X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #1
“Fearless, Chapter One: In Threes”
by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGES 1-2. The new X-Men team in battle in New York. That’s the main cover, obviously. There are tons of variants.
PAGES 3-5. The back story of Feilong.
This is the first appearance of Kelvin Heng, a self-made scientific genius who was on the verge of beginning his own project to terraform Mars when the Krakoans marched in and took the place over in Planet-Size X-Men #1. Though we didn’t see Feilong himself in that issue, we did see the probe sent by the company that shares his name. The word “feilong” refers to a flying dragon and isn’t particularly unusual as a name for a Chinese company. We establish here that Feilong went to the trouble of altering his own body so that he could live on Mars – an effort now entirely redundant following the Krakoan terraforming.
Nikola Tesla. We’re told that Feilong is a descendent of Nikola Tesla via his mother, described as “a Nobel Prize winner from Serbia”. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was indeed ethnically Serbian (though he was born in modern-day Croatia), but he emigrated to the United States in 1884 and had no children – indeed, no known relationships. However, Tesla’s name should be ringing alarm bells in a Hickman-adjacent comic, since he was a major character in Hickman’s much-delayed S.H.I.E.L.D.. In that series, he has super powers and goes by the name “Night Machine”. And he does have an adoptive son, Leonid.
In the real world, that are no Serbian Nobel Prize winners. (There have been two from Yugoslavia, but they were both Bosnian.)
PAGE 6. Recap and credits. The small print now reads “Heroes of Krakoa”.
PAGES 7-9. Cyclops meets Ben Urich.
The Treehouse is, of course, new. It keeps the Krakoan theme of everything being plant-based, with a giant tree as a skyscraper. Notably, though, the heroes of Krakoa have chosen to set up their headquarters in New York rather than on Krakoa itself. Krakoa already had a presence in New York – we’ve seen the embassy in Children of the Atom. Cyclops seems to be distancing himself a little bit from the mutant nationalism of Krakoa, expressly disavowing any good-for-a-human angle when speaking to Ben Urich. He was making similar we-are-all-alike comments in the previous issue, none of which is entirely on message for the Krakoan era. That said, he’s still put a massive Krakoan tree in the middle of New York.
Ben Urich is a Daredevil supporting character who’s been around since the late 1970s and basically serves as the epitome of quality journalism in the Marvel Universe.
Seneca Gardens. As spelled out more directly later in the issue, the Treehouse’s park is named in reference to Seneca Village, a settlement founded by free African-Americans in the 19th century, only to get demolished to make way for Central Park. (In fairness to the planners of Central Park, it wasn’t their first choice – they tried twice to acquire Jones’s Wood on the upper east side, and lost in the courts each time. But that still leaves the question of why the result was different with Seneca Village…)
Jumbo Carnation. Jumbo Carnation died in New X-Men vol 1 #134. As Urich says, that story involved some confusion about whether he had died of a drug overdose or a hate crime – it eventually turned out to be an overdose. Krakoa’s resurrection facilities are still not meant to be public knowledge, and apparently the many thousands of mutants living there have been quite good at keeping their mouths shut. So Jumbo Carnation’s return has thus far gone unexplained.
It’s a little odd that Cyclops doesn’t have a pre-planned response to this question, since it’s a very obvious one for someone to ask. Presumably the X-Men have been relying on the general public to just shrug and assume that another superhuman has inexplicably returned from the dead, as they tend to do.
PAGES 10-12. Scott and Jean.
The zoning board of Manhattan. Evidently the Treehouse is being presented to the New York authorities as a fait accompli. Well, the X-Men got away with it when they plonked the Mansion in Central Park a few years back in X-Men: Gold. In fact, despite what Cyclops says here, they did have to deal with the city authorities in that storyline.
Generally, the X-Men are setting up home here and presenting themselves as a traditional superhero team, inviting phone calls from the general (human) public.
John Proudstar is the original Thunderbird, who died in X-Men vol 1 #95.
PAGE 13. Data page about the origin of the treehouse. Note that again, despite their tag as the heroes of Krakoa, the X-Men are expressly positioned as defending the whole world. This is, at the very least, an outreach project.
The Audobon Society is basically the US equivalent of the RSPB.
PAGES 13-25. Fighting time.
A thing crashes in New York for the X-Men to fight. Nice traditional superheroics. The attacker is a machine, always a bit of a warning sign in Hickman-era cosmology. It’s identified later on as “the Mind Reaver”.
