Inferno #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
INFERNO vol 2 #4
“The Death of Moira X”
by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti, Stefano Caselli & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Mystique, changing into Destiny, stands over a gravestone. Nothing very much like this happens in the issue itself – it seems to be teasing that Destiny could die again, or perhaps that they both kill Moira. (It may be worth noting here that issue #3 had a cover of Professor X and Magneto fighting Nimrod, which doesn’t actually happen until this issue. That might suggest a bit of rewriting on the fly.)
PAGE 2. Opening quote from Omega Sentinel. This line comes from page 6, where it’s directed at Orchis. It could of course be read as a self-deprecating meta nod to this being Jonathan Hickman’s final issue, and the Krakoa status quo sailing on without him.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits. There’s so much to cover in this issue that it only gets one page!
PAGES 4-11. Nimrod and Omega Sentinel turn on Orchis, then fight Professor X and Magneto.
We’re picking up from the end of the previous issue, where Professor X and Magneto had been lured into a trap by following a tracker embedded in Moira’s arm, only to find that the arm had been cut off. At this point, Omega Sentinel and Nimrod show their hand. As foreshadowed in many previous issues of Hickman’s run, going back to House of X and Powers of X, this is a three-way conflict between humans, mutants and post-humans. Omega and Nimrod are post-humans – a cyborg and a robot animated by fragments of the personality of a human – so ultimately, their agenda does not align with Orchis.
Quite why they turn on Orchis now, rather than taking advantage of them as allies to defeat the Professor and Magneto, is less than clear. Orchis (including Omega and Nimrod) are vaguely aware of resurrection from the horde of X-Force attacks they’ve experienced, but they still seem to be working on the assumption that they were dealing with clones ro something of that sort, so apparently the post-humans still believe that Xavier and Magneto can be killed here.
Omega claims that they hate the ordinary humans as much as the mutants, which fits with her back story as a time traveller from a future where post-humans were nearly wiped out – as she explains, she draws no real distinction between mutants and humans. Nimrod, on the other hand, only really seemed to get on board with this agenda in the previous issue; he claims here to have “woken up”. In issue #2, Omega told Nimrod that she had been waiting for his personality to evolve to the point where he was ready to be told the truth.
Presumably it’s Magneto who tears Nimrod apart in the last panel of this scene, even though the art only shows Xavier…?
PAGES 12-15. Mystique and Destiny apparently kill Moira.
We’ve been told since Powers of X that Moira’s death would restart the universe along with her next life (though it’s never really been proved that her previous timelines are erased). The tease here is that Mystique is going to knowingly do just that, but as we’ll see, it’s misdirection. Mystique learned about Moira’s powers from Emma last issue.
The small print on what I take to be the story title reads “It is the end” and, oddly, “Krakoa QC”.
PAGES 16-17. Flashback: Emma gives Mystique and Destiny a Nullifier.
This continues the conversation shown in the previous issue.
In House of X #2, Destiny (in Moira’s third life) explained that Moira could die permanently if she was killed as a child, before her mutant powers manifested. This obviously implied that Moira could also die permanently if she was killed while her powers were not active, and that’s precisely the angle that Emma follows here. The device that Mystique and Emma talk about is the Neutralizer that Forge developed back in the 1980s, which was used to remove Storm’s powers in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #185. Emma gives a similar device to Mystique here. So the plan is simple: remove Moira’s powers and kill her.
PAGES 18-19. Flashback: Mystique puts the plan into action.
This is a montage with the following elements. Mystique isn’t meant to be in mid transformation in these panels – the art is trying to indicate which character is secretly Mystique by adopting the device from old Spider-Man comics. I’m not sure it quite works, since it looks like she’s meant to be transforming.
- Page 18 panel 1: Mystique changes into Sage to use Krakoa’s computers. This is from page 34 panel 1 of issue #2.
- Page 18 panel 2: Moira is captured by two Orchis agents, one of whom is a disguised Mystique. This is page 22 panel 2 of issue #3.
- Page 18 panel 3: Still as an Orchis agent, Mystique brings Moira back to their base. This is from just after page 22 of issue #3.
- Page 18 panel 4: Having given Moira a gas mask, Mystique turns on the Orchis soldiers and releases gas. This is original.
- Page 19 panel 1: The Orchis soldiers apparently all kill one another. This is original.
- Page 19 panel 2: Posing as an Orchis agent, Mystique contacts Nimrod and Omega Sentinel. This is page 35 panel 5 of issue #3 – the “agent” is telling Omega and Nimrod that they’re under attack from mutants, that they’re going to escape through the translocator, and that they need help.
