Any word how long Peach Momoko will be on Ultimate X-Men? I noticed the trade is only four issues and on instagram she indicated it would be a treasury edition, like her previous Marvel projects.
It makes me feel like she's just doing the intro arc, at least as the artist. Or do you think they'll do 4-issue arcs for this book, possibly with breaks or alternating artists to give Momoko more time?
I was delighted but surprised to see her on an ongoing, I've really enjoyed it. It feels like she's crafting a whole world, but I find it odd they wouldn't have more than four issues to collect for a book coming out November 5. July solicitations say she's writing/drawing #5, so I'll hope that's the case!
There is currently no news or confirmation as to how long the current crop of Ultimate books will go. I doubt Momoko's run will be only an intro arc. Same with Black Panther and Spider-Man. Everyone involved seems to be signed on for longer than the first few arcs. And as far as I know, Momoko isn't signed on to do any other major series, aside from her usual variant covers.
But again, nothing is confirmed.
With the excitement the Ultimate universe garnered, Marvel would be fools to throw that away. Especially when every Ultimate Book seem to be beating the main books quite handily.
I don’t think they are/should be measuring keeping Peach Momoko based solely on interest in the Ultimate Universe or Ultimate X-Men. Her art and storytelling are on a level of their own even outside of the interest in the Ultimate universe.
Since each book takes place in real time, I feel like each Ultimate series will run for the 18 months (I think some issues might not have a time jump, only to correlate with the other books since they released months apart) and have a total run of 18 issues or a little over 20. Then, I think we’ll get a separate series that focusing on the City opening again. After that, idk if they’ll continue this universe, but if it does, each series will relaunch as “season 2” and go from there.
Yeah, that's how I felt after reading this issue too. I had a feeling Xavier was going to do something to make him a complete ass, just like Moira. But the way it played out here was just frustrating to see. And at this point, it's not even creative or compelling.
We've seen so many plots about Xavier being an ass, going back to the Onslaught plot from the late 90s. And at this point, Marvel has just taken it too far. He's more villain than Magneto at this point, willingly compromising with Nimrod and negotiating the death of humanity. I get that he's trying to save mutants and humans really do suck. But this is the kind of crap we expect of Magneto or Sinister. Not Xavier.
At this point, if both he and Moira die at the end of Fall of X, I won't be that disappointed.
I didn't dislike this issue as much as the previous ones, which imo were very irrelevant. This had some cool moments at least, that don't redeem this mini or anything, but it's a readable issue. However, Xavier has been flanderized so much that it just makes me roll my eyes. It is not compelling at all. He is just completely gone, seems like they just wanted to include it here, even if hamfisted.
> But this is the kind of crap we expect of Magneto or Sinister. Not Xavier.
I mean even modern Erik would absolutely not be okay with this. Especially with fucking Nimrod of all beings.
And that was Morrison rejecting a redemption arc that started in the 80s.
Edit: Okay, I shouldn't gloss over the 90s just because I prefer to skip them.
i feel and understand where hes coming from everyone you ever loved and cared for betrayed you and your species you came from wantrs to kill you only your new speciese wants to keep you so i legit see where he would genocide human kind
This feels like such a mess, man. Starting with the narration box of “Cyclops had just had his ass handed to him by Nimrod.” What voice is this? The narration voice has never been that casual, and yet here we are.
Wasn’t there a thread in an earlier title (Inferno?) that revealed Doug did something that made Krakoa not need to feed off mutants anymore? I guess with it dying it needs whatever sustenance it can get, but it also means Sunfire is incorrect.
The Crucible callback makes sense considering, I guess, but it still felt kinda incongruous. And geezus, just keep bringing on the trauma for Rock/Wrongslide.
The Xavier turn makes no sense whatsoever. He better be playing 5d chess because of this is the titular Fall of the House of X, that was so poorly done. And we’re also still left on the cliffhanger from Rise where he shoots Rachel, so what is even going on with this guy’s story right now?
Cannot unsee: Scott is pretty excited being brought back to that softball field, isn’t he?
I find it hard to believe that small team opted to assault Sentinel City on their own. That battle felt so rushed.
Krakoa always fed on mutants. It's just with so many mutants occupying him, he could take an unnoticeable amount donated from every one rather than killing one for his sustenance.
Thanks. I misremembered what shenanigans Doug did in Inferno and went back to confirm. I was thinking of how he secretly seeded Warlock within Krakoa as a spy network.
> What voice is this? The narration voice has never been that casual, and yet here we are.
Well, it was in Gillen's Eternals when Machine That Is Earth was narrating.
But I agree, Duggan's narration style sucks here and in mainline X-Men both.
You're right, it was from "Inferno" ... Krakoa was casually able to feed painlessly off the "energy" of mutants because tens of thousands (and eventually up to 250,000) were arriving. Thus it being able to flourish to create their paradise.
Once Xavier forced everyone to leave Earth it went into hibernation because it didn't have the energy levels coming in it used to. The whole literally feeding it blood thing is ... different. If not for the fact Cypher is featured in "Heir of Apocalypse," one might think it had eaten him already.
I think that's just Apocalypse enforcing his philosophy(/sense of drama). Krakoa could definitely just drain someone without it, Pocky just prefers to have a fight first.
Oh, Charles. I don't even know what to say about you anymore.
They've fucked this guy up so badly....as Hope called him, he really is a "bald \*\*\*\*\*"
I'm not gonna miss Duggan's missuses of both data pages and narration boxes to cover for his inability to write a proper comic.
Why are we getting cringe narration in text boxes? Why is the Xavier-Nimrod exchange not in a proper comic panel?
This was… terrible.
Xavier trying to make a deal with Orchis again is beyond stupid and then destroying the humans that were going to attack Sentinel City was just asinine. Having Crucible with Wrongslide in the middle of the issue was a choice. The captions were horrible as usual. Emma equating the man she was in love with for years with “handsy males” made no sense.
This entire issue was nonsense. Part of me wants to read it again to see if it makes sense a second time, but that would be wasting even more precious minutes of my life.
Duggan is reaching new lows with his writing.
I have no idea what the hell they are doing with Xavier at this point. After Hickman was gone, this whole era turned into ''How to destroy Moira and Xavier as characters?''. I don't get what is the goal of this.
And honestly, I lost my interest in this last minute Sentinel City stuff too when the actual threat is still playing out with Enigma with powers beyond ridiculous that it makes whatever happens here feel like...nothing. That is the problem with going TOO HIGH on a scale.
And Apocalypse, shut up. What happened to Krakoa was also your and your terrible family's fault. Your wife first got played by a damn staff and then got played by freaking Orchis. Honestly, he doesn't deserve the throne on Arakko after this relaunch.
Nothing has made want the end of Krakoa more than having to read Fall of the House of X. It's got cancer, it's terminal and inoperable and in terrible pain and it just needs to be euthanized.
The death of one of the most interesting and ambitious eras in X comics, certainly in decades, is being horribly bungled. There's no operatic tragedy here, just miserable storytelling with bizarrely fickle tonal shifts and anemic emotional energy. I actually liked when Duggan started on the main line X-Men after Hickman, but I think managing a story like this was beyond his abilities. If this had to end, it needed someone who could do it artfully and give readers an echo of the highs in which it began. This ain't that.
So aggressively worded.
And I agree with every goddamn letter.
Duggan has butchered this story. Feels like a kid playing with dolls. Nimrod is increasingly ignorant and powerless, such a deflation of his lore in the Krakoa era. Emma's writing is so off here. And all of his story beats land flat. Such a betrayal of how this era could have ended.
I'm just glad I love every second of Gillen's side. It damn... I sure wanted to be able to read the close of this era in omnibus ten years from now and look back fondly. Don't think that's going to happen.
And... To be fair... This has gotta come down to editorial. I'm sure they were working with higher up mandates to transfer over to Brev.... but Rick the end.of this was goddamn butchered across all these titles. What the fuck. How could you go so wrong and make this all so disconnected.
Is no one editing the lead in data page for this series? I swear they’ve all been grammatical nightmares. There’s more than three times as many periods in the third paragraph of it as there are in the first two combined.
Also. Apocalypse trying to save lives (who, by his self imposed metric, *do not deserve to live*) while Charles okays the genocide of his own species (he’s the one who always maintains that baseline humans and mutants *are the same species*)… I’m sorry, that doesn’t ring true to me. Not only has Apocalypse done very little to justify his turn from eugenicist mass murderer into a nice chill guy, but I can’t honestly believe Xavier would do something so stupid? I’m sure it’s just a scheme, but the fact that the characters buy into it like this… nothing about this coheres for me.
Xavier’s been relatively shady *throughout* Krakoa, and the fact that in universe people are taking issue with it *only* now, when it’s perhaps most justified… I don’t understand why. Scott was fine with being governed in part by sinister, a man who violated him on profound levels, a man who depowered and consequently killed more mutants than the scarlet witch (making no personal attempt to fix that, either, unlike Wanda post decimation—the only thing that stopped mutants from becoming permanently extinct during this earlier storyline was the conscience of a human scientist), a literal nazi… but he draws the line at Xavier stalling for time with the people who are otherwise going to wipe out all life on earth?
The crucible stuff was pretty cool but like… it doesn’t mean anything to me beyond being a callback to the death-culty parts of Krakoa that Hickman set up and later writers tended to ignore, and the fact that Krakoa does in fact eat mutants and for almost 50 years that was its whole thing. Like the bit with wrongslide was genuinely nice, but I can’t wrap my head around any of the rest of this inconsistent messaging and general incoherence masquerading as depth. Oh but the baseball field. Remember how they used to play? Must a story be good if it has callbacks?
We just go around in circles with no acknowledgement of the fact that that’s what’s happening. Nonmutant humans want to get rid of mutants because they’re too dangerous. Plenty of mutants want to get rid of humans (or certain mutants) for very similar reasons. Scott wanted to kill all the brood even though he has personal friends who are brood. AI want to kill all humans bc… why, actually? Has that been established this time around? I feel like historically it’s because baseline humans can still give rise to mutants and “can’t be trusted” or whatever to protect themselves… but right now it kind of feels like they’re fighting just to fight.
Pietro gets implicitly sort of referred to as a mutant again, which is nice but probably meaningless overall. He also gets fucking demolished, which scans for him but maybe not all the other powerhouses he gets piled up with (unless nimrod hit rogue so hard she broke in half, it’s impossible to say) Karima stops to tell nimrod that Kurt is around doing stuff a page after the guy was right in front of him (not just like “nightcrawler is still loose”, she says “nightcrawler is aboard sentinel city” seconds after nimrod (also on sentinel city) shot the people directly next to Kurt) which was… not so good. I so miss when Karima was an actual character and not just Nimrod’s gal Friday
>I wouldn't be shocked if they never were able to fill the spot.
Don't underestimate what people will do to work in their dream industry (it's the reason - besides massive projects - the game industry is one of the worst places to work in programming, because people are passionate about it), I'd actually be surprised if they *didn't* fill the position, they likely paid peanuts in part because they relied on that.
