X-Men Red #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED vol 2 #1
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Jordan D White
X-MEN RED. This is the successor title to S.W.O.R.D., also written by Al Ewing. It’s the second series to go by this name; the first was the series written by Tom Taylor which ran from 2018-19. In that context, the colour was simply indicating another X-Men team to go with Blue and Gold. Here, it refers to the planet Mars, where the series is set.
If you want to be really nitpicky, this is actually X-Men Red vol 1, because the Tom Taylor series was officially called X-Men: Red, but that’s too much even for me.
COVER / PAGE 1. Magneto, Storm and Sunspot on Mars, with the face of Abigail Brand visible behind them.
PAGES 2-5. Flashback: Storm defeats “Nameless” to become ruler of Arakko.
This is an expanded version of a scene previously shown in flashback in S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #8. All we saw in that issue was the first two panels, though the surrounding dialogue made clear that Storm had issued a challenge to her predecessor as regent and defeated her in combat. That issue also established the basic idea that anyone on Arakko can challenge for a seat on the Great Ring (the ruling council) and win it by defeating the incumbent in combat.
“Just before the first Hellfire Gala, when Arakko was still an island.” This was always implicit, but the significance of this is that Arakko was relocated to Mars (which was terraformed for the purpose) during the first Hellfire Gala, as seen in particular in Planet-Sized X-Men #1. So Storm issued her challenge, took control of Arakko, and used that role to direct Arakko to Mars. Storm confirms later in the issue that she used her casting vote to decide that question. Storm’s repeated protestations in this issue that she is not a ruler and wants to rule by a consensus of the Great Ring should be seen in that light.
“Nameless, the Shape-Shifter Queen”. The dialogue tends to suggest that “nameless” is a description rather than the actual name of the character. Presumably this character doesn’t have an identity because their shape-shifting is so effective that they always take on someone else’s identity. Note that the captions describe this character as both “queen” and “regent”, despite Storm’s repeated efforts to draw a distinction between the two in this issue.
“You in your prime! Your best self! When you were clean!” Nameless adopts Storm’s costume from her earliest appearances in late-70s X-Men comics. The suggestion seems to be that Storm’s prime was just after she joined the X-Men, when she had training and power but had yet to become corrupted by moral compromise. Storm was certainly written as something of an innocent in early issues, evolving over years into a leader figure.
“You were not there.” This was also a charge levelled at Storm by a challenger in S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #11 – specifically, by Kobak, who we’ll see again later in the issue. The (perfectly legitimate) objection is that Storm has usurped rule of a society that she is not a part of, and whose experiences and suffering she has not shared.
“Know the cost.” It’s not exactly clear from the art what Nameless does here, but the implication seems to be that she kills herself with lightning (using Storm’s borrowed powers) rather than taking the offer of surrender, refusing to let Storm believe that she has taken the role without compromise.
PAGE 6. The Great Ring begin to discuss whether to return to Amenth.
This is the same discussion that we saw part of in X-Men #9. For those still keeping track, the members of the Quiet Council (clockwise from top) are Xilo, Ludos Logos, Isca, Idylll, Tarn, Lactuca, Storm and Sobunar. The face of the sentient island of Arakko is in the background.
Genesis. Apocalypse’s wife and the former ruler of Arakko, when it was trapped in Amenth.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits. The small print carries the same “Mutants of the world” text as Immortal X-Men.
PAGES 8-12. Magneto meets the Fisher King and creates the Autumn Palace.
Magneto resigned from the Quiet Council in Immortal X-Men #1. His speech is basically recounting how he tried to build Krakoa as a great work for mutants, but he considers it to have failed. Since Krakoa is still there, Magneto is presumably referring to the way his clandestine alliance with Moira MacTaggert was exposed in Inferno, leading to her being driven out and the original plans for Krakoa thwarted. He seems to feel defeated and humiliated by this; another way of looking at it is that while Professor X is sticking it out and trying to make it work, Magneto has gone off to sulk.
Magneto repeats the “they were not there” motif when discussing his career as a supervillain, alluding to his suffering in the Holocaust as a justification for his actions. He seems to be tacitly acknowledging that it’s at least partly an excuse.
“Max” is Magneto’s rarely used real first name, established by retcon in the X-Men: Magneto – Testament miniseries in 2008, but hardly ever invoked in contemporary stories.
The Fisher King (named later in the issue) is a new character. He represents a rather more rounded version of Arakkan society, where their obsession with strength is tempered by a rather more realistic understanding of what strength involves.
PAGES 13-22. Sunspot, Vulcan and Thunderbird in the Red Lagoon.
Port Prometheus is the main city of Arakko and the centre of its diplomatic zone for visiting dignitaries; the Red Lagoon is the main bar there. (As with Krakoa’s Green Lagoon, Arakko seems to get by with just the one.)
Sunspot. Ewing has written Roberto DaCosta before in New Avengers vol 4 and in USAvengers. This is much closer to Ewing’s previous take on the character than the largely comedic figure we’ve seen in other Krakoan-era books, though there are elements of both. Sunspot has bought the Red Lagoon. Roberto has been living in the Shi’ar Empire during the Krakoan era, hence his treating a spaceport bar as a fairly mundane thing. Note that despite his familiarity with all these outer space phenomena, Roberto is wearing normal Earth clothes, despite the fact that the signal they send is unlikely to mean anything to anyone around him. Maybe he just likes the aesthetics, or maybe it’s an aspect of his self-identity.
