Immortal X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #1
“The Left Hand”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D White
IMMORTAL X-MEN. Despite the name, this is a series about the Quiet Council – and not all of them are exactly X-Men. It’s the first series with this title, not to be confused with just-plain-X-Men, which is about the New York based superhero team.
The series logo – an X with twelve dots around it – represents the twelve members of the Council in their groups of three.
COVER / PAGE 1. It’s the Quiet Council doing Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, albeit somewhat compressed to get it onto a double page spread. The original painting, specifically, is meant to show the moment after Jesus has announced that one of his apostles will betray him. It’s probably not desperately important which apostle is represented by which Quiet Council member, particularly as most of the Apostles can only be identified by external sources rather than from the painting itself, but that’s no reason not to tell you anyway, right? More fundamentally, the original painting groups the apostles in threes, which mirrors the division of the Quiet Council – and that’s sort of reflected here. Working roughly from left to right along the table (and going by the rather more spaced out arrangement in the original painting):
- Colossus is Bartholomew.
- Storm is James the Less.
- Nightcrawler is Andrew.
- Mr Sinister is, of course, Judas Iscariot. He’s knocked over his wine glass; in the original painting, Judas has knocked over his salt cellar.
- Exodus is Saint Peter. Befitting his religious bent, he’s the only character to be drawn with a halo.
- Death – who is absolutely not a member of the Quiet Council and whose attitude to this whole “resurrection” thing remains unclear – is in John’s position.
- The empty chair in the centre, with a Phoenix emblem on the back and Magneto’s helmet sitting in front, is where Jesus would be.
- Sebastian Shaw is Thomas, the doubting one.
- Emma Frost is James the Greater.
- Kate Pryde is Philip.
- Professor X is Matthew.
- Mystique is Jude.
- Destiny is Simon.
Note that Mystique is separated from the other two “villain” members and standing with Xavier and Destiny, her place among them taken by death.
The masks of Jean Grey and Cyclops are lying on the ground in front of the table. Scott’s glasses are also sitting on the table. I’m not sure who the insect things belong to.
In the background is a portal through which we can see Mars, with some sort of plume of energy coming off it, presumably connected with Arakko. The other figures in the background are members of the Great Ring, the Arakki equivalent of the Quiet Council. Specifically, the hooded figure on the left is Lactuca, the big purple figure is Sobunar, and the insectoid thing on the right is Xilo. Neither they nor Lockheed have any equivalent in the original Last Supper, which is a tremendous pity.
PAGES 2-7. The future Mr Sinister and Destiny meet in Paris in 1919.
This scene alludes to the sequence of Moira MacTaggert approaching Charles Xavier and revealing her past lives to him, which first appeared in House of X #2 and has been referenced multiple times since.
Mr Sinister, at this point in continuity, is already a super powered mad scientist type. He’s already met Logan by this point.
Irene Adler, the future Destiny, is already working with Raven Darkholme (Mystique) at this point. A flashback in X-Treme X-Men vol 1 #1 shows them working together back in the Victorian era. Adler is named after a character from the Sherlock Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia”, published in 1891, which gives you some idea of how old Chris Claremont thought she was.
Nimrod. Nimrod is the ninth of Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”. If it’s twenty years to the day since it was first performed, then it’s 19 June 1919. Presumably, Nimrod disturbs Irene because it brings to mind a prophecy of the robotic killer of the same name.
What Irene tells Essex is presumably some sort of revelation about the future, but the very fact that she doesn’t anticipate his reaction is intriguing in itself. As she explains later, she doesn’t predict the future with 100% accuracy. That’s essentially because she sees all the possible timelines; she can tell which events are most likely but in some timelines they still won’t happen. Even so, in the very short term her predictions are usually highly accurate, and completely unexpected things should be very rare.
PAGE 8. Recap and credits. The tag line now reads “Hated. Feared. Forever”, which of course alludes to the old “feared and hated by a world they have sworn to protect” tagline from the early Claremont era. The small print now reads “mutants of the world”. In the first year of the Hickman run, it read “mutants of the world unite” – the “unite” is missing here.
PAGES 9-10. Mr Sinister prepares for a meeting.
Sinister has apparently been running multiple iterations of something – 25 of them by now – in order to learn about the future and leave messages for himself. We’ll find out at the end of the issue what he seems to be doing.
PAGES 11-14. Magneto announces his resignation from the Quiet Council.
“They and Moira had a plan for salvation of mutantkind…” This is the main arc of the Hickman run. Xavier and Magneto founded Krakoa as part of a scheme with Moira MacTaggert, whose knowledge from her nine past lives led her to understand that mutants were always eventually wiped out, and to propose uniting all mutants in their own island nation. Moira was apparently planning to gently sideline the mutants while pursuing the real goal of posthumanity, and got driven out of Krakoa in Inferno, which is where the rest of the Quiet Council found out what was happening.
“When she [Emma] discovered the true extent of Erik and the Professor’s schemes…” Again, Inferno.