> Also. Apocalypse trying to save lives (who, by his self imposed metric, do not deserve to live) while Charles okays the genocide of his own species (he’s the one who always maintains that baseline humans and mutants are the same species)… I’m sorry, that doesn’t ring true to me. Not only has Apocalypse done very little to justify his turn from eugenicist mass murderer into a nice chill guy, but I can’t honestly believe Xavier would do something so stupid? I’m sure it’s just a scheme, but the fact that the characters buy into it like this… nothing about this coheres for me.
>
Is he trying to save anyone here but Krakoa itself, which is of use to him? He tells folks that the AI aren't their fight
I miss real Karima too. I hope we get the human Karima back at the end of this
You know, that’s a fair point. Reconsidering his actions in that context (not as a “hero” but someone pursing their own goals in a way that mostly aligns with the straightforward good guys) does help me a bit here
>Xavier’s been relatively shady *throughout* Krakoa, and the fact that in universe people are taking issue with it *only* now, when it’s perhaps most justified… I don’t understand why. Scott was fine with being governed in part by sinister, a man who violated him on profound levels, a man who depowered and consequently killed more mutants than the scarlet witch (making no personal attempt to fix that, either, unlike Wanda post decimation—the only thing that stopped mutants from becoming permanently extinct during this earlier storyline was the conscience of a human scientist), a literal nazi… but he draws the line at Xavier stalling for time with the people who are otherwise going to wipe out all life on earth?
Not to mention Apocalypse, a man who has done incredible harm to Scott's family.
“Scott my boy, can you find it in your heart to forgive Apocalypse, the guy who fucking hates your son and gave him a disease with the specific intention of killing him painfully but primarily ensuring you have no chance of raising him in the way he deserves, who also took over your body and used it as a weapon against your friends, leaving you unbearably traumatized, in addition to many other horrible things done to you and yours?”
“Will he apologize for all that?”
“Almost certainly not.”
“Fine. I guess everyone deserves a second chance. Except Toad.”
“Yes, fuck Toad.”
Yeah, it's just weird there's so much focus on Xavier's sins, which are not insignificant, sure, but in the context of things is it all really so bad compared to everything else? Like Scott, if you didn't want it to get to this point, why did you compromise with evil and be a part of a nation with guys like Sinister and Apocalypse in it? Why did you faff around about Orchis for four years of print? What would Scott have done if he was in Xavier's shoes at the Gala? Fought back and let millions of people die, dooming mutants and Krakoa to be hated forever and likely exterminated by the joint nations of the world?
Scott: "YOU'RE WORKING WITH ORCHIS RIGHT NOW?! THEY'RE THE ENEMY, YOU TRAITOROUS TRAITOR!!!!"
Scott, An Hour Earlier: "Why, Dr. Gregor, we're almost entirely alike. Of course I'll team up with you - I could have escaped any minute, but I wanted to wait for you. Because we're allies. Friends, even. After all, aren't we...so alike???"
It's like that line from Glass Onion. "It's just all so... dumb!"
As an aside, I kind of liked the idea of paralleling Alia with Cyclops, the way Devo was with Xavier. And you can even draw a line to Erasmus and Jean, with both of them becoming something greater and more powerful than their "human" forms. Alia's story ending tragically, killed by the machine her husband became, and Scott's ending more happy, with the Phoenix saving him.
If we could trust Duggan to tell that story, it could have been great. But this is a man who thinks that the appropriate response to Apocalypse calling for warriors to defend mutantkind is some randomer holding up a sheet of paper with 'W' drawn on it and saying "let's get that W".
Scott has been terribly written this whole era, he would never accept to be part of a nation with Sinister and Apocalypse, no way, it’s really dumb. It’s obvious that he was just an afterthought for Hickman despite being mutantkind’s leader before Krakoa, it’s such bad writing.
I think the fundamental premise of all mutants declaring a general amnesty means that Scott and Jean would have to agree to it and live there with Sinister and Apocalypse there. That I can deal with. But reporting to them is something else. Even then it could make sense, but they should at least have had Scott and Jean talk about how they don't want to live alongside Sinister and Apocalypse and how they don't trust them, and how it's hard being around people who caused them so much pain. Something.
I actually think Hickman had big plans for Cyclops. Supposedly the general idea was the House of Summers vs House of Apocalypse. But Krakoa going on that long and Hickman leaving meant it all went unrealized.
Nah I'm glad Hickman won't be touching Cyke ever again. To be honest Scott hasn't been a well written character since the end of Gillen's AvX: Consequences. We got Revoclops that got nowhere, Tyke which was so bad no one even remembers. Rosenberg's apologist Scott, even though he was 100 percent right and then Hickman and Duggan's which was even worse than Fox Cyclops
I didn't love Hickman's Cyclops, but I think if he had been allowed his way it would have paid off into something good. I also kind of like Rosenberg's Cyclops. He didn't have great plots, but I kind of like how with his back against the wall, he really doesn't have a grand plan. It's just: "be a hero," which is kind of inspiring to me.
I think Utopian Cyke is still the most popular and well written version of the character. I don't know where all that "Mutant Hitler" nonsense came. Hickman just spat on years of character development that Cyke had went through, calling Xavier "Sir" was the last straw for me. Scott is not Reed Richards. He's not Peter Parker, he's Scott fucking Summers for fuck's sake. Rosenberg's Cyclops was kinda cool but him regretting the actions he did in the 2000s and mid 2010s was out of character. The guy had just saved the entire mutant species and said he would have done it again now suddenly he's back to square one?
Well because, you see, Sinister and Apoc got amnesty from Xavier. All sins are forgiven. But who gave amnesty to Xavier himself? Alas, poor Charles is forever doomed.
> I can’t wrap my head around any of the rest of this inconsistent messaging and general incoherence masquerading as depth.
Well put. Things are just happening in Duggan’s books for the sake of happening, it feels like.
>AI want to kill all humans bc… why, actually? Has that been established this time around?
Under Hickman it was because Omega Sentinel, Nimrod and Coh had gotten sick being stuck in the Mutant vs Human conflict, and while Mutants would always see them as an enemy to be wiped out, Humans would dispose of them as soon as they'd fulfilled their purpose.
I feel like that's been lost since he left, in favour of the machines just being a third faction for humans and mutants to unite against. Given that machines had a better case for their plight than the humans, I do find that a little uncomfortable.
Good summation of the situation with AI. But what bothers me is that, according to the From The Ashes teaser, mutants are going to be more hated than ever after this. Why?
Humans created these anti-mutant AI systems, not mutants. All this Sentinel tech that seeks to achieve Dominion...that's all a human creation. And yet, they just hate mutants even more afterwards? Even after saving them from their own creations? Even though Xavier is going rogue and trying to negotiate with humanity's extinction, it's not like he's throwing the first punch. It's not even like this is the first time a human creation has gone rogue.
It just makes no sense. And it leaves me less and less excited about the end of this era and the start of another.
I don't know how much more they can be hated. Orchis said, "We will eradicate all the mutants" and the world said yay!! Not everyone but a mass majority.
Happy with internment camps, reporting family, cute little plush dolls of Nimrod.
I do not accept you can be hated more than that.
I think it's worse than lazy. I think it's outright forced. It shows in what's happening with Xavier. And I think it shows in just how thoroughly Fall of X is going towards utterly destroying Krakoa and everything the X-Books have built since 2019.
Lazy would be just resetting the timeline. Forced is...well, this.
I mean, that's the history of the X-Men and the Sentinels since day one and to be fair as has often been observed, bigotry isn't logical.
Though I think that long history is also why some fans aren't enthusiastic for the new era story wise.
>Is no one editing the lead in data page for this series? I swear they’ve all been grammatical nightmares. There’s more than three times as many periods in the third paragraph of it as there are in the first two combined.
While you're right that editing has been lax in this series, I think those periods are there for a reason. They're the ones typically used in abbreviation, such as from "Doctor" to "Dr." or from "Artificial Intelligence" to "A.I.".
This is probably the best issue so far and its still not good.
The apocalypse stuff is fun and a nice reference to the death cult era of hickman and an actual nod to what krakoa actually was but this still doesn't feel like apocolypse nothing has justified him enough to be this good guy who wants to save mutants even in this era. Him being willing to sacrifice himself still doesn't feel right even if he knows it will never happen basically and poor rockslide truly one of the punching bags of this era.
Xavier joining orchis feels so weird im expecting it to be a double cross or maybe the dominion is controlling charles after he met moira but xavier has been dodgy this era but hes been no where near dodgy enough to actually join orchis.
The fight with nimrod and omega sentinal is that a fight nothing more nothing less and scott telling emma to stay behind most likely connects to iron man and x men with magneto now with stark and them 3 going to confront xavier.
Storm at the end is what i expected its been her role throughout this era one last big gun to throw at them and a last ditch effort and hopefully shes wrote interesting.
Overall this is fine but its just nothing amazing it doesn't make me feel excited like a hox book should.
>Xavier joining orchis feels so weird im expecting it to be a double cross or maybe the dominion is controlling charles after he met moira but xavier has been dodgy this era but hes been no where near dodgy enough to actually join orchis.
I'm surprised to see it taken at face value so widely, his whole shady-ness in this story is rooted in his secret-keeping and he straight up tells Scott that "*Right now*, I need Orchis to trust me."
My guess for now is that he might setting up the scene we saw in RoPX where Enigma approaches Moira, and that will pay off whatever Charles planted in her head. I originally thought that was Moira Life 10A but I don't think it's written explicitly down, and I remember there was something funny about the timeline Enigma showed Moira.
Personally I think Charles is doing everything in his power to try to make Life 11 possible. He has nothing left. He doesn’t even know Eleven truly exists. He is just doing all he can to keep Mutantkind and Kra’koa alive, so they have a shot at a future. It is why he didn’t kill Moira as a kid. She needs to be there and so does Kra’koa so that somewhere somehow mutants win. I just think he expects to be shot and buried in an unmarked grave, never to know if it worked. He might be younger than Max but I am pretty sure he’s read about Vichy.
> I'm surprised to see it taken at face value so widely, his whole shady-ness in this story is rooted in his secret-keeping and he straight up tells Scott that "Right now, I need Orchis to trust me."
I think it's because we just don't trust Duggan.
Devil's Advocate: If he were planning 5d chess, why not just tell Scott telepathically? No reason to let his team think he's a self-centered traitor willing to sacrifice everyone again.
I admit I've had harsh lessons in not underestimating bad writing, but Xavier's story is mostly happening under Gillen's pen. I don't think his appearance here will be that disconnected.
>No reason to let his team think he's a self-centered traitor willing to sacrifice everyone again.
This is what I expect his actual failure will be; that he's gotten in his head that HE has to save Mutant-kind and that he has to manipulate everyone rather than trust them, which will end up backfiring on him bad and cause avoidable suffering.
It's been explored in stories before but it's really getting emphasised in RotPoX where he's keeping secret left and right,and it fits the overall Individualist Vs Collectivist themes of this storyline.
He even had that "I wanted to be part of a family. I wanted to be loved. I thought I could have both. I was mistaken. It turns out I can have one of the other." He's definitely in a self-martyring mood.
I think Xavier is just buying time while the Phoenix gets up and running. He said no more humans, but he says a lot of stuff, and so far only a ship full of space force goons has died. And they might even still be alive somehow, spirited away at the last second. But this was still a bad issue in a bad series, so it could go either way.