Sunfire has a new costume, a little unusual for the Krakoan era, where most people choose to cycle through their greatest hits as a wardrobe.
The jointly-piloted robot, aside from evoking a whole bunch of anime, is another example of mutants combining their powers to be greater than the sum of their parts -a recurring theme in the Krakoan era.
Mainly, though, this is a chance to get a good extended action sequence into the extra-length debut issue and let everyone show off their powers – and, perhaps most important, to send a clear message that this is now a more conventional superhero book in which an actual team behave as such.
PAGE 26. The X-Men debrief.
It’s a thing from outer space and, as Wolverine points out, its focus on “mammalian” brains is a bit odd – why would alien invaders be concerned about specifically one category of animal?
PAGES 27-29. Gameworld.
It’s a space casino, and owner Cordyceps Jones is running a game to encourage people to take out the earthlings before they get any further. Presumably it’s the terraforming of Mars in Planet-Size X-Men #1 that’s prompted this response (“Let’s take out the Earthlings before they ruin a planet we all care about.”)
Jones’ only previous appearance was in 2017’s Rocket #4, where he was depicted as a spore that possessed host bodies. Since we last saw him, he’s apparently taken over and entirely consumed this poor schmuck. A cordyceps is a type of (mostly parasitic) fungus.
Among the crowd of gamblers – and singled out on page 29 panel 5 – is the High Evolutionary, the cosmic scientist type. Not exactly a villain so much as a scientist of questionable perspective, the High Evolutionary is at least a very serious type of character, who wouldn’t normally have any interest in hanging around in a place like this. So he’s presumably here to keep an eye on something.
PAGE 30. Data page. A column written by Ben Urich in the Daily Bugle.
Ben’s comments about Krakoa claiming Mars for themselves rather than for all humanity echo comments that were made in Planet-Size X-Men itself. Cyclops seems to be conspicuously reaching out to try and bridge that gap.
The United Kingdom broke off its trade agreement with Krakoa in Excalibur #21. I’m not quite clear what Ben means when he says that fewer countries recognise Krakoa than before the Gala – recognition normally means just recognising that a country exists, and I don’t recall any scenes in the Gala tie-ins which indicated that anyone was now taking the view that Krakoa wasn’t a country at all.
New Attilan was the Inhumans’ capital city during the period in 2014 or so when Marvel were trying to replace mutants with Inhumans for reasons of licensing synergy. As Ben says, it hovered over New York and generally looked intimidating.
The Sentry did indeed have a huge Watchtower in New York, and was erased from everyone’s memories for a time. The original gimmick of the Sentry was to imply that he was a Silver Age Superman-type character who had always been there and just never got mentioned before – the eventual reveal being that he had been, and it got wiped from all our memories.
PAGES 31-34. The Oblivion Institute
The “Oblivion Institute” and “Dr Stasis” are new. They seem to be trying to hybridise humans with animals, which means this is another post-humanity project of the sort that the Hickman-era X-Men get very nervous about. Like Feilong, the narrator here considers that his years of labour have been overshadowed by the mutants.
His pinboard shows him working on an investigation into how the mutants are resurrecting their dead. Of the two photos in the final panel, one shows Jumbo Carnation. I’m not entirely clear who the other one is meant to be.
PAGE 35. Data page. “Space lawyer” Murd Blurdock invites clients to claim compensation for distress caused by the terraforming of Mars. This is a callback to the similar poster that appeared in New Mutants vol 4 #1, with the same art (which comes from Rocket #2). It almost certainly won’t matter, but Murd is a parody of Daredevil – he’s secretly the one guy who can see, in a race who rely on echo-location, and he fights crime as Seeing Being, the Sentient Without Self-Preservation.
PAGE 36. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: KANSAS.
“…and a primary motivation for Warpath….”
….who, let’s face it, didn’t exactly set fandom on fire.
He’s an alright character but he’s never been A-list, so what do they need two of them for? And that’s probably one of the reasons (from a publishing standpoint) that the X-office is seemingly disinterested in resurrecting Thunderbird. There’s little to suggest he’s even worth bringing back and they probably see more value in Thunderbird being a character who reliably remains dead so they can still lie to themselves (and readers) and assert that comic book deaths *matter*. For decades, Bucky used to be Marvel’s poster-child for “actually dead superhero” right up until he wasn’t. Now it looks like Thunderbird gets the duty.
