{"id":8091,"date":"2022-07-22T22:53:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T21:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8091"},"modified":"2022-07-22T22:53:08","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T21:53:08","slug":"a-x-e-judgment-day-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8091","title":{"rendered":"A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #1<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Valerio Schiti<\/strong>
\nColourist: Marte Gracia<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:\u00a0<\/strong>Well, that’s the X-Men on the left, the Avengers in the middle and the Eternals on the right. In the background, the looming Celestial that forms Avengers Mountain.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0An ordinary day in New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the voice of\u00a0the Machine<\/strong>, originally presented as the Eternals’ artificial intelligence, but which presents itself in the current\u00a0Eternals<\/em> series as “the Great Machine that is Earth”. It serves as the narrator of\u00a0Eternals<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The woman with green hair on the bottom left might be Polaris, not that it really matters.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong> Recap and credits. Aside from briefly reminding us of the status quo of the X-Men and the Avengers, this mostly relates to events in\u00a0Eternals<\/em>. Mr Sinister was abducted from Krakoa in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #4, as confirmed in\u00a0A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong>\u00a0Tony Stark and Sersi have dinner.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a callback to their rooftop dinner in\u00a0Eternals<\/em> #5. The last time round, she posed as an ally of Thanos in order to draw out Gilgamesh, and Tony got punched and manipulated a bit. This time it’s reversed as the Avengers ambush her.<\/p>\n

That’s the X-Men’s Treehouse headquarters in the background of page 5 panel 1, of course.<\/p>\n

“They are such plagiarists. Returning to life is our thing.”<\/strong> Resurrection was indeed introduced to\u00a0Eternals<\/em> a few years before it became a feature of X-Men<\/em> – a parallel that was very obvious when\u00a0Eternals<\/em> was relaunched.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Cyclops and Jean Grey react.<\/em><\/p>\n

Phoenix. <\/strong>The current Phoenix is Maya Lopez, formerly Echo, who got the Phoenix Force over in Jason Aaron’s\u00a0Avengers<\/em>\u00a0– effectively detaching Phoenix from the X-Men mythos for the moment. If you’re wondering about the whole question of whether having\u00a0anyone<\/em> wander around as Phoenix is incredibly dangerous, that’s already been covered in\u00a0Avengers<\/em> in a storyline where Wolverine appeared.<\/p>\n

Resurrection.<\/strong> The protestors are reacting to the news that mutants have developed a resurrection technology and aren’t sharing it with the rest of the world – as revealed to the public by Cyclops in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #12. Cyclops seems to indicate here that the technology would<\/i>\u00a0work for ordinary humans, but the scale of the human population makes that unworkable. (Emma also seemed to think it could be made available to elite humans in\u00a0Immortal<\/em> #4, and this would fit with the Scarlet Witch having Cerebro backups.)<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong>\u00a0Mystique, Nightcrawler and Destiny.<\/em><\/p>\n

Population 200,000.<\/strong> I think that figure comes originally from\u00a0X-Men \/ Fantastic Four<\/em> #2 (so apparently the Five haven’t made much headway on the backlog since that issue came out over a year ago). That’s slightly bigger than Aberdeen, if you’re wondering.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong> The cast of X-Men Red.<\/em><\/p>\n

Population 1,000,000.<\/strong>\u00a0In\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #16 (2020), Cypher said there were “about twenty times as many mutants on Arakko as there are here”, but okay – this seems a bit more workable as a balance. Either Cypher was wrong or the Arakkii have whittled their numbers down in their periodic bouts of gladiatorial enthusiasm. At any rate, it seems that in population terms, Arakko is roughly equivalent to Birmingham.<\/p>\n

Olympians and<\/strong> Titans.\u00a0<\/strong>Mythologically, the Olympian Gods replace the Titans. The original concept for the Eternals presents them as the true figures who were mistaken for gods in Earth’s past, hence their home being Olympia. Their opposite numbers, the Deviants, were supposed to be the “real” demons. This doesn’t fit very neatly in the Marvel Universe, but it’s by no means obvious that Jack Kirby\u00a0intended<\/em> the Eternals to be part of the Marvel Universe. At any rate, while Magneto is notionally citing Greek mythology, he’s effectively saying that the mutants have superseded the Eternals as the “new gods”.<\/p>\n