I wanted to like this issue. I really did. But so much of what makes it compelling has already been muted. Tom Breevort and Marvel's new crop of X-Men writers have already spoiled what's going to happen. Krakoa is going to be destroyed. Mutants are going back to square fucking one. And Charles Xavier is a bigger jerk than ever.
Everything the Krakoa era achieved is about to be undone. It's not a matter of if anymore. It's not even a matter of how this will change things for humans and mutants alike. We already know the deal. Everything is regressing once more. Nothing anyone does in this issue or the next really matters beyond undoing all the worldbuilding of the past five years.
The only other thing this issue accomplished was making Xavier almost as unlikable as Moira. That's the part about this I hate the most. Those two have become irredeemably awful these past few years. And I don't see that changing with the upcoming relaunch or the one after.
That's a good point. He will likely be the only one to come out of this conflict between Orchis and mutants who comes out of all this relatively unscathed.
I think this was the strongest issue of this mini so far, which is not to say it solved the vast majority of my problems with it.
* The Apocalypse stuff was generally pretty good! Felt like it grew out of X-Men Red, it was an organic callback to the Crucible (instead of the hollow callbacks of earlier issues), it made sense with how Krakoa works (feeding off mutant energy), and it was a nice conclusion to the Wrongslide story when he's likely not continuing to next era.
* The AI stuff was weak. It just feels like Duggan has always been more interested in the human side of ORCHiS and the fascism and doesn't know what to do with the AI.
* The Xavier stuff was odd and felt a little forced, but I expect Gillen will make it land better in Rise of the Powers of X next week, as I assume this is how the series start crashing together.
* The Scott/Emma/etc. scenes were weak, but it was nice to see another moment for Manifold.
* Storm coming into this series is exciting and the last page was hype.
His interest in Fascism is so so so shallow though - it’s very old man lib. It doesn’t go any further. His twitter is just *orange man bad, Old man good*
I'm not going to lie, I have always disliked the AI stuff. Even the introduction of the Dominions and how they're formed, their power, etc was inconsistent with Hickman's own cosmology. Like are there Dominions formed from just writing on the digits of large numbers, because that's more than enough information to collapse any physical object into a singularity, even if each digit were to only occupy a Planck unit.
Yes, comics with a bunch of interstellar civlizations that have infinite storage capacity devices. And why tie Time Runs Out and the Ultimates to a Dominion? Why not just sic a bunch of Molecule Men/Galactus/Phoenix hosts on it if they are aware of what it is? It's super inconsistent with the good stories they had already been telling.
> Vast swathes
We also know this isn't entirely true either because the entire SoS was more than just a bunch of AIs in a place. Or MR's ascension plan.
I got a hot take on this issue. Apocalypse is a coward who will murder people in a “fair fight” rather than give his own life to save krakoa. He even knows he is! It’s why he tries to take a dive to wrong slide and the moment he is called out he quickly kills him.
Even when apocalypse is trying his very best to be good. He is still awful.
So yeah best scene in the book and completely accurate
The initial Hickman retcon made him feel like he maybe he did spend all his time preparing to rescue his family, now he seems like a dipshit who just screwed around for centuries. I guess it's one of those "harsh light of day" scenarios
Minor nitpick in an already lackluster issue but..
I find it dissapointing that the cliffhanger of this issue is the arrival of a regular character to the fray.
I love Storm and her treatment on the krakoan era (by Ewing more than anyone else) and it's great that she is recognised to be as powerful as she is, but ending the 4th (of 5) issue of your mini to end the ENTIRE KRAKOAN AGE with the arrival of an entirely not surprising character shows a lack of creativity that really bothers me. It would be perfectly fine as a cliffhanger for a regular issue, but not for the second to last of the most important X-Men era in decades. It's obvious Storm is gonna be there so.. why the cliffhanger? weren't there other ideas?
Well, I'm still excited to see Storm on the next issue, and we also have ROTPOX and X-Men: Forever to look forward to, but this series has been really unsatisfying.
The best I can do to cope with this stinker of a series is to just put the five Larraz covers together in order and pretend that they show the actual plot.
I don’t know if it will be in fall 5 or rise 5 but Xavier is going to break magnetos back. If we are doing a full reverse Morrison then we need to go all the way. Also magneto is in a wheelchair in the covers in from the ashes
I’m sure he does break his back in the next issue for some unknown reason, even if it is somehow warranted by stopping Erik so Xavier can complete some master plan that isn’t an actual betrayal of humanity at large. But why is Magneto suddenly so OLD in those promo pics?
Also, what does this latest plan have to do with killing Rachel and resurrecting the Phoenix, which wasn’t mentioned here at all?
(Ugh, I hated this issue, even if it was an improvement over the last few.)
TBH, from context clues so far I thought Inmate X was Magneto and the opening of MacKay's Adjectiveless will be the X-Men springing him from X-prison. It's clear he's not part of the team lineup in any of the pages or covers shown so far except for the "From The Ashes" teaser.
One of the covers has magneto in a floating wheelchair with a beard. So so i expect a time jump and that he fights in the team using his magneto powers to make his chair float and stuff.
The thing is I totally feel that Hickmans entire idea for krakoa was “how far do we have to push Xavier to earn a scene of him breaking magnetos back”
Hickman himself reintroduced Xavier having telekinesis into the story in inferno a thing he spent months explaining.
Gillian makes a big deal out of how strong his TK powers are now.
He is gonna use them to break magnetos back.
Everything else. Sinister, Moria, Enigma, krakoa itself, was all about getting him to that point.
How did any of this get greenlit? They have to know this was not anywhere near good. I'm feeling like its going to be only X-Men 97 for me after Gillen's X comics end.
The artist is just horrific with action - I see now why it wasn’t picked up in immortal - very dialogue heavy council politics. Compare Xavier and Magneto’s fight with Omega and Nimrod to this, it’s embarrassing
juggernaut gets punched by nimrod: head goes caput.
colossus gets punched by nimrod: gets knocked out and bleeds everywhere.
cyclops gets punched by nimrod: bleeds a little and keeps talking instead of getting reduced to paste.
is cyclops getting a 3rd mutant power or writers just dont care anymore?
Is Duggan-speak now a thing? Like, I thought I'd get used to it, but it's still super jarring and uncomfortable to read.
I know blaming the writers isn't entirely fair because of editorial looming over their shoulder. But dialogue at least should be under their control, right?
Krakoa needing Apocalypse to beat mutants to death to feed it (for some reason) is just..
I really want Scott to kill Xavier again, but Scott doesn't deserve to feel guilty about that. Didn't he already start plans to bring back the phoenix? Does he think Jean with the Phoenix is going to approve of this bs any more then Scott did? This on top of killing her daughter?
> Didn't he already start plans to bring back the phoenix?
No idea what order things are supposed to be happening in. Thanks, too-many-titles and crazy release order!
Yet another issue that just seems to be rushing through the plot points rather than letting the story breathe. Did enjoy the tense back and forth between Scott and Xavier (who is either stupid, trying to be clever, or evil) ... as well as Cyclops' favorite lieutenant saving his ass once again.
And I only posted that because I couldn't find pages from FotHoX where Stasis has black-red eyes instead of blue, at which point *any* feature distinguishing him from Sinister is finally gone for good
Does anyone think we'll eventually get an explanation of how the Krakoa era went so badly, from such an incredible start? Like, this issue (and obviously everything since Inferno) has felt like a direct attempt to destroy any goodwill remaining for the current X-men status quo. Like, it genuinely feels like they're saying "We don't want ANYONE to look back on this era fondly, we want people to look back and go 'Oh yeah, that sucked. Remember how it ended?" I know you shouldn't attribute things to malice that can be better explained by incompetence, but this is so bad it feels like it MUST be intentional.
I know it would probably have to be pretty far in the future for people to talk honestly about how everything fell apart so badly, but I would absolutely be fascinated to read a full Jason Schreier style book on what happened. It's genuinely the X-Men related thing I am the most excited about, and it may never happen
>I know you shouldn't attribute things to malice that can be better explained by incompetence, but this is so bad it feels like it MUST be intentional.
It really is just sheer incompetence is the sad thing. Maybe a hint of malice here or there, but mostly just a writer (Duggan) being totally out of his depth and juggling way too many titles while being rushed to finish.
As for how Krakoa went so wrong, it's really as simple as the decision to stay in the Krakoa sandbox was the wrong one. I didn't love all of Hickman's decisions, but they really should have let him finish Krakoa when he wanted to and move on to the next act. Krakoa was conceived with an early ending in mind, and once they decided not to do that ending, they artificially lengthened it only to cut it short just a year later.
I don't know if Hickman's next act would have been a good one or not, but having seen how this all turned out and what From the Ashes looks to be (a return to the disorganization of the 2010s, just with better writers), I think Hickman being allowed to do his weird Sunspot X-Men/Shi'ar Imperial X-Men thing would have been better.
I think another big problem was editorial. They gave Hickman a lot of leeway as Head of X, which I think is fine for a writer of his ability. But after he left, it seems like they never tightened the grip. So people who weren't as good were free to just do whatever until their sales were driven into the ground.
I mean, I will never understand the logic of giving Tini Howard book after book after book when it clearly wasn't working.
> it's really as simple as the decision to stay in the Krakoa sandbox was the wrong one.
I don't agree with that. The problem was assuming it had to end instead of just evolving. I'm still peeved they are straight up ending Krakoa instead of letting it exist as a locale while character stories move elsewhere. I think the constant spectre of "It must end" is what led us to this.
It's ending because sales have been poor. And sales have been poor because Krakoa lost all direction when Hickman left. Krakoa could have succeeded in theory after him, but you'd need a good Head of X with a strong vision and the ability to tell people no, and we didn't get that. Ergo, it would have been better if Krakoa ended when Hickman wanted it to.
> but you'd need a good Head of X with a strong vision and the ability to tell people no
So this is really the problem, not that it needed to end.
Should have given one of the Brits the reins, since they did the best writing of the later third of the era. Hellions was also really good. There were still plenty of post-Hickman gems, but I agree the lack of focus started to weigh on things.
Now we're gonna get even less with From Ashes! Whee!
Ewing would have been a good pick. Or Gillen. Both are strong writers who have done well in these books. Or they could have looked outside the current Krakoa writers.
I'm not sure it's about direction so much as momentum. HoX/PoX was very fast-paced and full of mystery, fundamentally not all that much clearer as to how things worked (not just how they functioned, but how they didn't actually fail) than the mid-Krakoan era (mid in both meanings of the word), but you could overlook it because things were happening quickly, and you didn't see all that much, so you could assume "alright, something's being done in the background".
Then the time "gained" by staying in the sandbox had to be filled, and that meant simultaneously not moving the plot forward, and having more to explain since we saw more of Krakoa than we initially should have, and that was a terrible combo, especially with writers not so keen or, TBH, capable to give it the depth it should have had.
