We’re Absolutely Horny For The Flex In Planet-Size X-Men, New Mutants #19 & X-Corp #2

The Hellfire Gala rages as mutants reveal their Omega level potential on Mars. Meanwhile at the Gala, X-Corp negotiates leadership and the New Mutants wonder if they are growing apart. It’s a spectacular in Planet-Size X-Men by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz, Marte Gracia and Clayton Cowles, New Mutants #19 by Vita Ayala, Alex Lins, Matt Milla and Travis Lanham, and X-Corp #2 by Tini Howard, Alberto Foche, Sunny Gho and Clayton Cowles.

Planet-Size X-Men

Cori McCreery: Wait, where am I? How did I get here? This isn’t the Boneyard?! You aren’t Andrea?! What’s going on, Tony?!

Tony Thornley: Wait, where’s the short angry stabby guy?! Oh my goodness! Cori, it’s like you and I are in a whole new world or something!!

Omega

Cori: So here we are at the midpoint of the Hellfire Gala and the first of the really big moments of the event. But unlike the other books of the event, our first foray into being the X-Men team isn’t set one hundred percent immediately before or during, or after the Gala but starts events several days in advance. What’d you think of that choice compared to how the other books are doing it, Tony? 

Tony: I liked this. We’ve only seen the immediate lead-up to the Gala (as in the moments prior) in Way of X. Now that we’ve read this, I think we know why. I feel like this opening is a direct call back to Magneto’s last words in House of X #1. You have new gods now. Yes, we’ve seen mutants do big and powerful things in the last two-ish years, but this was the first time it felt grand and god-like.

I dug the opening scene in general, though. Planet Size X-Men is the X-Men as a cosmic force. Before the Krakoa era, I’ve thought the X-Men always felt a bit more ground level than the Avengers or the Justice League. They just didn’t have the power in my mind. Here though, this is a group of X-Men wielding the powers of creation to terraform a planet (gorgeously illustrated by Larraz and Gracia). It was cool.

Know what I thought it was missing, though? A strong character point of view to center it.

Cori: Oh, absolutely – we followed Magneto quite a bit, but he wasn’t a point of view character. He wasn’t central to all the parts of the story. This made the issue lack a bit of a through-line. Indeed, this issue is a flex and not just for mutantkind, but for Larraz and Gracia. Every page is stunningly gorgeous, and the book’s plot left a lot of room to do incredibly cool things with the art. Speaking of the plot, we should probably talk about the big ideas of this book, right? Even though everyone and their mom called them [Ed-in-Chief note: Which I did all the way back on April 23, 2019]

Tony: Oh, for sure. About ⅔ of all the guesses were right, and it’s time to…

Get Your @$#% To Mars

Tony: Yup, after the opening scene and the five days of flashbacks leading up to it, we get confirmation they’re not making a new planet. They’re not messing with the moon. We’re terraforming Mars. However, it’s not TOTALLY what everyone was expecting. The X-Men aren’t moving to Mars. It’s grander than that. 

The key to it is in three mutants we meet a few hours before the Gala in the Great Ring of Arakko- Lactuca the Knower, Sobunar of the Depths, and Xilo, First Defender of the Broken Land. How will they fit into the plan? Now that we’re on Mars, we see the real work begin. This was another section of the issue I liked but felt a POV character could have helped. It could have grounded everything a lot more.

Cori: This book is all about big ideas while leaving the actual execution of those ideas to the books that will come after. That’s fine. The ideas are certainly enough to warrant the special red issue status, but it also felt a bit like empty calories. It provides answers to a lot of things but also leaves enough questions to build on. The biggest thing it answers is what you do with the sudden influx of millions of mutants from another plane of existence. We get hints at the problems they’re causing across the planet, which is the exquisite solution. “Give them Mars.”

