X-MEN: BOOK OF REVELATION #3
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & JP Mayer
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Revelation squares off against Elbecca and, oddly, Kitty Pryde, who doesn’t appear in this issue – making this a conflation of scenes from issues #2 and #3. This is the final issue of the series, with the story continuing in the X-Men: Age of Revelation – Finale one-shot.

PAGES 1-2. Flashback: Apocalypse despatches Elbecca to Earth.

We established last issue that Elbecca was not actually a little girl from the Revelation Territories, but an Arakkii spy with a “cover personality” who had been sent to infiltrate the Choristers and weaken Revelation. This flashback shows her being sent on that mission in the first place. Revelation points out later in the issue that this scheme must have been planned long before Arakko received word from Bei of his plans (in X-Men: Age of Revelation – Overture and the World of Revelation one-shot), and thus can’t be a reaction to Bei’s message. This seems likely to be right, and raises the question of why Apocalypse was already scheming to bring Revelation down even before then. Revelation’s explanation of his motives later in the issue probably provides the answer to that.

Elbecca’s real name is “Virta the Subtle”, implied to be something of a derogatory term in the rather direct context of Arakko culture. However, Virta generally seems to regard herself as a conventional Arakkii unbothered by the views of others. She certainly appears patriotic.

Apocalypse is flanked by his son Death, who we saw in issue #1, and Professor X, who was shown on Arakko in the World of Revelation one-shot. Professor X seems troubled by all this – it’s unclear whether that’s because he worries about war in general, or about Apocalypse’s motives in particular, or simply  because Apocalypse is sending a child on a mission is unclear. It’s practically a stock element in the X-books to criticise Professor X for using child soldiers, but Virta is young even by his standards.

PAGES 3-4. The funeral of Fabian Cortez.

Cortez was killed by Elbecca last issue. Chance’s dialogue indicates that his death has been ascribed to suicide after Revelation removed his ambition as punishment earlier in that issue (which would be plausible enough, give his condition before Elbecca killed him). Interestingly, it’s Khora, the other Arakkii representative, who seems to think there’s a bigger picture here.

Only the other Choristers attend his funeral. This could be because his death is being kept secret, at least until the ranks of the Choristers are replenished. If it was simply that attendance was optional and nobody else cared enough to come, then Khora and Chance probably wouldn’t have shown up either.

Revelation’s eulogy tells us that Cortez “disappointed me, disappointed us all” and “betrayed me, betrayed us all”, coming close to equating himself to the wider community. Even so, Revelation seems to think that Cortez merits a funeral, or at least that the other Choristers need to see him have one. Revelation is clearly troubled by the loss of two power-boosters within a fortnight and has the Seraphim searching for replacements.

“One killed the other. Or had her killed.” Cortez tipped off the X-Men to the whereabouts of Topaz, leading to her being killed by Glob Herman in the Overture one-shot.

PAGES 5-7. Elbecca plants a seed to grow a gateway from Arakko.

“The single loyalist in this next of traitors to Apocalypse’s dream.” Revelation is meant to be the heir to Apocalypse, who apparently views the entire direction of Revelation’s society as contrary to his “survival of the fittest” tenure. After all, it seems to be embracing mutants of all sorts.

“The damned in Providence…” Providence is part of the Darkchild’s territory, and linked to Limbo, as seen over in Amazing X-Men.

“Everyone knows that Arakko is not subtle.” Elbecca believes that she succeeded where everyone else failed because nobody was looking out for an Arakkii spy – and as illustration, points out that Death left a seed for her when he was forced to his knees by Revelation in issue #1. We don’t actually see this happen in issue #1, but there are plenty of panels in that sequence where Death’s would have the opportunity.

However, Revelation claims later that he was indeed anticipating an Arakkii infiltrator, though it seems he hasn’t picked up on it being Elbecca. And indeed Elbecca’s reasoning doesn’t quite make sense: Revelation’s not meant to know that she’s from Arakko, so why would his cultural prejudices against Arakko give her any advantage over the other mutants who tried and failed to stop him?

PAGES 8-10. Elbecca vists Revelation.

“I loved computers when I was your age…” Cypher was originally introduced as Kitty’s hacker friend. Computers are apparently obsolete in the Revelation Territories, with most things being supplied by the land itself.

