X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: HELLFIRE GALA #1
“Time Flies When You’re a Mutant.”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artists: Kris Anka, Russell Dauterman, Matteo Lolli & CF Villa
Colourists: Rain Beredo, Frank Martin, Matt Milla & Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Associate editor: Lauren Amaro
Senior editor: Jordan D White
Although it’s billed as a one-shot, this is basically an extra issue of X-Men, with the new team roster being announced. It’s roughly equivalent to last year’s Planet-Size X-Men #1 but without the planet.
COVER / PAGE 1. Various X-Men in their Gala costumes for this year, with the picture burning up. Unusually, Scott is shown with Emma rather than Jean. Emma is holding what seems to be a dying Krakoan flower.
PAGE 2. Memorial page for Dijjo Lima (1988-2022).
PAGE 3. Flashback: Scott and Jean decide to call for a vote for the X-Men.
They’re in the Summer House, discussing the decision that we saw in X-Men #16 (2020). This is an original scene, and it’s rather more explicit about the fact that the X-Men were being set up as a competing power base for the Quiet Council, with the ultimate goal of turning Krakoa into a democracy. The whole notion of having an election for membership of the X-Men is a tacit challenge to the Quiet Council’s legitimacy.
PAGES 4-5. Scott and Jean discuss the upcoming vote.
They’re now in the Treehouse in New York, but the parallels are made obvious.
The Bugle story is the one we saw in X-Men #12, revealing mutant resurrection to the world. A couple of points are clarified here. First, Orchis’ plan was to push the X-Men into lying about resurrection before revealing it anyway, in order to damage the mutants’ reputation. But, as we see later on, Dr Stasis isn’t that bothered by Cyclops revealing it himself – he figures the mere fact of resurrection will be dangerous enough in itself. There’s a bit of hair splitting going on here in asserting that the X-Men haven’t lied about resurrection – it may be true if you mean literally the X-Men team, but the Krakoans as a whole have certainly given false explanations for the return of public figures like Harry Leland and Jumbo Carnation.
Second, the fact that Scott gave the story to Ben Urich is apparently public knowledge on Krakoa. Presumably this is because Scott is identified as a source in the story itself.
Gambit has been hanging around in the supporting cast without actually being on the team because he’s married to Rogue. Presumably, word of his death in Knights of X hasn’t reached Jean yet – or he just gets better. Most likely both.
Jean removing Scott’s visor to kiss him echoes the flashback in X-Men #132 (1980) where Scott and Jean/Phoenix established their psychic bond.
PAGES 6-8. Bishop and Magik train the kids.
That’s Surge being trained to stop an incursion by the Avengers (and not, say, Orchis). The four attackers with (presumably) holographic disguises are Glob Herman as Captain America, Gentle as the Hulk, Armor as Iron Man, and someone unspecified as Black Widow.
PAGE 9. Emma learns sees the article.
In print, no less. How quaint. It’s the same front page that we saw in X-Men #12.
That’s Jumbo Carnation doing her hair, and presumably wishing there was more than one fashion-based mutant on the island so that he didn’t have to do literally everything himself.
PAGE 10. Recap and credits.
The title, “Time Flies When You’re a Mutant”, is probably a nod to the fact that the idea of this being the second annual Hellfire Gala simply doesn’t work in terms of Marvel time. Strictly speaking, I’m not sure this issue ever actually calls it an annual Gala, but there are plenty of references to “this year” and so forth.
PAGE 11. Data page. An internal Orchis memo from Dr Stasis on the legal implications of resurrection. He might actually be right that it would be legally impossible to murder a mutant during the Krakoan era. Death is an essential ingredient of the offence, after all. However, the idea that the only offence would be “destruction of property” is obvious nonsense – it could still be attempted murder, and would at the very least be assault.
PAGE 12. Assorted heroes react to the news.
Clea Strange is the current Sorceress Supreme, following the death of Doctor Strange in, er, Death of Doctor Strange. Over in her own book, Strange, she’s generally preoccupied with trying to resurrect him.
The others surely need no identification, but that’s the Invisible Woman, Mr Fantastic, Iron Man and Captain America. Iron Man is talking to B.O.S.S., the personal assistant software from his own book.
PAGES 13-15. Orchis discuss plans.
Moira is indeed Greek for “destiny”, in a personal sense. She evidently hasn’t told Orchis about her past lives.
