A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
On my weekly livestream, Casual Krakoa Live, I review the week’s X-Men comics, and answer big questions about what’s going on with Marvel’s merry mutants! You can listen or watch below:
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[cover by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson]
After the violent events of last issue, this one is sort of in downtime mode, as in lieu of action we get a ratcheting up of political tension, not just for the Krakoans on the Arakkii Great Ring but also between Storm and T’Challa, and Krakoa and the still mysterious Galactic Rim Collective, as represented by Orbis Stellaris on what passes these days for an interstellar/intergalactic council (even though there are only a handful of sentients on it). Yet there are also poignant and meaningful moments of catharsis that, quiet though they are, begin to shift, wrinkle and question the narrative around the value of Krakoan resurrection–refracted through three fascinating perspectives: Magneto; the mutant who is a strange amalgamation of all possible Rockslides; and the recently assassinated Shi’ar Majestrix Xandra, or rather others’ reactions to her assassination and potential return to life…
This is also the first issue of any X book this year that directly alludes to the current goings-on of more than one other title in the franchise–and these references are crucial to both the theme and narrative of this issue’s thematically braided story, straightforwardly titled “Three Short Stories about Death” (We also get another direct reference to happenings in the ambiguously adjacent Black Panther).
At least the Emily Dickinson reference on the title/credits page is a little more evocative: “Because I could not stop for Death” is one of her most famous poems and while complex, what matters here is that it’s essentially a surprisingly peaceful lyric on the acceptance of death. Broadly spiritual, it could speak to anyone of any faith or philosophy: Death is real, but that’s no reason to hasten it or grossly/unnaturally delay it out of fear. Of course, for those who believe/have faith in some version of immortality beyond life, there’s that too–the horses of the poet’s carriage riding without haste toward that limitlessness, of which dying is only a moment in infinity.
Of course, the rest of the opening line’s sentence after “Because I could not stop for Death” is: “he kindly stopped for me” – which out of context could apply to Krakoa, but the poem is clearly saying that while the poet was too busy/preoccupied with life to stop – and die – Death’s “carriage” stopped for her, that is, to pick her up on the way to eternity. Krakoans can no more truly stop or cancel mortality than anyone else.
The steeliest acceptance of mortality here is from Magneto, who, after all, isn’t exactly surrounded by friends, much less allies.
This series just keeps getting better, more interesting with every issue. I do miss the stunning beauty and drama of Stefano Caselli’s artistry, but guest artists Juann Cabal, Andres Genolet and Michael Maria do serviceable work, only occasionally jarring. All three typically do much better, though, and much of the art throughout feels a like it might’ve been under tighter deadlines than usual. Whatever happened on the production side of things this time, well, who knows, but there’s not a strong narrative reason for to be different art styles whose differences aren’t striking enough to do anything interesting for the story.
We open with what appears to be Magneto’s first time seated on the Great Ring, while Storm is off at an emergency meeting with the (Inter)Galactic Council at the politically neutral space station called the Proscenium (which until now had only been seen in Ewing’s recent Guardians run, starting with issue #7). The third of this issue’s three short stories is mostly set on a Krakoan beach at sunset.
So, three relatively basic settings (two councils and a beach) in a braided narrative where these individual stories converge and refract each other only thematically. And the theme is death.
Ora Serrata makes her case in the data page at the opening of the issue. It’s a cogent argument: Arakkii do not resurrect (except for those in the White Sword’s army, which as far as we know has no presence on the Great Ring), so what are Krakoans actually risking when they fight in the Circle Perilous? Smartly, Ora’s case isn’t about whether Arakko should be friendly with Krakoa:
“Krakoans have a place in the broken land.”
What she provocatively but reasonably argue is: “But we must decide if they have a place here [on the Great Ring, where losing a seat in a challenge is permanent, regardless of whether death is].”
Now if there’s not even a risk of permanent death, then the value of the challenge is hollowed out, especially as it’s their only path to power: Seven other Krakoans could repeatedly challenge Arakkii of the Great Ring until they’re victorious and their opponents are permanently dead. Obviously, that’s not what an upstanding citizen of Krakoa would ever do – but why risk it? It’s not a gamble worth the Arakkii’s interest.
