Xavier gets his gold watch in X-Manhunt Omega #1

The X-MANHUNT concludes as Professor X reaches his destination and his assorted pursuers, friend and foe alike, catch up with him. Alliances will be battle-tested, the blades of betrayals will cut deep with poisoned tips and, when the dust finally settles, Charles Xavier will have to make a tectonic-shifting choice with the fate of all mutantkind in the balance. The world is about to change. This time around, everyone is wide awake. X-Manhunt: Omega #1 is written by Murewa Ayodele and Gail Simone; drawn by Gleb Melnikov, Federica Mancin and Enid Balam; colored by Brian Reber and lettered by Travis Lanham.

Adam Reck: Hear ye! Hear ye! Gather ’round and hear tell of one of the worst clusters in comics crossover history! Perhaps ye’ve heard of “The Twelve” or other such twaddle? But have ye heard of the truly disjointed chaos that be “X-Manhunt”?

Sorry for this voice, covering “X-Manhunt” has clearly scrambled my brains. Seriously, this is a real damn mess. Anyone around who can help me through this trying time? 

Austin Gorton: I, for one, am excited to discuss this Imperial Alpha X-Manhunt Omega issue! 

Tony Thornley: What’s happening? I’ve been in the second-to-last Krakoan egg for the last nine months.

Armaan Babu: I am here to help bring this Hunt to a close! We shall finally see justice brought to Charles Xavier, I assume, at the end of this line-wide Manhunt, won’t we? 

Won’t we?!

Thoughtless Thesis Statement

Adam: We begin with Cyclops and Magik hashing things out with Rogue and Gambit over whether Xavier should be in Graymalkin Prison. Neither of their arguments makes particular sense, and Cyclops’ desperate monologue trying to tie all the From the Ashes books together is pretty stupid. Essentially he’s saying that “the dream is dead” but it’s been replaced by “dreams,” and Scott, I’m pretty sure that means the dream isn’t dead? 

Armaan: The dream died, and new ones rose in its place. That part works for me — and I enjoyed the attempt, at least, to have a unifying vision of what the X-line currently is. It doesn’t quite work, and it comes far too late in the era, but I can almost — almost — see this as something that makes the disconnected X-books have a unifying theme. I love the pitch for post-Krakoa being that the dream died, and each group of mutants is now trying to pursue their own new dream.

That’s not what the books have been, however. If we’ve learned one thing from this rushed, haphazard crossover, it’s that the X-books have no unifying theme whatsoever. 

Tony: It also has this extremely weird aspirational streak that’s trying to make it seem like the disjointed nature of the line is a feature not a bug. I mean, the idea that X-Factor is trying to change how the world views mutants and X-Force is seeking a grand adventure is SUCH a stretch that I found myself involuntarily rolling my eyes.

To think that was uttered by a character on the page and not an omniscient narrator makes it even worse.

Austin: Squint and you can see the pitch here. We had Krakoa, we had unity. After its fall, we split, divided on what to do next, and so, there’s a whole bunch of largely disconnected series chronicling different characters/groups’ efforts to build a new Krakoa/dream in place of the old one. The problem is, you can’t squint forever while reading all these books, and in practice, they don’t quite all fit that mode (Forge in X-Force doesn’t seem terribly concerned about staking out a new direction for mutantkind post-Krakoa, for example). 

And to your point, Armaan, this is a conversation that needed to happen much, much sooner. If this was From the Ashes Alpha instead of Second Crossover of From the Ashes Omega, it would be much more effective at offering a framing for the loose direction of the line and possibly even have made that “direction” slightly more palpable from the outset.   

Armaan: Let me tell you the thing that bothers me about this conversation, the one thing that has bothered me since “Raid on Graymalkin,” the thing that has made me so mad I had to take a moment to distance myself from this to remind me that these are all just silly comic books and not worth that rage.

Scott is talking about why he wants Charles Xavier to be kept in prison, replying to Rogue talking about why she believes Xavier should be free. “If his freedom reverses the good grace and agreements that we have with government bodies to protect our people,” he says, “if his freedom sparks a schism among the mutant factions, will your answer remain the same?” 

Cyclops — of all people — should know there is no such thing as “good graces” with the government. When a government has proven it hates you, it will not just stop because it believes your people are behaving. They will always find an excuse to make your lives worse, to try first to silence you, then restrain you, and then, when they can get away with it, try to eradicate you entirely. 