David Mancuso (1944-2016) was a DJ who held influential parties in New York in the 70s.
Kobak Never-Held was previously seen in S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #11 challenging Storm for her seat on the Great Throne. Evidently he submitted (since the Arakkii don’t appear to do resurrection). His first love Tarlo is a new character. The Vile, who Tarlo died fighting, remain a little bit obscure as a historical phenomenon; Tarn, the outright evil Great Ring member, is the sadistic mad scientist leader of the current Locus Vile.
“My first love was named Juliana…” Juliana Sandoval, who died more or less as Sunspot describes in his first appearance, Marvel Graphic Novel #4. (She was later resurrected under the name “Marissa Sebastian” when Sunspot made a deal with Blackheart in X-Force #98-100, but that doesn’t actually contradict anything he says here.)
“You’ve a place in the broken land.” Kobak, like the Fisher King later, seems to accept other forms of traumatic history as making someone suitable for Arakko, or at least likely to fit in there.
Vulcan. Gabriel Summers became the ruler of the Shi’ar Empire in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #485, and lost the throne after being seemingly killed in an explosion in War of Kings #6. A flashback in X-Men vol 5 #10 establishes that he was rescued by mysterious alien creatures who apparently altered his personality and had plans for him at some future point. He’s basically yelling here at a poor Shi’ar diplomat who isn’t treating him as the reigning emperor (because he isn’t the reigning emperor), and moreover, isn’t even willing to acknowledge who Vulcan is.
“I heard how Gladiator usurped my throne.” Gladiator took the throne in War of Kings: Who Will Rule? #1.
“How he gave it Lilandra’s line – to Xandra Xavier.” Xandra is the daughter of Professor X and Lilandra Neramani. She became the empress in New Mutants #2. I think this is the first time we’ve heard her referred to as “Xandra Xavier”, rather than “Xandra Neramani” (which is obviously the more relevant lineage for the Shi’ar, but may also reflect Vulcan’s own preoccupations).
“…and every Summers must kill his Xavier, in the end…” Vulcan is presumably referring to the time Cyclops killed Professor X in Avengers vs X-Men #11. (He got better.) Cyclops was under the influence of Phoenix at the time and about to re-enact the Dark Phoenix story. Vulcan may be thinking of it as a symbolic killing of an obstructive figure standing in the way of destiny.
“I’ve fought without powers before.” Sunspot is referring to a storyline from USAvengers where he had to use a regulator headband to switch off his powers for his own health. The answer to Vulcan’s question “How did that work out?” is that eventually, in Avengers #688, he had to switch the thing off and use his powers to save the world, supposedly knocking several years off his lifespan in the process.
“[Y]our human suit, your human money, your human bar…” Sunspot’s suit is undoubtedly human. The money is an interesting point; Sunspot has always been preoccupied with wealth in the Krakoan era, but Krakoa itself has been portrayed as a post-scarcity economy. That may be one reason why Sunspot prefers being elsewhere. But in most of the universe money does mean something, and we’ve not really seen any indication that Arakko is an exception. It’s hardly been portrayed as a utopia. As for the bar, even Krakoa has one of those – it’s maybe the only clearly recognisable human institution that they didn’t feel able to do without.
Thunderbird. John Proudstar was, very very briefly, a member of the X-Men in 1975. His main role in X-Men mythology is to be the one who died, very very early, on his second mission, in X-Men vol 1 #95. He was resurrected in X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #5 after the Scarlet Witch’s magic enabled the Five to resurrect mutants who had died before Cerebro started recording back-ups. He’s wearing a modified version of his costume, with a few less frills and regular trousers. Note that he aggressively rejects the crowd identifying him as a Krakoan.
“One of the also-rans who left me on Krakoa to die…” Vulcan is referring to the plot of X-Men: Deadly Genesis, which heavily retcons Giant-Size X-Men #1 (Thunderbird’s first appearance). In the original story, the first team of X-Men are captured by Krakoa, Cyclops escapes, and he returns with a team of new recruits to rescue them. In the retconned version, an entire team of trainees try and fail first, one of whom was Vulcan; Professor X then wipes the X-Men’s memory of these unfortunate events. The second team did not leave Vulcan on Krakoa to die – they didn’t know he was there.
“[T]hat thing with Petra and Sway…” Cable is referring obliquely to a botched storyline from the Hickman run in which Vulcan was seen hanging around on the Moon with Petra and Sway, two of his teammates from the Deadly Genesis squad. Apparently this was meant to be Vulcan hallucinating about them, but other characters seemed to acknowledge them as real, which wasn’t the intention. Since Petra and Sway both died off panel in Giant-Size X-Men #1, and Trial of Magneto is emphatic that it wasn’t previously possible to resurrect characters from that period, I think we have to take it that Vulcan was indeed hallucinating about them.
