Meet Your New X-Men As The Hellfire Gala Continues In X-Men & Excalibur #21

First, reunions fair and foul as Excalibur attends The Gala in Excalibur #21 by Tini Howard, Marcus To, Erik Arciniega and Ariana Maher. Then we are introduced to the new team of X-Men as this run comes to an end in X-Men #21, written by Jonathan Hickman, and some jam piece art by Nick Dragotta, Russell Dauterman, Lucas Werneck, and Sara Pichelli. Colors by Frank Wilson, Matthew Wilson, Sunny Gho, and Nolan Woodard. Letters by Clayton Cowles.

Excalibur #21

Charlie Davis: You know. I think that it’s relatable to be dragged to a party that you don’t want to go to. The Hellfire Gala is in full swing in Excalibur #21, and Rictor hates it! Nothing could go wrong here.

Mikey Zee: I’ve been to my share of awkward parties. The only difference between Ric and I is I usually didn’t know many people at those parties. At the Hellfire Gala, there are many all-too-familiar faces Ric wants to avoid.

Charlie: You can say that again. Shall we get into it?

It’s My Party and I’ll Cry if I Want To

Mikey: Why is everyone so surprised at Rictor being angry, Charlie? After all, this is Julio “Rictor” Richter, who famously infiltrated a Purifier group without powers, told the Scarlet Witch she fucked up to her face and generally spends his time being one of the angriest, most badass mutants this side of Wolverine.

Charlie: I have no clue. My only guess is that aside from Jubilee, who doesn’t even know Ric that well, the rest of the team just haven’t spent time with him outside of this book. I think that was definitely on purpose and should have cultivated exciting dynamics, but so far, we just have the rest of the team being baffled by his moods. It’s no different here, and honestly, the disconnect between him and the rest of the group is so noticeable it creates a rift in an already overpacked issue that I don’t think the team bridges very well.

Rictor’s anger as a gay man has always been something I found refreshing about his character. So often, we get queer characters who are friendly and sanitized for a larger, non-queer audience. Ric was never that. 

Despite the questionable at best and horrific at worst plots and character beats in X-Factor Investigations, there was some powerful character work with Ric in the early issues. Those issues displayed Ric as someone suffering mentally and sometimes even physically due to the loss of his powers. Something in Excalibur, outside of a few moments here and there, has felt off with him. Unfortunately, it’s all front and center in this issue. Excalibur #21 deserved the focus to shift onto Ric, and for a certain someone to show up. Someone who’ve I’ve been waiting a long time to see!

Mikey: Yeah, if there’s one thing I can say for sure, it’s that I was a little disappointed to find that the characters and their emotions in this issue don’t feel quite fully realized. I watch a lot of teen dramas and soap operas. They’re my not-so-guilty pleasures. What is fun about them is how we see characters grapple with the setting’s inherent awkwardness and wish-fulfillment nature. All of the situational drama occurs while the episodic maintains previous pilot beats. After all, life doesn’t stop just because you’ve got your debut at the Cotillion, or in this case, the Hellfire Gala. Instead, it only adds to the stressors already pulling you in a million directions.

Even Betsy, who we can argue is the main character of the series, feels like she is stretching to conform to the conceit of the medium. We do not have a clear idea of what’s going on in Betsy’s head, and this issue doesn’t do much more to clarify her frame of mind. A lot is happening around Betsy, and she just seems to have very little agency in the plot beats moving forward. The same can be said of Ric; things are just happening around him.

Charlie: I think some of that is part and parcel of so much having to be stuffed in Excalibur #21. These problems would likely persist even without so much whirling around. Betsy is a conversation to have a bit later, but I honestly think that character that’s suffered the most from being batted around by the plot is Ric. 

There is a disconnect between Howard’s writing and To’s art, especially in the emotion-laden scenes. It’s never more present than when after entering the party, incredibly grumpy, Ric is pulled back by a mysterious figure who happens to be Shatterstar! Now I know I’m me, but damn, this scene needed to be more than what it was.

