Go away, Kafka, the important mutants are talking in X-Men Forever #2

It’s the view from the White Hot Room as Xavier’s plans come to fruition(?) and the mutants trapped on another plane of existence make their move as the deck-clearing exercise that is “Fall of X” continues in X-Men Forever #2, written by Kieron Gillen, drawn by Luca Maresca, colored by Federico Blee and lettered by Clayton Cowles.

Austin Gorton: Welcome back to X-Men Forever, nee Immortal X-Men, Kieron Gillen’s wrap-up to the Krakoa era (that isn’t Rise of the Powers of X)! 

Tony Thornley: Man, after such a strong first issue, I had some (a lot) of trouble with this one. 

Two Series That Are One

Austin: X-Men Forever #2 is, essentially, a companion piece to Rise of the Powers of X #4. It’s like two people having a conversation over the phone, with each issue showing the conversation from the other person’s perspective. A footnote at the beginning helpfully directs readers to read the other issue first, so we’ll pause here while you go do that. 

Tony: Just like X-Men is the between-the-scenes version of Fall of the House of X, we’re seeing that here.

Matt and I are writing one of the last X-Chats before the relaunch right now, and I compared it to a bad DC event. We’re getting a sketch, jumping moment to moment, only telling 70% of the story at best, relying on a tie-in to complete the story. Fall and X-Men have been more egregious with it. This issue though totally did the same, and it was Frustrating. (Yes, capital F.)

Austin: Here, we see Mother Righteous’ side of the conversation (or, at least, the side of her homunculus trapped in the White Hot Room). Luca Maresca’s art in this issue doesn’t do a whole lot for me (like so much of late, it feels rushed, with lots of “figures on blank white backgrounds”), but the panels of Mother Righteous’ body melting away were matter-of-factly grotesque. (Also great, Xavier’s aside that he needs to end the conversation ‘cuz her brain is collapsing). 

Tony: Probably the best sequence of the issue, and a fantastic bit of body horror.

Austin: This proves to be the sole connection with events on Earth, as the rest of X-Men Forever #2 takes place in the White Hot Room. As befitting a book that is essentially a continuation of Immortal X-Men, this means we get some more Quiet Council shenanigans among Hope, Exodus and Destiny. 

Tony: Legitimately I kind of hated the scene with Exodus, Destiny, Hope and The Five. It was a bit of making the sausage that didn’t NEED to be made on page. Rise already covered it — they were resurrecting everyone as quickly as they could so Rise and Fall could have a “To me, my X-Men” moment. (If that line of dialogue isn’t used, I will eat my shirt.) Outside of some kinda fun banter between the three of them (The Five were literally set dressing), this scene served zero purpose, and could have been repurposed for a couple more interesting beats.

Austin: Totally agree. One of the frustrating things about the unfolding wrap-up of the Krakoan era is how often a comic is forced to tell instead of show. Here, we get the opposite: time spent showing something that could have easily been told via a narrative caption (or just left for readers to assume). 

Tony: Rachel’s fiery indignation (sorry) was great, though. I’m not sure why the X-Factor cast has gotten the short end of the stick so badly since its cancellation, but seeing Gillen write her here makes me wish we’d gotten more with her sooner. She’s the oft-forgotten Summers, and I hate that.

Though I do have to say, Maresca dropped the ball in this scene in particular, but in the issue as a whole in one big thing: Hope is not Jean and Scott’s daughter. Maresca is just drawing her as Jean. He’s not even trying to make her a young Jean, so it threw me off so badly reading the issue.

Putting the Toys Back

Austin: Let’s talk about arguably the most talked about part of X-Men Forever #2. In an exchange between Exodus and the tuber-loving Kafka, we get what seems like a pretty big bit of deck clearing for the post-Krakoa status quo. The idea here is that with The Five in the White Hot Room, they’ll resurrect all the X-Men who have died fighting Orchis. With the help of the revived Mister Sinister, they’re able to work out a way to send them back to Earth, the better to fight and/or star in comics. But everyone else — ie the background/redshirt mutants from Krakoa — will remain behind on Atlantic Krakoa in the White Hot Room. How did this land for you? 

