X-Men #35 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #35
“Dream’s End”
Writers: Gerry Duggan, Kieron Gillen & Al Ewing
Artists: Joshua Cassara, Phil Noto, Lucas Werneck, Leinil Francis Yu, Walter Simonson, Mark Brooks, John Romita Jr, Scott Hanna, Jerome Opeña, Luciana Vecchio, Stefano Caselli & Sara Pichelli
Colour artists: Romulo Fajardo Jr, Phil Noto, David Curiel, Laura Martin, Sonia Oback, Marcio Menyz, Matt Hollingsworth & Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGES 1-2. The Krakoan era cast, including some of the villains, make their way across the page, Official Handbook style – though at a gentle stroll. Some of the villains are included. I’m not quite sure how Gateway made the cut for this, but it’s nice to see him. (If you’re wondering why this is two pages in the digital edition, page 1 is the cover as it looks on the shelf, and page 2 is the entire gatefold.)
This is the final issue of X-Men vol 6, and the final comic of the Krakoan era – although some unfortunate scheduling means that Ms Marvel: Mutant Menace #4, which takes place before Fall of the House of X, also came out this week. The other X-book this week, Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1, is post-Krakoan, and comes from the new editorial office.
Applying “legacy numbering”, Marvel also regard this issue as Uncanny X-Men #700.
PAGE 3. A recap of the life of Professor X.
Nine mostly symbolic panels:
- Panel 1 is Professor X apparently posing for a photograph or something like that.
- Panel 2 is the original X-Men in the school library.
- Panel 3 is the same five characters in their first Silver Age costumes.
- Panel 4 is a generic fight against Magneto; the costumes would place it in the early 90s.
- Panel 5 is the Treehouse, the X-Men’s New York base during the Krakoan era. It was destroyed by Orchis.
- Panel 6 is Sunspot and Sobunar, symbolising the terraforming of Mars.
- Panel 7 is a generic child enjoying life on Krakoa – specifically, Fauna, who debuted in House of X #1 being welcomed to the island.
- Panel 8 is Jean Grey after being killed by Orchis in the 2023 X-Men: Hellfire Gala one-shot.
- Panel 9 is Professor X with Omega Sentinel and someone who I guess might be Moira, as an unwilling ally of Orchis during Fall of the House of X. He has literal blood on his hands, because we don’t do subtlety round here.
PAGES 4-9. Wolverine tries to kill Professor X and gets cast aside by Magneto.
Professor X surrendered himself to the authorities at the end of Rise of the Powers of X #5, having killed various people for Orchis during their alliance.
I really don’t buy Wolverine thinking that this merits breaking in and killing Professor X, but it’s consistent with his attitude to Professor X’s actions in Fall of the House of X, but there we are.
PAGE 10. Recap and credits.
PAGES 11-14. Professor X and Magneto talk.
“For once, the name sounds natural.” X-Men Red laid some stress on the fact that Professor X continued to think of Magneto as “Erik”, despite his having reverted to his birth name of Max; it was used to indicate that Professor X had only really been close to Magneto at that earlier time in his life, and wasn’t as close to the present-day Magneto as he liked to believe, despite their co-founding of Krakoa. Professor X seems to see it as Magneto casting aside some of the personas he’d accrued over the years.
“I quit. I died… I saw what my choices had made.” Magneto quit Krakoa for Arakko at the start of Immortal X-Men, died in the AXE: Judgment Day crossover, and was resurrected with new insight in Resurrection of Magneto.
Magneto essentially restates here the conclusions he had reached at the end of that series: that his focus specifically on mutants was an error, and by extension that mutant separatism was an error. He intends to reposition himself as fighting for the oppressed in general. Arguably this completes his heroic turn by making him into a protector of everyone and not specifically of mutants (albeit an insurgent, revolutionary one). But Professor X rightly points out the irony: Krakoa was built on him abandoning his dream of mutant and human coexistence, and the lesson Magneto has learned from the experience is in a sense to come round to the fact that Professor X was right all along, however badly he may have botched the execution.
