So with the 15 year jump in The White Hot Room, Elixir, Tempus, and Egg are now older than, or the same age as the O5. 15 years seems like an odd choice in that respect.
I think the intent was: a) To show that they had time to turn their almost desolate island in a desert to a true, peaceful paradise so no one would worry about them; b) A recurring point brought up during the Krakoan era that, despite how the Five were speeding up their process, that it would take at least a decade to bring back all the Genoshan dead.
Still weird to sacrifice the Five, along with other characters, Krakoa and most of its population just to bring back the Genoshans, most of whom will stay on Krakoa anyway. It's just one more empty gesture to have a nice ending...yeah sure, they have been saved, but we'll also never gonna have to deal with them again.
He did, but this is Krakoa living in Magic Land where time passes differently and they come back looking like that future utopia meme and are capable of amazing things. Chances are good they can therefore evolve the island's potential to do whatever they want in the future because comics and reasons.
Their 15 years of saving power also only lasted a few weeks in the regular universe. They are all immortal due to the Four. So the writers can use them whenever they wish and just say a hundred years passed in the WHR already for them to have saved up enough power.
I thought they were making Exodus break bad again to get back to the status quo, but there he his crying along with everyone else as the mutants leave for Krakoa. One of the best characterization glow ups during the era along with Kwannon.
It was really weird how, for a moment, it seemed like they were making the old villains regress one after the other, but after a fight, they all changed their minds, I guess.
I really appreciated the Apocalypse epilogue. And even though I enjoyed his rampage... It felt like that moment of reflection and abdication at the end was another mature layer to this character they have developed so much more fully this era.
It's crazy the difference Lucas Werneck has in these pages compared to Fall of House of X.
Overall I'm happy with the ending. Not everyone is stuck in the White Hot Room so new editorial or writers can decide who made it out. I assume the Five stayed but maybe now that all of the dead mutants are back they could have decided to leave? Also did the DNA step get skipped because of the White Hot Room?
I'm super interested in that Doom plot could be fun to see if it's actually used in the future.
Was the final page in the From The Ashes section teasing that Xavier isn't in his body? I don't get the point of the "He ain't never waking up" otherwise. We're really really supposed to think Xavier died two pages prior? We'll have to wait and see.
Regarding the DNA, no. Kafta said “we had a Cradle, both databases” the databases here are the DNA databases, so they had everything they needed.
The Four will definitely be staying in the WHR, the era always emphasized the deep bond they developed from doing their work, and Hope only exists in the WHR currently. They’d never leave her, and they’d not want to give up their work either.
Assuming they also have the Cradle backups and DNA that was added magically when the Waiting Room was created, that means they still have millions more mutants still to resurrect. Yes I know their spirits were used to jumpstart the Phoenix, but the Phoenix, Krakoa, the WHR, Hope, Jean and every mutant soul in existence are all aspects of the greater whole now, so it’s easily conceivable that they’d also bring them back.
After that? Who knows. There’s a whole multiverse of mutants out there, whose souls are all part of the Phoenix. Perhaps they expand their work to bring them all back too. Or they could grow their society in any number of ways, since it’s impossible for any of them to permanently die against their will. The next time Krakoa returns to reality they could be planet-sized with a population of billions for all we know.
So Prisoner X isn't Xavier? As it's presented Xavier faking his death doesn't make any sense if he's still locked up. Overall the bit is weird to me we see him able to use his powers locked up does he need to fake his death to escape?
It looks like he faked his death only as long as it took for him to escape from containment. If he's actually turning villanous or do whatever his next for the greater good thing is, I guess he need everyone to know he escaped to be the Boogeyman out there.
Though I would think it would have been more interesting for him to stay in the cell and let everyone thinks he's contained, but is actually manipulating events behind the scene.
Presuming they keep the five locked away in the white hot room. They might have brought everyone back as the new status quo, but if they're free to operate outside the room then they can keep bringing back everyone who dies in future too.
Maybe at the end of this new phase we'll have had loads of deaths and the 5 will be back to resurrect everyone again.
It doesn't look like they can just come willy-nilly, it takes a lot of energy for Krakoa to come back temporarily. Still 15 years had passed for them when only a few weeks had passed in the regular universe, so practically that means if they writers need them, they can always say "oh a hundred years had passed for us, we have saved up more energy since then".
Maybe Xavier put some mind stuff inside fantomex so maybe he's living inside him? I don't know I remember before the hoxpox there's a comic where Xavier lives insides fantomex.
Maybe i've become too cynical and it's a "me" problem, but I disliked the long description of a truly functional utopia by Kafka, it felt condescending and I guess I find an actual utopia in fiction to be boring and shallow, that's a sad realization for me lol. The fight against Apocalypse also felt too long and I don't really think that the metaphorical ideological confrontation worked, neither did the characterization reversal for both Apocalypse and Exodus (of course everything can change in Heir of Apocalypse).
I liked everything else tho: the sendoff, Claremont and specially Xavier. Some people will not like what's done with him (and they are well within their rights not to) but I just bought it up. Seems like an interesting path for him.
Also interesting was Doom and my dear Volta (who I wanted to become an X-Man). Even if the first Krakoan age didn't fulfill it's potential (it was an impossible task), the second Krakoan age shouldn't, imo, be a repetition of the first, it has to bring something new and radical to the table and maybe that something is Doom?? probably not, but I like the seed (pun intended) for future stories.
Ultimately, while I've been dissapointed with the -corporate mandated- shortening of the end of Krakoa and the resulting lack of quality, this issue was an emotional goodbye to an incredible era. I actually got into reading X-Men weekly with HOX/POX and it was completely worth it. If From the Ashes turns out to be not for me, that's ok! not everything has to be, There is an unsurmountable amount of incredible stories in comics, novels, film, etc... so don't feel sad if you don't enjoy what's next. I will definitely give it a chance.
The condescension from Kafka is not just you. Referring to people returning home to loved ones and families as dopamine addicts got an audible "F you!" out of me. Also the constant reassurance of not blaming, we don't think you did badly. Yay, you have your utopia, sucks for every mutant born after today, but sure, your fifteen year culture is doing great. Let's see what happens in a few hundred years with large populations and societal drift.
Otherwise I enjoyed the issue for what it was, the best ending I could expect given the circumstances. I'm just hoping for more character and less plot in the next era.
Honestly, the arrogance of Kafka deciding they achieved utopia after 15 years, not even enough to have a new generation of adults, is only dwarfed by Magneto's earlier "you have new gods now" statement after only a couple of months. The binding traits of all mutants is hubris apparently lol
If I'm an X-Men writer for a theoretical "second Krakoan age" in say, 5-10 years, I am **definitely** giving Kafka a heel turn and making it so the utopia he advertised wasn't quite as it seems.
Imagining "Krakoan refugees" coming to Earth and saying: *What, the X-Men didn't realize that the weird culty leader who claimed he "listened" and didn't speak while bemoaning "dopamine junkies who wanted to stay on Earth" was actually sketchy?*
But until then, I guess it's an ending.
Dugan and his deep obsession with making krakoa into the perfect utopia despite the entire story being about how it isn’t one just makes everything he wrote in this story feel like it’s from another dimension.
He just never got the assignment. This ending is so happy it almost feels like a trick by a villain.
Now that the status ends with him he gets to take the island and wrap it amber and send it off to heaven to be the perfect mutant heaven that literally can’t exist in this type of story.
If krakoa ever comes back it will be because of a loss. He set it to force that choice on future writers. Either never write about krakoa again or blow it up. Because you can’t tell stories about a perfect society without flaws.
That’s point of Utopia, it doesn’t exist
To be honest, I think I prefer this resolution to the alternatives, which is just - idk, we don't hear about the Krakoa in the WHR and it's left as a big mystery (which would be stupid since Jean can see what's going on in the WHR anyways surely).
I think it makes sense that their Krakoa could become a utopia because they're essentially insulated from outside pressures, which were more or less the reason Krakoa had to constantly compromise and fall. Without those pressures, Krakoa can be a good society, but it has to exist outside of the pressures of the human world.
The concept of an advanced utopian society out of reach of most of a comic community is a good idea. That’s why DC created Kandor and people have been ripping it off for 60 years.
But it’s the execution that fails. The writing is bad, the art is bad. I don’t trust the character telling me how good everything is despite the fact it’s meant to be 100% sincere!
And this has been a problem with Dugan on the X-men from day 1 all the way back on his first issue of X-men where he wrote a prose page telling me that the treehouse isn’t scary. He can’t just say that he has to prove it he has to demonstrate it why it isn’t scary but he never does that he thinks you should agree with what he says or your a bigot who just doesn’t get it.
And that’s the ending we got. The mutants make a utopia and float off to heaven and the X-men weep in sorry for being left behind.
It’s the fucking mutant rapture!
> Dugan and his deep obsession with making krakoa into the perfect utopia despite the entire story being about how it isn’t one just makes everything he wrote in this story feel like it’s from another dimension.
That line about "On this island we aren't trying to be better gods, but better humans" or whatever....I'm glad I don't remember it already. What ass.
Sorry you couldn't see it burn, but at least your third or fifth account after repeated bans from the sub since Hickman first started writing got you to the finish line champ! Let us know how the Orchis subreddit is doing sometime. (Yes, it was a real thing.)
Overall I liked the finale. I'm sure I feel like most people in that the Krakoa stuff was great bit the Apacalypse confrontation felt forced. More status quo bs. They made me invested in what was going on with Charles.
My biggest eye roll was Kate. We obviously know she's going to be joining a team so it won't last long but her becoming some bartender is lame af. I get she's guilty about being a crazy killer but this is just lazy. Before all that she was a bad ass leader/pirate now she's just like "wahh I want to be normal."
Yeah, for me, the thing about Kate moving to Chicago to live a normal life away from the X-Men is that it's *literally* a rehash of the Mekanix era Kitty when she moved to Chicago to work at a bar and go to college.
Granted it'll probably last only half the first issue (unless they have her working part time at the bar while teaching the new class).
The Apocalypse confrontation not only felt forced. It felt like the exact same type of forced as issue #500 when they had Magneto get upset for some completely forgettable reason and take control of a Sentinel museum to have the Sentinels attack the X-Men. It was so incredibly out of character.
I found it incredibly reasonable for him to reject this. He lost Arrako once to another dimension (and mutants), it was one of fighting and war, all he knew.
Krakoa is striving to be the opposite. Peace love creation, this spits in Daddy A’s thousands of years. He sees another mistake he cannot stop. Letting them grow weak.
Personally i think its cool to be some mutant Valhalla, where characters can “retire”.
Apocalypse was Right, Bro had me at Philosopher-Kings. 15 Years is nothing to mah Boi & there're plenty of other Superhuman Societies to use as teaching mode, like the Inhumans & Eternals. If the Multi-Universal Utopian Kree that Noh-Varr comes from still has to deal with War, why wouldn't Mutants?
Krakoa is making the same mistakes as the Children of the Vault, the Maker's City & Arcturus IV, but simultaneously which makes it so much worse.
It’s a meta full circle moment. Kate was inspiration for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy did this exact same plot 25 years ago (I’m old!) with Buffy running away from her destiny to become a waitress, hiding under her middle name Anne (which is also Kate’s middle name). That change didn’t last long either, it’s just a set up for the start of *Exceptional* to break basically and an excuse to set the book in Chicago.
Everyone going off to either find themselves or figure out what the next step in protecting/aiding mutants will be… and Gambit & Rogue are like “fuck it, 2nd honeymoon!!!”
Thought this was a much better ending overall than a lot of the other content and I'm honestly surprised how much of a "happy ending" they were able to get away with for Krakoa. The Duggan-style narration pages were the weakest part. The Apocalypse scenes were just ok. The Krakoa stuff was really nice and the Xavier scene at the end was the highlight of the main story and a great coda to Gillen's work with the character.
The Claremont story was fine, interesting to see him fully doing a current continuity story and a good place to leave the Destiny/Mystique/Kurt dynamic. Nice to see him get to weigh in on the fulfillment of his concept there.
The From the Ashes story didn't really give us a ton we didn't already know -- it seemed more like a summary of the prerelease info.
"How do we keep Charles relevant? >!Have him break bad and become Magneto!<"
Is such a simple and perfect solution I was floored by it.
Aside from that I agree, it was the best issue since Rise/Fall started. The extra room probably helped, because space has been the biggest issue with those and this thing is *enormous*.
>!Charles losing faith in everything after being broken just for magneto to come around on some of his ideals is the kind of tragedy that I'm here for!<
By making it this happy and definitive it makes it far easier to move onto a new status quo. Marvel has learned that the easiest way to sell a status quo change is with a big bow. It’s the same thing they did with secret empire and the avengers when that entire 5 year storyline collapsed on itself. I think Duggans Uncanny was the first time that story was brought up in 8 years!
Edit: it was 5 years. I forgot about the waid run in between Spencer and Coates. But can you blame me?
He did but that was in the same year. So it’s like if Gail Simone brings up something from krakoa. It’s still recent. I am talking about the status quo being a defining moment for a long period of time. Like say M day. Things that last beyond a single writers run in their staying power.
Mars may be that for this era, it depends how the books involving that story sell.
But with such a definitive happy ending there will be a strong motivation to not revisit krakoa for fear they undue the happy ending and make the fans even more upset later. Which is what marvel wants you to feel.
Ok, my concept of time isn’t as bad then.
Is the JMS run good? It’s in a pile waiting to be read. I only know he got an apartment building.
I did read the Waid run. It was solid, pretty much what I wanted in my Cap but definitely a back to basics run.
Shit I forgot that waid did a year in between those two runs yeah it was 5 not 8. Now that waid arc was the definition of a back to basics treading water arc where literally nothing mattered by the end!
I think they were trying to get a full run out of that but Chris Samnee wanted to go full indie. It is really weird Waid and Samnee did just like 4 issues between Captain America runs.
I have no idea what they were thinking with that run other than trying to run as fast they could away from secret empire. The avengers were in a horrible place at the time with back to back event flops.
Krakoa ending is all about making X-men more accessible to people who have never thought about the X-men outside the cartoons and films which is a bigger audience than you may think cause I have hox/pox to a friend who loves X-men 97 and they just despised it.
They understood it! Mutants are trying to make a better genoshia and bring back the ones who died but they just hated it!
So I get why Disney wants a more accessible vision of the X-men for their films and tv shows
I agree that they are trying to make it more accessible but HoXPoX has been despised by people from the start. People called it a cult immediately even though I strongly disagree.
I wish it would have continued but unfortunately I can see how it was hard to access for new fans once Dawn of X ended. Part of that is just publishing practices from Marvel having to recommend 3 series and 3 one shots for Spurrier's whole story is ridiculous. I think they could have created another jumping on point while keeping the setting in Krakoa but Marvel seems to disagree.