“He’s not welcome at the Summer House – but even so, maybe Dad can get through to him.” The Summer House is the Summers family home on the moon. Vulcan used to live there, so it’s not clear what led to him being thrown out. If you’re still reading you almost certainly know this, but Cable’s “Dad” is Cyclops, Vulcan’s older brother.
“I think what he needs is some useful work.” Abigail Brand evidently has plans for Vulcan. It’s not spelled out here, but the closing issues of S.W.O.R.D. established that Abigail Brand is actually a double agent, working not just with the mutants’ outer space organisation S.W.O.R.D., but also with the anti-mutant outfit Orchis. Note that while Thunderbird starts shouting on the next page, it’s Sunspot who reacts with horror to the initial idea of S.W.O.R.D. taking Vulcan in. That plays into his scepticism about Abigail at the end of the scene and later in the issue.
“You need to start watching your temper, Proudstar, it’s gotten you killed once…” Thunderbird died in X-Men vol 1 #95 when he insisted on jumping aboard Count Nefaria’s escape plane and tearing it apart despite the obvious problem that it was in flight at the time.
“You could learn a lot from your brother…” Thunderbird’s younger brother James Proudstar started as the second Thunderbird, trying to avenge the original, before eventually becoming Warpath and joining X-Force. He’s currently a regular character in New Mutants. Note that Thunderbird calls him “Jimmy” (which is not a name we’ve seen used for him), and Cable makes a point of calling him “James” in response.
“You, Frost, Xavier – all you vultures.” Cable was James’s mentor in X-Force; Emma Frost was his mentor in the Hellions when he was starting out. Xavier never exactly had that relationship with James, though obviously there have been periods where both were around in X-circles together – John seems more to be alluding to the treatment of himself. Broadly, he seems to blame the X-Men for getting him killed (even though it was his fault).
PAGES 23-24. Data pages – the result of the Great Ring’s vote on returning to war. We already saw in X-Men #9 that Isca abstained and that Storm used her casting vote to support peace.
“[T]o return to Amenth and face the demons alongside Genesis.” A long history is covered in the “X of Swords” crossover and the lead-up to it. Broadly speaking, Arakko (a sister island of Krakoa) spent millennia in the hellish dimension of Amenth with its mutant population fighting demons in an endless war. At the end of “X of Swords”, Apocalypse claimed as his prize Arakko’s transportation to Earth complete with its population, but he and Genesis went to Amenth to rule the population remaining here. Note that the Arakkii are basically having a vote here on whether to reject Apocalypse’s sacrifice – but nobody seems to raise that as an argument.
Isca. If you’re new here, Isca literally can’t lose, but that doesn’t mean she can achieve whatever she wants – beyond a certain point her powers turn on her and compel her to side with the winners or to stay out of the fight. As she explains later, Isca abstains because if she voted, her side would automatically win. But that could simply mean that she would be instinctively compelled to vote for the side that would have won anyway.
Idyll. In Hellions #14, Tarn said that he had taken her voice before, but seemed to imply that it had been restored. (“Idyll the Future Seer seems stricken dumb, perhaps hiding her voice so I won’t take it again.”) I think the idea is that she’s chosen to say nothing since Tarn’s last attack.
Storm. The entry for her tells us that “Arakko sees her – and she has a place in the broken land.” That seems to be referring to the island itself and suggesting that, to Arakko, Storm’s history is indeed sufficiently traumatising to qualify her to be here.
Sobunar‘s apparent delight at being on a thriving and living world – which is at odds with many of his colleagues – is consistent with his reaction when he was participating in the terraforming of Mars in Planet-Sized X-Men #1.
Xilo has “gone through many names”, probably to smooth over a glitch in early appearances of the Great Ring where inconsistent names were given.
Lodus Logos is apparently dying (or destined to die soon) – this is new information.
The Night Seats are three further members of the Great Ring who are never seen, and may be an urban legend (but probably not). Note that the small print shows “Dawn”, “Day” and “Dusk”, with the fourth entry redacted out – obviously “Night”.
PAGE 25. Storm and Isca.
Redroot is the interpreter for Arakko, serving a similar role to Cypher on Krakoa. She was captured by Jim Jaspers during the “X of Swords” crossover, in X-Force #14. A rather different version of this scene appears in X-Men #9, where Storm is lobbying the Great Ring to rescue Redroot; the two aren’t outright inconsistent but they do read a little awkwardly side by side.
Isca, by abstaining and letting the majority on the Council decide, is actually achieving Storm’s desire of not being a one-person ruler – and, at the same time, forcing Storm into that role against her will.
PAGES 26-29. Storm and Abigail Brand.
The opening panel is a flashback to the opening flashback, with Storm again being reminded that she isn’t fully accepted in her role as regent.
Storm resists being addressed as “Queen”, but Abigail responds by addressing her as royalty in somewhat different wording.
“When Krakoa colonised Mars…” Storm resists this characterisation of what happened in Planet-Sized X-Men #1 on the basis that Mars had no native population. However, there’s nothing wrong with Abigail’s use of the term; it’s also been applied to settlements in Antarctica, which has no indigenous population either.
“[A]n island full of violent morons who live to cause trouble…” This is the caricatured version of Arakko which X-Men Red is trying to move away from (though it’s a pretty fair description of how Arakko has been depicted to date by most writers).
