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Aug 10

A.X.E.: Judgment Day #2 annotations

Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2022 by Paul in Annotations

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

A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #2
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Valerio Schiti
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER / PAGE 1. The reanimated Celestial looms over the heroes (not looking quite the way it ends up in the actual story).

PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits.

PAGE 4. Meet the civilians.

The first appearance of all six of these characters, as far as I’m aware. Arjan’s confidence that the heroes will save him is ironic given what happens to him later in the issue. There are of six of them, matching the number of the Hex, which may or may not be significant.

The narrator is identified later in the issue as the new Celestial god that Ajak is in the process of raising. The caption style is clearly reminiscent of the “machine” narration from Eternals, though.

Tom’s T-shirt has the image of Bruttu, a one-off character from Tales of Suspense #22 (1961). That story involves Bruttu being a comic book character who then inspires one Howard Lindley to become a real-life Bruttu, so the existence of Bruttu merchandise in the Marvel Universe is entirely reasonable.

PAGES 5-7. The Krakoans fight the Hex.

According to the cast page, the big thing that Exodus is fighting is Syme the Memotaur. All of the Hex are new characters and it’s not clear at this stage precisely what a Memotaur actually is – though it’s obviously a play on “minotaur”, particularly given the design. We saw the start of Exodus’s fight with these guys in Immortal X-Men #5.

“I should have written protocols…” This is a callback to a data page in Immortal X-Men #2, with one of Cyclops’ protocols for dealing with kaiju attacks. In fact, that data page specifically contains a cross-reference to a Celestials protocol, so apparently Cyclops has given some thought to this problem before…

The Avengers. Or most of them, anyway. The team here are obvious big guns Captain America, Captain Marvel, Thor and Namor the Sub-Mariner, plus the current Starbrand, Phoenix (Echo) and Nighthawk (formerly of the dodgy Squadron Supreme of America).

PAGE 8. Iron Man and Ajak work on the God.

Avengers Mountain is the corpse of the Progenitor, an ancient Celestial which died on Earth billions of years ago; the decay of its body into the ecosystem is supposed to provide part of the explanation for the emergence of superhuman powers on Earth. This all comes from the opening arc of the current Avengers run. Ajak’s plan is basically to revive the Celestial with some reprogramming and get it to pull rank on Druig.

Mr Sinister insists that he’s the only thing that really matters, in line with his personality from Immortal X-Men #1 – though he’s often subtler about it than this. Still, Sinister doesn’t stand to gain anything from having the Eternals wipe out Krakoa.

Ajak claims that Sinister “transgressed against the Celestials and stol[e] knowledge from the gods”; more of that on page 12.

PAGE 9. The heroes fight Thieaka the Harpsicus.

It may mean nothing, but Banshee is among the combatants, looking completely normal, despite his Ghost Rider appearance in Legion of X.

PAGES 10-11. Syme damages the mantle.

The Avengers head off to deal with the disaster relief, which Exodus takes as abandonment – even though he didn’t want non-mutant heroes here in the first place. Destiny seems to agree with Exodus, though, at least in the sense that the mutants will have to stand alone rather than being able to rely on allies.

PAGE 12. Montage: the components of the new god are assembled.

Well, this looks like a bunch of side quests for tie-in issues, doesn’t it?