- Page 19 panel 3: Mystique cuts off Moira’s left arm (with the tracking device in it). This is original, but the resulting scream is what Professor X picked up in page 27 panel 2 of issue #3.
- Page 19 panel 4: They arrive back in Moira’s No-Place. This is original.
PAGE 20. Data page, with a quote from Mystique. The small print reads “Oracle, change from within” – and again, for some reason, “QC” appears twice.
PAGES 21-24. Mystique and Destiny confront Moira.
“I was so angry with Xavier and Magneto for the way they treated me.” Throughout the Hickman run, Mystique has been strung along with promises that Destiny would eventually be resurrected, while Moira was determined that shouldn’t happen.
“You shared who you really were with the White Queen and she – in turn – showed us you.” Last issue.
“We burned you in another life.” House of X #2. Specifically, it was Moira’s third life, where she had discovered a cure for mutants. In that life, Moira concluded that mutation was a disease to be cured. This is why Mystique refers to her as “hat[ing] what you were” – she rightly concludes that Moira’s attitude never really changed, or at least has come full circle. Fundamentally, Moira has tried repeatedly to find a world where the mutants come out on top; it never happens, and they always end up suffering horribly. Much better, then, never to be a mutant in the first place and simply be subsumed into the humans. Of course, the fundamental problem with this argument is that a variant could be made for all manner of groups who face oppression or prejudice, but Moira would argue that she’s seen enough timelines to know that it’s a merciful alternative. Destiny might well respond that she has seen many more timelines and possibilities than Moira has..
PAGES 25-34. Nimrod and Omega Sentinel kill Professor X and Magneto.
Professor X and Magneto are panicked because they assume that Moira’s death is imminent, and will reset the universe. Hence the desperation move of trying to make a deal with Nimrod. Ultimately, the conflict between the top two mutants and the post-humans plays out pretty much as Moira had warned.
Omega argues that humans and mutants are both alike in that they see AIs as simple tools, and try to destroy them if they get too advanced. This returns to Hickman’s theme of self-fulfilling prophecy, because this is indeed exactly what the X-Men have been doing throughout his run, in an attempt to avert the future as seen by Moira. The result is AIs who believe they are fighting for their own survival… and they have every reason to believe that.
Omega’s line, “did you honestly think we were going to sit around forever and just take it”, is a callback to House of X #1, where Cyclops said the same thing to the Fantastic Four: “My family has spent out entire lives being hunted and hated. The world has told me that I was less when I knew I was more. Did you honestly think that we were going to sit around forever and just take it?”
Nimrod seems to be aware here that Magneto is speaking literally when he says they’ll meet again; if so, he and Omega may simply be sending a message to the mutants here.
PAGES 35-41. Cypher saves Moira’s life.
We established last issue that Cypher and Warlock have been secretly monitoring the No-Place all along. Cypher appears here with Warlock posing as his cybernetic arm, as he did in the pre-X of Swords Krakoan issues. Cypher also suggests that both Bei and Krakoa are backing him up – his wife Bei makes sense, but it’s not obvious how Krakoa can be aware of what’s happening in the No-Place. Perhaps it’s just watching via Cypher’s bugs.
Essentially, Destiny verifies that unless Mystique is willing to sacrifice her again, the best option is just to let Moira go and consolidate power. The risk in going down this route is that, just like Storm, Moira might one day get her powers back. It’s a fairly obvious option if Marvel ever decide to go down the Crisis route, not that they’ve ever seen particularly attracted by it. And, as Moira realises, there’s ultimately nothing to stop Mystique from trying to hunt her down.
On the flipside, ultimately Mystique chooses her love for Destiny over the urge for revenge on Moira. So that’s nice. Destiny, in contrast, seems to leave the actual choice to Mystique – she sets out the options but expresses no real preference between them, even with her life (and Mystique’s) at stake.
PAGES 42-45. Professor X and Magneto are resurrected.
The first two pages are a repeat of the flash forward that opened issue #1, and also a callback to the opening of House of X #1, as Hickman’s run comes full circle.
In their absence, the Quiet Council have discussed Moira’s revelations and decided that it’s a burden that needs to be kept secret from the Krakoan public; apparently, even Sinister is on board with this, though you have to wonder if that’s just because it offers the possibility of leverage. He does seem to have generally kept Krakoan state secrets to date, to be fair.
Xavier’s Cerebro helmet is recast as a burden.
PAGES 46-50. Epilogue: The Quiet Council take their seats.