Isca did indeed fight against Arakko in Amenth, because her powers compelled her to switch sides when the Arakkii were losing.
Obviously, Abigail’s pitch here is a feint appearing to set-up the titular X-Men team – with a clear warning sign that this would be a bad thing, given that we know she’s a member of Orchis.
“Was I this in the crowds of Cairo?” As part of her lament that her identity has been reduced to a role, Ororo thinks back to her childhood as a Cairo street thief.
“On the rooftops of Tokyo?” Storm is referring to her adventures with Yukio in Tokyo which led to her drastically changing her appearance in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #172-173 – another formative experience for her.
“When I laughed in the skies and gave rain to the soil…” Her pre-X-Men role, using her powers to help a village in Kenya.
PAGES 30-34. Back to Magneto’s castle.
The Fisher King. The Fisher King is a figure from Arthurian mythos, supposedly the descendent of a bloodline charged with keeping the Holy Grail. He’s usually an injured figure in need of healing; here, that presumably ties to him being a non-mutant.
Elizabeth Braddock, the current Captain Britain, is heavily tied up with the quasi-Arthurian mythology of Otherworld in the previous run of Excalibur and the upcoming Knights of X.
“You were somewhere too.” This is alluding to Magneto’s childhood in Nazi concentration camps.
“Headmaster.” Magneto was the stand-in headmaster of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters for a time in the 80s, when Sunspot was one of the pupils there. Sunspot is obviously being somewhat ironic in calling Magneto by this term, when he’s approaching him as an equal and calling him by his first name. Specifically, Sunspot calls him “Erik”, which was the standard “real name” for Magneto throughout the 1990s, later retconned into a pseudonym.
Storm‘s appearance references her drastic change of appearance in Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #173 when she showed up with a mohawk. As there, she’s breaking very visibly with the trappings of an identity that she no longer feels comfortable with.
PAGE 35. Trailers.
This was SO good. Ewing has a fantastic knack for getting drama out of letting characters be who they’ve always been, and here he extends that to letting Storm and Magneto, in particular, change–just a little, but very deliberately and powerfully. Even the text pages here are fireworks, especially the breakdown of the vote.
I liked Immortal X-Men.
I loved this.
Another good one! Even if I quit most of the rest of the line, X-Men Red & Immortal X-Men are must reads after only one issue.
Storm’s self-doubt, Magneto feeling defeated, Sunspot’s suspicions of Brand, Vulcan feeling unappreciated and forgotten, Thunderbird’s rage, the Arakii trying to decide between war and peace – almost all the featured characters are looking for a purpose. Brand and Fisher King (and maybe Cable) are the only ones with focus me drive, at least until the last page. I like how Ewing made the need for purpose a theme of this issue.
Now I can see the value in an Arako setting. You could have a compelling story of nation-building, a population finding purpose after knowing only war for their entire lives. Idealists perhaps trying to direct society toward a golden future, while powerful warlords struggle to maintain the status quo that gave them power. Ideally you’d be able to do time jumps for a story like that, and I can’t see that happening, but it not being set on Earth gives a different type of potential to anything Krakoa offers at least.
Presumably the average Arakan isn’t a cartoon barbarian even if their leaders are, maybe we could see more of that.
“You, Frost, Xavier – all you vultures.”- The point is that Thunderbird feels like Cable and Frost took advantage of his grieving brother and turned Jimmy into their pet soldier. He’s right about Emma (since she zapped James with her powers at least once when he screwed up an exercise and admitted using her powers to try to keep him from reconsidering his anger at Xavier) and even if James forgave Emma years ago, John only found out about it a couple of days ago. Cable is more complicated- he originally was so obsessed with avenging his wife’s death at Stryfe’s hands that he just saw James as a tool but later came to genuinely like and respect James. Cable meanwhile, saw what John’s death did to James and is resentful of John for not thinking of what his death would do to his brother.
The Fisher King raises an interesting question. It makes sense that there would be inhabitants of Arakko without powers since we know that sometimes the children of two mutants are born human (e.g. Graydon Creed.) But are there human children with mutant parents on Krakoa? Are some of the children in Stacy X’s orphanage human? (That would explain why Nanny panicked when she thought it was going to be destroyed in Hellions- humans can’t be brought back!)
@Paul: almost certain that Nameless’s speech patterns are based on the phonetic alien speech that appears in various Grant Morrison comics.
Jenny: you might be right about Nameless’s speech patterns. I haven’t read Morrison’s Nameless yet, so I don’t know. I read them in the voice of louder version of the lead character’s doppelgänger in the movie Us.
It’s in a lot of things Morrison’s done; for example, the time capsule hologram from issue 10 of All-Star Superman
It’s amazing how much more interesting Krakoa is when you don’t pretend it’s perfect and everyone has a character arc.
“Xavier never exactly had that relationship with James, though obviously there have been periods where both were around in X-circles together”
And notably, James was obsessed with avenging John’s death, to the point of plotting to kill Xavier back in one of his earliest appearances, in Uncanny X-Men #193…
It’s interesting that we get the young and angry John, recently resurrected after dying 5 minutes into his tenure as an X-Men, and “little brother” James, who’s had a very long and active career serving under Frost, Cable, Xavier, Wolverine, etc, and matured noticeably as a result.
