Excalibur #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #12
“Verse XII: The Beginning”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Saturnyne plays chess with Excalibur as the pieces (a common motif with Otherworld rulers); she doesn’t realise she’s a piece in Apocalypse’s game in her turn. If you really want to nitpick, the chess board ought to have a white square in the bottom right corner.
PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-6. Apocalypse addresses the High Lords.
“The Eternal Caldera, Krakoa.” A caldera is a cauldron-like cavity on an extinct volcano. The location, then, is presumably the extinct volcano on the Arak Coral from X-Men #2, which contained a closed portal to Krakoa’s sister island of Arakko.
So let’s spell out the plot. As explained in more detail in X-Men #12, Apocalypse is trying to create a portal to Otherworld so that he can use it as a route back to Arakko – X-Men #2 mentioned that Arakko and Otherworld have a border. In Excalibur #5 we established that opening a Krakoan portal to Otherworld (at least the way Apocalypse is doing it) involves stones which contain the energies of ancient mutants. So Apocalypse has hauled in this bunch of venerable-yet-expendable Z-listers to turn them into the required stones. It doesn’t quite work because he tries it with Candra, and Candra’s energies are locked in the Heart of Candra jewel which Gambit found at the end of the last issue. So to get it over the line, he needs that jewel too.
“Once upon a time, there was a mutant who was a hero to his people…” Apocalypse seems to be talking about his heroic role in the early days of Arakko, described at more length in this week’s X-Men #12.
The High Lords are (left to right in the first panel) Absolom, Gideon, Saul, Crule, Apocalypse, Selene, Candra and Nicodemus. Candra is drawn as a teenager to reflect her status quo following a botched resurrection, as shown in Mr & Mrs X #11-12 – it’s going to be academic very soon, so the issue understandably doesn’t waste time explaining it.
Apocalypse is claiming that on Krkaoa, all mutants now effectively have the powers of the High Lords. This is obviously sort of true in relation to eternal life (though individual mutants are still dependent on others to get the job done). The previous issue introduced the idea that the High Lord can also force a meeting whenever they wish to commune (it’s not entirely clear what happens if one of them says no), and Apocalypse makes a rather more strained argument that the Krakoan teleportation gates are a bit like that.
Apocalypse’s description of the group as “the first mutant coven” – which is also how he described them last issue – is clearly news to the others.
Apocalypse also gives us a speech about the overwhelming importance of mutant community and how humans went wrong with their focus on mechanisation and individualism. Of course, the main threat set up in Powers of X was that humans with mechanisation always overtake mutation and render it redundant in the end. Krakoa’s rejection of mainstream technology has been a theme throughout.
PAGE 7. Data page on the High Lords / Externals, pretty much repeating what we’ve already been told. The idea of the group as a kind of Illuminati dates from early X-Force but was never really developed in the stories.
For some reason, this page re-uses the small print “Act-HRH” from issue #4, where it was used on the royal proclamation giving Excalibur some sort of official status.
PAGES 8-14. Rictor is brought to the Cauldron and helps turn three of the High Lords into power stones.
Selene and Gideon both side with Apocalypse against the other Externals. This isn’t particularly surprising with Selene, who’s already established as a part of Krakoan society. It’s not so obvious why Gideon sides with Apocalypse, but frankly he’s the only other External who really qualifies as a developed character, having been a prominent villain in the early days of X-Force. He’s at least something of a pragmatist, and never especially loyal to the rest of the group. Absalom also survives, if only because Apocalypse needs him for the numbers.
“Krakoa belongs to all mutants.” This is a routine proclamation on Krakoa, usually indicating that the supervillains are welcome. Rictor seems on the surface to be invoking it here in answer to Saul’s claim that the Externals are special and could rule Krakoa from the shadows – he repeats Apocalypse’s claim that on Krakoa, everyone is basically an External. But at the same time, let’s not forget that Saul is only fighting because Apocalypse is trying to kill him and steal his life force for the supposed greater good. In that light, Rictor is making a claim that the greater good of mutants as a whole (as assessed by Apocalypse, presumably) prevails even over Saul’s right to life. Apocalypse is quite explicit about that, calling the defeated Externals “the weak who would not die for the greater good”.
PAGE 15. Data page – an extract from Apocalypse’s grimoire, broadly explaining the plot.
