“I have plotted the way forward for this species. For this world. For all of us. I do not do this out of anger, but of love. I do not do this for love of power, but hatred of it. I was charged with ensuring the survival of the fittest. I am ensuring the survival of everyone.” OK, Doug. X-Men: Age of Revelation Finale is written by Jed MacKay, drawn by Ryan Stegman and Netho Diaz, inked by JP Mayer, colored by Marcio Menyz and lettered by Clayton Cowles.
Adam Reck: Previously in our Age of Revelation coverage, we pretty much gave up, collapsing under the sheer weight of so many books and so little interest. Now, after over 50 issues across 17 titles, the linewide event has concluded with Finale. So we’ve gathered the CXF crew to talk about how it all wrapped up and assign some superlatives to the event’s individual highs and lows.
Tony Thornley: We started talking about covering this final issue Monday night. It was very funny how we went from reading and talking about EVERY issue to the point that we basically all gave up on the majority of it immediately after that halfway-point editorial. For me, I really only read the final issue of Amazing X-Men and this finale after that.
Dan Grote: I followed less than a handful of series through to the end: Amazing X-Men, Unbreakable X-Men, Book of Revelation and Rogue Storm. The rest felt wholly superfluous. And of the remaining four, two were writers effectively continuing their plots in a future devoid of consequences, writing glorified “The End” stories for their characters (including two different ends for two different Rogues).
Put more succinctly: This was Jed MacKay’s event; everyone else was just living in it.
Austin Gorton: I read everything. Because I am a sick, sick man.
Some of it was bad (I’m looking at you, Longshots), most of it was middling and disappointingly little of it had anything to do with the overarching story or put forth any reason to exist other than “cash grab.”
Adam: I think we can all agree this entire event would have been better as a three-issue arc in MacKay’s X-Men. At least it’s over.
Austin: This very easily could have given Marvel the “event” juice they wanted while still telling a coherent story that didn’t feel weighed down by all its tie-ins by just doing the six issues of Amazing/Book of Revelation along with the bookend one-shots. Everything else was ultimately superfluous anyway.
Scott Redmond: After our last long bit about the event, I haven’t touched a single issue till this finale. For such a short event, it really felt like this one was going on forever and ever, even more so than the actual Marvel event that took almost the full year to tell (One World Under Doom). This was certainly a bunch of comic books published by Marvel featuring X-related characters. It had that going for it, I guess.
P.S., for our yearbook-style superlatives for the whole “Age of Revelation” event, click here.
Doug Has an Ego
Adam: As revealed in Book of Revelation #3, Doug Ramsey’s goal of mutant paradise is ultimately narcissistic. His X-Virus has failed. His aims of total domination have only extended so far. What else is there to do but make the world Doug a la Ego the Living Planet? Kudos to MacKay for the big swing, and for the appropriately apocalyptic “everyone dies” ending, but does it work?
Tony: I am a big fan of all-out brawls in final issues. That’s largely what this issue was, even if it rushed a lot of things. I didn’t fully understand why Jen stayed behind for one, and what was the point of all the Darkchylde stuff if she didn’t ride in. Hell, we only got a glimpse of the other X-Men squads, which made their disconnected nature even more disappointing.
But I’m focusing on what wasn’t here. What WAS here was very cool.
Scott: If this issue did one thing well (it wasn’t the only thing), it showcased how utterly useless every title that wasn’t from MacKay actually was to this event. Even then, the path to this moment was rocky and nonsensical in many spots, but good on him for being able to land the ending that tied back to his own book overall. I would say I respect the “everyone dies” ending just for the fact that it means we can’t come back to this world, but it’s Marvel. Where there is a will, there is a way for them to milk anything for what little bucks might remain.
Dan: Didn’t everyone originally die at the end of “Age of Apocalypse”?
Austin: Yes, very much so. The whole gimmick of “Age of Apocalypse” was that it wasn’t an alternate reality but THE reality, and when it reverted, it was gone.
At least until a writer named Akira Yoshida came along in 2005 and turned it into a regular old alt-reality story. Wonder what he’s up to these days?
Adam: I was not expecting to have a fist-pumping “Let’s Gooooo!” moment at the end of this issue, but it was like MacKay called me up and asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Because throughout “Age of Revelation,” there’s been the ongoing mystery of just who was inhabiting future-Beast’s body. It was clear it wasn’t Alaskan 2025 Hank at some point, so who was it? And wouldn’t you know it, not only was it the masked “Chairman” of the sinister 3K cabal, but that said masked leader is an evil Beast from Benjamin Percy’s Krakoan era inhabiting a synthetic body. $%&* YEAH.
Tony: I can appreciate you going straight for the meat here, because outside of Doug pulling an Ozymandias so everyone loses, there’s not much else here besides punching. Legitimately though, the ending twist is such a fantastic moment. After there being something off about Hank this entire event, revealing that he’s evil Krakoan Hank was a great payoff (I feel like either Adam or Austin called that in our earliest recaps, too).
