Dead X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
DEAD X-MEN #1
“Earth Intruders”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artists: Jonas Scharf, Bernard Chang & Vincenzo Carratù
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Prodigy, Dazzler, Cannonball and Jubilee emerge from their graves. Not what actually happens in the story, but the whole billing of this series as Dead X-Men turns out to be a bit of a red herring so far as the actual plot is concerned. Poor old Frenzy doesn’t make the cover.
Dead X-Men is a four-issue miniseries, but it seems to be actually relevant to the line-wide storylines, which is why it’s getting annotations here.
PAGES 2-4. The X-Men make an abortive visit to a demonic timeline.
Okay, so.
The Treehouse is the X-Men’s former New York base. It’s not looking very healthy, but then nor is the rest of the city in this timeline.
The X-Men for the purposes of this series are Prodigy, Frenzy, Jubilee, Dazzler and Cannonball – in other words, the five who were voted onto the team in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 and lasted a grand total of one panel before being killed by Nimrod. The other members of the Gala line-up are Synch, Talon and Juggernaut, all of whom survived and are currently appearing over in X-Men. But this is the majority of the rightful X-Men team.
We’re not directly told how they returned, but the data page on page 24 says directly that they were resurrected. We establish on page 6 that they’re based on Atlantic Krakoa, which is still inside the White Hot Room, as seen in Immortal X-Men. In Immortal X-Men #16, the Five were reunited in the White Hot Room and, apparently with Mother Righteous’s help, did successfully perform a resurrection. The clear implication is that the X-Men – those that were actually dead – were brought back by the Five in the same way, though this leaves open the question of how the Five substituted for Mr Sinister’s DNA library. Since they’re in contact with Professor X, however, maybe he just provided the required samples.
Temporal location: Moira Engine III.9. The Moira Engine was the set of Moira MacTaggert clones created by Mr Sinister in Immortal X-Men, in an attempt to abuse her powers. When Moira dies, she resets the timeline and is reborn with memories of everything that happened to her in the previous world. Sinister used the Moira clones to explore potential timelines (or rather, actual timelines) and then hit the reset button when they went wrong.
As we establish later on, the X-Men are trying to find a still-human Moira MacTaggert in one of these abortive timelines, so that Prodigy can get close to her and use his powers to absorb all of her knowledge. Using this information, Professor X hopes to identify reliably the point in time when Moira’s powers emerged. The X-Men have been that Professor X “has a plan to talk to Moira in her tenth life before her powers manifested”, and we’ll come back to that.
At all events: the X-Men are exploring the abortive Sinister timelines in the hope of locating a human Moira and reading her mind. That’s the premise.
Previous stories have suggested that Moira’s powers simply delete the previous timeline. This is the first story to show one of those timelines as surviving, let alone accessible. However, it might be relevant that the X-Men are travelling there from the White Hot Room, which is outside the conventional timeline altogether.
Some timelines presumably got aborted just because they went wrong for Sinister’s plans, but this one is a global apocalypse in which Magik has turned into a demon and conquered the world.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-9. The X-Men talk to Rachel Summers.
Rachel is using her time-related powers to help the X-Men travel to these various timelines.
No-Place X is the hidden base, also outside time and space, where Professor X and his allies were hiding out in Rise of the Powers of X #1. That issue identified his allies as Cypher, Rasputin IV and two redacted others – evidently Rachel is one of those others.
“The Hellfire Gala already proved I’m not as immortal as I used to think I was.” Dazzler is referencing a long-dropped plot from New Excalibur about her supposed immortality, which never got resolved.
“Xavier has a plan to talk to Moira in her tenth life before her powers manifested.” That’s not what he told Rasputin IV in Rise of the Powers of X #1. He told her that his plan was to kill Moira before her powers manifested. We see on page 24 that he gives the same explanation of his plans to Rachel.
It’s possible, of course, that he really does plan to speak to Moira, and that he’s lying to Rasputin to keep her on side. It also seems that this story takes place before Rise of the Powers of X #1 (see below re page 24), so something may happen to change his mind.