The closing image of Hickman’s run is the Council trapped in their role in the Krakoan status quo.
Most of the descriptions of the Council members are straightforward, but…
- Professor X and Magneto are literally the nation’s founders, but also the leaders of the good and evil mutants going back to the Silver Age.
- Nightcrawler and Storm are indeed the permanently loyal X-Men.
- Colossus is billed as “trustworthy” but, as we’ve seen in X-Force, he’s actually being mind controlled on behalf of Mikhail Rasputin. No doubt we’ll get to that next season. For the moment, his description in this series as trustworthy is heavily ironic.
- Cypher is also ironically billed as “innocent”; that’s his persona, but Mystique and Destiny know better now.
- Emma Frost is a “broken keeper” of the innocent children in reference to her time as teacher of the Hellions and Generation X, and later of X-Men trainees more generally. The deaths of her pupils in Uncanny X-Men #281 and again in the Genoshan massacre are major influences on her life.
- The rest are just what they claim to be.
PAGE 51. Trailer for Immortal X-Men, which is going to be a Quiet Council book.
Slow though it may be to start, Inferno was definitely the most interesting think Hickman did in his time on the books.
He really does a good job with villains making speeches to each other, as he did in East of West.
He’d probably be great in a Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers/Masters of Evil book.
Good issue. It’s pretty clear this isn’t exactly the story that Hickman originally set out to tell, but Inferno tied off the Moira story and paid off the key themes of his run decently well. He’s also left the line with a viable setup moving forward.
Paul, are you going to continue annotating the books moving forward?
REALLY disappointing. Hickman could have had Mystique ‘neutralise’ Moira and resurrect Destiny at any point, including right back in House/Powers, and NOTHING that’s happened since would be any different.
I’ve been trying to decipher Hickman’s blatherings into something resembling a coherent narrative, and Paul’s annotations have been *incredibly* helpful with that, but…
Okay. So the reason Mystique and Destiny hunt Moira down again is because Destiny saw that Moira was secretly planning to cure mutants again. Not existing mutants, but preteen mutants who haven’t manifested yet, so they’d be born human and that would be that.
So then what does Krakoa have to do with any of that? How does a mutant nation help Moira cure mutantkind?
For that matter, if Moira was *always* intending to go ahead with the cure, then how is this the supposed mutant victory timeline that Omega Sentinel came back to change?
I think Omega telling Magneto “We’re the future, not you” on p34 is a reference to Magneto saying the same line about humans to Xavier in the first X-Men film. “We’re the future, Charles. Not them.”
Thus it ends with a whimper….
Issue #3 was a great read. Otherwise, I can’t say I was impressed by “Inferno”. It was no House/Powers.
I should have stick by my original hypothesis that Moira was working against the mutants.
I do still think Hickman’s original plan was that the Krakoan drugs were Moira’s cure for mutantdom. The drugs would prevent humans giving birth to anymore mutants. Hence, it was her cure for a “cancer”.
I think that was how Act One of Hickman’s run would have ended, with Krakoa’s leverage of the drugs off the table.
Setting the stage for moments we saw with the alternate Life Ten from last issue.
How ironic, then, that Moira’s plan in Life Ten was finally the one to succeed…at least until that dastardly “trickster” Titan took action.
The one thing I didn’t understand…Xavier and Magneto didn’t realize about Moira’s plan, did they?
In the beginning of Inferno, Moira warned Xavier and Magneto that Destiny would “see through us”.
Does that imply that Xavier and Magneto knew about Moira’s plan to “cure” mutants?
It doesn’t seem as if that was Hickman’s intent, but I’m not sure what else Moira meant with that line.
Well, this issue will probably mark the end of my commenting, at least until the Sabretooth mini-series.
I’m not planning to follow the X-books going forward, although Victor LaValle on Sabretooth is too tempting to resist.
So, it’s been a fun couple of years.
Diana-I believe the original plan was for Moira to use the Krakoan drugs as her cure for mutants.
She would separate mutants from humans, isolated on an island. Mutants would slowly begging to go extinct as less and less mutants would be born.
Hickman’s original plan was probably that Mystique and Destiny would discover Moira’s plan…as seen in this issue.
Krakoa would no longer be able to offer their drugs to humanity, and humans would slowly begin to turn against Krakoa.
As we saw from the alternate timeline, this is when Hickman intended the Children of the Vault to emerge.
Humanity and mutants would unite to fight the threat of post-humanity.
The future timeline would then go similar to what we saw in issue #3.
Hence, how we ended up with the future that Omega Sentinel went back in time to prevent.