A striking moment in this issue of great moments is Ora very dryly (oh man, dry eye!) sniping at Isca – who finally comes off as just a tad grating this time, which is good; we have to start to see some cracks in “the Unbeaten.” And it’s interesting that Ora’s concern is focused on the possibility of more Krakoans winning seats on the Ring and much less concerned with Isca’s claims that Roberto simultaneously undermined the nature of her power and of the Circle Perilous.
At this point, Magneto seems to know he’s at a disadvantage, off his home turf.
But a Great Ring Arakkii we’ve barely heard from yet, Lodus Logos, quietly challenges Isca by questioning whether she herself ever truly risks death. The Unbeaten retorts that she can die like anyone else; after all, “victory in death” might in some situations be the only path forward. And yet another member, Xilo, points out (as a question rather than a direct challenge) that she could never be unseated from the Ring by challenge.
Defensive now, Isca argues that she’s only keeping Genesis’s seat warm, awaiting her sister’s return, making it sound like she’s regent for a missing queen – which Magneto points out. And Genesis is not the one on a collision course with Arakko’s current, um, executive(?), however uncomfortable Ororo is with her ambivalently queenly position.
Certainly, as we get to see more Arakkii characters developed, Isca’s views no longer appear to represent those of her fellow Arakkii, whereas in her early appearances she appeared to go about blithely unchallenged. For someone who’s unbeaten, she’s beginning to look hemmed in by everyone around her – she really must be impatient for Genesis to get back!
On the Proscenium, Storm attends an emergency meeting of six of the eight diplomats who represent the interests of a pretty wide swath of space (which must include many billions of sentients, and this softer version of the Illuminati doesn’t exactly look to be practicing soft power in the way we in the real world usually think of it, unless you’re a credulous cynic/conspiracy theorist). Notably, one of those absent is Lactuca, who’s currently watching Magneto in the hot seat, because she deems galactic politics beneath her (making her an odd choice for their Council).
It’ll be interesting to see how the Great Ring Arakkii develop as characters, starting with how they voted in X-Men: Red‘s debut issue: Lactuca and Lodus voted for peace; Xilo and Ora for war with Amenth; Isca, of course, abstained.
As for Storm, she’s not to be put in the hot seat, much less “live on [anyone’s] chessboard” – here referring to T’Challa Wakandan politics (intergalactic or otherwise) but of course implying that she’s no one’s pawn, or queen, to be moved about by another’s hand.
Their marriage having been annulled a decade ago (in AvX, after only a handful of years), Storm and T’Challa don’t really owe anything to each other as heads of state, and she certainly owes him not even a hint of Krakoan resurrection. And it sounds like Wakanda’s king never told his wife about his own state secrets (both the Galactus Protocols and Kimoyo communications technology, which allowed for mass surveillance, can be found in the pages of previous Black Panther runs; Krakoa’s resurrection protocols have been, at least among those it directly concerns, comparatively anodyne).
Indeed, the Russo-Wakandan mutant Gentle has been a sleeper agent for Wakanda for a long time, since before X of Swords, as revealed in January’s Black Panther #3 (Since the end of Coates’ run, he’s been a minor supporting character in the title; hopefully he can be put to more interesting use elsewhere).
The Shi’ar Imperial Guardian Oracle has called this meeting, to sorrowfully share the news of Xandra’s assassination – which is interesting as she and Delphos, whom it appears she didn’t know was a Kin Crimson agent all along, masterminded Deathbird’s kidnapping, which she here laments, in Tini Howard’s Secret X-Men one-shot earlier this year (I don’t think she expected things to go sideways so disastrously). The Kin Crimson were first revealed recently, in Marauders #1, and they’re agents killed Xandra at the end of issue #3.
In fact, it’s wild that Xandra’s posthumous story is continued here rather than in Marauders, somewhat undermining its latest issue’s cliffhanger uncertainty. I dig it, though. And it means Orlando can open the next issue with different surprises.