“She’s focused entirely on the Council now.” Emma quit her day-to-day role in Hellfire Trading in Marauders #27, handing it over to the Stepford Cuckoos.
“[E]ntirely under Frost’s thumb now…” A pretty fair description of where Shaw ends up at the end of Marauders.
Ariel and Shadowcat are both former codenames of Kate Pryde. Nitpick: “née” doesn’t mean “formerly known as”, it means “born” (in the sense of “originally known as”). As Sinister says, Kate’s main title is Marauders, where she’s still running the team.
“I electively became a mutant…” Sinister’s current body (bodies?) incorporate mutant DNA, apparently gathered somewhere along the line from the original Thunderbird. He’s unquestionably a mutant in the sense that the body he has created for himself is a mutant body. Of course, he’s only tolerated by anyone because of his contribution to resurrection, but that would be the case however he had become a mutant. Exodus, as a purist who attaches religious significance to mutantkind, naturally takes great offence at this idea.
“Sinister Secret.” Various “Sinister Secrets” data pages have appeared throughout the Krakoan era, basically teasing future events in the form of gossip column blind items.
“As monarch of Mars…” Storm became the monarch of Mars – well, Arakko, which is the only inhabited bit of Mars – in S.W.O.R.D. after the place was colonised during “Hellfire Gala.”
“Colossus has been compromised by some naughty Russians.” This is a storyline from X-Force. The Russian villain in question is Colossus’ brother Mikhail Rasputin, working through his reluctant agent Chronicler – who seems to be more a reality-warper than a conventional mind-controller. Chronicler seems to steer people into acting in a particular direction, as long as he can rationalise it to himself as making narrative sense. This might explain why three telepaths on the Quiet Council (Professor X, Emma Frost and Exodus) have all failed to spot it. The fact that Sinister is aware of this is new, and begs the question of how he found out unless he’s got a contact with the Russians. (Or, of course, he picks it up in the way explained in the final scene.) For what it’s worth, Sinister voted against allowing Colossus onto the Council in Inferno #2.
Nightcrawler‘s activities refer to the recent Way of X book and the upcoming Legion of X. Sinister’s got a point about Nightcrawler’s contribution to the Council, which has mainly been to show up, look confused, make the occasional speech about morality, and vote on the spur of the moment about whatever happens to be put in front of him.
Mystique & Destiny. Erik and Xavier’s manipulation of Mystique, and the need to stop Destiny (as a precognitive) from existing on Krakoa, was a major storylline of the Hickman run. Mystique engineered Destiny’s resurrection anyway in Inferno.
“He abandons the cause once more.” Exodus used to be a fanatic worshipper of Magneto but has evidently become rather disillusioned with him over the years.
PAGE 15. Data page. This is basically recap for any newcomers – all of this is familiar to existing readers.
- Item 1 is just a basic premise of the Hickman run.
- Ditto item 2.
- Item 3 is the plot of Inferno #1-2.
- Item 4 is the plot of Inferno #3-4 (and Moira going on the run is the plot of X Deaths of Wolverine).
- Item 5 is another basic premise of the Hickman run. The “AI consciousness from the future” is Omega Sentinel, possessing the body of her past self, as explained in Inferno.
- Item 6 is a storyline from Gerry Duggan’s X-Men. The reporter is Ben Urich; the mindwipe was actually done by Synch acting alone.
- Item 7 is a storyline from SWORD.
- Item 8 is another basic premise of the Hickman run.
PAGE 16. Various mutants pitch to be on the Quiet Council.
- Angel and Penance are the co-CXOs of X-Corp, which had a very short lived series last year. Their behaviour here is pretty much in line with their depiction there.
- Gorgon has barely been seen since he died in Otherworld during “X of Swords” and got resurrected with a new personality. When we saw him in Way of X, he appeared to be childlike and naive.
- Vulcan did indeed rule the Shi’ar Empire for a time, though his behaviour here is quite different from how he’s appeared in other Hickman stories, where he’s generally been something of a psychologically troubled mess.
- Abigail Brand is a main character in SWORD.
- The Beast is a regular character in X-Force, where he’s generally being written as wildly amoral.
PAGE 17. The Quiet Council discuss the contenders.
“Hank used to be fun. Remember that?” This gets mentioned occasionally in X-Force as well, but by suggesting that you have to go back to before he dated Abigail Brand, Kate really is going back a way – we’re going back to the Joss Whedon run here.
Legion is a close ally of Nightcrawler over in Way of X. It’s consistent with that book both for Nightcrawler to be pushing him, and Xavier to be rejecting him as alarmingly unstable.
Namor was tentatively invited to take a vacant seat on the Quiet Council in Hickman’s X-Men #21.
The Arakkii are a violent warrior race. The idea that you have to fight for a seat on their Council was established in S.W.O.R.D. #8.
Cypher always hangs around in the background at Quiet Council meetings acting as translator for Krakoa itself.
PAGES 18-19. Exodus asks Hope to stand for the Quiet Council.