Mary Jane Watson was kidnapped (and her involvement in promoting Krakoan medicines was set up) in Free Comic Book Day: Judgment Day #1. Precisely what Moira is doing to her is not entirely clear to me but I assume it’s meant to be mind control in some form, based on the robot arm that’s been reshaped into her necklace. The severed arm seems to call back to X Deaths of Wolverine but I suspect that might just be coincidence.
PAGE 16. The Quiet Council discuss the Gala.
Bishop wants to cancel it, but settles for keeping the Five out of the way. And he’ll climb down even on that by the end of the issue. Show some backbone, man!
PAGE 17. Magik guards the Five.
Apparently Bishop has pulled rank to the point of preventing Hope from even attending the Quiet Council meeting, despite her being on it. (Can’t she at least be allowed to participate telepathically…?) Magik too supports this ruling, and again will give up on it by the end of the issue.
PAGES 18-20. Cecilia Reyes talks to Synch.
Apparently Synch’s new power to use the powers of people he’s spent a lot of time with takes years off his lifespan. Oddly, Synch expects this to be kept quiet even though his ageing is very obviously visible. And… well, we’re in the resurrection era. How much does it really matter?
PAGE 21. Data page: the Wasp and Jumbo Carnation discuss superhero fashion. There’s a bit more of Jumbo’s back story here, explaining that he spent some time working security for Dazzler, which may be an attempt to justify why he’s at least passable in a fight despite his non-combatant role. He’s also apparently known Emma for years.
The Hellfire Gala costumes for this year have indeed been extended beyond the X-Men to the guests.
PAGES 22-23. Emma’s opening speech.
I’m … not wild about that first page, where the complete absence of any visible crowd means that Emma appears to be delivering her welcome speech to a couple of puffins.
The Gameworld entertainers were rescued by the X-Men in X-Men #12. Presumably they were a professional entertainers before being forced into working for Gameworld, since otherwise, this seems a bit insensitive.
PAGES 24-29. Emma talks to Scott, Clea and Spider-Man.
Are we doing the celebrity thing again this year? Apparently so. It didn’t work at all last time, but Jonathan Hamm feels like a reasonable fit, if we have to do it.
Evidently Moira can’t read Mary Jane’s mind, since she doesn’t know about MJ’s relationship with Spider-Man.
PAGE 30. Emma talks to Firestar.
Firestar is a mutant, but has mostly been treated as an Avengers or New Warriors character. She does, however, have a back story as a protege of Emma Frost, trained separately from the Hellions, which was covered in the Firestar miniseries from 1986. Firestar’s dislike of Emma (and her interest in horses) come from that book.
She was hanging around with Iceman in his recent Marvel’s Voices Infinity Comic arc, though of course the real reason the two tend to be associated with one another is their appearance in the Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends cartoon.
Firestar’s claim that “the mutants all think I’m a traitor because I didn’t fling myself through the closest Krakoan gate” raises an interesting idea about how the Krakoans feel about mutants who choose to spend their time with humans, but it’s difficult to square with her getting elected to the X-Men later in the story – even with Emma’s endorsement.
Note that Firestar is wearing her regular costume, and not a Gala outfit.
PAGES 31-32. Captain America’s story.
The flashback shown here is part of the same fight which we see the tail end of in Avengers Annual #10 (Rogue’s first appearance). Rogue went on to be an Avenger in Uncanny Avengers.
PAGES 33-34. The Five arrive, and Moira takes Proteus aside.
Apparently the Five simply refuse point blank to obey Magik’s orders and she climbs down – possibly rationalising it to herself as well.
PAGES 35-40. Iron Man arrives.
Feilong claims that he wasn’t invited and simply showed up, but it’s obvious that the mutants have chosen to at least tolerate his presence here.
Reed Richards tells Tony about how Professor X deleted part of his memory in X-Men / Fantastic Four #4.
“The Avengers could have continued to terraform Mars.” Presumably referring to the terraforming of part of Mars by Ex Nihilo, Abyss and Aleph in Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers run.
Iron Man’s basic argument to Emma is that any successful technology is going to wind up becoming more widespread whether its inventors like it or not.
Emma seems to be genuinely unaware of what Tony’s referring to when he mentions Reed’s memories being altered; she tries to ask Reed about it later in the issue on page 48 (but gets interrupted).
PAGES 41-45. Spider-Man breaks up Proteus and Moira’s conversation.
