Some Bad Looks, and We Don’t Mean the Fashion, at the X-Men’s Hellfire Gala

It’s the biggest night of the year for the mutants … but, unfortunately, it’s an even bigger night for Orchis. X-Men: The Hellfire Gala 2023 #1 is written by Gerry Duggan; drawn by Adam Kubert, Luciano Vecchio, Matteo Lolli, Russell Dauterman, Javier Pina, R.B. Silva, Joshua Cassara, Kris Anka and Pepe Larraz; colored by Rain Beredo, Ceci De La Cruz, Matthew Wilson, Erick Arciniega and Marte Gracia; and lettered by Virtual Calligraphy, with design by Jay Bowen and Tom Muller. G.O.D.S. interlude by Jonathan Hickman, Duggan, Valerio Schiti and Gracia.

Tony Thornley: Welcome to our deep dive into the third annual Hellfire Gala. Is it the final Gala, though? I guess we’re about to see. 

And to talk about it ALL, we’re going to see probably the biggest group of CXF writers we’ve had in one place yet. Hello, everyone!

Adam Reck: Glad I wore my red tux, ‘cuz it blends in with the blooooood. (Ack ack — Moira stabbed me.)

Mark Turetsky: I’ve put on my white jumpsuit, cued up an Andrew W.K. playlist and am gonna sit down and party with my favorite band of misfits, the X-Men!

Armaan Babu: I’m here in a fancy red kurta with polyhedral device floating around my head, hoping to ask for Kamala Khan’s autograph and get her off the island before something terrible happens. But there’s time for appetizers first, yes? Yes?

Anna Peppard: I want to worry about Adam writing the rest of this recap while bleeding out (or burning up?), but I’m too busy being awestruck by my admiration for Rogue’s audaciously amazing Big Hair. 

Jude Jones: Dripped out in the finest Fear of God has to offer … because fear is definitely in the air. 

Stephanie Burt: I’m anxious. I’m always anxious. My nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.

Austin Gorton: I just came for the mutant canapes, and now I’m being yelled at by a bubblegum robot and someone cosplaying as Colossus dressed as a playing card.

Robert Secundus: This feels like a sea change in a way unlike any other Big Era Changing Moment since House of X #1; Dawn, Reign and Destiny (and Trials, if you go by the TPB ordering) all felt like minor changes compared to what’s happening in this issue. I feel equal parts excited and trepidatious to jump in. 

Kamala Khan: Mutant

Tony: Smarter people than me are going to have a lot of very good thoughts about this opening as it pertains to Kamala as a character. I’m going to defer to them on that because everything I know they’re going to say, I agree completely, and there’s no way I can say it nearly as well. But I’m going to say the one thing I have to say here — once again, where was the foreshadowing to this? It could have been slipped into half a dozen places in the last year of X-Men. In fact, it would have been very natural to happen with “Dark Web,” a story this past year that involved both the X-Men and Ms. Marvel! It would have been so easy to include a panel about her dual mutant/Inhuman nature there!

Rob: Tony, I absolutely agree, but I highly doubt that a year ago plans for Ms. Marvel’s mutant status were in place; everything about how her death and resurrection have been handled screams “last-minute story to have something big for her MCU movie, while also working to move her closer to the MCU version of the character.”

Armaan Babu : Kamala Khan’s resurrection bothers me. Why it was done, no one can say for sure, but the prevailing belief is that it was done to tie her to mutantdom; to bring her more in line with her TV show counterpart. It’s notable that on TV, Ms. Marvel has a very specific powerset and has been declared a mutant — as well as being declared a host of other things, with a ridiculous number of labels to juggle. She’s Muslim, American, djinn, alien, human, teen and now mutant. I’ve talked before about how that’s detrimental to the character’s story.

The comics have now brought that all in, with an additional label: She’s still Inhuman, too.

One of the most compelling parts of Ms. Marvel’s story is her negotiation of her identity — of being Pakistani and American, of being a Muslim in a country that predominantly isn’t, which colored the age-old balance of figuring out how to be a superhero while still maintaining a normal civilian life. Comic books are 20 pages an issue. With everything she is, there’s no time to explore all of it … and with the limited space, it’s pretty easy to guess at what’s going to be at the forefront, and what will be left by the wayside.

Kamala’s family has not been told she’s been brought back to life. In fact, given the events of the issue, Kamala’s family and supporting cast will likely remain in the dark, with mutant presence on Earth having to remain a secret. She will be cut off from the people she knows — a full-time X-man for the foreseeable future. Of all the labels she’s had to bear, “mutant” is going to be at the forefront.

To underline that, take a look at her new costume. A traditional X-Men uniform, cut into the shape of her more familiar costume, with one important difference: Her bangles are missing. The bangles, passed down from her grandmother, to her mother, to her. An important symbol of where she’s come from, one that even the show acknowledged — and one that’s been abandoned completely.

Ms. Marvel is one of Marvel’s best characters, but they have not known what to do with her for a while. I’m reserving some judgment for the comic series itself, but as for what’s already been done? They’ve taken away a LOT of what has made her story so important, and I believe it is a terrible misstep. 

