As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WAY OF X #4
“Heirs and Graces”
by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia

COVER / PAGE 1. Nightcrawler keeps Professor X and Legion separated, while Onslaught’s face looms in the background.

PAGE 2. Data page – a detail of the map of Arakko previously seen in Planet-Size X-Men #1. “Tharsis” is a volcanic plateau on Mars.

Beneath it, a quote from Nightcrawler’s book of philosophy (the title of which continues to be redacted for some reason). As so often in this book, Way of X offers a rather more sceptical view of the grand achievements which Planet-Size X-Men was praising.

PAGES 3-4. Lost’s story.

A fairly straightforward parable about a wronged girl whose demands for revenge are rejected by elders who want an amnesty for the greater good. Nightcrawler draws the fairly obvious conclusion that the girl is Lost herself, the bad guy is Fabian Cortez (given her reaction to him last issue), and the amnesty is the general amnesty that Krakoa extends to all ex-villains.

As noted later in the issue, Lost tells her story in much more fluent speech patterns than her usual hesitant dialogue. The distance of speaking through fiction seems to help her.

PAGES 5-7. Legion and Nightcrawler discuss the story.

The Xorn Brothers have been hanging around with Legion ever since his resurrection on Krakoa without explanation, and that remains the case here. We’ll find out what they’re doing later in the issue.

Sabretooth. Legion correctly points out that Sabretooth was sent to the Hole in House of X #6 for killing humans before the laws on the subject were actually made. Nightcrawler was there, and voted for it – though he did say it “shames me”.

Legion. Note that Legion describes Krakoa (disdainfully) as “Dad’s mutant paradise”, and seems not to see the rest of the Quiet Council – or even Magneto – as equals with him. He also mocks the argument – which was indeed advanced in House of X #6 – that Krakoa has no prisons. And quite right too, because Sabretooth is blatantly imprisoned on any view. More generally, Legion is probably alert to the fact that in the absence of any judges and jails, Krakoa has no true legal system at all; it’s a dictatorship of the Quiet Council, and the rule of law just doesn’t apply.

Legion is suggesting a prosecution of Fabian Cortez as something that could unify Krakoan culture, a topic that’s been preoccupying him and Nightcrawler throughout the series. Certainly Cortez is a hugely unpopular figure, but I’m not sure that this is as unifying an idea as Legion thinks it might be. It’s not a big story as far as most Krakoans are concerned, and there are plenty of people on that island who might be a little worried about the precedent.

PAGES 8-9. Dust and terraforming.

Dust. Sooraya Qadir debuted in New X-Men vol 2 #133, during the Grant Morrison run. She’s one of those well recognised background figures who shows up frequently as a face in the crowd but rarely does much of note. Spurrier seems quite keen to avoid using her codename, though it does get mentioned later in the issue.

Dust is written in this scene as being able to control or at least influence sandstorms. That’s not her established power, which was basically to turn her body into a sand form and become a living sandstorm, or just do typical Sandman-type stuff.

Olympus Mons is arguably the largest volcano in the solar system, though it depends how you define “largest” (specifically, whether you mean just height or total volume). It’s been dormant for a very, very, very long time, and the fact that it’s been erupting continually since Planet-Size X-Men is generally a suggestion of shoddy workmanship – something that this scene generally plays up.

“You got drunk and announced you were going to save us all.” Throughout the “Hellfire Gala” crossover.

“Let the cutting clouds come!” The Arakkii, used to living in wartorn Amenth, welcome all of the problems with Martian terraforming as a glorious challenge.

“The presidency of Sol…” The mutants declared Mars to be the capital of the solar system in Planet-Size X-Men #1. Time will tell how many people agree with them.

PAGE 10. Recap and credits.

PAGES 11-12. Gorgon in New York.

Gorgon died in Otherworld in Cable #6 during the “X of Swords” crossover. That crossover also established, through the example of Rockslide, that mutants who die in Otherworld come back as completely rebooted versions of themselves. We’ve heard before that the same happened with Gorgon, but this is the first time we’ve seen him since. It’s difficult to judge his personality here, since he’s in a state of panic because his telepathy has been enhanced beyond his control. Cortez describes him as “a half-wit child”, which would somewhat tally with what we’ve seen with Rockslide in X-Factor – a character who isn’t exactly stupid but largely starting over from scratch.