As revealed later in the issue, Xandra “broadcast” not just her mind but her entire being (which is, after all, an energy form) all the way to her “father”* Xavier, who Storm says is perhaps the most powerful telepath in the universe, even though he’s not an Omega (but Jean is).
(*Half his clone, shared with Lilandra’s DNA, she otherwise has zero relationship to either of her forebears.)
Without Xandra, the Shi’ar Imperium will fall into chaos and civil war, leading to trillions of deaths. As the cynical and mysterious arms-dealer Orbis Stellaris argues, the Shi’ar have by the sword of imperialism, and so they’ve made their deathbed. Like his globularly themed counterpart, Ora, he makes a decent case against Xandra’s resurrection on Krakoa: What reasonable person would consent to “an immortal dictator on the throne … till the end of time”?
But knowing full well his position would lead to trillions dead in interstellar war, he nevertheless believes that’s the lesser of two evils.
Magneto’s stoic existential line about people being perhaps only “a handful of memories held tight against the setting sun” is followed by Roberto finding the non-Santo Rockslide on a Krakoan beach at sunset.
After Rockslide’s death in Otherworld at the start of X of Swords, the Krakoans resurrected what seemed to be little more than an animate jumble of rocks – the result of Otherworld death followed by resurrection, something of a literal jumbling of all possible versions of a person from myriad parallel universes (this was Gorgon’s fate too).
But for the first time here we find that someone’s home in these resurrected vessels, after all. This new Rockslide is probably even more articulate than the original! Certainly, he has an ageless wisdom entirely unlike Santo’s puppyish adolescence – as much as the latter was far more vibrant, as Roberto acknowledges. It’s wild to think that Santo and Gorgon have been the only true deaths of the Krakoa era so far.
This scene seems to firmly establish that the Earth-616 Santo is gone for good. And that is meaningful. It shouldn’t be betrayed (though the cynical reader believes it surely will be, eventually).
Indeed, youth only lasts so long too, a much shorter time than life as a whole – making it all the more meaningful, as it skips along the water’s surface, farther from shore with each forward leap.
The mysterious Cerebro-like sphere Magneto brought with him to the Ring turns out to have been created by Forge as a “Cerebro Drive,” basically a small-scale version of the cradles, storing only current copies of himself and Storm. We also get the clearest statement about the relationship between the purely secular “mental records” of a person’s memories and their soul: If the latter senses the existence of the former embodied once more, then it’s drawn back – at least that’s Magneto’s conjecture; he doesn’t seem overly preoccupied with souls, more with a heroic fatalism, like a Marcus Aurelius, a classical Stoic of antiquity.
Is it Isca’s derision here that forces Magneto’s decision – to destroy the backups?
I doubt it. My argument is that not only was he already decided on this course – the problems of Krakoan immortality as embodied by certain individuals on the Quiet Council are a prime reason that Magneto is no longer on Krakoa.
He came to Arakko, and he’s inevitably becoming Arakkii, especially if the average Arakkii outside the Ring has already accepted him, which we’ve seen.
Perhaps he’ll need an army, and Storm’s Brotherhood, as a bulwark against the corruption of both councils.
Nova’s little speech here may prove unnecessary, since for Ororo’s big surprise this issue, she was already decided, but I’m glad Ewing got to bring in one of his top faves from his Guardians run. Here, he speaks of those tragedies where “he stood when all else fell.” Most famously, he survived the destruction of Xandar in 2007’s Annihilation event, but the world had already been destroyed once before, by Nebula, in 1985’s Avengers #259-260 (a Roger Stern classic!); Richard Rider restored the Xandarians and their home in 1993’s New Warriors #40-42 (a Fabian Nicieza joint).
What matters here is that Nova’s argument certainly trumps Orbis’: Saving countless lives, even if it means maintaining the fragile status quo of a military empire, is definitely a lesser evil than the potential for someone like Xandra, a child ruler, to turn out to be a wicked or just plain self-interested immortal hanging on to power for centuries.
And Storm has already made sure that Xandra is coming back. She did reach her father, and Xavier, despite their non-relationship, didn’t hesitate to make her resurrection his top priority immediately.