Obviously, Moira is deliberately trying to upset Proteus for some reason – possibly trying to provoke him into killing Mary Jane. It’s not clear how much she tells him, beyond the fact that he was deliberately created as a useful power set. That much appears to be true, and was established by data pages back in House of X / Powers of X.
PAGES 46-47. Wolverine confronts Moira.
Wolverine is wearing the same security outfit he had last year.
Evidently, Spider-Man is going to team up with Wolverine and Greycrow from Hellions to rescue Mary Jane in his tie-in issue, Amazing Spider-Man #9.
“Another Berlin situation.” Referring to the Spider-Man vs Wolverine one-shot from 1986, where Spider-Man supporting character Ned Leeds died.
PAGES 48-54. Scott and Emma dance and talk.
Emma tries to ask Reed about the erasure of his memories, but gets interrupted. She’s looking for political allies given that she doesn’t trust Xavier or Erik, but that’s also clearly not the only reason why she wants to re-establish her relationship with Scott here.
Banshee is referring to his long experience of being yelled at by Emma when they were co-headmasters of the Massachusetts Academy in Generation X.
Scott’s video shows his death in X-Men #7, and his fight with Dr Stasis in X-Men #12. He duly recaps that plotline for Emma, and Emma will raise it with the Quiet Council over in Immortal X-Men #4. In return, Emma shares with Scott the revelations which the rest of the Quiet Council learned about in Inferno (plus the mind-wipe of Reed).
The character with the pink speech balloon on page 54 is Gwenpool, who has been on Krakoa for a while after retconning herself into being a mutant. Gwenpool has always been preoccupied with making sure that she appears in stories, because she figures that this is the best route to survival in the Marvel Universe.
PAGE 55. Synch and Jean talk.
Apparently the Synch/Wolverine romance plot is just petering out here, as she leaves the book.
PAGE 56. Emma’s speech.
Emma decides to talk about resurrection after all, and stresses the importance of honesty. She’s clearly aligning herself with Scott.
PAGE 57. Dr Stasis prepares his payload.
PAGES 58-61. The new X-Men are announced.
It feels like we’re paying lip service to the election gimmick here, to be honest – this is more of a discussion among the core characters.
The Scarlet Witch gets to announce the results as a show of reconciliation after she redeemed herself in mutant eyes in Trial of Magneto.
Forge doesn’t want to be on the team at all, and was openly hostile to Scott earlier in the issue. Scott surely has a political agenda in selecting him. Similarly, Forge is surely trying to cause problems by getting Scott and Alex onto the same team – not something that’s actually come up that often, at least in terms of going on missions together.
Iceman fought Fin Fang Foom in Marauders #26 and Frost Giants in Marauders #27.
PAGES 62-63. The aftermath of the election.
Project Blackbox is clearly the secret project that Forge refused to tell Scott about earlier in the issue.
Firestar is decidedly unsure that she wants to be on this team, the heroes of a country she doesn’t particularly identify with, and Iron Man immediately tries to set her up as a potential informant.
“Parties haven’t been my thing in a long time.” Tony has been an alcoholic since the 1980s.
“We can’t keep throwing parties with murders.” The Scarlet Witch was “murdered” (as part of her own scheme) at the last Hellfire Gala; see X-Men: Trial of Magneto.
PAGES 64-65. Moira tells the Eternals about the Five.
Specifically, this is the new Prime Eternal Druig and the mercenary Jack of Knives, both from the current Eternals series. This is leading in to A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment Day #1 (which I won’t be annotating, because it’s basically an Eternals special, and there are tons of other books out this week). Basically, the premise here is that the Eternals are compelled to destroy what they regard as “excess deviation”, which could be interpreted to include mutants – but that Druig also sees a good war as a way to make his mark and cement his position as Prime Eternal.
PAGE 66. Trailers.
It feels like they’re kind of going out of their way to downplay the extent of Emma’s brutal psychological warfare campaign against Firestar back in the day. She had Randall Chase murdered for trying to tell Firestar the truth, but everyone remembers her killing the horse.
I guess it makes sense as a way of rehabilitating her-the horsekilling is inherently ridiculous, even though it made perfect sense in context. The gaslighting and manipulation is more real, harder to keep sympathetic.
@Ceries: Well, we’re already meant to ignore everything Frost did c. IvX, so…
> Evidently this plotline is continuing despite Synch leaving the roster.