Hope Summers. Exodus regards Hope as a messiah figure because she was the first new mutant to be born after M-Day (when almost all mutants lost their powers) and, after reaching maturity through time travel, was able to bring about the restoration of mutantkind generally. Exodus compares her directly to Jesus here, calling him “the Nazarene Mutant”.
The Waiting Room was introduced in X-Men: Trial of Magneto #5 and it’s still not precisely clear what it actually is. It seems to be some kind of limbo in which as-yet-unresurrected mutants can bide their time, including those who died many years ago.
PAGES 20-21. Selene Gallio pitches to join the Quiet Council.
Selene, formerly Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, was last seen in the cast of X-Corp. She’s not literally a vampire; she has energy leeching powers, though.
“You lost Apocalypse.” Apocalypse left the Quiet Council after the “X of Swords” crossover, and Selene has a fair point that he’s not really been replaced by anyone of equivalent stature.
“Krakoa has borders with mystical realms.” She means Otherworld. This, and Apocalypse’s interest in the topic, was the basic concept of the recently-completed Excalibur run.
“The giant magical beasts the Ex-Pretender threw at us…” The “Ex-Pretender” is the Scarlet Witch, formerly a hate figure due to her role in M-Day, but redeemed after she created the Waiting Room in X-Men: Trial of Magneto. The “giant magical beasts” also come from that series.
“How long until all of Genosha is brought back?” The millions of mutants living on Genosha were killed in New X-Men vol 1 #115.
“I brought back Genosha in a day.” X-Force vol 3 #22. This was part of the “X-Necrosha” crossover in 2009.
The Externals were a small number of mutants who were already immortal even before Krakoa; Selene was one, Apocalypse is another.
PAGES 22-23. Hope pitches for membership.
“There’s been enough stuff going on which the Five aren’t sure about.” The Five’s main plot role in the Krakoan era has been to hang around in the background resurrecting people. But we have seen them increasingly expressing disquiet about things like the policy on resurrecting clones, ethically dodgy requests from the Beast to modify people on resurrection, and things of that sort. Krakoan society is premised on the Five continuing to resurrect people and it was inevitable that at some point they would demand a voice.
“The External Gate that reached Arakko… Apocalypse made it from the bones of my fellow unaging Externals.” Correct. This was in Excalibur vol 4 #12. Presumably, the threat is that it will be difficult to reach Arakko without the gate – but since the mutants are already on Mars, surely they can just plant another gate?
“I love that cape!” Sinister’s obsession with his cape was a running joke in Hellions, his previous book.
PAGES 24-26. The Council vote.
Sinister expects Destiny to vote for Hope, presumably based on the messages he got earlier. When she doesn’t, he assumes that his own knowledge of how she was going to vote might have changed the timeline. Mind you, if Sinister knows that Hope’s membership is likely to lead to disasters, why does he expect Destiny to vote for it? Does he think that she can’t see it, or that she’d welcome that too – or has he just not thought through the paradoxes?
PAGE 27. Data page. This is one of the Red Diamond “Sinister Secrets” pages, though it goes slightly off the rails towards the end. Most of these are inscrutable at this point. Number 4 references the upcoming annual Hellfire Gala (apparently we’re getting one of these every year in publication terms, and don’t think too closely about how that works in Marvel time). Number 5 is trailing the upcoming “Judgment Day” crossover with the Avengers and the Eternals. In number 10, the Pit is the suspended-animation underground prison which is supposed to be where criminals go; it’s currently appearing in the Sabretooth miniseries.
PAGES 28-31. Selene has a tantrum.
Pretty straightforward.
PAGES 32-35. Sinister’s plan revealed.
Basically, Sinister has cloned himself some Moiras, complete with their power to travel back in time to the moment of creation when they die. His big idea is to harness this idea for himself, so he lives through time over and over, and when he decides it’s time to pull the plug and start afresh, he records data on a clone’s brain and then shoots the clone dead. Thus, Sinister obtains access to time travel and can send messages back in time to himself, allowing him to try this stunt over and over until he gets it right. Apparently, he’s already on life 26. There is apparently a limit to how many times he can do this, since he’s already worrying about the condition of the clones.
“There’s a lot of chat about mutant circuits.” Mutants combining their powers in a more-than-the-sum-of-the-parts kind of way. New Mutants brings this up a lot, but SWORD has used it too.
“I have worked on the idea of Chimera.” Sinister was working on this in Hellions – the idea of hybridising mutant powers. It alludes to a plot point from Powers of X where, at some point in the future, he created artificial mutants in this way. (In Moira’s previous lives, anyway.)
PAGE 36. Data page. A seating plan of the Quiet Council.
PAGE 37. A map of Krakoa. We’ve seen this before but it’s being brought up to date here. This is more recap stuff for new readers.
The locations on the map:
- The House of X is Professor X’s home.
- The House of M is Magneto’s home.
- Arbor Magna is where resurrection takes place.