The X-Men were a U.N.-recognized sovereign nation, and were still attacked. The current government allows for Graymalkin to be used as a prison where mutants are seemingly arrested without cause and given no due process, and are even forced into combat against their will. Robotic AI dogs are being sent to attack mutant teenagers in malls. What kind of “good graces” does Cyclops think mutants are receiving right now? Worse than that, since when is Cyclops willing to throw his people under the bus just to cave into government demands?

Adam: The logic of Scott’s argument makes no sense whatsoever, especially given that he’s been a political prisoner twice and the most recent time left him blind, about to be executed and ultimately living on a reservation in Alaska. Scott should be radicalized here. Instead he’s written as a patsy. 

Austin: He’s been radicalized. He spent most of the 2010s highly radicalized! The Scott of the Krakoa era, who told the Fantastic Four to cram it, had some of his radical edges sanded down only because Krakoa was the realization of what he had been fighting for. Losing it should make him more radical, not less. I *think* what they’re going for here is the idea that Cyclops is now so broken by this latest failure that he’s reverted to an earlier, more conciliatory/ appeasement-based strategy, but if Gail Simone or Jed MacKay or Tom Brevoort or whoever is trying to make the point that the loss of Krakoa hit him so hard it forced him to backtrack, then someone needs to make that point and not just dance around it. 

Again, it just feels very much like these creators are unaware of (or choosing to ignore) large chunks of these characters’ histories. I’m not saying character development can only be linear or progressive, but when it’s not, it needs to be presented with an acknowledgement and/or rationalization of such.

Tony: There’s a pitch here in which Scott Summers is suffering from PTSD from the events at the end of the Krakoa era. I mean, he was arrested, abused, had his bodily autonomy removed, tried and was very nearly executed. There’s a perfectly reasonable case for Scott being overly cautious because of that PTSD. And hell, that’s been one of the best things MacKay has written in the current volume.

But the problem is that text! Is! Not! On! The! Paaaaaaage!

Instead of a previously remarkably competent hero dealing with trauma, we get Cyclops hating on his mentor for something that Scott himself probably would have done in his shoes, more than once in his history in fact. 

Armaan: As for a schism between the mutant factions — that’s already happening. It has been happening for long before Xavier ever got out of his cell. Again, this very crossover has highlighted how disjointed all the mutant factions are, so none of this works.

Sometimes, things in comics don’t work. That’s OK — but when we keep coming back to this argument between Cyclops and Rogue, when so much page space is being given to it, when it’s being presented as the crux of what’s happening among the X-Men right now — and when all that is based on something so flimsy, so painfully false, it makes it all the more frustrating. 

Adam: Especially frustrating since we still have no idea why the X-Men splintered in the first place. For a moment, I thought this opening flashback would be a conversation from before the respective series began, finally giving context for why everyone’s at odds. But no. 

Tony: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that continues to reveal one of the biggest issues of this era. So much context is missing. I saw Simone say on social media in the past week that the current status quo is not the final status quo. If this is a transitory status quo, why is there SO MUCH missing? Why did we not get a launch one-shot showing the schism? Why are the series so isolated? Why is there no unifying theme? 

Contrived Kaiju

Tony: So after that opening, we get Storm and Sage collaborating, with Ororo stepping out of the conflict (though she walks right back in later) and allowing Sage to borrow several resources.

It sets up a Cyclops-vs.-Sage conflict for the rest of the issue that actually could have been a remarkably interesting throughline for the entire crossover that we literally didn’t get until this moment right here. Also, after that, we rush through what probably was an issue or two worth of additional story — the X-Men have split up to find Charles, Quire is teaming up with X-Factor, and where’s the rest of Scott’s team?

But hey, right here, we see the sibling-like bond between Scott and Illyana that we might sometimes forget about, and I REALLY dig that. Might be the only in-character moment of the entire issue, therefore making it the best.