Uh, but he’s not?
Also, it’s a pretty bizarre lineup, with two characters being elected despite blatantly not wanting to be there, zero “Great Captains” left actually based on Krakoa, Iceman having just been given a new status quo which will clearly now be abandoned (plus Duggan did nothing with him in Marauders?), and did they ever fix Havok’s split personality problem? Empath triggered it a couple of times, but he wasn’t the root cause.
The significance of “another Berlin situation” is that Wolverine’s friend Charlie tricked Peter into killing her in that story.
It’s odd that Wolverine doesn’t seem to know who MJ is. He knew her before One More Day. Yes, everyone’s memories of Peter’s identity were erased during One More Day but Wolverine relearned Peter’s identity later and everyone else who relearned Peter’s identity (like Norman Osborn and the Black Cat) regained their memories.In any case, he went to Peter’s apartment as recently as King’s Ransom to chew Peter out for screwing up and letting the Rose be resurrected. Even if he hasn’t regained his memories of MJ, you’d think he’d at least know she’s Peter’s ex.
Why is Magik joining the X-Men? Let’s assume this takes place after the current New Mutants arc and Magik’s sword is fixed. She’s so overworked in that arc that she’s trying to hand Limbo off to Maddie. Even worse, arguably if she hadn’t taken her eye off Limbo, she would have known S’ym had a new patron and Peter, Dani, Rahne and Maddie wouldn’t have been almost killed. So if Magik does join the X-Men, then what? Either Maddie takes over the responsibility of running Limbo (which Scott and Alex might have issues with) or Limbo becomes even more neglected.
Speaking of Maddie, is she at the Gala? it’s mentioned there’s a lot of redheads at the Gala but she isn’t clearly shown. Maybe we’ll see her in the Amazing Spider-Man tie-in.
Also, as SanityorMadness mentioned, what about Havok’s multiple personality problem?. The ending of Hellions left it ambiguous whether or not all of Havok’s episodes were caused by Emma and Empath or just the last one. If they were all caused by Emma, then you’d expect Scott to bring it up in his conversation with Emma. If they weren’t, then why does anyone feel comfortable trusting Alex with the responsibilty of being an X-Men. The weird thing is, there’s no dialogue from or about Havoc until Forge suggests him as a member. The whole issue could have been fixed up by a “Maddie fixed my multiple personality problems because she felt guilty about nearly killing me” line.
Is Firestar permanently in the yellow leotard again, or is that just for this comic? It was designed no doubt to make it easier on the animators on the old cartoon, but it’s just so dull. Whether they go back to her jacket and goggles look or giver her something new, the yellow has to go.
Also, Iceman also fought a (sort of) frost giant in his Unlimited story. It was a good one, it made particularly good use of the modern Loki.
@Ceries- Also, she hired a guy to threaten to kill Firestar’s father and Firestar, who was 15 at the time, wound up putting him in critical condition, as Emma planned.
(Even the horse killing is horrific- the implication is that Angelica spent several months terrified she might lose control and kill a HUMAN next time.)
I do think they’re trying to acknowledge, in their own way, that what Emma did to Angel was a form of abuse.
@Sí; Firestar’s been back in the yellow for years at this point, maybe a decade. Since the cancer plot
Also, I have to agree that this basically felt like the “election” is a farce where the powerful mutants make recommendations and the faceless masses vote for them. This can be a problem in democracies-the ones with name recognition are the ones that have had the job before or are well known. Despite the theoretically democratic method the X-men in their own way are as much if not more oligarchic than the Quiet Council. They can’t really be representative of Krakoa, because “X-men” already prejudices the voters…
So, what was Moira’s plan? To taunt Proteus? That seemed to be the extent of her involvement in this issue.
Cyclops & Emma are sharing intel *now*? Not before the gala? What?
So, you could make an X-Men team out of any of the 1,000s of Iranians and you choose 6 white characters & only 2 people of color? All but one of whom are American?
(also, 2 guys with energy blasting powers, one member with fire powers which is basically energy blasting, one with ice powers, a tech guy, a psi, a teleporter, and a power mimic. Not a very inspired line-up)
I liked aspects of this issue, but a lot of the storytelling choices were baffling.
“Iranians” is supposed to be “Krakoans,” thanks spellcheck
On the one hand, yay Moira was not a total cackling monster. It was a decent bit of an attempt to make her actually a viable character and not a train wreck, and going with “I dunno, guess she couldn’t hack the lifetimes of pain and cracked” for her motivation is probably a good place to start from.