I’ll admit, the actual processes of terraforming the planet were a sight to see. The mutant “technology” at work to make everything perfect was terrific. Pairing various powersets to get specific results – letting Ororo let loose and determine the entire climate – a mutant with a whole oceanic ecosystem in their blood – did you have a favorite part of terraforming?

Tony: I loved the use of the mutant machines! After Ewing did a lot seeding the idea in SWORD, we see it in action in the terraforming of Mars.

I think the things I liked the most were the little details. First, Captain America and Cyclops discussing Arakko and whether everything was okay. Next, I liked seeing the specific roles each mutant plays. For example, Bobby gives the planet water; Jean acts as the comms hub; Sobunar and Xilo then reveal their powers. Then, Hope and Quentin have a holy $#!* moment when Arakko arrives on Mars, which is easily my favorite panel of the book. The excellent stuff is all in the small character moments, which grounds the big stuff around them.

But oh yeah, as the terraforming is happening, we get hints at what they’re doing it for, and then the big moment happens. Using the External gate somehow, Arakko transports to Mars. The Arakii have a new homeworld, and it’s much bigger than that might sound.

Welcome to Planet Arakko.

The Capital of the Solar System

Cori: Not only did Arakko lay claim to (and rename) Mars, but they laid claim to something much much bigger than that. They have set themselves up as the capital of the Sol system, daring humanity to challenge them and lose. It’s bold as hell. Now we know precisely why people were in such a tizzy after the “fireworks.” 

Like I said, big, big ideas and seeds for a follow-up to draw from. There’s already speculation for what’s to come for Hickman after Inferno, and a safe bet is that it has to do with this new civilization. But for now, we can only speculate. So Tony, what do you think the future holds? 

Tony: I think there are three big things here that point to the future. First, the Lake Helas Diplomatic Ring is a fancy conference center geared towards intergalactic relationships and negotiations. Then there is SWORD Station Two. The mutants are planning on being the center of any alien involvement with Sol (I love the shift from Earth to Sol here).

Second, the Port Prometheus. I love the name of this spaceport. It is the only place for non-mutants to access the planet. Prometheus is the name of the mythological Titan who stole fire from the gods of Olympus and gave it to man. What fire has the X-Men stolen from the gods? It’s also a very interesting direct link back to House of X.

Finally, there’s the Regent of Sol. It’s only a data page tease. Who is the Regent? I’m guessing we’re going to find out next week.

Put them all together, and I think the future is holding some exciting developments for mutantkind. I guess we’re about to see either the Intergalactic Empire of Krakoa or a Marvel Universe version of the United Planets (especially when you consider the events of Guardians of the Galaxy). What do you think?

Cori: While Prometheus is an aspirational story for the people he helped, his story is rooted in hubris and tragedy. It’s interesting to me that the X-Men would claim this role in the story because Prometheus very much does get punished by the Gods. 

Prometheus spends all eternity getting his liver eaten by birds, only for it to grow back and get eaten again. It shows for all the struggles the mutants recently dealt with; they firmly believe themselves to be unassailable. Although I don’t think the Fall is coming for some time yet as we’re still in a multi-year plan, it will make the fall hit even more complicated when it does. 

I’m very interested in the way the X-books expand the story outward. It began with a school. Then it became an island. Then the island got bigger, and they got a space station. Now they’ve expanded to planetary colonization and a second station. The idea of what it means to colonize a place has barely been touched. There were no people to displace (other than the poor Mars rover), but they are still molding a land not fit for them into something that is. I expect we’ll start to see some ramifications of that in the coming months. 

As to the regent? I don’t think we will have long to wait for the reveal since the next red issue is SWORD, which seems like the perfect place to make that reveal. Also, the story’s center is shifting, which is a big part of moving the X-Books into the next phase. I bet we start to see the Phalanx show up soon enough.

Tony: Agreed. MAYBE the next time you and I talk, which will be next month’s X-Men #1… I mean, we’ve never seen those Evangelion-looking creatures from the previews before. Could they be an evolution of the Phalanx? Probably not worth making assumptions, but there are some fascinating possibilities all in play now.