PAGE 16. Apocalypse realises that Candra’s energies are in her gem.
PAGES 17-19. Candra’s spirit haunts Gambit.
With her body destroyed, Candra’s spirit shows up at the Heart of Candra gem and tries to enlist Gambit’s help. She suggests she anticipated Apocalypse’s plan and deliberately hid the Heart of Candra here – though how she got it there is unclear, unless she has some easier method for getting to Otherworld. Gambit suggests that he recognised the jewel and took it for safekeeping. The last meeting that Gambit mentions was in Mr & Mrs X #11-12.
Candra says she’s the “goddess of thieves”; this is a bit of an overstatement, but refers to a number of 90s stories where she was presented as the historical benefactor of the Thieves Guild (of which Gambit is part).
PAGES 20-21. Saturnyne and Captain Britain talk.
Saturnyne clarifies here that her Priests were formed as a replacement after the fall of the Captain Britain Corps (though they seem very well developed for something so recent). She also shows Betsy the deviant Excalibur-Captain Britains that Jamie had created in his pocket realities in issue #10.
Saturnyne’s simple point seems to be that the role of Captain Britain can’t be validly taken by somebody who doesn’t enjoy British public support. The mere willingness of somebody like Gambit or Jubilee to pick up the medallion and wear the flag doesn’t make them into a viable Captain Britain because they’re so obviously not British. Saturnyne seems to be suggesting that Betsy is also not a viable Captain Britain because she’s a mutant. That claim is less obviously true because there’s no inherent reason to think of those identities as incompatible, but Saturnyne’s point seems to be more about the likelihood of public acceptance (particularly in a world where mutants are overwhelmingly claiming a loyalty to Krakoa).
Basically, Saturnyne objects to Betsy as Captain Britain because she believes she can’t command public acceptance, without which she cannot perform all the functions of the role – presumably because she won’t properly function as a (magical) symbol of nationhood.
PAGES 22-25. Gambit and Rogue nearly get caught, and Gambit throws the Heart of Candra through the gate.
Candra tells Gambit directly that he has a choice between helping her (by hiding the jewel) or helping Apocalypse (by handing it over). He hands it over, but more because he sees this as an immediate chance to get rid of Candra, and believes he can sort out Apocalypse later.
PAGES 26-27. Trailers. As always this month, the Krakoan reads NEXT: X OF SWORDS.
The Externals were a derivative, stupid concept back in the ’90s when they were introduced, and nothing has ever done much to improve upon that. Now, if you wanted to make a case for a cabal of long-lived/immortal mutants playing Illuminati/world-building games, that makes as much sense as anything else, but the whole Highlander ripoff…
So at least this is trying something different with them… even if it’s all ridiculous and this take on Apocalypse doesn’t jibe with 30+ years of history where he was basically a deranged Darwinist with a particular aggressive theme. But as we see elsewhere this week, the current status is really running with the idea of an earlier, failed, mutant nation-state from prehistory and a sorcerer Apocalypse plays into that.
Why Rictor has gone from “earthquake powers” to full on “earth druid” is beyond me. Secondary mutation? Untapped potential? The writer yoinking something out of her ass? Was Magma unavailable?
Meanwhile, the thought of Brian Braddock as the ideal Captain Britain… while it’s true that we’ve seen a bunch of variants of him in the Corps (though not more than a dozen, including Avengers Arena Brian, Crusader X Brian, Nazi Brian, evil sociopath Brion) the Corps has been historically packed with many, many other people serving as Captain. So it’s silly to say that he’s somehow the perfect candidate. He just seems to have a statistically high chance of becoming Captain Britain in worlds where he exists.
Judging from what BritBox thinks I want from a streaming service devoted to British television, Brian Braddock is indeed the ideal Captain Britain — for the American market.
I’ve been very harsh on this series – I’ve found it busy, confusing, and thematically inappropriate to the new HOX mythos. But I recently reread the series and it stands up far better. There’s a definite build towards Swords of X. Perhaps issues are not individually satisfying, but as part of HOX long term, it works.
You can track how Apocalypse turns/manipulates each of our heroes one-by-one into his cabal. For example, in this issue, Gambit throwing away Candra’s very soul to Apocalypse – that was cold!!
It reads better if you slightly forgive the series for being po-faced and not as light-hearted as previous Excalibur. But characters feel like themselves – with the exception of Betsy, a passenger in her own book. She needs more focus to bring out her uncertainty in her new role. And fundamentally for a comic book, what is her current power set?
