X-Men: Forever #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: FOREVER #1
“A Ghost”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Luca Maresca
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kat Gregorowicz
Editor: Jordan D White
X-MEN: FOREVER. There have been two previous series called X-Men Forever (plus a sequel X-Men Forever 2), neither of which have anything to do with this book. The official solicitations and the trailer page give the title for this book as X-Men: Forever, with a colon. The cover says X-Men Forever. The credits page has it both ways. I’ll go with the solicitations.
COVER / PAGE 1. An unconscious Jean Grey lying in a Phoenix-shaped pool of blood in what appears to be a snowbound forest. This doesn’t happen in the issue, though we do see Jean lying in a circle of blood on page 12.
PAGE 2. Flashback: Irene and Raven attend a concert.
This is the first performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which took place at St James’ Hall on 19 June 1899. Irene and Nathaniel Essex both mentioned having been at this performance in the flashback that opens Immortal X-Men #1. We were told there that Irene had had a fit at the opening of the Nimrod variation; Sinister remembered someone having a fit but didn’t know Irene at the time. More of that scene shortly.
The establishing shot in panel 1 is pretty much a copy of a drawing of the Hall in 1858, artist unknown. (It happens to be the picture that illustrates the Hall’s Wikipedia entry but hell, it’s out of copyright.)
“I thought I heard… whistling?” Immortal X-Men #1’s flashback opens with Irene asking Nathanial to “stop that incessant whistling”.
“I knew the name [Nimrod] from my Bible studies and my visions.” Obviously, Irene has already had visions of Nimrod as a player in future events even before this point.
PAGE 3. Flashback: Irene sees Enigma.
The head in the centre is Enigma himself. Top left is apparently meant to be Cyclops being taken to his trial in Fall of the House of X #1, though he’s wearing the wrong costume. On the left and right are what seem to be generic images of Krakoa and Nimrod. In the top right, there’s a shadowy image that I can’t immediately place.
PAGE 4. Flashback: Irene has a fit; later, she meets Sinister.
The first two panels show Irene having the fit mentioned in Immortal X-Men #1. Panel 3 is a separate scene of Irene being nursed back to health. Panels 4-5 show Irene approaching Sinister, as previously shown in Immortal #1.
“At last, I understood what I learned four years earlier from rooting around Milbury House after Nathaniel Essex’s death in Bedlam.” In Immortal X-Men #8, where she finds the empty tanks in which Mr Sinister, Dr Stasis, Orbis Stellaris and Mother Righteous were cloned.
“This burst of new visions was not part of my diaries.” The set of diaries that Irene wrote with her initial set of prophecies after her powers first emerged.
PAGE 5. Flashback: Irene tells Mr Sinister about Enigma.
Panels 1-4 are new, and take place between page 4 panels 2-3 of Immortal X-Men #1. Panel 5 is a repeat of the final panel on that page.
PAGES 6-7. Flashback: Sinister collapses, and Enigma appears.
The first two panels of page 6 repeat page 5 panels 1-4 of Immortal X-Men #1. The material with Irene talking to Enigma is new; the original page jumps straight to Raven approaching Irene.
Enigma intervenes to kill Sinister after Irene tries to warn him about his true nature. This is consistent with Immortal X-Men #18, where we established that Enigma prevents Sinister from learning any information about the other Sinister clones through his Moira Engine.
Enigma basically confirms that he needs Krakoa to happen in order to provide an opportunity for his ascension; he also verifies that attacking the point in time where he ascended his potential weak spot.
He also throws in the information that Mystique will eventually leave Destiny, of which more later.
PAGE 8. Flashback: Mystique arrives in the aftermath of Sinister’s death.
This is a repeat of the final panel of page 5 of Immortal X-Men #1, and the whole of page 6. There are no changes to the dialogue.
PAGE 9. Recap and credits.
PAGES 10-11. Mother Righteous reacts to the failure of her ascension plan.
Mother Righteous tried and failed to ascend in Immortal X-Men #18; as established in Immortal, the “Mother Righteous” in the White Hot Room is actually a creation of hers, linked to the real Mother Righteous. Immortal #18 ends with Destiny kicking that Mother Righteous in the face, which we can see in the scrying glass thing here; the real Mother Righteous reacts to the fake one being kicked.
PAGES 12-14. The White Hot Room Mother Righteous begs for forgiveness.
This is a direct continuation from Immortal X-Men #18. In that issue, Righteous stabs Jean Grey and uses her blood to write a message which is supposed to magically achieve her ascension, only to be blocked by Enigma. The circle effect wasn’t in the original story and has apparently been formed by Exodus in the belief that it might help somehow.
The homunculus Mother Righteous argues that she can help the Krakoans by giving them a communications link back to the real world, though her ability to communicate with the real Mother Righteous. This is precisely the role that she ends up playing in Rise of the Powers of X, but the real Mother Righteous is clearly minded to get rid of the homunculus before she can be used for that. However…
PAGES 15-20. Orchis attack Mother Righteous, who escapes and gets captured.
Professor X explains on page 22 that he and his group leaked her location to Orchis, hoping that she would escape but in a weakened state where they could capture her.
