wolverine.
Illyana has become Queen of Limbo once more. in the present day, Maddie is queen. Someone who is either Jean or Maddie (or both) is appearing in the Binary series.
I don’t think this is the same Beast as we’re seeing right now in X-Men – my money is on X-Force Beast, though I guess it could be Dark Beast too (and he’d be an AoA callback).
– His line about not thinking that Ramsey had it in him was odd, as others have mentioned – he gives his reason in abstaining on Doug joining the X-Men as “I don’t know enough.”
– He was awakened separately (and before) Cyclops – this gave a chance to tell him “Hey, this is our real plan. Pretend to be the other Beast so Cyclops doesn’t flip out.”
– He’s in the white fur, which has previously been used for an evil Beast taken over by Sublime.
– X-Men Beast is probably the least useful Beast you could get in a situation like this where everything has gone badly and you’re desperate. The other Beasts are both more capable and more ruthless.
Beyond that, I agree that it’s absurd that we get Wolverine taking down the entire team twice, but that’s sorta just par for the course – remember his previous stint as Death just prior to The Twelve, when he was similarly able to defeat any number of opponents that the plot demanded.
@John- But he knows that Schwartzchild is an agent of 3K and that Jen Starkey is one of their experiments. X-Force Beast wouldn’t know that.
At least in the Twelve, Wolverine seemed to have some of Apocalypse’s technology helping him. We don’t even have that excuse here.
Schwartzchild might be in on the ruse, and he and Magneto might have quickly filled Beast in on what he missed. However, they wouldn’t know (and thus, wouldn’t cue X-Force Beast) that X-Men Beast and Starkey were moving toward a relationship, which would also explain her reaction when he was so formal with her.
@John- I think we both missed the obvious explanation. There’s a theory going around on Reddit that the Chairman is a Beast (either Krakoa Beast or Dark Beast) and the Beast that was brought to the future was the Chairman. The Chairman would know who Starkey was and who Schwarzchild is.
This Beast also calls the grounds the “Xavier Institute” not the “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters”. Why would he be nostalgic about going out on a mission with Scott when he’s been doing that in X-Men?
Present Beast, Future Beast, Dark Beast, Krakoa Beast … this is all getting ridiculous, I sincerely hope we only see the one Beast for quite some time.
I don’t know, this doesn’t look like any version of Hank McCoy I’ve ever seen. Even if he were depowered, those are still normal-sized hands and a regular-looking torso.
@neutrino:
He hasn’t. Beast’s not out in the field, he’s doing tech support in the Factory most of the time.
Maybe this event completes Beast’s reset by integrating all the Beasts into one person with the memories of all of them. That hasn’t happened yet, right?
If not, now would be a good opportunity to get rid of all the extraneous versions of Hank that have been floating around for a while.
Now I’m trying to think of when Beast might conceivably have met Cypher prior to Doug’s resurrection in Necrosha. Beast left the Avengers in issue 211 in summer 1981 and joined the Defenders in late 1981. Hank would’ve been at Scott’s wedding to Madelyne in UXM #175 in August 1983, but that was prior to Doug’s first appearance in March 1984, so it’s unlikely they would’ve met there. And for most of Doug’s tenure on the New Mutants, the 05 were masquerading as mutant hunters. Then by the time the New Mutants started hanging out with X-Factor (after Inferno), Doug was dead.
I guess theoretically they could’ve met during Secret Wars II? Or maybe Hank stopped by the mansion for an off-panel visit sometime during his New Defenders tenure when he wasn’t busy. But yeah, any contact between Hank and Doug pre-Necrosha would’ve been EXTREMELY minimal.
They could have met any time off-panel prior to Uncanny X-men 201, I would hazard a guess.
Dark Beast has been around for decades and I would presume anyone who knows him sees him as a distinct person who just happens to look somewhat like Hank McCoy.
As for Krakoa Beast, I thought it very ill-advised to first turn him irredeemably bad and then kill him off (even Bishop was somehow redeemed after Messiah Complex). The blank-slate copy may work for a time (see Warren after the Dark Angel incident in UXF), but I expect the Beast from the eighties until Krakoa to be re-inserted sooner or later. So this personality-swap may actually be the way to do it.
Oh, and I’m among those who suspect the Chairman to be Krakoa Beast.
So, he could be Professor Hank, like Professor Hulk
Didn’t Krakoa Beast leave a veritable trail of dormant versions of himself in the future somewhere in the plot of those terrible comics that were Ben Percy’s “X-Force” #39-42 back in 2023?
Considering how flexible the handling of those characters was at the time and since, I can easily see one of those being awakened to become AoR Beast.
@Diana:
“OK, everybody face front, this is our big pitch. Wyre, stop smiling, you’re scaring the children. Cassandra, what the hell are you doing with your hands?”