Jude Jones: I’m not sure having a Muslim woman emerge from the resurrection egg in front of men, in a semi-revealing robe, is the best, most accurate or even mildly respectful way to have her reappear. I could be wrong; I’m not an expert on her specific practices. I just would err on the side of respectful restraint. But then again, not much about her death has been respectful or restrained anyway, so this tracks. 

Also, are we just going with “she’s always been a mutant and we just found out?” I mean I’m sure there’ll be more depth in her solo series (maybe!) but that’s … underwhelming.  

Anna: I don’t want to harp on the Kamala stuff. Armaan and Jude have already voiced a lot of my issues with it, so I’ll just chime in to concur: Seeing Kamala, depicted with pale skin and a button nose, waking up surrounded by adult men and women she doesn’t know, in front of whom she was presumably naked before being given a Frederick’s of Hollywood satin short-robe that barely covers her ass, does not inspire excitement about this new chapter of her life. This isn’t just a cultural complaint, it’s a character one. I know Kamala, and she would hate being turned into this kind of spectacle. So would most teen girls — it’s creepy and weird and so, so fixable. At least give her a proper bathrobe, for goodness sake.

Tony: Agreed, but I’m glad they were at least considerate enough to not depict her coming out of the egg on page. Not to say they did it right (because I don’t think they did), but I’m glad they put at least a LITTLE thought into it. I know that’s giving credit for the bare minimum, and I’m really frustrated that’s where we’re at.

Adam: In the wake of Kamala’s death, I noted how stupid it was to kill the character for a status quo change. This is even stupider since the status quo change is “she was born a mutant.” You didn’t have to kill her for this story to work! She didn’t need to be resurrected! If you can just say, “She’s this thing now,” you don’t need to do the rest. 

Rob: I’m going to chime in on purely aesthetic grounds. At this point it is embarrassing that house-style Marvel artists and colorists so often do not know how to draw or color characters of color. Even more embarrassing is what this reveals about the state of comics art: The artists on the biggest books only know how to draw a few faces and color a couple of skin tones. I can’t draw shit, but if my career was to draw people, I would be humiliated by that fact, and I would not submit another image of a human being for publication unless and until my art had as much variety as Greg Land’s. I think a number of pages in this issue were stunning, but this sequence, like so many sequences Marvel has published over the past few years, is simply embarrassing. 

Tony: Rob, you’re completely right here. She simply didn’t look like herself in the opening at all. 

Rob: Now, story-wise, am I worried about Kamala’s future, given the reasons outlined above? Absolutely. I’m also a bit excited to see another corner of the Marvel universe begin engaging with X-stuff again. I like that over the past decade Marvel has built up an interesting cast of young heroes, and, though I haven’t enjoyed many of those ongoings, I’ve 1. always had a soft spot for the relationship between Cyclops and those heroes, and 2. wanted stories about Krakoa interacting with other corners of the universe more directly. I am actually looking forward to Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant (especially since Iman Vellani, unlike, in my impression, most of the other people who actually make Marvel movies these days, seems to actually like superheroes and comic books).

Mark: I can’t help but compare this to Kamala’s exposure during the post-Inhumanity era. As by far the most successful of the new Inhuman characters during that publishing push (Where’s Mosaic these days?), she had the added pressure of being slotted into issues of Inhuman and Uncanny Inhumans, while also being a member of the Inhuman Secret Warriors team and holding down her own solo ongoing. It’s a lot of pressure for any teenager. As an X-man, though, as a mutant, in a line that’s stacked with all-stars, there won’t be that pressure on the character to carry so much of the narrative weight. 

As for the missing bangles, I’m really hoping that it’s intentional, that she won’t feel complete until she reconnects with her family and gets them back, bringing her character full circle. I don’t think, or rather I hope, that in designing her new costume, Jamie McKelvie was conscious of what he was doing in leaving those out.

Stephanie: Not to pour sunshine on this rainy parade — and of course killing her off just to declare her a mutant makes zero sense — but no one else seems to have mentioned that Kamala Khan has become the new Wolverine: She’s so popular that editorial wants to see her in as many books as possible. Her name and face causes people to buy comic books. I think that’s cool. I don’t trust the Marvel brass, who no doubt dictated much of this plotline with less than a year of notice for the writers, and I’m bummed out by the inconsistent coloring, but semi-trust Jamie McKelvie. I hope she gets those bangles back.

A New Team

Tony: So the usual Gala stuff happens after that opening, minus the celebrity cameos. It seems like the election happens way sooner than normal, but considering what’s about to happen to them …

Stephanie: Costume appreciation half-second: Carol Danvers, Kamala (Gala costume, not the uniform), Destiny, Sam Wilson, and especially Jean, despite the needless boob window and the perhaps intentional cross-company homage to Poison Ivy. Jean looks rad.

Rob: They should have kept the celebrity cameos. I bet Vin Diesel would have been cool with his likeness being annihilated by Nimrod.