PAGES 10-12. The X-Men visit the Moira Engine II.4 timeline and meet the local X-Men.
The local X-Men are:
- Abigail Brand, formerly of SWORD, who betrayed the mutants and was finally sent into exile in X-Men Red #10.
- Blink, probably because she’s commonly associated with the dystopian Age of Apocalypse storyline.
- Random, a mercenary who was working for SWORD.
- Armor, a relatively straightforward hero who’s been on the proper X-Men roster before.
- Rootfire, possibly some sort of combination of Redroot and Sunfire, who were briefly bonded in recent issues of X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic and X-Men Red.
Presumably, either this timeline diverged before Abigail got as far as turning on the X-Men, or it was so desperate that the surviving X-Men regrouped around her anyway.
PAGES 13-17. The history of the timeline.
The Acanti were alien whale-like creatures who were enslaved by the Brood and used as ships, as first seen in Uncanny X-Men #156. One of them is now carrying Arakko around.
Orbis Stellaris is another of the Sinister clones who were trying to ascend to Dominion status. Abigail was secretly allied with him in X-Men Red. This sequence effectively ties up the question of what they were actually planning: Abigail wanted to engineer an interstellar conflict where she thought she could politic her way to domination, and viewed Orbis Stellaris as an arms dealer ally. In fact, Stellaris was working towards his own attempt at Dominion status, which we haven’t seen yet (and which was noted as as-yet-unseen in Rise of the Powers of X #1).
PAGE 18. Orbis Stellaris monologues.
“I blame the World Farm, of course.” Presumably referencing his defeat in X-Men Red #8-10, or some version of that, where whatever he was planning got derailed by a team led by Cable, plus, some supposed heralds who were clearly not actually under his control.
Gabriel is Vulcan, looking decidedly dead in that containment vessel. He figured somewhere into Stellaris’ plans; Stellaris’ herald were responsible for the reprogramming of Vulcan’s mind that was covered in various issues of X-Men Red and Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men, which ultimately seemed to be part of a scheme to get him to trigger a war.
The M’Kraan Crystal first appeared in X-Men #107 and is a vastly powerful artefact connected with reality itself. The idea that it constitutes a “nexus of realities” dates back at least to the Age of Apocalypse storyline.
PAGES 19-23. The X-Men fight the Technarch, and the Starjammers arrive.
And Prodigy senses Moira in the area.
The Starjammers are:
- Sunspot, taking Corsair’s swashbuckling role.
- Hepzibah, an established Starjammer.
- The Juggernaut, who seems a bit random.
- Mercury of the New X-Men, who hasn’t done much of anything in ages, but sure, why not.
- Lockheed, who is an alien.
- Warbird, the 90s codename for Carol Danvers; she was a member of the Starjammers for a while as Binary.
- Smasher, later identified as Josiah Guthrie, the son of Cannonball and Smasher (Izzy Kane).
PAGE 24. Data page! I thought we’d stopped doing these! Professor X and Rachel Summers discuss the reasons for choosing this particular team. Rachel makes a case based on their particular powers, but also simply on the fact that they’re the real X-Men.
“The window between Sinister making those dupes and the real Moira going full ghost in the machine was brief.” That’s putting it mildly. Moira was resurrected as a robot in X Deaths of Wolverine #5, published 23 March 2022. The Moira Engine first appears in Immortal X-Men #1, which came out the following week. The Engine already existed at that point, though, so Sinister could have been running it for a while already.
Elizabeth Braddock is, for some reason, still wandering around Britain seemingly unbothered by Orchis, as seen in last week’s X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #123.
“We witnessed just one [of Sinister’s timelines] firsthand and are still dealing with the fallout.” Presumably meaning the Sins of Sinister timeline – in which case this story takes place before Rise of the Powers of X #1.
PAGES 25-27. The fight continues.
The shard that gets embedded in Prodigy’s chest is part of the M’Kraan Crystal.