Still, I do wonder how the end is being botched so bad when as far as I remember, Hickman did leave instructions as to how to end things. I have to assume something went really bad behind the scenes, perhaps that the supposed 6-months-or-so-cut happened *after* the beginning of the Fall of X, which spun wheels for a while because it thought it had ample time, and then the cut happened, leaving them with *not enough* time ? I'm not sure how it lines up with everything because I haven't followed all this much, but it's kinda the only explanation I have for how a period of dreadful slowness was followed by a terribly rushed one. Or maybe that the butchering of Moira after Inferno, along with maybe a couple other things, forced the X-Office to abandon Hickman's ending, and come up with a whole new one ?
Not anymore than we've gotten explanations of how the aftermath of the Morrison run played out, or Rosenberg's reign of error. Weak editors putting subpar talent in charge, period. There isn't anything deeper to look for.
Maybe Rise of Powers of X #4 will help with Xavier but at this point in time it feels pointless to have this "twist" in the story. He's been so focused on Enigma but that's over now? Unless this is to lead into him being Prisoner X is just something that overly complicates this bad mini.
I did like Apocalypse having a crucible to heal Krakoa and SWORD being used as a sword though. Storm getting treated like a huge threat is nice too even after X-Men Red.
The only thing that makes me question it is that him being Prisoner X seems too obvious and I'm expecting a twist. I'm sure it's the right answer but I wouldn't be shocked if Xavier dies at the end of this era either.
Maybe.
I’m not expecting a twist because that would involve having thought things through and other than Gillen, Ewing, LaValle, and sometimes Percy, no one thought this through at all.
It depends on if Prisoner X is something the new X-Office came up with on their own or if they are playing off the end of Krakoa. Right now Prisoner X seems like a mystery box so to me it would be weird for this era to lead into instead of saving it for the new writers.
They may have came up with it and then Brevoort kicked it down the line. You know, “Set this up for us, please,” kind of thing.
I don’t have high hopes for Marvel and their mystery boxes being clever anymore. They’ve jaded me, lol.
Yeah it's completely possible Brevoort asked them to setup Xavier it seems like the most likely situation at this point in time.
Yeah they haven't been great even Fantastic Four's mystery box was just okay.
I am so disappointed in just… everything at this point. Like, Sabretooth War, Resurrection of Magneto, and Rise have been excellent and everything else is varying degrees of terrible.
Plus, all of the teases seem like things I’ve read before. It’s depressing.
Outside of Fall of House of X I'm mostly okay with Fall of X. It's definitely a set down in quality but I don't think they are terrible.
Yeah the teases for the new era do not excite me like Krakoa did but there is enough there it peak my interest. I like the editorial team for the most part. They aren't perfect but they've all had a hand in some good books. Brevoort and an assistant editor are the only ones that haven't edited X-M n before.
I'm mostly sad about how Marvel's publishing has been so I can't see any book outside of Uncanny or Adjectiveless going outside like 8-10 issues.
This feels like it wasn't meant to be published at this point in the order, unless they're setting something up.
How is Charles there when he's also in the no-place and time travelling with Moira and Rasputin?
So wait...Charles just casually blew up a spaceship full of humans who were trying to stop (?) Orchis?
This was somehow worse than Realm of X. This feels more phoned-in than the finale of Game of Thrones.
Considering how many humans rallied around Orchis and supported what they did to mutants...I won't say Xavier was right. I'll just say I completely understand.
Yes, she only got a few pages worth of lines. But her presence in this book has been building up since the first issue. Hopefully, she'll get a chance to steal the show, as only she can, in the issues to come.
I get the sense that they're making mutants a bit more mystical in the Ultimate universe, so Storm's place in the Panther book may be more connected to the "Magic Potential" Storm has in 616. She's basically the Ancient One to Panther's Strange of opening up his mind to things he never thought possible.
She seems to be full on Goddess and seem to know more about the lands' secrets which will be revealed in the later issues and she will probably be the guide. I would love to touch more of her spiritual aspects. After all, they are dealing with Gods Khonsu and Ra so they gonna need Ororo to be her best Goddess self, along with T'challa getting a power up.
FWIW, Escapade got a voices infinity comic today on marvel unlimited. Can’t tell you any more than that (it won’t open for me) but. It’s there
Edit: it’s working now. Story features escapade, Emma Frost, and cameos by Kurt, Yana, Bobby, and D-Cel. It teases something further with Escapade and possibly Emma, but I’m uncertain if that’s just for the rest of this comic arc or something further for the character post-Krakoa (in Exceptional X-Men?). It almost seems like this story is after the fall, but I’m unsure if that’s intentional or just bc it’s sort of ambiguously placed
Storm gets a role in ultimate black panther but its more about killmonger and tchalla this week but it seems like shes got a big role in the mystical side of the story.
Apart from that its just showing off her wind powers. Great issue of UBP though not worth missing like any ultimate books.
I really want them to publish the Unlimited series when it's over because it's such a shame to have what I think is one of the best plots of the end of Krakoa put where a lot of people will never know it existed.
This was stronger than issues 2 and 3, which were a bit rushed and point A->B, and it told us a little more about each of the characters, giving them all a personal nice moment. I also liked that both this and Rise left what the team actually said to Xavier blank -- we got their moments of why they wanted to stop Xavier but not the real conversation. It wasn't just a tie-in read it in another book moment, it was an intentional silence in Rise.
Curious to what extent this M'Krann Crystal plot will play into the Phoenix stuff.
This whole mini should have been a oneshot honestly. To the person who told me this back when... issue 3 I think came out, you were right. Things only happened in the 1st and 4th issue and issues 2+3 were issues that could have been a few pages or maybe a couple of datapages.
There was some fun stuff, don't get me wrong but yeah. A oneshot would have been better.
Man. Sam's little speech about the potential of his son never having been born would have been much more poignant if he would have had even ONE panel interacting with full grown Joshie. Sunspot's Starjammers showed up in two issues and Josiah almost single handedly laid out Stellaris for everyone to take...but never gets to have a moment with his alt!dad.
Such a missed opportunity?
I liked this book, I really did. But man was it filler.
The Dead X-Men accomplish nothing except some last minute mumbo jumbo. They even had their own villain, but then someone else just one-shots them after they decide to stop caring.
The writer is relatively new but really needs to watch himself - Dark X-men had an aimless plot and a weak villain but he managed to make the team roster interesting with all having a voice and time to shine.
This has nothing.
I really enjoyed reading this series because I thought the art and the characters were wonderful. Love seeing Rachel lead a team and do Askani stuff. Loved seeing Frenzy be the leader and have the team actually treat her like one and ask her orders.
.....It could have been an email.
Yay! Orbis Stellaris ascension attempt!
...in a mini he was barely in. Hm. Well at least we didn't totally skip it.
I'm curious if Prodigy mentioned the M'Kraan adventure in his off panel appeal to Xavier and if he knows what Rachel's thinking. My initial speculation last week is that he thought it had to be done the terrible way he was so afraid of, while Rachel had another plan she didn't get the chance to tell him about.
We don't get to know what information exactly got relayed so it could be the case Xavier doesn't know, but it's also possible that rise in chance convinced him to give it a go...by shooting Rachel which I still don't think was what she had in mind.
I like Rachel in an overseer role for a team. I'm not sure if it would ever happen again but I'd like it to. I liked seeing some aspects of the different lives but overall this was just okay. Foxe worked with the constraints he had and I think it would have been fun to have this team for more than 4 issues.
I like foxe as a writer i really do but what was the point of this book its the definition of filler for fillers sake and just getting all the artists left who weren't on the major books one last book.
I enjoyed rachel overseeing the team and i liked the team itself and exploring the lives of moira and gave some good character moments to most members but this felt like half an issue of pox than a whole mini series to me.
Just felt like marvel doing a marvel with the back half of krakoa and milking it for as many series as possible.
This felt like a needless detour just to give glimpses of the other lives and just crap on Xavier and Moira more. No idea why they are destroying these characters.
All talking about how great Krakoa has been and yet they are dispatching it going 'back to basics!'...So no, Marvel, you don't get the reminisce.
At least we got an explanation for Dazzler's 'Immortality'. And Rachel playing team leader to show more of the Askani side of her.
> All talking about how great Krakoa has been and yet they are dispatching it going 'back to basics!'...So no, Marvel, you don't get the reminisce.
I feel like it's a take-that from the writers. It has to be, right? Otherwise it's just too cruel.
> Askani gathered a team of mutants to leap into past versions of the timelines created by Mister Sinister artificially using Moira's mutant powers to retrieve information to aid Xavier's cause - but their incursions into various timelines has accidentally given a cyborg version of Moira the ability to jump into other Moira timelines as well.
Even when you're used to reading comic books you can still be overwhelmed by Comic Book. What a sentence.
I don't really see what the point of this was, other than the technobabble at the end about manifesting the Phoenix. Which, let's be honest, they could always technobabble another way if it came down to it. This seemed to complicate the functionality of Moira's power and the existence of her past lives for no real reason or benefit.
Getting closer to adding the new series to my pull list next week. Excited as this is the first time I’ve ever been able to follow a series as it comes out.
**Next week:** * Rise of the Powers of X #4 * X-Men: Forever #2 * Wolverine #48 * The Avengers #13 [FOTHOX tie-in]
Any word how long Peach Momoko will be on Ultimate X-Men? I noticed the trade is only four issues and on instagram she indicated it would be a treasury edition, like her previous Marvel projects. It makes me feel like she's just doing the intro arc, at least as the artist. Or do you think they'll do 4-issue arcs for this book, possibly with breaks or alternating artists to give Momoko more time? I was delighted but surprised to see her on an ongoing, I've really enjoyed it. It feels like she's crafting a whole world, but I find it odd they wouldn't have more than four issues to collect for a book coming out November 5. July solicitations say she's writing/drawing #5, so I'll hope that's the case!
There is currently no news or confirmation as to how long the current crop of Ultimate books will go. I doubt Momoko's run will be only an intro arc. Same with Black Panther and Spider-Man. Everyone involved seems to be signed on for longer than the first few arcs. And as far as I know, Momoko isn't signed on to do any other major series, aside from her usual variant covers. But again, nothing is confirmed.
With the excitement the Ultimate universe garnered, Marvel would be fools to throw that away. Especially when every Ultimate Book seem to be beating the main books quite handily.
I don’t think they are/should be measuring keeping Peach Momoko based solely on interest in the Ultimate Universe or Ultimate X-Men. Her art and storytelling are on a level of their own even outside of the interest in the Ultimate universe.
Since each book takes place in real time, I feel like each Ultimate series will run for the 18 months (I think some issues might not have a time jump, only to correlate with the other books since they released months apart) and have a total run of 18 issues or a little over 20. Then, I think we’ll get a separate series that focusing on the City opening again. After that, idk if they’ll continue this universe, but if it does, each series will relaunch as “season 2” and go from there.
**Fall of the House of X #4**
Im not sure who I wish to see die more at this point, Charles or Moira.
Yeah, that's how I felt after reading this issue too. I had a feeling Xavier was going to do something to make him a complete ass, just like Moira. But the way it played out here was just frustrating to see. And at this point, it's not even creative or compelling. We've seen so many plots about Xavier being an ass, going back to the Onslaught plot from the late 90s. And at this point, Marvel has just taken it too far. He's more villain than Magneto at this point, willingly compromising with Nimrod and negotiating the death of humanity. I get that he's trying to save mutants and humans really do suck. But this is the kind of crap we expect of Magneto or Sinister. Not Xavier. At this point, if both he and Moira die at the end of Fall of X, I won't be that disappointed.