Adam: The weirdest part of this book may be the inclusion of large, all-caps ACTION DESCRIPTORS and a central battle between a kaiju-sized demon summoned by Magik (something she shouldn’t be able to do as she no longer controls Limbo) and a big anime robot that was living in Storm’s sanctuary that we saw briefly in Storm #6 (why does Storm have an Evangelion?) and being piloted for no explainable reason by John Wraith, who we just saw in X-Force #9. None of this makes any sense. Why they’re fighting, what they’re fighting with, how it’s depicted — it’s just outright nonsense. 

Tony: Out of context, the kaiju fight is VERY fun. But this is not a story we can take without context.

Armaan: Look, the descriptors are nonsense, but they’re nonsense I can get behind. The best part of this crossover has been when it lets go of its self-importance and its questionable foundations and just has fun. Cyclops charging a soulsword with concussive force so that Magik can surf on it toward a giant spaceship? That’s fun. Giant bots fighting each other? That’s fun.

Maybe I’m just tired from this crossover’s attempts to make sense falling flat, over and over again. None of this makes any sense. But it is fun, and it looks very, very cool. 

Adam: I guess I could get behind “THE RED SURFER” if this era had ever done a nod to mutant circuits, but it hasn’t. I agree that these elements could be fun, and are drawn very cool, but they also come out of nowhere. I was going to say they don’t match the tone of this crossover, but there really hasn’t been one, so anything goes. 

Tony: Yeah, and here it’s not so much a circuit as a Teen Titans Go! style POWER MOVE!

Austin: The tone is what I bumped up against too, despite you being very correct, Adam, that the tone of this crossover has been all over the map. I love a big gonzo kaiju fight as much as the next person, and I didn’t bump up against Illyana summoning a demon — I don’t think it’s ever explicitly called out as coming from Limbo (Adam: Where the heck else would it have come from? Austin: Other demonic realms? She’s a sorceress, she can summon all kinds of things!)  — though Storm having an Evangelion is bewildering. But this is an issue that wants to grapple with the state of the mutant nation, break Cyclops to the point that he has a life-threatening optic blast panic attack and gets stabbed in the gut, and offer a poignant sendoff to Professor X, but also do a big, goofy “call out the name of the move as two giant things fight” routine. Superhero comics need action; that’s fine. It’s really the video game finishing move routine that bugs me. Where the eff did that come from? 

Tony: The same dimension as the apparent arsenal of swords that Magik now carries. Does the writing team not understand how the Soulsword works? It’s literally just artistic interpretations of the same sword, but suddenly now Illyana is just a sword collector ‘cuz it’s kewl.

Adam: Illyana can’t always have a longer sword, she only has one sword!

Tony: Yup. The rule of cool is great and all, but it also needs to make sense.

Armaan: I’ll tell you what doesn’t work here. After a giant kaiju battle that nearly kills Magik (the X-Men are apparently x-perts in nearly but not quite entirely killing their own teammates without a moment’s hesitation, as we’ll see later), Magik still manages to teleport Scott onto Xavier’s ship for the two to have one final confrontation, and it’s this moment where it becomes clearest that the writers and editing team behind this book have no idea what they’re doing.

I don’t say those words lightly. They’re harsh words — but let’s look at what we have here.

Adam: I have my popcorn, please proceed. 

Tony: Mine’s still in the microwave, hold please.

…Bing!

OK, I’m ready.

Armaan: You can’t please all fans, all the time — but it takes a real failure of perspective to produce a comic that doesn’t appear to be for anybody. The main conflict of this comic comes from Xavier having committed horrible acts during the Fall of Krakoa. Even though we flash back to it here, (Tony: In a single, out-of-context page.) for newer readers, a montage of those events without the narrative weight of how horrible they were to read at the time is going to be a little overwhelming. Especially given the fact that Xavier explains it was all a ruse — as explained by a one-shot spinoff comic that they reference in a single panel. If you’re a newer reader who used the new era as a jumping-on point to start reading X-Men comics, again, this is all just a confusing mishmash of continuity you were specifically trying to avoid.

If you are instead a longtime X-fan, and someone who’s more of a completionist (like, say, a group of X-Men critics), doing their best to keep up with continuity from all angles, then you’re in a perfect position to see just how wildly inconsistent this storytelling is. Inconsistent in tone, in messaging, in characterization, even in theme. 