“I can’t help it, I have resting evil hands!”
“Astra, it’s 2025, you don’t have to strike a Hawkeye Initiative pose. Joseph, stop scowling!”
“You’re a flayed alive-looking person with a motorcycle helmet, what do YOU know about image?”
Hawkeye initiative pose, it’s been a while since I heard that
Funny there’s ghosts in the prison, given Monet just upped and walked out (what on earth was the point in that?!). Is everyone else still stuck there? Or are they all faking it too?
Apropos of nothing, it’s peculiar how Xorn has never really been developed more than a cipher (all we really know is when Magneto impersonated him, he’s never actually been fleshed out, then given a twin!). This in comparison to Kwannon, also started off as arguably a more throwaway concept then Xorn-who-never-was, then has been really developed in recent times. I wonder if Xorn will ever actually get a spotlight.
If this Hank McCoy is Dark Beast and isn’t the Chairman, I’m quite prepared to believe that he has bugged or otherwise spied on BlankHank enough to be largely able to maintain the charade … while occasionally having odd lapses in his knowledge where convenient (such as not knowing that BlankHank doesn’t know Doug that well).
After all, when he first arrived in the 616, he gathered enough information to impersonate Beast for several issues, while completely missing that doing so was a very bad plan if your goal was to hide from Mr Sinister.
I do like the theory that the Chairman is a Beast. We know he’s a mutant geneticist, which narrows it down a lot. The X-Men in the AoR still don’t know much about 3K, so if they didn’t know there was a second Beast, unknowingly grabbed the wrong one, and the Chairman goes back to the present with knowledge of the X-Virus…
This is 1000% a post-Krakoa Hank, most likely restored by 3K sometime in the interim between Doug joining the team and Hank getting snatched into the future.
The “never thought Ramsey had it in him” line is the biggest clue, but it’s backed up by:
-Hank’s overall clinical and detached view of the situation. Doesn’t care that he upset Jennifer, thinks this new world is fascinating, etc. This is the only clue that’s wildly out of character for young Hank; the rest all have possible alternate explanations.
-His interest in where 3K is presently. Could be idle curiosity, could be he wants to know where they are so he can hook back up with them.
-The future X-Men’s caginess about his “babel”ing. Could be they’re just trying to hide the fact that they sacrificed their own teammate, could be that future Hank was their prisoner.
-Hank’s interest in the virus. Could be so he can create a cure, could be so he can learn how it works so 3K can create it themselves.
-Hank’s line to Scott about bringing back happy memories. Could be genuine, could be Bad Hank saying what Scott expects to hear, OR, could be Bad Hank genuinely having fond memories of his former friendship with Scott.
-Hank’s line about Logan: “Just…just keep him away.” Could just be the fear of a current non-combatant who hasn’t been through as much as the others have. Or it could be Bad Hank extra afraid precisely because he HAS been through getting killed by Wolverine.
@Krzysiek Ceran: He was in Manhunt IIRC. He’s been deliberately refusing to go out in the field because of the fear of becoming like his Krakoan self, but shows no misgivings here. He even calls the dystopian situation “fascinating”.
Did we ever get the rumored/expected/teased return of Stars and Garters Beast?
January X-solicits were released at NYCC. For anyone who cares about AoR, there’s at least one and maybe two major spoilers in the X-Men #23
Yeah, based on the upcoming X-Men cover, “The Chairman” is definitely not Hank McCoy (in any of his forms) unless his body has gone through incredibly serious atrophy.
Looking at the cover of X-Men 24, art by Tony Daniel, the Chairman is thinner than Nightcrawler, shorter than the Wolverines, and smaller than Cassandra Nova and Astra. Going off of the image alone, it might be a wimpy Miles Morales clone. Excluding the ears, is this a reasonable size for the Jackal? I think the Jackal has been drawn as a foot shorter than Peter Parker. Is this correct? This cover does not support the Chairman as being Beast, SugarMan or MODOK. I am thinking any version of Beast as Chairman would be a better direction than we are getting. I know covers can be misleading, but this would be extreme.
@Woodswalked: The Jackal just got killed over in New Avengers. I know that’s a different office, and anyway such things tend to be temporary, but I would think that this argues pretty strongly against Chairman = Jackal.
Plus, the Jackal stubbornly remains not a mutant.
Was the Locust a mutant? Is it the Locust? He was probably involved in some sort of cloning experiments involving locusts, right?
What about Evan? When was he last seen? Is he still child-size?
Otherwise, I don’t know.
I saw NYCC as indicating the opposite- the Chairman IS a Beast. First, let’s look at the solicits for issue 23- ” One X-Man of the present has been stranded in the Age of Revelation, fighting against impossible odds in the world of tomorrow. But while they’ve been there, what has their future counterpart been doing in their body in the present?”