But though “there was never a debate to be had over this” from Storm’s perspective, still, she knew the need to show up and remind everyone from across the far reaches of space that “Mutantkind does not need permission.”
Also, she has a clear ally now in Rick Rider. He wants to be on her side for whatever storm is brewing. So, expect him to be a staple of X-Men: Red going forward – and an interesting addition to the cosmopolitan mix of the Diplomatic Zone, an urbane concentration of high and low, frontier and establishment, subcultures and power politics, a fine place for an evenhanded space cop (if only such people actually existed).
The most radical idea this issue, though, is surprisingly reserved for “Wrongslide” – unlike anyone else, he’s been envisioning a new kind of resurrection, his way, what everyone believes to be the wrong way. But truly, it’s the most natural way, like the Tao: “I’ll lie down in the flowers and give myself back to the everything.” Critically, though, only “when it is my time,” which he assures Roberto that he doesn’t intend to happen for many years.
But going to Otherworld to die once more will allow yet another wholly new version of Rockslide to be born. It’s the radical remix version of resurrection. And if that’s the future of the Krakoan narrative for at least several prominent mutants, I’m all here for it. After all, once you kill death – where can this franchise go next? It either resets at some point, rather abruptly, or the X office figures out how to work out all the permutations of this idea first, leaving us with a bigger sandbox of ideas – always additive – stuffing in as much wonder as possible, and sharing the beauty of that.
For now, I wonder what Roberto envisions for Rockslide on Arakko. He certainly won’t just be a pile of rocks none of the kids want to talk to; he will be seen, whole, as he is, in the broken land.
First though: Eternal War…
[another gorgeous Mark Brooks cover]
It’s the Destiny issue, at last! We’ve had the Sinister and Hope issues (next is Emma)—but this one, I think, is what longtime fans have really been waiting for, and it delivers. Indeed this is the first time we’ve had such a focus on Destiny since her recent resurrection, which ended her, um, afterlife (unlife?) of 30+ years following her murder by a Shadow King-possessed Legion in Claremont and Silvestri’s Uncanny X-Men #255, 1989.
This issue is an impressive, seamless mix of life-story, romance, a fierce reaffirmation of that love, intrigue, vision or prophecy and a heartrending intimation of certain tragedy—for this marriage of star-crossed lovers.
Lucas Werneck’s art, which continues to advance with each issue, and Dijjo Lima’s colors are perfect for writer Kieron Gillen’s character studies, and that really comes home with the story of Destiny’s life, which likely required more historical research for the artists—but even just the layouts, the expressions and figurework are classically elegant and intimate. Immortal X-Men may be the most artful X-book currently, though with the three other close contenders, there’s never been more competition for that accolade (and it’s extremely rare for a flagship title).
Appropriately enough, though, we also get the strongest portents yet out of an X-book for “Judgment Day,” the Gillen-helmed summer event that will bring down a band of bellicose Eternals to lay waste to Krakoa—that seems to be the plan, with the Avengers caught in the middle (but hopefully being a bit less feckless than usual).
The opening splash page, depicting a young Irene Adler’s first lightning-bolt premonition of her future, made me more excited than any other recent Krakoa comic to revisit classic X lore, even though there’s nothing new here. The flash of Nimrod may be from our near future but also see “Days of Future Past” and Mystique’s Brotherhood (Uncanny #141-142), later Freedom Force (Uncanny #199), and Legion possessed by the Shadow King (at the start of the “Muir Island X-Men” era, Uncanny #254-280).
What follows for the 13-year-old Irene Adler is 13 months of writing down her prophecies, “in a mix of truth and lie,” one book for each month—until Destiny’s diaries were complete, and she went completely blind, a condition that she had indeed foreseen when her power first manifested a year before. This is all from Claremont’s 2001 X-Treme X-Men #1 but far more elegantly realized here, uncluttered by other plots or characters just talking about her. The only difference now is that Gillen is making sure we understand that much of what’s been said about these books of prophecies might have no basis in truth, or perhaps there’s so much indirection involved that the author is the only key to really understanding what she wrote.