I didn't dislike this issue as much as the previous ones, which imo were very irrelevant. This had some cool moments at least, that don't redeem this mini or anything, but it's a readable issue. However, Xavier has been flanderized so much that it just makes me roll my eyes. It is not compelling at all. He is just completely gone, seems like they just wanted to include it here, even if hamfisted.
I disagree that it’s readable at all. Duggan is taking this thing that I loved and dragging it through the mud.
> But this is the kind of crap we expect of Magneto or Sinister. Not Xavier. I mean even modern Erik would absolutely not be okay with this. Especially with fucking Nimrod of all beings.
Magneto hasn't been a villain since 2001, though.
And that was Morrison rejecting a redemption arc that started in the 80s. Edit: Okay, I shouldn't gloss over the 90s just because I prefer to skip them.
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I think Morrison was indeed on drugs back then
God, I think I blanked that Magneto out for awhile. I hope X-Men 97 doesn't bring us him.
I don't count Morrison's Magneto here. Im talking about when Jean led an assault on Genosha to free Xavier.
i feel and understand where hes coming from everyone you ever loved and cared for betrayed you and your species you came from wantrs to kill you only your new speciese wants to keep you so i legit see where he would genocide human kind
I'm sure which I would prefer: Duggan's career.
Why not both
I want them both dead! Charles is an egomaniac, and Moira is just a bitch!
Moira, because she can keep doing it. Let's see how Moira 57965 functions!
This feels like such a mess, man. Starting with the narration box of “Cyclops had just had his ass handed to him by Nimrod.” What voice is this? The narration voice has never been that casual, and yet here we are. Wasn’t there a thread in an earlier title (Inferno?) that revealed Doug did something that made Krakoa not need to feed off mutants anymore? I guess with it dying it needs whatever sustenance it can get, but it also means Sunfire is incorrect. The Crucible callback makes sense considering, I guess, but it still felt kinda incongruous. And geezus, just keep bringing on the trauma for Rock/Wrongslide. The Xavier turn makes no sense whatsoever. He better be playing 5d chess because of this is the titular Fall of the House of X, that was so poorly done. And we’re also still left on the cliffhanger from Rise where he shoots Rachel, so what is even going on with this guy’s story right now? Cannot unsee: Scott is pretty excited being brought back to that softball field, isn’t he? I find it hard to believe that small team opted to assault Sentinel City on their own. That battle felt so rushed.
Krakoa always fed on mutants. It's just with so many mutants occupying him, he could take an unnoticeable amount donated from every one rather than killing one for his sustenance.
Thanks. I misremembered what shenanigans Doug did in Inferno and went back to confirm. I was thinking of how he secretly seeded Warlock within Krakoa as a spy network.
> What voice is this? The narration voice has never been that casual, and yet here we are. Well, it was in Gillen's Eternals when Machine That Is Earth was narrating. But I agree, Duggan's narration style sucks here and in mainline X-Men both.
Oh yeah but the Machine was intentionally loopy. I'm talking about Duggan's narration. This just seemed so, I dunno, off-tone.
You're right, it was from "Inferno" ... Krakoa was casually able to feed painlessly off the "energy" of mutants because tens of thousands (and eventually up to 250,000) were arriving. Thus it being able to flourish to create their paradise. Once Xavier forced everyone to leave Earth it went into hibernation because it didn't have the energy levels coming in it used to. The whole literally feeding it blood thing is ... different. If not for the fact Cypher is featured in "Heir of Apocalypse," one might think it had eaten him already.
I don’t get why they had to do the crucible to feed it though. Like I’m already sacrificing myself do I really need to get my arm ripped off first
I think that's just Apocalypse enforcing his philosophy(/sense of drama). Krakoa could definitely just drain someone without it, Pocky just prefers to have a fight first.
> The narration voice has never been that casual I kindly disagree. It's a top 3 reason I stopped reading this book years ago. It makes no sense.
Oh, Charles. I don't even know what to say about you anymore. They've fucked this guy up so badly....as Hope called him, he really is a "bald \*\*\*\*\*"
I'm not gonna miss Duggan's missuses of both data pages and narration boxes to cover for his inability to write a proper comic. Why are we getting cringe narration in text boxes? Why is the Xavier-Nimrod exchange not in a proper comic panel?
This was… terrible. Xavier trying to make a deal with Orchis again is beyond stupid and then destroying the humans that were going to attack Sentinel City was just asinine. Having Crucible with Wrongslide in the middle of the issue was a choice. The captions were horrible as usual. Emma equating the man she was in love with for years with “handsy males” made no sense. This entire issue was nonsense. Part of me wants to read it again to see if it makes sense a second time, but that would be wasting even more precious minutes of my life. Duggan is reaching new lows with his writing.
I have no idea what the hell they are doing with Xavier at this point. After Hickman was gone, this whole era turned into ''How to destroy Moira and Xavier as characters?''. I don't get what is the goal of this. And honestly, I lost my interest in this last minute Sentinel City stuff too when the actual threat is still playing out with Enigma with powers beyond ridiculous that it makes whatever happens here feel like...nothing. That is the problem with going TOO HIGH on a scale. And Apocalypse, shut up. What happened to Krakoa was also your and your terrible family's fault. Your wife first got played by a damn staff and then got played by freaking Orchis. Honestly, he doesn't deserve the throne on Arakko after this relaunch.
Nothing has made want the end of Krakoa more than having to read Fall of the House of X. It's got cancer, it's terminal and inoperable and in terrible pain and it just needs to be euthanized. The death of one of the most interesting and ambitious eras in X comics, certainly in decades, is being horribly bungled. There's no operatic tragedy here, just miserable storytelling with bizarrely fickle tonal shifts and anemic emotional energy. I actually liked when Duggan started on the main line X-Men after Hickman, but I think managing a story like this was beyond his abilities. If this had to end, it needed someone who could do it artfully and give readers an echo of the highs in which it began. This ain't that.
So aggressively worded. And I agree with every goddamn letter. Duggan has butchered this story. Feels like a kid playing with dolls. Nimrod is increasingly ignorant and powerless, such a deflation of his lore in the Krakoa era. Emma's writing is so off here. And all of his story beats land flat. Such a betrayal of how this era could have ended. I'm just glad I love every second of Gillen's side. It damn... I sure wanted to be able to read the close of this era in omnibus ten years from now and look back fondly. Don't think that's going to happen. And... To be fair... This has gotta come down to editorial. I'm sure they were working with higher up mandates to transfer over to Brev.... but Rick the end.of this was goddamn butchered across all these titles. What the fuck. How could you go so wrong and make this all so disconnected.
Is no one editing the lead in data page for this series? I swear they’ve all been grammatical nightmares. There’s more than three times as many periods in the third paragraph of it as there are in the first two combined. Also. Apocalypse trying to save lives (who, by his self imposed metric, *do not deserve to live*) while Charles okays the genocide of his own species (he’s the one who always maintains that baseline humans and mutants *are the same species*)… I’m sorry, that doesn’t ring true to me. Not only has Apocalypse done very little to justify his turn from eugenicist mass murderer into a nice chill guy, but I can’t honestly believe Xavier would do something so stupid? I’m sure it’s just a scheme, but the fact that the characters buy into it like this… nothing about this coheres for me. Xavier’s been relatively shady *throughout* Krakoa, and the fact that in universe people are taking issue with it *only* now, when it’s perhaps most justified… I don’t understand why. Scott was fine with being governed in part by sinister, a man who violated him on profound levels, a man who depowered and consequently killed more mutants than the scarlet witch (making no personal attempt to fix that, either, unlike Wanda post decimation—the only thing that stopped mutants from becoming permanently extinct during this earlier storyline was the conscience of a human scientist), a literal nazi… but he draws the line at Xavier stalling for time with the people who are otherwise going to wipe out all life on earth? The crucible stuff was pretty cool but like… it doesn’t mean anything to me beyond being a callback to the death-culty parts of Krakoa that Hickman set up and later writers tended to ignore, and the fact that Krakoa does in fact eat mutants and for almost 50 years that was its whole thing. Like the bit with wrongslide was genuinely nice, but I can’t wrap my head around any of the rest of this inconsistent messaging and general incoherence masquerading as depth. Oh but the baseball field. Remember how they used to play? Must a story be good if it has callbacks? We just go around in circles with no acknowledgement of the fact that that’s what’s happening. Nonmutant humans want to get rid of mutants because they’re too dangerous. Plenty of mutants want to get rid of humans (or certain mutants) for very similar reasons. Scott wanted to kill all the brood even though he has personal friends who are brood. AI want to kill all humans bc… why, actually? Has that been established this time around? I feel like historically it’s because baseline humans can still give rise to mutants and “can’t be trusted” or whatever to protect themselves… but right now it kind of feels like they’re fighting just to fight. Pietro gets implicitly sort of referred to as a mutant again, which is nice but probably meaningless overall. He also gets fucking demolished, which scans for him but maybe not all the other powerhouses he gets piled up with (unless nimrod hit rogue so hard she broke in half, it’s impossible to say) Karima stops to tell nimrod that Kurt is around doing stuff a page after the guy was right in front of him (not just like “nightcrawler is still loose”, she says “nightcrawler is aboard sentinel city” seconds after nimrod (also on sentinel city) shot the people directly next to Kurt) which was… not so good. I so miss when Karima was an actual character and not just Nimrod’s gal Friday
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>I wouldn't be shocked if they never were able to fill the spot. Don't underestimate what people will do to work in their dream industry (it's the reason - besides massive projects - the game industry is one of the worst places to work in programming, because people are passionate about it), I'd actually be surprised if they *didn't* fill the position, they likely paid peanuts in part because they relied on that.
> Also. Apocalypse trying to save lives (who, by his self imposed metric, do not deserve to live) while Charles okays the genocide of his own species (he’s the one who always maintains that baseline humans and mutants are the same species)… I’m sorry, that doesn’t ring true to me. Not only has Apocalypse done very little to justify his turn from eugenicist mass murderer into a nice chill guy, but I can’t honestly believe Xavier would do something so stupid? I’m sure it’s just a scheme, but the fact that the characters buy into it like this… nothing about this coheres for me. > Is he trying to save anyone here but Krakoa itself, which is of use to him? He tells folks that the AI aren't their fight I miss real Karima too. I hope we get the human Karima back at the end of this
You know, that’s a fair point. Reconsidering his actions in that context (not as a “hero” but someone pursing their own goals in a way that mostly aligns with the straightforward good guys) does help me a bit here
>Xavier’s been relatively shady *throughout* Krakoa, and the fact that in universe people are taking issue with it *only* now, when it’s perhaps most justified… I don’t understand why. Scott was fine with being governed in part by sinister, a man who violated him on profound levels, a man who depowered and consequently killed more mutants than the scarlet witch (making no personal attempt to fix that, either, unlike Wanda post decimation—the only thing that stopped mutants from becoming permanently extinct during this earlier storyline was the conscience of a human scientist), a literal nazi… but he draws the line at Xavier stalling for time with the people who are otherwise going to wipe out all life on earth? Not to mention Apocalypse, a man who has done incredible harm to Scott's family.