PAGES 28-29. Prodigy reads Moira’s mind.
The flashbacks on page 29 are:
- Moira kisses Professor X during her fourth life (page 16 panel 5 of House of X #2).
- Pyro and Destiny kill Moira at the end of her third life (page 15 panel 6 of House of X #2).
- Moira and Professor X being killed by a Sentinel at the end of her fourth life (page 17 panel 4 of House of X #2).
- Magneto hands his helmet to Moira, presumably in her eighth life where they worked together.
- Moira fights alongside Apocalypse against Nimrod (page 24 panel 2 of House of X #2).
- Moira absorbs assorted information stolen from Nimrod before being killed to reset the timeline, at the end of her ninth life (page 24 panel 2 of Powers of X #3).
PAGES 30-32. Moira reveals her plan.
She has an axe comprised of adamantium, carbonadium (Omega Red’s stuff), vibranium (Black Panther’s stuff), the head of Shen Xorn (the one with the black hole rather than the sun in his head), and some mysterium (once she recovers it from the X-Men). Somehow or other, this is going to let her travel back in time to her first life and try to alter her entire history.
“Moira always wins” refers to Moira’s concern in the earlier Hickman stories that the mutants always lost, in every timeline.
PAGE 33. Data page, explaining (kind of sort of) how this axe thing is going to work. She calls it “Weapon M” in reference to Wolverine’s old “Weapon X” codename. The vibranium has been taken from X-Men student Gentle, who had it bonded to his skin.
PAGE 34. Trailers. The Krakoan reads RELEASE THE HOUND.
I wonder if this will lead to Moira discovering that she has been inadvertently altering each of the timelines by her mere existence.
Especially considering how the Dominions are being written now, as opposed to the Librarian’s beliefs about how a Dominion would operate from Life Six.
Moira’s first timeline seemed to be devoid of man/mutant/machine rivalry which she claimed was unavoidable. She lived her entire natural lifespan and said she had almost no interest in mutants. Surely if the Earth-616 Marvel Earth has always been so dominated by the “mutant question”, she would have come across information about escalating man/mutant conflict in the news, at the very least.
With regard to seeing Moira’s “burnt” timelines for the first time- I think RoTPoX cracked that seal in its #1, with Rasputin having been sent to stop Stasis’ ascension in his victory timeline, with a comment from Xavier indicating that they are moving on from trying to stop the ascensions after this attempt? I
@Chris V- Moira mentions the bystander effect, and having an impact on outcomes just by being present in a HOXPOX data page, so they have foreshadowed some meat on that bone if they go that route.
I wonder if we’ll see Orbis’s master plan in more detail at some point. There’s enough here to infer a lot of it, but it would stand to reason that at least a few super-villain master plans would fail without being fully revealed, given how many there are.
The timeline where Illyana takes over the world is a reference to Immortal X-Men 3. In that issue, one of Destiny’s visions is of Illyana killing the X-Men and we see a timeline labeled “Limbic Infernality”.
Re: how the X-Men are accessing the timelines- I wonder if the Mercy Crown has something to do with it, since Foxe specifically said that it can touch mutants’ souls anywhere on Earth “perhaps even beyond”.
Orbis’s attempt at becoming a Dominion was described in Immortal X-Men 18 as involving a “mysterium/M’kranite crystal construct” in Immortal X-Men 18 and taking place 15 years in the future in Rise of the Powers of X 1. So presumably this is the timeline where Orbis attempts to become a Dominion. I guess the idea is that he salvages the mysterium and M’kraan Crystal from the battlefield and uses it to ascend. It’s odd that they didn’t actually show it though. Maybe we’ll see it next issue.
I guess that the Dead X-Men didn’t try to kill Orbis and prevent Enigma’s creation that way because Enigma would have sensed if they tried.
My reading of the conversation between Rachel and Xavier is that Xavier IS planning on killing Moira and one of the reasons that Xavier didn’t want Sam on this mission is that he didn’t want there to be a rift between Rahne and Sam once Rahne realizes that Sam was a party to Moira’s death.