But in the end, I enjoyed this book, even if it was more style over substance. There are some exciting plot lines set up. It will be fun to see it pay off. What did you think?

Cori: I think Planet Size did what it set out to do in establishing the grand scale of what is coming next. There’s a lot to look forward to and Pepe Larraz art is a big part of it.

New Mutants #19

Liz Large: This issue really ran the gamut of emotions for me—as always, our highs and lows are so intertwined. Speaking of highs and lows….

The Negging Zone

Stephanie Burt: Where’s Rod Reis? Oh, right, it’s not realistic to expect a modern superhero comics artist to draw issue after issue without a break, because time doesn’t work that way here on Earth-1218. Pretty much anyone else on this book is a step down, but if he has to skip an issue I’m fine with having him skip this one. He’s best with magical tableaus and with slow-moving expressive character work, and there’s gonna be a lot of fast-moving events at the Gala. Right?

Liz: I appreciate that while the art is recognizably different from the recent New Mutants run, it stands out in a similar way. There’s a cartoonish element to a lot of the character designs in this, and having everything here be a little cartoony and larger than life– literally, in some cases– fits in well with this series. Warlock even uses emojis instead of speaking in a few instances, which I could really relate to.

Stephanie: The first thing that happens here is… A gross and sexist performance artist insults Warlock for seemingly no reason. Definitely not Warlock’s fellow enby Jonathan Van Ness, who would never do such a thing. Note: Warlock’s pronouns are he/him, but if you think Warlock has a conventional binary gender, I don’t know what comics you’re reading.

Liz: I hate this guy! I also assumed we were seeing JVN at first, since the Gala is featuring a lot of celebrities, but the nasty tone clued me in pretty quick. That’s one downside to combining real famous people and fake famous people in a non-photographic medium. I need to be able to tell who to declare war on for insulting Warlock!

Stephanie: Love the writing on ‘Lock here; don’t love the art– he’s not weird or mechanical enough– not enough wires, too many tubes. But Lins does give us neat ways to map out party scenes, showing us Dani here and Dani there, multiple images in each big party panel for multiple moments in time, the sort of thing Only Comics Can Do (someone call Scott McCloud). I like that.

Liz: This was an effective way to show a lot of what’s going on and include some callbacks to other Gala issues. We get to see a drunk Kurt asking Dani about her experiences with death as a Valkyrie, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with after chatting with Dani and Nanny about religion. I really like these ongoing background bits!

Stephanie: Also like: Laura’s outfit. It’s an homage to her first-ever costume, and to the blue-and-yellow look Logan once had. 

Liz: Laura looks great, but seeing Synch start to approach her in the background as she walks away? I remember that time Everett and Laura were in love for eons, and he remembers, but Laura doesn’t. I am extremely sad. 

Stephanie: Another dislike: Rahne showing up apparently de-aged as well as wolfed out. She simply should not look that young any more, even in half-wolf form. But again, I believe the writing: after all she’s been through– including her infamous death — I can see her deciding it’s not worth dressing up to impress the humans.  She’s earned the right to say she’s tired. The vibe from her is “you popped out on my personal emergency because you had a bigger emergency and I understand and I’m still your friend but I don’t have to be happy about it”: I’ve been on both sides of that one.

Liz: Yeah, this was rough. Nobody here is in the wrong, for once! Rahne is more mad about the situation than at Dani herself, but this one specific situation really seems emblematic of an ongoing issue. The New Mutants are stretched thin, doing things they’re not really experts at, PLUS dealing with all of their own trauma and drama. Sam and Berto are in space! Doug is married now! Xi’an literally just died at Dani’s hand! Rahne is falling through the cracks, and she’s not the only one. But more on that later, because I need to talk about my favorite part of this issue.