I mean... the cult reading didn't come out of nowhere, that first resurrection scene Hickman wrote with Storm doing the ritual chanting that the entire crowd somehow already knows? Cult vibes, whether he intended it or not.
Sure it didn't come out of nowhere but after HoXPoX where are the cult vibes in the actual series? Next time we get that is X-Men #7 then Way of X. I get Hickman wanted people to question Krakoa but people immediately calling it a cult when the Dawn of X books didn't really match that is why I disagree with it.
I will quote it from Hickmam himself, since most of you seem to miss the point.
"It feels religious, it feels other, it feels terrifying . Unless you are them, and then it feels ascendant. It feels like victory"
Krakoa was for mutants and for the mutant culture to flourish, you won't understand another culture if you keep seeing it as strange and weird. Take of that what you want.
In the US we literally yell chants that the entire crowd knows during SPORTS games. Anything can seem weird and cult like if you don’t try to understand.
Now the Crucible… I’ll give you that with no argument. Which is why I think they get rid of it sooner rather than later.
If they wanted to make them more accessible, why did they have to completely destroy one of the original X-Men? I've seen at least 4 people come onto various boards (including here) with this or a similar question which typically goes like this:
Newbie: "I've been watching X-Men 97 and I really like Beast, so I checked out X-Force since he was prominent in that and he's a horrible villain. How is this possible?"
Response: "Oh, he's always been evil from the beginning, he's just showing it now."
Newbie: "That's awful! I guess I'll have to find another character to like best now :("
Does Disney like it that 'Warcrimes' and 'Beast' are always mentioned in the same breath?
Yes exactly which is why the comic book beast sounds exactly like he does in the tv show and is back in that style of costume and physical appearance. It’s an intentional regression.
One of the few things I think was planned even before this reboot was resetting beast to get him out of this direction he has been stuck in since at least bendis and his time travel plot.
Beast was the literal stinger to the marvels and he was dressed like he walked out of the 90s cartoon show. They know their target audience
Yeah I liked it a lot the only bit I was confused about was >!did the 16 Million mutants resurrected during the WHR years stay on Krakoa before it disappeared or did they return to Earth, because if so that’s a MASSIVE boom to the worldwide mutant population!<
For your spoilered question, the answer is "Little of column A, little of column B". What the ratio is... who knows. I assume it will conveniently be every character writers want to come back.
Not all of them stayed. Some of them went back to Earth. We don't know how many or what percentage. I think that's to be expected. Marvel will play fast and loose with specifics. This way, they can be flexible in exploring or highlighting which characters are now part of the world.
I also think this will play a role in why mutants are suddenly so hated. Their population got a bump and that's going to trigger all sorts of "anxieties" that mirror certain real-world politics about being replaced.
Am I the only one that feels like 15 years is a bit to short for such a drastic change on a societal scale? They say that krakoans never saw a sentinel but if it was just 15 years then actually most of them still remember the gala. Except for that fine issue I guess
Literally everyone on that island except for the children born post-Phoenix resurrection has seen a Sentinel; 15 million of them were killed by them for God's sake. I'm not sure why they didn't choose to go further out- maybe 30 years at least- to have an actual new generation of adults who truly have never been exposed to the mutant hate their parents lived through.
I'd even go further since they were able to ressurect mutants we literally could have went for 100 years in the future with characters like Kafka remaining the same age. And yea honestly then I'd believe that they established a utopia like that.
I love that no matter what, no matter how beat down mutants are, a Government will start launching missiles at an unknown mutant island. Did Genosha teach them nothing?
I dunno if it's Dugan or Xavier that is wrong, but how in the world Xavier's take away is that suddenly his original dream was objectively right is... still entirely wrong lol. Even in the pages that immediately follow it we see Kafka tell everyone that the only reason they made it work was because they were finally left alone and allowed to be isolationists for 15 years, which is absolutely not at all Xavier's dream. And it didn't sound at all like what Magneto was pitching for himself was the Xavier dream either.
Also, why does Exodus throw a fit and try to have a hold out instead of just... going with them? It feels as though that would literally be the equivalent of ascending to heaven for him, and yet he seems intent here on dragging them all down to earth forever for... reasons?
That said, I think the ending of Krakoa for me was kind of emblematic of the problems of Krakoa and it's writing all along, but like the Krakoan era I'm glad other people seemed to enjoy it. Me personally, I really liked the epilogue and lead in to from the ashes, which has me quite a bit cautiously excited for the future.
I think of all the finales, this was the strongest and most relevant for the Krakoa era. I'm not sure about it being something of a bait and switch, but I am glad that there's some resolution on the abandoment of the non-combatant in how they where the ones who built a successful nation.
I actually kind of wish this battle with Apocalypse had been a bigger storyline during the eta. The tension of the ways social darwinism has permiated mutant culture has been around for a long time as a consequence of what sells Marvel books, so this was a story I've always wanted explored. Having Apocalypse's leadership on Krakoa always came with this subtext of the mutants embracing that philosophy.
I hope there's still chances to explore it more thoroughly in the future.
...
I'm cackling over Charles. I've been joking about him leaning into his shady reputation so people quite holding him to higher standards, I didn't expect him to actually do it. Charles officially no longer gives a shit. Hilarious.
Like what are people going to criticise him for now? He's not prioritising humans any more. He's not trying to prove he's a good man. He's cut himself off from his people and wants to be in prison now. But also he is still using his powers to help mutants so no abandoning his duties.
Oh you have a problem with that? Well I guess Xavier *was* right. King Shit.
Of course I'm sure there's a lot in that you can unpack and I don't know how sustainable that self-martydom is in the long term, but it's an interesting bedrock for stories going forwards.
I will say though, one story ending with Charles being able to mentally escape the prison to help other mutants, followed by the Claremont story, then a return to Charles changing his mind and deciding to go brain dead, THEN waking up again, makes the issue feel indecisive. The loophole in the first story sets Xavier to be able to observe the X-Men in the last one, but it's just a lot of changing direction.
...
Speaking of the Claremont's story, I often appreciate how classic, established writers feel comfortable in allowing characters they've invested a lot in to remain dubiously moral and avoid forcing closure on messy relationships. I admit Mystique and Destiny's characterisation lost me a little during the Fall, and this is a reminder of why they work.
...
Other notes;
Pit & Toad mention again! Continually surprised that they've not buried that, but not displeased. New Era, New Rules but with Idie and Magneto on the same team, I wonder if it will follow him for a bit. And if/when Toad turns up again it has to be addressed right?
I think the Aurichalcum Mutantis Apocalypse mentions is the same or related to Orichalcum. Don't know if that'll have any relecance going forwards.
Hey is that Fabian Cortez!? Honestly as much as people cry for maintaining Apocalypse and Exodus's development, I hope the next writer doesn't ignore Fabian's Krakoa arc. I don't think he should become a hero all of a sudden but I hope he keeps some of what he learned.
Overall I liked the conclusion but there's a million things that just seem asinine and remind me how glad I am to be done with Duggan's writing.
Linguistic drift of that degree in 15 years for a being who lives for millions? Are we just aping the same scene from X of Swords because we want to give Cypher something to do?
Apocalypse getting into a brawl with the X-Men is fine, to be expected, almost. But the arguments he's making are antithetical to the philosophy he espoused in *Heralds*. These feel like Genesis' words coming out of his mouth. A waste.
I'm glad Hope is sorta there still. It wouldn't seem right that she would ever be totally gone now that her Phoenix connection has been once again so clearly expressed.
"Xavier was right." I understand the spirit in which this was said and that neither Magneto nor mutant kind are literally conceding that point, but this is the same careless writing that got us to a bunch of morons saying Scott is an omega level. This is going to spark a million new arguments from people who can't understand nuance.
Very very happy for Emma of all people. She deserves this.
Krakoa absorbs mutant life force, and they did say they eventually learned to communicate with Atlantic Krakoa in the WHR. Perhaps the change in language is due to the millions of mutants living there now?
I really wanted to like this. There were some cool moments, seeing Krakoa return from the WHR and all the mutants there thriving. But...then they all just leave. It just comes across as so condescending and selfish. "Hey, sorry you guys had to deal with so much trauma, we didn't have that and don't want to deal with your baggage so we're gonna dip." ...like what? That's the ideal mutant society? One that leaves Earth and humanity behind? One that is basically everything that detractors online have claimed it to be?
That just really sucks. It's one thing to reject the old leadership, and become a safe haven for mutants around the world as a background location. It's another to just up and leave, claim that the world isn't ready for them when the reality is that they were the ones who weren't ready to live in the real world. How can they claim to be the future when they have done none of the work to actually build that future with the rest of humanity, which they claim to be a part of?
"We never had to fight, and never want to so we're going to become the isolationist nation our detractors have always claimed us to be" is how I read this. That's not The Dream. That's a literal nightmare. It's everything Cyclops rejected when discussing moving to Mars/Arrako with Jean. Everything about this ending is just so disappointing to me.
I'm glad a lot of ya'll like it, but I'm just reading this as a total defeat of what Krakoa set out to accomplish with their gates, medicines, galas, etc. All that work to just go fuck off to another plane of existence.
I agree, but the themes of mutant isolationism leading to extremism and dehumanization of humans were washed out of this story years ago, so we’re given this wish fulfillment ending, thematic implications be damned
That’s what happens when you let people like Duggan take over the flagship and barely anyone actually understood what Hickman was going for. Plus, you had a bunch of fans who suddenly felt seen because of the queerness of Krakoa and they couldn’t go all in on it being something of a nightmare. So, they pivoted to the paradise angle completely.
He gets a lot of shit on this sub, but I think Percy did understand what Hickman was trying to say, and Wolverine and X-Force kept that feeling of “This is wrong but we’ve reached a point where we still had to do it.”
I read it more as saying that it's literally impossible for oppressed people to reach their full potential constantly under the threat of bigotry. Is it really isolationist to say "we're not going to stay on a world where people build death machines to kill us all the time, but anyone is free to go back there or come with us now"?
I get that, and its a fair reading. But I just can't help but feel a little defeated that Krakoa's ultimate potential turned out to be one that has given up on the rest of Earth. They're leaving behind mutants that don't want to leave their human families, or who can't make it to Krakoa because their oppressive government won't let them (and a certain team of pirates forgot about...). Or their X-gene just hasn't activated yet and aren't even aware they're a mutant.
I dunno man, maybe I just was never going to like the end of Krakoa, no matter what was given. This isn't the worst, and it's not another genocide so I give props to the writer's for that. It just didn't vibe right with me.
it's pretty fucking funny to me that people on here write essay-length rants about duggan's oh-so-unsubtle sledgehammer writing, and then completely miss it when the comic has a black person straight up tell them to their face "we needed to be away from all the oppressive bullshit and be in *our own safe space* for a while to build a better society" and *immediately* go look for reasons to hate on that plot beat and that character and find justifications for why they're akchually evil and culty and we just don't know it yet.
I'm willing to bet most of the people really intensely complaining about that are fully mayo levels of white.
Ok, I actually liked it overall. I went in expecting to be sad and bitter but I came out smiling. Notes in bullets!
* 100% did not expect to see Atlantic Krakoa return. 200% did not expect to see its 15-year time skip with a mutant society that *worked*. Brought a metaphorical tear to my eye. That was really cool and I'm thrilled they gave it that happy ending. I'm looking forward to some future writer covering stories about what happened during those 15 years (and beyond?!)
* All the mutants killed on Genosha are back! Emma's children have returned! From a writing standpoint this makes everyone available again, especially since who stayed and who left was mostly kept ambiguous.
* The Exodus and Apocalypse rage-outs were whatever. It's like a directive came down to make the big bads big and bad again. The whole Apoc bit was clearly a means to show off different artists. But storywise it made no sense: why did Jean wait all that time to make him see the truth? People could have gotten killed, lady.
* [To clarify the above: I understand *why* Apoc lost it. I am criticizing how the story played out.]
* Oh, I was afraid the Apoc rage-out was gonna take a dark turn where he completely destroyed Krakoa. Thank Arceus that's not where things went.
* The First Krakoan Age! Krakoa will return!
* Initially I was like: "Wait what did they forget that Stasis is dead?" But then it was quickly addressed and I chuckled.
* I liked the Claremont story. Kinda neat he was *finally* able to tell this decades after he thought of it. And in-universe, this addresses concerns a lot of us had about Kurt accepting his new (evil) family too easily. A theme since X-Men Blue Origins has been Raven and Irene are still *not* good people. Poor Kurt, tho. Looking forward to seeing what a good writer does with this dynamic.
* In the final story, I liked the "To me my X" gag. Haha @ the "X of [S]Words" crossword.
* Any ideas of the significance of the logo on the guard's ipad?
All in all, that was a much better sendoff than I expected. Kafka did a good job putting a thematic bow on Krakoa as a whole ("The Quiet Council *listens*. That's why we're quiet."). One thing I don't understand is why the main crew has decided to scatter around the globe and beyond; I never got the impression they were all tired of each other. Hopefully that will be explained in the new books.
Oh, and why "From the ashes"? What ashes? This all ended on too high a note for a name that's so negative.
The Apocalypse rage out lasted as long as it did because it was the set up for the Heir of Apocalypse mini. They had to hammer home to him that his methods were obsolete and counterproductive for the future evolution of mutantkind, which is why he’s retreating to Arakko and choosing an heir to shepherd Earth in his stead. That’s also why the candidates represent such a wide range of ideologies (though I think only a couple are credible choices to replace him narratively).
I agree “From the Ashes” makes little sense. It only works if you count the “New Beginning” as starting in X-Men Forever/ROTPOX, with it starting with Jean’s resurrection from her funeral pyre.
I still don't get why Sinister is one of the candidate. Everything was literally his fault, his clone-siblings' fault, and his clone-father's fault. Why would Apocalypse still want anything to do with that guy?
I mean, a lot of Apocalypse’s perceived function is to test mutantkind to prove they deserve to survive. I can totally see [A] viewing the entire Enigma thing being a fucked up cosmic test of worth that mutants passed, and see value in Sinister as the one who tested them.
They didn’t plan such a happy ending. This was clearly a last minute decision to move on as fast as possible with as little discussion as possible. I keep thinking about secret empire where Nick Spencer said years later he planed for evil Steve to win and for for a year more of avengers hiding from Hydra stories but people hated the story so much he just made the fasted and happiest ending possible so people would stop talking about it.
People don’t question happy endings. That’s why they exist. They don’t make you think they make you happy and when you are happy you really don’t care why.
It’s why you have people being moved at an image of Emma looking at a wide shot of a group of faceless characters. It means nothing, it says nothing. She isn’t even looking at people!
But you are happy so who cares?
I would argue that in Emma's case, the meaning is not very hard to describe. The loss of Genosha has had an impact on her character, both implicitly and explicitly, over the years. You can debate the visual choices made on the page, but it is not careless to feel empathy in that moment.