Adam: Rob, you are clearly unaware of Vin’s contract clause that made it impossible for him to be defeated in a fight by The Rock. He’s not getting annihilated by anybody. 

Rob: By human beings! I think he would have accepted a loss to a genocide robot. Maybe if he got to look strong before being atomized, get a punch in or something.

Jude: The GODS cameo was very pointless. 

Adam: Up until the announcement of the new team, this felt very much like a hastily thrown together anthology book with the tone shifting from page to page, desperately trying to seed as many future books and stories as possible. The GODS page was the most egregious. 

Austin: So that’s what that was, lol. 

Tony: And it was the only page by Schiti! What a waste!

Rob: If they were going to do a “you have new gods now” / “the guy who wrote that line is now writing about old gods” thing, I think it could have worked in, like, a panel.

Stephanie: I like the unmissable callback to HoxPox, but yeah, that was silly.

Tony: I do love Jean handing the mantle of leadership to Everett and Laura. This is probably the moment in the entire issue that lands best for me. Two and a half years of character development for Synch has made him feel A-list. I’m glad he’s made it, and I think something interesting could be done with Talon.

Then the team’s announced and … everyone won. The entire group up for election in #XMenVote: Synch, Talon, Jubilee, Dazzler, Prodigy, Cannonball, Frenzy and Juggernaut.

And then Nimrod drops from orbit and kills half of them immediately. And graphically.

Jude: There’s something to be said about electing the most diverse group of X-Men yet and then having them all savagely murdered in the next panel. You would think I’d be more upset, but I’m not. This is what I’ve come to expect. *This is who they are.* This is why I argue for more representation behind the scenes, so easily avoidable mishaps like this — making Black people cannon fodder, sure to deeply hurt and offend a not-so-insignificant part of the X-Men fandom — can be avoided. This is, ironically, a similar critique to the death of Ms. Marvel: Black and brown bodies unceremoniously maimed to progress the feelings of others. It’s less egregious here for sure, but no less disappointing. 

And really, that’s my overall feeling here. All this — the way they were killed, the way the mutants were outflanked, hell, even the way some of the most powerful planet-creating mutants on Earth somehow are having a problem against robots — just feels disappointing and unnecessarily regressive. We’ve moved past this, and yet here we are: still being murdered by sentinels on an island.

Austin: They even hung a lampshade on that notion — Iceman pointing out he’s an Omega mutant who terraformed Mars — shortly before he’s … stabbed to death(?). Yes, yes, something something Moira Otherworld Poison, but one of the problems with going for surprise (narratively speaking) is that there’s no room for setup, and so we’re left scratching our heads at something that, while shocking, isn’t explained very well. Orchis strategically targeting Omegas? That’s a neat detail that speaks to the effectiveness of their plan. But the notion of “take out the most powerful first” isn’t exactly groundbreaking, while the piece that could be groundbreaking — how they manage to do it now vs. any other time — gets hand-waved away. 

Anna: Like many of us, I saw the scene where Nimrod kills a bunch of the new team on Twitter (Xitter?) before we got access to the review copy. I’m gonna resort to the bare minimum defense and say — I assumed it would be worse because hey, at least some of them aren’t dead? But I can’t own that defense; it’s bad and sad for all the reasons Jude identifies. The thing that gets me is that it’s clearly a joke, and under different circumstances, Nimrod’s line would be very funny (the callback later in the issue, “I already apologized for that!” did get a chuckle out of me). But then you have to ask — who is the joke on or for? Who’s the subject, and who’s the object? 

Austin: There’s the seeds of a clever idea here — make a big deal out of keeping the results of the vote a secret, pretend to get mad when details are leaked, even though you don’t really care because, in the end, everyone wins! But actually, nobody wins, because they all die! Plus, there’s the added benefit of all that spoiler stuff obscuring the other events in the issue, which Marvel presumably is more concerned with remaining secret.

But then, maybe don’t set up the most diverse group of X-Men as the punchline to that joke? And really, treating any group of characters as nothing more than a punchline is a bad look. The better way to play this is to launch the Orchis attack before the vote. “Who won the election? It doesn’t matter, because there are no X-Men anymore!” is just as effective a bit without having to make eight characters X-Men for five seconds before being unceremoniously killed for the sake of a bit.

Stephanie: Yeah, that would have been the way to do it. For what it’s worth, I suspect and imagine that this team, or most of the team, will come back in a book called X-Men, or maybe Not Dead Yet X-Men. But. Is anyone else feeling Secret Empire Nazi-Cap vibes right now? When Marvel editorial and a journeyman white dude comics pro decide to do something all the fans will hate, and something morally and politically very questionable to boot, and the fans do hate it, and the fans are supposed to know that it’s temporary/reversible/not real, but because we’re fans we take it seriously and we hate it? That’s how I ended up feeling about the last half of this story.

Tony: I think for me, it’s textually meant to reinforce how awful Orchis is. But I agree completely with everyone. 

Austin: If nothing else, this issue really does reinforce how awful Orchis is. I hate those SOBs EVEN MORE now. 