It seems remarkably unwise of everyone to let Gorgon wander around with a sword in this condition, but maybe they’re hoping it’ll jog some memories. Oddly, Nightcrawler talks here as if there’s some sort of mystery about what went wrong with Gorgon’s resurrection; he ought to know perfectly well that it’s to do with Otherworld.

PAGE 13. Data page. Notes by Doctor Nemesis on Fabian Cortez, again referring to the encounter between Cortez and Lost in the previous issue. Nemesis rightly observes that Cortez appears to be a genuine mutant supremacist alongside his self-absorption, though this is more a result of inconsistent writing than anything else. As originally conceived, Cortez seemed to be a character who created a mutant supremacist cult in order to manipulate it for his own reasons, but other stories do seem to have him genuinely believing in the cause to some degree. I’m not sure this combination is quite as unusual as Nemesis seems to think. Cortez is genuinely both a privileged aristocrat and a mutant, and it’s not that odd for him to embrace both identities at once.

The redacted word, in each and every case, is presumably four letters long and starts with C.

PAGES 14-17. Legion and Professor X have a drink.

Legion says that he invited Professor X, which makes sense. It’s not like the Professor would be having this conversation in public given a choice. Professor X removes his helmet here, which he very, very rarely does in the Krakoan era, no doubt in an attempt to make more of a connection with his son. Is this one of the reasons Onslaught manages to make inroads into him?

The Xorns say that they’re there to kill David if he loses control, as per his request. They actually showed up before he hatched from his resurrection egg, but since they were drawn to the site, he might well have sent that message to them even before being resurrected. Xavier seems shocked by this, but at the end of the day what it really means is that he and David are on the same page: the risk of David losing control is real, and the results could be disastrous.

“I rule me.” This was effectively Legion’s catchphrase during X-Men: Legacy, and the central theme of his story.

“Tricking you was the first thing it ever learned.” Onslaught was a mixture of the personalities of Xavier and Magneto and did indeed incubate within Xavier’s mind. Onslaught appears in his traditional late-90s design towards the end of the scene, apparently provoking a destructive riot among the bar patrons (which really doesn’t come across all that well visually – the build-up is nicely claustrophobic, though). Basically, Legion realises that Onslaught is about to manifest through Professor X again, and has everyone present killed in order to nip it in the bud. They’ll all be fine when they’re resurrected.

The characters in the bar:

• Dazzler, in page 14 panel 2.
• Doctor Nemesis, sitting with her. They’re still hanging out together following the previous issue.
• DJ, in page 14 panel 3, with the headphones.
• Blink, next to him.
• Loa, to her right.
• Pixie, on the far right.
• Bedlam, in page 14 panel 4 with the X shaved in to his hair.
• Gorgeous George, just to his right, who seems to be regularly used to pad out these Lagoon crowd scenes.
• ForgetMeNot, the unfortunate from X-Men Legacy #300 (and later X-Force stories) who everyone forgets about as soon as he’s out of view. Since he presumably dies in the brawl along with everyone else, I don’t fancy his chances of getting resurrected any time soon. Then again, maybe once he’s dead there’s nothing to stop people from remembering him…?
• The guy with blond hair immediately to his right is unrecognisable.
• Immediately to the right of Xavier’s head in the same panel, the guy with the eyepatch is Erg of the Morlocks.
• The guy next to him could be anyone.
• The guy sitting at the bar at the far right of that panel seems to be Bevatron of the Hellions, wrongly drawn with black hair (we get a clearer view of him in page 17).
• The Blob, working behind the bar as ever, is in page 16 panel 5.

PAGES 18-21. Nightcrawler outwits Cortez by clowning.

Cortez seems to be trying to stir up diplomatic problems with the humans, or maybe he’s just casting about for a supposedly principled justification for his actions. He’s also one of the few characters to engage directly with the philosophical problems of resurrection, but seems to raise it for the sole purpose of mocking Kurt, rather than because he has any particular interest in it himself.

From the fact that Cortez repeatedly refers to “your God”, we can probably take it that he’s an atheist – though he might just mean that he doesn’t share Kurt’s interpretation of God.

“Gorgon’s killed more people than I ever did!” Undoubtedly true, even though Cortez was a serial killer as a member of the Upstarts.

PAGES 22-23. Legion plants his seed.

This is the seed he got from Professor X earlier in the story. Basically, Legion is going to create a portal to a “temple” which is shielded from Onslaught.

PAGE 24. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: THIS SACRED LAND.