The Petra situation is still a mess since she showed up in a training sequence in New Mutants #14, where she’s fighting Scout and trading quips with her. The X-Men issue can be handwaved since Vulcan’s essentially the narrator and he’s unreliable but there’s over a dozen characters in that New Mutants scene. Wouldn’t the simplest fix be that Moira used a prototype Cerebro backup on her own students? If anyone can break the general timeline here, it’s Moira.
I was wondering where John would show up post-resurrection. I expected he’d join the second roster of the X-Men post-Hellfire Gala 2, but he’s an interesting wild card here. Ewing can go pretty much anywhere with him.
But mostly, thank god we now have Arrakans who aren’t just one-dimensional bozos. Fisher King and Kobak bring bring my count of interesting Arrakan characters to a total of 2.5 (I like the idea of Solem but I think the execution failed.) Not bad for one issue.
The official title is X-Men Oreo #1.
@Allan M: while your solution would probably work, IMO it works better if we can preserve the intent of having Vulcan hallucinating Petra and Sway.
If it came for me to decide, I would suggest that whenever someone else in Krakoa saw either of the two it was because some other mutant created an illusion of some sort in order to fulfill Vulcan’s expectations/ delusions. I would imagine that many people would go to considerable lengths to satisfy Vulcan these days, given his mental state.
In a pinch, Dani Moonstar (Mirage) could be doing it as a confrontation therapy attempt for Vulcan and it turned out that she lost control of the mental construct.
By golly it does say Oreo. It’s Sixis all over again.
PART 1
There’s a number of interesting things going on here:
1. Vulcan
Paul> I think we have to take it that Vulcan was indeed hallucinating about them.
I don’t think it’s that simple. While yes, Hickman screwed up by having Havok acknowledge Petra and Sway in X-Men 8, Petra was also in the training sections of Vita Ayala’s New Mutants. It’s a bit odd to have that many mutants hallucinate her.
A workaround would be to say that Petra and Sway were indeed resurrected earlier (Cerebro copied their minds during Necrosha, etc.) but they don’t spend nearly as much time in the Summer House as Vulcan seems to think they do and Vulcan hallucinates talking to them most of the time.
It’s also interesting that Vulcan got kicked out of the Summer House given that Cyclops said “Jean and I will be with you come fire, come war, …”. He must have done something really bad. Speaking of, does the Summer House still exist? I thought it got blown up along with the Moon in Fantastic Four. I guess that this is a spoiler that the Moon gets reconstructed (and the Summer House gets reseeded) post-Reckoning War.
2. Sunspot
I feel like Ewing is using this coincidental Vulcan-Sunspot rivalry to set up Sunspot becoming the Shi’ar Majestor (or some other high ranking position in Shi’ar society) down the line.
There is a Shi’ar political crisis brewing (Secret X-Men, Marauders) and Vulcan is challenging Gladiator’s (and Xandra’s) rule by saying he never died. A proper Vulcan-Sunspot fight could transfer the title to Sunspot.
The random Red Lagoon Shi’ar diplomat might seem like a random character but this is the kind of character who shows up again in a future issue to testify that he saw Sunspot defeating Vulcan in an Arakkii challenge.
3. Idyll
From Hickman’s X-Men 14, Idyll’s final prophecy before Tarn got her:
Only under the black moon will the two become one. A white light will judge them, and a red land will see them split forever.
I think we can confidently say that ‘two become one’ was Arakko joining Krakoa, the ‘white light’ was Opal Luna Saturnyne (referred to as the ‘White Light of Otherworld’ in X of Swords), the ‘judgment’ was the tournament of swords and the ‘red land’ that splits Krakoa and Arakko is Mars. Did we ever come to a consensus on what the ‘black moon’ is?
4. Ora Serrata
Ora will apparently feature heavily in Legion of X, which is why she hasn’t been seen on the Ring yet. ‘The secrets of Ora Serrata is not ours to tell’ is probably a meta-reference to that.
5. Lodus Logos and Magneto
So I have a theory:
Lodus Logos is an Omega mutant. His mutant powers are to ‘speak in metal and song’. He sits on the Seat of Dreams on the Great Ring. He is apparently going to die soon, leaving his seat open.
Magneto (who recently moved to Arakko) is an Omega mutant. His mutant power is ferrokinesis. He was rambling about his broken dreams in this issue. He is in need of a new direction in life after leaving the Quiet Council.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
@ Luis, you have two solid alternate ideas to my random musings, well expressed. I guess we’ll see where Ewing goes from here. Is this a handwave or a setup for a bigger story, too early to tell.
PART 2
6. The Fisher King
I also have a theory that this guy might turn out to be an important figure in Arakkii society.
Paul> The Fisher King is a figure from Arthurian mythos, supposedly the descendent of a bloodline charged with keeping the Holy Grail. He’s usually an injured figure in need of healing; here, that presumably ties to him being a non-mutant.
I agree that the ‘groin injury’ is represented by his non-mutant status here but I also think that the ‘Holy Grail’ is represented by a secret he holds that Magneto has to find out.
Wikipedia states that: All (the Fisher King) is able to do is fish in a small boat on the river near his castle, Corbenic, and wait for some noble who might be able to heal him by asking a certain question.