Rob: I like the fight scene, and I overall like the nuances of the Orchis plan — distract this group, distract another group, play on Charles Xavier’s willingness to commit atrocities as long as he gets to act like a martyr — but I do really feel offput by the New Team/Dead Team moment, and for a reason in addition to those already outlined. When you have a swerve like this, where you telegraph to the audience that X will occur, but then immediately wipe out X and head toward Y, Y has to be cooler, more exciting and more fun than X. 

Stephanie: Exactly. That’s true for pop music as well: The weird new chord change has to feel more compelling than the expected I-IV-V or you haven’t written a pop song, or not a good one. Duggan, or whoever told him what he had to do, steers instead to making Y harsher than X, sadder than X, more a complete disaster for mutantkind. X-fans had basically 20 years of that. We don’t need more.

Rob: In Deadpool 2, the movie was advertised as the movie with X-Force. The movie spends a decent amount of time setting up X-Force. It works to make sure that everyone knows who SHATTERSTAR is. And at that point, in the theater, I remember how excited I felt to see someone as goofy, obscure and fun as Shatterstar show up in a movie and have some kickass fight scenes. Of course, that doesn’t happen — X-Force is immediately slaughtered. It’s a well-constructed gag, but it hurts the movie as a whole, because it swerves from the new and exciting thing to just a movie without that thing; X-Force isn’t replaced by something more fun. It’s just teased and then removed from the movie. 

Here we have an X-fan’s dream team. We have a variety of characters from a number of eras and generations, most of whom have some kind of cult following, and most of whom haven’t had much of a chance to shine recently, led by an individual who has finally come into his own. It’s a team I would be excited to read about. Instead, the X-Men team is going to be … well … someone? The issue doesn’t give us any idea about who the X-Men title is going to follow now. Is X-Men going to be the Firestar-Orchis-infiltration book? A Kate Pryde solo book? Is it going to follow the group that resisted? Wilson Fisk? We’re actually left with a number of possibilities that, I think, would be extremely fun. But I don’t know what any of them are; are we supposed to be looking to retailer materials to get excited for what’s next, rather than the actual comic book setting up the new status quo? Because as it stands, it dangled the most interesting X-Men lineup since Mike Carey’s Rogue Squad, and then replaced that lineup with a question mark. Stories absolutely should swerve, but swerve in a direction that lets the reader be excited for the new thing.

Stephanie: We don’t know that these characters won’t come back. We just don’t know.

Orchis Rises

Jude: The regression of Moira — from Machiavellian ally to a pastiche of a comic book villain, respite with wild eyes and maniacal laugh — is … just sad, really. But that fits in with my larger critique of Orchis: They’re just not interesting here. They’re just blatant bad guys: nuance stripped, motivations simplified. More than a few have tragic backstories that could, even in the midst of committing a genocide, elicit some level of, if not sympathy, understanding. Nimrod had his body destroyed and his humanity ripped away from him — save his anger and hatred. There’s something profound there to meditate on, to explore. But that’s not been explored with him in depth yet; it’s not present at all here. Just one-line quips and violence. 

Writing the smugness of Orchis, I’m sure, was intentional: to rub salt in the wounds of the mutants, to, as is classic with comic bad guys, spell out exactly all the wrongs they commit to the temporarily downed protagonist, and dare them to do something about it. It’s all very familiar. Relatable. Scooby-Doo-ish.

Basic.

And maybe that’s enough for this issue! Maybe that’s good enough for people who hate seeing nuance, who just want black and white, good and bad. But without that nuance, it leaves the attacks from Orchis feeling … empty. They’re not defending humans. Not even their own pride. They’re just attacking because that’s what bad guys do.

The mutants deserve better, sure. But honestly, so does Orchis. 

Tony: Yes, there’s so much nuance missing from this issue. Sometimes there’s not a need for subtlety, but overall the entire Orchis attack was so heavy handed.

Stephanie: I’m finding a lot to like in this issue, but mostly it’s things like the Gala costumes. Small things. The giant would-be Wagnerian destruction, the Götterdämmerung of it all … it’s well-executed and well-drawn as hero combat — the death of Iceman really hit me! And the giant art team has so much work to do. But the underlying plot is … um. All the bad guys we’ve seen over the last two years or so have been teaming up, secretly, and because both Moira and Dr. Stasis want the mutants to lose, the mutants ultimately lose.

OK, I’ll admit it. Orchis bore me. Orchis has always bored me. They’re one more angry anti-mutant organization with fancy tech who mean to build the ultimate anti-mutant robot. I have very few feelings about them. And Nimrod’s so thinly characterized that he resorts to distracting jokes. The interesting betrayers and bad guys here are Moira and Stasis. I wonder what it would be like to tell the whole story of this issue from Moira’s perspective? Or from Stasis’?

Adam: One weakness of this issue is that the majority of Orchis’ plotting has to be explained to us. Part of that is because the writers want us to be surprised, but it leads to far more exposition and “telling” instead of “showing.” What’s on Moira’s knife? Gotta explain it. What killed Iceman? Gotta explain it.