Hickman leaving early disrupted his plans, and we ended up with this rushed, muddled narrative for “Inferno”.
I’m Team Nimrod now.
Him wrecking shit in this issue was deeply enjoyable to me.
And I just love that design.
Paul- Nimrod and Omega kill the Orchis team because as far as they’re concerned the humans are both absolutely useless and the same as mutants.
I think they were getting it out of their system, since they’re had to pretend to serve the humans thus far.
The revelation that Moira was planning to wipe out the next generation of mutants since before she revealed herself to Xavier makes no sense. The dialogue makes it clear that she had Proteus as part of Xavier’s scheme to develop the resurrection process. if she was planning all along on eliminating the next generation of mutants, then why make the current generation of mutants immortal? What good does that do?
Supposedly, Hickman was planning on getting rid of the resurrection process in Inferno but the other writers liked it too much. If Moira had somehow sabotaged the resurrection process before planing on eliminating the next generation of mutants, her plan would make a lot more sense.
Also, Omega Sentinel claims the mutants were triumphant in the timeline she came from. Does that mean Moria’s plan was never implemented in the timeline she came from? But the main reason it failed in this one was the existence of Orchis. The whole thing is just weird with Moira saying that mutants always lose and Omega Sentinel saying that mutants always win.
In short, Inferno was a fitting name for the story. It featured the character assassination of a female human supporting character in a story that made no sense. At least Moira didn’t get turned into a half-naked dominatrix.
Bei backing Cypher up doesn’t have a lot of impact for me, since there’s so little to her character. Which is a shame, because if she actually did anything I could say there were technically two entire non-white characters in this mini about the future of humankind.
Michael-Why did it fail because of Orchis?
It failed because Destiny was resurrected.
She saw that Moira was planning to betray mutantkind and told Mystique so that the two would hunt down Moira, as promised.
I assume in the alternate timeline, the same thing happened.
Destiny got resurrected.
Mystique and Destiny hunted down Moira before her plan succeeded and I’m going to guess they killed Moira in that version.
Otherwise, yeah, you are correct.
The resurrection protocols make no sense and are one of the reasons I have up my original thesis that Moira was going to betray mutantkind.
Unless the original plan was to use resurrection to lure mutants to Krakoa and use Krakoa to slowly consume all the living mutants.
The other writers liked Krakoa, so Hickman had to drop that plotpoint.
So, now the resurrection protocols read as a loose thread.
I was very disappointed after all this that Moira was revealed as something of the “villain”, although there are no truly likeable sides in Hickman’s direction.
I expected more from Inferno. Not more enjoyment, but more ‘important things’, some huge shake-up leading into Destiny of X. And while ending the Moira plot (until she comes back, something switches her powers back on or Sinister resurrects her for shits&giggles) is big in theory, in practice… We went for over a year after hoxpox without seeing her once. She hasn’t actually done anything in all that time. Ending her plot, in practice, has no bearing on any of the books. Except probably Immortal X-Men.
Anyway,since the Mystique
I really enjoyed this. Hopefully going forwards with Krakoa solidly established as a constant, there’ll be a lot more interesting storylines to come.
Ceran-Leaving Moira go when they know she has a plan to “cure” mutants seems like a terrible decision.
There’s no explanation as to how her cure works.
If it’s something she releases in to the air, then it seems that Moira is still a grave threat.
Yes, Destiny says that Mystique could choose to hunt her down in the end, but how did Mystique stopping the creation of Nimrod work for her?
It would make more sense of the Krakoan drugs were revealed as Moira’s plot. Then, exiling Moira wouldn’t be a threat, as she couldn’t accomplish her goal.
The idea of Moira returning as The Resurrection Queen in a future crossover is something I’d rather not see happen….
@Chris V- No, Xavier and Magneto didn’t know about Moira’s plan. I think that the idea is Moira just told Xavier and Magneto that she didn’t want Mystique or Destiny to know that she was alive because they’d killed her in a past life. In reality, of course, Moira didn’t want Destiny back because she’d see what Moira was planing.
Don’t write comments on phone.
So, continued:
Mystique had the only arc I enjoyed in Hickman’s books so at least Inferno gives her that well deserved win. That’s a plus. The rest I remain indifferent to.
Well, Doug had a nice moment there at the end.
Regarding the power nullifier – there was a story in… Marauders I think? About Forge realizing his old colleague got kidnapped. He was forced to make ani-mutant weaponry. In the end he’s rescued and he has his memory wiped – but I seem to recall he already made the nullifier (since he helped Forge make his or something), and the story ends with the weapon in Emma’s possesion?