Sammonball Run

Liz: The New Mutants have a group chat! It is WONDERFUL. You could really tell that this series is being written by someone who has actually been in a group chat (as opposed to a “Hello, fellow kids!” writer who makes up “funny” names for apps). The flow between the characters was so on point, and the dynamics were a highlight of the issue for me—someone renaming Sam to Sammonball and him not understanding was true gold. 

Stephanie: OMG. OMG. OMG. Magik has been listening to Jay & Miles, I think. (And I voted for Marrow.)

Liz: Seeing that Sam is the only other New Mutant to vote for Roberto was precious. I just love them so much!

Stephanie: I see Karma’s outfit. And I love it. I love it so much. Nobody’s ever given her an outfit that matches both her fashion sense and her power set before. Alex Lins, if you designed this outfit all is forgiven. Well, most is forgiven.

Liz: When she appears, Warlock literally says ?, and I have to say the same. I’m so happy for her. She’s back to life, she’s back to being a mutant, and she’s got a very cute dress. Which means that this jerk feels the need to try and neg her. I repeat myself, but: I hate this guy! 

Stephanie: Is Barry thee Artist a Silver Age Beatnik joke? I just tried to look him up and got nothing except the Irish artist James Barry, subject of a monograph called The Artist as Hero, which is what our bearded BtA thinks he is and definitely is not. I want him to have some kind of Silver Age precedent, just like Bernard the Poet. [Ed. note: Him and his Jared Leto haircut and his Jared Leto bad attitude are an original creation.]

Liz: Bernard should show up on Krakoa! I feel like they’re really missing an art scene. 

Also art? Xi’an using her powers to compel Barry to dump a tray of drinks on his own head. And when he reacts poorly, she finishes off by explaining his own irrelevancy to him. They don’t show him returning home and crying, but you can tell it happened immediately after this. To quote Illyana, it’s an evisceration. 

Stephanie: I like Illyana flirting with Xi’an. I also like how Warpath, who has spent close to no time around ‘Lock before the Krakoan era, does not understand that cartoony imitation is kind of Warlock’s thing. ‘Lock does it with all his friends.  And jeepers, does Warlock need friends. “Self thought to see if someone else would want self as best friend.” Krakoa may have healthy polyamorous norms, but people we like are still gonna sometimes feel jealous, and sad, and hurt, and betrayed, and did I mention just plain sad? Warlock’s not even angry at Doug– he just wants more of “friend” than Doug can give. (Again, I can relate.)

Liz: I loved this little moment. Warpath is a character who hasn’t done anything outlandish recently, but he’s got a steady presence and a good head on his shoulders, and his advice is solid. He does a wonderful job explaining that you can’t just replace a person, and that relationships grow and change over time. He encourages Warlock to talk to Doug, and it’s great advice! 

Stephanie: We’re halfway through the issue before the big serious theme pops out, and then Vita Ayala, who is really at the top of their game right now, whacks us with a theme. Much as Claremont would. 

Find Your People (Hunt the Weak)

Stephanie: Statement of theme (ahem).  Found family and healthy friendship (whether or not you’re also kissmates) means having more than one friend. Good test for a new pal (whether or not you’re kissing): do they cut you off, on purpose, from your old pals? If not, maybe acknowledge that your jealous feelings are yours, and not your friend’s, and bring your friend’s new friend a plate of Krakoan dumplings. Warlock and Doug and Bei the Blood Moon are gonna be OK. 

Liz: This was a relief, and I’m glad that at least one problem was solved with honest conversations. It’s so rare in fiction, and we really needed a win this issue. Because not everyone’s new friends are like Bei. 

Stephanie: If they do cut you off, you are dealing with the series’ Big Bad. The dialogue overlap trick, where we hear a speaker from scene two in text boxes while we’re watching scene one… maybe it’s a ball of cheese at this point but I love the way Vita uses it. Amal Farouk– who believes he is himself once again, and not the Shadow King– began from almost the same place as Warlock did, with no friends except an aggressive mentor, trapped in a dysfunctional dyad. 