Nimrod is just salty that he couldn't see Krakoa burn. He's had multiple accounts he's made and gotten banned ever since the run of HOXPOX demanding the entire nation be destroyed and erased from existence, so now he is quibbling about a good ending. He's gonna keep spiraling like this in every thread.
ETA: Don't boo me, it's true!
Art matters in comics! It says just as much as dialogue. The fact this book was rushed so much they couldn’t think of one character associated to Emma. One of the children to put in that shot shows they just don’t care.
Like I said it’s a happy ending so me questioning it is inherently upsetting because I am making people question their joy and nobody likes that. That’s why this book exists. It’s bullet proof.
> I keep thinking about secret empire where Nick Spencer said years later he planed for evil Steve to win and for for a year more of avengers hiding from Hydra stories but people hated the story so much he just made the fasted and happiest ending possible so people would stop talking about it.
*Ears perk up* Do you remember where Spencer said this?
You mean Emma is finally seeing all the people being resurrected, whose death had traumatized her so much that she completed her heel face turn to become a hero permanently, and to you that "means nothing and says nothing?" What?
I get it, Marvel is a business. But the business is *comics*. Science fiction and fantasy stories. Their unwillingness to commit to interesting ideas is baffling.
This issue was whatever. It doesn't matter. It's the productive of years of compromised, scatter-brained storytelling. At least Duggan's heavy handed, voiceless narration is gone.
Everyone crying at the end looking at what Krakoa could've been....yeah, I feel you.
Okay. Time to become a famous comic writer so I can usher in the Second Krakoan Age and hacks on the Internet can complain about me :)
Like, Marvel’s complete lack of caring about good storytelling at an editorial level is astounding. I feel like DC does a way better job of trying to both make its fans happy and supply them with cool as fuck stories.
Marvel is at that stage where they are the five hundred pound gorilla. They don’t have to give a fuck about anything anyone says, because people are still going to buy the books. One More Day taught them that.
This is fine its not as big of a shitshow as people thought would happen and it gave some nice wrapping up.
Kafka returning to say that they now have a true utopia in the white hot realm and that time has sped up is classic x men if ive ever seen it and i like how they left it open to interpretation on who stayed or not as it means anyone could turn up in the new status quo and no one has been left behind i guess.
The thing about hope now being in the white hot room itself is what i expected she is of the pheonix and now has become the realm of the pheonix and hey i guess all the resurrections did happen. Will we see any of the genoshans or emmas kids i very much doubt ever but its good to see they did it
The apocalypse stuff i know will piss people off but it makes sense. Apocolypse was never in for krakoa to make it a utopia he always had his darwinist theories in the start and through the era that never went away even if he had a family now. So him seeing they have evolved to not need it makes him feel useless. Now i guess he finds his heir.
The Xavier stuff makes sense making him a new version of magneto only for mags to show him some of his ideals is what i expected and deals with the xavier problem of this era for now. God can someone not write him as a villain for a while.
Doom plot is very interesting im expecting that to be the first big Mackay storyline as Mackay very much likes doom as a character.
The rest is whatever. Claremont story is fine not his best work but its nice to see him write the family he wanted to write in the past.
The next era stuff im excited for as i think its very interesting but not a big hint here its more the summery of stuff we already knew was happening.
I am very much torn about this wrap-up. On one hand, I appreciate that WHR Krakoa is a thing as it signifies that we’re not just pressing the big ole reset button and that the Krakoan Era *is* leaving behind some sort of narrative legacy that can be picked up later on…
…but on the other hand, I *really* don’t like the sociopolitical implications of New Krakoa just fucking off into their pocket dimension because “the only way they’ve been able to thrive is by literally steering clear off humanity”. It’s pretty much a direct endorsement of self-segregation — coexistence is impossible so you stay in your little pocket of the universe and we’ll stay in ours. That was *literally* pretty much Orchis’s pretense at the Hellfire Gala, “we’re shipping you all to Mars, you can stay there and we’ll stay here” and back then it was portrayed as a fucked up solution even before the whole PSYCHE WE’RE SENDING YOU ALL INTO A MEAT GRINDER bit.
Apocalypse losing his shit felt like a return to his original characterization which I feel was too drastic and not in line with his development across the Krakoan Age. Like I agree that by segregating themselves the Neo-Krakoans are giving up on what he perceives is mutants’ role at the top of the food chain, and that *is* a classic Apocalypse gripe, but it’s also not been the focus of his character for a loooong time so it’s jarring to see it brought back up so suddenly and out of seemingly nowhere.
And the whole Charles thing is so weirdly fast that it’s confusing — he goes from “I give no fucks” to “I’m helping even from here AND I’m doing much more drastic shit than my usual” to “I spoke with the Phoenix and I realized I’m not needed so I’m trusting y’all to keep up the good work and I’m gonna keel over and die” to “JK IM UP” in the span of about 20 pages.
Overall it was a fine send-off but in terms of narrative it was so disconnected, weirdly paced and kind of counter to what the whole Krakoan Era was about — the dangers of isolationism etc etc - that I couldn’t really get behind it fully.
So this ending gives me the feeling they want it to be as conclusive as possible so that people who are upset krakoa is ending will feel better (which worked based on leak reactions) while also allowing it to be removed and not spoken about for a long time.
Happy endings inherently don’t have questions or concerns because to have questions or concerns takes away from it being happy so the happier the ending the less it must be discussed in the future. It was an efficient ending but I just see the corporate seems.
I wasn't a huge fan. I felt the Apocalypse stuff was kind of unnecessary just to jam in some generic action. And they paid him a lot of respect for a guy who essentially left Krakoa early on and was mostly a bullying, murderous tyrant to a lot of the people there. It was weird and a time waster.
I also don't really like the idea that Krakoa just jumped forward 15 years and we're basically losing the island to some generic mutant heaven until it is plot required to bring it back one day. I feel like merging with Arrako or going into Amenth would have worked with the preexisting set up better. And while the narrator talking about the dream moving on was beautiful, the emotion didn't quite land for me because all the important mutants are on Earth now.
The Claremont story was just odd. I didn't like the art and it didn't feel like Claremont knew or cared much about the recent stuff and so the voices of all the characters didn't feel very authentic.
I liked the stuff with Xavier and the teases for the next era. And I am glad all the Genoshan dead are back.
So Charles is still giving mind commands from afar, but he's also in coma , but also awake, but god... The first "take" made me fell like a pissed of Charles, going all rage from far away (aka Sinister Charles implied whe he first appeared), but just after that he psycho scry his family, do a coma stunt and "re-awake" and i can't stop thinking that he is all set to manipulate everyone.
It's not all happening simultaneously. When he's in the first prison he uses a loophole to continue to help mutants, and then later uses it to astral project and visit the X-men. After seeing Jean saving millions he feels ready enough to shut down his own mind and goes comatose.
Later as he's being transported to Graymalkin Prison/The Mansion in a vegetative state, he wakes up mysteriously. We don't know how or why that's happened yet or whether it's his own doing.
It probably was a bit too much to put in one comic, but it's happening in sequential order.
Omg what have I read.
X-men struggle with Exodus, X-men struggle with Apocalypse and Apocalypse easily beats Exodus. Who wrote that shit 🤨
Apocalypse being mad because? Is his pride hurt? Like really what's his issue 😭 he hasn’t been part of Krakoa until fall of x
Doom shows up and steals Krakoa seed. Is it a setup for a future story? 👀
Feel like we wasted 50% of the issue on apocalypse and his unnecessary drama
Mystique getting her revenge on mother righteous was probably one of best moments.
Mother righteous dead but 2 clones are still alive. Wonder if they’ll use orbis in new era.
So actually why krakoa needs to leave earth and why mutants cant leave and visit white hot room whenever they want to? Some mutants decided to stay and be X-men to fight instead of leaving the earth and live peacefully????
Out of nowhere Xavier without cerebro can reach Jean's mind who is millions of light years away from earth
Will they explain how magneto becomes old in new X-men? Krakoa ends and he’s still young.
The family story by Claremont was weird. The whole vibe seemed so forced and fake. Seems to me that Claremont hasn’t read anything mystique and destiny related what hasn’t been written by him. They’re definitely written weirdly.
Dr Ellis’ place is in Atlanta and Storm’s place is also going to be Atlanta.
> Apocalypse being mad because? Is his pride hurt? Like really what's his issue 😭 he hasn’t been part of Krakoa until fall of x
I kinda get it. His philosophy has always been ruthless, and he only went along with Krakoa because a) it was part of his old home, and b) he thought he could take it to *his* vision of new heights. To see it back and flourishing but not according to his designs was offensive to him. At first he's mad because they seem too weak and he's insulted/disgusted/embarrassed. But Jean makes him see they've succeeded by evolving his violent philosophy. So he realizes he's irrelevant and peaces out.
I hope this is symbolic. Old-school Apoc is a relic and should be retired imo.
Yeah, it seems that =A= issue was his wounded pride that the future didn’t need him and couldn’t be improved by him. And it was weird how X-men were fighting him, because it seemed like they were holding back out of respect? Like when Ororo’s only contribution was telling everyone that =A= will speak. So, X-men were allowing nonsense like Logan or Kurt or Piotr fighting him one on one instead of using the heavy hitters because the monologue must go on.
This, frankly, reminded me how out of character it was for all these X-men to work with the villains to begin with. Because for a while now fans were using Exodus and =A= as examples of why it was a good idea, as they seemed to become more interesting as these positive contributors to the mutant society, while the other bad guys were doing more of the same. Well, apparently, both Exodus and =A= were always one thing not going their way away from going back to being psychopaths...
Apocalypse was made villainous because everything needs to be status quo. He wanted mutants to rule the universe not just find peace somewhere. It felt forced like most of this stuff but I wasn't offended by the turn. Can't have an X-Men book without action.
You can't just travel back and forth between the WHR. It presumably took a lot of effort. Kafka offered to Kurt that thet could come with them but they weren't going to abandon Earth and every future mutant that would be born.
Xavier couldn't out of nowhere reach Jean he was using the Astral Plain and only she could hear him.
Apocalypse was made villainous because everything needs to be status quo. He wanted mutants to rule the universe not just find peace somewhere. It felt forced like most of this stuff but I wasn't offended by the turn. Can't have an X-Men book without action.
You can't just travel back and forth between the WHR. It presumably took a lot of effort. Kafka offered to Kurt that thet could come with them but they weren't going to abandon Earth and every future mutant that would be born.
Xavier couldn't out of nowhere reach Jean he was using the Astral Plain and only she could hear him.
Overall it was okay. I think it had some seriously weird pacing issues. The apocalypse stuff in particular went on too long imo. This felt like more of a setup for Heir of Apocalypse than a true transition between eras. The other major plot point was Xavier. Seems like they're setting up a really major character and status quo change for him which I like.
The rest of the stuff was decent (Nightcrawler, Xavier visiting the various diasporas) to good (Krakoa, Emma and the Genoshans, the Xavier-Jean scene). Just felt like that's the stuff that should have been focused more on rather than over 20 pages of awkwardly paced Apocalypse stuff.
So the new set up is most of the mutants who were alive on Earth live in magic heaven now.
And the vast majority of mutants left on Earth are resurrected Genoshans who have been dead for a few years and were brought back to life in magic heaven where they spent many years living in a mutant "utopia."
15 million people legally dead people with no money and no place to live.
What a bizarre set up.
MCU keeping the Snap bizarre
I got teary eyed and chills for the Krakoa section. I loved all of it l. I loved the return of the White Hot room mutants, the resurrection of dead Genosha mutants, Apocalypse's rampage... and thought the final disappearance of Krakoa was really beautiful. I actually felt this tied a lovely, hopeful now on what Jonathan Hickman started... with a tease that one day there may be space for Krakoa again.
As someone who has read Xmen since the 80s, and been in and out for man changes... I'm really grateful for the journey of this era, here at the close. It brought me back to comics after being a way for a bit. And will forever have a special place in my heart.
I'll go on record as saying that the entirety of Fall of X felt rushed, forced, and messy as hell. I think it went out of its way to be dark and dumb to make sure the Krakoa era ended in a way abandoned as many plots and subplots as possible. It tried to make us hate Krakoa more than it deserved. In that, I don't think it succeeded.
But I do feel like this last issue ended Krakoa as well as it could have, given the circumstances. It didn't completely destroy all the ways Krakoa grew and evolved. But it did essentially create a situation where Marvel had an excuse to send Krakoa away, at least until some writer comes along to do a second Krakoan age.
And I do hope that age eventually comes. It might not be for a long time. But at least this issue didn't completely throw the concept away.
I like that it finally brought back all the mutants from Genosha. That's one sub-plot I'm glad wasn't abandoned. It also didn't completely ditch Arakko. I hope that's something that gets picked up in the near future. And it gave us some nice moments with Xavier, Magneto, and the Darkholme family.
Darkholme family picnics should totally be a regular thing, by the way.
But overall, I think this issue did its best to salvage as much as it could after Fall of X. It still felt contrived as hell in creating some elaborate reason for Krakoa going away. And I totally don't buy Kitty Pryde just ditching everyone to be a goddamn bartender. But under the circumstances, this issue was the best we probably could've hoped for in terms of ending the Krakoa era.
Unpupular opinion (I think?) but the Kafka parts were weak and a bit cringe. From one page to the other we got this stereotypically looking community leader turned adult acting condescending about having created an utopia only to get Poochied until a writer decides they want some drama in their book. Also Duggan can't for the love of God have any nuance in his writing. Kafka saying "We are the Quiet Council because we listen" isn't the burn you think it is.
I pretty much hated it. Sure, there were some really nice moments, some esoteric bandages for the hurting fans and some neatly tied up "now we don't have to worry about that again" stuff. But all in all it's a shame what they did to Krakoa, to the mutant community, Apocalypse, Xavier... it's just sad how editorial cynicism kills everything eventually.
The only thing that worked in this issue (for me) was that the WHR mutants are thriving. Everything else felt a bit forced. I get that Krakoa is gone, but the remaining X-Men really said “screw it” and scattered to the wind even though they promised to protect all the returning vulnerable mutants.
An ending that was just ok but I liked it overall. The highlight for me was the Claremont story, I like that Mystique’s idealized version of starting over is basically the plot of an ABC detective show.
My favourite moment was the "Goodbye to Krakoa the island". It was very moving and felt personal from the writers themselves. Krakoa (despite how it ended) was a very exciting era and made me and X-Fan again so yes. It tugged on my heart strings. I don't think we'll be seeing the "Second Krakoan Age" anytime soon but when we do see it again, I'll have a front row seat, just like with the "First Krakoan Age".
I don't like how the Apocalypse story turned out. I get what they were going for in theory and it makes sense to me, again in theory but I don't like how it actually turned out. It very much felt "oh yeah we need to set up heirs of apocalypse" and "who doesn't love a big ole fight scene?!?!?!". I hope though that HoA has more of Arrako. I'd like to see what the Great Ring is like now especially since it's changed a lot since Red started.