Righteous cashes in the hold that she had over Dr Stasis, who considers himself her ex-husband.
Selene – also allied with Orchis, which fits with X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic – has been around the block long enough to be immune to Mother Righteous’ magic, or at least to know the counters.
PAGES 21-26. Mother Righteous is imprisoned in the No-Place.
“A No-Place, in the process of being enhanced.” By the time we see it in Rise of the Powers of X #1, it’s largely outside time altogether, and thus better shielded from Enigma.
Sebastian Shaw made a deal with Mother Righteous to own Krakoa after it fell; she only gave him the physical island rather than the Krakoan government’s wealth. For Mother Righteous, this is standard magical deal logic; Shaw claims to consider this sort of loophole logic to be dishonourable. He might actually mean it; as a deal-making type, he probably does attach some significance to being seen as the sort of person who honours a deal.
Cypher, or rather the Sinisterised clone of him, has already been seen in Rise of the Powers of X. This scene confirms expressly that he’s basically a vehicle for decanting the remainder of Mr Sinister from Professor X’s body. We’re also told that the real Cypher is still “trapped inside the hibernating Krakoa”, after he was spirited away by Krakoa at the end of Immortal X-Men #13. Since the core Krakoa has since fled the island in Fall of the House of X #2, that does beg a question about what’s keeping him alive now.
“And then get rid of the other me.” Presumably the body of Mr Sinister which has been stuck in the Pit since the end of Sins of Sinister.
Professor X has believed that the mutants who went through the Krakoan gates in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 were dead; he learned the truth at some point before Rise of the Powers of X #1, and now we’re filling in that moment.
PAGES 27-29. Professor X makes contact with the White Hot Room.
The captors of Mother Righteous II are Chlorophil, Exodus, Hope, Destiny, Kafka, and a generic guy in the bottom left.
Mystique was last seen in Uncanny Spider-Man #5, which ended with her setting off alone, telling Kurt that “I’m going to find my wife.” Evidently she’s somehow returned to Krakoa. Quite what the book contains, we don’t know. It could be the set of prophecies that Destiny started writing at the end of Immortal X-Men #3, at which point she foresaw a range of timelines in which Mystique was never there.
PAGES 30-32. The No-Place X crew prepare for Rise of the Powers of X.
Professor X is calling Sinister “Doug” for the benefit of Rasputin and Rachel. Interestingly, this story establishes that Mother Righteous knows that Cypher is actually Sinister. It’s not obvious why she’s keeping that to herself, but perhaps she doesn’t want to derail a plan that has a chance of defeating Enigma.
“I was manipulated by a Sinister-spawn for one thousand years.” In “Sins of Sinister”, mostly in Immoral X-Men.
Rasputin’s mission to stop Dr Stasis’ ascension is shown in Rise of the Powers of X #1.
“Your [Rachel’s] team needs to be active and prepared…” The X-Men team from Dead X-Men.
“Thank you whoever decided to put the backup cradle there.” I think the idea is that there was a backup cradle on Atlantic Krakoa, which Mother Righteous has shunted to the White Hot Room, rather than the Krakoans having casual access to the White Hot Room.
“Who else are you going to have on your team if you’re planning to resurrect the Phoenix?” Rachel was Phoenix II back in the 80s. We’ve been told numerous times, including in Rise #1, that the Phoenix can defeat a Dominion. Mother Righteous tried to sacrifice Phoenix for her own ascension in Immortal X-Men.
PAGE 33. Trailers. The Krakoan reads QUIET COUNCIL
I fear that the Cypher plot, the build up since the first comic, will be him just present in another comic five years from now, with no explanation.
“In the top right, there’s a shadowy image that I can’t immediately place”
The shadowy image is Moira stabbing Jean.
Destiny clarifies that the clones were to feed energy to Enigma and not just information this issue.
Gillen said in his newsletter that this was supposed to be Immortal X-Men 19 and appear in January:
“It’s a weird one, this. At its heart this is Immortal X-men #19, and is basically material I was planning to be released in January, alongside rotPoX 1. When Marvel’s publication plans meant they wanted it in March, it needs to serve a different purpose. We join rotPoX in motion, and then leave nagging questions to explain two months into the event. The material was remixed for this purpose a little (and it’s a 30 page issue – a hypothetical Immortal 19 wouldn’t have been, probably).”
Marvel’s messing with the schedule of Fall of the House of X caused all sorts of problems.
To start with, we have the resolution of the Stasis- Mother Righteous plot taking place in this issue, even though Stasis was killed in last week’s Fall of the House of X.
We finally get a resolution to the revelation in the Sinister Four that Stasis and Orbis Stellaris have an alliance. It’s completely underwhelming though, because a generic Orchis agent could have severed the same role as Stellaris. Is Stellaris going to be appearing in later issues of this crossover? Because if he’s not. this seems like a waste of a setup.
(Again, I have to wonder if Stellaris’s role might have been truncated due to editorial shennanigans.)