“We could not even imagine our paradise … not without a corresponding Pit.” The many flaws in Krakoan society never really played much part in its actual downfall, but they were certainly there. The Pit was originally established in House of X as a supposedly idealistic alternate to prisons, even though it was obviously much, much worse. Outside the Sabretooth stories, it hasn’t been an especially central part of line-wide storylines, but it seems to be getting singled out here as a symbol of the Krakoa that Xavier and Magneto built being compromised from the start, and in denial about that fact. Ultimately, Magneto was unable to maintain that denial. Xavier sees the whole enterprise as one of hubris, and himself as a martyr who ruined his life to dig mutants out of the hole; this would probably be a stronger point if Krakoa’s flaws had played more of a causally significant role in its downfall.
PAGES 15-19. Krakoa rematerialises on Earth.
Rise of the Powers of X ended with Krakoa and the backgorund characters who made up the vast majority of its population marooned in the White Hot Room, to start a better mutant society on their own. Now the Krakoans return after a 15 year gap from their point of view. A much shorter time has passed on Earth, but according to Cypher it’s still been “weeks” at the very least since Rise #5.
Kafka was the most prominent of the background characters in Immortal X-Men and Rise of the Powers of X, essentially serving as spokesperson for the masses. We saw him trying to get people to work together at the end of Rise. He’s now become a member of their version of the Quiet Council, which he claims doesn’t give orders. This version of Krakoa is meant to be the utopian mutant society that we were promised – allowed to develop for a generation without outside interference. (Kafka mentions on page 22 that “All we needed was to be left alone. At least we got that.”) In keeping with that, his Council apparently doesn’t give orders. Whether Kafka means that it has an open-minded style of government or simply that it’s an anarchy is left ambiguous.
PAGES 20-23. Kafka explains Krakoa’s return, and reveals that they’re going straight back again.
The X-Men gather on Krakoa – since the Quiet Council chamber is in order, this is presumably the White Hot Room’s version. It keeps the four benches and twelve seats, although there’s no X-logo in the centre.
“We had the Four.” The remaining members of the Five, minus Hope, who sacrificed herself to reboot the Phoenix in Rise of the Powers of X #5. Kafka clarifies later that Hope is now ubiquitous within the White Hot Room, so that the remaining members of the Five can continue to perform resurrections without her.
“All the Genoshan dead.” The population of Genosha – the first mutant island nation – was slaughtered by Sentinels in New X-Men #115 (2001). Particularly in the early days of Krakoa, various comments were made about the long term project being resurrect all of these characters. In the White Hot Room, the Krakoans have completed this project.
Exodus sees the return of Krakoa as a religious event on a par with the second coming. As it turns out, the Krakoans have only come back for a day to let everyone know that they’re okay. Exodus can’t tolerate the idea of losing Krakoa again, and holes himself up in the Council Room to try to stop Krakoa from leaving. Note that throughout this issue, it’s the villains (or once and future villains, if you prefer) who are unwilling to accept the end of Krakoa.
PAGES 24-27. Apocalypse beats up Exodus.
Apocalypse shows up in response to these events, and promptly beats up Exodus, whom he declares to be his “acolyte”. As Exodus points out, while Apocalypse did enhance his powers back in his origin story (Black Knight: Exodus #1), Exodus turned on him almost immediately, and was not in any meaningful sense a follower of Apocalypse. Apocalypse seems to be suggesting that he’s able to remove Exodus’ power enhancements here, though whether he actually does so is another matter.
Having brutally defeated a challenger, Apocalypse confidently expects to see a society built by his followers in his image, which of course he doesn’t get. In a sense, what we’re getting here is a fast-forward to the collapse of the alliance between Apocalypse and the utopian progressives which would have come at some point anyway.
PAGES 28-30. Kafka explains his Krakoa.
Kafka also throws in the information that Krakoa is actually unsustainable on Earth in the long term, so it Definitely Can’t Come Back, Okay?