  • Panel 1: Arishem the Judge was killed by the Dark Celestials and crashed to Earth in London in Avengers #1. He was the one who used to do the thumbs-up / thumbs-down bit when judging worlds.
  • Panel 2: The Dreaming Celestial (or Tiamut, if you prefer) was a renegade Celestial who was expelled and imprisoned asleep on Earth, as shown back in the original late 1970s Eternals series. He was eventually woken by the Deviants in Neil Gaiman’s Eternals run from 2006-7, and wound up standing around motionless in Golden Gate Park. Sinister then hacked into him in Uncanny X-Men #1-3 (2011-12), which is the arc where Kieron Gillen overhauled him; the Sinister-themed servants are a callback to that story.
  • Panel 3: The Destroyer armour was retconned into an anti-Celestial weapon in Thor #300 (1980), which is also where the Celestials obliterated it. It’s come back several times since then, but we needn’t trouble ourselves with that.
  • Panel 4: This is the core cast of Eternals going about their business.
  • Panel 5: Given where this is going, the statement that the new god is “in their image” is very double-edged. There’s also something (intentionally) intrinsically odd about creating the properties of their own god – but Ajak has learned in Eternals that the Eternals are basically programmed to do as the Celestials want, resents that programming, and is trying to take advantage of it.
  • Panel 6: Iron Man was “recently possessed by the power cosmic” in the Korvac arc in his own book. He “piloted a dead Celestial when a king wreathed in black ruled the Earth” in King in Black #3. The reference to Hank Pym and his murderous creation Ultron is, again, obviously ironic in the light of where the story is going (though it’s fairly blatant foreshadowing anyway).

PAGES 13-14. Exodus and Syne both die.

Syne’s one line of dialogue obviously suggests that there’s more going on with the Hex than might first appear. Since Syne presumably knows that she’ll be resurrected, her reaction to her imminent death might suggest that she knows that a human will be killed to resurrect her, and genuinely doesn’t want that to happen.

PAGE 15. Exodus and co are resurrected.

Cable is being resurrected after his death in Uranos’s attack on Arakko in the previous issue and X-Men Red #5. Wolverine and Psylocke were killed in the background of this issue. The “machine that is Earth” is the Eternals’ Machine, and “do[ing] what it does and has done for a million years” means killing a human in order to resurrect Syne.

Unlike the mutants, Syne is restored with memories up to the moment of her death – thus, Exodus doesn’t remember her brief moment of vulnerability at the end.

PAGE 16. Back to the civilians.

Arjun was positioned underneath Syne in the cast page, which may bode badly for the other five if these pages keep showing up throughout the series. (And presumably someone else will have to take Arjun’s place as the designated life for the next time Syne dies.)

PAGE 17. Ajak prepares to switch on the Celestial.

We’re assured here that Sinister wasn’t allowed to participate in the god programming (and so you can’t blame him).

Iron Man’s “adoptive dad”is Howard Stark. Sinister seems to be suggesting that they knew each other, but if so, I think that’s new information. Both characters have been around a lot in the Marvel Universe’s pre-FF back story, so it’s perfectly likely that they’ve crossed paths.

PAGES 18-19. Syne returns.

The X-Men are going to lose, in other words, because the Eternals get resurrected too quickly to be defeated.

PAGES 20-22. The Celestial wakes.

The Hex do indeed stand down on its instructions, but obviously that doesn’t resolve the problem. The Celestial is essentially repeating its traditional role of judging a planet to decide whether it should live or die, but previous Celestials never explained themselves to the population in this way, and didn’t appear to be particularly interested in morality rather than evolutionary characteristics.

PAGES 23-24. Trailers.

 

 

Bring on the comments

  1. K says:

    Humanity being judged based on whether there is more good than evil is such an old-school Silver Age story turn.

    It’s also refreshing to see such a turn again because it feels like we have lived too long in a time where we’re afraid to find out the answer.

  2. SanityOrMadness says:

    One of the things I find unsatisfying about the Eternals resurrection setup is that Eternals were always specified as simply being nigh-impossible to kill (sort of a cross between Superman-level invulnerability and Wolverine-level healing factor). Even more than the X-mutants, them suddenly dying so much because they can come back is… unsatisfying.

    [Seriously, when Ikaris learned about the “Eternal resurrection takes a human life thing”, he literally went to ask some deviants for help fighting without dying all the time. I mean, wut.]

    @K

    Well, that’s the thing. The “Silver Age” answer would have been that we were absolutely a load of jolly good fellows, and a few bad apples don’t change that.