And the Captain Britain corps were 90% Brian Braddock variations. I missed where they were destroyed – some Avengers series? Oh for editorial footnotes.
It was during Hickman’s lead up to Secret Wars, involving the incursions.
I’m not sure exact issue, but yes, one of the Avengers books he was writing.
I think in the rights hands this could be the book that really looks at the impact of mutant nationhood. More then X-force where they are are doing the Russian storyline. Since MI:16 the powers of Captain Britain have been linked not the land but to the people. Betsy having to reconcile being the defender and symbol of both nations to come in to her full powers is good hook and would allow us to examine what krakoa really means as a mutant homeland.
The idea that krakoa is anything but a good as only really been covered in the ff crossover.
I like when events spin organically out of plot threads present earlier in ongoing series – I started reading X-Men regularly in 2004, I think, so to this day Messiah Complex is my go to example of that being done right.
So, theoretically, I’m impressed that Excalibur turns out to be a 12-issue lead-in to Eggs of Swords, whilst managing to tell some stories on the way. But I’d be more impressed if that were clearer to me when I was reading those issues – if those stories in themselves were a bit more clear as to what actually happened in them – but maybe on a re-read it will pop out that way.
All i know is that Rogue os being criminally underutilized in this entire series and i pray that changes soon.
The Captain Britain Corps has been destroyed multiple times, actually. Either two or three major purges, including in X-Men: Die by the Sword, and then during Time Runs Out.
It’s an odd comic trope that all such cosmic organizations–Green Lanterns, Darkstars, Captain Britain Corps, Nova Corps–are inevitably wiped out to give the last one standing–usually the primary holder of the title–more prominence. And the time between restoration and destruction gets shorter each occurence.
And I still contend that while there are a -lot- of variations of Brian Braddock represented in the Corps, we’ve also seen a lot who are specifically -not- a version of him. I’d say that Chris Claremont and Alan Moore did the lion’s share of creating those more far-flung alternatives.
Because somebody had to do it (no, they didn’t, but I did anyway) I’ve counted the Captain Britains. (Captains Britain?)
Marvel Wiki lists 46 Captains who are not Brian Braddock. This includes Billy Braddock/Spider-UK, but your milage may vary on that, and also Ultimate Jamie, who I don’t think is a member of the Corps, so call it 44. It also lists 57 Brian Braddocks, but not all of them became Captain Britain. Rather than go through them all individually, I counted the Corps membership and found there were 75. So subtracting the 44 non-Brians leaves 31 Brians.
And honestly, even this is probably skewed in favour of the Brians by the number of Captain Britains all-but-identical to the 616 version because they were minor chaacters in someone else’s “What If…”, but who nonetheless are assumed to be in the Corps because they all were. Which is probably right, but it’s not interesting, so we don’t see them in Corps group-shots. But, by the same token, there could be a dozen versions of Major Commonwealth or Brother Brit-Man who also don’t appear in group shots because that wouldn’t be interesting.
I’m just grateful for the Brother Brit-Man reference.
That’s crazy obscure, even for here. 🙂
Daibhid has it right.
Many of the alternate Brians are What If…? style variants from timelines stemming off of 616 events, or Crosstime Caper-style hijinks.
When you take into account all the Captains England and Commonwealth and U.K. and Airstrip-One and Albion and Cymru and so on that are clearly -not- Brian Braddock… And look, I freaking LOVE the weirder versions.
This actually does lead to some strange and interesting questions about how many members of the Corps there are actually are/were. Clearly, they’re not infinite, even when there are infinite timelines.
(And, for that matter, -are- there infinite timelines? I mean, the 616 as assumed baseline generates SO MANY alternates. But how many alternate timelines does a throwaway like the world of Airstrip-One have? And thus how many Captains can it contribute to the Corps?)
I suppose for the sake of argument, the Corps is restricted to a local subset of X number of members for logistics sake, or power levels, or maybe they have a quota of “unique” members. One version of Crusader X or Justicar Bull or Hauptmann Englande at a time to represent their particular timestream/time branch/local continuum… and when they get killed, they just pull in another from next door… That explains why we always see a whole bunch of unique Corps members, and not just 20 versions of Brian Braddock differentiated only by whatever What If…? 616 spin-off generated them.