- The Arena is used for gladiatorial combat in which depowered mutants can get themselves ritually killed in order to qualify for resurrection.
- The Akademos Habitat is where the school-age teams tend to live.
- The Oracle is Mystique and Destiny’s home.
- The Grove is the Quiet Council chamber.
- The Cradle (or at least, one of the Cradles) is where the Cerebro unit is stored.
- The Reservoir seems to be just a generic residential area, in the handful of times we’ve seen it.
- The Wild Hunt is an area used for training in New Mutants.
- The Carousel is an area used for public celebration.
- Bar Sinister is Mr Sinister’s home.
- Hellfire Bay is where the Hellfire vessels dock.
- The Red Keep is Kate’s home.
- Blackstone is Shaw’s home (or was, when he was running Hellfire).
- The White Palace is Emma’s home (with the same caveat).
- The External Gate came up in the story.
- Nanny’s Cove is presumably where Nanny lived in Hellions.
- The Boneyard is X-Factor’s base.
- The Bower is the nursery.
- The Fort and the Crow’s Nest have never been explained before.
- The Voltus Glade is the circle where everyone was gathering with their swords in the “X of Swords” crossover.
- The Green Lagoon is seemingly the only bar on the island. Small print on the map gives the current population of Krakoa as 204,372, which is roughly equivalent to Aberdeen.
The Krakoan outposts:
- The Altar is a kind of psychic pocket dimension run by Legion in Way of X.
- Atlantic Krakoa is a related island which we never really seem to see.
- Arakko is the long-separated ancient twin of Krakoa, returned to our universe in “X of Swords” and now based on Mars.
- The Graymalkin Habitat is the former X-Men Mansion.
- Island M is Magneto’s old island base.
- Mykines is the location for the Hellfire Gala.
- The “Summer Home” should read Summer House; it’s the Summers family home on the Moon.
- The Treehouse is the X-Men’s base in New York.
The list of countries which don’t recognise Krakoan sovereignty:
- Azania is a country from late 1980s Black Panther which obviously represented apartheid-era South Africa.
- Brazil has shown up in New Mutants.
- Canaan is another Black Panther microstate. Moses Magnum conquered it once.
- I don’t think we’ve been given any particular reasons for Honduras or Iran.
- Latveria is the home of Dr Doom, who crossed paths with the mutants in X-Men / Fantastic Four.
- Madripoor, now run by the anti-mutant Homines Verendi government, has appeared extensively in Marauders.
- North Korea speaks for itself.
- Russia has featured extensively in Wolverine and X-Force.
- Santo Marco is the South American country that looks like Switzerland that Magneto conquered back in the Silver Age. They haven’t forgotten.
- Terra Verde has featured extensively in X-Force, though I thought the Hellfire Gala ended by striking a deal with the country, to keep quiet Beast’s interference.
- The United Kingdom withdrew recognition as part of an Excalibur storyline involving Coven Akkaba, in what seems to be a rather clumsy Brexit allegory.
- Not sure we’ve had any particular reason for Venezuela.
The three laws of Krakoa were adopted back in House of X #6, but note that they’re described here as the first laws. Maybe somebody’s finally figured out that the legal system needs to be a bit more developed than this if it isn’t going to be completely arbitrary…
PAGE 38. This is a reprint of a data page about Orchis that we’ve see in various forms before (with the addition of some material about where Orchis got their membership from; that comes from House of X).
PAGE 39. Trailers. Look, they’re in plain English now! (The Krkaoan in the top left just reads “NEXT”.)
What can I say – I found this a hugely enjoyable issue and felt like the true successor to Hickman’s run. The art was superb, and you can tell Gillen is having fun, though it’s possible the Sinister schtick wears a tiny bit thin. He gets to play with Hope again. I guess each issue will devote to one member of the council?
It feels very character driven and rich in that it respects and alludes to many recent events and the character’s own histories. Hooray!
I particularly enjoyed the Moira-clone reveal. Now that’s interesting and explains why and how Sinister knows so much. I really wish Gillen had the chance to write any Moira follow-up: he’d have had some much more imaginative ways to use her.
I dread to think of Aberdeen as Krakoa…
“Neither they nor Lockheed have any equivalent in the original Last Supper, which is a tremendous pity.”
It is indeed! 🙂
Oh, I loved this book. It’s a nice continuation of Hickman, to be honest. It brings in the characterization element that was missing from Hickman’s run. Plus, adding some levity to the Krakoa-era isn’t a negative at this point.
I thought I would be done with all the X-books after Sabretooth, but I plan to continue reading this title.
Hilariously, I predicted the ending of this issue, although I was mocking the very idea.
My guess as to this Sinister secretly having Destiny’s DNA was proven wrong, as it was my joke idea which proved how Sinister had access to this knowledge he shouldn’t have known. It’s interesting that a past between the two was established here anyway.
Toldja you could weaponise Moira clones like this.
It is nice to see Mr Sinister acting a bit more like his old self rather than a hapless heel. He’s still a long way from his godlike original status, but still.