If you happened to conveniently forget, ‘Star has been under the impression Ric was dead. So why, pray tell, does everyone not only scold ‘Star for showing up and trying to find the person who he loves the most but actively show hostility? Something could be said for life having moved on since ‘Star has been gone and you can’t just start back where you left off, but none of that emotionality was conveyed to me in this scene.

Mikey: Exactly. It felt less like a scene where a disappeared lover reappeared and more like the beginning of Mean Girls when Regina George initially scoffs at the “nobodies.” It’s a very ‘you can’t sit with us’ attitude and honestly? It is a weird vibe when the person scoffing is Captain Britain, the so-called defender of the realm, and the person being scoffed at is Shatterstar. I don’t know. Maybe I’m still hurt by the Investigations run? Perhaps it’s my inherent love of dramatic reveals? Or perhaps it’s my messy gay writer nature, but I definitely felt this scene should’ve had a lot more build and gravitas.

If you forgive me for bringing in wrestling for a second, wrestling feuds and gothic romances have a great deal in common. If you’ve read Jane Eyre, you know Mr. Rochester’s lack of availability drives the romantic tension of the book. It’s the same in wrestling. If you don’t build a feud and make a big match feel like it matters, the tension bleeds from the feud. Both sides must have something to win and something to lose. The stakes have to count.

To build on an earlier point, a lot of things are happening to these characters, but there’s no stakes. We have no real sense of tension. Ric is yanked around by three groups of people and ends up throwing a temper tantrum at the bar. Rather than being literally pushed and pulled, the scene would’ve worked better to build tension had Ric simply had a Eyre-esque moment where he spotted ‘Star across the room. What do you think, Charlie?

Charlie: I think that sometimes, the best way to prolong the moment, is to have your friends usher you away before you can say anything at all. 

Ric is rude on a good day. If his strings are pulled to frame his reaction because he felt abandoned by ‘Star, well, that didn’t come across in the writing or art. Ric’s needed a new driving force for his identity for a while. While I think it was good for Tini to steer him away from being ‘Star, sometimes you gotta remember the past so you can change the future. Before we get too long-winded here, I do want to say I loved the last scene! Maybe all Ric and ‘Star needed was some quiet time alone. Who knew. 

Mikey: Yeah, even if the journey didn’t quite work for me, the destination was a payoff I needed for a long time. Maybe everything isn’t okay, but at least for a second, the guys (and us as readers) can pretend it is. 

Needle Drops

Charlie: Well, now that that has been cleared up, what did you think of the rest of the issue? We’ve got some fairly big plot points exploding all at once. Like so many popping boba pearls, I’m not sure we needed there to be so many all at once. I feel like my head is spinning a little bit. From Coven Akkaba rearing its ugly head, to Ric commanding the druids, to Morgan Le Fay breaking free from her makeshift prison where Apocalypse kept her tied up and probably vivisected for months; there was way too much going on to have any single moment feel as big as it needed to. 

Mikey: Well, “event” is the key, isn’t it? Because no matter how you frame it, the Hellfire Gala is a crossover event.

Charlie: It is, but damn, it’s hard to keep things straight. So one at a time. What did you think about Coven Akkaba basically pulling the rug out from under Krakoa’s relationship with England?

Mikey: To be honest, I’m not quite sure what Coven Akkaba’s interest is in all of this since it’s been a little while since we’ve seen them. Can I get a recap pretty please?

Charlie: Only for you. Coven Akkaba were Morgan Le Fay’s followers in England. It’s been a little murky wind from the start. Ever since Mutants have been trying to coexist in England and Betsy had been declared Captain Britain, they have been trying to push them out. Basically, they are big mad Captain Britain is a mutant because they are big old magical bigots. 