Also, what happens with Stasis and Stellaris after this?The dialogue suggests only Shaw had his mind wiped. They know that Mother Righteous attempted to become a Dominion and failed. They also probably know that the mutants that went through the gates are alive somewhere, since they walked in on Mother Righteous monitoring them. Do they wonder what happened to the energies from Mother Righteous’s failed attempt at Dominion? Do they try to find out about the trapped mutants? It’s odd to imagine Stasis just going about his regular business like he did in Fall of the House of X after this.(Again, the problem is was probably Duggan getting confused when editorial shifted things around.)
Stasis and Stellaris both display Victorian sexism.
Yeah, this was obviously Immortal #19, no background information required.
The idea seems to be that readers who didn’t read Immortal #18 would also not read #19, but some of them might be enticed to read the exact same story as Forever #1?
See, who said stories are confusing if you come into them halfway through.
“I think the idea is that there was a backup cradle on Atlantic Krakoa, which Mother Righteous has shunted to the White Hot Room, rather than the Krakoans having casual access to the White Hot Room.”
This is weird. in Immortal X-Men 16, Mother Righteous helps the Five contact the Waiting Room so they can resurrect someone. However, in Resurrection of Magneto 1, we find out that the Waiting Room no longer exists. I suspect that this problem was created by the editorial reshuffling and explaining that a cradle exists in the White Hot Room was an attempt to explain how the Five can resurrect dead people with the Waiting Room.
@Si- Cypher is on the cover of X-Men 34, so hopefully he’ll appear there. Admittedly, covers aren’t always reliable…
That should be “WITHOUT the Waiting Room”.
This is a terrible cover and I’m surprised that artists are still doing this. It’s an embarrassingly outdated trope to depict unconscious or dead women in sexy poses, but I find this in particularly poor taste.
Anyway, I read the reference to the real Doug in this issue as meaning that he’s still inside the fleeing Krakoa. In PoX, a Cypher/Krakoa hybrid appears as Famine on Asteroid K in Moira’s 9th life, so perhaps this extended stay in Krakoa, now unable to absorb benign levels of mutant energy, may lead to that future state.
@Michael: Cerebro cradles predate the Waiting Room. The backups might be older (since Xavier wouldn’t be actively using that system at the moment), but they’re still available
I would like to believe Cypher’s plot will get an appropriate conclusion before Krakoa ends, not only because he’s one of my favorite characters but because Krakoa making a point to protect him seemed a big deal.
[…] FOREVER #1. (Annotations here.) Apparently this started life as Immortal X-Men #19, which would have been out a couple of months […]
It suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Sinister in a cloned Cypher body would be really, really dangerous. Sinister’s whole deal is tinkering around with genetics, and he’s limited by the fact that you never really know what you’re going to get or if an experiment will succeed. But if he can now “read” gene sequences and understand exactly how different DNA combinations would work, or what powers would result from this or that genetic code? Then you’ve just taken trial and error out of the equation, and he can create whatever he wants.
I want to like X-Men comics, but the more I read this, the less I understand what’s going on…..
Welcome @Allen! This isn’t really an adequate jumping on point, since a it really Immortal X-Men #19. It is much clearer if you’ve read Gillen’s whole run, and HoXPoX. It’s not too many issues, and especially if you’re a Marvel Unlimited subscriber. I think the wider (confusing) continuity is part of the appeal for many readers, always more to discover. But luckily there’s a new jumping on point coming soon with Brevoort taking over editorial.
@Allen agreed with Joseph. I’d read out the House of X/Powers of X mini first. If it grabs you, you’d want to check out the rest of the Krakoa era. If not, hang tight until the relaunch this summer.
@Diana- Sorry, I should have been more clear. What I meant was that if this would have been Immortal X-Men 19, Gillen would have used the Waiting Room to explain how the Dead X-Men were brought back. But this issue got pushed back after Resurrection of Magneto 1, where it was explained the Waiting Room no longer exists. So it had to be explained that there was a cradle in the White Hot Room.
I just thought of something- is Margali still trapped in one of Mother Righteous’s globes? Xavier, Rachel and Rasputin might not have realized she was there.
@Michael: The text probably could’ve been clearer about that, but I think what Gillen’s getting at is that the cradle was on Atlantic Krakoa, and luckily for them it came along with the island to the WHR
The problem is that the location for all the Cerebro cradles had been revealed by Hickman. The Transit (Atlantic Krakoa) did not have one of the cradles. Gillen must have confused the Transit with the Pointe. The Pointe was the location of one of the cradles and was located near Atlantic Krakoa, but it’s not the same location. The other cradles were located in the House of X, Island M, Summer House, and the No-Space.
They’ve added another cradle after HoXPoX but before Fall of X.
This really isn’t a problem.
Yeah they can add and subtract cradles. It’s mentioned in X-Men by Synch that he needs a cradle for Old Lady Laura (X-23/Talons) mind. Now we have another mention for continuities sake. The writers are trying to tell the fanbase that they care about the story plot and mechanics with the amount of pages they have.
Is Dr. stasis being written more interesting here than by his own creator?
@Chris V: One can assume the Summer House cradle was moved after the structure was abandoned for the Treehouse.