Oh, and I still find it extremely amusing that Destiny was about a century old in the 70s and 80s, and she wore a cossie that showed off her smooth creamy thighs.
The premise that 200,000 mutants can keep resurrection secret without some kind of massive oppressive surveillance state or brainwashing remains, somehow, the most ludicrous thing about this series for me. It smacks of considering mutants a hivemind more than a group from all over the world.
Similarly the international politics stuff is kind of juvenile, since it’s mostly fictional countries and real countries centrist America thinks are bad-the only surprise for me has been the lack of China on the list of designated antagonist countries. But then, it seems like it’s a struggle for X-men writers to remember most of Asia and Africa exists.
The ORCHIS datapage has also corrected the typo from X-men for the FSB, so it’s definitely meant to be Russia, America and Israel that are mentioned. This does not in point of fact line up at all with the membership being entirely and solely from fictional espionage and terrorist groups.
Sinister’s claim that he has successfully brain-modified away his massive racism (though not, apparently, his equally massive sexism) seems doubtful to me, it feels more like he’s just moved everyone else into the inferior race category.
I imagine Disney has a very firm “don’t badmouth China” edict.
The point is that Sinister’s knowledge of the future led him to believe that Selene wouldn’t do anything to endanger Krakoa, so that’s why he voted against Selene, but his knowledge of the future was wrong, resulting in Selene summoning the monster-thingie to attack the island.
@Chris V- A past between Sinister and Destiny was first established in Nicieza’s X-Men Forever series, over 20 years ago.
Destiny’s thighs are her secondary mutation.
I knew this book would be good. Werneck’s art was pleasing to the eye in Trial of Magneto, and the colorists have been great across the line. Gillen’s track record speaks for itself. What I didn’t expect was how full Immortal X-Men 1 was. Even though most of the issue was composed of Sinister monologues and Quiet Council meetings, it felt like a lot happened. I want to see where Gillen goes with the sub-plots, and can’t wait for next issue.
My only real complaint is that the Moira clones make no sense to me (how do they not reset the entire timeline?) but I’m willing to just go with it because everything else was so well-executed.
I get that Sinister bears a lot of the blame for Selene’s attacking the island but the whole council deserves a lot of the blame too because of their treatment of Selene. First, they gave Selene a second chance after that mess in Captain America (and X-Corp suggested that some of it happened AFTER the Kill No Man rule was passed.) But this issue just shows how stupid having only three laws is. Selene threatens to wreak havoc on Krakoa unless she’s made a member of the Quiet Council and there’s nothing they can do because she technically hasn’t violated any of the Three Laws. In most countries, if you threatened the President or Prime Minister to kill his aunt unless he gave you a cabinet position, you’d be sent to jail for a very long time. And there’s a plot coming up in Legion of X where a mutant is taking over other mutants’ bodies and they can’t do anything because it technically doesn’t violate the Three Laws. The council needs to pass the kinds of laws that most countries have.
I don’t remember Sinister ever being particularly involved with racist ideas. He was interested in eugenics, but apparently from a non-racist version of eugenics.
His views though are more in line with individualist thought. He is saying that he, as an individual, is superior to all other people, so race has nothing to do with his views.
I can only guess that China is missing due to China being open to the option of trade with Krakoa, therefore, they wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to open trade with Krakoa.
Iran is certainly on the list due to the United States’ ol’ “Axis of Evil” ideology, alongside North Korea.
The question is what in the world is Honduras doing on the list? I wonder if someone mistook Honduras for Nicaragua. The largest US military base in Latin America is located in Honduras.
I realize that Destiny has to be wrong SOMETIMES but this is the second time this month where things went horribly wrong because Destiny failed to predict something that happened in the next few minutes. In the recent X-Men Forever issue, Destiny sends Kitty and Kurt to stop Mystiquei from killing Forge. But Forge’s security people attack them think they’re trying to kill Forge. And then when they finally catch up with Mystique, it turns out she already decided not to kill Forge. Really nice future predicting there, Destiny! If you’re going to have the plot driven by Destiny refusing to predict things that happen in the next few minutes, and that a normal person arguably could have anticipated, then you might as well not give her precognition.
Yeah, this was delightful. It felt like a real continuation of Hickman’s run and even picked up plot elements that it felt like Hickman dropped. Honestly, this was great. I hope we get individual spotlights on all of counsel as opposed to just Sinister, but as far as I’m concerned, all my fears after X Lives and X Deaths evaporated.
@Mike Loughlin
Moira’s power resets the universe from when she manifested it, so the the clones reset the timeline from whenever Sinister activated her mutant gene.
It seems that Destiny is playing her own game, so maybe she’s not wrong, she’s just lying to manipulate fate. It’s a good way to treat a precognitive character, it turns them from a plot killer to a plot maker.
And with the Moira clones, what would be happening is Sinister activates the clone, she opens her eyes and immediately tells him the future message. He wouldn’t be experiencing any sudden time jolts or anything.