Yeah. Bucky, Gwen Stacy and Gert Yorkes. But now Bucky and Gert are alive, and there’s an alt-universe Gwen Stacy running around too.
Thunderbird has been mentioned during the Krakoa era in terms of his DNA being integrated into one of the Sinisters. So there’s a potential story there, and a potential conflict if “don’t resurrect clones” extends that far. Or maybe it’s just one of many details that Hickman threw out and won’t pick up again. We won’t know until the Krakoa story is over.
Otherwise, I agree with Moo. Thunderbird has accomplished more dead than he has alive. He’s literally had more adventures as a zombie and a ghost than he did with the All-New crew in the 70s. And his brother effectively replaced him when resurrection wasn’t the commonplace event it is today. There’s more narrative juice in one of them being dead than in both of them being alive.
Why no one is clamoring for his resurrection in-story is awfully weird, though.
Wouldn’t it be weird if Warpath was one of Sinister’s early cloning attempts and no one caught on for all this time?
“Why no one is clamoring for his resurrection in-story is awfully weird, though.”
Sort of my point. Whether or not he ought to actually be resurrected, the topic of resurrecting needs to be raised — Warpath of course should want his brother resurrected. There can be reasons not to bring him back, but in the meantime, there are people who would at least ask.
Warpath’s one of the core cast of New Mutants right now, in the midst of a storyline about the inconsistencies about the resurrection rules, so this issue may be addressed in due time. Hickman teased at the issue twice – the aforementioned Sinister clone DNA thing, and then again with the Sidri imposter during Giant-Size Nightcrawler. But it’s ultimately going to be a Warpath-centric story so we’ll see what happens in New Mutants (if anything – that book already has a lot of balls in the air).
“Warpath of course should want his brother resurrected.”
The opposite of that sounds more interesting to me, actually.
I haven’t been reading the books. Would it contradict anything if it were to be revealed that the reason Thunderbird hasn’t been resurrected as of yet is because his brother has expressly forbidden his resurrection for reasons relating to tribal spiritual beliefs?
I don’t think Krakoa respects non-mutant culture.
I think Thom might be on to something about a Sinister using Thunderbird’s DNA.
Although, I seem to remember one of the books explicitly mentioning that Thunderbird dying before Cerebro’s update as the reason. Maybe that wasn’t in reference to Thunderbird though.
I’m going to have to change my username after this issue.
I loved everything about this. It was great seeing a real X-Men team doing X-Men things again.
I also loved seeing the space lawyer from New Mutants show up again. 😀
Number one on the Marvel dead list still has to be Uncle Ben, the equivalent of the Waynes being dead.
If Thunderbird died before the resurrection protocols were in place, what is the excuse for Petra and Sway being back?
God remember the issue of X-Men where Sway and Petra seem to be sad alcoholics no one cares about and Vulcan is a crazy sleeper agent?
You think anyone is ever going to touch on that again?
Rob: I think the answer is nothing about Krakoa really makes any sense if you think about it.
As Rob pointed out, the added layer is that a) not only are Petra and Sway back, who died just before John did, Petra’s being trained by James in New Mutants, and b) James first joined the X-Men proper in the immediate aftermath of the Deadly Genesis revelations, so he knows that they died before his brother did. So the “Cerebro hadn’t been updated” excuse doesn’t wash.
So there’s a story there if anyone is inclined to tell it. Ayala seems more into the James-as-mentor thing, which I think is a good idea for the character, but John remaining dead feels like an odd plot hole whereas Destiny and Blindfold remaining dead is A Thing.
What if Thunderbird is on the list, it’s just he did really badly in the lottery, and he’s due to be reborn sometime between that kid Kitty knew in the 80s who could make light sculptures, and that dude who looks like a walrus whos first and last appearance was in a crowd scene during a massacre.
It’s like a token dead X. People will say “Why has Kid Omega been ressurected 70 times and my wife is still waiting? Is this some kind of elitist bull?”
and Xavier will say, “no of course not, we haven’t even resurrected my good friend Jack- I mean John.”
Ha!
There is a reason why Kid Omega was given precedence for resurrection though.
The law states that anyone who dies in service to the nation is given priority in resurrection.
It’s a way to encourage people to fight and die for the nation.