Liz: I hadn’t thought about this comparison before, and it’s a good one. Warlock got love from an external source and really grew from it, even if he’s got some codependency issues (and who isn’t a little codependent sometimes). 

Stephanie: Warlock’s “mentor” was his dad Magus, who expected standard-issue violence. The Shadow King was far more sinister: he had a you-and-me-against-the-world shtick, which Amal learned to love, or at least depend on. 

Liz: It’s part of the promise of Krakoa– growing and changing from what we were. There’s a parallel here to Gabby and Laura, even. Being raised and manipulated and used for your powers means that you can do truly terrible things. But sometimes, given the chance and the love you need, you can become a completely different person. You have to want to change, though.

Stephanie: Now that he’s got some autonomy he’s still at it. “I will not have you poisoning them against me”: in other words, says Farouk, though your friends don’t know it, I’ve made sure they have to choose between you and me. Being with me means giving up everyone else. That’s not chosen family and it’s not Krakoa and it’s not OK: it’s a terrible parody of monogamous marriage, and of friendship, or it’s a cult. A murder cult, in fact.

Liz: Like many a cult leader, the Shadow King claims he’s preparing the children for something much worse. By manipulating them and hurting them, he thinks he’s making them stronger and ready to face the dangers he sees in the future. But this is a point of escalation beyond preparation.

Stephanie: Once we realize we’re hearing Amal’s speech to Gabby, and once we realize it’s a villain speech, all the hijinks with Warpath’s costume take on a first-reel-horror-movie feel. Have your fun now, kids, because there’s a corpse approaching.

Liz: There’s a creeping sense of dread as we see these panels. Juxtaposing a happy reunion between Doug and Warlock (and even a clasp on the shoulder from Bei!) with a panel of Gabby, in the dark and crying, is painful.

Stephanie. But first… “To friends! To family! To Mars!” And to Dani and Illyana, who is still flirting. I love it.

Liz: We even get a sweet scene of Gabby’s friends leaving the Gala, high on life– they’re excited about Mars, and they even got to vote for the new X-Men. In a contrast to their usual position, they’re feeling like they’re a part of this island family.

Stephanie: And then: the full-on, doll-like, horrifying corpse. I did not need to see that. It struck me as overkill. But I don’t watch horror films. My friends do. (And they don’t try to cut me off from my other friends.)

Liz: It’s creepy and horrible but not gory, which is one small mercy. I think the kids’ horrified reactions would have sold the scene without it, but it does really drive things home. Following that with her sweet letter to her sister is just devastating. Gabby wanted to talk to a trusted adult! But like Rahne, she fell through the cracks. 

Stephanie: That letter. My heart. Hey, Krakoan Quiet Council: clone or no clone, if you don’t permit the Five to bring back Gabby Kinney, you deserve to be replaced. I hear there’s this redhead who’s not a big fan of yours either. You have one chance.

Liz: I will find Charles Xavier and murder him myself if he does not help this child. All she wanted was to help her friends, who are only endangered due to the choices the Council has made. 

Stephanie: Actual prediction: the Quiet Council OK’s resurrecting Gabby, at which point Havok decides that their excuse for not bringing back Madelyne is BS, and Madelyne’s malevolent spirit convinces the ever-gullible Alex Summers to lead a revolt alongside Mystique. But that’s not a New Mutants story. This is. And it’s a great one, despite the art’s sometime misfires. I’m flattened. I’m floored.

X-Corp #2

Armaan Babu: Hey, Corey! Hope you’re doing well, and are all decked out for our time at the Hellfire Gala, because if there’s one thing this issue seems to want us to take away from it, it’s that image is everything. 