In the middle of the issue, though, Destiny awakes in the present, depicted in another splash page that clearly echoes the moment of her power awakening. But here, she’s awakened from unconsciousness, following the mysterious fit she suffered in last issue’s cliffhanger—and the explosion of new, grim visions she experiences upon her waking has me more excited for Krakoa’s near future than any other recent story.
Raven has just told Emma that Irene had only been this overwhelmed by a flood of visions once before: when her X gene activated at age 13. So yes, we’re to understand that momentous events are on the horizon although maybe Destiny being ambushed by her own power was inevitable following her resurrection, echoing her power’s awakening in childhood. Or maybe the vivid intimations of looming disaster are indeed unlike anything she’s known since the unwilling seer’s first experience of myriad possible futures all at once.
And what do these new visions tell us? We have a Sinister-themed X-Men team, which is effectively freaky, Exodus being a popular cult leader, Illyana as the fully demonic Darkchylde and standing over dead friends, some kind of complex or citadel built in honor of Magneto, Apocalypse* and a third figure whose monumental bust is hidden from view and what’s just around the corner—Krakoa versus the Eternals.
*This is somewhat reminiscent of the sublime memorial Polaris created out of the ruins of Genosha following Cassandra Nova’s destruction of the populous island ruled over by a Magneto turned benevolent. And we’ve seen like monumental imagery associated with Apocalypse, so they are both leaders for whom monuments and popular cults of personality are appropriate (For some reason, we’re meant to find a cult based around Exodus much more troubling 😉).
We also have a full page, again so beautifully realized by Werneck and Lima, of Irene first meeting Raven, in a saloon; a silent scene, we get Irene’s voiceover not only telling it straightforward but romantic, seductive. And she references the ignorant label for queer folk in use a century ago and more: “sexual inverts.” Of course, she follows this up with how she would never deny the truth of herself—because she had seen in visions “futures where I was dutiful and depressed, chained by society to a variety of men who held scant interest to me. The best were velvet cages. The worst were scourges.”
In other words, Irene would deny herself, and thus boldly walking into that dusty saloon, she encountered her own destiny. A wonderful gay moment! Which we should get every month, not just for Pride; seriously, stop dragging your feet, corporate.
But what I really want to know is what kind of saloon this is, who the cool old guy is behind the bar, since Raven appears totally relaxed about being herself here in the 19th century, no disguise, and it seems like whatever follows would have been pretty openly gay. Also, the sign over the building reads: “Bar FAIRY”—which must surely have been the only of its kind. X-Treme X-Men #1 has the vaguest hint of this meeting, in one panel, but it’s so schematic, it’s just somewhere old-timey with horses and streetcars, a lady in pink and a blue woman in men’s clothing chatting, no affect on display, maybe boredom.
When you compare what’s on the page here with 99.999999% of Marvel history, this is a big achievement, which is also kind of sad to say; after all, it amounts to little more than a brief montage. But in the present, we do have an issue full of beautiful lesbian moments, from Raven fiercely defending her wife to the couple passionately embracing: “We are entwined. A rope through time.”
Then we skip through the modern decades, starting with her Brotherhood busting onto the terror scene in “Days of Future Past” (Uncanny #141-142). What’s new here is that we learn Mystique was Destiny’s first “nexus,” so indeed, her destiny—“an event which pulls timelines toward it. Meaning things after it, are more predictable, for better or worse.” And that made navigating future possibilities easier during the time that comics readers knew this temporal “chess player”: The possible had been corralled into a legibility that was only as broad as Claremont could make it 😉.
The much bigger revelation, however, is that Destiny at some point during the Claremont years foresaw that she and Raven would have to be apart “for the future to happen”—indeed, for Krakoa. Only now has Irene discovered why she couldn’t live if the Krakoan nation was to become a reality: Moira.
“Krakoa was the limit of my vision.”
Destiny would have killed Moira had she lived, and Krakoa would never be. Yet, foreseeing that her return would be made possible then, she gambled her first life away, while knowing that she could tell no one—including her own wife. And she makes clear the anguish this secrecy caused her, the years of sorrow and loneliness that her murder would bring.