Mikey: Ah, hence the use of ‘witchbreed.’ For those unfamiliar, it’s the word used for mutants in Marvel 1602. I never read the book. I imagine it hasn’t aged well. The story stuck out to me as one whose reach exceeded its grasp. I’m glad to see the Puritanical idea of mutants being devil-cursed make it into a more appropriate (and less appropriative) venue.

Remember earlier when I said action appeared to be happening around Betsy and not to her? Pete Wisdom pulling her aside to give her the lore drop to end all lore drops on what Coven Akkaba has been up to, which is apparently some hostile takeovers. I’m not sure what knock-on effects this might have.

Charlie: It seems like Morgan Le Fay is loose from her prison, which is also something that we see in a panel. My guess is, by barring Mutant gates from England, they could work to reinstate her as Avalon’s ruler and watch where things go from there. Poor Pete Wisdom. Blood sacrifices are ROUGH.

All of this leads to Rictor existing and making his allegiance with the local druids known. He turned them down when they wanted him to join them in an earlier issue, but he’s back now and pissed off enough to become their king. SURE! Either way, flexing his mutant powers to make the lighthouse its own distinct island. Pretty cool. Pretty, pretty cool. 

Mikey: Well, mildly peeved enough to become their king, at least. I still, I don’t know. I’m not getting any strong emotions still from anything in this book. Except for Coven Akkaba, of course, but they’re just angry and evil. This leads me to maybe the last topic in this piece…

Dance Card’s Full

Mikey: Charlie, you mentioned your head was spinning a bit earlier. So far, we’ve touched on what’s up with Ric, we’ve touched on Coven Akkaba, we’ve touched on Morgan Le Fay, we’ve touched on some of the mess Betsy’s found herself in, but there’s a bunch of little bits and bobs crammed into this issue too. 

I’m sympathetic in that I know there’s stuff Tini probably wanted to get on the page here so she could develop it later (or maybe just because she likes the characters). But I’ll be frank. I don’t think we needed to spend two whole pages on showing that Meggan is pregnant. I did, however, enjoy the bit with Rachel and Betsy for its tenderness and softness. I appreciate it also gets to be the one scene that directly ties in from the events of the last issue.

Charlie: That moment was very sweet, and I could have used way more of it. Even Rouge and Gambit get lost in the shuffle here, not to mention Jubilee, who I just saw, but she didn’t have any real role to play. Goodness, maybe this is why we don’t have parties.

X-Men #21

Chris Eddleman: Rob, I don’t ever think I’ve seen you so dressed up my good sir, but I do like what you’re swirling in the glass. I can’t believe the only way we could get invites to the swankiest party of the year was to cover it for CXF, but I think the spread is worth the work. I’m not accustomed to being surrounded by splendor, clad in raiments, but it’s always fun to do a little pretending. It’s an ending, my friend, and I’m glad to go out with you by my side, just the way we started. X-Men no more? We’ll see, I suppose.

Robert Secundus: About one year and 11 months ago, give or take a few days, Zachary Jenkins messaged us: 

And while this isn’t the end of the Krakoa era, it’s the end of this volume of X-Men and this iteration of the incredibly named [To]¹X-Men. I’m happy we made it here. [Ed. note: I’ve become quieter, nearly absent, but ever present and thrilled to have been on this ride with you two.]

As for the raiments, splendor, etc etc— just follow my lead. I was an altar boy. The trick is pretending that the cape isn’t there.

What is an Island to a King Beneath the Waves?

Chris: So we’re a week deep in Hellfire Gala, and so we’ve gotten a pretty clear sense of the narrative structure. Each issue runs the entire length of the event, and just shows different perspectives according to each issue’s cast.  X-Men, however, doesn’t really have much of a set cast, so we get a few varying perspectives. We begin our issue with a scene of Charles and Magneto meeting up with Namor, who was of course an esteemed guest of honor. Rob, this scene harkens back to Powers of X #5, when Magneto and Xavier met with Namor the first time to try to get him to add his might/support to that of the burgeoning island nation of Krakoa. Namor absolutely refused them the first time, being his normal condescending self. In the present, Charles and Magneto attempt again, basically just coming to Namor with the progress they’ve made in an attempt to get him to reconsider. I was interested to see Namor again, and in general this was my favorite scene. Hickman likes to work in these kind of repeating diptychs. Did you find this one effective or repetitive?