But… @MikeL: Yeah, either her plan was extremely weak, she was about to pull something before Spidey came in, or she was there only as a distraction. None of those really come through and it felt pointless.
Past that, I just don’t care about Moira’s rehabilitation into a not-walking-dumpster-fire right now. They put her through so much crap that I want her to go away for a year or five and then come back once this has cooled down. This is technically.. fine.. but I just don’t want to see her.
Was there even a vote this year? The issue reads like the roster was chosen by the writer and perhaps editors and we are simply being told who made it.
Despite the early scene, we are told in-story that the three remaining members from the previous roster simply decided to continue; that three others were chosen by other characters with no warning; and the last two apparently simply offered themselves in spur-of-the-moment decisions. Felt more like picking players for a bit of weekend soccer play than any sort of election.
Odd how Duggan seems to have a better handle of guest characters than of his own. Iron Man and Spider-Man were well characterized. On the other hand, Victor Von Doom was not. Wolverine was just his usual irritating self, mercifully just for a handful of panels.
About time someone remembered to have Moira interact with Proteus. Was this the first time since 1980?
Moira’s plan comes off as something like, agitate Proteus into losing control and killing MJ. Which would presumably have given us another story about the inconsistency of Krakoan laws…
Also, Moira is really not being written like somebody with sympathetic motivations anymore. We’re not even getting pathos-laden flashbacks of past lives now.
@Mike Loughlin Funny typo. But there probably are thousands of Iranians on Krakoa. Or more than a hundred anyway. As I’ve said before, almost two in every three mutants should be Asian, but of course almost every mutant seems to be from the US. Funny how that works.
I was under the impression that Moira’s plan was to trick Proteus into killing a human. That way he would have to be put into the pit. With Proteus out of the way, there would be no more resurrections, unless they got another reality warper on standby.
I’m not bothered by this roster far as powers go. If anything, they’re overpowered. When the less powerful members of the roster are Firestar and Cyclops, you know that you’re ok.
Clearly Gerry Duggan is going for character-oriented plots here. Or, given his recent writing, more likely plot-oriented characterization.
It can be interesting to see the Summers brothers interact for a while, and Magik on the wane of her self-control while being the relative newcomer in a team of very experienced characters shall prove interesting as well. She tends to gravitate far too predictably towards her traditional New Mutants colleagues, and they hardly ever give her any limits or questions. It almost feels like she has a need for supervision and decided that joining this team is a good way to fill that need.
The potential for interesting character conflict is certainly there. I just don’t quite expect the characters to be recognizable. Not yet.
I am trying to find a reason for Forge to be so hostile towards Scott, as well as a reason for him to think of pushing Alex into the team so quickly.
My best guess is that he expects awkwardness to arise now that the brothers are so suddenly full team-mates after decades of straying away from each other and so shortly after Maddie has been brought back at Alex’s request. That will probably factor into Magik’s plots as well.
But perhaps most interesting and surprising is that Forge has thought of Alex at that precise moment. They used to be somewhat antagonistic in early Peter David X-Factor; later Alex seemed to have died and Forge became a de facto leader of X-Factor for a while. Forge is a difficult character to understand; he rarely gives much of a clear indication of how he feels about anything. Maybe Duggan wants to change that.
I would like to see a lot more representation by Iranian characters on the X-Men team also. As far as I know, Sanjar Javeed (from Remender’s Uncanny X-Force) is the only mutant from Iran, so there probably aren’t thousands to choose from after all.
I would guess that Moira’s plan was to manipulate Proteus in to killing Mary Jane so that Proteus would be put in the Pit for murdering a human, thereby destroying the resurrection protocols. Moira, having secluded herself in “Nowhere” during her entire stay on Krakoa, obviously has no idea how Krakoan society operates.
A better plan might have been to reveal that his mother is still alive.
Luis Dantas> Was there even a vote this year? The issue reads like the roster was chosen by the writer and perhaps editors and we are simply being told who made it.
Exactly the same as last year, the vote was for ONE roster spot (Polaris last year, Firestar this), the rest were picked by Duggan/editors as normal.
(Other characters up for the vote this year were Surge, Gorgon, Avalanche, Bling!, Siryn, Micromax, Gentle and M.)