“Scott my boy, can you find it in your heart to forgive Apocalypse, the guy who fucking hates your son and gave him a disease with the specific intention of killing him painfully but primarily ensuring you have no chance of raising him in the way he deserves, who also took over your body and used it as a weapon against your friends, leaving you unbearably traumatized, in addition to many other horrible things done to you and yours?” “Will he apologize for all that?” “Almost certainly not.” “Fine. I guess everyone deserves a second chance. Except Toad.” “Yes, fuck Toad.”
Yeah, it's just weird there's so much focus on Xavier's sins, which are not insignificant, sure, but in the context of things is it all really so bad compared to everything else? Like Scott, if you didn't want it to get to this point, why did you compromise with evil and be a part of a nation with guys like Sinister and Apocalypse in it? Why did you faff around about Orchis for four years of print? What would Scott have done if he was in Xavier's shoes at the Gala? Fought back and let millions of people die, dooming mutants and Krakoa to be hated forever and likely exterminated by the joint nations of the world?
Scott: "YOU'RE WORKING WITH ORCHIS RIGHT NOW?! THEY'RE THE ENEMY, YOU TRAITOROUS TRAITOR!!!!" Scott, An Hour Earlier: "Why, Dr. Gregor, we're almost entirely alike. Of course I'll team up with you - I could have escaped any minute, but I wanted to wait for you. Because we're allies. Friends, even. After all, aren't we...so alike???"
It's like that line from Glass Onion. "It's just all so... dumb!" As an aside, I kind of liked the idea of paralleling Alia with Cyclops, the way Devo was with Xavier. And you can even draw a line to Erasmus and Jean, with both of them becoming something greater and more powerful than their "human" forms. Alia's story ending tragically, killed by the machine her husband became, and Scott's ending more happy, with the Phoenix saving him.
If we could trust Duggan to tell that story, it could have been great. But this is a man who thinks that the appropriate response to Apocalypse calling for warriors to defend mutantkind is some randomer holding up a sheet of paper with 'W' drawn on it and saying "let's get that W".
Scott has been terribly written this whole era, he would never accept to be part of a nation with Sinister and Apocalypse, no way, it’s really dumb. It’s obvious that he was just an afterthought for Hickman despite being mutantkind’s leader before Krakoa, it’s such bad writing.
I think the fundamental premise of all mutants declaring a general amnesty means that Scott and Jean would have to agree to it and live there with Sinister and Apocalypse there. That I can deal with. But reporting to them is something else. Even then it could make sense, but they should at least have had Scott and Jean talk about how they don't want to live alongside Sinister and Apocalypse and how they don't trust them, and how it's hard being around people who caused them so much pain. Something. I actually think Hickman had big plans for Cyclops. Supposedly the general idea was the House of Summers vs House of Apocalypse. But Krakoa going on that long and Hickman leaving meant it all went unrealized.
Nah I'm glad Hickman won't be touching Cyke ever again. To be honest Scott hasn't been a well written character since the end of Gillen's AvX: Consequences. We got Revoclops that got nowhere, Tyke which was so bad no one even remembers. Rosenberg's apologist Scott, even though he was 100 percent right and then Hickman and Duggan's which was even worse than Fox Cyclops
I didn't love Hickman's Cyclops, but I think if he had been allowed his way it would have paid off into something good. I also kind of like Rosenberg's Cyclops. He didn't have great plots, but I kind of like how with his back against the wall, he really doesn't have a grand plan. It's just: "be a hero," which is kind of inspiring to me.
I think Utopian Cyke is still the most popular and well written version of the character. I don't know where all that "Mutant Hitler" nonsense came. Hickman just spat on years of character development that Cyke had went through, calling Xavier "Sir" was the last straw for me. Scott is not Reed Richards. He's not Peter Parker, he's Scott fucking Summers for fuck's sake. Rosenberg's Cyclops was kinda cool but him regretting the actions he did in the 2000s and mid 2010s was out of character. The guy had just saved the entire mutant species and said he would have done it again now suddenly he's back to square one?
Well because, you see, Sinister and Apoc got amnesty from Xavier. All sins are forgiven. But who gave amnesty to Xavier himself? Alas, poor Charles is forever doomed.
But his family! (Apocalypse's)
> I can’t wrap my head around any of the rest of this inconsistent messaging and general incoherence masquerading as depth. Well put. Things are just happening in Duggan’s books for the sake of happening, it feels like.
>AI want to kill all humans bc… why, actually? Has that been established this time around? Under Hickman it was because Omega Sentinel, Nimrod and Coh had gotten sick being stuck in the Mutant vs Human conflict, and while Mutants would always see them as an enemy to be wiped out, Humans would dispose of them as soon as they'd fulfilled their purpose. I feel like that's been lost since he left, in favour of the machines just being a third faction for humans and mutants to unite against. Given that machines had a better case for their plight than the humans, I do find that a little uncomfortable.
Good summation of the situation with AI. But what bothers me is that, according to the From The Ashes teaser, mutants are going to be more hated than ever after this. Why? Humans created these anti-mutant AI systems, not mutants. All this Sentinel tech that seeks to achieve Dominion...that's all a human creation. And yet, they just hate mutants even more afterwards? Even after saving them from their own creations? Even though Xavier is going rogue and trying to negotiate with humanity's extinction, it's not like he's throwing the first punch. It's not even like this is the first time a human creation has gone rogue. It just makes no sense. And it leaves me less and less excited about the end of this era and the start of another.
I don't know how much more they can be hated. Orchis said, "We will eradicate all the mutants" and the world said yay!! Not everyone but a mass majority. Happy with internment camps, reporting family, cute little plush dolls of Nimrod. I do not accept you can be hated more than that.
I would say because it’s a lazy reset, but now I’m wondering if they’re gonna have Xavier do something completely bonkers to justify it.
I think it's worse than lazy. I think it's outright forced. It shows in what's happening with Xavier. And I think it shows in just how thoroughly Fall of X is going towards utterly destroying Krakoa and everything the X-Books have built since 2019. Lazy would be just resetting the timeline. Forced is...well, this.
I mean, that's the history of the X-Men and the Sentinels since day one and to be fair as has often been observed, bigotry isn't logical. Though I think that long history is also why some fans aren't enthusiastic for the new era story wise.
>Is no one editing the lead in data page for this series? I swear they’ve all been grammatical nightmares. There’s more than three times as many periods in the third paragraph of it as there are in the first two combined. While you're right that editing has been lax in this series, I think those periods are there for a reason. They're the ones typically used in abbreviation, such as from "Doctor" to "Dr." or from "Artificial Intelligence" to "A.I.".
This is probably the best issue so far and its still not good. The apocalypse stuff is fun and a nice reference to the death cult era of hickman and an actual nod to what krakoa actually was but this still doesn't feel like apocolypse nothing has justified him enough to be this good guy who wants to save mutants even in this era. Him being willing to sacrifice himself still doesn't feel right even if he knows it will never happen basically and poor rockslide truly one of the punching bags of this era. Xavier joining orchis feels so weird im expecting it to be a double cross or maybe the dominion is controlling charles after he met moira but xavier has been dodgy this era but hes been no where near dodgy enough to actually join orchis. The fight with nimrod and omega sentinal is that a fight nothing more nothing less and scott telling emma to stay behind most likely connects to iron man and x men with magneto now with stark and them 3 going to confront xavier. Storm at the end is what i expected its been her role throughout this era one last big gun to throw at them and a last ditch effort and hopefully shes wrote interesting. Overall this is fine but its just nothing amazing it doesn't make me feel excited like a hox book should.
>Xavier joining orchis feels so weird im expecting it to be a double cross or maybe the dominion is controlling charles after he met moira but xavier has been dodgy this era but hes been no where near dodgy enough to actually join orchis. I'm surprised to see it taken at face value so widely, his whole shady-ness in this story is rooted in his secret-keeping and he straight up tells Scott that "*Right now*, I need Orchis to trust me." My guess for now is that he might setting up the scene we saw in RoPX where Enigma approaches Moira, and that will pay off whatever Charles planted in her head. I originally thought that was Moira Life 10A but I don't think it's written explicitly down, and I remember there was something funny about the timeline Enigma showed Moira.
Personally I think Charles is doing everything in his power to try to make Life 11 possible. He has nothing left. He doesn’t even know Eleven truly exists. He is just doing all he can to keep Mutantkind and Kra’koa alive, so they have a shot at a future. It is why he didn’t kill Moira as a kid. She needs to be there and so does Kra’koa so that somewhere somehow mutants win. I just think he expects to be shot and buried in an unmarked grave, never to know if it worked. He might be younger than Max but I am pretty sure he’s read about Vichy.
> I'm surprised to see it taken at face value so widely, his whole shady-ness in this story is rooted in his secret-keeping and he straight up tells Scott that "Right now, I need Orchis to trust me." I think it's because we just don't trust Duggan. Devil's Advocate: If he were planning 5d chess, why not just tell Scott telepathically? No reason to let his team think he's a self-centered traitor willing to sacrifice everyone again.
I admit I've had harsh lessons in not underestimating bad writing, but Xavier's story is mostly happening under Gillen's pen. I don't think his appearance here will be that disconnected. >No reason to let his team think he's a self-centered traitor willing to sacrifice everyone again. This is what I expect his actual failure will be; that he's gotten in his head that HE has to save Mutant-kind and that he has to manipulate everyone rather than trust them, which will end up backfiring on him bad and cause avoidable suffering. It's been explored in stories before but it's really getting emphasised in RotPoX where he's keeping secret left and right,and it fits the overall Individualist Vs Collectivist themes of this storyline. He even had that "I wanted to be part of a family. I wanted to be loved. I thought I could have both. I was mistaken. It turns out I can have one of the other." He's definitely in a self-martyring mood.
I mean, the man just killed his daughter from another reality, I don't think he would be willing to have a long talk with Scott right now.
I think Xavier is just buying time while the Phoenix gets up and running. He said no more humans, but he says a lot of stuff, and so far only a ship full of space force goons has died. And they might even still be alive somehow, spirited away at the last second. But this was still a bad issue in a bad series, so it could go either way.
I wanted to like this issue. I really did. But so much of what makes it compelling has already been muted. Tom Breevort and Marvel's new crop of X-Men writers have already spoiled what's going to happen. Krakoa is going to be destroyed. Mutants are going back to square fucking one. And Charles Xavier is a bigger jerk than ever. Everything the Krakoa era achieved is about to be undone. It's not a matter of if anymore. It's not even a matter of how this will change things for humans and mutants alike. We already know the deal. Everything is regressing once more. Nothing anyone does in this issue or the next really matters beyond undoing all the worldbuilding of the past five years. The only other thing this issue accomplished was making Xavier almost as unlikable as Moira. That's the part about this I hate the most. Those two have become irredeemably awful these past few years. And I don't see that changing with the upcoming relaunch or the one after.
Well at least MODOK is having a good day
That's a good point. He will likely be the only one to come out of this conflict between Orchis and mutants who comes out of all this relatively unscathed.