Rob: I did find it effective, because I think it subtly moves a few plots forward, touches on some important themes, and even foreshadows the big reveal we’re expecting in Planet-Size X-Men. First, the plots: We see here both Krakoa’s relationship with the world in general and with Marvel’s band of superheroes. This is an event that is supposed to help forge or entrench international relations; it is supposed to translate not only mutant goodwill but also mutant superiority into a language that the human elite can understand. In each issue, however, we’ve seen this fail in some way, and Namor, as the World, helps us understand why: the degree to which Krakoa has decided to stop playing the world’s games doesn’t really matter, as long as everyone else is still playing those games. Krakoa can step away from human society, and declare a safe haven for this marginalized group, but this does not change the fact that the rest of the world is still seeking, well, global capitalist and/or imperialist dominance. Thus far (with an exception I’ll get to) Krakoa has only used the tools of the human world to subvert those other entities in, relatively speaking, small ways. The Marauders don’t, for example, overthrow fascist rulers, when they could pressure said rulers into accepting relations with Krakoa, or when they can get mutants safely out of those countries. No matter how successful they’ve been, they haven’t gone as big as they’d need to impress someone like Namor, and, more importantly, as long as Namor is a king, as long as he has a kingdom, he is going to seek to place himself at the top. 

Chris: I was particularly struck by Namor almost somewhat abandoning his mutant identity a little bit, or at least simply not caring about it in the same way as Charles and Magneto. Namor is not one who sees the kinship of Krakoa. He simply sees it as another thing to be controlled at some point in the future. However, that doesn’t make it any different than anything else in the world. He just doesn’t see the island as a triumph or even as something unique.

Rob: Namor is also, of course, a superhero/villain. We see him easily welcomed with Mr. Fantastic and other Avengers in a way that the X-Men no longer are. Superheroes are apparently able to work with tyrants and villains like Namor; Namor is playing a game that the others understand. He and they are both agents of a kind of the status quo. Krakoa (in its ideals, not fully yet in its actions) is an alternative paradigm. They can’t work with that and also still work in the kinds of superhero stories for which they were created.  

Chris: What a clever metatextual catch Rob. I feel like in some ways Namor represents inertia, right? He is a great character but, in many ways is unchanging, and this story portrays him, like you said, as the status quo. He’s one of Marvel’s oldest characters, and has always been this sort of brash imperialistic character. He is unmoving, and he sees Krakoa as something that cannot move him.

Rob: Thematically, Namor foregrounds something we’ve already seen as important to this event; the conversation focuses on empires. That exception I mentioned is the Beast’s extremely human actions in X-Force. I think it’s important that this conversation is concurrent with Beast’s attempt to infiltrate every human government, and with Emma’s discovery of his little empire and occasional atrocities. If Beast has his way, Namor is what Krakoa will become.

Chris: I think it’s also important to note that not only is Namor joining the Avengers group, he’s specifically (and thank to you to friend and contributor Nola Pfau for this) joining up with former members of the Marvel Illuminati. I’m wondering if that’s going to present some significance later but, nothing represents the status quo quite as much as them.

And finally, foreshadowing: I think and hope that Planet-Size X-Men is going to see the X-Men going as big as Namor wants, but in a direction he doesn’t expect, and rather than an empire, see the X-Men build something new. Chris, we get a glimpse of this on the last page— what do you think Planet Size has in store for us now? What is that last image?

