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May 18

Immortal X-Men #2 annotations

Posted on Wednesday, May 18, 2022 by Paul in Annotations

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

IMMORTAL X-MEN #2
“All Mankind’s Woes”
Writer: Kieron Gillen

Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan White

COVER / PAGE 1: Storm, Exodus and Magneto fight Selene.

PAGE 2. Hope reacts to Selene’s giant monster.

This is the creature that Selene created by bringing the Arakko gate to life at the end of the previous issue.

PAGE 3. Recap and credits. Hope’s image is shown in colour, presumably to indicate that this is her spotlight issue. (The same was done with Mr Sinister last issue, but it wasn’t as obvious because as a Winter member, his group colour is a dark purple.)

PAGE 4. Selene arrives in London.

Coven Akkaba are villains from Excalibur – basically an anti-mutant mystical cult which has somehow or other acquired influence over the UK government. We’re not told quite why they’re dealing with Selene, but evidently the plan is for Selene to get herself onto the Quiet Council by proving her point that the mutants need someone who knows how to deal with mystical threats. Whatever she planned to do after that, the Coven clearly think it’s going to be helpful.

Remember, in issue #1, Sinister had the benefit of information sent back in time by twenty-five previous iterations of himself, and on the basis of that information, he was convinced that Selene was bluffing when she made veiled threats in an attempt to get onto the Council. Her attack on Krakoa in this issue was apparently a deviation from what she had done in previous timelines.

PAGE 5. Hope leads the Five to deal with the attack.

Exodus’s “M” word is “messiah”.

Hope used to be more of an active leader figure, but in the Krakoan era she’s mainly been just a background figure operating the resurrection plot engine with her fellow Five members. Of course, she’s been getting more proactive lately.

PAGE 6. Storm and Magneto team up against the monster.

Mutant powers in synergy being more than the sum of their parts is a standard theme of the Krakoan era.

PAGE 7. Doctor Nemesis warns everyone not to destroy the monster.

Doctor Nemesis is mainly a character from Way of XLegion of X at the moment; for present purposes, suffice to say that he’s a friendly mad scientist. His basic point is that since the monster is an interdimensional portal brought to life, simply destroying it is going to cause damage to space-time. So just blowing it up on Krakoa is not an attractive option.

Destiny is presumably getting agitated for similar reasons – there are timelines in which the creature is destroyed and reality gets horribly warped, and that’s either interfering with her powers, or leading her to see disturbing things.

PAGES 8-9. Exodus and Hope.

Exodus clearly inspires no confidence in Hope at all – she thinks he’s a religious lunatic – but beneath the religious language, much of what he actually says in this scene is fairly sensible. He’s got a reasonable point that Hope’s importance to Krakoa means she should be kept out of harm’s way, for a start. The unspoken issue with the Five going into battle in any form is that the whole Krakoan resurrection system depends upon them. If one of them dies in battle then they’re not coming back, and nor is anyone else, ever – unless another mutant with similar powers can take their place, but we’ve yet to see that happen. So there are good reasons why the Five have been treated as precious noncombatants. That seems to suit most of the Five okay – Egg, Tempus and Elixir were never comfortable in action, and Proteus seems happy enough just being  stable for once – but it’s out of character for Hope.

The idea that Exodus’s powers are increased by having devoted followers is obscure, but it’s not new. Pinning down actual examples of it is not straightforward, but the 1997 Magneto #3 does seem to suggest that he draws power from his followers when he’s leading the Acolytes, for example.

Hope. Obviously, Hope is trying to ride two horses here. She’s rejecting Exodus’s insistence that she’s a messiah figure, but taking advantage of that status to power herself up.

“Dad” is her adoptive father Cable, who raised her in a complex time-travel storyline in the 2008-2010 Cable series.

PAGES 10-13. Mr Sinister powers up to fight the monster.

“Some of the gifts I once gave myself…” Sinister used to be routinely portrayed as vastly powerful, something which has tailed off dramatically over the years.