Elsewhere, a Destiny-less QC session brings newest member Hope up to speed on all the state secrets—which she thinks is fine, as long as all Krakoans are informed, as well. Which does not endear her to Xavier. Frankly, it would be awesome to see the mutant messiah get to take down Mr. Doofus Helmet à la her assassination of Selene. Just my opinion!
But here confusion arises over how Hope was first roped into QC machinations—it was Mystique disguised as Xavier in last year’s Inferno, which Sinister easily goads his fellow shapeshifter into furiously admitting. She even tells them that her other option was to burn down Krakoa; she was only doing the far lesser evil.
As she and Xavier get into it (and hoo-wee, how nice it’d be to see Hope and Mystique take equal part in forcibly removing that slippery old eel in the lame fetish gear; I’m so sick of that helmet), Destiny awakes.
Just before Destiny gets back to the Council, Kate gets in one of her best “Professor X is a jerk” moments since Uncanny #168 (the first time she really told old Chuck what’s what).
We then see a very schematic version of what Destiny sees, a nebulous and bewildering array of possibilities that mostly appear to end in a variety of apocalypses, including “the Reign of A [Apocalypse]” but also “Krakoan Dissolution,” and three end in a “Nimrod Extinction Event.” But Destiny’s narration informs us that unlike her visions heretofore, something has suddenly changed: “There is less future.”
In other words, this onslaught of new visions isn’t overwhelming her because there are so many possibilities; rather, it’s that the futures she sees all end so suddenly—and in the relatively near future (very much unlike her initial vision showing her a century of future history).
Let’s look at the two nearest-term events that still allow for multiple future possibilities. “Canticle for Talia” is inscrutable, at first glance, whereas “Judgment Day” would appear to indicate this summer’s event. Probably, the latter will not lead to the robopocalypse because then there would be no more X-Men comics. “The Broken Sword” possibility reminds me of the famous fantasy novel of that name (by Poul Anderson), and maybe it has to do with Magik or any one of the Krakoan sword wielders, but who knows. Most likely, though, is “A New Krakoa.” That seems like a no-brainer given the medium. But maybe a combination of these two and “The Empire of the Red Diamond” and the consequent “Storm System” will occur together in some form. Maybe these are hints of what’s already in the offing and they’ll each remain part of a whole that doesn’t terminate in one totalizing catastrophe (like maybe Sinister will get some kind of dominion somewhere but it won’t be over everything; likewise with Storm as Regent of Sol).
I like that there are at least three references to classic genre novels: The Broken Sword; A Canticle for Leibowitz; The Expanse (okay, yes, that’s a very contemporary classic). Also, “Legion-XII” would seem to suggest a reality where Legion goes full stormtrooper, inspired by the historical Legio XII Fulminata employed in Caesar’s brutal conquest of Gaul.
“Canticle for Talia” must be inspired by Nocturne, the daughter of Wanda Maximoff and Kurt Wagner only in two alternate timelines and thus the grandchild of both Mystique and Magneto (this was well before the Maximoff twins’ mutant identity was retconned away). As Talia Wagner, she was a founding member of the Exiles, from a reality where Xavier had been assassinated; she’s been a mainstay of the Exiles title, whenever we’re lucky enough to have one on the shelves. As the much less well-known Talia Darkhölme, she was from the foreclosed “House of M” timeline. In both realities, she looks a lot like her father, but instead of teleportation, she had the power to possess others, fire brimstone hex bolts and could perform the basics of telepathy—mindreading and thought projection. She appeared only in the Claremont tie-ins, Uncanny #463-465.