In this scenario, the Autumn Palace is the castle and Magneto is the noble who will have to ask him the right question.
I believe that this guy is one of the Night members of the Great Ring, in the seat representing the non-powered (or inconveniently-powered) peoples of Arakko. From a story perspective, the Night members have to be Arakkii that we’ve met before, otherwise there’s no point in keeping them a secret from the readers. For a while I thought Solem might be one, but this Fisher King is a much better candidate. The anonymity of the Night seat protects him from the other Great Ring members given that he has no powers.
7. Storm and Nameless
You know if this was anything other than a Marvel book, I would theorise that their fight really ended with Storm dying and Nameless absorbing so much of Storm that she suffers an identity crisis and becomes Storm 2.0, who we’ve been seeing since Hellfire Gala 2021. (Eventually the Krakoans realize this and resurrect Storm with Nameless’ recent memories added to her so that she can still continue as the Regent of Arakko).
But I think that this is too wild of a theory for a Marvel book. Storm being haunted by Nameless’ accusations and using it to chart a better path is a good alternative.
8. Thunderbird
I was genuinely surprised to see John Proudstar here since I thought he would be joining the Marauders given that Steve Orlando is co-writing his upcoming one-shot. But I don’t mind him being the wild card in this book either.
The cast is getting awfully crowded though – what happened to Manifold, Peeper, Mentallo and the rest of the S.W.O.R.D. crew? Are they background characters now?
@Allan M, I didn’t realise that you’ve already brought up the Petra in New Mutants thing. I started typing my thoughts when there were only a few comments in the thread so I did not notice. Sorry about that!
Allan M> I was wondering where John would show up post-resurrection. I expected he’d join the second roster of the X-Men post-Hellfire Gala 2, but he’s an interesting wild card here. Ewing can go pretty much anywhere with him
Regarding the Year 2 X-Men roster, my current theory:
Jean Grey (leader)
Cyclops (leader)
Penance / Firestar (whoever won the online X-Men vote)
Synch (confirmed to be staying in an interview)
Iceman (hinted at in an interview)
Northstar (hinted at in Polaris’ letter in X-Men 5)
Bling! (hinted at in Forge’s letter in X-Men 8)
Negasonic Teenage Warhead (hinted at in conversation during X-Men 8)
“You were not there.” This was also a charge levelled at Storm by a challenger in S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #11 – specifically, by Kobak, who we’ll see again later in the issue. The (perfectly legitimate) objection is that Storm has usurped rule of a society that she is not a part of, and whose experiences and suffering she has not shared.
Callisto leveled the same accusation against Storm for her absence as a leader during the Mutant Massacre. And, of course, Storm “usurped rule of a society that she was not part of,” back in that very first Morlocks story.
loved loved fucking loved all of this.
I knew I could trust Ewing to make the arakkii society more nuanced and right off the bat he strikes at how krakoans themselves have othered the arakkii people. Also glad to see the concept of non-mutant descendant of mutants back.
Back at SWORD he would play a bit with the intersections of identities but now it looks like he turned this theme up to eleven and I absolutely adore it, especially paired with so many nice callbacks and character moments. Finally a modern writer acknowledging Magneto’s relationship with the classic new mutants! Storm’s punk visual is back! Beto talking about how he wants to understand what the one who died for him saw in him! JUst so much neat stuff.
Brand is very much the antagonist I wanted – as much as she’s a self-absorbed asshole gunning for colonialism as what she sees as pragmatism, her and Isca’s interactions with Storm seem to highlight that Storm’s best intentions might not be matching well with what she’s actually doing – which also goes great with Storm’s current identity crisis.
Anyway, just so much lovely stuff all around, super promising. I think both this and Immortal X-Men were equally good, with Immortal being more flashy with the Moira twist and whatnot, but I’m slightly more biased for this. I’ve been super excited for this book and so far it’s awesome.
@Nu-D “Callisto leveled the same accusation against Storm for her absence as a leader during the Mutant Massacre. And, of course, Storm “usurped rule of a society that she was not part of,” back in that very first Morlocks story.”
Oh damn I forgot about this one. Another good parallel.
@GN “what happened to Manifold, Peeper, Mentallo and the rest of the S.W.O.R.D. crew? Are they background characters now?”
Ewing brought up in an interview he wants to bring Wiz-Kid back to Red. Which I think would make a lot of sense considering some character beats from SWORD.
@ GN All good. We’re just speculating about comics. No need for apologies. Appreciate your thoughtfulness and I’m curious where this is going.
Man, this was dense in a good way. Even if it was oversized, it still packed a lot into that extra space.
It’s great seeing not-just-a-bozo Roberto again. Ewing’s feel for him remains one of my favorite bits — USAvengers was a perfect bit of leaning into the old stories about Roberto being one of the most likely to fall to Hellfire, and twist it all about.
I didn’t expect to like back-to-basics angry Thunderbird so much, but I hope he stays. He’s actually a perfect character for hitting questions of belonging with. His allegiance was always with his tribe and not mutantkind. While the tribe’s current status seems to be continuity-squishy, if he can’t go back there then I definitely can see why he’d prefer hanging out on Arakko with the ‘outcasts’ instead of on Krakoa.