“Fight not with monsters in case you become a monster.” This is a common rendering of an epigram from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). It’s a mistranslation – what Neitzsche wrote is closer to “People who fight monsters should take care not to become one”, but without any particular implication that they should avoid the fight altogether. Either way, Sinister is ignoring Neitzsche’s advice.

Chimeras. The possibility of Sinister developing mixtures of mutant genes has been a lurking promise since House of X, and was also foreshadowed in Hellions. It’s generally been implied to be a big development, when he finally gets round to it.

MGH is mutant growth hormone, a designer drug that shows up as a common background feature of the Marvel Universe.

PAGES 14-15. Mr Sinister and Nightcrawler.

Sinister seems to think that he’s easily manipulating Kurt by appealing to his sense of decency. In fact, it’s far from clear that Kurt is doing anything more than just being polite. After all, Sinister did fight the monster and contribute something useful.

PAGES 15-16. The Quiet Council discuss the situation.

Note that Hope isn’t invited to this meeting, and on the data page they’re effectively discussing whether to change tack and get someone else. (Everyone else is present – Sebastian Shaw is missing in the first panel, but he’s next to Emma in the second.)

“To me, my Quiet Council.” “To me, my X-Men” has become a standard Professor X line, though it wasn’t actually used until relatively recently. Emma is mocking Xavier’s loss of control over the Council following Inferno.

Magik would indeed be the obvious mutant to ask for advice on magical defences. Note that it’s Colossus who shuts down that idea, and he’s the one compromised by Mikhail Rasputin’s long distance mind control. But the reasons he gives are somewhat fair – Magik is very busy, which is why she’s trying to palm off Limbo on somebody else in this week’s New Mutants. Maybe that really is what Colossus thinks.

PAGE 17. Data page. Some largely self-explanatory thoughts from Cyclops on how to deal with giant monsters. The “X-Mech” is what Synch called the improvised robot from the most recent X-Men #1.

PAGES 18-21. Destiny tips off Hope, who kills Selene.

Destiny is clearly steering Hope to kill Selene, and one reason for doing that is to put a stop to Professor X’s plan to try and cut a deal with her. But Hope rightly wonders why Destiny doesn’t just send Mystique. Clearly, Destiny sees some advantage in getting Hope more involved in active missions, and perhaps more complicit in her own schemes. This is driving more of a wedge between Hope and the traditional X-Men on the Council. Conversely, she’s being driven closer to Exodus, despite her instinctive dislike of him – though she leaves Exodus to actually kill Selene a second time.

It’s not entirely clear whether Exodus or Hope actually restore Selene from back-up. Maybe it works differently with her, being an External and all.

Externals. A small group of immortal mutants who long predate Krakoa; Selene was one of them.

Mysterium was introduced in S.W.O.R.D. and serves mainly as a wonder material for Krakoa to exploit on the interstellar stage.

PAGES 22-23. The Quiet Council discuss.

Everyone seems to assume that Selene will languish in the queue like everyone else, if the Five choose not to resurrect her. But… is that right? Selene’s an External. Unlike almost everyone else on Krakoa, she has other routes to resurrection. For once, Sinister might actually be correct that booting the Selene problem into touch is not the right way of going about it – though Destiny certainly warns him off it.

By this point Hope seems to be positively warming to Exodus.

Destiny and Mr Sinister. Destiny is referring to the conversation she had with Sinister in flashback at the start of issue #1, where she said something to him that apparently caused him to have a seizure and die. He probably doesn’t remember the incident, having moved on to a new clone body. Sinister died repeating the word “You’re a ghost”, just as Destiny starts repeating at the end of this scene.

PAGE 24. Trailers.

Bring on the comments

  1. Si says:

    If they can’t rely on Magik because [mumblemumble], and Forge won’t do it, and they can’t get Amanda Sefton in because she’s human, or any of those Shi’ar that do magic, or someone from Mojoworld, or Otherworld, or Limbo, or where ever … they can send five young mutants with the right acuity off to Strange Academy and have a whole unit of spellcasters within what, five or six years. But no, the plot demands they hold the stupid ball and consider Selene, so that’s what they do.