“You don’t believe?” Revelation spells out directly that his use of religious iconography is purely to manipulate others; he doesn’t actually view himself in that way. He drops his guard here and seems willing to explain it directly to Elbecca, presumably because he hasn’t yet worked out that she’s the long-anticipated Arakkii assassin, and he’s still trying to bring her into his inner circle.

“Didn’t Death say you had abandoned your mission?” In issue #1. Revelation firmly maintains that he simply has a different interpretation of his mission from Apocalypse.

“No matter what it cost me. My best friend. My wife.” His wife Bei was killed in Overture, and Revelation claims later in the issue that he was deliberately setting her up to invite an Arakkii invasion. His “best friend” is Warlock, and Revelation explains that he had to add Warlock’s technarch biomass into the initial X-Virus outbreak in order to make it virulent enough. Revelation seems genuinely upset by this memory and claims, with apparent sincerity, that Warlock genuinely wanted to do this.

He seems legitimately troubled by Elbecca’s point that his powers make everyone agree with him – and in fairness, there has generally been a distinction between Revelation directly compelling people to do as he says, or simply making his case to them. But as the religious iconography exchange has just explained, Revelation’s power also extends to knowing how to be maximally persuasive.

Although it hasn’t been a major feature of the event, references to Technarch biomass in the Territories have also appeared in Undeadpool and X-Vengers.

“Mutant weapon.” This was indeed a common term for mutant powers on Arakko in X-Men Red.

PAGES 11-12. Elbecca tries to kill Revelation.

Although Revelation’s dialogue could be read as meaning that he knew Elbecca was an infiltrator, his reaction to her “mutant weapon” idiom suggests that what he really mans that he was expecting an attack from Arakko at some point. He says later on that he at least had doubts on the point, but might be bluffing.

PAGES 13-16. Revelation explains his plan.

Page 13 is simply a symbolic panel showing Apocalypse and his Horsemen on the left, and Revelation, Bei and Warlock on the right. Page 15 is just an image of Ego, the Living Planet.

Revelation explains that he wanted to square his mission from Apocalypse – to make sure that only the storng survived – with his desire to care for the weak. His solution to this is to erase the distinction between strong and weak by merging everyone into a single entity, inspired by Ego the Living Planet. Clearly, this is not what Apocalypse had in mind.

He characterises this as his solution to “an insane paradox”. Intriguingly, he seems to take it as read that he had no alternative but to pursue Apocalypse’s mission, despite acknowledging that they conflicted with one of his deepest values. Is it possible that Apocalypse’s upgrade left Revelation with a compulsion to pursue his mission, and that his attempts to rationalise it with his own beliefs have driven him mad?

Ego the Living Planet debuted in Thor #132 (1966) and is much as described here. Stories conflict somewhat as to whether Ego is a single scientist who merged with all the biomass on his world (including the rest of his race), or a gestalt of the entire population (which is getting us back into Dominion territory from the Krakoan era). Revelation certainly understands it to be the latter, though if there’s a core personality, then presumably it’s going to be him.

“Millions died because I made a mistake.” This is a curious comment – it’s not obvious what Revelation has in mind here, unless it’s something to do with the death toll from the first, inadequate version of the X-Virus.

PAGES 17-19. Revelation defeats Elbecca.

He does try to simply subdue her, but his power misfires because he addresses her as “Elbecca”, when the current personality regards herself as Virta. That, and the analogies to programming earlier in the issue, suggest we may be heading for a finale where Revelation is tricked into the giving the wrong orders.

According to Revelation, he wants Arakko to invade so that the can “kick-start the biological singularity” – apparently, there is a window of opportunity here where the X-Virus has spread far enough, but the humans and the Darkchild have yet to defeat him. Revelation seems to believe that one or other of them would defeat him in the end. Quite how the Arakko invasion helps the plan isn’t spelt out, but presumably it’s something to do with increasing the number of mutants in the territories.

PAGE 20. Professor X and Apocalypse lead the Arakko army to Earth.

We also saw this in Amazing X-Men #3, though this version shows soldiers following them, which wasn’t visible in the previous issue.