    I’m not sure that flies in the modern world – for any adult with functional awareness, at least…

    [And the only other story option is that the Celestial is prevented from making judgement – or at least acting on it, which is unsatisfying.]

  3. Ceries says:

    This issue felt pretty oddly paced, honestly. I feel like we needed a bit more establishing the more heroic Eternals, because it doesn’t really hang together that well as a narrative-it’s a set of events that happens to get us to the big ending reveal.

    I was interested by the comic justifying the Avengers immediately leaving because they need to go save all the humans who won’t get cloned as a sort of textual justification for why the Avengers never show up for mutant events-it’s because they’re busy with the other eight billion people and they don’t prioritize based on who the evolutionarily destined superior species are. It used to be they’d take a panel or two to say something like that in mutant events, but I feel like it’s fallen out of favor as the persecution of mutants has escalated. Presumably it was taking up much needed page space.

  4. Jenny says:

    Gillen having the black woman go “well hold on I may be mad at the mutants but we shouldn’t kill them all” is something that presumably was meant to come across seriously but instead just comes across as comically misjudged.

    Will say, though, that the twist of the issue is pretty well executed.

  5. Si says:

    I agree about the Eternals retcon being unsatisfying, in the same way as in the X-books. I understand the reasons for the device of resurrection, but the writers have been handed a hammer and now every story looks like a nail to them. All the other tools risk lying in the box gathering dust. I don’t want to read about superheroes who are so fragile.

    The idea of the Bruutu comic inspiring a guy to become Bruutu is fun. Of course it does mean that there should be dozens of Marvel superheroes calling themselves “The Real Life Batman”.

  6. CitizenBane says:

    Definitely didn’t like the Celestial deciding to judge a world based on “kindness”. It’s Silver Agey in that it reminds me of Alicia Masters persuading the Silver Surfer to stop Galactus from destroying the Earth, but the Surfer was a (alien) man once, on whom emotional appeals and rhetoric could work. The Celestials are supposed to be incomprehensible gods whose criteria for judgement are what suits their experiments.

  7. K says:

    I think Gillen knows that you can’t cop out of the judgment actually taking place (it being in the event title and all), and that it needs a resolution that is satisfying for today’s world.

    Presumably the resolution is to have a very unconventional, Tony Stark-style judgment which happens to work out in favor. Possibly with contributions from the other two factions of this crossover for completeness.

  8. Mike Loughlin says:

    I absolutely love the a crossover called Judgement Day is now about a literal Judgement Day. I did an mental golf clap when I read the last page.

    Jenny: “Gillen having the black woman go ‘well hold on I may be mad at the mutants but we shouldn’t kill them all’ is something that presumably was meant to come across seriously but instead just comes across as comically misjudged.”

    I thought it odd that the character was with a bunch of anti-mutant protesters, but I didn’t think her reassessment of the mutants as not worthy of death was bad. I chalk her actions up to pain and grief and a legitimate issue with mutants seemingly hoarding resurrection. I would have liked to see her as independent of the other protesters, but I have no problem with her saying murdering mutants is not acceptable.

    BUT! I’m a white guy over 40 so maybe I’m missing something.

  9. Jenny says:

    It’s nothing specific, it just comes across a bit awkwardly, especially when almost all the major mutants that have been appearing under Gillen’s pen so far are white.

  10. Chris V says:

    Memotaur-Obviously, a bull that leaves helpful messages.

  11. Dave says:

    Don’t a lot of superhero motivations kind of go out the window if we’re accepting that humanity is not generally good? (Not that I am accepting that).

  12. Si says:

    For what it’s worth, Dall-E thinks a memotaur is some kind of theropod dinosaur. Presumably via carnotaurus.

  13. YLu says:

    @CitizenBane

    Isn’t that the point? That this is what you get when you try to fuse a Celestial with human morality, as they did here?