This scene does acknowledge that at least some of the White Hot Room Krakoans do not share Kafka’s utopian view of the society he has built, and are planning to take the opportunity to return to Earth, even though they presumably remember it as a place of persecution and misery. Hmm. Kafka dismisses them as stuck in the past – he doesn’t even seem to contemplate that they might want to be reunited with loved ones – and we don’t come back to this theme again. Still, some of these Krakoans do apparently remain on Earth after 15 years in the White Hot Room, and maybe we’ll hear their side of the story in due course.
Despite Kafka’s apparent disdain for human society, he describes his people as “new kinds of humans”, suggesting that the mutant essentialism has gone out of fashion a bit – perhaps because there were no non-mutants to draw a distinction with. They see early Krakoa as a step along the way to their more enlightened society, but something that they’ve moved past. This is very much not what Apocalypse expected to hear: he hasn’t really changed his opinions in thousands of years, and he is mortally offended at being rejected in favour of a cuddly kibbutz in just 15. It doesn’t seem like a very long time, but then again they’ve been completely isolated from Earth culture (and presumably starting their own culture from scratch) throughout that period.
Kafka’s explanation of “survival of the fittest” is arguably rather patronising. The phrase was coined by Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) to describe Darwin’s theory of evolution, and was then adopted by Darwin himself. Both of them always meant “fittest” in the sense of “best suited”.
PAGES 31-34. Apocalypse throws a tantrum.
Apocalypse sees the Krakoans as having missed the point entirely. This is what he always stood for, and everyone has just been politely turning a blind eye to it since House of X. After all, the Crucible was his idea.
That said, Apocalypse is basically right in his list of claims. He did save Arakko in “X of Swords”. He did save Krakoa in Fall of the House of X. He “rekindled the flame of mutant magic” in Excalibur.
“When I let you seek it alone, did you bring the fire back from heaven? Or dull metal and cheap coin?” Apocalypse is referring to the collection of the metal mysterium in SWORD. As Apocalypse sees it, mysterium is not a wonder, but a case of the cosmic being reduced to something dull. He has a point. The mutants accessed the infinite, mined it, and created currency and trinkets. Apocalypse has made a similar point about mysterium before in X-Men Red #17: “Mysterium was brought into this plane as coin – base metal, imprinted to the material world and its material laws. The anti-magic. I would have made it a sword of holy fire.”
Apocalypse then talks himself into knots somewhat, by acknowledging that the Krakoans are going back to the White Hot Room to explore the higher cosmic planes, which is precisely what he claims they ought to have been doing all along. His conclusion is that they have the right agenda but have strayed so far from his worldview that they must be lacking proper leadership.
Rictor shows up to talk Apocalypse down, having been his dutiful and almost obsessive follower in Excalibur. He sees Apocalypse as backsliding into villainy and rejects Apocalypse’s insistence that this is what he always was.
PAGES 35-36. Volta steals a Krakoan seed for Dr Doom.
Volta is one of the Latverian mutants introduced in X-Men during “Fall of X”. Clearly, this is setting up a subplot for something in the future, or at least leaving a back door. Volta is basically loyal to Doom, but note that she lies to Doom about not having been scene – she knows perfectly well that Fauna saw her. (Fauna may not be staying around, but she presumably doesn’t know that.)
PAGES 37-40. Apocalypse fights the X-Men.
Much of this scene is splash pages by guest artists. Of note, the Beast is back with the X-Men. This must be the Beast clone from the final arc of X-Force, who was given a backup of Beast’s memories taken from the early 1980s when he was still straightforwardly heroic.
PAGE 41. Apocalypse calls for followers.
The characters who are shown reacting are mostly villains, but not all. Rictor is included because of his status as Apocalypse’s prime follower. Exodus is presumably just annoyed. The final panel shows Vanisher, Mentallo, both Fenris twins, Forearm, Fabian Cortez and Ruckus, along with a generic blonde I can’t place, and a hooded figure whose facial markings suggest that he’s Solem.
PAGE 42. Storm steps in.