Jeff-She doesn’t reset the timeline to the moment she manifests her mutant power but back to her conception.
Moira manifests her mutant power at puberty like most other mutants. As Destiny said, if Moira is murdered before her X-gene becomes active, she will remain permanently dead. If she reset the timeline back to the moment her X-gene activated, Destiny’s point would be moot. Plus, we were told that each time Moira dies she finds herself back in the womb again.
Since Sinister is creating these clones, each time they die, they restart the timeline back to the moment when Sinister first created the clone.
———————————
As far as Destiny, yes, I get the feeling she is playing her own game. She is selectively telling what she foresees in the future, so if she’s not revealing information, it is for a reason.
Well then.
Now that’s a diabolical and interesting scheme on Sinister’s part, and I’m curious about where it will go. And how often he can get away with it before it breaks time or something.
Also… hereupon lie the seeds of rehabilitating Moira as some sort of clean slate character should the writers ever desire to strip her of the Inferno/etc baggage.
“It seems that Destiny is playing her own game, so maybe she’s not wrong, she’s just lying to manipulate fate.”
That’s the feeling I got from her “I told you so” to Sinister. Nice to see her messing with his confidence. Definitely enjoying Destiny as schemer.
And this is how you write an “electing new council member” issue. So much better than any similar scene from Hickman. Motivations, consequences, it’s almost like the characters have a pre-Krakoan history. Imagine that.
@Chris V.
Ah, you’re right. It’s been a while since I’ve read HoX/PoX so the details were a little hazy. Still the concept is close. Time resets to when the clone was made not to Moira’s original life.
I’m thinking of Madelyne Prior, who was “born” the moment Jean Grey died and the phoenix force was set free. Sinister probably learned from that, and can time a clone to activate at a precise moment. If time rewinds to the moment of conception rather than birth, then the clone would rewind time to the first cell manipulation by Mr Sinister, which might only be weeks earlier. The end result is the same. Oh, and he’d have to switch off the mutation and grow a new clone every time, but Sinister loves to do that stuff.
My thoughts regarding the cover:
The Phoenix emblem on the chair foreshadows Hope taking Magneto’s vacant seat on the Council later in this issue.
In general, the Phoenix and Lady Death on the cover represent life and death, and the immortal mutants on Krakoa who cycle between both of them.
The insect lurking under the table probably represents Selene, since she conjured a giant insect in this issue and might become recurring thorn in the Council’s side. Otherwise, it could also symbolise Mikhail’s control over Colossus since it lurks near his leg.
Jean Grey and Cyclops’ masks under the table foreshadow an upcoming conflict between the X-Men and the Quiet Council. Duggan has been hinting at this storyline for a long time. It probably starts in Hellfire Gala 2022 (where the secret of mutant resurrection gets leaked to the public) and builds from there. They might reuse the ‘Schism’ title for this storyline, but that’s just personal speculation.
Also these masks represent their old personae back when Jean and Scott were still embroiled in Krakoan politics. Since they left politics and started their New York X-Men project, Jean has switched to the new Russell Dauterman costume (which has a tiara and no mask) and Cyclops wears the Captain Krakoa suit.
The ‘plume of energy coming off Arakko’ looks like a comet or meteor headed towards Arakko to me. This could either be a literal occurrence or a metaphorical one (an upcoming Arakkii political crisis in X-Men Red). It might even represent the Martian moon Phobos, now under ORCHIS control.
Did you notice how the “list of countries that don’t recognize Krakoa” used to include Wakanda and Kenya but now doesn’t? That was interesting to me. Particularly after Black Panther and Storm’s recent appearances together, I’m glad they seem to be on good terms now.
Typo- “Nimrod is the ninth of Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”. If it’s twenty years to the day since it was first performed, then it’s 19 June 2019.”
Should be 19 June 1919.
Also typing the date the British way was fun for me.
Paul> Data page. This is one of the Red Diamond “Sinister Secrets” pages, though it goes slightly off the rails towards the end. Most of these are inscrutable at this point.
I think this data page is basically Gillen laying out the outline for the first twelve issues of this series. Each secret corresponds to an issue.
Issue 1 (Mr Sinister focus issue) – the ‘certain young lady keeping private company with Mister Sinister’ are the clones of Moira that Sinister uses to do timeline experiments.
Issue 2 (Hope focus issue?) – Hope is the ‘fiery newcomer’. I think this secret generally refers to Hope’s surprise that the Council comprises of a bunch of unabashed backstabbers.
Issue 3 (Destiny focus issue) – The author suffering ‘writer’s block’ is Irene Adler and ‘the major work written over one hundred years ago’ is the Books of Destiny, twelve volumes in all. They were last seen in Moira’s No-Place during Inferno. Have they been returned to Irene, or does Cypher have them now? The ‘muse striking’ is probably Irene writing Volume 13: The Krakoan Edition.