Tony: More Jean Grey being an absolute badass, though. This is the Jean I like. Everyone who did survive the initial drop survived because of Jean. Then she proceeds to use Juggernaut like a battering ram. This is the sort of Jean Grey stuff that makes the shrinking violet characterization of her that’s still used too often look bad.

Rob: Jean Grey using the Juggernaut as a bullet was, for me, a high point. Delightful.

Adam: I believe we call this “mutant technology.”

Austin: The Jean stuff was really fun. There’s also the subtle ways she’s shown to be powerful, the backdoor into Stasis’ mind, coming up with the “set up Firestar as a mole” plan on the fly, after saving everyone and using Juggernaut as a battering ram, and while dying — it all underscores just how powerful and effective she is. Which, again, makes me wish Orchis’ efforts to kill her amounted to more than “poison knife.”

Stephanie: Otherworld-poison-knife, so whatever the writers want it to do can be hand-waved away. (Including: Her flesh rots, but the costume stays.) Jean’s such a badass that her psychic presence can explain, and execute, a whole mole plan and implant all sorts of fake memories while her flesh is rotting off her bones! Also badass: Kate and Rasputin IV. How long has it been since Kate did a fastball special?

Tony: Also, I’m so glad they didn’t go with the shameless celebrity cameos this year, because Orchis slaughters everyone that’s left. Could you imagine the field day if they had to hand wave away “Oh no, Jon Hamm got to a gate before they got closed down”?

Mark: We did get Declan Shalvey make an appearance as Ireland’s ambassador to the U.N.

Adam: I did appreciate Dr. Stasis’ casual order to kill the humans who witnessed the massacre. Sometimes these villains don’t feel directly villainous, and this is one of those murdery moments that really sold how little they actually care about humankind as long as mutantkind is destroyed. 

Austin: They’re ultimately not for humans, they’re just against mutants. 

Adam: Eeeexactly.

Firestar: Traitor (Narc)

Tony: I kind of love the journey Angelica went on this year. She’s grown more as a character this year than she did in five or so years of Kurt Busiek Avengers. But I also love that she was set up as a benevolent double agent for the Avengers last year, which never paid off until today. Everyone expected her to turn traitor, but she didn’t. And now a lot of folks will think she did, and the only person who knows she didn’t is now dead (and the Otherworld poison might mean it’s going to stick for a bit?).

Austin: I thought of you and Matt’s X-Chat reviews reading the Firestar stuff, Tony, knowing both of you have enjoyed her tenure on the team and were worried the upcoming election would mean she’d get sidelined again, and here we are, with her set up for (seemingly) a very prominent role in the “Fall of X” status quo. I don’t think any of the announced titles call her out specifically, but I’m hoping we get some good double agent/behind enemy lines stories out of this featuring her.

Stephanie: Yes! She’s in exactly the right place for people to find “she was working for Orchis all along” plausible. And I love the purple-on-purple panels in which the spirit of a dying Jean speaks with the spirit of Firestar: They’re haunting, and they use modern digital coloring well and, also, the dialogue reminds me (bet it’s not just me) how easy it is for bad actors to spread misinformation about a group that’s already hated, or shunned, or feared. I know the mutant metaphor has its limits, but I thought — on that page alone — of the way that anti-LGBTQ+ campaigners say we’re recruiting children. “They will blame us, and the world will believe the lies.” That’s effective writing.

Anna: I like the Firestar thing. It’s a neat negotiation of her place in the franchise and, as Tony says, includes some decent narrative payoff. Also, the bit about Beast made me laugh. Angelica: Who do I throw under the bus? Jean: Beast. Tell them the truth or make up stuff, everyone will believe you because he’s the worst. Fans of the villain Beast era keep winning.

Tony: Yes! That was my second favorite part of the issue. Hilarious stuff.

Adam: My Battle of the Atom co-host Zack Jenkins talked on our last episode about his (and Cerebro host Conor Goldsmith’s) theory about Destiny’s prediction of a “traitor” on the X-Men. It’s deflating to see that, instead of paying off on the details of Forge’s escape from the Vault or any other potentials, it turns out we don’t have a traitor at all. I do appreciate playing on the idea of Firestar as a narc, and as the president of the Keep Beast Evil fan club, including him in the telepathic backstory ruse put a smile on my face.  

Rob: I do think the Forge stuff will be paying off, in the Children of the Vault miniseries. 

Population: One

Anna: Hey everybody it’s Anna, chiming in with the Nightcrawler beat! So … was Kurt just sitting up on that branch watching everything happen? But whatever, dude’s sacrificed his life enough for the cause over the past few years, he’s earned a breather. 

Jude: We know (hope!) they didn’t just kill a quarter million mutants for shock value … again. For what, the third, fourth time? 

A theme of Sabretooth was how some mutants were treated as invisible, second-class citizens by other mutants. I would hate for another group of nameless, faceless people to be slaughtered for no other reason than to drive home a point. 