I’ll be honest, I don’t understand what Storm is doing here. It’s not clear from the art what the characters on the previous page make of Apocalypse’s speech, or what Storm is trying to stop them from doing. Whatever the page was going for, it just doesn’t come across.
PAGES 43-47. Apocalypse fights Wolverine, Deadpool and Nightcrawler.
Given the casual use of ultraviolence by Nightcrawler, in a scene where he’s talking about how he doesn’t do that, I’m going to go out on a limb and say Gerry Duggan wrote this sequence.
PAGES 48-51. Emma and Jean persuade Apocalypse to leave.
Emma and Jean show Apocalypse telepathically that the Krakoans represent what mutantkind becomes when it no longer has to fight. He seems to accept that his conflict-based world view is simply not relevant to this version of mutantkind, which has escaped the battle.
PAGES 52-53. The X-Men decline the invitation to leave for Krakoa.
There are still mutants on Earth to defend – a lot of them – and so the fight goes on. But one day Krakoa beckons for blissful retirement.
PAGES 54-55. The X-Men watch Krakoa leave.
And there we go. That was Krakoa.
Oh, hold on. We’re not finished.
PAGE 56. Data page: a closing quote from Apocalypse. This comes from Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men #7 (2020), the issue that introduced the Crucible. He’s responding to Melody Guthrie, who’s thanking him for helping her to restore her powers (by brutally killing her). He replies: “I deserve no credit for revealing what was always there. What victory there is is yours and yours alone. All that’s left for you to do is claim it.” This is the more fatherly version of Krakoan Apocalypse who was happy to see other mutants fully embracing his worldview.
PAGE 57. Apocalypse returns to Arakko.
Apocalypse tells his sidekick Orc that the mutants didn’t want him any more, and he seems to be accepting that his time may have passed. He’s toying with choosing an heir.
The ruined statute of Apocalypse in the foreground was originally a giant memorial to Apocalypse and Genesis, created when Arakko was terraformed; it was destroyed during the Arakko civil war in X-Men Red.
PAGES 58-59. Mystique kills Mother Righteous.
Mother Righteous is still in the sigil-inscribed Orchis cell where we last saw her in Rise of the Powers of X #4.
She made Mystique stab Destiny in Immortal X-Men #12.
The real Dr Stasis – who did indeed love Mother Righteous – died in Fall of the House of X #3. Mr Sinister and his outer-space counterpart Orbis Stellaris are still alive, though.
PAGE 60. Data page: a quote from Professor X. I’m not sure if it comes from anywhere in particular, but it’s a statement of the classic 20th century X-Men set-up, which was more about doing the right thing and setting a good example while waiting for the world to get better of its own accord. In 2025, it’s become rather outdated. The irony here seems to be that Professor X is in fact back at the school, as the Prisoner X who was referred to in Free Comic Book Day: Blood Hunt / X-Men.
PAGES 61-65. Professor X in prison.
Professor X is apparently immobilised in a cell designed to keep his powers suppressed. Except, we learn, he subverted the creation of the cell. It doesn’t work.
PAGE 66. The final Krakoan logo.
“Getting to Know You”
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Salvador Larroca
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D White
PAGES 67-76. This is a Nightcrawler story, giving Chris Claremont the chance to write Mystique and Destiny as Nightcrawler’s parents. I’m not going to cover this in detail, because it’s essentially faithful to the way in which this story played out in X-Men Blue: Origins and X-Men Forever #4, with a bit of smoothing over to explain why Mystique didn’t do more to act on the information she did remember; the only other reference is footnoted. Essentially, Nightcrawler hasn’t yet forgiven Mystique and Destiny for abandoning him, whatever their reasons; Rogue initially misinterprets the situation as a happy family reunion which the relationship has not yet got to that point.
“From the Ashes – a New Beginning!”
Writers: Jed MacKay & Gail Simone
Artist: Javier Garrón
Colour artist: Morry Hollowell
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
And on we go.
PAGE 77. Professor X reaches out from his cell to see the X-Men around the world.