This also dovetails somewhat with events in\u00a0Eternals<\/em>, which has established that the actual function of the Eternals was to keep the Deviants in check while the Deviants served the more important function of stabilising the “necrofluids” (from the early issues of Aaron’s\u00a0Avengers<\/em>) that enabled humans to develop superpowers. Since humans\u00a0have<\/em> developed superpowers, the Deviants and the Eternals have both completed their purpose, but the Eternals are locked into acting it out forever anyway. So they’re literally old gods whose time has passed.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-13.<\/strong>\u00a0The Avengers interrogate Sersi.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Last month, you Eternals snuck into Avengers Mountain…”<\/strong>\u00a0Iron Man is summarising\u00a0Eternals<\/em> #10-12.<\/p>\n

“Sersi was an<\/strong> Avenger.”\u00a0<\/strong>Sersi was a member of the Avengers for a decently long stretch, between 1990 and 1994.<\/p>\n

Druig<\/strong>.\u00a0Eternals<\/i> #12 ends with Thanos being defeated and the scheming Druig taking his place as Prime Eternal.<\/p>\n

“A society my friends and I have left.”<\/strong> Sersi was one of a group of Eternals (including Ikaris, Thena, Kingo, Phastos and Sprite) who left the main Eternals society in\u00a0Eternals<\/em> #6 after learning that a human dies every time one of them is resurrected. Their aim is basically to find a way of breaking out of their programmed role.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.<\/strong>\u00a0Druig addresses the Eternals.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Correct excess deviation.”<\/strong> Like Krakoa, the Eternals have three central rules. “Correct excess deviation” was identified as the third principle in Eternals<\/em> #1 (of the current run).\u00a0A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment<\/i> gives the first two as (1) protect Celestials, and (2) protect the machine, though they may have been mentioned earlier. The Eternals are compelled to obey these rules, but\u00a0Eve of Judgment<\/em> notes that there is “significant room for interpretation”. In interviews, Kieron Gillen has cited Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics as an inspiration here; Asimov wrote a lot of short stories based on his apparently simple three laws for AIs, and how they can lead to logical contradictions or be reasoned around.<\/p>\n

“Correct excess deviation”, specifically, is\u00a0mainly<\/em> directed at dealing with Deviants who have gone out of control. Druig is rationalising that the mutants can be brought within this rule on the view that all superpowers are ultimately derived from the Deviants, and the mutants have gone too far. Of course, the whole\u00a0point<\/em> of the Deviants (per\u00a0Eternals<\/em> #12) was to create superhumans on Earth, so this is not what you’d call a purposive interpretation of the rules – but it’s one that’s open to Druig.<\/p>\n

PAGE 15.<\/strong>\u00a0Druig agrees to release Uranos.<\/em><\/p>\n

Uranos<\/strong>\u00a0is a long-imprisoned Eternal whose back story is covered in the recent\u00a0Eternals: The Heretic<\/em> one-shot. Basically, he winds up concluding that the best way to protect the Earth is to wipe out all the people on it.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-17.<\/strong> Druig and Moira.<\/em><\/p>\n

This picks up from Moira meeting with Druig at the end of\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

The Damocles Foundation\u00a0<\/strong>is basically Druig’s corporate front for our purposes. It originated in John Francis Moore’s\u00a0X-Force<\/em> run, where it was an alliance of Eternals, Deviants and humans trying to put their differences aside and create a new race of superhumans.<\/p>\n

“Thanos met Uranos when he was on Earth.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Eternals: The Heretic<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“Destiny told Mystique that if the mutants refused too bring her back from the dead, Mystique should burn it all down.”<\/strong> First shown in a flashback in Hickman’s\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #6. Moira insisted throughout the Hickman run that Destiny must absolutely not be resurrected. She seems to be giving Druig the impression that she turned on Krakoa when Destiny was resurrected against her will, although of course she was actually driven out.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-20.<\/strong>\u00a0The Eternals attack Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n