  2. GN says:

    Paul > Hope’s image is shown in colour, presumably to indicate that this is her spotlight issue. (The same was done with Mr Sinister last issue, but it wasn’t as obvious because as a Winter member, his group colour is a dark purple.)

    So I interpreted the Sinister Secrets correctly last issue then – each Secret corresponds to an issue and describes the character that the issue is a spotlight of. Issue 1 and 2 are already out, we have solicits for issue 3 to 6 and I think I have a pretty good guess for 7 and 8.

    Issue 1 – Mr Sinister
    Issue 2 – Hope
    Issue 3 – Destiny
    Issue 4 – Emma Frost (Hellfire Gala tie-in)
    Issue 5 – Exodus (Judgment Day tie-in)
    Issue 6 – Sebastian Shaw (Judgment Day tie-in)
    Issue 7 – Nightcrawler
    Issue 8 – Mystique

    That leaves Professor X, Colossus, Storm and Kate Pryde for issues 9 to 12.

  3. GN says:

    We can also start definitively matching some of the imagery from the cover of issue 1 to the plot points within the book. (According to Mark Brooks, the cover is supposedly foreshadowing the plot of the first 12 issues.)

    ISSUE 1:

    a) Mr Sinister as Judas – Sinister is scheming against the Krakoans with his Moira clone project

    b) Empty Phoenix seat – (Former Phoenix host) Hope joins the Quiet Council

    ISSUE 2:

    a) Exodus with a halo – Exodus’s unique mutant perspective on Catholicism; he believes Hope to be the Krakoan Jesus, a label she rejects

    b) Insect lurking under the table – Selene’s war against the Quiet Council, she’s been defeated (for now)

    I’ll update as we go along.

    Some of the other stuff is easy to predict though:

    The Great Ring Arakkii, a meteor headed towards Arakko – most likely Storm’s focus issue; some kind of collaboration between the Quiet Council and the Great Ring.

    Jean and Scott’s former masks under the table – most likely Professor X’s focus issue; his former students have broken away from Krakoan politics (and donned new costumes) to form the X-Men. There is a Schism about to happen between the QC and the X-Men post-Hellfire Gala.

  4. Mike Loughlin says:

    I think you can kill Externals by cutting off their heads? Maybe a bullet to the brain or a snapped neck have the same effect. At any rate, I’m sure Selene has the power to be resurrected as soon as the plot requires.

    This is one of the only Hope Summers stories I’ve read and liked. I started reading Generation Hope a few years ago, but couldn’t get into it. Here, however, she’s a capable character who uses her powers creatively. Lucas Werneck did a commendable job on the assassination sequence. In fact, the whole comic looked great.

  5. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    Not as crazy strong as the first issue, but still very interesting.

    So within like an hour of forcing herself onto the unelected oligarchy council Hope commits two unsanctioned murders of the same person, once while that person was on foreign soil and once in Krakoa’s most sacred place, then refused to acknowledge whether or not she would resurrect that person if ordered to.

    And she started to get real chummy with the guy who worships her as Super Jesus.

    Nope, no problems there.

  6. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    Mike Loughlin-

    Yeah aren’t Eternals just knock off Highlanders?

    Head off= dead?

  7. Tim says:

    @ Uncanny X-Ben

    Highlanders from Highlander are the same thing they are in reality: people from the highlands of Scotland. Duncan and Connor MacLeod were the titular highlanders, but both that didn’t make them immortal. Immortals in the ‘verse were just called “Immortal”.

    Sorry for the pedantry, but for some reason this is my version of “Erm, actually, the doctor was Frankenstein, the monster didn’t have a name.”

  8. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    Tim- oh I know, I’ve watched that movie probably 30 times.

    Christopher Lambert 4 Life!

    But “Immortals from the movie Highlander” just takes too long to type.

  9. Mark Coale says:

    But weren’t they actually Al….

    Curse you, Highlander 2. I won’t even write it.