Chris: So fast-forwarding to the “Fireworks,” as Emma Frost announces…well, presumably what we’re going to see in Planet-Size X-Men. We’ve seen the aftermath of this announcement in Marauders, so it seems like we’re piecing it together issue-by-issue. But Emma shows an image of a red sphere, with two figures floating on jagged “rocks” in front of it. I think it’s pretty obvious that this is a planet. That forshadowing is practically smashing us over the head. Now a bunch of us have wondered if this planet was Mars, and we figured that the X-Men were using a bunch of their Omega Mutants to terraform the planet. I’m kind of wondering conversely if that’s just too small, and instead they are creating a planet wholesale for mutantkind. They have several heavy hitters who went through that gate in the middle, including TWO reality warpers. It’s going to be big.  Like a planet even.

Community Rule

Rob: The other major event of this issue is the X-Men Election! Now, you might think that the result opposes our carefully modelled predictions, but actually you’ll recall that we still calculated that Polaris had a 15% chance of winning, and so this outcome was entirely within the predicted possibilities. No, I will not be taking feedback or admitting any kind of problems with my model at this time.

Anyway, this election is significant in so many ways; it’s the first fan vote for an X-Men team; it’s the creation of a group that stands apart from the Quiet Council, and gives mutants some level of democratic voice; and it’s the creation of something that this title has been defined by lacking in its 21 issues, a specific, core cast and team of X-Men. Chris, what did you think of the election?

Chris: I was a little bit surprised by the election. I guess the fan vote made me think this had been some ongoing democratic process in the background of Krakoa for the last several months, but I think this honestly explains a lot of things that I had found puzzling, like why no one was campaigning or anything. I found this kind of elegant. I like that it felt like kind of a perfect system (yes, I’m sure democracy buffs are gonna ding me but hold on) in that it guaranteed equally all mutants the ability to campaign for themselves, as well as guaranteed equality of opinion. Every mutant voted, and every mutant was optional for inclusion on the team. It represented community in a pure sense.

It’s also a neat bit of storytelling that just like the very confused Johnny Storm, we that humans of this story also didn’t get to see the procedure, but only hear about the process. It’s another one of these techniques that portrays mutantkind as unique and different in ways we can possibly fathom but never truly understand. 

Rob: Yeah, it’s interesting how it kind of reflects Krakoa’s culture and politics up to this point; it’s democracy, a very human thing, but made new and different by this group’s unique gifts. It was paralleled with Scott’s speech to— in the cringiest cameo of this crossover by far— the president of a movie studio. It was, to put it lightly, a bit weird to see a corporate executive make a cameo with the framing that would be typically allotted to someone like Stan Lee, like seeing a CGI Martin Goodman make a cameo in an MCU movie. But anyway, what did you make of Scott’s monologue?

Chris: So in some ways it feels a little like… Mandated, right? We got 616 Kevin Feige, surely some kind of super hero documentarian, asking Cyclops, a person who is already world famous, about his life. So I rolled my eyes 360 degrees around my skull, but I’m going to be slightly charitable in that sometimes you must make chicken salad from…well you know.

Anyway in some ways it’s kind of a brief summation of the Krakoa era as a whole, so I suppose at least I can dive into that.

Cyclop’s tale is about dedication to the dream of another- in this case, Charles Xavier. But much like many of us do when we’re younger, we take the word of adults as gospel, rather than the words of a more experienced but imperfect person.

But the Krakoa era isn’t about dedication to the dream, which breaks like waves of the jagged rocks of reality, but rather about the changing of one man’s vision. It’s supposed to be a place where dreams can be developed in concert. So in that, I like Cyclops’ speech and his admission of being a dreamer. Even if it’s corny and cheesier than a side at a Kansas City BBQ joint.