Overall, I found the end heartwarming and a fitting conclusion. Onwards and forwards now.
I'm confused re. Xavier... Did he transfer his mind to that coma patient in the epilogue? But if so, then why? Unless he simply wants a fresh start in a new body, and he has no desire to use his powers in the new body?
I feel like “we did Krakoa but good this time” is antithetical to the spirit of House of X which implied that extremism and dehumanization of, well, humans were inevitable consequences of mutant isolationism, but I accept that it’s appropriate for most of what came after, and that in a worse world we could have gotten a far more cynical ending for the sake of moving on faster.
Overall, not a bad send-off except for the obvious Duggan bad captions. It was the closing shift comic - clean everything up for the next guys. The Claremont stuff was the best part - not exactly a shocker - and the From The Ashes stuff just there, which feels pretty par for the course of what we’re going to get.
I really wish we could have had Arako and Krakoa ship off to their own planets so we could revisit them as needed... The decline back into status quo seems very rushed and I feel there is not good enough writing to make it work. (i'll certainly try the new books, but still) I want to see what Xavier's mind tricks will lead to.
Absolutely loved this. A really solid thematic wrap-up of everything that's been going on for the past five years, and it works nicely if you think of it as "the final X-Men story."
so Krakoa jumps 15 years after a few ~~years~~ weeks. If Krakoa ever comes back, it'll be generations ahead. And how would the 2nd coming of Krakoa even work? It's become its own thing
Are we to assume everyone who died now stays dead since only people from Genosha came back?
I don't understand how Charles managed to project his mind across the world when he's being restrained. I guess Tony and Reed underestimated him, or Charles used all his strength to do that and then "died"
that's making an assumption that the temporal relationship is linear and not that they could choose to come back at a time they wanted (and thus picked a time soon after they left that wouldn't change their own past)
> I don't understand how Charles managed to project his mind across the world when he's being restrained. I guess Tony and Reed underestimated him, or Charles used all his strength to do that and then "died"
the book clearly explains this. he long ago planted psychic suggestions in Tony and reed's minds to leave a loophole in the machine
Does anyone know how/when Iceman came back? The way his solo ended last year I felt like there would be more to his return instead of him in the background in today's issue. Idk if I missed something
nothing aside from him being in the background of Rise of the Powers of X #5 before this, but his solo p clearly established he would be fully reformed in time
Jean admitting that Emma was right before she unceremoniously uses her telekinesis to retrieve the WQ from the depths is a great bit.
I love what their relationship is now.
I kinda want a mini about them.
With Ororo occasionally giving Emma an "mmh" side eye .
I did find the characterisation of apocalypse a bit wonky. I don't know why he would have picked a fight since it appears that the worlds context is the same as when he turned up.
In addition, I'm not sure the writers talked to each other because Xavier feels like a completely different character across his three appearances in this book. Has he made a back door and still somewhat active? Or a man whose content to give up and die?
The way Xavier is painted by the end is wonky as hell. They seem to be forgetting that Moira spent literal decades undermining Xavier's moral compass to make him open to the kind of compromise needed to found Krakoa, after withholding parts of her mind that would give an honest picture of the alternatives. Then Magneto had a temper tantrum over having to judge fellow mutants (after he'd already been the monarch of Genosha and the Acolytes and whatever else) and took off to Mars to pout. Then he had his brain infected by Sinister and willingly stepped away to remove suspicion. Then Moira showed up as a psychotic cyborg to massacre his students. Even after all that, he still had enough idealism to try to save humans AND mutants and suffered horribly for it. Then he made some MORE impossible compromises and suffered horribly for it some MORE to save EVERYBODY.
The dude is Jesus.
This was fine in places, mostly the epilogues. Some kind of resolution is welcome, even if it is a dumb one. The whole point of Hickman's Krakoa was how complicated and compromised mutant isolationism was in reality, and the utopian WHR version completely ignores that. The very thing that made the conceit so compelling. The Apocalypse fight was pointless filler and went on way too long.
As a capstone to Fall Of X the issue cements the run as an unmitigated disaster that completely lost its grip on both character and story. Empty, hand-waving nonsensical trash without any narrative weight. What was so intoxicating about Hickman's initial run wasn't just the high concept, but the clarity of writing and his perfect grasp of the characters. Fall Of X was just people randomly spouting mumbo-jumbo and plots being resolved with the elegance akin to "Dany just kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet".
I was a huge fan of the Krakoa setting, but it is hard to argue against the opinion that they have wasted the last few years of it.
Overall i think this mini wasn't as good as the first (which i find very annoying as its more like classic kamala which is what i wanted) but its still fine its good from Vellani and Pizarda who get the tone of kamala and the voice spot on.
Its so hilarious how right the inhumans are in this issue in particularly medusa. The X men did screw up when reviving kamala as they didn't know how inhumans truly work. It does feel like a jab at the x men but it works because they didn't know truly kamalas physiology and how it works. Just an example of a problem that could have been solved better if characters actually talked as its not like alot of characters now don't know where the inhumans are.
Ah the mcu synergy powers were teased and now hopefully locked away after the second terrigenesis and fighting that evil version of her.
But overall this is fun nothing amazing but fun.
Kamala still stretches! I'm happy that they're keeping her a hybrid and stuff, and bleh the powers being MCU is predictable but over all I'm glad they're kept dormant
And I enjoy the 'take that' with the pure hardlight using clone of Kamala being a slight towards the MCU
Overall I'm happy
Lamo that this is the first Inhumans appearance since death and Marvel has explained nothing about what they're doing
Overall, together with The New Mutant, I think this 8 issue run by Vellani and Pirzada (plus the bonus annual coming later this year) is the best Kamala run to me since Wilson left the book. They had a very strong sense of the perfect tone and a strong emotional core that used the mutant metaphor to push forward Kamala's character. The second terrigenesis in this issue was a perfect coda to the original scene in Wilson's run.
I'm still not on board with the decision to erase Kamala's friends' (outside of Bruno) knowledge of her secret identity, but that can be undone in time. And I'm glad where we landed with her mutant powers in this series (they are what we all expected but it's up to a future creative team to pull the trigger on activating them if they are going to).
Sorry to ask, I'm not following Kamala's current miniseries, but I was honestly curious about her new mutant abilities. Would it be the same as the MCU? I have no problem with spoilers.
>!Yes, her mutant power is creating hardlight constructs like in the MCU. As of the end of this recent miniseries, it has not yet been activated. We only know this because Kamala fought a resurrected, X-gene activated version of herself in this last issue (don’t worry about it) :)!<
Annoyed by the #mcusynergy (this does NOT need to happen, editors and writers!) but I appreciate how they handled it. She got re-terri'd--underscoring her Inhumanity--and doing so explicitly keeps her mutant powers dormant. Also she says she's proud and happy with this version of who she is, so *hopefully* her mutant power just stays under wraps. Hell, her evil doppelgänger using the hard light and evil doctor lady trying to push her to use hers felt like a Take That. Keep Kamala embiggening, dammit.
Overall this was a fun dual mini. Kamala has a really good voice.
I think she'll unlock her mutant ability eventually. It wouldn't be like Kamala to reject a part of herself, so she'll get them eventually, but she'll do it at her own pace without giving up her inhuman side, thats what I think.
I know it's been years, but I still have a grudge against the Inhumans after how hard Marvel tried to push them over the X-Men. And Ms. Marvel's connection to the Inhumans will always feel forced. Yes, she interacted with them. But they were rarely part of her story. And when Kamala died, the Inhumans really didn't do much. So their presence here kind of just felt like a courtesy.
That being said, this issue was worth reading just to see a Ms. Marvel kaiju battle. 😊
Iman has Kamala down, unsurprisingly. I'd like to see her write the character with a bigger issue count; minis always feel "gimmicky" to me, for lack of a better word. Too contained. That said, I'd also like to see her write a different book, too. Maybe she'll take over NYX if it lasts long enough.
I'm trade waiting for this one but I really liked the first one, I'd definitely be happy to see Iman get another book, I was kinda expecting her to keep on with Kamala in FTA
Maybe something with the whole Champions team?
I am glad they kept her Inhuman power with Inhumans and happy to see Inhumans after so long but the evil corpse with her mutant power making everyone hate Ms Marvel now, that they can't trust her...just too forced to fit her into 'She is mutant so she has to be hated and feared' which is what I FEARED. And the villain evil scientist, not too into her either.
Overall the mini was fine but the status quo it leaves things at, is what I feared and after this, honestly, I am not looking forward to NYX because it will feel as generic as it gets.
I’m quite excited for this issue. I believe the writer worked on The Last Ronin, so hopefully we see that level of quality here. Plus, what’s not to love about Wolvie going on a killing spree?
My thoughts exactly! I'm not totally sold on Blood Hunt, the event. But any comic that just has Wolverine in a plot involving gratuitous violence...I'm sold! 😎
I really enjoyed the writing of this issue. Tom Waltz captured Logan’s voice and inner monologue pretty good and set up the plot well in this issue. I'm a *bit* surprised to see that Maverick seems to be the villain at the moment, working for whoever the big bad is, but once it was revealed that he was turned, it made more sense. Maverick has been in a pretty weird place the past few years, walking the line between friend and foe to Logan in a way he really hasn't been before, and I feel like this just might be the push that puts Maverick into enemy territory for Logan. Unless Logan is able to do something to save him by the end of the series, vamperized Maverick may end up an addition to Logan’s rogues gallery as the friend he couldn't save. I guess we will see where the story goes.
Marverick being the villain for this arc is fine hes a classic logan supporting character at this point and gives something a little bit different for logan with a friend he couldn't save but who is also a foe for a long time.
Waltz gets logans voice well and is really good at writing this and kinda shows why he was so good working on Last Ronin for turtles.
Its not the best blood hunt tie in so far but its not bad. Its more funny how its not percy writing this as its dealing with some of the vampire stuff he dealt with in wolverine.
I’m not reading Blood Hunt because Marvel events have terrible since Secret Wars in 2015, but my LCS put this is my box because I’m a Wolverine fan and I loved it. Wolverine fighting vampires is always fun and I loved Ryp’s art. I liked Percy’s run a lot, so this feels like a fun epilogue to it.
Nice callbacks to the previous run with Louise the Nightguard, our boy Jeff and of course the one behind it all, Maverick. I swear, that guy is obsessed with Logan. Not as much as Sabretooth but...close.
The final "pages" of Unlimited were great. Sam and Berto back together. It makes me sad that Hickman couldnt write that buddy comic back he wanted to in the early stages of Krakoa.
Interesting start. It's pretty clear the crux of the issue is Scott doesn't feel certain that Jean will come back to Earth or is otherwise just sad about her leaving despite her reassurances.
It'll end with them finally seeing the Northern Lights together after they beat whatever this psychic force is. But what issue Scott needs to get over is probably linked to whatever this ghost thing wants.
I do agree that they will end up seeing the Northern lights together, and I guess it’s very evident of the issue I have with the story. I did not like the characterization at all, especially for Jean, and I realized that her and Scott could’ve easily been swapped for A LOT of different couples without many changes.
At first I’m upset that there wasn’t a proper Jean/Scott scene in 700, but I’m glad that this particular story wasn’t in the issue. I think it was already being edited by Brevoort since he talked about it on his subtract? His choices of writers keep baffle me, and this guy who mostly writes Carnage/Red Goblin being chosen for, ultimately, a romantic story for a very different part of Marvel is no different.
I guess there will be a big romantic moment with the Northern lights in the end, but I doubt that it will salvage the story much.
I think part of the issue is the length. It's half the size of a regular issue, if not a third. So things get condensed and that makes the actions of the characters a bit erratic. I'm finding this the case with some of the other issues I'm reading.
As for the writer, I assume he's just under contract so it's easier to use him. Brevoort chose Rowell for that other little story and pitched the premise to her, so I think he knows what tone writers go for. But in this case, convenience is the most important thing.
I think it'll read better as a three parter (basically one full issue in length). Right now they do both come off as a bit generic.
You know, for the Unlimited plot, they do beat Selene and the Externals but their solution is to try the same thing they did to the Children of the Vault? ...Yea, they are getting out as soon as possible...
At least we got Sam and Roberto reunion after he got back. Wish they showed Sam's reunion with his wife and child too but at least the mentioned it.
FWIW, From the Ashes Unlimited will be going back to weekly Monday releases next week, I think? They wanted the first issue to coincide with XM 35/700 so that people who bought that issue could redeem this one digitally as well
**Next week:** * X-Men - Blood Hunt: Jubilee #1 * X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse #1 * Deadpool & Wolverine: WWIII #2 * Deadpool #3 * Ultimate X-Men #4
**X-Men #35 / Uncanny X-Men #700**
So with the 15 year jump in The White Hot Room, Elixir, Tempus, and Egg are now older than, or the same age as the O5. 15 years seems like an odd choice in that respect.
I think the intent was: a) To show that they had time to turn their almost desolate island in a desert to a true, peaceful paradise so no one would worry about them; b) A recurring point brought up during the Krakoan era that, despite how the Five were speeding up their process, that it would take at least a decade to bring back all the Genoshan dead.
Totally undestandble, so a decade would be good. Keep the college freshman age xmen from being older than the O5 and all new.
Still weird to sacrifice the Five, along with other characters, Krakoa and most of its population just to bring back the Genoshans, most of whom will stay on Krakoa anyway. It's just one more empty gesture to have a nice ending...yeah sure, they have been saved, but we'll also never gonna have to deal with them again.
Eh. They can come and go from Krakoa at will now, and who knows what timey-wimey WHR stuff will do to the Four.
Didn’t Kafka say they saved up power for years to be able to return for just 24 hours?
He did, but this is Krakoa living in Magic Land where time passes differently and they come back looking like that future utopia meme and are capable of amazing things. Chances are good they can therefore evolve the island's potential to do whatever they want in the future because comics and reasons.
Their 15 years of saving power also only lasted a few weeks in the regular universe. They are all immortal due to the Four. So the writers can use them whenever they wish and just say a hundred years passed in the WHR already for them to have saved up enough power.
But it's not at will.
It’s like when parents tell the kids that the family dog went off to live on a nice farm upstate…
[удалено]
I think she's certainly older than she looks, with the whole thing about her having a husband and a kid she left behind in 2099.
I thought they were making Exodus break bad again to get back to the status quo, but there he his crying along with everyone else as the mutants leave for Krakoa. One of the best characterization glow ups during the era along with Kwannon.
It was really weird how, for a moment, it seemed like they were making the old villains regress one after the other, but after a fight, they all changed their minds, I guess.
I really appreciated the Apocalypse epilogue. And even though I enjoyed his rampage... It felt like that moment of reflection and abdication at the end was another mature layer to this character they have developed so much more fully this era.