    The most savage thing I ever wrote as a film critic was reviewing that movie. And the next day I wrote a column about sequels that bastardize the original movies.

    Why yes, I did I have a Highlander one-sheet on my wall in college.

  10. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    We don’t speak of any movie past the first one.

    It’s movie and tv show and nothing else.

  11. Si says:

    God I hate those big blue upside-down boobs on the cover.

  12. Sky says:

    Proteus is an omega-level mutant who can manipulate and alter reality, kinda strange nobody thought of asking him to unmake Selene’s monster and restore the gateways.

  13. YLu says:

    @Si

    Unless I missed something, I don’t think any of them ever do consider Selene this issue.

  14. SanityOrMadness says:

    Mike Loughlin> I think you can kill Externals by cutting off their heads? Maybe a bullet to the brain or a snapped neck have the same effect. At any rate, I’m sure Selene has the power to be resurrected as soon as the plot requires.

    It’s meant to be “stab their heart”, not snap their neck. Hence the whole thing with Candra making a jewel her “heart” so that she couldn’t be killed that way.

    Uncanny X-Ben> So within like an hour of forcing herself onto the unelected oligarchy council Hope commits two unsanctioned murders of the same person, once while that person was on foreign soil and once in Krakoa’s most sacred place, then refused to acknowledge whether or not she would resurrect that person if ordered to.

    Technically, Exodus did it the second time. (If the snapped neck even did it. Maybe, mystically, the “new” Selene doesn’t count as a External or something.)

  15. SanityOrMadness says:

    Paul> The unspoken issue with the Five going into battle in any form is that the whole Krakoan resurrection system depends upon them. If one of them dies in battle then they’re not coming back, and nor is anyone else, ever – unless another mutant with similar powers can take their place, but we’ve yet to see that happen. So there are good reasons why the Five have been treated as precious noncombatants. That seems to suit most of the Five okay – Egg, Tempus and Elixir were never comfortable in action, and Proteus seems happy enough just being stable for once – but it’s out of character for Hope.

    Of course, Elixir auto-resurrected in Cullen Bunn’s Uncanny, and also sort-of brought back Gauntlet in revenge for killing him. And Proteus is apparently immortal, albeit dependent on host bodies.

    Really, it’s not entirely clear what the other three contribute. Goldballs/”Egg” makes egg sacs, but they need Proteus to make them viable at all – can’t he or Elixir make something similar? Tempus force-ages them to the age they “should” be, but doing it via time-acceleration rather than just building the body at the proper age (again, Elixir or Proteus could) raises questions about starvation, muscle tone, etc. And Hope… uh… what exactly is Hope meant to contribute, again?

  16. Omar Karindu says:

    Maybe Hope is needed as a power template or a way to repower mutants, and she and Tempo are needed to make sure the age-ups and reality alterations are permanent and “anchored” somehow rather than lapsing whenever Proteus stops focusing on them or falls asleep or whatever?

  17. SanityOrMadness says:

    Well, Proteus apparently gives the Wolverines their adamantium back, so if he needed to continually focus, then they’d have bone claws.

    And HoX #2 just says Hope is in a sort of co-ordinating role, supposedly making the others’ powers work together. (All she’s actually shown doing is injecting a big syringe of DNA into the “eggs”.)

  18. SanityOrMadness says:

    (HoX #5, sorry. Oh, for an edit button!)

  19. Devin says:

    Exactly! It was so funny to me that they kept framing Hope as… well, the Mutant Messiah when she doesn’t seem to do much. She had the luck of being the first mutant born after M-Day; maybe I’m not remembering something, but it feels like her powers are just like Rogue and Synch’s.

  20. Mike Loughlin says:

    SanityorMadness: Yeah, I must have mis-remembered “hearts” as “heads,” thanks for the clarification. Frankly, I would have been happy to never read the word “External” after 1993, so I’m fine ignoring the rules.

    Also, they have their own adamantium at Krakoa that they can put in the Wolverines’ new bodies.

    My understanding was that Egg’s contribution to the resurrection process was that his “eggs” brought nutrients to the bodies while they were incubating.