  14. YLu says:

    I assumed Syne the Memotaur was a play on Nmemosyne, as Eternal names tend to do. Though so far there doesn’t seem much in common with the goddess.

  15. GN says:

    I’m glad to see I was right about the narrator being the Frankenstein Celestial that Ajak and friends were going to raise. Though I thought that it was just going to be a mix of the Progenitor and Tiamut, but I forgot about the Celestial corpses from the Final Host.

    CitizenBane>Definitely didn’t like the Celestial deciding to judge a world based on “kindness”.

    I don’t think the judgment for the New Celestial (lets call them that until they get a name) is necessarily ‘kindness’. Lack of kindness was definitely something they said was wrong with the peoples of Earth, but the judgment was whether an individual was ‘just’ or ‘wicked’ (and whether Earth collectively had more ‘just’ or ‘wicked’ people). ‘Just’ and ‘wicked’ being attributes that will be defined by the Celestial.

    I agree with Paul that Gillen is going for a subversion of the typical Celestial judgment. The usual Celestial, or rather Celestial Host, judges planets based on its evolutionary potential – whether or not the dominant species (probably the mutants in this case) is evolving according to Celestial design. All four Hosts (+ the accidental Final Host) have judged the planet worthy and left it alone. But this is a new kind of Celestial – a new kind of God, built in the image of its creation – and has new ideas about judgment.

    K>Humanity being judged based on whether there is more good than evil is such an old-school Silver Age story turn.

    It’s not just humanity, the Celestial said ‘peoples of Earth’ which I take to mean humans, mutants and Eternals (which fits the title of the event). Looking at the upcoming tie-ins, some of them are definitely individual character pieces focusing on the ‘judgments’ of individual characters.

    Iron Man in A.X.E. Avengers 1 by Kieron Gillen
    Jean Grey in A.X.E. X-Men 1 by Kieron Gillen
    Ajak in A.X.E. Eternals 1 by Kieron Gillen
    Sebastian Shaw in Immortal X-Men 6 by Kieron Gillen
    Nightcrawler in Immortal X-Men 7 by Kieron Gillen
    Cyclops in X-Men 14 by Gerry Duggan
    Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man 10 by Zeb Wells
    Hawkeye in Avengers 60 by Mark Russell
    Marauders in Marauders 6 by Steve Orlando

  16. GN says:

    To me, ‘memotaur’ is just the word ‘minotaur’ pushed through the Eternals Kirby name changer.

    Zeus > Zuras
    Circe > Sersi
    Hephaestus > Phastos
    Mercury > Makkari

    That sort of thing.

    Looking the Hex designs (https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/axe-judgement-day-valerio-schiti-interview-hex-designs):

    Syne the Memotaur is a giant Minotaur based on the classic element of Fire.

    Rheaka Centaurus is a giant Centaur based on the classic element of Earth.

    Tetytrona is a giant Hydra based on the classic element of Water.

    Thieaka the Harpsicus is a giant Stymphalian Bird based on the classic element of Air.

    I can’t tell what Greek myth monsters Phebe Reginax and Themex are based on (if anyone worked it out, let me know) but they probably represent Science/Technology and Magic.

  17. Si says:

    I’d say Themex is a sphinx, such as the sphinx of Thebes. I don’t know about the other one, the name sounds a bit like Hebe (Juventas), goddess of eternal (Eternal?) youth, but she’s about as far from a monster as you can get. Looks very Technarchy though.

  18. SanityOrMadness says:

    CitizenBane> It’s Silver Agey in that it reminds me of Alicia Masters persuading the Silver Surfer to stop Galactus from destroying the Earth, but the Surfer was a (alien) man once, on whom emotional appeals and rhetoric could work

    Well, remember that Kirby drew Surfer into the story intending him to be an emotionless robot created wholecloth by Galactus. Norrin Radd, Zenn-La, etc were all Stan Lee’s additions. (And, even then, didn’t they come later?)