Because this is a trailer and that’s what you do in trailer stories. Professor X acknowledges that he is once again estranged from the X-Men, and assumes this will be permanent.
PAGE 78. Cyclops leads Beast and Iceman to his new base.
We’re in Merle, Alaska (and Cyclops has a new costume). This is a former Orchis Sentinel factory which was smashed up in Avengers #12. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a place called Merle in Alaska, although there is an airport near Cordova called “Merle K. (Mudhole) Smith Airport”.
PAGE 79. Rogue and Gambit in Mexico City.
They’ll be forming the team for Uncanny X-Men, but for the moment they’re just on holiday.
Their first honeymoon, which Deadpool did indeed interrupt, was in Mr & Mrs X #1.
Professor X is being a bit harsh in saying that “the world I have left them is unkind and becoming unkinder still” – it seems pretty clearly to be on an upswing compared to the Orchis domination of recent months.
PAGE 80. Kate Pryde returns to a normal life.
Chris Claremont also had her working in a bar in Chicago for a time, when she had largely dropped out of superhero work.
PAGE 81. A montage of what others are up to.
- Wolverine is running with wolves, which is how we see him in the promo art from the opening pages of Wolverine #1.
- Kamala has apparently moved to New York City; she’ll be in NYX.
- Havok is having some sort of crisis in Malibu, and we’ll see him in X-Factor.
- Forge’s panel is similarly uninformative, but we’ll see him in X-Force.
- Storm is addressing the UN, though it’s not clear who she’s representing.
- Dazzler is back to singing, and apparently back to being popular again.
PAGE 82. Professor X consults Phoenix.
Jean is going to be off in space doing cosmic stuff in a solo title, which is one way of handling the massive power disparity between Phoenix and the rest of the X-Men. She evidently knows that Professor X’s psychic prison doesn’t work.
PAGES 83-84. Professor X apparently kills himself.
The implication, at least initially, is that he is satisfied that the X-Men are in an acceptable state, and that Phoenix is out there doing good on a grand scale. He’s no longer needed, and there’s no point just sitting around in this cell.
Our attention is specifically drawn to a P logo on the guards’ equipment, which seems to be new.
PAGE 85. Corina Ellis puts herself forward to run an anti-mutant project.
We already saw Ellis running a prison in the school building in Free Comic Book Day: Blood Hunt / X-Men. This is her applying for the job, but we don’t know yet who she’s working for – beyond the obvious fact that they have some sort of official status.
PAGE 86. Professor X is transported to the new “Graymalkin Prison.”
Graymalkin being the name of the road where the X-Men Mansion is located. Professor X has either failed to kill himself or was faking for some reason. Either way, he’s evidently the Prisoner X referred to in the FCBD issue.
PAGE 87. Credits for the trailer story.
PAGE 88. Trailers for the July launches.
Thank you for this Paul, and also for the whole project through the past five years of the Krakoa/House of X era.
I’d love to read or hear your overall thoughts on the whole thing at some point, the highs, the lows and how you think it will be remembered.
In the olden days, this issue might have had entire splash pages showing off everyone’s “15 years later” redesigns…
Now the artists don’t get paid enough to do that.
The one thing that bothered me about Wolverine’s attempt on Xavier’s life is that he was endangering the guards. These weren’t Orchis goons- they were ordinary people who took custody of Xavier after he turned himself in. And Wolverine could have killed some of them. (Presumably Magneto saved them but Wolverine didn’t know that he would do that.)
Regarding the Pit- Magneto is specifically feeling guilty about Toad, who agreed to take the fall for an attempt on the Scarlet Witch’s life as part of a plan by Magneto that Xavier didn’t know about,
I’m not sure if I buy Kafka’s people being able to communicate with Krakoa. The entire reason the X-Men brought back Sinister was because he was the only one who could communicate with Krakoa besides Doug. Then again, Kafka’s people have had 15 years to think of something.
I’m not sure I like the idea of the Four still being able to resurrect people in the White Hot Room. It leaves open the door to resurrection whenever an X-Man dies.
