X-MEN: BOOK OF REVELATION #1
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Revelation stands before a crowd of supporters. Most of them are generics, but one has Akihiro-style claws (though we’ve seen him as a dissident in Laura Kinney, Sabretooth) and the one on the right is obviously Sunspot.

As a rule, I’m only doing full posts for the “Age of Revelation” books that map on to ongoing titles. This one doesn’t, but it’s written by Jed MacKay and it’s clearly much more central to the plot than any of the other books.

PAGE 1. Elbecca Voss in her bedroom.

This is effectively a flash forward which takes place between pages 7-8. As we’ll see later, Elbecca is the newest recruit to Revelation’s Choristers, the power-boosting mutants who enhance his powers to godlike levels. Since she’s too young to remember anything before Age of Revelation, she can’t be much more than ten years old and if she even exists in the present day, she’ll be an infant. I’m fairly sure this is her first appearance, and her unusual name doesn’t obviously map on to any established character.

We’ll find out who the “ghost” is later in the issue.

PAGES 2-5. Revelation announces Elbecca as his newest chorister.

Revelation seems to be speaking to a crowd several storeys below without any amplification equipment, but perhaps that goes with his power – or someone else is handling it with their own powers.

He announces that one of the Choristers, Topaz, was murdered by the X-Men. That’s true – Glob Herman shot her with a sniper rifle in X-Men: Age of Revelation Overture. It’s interesting that Revelation feels the need to acknowledge this publicly at all, even in the context of using it for propaganda against the X-Men. Perhaps the Choristers simply appear in public often enough that her disappearance is bound to be noticed.

Despite Revelation’s speech about the selfless nature of the Choristers, we’ve been told that their main function is to enhance his own personal power. That said, he isn’t entirely lying about this, since Topaz was indeed using her powers to help disaster victims fix their village when she was shot. Still, it seems as if having control of the power-boosting mutants is important to him, to the point where Elbecca is being pressed into service despite her youth. It’s not entirely clear here whether she’s being recruited because a vacancy has emerged, or whether the timing is just a coincidence.

The other three Choristers on the balcony with Revelation are Fabian Cortez, Chance (originally from Fallen Angels) and Khora (from X-Men Red), all of whom we’ve seen before in this event. Cortez was established as Revelation’s first Chorister in X-Men: Age of Revelation #0, and rather carries himself as the top Chorister; this seems to be more of a self-appointed role than anything else. He takes the opportunity to intimidate Elbecca, though Revelation does shut him down. Revelation, in contrast, goes out of his way to present himself as a kindly father figure.

PAGES 6-7. Revelation talks to the Choristers in private.

Elbecca has picked up on the fact that Revelation speaks differently in private, and gets a fairly sensible answer from him to the effect that he needs to present himself in a way that fulfils people’s expectations of him. He also alludes to his powers helping him use language effectively, which makes sense. The obvious implication is that he’s behaving towards Elbecca in the way most likely to control her behaviour.

Cortez tells Elbecca about “the ghost of Philadelphia”. Since Chance seems to think that he’s just being mean to a child, she obviously doesn’t expect Elbecca to encounter any ghost. However, Coertez insists that he never lies (is it possible that Revelation has compelled this, given his history of treachery?), and indeed we’ll see that there is a ghost.

PAGE 8. The ghost tries to warn Elbecca.

Straightforward.

PAGES 9-10. Revelation and the Choristers await the Arakki delegation.

Khora clearly despises Cortez, and explains (plausibly enough) that he sees all other Choristers as a threat, because they undermine Revelation’s dependence on him. Of course, this is also why Revelation needs as many Choristers as possible (and why Glob Herman killed Topaz, even though the circumstances were a PR disaster).

Khora refuses to actively help Elbecca any further, citing the Arakkii creed of self-reliance from X-Men Red. She mellowed a bit in the course of that book, but to be fair, she is actually helping Elbecca to a degree here, despite what she says.

The visit from Arakko is prompted by Bei’s message to Apocalypse in X-Men: Age of Revelation Overture, which we saw being received in World of Revelation. Evidently there’s some other channel of communication between Revelation and Arakko, as otherwise Revelation wouldn’t know to expect a visit. Revelation is also well aware that Apocalypse is unhappy with him – whether Apocalypse has communicated that before, or whether he takes it as read in the light of Bei’s information, isn’t clear.

PAGES 11-15. Death delivers his message to Revelation.

This is the future version of Death from the first Horsemen of Apocalypse, who appeared extensively in X-Men Red. As a basically sensible but loyal lieutenant, he’s a natural enough ambassador.

Based on Bei’s information, which we still don’t know, Apocalypse has concluded that Revelation has failed in his mission and is planning an “abomination”, and demands to take over the Revelation Territories. Revelation makes it abundantly clear that he doesn’t regard himself as having any loyalty to Apocalypse.

The mention of Bei’s death (in Overture) clearly makes Revelation lose his temper, even though he was the one who killed her. He’s able to command Death, but only with some difficulty, and only with all four Choristers backing him up.

Elbecca is clearly shocked by the whole exchange; the other three Choristers seem a little less surprised.

PAGES 16-20. Cortez tries to kill Elbecca.

Cortez’s dialogue in this scene is all consistent with his claim earlier that he never lies – there’s no reason why he wouldn’t believe everything he’s saying here. On that basis, Cortez likes the feeling of being indispensible to the most powerful man in the world.

Cortez evidently thinks he can get away with claiming that Elbecca fell off the roof, or perhaps was murdered by the X-Men – though you’d think the death of a Chorister would attract some investigation. Revelation must have some psychics on hand, surely?

Elbecca saves herself by using her powers to boost the power of the “ghost”, who turns out to be Kitty Pryde. Obviously it’s not clear what’s happened to her, but it seems that Revelation has discorporated her into mist – which was teased as a fate for her in the period after the Mutant Massacre when her powers weren’t working properly – and that she’s been hanging around trying to get one of the Choristers to help her restore herself.