In the famous 1959 sf novel A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr., humanity has been surviving for six centuries in post-apocalyptic medieval ignorance, following a WWIII nuclear holocaust. The Order of Saint Leibowitz is named for the 20th century physicist who founded this particular Catholic institution to preserve humanity’s knowledge. Halfway through its narrative, the book skips ahead 500 years when scientific rationality begins to reemerge in the West. Skipping across time once more, readers find the Order preparing emigrate from Earth via spaceflight in order to escape the inevitable apocalypse that industrial capitalism always bring with it. This is a great, complex read but severely limited when it comes to imagining a different outcome for humanity than an ultimately simplistic cyclic dichotomy of religion (especially antimodern Christian dogma) versus science and industrialism; it has nothing to say about or to non-Western societies, but that’s no different from other American novels of its time, and the vast majority today as well. It’s a very effective cautionary tale, and Miller’s experiences in WWII understandably engendered deep anxiety about the likelihood of the Western civilization’s world-ending self-destruction. And yet its vision of cyclicality is ultimately predictable, too much so to credit. But then again, this franchise has likewise most often been trapped in similar, imaginatively enervating patterns of boom and bust.
What’s Gillen suggesting here? We may never know if it’s radically different from our JD timeline. But maybe it’s still a hint that we should expect alternate timeline shenanigans sometime down the line, hopefully with the Exiles! Also, this particular vision begins with a reference to a classic sf novel and ends with another to one much more recent, a series of nine novels, The Expanse (also the name of its TV adaptation), written by James S.A. Corey (really two authors, Daniel Abraham, an excellent fantasy novelist also, and Ty Franck, a games designer). I haven’t caught up with The Expanse’s last two installments yet, but if we’re comparing the two narratives, the difference is stark. The older one is ideologically convinced of the cyclicality of human history and humanity’s severe limitations as rational beings attempting to operate without a religion that reminds us, constantly, that humans cannot save themselves, at least if they’re outside the patriarchy of a church. Corey’s epic appears to suggest otherwise, as humans in their fictional future continue to, well, expand and settle throughout the stars—while still remaining recognizably human with all the banal evils and dilemmas of everyday life in any era anywhere. Some have a bolder (or more foolish) sort of integrity, a few are coldblooded sociopaths and most are simply making do. It is certainly the more humanistic vision. Significantly, the allusions to mythology throughout this epic story helps to shape meaning, but this is a use of past meaning-making traditions that is suggestive, not prescriptive (as with religiously minded writers like Miller, no matter how artful or nuanced).
In other words, this last timeline ultimately suggests mutantkind’s dispersal throughout the galaxy. Awesome! However, the next page suggests a less stellar possibility—that a mutant “church-empire” has reached deep into space, a territory called the “eXpanse,” which I gotta say, nope, not interested. This is surely a goofy take on the untold terminal state of Miller’s novel, an interstellar church.
[“Gene-Corsair” Sinister’s spacecraft is covered in “Shaw batteries” – awesome; Sinister is really thinking about sustainability]
And yes, I know this is all forgettable speculation—but an opportunity to plug classic sci-fi should never go to waste. After all, these timelines are shown to us as examples of those that Sinister is destroying, as we see with the next scene.
It’s only this “Canticle” timeline that we get an actual glimpse of this issue, in the next three pages, introducing us briefly to a Sinister “Gene-Corsair” and a Phoenix-possessed Exodus(!) in the process of “immolating Judases” (like this version of Sinister whom he says “burned paradise”). But apparently, we’re already at “Expanse” here, presumably having passed the opportunity for “Unity?”
It doesn’t really matter because Sinister, having appropriated Moira’s mutant power, destroys this timeline when he dies there.
Still, think about that dichotomy as such: Does “unity” mean geographical concentration and isolation while “expanse” implies interstellar dispersal and diaspora? Certainly, a dispersed culture experiences drift, which if it survives with thriving numbers is a good thing, right? Is that why “unity’s” timeline is much shorter, because it’s a static dead end?
Of course, what we see of the “eXpanse” is a nightmare if it’s Exodus’ empire. Is that a kind of unity too? We can probably assume that there would be plenty of mutants not finding or wanting a place in such an order, and so mutantkind would be divided; we’re just not seeing the outsiders here, except this “Gene-Corsair” with Moira’s power.