They even did the “rejected characters” strips on Twitter again (also, I forgot Armor was also in the voting): https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q=(%23Xmenvote)%20(from%3AMarvel)%20until%3A2022-07-14%20since%3A2022-07-11%20%20-filter%3Areplies&src=typed_query&f=top
@Si: a majority of mutants should logically be Asian, yes. But how many of those would be interested in approaching the Quiet Council and traditional members of the X-Men, New Mutants and Generation X in order to blend in?
The X-Men went a considerable way towards becoming less USA-centric during the relaunch of the 1970s under Len Wein and later Chris Claremont. But they are still unavoidably shaped by their relationships to a relatively small group of main characters that are primarily North Americans. Or now also “Martians” of a sort and natives of Otherworld, I suppose.
It could be interesting to follow the adventures of a true multicontinental team at some point. The Uncanny Global Mutants or something. But the best opportunity for that was probably at some time in the late 1970s, when sympathy for global initiatives was at its peak.
@Mike Loughlin
Based on Proteus’s dialogue on his final page, Moira’s plan seems to have been to drive him crazy, hoping to exploit his history of instability. And by doing so, remove a key component of the resurrection process.
The idea seems to be that it doesn’t work because he’s in a much better place now, mentally, because of his bond with the rest of the Five.
@SanityorMadness
Wasn’t Iceman’s new status quo just living in California?
@Luis- The last time Moira and Proteus were together was in the Kings of Pain story in 1991.
Paul > Various X-Men in their Gala costumes for this year, with the picture burning up. Unusually, Scott is shown with Emma rather than Jean. Emma is holding what seems to be a dying Krakoan flower.
This cover is supposed to be symbolic.
In this scenario, Scott represents the X-Men whereas Emma represents the Quiet Council. Look at it through the lens of the Scott/Emma relationship: they used to be a couple once upon a time but then drifted away from each other and broke up sometime after an event called Schism. Years later, they are friends.
The same thing is happening between the X-Men and the QC. Where there was once an alignment of interests (Jean Grey used to be on the QC, Scott was CC), there is now friction (the independent X-Men team, the decision to reveal the resurrection protocols). This will build over time (Forge’s Project Blackbox, etc.) until conflict is inevitable.
I suspect the X-Office will reuse the ‘SCHISM’ title in the Krakoan age for a new event – the Jean and Scott’s X-Men vs Xavier’s Quiet Council.
The fire probably represents all the secrets coming out during the Gala (mutant resurrection, Moira X, Doctor Stasis, Reed Richards mindwipe, …).
The wilting Krakoan medicine flower symbolizes the fraying of public relations between Krakoa and the rest of the world.
Paul, I thought it was clear that Magik was playing Black Widow in the training scene. She even imitates the widow’s bite after the reveal.
Actually speaking of where the majority of mutants come from, I reread the first issue of Morrison’s New X-Men the other day, and their new Cerebra map suggested the vast majority of mutants come from New Zealand, followed by Australia’s largely uninhabited Cape York Peninsula. It made me smirk, at least.
Paul > This is leading in to A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1 (which I won’t be annotating, because it’s basically an Eternals special, and there are tons of other books out this week).
Judgment Day 1 is actually out next week, the first issue in a six part event. The issue out this week is Eve of Judgment, which Gillen has admitted used to be Eternals 13 until Marvel re branded it to serve as a prologue to A.X.E. So yeah, EoJ is not super related to X-Men, and people shouldn’t pick it up unless they were already reading GIllen’s Eternals. Presumably Judgment Day itself will have more of a mutant focus.
@SanityOrMadness I guess the question was whether there was a vote in-story, not the actual ‘pick one X-Man’ we got in the real world.
And in-story I think the idea that Duggan didn’t get quite clearly on-page is that the three remaining X-Men get reelected because they’ve proven themselves over the last year, but after that there’s a deadlock for the other spots – so what we’re seeing are basically one-panel election campaigns.
But it reads completely as ‘I say Forge is on the team so he is’, without any voter Input.
That being said, I like that after a year’s worth of smiling superheroes efortlessly saving the world we get a compromised team of people who don’t want to be there, are blindsided by the election or are outright moles. This could be interesting… though I have a hard time imagining Duggan will change his writing approach.
Still, the Krakoan politicking caught up with the X-Men. The previous 12 issues felt strangely removed from the rest of the line and this brings the X-Men back i to the fold.