I don’t like the idea that the “hyper-charged” Krakoa was unsustainable. Why? Because of the gates? The drugs?. And why didn’t Krakoa just tell Doug this?
Why are the Ferris twins back on the island? Unlike Blob and Wildside, Andrea knew she was working with Hydra Cap.
I think that the point of killing Mother Righteous is so that Legion can show up without having to worry about her absorbing him.
So did Xavier make that guy jump off the roof or did he just take him up to the roof as a warning not to try to kill any other mutants?
I like the idea that Kurt hasn’t completely forgiven Destiny for abandoning him, especially when you consider all the pain that Destiny’s attempts to avert bad futures has caused.
That’s not Iceman with Scott and Beast- that’s Xavier’s astral form.
How did Havok get returned to human form? The last time we saw him he was some kind of zombie?
Are we supposed to assume Alex has split with Maddie?
Your hard work is dearly appreciated.
I assumed that blonde woman on page 41 was Husk
I’m not sure if Orbis Stellaris is still alive. In his last appearance (in IMMORTAL #1) he’s attacked by an ensorcelled (courtesy of Mother Righteous) Stasis, and we don’t see what happens to him afterward.
I wonder if someone else has taken possession of Xavier’s body. He looks surprised to me.
Correction: X-MEN FOREVER #1
So the new set up is most of the mutants who were alive on Earth live in magic heaven now.
And the vast majority of mutants left on Earth are resurrected Genoshans who have been dead for a few years and were brought back to life in magic heaven where they spent many years living in a mutant “utopia.”
15 million people legally dead people with no money and no place to live.
What a bizarre set up.
MCU keeping the Snap bizarre.
Random note: isn’t the “From the Ashes” logo taken almost directly from the cover of Uncanny #379?
That other time that Xavier went away and the books had a new direction?
I thought it was taken from X-Men #57. After Xavier gave in to Magneto’s way and betrayed his dream, then surrendered himself to the government, leading to a new direction that saw the X-Men on the run without the mansion while mutants were more feared and hated than ever. Hmm…
I’m predicting this Ellis person will be revealed as Karima merged with the Omega Sentinel from Life Nine. No. I’m kidding. I realize that Marvel wants us to forget everything about Krakoa now.
While a bit wonky, I think this issue worked well enough as an epilogue to the Krakoan era. We got some closure on the mutants left in the White Hot Room, Apocalypse went back to villainy, Mother Righteous was eliminated, and the X-Men’s purpose was renewed. There are still plenty of unanswered questions (seriously, what’s up with the Arakki mutants?), but I came away feeling that the chapter in X-Men history was closed adequately.
Also, Claremont’s contribution is one of his best efforts of the last few years. Larocca’s art was rough, but didn’t kill the story’s effectiveness.
As for the preview… it was okay? I like the idea of Prof. X saying good-bye, but it didn’t get me hyped for the new era. Garron’s art was pleasing, though.
Paul, I am also wondering if you’ll do a write-up and/or reflection on the Krakoan era. No pressure, just wondering. Either way, thank you for your work breaking down and analyzing the last 5 years of X-comics. Coming to this site has enhanced my enjoyment of these comics immensely.
Is that Iceman in Alaska or astral form Charles?
I had taken the finale of the Iceman series to mean that Bobby wasn’t back yet, but we had an optimistic ending, with Romeo thinking he could bring him back. Iceman’s absence in Fall of X had me believing it was a story still to be told. Am I the only one that had that impression?
I mean, literally look at the cover of Uncanny #379.
The text on the cover. The font.
My take on the Krakoa resolution is that most of the inhabitants–mostly random background characters who were already there, and the resurrected Genoshan populace–stayed with Krakoa afterwards and rotated out of this plane of existence.
We’re thus left with most major named characters, any Krakoans who decided to come back to Earth for good, and any random mutants who were still on Earth. And it’s left ambiguous enough that writers can use any characters they want with the simple explanation of “they hopped off during the visit home.” And any “15 years later” age discrepancies can probably be chalked up to any number of excuses involving mutant whateverness.
