Inferno
Back in the day, What If…? used to do nothing but imagine what might have happened if a high-profile story had turned out differently. The answers tended to be pretty similar: something terrible would have happened – otherwise, what would it say about the stakes in the original story? Bad things would ensue, alternate versions of major characters would probably die, and some sort of bittersweet redemptive ending would follow. It’s where the premise tends to lead you.
So with the Secret Wars X-books playing such a straight bat in terms of revisiting old stories, maybe it was inevitable that we would end up with a dystopia glut. It’s more surprising to see two separate books both built around the set-up of the X-Men quarantining an island.
But Inferno lends itself to that idea more naturally than X-Cutioner’s Song. The 1989 crossover involved the demons of limbo invading Manhattan and all the buildings, cars and street furniture coming to life. If the X-Men don’t win that one, you’re pretty much looking at quarantining the island.
The original “Inferno” is slightly unusual in X-Men crossovers, in that it was actually the pay-off to the long-running New Mutants storyline of Magik’s corruption by her Darkchilde persona. It also had the X-Men meeting X-Factor for the first time (after “Morlock Massacre” was carefully structured to keep them apart), and trying to stop Madelyne Pryor from sacrificing her baby son in order to bring demons to Earth. But they were off to the side of Magik’s story, which was what it was really all about.
First and foremost, though, “Inferno” was a chance to spend three months drawing a completely nuts version of New York where the buildings tried to eat people. From a strictly logical standpoint it’s slightly surprising that there was anyone left alive in the city at the end, but let’s not quibble. Artists like Bret Blevins and Walt Simonson were perfectly suited to this sort of thing.
It doesn’t easily lend itself to a stable environment for sequels, though. So Dennis Hopeless and Javier Garron back off a little bit here. There’s still a lot of doorways transformed into gaping mouths, but it’s more cosmetic; the doors don’t actually try to eat people. Even so, what’s left is a demonic Manhattan whose human population seem to be pretty clearly out of the picture, while the Darkchilde and Maddie Pryor fight over control of what’s left, and the X-Men sit on the mainland and keep up the barrier. (It seems there are still people living in the other boroughs, too, though you’d imagine house prices have fallen a bit.)
It’s a Colossus story, and we don’t get too many of them these days. And the idea is simple enough. Colossus still thinks his little sister can be saved, so every year he leads another group of X-Men on a raid to try and save her. (Yes, I know, if you’re being sensible, you wouldn’t choose to go on a predictable day each year. But it’s a magic story, so fairytale logic is fine.) The raid never works. Last year they actually reached her, but amazingly enough she turned out to be incredibly evil and turned Colossus’ arm demonic before the team could retreat. Cyclops sees this as a signal that she’s a lost cause and it’s time to stop risking bodies on her. Colossus, being Colossus, sees it as a sign that he’s getting closer, and this year will be the one. A bunch of X-Men agree to go with him anyway, and, well, that works out for everyone about as well as you’d imagine. For example, if you’ve gone to great lengths to quarantine a demon army, it’s maybe not the best idea in the world to give them a chance to capture your teleporter.
Building on her relationship with Colossus from X-Force, Domino is the main supporting character here, and it’s a pairing that works very well. Colossus is a sturdy, heroic fellow, but on his own he can be a little bit plodding. Domino brings a bit of spark to the story, and gives him something to bounce off. She’s a very good sounding board that brings out all the strengths of Colossus’ character, as well as providing him with a reality check that can keep the plot on the rails.
I’m about to give away the ending, by the way, so stop here if that bothers you.
You might assume that this would be a story about the X-Men trying to cure the Inferno and restore New York. In fact, it’s not – there’s never any suggestion that the Inferno is reversible. It’s just treated by everyone as a fact of life that simply has to be contained. All Colossus is trying to do is rescue Illyana from it. Belatedly, Cyclops does suggest that they should have been fighting back all along, but it’s far too late for that. So all this leads to a somewhat unexpected ending where, as is traditional, most of the X-Men get wiped out, Illyana is destroyed rather than saved, and Colossus, Domino and (somewhat randomly) Boom-Boom simply leave the domain behind them as a write-off.