Did we ever come to a consensus on what the ‘black moon’ is?
You mentioned earlier in the post that the moon was destroyed. Could that be it?
Gosh. It has been a while since I saw so much character work in a X-book. It is almost disorienting.
Love seeing Storm getting a bit of a relatable personality for a change. All too often she is all posture, all the time.
Love seeing semi-realistic reactions to Vulcan. Bringing John Proudstar and Cable -of all people – to talk sense into him underscores how much of a loose cannon he is.
Speaking of Vulcan, his scene also shows the contradictions and limitations of Krakoa’s expectations. Vulcan is clearly shown, on panel, to be threatening a diplomat from the Shiar Empire and talking about regicide almost openly. Yet he can’t even be arrested properly, and is essentially given a slap in the wrist. Krakoa is way too indulgent with its own self-appointed elite. Hopefully that scene will have consequences down the line.
My one gripe is that Vulcan and Sunfire act as though they’ve never met. But IIRC they were shown in a scene with Bishop and Sunfire using their solar energy powers to fuel a machine in X-Corp (which fair enough if Ewing skipped that series).
@GN “I feel like Ewing is using this coincidental Vulcan-Sunspot rivalry to set up Sunspot becoming the Shi’ar Majestor (or some other high ranking position in Shi’ar society) down the line.”
Indeed. See the Camuncoli foreshadow variant cover of Powers of X #6, and Ewing’s comments in a CBR interview: “And does anyone remember that variant cover where he’s sitting on the Shi’ar throne? Just wondering… [I]t’s an ingredient Jonathan left for us in the communal fridge that I think I can cook into a tasty treat.”
“By golly it does say Oreo.”
Featuring Jamie Hydrox and Lorna Doone.
Jamie Hydrox!
Ha!
I definitely recall Wolverine calling Warpath “Jimmy” in the Kyle/Yost X-Force run. Logan was notably reluctant to allow him into X-Force and tried to persuade him against it; maybe that’s why Thunderbird doesn’t name Logan here as one of his brother’s manipulators.
Amazing what a turn this and Immortal are. I still have some trouble getting past the ridiculousness and inconsistency of the underlying premises, but treating these settings and their characters three-dimensionally does wonders for creating interesting stories.
I also think Syrin used to call him Jimmy during their relationship in X-Force, especially during the road trip era.
As for Xavier and James’ relationship, I took that to John referring to his own relationship with Xavier. But Xavier has pulled James into his orbit as well, particularly in the “Rise and Fall of the Shi’Ar Empire” story, where Xavier took James into space to fight Vulcan, which feels relevant in this scene.
After last week, I was sure Immortal X-Men would be the star book of the line.
I was wrong.
Continuity gets a bad rap because of how certain writers use it in the worst, most self-indulgent ways, but both X-Men Red and Immortal show its greatest strength, when used effectively: Characters never feel more three dimensional than when we see how their histories and experiences are informing and shaping their present reactions and choices.
Really, really loved this. I’m so fond of Gillen’s writing that it almost feels like a disappointment to admit it, but this single issue had such a sense of scope, history and possibility to it. By far the better of the two debuts, and I really enjoyed Immortal in the first place.
And I agree on what folx have so far mentioned about the characterization – it’s continuity-laden, but it leans into character history rather than impinging it on the story. Pushing Storm towards a breaking point by taking her untouchable stature to its nearly mythical extreme is a wonderful decision, and does a lot towards emphasizing her more contrarian streaks.
I risk overreading, but the story seems to be doing some interesting stuff surrounding race and ethnicity. Magneto’s experience of collective trauma; James’ embattled perception of presumably normal society; even Sunspot’s playful intimations of some planet-wide disco revival.
There are some nice threads going on at that level, and it works surprisingly well within the trappings of the Tolkienesque nightmare that is Arakko.
On that note, Storm’s retort to Brand was on point, regardless of technicalities. It makes complete sense that the political definition of colonialism would matter more to her in this context, and I think it’s obvious what is conveyed by the distinction.
I don’t buy many comics these days, especially not single issues, but everyone’s so excited about this I decided to shell out $5 for a digital copy. The last story I read was HoX/PoX, and a few miscellaneous issues during the Krakoa era. So I’m not really up to speed, except through reading this blog.
This issue was pretty good. The last panel of Storm is striking. The characters resonate with authenticity. I never liked Sunspot as a teen back in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, but as an adult he’s really grown on me a lot. I’d love to see Roberto lead Magneto out of his funk and back into the Dream. It’d be a really good “pupil has become the teacher” story.
Storm leading a society which is alien to her is an old story, and it’s important to acknowledge that she failed pretty badly last time. She needs to grapple with that as she moves forward in this role.
I keep coming back to the sense that the Krakoa-verse is a future continuity story with the X-Men shoe-horned in. To me, it feels much more like a story that could have been written in a Marvel continuity which is actually committed to aging old characters out and phasing in new ones. Ic Cyclops had really retired in 1986, and Sunspot and Cannonball were now elder Statesmen of Mutantdom, the new generation might have plotted this. Krakoa fits the overall mutant story in the Marvel Universe, but somehow it should be a fourth, fifth or sixth generation, who look back at the X-Men as noble, influential, and foundational, but with a vision that was of it’s time and no longer suits the modern world. Seeing the characters who embodied Xavier’s Dream now taking ethno-nationalism as a given is jarring.