Issue 4 (Emma focus issue) – Hellfire Gala tie-in issue. The ‘Huge Diplomatic Egg On Your Face’ is probably the reveal of mutant resurrection during the Gala, which will kick start a number of other storylines: Judgment Day, Schism, etc. I’m not sure who the ‘certain Council member’ she’s about to get her revenge on is, though Xavier is a likely candidate.
Issue 5 (Exodus or Nightcrawler focus issue?) – Judgment Day tie-in issue. I chose Exodus because he has an established connection to the Celestials and could give a ‘mutant Christian’ insight on the Eternal-Human-Mutant dilemma.
Issue 6 (Kate focus issue?) – ‘Island nation going to be destroyed’ could refer a number of different places: Madripoor, Singapore, Great Britain, the former Genosha. I chose Kate because she’s captain of the Marauders but this could be anyone’s focus issue really.
Issue 7 (Nightcrawler or Mystique focus issue?) – The ‘blue mutant’ is either Kurt or his mother Raven. I’m leaning towards Kurt. He probably starts ‘seeing red’ because he discovers some immoral thing someone in the Council is doing.
Issue 8 (Mystique or Exodus focus issue?) – ‘All manner of adventures’ makes this one sounds like a flashback issue. The Quiet Councillors who were long-lived pre-Krakoa are Mr Sinister, Exodus, Destiny and Mystique. This issue might be an extension of the Sinister-Destiny-Mystique opening scene.
Issue 9 – 12 Hard to say at this point. The general idea seems to be that there is some quarrel among the Council members and Sinister is tricked into exile in the Pit. That said, if he ended up in the Pit in a now-deleted future, how did he kill the Moira clone to delete that future? Did another Sinister clone do it for him?
Issue 13+: Gillen hasn’t submitted an outline for these yet (which I believe he has said in interviews).
We’ll see how accurate these predictions are as time goes on.
As a big old Krakoa curmudgeon, this was quiet enjoyable.
We had a lot more fun character stuff than has been the norm in most books, and Krakoa is a lot more palatable to me when the writers don’t act like it’s pretty much perfect.
If the rest of the line follows suit, I’ll be happy.
It’s funny to see Gillen kind of walk wacky Sinister back a little bit when he was the one that started it.
If Lockheed was the 14th disciple I’d have enjoyed the occasional trip to church a lot more.
GN- good stuff, I’m sure you’re on the right track.
I’d be on board for a wacky Sinister, Mystique, Exodus, Destiny, Apocalypse adventure.
X-Men:1925
I think GN’s on the right track, good analysis. The “writer’s block” in particular basically has to be Destiny as I don’t recall anyone else on the Council writing a book before. I’m looking forward to Gillen’s use of Exodus in particular, who has always been theoretically interesting but seldom actually interesting
As I’m sure is the case for most of us here, I’ve been a big fan of Kieron Gillen for many years now. His Extinction team era was certainly better than Fraction or Brubaker or Bendis or any other big writer that had been on the franchise since Morrison/Whedon, however it suffered somewhat from the very many crossovers and the general exhaustion of the extinction premise. All of which is a long winded way of saying I very much enjoyed this issue and am looking forward to seeing Gillen play in the Krakoa sandbox. Leaning into the long histories of Sinister, Destiny, Mystique, Xavier, and Magneto is a great idea, particularly as they’re stressing the “immortal” aspects. And while his Eternals has been better than probably anyone had anticipated, I’m much more excited to see his take on Krakoan politics. Great first issue.
@Uncanny X-Ben
We do dates that way in Canada, as well. In fact, I think nearly the entire world uses some form of day-month-year format. American exceptionalism and all that…
Sinister has always been written in a more complex manner than first appeared on the surface. Sinister is the Trickster figure on Krakoa. He is simply playing the fool to make everyone underestimate him.
It must be remembered that he outsmarted Xavier and Magneto from the beginning. Moira warned them that Sinister was too dangerous to allow on Krakoa after he sabotaged her ninth life.
Xavier thought he mind-wiped Sinister after implanting the goal of collecting the DNA for every mutant in his brain. Sinister was one step ahead of Xavier and replaced that Sinister. He has known about Moira’s plan for years and has been doing his own plotting. He knew the purpose behind collecting the DNA and could have easily tampered with it before the founding of Krakoa. It’s not known how much he knew beforehand, as he could easily have been spying on Xavier and Magneto since he knew they had their own secret plot.
Sinister has been scheming the whole time, and sneaking around doing his own plans. The problem is, he’s also been getting beaten up by Nanny, Arcade etc. Which might have been a ruse on his part, but we only saw the buffoonery, for two years.
Loved this one.
A small, fun note on the first scene: John Cale’s song “Paris 1919” (which is on Gillen’s Immortal X-Men playlist!) has a refrain of “you’re a ghost”!
I wonder if the “certain young lady” keeping company with Sinister might be a resurrected Blindfold?
The gun that fires Cyclops eyeballs is hanging on a wall, which means it will be taken down and fired at some point, per Chekhov.