I honestly don’t know if that’s what actually happened, but if so, then it must have been set up for this.
Jay&Miles X-plain the X-Men had an interview with Hickman this week, which is revelatory on a few things. Regarding Inferno, he wanted to include Rogue – she’d steal Emma’s powers to resurrect Destiny, which would have been nice. But he ‘couldn’t fit that version into 4 issues’. I hope somebody writes a scene with Rogue reacting to Destiny’s return somewhere.
Other tidbits:
– Sway and Petra were supposed to be only in Vulcan’s head (since they died before cerebro made backups) but he was re-writing something on the fly and mistakenly had Havok mention them in passing.
– Giant-Size X-Men issues were an inconsequential mess because he was vetoed when the first issue was already mostly drawn. Storm was supposed to be ‘sick’ because she was pregnant with T’Challa’s baby. Which she’d give birth to in The World and the boy would grow up there, cut off from his parents. He would later emerge as someone who could ‘unite mutants and humans/Wakandans’.
Honestly, I’m very glad that got vetoed, sounds dreadful.
The X-Men and time travel babies.
Name a more iconic and silly pair.
@Chris V- I meant that Mystique was only able to capture Moira in the first place with Orchis’s help. That being said, it’s possible she found some other way in the alternate timeline.
This was utterly embarrassing, a way to wipe clean all extant plot points while maintaining the same status quo.
“Storm was supposed to be ‘sick’ because she was pregnant with T’Challa’s baby.”
Hickman gets some credit for really being the first writer since Priest to do anything substantial with T’Challa . . . but I hate what he’s done and what he keeps trying to do.
I’m firmly in the “well, that was a huge waste of time” camp. After all the momentum of HoXPoX was squandered, I thought there was at least some potential left in the Moira retcon. But that was all thrown away, too, because “other writers want to play with the new status quo for a while longer”?
That explanation has never made sense to me, by the way. Hickman was hired as head writer, but then what…a mutiny occurred? I bet Hickman was tired of getting notes from editorial and decided to move on. And Marvel is content to coast on the current set-up until they can think of something better to do with their poorly managed franchise.
But I don’t believe that a bunch of writers, many of whom are not are not even writing for the X-office anymore, begged and pleaded to continue writing Krakoa-centered stories.
Yes, the sad thing is that this has truly hurt the franchise.
House/Powers seemed to open up new doors, but now Marvel’s merry mutants are backed in to a corner worse than even “No More Mutants!”.
What’s more damaging than treating your top property similar to the Dodo bird? How about turning them in to unlikeable nationalists planning to conquer mankind as the human race inevitably goes extinct.
It’s going to take a lot of work to make up for the damage of this era…by which I mean Marvel doing a lot of heavy sweeping under the rug.
We’ll again end up with “Xavier’s dream of peaceful coexistence”, and just ignore all that nonsense about mutants being a separate species competing with humans, machines, and post-humanity for supremacy.
Really enjoyed this miniseries, even if at this point it clearly wasn’t the original plan. Hickman’s a good writer and the art was excellent. I second whoever praised the new Nimrod.
I don’t know if I’ll continue reading X-books going forward, now Hickman’s gone. I might go back to just kinda keeping up with general developments, as with the years before the Krakoan Era. IMMORTAL X-MEN *is* tempting, though, since it’s got Gillen (pbuh).
Really, Hickman’s claim that he couldn’t find a place for Rogue in a story that’s primarily about her adoptive mother coming back is something else when you consider Mike Carey managed to give them a rather touching scene in the middle of Necrosha. It *can* be done, Hickman just doesn’t understand how characters are meant to relate to each other as people and not vessels for Big Idea A and Big Idea B.
And that’s the real damage Inferno has done – because to some extent this whole pseudo-cult situation where everyone’s on happy pills and somehow getting along was tolerable on the assumption that either there was a nefarious bottom line or Moira would reboot it again.
The notion that this is how it’s going to be from now on? Interchangeable, hollowed-out characters with no history or relationships? That doesn’t sound appealing at all.
Even if I’m not a fan of the direction and haven’t been since the very beginning, I’m still going to try the books by the people who’s work I enjoy.
Honestly I’m hoping without having to play by Hickman’s rules will make the books better.
It would’ve been a huge mistake for Hickman to use Rogue in this story, since he hasn’t set up anything for her anywhere else in anything he’s written.
I’m reminded of how his Avengers run swerved in the last few months and suddenly became a Dr. Doom story because why not.
The elephant in the room is that it may not be the editors or the other writers who decided that they liked Krakoa.