  19. The Other Michael says:

    GN (and the linked article) raises good points about the Hex being reminiscent/reflective/derivative of mythological monsters… but this still brings up an oddly awkward element of the new characters.

    Traditionally, the Eternals’ deal is that they all look fairly “normal” by human standards, enough to be mistaken as gods by them. They’re “perfect” for the most part, and it’s the Deviants who are weird monsters.

    So the sudden appearance of six Eternals who aren’t just non-human, they’re giant monstrosities, is a huge swerve as far as traditional (i.e. the other 94 or so) Eternals are depicted and conceived. And honestly, I’m not sure if that plays fair with the concept of the Eternals or not. It would be like saying “every mutant depicted for the past 60 years has been telepathic/telekinetic, and all of a sudden, here’s a batch that are 60 feet tall with laser eyes.”

  20. Luis Dantas says:

    I don’t have a problem with the liberties taken with the Eternals since this just-concluded run began. They are comic book characters. Their role is to be tools in telling engaging stories, and there is only so much that can be done with the rather self-limiting original Kirby concepts before you have to tinker with things a bit.

    Gotta love Ajak and Tony building their own god according to specs. It is so refreshingly honest.

    Scott blaming himself for “missing the obvious” was quite the laugh. All the more so because it caught me by surprise.

    I like Gillen’s writing of Exodus. So unfortunately familiar. It is good to bring those traits to light and point out the flaws for all to see. The contrast with naive Ajak failing to realize how weird is her faith in the fairness of the deity she created according to her own specs is delightful. In fiction as in real life deities are often used to give uncertainty a name and a superficial semblance of purpose and promise.

    This series has the potential to be a much-welcomed quasi-commentary on what gods and the belief in them is and what it is not.

  21. K says:

    Commentary only goes so far when Exodus and Ajak are also the ones saving the day, basically!

    (I’ve realized the most that the very best writers can accomplish at publication time is to make more fans. Sober commentary and reflection will come later if the work is remembered long enough.)

    Almost forgot – on another note, how about the artist’s modeling of Sinister as Rasputin. I don’t think any other artist has gone there before.

  22. Mike Loughlin says:

    I looked at the last couple pages of the issue last night, and the New Celestial says something along the lines of “you have treated each other with unkindness” – the word is definitely used – before saying they will judge the people based on how “just” they are.

    What I now want to see from this whiz-bang super-hero punch-’em-up is an exploration of the definition of morality. I want to see the New Celestial learn about the different shades of morality before rendering judgement. They can start with a child’s definition – being nice or kind vs. being mean- and move through a more complex, nuanced understanding, moving toward legality in relationship to the common good, shades of gray and how legality doesn’t necessarily equal goodness, etc. I could see the spotlight issues being used to explore morality in relation to how each character sees it, adding nuance to the New Celestial’s understanding.

    That, and I want Magneto to kick Uranos’s ass.

  23. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    And a special oneshot where Spider-Man teaches him to poop!

    (The New Celestial, not Uranos. Nor Magneto.)

  24. Mike Loughlin says:

    “And a special oneshot where Spider-Man teaches him to poop!”

    These days, that’s a 6-issue mini-series. Look out for the retailer-exclusive lenticular animation variant covers!

    (I actually thought, “am I describing Secret Wars 2, except, y’know, competent?” after I posted)

  25. Omar Karindu says:

    Phebe Reginax sounds like “Phoebe,” a sun goddess Titan and predecessor of Apollo (who was even called Phoebus” as one of his epithets; it means “bright” and “clear”).

    In the Gigantomachy/Titanomachy, Phoebe was typically depicted fighting while bearing a torch.

    “Reginax” is something like “queen.”

    Given the tail whip mentioned in the concept art notes and the likely “fire” theme, I’d guess it’ll be some variation of the Chimera, the creature with a snake tail and the power to breathe fire.