I’d love to see an actual writer take a deep dive into this concept.
Captain Airstrip-One is from one of the Earths I was most interested. He’s from Oceania.
Although by the nature of 1984, it would seem to be a very unchanging, dead-end world.
I think my biggest question is how many universes in the multiverse feature a Britain?
Surely after you move too far outside the prime-universe, the chances of the events which would lead to the existence of Britain must grow incredibly slim.
So, perhaps that is the limit of the Corps. Out of the infinite multiverse, only ones where Britain exists feature a Corps member.
The Marvel Earth, once Earth-616, only becomes considered the prime-universe after the events of Secret Wars.
Prior to such, Moore named Marvel Earth as 616 due, partially, to not wanting to go with the obvious of the universe we were following being considered the relatively most important.
Instead, it was more likely to just be a random one out of multiple iterations of possible worlds.
The weirdest beat in the issue is Rictor, having just incinerated four Externals with lava, remarks – with regret? – that he wasn’t trying to kill them. Part of this is understandable – he’s never had lava powers before, so he lost control.
But… the whole plan is to kill the Externals and use their bones to make magic rocks to make a portal work. Rictor, who already knows how the ritual works, backs Apocalypse at every turn despite a tantrum about how he and Excalibur are being manipulated. Unless he was somehow expecting the Externals to commit suicide, murdering them has always been the plan. Does he think that accidentally killing them is somehow worse than premeditated murder?
With this issue and X-Men 12, the Apocalypse / Arakko / Otherworld plot finally comes together into a somewhat coherent whole. About a month ago, I commented on the Excalibur 11 annotations post with a summary of what I felt were the five factions that would be involved in X of Swords. I’ve copied that month-old comment here below.
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Awful bloodshed: This one is most certainly X of Swords, but it could involve a war with King Jamie too. The Free Comic Book Day 2020: X-Men issue (which is a prelude to X of Swords) features Starlight Citadel with the armies of Saturnyne (I think Excalibur 6 called them the Kobold Battalion) assembled below the citadel, ready for war.
I know Excalibur has been somewhat confusing and convoluted at times, but I think that with this issue 11, threads are starting to come together. From what I can surmise from Powers of X, X-Men and Excalibur, there seems to be five factions that will be involved in X of Swords, though some of them could be allies.
In Otherworld,
FACTION 1: The Province of Avalon
Governed by the Mad King Jamie Braddock (but secretly Apocalypse) from the Kingdom of Camelot. This used to be ruled by Queen Regent Morgan le Fay, who was deposed by the machinations of Apocalypse in Excalibur 1-6. The castle in Camelot has since been converted to a Krakoan habitat. I’m not entirely sure what happened to Morgan’s army (I think they ran away) but Monarch is an Omega level mutant (in Quantum Reality Manipulation) so he can definitely provide a serious threat.
There is an abandoned thread here about the missing King Arthur, as his disappearance is what lead to the installation of Morgan to the throne. Perhaps his disappearance will be explained in X of Swords.
FACTION 2: The Province of Starlight
Governed by Omniversal Majestrix Opal Luna Saturnyne from the Starlight Citadel. Saturnyne has white priestesses who live in the Citadel with her, green priestesses who live in the woods around the Citadel and the Kobold Battalion who fight her wars for her.
She also has the weird Egyptian-themed followers and amber-helmeted blacksmiths from the Free Comic Book Day issue, whom I’m not too sure about. I’m also confused about the alternate-reality Captains Britain that Monarch has been creating, but I’m sure it will be explained in future issues.
Captain Britain and Excalibur went questing for the Starlight Citadel in Excalibur 9 and managed to plant a gateway there in Excalibur 11.
FACTION 3: The Lost Island of Arakko
Governed by the First Horsemen of Apocalypse (or what’s left of them I suppose). Apocalypse left them on the island millennia ago to repel the daemon hordes, but since then they seem to have built some sort of society of summoners there that can apparently control the daemons. However, X-Men 2 says that after ‘endless war’, ‘the enemy has come’ and ‘soon Arakko will fall’.
In X-Men 2, the horseman War sent her son, the only High Summoner left, and a piece of Arakko back to Earth-616 to bond with Krakoa and make contact with Apocalypse.