Rob: For me, it nicely recontextualizes both this next step in the Krakoan era and Cyclops’ story in the past decade or so. We see that this is a Cyclops, as in the previous era, who isn’t beholden to Xavier, who is willing to deviate from him. At the same time, this is a Cyclops that doesn’t need to outright reject Xavier either; as you say, dreams may be developed in concert. So too this next step in the era isn’t about the destruction of what came immediately before; the Quiet Council continues. No, it’s about complicating things. Adding things. Krakoa has this council of, essentially, extremely flawed philosopher kings uniting the various factions that trust each of them, and it also has the democratically elected group of, well, not representatives, but whatever it is that superheroes are — our ideals made flesh, our values personified. I expect at some point these things will clash, but they don’t need to. This society can be many things. This dream can proceed in many directions. This line of comics can tell many stories. 

All Things Must

Chris: So this is the finale of Hickman’s initial 21 issue run on the flagship before it moves into the hands of Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz. And honestly to me it reads as both a perfect and odd finale. This book never really seemed to be a main cast or ongoing plot thread, merely groundwork laying vignettes and occasional two-parters. With that in mind, this is almost a perfect finale, since it is itself a series of scenes that act mainly as ground-laying. I’m not sure how this volume will read all at once, but it was very “early in a run” Hickman style storytelling, much like early issues of Avengers and Fantastic Four. But while those titles became more ongoing, this run always kept this kind of structure, if you can call it that. Obviously Hickman has more stories down the line, Inferno being next. But as a volume, cohesiveness was not a strong suit I suppose. 

But I almost wonder if this is simply as evolution of that way that Hickman normally tells stories, just with this entire line rather than one or two series. He can kind of scoot around a little bit more, moving to the Inferno mini and likely some kind of other ongoing later. I think this ending can feel definitive, like the ending of a chapter in a novel. The X-Writers keep telling us that the Gala is seen as some kind of turning point, and this ending signifies that perhaps in a bigger way than it would have simply as a moving storytelling techniques.

Rob: I think an “evolution” is a good way of putting it. Hickman’s first act seems to always be one about seeding stories, but this is the first time he’s been able to lay that groundwork for other people. I was worried at the start of this about a lot of things— I wasn’t sure where Hickman was as a writer in 2019, or how he would handle leadership of a line. Would he force things into his image? But no, he hasn’t. He’s lead a line and written a flagship that allows for stories like X-Force and Way of X that explicitly critique the world he built, stories like Hellions and SWORD that explore that world’s strange and often obscure corners, stories like New Mutants and Marauders that that focus on bringing the characters within that world to new places and stories like Excalibur and my favorite, X-Factor, which really dive in to investigate the complications, nuances, and philosophical underpinnings of that world. There are many, many flaws to this story and to this line, (both exacerbated pretty drastically, I think, by all the nonsense of the pandemic), but it’s an incredible paradigm shift away from the state X-Men was in when I first began pulling issues in 2013. 

I think if there’s a throughline from X-Men #1’s “be careful, they’re sure to be savvy— all these apes have PhDs!” to “the waking world— where we all live… it is a killer of dreams. A destroyer of things you believe in”; if there’s a throughline from The Crucible to the expansion of Otherworld, from the Brood Egg to the Hellfire Gala, it is a celebration of this fiction. This volume of X-Men is a collection of short stories that all celebrate the X-Men, and not what it was, nostalgically, but what it could be. It doesn’t point to old stories and concepts and say, “let’s do those again.” It says let us make these things new. It’s like going to sleep and having again the recurring dream you did as a child, but with lucidity now, letting you explore what was always there. 

Chris: And in that way, it did in a lot of ways what it set out to do. We moved from the recent “playing all the hits of the 70s and 80s” runs of X-Men books, seemingly rebaking an already finished story, into something that was trying to break a cycle. Having read and listening to hints of Jonathan Hickman’s original pitch, we was concerned that X-Men was habitual, and this throughline has loved X-Men while moving it away from cycles of misery. So regardless of the strangeness and lack of cohesion, mission accomplished at the least.