It may well be Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios.
The movies already have a standard superhero team – the Avengers – and we know they’re developing films based on the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. It’s entirely possible that Krakoa is sticking around as a way to integrate mutants into the MCU without duplicating what the Avengers and Fantastic Four movies are doing. Saying that it’s sticking around because the other writers liked it may just be a diplomatic way to avoid spoilers.
I had the feeling that Marvel Studios may like this direction also.
Marvel Studios already used the typical mutant story with the Inhumans.
So, they will probably want something different to introduce the X-Men.
An unknown island where a separate species have existed for decades sounded to me like an idea Marvel Studios may find an appealing idea.
“The movies already have a standard superhero team – the Avengers”
But the X-Men aren’t a superhero team in the existing movies (maybe sort of in First Class?). They already have a niche that existing MCU films haven’t filled yet.
What I find weird about Marvel sticking with this take on X-Men is . . . we know that Hickman originally pitched this as an Eternals book, and I just read the first volume of Gillen’s Eternals, and there is a LOT of overlap with the HOXPOX era. It strikes me that they used Hickman’s take on the Eternals after all, which is weird when Hickman used his Eternals take on the X-Men.
I guess it’s possible Marvel is looking at the relative flop of the Eternals film and considering replacing them with X-Men, but . . . I just don’t see it.
X-books sales have been up since HoX/PoX, which contributes to the continuation of the Krakoa era.
I have mixed feelings towards Inferno. I liked Mystique & Destiny upending Moira’s plan, Doug & Co. to the rescue, and the Nimrod scenes. I wasn’t crazy about Moira’s vague scheme, and agree that her story should have been developed over the past two years. I really don’t like that the book ended with the Quiet Council just… being more distrustful of Prof. X & Magneto, I guess. That said, I’m looking forward to Immortal X-Men because Kieron Gillen’s writing it.
My wish for the X-books in 2022 is for less padding and wheel-spinning while the writers wait for one person to advance the story. Hopefully, the people working on the line are taking some of the time X-Lives/X-Deaths buys them to tighten up their plotting.
Destiny is a precog. She can choose her actions to get what she considers the best available outcome.
She would know that by leaving the “choice” to Mystique in this particular way that Raven would A) probably choose Destiny’s life and B) be in a better state of mind having made the decision herself rather than being told what she should do.
Mike-The X-books sales really aren’t that great.
They were really strong for a time after House/Powers, most likely due to readers thinking that big reveals related to Hickman’s plan would be missed.
With time, the sales dropped off.
X-Men is consistently in the top ten, but it would be, regardless.
Wolverine’s sales are strong. Again, it’s the name value of Wolverine.
X-Force and Marauders’ sales have been solid, but in the middle ground.
Excalibur’s sales plummeted as the months wore on.
New Mutants’ sales are even worse. I’m not sure how New Mutants wasn’t canceled.
The second wave of X-books struggled. Most fans realized by that point that the X-books were adding little to Hickman’s main plot.
That’s why most of them ended up getting canceled.
The reveal of Moira still wanting to cure mutants was very sadly lacking. First, no effort to say what shape the cure would take. Second, nothing to address why Destiny couldn’t see that coming, since she did in life 3. Third, no effort to explain how that fit with creating Krakoa, or doing anything that helped mutants while coming up with a cure. In fact, it means all that Inferno adds to House/Powers is a plot hole.
Marvel Studios never used Inhumans.
ABC used Inhumans
It would have been simple to deal with your second problem.
Mystique is the one who killed the Moira golem.
Hickman could have easily connected the two.
Mystique would reveal that before she died, Destiny told her to kill Moira.
Mystique thought she accomplished her goal.
Then, with Destiny coming back to life, she realized that Moira wasn’t dead and that they needed to find her.
Simple.
I agree with Josie that it would have been weird for Hickman to use Rogue in this story since Emma’s been a much more central figure in his stories. Hickman writes a good Emma, but her role in Inferno seems maddeningly unsatisfying, and more plot-driven than character-driven. There doesn’t seem to be a lot at stake for her as a character. Emma plays a key role at three points in the story, which are all unsatisfying:
1). She votes Destiny onto the Quiet Council, because Mystique bought her vote, but this ends up feeling arbitrary because we never find out what the bribe was.
2). She tells Mystique and Destiny about Moira, and essentially uses them as tools to depower Moira. The idea of Emma manipulating others to do her dirty work is consistent with her character, and I can believe that Emma wants her to be depowered in order to protect Krakoa, but but we don’t get a real justification for why Mystique would want to drop everything to kill Moira. The story coasts heavily on the scene of them murdering Moira in Life 3, because they’re not given a compelling reason to mistrust her in Life 10 except that they already did it once, so why not go for it again.