The provinces of Avalon and Starlight are separated by a small stretch of land (as seen in the map in Excalibur 6) but Arakko is said to be in ‘the land beyond the wild borders of Arakko’.
In Earth 616,
FACTION 4: The Island Nation of Krakoa
Governed by the Quiet Council of Krakoa from the Grove. This is the recently established mutant nation.
Krakoa is connected to all three of the Otherworld factions:
a) There is a Krakoan gateway from the castle of Camelot in the Province of Avalon to the Braddock lighthouse in Cornwall. The lighthouse itself is a Krakoan habitat connected to the Krakoan shared consciousness.
b) There is a Krakoan gateway on the Starlight Citadel in the Province of Starlight. However, since this gate was not stabilised by crystals, I assume that there is not yet a corresponding gateway on Krakoa. Rictor did go through this gateway, so we’ll probably find out more in Excalibur 12.
c) There is an Arak Maw (the volcano, presumably) on Krakoa that has a portal to the island of Arakko. This portal is currently closed, but Apocalypse and/or the High Summoner will probably find a way to open it before or during X of Swords.
Finally, from a currently unknown location,
FACTION 5: The Enemy
This is the group we know least about, and we don’t even know if they will be relevant in the present day. Powers of X 4 established that the pre-historic mutant island of Okkara was split into two by ‘the enemy’s Twilight Sword’. The island of Arakko was pushed into the dimensional breach with the First Horsemen still on it.
The only thing we know about them is that they are demonic in nature and the leader carries a Twilight sword. Mephisto is busy in the Avengers title, Surtur is dead and his daughter Sindr is imprisoned on Asgard in the Thor title and Belasco is busy in the Ghost Rider title, so I’m not sure who this could be referring to. It could be a pre-historic version of them, or could be a new character altogether.
From what we now know, there are some updates to be made:
FACTION 2: The Province of Starlight
The white and the green priestesses are new additions, recruited by Saturnyne after the destruction of the Captain Britain Corps.
The alternate-reality Captains Britain have been (captured?) and stored in crystals.
The vaguely-Egyptian themed quartet working at Starlight Citadel are named as Quaddeus Quo, Ryl, Sinner Rose and Temple (names revealed in the design variant for XOS: Creation). The nature of their abilities and their allegiances are yet to be revealed.
FACTION 3: The Lost Island of Arakko
Arakko Island is lost in the black world of Amenth (which shares a border with Otherworld).
I previously assumed that Apocalypse left his children, The First Horsemen, alone on Arakko to guard it and they somehow built a mutant society there. Now, it is revealed that his wife Genesis and a sizeable population of Okkaran mutants got abandoned there as well, so the society makes more sense.
Arakko is also not governed by the Horsemen but by a mutant council led by Genesis.
FACTION 4: The Island Nation of Krakoa
b) The External Gate has now been stabilised, with the crystals of four Externals, and leads from the Eternal Caldera on Krakoa to the fields below the Starlight Citadel.
c) Much like Mr O’Brien, I’m assuming that the Eternal Caldera and the Arak Maw are the same thing, so a direct portal from the Arak Maw to Arakko may not exist and the data page in X-Men 2 instead refers to this External Gate in (b), from which one can journey through Otherworld to Amenth (and to Arakko within Amenth).
FACTION 5: The Enemy
Revealed in X-Men 12 to be the land / world / dimension of Amenth.
Populated by native daemons and led by their god Annihilation, who lives in the (unnamed) capital city of Amenth.
The whereabouts of the ‘Twilight Sword’ and its wielder, as well as the motives for attacking prehistoric Okkara are unknown.
There are also two subfactions of Arakko we need to look out for:
Faction 3.1
The White Sword, an Okkaran External mutant who broke away from Arakko to live in the Ivory Spire deep within Amenth. He has been driven mad, and sees both the Amenthi daemons and Arakki mutants as his enemy.
Faction 3.2
A group of Arakki mutants that left to ‘seek out a different kind of salvation …’ according to the High Summoner’s tale.
@Chris V: Alan Moore’s rationale was admirable. I was disappointed to see DC switch from calling its main continuity “Earth One” to “New Earth” to “Prime Earth”. It was rather unimaginative and, with the latest change, pretentious both in-universe and out of universe.
Has the post-Secret Wars Earth been given some sort of official name? Perhaps it is still 616?