Resurrection is off the table in the prime reality for various reasons, and may or may not continue to be a thing on Krakoa depending on if the Four decide to stay. Maybe, with Genosha finally resurrected, the Four decide their work is done and split up.
(Not that Tempus, Proteus, Egg and Elixir are huge losses in the grand tapestry of the X-Men mythos if they never return.)
I’m intrigued by what was basically “For you, it was 15 minutes. For us, 15 years.” Time dilation, or can Krakoa choose to reenter the real world at any point it desires? Because if so, could we get another time jump where they show up in a year our time, and it’s been another 15, 30, 100 years?
I do hope that now that they’ve buggered off to higher plains, Krakoa stays gone for a nice long while, so as not to ruin this ending.
(Several years from now: Krakoa, burning and in ruins, appears. A much older Kafka, missing a wing and sporting an eyepatch, bleeding, announces “Paradise has fallen… and Earth is next!” and the next big crossover begins.)
I swear though, Marvel spends so much time trying to separate Xavier from the X-Men. Over and over and over, killing him, sending him to the stars, killing him again… so whatever happened to him this time will only last so long.
Agree with Andrew Paul; have loved to see the rebirth of your output under Krakoa; will be curious your thoughts on the project as a whole/going forward
For myself; i had some issues with this but i also have to admit that this is one of the cleaner x-men wrap ups. I wish marvel were braver in letting tje cool stuff remain….. but seemingly not to be in corporate Usa
Much better than I expected.
Krakoa has a resolution, and it is a fairly optimistic and reversible one. Even the ambiguity on why they are 15 years ahead is a positive; the proper explanation can wait for a plot-convenient time.
Xavier and even Magneto are relatable now.
I’m still not sold in all this reliance on an increasingly vague and contradictory Phoenix, nor on whatever they are trying to sell about Irene and Raven. And yes, Kurt is horribly out of character in that scene with Apocalypse.
Here is hoping for decent core books in “From the Ashes”. It is a bit sad to have to much Wolverine right now.
@DigiCom- In X-Men Forever 1, we saw an unharmed Orbis Stellaris with Stasis and Selene after Mother Righteous teleported away.
@Thomas- we saw Bobby hugging Angelica in Rise of the Powers of X 5 if you look closely. So I guess he got better off panel, since he fights Apocalypse this issue without any problems. It’s the same problem with Havok, who was a zombie at the end of Dark X-Men 5 but seems to be back to normal this issue. It looks like Breevort wanted Bobby and Alex’s problems fixed by the time he took over but there wasn’t enough time to simply change the ending of the Dark X-Men and Iceman limited series.
I don’t expect that we will lose track of Xavier just yet. The final scenes don’t make a whole lot of sense if we do.
It can be interesting if he goes for a period of astral-only presence. Particularly now that it has been established that he can communicated with Phoenix. For the moment I am hoping that they interact often, even to the point of being a main dynamic in Phoenix’s new book – which I do not expect to last over a year without at least a radical change of setup. It has been forever since Xavier and Jean interacted with each other to any meaningful extent, and they really ought to. Hopefully they will return to wider plots in six months or so with more rounded characterization.
But return Jean must, because there isn’t a lot she can do as the Phoenix with only aliens as a supporting cast. She will eventually have to take a stance about Scott and about living as a human being.
Iceman – or someone who looked like him – was indeed seem in recent issues. Not a big surprise; the epilogue of his recent limited series showed that he was at least confident that he would reform fully in due time, and that was a while ago.
“Cyclops leads Beast and Iceman to his new base.”
That’s not Iceman, that’s the astral form of Professor X.
I’ll be damned — they stuck the landing. I was *not* expecting to tear up, but that’s what I did.
It’s not without its problems, as other people have noted. But this was *way* better than I expected to get.
@ The Other Michael, I’m actually surprised Xavier isn’t back in a wheelchair again yet.