Corey Smith: Good to see you, Armaan — it feels like it’s been ages since the first issue! I am, of course, dressed in the finest rainbow-themed tuxedo t-shirt that money could buy, just as God and Jumbo intended. After all, if image is our theme for the night, I feel it’s only fitting to rock a look that falls short of even pretending to be as impressive as it wants to be.

Downgrading Expectations

Armaan: So, we mentioned last issue that the reveal of a floating island was a little underwhelming given everything that the Marvel Universe sees on a weekly basis. Considering how big a turn of events we’ve seen in Planet-Size X-Men, I’m more underwhelmed than ever by what’s happening here.

I know that the Hellfire Gala isn’t a full crossover event – every title seems to be doing it’s own thing – but let’s go back to Marauders #21 for a second. The end of that issue showed us how humanity reacted to the events of Planet-Sized X-Men. You had people calling in to cancel major business plans, ambassadors feeling both despondent and threatened – some of humanity’s most influential people are shaken. 

X-Corp feels like it should have been the book to explore that a little more. Instead we focus mostly on Angel and Monet interviewing people for a position on X-Corp’s board of directors, and it’s hard not to feel like this issue wasn’t meant to be a part of the Hellfire Gala at all. 

Corey: I entirely agree! While it’s certainly not as removed from the proceedings as last week’s Children of the Atom #4, I got the overwhelming sense of a plot that was already planned, and then reworked to include the festivities. That makes sense, to some extent — both books were obviously pitched earlier, but have only become part of the line recently. While the Gala made for a convenient backdrop, it certainly wouldn’t be a stretch to see the whole thing taking place in X-Corp’s terrestrial headquarters.

For what it’s worth, though, I’m not sure if the location took anything away from the story! If nothing else, it allowed for some interesting focus on Madrox, and the flair of the prospective board members’ costumes added some visual spice to some otherwise bland interviews. What were your thoughts on our potential new cast members?

Armaan: For starters, I’m glad they finally brought in Sunspot. He’s a natural fit for a book like this, and he brings a lot of fun to the party. Selene seems like both an obvious choice as well as an obvious turn down – an absolute villain meant to soften readers up to the idea of including Mastermind in the mix. I can’t decide whether Mastermind offering to take the lead in projecting X-Corp’s image is something that’s silly or genius, but either way, I’m entertained.

As for Neal Shaara and Sara St. John, both of them are new to me – Sara appears to be an entirely new character, while Neal’s appearances in X-Treme X-Men isn’t something I’ve gotten around to reading yet. Neither of them made an especially strong impression on me, but I have a feeling they both might become more important down the line. [Ed. note: It’s possible Sara St. John is the mysterious antagonist that destroyed Nova Roma back in New Mutants #12, but we will see.]

Corey: I’m wondering if Shaara will get a new codename before Trinary gets a first name, personally. Did you notice that with Jimmy’s pic in New Mutants, we saw all three Thunderbirds today? 

Who Tells Your Story?

Corey: Normally, I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I didn’t hope Roberto becomes a full-time part of the book, but there’s a part of me that’s glad the position went to a character I have no strong attachment to. While I still maintain that we won’t have a good sense of where the book is heading until we’re out of the shadow of the Gala next month, I remained underwhelmed at best by this issue. I’d rather write about Mastermind every month than see another character I love trapped in a book that’s so aggressively mediocre — especially, it has to be said, if that character is a person of color. More than anything else, it’s been made very clear that X-Corp is, and is committed to being, a book for white readers. Should we discuss the elephant in the boardroom?

Armaan: I think we should, yes. 

A large part of this has been covered by fellow CXF writer Ritesh Babu on the Aesthetics of Representation – we’re getting a number of characters of color in this book, but their inclusion is a surface level attempt at representation at best. Tini Howard responded to that piece in an interview with Word Balloon, which has left us less than optimistic about the future of this book. To quote her from that interview, “What I don’t think is my place to write about, without other perspectives, are the struggles and the pain and the problems that are specific to those identities.”