I think it’s more that Quire is an Omega-level mutant and therefore a VVIP as far as Krakoa is concerned – Omegas are their WMD’s, after all. Betsy Braddock was none too thrilled when Jamie was resurrected, which means she clearly never asked for it, but the Council must have fast-tracked it because of Jamie’s Omega status.
True.
Omega mutants are given an elite status on Krakoa.
I guess Kid Omega is given double importance.
It is law that people who die fighting for the nation are giving priority though.
Cyclops and the other non-Omegas were immediately resurrected after dying while destroying the Mother Mold.
They were celebrated as national heroes.
I assumed Xavier had made a copy of Changeling’s mind when the latter impersonated him. Similarly with Petra and Sway because they were Moira’s students. He needed Shi’ar logic diamonds for the massive storage from widespread scanning of all mutants.
Thunderbird was listed as alive in the x of Swords Handbook.
Maybe the handbook meant Neal Shaara, ‘Thunderbird III’?
Thinking about the Proudstars again just made me realize how pointless James Proudstar’s introduction actually was when you’re aware of the context. Let’s go through it…
Claremont and Cockrum were having second thoughts about killing Thunderbird but they were already committed and couldn’t think of anything else at the time, so they just went ahead and killed him. They’d both later regret it.
When Cockrum came back for his second stint, he and Claremont began discussing the possibility of introducing Thunderbird’s brother. This was at least a couple of years before the character made his first appearance.
Finally, Claremont introduces Thunderbird II (Cockrum had left again by this point) in New Mutants and then has him turn up for the double-sized Uncanny X-Men #193. And towards the end of the story, just when you think the X-Men might be getting a new member, Claremont sends James on his way and then proceeds to largely ignore him from that point forward.
Lol. That was Claremont’s Thunderbird “do-over”. He may as well have just killed him off. Actually, it would’ve been hilarious if he had– kicking off a running gag where, every hundred issues or so, a new Thunderbird would join the X-Men and get killed off in the next storyline.
Moo-Wasn’t it Len Wein’s idea to murder Thunderbird?
Claremont went along with it.
Then, later he regretted doing it.
“The only good Indian”.,,,
Yikes.
@Chris V – Possibly, yes. I’m drawing from my memory of interviews published in “The X-Men Companion” which I sadly no longer have.
I believe Wein intended for Thunderbird (and a couple of the others) to “flunk out” of the X-Men in some fashion, but not necessarily die. So, it could be that Wein didn’t intend for T-Bird to make the final cut and Claremont went along with ditching him, but Wein’s “X-Men tryouts” plan was dropped and they killed him instead.
Still, nice do-over, Claremont. “At last! After one hundred Issues, I shall finally do Thunderbird justice! Oops, I dropped my pen. Got it. Okay, now what was I just planning? Ehh… probably not important.”
Didn’t James stick around in New Mutants after that Uncanny X-Men story?
@Krzysiek Ceran
No, it say Thunderbird (John Proudstar), right before Neal Shaara.
@Krysiek- Nope. Not unless we count a handful of guest appearances as sticking around. After the Warhunt story in Uncanny X-Men, James only appeared in four further issues of New Mutants under Claremont’s pen (39, 43, 53, 54).
He appeared in a couple of more issues under Louise Simonson, and then of course he turned up again at the end of the series when it transitioned to X-Force.
Alright, as I recall, Wein intended for Banshee, Sunfire and Thunderbird to flunk X-Men tryouts. Claremont and Cockrum both liked Banshee however, so they kept him around. Neither of them cared for Sunfire, so they got rid of him straight away. They also liked Thunderbird but had no idea what to do with him and ultimately offed him.
Funny to me though, that every time Claremont gets his hands on a Thunderbird, he can’t seem to make it work. I hope he doesn’t drive one.
The problem with Thunderbird was he was seen as being a bit redundant. A weaker version of Colossus but with the surly attitude of Wolverine.
At least he made it into an episode of Spider-man and His Amazing Friends…and had the power to turn into a bear!
A resurrected John is obviously wildly redundant powers-wise due to his brother alone. Personality-wise, there’s some potential from him being resurrected. There’s the question of whether it’s 70s John or one of the zombie versions from Chaos War or Necrosha. And overt pride in being an Apache was something he talked about a lot, which could clash with the Krakoan mutants-first ethos. He’s a rebellious character in an era where conformity is big.
