The end is here as Wanda gets some help, a new X-Man gets a heart to heart, and everything gets back to normal. Jonathan Hickman, Jorge Molina, Lucas Werneck, Adriano Di Benedetto. Nolan Woodard, and Rachelle Rosenberg shut the door on Empyre: X-Men #4
Nola Pfau: So, Allison, I was thinking (I know, bad start) about this story after we left off last time and it lead me to the question of âWhy wasnât Explodey Boy higher on Krakoaâs resurrection protocols, given the nature of his power and the very specific means Krakoa has of recovering self-immolating mutants?â
Allison Senecal: WELL! We pretty much got the Explodey Boy Show this week. Was it everything you dreamed and more?
NP: It was! It reminded me of a few things, namely that a) just because we havenât seen a thing happen yet, doesnât mean it hasnât happened, and b) that I was thinking about this fictional mutant in terms of his powerset viability, and not in terms of him being a child who maybe should not be thrown into warzones. In my defense, the zombie version of him made it very difficult to determine age.
AS: Heâs literally baby. Of course, Hank is the one who letâs him through a portal and into a zombie wasteland, child weapon be damned. Do we want to start there, even though itâs kinda dragging us into the middle of the action?
NP: Oh, I donât want to get folks lost here, why donât we start with a certain Ms. Maximoff?
Sheâs Just Really Into That One Foo Fighters Song OKAY?!
AS: I love to remember that I donât like Doctor Strange very much. That said, the central message heâs trying to drive home to Wanda is Good. Donât love all the talking down about sorcery. Do love his insistence that she move forward instead of trying to fix her %$&#.
NP: Itâs good! Honestly this section almost kinda turned me off the book? Like I got most of the way through it and went back to look at the credits, then went, âOh, of course itâs Hickman again.â It just really felt like his writing. But also Strange being kind of an insufferable #%*&wad does read pretty true to the character for me. I did like the idea of pushing her forward but also, if you hadnât given her cryptic advice in the first place, maybe she wouldnât be in this messâŚ
This scene finally establishes a timeline for all of this, too; namely, that Wanda raised the Genoshan mutants almost a month before the Cotati invasion happened, and somehow…no one noticed. I feel like the X-Men keep an eye on Genosha whether anyoneâs living there or not, by this point? I definitely would.
AS: Yeah, âring a bigger bellâ leaves a lot open to interpretation. I likewise skimmed this quickly, and went back later when I saw the staff pop up.
I do hope this was an almost-28 Days Later joke. One of the few zombie movies I actually like. And that does seem kind of suspect. They do have their powers right? So wouldnât Charles at the very least pick up on them telepathically with Cerebro or what? I assume they read as mutants.
Though!
No brain function!
So maybe not.
I love walking myself through this thought process in real time.
NP: I mean, at least some brain function, right? They talk, they reason, they strategize. I dunno, I just assume itâs magic-related! Itâs a great explainer that way. Anyway, they round up a bunch of macguffins for a spell that will deal with the zombies…in 30 days. Smash cut to the Cotati invasion, and the rise of the giant plant zombie at the end of #3, on day 29. The zombies have basically completely eradicated the Cotati on Genosha, and the spell will eradicate the zombies, so basically thatâs that conflict taken care of, and I guess the X-Men probably didnât need to be there at all? Neutralized by the plot in their own event add-on! [Ed. note: thereâs some beautiful meta-commentary here]
AS: Look, I needed to see M and Angel in anything at this point, so this event mini had a purpose. It also ended up giving us a really touching extended scene with….
The Boy Formerly Known As The Worst X-Man Ever
NP: Formerly known as, because of course we know that title actually belongs to Beast.
AS: Ba dum tiss.
NP: Dr. McCoy managed the most delightful self-dunk in this issue, while also remaining blissfully unaware of how it makes him look. He steals some tech and then sends the actually-alive Explodey Boy through a portal to Genosha. It still hasnât been explicitly confirmed to my knowledge, but is this Explodey Boy actually the 616 Bailey Hoskins? Judge? Mods?
AS: I super duper accept that it is. Good to see he never exploded in our universe, just died in another horrendous way instead. It seems like he came to Genosha just to seek out his zombie self? Whatever the reasoning, it leads to a very cute exchange that got ye olde tear-ducts limbered up. Hickmanâs dialogue is always a toss-up, and it works miles better here than at the start of the issue. Though, I could go without seeing anyone else puke in a comic now for a year or so.