And I liked this issue, generally speaking. I think it’s a better template for the Gala going forward.
It’s just a shame they couldn’t time Amazing Spider-Man better – that story line want be continued until… October?
*won’t be continued, of course
I’ve corrected a couple of minor errors pointed out above.
Thinking about this current situation, I think that we will see more of the Captain Krakoa suit.
Since it was designed by Forge and described as a prototype of a suit to be used by mutants with no combat-worthy powers, I expect it to be connected to Project Blackbox. We may be indeed be heading to a new Schism, much more public than the previous one, with a militaristic Krakoa clashing with a Cyclops-led X-Men team that is also having to deal with the reputation of some of its own members.
Forge is quite the wildcard there. In retrospect, he always was; like Moira was before HoX/PoX, he is surprisingly underdeveloped for the amount of exposure that he has. I just don’t know how hawkish he is supposed to be. The evidence is all over the place. Come to think of it, he is probably something of a mole for Krakoa in Scott’s team. Scott may even have specifically taken that into account in-story so that he can offer some commentary to the secret reports about his own team.
I’m not even clear on how proud Forge may be over his own creations, since they come from his mutant power and I stand uncertain that he even understands how they work. For all I know their functioning may be enigmatic even to Forge himself. Black boxes, so to speak…
Forge is clearly the Council’s man on the team, just as Stark assumes Angelica is his / Avengers’.
I guess both can have divided loyalties, though I think Forge will remain loyal to the Council and Firestar will stick up for the mutants.
It was kind of weird how this issue skipped over the fact that Angelica has already been an X-Man – and a teacher at the Jean Grey school.
Not to mention that I think ‘Emma apologizes and Firestar forgives’ has been done already several times, just like Rogue making up with Carol Danvers, over and over again.
As to how hawkish Forge is… that’s a good question. He debuts as a weapons manufacturer with few qualms – he objects to Gyrich using his neutralizer, but he took the contract to build it, so I guess he mostly objects to the Gyrich part of that sentence.
I’ve read only small parts of the Mackie X-Factor run so I’m not sure how he was positioned there – I think initially he’s very much in line with the government?
Then he’s sidelined, sometimes popping up with gadgets or time machines (Messiah Complex), then Warren Ellis made him crazy because of stupid Storm-obsession related reasons, then Cable somehow helps him and recruits him for his Cable and the X-Force – so a proactive group butting heads with the establishment and/or government…
…and then he’s on Krakoa as the ‘mutant CIA’s’ weaponmaster. So on the whole he’s mostly fine with governmnents and being part of the military/industrial complex. At the very least hawk-adjacent, probably.
Now, how that good, long relationship he’s had with the US government translates into the Krakoan era… that’s the question. In X-Force he seemed completely commited to the mutant nation and eager for his designs to be used in the field. Hawk-er then when he provided weapons to the US, I’d say. Hawkisher.
This felt really weak to me.
It didn’t really work, just kind of threw together a bunch of scenes and ideas with a few plot seeds for the future.
I thought it was weird how Scott told Jean that without her all the X-Men would be dead… haven’t the X-Men solved for that?
So the final pages heavily implies Moira has killed someone in ASM9, could be MJ since it would have happen in her “home book”. The scene is pretty weird though if you think about, Moira wanders into what seems to be Druig’s office and washes her hands in a convenient sink while he waits.
I think the voting is supposed to happen in the background by some telepath intruding in people’s minds, but on quick read it seems like people a just claiming spots for themselves or others. But even if you accept the background voting Magik threatening violence is pretty terrible for a supposedly democratic body.
I think Dr Doom wearing a silly costume is completely out of character. If he were to dress up at all something like the military style uniform he wore for the wedding in FF33 last year would be more reasonable.
The art shifts are pretty jaring at times, like Dauterman’s completely different style from anyone else on the book. I get that it’s a long book, but it’s also a one shot that could have been done in advance.
“They used to be somewhat antagonistic in early Peter David X-Factor”
Forge was added to X-factor only after Peter David had left the title. And they only seemed to be slightly antagonistic to one another after Age of Apocalypse.
“It was kind of weird how this issue skipped over the fact that Angelica has already been an X-Man – and a teacher at the Jean Grey school.”
Yeah, I noticed that too. Come to think of it, pretty much everyone on this new roster has been on an X-man team of sorts before.