    In this case, I”d suspect the fire will be replaced with plasma or light, playing off the solar imagery and avoiding redundancy with the elemental creatures.

    With Themex as a Sphinx, whose mythological gimmick was an unsolvable riddle — perhaps evoking the mind, spirit, psi, or magic.

    This would give an “unearthly/fifth element” theme borrowed from other shcemata of the classical elements to Themex and Phebe Reginax: Themex can hint at the spirit or mind, the fifth element of some schemata; and Phebe Reginax’s sun theme could also could be aether and void (meaning sky or heaven) in alchemy, as in Ptolomaic systems.

    All of the Hex members’ names refer to the Titans, actually, usually mashing them up with later monsters and creatures:

    Rheaka Centaurus includes the name of Rhea, a Titan associated with Mother Earth

    Syne the Memotaur hints at Mnemosyne, the Titan of memory and mother of the Muses; “Memo” + “Syne” is rearranged in the name

    Tetytrona evokes Tethys, a sea and river goddess among the Titans

    Themex seems to include the name of Themis, Titan of justice and prophecy

    Thieaka the Harpiscus evokes Thea or Theia, a Titan assocoiated with sight, vision, and gems, and whose name means “far-shining one” or just plain “goddess” depending on the translation

  26. Sam says:

    When the secret of the Eternal’s resurrection comes out, as it inevitably will, which member of the Quiet Council will suggest simply killing all the humans so the Eternals can’t come back? Sinister, Exodus, or Mystique? Or will they throw a curve ball and have Xavier be the one, to show how far he’s fallen? And will it be an issue when they start killing random mutants to have the Eternals respawn?

  27. Luis Dantas says:

    What do we know about the Celestial’s morality? It seems to me that for the most part they show no interest in learning about it from others. Except for Thanos and arguably Ajak and Makkari right now, Eternals are literally programmed to protect them and, apparently, usually defer to their judgement even when they personally disagree.

    I may easily have missed significant developments on what the Celestials do, think or rule, but at least in the first ten years or so of publication they rarely even attempted to communicate with anyone. They just seed worlds and come back very sporadically to decide if they deserve to continue existing, with no question whatsoever of their ability or right to pass judgement. At one point many centuries ago they judged Earth’s Deviants communities and destroyed a major one, arguably in self-defense IIRC.

    At one point in the Tom DeFalco/Ron Frenz run Thor even fights a Celestial to no avail and that Celestial only communicates with him through a specially tailored clone of Thor himself. Mostly, they are above validation and largely inescrutable.

    This so-called New Celestial is remarkable in that he apparently sees fit to not only address Eternals and humans with either telepathy or speech, but also seems to be willing to listen to some degree. There are many conceivable different causes and consequences for that oddity. But I don’t think that the Celestials will be retconned into some form of gentle giants wanting to learn from Earth people.

  28. Jenny says:

    I think people keep getting tripped up on the ending because the comic makes it very clear that this is not a normal Celestial.

  29. Si says:

    Oh I missed that the names are all derived from titans. Well done.

    I wouldn’t put it past Gillen to have Phebe Reginax be a secret nod to the Friends character Phoebe, who at one point called herself Regina Phalanges (or something similar, I’m not looking it up, I’m embarrassed enough that I remember it at all).

  30. Mark says:

    Hey, there were six ‘Friends’ too!

  31. The Other Michael says:

    If the writers wanted to really throw in a twist, they’d kill off an established character or two as part of Eternal resurrection.

    (Much like in Thunderbolts, where the first Arabian Knight was a victim of Hummus… er, Huumus Sapien’s powers…)

    Imagine if the cost of, say, Sersi or Thena or Makkari coming back to life was someone actually important like Jarvis or Pepper Potts… or even worse, a superhero who’d be missed. I mean, we don’t know if there’s any connection between who dies and who’s brought back, save for that storyline where Ikarus’ revival was at the cost of a kid he knew.