3). She resurrects Charles and Eric after making a ‘revolutionary’ change to Krakoa, but apparently all she did was tell half of the Quiet Council members about Moira’s past lives. Considering Charles, Erik, Emma, Irene, Raven and Doug already knew, this is hardly a shift in the status quo to begin with, and the horror of Moira’s secret is severely undercut if Moira can no longer reset the timeline.
The last page says “we built the walls high and locked ourselves inside. Forever.” However, there’s not a lot in the story itself that justifies this reading of Krakoa as a gilded prison. Moira’s “secret” that mutants always lose is treated as a horrible revelation, but that’s tempered by the the fact that the QC clearly believe that Krakoa is a way to win.
…Which leaves that line open to be interpreted as further meta-textual subtext about how Hickman was forced to keep Krakoa going.
Aro-What was Mystique dropping to kill Moira?
Destiny eventually figured out what was happening.
She realized that Moira still hated mutants and was plotting to create a “cure” for mutants.
Mystique also says she realized why Xavier and Magneto were playing mind-games with her. They were being manipulated by Moira. Moira was the one who didn’t want Destiny to be resurrected.
Her vendetta was initially against Xavier and Magneto for trying to keep her from Destiny.
Destiny realized that Moira was the real mastermind, so they went to kill Moira.
The most unsatisfying thing about this story is the reveal of Moira wanting to cure mutants instead of helping them. We aren’t told how she intended to accomplish this (Chris V’s theory about it being the cancer drugs makes a lot of sense), or even why. Worse, we aren’t given a clear reason for why Moira was so keen to stop Nimrod and prevent Destiny’s resurrection. It is clear that she will not tolerate the mutants working with the machines (the parallels between the mutants and the machines is one of the best parts of Inferno), but if she wants to cure the mutants, why does this matter? I suppose if the idea was that the machines and mutants working together would help mutants “win” and would be a future disaster for the humans, this would have worked. Destiny is an odder case – is the idea that Moira only wanted to ban Destiny out of petty revenge, but this ban proves to be her undoing?
Moira doesn’t want Destiny resurrected because Destiny would foresee Moira’s plan to cure mutants and would set out to murder her again (as per Life Three).
Moira is opposed to Nimrod because she saw in past lives that the Machines always win and hate humans as much as mutants (as Omega Sentinel says).
So, Nimrod is a threat to humanity as much as mutants.
Moira is trying to stop the rise of both mutants and machines.
Thinking about it further, as far as Destiny not foreseeing Moira’s betrayal of mutants earlier and stopping her, Destiny told Mystique about an island, and that if they refuse to bring her back, Mystique should burn the island.
This seems to imply that Destiny foresees the formation of Krakoa as important.
We know from the alternate Life Ten that Krakoa was successful. Mutants did win.
Destiny and Mystique want to see this happen.
So, Destiny wouldn’t want Moira to be killed before the formation of Krakoa.
Then, she tells Mystique that if Krakoa refuses to resurrect her, that is when Mystique needs to act to stop Moira’s plan.
It seems that Destiny sees that she is the only one who can stop Moira.
If she gets resurrected, her and Mystique can get rid of Moira and stop her agenda against mutants.
Then, Krakoa can bring about mutant domination.
“Moira is trying to stop the rise of both mutants and machines”
She should have just recruited the Asgardians, or perhaps Galactus. Given this stupid revelation about her wanting to get rid of mutants, a lack of powers would make stopping the machines harder. Meanwhile, there’s an entire superhero community she isn’t addressing at all.
Which could be the purpose of Krakoa.
Her cure for mutants apparently is solely to prevent new mutants from being born and isn’t used to “cure” mutants after they have already developed their powers. Hence, why I think the Krakoan drugs were originally meant to be her cure.
She’s using mutants for her own ends without them realizing it.
It’s the competition between humans and mutants which accelerates technological change.
If she stops the constant wars between human and mutants, it’ll prevent humans from building better machines to fight mutants and prevent humanity from becoming post-humans.
This would be the last generation of mutants. No more mutants would be born. The last mutants will live out their days isolated on an island.
Orchis became active after a certain number of mutants had been born. They realized that more and more mutants would be born until mutants made up most of the population compared to baseline humanity. This leads to eventual human extinction.
Orchis wanted to build the Mother Mold and Nimrod to stop mutant ascendancy.