  21. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    Well, Hope wasn’t impressive power-wie… Or at least her stated powerset wasn’t. But the ‘Messiah’ stuff didn’t come from that. Her birth burned out Cerebro. She cured Rogue of her death touch and rid her of all the (millions) of psyches she’s absorbed. After Second Coming there were Phoenix flares, in the end revealed to be portents of her being another Phoenix host. And she did, in the end and with the Scarlet Witch, reversed M-Day. Well, not reversed, made the effect suppresing new mutant manifestations cease.

    So she was a bit messianic.

    Also she has ‘an effect’ on people who follow her. Generation Hope implied she makes people susceptible to her point of view, though it was said by Zero, who was the villain by that point. But a similar effect was supposed to… um… affect The Five. It was in a Hickman data page.

    So there is something beyond copying powers, but it was never defined.

  22. Mike Loughlin says:

    Hope can optimize other mutants’ abilities, enabling them to use their powers to their full potential. The rest of the Five can resurrect mutants with the utmost efficiency and smoother synthesis because of Hope.

  23. Joseph S. says:

    I guess we haven’t seen any resurrections carried out by anyone other than the Five yet but somewhere (SWORD?) a data page mentioned plans for potential backups (as Brand established for her mysterium mining operation). And in the new Krakoan X-Men 92 series (House of XCII) we do see an alternate reality version of the Five. I can’t be sure I’m recall inf them all correctly at the moment but I think they’re Cortez, Healer, Proteus, Tempo, and….

  24. Allan M says:

    Karma’s the last member of the X-Men 92 version of the Five. She’s wearing a costume that looks like the graduation uniform from the comics with the yin-yang symbol on it.

  25. Richard says:

    Regarding killing an External, I seem to remember a line about having to “sever their five branches” which I took to mean removing all limbs and the head? Though I guess the heart could be in there, too.

  26. SanityOrMadness says:

    Krzysiek Ceran> Also she has ‘an effect’ on people who follow her. Generation Hope implied she makes people susceptible to her point of view, though it was said by Zero, who was the villain by that point.

    It was also said by Transonic, who was pissed that being near Hope made her unable to refuse an order from Hope (“You bitch. You know I can’t say no…”), and changed her personality to be more like Hope.

  27. Joseph S. says:

    Oh, that’s Karma? Hmm, that’s interesting. The others are pretty straightforward analogues, leaving Karma to take Goldball’s place. I wonder how that works

  28. YLu says:

    Karma is in the Xavier/telepath role, according to the data page. Transferring the Cerebro recording of a person into the husk.

  29. Devin says:

    Krzysiek Ceran — alright, I’ll give Hope that.

  30. Joseph S. says:

    Ah I see, I guess I didn’t read the data page very carefully (but did admire the 90s style design).

    So according to that data page, Proteus uses his reality warping powers to create the eggs. That’s fine, I guess, since at least it gives in a slightly different role than in the 616.

    Xavier is depicted in welcoming the (fully-clothed) X-Men as they’re resurrected, wearing his cerebro helmet. And he’s also there in the only scene depicting the Five. Again, I guess they’re trying to make the concept work within the logic of ’92 using only characters present in that period, but another psychic seems kind of redundant.

  31. Ben says:

    Maybe “The Five” was originally “The Twelve” as a nod to the past, but Hickman got cold feet and trimmed it down when he realized the Rube Goldberg contraption he’d created. “Step 7. Daken cuts the umbilical cord. Step 8. Storm goes skinny dipping because that’s what they do in Africa. Step 9. Proteus can do literally anything.”

  32. Ben says:

    Step 17. Maggott is here and his maggots eat the old body, and they had a reason to exist all along! Step 18. Longshot used his luck power, this is all quite unlikely after all.

  33. Nate says:

    When they brought back Destiny, is she still blind?

  34. Paul says:

    I assume so, since she’s still wearing a blank mask. But it doesn’t really matter since her powers let her “see” what’s going on around her.

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