But I wouldn’t be surprised. Sadly. 

Austin: All else aside, I think there’s enough “name” characters who couldn’t resist Xavier’s mental coercion mixed in with the faceless masses to ensure their eventual return. 

Jude: My money has them transported to Russia, where Cerebro can’t see, under the heavy hand of Colossus’ (literally!) controlling brother, Mikhail.

Or maybe Legion has them … wherever he is. Who knows! 

Tony: I’m sure not everyone’s dead. I’m sure they’re just … somewhere. That uncertainty is incredibly interesting to me. But you’d think Charles would have sensed the distress as people were stepping through if they were truly stepping into a meat grinder. It’s a very Gallifrey sort of hanging plot, and it’s also gut-wrenching horror. That part actually had my stomach drop a little bit.

Stephanie: I didn’t see that they were truly being killed — I thought they were on their way to Arakko! — until Charles said “I sent them into a meat grinder.” And then my heart just kind of dropped somewhere into the mantle of the Earth. Because I would read the hell out of several years’ worth of comics about a mutant diaspora! A space mutant diaspora, even. And that’s probably what we’re going to get. I think?

Because the mutants whom Charles thinks he’s slaughtered (by ordering them through the meat-grinder gates) are probably in the bubble that Mother Righteous created, or maybe in some kind of ether, or, really, who knows. But I would not read the hell out of a several-year plotline where almost all the mutants are dead, or depowered, or hand-waved into oblivion, again. One M-Day was more than enough. And one Genosha. Again, it feels like Nazi Cap felt. We know or should know it’s not the new permanent status quo, but it’s still offensive and I hate it.

Tony: And you know, I didn’t clearly see when Magik, Dani and co. teleported out to spin into Realm of X, so maybe they just scattered everyone to the winds.

I love that the one and only Wolverine beat is Logan tearing Orchis beekeepers to shreds. If the next year of Duggan X-Men is just Logan and Kate Pryde getting brutal revenge on Orchis, I’d actually be okay with that.

Stephanie: I would not be OK with that.

Adam: See, I thought it was very clear that the mutant population was moved to the Atlantic island of Krakoa inside Mother Righteous’ lantern. I don’t think for a second that any of them are dead, just that Charles, Rogue and the others believe they are. 

Stephanie: I hope Adam’s right. And I hope we learn as much. Soon. Starting with, hey, why not, the return of Jumbo Carnation. The Krakoan era brought (if unevenly) stories about post-revolutionary state formation — what do you do when you actually have some power? — and stories about mutant culture and mutant society and non-fighty mutants using their non-fighty powers. Like in the Morrison run at its best. We’ve lost the state formation part of the story, but if the mutant masses survive we can still have a diasporic culture. We need to see that culture in action, though. (Remember when Joe Quesada said no one would root for mutants anymore if there were more than, oh, 198 of them? I feel like someone’s saying so at Disney now.)

Austin: Just the construction of the panels alone suggests this, as we see the mutants ordered by Xavier through the gates, then Mother Righteous in front of a gate saying “bon voyage” while the captions talk about her playing her own game. So presumably, she intercepted the transport to wherever Orchis was sending the mutants (deep space?), put them all on that island, then tucked it into her lantern for reasons. The question to me is whether that’s an obvious enough reading to be a red herring, or subtle enough to count as a legitimate attempt at a hint. 

Anna: I’ll say this for this comic: The escalation of horror did affect me, my stomach swirling and sinking as we gradually became aware, along with Xavier, of the true (seeming) scale of the tragedy. 

Austin: Agreed; all else aside, the issue did a tremendously good job of making me feel the mounting tension, dread and horror as events unfolded. 

Stephanie: I’m certainly horrified.

Mark: I sure hope you’re correct and that they didn’t just get murdered (Yes, yes, I know it will be undone eventually) because that imagery: of being told you’re just being relocated for the time being, only to be immediately murdered, it’s a bit too close to gas chamber imagery for me. But that might just be my own cultural baggage I’m bringing to the table.

Stephanie: It’s not just you, Mark. The mutants queue up to walk into a mysterious gate, under orders from one of their own who’s been convinced that if he doesn’t comply everybody dies. I’m not going to call it unethical, and I’m not going to call it a direct reference to Holocaust images, but it’s extremely uncomfortable.

Adam: On a lighter note there was tons of beautiful art and color in this issue, including one of the biggest surprises for me: the brief and spectacular return of Pepe Larraz! (and RB Silva!) It was only for a few pages but really felt appropriate not only because we know he loves drawing Rogue, but just as the House of X artist things felt like they’d come full circle. Very glad Marvel was able to pull him away from that Mark Millar money for at least a few pages. It really helped the conclusion of the story. 

Rob: Best pages of the comic, by far. A few incredible panels there. 

Stephanie: So much good art! The purple Jean/Angelica scenes in space. The full-page combat spreads in the middle of the issue. Kate in midair, in combat. Charles screaming as he appears to fall backward over the costumed skeleton of Jean Grey. I hate a lot of what the plot does in this issue, but we do get a feast for the eyes.

