With the Quiet Council on the verge of collapse, Doug Ramsey says his piece in Immortal X-Men #13, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Lucas Werneck, colored by David Curiel and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Austin Gorton: The leaves are dying, there’s a chill in the air, monsters walk the streets with impunity. It can only mean one thing: Fall is here. On Krakoa, at least. Not in the real world, where it remains frighteningly warm.
Rasmus Skov Lykke: Austin, it is so hot. Last week had the hottest day ever recorded on Earth. Three days in a row.
All of this because of climate change, a problem that is humanityâs own doing, but something that could be solved if the people in charge stopped only thinking of themselves and actually did something to fight the very real danger weâre all in. If not, there wonât be a world left for our children to inherit.
But enough about all that dour real world stuff, letâs dive into the funny books!
Austin: Where’s our Doug Ramsey to talk sense to power?
All the Leaves Are Brown
Austin: As the issue kicks into gear, it becomes clear some time has passed since the last: Colossus’ ill-fated and forced motion to make the world read “Sins of Sinister” has come and gone, and the council is dealing with the fallout, including falling demand for Krakoan drugs and a Very Bad Day for Emma.
Rasmus: In his most recent newsletter, Gillen talked about this issue as the end of Year 2 of his Immortal X-Men run. And it very much feels that way. Both very much the end â the Fall â of something, but also the beginning of something else. Mostly the beginning of the end, because my god, a lot of bad things are being lined up in this issue. All the chickens are coming home to roost. And then probably roast.
Austin: Emma makes a good point that Shaw, as a businessman, should have realized how Colossus’ motion would affect their bottom line and not teamed up with him to pass it. She does not, however, take it the next step, and wonder why he acted so crossly against his own interests.
Rasmus: I have to say, I really enjoy how Gillen keeps proving everyone wrong, when they assumed that Sins of Sinister wouldnât have far-reaching ramifications because it was âjustâ an alternate future. Everything that is leading to Fall of X comes as a direct result thereof.
Austin: Gillen deploys Doug really well here; despite him not appearing in this Quiet Council scene, he acts as the narrator, and it is through his perspective that we observe Destiny’s plan to oust Selene from the council (by goading Exodus into killing her, thereby requiring she be resurrected via the Five and face the same limitations as the rest of the Sinister Four). It’s a clever way to underscore how Doug’s power extends beyond “knowing languages” and the more contemporary “fighting is a language!” trope that gets trotted out occasionally: Of course Doug would be just as good at understanding body language as any other language, so of course he’d pick up the subtle clues in Destiny’s mannerisms and piece together her plan ahead of everyone else.
Rasmus: The color change when Exodus unleashes on Selene is just a masterful touch by David Curiel, going from the soft greens during the conversation to angry reds as Exodus follows Destinyâs plan perfectly.
Whatâs equally delightful about this is that Selene claims to not be corrupted because she was brought back by magic. But we saw her get brought back in Sinister Four by Dr. Stasis and Mother Righteous. So she is undoubtedly corrupted by an Essex, just not the one everyone is, wrongly, afraid of.
The coloring continues to impress, as the background turns purple on a page turn, going from Exodus nearly killing Selene to Storm entering the fight with her blue lightning. It just works.
Austin: I was mildly surprised by Storm’s role in this fight â in part because I’d completely bought into Destiny’s narrative that Selene needed to be neutralized. But to Gillen’s credit, it works: Once again, his Storm is the adult in the room, willing to do what is necessary to serve the greatest good. I *want* Exodus to kill Selene, but Storm’s not wrong in trying to stop Exodus. It’s a good tension.
Rasmus: One of the fun things about Destiny and her power is that maybe Storm was meant to do that. Maybe that was part of her plan. Maybe she knew Storm would stop Exodus, which would lead to him breaking down, which would lead to Dougâs chat with Xavier, which would lead to ⊠and so on forever. Or maybe Storm messed up all of her plans. Weâll probably never know.
Lucas Werneck is also doing some tremendous things here, as he really sells the intense outburst of the fight. Panels become a lot less orderly, falling apart under the chaos wrought by Exodus and Storm, and thereâs some very impressive imagery showing the twoâs massive powers. Itâs just great and works so well because of the juxtaposition against the more subdued conversations going on both before and after the fight. Even if thatâs where the truly interesting things are happening.
âYou’re Going to Drag Us All Down with Youâ
Austin: In one panel and three speech bubbles, Gillen addresses one of the nagging character inconsistencies of the Krakoan Era, why Xavier â whole deal when he’s not being a jerk is human/mutant coexistence â so strongly backed the isolationist Krakoan state. There was always an undercurrent of “Moira showed him it was the only way to succeed” to it, but that never explained why, if he “knew” co-existence would fail based on Moira’s experience, he even bothered to espouse it in those pre-Krakoa years. Here, we learn that he fundamentally does believe in co-existence, but Moira’s experience showed him the importance of compromise, and so he’s bent to the will of his more pro-mutant, anti-human peers.