But just like the ending of X-Men, so too is this the end of our time on this books. The new volume will be in the capable hands of others, [Ed. note: Cori McCreery and Tony Thornley, with editor Andrea Ayres] but you and I are on our way out. We’ve been covering books together, writing about House of X/Powers of X and X-Men, since 2019. I like to think we’ve done some thoughtful conversation, even if we spent tons of time trying to figure out things like “What does Galm mean?” [Ed. note: The answer being that Hickman messed up his own secret language and that is was actually supposed to be ‘Mars’ might be the best possible thing] or “Are the mutant drugs carcinogens?” Hopefully, we  illuminated some things for readers, catching some references and allusions that they might have missed, as well as adding some perspective folks might have found useful. I’m sure this isn’t the true end, but I’m going to miss writing about it for sure. It’s an end, and I’m glad to be closing the curtains with you, buddy, even if only for a time.

Rob: It’s so weird to think of how long we’ve doing this, and how far we’ve come. We began writing about Hickman X-Men before this website existed; now you’re an editor, and I’m a…. fish… enthusiast? Anyway. It has been an immense joy and privilege to sit down with you every couple weeks and chat about Wolverine, the superhero with knife hands that sometimes get hot, Boltzman brains, RNA, and whatever other nonsense we hit over the past 2 years. I hope we get to sit down and chat in our particular absurd way again soon. I’m really going to miss it too.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• Krakoan Reads
  • Excalibur: Down the Barrel
  • X-Men: New Start
• Mazel tov to Brian and Meggan!
• Let’s wildly speculate on the Sinister Secrets
  • #51- Chris thinks this one is about Mystique. “Wearing a mask” seems to be a nod to Destiny, and we know Inferno looms.
    • Rob isn’t so sure, because of the “wearing you” line; perhaps a member of the council is someone else assuming a false identity, and is afraid to let go of it, or doesn’t even remember who they are
  • #52- Chris thinks Emma Frost for sure, especially after she asked those enigmatic new people from the secret city about what’s in Kara Kutuça, which is not really something from Marvel that we know of but contributor Zach Rabiroff found out that it is close to the Turkish phrase for “black box”
    • Rob concurs
  • #53- Obviously Apocalypse. Guess he’s coming back at some point.
    • Rob concurs (but it will be some time before he does return)
  • #54- Chris thinks this is about Doug, and as for the secret coursing through the island’s nervous system, possibly some Warlock stuff?
    • Rob expects the reveal in Planet Sized to be a Krakoa-Magus planetoid hybrid, revealing the first mutant techno-organic Worldmind
  • #55- Chris thinks this is either the birth of a new Illuminati or some shadow mutant council. Arakko and Krakoa already each have a ruling council.
    • Rob thinks this is a both/and, not an either/or situation, and that the line about “circling the sun” is important; perhaps a callback to Orchis
  • #56- Chris thinks this one is too hard to call, other than just knowing that there will be some intrigue for the two open spots. 
    • Rob concurs
  • #57-  Chris thinks this is about Betsy and Kwannon. Kwannon maybe is gonna get an Inferno of her own.
    • At the very least, Rob thinks, Hellions’ status quo is going to be changing soon. Either Kwannon or Sinister are going to be leaving the title.
  • #58- The Vescora were the aliens that Cable sicced on Amenth in X of Swords. Chris wonders if this has to do with mysterium, but honestly is a little stumped.
    • Rob is guessing something involving iso-8, because of bizarre theories he has about the Vescora, Moira, and dead worlds that would be too much to get into here. 
  • #59- Chris is stumped.
    • Rob is guessing that the practical mutant is Moira, the promotion is into her inner circle, and the unexpected variable is Legion and his influence in Way of X, mostly on a hunch more than anything.
  • #60- Chris thinks this is about Sinister studied DNA from Arakko, as has been alluded to in Hellions. 
    • Rob Concurs
• One of the two figures in shadow has a helmet that looks Xorn-ish, while the other is crouching like Nightcrawler… who could these people be? Our final galaxy brain speculation: The X-Men of Life IX?!
• Laura realizing she won while wolfing down shrimp, possibly implying she also made her case while eating shrimp. A legend.