This succeeds more than you’d expect. Leave aside the fact that curing the Inferno probably wasn’t an option because the demons are needed as cannon fodder in the core Secret Wars series; it would have been a cutesy ending anyway. This isn’t an exercise in nihilism; the arc here is about Colossus coming to terms with a lost cause and finally being able to move on. Illyana is gone long before the story even starts. Obviously, a lot fewer people would have died if he’d got to the point quicker, but at least the surviving three move on while there’s still something worth moving on with.
There are bits that feel too abrupt. Mr Sinister is given a big build-up and taken off the board rather too quickly to be satisfying. The joke of baby Nathan having grown up into a little boy Cable who already loves huge guns is cute but doesn’t go anywhere. A coda with Madelyne becoming the new Baron isn’t a particularly satisfying ending, and I can only assume it’s there because she’s going to turn up in that role in Secret Wars.
But the series does succeed in getting the warped version of Manhattan across, playing off the insanity of Inferno while holding on to something very human in Colossus, and keeping him sympathetic even while his obsessions are the cause of everything going to hell. There’s a story thread in here that works, even when the subplots don’t all land, largely through the force of personality of Colossus and Domino as a double act – something that both the writing and art can take credit for.
I think you mean X-tinction Agenda rather than Executioner’s Song in paragraph 3.
I admit it works better with the what if structure and the original Inferno, but I was really surprised to see the story rather unequivocally demonstrate that Cyclops was 100% right in calling off the rescue. It’s like watching a cop movie where at the end, the captain gets a commendation for kicking that one detective off the case, because it turns out he *is* a loose cannon.
Considering that the Magik story was contained within the New Mutants/X-Terminators side of the crossover (and they are fairly separate from the X-Men/X-Factor) side of it, I always saw it as more of just the setup of the event that kind of got sidelined and that the main event was the turning of Madelyne after Scott abandoning her and the baby for Jean and all the issues involved, Sinister, etc., since that’s the story that took place in the actual X-Men book.
I thought inferno was best x-book in SW, but not prob one of the 10-15 books overall.
Odessasteps — Is that counting Giant-Size Little AvX and Kitty Pryde and Star-Lord as non-X-books?
Well, the former was cute but i think the gimmick might be wearing thin and the latter i would say is a gotg book.
My favorites overall, in no particular order, would be: weirdworld, ghost racers, siege, future imperfect, planet hulk, where monsters dwell. Im likely forgetting something.
1602 and Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders are two worth mentioning.
Sadly, the latter was only two issues.
Weirdworld is also my favourite though.
E is for Extinction started off really good, reading very much like Morrison’s X-Men run, but sort of went off the rails, somewhere.
Where Monsters Dwell was a huge disappointment. It lost me when Ennis decided to make it a one-not immature joke about emasculating Amazons. I would have liked to see a lot more dinosaurs versus pilot action.
“E is for Extinction started off really good, reading very much like Morrison’s X-Men run, but sort of went off the rails, somewhere.”
Very much like Morrison’s X-Men run. 🙂
Yeah, captain britain was good but too short. I knewi would forget somethng.
There had to have been a better, less bloated event cross-over to justify having an African-American Spider-man.
If Inferno is a story with a beginning, middle, and end, then the relevant stuff, the main thrust is, is in X-Terminators and New Mutants.
But since the X-Men/X-Factor issues tied up the Mister Sinister arcs and demonstrated significant underboob, it’s the one that’s generally mentioned as “Inferno”.
The fact is though that Uncanny X-Men/X-Factor is summarized as the Inferno story in most material, it is only summarized as such because the New Mutants characters are b-characters and the New Mutants franchise typically isn’t big enough. If it is an X-Men book retelling X-history, then the X-Men portion of Inferno will not be treated as the B story.
When I was catching up on major X-stories in the ’90s, I bought Inferno as back issues of X-Men and X-Factor, not realising Illyana/New Mutants was a big part of it. I’ve still never read the New Mutants parts.