But mostly, whether you’ve been reading every X-book ever, have only been reading this particular crossover, or something in between, the whole foundation of it is that Charles Xavier was imprisoned for his crimes — crimes that never actually happened. Crimes that were a hoax — and for the first time ever, Cyclops finds out that it was a hoax. He finds out that the whole reason he and his team are continually risking death to keep Xavier imprisoned was a lie, he finds out that his mentor and very significant father figure is not, in fact, responsible for murdering a whole host of people … and he has no reaction whatsoever. That reveal is a throwaway panel with a minor caption box reminding us to read a whole separate issue that we might have missed.

Austin: It almost seems like the creators didn’t realize this would be the first time Cyclops is learning that little Xavier’s Secret retcon and thus didn’t know they should probably script him reacting to it since that hasn’t actually been shown anywhere else.  

Adam: Just want to remind everyone that the Xavier’s Secret retcon that somehow absolves Xavier doesn’t work at all. Even if those were clones on the Agnew (which the flashback contradicts), that is still murder!

Tony: Also, given it was revealed in a one-shot that was hastily assembled from an Infinity Comic, how many folks even understand the references? I know I skipped it and only gleaned the relevant information from all y’all. All that does is force those who did skip it to go back and buy an issue that may be hard to track down now.

Austin: We’re not here to litigate Xavier’s Secret, but I’m less bothered by Xavier killing mindless clones than I am confused by how that even works. If they’re mindless, how did he fool anyone? Is the idea supposed to be that he was responsible for animating all of them, presenting them as regular, actual people, from afar, all by himself, all while doing everything else he was doing during Fall of X? 

’Cuz if not, then yeah, still murder. 

Adam: That sure sounded like litigating, Austin, and Xavier’s Secret was found GUILTY. 

Armaan: What are we supposed to care about in this comic? Whether Xavier should be free? Whether he should pay for the crimes he’s committed? The tumor in his mind warping his personality? The fact that his daughter is being kidnapped, or that the X-Men are at each other’s throats? There is no narrative weight given to any of the above, aside from the X-Men fighting each other — and that is poorly explained.

So let them have giant kaijus punching each other in the rain. The absurd fighty-fighty stuff is the only thing in this comic that’s worth a damn.

That’s Not How Stabbing Works

Adam: At some point, Scott has a full on panic attack, which is at least in character for Jed MacKay’s Cyclops. This causes Scott to shoot optic blasts all over, so it’s up to his boyfriend (I saw what I saw, Tommy B! No throuple erasure on this website!) Wolverine to calm him down by STABBING HIM IN THE GUT. 

For a hot second, I was impressed that this terrible issue of comics at least had the guts to kill one of its main characters with no resurrection protocols, but LOL, joke’s on us! Just like Chewbacca in Rise of Skywalker, Scott’s not only back within a few pages, but he’s completely healed! That’s not how stabbing works!!! 

Tony: It’s just a light stabbing. Wolverine knows how to do it so cleanly at this point that it’s like acupuncture to the X-Men. A little stress, hey, Wolverine can stab you and relieve it.

Austin: Real big “Doc says Duke’s gonna be a-okay!” energy from GI Joe: The Movie that got added in post after parents got mad about Optimus Prime dying in Transformers: The Movie upsetting their kids. 

Armaan: I like that we have Rogue there, who can drain Cyclops of his powers with the lightest of touches. We have Nightcrawler there, who can teleport Cyclops away to shoot his panic-beams in safety. We have Gambit with his Eye of Agamotto there, who can seemingly just teleport everyone else to safety as easily as he brought them all here.

Austin: Rogue is friggin’ invulnerable! She could turn off his power AND survive the walk to get close enough to do so!

Armaan: But no, the second Cyclops has a meltdown, it’s all, “WOLVERINE! PLEASE COME DEAL WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND’S MELTDOWN!” 

When you call on Wolverine, his first solution is going to be stabbing. I really don’t even blame him at this point; the man’s a stabbing expert — hell, over the years he’s probably become a Cyclops-stabbing expert to boot. This works. Is it stupid? Yes — but just stupid enough to work.

Tony: I mean, I was being facetious a moment ago, but it’s a specific callback to Logan doing the same to both Rachel and Jean. But hey, BOTH OF THEM WERE PHOENIXES. Logan knew each of them would likely survive it. Without that element, this is just violence for violence’s sake.