She goes on to talk about Monet – how Howard’s able to bring her own experiences into writing the character – “…I feel like I can write about that suffering, or that complication, and I can stand behind it, because I can say that’s my lived experience. But what I don’t want to do is put characters of color through suffering because they’re characters of color, because I just don’t have the necessary perspective.”

That worries me. Because what that means is that Howard is not writing characters of color – it means that she’s writing white characters, with white experiences, who just happened to be colored differently – and Marvel’s been dropping the ball on that too with alarming regularity.

Mostly, it means – as you pointed out, Corey – that we need to wait for more creators of color to come around to be able to get those kinds of stories, and we could be waiting for that for a long time.

Corey: Right! Writers rooms have been fairly consistently white over the decades, and while we’re slowly moving away from that model, “slowly” is the operative word. I’m not going to hold Howard accountable for Marvel’s hiring practices, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect marginalized readers to have to wait for minority writers to see representation that isn’t just surface deep. If you’re going to be writing these characters, especially if you’re going to be putting them in a spotlight role, I think it’s important that you put the work in! 

After listening to that interview, you and I spoke last month, and came to the conclusion that a lot of writers are afraid of taking a chance and making mistakes with these characters. I fully believe that it comes from a place of good intent, rather than cowardice, and that they genuinely don’t want to let down underrepresented fans. I genuinely understand where Howard is coming from, and I appreciate her transparency on the matter, but it’s frustrating to essentially be told “nah, better luck next run.” Marvel has worked with sensitivity readers in the past — if you want to do right by the characters, but are afraid these aren’t stories you can authentically tell, that seems like the perfect time to bring someone else in to assist, and maybe even lead to them getting to tell stories of their own!

Armaan: There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and right now, it doesn’t feel like X-Corp is doing a lot of work on several levels. There are a number of good ideas here – things I feel I would enjoy more had they been presented differently, or if I had more faith in the creative team, but right now, it’s hard to become excited about this book despite, in many ways, feeling like I’m its target audience.

Chief Executive Officer

Armaan: Take this issue’s focus – trying to put together a new board, in the midst of the Hellfire Gala, when X-Corp’s not quite ready to even begin operations, while Fenris Consulting (ugh and double ugh) is setting up some mutant corporate competition for X-Corp. We have deals, double-crosses, threats and promises, exactly the kind of thing that makes cutthroat business stories fun, but the actual execution of it feels like a mess.

Corey: It feels lacking, that’s for sure. Throughout the whole issue (and last month’s as well), I couldn’t help but wonder why this is the point that we’re at in the story. The Krakoan timeline is fairly compressed, X of Swords was only two weeks ago, for example, but I still feel X-Corp should be established at this point, if they want to be taken seriously. Searching for board members would have felt more natural if the issue was mostly flashbacks, with a formal announcement at the Gala to mirror the unveiling of the X-Men. As it is, the whole endeavor, from the in-universe company to the book itself, is disjointed and poorly executed. What is X-Corp offering that Hellfire Trading isn’t doing better and bigger? A flying island? Emma just launched a planet.

Armaan: It’s an important question, because we still don’t know what X-Corp has to offer. We’re getting both a lot of setup as well as what was meant to be an impressive, early reveal – there’s still very little said about what any of it’s for. 

Both X-Corp the business and X-Corp the comic have an image problem – unfortunately, only one of these has someone whose mutant power is improving one’s image. While the story is a bit of a mess, there are some bits whose potential I may see myself enjoying down the line. The back-and-forth between Trinary and Madrox shows promise, and I’m dying to find out what’s happened with Layla Miller. I love the idea of a master of illusions in charge of PR. I’m still eager to find out just what it is X-Corp is actually going to be selling.

What I do not see myself enjoying anytime soon is the art.