    Kill Phastos, and he comes back but oops Aunt May dies. Or Jessica Drew. Or Rick Jones. (Do superhumans count as potential victims? do MUTANTS?)

  32. Mike Loughlin says:

    Also, the mutants fighting he Hex Eternals managed to kill one, thus killing a human. Did they break one of the three laws? Can that human be resurrected on Krakoa? Probably not if there’s no Cerebro back-Up or spirit in the Waiting Room, but what if there’s a way? It’s all comic book nonsense, so let’s say Rachel’s chronal skimming plus telepathy or Cable’s time travel tech could do the job. Will the mutants resurrect a human if they played a role in the human’s death? It will be interesting to see if we get an answer.

  33. The Other Michael says:

    Given that the Krakoans have shown no inclination or ability to bring back humans they actually care about/for, or fallen allies, or humans who’ve been killed by mutants since the Dawn of X as a show of good faith (i.e. Sabretooth’s victims), I doubt they’d be overly concerned with humans dying as a result of Eternal shenanigans.

  34. Chris V says:

    The law doesn’t apply if the mutants are fighting in self-defense. So, no laws were broken.

    For resurrection, they need a sample of DNA (all mutants’ DNA was collected by Sinister). They need the individual’s “soul” to be recorded by Cerebro and saved on a logic diamond (which Krakoa has limited access). Due to this, Krakoa would not suddenly have access to a random dead human’s DNA or Cerebro recording. Therefore, no, it is highly doubtful that Krakoa has the ability to resurrect any humans which die due to Judgment Day.

  35. Mike Loughlin says:

    Counterpoint: these are comics and the writers can have the characters do whatever they want. In addition to my two half-assed ideas above, the Avengers include a Valkyrie and at least one other character who has been to the afterlife, and various super-humans have been resurrected without Krakoa. The mechanics of human resurrection aren’t as important as whether the Krakoans will do it now that the secret is out and there has been at least innocent casualty of this war.

    Given what the Other Michael & Chris V pointed out, though, I agree that it seems unlikely.

  36. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    They have the Waiting Room now, do they even need Logic diamonds?

  37. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    Nobody bothered to explain the details of how the Waiting Room is supposed to work – maybe because it’s a crazy idea.

    But the logic diamonds make for a useful limitation, story-wise, and they’re another macguffin that can be targeted by Krakoa’s enemies, so my guess is they’ll keep their place as an important resource.

    In-world the explanation might be that whilst the memorysoul can be extracted from the Waiting Room, it still needs to be recorded on the logic diamonds – the telepath is only a conduit via which the memories are uploaded into a husk. Without the diamonds the telepath would have to hold the whole of a person inside their mind, and although it is possible, it is very taxing and dangerous.

    We’ve actually seen that – Xavier could hold onto Xandra, but it was overwhelming and she had to be resurrected immediately… not that we’ve actually seen her, she remains allegedly resurrected so far.

    And back in Morrison’s run – because it wouldn’t be the HtA comments section without bringing up Morrison or Claremont – Jean was able to hold Xavier’s mind, but it was very taxing and I think she was saying she’s losing pieces at the time?

  38. Pseu42 says:

    One of the “civilians”, Jada, has been seen before. Well, one issue before. You can see her in AXE:JD #1 participating in the anti-mutant demonstration in NYC. She was the one whose thoughts/emotions Jean Grey picked up on.

  39. Luis Dantas says:

    The question of how normal this Celestial is will of course occur, but can it even be established to have meaning?

    It is probably fair to expect this Celestial to fall short in some way, but the very concept of the Celestials makes that a rather academic concern. In-universe there seems to be no way to know whether this Celestial is in any way lacking.

    Kieron Gillen made it very clear that the Celestials are not communicating with Ajak and Makkari, their own priests, to their considerable distress and frustration. No one in-universe truly knows why. For all we know Celestials want their creations to dare to create / ressurrect Celestials of their own volition.

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