Austin: Yeah, “it’s Krakoa Beast” has been the leading theory bouncing around the internet for a bit now.
Dan: The reveal pushes MacKay’s 3K plot forward in a satisfying way. Evil Krakoa Beast is a great addition to a shadowy organization made of Mummudrai, Magneto clones and their nasty soccer moms and fake X-Men (what’s Stryfe up to these days?).
BUT
The last three months don’t justify one oh-shit moment. It just reeks of a linewide event for linewide event’s sake, and as we’ve seen from recent end-of-year analyses, it’s not doing a darn thing to boost Marvel’s sales. ABSOLUTE-ly nothing.
Austin: It’s a great concluding payoff to a 3-6 issue storyline. Less so the end of a 50+ issue event that consumed the entire line for three months.
Dan: One wonders whether we’d be buzzing about X-Men more if MacKay got to tell his story without stopping for three events in less than two years.
Tony: This is very much something I’ve been saying. MacKay has quietly been writing one of the best Cyclops stories in a VERY long time.
Scott: Now you got me feeling like I need to go back and read X-Men again and give it a better shot for my boi Cyke.
Tony: Also to Dan’s point, this totally screams at me that this was proposed as a storyline for Adjectiveless, and someone (whether it was Brevoort or Cebulski doesn’t matter) said “OOOOOOOOOR we could make it an event.” And we said it before, I think every single one of us would have liked it significantly better if it was executed more like “Age of X” rather than “Age of Apocalypse.”
Scott: I want to feel more about this Beast reveal. Is it a pretty compelling twist that actually makes 3K a bit more interesting? Yes, very much so. I was kind of meh on the 3K concept overall, mostly because I’m just tired of the continued usage of Cassandra Nova. Beast as a supervillain war criminal has been a thing for quite some time now, and it makes sense that Krakoa was not truly the end of this bad version of the character.
At the same time, this reveal is just sort of shoved into a nonsensical event that did nothing for the line overall. A slog of a read that smells even more like an editorial push of concept into event than past heavily editorially pushed events like AXIS. It just is one of many events that Marvel is shoveling out as of late that could have been an arc or two of the book they originated in, rather than pushing double-digit numbers of books onto shelves that still can’t even come close to the air that the Distinguished Competition’s books are breathing lately.
We’ve long supposed that this current era is Marvel stalling till they can sync the books to whatever their movie plans might be. This event and finale haven’t done much to dash that idea.
Tony: I have to say it, though — this was an all-action finale. It gave us the vibe of X-Men Omega. It had some cool moments (I wish Charles and Apocalypse had bigger roles throughout the event so their plotlines here had stronger emotional heft), and I kind of loved that everyone died at the end. The story ultimately was about the X-Men losing, but Scott Summers having a chance to prevent that loss.
Austin: I liked when Apocalypse was the pitcher in a Fastball Special.
Scott: I will kind of miss badass warrior Glob Herman.
Tony: But why we needed to pause the entire line and publish 50-some issues to accomplish that is beyond me.
They could have even paused the entire line to do this story and just did it with four, maybe five titles, with a stronger unity of storytelling, purpose and direction. Give each title a specific mission that ties back into the finale. Instead, this story is going to be remembered as a mess that should have been a six-issue storyline in the main X-Men title.
X-traneous Thoughts
- As far as last stands go, Cyclops, Psylocke, Glob and Wolverine jumping into the growing Doug biomass, grenades in hand, is pretty badass.
- I liked when Scott and Logan hugged. Truly, theirs is a love for the Ages.
- Now that Doug is a Living Planet in this future, I have to wonder if any future writer will ever play with the concept again or leave this one like X-Man and splinter-Magneto in the trolley of Age of X-Man.
- Speaking of Dougs, now Cyclops has to go back and deal with the present day Doug-Bei-Warlock trio. What’s he gonna do? Kill them? Ostracize them? What’s the right move to prevent the Age of Doug?
- Is next month’s X-Men going to be about what future Cyclops did or Scott using what he learned?
- How long will it take before “Shadows of Tomorrow” does a crossover event? Bare minimum we have until summer, right?
Buy X-Men: Age of Revelation Finale #1 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)
Adam Reck is the cartoonist behind Bish & Jubez as well as the co-host of Battle Of The Atom. Follow him @adamreck.bsky.social.
Dan Grote is the editor and publisher of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Paul Winston Wisdom. Follow him @danielpgrote.bsky.social.
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. Follow him @brawl2099.bsky.social.
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 @austingorton.bsky.social.
Scott Redmond
Scott Redmond is a freelance writer and educator fueled by coffee, sarcasm, his love for comic books and more "geeky" things than you can shake a lightsaber at. Probably seen around social media and remembered as "Oh yeah, that guy." An avid gamer, reader, photographer, amateur cook and solid human being. Follow him @scottredmond.bsky.social.