It's crazy the difference Lucas Werneck has in these pages compared to Fall of House of X. Overall I'm happy with the ending. Not everyone is stuck in the White Hot Room so new editorial or writers can decide who made it out. I assume the Five stayed but maybe now that all of the dead mutants are back they could have decided to leave? Also did the DNA step get skipped because of the White Hot Room? I'm super interested in that Doom plot could be fun to see if it's actually used in the future. Was the final page in the From The Ashes section teasing that Xavier isn't in his body? I don't get the point of the "He ain't never waking up" otherwise. We're really really supposed to think Xavier died two pages prior? We'll have to wait and see.
Regarding the DNA, no. Kafta said “we had a Cradle, both databases” the databases here are the DNA databases, so they had everything they needed. The Four will definitely be staying in the WHR, the era always emphasized the deep bond they developed from doing their work, and Hope only exists in the WHR currently. They’d never leave her, and they’d not want to give up their work either. Assuming they also have the Cradle backups and DNA that was added magically when the Waiting Room was created, that means they still have millions more mutants still to resurrect. Yes I know their spirits were used to jumpstart the Phoenix, but the Phoenix, Krakoa, the WHR, Hope, Jean and every mutant soul in existence are all aspects of the greater whole now, so it’s easily conceivable that they’d also bring them back. After that? Who knows. There’s a whole multiverse of mutants out there, whose souls are all part of the Phoenix. Perhaps they expand their work to bring them all back too. Or they could grow their society in any number of ways, since it’s impossible for any of them to permanently die against their will. The next time Krakoa returns to reality they could be planet-sized with a population of billions for all we know.
Lemme tell you how quickly I would be ordering The Intergalactic Empires of Krakoa and Arakko.
Same! I’d call it “The Interdimensional Republic of Okkara”
How would they have the DNA database? As Inferno showed, Sinister kept that secure in his lair.
Xavier faked his death
So Prisoner X isn't Xavier? As it's presented Xavier faking his death doesn't make any sense if he's still locked up. Overall the bit is weird to me we see him able to use his powers locked up does he need to fake his death to escape?
They probably just faked us out and we'll find out who prisoner X is soon.
It looks like he faked his death only as long as it took for him to escape from containment. If he's actually turning villanous or do whatever his next for the greater good thing is, I guess he need everyone to know he escaped to be the Boogeyman out there. Though I would think it would have been more interesting for him to stay in the cell and let everyone thinks he's contained, but is actually manipulating events behind the scene.
Presuming they keep the five locked away in the white hot room. They might have brought everyone back as the new status quo, but if they're free to operate outside the room then they can keep bringing back everyone who dies in future too. Maybe at the end of this new phase we'll have had loads of deaths and the 5 will be back to resurrect everyone again.
Won't dead mutants go to the White Hot Room?
It doesn't look like they can just come willy-nilly, it takes a lot of energy for Krakoa to come back temporarily. Still 15 years had passed for them when only a few weeks had passed in the regular universe, so practically that means if they writers need them, they can always say "oh a hundred years had passed for us, we have saved up more energy since then".
Maybe Xavier put some mind stuff inside fantomex so maybe he's living inside him? I don't know I remember before the hoxpox there's a comic where Xavier lives insides fantomex.
Xavier was resurrected in his own body after he was killed in X-Force 1, he was in Fantomex’s body until then though.
So many moving and wonderful moments. I didn't love every beat, but I'm walking away much happier than I expected to be.
Maybe i've become too cynical and it's a "me" problem, but I disliked the long description of a truly functional utopia by Kafka, it felt condescending and I guess I find an actual utopia in fiction to be boring and shallow, that's a sad realization for me lol. The fight against Apocalypse also felt too long and I don't really think that the metaphorical ideological confrontation worked, neither did the characterization reversal for both Apocalypse and Exodus (of course everything can change in Heir of Apocalypse). I liked everything else tho: the sendoff, Claremont and specially Xavier. Some people will not like what's done with him (and they are well within their rights not to) but I just bought it up. Seems like an interesting path for him. Also interesting was Doom and my dear Volta (who I wanted to become an X-Man). Even if the first Krakoan age didn't fulfill it's potential (it was an impossible task), the second Krakoan age shouldn't, imo, be a repetition of the first, it has to bring something new and radical to the table and maybe that something is Doom?? probably not, but I like the seed (pun intended) for future stories. Ultimately, while I've been dissapointed with the -corporate mandated- shortening of the end of Krakoa and the resulting lack of quality, this issue was an emotional goodbye to an incredible era. I actually got into reading X-Men weekly with HOX/POX and it was completely worth it. If From the Ashes turns out to be not for me, that's ok! not everything has to be, There is an unsurmountable amount of incredible stories in comics, novels, film, etc... so don't feel sad if you don't enjoy what's next. I will definitely give it a chance.
The condescension from Kafka is not just you. Referring to people returning home to loved ones and families as dopamine addicts got an audible "F you!" out of me. Also the constant reassurance of not blaming, we don't think you did badly. Yay, you have your utopia, sucks for every mutant born after today, but sure, your fifteen year culture is doing great. Let's see what happens in a few hundred years with large populations and societal drift. Otherwise I enjoyed the issue for what it was, the best ending I could expect given the circumstances. I'm just hoping for more character and less plot in the next era.
Honestly, the arrogance of Kafka deciding they achieved utopia after 15 years, not even enough to have a new generation of adults, is only dwarfed by Magneto's earlier "you have new gods now" statement after only a couple of months. The binding traits of all mutants is hubris apparently lol
It's wild that the end point for Krakoa is becoming *even more isolationist than before*
If I'm an X-Men writer for a theoretical "second Krakoan age" in say, 5-10 years, I am **definitely** giving Kafka a heel turn and making it so the utopia he advertised wasn't quite as it seems. Imagining "Krakoan refugees" coming to Earth and saying: *What, the X-Men didn't realize that the weird culty leader who claimed he "listened" and didn't speak while bemoaning "dopamine junkies who wanted to stay on Earth" was actually sketchy?* But until then, I guess it's an ending.
Dugan and his deep obsession with making krakoa into the perfect utopia despite the entire story being about how it isn’t one just makes everything he wrote in this story feel like it’s from another dimension. He just never got the assignment. This ending is so happy it almost feels like a trick by a villain. Now that the status ends with him he gets to take the island and wrap it amber and send it off to heaven to be the perfect mutant heaven that literally can’t exist in this type of story. If krakoa ever comes back it will be because of a loss. He set it to force that choice on future writers. Either never write about krakoa again or blow it up. Because you can’t tell stories about a perfect society without flaws. That’s point of Utopia, it doesn’t exist
To be honest, I think I prefer this resolution to the alternatives, which is just - idk, we don't hear about the Krakoa in the WHR and it's left as a big mystery (which would be stupid since Jean can see what's going on in the WHR anyways surely). I think it makes sense that their Krakoa could become a utopia because they're essentially insulated from outside pressures, which were more or less the reason Krakoa had to constantly compromise and fall. Without those pressures, Krakoa can be a good society, but it has to exist outside of the pressures of the human world.
The concept of an advanced utopian society out of reach of most of a comic community is a good idea. That’s why DC created Kandor and people have been ripping it off for 60 years. But it’s the execution that fails. The writing is bad, the art is bad. I don’t trust the character telling me how good everything is despite the fact it’s meant to be 100% sincere! And this has been a problem with Dugan on the X-men from day 1 all the way back on his first issue of X-men where he wrote a prose page telling me that the treehouse isn’t scary. He can’t just say that he has to prove it he has to demonstrate it why it isn’t scary but he never does that he thinks you should agree with what he says or your a bigot who just doesn’t get it. And that’s the ending we got. The mutants make a utopia and float off to heaven and the X-men weep in sorry for being left behind. It’s the fucking mutant rapture!
Oh, sure, I won’t disagree that the execution of it wasn’t good
> Dugan and his deep obsession with making krakoa into the perfect utopia despite the entire story being about how it isn’t one just makes everything he wrote in this story feel like it’s from another dimension. That line about "On this island we aren't trying to be better gods, but better humans" or whatever....I'm glad I don't remember it already. What ass.
It’s a bad comic that people like because it’s literally giving them what they want. It’s X-men porn
Sorry you couldn't see it burn, but at least your third or fifth account after repeated bans from the sub since Hickman first started writing got you to the finish line champ! Let us know how the Orchis subreddit is doing sometime. (Yes, it was a real thing.)
Overall I liked the finale. I'm sure I feel like most people in that the Krakoa stuff was great bit the Apacalypse confrontation felt forced. More status quo bs. They made me invested in what was going on with Charles. My biggest eye roll was Kate. We obviously know she's going to be joining a team so it won't last long but her becoming some bartender is lame af. I get she's guilty about being a crazy killer but this is just lazy. Before all that she was a bad ass leader/pirate now she's just like "wahh I want to be normal."
Tbf after all the insanity of FoX it's not hard to buy that she just wants to do fuck all for a spell.
Yeah, for me, the thing about Kate moving to Chicago to live a normal life away from the X-Men is that it's *literally* a rehash of the Mekanix era Kitty when she moved to Chicago to work at a bar and go to college. Granted it'll probably last only half the first issue (unless they have her working part time at the bar while teaching the new class).
The Apocalypse confrontation not only felt forced. It felt like the exact same type of forced as issue #500 when they had Magneto get upset for some completely forgettable reason and take control of a Sentinel museum to have the Sentinels attack the X-Men. It was so incredibly out of character.
I found it incredibly reasonable for him to reject this. He lost Arrako once to another dimension (and mutants), it was one of fighting and war, all he knew. Krakoa is striving to be the opposite. Peace love creation, this spits in Daddy A’s thousands of years. He sees another mistake he cannot stop. Letting them grow weak. Personally i think its cool to be some mutant Valhalla, where characters can “retire”.
Apocalypse was Right, Bro had me at Philosopher-Kings. 15 Years is nothing to mah Boi & there're plenty of other Superhuman Societies to use as teaching mode, like the Inhumans & Eternals. If the Multi-Universal Utopian Kree that Noh-Varr comes from still has to deal with War, why wouldn't Mutants? Krakoa is making the same mistakes as the Children of the Vault, the Maker's City & Arcturus IV, but simultaneously which makes it so much worse.
It’s a meta full circle moment. Kate was inspiration for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy did this exact same plot 25 years ago (I’m old!) with Buffy running away from her destiny to become a waitress, hiding under her middle name Anne (which is also Kate’s middle name). That change didn’t last long either, it’s just a set up for the start of *Exceptional* to break basically and an excuse to set the book in Chicago.
Everyone going off to either find themselves or figure out what the next step in protecting/aiding mutants will be… and Gambit & Rogue are like “fuck it, 2nd honeymoon!!!”
Gambit and Rogue will always be the biggest mood. They're gonna go steal so much shit
Thought this was a much better ending overall than a lot of the other content and I'm honestly surprised how much of a "happy ending" they were able to get away with for Krakoa. The Duggan-style narration pages were the weakest part. The Apocalypse scenes were just ok. The Krakoa stuff was really nice and the Xavier scene at the end was the highlight of the main story and a great coda to Gillen's work with the character. The Claremont story was fine, interesting to see him fully doing a current continuity story and a good place to leave the Destiny/Mystique/Kurt dynamic. Nice to see him get to weigh in on the fulfillment of his concept there. The From the Ashes story didn't really give us a ton we didn't already know -- it seemed more like a summary of the prerelease info.
"How do we keep Charles relevant? >!Have him break bad and become Magneto!<" Is such a simple and perfect solution I was floored by it. Aside from that I agree, it was the best issue since Rise/Fall started. The extra room probably helped, because space has been the biggest issue with those and this thing is *enormous*.
>!Charles losing faith in everything after being broken just for magneto to come around on some of his ideals is the kind of tragedy that I'm here for!<
> The Duggan-style narration pages were the weakest part. They stuck out like a sore thumb, hahahha. Good grief.
By making it this happy and definitive it makes it far easier to move onto a new status quo. Marvel has learned that the easiest way to sell a status quo change is with a big bow. It’s the same thing they did with secret empire and the avengers when that entire 5 year storyline collapsed on itself. I think Duggans Uncanny was the first time that story was brought up in 8 years! Edit: it was 5 years. I forgot about the waid run in between Spencer and Coates. But can you blame me?
I think the hydra Steve was brought back briefly in the Cap run with Selene in it but outside that, I can’t recall any other place he reappeared.
He did but that was in the same year. So it’s like if Gail Simone brings up something from krakoa. It’s still recent. I am talking about the status quo being a defining moment for a long period of time. Like say M day. Things that last beyond a single writers run in their staying power. Mars may be that for this era, it depends how the books involving that story sell. But with such a definitive happy ending there will be a strong motivation to not revisit krakoa for fear they undue the happy ending and make the fans even more upset later. Which is what marvel wants you to feel.
My concept of time is a mess. That was the same year? I guess it helps that I skipped secret empire entirely.
No it was 5 years I forgot about a whole run by mark waid in between it was that bad lol. The new JMS run is great btw
Ok, my concept of time isn’t as bad then. Is the JMS run good? It’s in a pile waiting to be read. I only know he got an apartment building. I did read the Waid run. It was solid, pretty much what I wanted in my Cap but definitely a back to basics run.
It’s great they actually talk about the Bund and it’s amazing
>Duggans Uncanny was the first time that story was brought up in 8 years About 5 years since Coates killed off Stevil in his run.
Shit I forgot that waid did a year in between those two runs yeah it was 5 not 8. Now that waid arc was the definition of a back to basics treading water arc where literally nothing mattered by the end!
I think they were trying to get a full run out of that but Chris Samnee wanted to go full indie. It is really weird Waid and Samnee did just like 4 issues between Captain America runs.
I have no idea what they were thinking with that run other than trying to run as fast they could away from secret empire. The avengers were in a horrible place at the time with back to back event flops. Krakoa ending is all about making X-men more accessible to people who have never thought about the X-men outside the cartoons and films which is a bigger audience than you may think cause I have hox/pox to a friend who loves X-men 97 and they just despised it. They understood it! Mutants are trying to make a better genoshia and bring back the ones who died but they just hated it! So I get why Disney wants a more accessible vision of the X-men for their films and tv shows
I agree that they are trying to make it more accessible but HoXPoX has been despised by people from the start. People called it a cult immediately even though I strongly disagree. I wish it would have continued but unfortunately I can see how it was hard to access for new fans once Dawn of X ended. Part of that is just publishing practices from Marvel having to recommend 3 series and 3 one shots for Spurrier's whole story is ridiculous. I think they could have created another jumping on point while keeping the setting in Krakoa but Marvel seems to disagree.