That’s why I’m interested to see what Duggan is doing with Sunfire in this series, considering he’s traditionally been a hardcore Japanese nationalist. Does that clash with the Krakoan venture or does that patriotism transfer?
One thing about the Proudstar brothers. James *was* a copy of John. Strong, fast, and enhanced senses. But James went on to develop Colossus-level strength and flight, and doesn’t seem to be particularly fast or have enhanced senses any more. Who’s to say John won’t develop in a different direction too? Maybe he will in fact become a werebear, or something else not related to him being a romantically fictional Apache warrior.
Um, the werebear idea doesn’t really work so well if you want to stick with calling him Thunderbird. The Thunderbird in Native American mythology represents power, protection and strength (all appropriate in John’s case) and it’s depicted as an actual bird (or bird-like creature). So, if he’s going to morph into anything, it ought to be something along those lines.
Unless you’re willing to drop “Thunderbird” and give him a different codename better suited to a werebear metamorph, but then we’re starting to veer into the territory of “may as well just create a new character”.
Eh, Cyclops, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, etc. all have names that are nothing to do with their powers. As does Thunderbird III for that matter.
But maybe he can have thunder powers. Like he’s really good at those Hulk sonic hand claps.
Come to think of it “Wolfsbane” is a rather odd codename for Rahne. It’s rather like Superman calling himself “Kryptonite” or Dracula calling himself “Garlic” or me calling myself “Shellfish”.
@Si – Cyclops is called Cyclops because of his visor and Wolverine was based on his namesake (small, scrappy animal). I get your point but these aren’t very good examples.
And Thunderbird wasn’t a good choice for Neal Shaara either but Marvel wouldn’t let Claremont go with “Agni”.
It should have at least been Garuda, if Marvel was opposed to Agni.
Yeah, Garuda would’ve been appropriate. Before the pandemic hit, I would’ve suggested Corona (as in stellar corona- an aura of plasma).
Wow, this comments thread has exploded. I think Neal Sharra is next popping up in X-Corp, so we’ll see what happens to him.
Have to say I found this issue underwhelming – aside from the spectacular art. The villain at least has a compelling motivation (think of all the billionaires trying to get into space at the moment!).
But it does feel like a very arbitrary collection of characters. Two in particular, Sunfire and Synch, I’d argue also have quite dull personalities/little compelling backstory. Are they merely here for the cool visuals? It’s concerning that the two non-white characters are most thinly sketched.
I’d be more worried if it was just Hickman writing, but I’m hopeful Duggan will flesh them out further. I’m probably still just hankering for good old-fashioned interpersonal team dynamics really…!
I don’t know – it’s been pointed out in the books themselves that Polaris has little in the way of an individual personality. What makes her not metal-only Jean at this point? They’re even wearing the same basic costume. I’m hoping they specifically picked these characters in order to develop them a bit more.
I would totally want Thunderbird back if he turned into a bear. With wings!
In the upcoming plotline with the High Evolutionary, it should be remembered that he’s the greatest existential threat to mutants. He’s stripped mutants worldwide of their x-gene (while not being demonized like the Scarlet Witch) and tried to turn all homo sapiens into post-humans during the Evolutionary War. He’s the ultimate post-human.
@Si
“What if Thunderbird is on the list, it’s just he did really badly in the lottery, and he’s due to be reborn sometime between that kid Kitty knew in the 80s who could make light sculptures, and that dude who looks like a walrus whos first and last appearance was in a crowd scene during a massacre.”
Larry Bodine deserves that resurrection.
I’m still waiting for Bulk and Glow Worm to be brought back and cured of their radiation poisoning.
Bulk and Glow Worm were my favourites when I was a kid, so I heartily agree.
Larry Bodine, Ugly John, Alchemy, Mister One and Mister Two, Sara Grey-Bailey, and Joey and Gailyn Bailey should be resurrected.
The casino orbiting a binary black hole so the time shift allows you to spend months when you have a couple of free days makes no sense. If you have watched Interstellar you’ll know it’s exactly the other way around lol
The non-resurrection that makes no sense is Rusty. He was a New Mutants member! Unless he’s officially still “alive” after Selene’s stunt. And where’s Skids?
No sign of Rusty but in fact Skids has made several (?) appearances in the Krakoan era. She’s Armor’s backup in SWORD. (Off panel I think but still, proof of life) She also, for some reason, appeared in that recent MODOK book.
This was good in a very basic superhero way but it feels lacking any real depth so far