It’s also weird that they didn’t show where Sinister and the Moiras were in Orbis’s timeline, since they need to reset the timeline. Again, maybe we’ll see that next issue.
I’m down for this series. I hope it finds a sensible way to reset Moira from being a one note killer robot villain (honestly why anyone thought this was a good idea? Should have just had her go on the run and vanish for many issues post Inferno, till somebody had a good idea. She’s tough but toe to toe with any powered character? No.). Anyway, lots of “reset” points available.
I also hope these Dead X-Men get some characterisation in their own book. Let Frenzy or Jubilee speak and have some cool moments!! I’d be up for an Exiles style ongoing with Rachel as Timebroker… It’s a good role for her.
Oh good, so at some point some writer will go “actually Weapon M is a Roman numeral, it’s Weapon 1000.”
An excellent issue, although Foxe seems to get the M’Kraan Crystal and mysterium confused at the very end there…
“The X-Men have been that Professor X “has a plan to talk to Moira in her tenth life before her powers manifested”,”
Should that be “have been told”?
There’s supposed to be a variant cover that to this issue in the form of a trading card that says they were brought back by the Five.
In Immortal X-Men 18, Moira II.4 was indeed mentionned as the timeline where Orbis Stellaris made his almost successful attempt at Dominionhood.
I was surprised how integral this series is to Rise of the Powers of X. Or rather – this issue, because I have a feeling that now that the Dead X-Men have the Moira info Xavier needs, that will be that as far as their involvement in Gillen’s plot. And instead of doing whatever that turns out to be, the next three issues of Dead X-Men will be devoted to fighting the Ahab Moira introduced here.
On the other hand Jubilee is on the cover of RoPoX#3 or 4 or whatever was solicited recently.
(Not to mention in the upcoming FCBD issue and rumoured to be important in the post-Krakoa relaunch).
So who can say. Anyway. This was a fun issue overall, but.
And it’s a big but.
Much is made about how these are the X-Men for the job – it’s the point of the Xavier/Rachel conversation from the data page.
And I’d like to feel that reading the book. Because in this issue, apart from Prodigy whose power is important,* you could randomly slot any other four x-characters for the rest of the team and it wouldn’t change a thing.
*- it also doesn’t work like that, but that’s handwaved away with the ‘she took my blocks off’ bit.
It’s a variant cover for Rise #4 though. Variant cover artists are often given the leeway to draw whomever they want, it most likely has zero to do with the contents of that issue.
I’m not even sure they needed Prodigy. Seems like Rogue or any decent telepath could have done the same thing.
[…] X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) This, on the other hand, is a pleasant surprise, in as much as the title turns out to be a red […]
I’m fine with the team line-up, but I want Frenzy and Jubilee to have more involvement in the plot.
I’m fine with the characters being resurrected, but would have liked at least one on-panel scene that depicted the mechanics.
I’m fine with the Moira Quest, but I’m worried it won’t lead to anything because this isn’t a main book.
This comic was fine, but it could have been significantly better.
@Taibak: Her mental defenses are so strong even Xavier can’t read her mind without permission.
This was really good – they need to put Foxe on more X-stuff.
Oh my DAYS! That Juggy is hot! I wondered if it was even possible for a Cain Marko to be my type.
Any idea why it took so many artists to complete this issue? (Scharf, Chang, Carratu.) I used to get annoyed when series couldn’t keep their art consistent from issue-to-issue. Lately it seems increasingly often that artists change page-to-page _within_ issues.
And if Marvel.com is to be believed, Dead #2 will also feature 3 pencillers, only one of whom also drew for Dead #1. (They list Nguyen, Sanna, and Chang.)
I can’t find the details, but I think I read Foxe saying that the ‘art jam’ was intentional. Maybe artists are responsible for drawing specific AUs as the series runs? He did mention how tricky scheduling the art was in his AIPT X-Men Monday.