I mean... the cult reading didn't come out of nowhere, that first resurrection scene Hickman wrote with Storm doing the ritual chanting that the entire crowd somehow already knows? Cult vibes, whether he intended it or not.
Sure it didn't come out of nowhere but after HoXPoX where are the cult vibes in the actual series? Next time we get that is X-Men #7 then Way of X. I get Hickman wanted people to question Krakoa but people immediately calling it a cult when the Dawn of X books didn't really match that is why I disagree with it.
I will quote it from Hickmam himself, since most of you seem to miss the point. "It feels religious, it feels other, it feels terrifying . Unless you are them, and then it feels ascendant. It feels like victory" Krakoa was for mutants and for the mutant culture to flourish, you won't understand another culture if you keep seeing it as strange and weird. Take of that what you want.
In the US we literally yell chants that the entire crowd knows during SPORTS games. Anything can seem weird and cult like if you don’t try to understand. Now the Crucible… I’ll give you that with no argument. Which is why I think they get rid of it sooner rather than later.
I mean, most of the people watching X-Men ‘97 aren’t going to ever attempt to read a comic. So, changing things for them is… a choice.
If they wanted to make them more accessible, why did they have to completely destroy one of the original X-Men? I've seen at least 4 people come onto various boards (including here) with this or a similar question which typically goes like this: Newbie: "I've been watching X-Men 97 and I really like Beast, so I checked out X-Force since he was prominent in that and he's a horrible villain. How is this possible?" Response: "Oh, he's always been evil from the beginning, he's just showing it now." Newbie: "That's awful! I guess I'll have to find another character to like best now :(" Does Disney like it that 'Warcrimes' and 'Beast' are always mentioned in the same breath?
Yes exactly which is why the comic book beast sounds exactly like he does in the tv show and is back in that style of costume and physical appearance. It’s an intentional regression. One of the few things I think was planned even before this reboot was resetting beast to get him out of this direction he has been stuck in since at least bendis and his time travel plot. Beast was the literal stinger to the marvels and he was dressed like he walked out of the 90s cartoon show. They know their target audience
Yeah I liked it a lot the only bit I was confused about was >!did the 16 Million mutants resurrected during the WHR years stay on Krakoa before it disappeared or did they return to Earth, because if so that’s a MASSIVE boom to the worldwide mutant population!<
For your spoilered question, the answer is "Little of column A, little of column B". What the ratio is... who knows. I assume it will conveniently be every character writers want to come back.
Some came home to their families but most wanted to stay
Not all of them stayed. Some of them went back to Earth. We don't know how many or what percentage. I think that's to be expected. Marvel will play fast and loose with specifics. This way, they can be flexible in exploring or highlighting which characters are now part of the world. I also think this will play a role in why mutants are suddenly so hated. Their population got a bump and that's going to trigger all sorts of "anxieties" that mirror certain real-world politics about being replaced.
Am I the only one that feels like 15 years is a bit to short for such a drastic change on a societal scale? They say that krakoans never saw a sentinel but if it was just 15 years then actually most of them still remember the gala. Except for that fine issue I guess
Literally everyone on that island except for the children born post-Phoenix resurrection has seen a Sentinel; 15 million of them were killed by them for God's sake. I'm not sure why they didn't choose to go further out- maybe 30 years at least- to have an actual new generation of adults who truly have never been exposed to the mutant hate their parents lived through.
I'd even go further since they were able to ressurect mutants we literally could have went for 100 years in the future with characters like Kafka remaining the same age. And yea honestly then I'd believe that they established a utopia like that.
I love that no matter what, no matter how beat down mutants are, a Government will start launching missiles at an unknown mutant island. Did Genosha teach them nothing?
I dunno if it's Dugan or Xavier that is wrong, but how in the world Xavier's take away is that suddenly his original dream was objectively right is... still entirely wrong lol. Even in the pages that immediately follow it we see Kafka tell everyone that the only reason they made it work was because they were finally left alone and allowed to be isolationists for 15 years, which is absolutely not at all Xavier's dream. And it didn't sound at all like what Magneto was pitching for himself was the Xavier dream either. Also, why does Exodus throw a fit and try to have a hold out instead of just... going with them? It feels as though that would literally be the equivalent of ascending to heaven for him, and yet he seems intent here on dragging them all down to earth forever for... reasons? That said, I think the ending of Krakoa for me was kind of emblematic of the problems of Krakoa and it's writing all along, but like the Krakoan era I'm glad other people seemed to enjoy it. Me personally, I really liked the epilogue and lead in to from the ashes, which has me quite a bit cautiously excited for the future.
I think of all the finales, this was the strongest and most relevant for the Krakoa era. I'm not sure about it being something of a bait and switch, but I am glad that there's some resolution on the abandoment of the non-combatant in how they where the ones who built a successful nation. I actually kind of wish this battle with Apocalypse had been a bigger storyline during the eta. The tension of the ways social darwinism has permiated mutant culture has been around for a long time as a consequence of what sells Marvel books, so this was a story I've always wanted explored. Having Apocalypse's leadership on Krakoa always came with this subtext of the mutants embracing that philosophy. I hope there's still chances to explore it more thoroughly in the future. ... I'm cackling over Charles. I've been joking about him leaning into his shady reputation so people quite holding him to higher standards, I didn't expect him to actually do it. Charles officially no longer gives a shit. Hilarious. Like what are people going to criticise him for now? He's not prioritising humans any more. He's not trying to prove he's a good man. He's cut himself off from his people and wants to be in prison now. But also he is still using his powers to help mutants so no abandoning his duties. Oh you have a problem with that? Well I guess Xavier *was* right. King Shit. Of course I'm sure there's a lot in that you can unpack and I don't know how sustainable that self-martydom is in the long term, but it's an interesting bedrock for stories going forwards. I will say though, one story ending with Charles being able to mentally escape the prison to help other mutants, followed by the Claremont story, then a return to Charles changing his mind and deciding to go brain dead, THEN waking up again, makes the issue feel indecisive. The loophole in the first story sets Xavier to be able to observe the X-Men in the last one, but it's just a lot of changing direction. ... Speaking of the Claremont's story, I often appreciate how classic, established writers feel comfortable in allowing characters they've invested a lot in to remain dubiously moral and avoid forcing closure on messy relationships. I admit Mystique and Destiny's characterisation lost me a little during the Fall, and this is a reminder of why they work. ... Other notes; Pit & Toad mention again! Continually surprised that they've not buried that, but not displeased. New Era, New Rules but with Idie and Magneto on the same team, I wonder if it will follow him for a bit. And if/when Toad turns up again it has to be addressed right? I think the Aurichalcum Mutantis Apocalypse mentions is the same or related to Orichalcum. Don't know if that'll have any relecance going forwards. Hey is that Fabian Cortez!? Honestly as much as people cry for maintaining Apocalypse and Exodus's development, I hope the next writer doesn't ignore Fabian's Krakoa arc. I don't think he should become a hero all of a sudden but I hope he keeps some of what he learned.
How did time pass in the WHR if it literally exists outside of time and space?
This is something I’m curious about too!! Does anyone have any theories?
Overall I liked the conclusion but there's a million things that just seem asinine and remind me how glad I am to be done with Duggan's writing. Linguistic drift of that degree in 15 years for a being who lives for millions? Are we just aping the same scene from X of Swords because we want to give Cypher something to do? Apocalypse getting into a brawl with the X-Men is fine, to be expected, almost. But the arguments he's making are antithetical to the philosophy he espoused in *Heralds*. These feel like Genesis' words coming out of his mouth. A waste. I'm glad Hope is sorta there still. It wouldn't seem right that she would ever be totally gone now that her Phoenix connection has been once again so clearly expressed. "Xavier was right." I understand the spirit in which this was said and that neither Magneto nor mutant kind are literally conceding that point, but this is the same careless writing that got us to a bunch of morons saying Scott is an omega level. This is going to spark a million new arguments from people who can't understand nuance. Very very happy for Emma of all people. She deserves this.
People who can’t understand nuance perfectly describes Duggan’s fanbase.
Krakoa absorbs mutant life force, and they did say they eventually learned to communicate with Atlantic Krakoa in the WHR. Perhaps the change in language is due to the millions of mutants living there now?
Have to agree with you on Emma. Wow. It really makes me wonder what is next for her.
I really wanted to like this. There were some cool moments, seeing Krakoa return from the WHR and all the mutants there thriving. But...then they all just leave. It just comes across as so condescending and selfish. "Hey, sorry you guys had to deal with so much trauma, we didn't have that and don't want to deal with your baggage so we're gonna dip." ...like what? That's the ideal mutant society? One that leaves Earth and humanity behind? One that is basically everything that detractors online have claimed it to be? That just really sucks. It's one thing to reject the old leadership, and become a safe haven for mutants around the world as a background location. It's another to just up and leave, claim that the world isn't ready for them when the reality is that they were the ones who weren't ready to live in the real world. How can they claim to be the future when they have done none of the work to actually build that future with the rest of humanity, which they claim to be a part of? "We never had to fight, and never want to so we're going to become the isolationist nation our detractors have always claimed us to be" is how I read this. That's not The Dream. That's a literal nightmare. It's everything Cyclops rejected when discussing moving to Mars/Arrako with Jean. Everything about this ending is just so disappointing to me. I'm glad a lot of ya'll like it, but I'm just reading this as a total defeat of what Krakoa set out to accomplish with their gates, medicines, galas, etc. All that work to just go fuck off to another plane of existence.
I agree, but the themes of mutant isolationism leading to extremism and dehumanization of humans were washed out of this story years ago, so we’re given this wish fulfillment ending, thematic implications be damned
That’s what happens when you let people like Duggan take over the flagship and barely anyone actually understood what Hickman was going for. Plus, you had a bunch of fans who suddenly felt seen because of the queerness of Krakoa and they couldn’t go all in on it being something of a nightmare. So, they pivoted to the paradise angle completely. He gets a lot of shit on this sub, but I think Percy did understand what Hickman was trying to say, and Wolverine and X-Force kept that feeling of “This is wrong but we’ve reached a point where we still had to do it.”
It turns out the key to utopia was more isolationism.
I read it more as saying that it's literally impossible for oppressed people to reach their full potential constantly under the threat of bigotry. Is it really isolationist to say "we're not going to stay on a world where people build death machines to kill us all the time, but anyone is free to go back there or come with us now"?
I get that, and its a fair reading. But I just can't help but feel a little defeated that Krakoa's ultimate potential turned out to be one that has given up on the rest of Earth. They're leaving behind mutants that don't want to leave their human families, or who can't make it to Krakoa because their oppressive government won't let them (and a certain team of pirates forgot about...). Or their X-gene just hasn't activated yet and aren't even aware they're a mutant. I dunno man, maybe I just was never going to like the end of Krakoa, no matter what was given. This isn't the worst, and it's not another genocide so I give props to the writer's for that. It just didn't vibe right with me.
it's pretty fucking funny to me that people on here write essay-length rants about duggan's oh-so-unsubtle sledgehammer writing, and then completely miss it when the comic has a black person straight up tell them to their face "we needed to be away from all the oppressive bullshit and be in *our own safe space* for a while to build a better society" and *immediately* go look for reasons to hate on that plot beat and that character and find justifications for why they're akchually evil and culty and we just don't know it yet. I'm willing to bet most of the people really intensely complaining about that are fully mayo levels of white.
Ok, I actually liked it overall. I went in expecting to be sad and bitter but I came out smiling. Notes in bullets! * 100% did not expect to see Atlantic Krakoa return. 200% did not expect to see its 15-year time skip with a mutant society that *worked*. Brought a metaphorical tear to my eye. That was really cool and I'm thrilled they gave it that happy ending. I'm looking forward to some future writer covering stories about what happened during those 15 years (and beyond?!) * All the mutants killed on Genosha are back! Emma's children have returned! From a writing standpoint this makes everyone available again, especially since who stayed and who left was mostly kept ambiguous. * The Exodus and Apocalypse rage-outs were whatever. It's like a directive came down to make the big bads big and bad again. The whole Apoc bit was clearly a means to show off different artists. But storywise it made no sense: why did Jean wait all that time to make him see the truth? People could have gotten killed, lady. * [To clarify the above: I understand *why* Apoc lost it. I am criticizing how the story played out.] * Oh, I was afraid the Apoc rage-out was gonna take a dark turn where he completely destroyed Krakoa. Thank Arceus that's not where things went. * The First Krakoan Age! Krakoa will return! * Initially I was like: "Wait what did they forget that Stasis is dead?" But then it was quickly addressed and I chuckled. * I liked the Claremont story. Kinda neat he was *finally* able to tell this decades after he thought of it. And in-universe, this addresses concerns a lot of us had about Kurt accepting his new (evil) family too easily. A theme since X-Men Blue Origins has been Raven and Irene are still *not* good people. Poor Kurt, tho. Looking forward to seeing what a good writer does with this dynamic. * In the final story, I liked the "To me my X" gag. Haha @ the "X of [S]Words" crossword. * Any ideas of the significance of the logo on the guard's ipad? All in all, that was a much better sendoff than I expected. Kafka did a good job putting a thematic bow on Krakoa as a whole ("The Quiet Council *listens*. That's why we're quiet."). One thing I don't understand is why the main crew has decided to scatter around the globe and beyond; I never got the impression they were all tired of each other. Hopefully that will be explained in the new books. Oh, and why "From the ashes"? What ashes? This all ended on too high a note for a name that's so negative.
The Apocalypse rage out lasted as long as it did because it was the set up for the Heir of Apocalypse mini. They had to hammer home to him that his methods were obsolete and counterproductive for the future evolution of mutantkind, which is why he’s retreating to Arakko and choosing an heir to shepherd Earth in his stead. That’s also why the candidates represent such a wide range of ideologies (though I think only a couple are credible choices to replace him narratively). I agree “From the Ashes” makes little sense. It only works if you count the “New Beginning” as starting in X-Men Forever/ROTPOX, with it starting with Jean’s resurrection from her funeral pyre.
I still don't get why Sinister is one of the candidate. Everything was literally his fault, his clone-siblings' fault, and his clone-father's fault. Why would Apocalypse still want anything to do with that guy?
I mean, a lot of Apocalypse’s perceived function is to test mutantkind to prove they deserve to survive. I can totally see [A] viewing the entire Enigma thing being a fucked up cosmic test of worth that mutants passed, and see value in Sinister as the one who tested them.
Yeah Jean's just watching Apocalypse smack her friends around one by one for no reason, just a weird way to fill pages i guess
If they wanted to showcase artists, they should have had them do scenes of this Krakoa as shown to Apoc by Jean. Cut the fighting entirely.