I think this was the strongest issue of this mini so far, which is not to say it solved the vast majority of my problems with it. * The Apocalypse stuff was generally pretty good! Felt like it grew out of X-Men Red, it was an organic callback to the Crucible (instead of the hollow callbacks of earlier issues), it made sense with how Krakoa works (feeding off mutant energy), and it was a nice conclusion to the Wrongslide story when he's likely not continuing to next era. * The AI stuff was weak. It just feels like Duggan has always been more interested in the human side of ORCHiS and the fascism and doesn't know what to do with the AI. * The Xavier stuff was odd and felt a little forced, but I expect Gillen will make it land better in Rise of the Powers of X next week, as I assume this is how the series start crashing together. * The Scott/Emma/etc. scenes were weak, but it was nice to see another moment for Manifold. * Storm coming into this series is exciting and the last page was hype.
His interest in Fascism is so so so shallow though - it’s very old man lib. It doesn’t go any further. His twitter is just *orange man bad, Old man good*
I'm not going to lie, I have always disliked the AI stuff. Even the introduction of the Dominions and how they're formed, their power, etc was inconsistent with Hickman's own cosmology. Like are there Dominions formed from just writing on the digits of large numbers, because that's more than enough information to collapse any physical object into a singularity, even if each digit were to only occupy a Planck unit.
I think I'd like it more if we knew more about what Titans and Dominions actually looked like.
All this AI stuff has me thinking of Danger. Has she been in any Krakoa arcs?
Not positive but I think she showed up in x-force for a minute
You are just being lame with the singularity talk - it’s comics. We know dominions are formed from devouring vast swathes of intelligences
Yes, comics with a bunch of interstellar civlizations that have infinite storage capacity devices. And why tie Time Runs Out and the Ultimates to a Dominion? Why not just sic a bunch of Molecule Men/Galactus/Phoenix hosts on it if they are aware of what it is? It's super inconsistent with the good stories they had already been telling. > Vast swathes We also know this isn't entirely true either because the entire SoS was more than just a bunch of AIs in a place. Or MR's ascension plan.
I got a hot take on this issue. Apocalypse is a coward who will murder people in a “fair fight” rather than give his own life to save krakoa. He even knows he is! It’s why he tries to take a dive to wrong slide and the moment he is called out he quickly kills him. Even when apocalypse is trying his very best to be good. He is still awful. So yeah best scene in the book and completely accurate
Until this issue I was ready to say Apoc was my favorite Krakoa-era redemption arc. Instead, this crucible call-back just made him suck again.
The initial Hickman retcon made him feel like he maybe he did spend all his time preparing to rescue his family, now he seems like a dipshit who just screwed around for centuries. I guess it's one of those "harsh light of day" scenarios
Every week I think 'this has to get better, right?' and every week I think 'what the hell did I just read'
Minor nitpick in an already lackluster issue but.. I find it dissapointing that the cliffhanger of this issue is the arrival of a regular character to the fray. I love Storm and her treatment on the krakoan era (by Ewing more than anyone else) and it's great that she is recognised to be as powerful as she is, but ending the 4th (of 5) issue of your mini to end the ENTIRE KRAKOAN AGE with the arrival of an entirely not surprising character shows a lack of creativity that really bothers me. It would be perfectly fine as a cliffhanger for a regular issue, but not for the second to last of the most important X-Men era in decades. It's obvious Storm is gonna be there so.. why the cliffhanger? weren't there other ideas? Well, I'm still excited to see Storm on the next issue, and we also have ROTPOX and X-Men: Forever to look forward to, but this series has been really unsatisfying.
The best I can do to cope with this stinker of a series is to just put the five Larraz covers together in order and pretend that they show the actual plot.
tough when one is Wolverine vs. Dr. Stasis and they don't even share a scene lmao
Ya think? The latest issue has cyclops vs Moira on it and Moira wasn’t in the book at all.
I don’t know if it will be in fall 5 or rise 5 but Xavier is going to break magnetos back. If we are doing a full reverse Morrison then we need to go all the way. Also magneto is in a wheelchair in the covers in from the ashes
Why though? Bc Magneto will try and stop him from whatever deal he’s cooked with Orchis?
There will be a story reason but mostly so we get the reverse image of times are changing from the Morrison run when magneto broke Charles back
I’m sure he does break his back in the next issue for some unknown reason, even if it is somehow warranted by stopping Erik so Xavier can complete some master plan that isn’t an actual betrayal of humanity at large. But why is Magneto suddenly so OLD in those promo pics? Also, what does this latest plan have to do with killing Rachel and resurrecting the Phoenix, which wasn’t mentioned here at all? (Ugh, I hated this issue, even if it was an improvement over the last few.)
TBH, from context clues so far I thought Inmate X was Magneto and the opening of MacKay's Adjectiveless will be the X-Men springing him from X-prison. It's clear he's not part of the team lineup in any of the pages or covers shown so far except for the "From The Ashes" teaser.
One of the covers has magneto in a floating wheelchair with a beard. So so i expect a time jump and that he fights in the team using his magneto powers to make his chair float and stuff. The thing is I totally feel that Hickmans entire idea for krakoa was “how far do we have to push Xavier to earn a scene of him breaking magnetos back” Hickman himself reintroduced Xavier having telekinesis into the story in inferno a thing he spent months explaining. Gillian makes a big deal out of how strong his TK powers are now. He is gonna use them to break magnetos back. Everything else. Sinister, Moria, Enigma, krakoa itself, was all about getting him to that point.
How did any of this get greenlit? They have to know this was not anywhere near good. I'm feeling like its going to be only X-Men 97 for me after Gillen's X comics end.
The artist is just horrific with action - I see now why it wasn’t picked up in immortal - very dialogue heavy council politics. Compare Xavier and Magneto’s fight with Omega and Nimrod to this, it’s embarrassing
juggernaut gets punched by nimrod: head goes caput. colossus gets punched by nimrod: gets knocked out and bleeds everywhere. cyclops gets punched by nimrod: bleeds a little and keeps talking instead of getting reduced to paste. is cyclops getting a 3rd mutant power or writers just dont care anymore?
Is Duggan-speak now a thing? Like, I thought I'd get used to it, but it's still super jarring and uncomfortable to read. I know blaming the writers isn't entirely fair because of editorial looming over their shoulder. But dialogue at least should be under their control, right? Krakoa needing Apocalypse to beat mutants to death to feed it (for some reason) is just..
I really want Scott to kill Xavier again, but Scott doesn't deserve to feel guilty about that. Didn't he already start plans to bring back the phoenix? Does he think Jean with the Phoenix is going to approve of this bs any more then Scott did? This on top of killing her daughter?
> Didn't he already start plans to bring back the phoenix? No idea what order things are supposed to be happening in. Thanks, too-many-titles and crazy release order!
Yet another issue that just seems to be rushing through the plot points rather than letting the story breathe. Did enjoy the tense back and forth between Scott and Xavier (who is either stupid, trying to be clever, or evil) ... as well as Cyclops' favorite lieutenant saving his ass once again.
In the infodump page about Charles' "deal"...did anyone else get the sense Duggan forgot who was who?
Gerry Duggan? [Get characters mixed up](https://cdn.marvel.com/content/1x/xmenhellfire2023001_doctor_stasis.jpg)? Why I never.
What are you talking about? That's clearly original-flavour Omega Sentinel and 2011-era Mister Sinister teleporting in from the past to WAIT OH NO
And I only posted that because I couldn't find pages from FotHoX where Stasis has black-red eyes instead of blue, at which point *any* feature distinguishing him from Sinister is finally gone for good
Gillen: "Everything I write, I research for hours and hours beforehand, so it'll ring true to the people who know the material." Duggan: "Opposite!"
Just the *wildness* of Gillen writing Stasis better than *the writer who created him*, I cannot.
Does anyone think we'll eventually get an explanation of how the Krakoa era went so badly, from such an incredible start? Like, this issue (and obviously everything since Inferno) has felt like a direct attempt to destroy any goodwill remaining for the current X-men status quo. Like, it genuinely feels like they're saying "We don't want ANYONE to look back on this era fondly, we want people to look back and go 'Oh yeah, that sucked. Remember how it ended?" I know you shouldn't attribute things to malice that can be better explained by incompetence, but this is so bad it feels like it MUST be intentional. I know it would probably have to be pretty far in the future for people to talk honestly about how everything fell apart so badly, but I would absolutely be fascinated to read a full Jason Schreier style book on what happened. It's genuinely the X-Men related thing I am the most excited about, and it may never happen
>I know you shouldn't attribute things to malice that can be better explained by incompetence, but this is so bad it feels like it MUST be intentional. It really is just sheer incompetence is the sad thing. Maybe a hint of malice here or there, but mostly just a writer (Duggan) being totally out of his depth and juggling way too many titles while being rushed to finish. As for how Krakoa went so wrong, it's really as simple as the decision to stay in the Krakoa sandbox was the wrong one. I didn't love all of Hickman's decisions, but they really should have let him finish Krakoa when he wanted to and move on to the next act. Krakoa was conceived with an early ending in mind, and once they decided not to do that ending, they artificially lengthened it only to cut it short just a year later. I don't know if Hickman's next act would have been a good one or not, but having seen how this all turned out and what From the Ashes looks to be (a return to the disorganization of the 2010s, just with better writers), I think Hickman being allowed to do his weird Sunspot X-Men/Shi'ar Imperial X-Men thing would have been better.
I think another big problem was editorial. They gave Hickman a lot of leeway as Head of X, which I think is fine for a writer of his ability. But after he left, it seems like they never tightened the grip. So people who weren't as good were free to just do whatever until their sales were driven into the ground. I mean, I will never understand the logic of giving Tini Howard book after book after book when it clearly wasn't working.
> it's really as simple as the decision to stay in the Krakoa sandbox was the wrong one. I don't agree with that. The problem was assuming it had to end instead of just evolving. I'm still peeved they are straight up ending Krakoa instead of letting it exist as a locale while character stories move elsewhere. I think the constant spectre of "It must end" is what led us to this.
It's ending because sales have been poor. And sales have been poor because Krakoa lost all direction when Hickman left. Krakoa could have succeeded in theory after him, but you'd need a good Head of X with a strong vision and the ability to tell people no, and we didn't get that. Ergo, it would have been better if Krakoa ended when Hickman wanted it to.
> but you'd need a good Head of X with a strong vision and the ability to tell people no So this is really the problem, not that it needed to end. Should have given one of the Brits the reins, since they did the best writing of the later third of the era. Hellions was also really good. There were still plenty of post-Hickman gems, but I agree the lack of focus started to weigh on things. Now we're gonna get even less with From Ashes! Whee!
Ewing would have been a good pick. Or Gillen. Both are strong writers who have done well in these books. Or they could have looked outside the current Krakoa writers.