It’s a small but powerful moment for Xavier, and it does a lot to make him sympathetic for the first time in a long time (notably, Werneck is careful to have him remove his Cerebro helmet for this exchange).
Rasmus: For the longest time after HoX/PoX, I kept expecting Xavier to remove the helmet and itâd be someone else underneath, because while he has had his moments as a jerk before, this didnât feel like Xavier. He was going too far, working with people he should know better about and compromising too much. But as things moved forward, it became clear that it was, in fact, the real Charles Xavier underneath the helmet. And as things kept going Krakoaâs way, it seemed that he mightâve made the right call.
And then it became clear that, no, heâd made a terrible call. Everything started falling apart and itâs very much in doubt if Krakoa can continue and if so, how.
Austin: All of which is a prelude to Doug’s big idea: dissolve the council. Which, honestly, felt both surprising and obvious, given the shambles it’s in and the way the voting power was shown to be so diluted last issue. To that point, Gillen and Werneck skip right to when the majority of the council has already warmed to the idea.
Rasmus: It does make a lot of sense. Where Krakoa is now is not a good place. And itâs largely the fault of the Quiet Council. So many of its members have left, been stripped of their votes or are, unknown to the rest of the council, horribly compromised. So of course the council has to go. But that does leave the question of what to replace it with and how. Unsurprisingly, the fanatic in the group is not terribly fond of the idea of a democracy.
Austin: Exodus sneeringly dismisses it as a very human idea, but it’s not clear exactly what the new form of government will be (Emma responds “maybe” to his dismissive suggestion). Hope also flexes her muscles by announcing that the Five are on strike until the regime change happens, which both A) underscores the power of their role in this society and B) is another example of just how warped this government has become, despite Hope using that power to an ostensibly good end.
The Dragging Down
Austin: Before the nitty gritty of that can be explored, Krakoa seemingly attacks Doug, pulling him into the Pit. Copying his power for as long as she can, Hope learns Doug’s been taken for his own protection, while Destiny reveals all she can see is a blinding white nothing.
Rasmus: I donât know if itâs just because I got Marvel Snap on the mind, where The White Hot Room was recently a thing, but for some reason I pictured the Phoenix being what Destiny saw. Just that level of total destruction. And rebirth.
Austin: It’s also worth noting that Destiny objected to the notion of dissolving the council â it’s implied, via the construction of the panel, that her objection is rooted in her knowledge of Shaw and Selene’s alliance with Orchis, but we don’t know if that’s what she was going to say. Given her reaction to the post-vote, post-Doug disappearance “future,” there was some greater calamity she was trying to warn the group away from before Selene interrupted her.
It’s an ominous end to the issue, coming on the heels of what felt like a genuinely positive development for Krakoa in the abolishment of the council. I really like this inversion of expectations from Gillen, not so much a cliffhanger ending as a variation on the classic Claremont trope of defeat being snatched from the jaws of victory, of the council finally doing what seems like the best, right option, only for it to turn out to be (in some unrevealed way) a terrible thing to have done.
Rasmus: Itâs a very quick change of emotion, going from Doug remarking that he âbreathe[s] easily for the first time in a yearâ with the council disbanded, to him screaming in horror as Krakoa pulls him into the ground.
Itâll be interesting to see where things go from here. Immortal X-Men has been the book that followed the Quiet Council, and with the council disbanded, the bookâs very identity is up in the air. Will there be a council next issue? Who will be on it? How will that be decided?
Honestly, for the first time, Iâm excited for the Hellfire Gala because of in-story reasons, instead of just knowing from how Marvel operates that something important is going to happen there. This time there are actual events I want to see play out. Will the people in charge pull their heads out of their butts long enough to actually do something and save Krakoa?
X-Traneous Thoughts
- All of Mark Brooksâ covers for the series have been gorgeous, but this one is truly stunning.
- The John Donne poem excerpt that opens the issue contains two of those lines that show up everywhere: “no man is an island” and “for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
- For someone who is not interested in poetry, it was really interesting to see the full context for both of those lines. Because having the proper context changes a lot. I expect the same will be true for this issue, looking back on it in a year.
- Emma speaks for many of us mid-tier office workers when she despairs that she didn’t join the X-Men just to look at graphs all day. Excel, you are both my savior and my worst enemy.
- Oh, Emma. Always having her heart torn out by children. A heartbreaking moment.
- Xavier reading Doug’s mind to learn of his plan being depicted via a data page as a letter from Doug to Xavier is a cute use of the data page technique.
Austin Gorton also reviews older issues of X-Men at the Real Gentlemen of Leisure website, co-hosts the A Very Special episode podcast, and likes Star Wars. He lives outside Minneapolis, where sometimes, it is not cold. Follow him on Twitter @AustinGorton
Rasmus Lykke
Rasmus Skov Lykke will write for food (or, in a pinch, money).
When not writing, he spends his time with his fiancée, their daughter and their cats, usually thinking about writing.