NP: I also could do without that. I wouldnât call myself emetophobic, but Iâm not exactly a fan of it, either. Anyway, yeah…love that a genocide is written into this kidâs backstory as heâs visiting the place where it happened and talking to his own corpse! What a great journey for a child to undergo. [Ed. note: itâs a very X-Men backstory tbh]
That aside, youâre right, itâs such a heartwarming scene I teared up a little? Alive Explodey Boy (AEB) talks to Dead Explodey Boy (DEB) and tells him the story of his first kiss on Krakoa. Itâs just this delightful bonding experience, and it gives DEB this sweet note to go out on, as he takes AEBâs jetpack and flies at the head of the giant plant zombie before…well, you know. Itâs a delightful end for a zombie with more compassion than I expected coming into this. That of course, takes us to the last thing to be resolved in this issueâŚ
Illyana Rasputin In: The Demon Bare Saga
AS: Unfortunately for everyone, Yana still has the magical World-Tree staff for another 2 minutes. I love that she essentially uses up her last bit of time with this power doing a long-winded villain speech, and making sure the remaining mutants know that theyâre all her personal slaves now. Warren gets a âSilence!â which is Good Food.
NP: Were this series only being written by a middle-aged white dude, that line wouldâve been a little skeevy to me, but given the range of talent throughout and the significant presence of the Trash Queer Squad, it was exactly the kind of fun I was looking for. [Ed. note: Tini Howard, Leah Williams, and Vita Ayala, who picked that name out for themselves]
I loved the imperious demands followed by the immediate end of the undead threat, and I loved that the closest she gets to an apology is âI had a little moment, there.â Also, Beast once again running his mouth; whatâs more embarrassing, Hank a brief undead possession, or casually committing a genocide in your own ongoing? Which is the bigger oopsie?
AS: For Yana, this is about the equivalent of having some light gas, so.
Hordeculture make a quick exit, thank God. Iâm left a bit unsure as to how I feel about the series as a whole? I liked it. I could have done with fewer zombies and more X-Men, especially considering this is the first major Dawn of X appearance for many of them. Now I wonder how long it will be before we see some favorites like M (colored well for the first time in this series, if memory serves), Angel, and Multiple Man again. For what was basically a game of comics telephone, itâs been fun. [Ed. note: just realized this zombie story was how they started a game of Exquisite corpse]
NP: Yeah, I feel the same. It was a surprisingly fun zombie-related romp, even if another zombie-related romp was absolutely not what we needed more of. It felt directly targeted at the two of us in particular, with starring roles for both Yana and Warren. The Hordeculture exit was welcome, given our opinions of them, but also, it makes them feel so very pointless? They literally showed up, did some pointless stuff, and then Beast stole their tech. Theyâre not doing a lot to endear themselves to me here, they canât even be interesting antagonists!
Going back to Yana, she expresses some very unambiguous thirst for Kurt before the whole thing wears off, after which she immediately says âI regret nothing.â Howâd you feel about that one?
AS: Iâm a little miffed, haha. After the throwaway scene in the current New Mutants run, which was fine but also my least favorite brand of âheat of battle ambiguously queer trash talkâ, I was hoping any future innuendo from Yana would lean, you know, gayer. But, here we are, and she remains ambiguous. It seems like a small thing to be ticked off about, but it happens time and time again when comic book women âcome out as bi or panâ. I put that in quotes because itâs usually never explicit enough! If weâre sitting here wondering, it wasnât. I pretty expressly have always read her as a lesbian, so really none of this helps, but whatever.
NP: Itâs kind of frustrating that weâre still dealing with characters that are Ambiguously Gay decades after that joke was made on SNL, the safest comedy around. It feels downright behind the times, in fact. Iâm with you in that Iâve never read the character as anything but a lesbian? Like, even Rachel, the butchiest butch around, has had at least a couple of canon male love interests but Yanaâs never had anything like that; sheâs only had the subtextual stuff with Kate back when they were young. So making her explicitly thirst after a guy who…basically watched her grow up? Didnât love it, and didnât love doubling down on it after she was free of corrupting influences. Add to that the fact that she only acted this way toward the men on hand and…Iâve used the phrase âembarrassingly heterosexualâ in my writing before. It applies here, certainly.
The final bit is Wanda still feeling sad about all those mutants she got killed. I have no feelings about this. I know Iâm meant to but…moping doesnât accomplish anything, and I feel like sheâs just right where sheâs been for the last fifteen years.
AS: I want to give that whole scene the benefit of the doubt. Like it WAS an outside influence possessing her. âI regret nothingâ could have been the whole situation, and not just that line, yada yada. Itâs just frustrating. Anyways, I hope fan reaction to this series at least nets us an X-Corp annual or something. Thatâs really all I want from this. Give! Us! X-Corp! Content!
NP: X-CORP! X-CORP! X-CORP!
X-Traneous Thots
- We kinda glossed over it, but whew that panel of Warren being all WE STAND AND FIGHT…whew.
- He was VERY! SEXY! Through this entire series. Good for him.
- The X-Men being bad at the game Telephone as well as actual telephones does at least track.
- How did DEB explode an entire plant zombie yet leave an intact jetpack for AEB to retrieve? Are jetpacks not combustible by nature?
Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.