So, if Moira stops new mutants from being born, Orchis’ purpose for pursuing Nimrod and post-humanity would be eliminated.
“She’s using mutants for her own ends without them realizing it.”
Well, she isn’t, and they do. She didn’t do anything for almost the entirety of her history (pre-Hickman) and barely did anything for her entire stay on Krakoa.
“The last mutants will live out their days isolated on an island.”
Well, they wouldn’t. They’re functionally immortal.
“Destiny might well respond that she has seen many more timelines and possibilities than Moira has..” -> yes, that conversation would have been nice to see.
I enjoyed Inferno for what it is, but I think issue 3 is the only one that had any of the big revelations that everyone expected from it. The Mystique/Moira plot was ultimately pretty by-the-numbers. We’re no further forward on what Destiny meant by an eleventh life “if you make the right choice in the end”, which I had taken to mean that Moira would be resurrected on Krakoa if she voluntarily depowered herself to seal in this timeline. Might still happen, I guess. And wild that neither Mystique nor Moira mention that this is the second time the former has tried to murder the latter.
I thought the Nimrod/Omega Sentinel stuff was very good. Those villains have really been elevated by this series. Unfortunately I suspect that none of the new X-Books about to launch are going to use them, at least not immediately.
I liked Doug’s role, I think he’s now in an interesting place. I would have liked the scene better if he hadn’t had backup. As someone else stated, Bei so far is a nothing character. It would have been enough for Doug to claim he just got backed up; obviously the Speaker of Krakoa goes right to the front of the resurrection queue, to threats to kill him are empty.
So with there now being an AI faction mirroring the mutants’ political outlook, who do we think is the Robot Agent Brand?
And also they’re *not* isolated on an island – they have Mars now.
Diana-Hickman’s plans were drastically changed along the way. I don’t think colonizing Mars was his idea, or at least not at the point on the timeline that it occurred.
Duggan wrote the Planet-Size X-Men special and I think that is telling.
Skippy-I believe Destiny’s line to Moira about making the “right choice” referred to not betraying mutants.
If she embraces her mutant heritage and helps mutants, she won’t be deported and killed in Life Ten.
Moira made the wrong choice and Mystique took away her powers.
The line doesn’t make sense though, because Moira’s extra lives are not a reward. She was supposed to be striving towards immortality for mutants, so if she dies and gets reborn, it presumably means she failed to achieve her goal.
On the whole, I liked this. I had guessed that Moira might be back to some form of curing all mutants but that was more trying to figure out what the inevitable Shyamalan twist that Hickman might bring in for his last issue than based on anything in the actual books. It’s unclear from the fact we saw nothing of how she spent her time whether Moira had started working on a cure while hiding on Krakoa, maybe it was more biding her time. As it seems that all the pre-Krakoa X-Men/Marvel continuity still happened maybe the work was somewhat advanced already but on hold. Without a No-Place to hide from Destiny she and Mystique could track Moira down when they want if they wanted to.
How much do Charles and Erik know about what actually happened? Did they back up quickly just before going on their rescue mission? Was Charles able to back them up just before Nimrod killed them? It may just be there wasn’t enough time left in this issue and it’s something we’ll have explained in the Quiet Council book but did imply that Charles and Erik remembered everything, but perhaps they just know something happened and now the Quiet Council know Moira was still alive.
@Chris: These constant mentions of Hickman’s plans changing or being changed are irrelevant. What’s on the page is what’s on the page, Hickman doesn’t get a pass for not taking other writers’ work into account (especially considering he did so for Benjamin Percy, with all those indications Colossus is compromised).
@Loz It’s specifically mentioned that Xavier can’t back them up since Nimrod destroyed the portable Cerebro.
Technically they might have been backed up up to its destruction, though I’m not sure if backing up can work like that.
Yes, and what’s on the page is sloppy and rushed. Most of it doesn’t hold together unless it’s speculated upon as to what Hickman was originally planning.
Certain things, you can read between the lines based on House/Powers hints, other things are just completely lacking in context and clarity.
I’ve pointed out that I find “Inferno” to be flawed.
It’s sort of funny that Moira’s plans seemed to be undermined by Xavier and Magneto accepting her plans at face value and moving in their own direction.
It does seem like an unintentional meta-commentary about Hickman’s decision to leave the X-books.
Moira should have told Destiny, “I had this great plan, but it’s all messed up now. Ah, forget about it. I give up. I’m just going to leave Krakoa.”
Mystique, Destiny, and Doug stand around looking confused.
That would have made a better ending.