Really this is just a fun future that readers can sketch in if they like, and nothing of what’s actually to come stands revealed. The same goes for the provocative suggestion of a “Spark Inquisition” and consequent “Limbic Infernality”; maybe it’s just a friendly jab at Legion of X and New Mutants.
And so Destiny wakes, enlightened now. Having seen Sinister destroy a timeline with his death, she realizes, “Nathaniel has cloned Moira.”
Destiny enters, one uncannily masked seeress confronting a real stick in the mud with a helmet so big that it’s got to be hiding a massive ego’s ridiculously outsized insecurities. She warns them in so many words of Judgment Day. That’s the one the timeline that’s coming. And screw you, Xavier, for trying to keep me from the people of Krakoa.
Not only is this a righteous rebuttal to Xavier’s sniping at Mystique earlier in the issue (his judgment that Mystique’s disobedient willfulness in bringing back her wife was mere petty self-interest), we also have here the pithiest condemnation yet of dear old Chuck: Xavier was so afraid his little cabal would be found out, that he would be found lying, once again, and even more deeply this time around, that he was ultimately guilty of giving secret safe harbor to mutantkind’s certain extinction (Moira) while preventing its salvation (Destiny with her visions) from returning.
Above all, though, we come out of this issue with the core conflict of Immortal X-Men firmly established. We’re going to see play out a subtle cat-and-mouse game between Destiny and Sinister. And I am absolutely delighted for this.
And now it’s time for Destiny to begin writing again—this time, with her heart ripped it, for there is something missing from all the futures she now sees, a common thread of absence, in the shape of Mystique. For a certainty her wife will die.
NEXT: Emma!
Though his name doesn’t appear anywhere in the credits of the book, writer Peter David looms large over X-Factor Epic Collection: Afterlives
It was a series with its tongue planted firmly in cheek, playing to David’s predilection for puns and off-beat pop culture references. Paired with the unique and stylistic pencils of Larry Stroman (inked by the always-steady Al Milgrom), the “ANAD X-Factor” played up its differences from the rest of the line. At a time when future Image Comics co-founders Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Rob Liefeld and Marc Silvestri were breaking sales records with high-octane action-adventure stories, the David/Stroman X-Factor’s more lighthearted, humorand-character-first approach to storytelling offered, like the whimsical and fantastical stories of Alan Davis’ contemporary Excalibur run, an alternative to the sturm-und-drang that characterized the other X-books.
Peter David’s run lasted until X-Factor #89, when he left the book mid-story over the need to interrupt his storyline for a crossover (1993’s “X-Cutioner’s Song”). After a few fill-in issues by Scott Lobdell, writer J.M DeMatteis took over as the new X-Factor writer with issue #93. Like Peter David, DeMatteis is a writer known for centering the characters in his stories, and building out stories from their various interactions with one another. But where David’s point of entry into that style was often humor, DeMatteis is more psychologically driven, striving to get inside character’s heads and deconstruct them for readers. Suitably, the signature storyline of his tenure on X-Factor features Haven, a super-powered New Age healer who wants to save humanity by purging the planet of 90% of its population.
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[cover by Russell Dauterman and Matthew Wilson]
Spoilers abound.
Despite the horrendous torment Magneto is subjected to on this issue’s typically beautiful Dauterman cover, Mags actually has a much more sublime showing in the Circle Perilous; Tarn never even had a chance—fortunately for everyone. But A+ for misdirection!
And A+ for content! X-Men: Red remains the top Krakoa title alongside Immortal X-Men, which is maybe unfortunate in showing how lacking the other titles are right now, except for New Mutants and Sabretooth, which are both doing deep work on the periphery of the overall Krakoan narrative (a good place to be when there’s at least two core books carrying this unwieldy era forward).
Perceptive readers will be quick to realize that this issue’s title, “Loss,” refers most concretely to the Seat of Loss, which has Tarn occupied for who knows how long, on Arakko’s Great Ring. It forms a triumvirate with the Seats of Victory and Stalemate and, also according to S.W.O.R.D. #8, its occupant is “consulted in dark times of humiliation and pain, when the world has fallen.”
In other words, it’s absolutely ideal for the Fisher King’s new glum buddy, Max.
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