This was great. And it neatly solved Sinister – he is scheming and far more knowledgeable than he appeared, but he’s still not as smart as he thinks himself to be. Which allows for the excess buffoonery to be a ploy while still keeping his losses in Hellions real.
I was hoping for Immortal to be good and this issue exceeded my expextations.
It was interesting Gillen pointed specifically to Beast-Brand pairing as the moment Hank stopped being fun – Gillen’s SWORD mini is maybe the last book were Hank was fun and basically his old self.
Speaking of the cover, the seafood in front of Emma is Bill the Lobster, judging by the shell colour.
He was also present in the first teaser image for HOXPOX, although he still hasn’t made his move on Krakoa. Obviously the crustacean is playing the long game.
This really is surprisingly good! It makes even Sinister bearable and fascinating!
“The gun that fires Cyclops eyeballs”
I do wonder if those are Cyclop’s eyeballs Mystique is holding in her hands on the cover? Those do look like his sunglasses next to Destiny on the table…then again could be more of Moira’s…
Speaking of Destiny, who old was she when she died on Muir Island Marvel time?
I’m liking this so far. It’s like Hickman’s run, but actually good.
Paul, was there a reason you ever did an annotation for Secret X-Men? I can’t remember if you ever mentioned it at all.
I think Paul mentioned at the time that Secret X-Men went straight to the review pile?
@Si- Sinister getting captured by Arcade in Hellions was stated to be part of his plan in the issues that it happened in.
Canonically, Selene has been alive since roughly the time of Kull, before Atlantis sank, some 18,000-20,000 years ago, yeah? Roughly 10,000 years before Conan’s time. She’s older than Apocalypse by a factor of five or six. Presumably in that time she’s seen a looooooot of nations rise and fall. Obvious villainy aside, you’d kinda think that’s someone you’d want around your ruling council, if only to pick their brain about what NOT to do.
I hope Selene will stick around in this title. I like Gillen’s take on her. I was even a little disappointed when the focus switched to Hope.
@Michael
As for there being no consequences for Selene because she didn’t break the Three Laws – maybe, maybe not. Any attack on Krakoa could fall under ‘Respect This Sacred Land’ if the Quiet Council wanted to prosecute her. I think tt was already used as a general ‘let’s not be jerks to each other’ in New Mutants?
“Neither they nor Lockheed have any equivalent in the original Last Supper, which is a tremendous pity.”
Maybe Sobunar is supposed to be Mel Brooks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLSDsyTgldY
The “blue mutant seeing red” could refer to Nightcrawler getting angry about Krakoan/Council morality or it could be the return of one mutant I don’t think we’ve seen yet: Azazel.
It could also mean (and this might be a longshot) an appearance by Cardinal, the future chimera made with Nightcrawler’s DNA.
I was going to complain that the X-gene shouldn’t be as old as Selene and then I remembered that Aaron’s Avengers heavily implies that the Phoenix host from 1,000,000 years ago is a mutant.
Isn’t she a mutant because she has green eyes? Aaron just seems to be playing with the idea of real-world mutation versus the accepted definition of the term in Marvel comics. Green eyes are a genetic mutation, so that would make the original Phoenix host a mutant.
No, she has powers similar to Jean Grey’s.
“it feels more like he’s just moved everyone else into the inferior race category”
That’s a safe bet, considering it’s exactly what he says/thinks.
I was trying to work out why Destiny’s vote changed in terms of interaction between her powers and Sinister’s foreknowledge, and hadn’t considered it was just to mess with him. So it seems that she’s probably seen his Moira clone secret exposed in the future?
I was reading online (couldn’t remember myself) that Latveria DOES officially recognise Krakoa? Or did that change in the FF/X-Men series?
In the original chart from House of X, Hickman included Latveria as one of the countries which did not recognize Krakoa.
Then, it gets complicated. In the X-Men/FF series, Doom says that he does recognize Krakoa as a nation but he has refused to sign their trade deal. He won’t allow a gate on Latverian soil or accept Krakoan drugs for his country.
So, the X-Men/FF series may have been mistaken, or it may come down to technicalities.
The green “insect thing” in the dish is the tail of Bill the cybernetic mutant lobster from the original ‘Fallen Angels’ miniseries.
R.I.P. Bill.
May Nature Girl avenge you.
Quick question, I didn’t realise Sinister wasn’t always a mutant? It seems a weird point to hone in on.
Also the fact that Vulcan is highlighted suggests he (and other candidates) will have more of a role to come.
He was given his powers by Apocalypse, originally. The origin is told in the Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series, by Peter Milligan.
Hickman explains in House/Powers that this version of Sinister was genetically engineered to have the X-gene using the DNA of Thunderbird.
Hickman’s Vulcan plot stuff seems to be continuing in X-Men Red.
Sinister has spliced himself in a lot of ways, as he has about thirty powers that Thunderbird doesn’t have.
He’s the original Chimera.
Of course, those powers don’t have to be mutant in origin.
He might be the first InMuternal.