Anyhow, I’ll keep up with this for a few issues. .
Of course, Krakoa has done Storm’s definition of colonization too. It’s very interesting actually-this is being portrayed as an inter-mutant colonial conflict with the vast population of Arakko as the prize, with Storm-the installed leader and representative of the would-be colonizer power-coming to regret her role as conqueror and seeking to build something more equitable, while others take up her “civilizing mission.” I’ll definitely be following this one, it really feels like Ewing knows at least a little bit about imperialism and colonialism.
I find the fact that it’s Brand who’s placed as the colonizer here fascinating, because, perhaps unintentionally on Al Ewing’s part, she’s been portrayed as a traitor to the volk due to her mixed heritage, one of the few mutants who isn’t automatically all-in on Krakoa because she can’t identify herself with what they value in her. A genuinely interesting examination of the mutant metaphor, and all it’s used for is a villain motivation.
It plays into the idealization of mutants as the perfect race; to make the great villain of the story be a mutant who refuses her own glorious heritage because she is half-caste, unclean, corrupted by foreign ideas, raised in the wrong places, yet whose innate superiority has given her the strength to rise by merit nonetheless, making her all the more dangerous to the volk. You could write whole essays on the supremacist ideas X-men writers accidentally put into their writing, really.
“Max is Magneto’s rarely used real first name, established by retcon in the X-Men: Magneto – Testament miniseries in 2008″ .
It was established…late 90s, wasn’t it? Some subplot in one of the main 2 titles that never really went anywhere?
“Storm leading a society which is alien to her is an old story, and it’s important to acknowledge that she failed pretty badly last time.”
Morlocks or Wakanda?
While SWORD had to face the issue of getting drawn into crossovers, I still feel like I don’t really know what the story of that and this book are. Is it the X-Men dealing with being manipulated by Brand? While they do…space stuff? With a side of Arakko?
This could also be an issue for Immortal (though obviously too early to judge), and was an issue for Marauders (not read the new start yet). Maybe I’ve got too used to books being written for trade and should instead be glad that we can still get ‘the continuing tales of…’.
You think Vulcan and Sunspot have a rivalry now, just wait until Gabe finds out Berto is dating his wife.
There’s so much I like about this. Arrakoans who aren’t Straw Klingons. John Proudstar struggling to deal with his time loss and just as much of an angry dick as ever. Magneto slipping back into teacher mode with Roberto. Storm’s great new outfit. Sunspot back to his Ewing personality of being smarter than he acts. Hell of a first issue.
The true superpower of every Ewing character is their ability to accurately remember the pasts of everyone they’re talking to.
Seriously, you can’t get that level of superpowered memory in the real world.
K said: The true superpower of every Ewing character is their ability to accurately remember the pasts of everyone they’re talking to.
Seriously, you can’t get that level of superpowered memory in the real world.
Paul seems to do alright 🙂
I am starting to hope that this series will deal to a significant extent with Ororo’s personality and complex, very conflicting drives.
I have said before that I have no idea of who she is. Most of the time she is a character of informed significance and her main roles are as a fairly enigmatic exposition provider or as a supporting character to validate Wolverine. Even in Claremont’s first X-Men run she was all over the place and there was little in the way of actual character development for her IMO.
Al Ewing may have decided to address that and move her forward. There is plenty of material to draw from if he wants to make her a more relatable, developed character. For instance, she does in fact have a history of assuming leadership roles repeatedly despite failing badly at them awfully often. She took command of the Morlocks with a lot of bravado and then promptly forgot about them. She led the X-Men during the conflict with the Inhumans, then felt deeply ashamed about it and just let Kate and Magneto take charge without a lot of comment.
By rights, she ought to have a huge amount of impostor syndrome to deal with. Yet most writers just pick and choose pieces of her very contradictory story to emphasize in order to move their plot along.
Making her more of a true character with a real personality will be very welcome.
GN:You know if this was anything other than a Marvel book, I would theorise that their fight really ended with Storm dying and Nameless absorbing so much of Storm that she suffers an identity crisis and becomes Storm 2.0, who we’ve been seeing since Hellfire Gala 2021.
I was going to say that this is exactly the sort of thing I expect from a Marvel book, but that’s not quite true: the Marvel Method would actually be for some other writer to suddenly declare this to be the case ten, twenty years from now, and tell us we’ve been following the “wrong” Storm all this time. And then, if we don’t like that, change their minds again.
Yeah, that’s the Clone Saga plot from Spider-Man, isn’t it? The way that Nameless self-destructs while warning Storm that she needs to learn what it means to be “Of Arakko” makes it hard to see how that could be the twist here. It does seem possible that we could see Nameless again though…
My favourite bit was Magneto telling Sunspot to tuck his shirt in.
I was also wondering if the Fisher King is one of the Night Seats on the Great Ring, and perhaps the father of Genesis and Isca? Because he mentioned that his daughter took the bribes of Vile Schools, and we know that Isca has defected to Amenth.