Austin: I’ve been beating this drum in our Uncanny X-Men reviews, but it really feels like “Schism” is the last X-Men storyline before HoXPoX any of these creators know/care about. The page of Wolverine stabbing Cyclops could have been lifted from an issue of “Schism.” 

Adam: It absolutely does not work in any way, shape or form. Neither roster, Uncanny or Adjectiveless, has a healer on board. Not only does Cyclops now have three gaping knife wounds through his abdomen, but Magik still has a giant hole in her left hand. I do not care that this is a comic book, these characters are bleeding out. 

Armaan: I like it because in Wolverine’s speech, it’s the only time Cyclops is given any characterization that works. The idea that Scott is being irrational because of his guilt about Krakoa’s fall, that he’s breaking under the weight of everyone’s dreams — it’s a powerful moment, made all the more so by watching Wolverine battle through a physical manifestation of Cyclops’ explosive panic attack.

It’s silly, but in the heart of it, there’s a really good moment. 

Austin: I hope MacKay follows up on this in X-Men, giving it’s picking up on the “Cyclops is having panic attacks” thread from that series in a pretty big way (revealing what is causing those attacks). 

Adam: If Logan and Scott had had any substantial panel time together since the start of FtA, I’d concur. Here, it comes out of nowhere, wants to be a big dramatic moment and immediately pulls it back. 

Tony: It would have been a great opportunity to play with the growth of Logan as a character (though without any foreshadowing or buildup). We see him fight through, get blasted into chunks … and then he just holds this man who has become family to him.

But no, the Wolverine who didn’t stab or even threaten a cop preventing him from getting to his dying charges a few issues ago in Uncanny goes straight to STAB!

Unearned Tears

Adam: Lilandra does brain surgery on Xavier, and they escape only for Xavier to say he’s gotta go back to Earth to announce his retirement. 

Austin: Sidenote — since when is Lilandra a brain surgeon? 

Tony: Look, alien technology is like magic, OK?!

Adam: Yes, the crossover that started with Xandra being overthrown and Xavier’s “mutant” tumor causing guards to kill their families ends with the tumor being removed off panel and they don’t even bother to save Xandra. 

Austin: Talk about a MacGuffin. Xandra appearing in the first issue of the crossover and then never again sure is a structural choice. 

Tony: Yeah, it seems like that’s being saved for Imperial, but a page or even a panel revisiting it was really needed.

Adam: Various X-Men appear through stepping disks as if this was Avengers: Endgame and are all super duper sad Charles is leaving. These tears are completely unearned. 

Armaan: “Unearned” is perhaps the only consistent thing we’ve seen on Simone’s X-Men work. I will say this: This particular issue is by far the best we’ve gotten from the entire crossover. Parts of the scripting, and a lot of the art, frame some very, very cool moments throughout the issue. Rogue taking a sip of tea before telling Cyclops “No.” The Uncanny X-Men team rescuing Cyclops from falling against a stormy-skied background. Wolverine pushing through a maelstrom of concussive force to stab Cyclops into calming down — and Xavier’s X-Men arriving on the beach to bid him goodbye.

Austin: Sadly, I agree. Most of those moments work in isolation and not as sensible beats in the progression of the crossover, but taken together, they make this issue at least the most viscerally engaging of the bunch. 

Armaan: I want to credit the art team here for making those moments work — because the writing behind it all does not hold up to a moment’s scrutiny. 

Adam: The book does look good. Big Gleb’s pages are especially solid. 

Tony: I will say though, in better circumstances, looking at the future of the X-Men being handed to this exact assembly of characters is great. I mean, Cyclops, Storm, Magneto, Rogue, Emma, Kitty, Gambit, Forge, Illyana, Kamala and Wolverine? It’s really only missing Jean to feel perfect. It’s a great two-page spread that has a completely unearned (there’s that word again) emotional impact. (Also, after the entire story we just read, Sage would have made so much more sense than Forge.)

Armaan: The frustration with the beach scene is that we’ve spent so much time with Xavier attempting to escape some of the X-Men, only for him to have a change of mind post-brain surgery and decide to meet them all together anyway. To whit: This comic is telling us that a random tumor is the reason this whole crossover happened, and that without it, Xavier would have simply talked to the X-Men before going to save his daughter.