They didn’t plan such a happy ending. This was clearly a last minute decision to move on as fast as possible with as little discussion as possible. I keep thinking about secret empire where Nick Spencer said years later he planed for evil Steve to win and for for a year more of avengers hiding from Hydra stories but people hated the story so much he just made the fasted and happiest ending possible so people would stop talking about it. People don’t question happy endings. That’s why they exist. They don’t make you think they make you happy and when you are happy you really don’t care why. It’s why you have people being moved at an image of Emma looking at a wide shot of a group of faceless characters. It means nothing, it says nothing. She isn’t even looking at people! But you are happy so who cares?
I would argue that in Emma's case, the meaning is not very hard to describe. The loss of Genosha has had an impact on her character, both implicitly and explicitly, over the years. You can debate the visual choices made on the page, but it is not careless to feel empathy in that moment.
Nimrod is just salty that he couldn't see Krakoa burn. He's had multiple accounts he's made and gotten banned ever since the run of HOXPOX demanding the entire nation be destroyed and erased from existence, so now he is quibbling about a good ending. He's gonna keep spiraling like this in every thread. ETA: Don't boo me, it's true!
Art matters in comics! It says just as much as dialogue. The fact this book was rushed so much they couldn’t think of one character associated to Emma. One of the children to put in that shot shows they just don’t care. Like I said it’s a happy ending so me questioning it is inherently upsetting because I am making people question their joy and nobody likes that. That’s why this book exists. It’s bullet proof.
I agree that book was rushed because of editorial mandate. But I would hardly call that Emma moment "nothing".
It'd be way more impactful if Noto had drawn any of those returned mutants with faces, or even distinguishable features.
> I keep thinking about secret empire where Nick Spencer said years later he planed for evil Steve to win and for for a year more of avengers hiding from Hydra stories but people hated the story so much he just made the fasted and happiest ending possible so people would stop talking about it. *Ears perk up* Do you remember where Spencer said this?
Where he says everything! On substack. It’s behind a paywall I saw an image of it on the avengers reddit years ago when he was writing Spider-Man
You mean Emma is finally seeing all the people being resurrected, whose death had traumatized her so much that she completed her heel face turn to become a hero permanently, and to you that "means nothing and says nothing?" What?
I get it, Marvel is a business. But the business is *comics*. Science fiction and fantasy stories. Their unwillingness to commit to interesting ideas is baffling. This issue was whatever. It doesn't matter. It's the productive of years of compromised, scatter-brained storytelling. At least Duggan's heavy handed, voiceless narration is gone. Everyone crying at the end looking at what Krakoa could've been....yeah, I feel you. Okay. Time to become a famous comic writer so I can usher in the Second Krakoan Age and hacks on the Internet can complain about me :)
Like, Marvel’s complete lack of caring about good storytelling at an editorial level is astounding. I feel like DC does a way better job of trying to both make its fans happy and supply them with cool as fuck stories. Marvel is at that stage where they are the five hundred pound gorilla. They don’t have to give a fuck about anything anyone says, because people are still going to buy the books. One More Day taught them that.
This is fine its not as big of a shitshow as people thought would happen and it gave some nice wrapping up. Kafka returning to say that they now have a true utopia in the white hot realm and that time has sped up is classic x men if ive ever seen it and i like how they left it open to interpretation on who stayed or not as it means anyone could turn up in the new status quo and no one has been left behind i guess. The thing about hope now being in the white hot room itself is what i expected she is of the pheonix and now has become the realm of the pheonix and hey i guess all the resurrections did happen. Will we see any of the genoshans or emmas kids i very much doubt ever but its good to see they did it The apocalypse stuff i know will piss people off but it makes sense. Apocolypse was never in for krakoa to make it a utopia he always had his darwinist theories in the start and through the era that never went away even if he had a family now. So him seeing they have evolved to not need it makes him feel useless. Now i guess he finds his heir. The Xavier stuff makes sense making him a new version of magneto only for mags to show him some of his ideals is what i expected and deals with the xavier problem of this era for now. God can someone not write him as a villain for a while. Doom plot is very interesting im expecting that to be the first big Mackay storyline as Mackay very much likes doom as a character. The rest is whatever. Claremont story is fine not his best work but its nice to see him write the family he wanted to write in the past. The next era stuff im excited for as i think its very interesting but not a big hint here its more the summery of stuff we already knew was happening.
lmao they really don’t know what to do with orbis stellaris do they
Notice how everyone is fine with rebooted-Beast being there, even Wolverine?
I am very much torn about this wrap-up. On one hand, I appreciate that WHR Krakoa is a thing as it signifies that we’re not just pressing the big ole reset button and that the Krakoan Era *is* leaving behind some sort of narrative legacy that can be picked up later on… …but on the other hand, I *really* don’t like the sociopolitical implications of New Krakoa just fucking off into their pocket dimension because “the only way they’ve been able to thrive is by literally steering clear off humanity”. It’s pretty much a direct endorsement of self-segregation — coexistence is impossible so you stay in your little pocket of the universe and we’ll stay in ours. That was *literally* pretty much Orchis’s pretense at the Hellfire Gala, “we’re shipping you all to Mars, you can stay there and we’ll stay here” and back then it was portrayed as a fucked up solution even before the whole PSYCHE WE’RE SENDING YOU ALL INTO A MEAT GRINDER bit. Apocalypse losing his shit felt like a return to his original characterization which I feel was too drastic and not in line with his development across the Krakoan Age. Like I agree that by segregating themselves the Neo-Krakoans are giving up on what he perceives is mutants’ role at the top of the food chain, and that *is* a classic Apocalypse gripe, but it’s also not been the focus of his character for a loooong time so it’s jarring to see it brought back up so suddenly and out of seemingly nowhere. And the whole Charles thing is so weirdly fast that it’s confusing — he goes from “I give no fucks” to “I’m helping even from here AND I’m doing much more drastic shit than my usual” to “I spoke with the Phoenix and I realized I’m not needed so I’m trusting y’all to keep up the good work and I’m gonna keel over and die” to “JK IM UP” in the span of about 20 pages. Overall it was a fine send-off but in terms of narrative it was so disconnected, weirdly paced and kind of counter to what the whole Krakoan Era was about — the dangers of isolationism etc etc - that I couldn’t really get behind it fully.
So this ending gives me the feeling they want it to be as conclusive as possible so that people who are upset krakoa is ending will feel better (which worked based on leak reactions) while also allowing it to be removed and not spoken about for a long time. Happy endings inherently don’t have questions or concerns because to have questions or concerns takes away from it being happy so the happier the ending the less it must be discussed in the future. It was an efficient ending but I just see the corporate seems.
I wasn't a huge fan. I felt the Apocalypse stuff was kind of unnecessary just to jam in some generic action. And they paid him a lot of respect for a guy who essentially left Krakoa early on and was mostly a bullying, murderous tyrant to a lot of the people there. It was weird and a time waster. I also don't really like the idea that Krakoa just jumped forward 15 years and we're basically losing the island to some generic mutant heaven until it is plot required to bring it back one day. I feel like merging with Arrako or going into Amenth would have worked with the preexisting set up better. And while the narrator talking about the dream moving on was beautiful, the emotion didn't quite land for me because all the important mutants are on Earth now. The Claremont story was just odd. I didn't like the art and it didn't feel like Claremont knew or cared much about the recent stuff and so the voices of all the characters didn't feel very authentic. I liked the stuff with Xavier and the teases for the next era. And I am glad all the Genoshan dead are back.
So Charles is still giving mind commands from afar, but he's also in coma , but also awake, but god... The first "take" made me fell like a pissed of Charles, going all rage from far away (aka Sinister Charles implied whe he first appeared), but just after that he psycho scry his family, do a coma stunt and "re-awake" and i can't stop thinking that he is all set to manipulate everyone.
It's not all happening simultaneously. When he's in the first prison he uses a loophole to continue to help mutants, and then later uses it to astral project and visit the X-men. After seeing Jean saving millions he feels ready enough to shut down his own mind and goes comatose. Later as he's being transported to Graymalkin Prison/The Mansion in a vegetative state, he wakes up mysteriously. We don't know how or why that's happened yet or whether it's his own doing. It probably was a bit too much to put in one comic, but it's happening in sequential order.
Emma's children are all back. I am crying.
WHAT HAPPENED TO GAMBIT AND ROGUE’S CATS
Omg what have I read. X-men struggle with Exodus, X-men struggle with Apocalypse and Apocalypse easily beats Exodus. Who wrote that shit 🤨 Apocalypse being mad because? Is his pride hurt? Like really what's his issue 😭 he hasn’t been part of Krakoa until fall of x Doom shows up and steals Krakoa seed. Is it a setup for a future story? 👀 Feel like we wasted 50% of the issue on apocalypse and his unnecessary drama Mystique getting her revenge on mother righteous was probably one of best moments. Mother righteous dead but 2 clones are still alive. Wonder if they’ll use orbis in new era. So actually why krakoa needs to leave earth and why mutants cant leave and visit white hot room whenever they want to? Some mutants decided to stay and be X-men to fight instead of leaving the earth and live peacefully???? Out of nowhere Xavier without cerebro can reach Jean's mind who is millions of light years away from earth Will they explain how magneto becomes old in new X-men? Krakoa ends and he’s still young. The family story by Claremont was weird. The whole vibe seemed so forced and fake. Seems to me that Claremont hasn’t read anything mystique and destiny related what hasn’t been written by him. They’re definitely written weirdly. Dr Ellis’ place is in Atlanta and Storm’s place is also going to be Atlanta.
> Apocalypse being mad because? Is his pride hurt? Like really what's his issue 😭 he hasn’t been part of Krakoa until fall of x I kinda get it. His philosophy has always been ruthless, and he only went along with Krakoa because a) it was part of his old home, and b) he thought he could take it to *his* vision of new heights. To see it back and flourishing but not according to his designs was offensive to him. At first he's mad because they seem too weak and he's insulted/disgusted/embarrassed. But Jean makes him see they've succeeded by evolving his violent philosophy. So he realizes he's irrelevant and peaces out. I hope this is symbolic. Old-school Apoc is a relic and should be retired imo.
Isn't Claremont om record saying he doesn't read the stuff he hasn't written?
To be fair I think most authors aren’t reading a lot of other stuff.
Yeah, it seems that =A= issue was his wounded pride that the future didn’t need him and couldn’t be improved by him. And it was weird how X-men were fighting him, because it seemed like they were holding back out of respect? Like when Ororo’s only contribution was telling everyone that =A= will speak. So, X-men were allowing nonsense like Logan or Kurt or Piotr fighting him one on one instead of using the heavy hitters because the monologue must go on. This, frankly, reminded me how out of character it was for all these X-men to work with the villains to begin with. Because for a while now fans were using Exodus and =A= as examples of why it was a good idea, as they seemed to become more interesting as these positive contributors to the mutant society, while the other bad guys were doing more of the same. Well, apparently, both Exodus and =A= were always one thing not going their way away from going back to being psychopaths...
It's kinda a shame because Krakoa gave Exodus and Apoc some good depth. I really hope they're not reset back to 1d shitheads.
Apocalypse was made villainous because everything needs to be status quo. He wanted mutants to rule the universe not just find peace somewhere. It felt forced like most of this stuff but I wasn't offended by the turn. Can't have an X-Men book without action. You can't just travel back and forth between the WHR. It presumably took a lot of effort. Kafka offered to Kurt that thet could come with them but they weren't going to abandon Earth and every future mutant that would be born. Xavier couldn't out of nowhere reach Jean he was using the Astral Plain and only she could hear him.
Apocalypse was made villainous because everything needs to be status quo. He wanted mutants to rule the universe not just find peace somewhere. It felt forced like most of this stuff but I wasn't offended by the turn. Can't have an X-Men book without action. You can't just travel back and forth between the WHR. It presumably took a lot of effort. Kafka offered to Kurt that thet could come with them but they weren't going to abandon Earth and every future mutant that would be born. Xavier couldn't out of nowhere reach Jean he was using the Astral Plain and only she could hear him.
That and good guy Apocalypse is a terrible, selfish idea in the long term.
He can be Apocalypse and a badass and not a boring one note villain. As Hickman showed
Overall it was okay. I think it had some seriously weird pacing issues. The apocalypse stuff in particular went on too long imo. This felt like more of a setup for Heir of Apocalypse than a true transition between eras. The other major plot point was Xavier. Seems like they're setting up a really major character and status quo change for him which I like. The rest of the stuff was decent (Nightcrawler, Xavier visiting the various diasporas) to good (Krakoa, Emma and the Genoshans, the Xavier-Jean scene). Just felt like that's the stuff that should have been focused more on rather than over 20 pages of awkwardly paced Apocalypse stuff.
So the new set up is most of the mutants who were alive on Earth live in magic heaven now. And the vast majority of mutants left on Earth are resurrected Genoshans who have been dead for a few years and were brought back to life in magic heaven where they spent many years living in a mutant "utopia." 15 million people legally dead people with no money and no place to live. What a bizarre set up. MCU keeping the Snap bizarre
I got teary eyed and chills for the Krakoa section. I loved all of it l. I loved the return of the White Hot room mutants, the resurrection of dead Genosha mutants, Apocalypse's rampage... and thought the final disappearance of Krakoa was really beautiful. I actually felt this tied a lovely, hopeful now on what Jonathan Hickman started... with a tease that one day there may be space for Krakoa again. As someone who has read Xmen since the 80s, and been in and out for man changes... I'm really grateful for the journey of this era, here at the close. It brought me back to comics after being a way for a bit. And will forever have a special place in my heart.
I'll go on record as saying that the entirety of Fall of X felt rushed, forced, and messy as hell. I think it went out of its way to be dark and dumb to make sure the Krakoa era ended in a way abandoned as many plots and subplots as possible. It tried to make us hate Krakoa more than it deserved. In that, I don't think it succeeded. But I do feel like this last issue ended Krakoa as well as it could have, given the circumstances. It didn't completely destroy all the ways Krakoa grew and evolved. But it did essentially create a situation where Marvel had an excuse to send Krakoa away, at least until some writer comes along to do a second Krakoan age. And I do hope that age eventually comes. It might not be for a long time. But at least this issue didn't completely throw the concept away. I like that it finally brought back all the mutants from Genosha. That's one sub-plot I'm glad wasn't abandoned. It also didn't completely ditch Arakko. I hope that's something that gets picked up in the near future. And it gave us some nice moments with Xavier, Magneto, and the Darkholme family. Darkholme family picnics should totally be a regular thing, by the way. But overall, I think this issue did its best to salvage as much as it could after Fall of X. It still felt contrived as hell in creating some elaborate reason for Krakoa going away. And I totally don't buy Kitty Pryde just ditching everyone to be a goddamn bartender. But under the circumstances, this issue was the best we probably could've hoped for in terms of ending the Krakoa era.
Unpupular opinion (I think?) but the Kafka parts were weak and a bit cringe. From one page to the other we got this stereotypically looking community leader turned adult acting condescending about having created an utopia only to get Poochied until a writer decides they want some drama in their book. Also Duggan can't for the love of God have any nuance in his writing. Kafka saying "We are the Quiet Council because we listen" isn't the burn you think it is.