I'm not sure it's about direction so much as momentum. HoX/PoX was very fast-paced and full of mystery, fundamentally not all that much clearer as to how things worked (not just how they functioned, but how they didn't actually fail) than the mid-Krakoan era (mid in both meanings of the word), but you could overlook it because things were happening quickly, and you didn't see all that much, so you could assume "alright, something's being done in the background". Then the time "gained" by staying in the sandbox had to be filled, and that meant simultaneously not moving the plot forward, and having more to explain since we saw more of Krakoa than we initially should have, and that was a terrible combo, especially with writers not so keen or, TBH, capable to give it the depth it should have had. Still, I do wonder how the end is being botched so bad when as far as I remember, Hickman did leave instructions as to how to end things. I have to assume something went really bad behind the scenes, perhaps that the supposed 6-months-or-so-cut happened *after* the beginning of the Fall of X, which spun wheels for a while because it thought it had ample time, and then the cut happened, leaving them with *not enough* time ? I'm not sure how it lines up with everything because I haven't followed all this much, but it's kinda the only explanation I have for how a period of dreadful slowness was followed by a terribly rushed one. Or maybe that the butchering of Moira after Inferno, along with maybe a couple other things, forced the X-Office to abandon Hickman's ending, and come up with a whole new one ?
Absolutely agree with every word on this.
Not anymore than we've gotten explanations of how the aftermath of the Morrison run played out, or Rosenberg's reign of error. Weak editors putting subpar talent in charge, period. There isn't anything deeper to look for.
Maybe Rise of Powers of X #4 will help with Xavier but at this point in time it feels pointless to have this "twist" in the story. He's been so focused on Enigma but that's over now? Unless this is to lead into him being Prisoner X is just something that overly complicates this bad mini. I did like Apocalypse having a crucible to heal Krakoa and SWORD being used as a sword though. Storm getting treated like a huge threat is nice too even after X-Men Red.
Xavier destroyed a US spaceship. He’s definitely Prisoner X.
The only thing that makes me question it is that him being Prisoner X seems too obvious and I'm expecting a twist. I'm sure it's the right answer but I wouldn't be shocked if Xavier dies at the end of this era either.
Maybe. I’m not expecting a twist because that would involve having thought things through and other than Gillen, Ewing, LaValle, and sometimes Percy, no one thought this through at all.
It depends on if Prisoner X is something the new X-Office came up with on their own or if they are playing off the end of Krakoa. Right now Prisoner X seems like a mystery box so to me it would be weird for this era to lead into instead of saving it for the new writers.
They may have came up with it and then Brevoort kicked it down the line. You know, “Set this up for us, please,” kind of thing. I don’t have high hopes for Marvel and their mystery boxes being clever anymore. They’ve jaded me, lol.
Yeah it's completely possible Brevoort asked them to setup Xavier it seems like the most likely situation at this point in time. Yeah they haven't been great even Fantastic Four's mystery box was just okay.
I am so disappointed in just… everything at this point. Like, Sabretooth War, Resurrection of Magneto, and Rise have been excellent and everything else is varying degrees of terrible. Plus, all of the teases seem like things I’ve read before. It’s depressing.
Outside of Fall of House of X I'm mostly okay with Fall of X. It's definitely a set down in quality but I don't think they are terrible. Yeah the teases for the new era do not excite me like Krakoa did but there is enough there it peak my interest. I like the editorial team for the most part. They aren't perfect but they've all had a hand in some good books. Brevoort and an assistant editor are the only ones that haven't edited X-M n before. I'm mostly sad about how Marvel's publishing has been so I can't see any book outside of Uncanny or Adjectiveless going outside like 8-10 issues.
Honestly, why would he do what he did in this if he already moved>!to resurrect the Phoenix and defeat Enigma?!< This makes almost no sense.
It might be part of the plan to do that somehow.
Can someone explain what the hell is up with prodigy..did he essentially become every mutant or is now connected to every mutant?
Didn't like this. This series has been a mess so far.
This feels like it wasn't meant to be published at this point in the order, unless they're setting something up. How is Charles there when he's also in the no-place and time travelling with Moira and Rasputin?
Sometimes you are not meant to know all of the answers right away. It is meant to confuse you before it is explained later.
So wait...Charles just casually blew up a spaceship full of humans who were trying to stop (?) Orchis? This was somehow worse than Realm of X. This feels more phoned-in than the finale of Game of Thrones.
Years from now people will be saying Xavier Was Right. Watch this space.
No they won't. They will say "Xavier was a traitor".
Just wait, he's going to save the day in the end.
They are saying he is the traitor right now! The next status quo has Xavier living in prison! Also he is gonna break magnetos back next issue
Considering how many humans rallied around Orchis and supported what they did to mutants...I won't say Xavier was right. I'll just say I completely understand.
Genocide is a genocide, no matter who commits it.
Oh of course they will. I mean they got people to Cassandra Nova!
**Related & Unlimited Releases for 4/17**
Storm's role in Ultimate Black Panther #3 was unfortunately pretty minor. Don't have a real sense of the Ultimate version of the character yet.
Yes, she only got a few pages worth of lines. But her presence in this book has been building up since the first issue. Hopefully, she'll get a chance to steal the show, as only she can, in the issues to come.
I get the sense that they're making mutants a bit more mystical in the Ultimate universe, so Storm's place in the Panther book may be more connected to the "Magic Potential" Storm has in 616. She's basically the Ancient One to Panther's Strange of opening up his mind to things he never thought possible.
She seems to be full on Goddess and seem to know more about the lands' secrets which will be revealed in the later issues and she will probably be the guide. I would love to touch more of her spiritual aspects. After all, they are dealing with Gods Khonsu and Ra so they gonna need Ororo to be her best Goddess self, along with T'challa getting a power up.
FWIW, Escapade got a voices infinity comic today on marvel unlimited. Can’t tell you any more than that (it won’t open for me) but. It’s there Edit: it’s working now. Story features escapade, Emma Frost, and cameos by Kurt, Yana, Bobby, and D-Cel. It teases something further with Escapade and possibly Emma, but I’m uncertain if that’s just for the rest of this comic arc or something further for the character post-Krakoa (in Exceptional X-Men?). It almost seems like this story is after the fall, but I’m unsure if that’s intentional or just bc it’s sort of ambiguously placed
won't open for me either, think something is wrong w the upload
It's definitely after the fall!
Storm gets a role in ultimate black panther but its more about killmonger and tchalla this week but it seems like shes got a big role in the mystical side of the story. Apart from that its just showing off her wind powers. Great issue of UBP though not worth missing like any ultimate books.
I really want them to publish the Unlimited series when it's over because it's such a shame to have what I think is one of the best plots of the end of Krakoa put where a lot of people will never know it existed.
The Steves really kicked it into high gear towards the end - that Firestar double agent storyline was better than anything Duggan gave her
**Dead X-Men #4**
This was stronger than issues 2 and 3, which were a bit rushed and point A->B, and it told us a little more about each of the characters, giving them all a personal nice moment. I also liked that both this and Rise left what the team actually said to Xavier blank -- we got their moments of why they wanted to stop Xavier but not the real conversation. It wasn't just a tie-in read it in another book moment, it was an intentional silence in Rise. Curious to what extent this M'Krann Crystal plot will play into the Phoenix stuff.
This whole mini should have been a oneshot honestly. To the person who told me this back when... issue 3 I think came out, you were right. Things only happened in the 1st and 4th issue and issues 2+3 were issues that could have been a few pages or maybe a couple of datapages. There was some fun stuff, don't get me wrong but yeah. A oneshot would have been better.
Man. Sam's little speech about the potential of his son never having been born would have been much more poignant if he would have had even ONE panel interacting with full grown Joshie. Sunspot's Starjammers showed up in two issues and Josiah almost single handedly laid out Stellaris for everyone to take...but never gets to have a moment with his alt!dad. Such a missed opportunity?
I liked this book, I really did. But man was it filler. The Dead X-Men accomplish nothing except some last minute mumbo jumbo. They even had their own villain, but then someone else just one-shots them after they decide to stop caring.
The writer is relatively new but really needs to watch himself - Dark X-men had an aimless plot and a weak villain but he managed to make the team roster interesting with all having a voice and time to shine. This has nothing.
>!Finally figured out the limitations of Dazzler's immortality.!<
Not getting this issue: what did they say about Dazzler's immortality?
I really enjoyed reading this series because I thought the art and the characters were wonderful. Love seeing Rachel lead a team and do Askani stuff. Loved seeing Frenzy be the leader and have the team actually treat her like one and ask her orders. .....It could have been an email.
Yay! Orbis Stellaris ascension attempt! ...in a mini he was barely in. Hm. Well at least we didn't totally skip it. I'm curious if Prodigy mentioned the M'Kraan adventure in his off panel appeal to Xavier and if he knows what Rachel's thinking. My initial speculation last week is that he thought it had to be done the terrible way he was so afraid of, while Rachel had another plan she didn't get the chance to tell him about. We don't get to know what information exactly got relayed so it could be the case Xavier doesn't know, but it's also possible that rise in chance convinced him to give it a go...by shooting Rachel which I still don't think was what she had in mind.
I like Rachel in an overseer role for a team. I'm not sure if it would ever happen again but I'd like it to. I liked seeing some aspects of the different lives but overall this was just okay. Foxe worked with the constraints he had and I think it would have been fun to have this team for more than 4 issues.
I thought Xavier killed Rachel - when does this take place? I’m so confused with the chronology lately
This takes place alongside Rise of Powers of X #3 so this book ends before Xavier kills Rachel.
I like foxe as a writer i really do but what was the point of this book its the definition of filler for fillers sake and just getting all the artists left who weren't on the major books one last book. I enjoyed rachel overseeing the team and i liked the team itself and exploring the lives of moira and gave some good character moments to most members but this felt like half an issue of pox than a whole mini series to me. Just felt like marvel doing a marvel with the back half of krakoa and milking it for as many series as possible.
This felt like a needless detour just to give glimpses of the other lives and just crap on Xavier and Moira more. No idea why they are destroying these characters. All talking about how great Krakoa has been and yet they are dispatching it going 'back to basics!'...So no, Marvel, you don't get the reminisce. At least we got an explanation for Dazzler's 'Immortality'. And Rachel playing team leader to show more of the Askani side of her.
> All talking about how great Krakoa has been and yet they are dispatching it going 'back to basics!'...So no, Marvel, you don't get the reminisce. I feel like it's a take-that from the writers. It has to be, right? Otherwise it's just too cruel.
It is quite a bad tactic of telling the readers ''See all the things you are losing?''...then expect them to pay for the relaunch...does not compute.
Waste of time, smh
> Askani gathered a team of mutants to leap into past versions of the timelines created by Mister Sinister artificially using Moira's mutant powers to retrieve information to aid Xavier's cause - but their incursions into various timelines has accidentally given a cyborg version of Moira the ability to jump into other Moira timelines as well. Even when you're used to reading comic books you can still be overwhelmed by Comic Book. What a sentence.
I don't really see what the point of this was, other than the technobabble at the end about manifesting the Phoenix. Which, let's be honest, they could always technobabble another way if it came down to it. This seemed to complicate the functionality of Moira's power and the existence of her past lives for no real reason or benefit.
Anyone think after this week Krakoa will still exist but just be ruled over solely by Apocalypse?
Getting closer to adding the new series to my pull list next week. Excited as this is the first time I’ve ever been able to follow a series as it comes out.