X-Men subplots were relatively self-contained at the time. The only other title they spilled into at first was Wolverine.
Eventually it looped into X-Factor a couple of time through Pryor, Sinister, and Genosha. X-Factor looped into them with Nanny and Widow maker.
New Mutants stuff didn’t lead into X-Men.
I don’t think so anyway….
Choosing to resolve the Illyanna/Darkchylde and “What’s up with Madeline and Mr. Sinister” plotlines in the same story always struck me as a weird decision. It certainly led to some weird stuff (e.g., “Madeline becomes an evil witch because reasons”).
Jerry Ray beat me to it. I have no idea how Chris V wrote that description of “E is for Extinction” without realizing he was describing Morrison’s run rather perfectly.
At first I thought gun-toting, Domino-admiring li’l Nathan was a cute touch in this miniseries … but then when I thought about it, it didn’t quite make sense to me. Part of the original “Inferno” plot was that Maddie and Nastirh were going to sacrifice baby Nathan. So what happened in this timeline where instead she kept him alive? Didn’t quite jive.
Plus it sure makes Scott seem hella cold-hearted. His wife, his brother, AND his son are all in the Quarantine zone and he doesn’t care enough to keep making rescue attempts? I know Cyclops is a jerk, but … that seems cold even for him.
“Madeline becomes an evil witch because reasons” was done to excuse Scott abandoning her and their baby once he found out Jean was alive.
wwk5d: ““Madeline becomes an evil witch because reasons” was done to excuse Scott abandoning her and their baby once he found out Jean was alive.”
Eh, not so much excuse as obscure the matter and get Maddie off the board to clear the way for Scott and Jean’s eventual marriage.
The closest they ever came to “excusing” Scott was writing him as having a total nervous breakdown due to Jean’s return and then a serious of “unfortunate events” to keep him separated from Maddie by convincing him she was dead. The central through-line of the first few years of X-Factor, right up through Inferno, was Jean psychologically propping Scott up and gradually putting him back together.
I’ve always wondered how things would’ve gone if anyone in Marvel editorial had paid attention to all the hints that Claremont had dropped that Madelyne was Jean reincarnated (i.e. telepaths couldn’t read her mind, she had no past before a plane crash that occurred the exact moment Phoenix offed herself on the moon, a flame visual motif when Maddie briefly had powers, etc.)
Come to think of it, the only way Cyclops doesn’t come off looking like a damaged, obsessive weirdo for marrying Madelyne in the first place is if she actually is Jean.
@FUBAR007: “Come to think of it, the only way Cyclops doesn’t come off looking like a damaged, obsessive weirdo for marrying Madelyne in the first place is if she actually is Jean.”
YES to this. And how awesome would it have been for Jean to come back as someone else every time she died?
CYCLOPS: “Wolverine, I want you to chop those people up! And Jean, er, Mad-, uh, Susan – you need to levitate that truck!”
She could have the same powers. And amnesia, maybe? The team would have to find her again based on weird clues like the timing of unlikely disasters.
More fun than a stupid “Phoenix Egg,” anyway.
Whatever. 12-year-old me loved the X-Men/X-Factor chapters of Inferno. Y’all can suck it.
I never cared for the New Mutants part of Inferno because of the art. I never liked post Claremont New Mutants for that reason. (Mostly.)
And as I re read those issues, I wish Maddie and Illyana’s stories were kept isolated. Even if it did lead to some great stuff sometimes. Like when Maddie’s features begin to disappear, the ghostbusters in Uncanny.
I am thoroughly unsatisfied with how they resolved Maddie’s story, overall. What a shame. Instead of yet another Colossus tries to save his sister story, I wish SW gave us What If Maddie Had Nothing to Do with Inferno…?
Oh, and I liked Where Monsters Dwell, especially the beginning, hated Captain Britain, E is for Extinction did start out well but faltered and I liked all of Morisson’s run. Overall I think SW sucked for the xbooks. What a waste.