X-Men #6: Holding Out for a Hero

Meet Captain Krakoa! He might be exactly who you think he is, but the “why” is the more exciting part of X-Men #6 from Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia, and Clayton Cowles.

Cori McCreery: Happy New Year! I hope the holidays were good for you all and that if you celebrate Christmas, Merry Mutant Saint Nick brought you what you wanted! 

Tony Thornley: Same to you! According to Cerebro, Santa visited at around 2:30 AM local time, after my wife and I ended our annual Schitt’s Creek Christmas binge.

Fear And Loathing On Phobos

Tony: So I think the big surprise of the issue was that, despite being billed as the arrival of Captain Krakoa, the bulk of the X-Men #6 was actually about Feilong’s much-anticipated arrival at Arakko.

Cori: More than that, it’s about Sunfire finding himself. He was the new team member I was most hesitant about, primarily because of his long history of quitting the team. It feels as if he’s at peace for the first time. He’s just chilling on Arakko and proud of being a part of something. I’m happy for him. 

Tony: The first big panel of Shiro on Arakko surrounded by plant life was perfect comics. The narration, the linework, the colors were just an excellent synthesis of what comics can be and showed us an ideal Sunfire. If any character comes out of this series better for it, it’ll be Shiro Yoshida.

Between Storm and Sunfire finding their places on Arakko, I wonder if there will be others among our favorites who find their place there?

Cori: Well, for the moment, not Feilong. Instead, he’s settled on Phobos, laying claim to the moon of Arakko and upsetting the locals who don’t want a neighbor. It was a very unexpected course of action, though much less aggressive than I expected. Feilong has set up a de facto border war between Orchis and mutants. It’s very intriguing. What’d you think of this development?

Tony: It caught me by surprise too. I also liked that Shiro wasn’t the instigator of the violence that followed. Duggan could have leaned into the “he’s a hot-head because fire, get it?” trope that many have done in the past. But he doesn’t. I love Duggan and Larraz giving Sunfire this moment of total befuddlement. It knocks him back on his heels just enough to make what happens next work a little better and slightly tragic.

I get the Arakkii defending their home, and I liked Vornak. So making the fight one of Arakko’s gladiators, Vornak, sees Feilong land and arrives on Phobos to challenge him. Naturally, Sunfire is stuck in the middle. It’s a great change of pace. It is different from the Sunfire hot-head that needs to reign it in. In this situation, he’s the cooler head trying to prevent the fight from escalating.

Cori: Yeah, it was a significant departure from Sunfire’s usual character. It worked well, really playing off the feeling of contentment that we opened with. I also really liked that the fight ended with what was essentially a stalemate as Feilong killed the Arakkii gladiator and finished setting up a new tech stronghold, complete with a Dyson ring for power. Were you familiar with Dyson rings at all before this? 

Tony: I’ve heard of a Dyson Sphere but not a Dyson Ring. Traditionally a Dyson Sphere is a mega structure around a star that’s used to generate massive amounts of power. Freeman Dyson himself a massive interconnected sphere around a celestial body wouldn’t be feasible. So, according to my research, a Ring is a variation, in which the power-generation facilities are in a loosely formed ring.

It’s a very fun sci-fi concept that may some day be feasible for our world. I like seeing it pop up here, but it’s not quite an actual Dyson ring. Fascinating that Feilong would try building one around Phobos though.

New Hero On The Block

Cori: With that out of the way, let’s talk about the main event. Did you expect to be reading a Superman comic this week, Tony? Because I sure didn’t. (That’s a lie, Superman: Son of Kal-El came out on Tuesday). Anyway, it’s no surprise that if your introduction sequence for a new superhero is them rescuing a cat from a tree, that I will immediately love them. What do you think about the introduction of Captain Krakoa, Tony? 

Tony: Larraz just decided this issue to pull out his best bristol boards and pens and say, “y’all like my work, just you wait.” This issue was full of so many incredible quiet moments. I mentioned Sunfire walking through the tall grass a couple of minutes ago, but that panel of the kids staring up at their trapped cat was SO COOL. It was quiet and wistful but grounded in a way that gave Captain Krakoa’s arrival a sense of awe.

You hit the nail on the head- it was a good Superman comic. And then we get Captain K doing more Superman stuff. I just really loved how this opened.

Cori: Duggan and Larraz play with Captain Krakoa as a Superman Captain Ersatz throughout the issue, and I dug it a lot. Right down to the title of X-Men #6 with “Whatever Happened To…” But not everyone seems to be happy about his inclusion on the team. Why do you think Cyke is so upset with the council about it? 

Tony: At first, it sounded like Scott is pissed that he’s being forced to add a team member. That fits the whole idea that the X-Men were intended to be independent of the government of Krakoa. Of course, Scott will be highly resistant to anyone else joining the team.

As we soon learn, there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

Just Who IS Captain Krakoa?

Tony: So it appears that Scott Summers is “dead” and Captain Krakoa is his replacement!

What did you think about this twist?

Cori: At first, I was confused as heck. Did I miss an issue? Did I read something out of order? Did Cyclops die in the single issue of Wolverine I haven’t read yet? No, we’re just getting a non-linear story, and we’ll find out how Scott died next issue. But I do like that this is the way to throw Urich off the resurrection protocol story completely.  

Tony: And I absolutely love that the Quiet Council meeting from earlier in the issue was absolutely not what it seemed. Starting the issue with a few pages of Captain Krakoa, then the Council, then taking a break from that plot for 16 or so pages, structurally knocked me back on my heels even further. Scott is still leading the X-Men, but something happened that he can’t do it as Cyclops? That’s a great twist, and it’s exactly what we asked for last issue- a progression of the plot in an extremely interesting way.

Add the apparent reveal that someone has tampered with Ben Urich’s mind? I’m much more invested with this issue moving forward than I had been so far.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• Cordyceps Jones is apparently giving Earth a break? Or is that going to be part of the origin of Captain Krakoa later this month?
• How did Feilong find Nightcrawler’s body? Seemed like it was pretty well incinerated after the events of Way of X #5. Nice little bit of continuity though.
• Krakoan: Origin

Tony Thornley

Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.

Cori McCreery

Yes, it's Cori McCreery—strange visitor from DC fandom who came to Xavier Files with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal critics. Cori, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound, race a speeding bullet to its target, bend steel in her bare hands, and who, also works as an editor for a great Eisner winning website, Women Write About Comics, fights a never-ending battle for truth and justice.