Tony: With a thud. It’s like Decimation all over again. There are too many mutants, too many possibilities, so let’s clear the board.

Which, when you consider that Exceptional X-Men and Uncanny X-Men are BOTH adding four new mutants to their stories this summer, it just seems unnecessary. Where are all these new mutants coming from when ALL the citizens of Krakoa are on the island in the White Hot Room? It’s so dumb.

Austin: I’m torn. On the one hand, I’ve been in this game long enough to appreciate the effort in crafting an in-universe explanation for a commercial reality. We all know the post-Krakoa era is at least somewhat a back-to-basics status quo. This means no Krakoa and, likely, a mutant population that is much sparser, more a hidden minority than a political body. Rather than just ignore all the (largely nameless) mutants who made up the Krakoa body politic, this at least explains why we won’t be seeing them going forward. 

On the other hand, this all seems terribly cavalier. It all unfolds over the course of a few panels, via an exchange between two characters, one of whom essentially exists to serve as the avatar for the entirety of the “bystander” population. We all knew this would functionally happen, and I appreciate having a textual explanation for it, but it still feels like the entire population of mutants who aren’t cool enough to star in comic books deserves more of a send-off. 

Tony: The other thing that sucks is that we don’t know how many characters we’ve met are now stuck on Atlantic Krakoa. And considering we won’t see everyone in the “final battle,” there’s an out for, say, Curse to show up and just suddenly say, “Oh yeah, I ported over with everyone.”

It feels so cheap.

Austin: One of the areas where the Krakoan era struggled was creating a true sense of what life was like for the “background mutants.” What did they do every day on Krakoa? Did they visit their non-mutant families? Were there movie theaters on Krakoa, or stores to buy, I dunno, new headphones? This is largely because none of those are dramatic enough questions to drive the  punch-’em-up stories required of the genre. But then when circumstances of the plot do require the “gen pop” to move into the foreground, like in X-Men Forever #2, it feels deeply underdeveloped. Exodus telling Kafka that he and the rest of the faceless background extras “are Krakoa” just feels like a cheap assertion to make up for being punted into (storytelling) limbo.

Phoenix Resurrected 

Austin: There’s a clever bit of upending expectations in having Xavier kill Rachel just to get her into the White Hot Room to revive the Phoenix. Everyone knows Professor Xavier is a Jerk, and at the same time he’s cutting deals with Orchis, killing Rachel wouldn’t have been all that shocking. But it turns out it was all part of his plan (a plan he couldn’t share with her for fear of alerting Enigma). 

Tony: And Rachel is the MVP of this series, and this issue in particular. I’m good with seeing how she’s taking care of business among all the shit. She’s always been one of the most competent X-Men, and I love seeing her plow through it all.

Austin: I also appreciated the callback to her role as Mother Askani, one of those odder bits of ‘90s continuity I’m glad hasn’t been forgotten. Rachel is one of those comically complex characters with tons of odd bits in her backstory, but it’s always better to lean into that than run from it. 

In the end, Hope succeeds in her goal, resurrecting Jean and, with her, the Phoenix. But the Phoenix is scared, and it seems like things won’t be as simple as a straightforward Phoenix vs. Enigma endgame. 

X-Traneous Thoughts

• My copy, at least, had no credits page, which seems odd. 
• Hope talking about her parents felt awkward and random (her cutting Exodus’ messiah talk off was pretty funny, though). 
• Destiny convincing Exodus to get on board with the “resurrecting Sinister” plan by telling him he can kill Sinister again was also humorous. 
• Love a good footnote, but there are tons of “see X” references littered throughout this issue. Which I guess is a sign of the times. 
• Not sure that Rachel’s logic of “killing someone who is dead is the same as infinite life” makes a ton of sense, but here we are.

Buy X-Men Forever #2 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)

Austin Gorton

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

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.