This issue was chaotic enough to begin with, but the art choices being made here add nothing to the story – and very often undercut the plot points that the story’s attempting to make. Crowded panels, uninspired choices of angles – with very few exceptions, the art, coloring and lettering here is flat, and uninteresting. What did you think of it?

Corey: I felt the faces were better this time around, if nothing else! Flat and uninteresting definitely sums it up, though. It feels like everyone involved in the book was phoning it in — shoutout to the amazingly just there lettering for “It’s X-Corp!” We had the requisite whitewashing of both Monet and Trinary early in the issue, of course, which at this point I’m almost numb to. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect a line editor to catch, especially considering how loud certain parties have been about it, but we’re two years in now, and I know better than to expect better. 

The action was never quite as confusing as last month’s issue, but I can’t help but laugh every time Monet is in her Penance form. I’ve recently started properly watching the 1992 X-Men animated series, and Wolverine spends a lot of that awkwardly tackling people with his claws out, since he wasn’t allowed to use them, and there was a lot of that in this issue with Monet. It was pretty easy to picture her launching slowly towards Andrea with some stilted line delivery, and I think that mental image was genuinely the funniest part of the issue for me. 

That being said – did you understand why Monet’s dress was ripped at the end of the issue, when she spent the entire fight in costume? If they took the time to point it out, it’s probably significant, right?

Armaan: For me, it felt like that was the art dropping the ball again. I think it was just supposed to be a throwaway comment about how getting into a scrap caused Monet to tear her gown – but it was so hard to see, I didn’t even notice it until Mastermind brought it up. 

If it does mean anything, I think it’s just showing that while Monet will take the time to dress herself up with the best of them, she will not think twice before letting the whole thing be ripped apart if she needs to protect what’s hers. 

What I’m taking away from this comic is that either nobody’s asking the question “What is the best way we can present this moment?” – or that they are, and are constantly coming up with the wrong answer. 

I’m hoping that, post-Hellfire, when the book doesn’t have to cram in an event it wasn’t necessarily plan for, it gets a better idea of how best to present itself. Maybe we get Jason Wyngarde on the creative team. There are worse ideas.

Corey: I hate that it’d be a step up, but you’re right. Hopefully next month will be an improvement! If not, at least we’ll know what we’re in for.

X-Traneous Thoughts

• Krakoan reads:
  • Planet-Size: BACK TO EARTH
  • New Mutants: ONE OF A KIND
  • X-Corp: EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
• So wait for a second, only two weeks passed between the end of X of Swords and the Gala?!
• There’s good money on next week’s SWORD revealing Ororo Munroe as the Sol Regent.
• MPreg Jamie Braddock was something that I don’t think I’ll ever recover from seeing.
• Remember when Calvin & Hobbes also colonized Mars? Fun times.
• Is Warpath really supposed to be that big relative to normal-human-sized mutants like Karma? [Ed. note: Yeah buddy]
• He’s also a good therapist. Who knew?
• We get a very brief appearance from Akihiro and Aurora (I’m voting them prom king and queen, if galas have those), and we see that Aurora is close enough to the Wolverine family to know that Gabby hasn’t been acting normally. It’s such a good relationship for everyone involved!
• ”How skilled are you at disrobing a man?”
• Rahne toasts “To something more than surviving,” and if you missed it you really need to read Nola’s “Adoption Papers for Rahne Sinclair”: 
• Warlock speaks in the very human language of emojis. And then he doesn’t. Did the joke just get old?
• Why specify how excited Gabby was to have an outfit that matches Laura’s (with a little hood!)? Is it to make me (Liz) cry, specifically? Is that what you want, Vita Ayala?
• Does Warlock not being a member of the group chat mean that 1) he somehow absorbs the information from the air like wifi, or 2) that Doug shares his phone with him?
• I will say this for X-Corp: They beat up some Nazis good.
• Definitely a fan of Warren choking out a Nazi! 
• On the subject of clothing damage, Mastermind taking the time to make sure Warren had some was a neat touch.