Anna: I sometimes worry I expect too much from X-Men comics. Maybe the point of X-Men comics is to tell nuanced, thoughtful stories about difference, persecution and resistance. Or maybe the point is to toss glamorous mutant bodies into an explosive onslaught of thrilling, shocking spectacles and make you go “hell yeah” in response to a bunch of cool hero moments involving cool superpowers doing cool things. This comic has lots of the latter, and if that’s all you’re looking for, it may be enough. But I want that stuff and a little bit more. Maybe whatever comes next can provide it. While I’ve got my issues with how this issue shook things up, I’m not mad that it did.

Rob: I’ve been struggling to think of what I want out of superhero books over the past year as I read fewer and fewer and enjoy even less. I love serial storytelling generally, but what makes me pick up an issue of X-Men over, say, the next Cradle audiobook? I think the answer comes down to continuity across titles; I want to read not just a serial story, but a number of parallel serial stories. The tight cross-title serialization at the start of “Dawn of X” made that line tremendously exciting at the same time that Marvel’s broader attitude of lax continuity and very rough tie-ins made things more boring. When you pick up Avengers * X-Men * Eternals: Avengers #1, and it’s clear that the writer has only been given a very, very rough outline of what the actual event is about, even if the actual issue as an individual story is good, the issue in context falls flat. When, instead, you pick up a random “Reign of X” trade paperback and see everything humming together, even weaker individual issues feel like more meaningful parts of a whole. 

A number of Marvel’s decisions recently have really soured me on their line and on the future X-Men sub-line. The announcement that they were going to cancel the anthology trade paperbacks (in the middle of multiple arcs, mind you) felt like the real turning point for me. The cancellation functions as a nice symbol of the whole: Marvel took an exciting, new idea that pushed things forward in a small way, refused to go all-in, and then snatched defeat from the jaws of success. A line of books that should have been revolutionary was instead overpriced, under-marketed, and over-relaunched to the point of failure. 

Stephanie: That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. I got off the it’s-all-one-big-story train sometime between the end of “X of Swords” — a well-planned, if overlong, event with consequences for a unified line — and the beginning of “Sins of Sinister,” which asked me to purchase multiple miniseries to follow a dystopian timeline we all knew would get undone. I’ve been following, eagerly, books that survived on their own, with their own smaller-scale stories, but then the writers on those books (Vita Ayala in particular, and where’s Leah Williams?) left Marvel, or got dropped by Marvel, or something. So, yeah, I’ve been feeling like the “meaningful parts of a whole” era might be gone. Might have left the building before the “Fall of X.”

Rob: Now, the “Fall of X” title announcements have featured a few creative teams I really like, and premises for titles I really would, in isolation, enjoy. Regardless, knowing what I did about what was coming, and knowing what I did of Marvel’s recent decisions, I struggled to feel any kind of excitement for the line as a whole. I thought that “Fall of X,” dropping as it did so shortly after the symbolic cancellation of Trials of X with Vol. 12, would be the point where I finally just let myself stop caring about this story. But then actually reading the issue (even with all of the significant flaws outlined in this conversation), really changed my mind. The fact that the goal of “Fall of X” seems to be to tell stories with the X-Men that interact with the other parts of the Marvel universe, the fact that Kamala Khan, Tony Stark and Wilson Fisk, somehow, are going to be significant characters in these books? I’m letting myself get excited again. Even if we’re retreading “Mutants are HATED AND FEARED,” “the MUTANT COUNTRY WAS DESTROYED” and “there’s only AROUND ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY EIGHT, give or take, MUTANTS LEFT ON EARTH” status quos, and even if these connections would have been much more exciting to have during the actually new status quo, I’m still excited. I have reservations, but I’m excited to read the new line of minigoings that will follow.

Stephanie: I’ll take “the mutant country was destroyed; it’s a diaspora, we’re a book about diaspora now.” But I won’t take another M-Day.

Austin: As you alluded to up top, Rob, this definitely feels like the biggest change in status quo since HoXPoX, and for all my reservations about that, what it means for some fans, and how much I’ve enjoyed the Krakoan status quo (even while not enjoying every issue/series within it), I’m also some mixture of excited and intrigued to see what happens next, and crossing my fingers that this brings back to the line some of that narrative cohesion and focus you’re seeking, which existed earlier in the era but has dissipated of late.  

Stephanie: I’m crossing my fingers that all those mutants aren’t dead. I’m also crossing my toes, or something, that the new books will introduce something coherent. That they’ll speak to one another, with no alternate timelines required. I think they’re much more likely, instead, to speak to … non-mutant books. Which is, honestly, maybe a bad sign: The first two years of Krakoa-era comics worked so well because the X-office and its writers spoke constantly with one another (There were interviews to that effect) and didn’t have to deal with higher-ups asking for Iron Man tie-ins every five minutes.

Jude: We’ve seen Synch use his power to take the gift from a recently deceased mutant (Hope, back in Judgment Day); why couldn’t he do the same with Lourdes and have everyone jump back in the fight? (Because the reader should focus on how the gates don’t work anymore. I know. Just sayin’.)