Egg. <\/strong>The member of the Five who creates the vital eggs that are used to incubate new bodies for the purposes of resurrection. In the cutaway at the start of page 17, Wolverine refers to him as “Goldballs”, which was his codename when he was a comic relief character in the Brian Bendis run.<\/p>\n

“The Eternals. They hold no grudge that we know of.”\u00a0<\/strong>“All the foreshadowing for this story was in\u00a0their<\/em> book!”<\/p>\n

The Uni-Mind<\/strong> is a psychic collective intelligence formed by Eternals merging together, first seen in\u00a0Eternals<\/em> #12 (1977).<\/p>\n

Druig’s plan is for the Uni-Mind to distract the Quiet Council so that the Krakoans will be leaderless. This doesn’t even remotely work because the X-Men show up to lead the resistance. Part of the point here may be that the Quiet Council isn’t actually all that important to leading Krakoa in a crisis at all – and Druig is misreading where the real leadership lies. (Or potentially lies.) However, Druig also has better ideas.<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.<\/strong>\u00a0Something happens on Arakko.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Uranos attacking Arakko, as we learn later on.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-24.<\/strong>\u00a0The Eternals try to kill the Five.<\/em><\/p>\n

Druig has figured out that killing the Five should do the job because they’re apparently irreplaceable. This is, obviously, the single point of failure in the whole scheme (and begs the question of what happens when one of the Five dies of old age, incidentally).<\/p>\n

The guy fighting Wolverine is\u00a0Jack of Knives<\/strong>, a mercenary Eternal.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong>\u00a0Egg and Cable are resurrected.<\/em><\/p>\n

Luckily for Krakoa, the only member of the Five to die was Egg, who’s already completed his contribution when he makes the eggs. So, as long as he’s got some eggs in reserve, he can be resurrected by the other four.<\/p>\n

We’ve also been told that the Five routinely make new bodies for Proteus (since he burns through them so quickly), but it’s not clear that this is actually part of the resurrection process. Generally, we’ve been given the impression that the others are not substitutable – though it’s not entirely obvious why Tempo or Jamie Braddock couldn’t be subbed in to replace Tempus or Proteus in a push.<\/p>\n

PAGES 26-27.<\/strong>\u00a0Uranos returns to his cell.<\/em><\/p>\n

Page 26 certainly seems to suggest that Uranos has killed at least Magneto (whose helmet is lying broken in the wreckage) and Abigail Brand (whose glasses are in the foreground). Resurrecting Magneto and Storm would be an issue, because in\u00a0X-Men Red<\/em> #4 they both agreed to surrender their immortality in order to conform to Arakkii norms.<\/p>\n

PAGES 28-30.<\/strong>\u00a0Druig addresses the public.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I could use telepathy, but we consider that intrusive and crass.”<\/strong> Druig is alluding to Professor X’s worldwide telepathic announcement of the founding of Krakoa in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1. He’s also sucking up to the quality of humans’ mobile phones, which are not remotely impressive technology as far as he’s concerned.<\/p>\n

The Hex<\/strong> have been mentioned from time to time in Gillen’s\u00a0Eternals<\/em>, but this is the first time we’ve actually seen them.<\/p>\n

PAGES 31-33.<\/strong> Ajak and Makkari arrive at Avengers Mountain.<\/em><\/p>\n

In\u00a0Eternals<\/em> #12, Ajak learned the truth about the Eternals and Deviants’ functions, and essentially concluded that the Celestial religion she had been worshipping for a million years was merely part of her programming to keep her in line. Her plan is apparently to use the dead Celestial which currently forms the Avengers’ headquarters to alter the Eternals’ Celestial programming. That would allow her to end the war but, though she doesn’t say it, it would also presumably achieve her more pressing aim of allowing the Eternals to escape their programming and take control of their own destiny.<\/p>\n

PAGES 34-35.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #1 Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Valerio Schiti Colourist: Marte Gracia Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Tom Brevoort COVER \/ PAGE 1:\u00a0Well, that’s the X-Men on the left, the Avengers in the middle and the Eternals on the right. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8093,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8091\/revisions\/8093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}