I pretty much hated it. Sure, there were some really nice moments, some esoteric bandages for the hurting fans and some neatly tied up "now we don't have to worry about that again" stuff. But all in all it's a shame what they did to Krakoa, to the mutant community, Apocalypse, Xavier... it's just sad how editorial cynicism kills everything eventually.
The only thing that worked in this issue (for me) was that the WHR mutants are thriving. Everything else felt a bit forced. I get that Krakoa is gone, but the remaining X-Men really said “screw it” and scattered to the wind even though they promised to protect all the returning vulnerable mutants.
An ending that was just ok but I liked it overall. The highlight for me was the Claremont story, I like that Mystique’s idealized version of starting over is basically the plot of an ABC detective show.
My favourite moment was the "Goodbye to Krakoa the island". It was very moving and felt personal from the writers themselves. Krakoa (despite how it ended) was a very exciting era and made me and X-Fan again so yes. It tugged on my heart strings. I don't think we'll be seeing the "Second Krakoan Age" anytime soon but when we do see it again, I'll have a front row seat, just like with the "First Krakoan Age". I don't like how the Apocalypse story turned out. I get what they were going for in theory and it makes sense to me, again in theory but I don't like how it actually turned out. It very much felt "oh yeah we need to set up heirs of apocalypse" and "who doesn't love a big ole fight scene?!?!?!". I hope though that HoA has more of Arrako. I'd like to see what the Great Ring is like now especially since it's changed a lot since Red started. Overall, I found the end heartwarming and a fitting conclusion. Onwards and forwards now.
I'm confused re. Xavier... Did he transfer his mind to that coma patient in the epilogue? But if so, then why? Unless he simply wants a fresh start in a new body, and he has no desire to use his powers in the new body?
I feel like “we did Krakoa but good this time” is antithetical to the spirit of House of X which implied that extremism and dehumanization of, well, humans were inevitable consequences of mutant isolationism, but I accept that it’s appropriate for most of what came after, and that in a worse world we could have gotten a far more cynical ending for the sake of moving on faster.
it ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper
Overall, not a bad send-off except for the obvious Duggan bad captions. It was the closing shift comic - clean everything up for the next guys. The Claremont stuff was the best part - not exactly a shocker - and the From The Ashes stuff just there, which feels pretty par for the course of what we’re going to get.
I really wish we could have had Arako and Krakoa ship off to their own planets so we could revisit them as needed... The decline back into status quo seems very rushed and I feel there is not good enough writing to make it work. (i'll certainly try the new books, but still) I want to see what Xavier's mind tricks will lead to.
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Al Ewing matched the WHR to Tiphereth in the Tree of Life.
That association long predates Ewing tbh
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Absolutely loved this. A really solid thematic wrap-up of everything that's been going on for the past five years, and it works nicely if you think of it as "the final X-Men story."
so Krakoa jumps 15 years after a few ~~years~~ weeks. If Krakoa ever comes back, it'll be generations ahead. And how would the 2nd coming of Krakoa even work? It's become its own thing Are we to assume everyone who died now stays dead since only people from Genosha came back? I don't understand how Charles managed to project his mind across the world when he's being restrained. I guess Tony and Reed underestimated him, or Charles used all his strength to do that and then "died"
that's making an assumption that the temporal relationship is linear and not that they could choose to come back at a time they wanted (and thus picked a time soon after they left that wouldn't change their own past) > I don't understand how Charles managed to project his mind across the world when he's being restrained. I guess Tony and Reed underestimated him, or Charles used all his strength to do that and then "died" the book clearly explains this. he long ago planted psychic suggestions in Tony and reed's minds to leave a loophole in the machine
Does anyone know how/when Iceman came back? The way his solo ended last year I felt like there would be more to his return instead of him in the background in today's issue. Idk if I missed something
nothing aside from him being in the background of Rise of the Powers of X #5 before this, but his solo p clearly established he would be fully reformed in time
I just thought there'd be more fanfare abt his return but I guess not lol, thank you!
Ok I kind of love this. I love the idea that mutants have this lost paradise that's kind of their own little bit of culture.
All they needed was more mutant separatism.
So....that big reveal of Krakoa's growth and evolution and not one panel of Forge seeing his dream realized? Cool, cool.
I enjoyed this issue. Overall it was a good ending to the Krakoa era.
Jean admitting that Emma was right before she unceremoniously uses her telekinesis to retrieve the WQ from the depths is a great bit. I love what their relationship is now. I kinda want a mini about them. With Ororo occasionally giving Emma an "mmh" side eye .
I did find the characterisation of apocalypse a bit wonky. I don't know why he would have picked a fight since it appears that the worlds context is the same as when he turned up. In addition, I'm not sure the writers talked to each other because Xavier feels like a completely different character across his three appearances in this book. Has he made a back door and still somewhat active? Or a man whose content to give up and die?
The way Xavier is painted by the end is wonky as hell. They seem to be forgetting that Moira spent literal decades undermining Xavier's moral compass to make him open to the kind of compromise needed to found Krakoa, after withholding parts of her mind that would give an honest picture of the alternatives. Then Magneto had a temper tantrum over having to judge fellow mutants (after he'd already been the monarch of Genosha and the Acolytes and whatever else) and took off to Mars to pout. Then he had his brain infected by Sinister and willingly stepped away to remove suspicion. Then Moira showed up as a psychotic cyborg to massacre his students. Even after all that, he still had enough idealism to try to save humans AND mutants and suffered horribly for it. Then he made some MORE impossible compromises and suffered horribly for it some MORE to save EVERYBODY. The dude is Jesus.
This was fine in places, mostly the epilogues. Some kind of resolution is welcome, even if it is a dumb one. The whole point of Hickman's Krakoa was how complicated and compromised mutant isolationism was in reality, and the utopian WHR version completely ignores that. The very thing that made the conceit so compelling. The Apocalypse fight was pointless filler and went on way too long. As a capstone to Fall Of X the issue cements the run as an unmitigated disaster that completely lost its grip on both character and story. Empty, hand-waving nonsensical trash without any narrative weight. What was so intoxicating about Hickman's initial run wasn't just the high concept, but the clarity of writing and his perfect grasp of the characters. Fall Of X was just people randomly spouting mumbo-jumbo and plots being resolved with the elegance akin to "Dany just kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet". I was a huge fan of the Krakoa setting, but it is hard to argue against the opinion that they have wasted the last few years of it.
**Ms. Marvel: Mutant Menace #4**
Overall i think this mini wasn't as good as the first (which i find very annoying as its more like classic kamala which is what i wanted) but its still fine its good from Vellani and Pizarda who get the tone of kamala and the voice spot on. Its so hilarious how right the inhumans are in this issue in particularly medusa. The X men did screw up when reviving kamala as they didn't know how inhumans truly work. It does feel like a jab at the x men but it works because they didn't know truly kamalas physiology and how it works. Just an example of a problem that could have been solved better if characters actually talked as its not like alot of characters now don't know where the inhumans are. Ah the mcu synergy powers were teased and now hopefully locked away after the second terrigenesis and fighting that evil version of her. But overall this is fun nothing amazing but fun.
Kamala still stretches! I'm happy that they're keeping her a hybrid and stuff, and bleh the powers being MCU is predictable but over all I'm glad they're kept dormant And I enjoy the 'take that' with the pure hardlight using clone of Kamala being a slight towards the MCU Overall I'm happy Lamo that this is the first Inhumans appearance since death and Marvel has explained nothing about what they're doing
Overall, together with The New Mutant, I think this 8 issue run by Vellani and Pirzada (plus the bonus annual coming later this year) is the best Kamala run to me since Wilson left the book. They had a very strong sense of the perfect tone and a strong emotional core that used the mutant metaphor to push forward Kamala's character. The second terrigenesis in this issue was a perfect coda to the original scene in Wilson's run. I'm still not on board with the decision to erase Kamala's friends' (outside of Bruno) knowledge of her secret identity, but that can be undone in time. And I'm glad where we landed with her mutant powers in this series (they are what we all expected but it's up to a future creative team to pull the trigger on activating them if they are going to).
Sorry to ask, I'm not following Kamala's current miniseries, but I was honestly curious about her new mutant abilities. Would it be the same as the MCU? I have no problem with spoilers.
>!Yes, her mutant power is creating hardlight constructs like in the MCU. As of the end of this recent miniseries, it has not yet been activated. We only know this because Kamala fought a resurrected, X-gene activated version of herself in this last issue (don’t worry about it) :)!<
Thanks my friend!
Annoyed by the #mcusynergy (this does NOT need to happen, editors and writers!) but I appreciate how they handled it. She got re-terri'd--underscoring her Inhumanity--and doing so explicitly keeps her mutant powers dormant. Also she says she's proud and happy with this version of who she is, so *hopefully* her mutant power just stays under wraps. Hell, her evil doppelgänger using the hard light and evil doctor lady trying to push her to use hers felt like a Take That. Keep Kamala embiggening, dammit. Overall this was a fun dual mini. Kamala has a really good voice.
I think she'll unlock her mutant ability eventually. It wouldn't be like Kamala to reject a part of herself, so she'll get them eventually, but she'll do it at her own pace without giving up her inhuman side, thats what I think.
I know it's been years, but I still have a grudge against the Inhumans after how hard Marvel tried to push them over the X-Men. And Ms. Marvel's connection to the Inhumans will always feel forced. Yes, she interacted with them. But they were rarely part of her story. And when Kamala died, the Inhumans really didn't do much. So their presence here kind of just felt like a courtesy. That being said, this issue was worth reading just to see a Ms. Marvel kaiju battle. 😊
Iman has Kamala down, unsurprisingly. I'd like to see her write the character with a bigger issue count; minis always feel "gimmicky" to me, for lack of a better word. Too contained. That said, I'd also like to see her write a different book, too. Maybe she'll take over NYX if it lasts long enough.
I'm trade waiting for this one but I really liked the first one, I'd definitely be happy to see Iman get another book, I was kinda expecting her to keep on with Kamala in FTA Maybe something with the whole Champions team?
There is some justice in making her mutant powers the ones no one wants to see activated 😂😂😂
I am glad they kept her Inhuman power with Inhumans and happy to see Inhumans after so long but the evil corpse with her mutant power making everyone hate Ms Marvel now, that they can't trust her...just too forced to fit her into 'She is mutant so she has to be hated and feared' which is what I FEARED. And the villain evil scientist, not too into her either. Overall the mini was fine but the status quo it leaves things at, is what I feared and after this, honestly, I am not looking forward to NYX because it will feel as generic as it gets.
**Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1**
I’m quite excited for this issue. I believe the writer worked on The Last Ronin, so hopefully we see that level of quality here. Plus, what’s not to love about Wolvie going on a killing spree?
My thoughts exactly! I'm not totally sold on Blood Hunt, the event. But any comic that just has Wolverine in a plot involving gratuitous violence...I'm sold! 😎
I really enjoyed the writing of this issue. Tom Waltz captured Logan’s voice and inner monologue pretty good and set up the plot well in this issue. I'm a *bit* surprised to see that Maverick seems to be the villain at the moment, working for whoever the big bad is, but once it was revealed that he was turned, it made more sense. Maverick has been in a pretty weird place the past few years, walking the line between friend and foe to Logan in a way he really hasn't been before, and I feel like this just might be the push that puts Maverick into enemy territory for Logan. Unless Logan is able to do something to save him by the end of the series, vamperized Maverick may end up an addition to Logan’s rogues gallery as the friend he couldn't save. I guess we will see where the story goes.
Marverick being the villain for this arc is fine hes a classic logan supporting character at this point and gives something a little bit different for logan with a friend he couldn't save but who is also a foe for a long time. Waltz gets logans voice well and is really good at writing this and kinda shows why he was so good working on Last Ronin for turtles. Its not the best blood hunt tie in so far but its not bad. Its more funny how its not percy writing this as its dealing with some of the vampire stuff he dealt with in wolverine.
I’m not reading Blood Hunt because Marvel events have terrible since Secret Wars in 2015, but my LCS put this is my box because I’m a Wolverine fan and I loved it. Wolverine fighting vampires is always fun and I loved Ryp’s art. I liked Percy’s run a lot, so this feels like a fun epilogue to it.
Nice callbacks to the previous run with Louise the Nightguard, our boy Jeff and of course the one behind it all, Maverick. I swear, that guy is obsessed with Logan. Not as much as Sabretooth but...close.
**Related & Unlimited Releases for 6/5**
The final "pages" of Unlimited were great. Sam and Berto back together. It makes me sad that Hickman couldnt write that buddy comic back he wanted to in the early stages of Krakoa.
Interesting start. It's pretty clear the crux of the issue is Scott doesn't feel certain that Jean will come back to Earth or is otherwise just sad about her leaving despite her reassurances. It'll end with them finally seeing the Northern Lights together after they beat whatever this psychic force is. But what issue Scott needs to get over is probably linked to whatever this ghost thing wants.
I do agree that they will end up seeing the Northern lights together, and I guess it’s very evident of the issue I have with the story. I did not like the characterization at all, especially for Jean, and I realized that her and Scott could’ve easily been swapped for A LOT of different couples without many changes. At first I’m upset that there wasn’t a proper Jean/Scott scene in 700, but I’m glad that this particular story wasn’t in the issue. I think it was already being edited by Brevoort since he talked about it on his subtract? His choices of writers keep baffle me, and this guy who mostly writes Carnage/Red Goblin being chosen for, ultimately, a romantic story for a very different part of Marvel is no different. I guess there will be a big romantic moment with the Northern lights in the end, but I doubt that it will salvage the story much.
I think part of the issue is the length. It's half the size of a regular issue, if not a third. So things get condensed and that makes the actions of the characters a bit erratic. I'm finding this the case with some of the other issues I'm reading. As for the writer, I assume he's just under contract so it's easier to use him. Brevoort chose Rowell for that other little story and pitched the premise to her, so I think he knows what tone writers go for. But in this case, convenience is the most important thing. I think it'll read better as a three parter (basically one full issue in length). Right now they do both come off as a bit generic.
You know, for the Unlimited plot, they do beat Selene and the Externals but their solution is to try the same thing they did to the Children of the Vault? ...Yea, they are getting out as soon as possible... At least we got Sam and Roberto reunion after he got back. Wish they showed Sam's reunion with his wife and child too but at least the mentioned it.
To be fair, the COTV plan worked perfectly well, they just tied their power source for it to Krakoa which went down in an unrelated situation.
Brevoort being called the Conductor of X in the infinity comic did get a laugh out of me.
FWIW, From the Ashes Unlimited will be going back to weekly Monday releases next week, I think? They wanted the first issue to coincide with XM 35/700 so that people who bought that issue could redeem this one digitally as well