Adam: An issue like this with this many characters and continuity — I don’t want to call them errors (I’m thinking of Moira’s costume inconsistency) — it’s easy to armchair quarterback the storytelling and the way this all plays out. I do think the issue at least had internal logic and kept the mood especially in the latter half. If the end has to be they lose tragically, certain powersets are going to be overlooked even though they could have been used to save the day. 

Before we close out, I just want to note that when “Fall of X” was announced at New York Comic Con last October, Gerry got a lot of guff because he said something along the lines of “The mutants have been winning for so long, what happens when they lose?” mainly because X-fans felt that despite the utopian island, mutants were still facing abject daily persecution. But he wasn’t kidding! The X-Men soundly, firmly lose in a host of ways, and this issue delivers if only because it sets up a pretty dramatic new status quo for where the books will go moving forward. 

Stephanie: “It was a good dream. Worth fighting for.” Lourdes’ death scene moved me. The whole collapse of the mutant state, its dream of mutant self-rule and mutant empowerment, moved me. This story’s a mess, and a lot of its symbols work for me. The gates to the past have literally closed, and there’s Emma bumping her nose just like Kate — who can now get through the gates? What the heck?

I can’t get over the appearance of mass slaughter, the sense that we’re meant to believe so many, many mutants have died once again; it feels irresponsible, and I think it’s bad storytelling. But the other events that destroy the island nation and scatter its citizens? The Hellfire Club’s New York basement? I’m willing to entertain them as the basis for a new … not status quo, because I don’t think things have much settled down; a new constellation of stories that don’t feel like retreads. Maybe we can hope for those.

Jude: There’s a certain group of people who will be happy to see the mutants on their heels, on the run, hated by the world, just trying to survive. A certain group of people for whom the old status quo is sacrosanct, and for whom anything else is apostasy. 

And there’s another group of folk: folk who’ve internalized this mutant metaphor as something personal, as an associated identity, for whom the grandeur of Krakoa — the idea that a group of continually persecuted outcasts, irrationally hated, almost wiped out time and time again, could not only survive but thrive — was just as appealing. Just as religious. And for these people, especially as the group of (finally) diverse X-Men gets murdered on the spot, all of this will feel like an unnecessary regression. A reduction. A purposeful insult.

I’m definitely not in the former group, but I’m not an apostle of the latter’s ideology either. Not completely. 

I just want good stories. A good story solves all. 

So the question, then: Is this a good story? Is it the beginning of a good story? Is this an unceremonious end to a great one? I’m not so sure. And that, more than regression (or renewal, based on your point of view), has me frustrated to the core. This was a lot. It was eventful. It was controversial.

But can I say it was good? 

I don’t know that I can, and that is a greater indictment of this issue than any adherence or aversion to fandom ideology. 

X-Traneous Thoughts

• It sure seems like Stasis’ line about Moira donning super-villain attire was an attempt to cover art inconsistencies, considering she was in “normal” clothes both before and after that scene. 
• Shaw’s absence from the gala was noted, and he did not appear at all in the issue. 
• As was Storm’s, who is dealing with (or leading, depending on your point of view) an insurrection on Planet Arakko. 
• I guess now we know what Krakoa was protecting Doug from in Immortal X-Men #13
• Also protected by the pit: Mutant Sinister and the Fenris Twins, aka two Nazis and a former-ish one. 
• Among those evacuated during the massacre? The Five, who are collected and thrown through a gate against their will by their fanatic acolyte, Exodus. 
• Having a Black guy (Cap Sam Wilson) say “some of my best friends are mutants” is … bad? Horrible? Nasty work? Who knows?
• Having the Jewish Katherine (finally!) walk (fall!) through a gate to Israel is … purposeful? Maybe? Or just a coinky-dink. Who knows?
• But she’s totally gonna ninja-kill all those guys regardless in X-Men #25, right? 
• If readers missed the Uncanny Avengers Free Comic Book Day issue, they would be forgiven if they didn’t know what was going on when the Avengers and then Rogue peaced out. 
• Physics question: How did Jean lose her flesh and organs but keep her costume and her perfectly coiffed hair? Follow-up: If Jean burned to death, does that mean she was speaking to Firestar on the astral plane while she was incinerating? Jean’s such a badass. 
• Oh, we totally forgot there’s a Jean Grey mini coming as we were thinking about her death, didn’t we? 
• Unstable molecules! Oh, that’s that other team, isn’t it?
• Aww, Jumbo Carnation has a boyfriend, and it’s the Mykines lighthouse operator who we first met way back in Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto.
• Jubilee’s send-off to Nimrod, “&*^% you, robot,” seems custom made for a T-shirt.
• Xavier’s classic psychic defenses are given a graphic with the RESIST Red Triangle.
• After using his last ounce of strength to complete this recap, Adam expired from injuries sustained in the first paragraph. Anna could be seen cradling his skeleton, thankful that both his red tux and his hair still looked great.