The audacity of this comic to tell us that all the conflict we’ve read so far doesn’t matter. That all it takes for the X-Men to put aside their differences is another psychic speech from Xavier. That a random tumor made Charles evil, but also coherent enough to resurrect Lilandra while taking advantage of whatever mutants he can, but that it’s all OK now, because the tumor was brain-surgeried away. 

To wipe all of his sins under the rug because of a brain tumor and a complicated retcon that wasn’t even important to include in the main books, and claim he deserves happiness.

Adam: Simone made such a big deal out of the tumor, too! It was introduced in “Raid,” then shown to have murderous shockwaves on those exposed to its power, and now it’s just in a Sh’iar trash can? 

Austin: The larger arc of the tumor (I can’t believe I just wrote that) that Simone has been developing over in Uncanny seems to take a hit from this as well. This wasn’t just Xavier having a tumor. The tumor was the result of Xavier being a special kind of mutant like Simone’s Harvey X. So even though other mutant psychics with these tumors still exist (and will presumably get factored into future stories), we now also know they just need a little Lilandra brain surgery action to resolve them. 

Tony: Coincidentally, Brain Surgery Action is a great band name. 

Armaan: This is crass sentimentalism at its worst. To have a heavy, emotional moment that isn’t grounded in anything, to throw half-baked ideas at the reader and act like they work, but only in the specific ways the writing team needs them to work. To expect us, the readers, to think fondly of the crossover as a whole because there were tears and warm fuzzies written into the end of it. Nothing that this crossover has been asking of its readers has been earned. 

Adam: Case in point — look at the characters supposedly upset by Xavier’s departure: Mystique, Thunderbird, Sunfire? They’d probably be first in line to launch Xavier into space. Bronze and Melee don’t even know the guy! Why are they crying?! Emma Frost giving him a teary kiss telling Chuck to “Go be happy. You’ve earned it”?!?! GTFOH

Austin: THE ONLY CROSSOVER PLOT POINT IN THE “DRIVE BY” EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN TIE-IN WAS ABOUT HOW BRONZE AND MELEE DIDN’T KNOW WHO XAVIER IS! 

Did anyone involved here read that issue? Why are they in the sad-people montage? Where is the editor?  

Tony: Never mind the fact that this is the first that we’ve seen of a few of these characters since Krakoa (e.g. Sunfire and Banshee). Legitimately, I don’t get why those particular characters were chosen.

Adam: The punchline to why X-Manhunt couldn’t even bother to resolve the conflicts it set up in its first installment? This has all been a covert lead-in to a seemingly unrelated story, Jonathan Hickman’s upcoming Imperial. That’s right — in what has to be one of the most obnoxious publishing ouroboroses of all time, this story which begrudgingly used the very iconography this era was trying to distance itself from is leading right back to the same author who introduced it in the first place. My head is spinning.  

Austin: Really, that ouroboros might be the most interesting thing about this crossover. Using a crossover in a status quo built around repudiating the last status quo to set up a series written by the architect of the repudiated status quo? There are just all kinds of interesting ideas about the state of the comics industry built into that, creative desire vs. marketing concerns, the power of one creator over another, etc. 

Armaan: Honestly, if this crossover’s main goal was to drum up interest for the upcoming Imperial series, I’m less interested in that series knowing Xavier and Lilandra will be in it, out of sheer spite!

Tony: Look, I’m fully expecting Imperial will just be a way for Hickman to write a Sunspot series, and son of a bitch, I’m in.

X-traneous Thoughts 

• “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music” is often attributed to Nietzsche, though it more than likely has other origins.
• Xavier tells Cyclops to build a new school — can annoying MCU X-Men synergy be too far off? 
• Someone needs to tell Kevin Feige the school isn’t the bedrock status quo it’s assumed to be. 
• Xavier’s upcoming presence in Hickman’s Imperial does beg the question: Was Xavier originally Prisoner X but the FtA team had to shift course when J-HiX wrote him in? 
• Will Xavier wear his Cerebro helmet in Imperial? I’m betting yes. Guess we’ll find out in June. 
• John Wraith’s subtle numerical chapter/verse quoting of scripture from the last X-Force issue has evolved into full on William Stryker God Loves Man Kills II-level Bible quoting. Wraith doesn’t have many appearances, but contrary to this issue’s depiction, he can form complete, original sentences without the use of the Bible. 

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