ONE X-Man of the present. That pretty much confirms that it isn’t the X-Men’s Beast who’s with Scott.
Also, in one of the preview images. Future Scott is attacking Doug, which is apparently why he switched bodies with Present Scott. But Beast isn’t helping Future Scott. So it wasn’t the X-Men’s Beast who switched bodies with Future Beast.
Then the solicits for issue 24 read ” In the wake of the Age of Revelation, the gene-terrorist group 3K has been revitalized”. Why would they be revitalized? Because they now have access to the information about the X-virus that Beast saw in the future. The only explanation is that the Chairman is the Beast that’s been with Scott in the future.
As for why the Chairman’s physique doesn’t look Beast-like, there are possibilities. If the Chairman is the Dark Beast, he was reduced to a head the last we saw him, so the Chariman’s body could be a robot body.
Actually, we don’t know what Beast is doing on that cover. He looks enraged and Warlock is directly behind him. It seems like Warlock would be attempting to help Doug, which he seems to be doing by trying to stop Beast. Maybe.
Also, 3K become the Headmen.
I was referring to the below image:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fnycc-x-men-panel-megathread-v0-uej358u3acuf1.png%3Fwidth%3D2048%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Db1c972b2e9882592a0b8dfebf579e32f7cbaca7b
It seems like Beast is trying to grab Scott.
I am referring to this cover.
https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/9046138/x-men-24
The chairman isn’t in the image that Michael shared.
Agreeing with the caveat that time travel and body switching shenanigans are possible, after all Widget turned out to be Kate Pryde which was not apparent visually… but the Chairman is not Beast.
Two titles with Iron Man where in one he could only use armor not sharing any of his previous non-magical designs, and one where he used the Silver Centurion suit. Complete unresolved contradictions are the new Marvel way, so Jackal dying in one title just makes him more similar to Sinister. I don’t want it to be the Jackal, but this doesn’t exclude him like the Beast clearly is.
I had to lookup the Locust. That would be a wild swerve. MacKay could be pulling a Roy Thomas level deep dive, but I doubt it. This would be wild! Sauron the geneticist just wanted to turn people into dinosaurs and Locust the geneticist who just wanted insects to mutate and then take their revenge on humans… I would like that story.
If we exclude Beast, Sugarman, Jackal, Locust, Strife, and Sinister, what X-Men related cloning geneticists does that leave?
@Woodswalked- I only posted that image to make it clear that Beast isn’t affected by the body-swap. Whoever’s with Scott, it isn’t the Factory Beast.
Regarding the Chairman, we know three things about him- (a) he’s a mutant, (b) he called Cyclops Scott and (c) he’s not Sinister or the Sugar Man. Beast is the only one that really fits those criteria.
As for why he looks different, there are several explanations. He could have experimented on himself. If he’s the Dark Beast. it could be his head on a robot. If it’s the Krakoa Beast, he could have been mutated by the Black Hole Gun (when it washed away the rain). 🙂
Evan, the clone of Apocalypse, is my most likely pick after seeing the cover. I have no memory of when we last saw Evan, so I’m not sure if he still has a child body. That would be almost as wild as Locust or Magneto in the role, as we’d have OG Apocalypse, New ‘Poc (Doug), and clone Pocs in the same story. It would fit if Evan feels that Doug has usurped his role or something.
Sublime is the other choice that would make sense. Since he can take over other bodies, he could be im control of any body. Plus, if the X-virus is a virus and was the creation of 3K that would make sense.
It is still an open-question if Sublime should be considered an actual mutant (in the Marvel U sense) though.
Evan seems a wild twisty answer. Not impossible, but it would be a Moria McTaggart or Locust level of surprise. Sublime is a very reasonable contender. This could actually fit both the story’s use of Cassandra Nova, and also MacKay’s appreciation of the Morrison era. I am hoping this isn’t it, but wouldn’t actually hate it. If Warlock is a Marvel mutant than so is Sublime. A virus with the same X gene as the Deviants and Shi’ar has to be an even clearer match than Warlock’s mutation in his programming code.
@Michael – I am not disagreeing that bodyswapped ‘future’ Beast is NOT ‘our’ (blank)Beast. I agree with every step of your reasoning except for his being the actual Chairman.
@Chris V- I can’t see Sublime referring to Cyclops as Scott.
Evan, maybe, but it would be complete character assassination to make him the Chairman.
Besides, if Future Beast isn’t the Chairman, then who is he?
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The chairman has appeared in shadow before, looking more adult. Krakoan Beast could have transferred his mind to a new body to avoid capture or just be using an image inducer.