“So the final pages heavily implies Moira has killed someone in ASM9”
I’m surprised Paul didn’t mention that.
Overall, I enjoyed this! But I just can’t get past how ridiculous a character Moira is now. She was the most exciting charvster spinning out of HoX/PoX, she was still interesting after Inferno, but after X Deaths- utter clown shoes, a total joke. It’s disappointing to see her written as atrociously by a writer other then Ben Percy, but I guess this is just her status quo now- mustache-twirling insane robot villain.
My get-out-of-character-assassination-free card for Moira would be that this version is corrupted by the robot body’s AI and the “real” 11th life will come from the arm Warlock gave her. It downloaded her personality and is somewhere generating a new version more like the Moira of HoX/PoX.
Now, I could look back at X Lives/ XDeaths of Wolverine to see if that theory could work given the events on the page, but that would involve rereading X Lives/ X Deaths, so… nope.
Brian Posehn, Duggan’s former co-writer on Deadpool, shows up on page 40, which Deadpool is not happy about. Hamm’s big into the alt comedy scene in Los Angeles so I suspect Duggan’s met/is friends with him, possibly via Posehn.
Potentially an interesting team, with some personal faves (Firestar, Forge, Havok). Then again, not a hell of a lot was done with Rogue, Sunfire, Laura and Polaris, so I’m managing my expectations.
I believe that’s editor Jordan D White with Gwenpool, who is in an outfit reminiscent of Sailor Moon (JDW did a SM rewatch podcast).
Doom looked killer.
I read Immortal #4 first (based on the chart at the back of Sabretooth #5), and I had assumed that all the main characters were aware of Moira’s deception after Inferno, so the Stasis/Moira revelations between Emma and Scott made for a solid six page chunk of retreading old ground. Didn’t Jean, at least, find out about Moira during X-Lives/Deaths?
Proteus’s first reaction to Spider-Man is to *punch* him?
Between Moira’s plan being left to the reader to infer, and Stasis leaving his weapon/payload unfired on the mantle, the villains didn’t really seem to be acting with any kind of focus here.
Bishop may not know the truth about Moira (I guess we can’t assume that anyone does unless we get a scene where it’s revealed), but Emma certainly does, so is “dead by dawn” really a good plan?
I did like the nods to current continuity with Clea, though.
Orchis has really shifted in the post-Hickman translation. Hickman’s Orchis was actually pretty sympathetic. Dr. Alia Gregor was trying to save her husband. Nimrod sacrificed his humanity to save his wife. Dr. Devo was a pleasant chap whose memories have been messed with. Even Omega Sentinel had an understandable reason for her actions.
But now they’re locked in closet somewhere and the new faces of Orchis are the sort of cackling monsters who use Nightcrawler’s decaying corpse as decoration. Stasis blows up dogs, NuMoira taunts her son with about never loving him, and MODOK is testing weapons on cruise ships.
It’s a lot less interesting.
—
Emma throws the “Avengers didn’t help us” charge at Stark. Question: how much truth is there to that?
From an in-universe perspective, one could make an argument that the Avengers have been aloof at best and dangerous to mutants at worst.
From an out-of-universe perspective, it never felt fair to me to blame the Avengers for not helping when Marvel editorial is what’s keeping the Avengers and X-Men in different spheres.
I always ask the “Avengers never help the mutants” people why the X-Men usually don’t help the FF fight Galactus.
The Avengers had mutant members very early on. Surely Captain America endorsing Wanda and Pietro and fighting alongside them would have great for mutant rights.
Besides, the Avengers once sacrificed their lives to stop the evil thing that crawled out of Xavier’s head. You’d think that would buy them a bit of leeway.
I just want to add how much having “real celebrities” jars me. It really takes me out the story and ruins the flow. It will age the book in just a couple of years!
Strong agree – it’s true even in things like TV shows set in the real world, but much worse in this setting. The tone does not accommodate Deadpool and Brian Posehn jabbering in the background.
To be vaguely fair, you could say that even with the earliest issues of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Fantastic Four where they show up in them. It’s the big problem with having a sliding timeline.
This was a little better than Duggan’s usual but a bit useless to me. Thought it would have more line-wide repercussions but it was 98% shuffling chairs for his X-Men run, 1% a subplot that will be finished at Spiderman and 1% some AXE build-up. But then maybe I should have managed my expectations better.
Oh and most of the humor did not work for me at all.