Shouldn’t the real reason Betsy can’t function as Captain Britain is because instead of defending Otherworld, she’s acting as a lackey to its invader? I can’t figure out why they’re doing everything the mutant formerly known as Apocalypse says, even when like Rictor they see how he’s manipulating them.
re: Luis
Current editor-in-chief C.B. Cebulski confirmed in a podcast back in June that yes, the main Marvel Universe is still Earth-616.
“The weirdest beat in the issue is Rictor, having just incinerated four Externals with lava, remarks – with regret? – that he wasn’t trying to kill them. Part of this is understandable – he’s never had lava powers before, so he lost control.
But… the whole plan is to kill the Externals and use their bones to make magic rocks to make a portal work. Rictor, who already knows how the ritual works, backs Apocalypse at every turn despite a tantrum about how he and Excalibur are being manipulated. Unless he was somehow expecting the Externals to commit suicide, murdering them has always been the plan. Does he think that accidentally killing them is somehow worse than premeditated murder?”
@Allan M It was weird for me also. The writer is trying to straddle the line with Rictor and have her cake too. Realistically though, Rictor should be a cult fanatic at this point or opposing Apocalypse. And why exactly is no one on the Quiet Council even remotely concerned with Apocalypse and his seemingly unnecessary and dangerous magical activity? Or are Xavier and co. okay with randomly murdering mutants and trespassing on other dimensions? The fact that everyone is stuck on this one island makes it difficult to believe that none of the more prominent X-Men would stick their heads in and ask their long time friend (eg Rogue) how things are going or wonder what the new shaman Apocalypse is up to. And what is going on with the art when Rictor fights the Externals? It was rather messy.
Can anyone challenge Xavier, Magneto, it Apocalypse?
I mean they are the absolute dictators. The rest of the Quiet Council can make decisions, but it’s pretty much at the behest of the ruling triumvirate. If they want to go around the rest of the Council, they really can.
Which begs the question, what if Apocalypse decided to kill some humans one day because he was bored? Would Xavier and Magneto judge him?
One can argue that the laws of Krakoa apply to all mutants, so breaking an actual law could condemn even Apocalypse or Magneto.
However, what if Apocalypse fights the ruling? Couldn’t this cause a civil war on Krakoa, with those loyal to Apocalypse rebelling?
I guess it’s a good thing that no writer will write that story because it could destroy the entire plot.
Plus, everyone is developing a collective consciousness, so it’s probably the case that laws that are passed on Krakoa will become internalized with everyone on the island.
I do think that Xavier and Magneto know what Apocalypse is doing.
In Moira’s life nine, it said that Apocalypse brought back his original Horsemen. They never mentioned it involved Apocalypse becoming a stupid sorcerer though.
I thought it was because in that lifetime, Moira’s plan involved using Apocalypse to fight against the machines. So, this whole “original Horsemen” thing would seem yo be more important.
In this life, I guess Apocalypse bringing back his original Horsemen is just as important.
So, Moira must have informed Xavier that this was important.
“Now things are going to get really weird for a few months, Charlie. There’s going to be some big fantasy plot and there is going to be this revelation about a nation of mutants from millions of years ago. Don’t let it worry you though, because it’s all very important for my plan.”
“Oh, whatever Moira. I don’t even care anymore. You broke me with all this stupidity. Your plan is way too convoluted. Why can’t it be straightforward? What about the Krakoan drugs? Remember them? Why can’t that be more important Moira?”
For what it is worth, Fallen Angels #1 strongly hinted that Magneto has a pragmatist as opposed to a principled stance towards his own role. He directed Psylocke to Mister Sinister in defiance to the principles that he is supposed to uphold.
I don’t hold that against him. Politics are meant to be pragmatic. I am no fan of Magneto, but I am not in love with Legalism either.
Still, the implication is that Magneto and presumably Xavier are both all too aware that there are all kinds of schemes happening in Krakoa and even within the Quiet Council. I don’t know if it has been established whether Xavier’s telepathy allows him to grasp such motions from bits and pieces, but that is a real possibility – and besides, this is not Xavier at its most ethical anyway.
Other than the odd political stability itself, Krakoa is presented fairly realistically on a more localized scale. X-Force and Marauders particularly show that the Mutants are often at odds with each other and not always above murder attempts and serious misdirection and manipulation.
The bottom line is that if Apocalypse is plotting, Magneto and Xavier will have some level of awareness of that.