Was Apocalypse ever not a villain though? Sure he acted paternally toward the mutants, but he was also paternal toward Angel and the other OG Horsemen back in the 80s, while they served his purposes. I can’t recall him doing anything good-guy during Krakoa, but there might have been stuff I’ve forgotten. It’s actually quite admirable that no writers reformed him or anything.
But man I’d really like Kid Apocalypse back if they’re done focusing on this guy.
Paul, I’ve been reading your site even back at the X-Axis since 2003. I really appreciate your weekly annotations; they and the community here are as much part of the experience as the actual comic. Thanks for decades of commentary.
@Chris V “I realize that Marvel wants us to forget everything about Krakoa now.”
Not really, at least NYX should be quite focused on the mutants’ return to “normal” life after Krakoa.
@Si
Apocalypse was always a villain, but the X-books play fast and loose with perceptions of villainy and heroism, at least when compared to most other popular fiction.
Also, at least during “Age of X-Man” and in early stages of the Krakoa era he was treated as some sort of quasi-hero. Not sure why.
Well, I want to add my thanks to the incredible work in the very thorough analysis during those 5 years.
I really appreciated your essays on HOXPOX, Swords of X and Inferno.
I really hope you will have the strength do an overview to the entire Krakoa era, ow it evolved and how it concluded without Hickman as I would realy appreciate your insights.
I kinda liked the ending but I am really dismissive of this whole last year.
Actually , the number of dead Genoshan X-gene mutants , according to HOXPOX datapages, was supposedly X-actly 16.5M (the missing 21, 063 from the official population in New XMen 114 just before the Massacre apparently managed to escape and/or survive LOL)
In my headcanon , 1 Earth day = 1 Krakoan year , so 15 Krakoan years = 15 Earth days = 2 Earth weeks , so the bare minimum of “weeks” plural is indeed achieved (just like the 2-year bare minimum of years-plural for timeskips in Japanese manga, especially shonen series like Naruto and One Piece and Gintama)
@Alexx Kay: That was surprisingly…Inoffensively Fine, especially considering how terrible FotHoX and adjectiveless were in the lead-up to this finale. The final emotional beats worked for me metatextually as someone who generally enjoyed this era.
Loved the callback to the First Krakoan Age as alluded to years ago in Cable: Reloaded.
@Paul: I was also initially confused with Storm stepping in, but I *think* she’s trying to warn the other villains to not interfere in the Apocalypse vs X-Men battle royale because the X-Men, themselves, would not be pulling their punches (hence the resurrection comment).
Either way, the entire action set piece is terribly sequenced and storyboarded and not at all aided by the rotating gallery of artists seemingly every page–going from O5-Jean to Sunfire to Colossus dragon punch was jarring, and dropping Storm’s insertion in the middle of all that completely derailed the fight.
(I will say I quite loved Yu’s pages to open the sequence up. Nice little reminder of his and Hickman’s run on adjectiveless with his equally towering and ominous renderings of Apocalypse burned into my memory early into the Krakoa era.)
Re: Nightcrawler removing Apocalypse’s eyes: I genuinely lol’d since Kurt just “casually killed” an Orchis soldier just a couple of issues ago in FotHoX by porting him into space. Oh, Duggan.
There was a depressing amount of telling vs showing re: this 15-year time jump, which feels more like a copout when you think about the writers loading the responsibility of Speaker of New Krakoa–an incredibly crucial role–onto the shoulders of such a thinly developed PoC like Kafka. “See? Here’s an Important Black Guy!” Appreciate the idea, though.
Re: Forge in his From the Ashes preview: I read somewhere that Forge sees a terrible vision of the future that compels him to build something to detect threats and put together his X-Force lineup.
Got a good chuckle out of Kate’s man of steel/to me my ex men gag.
Loved the panels of Xavier’s astral form falling from space back to Earth after his chat w/ Jean. A strong, bittersweet sense of melancholy and resignation for him as he realizes he’s no longer needed.
Also putting in my second request for a Krakoa retrospective/postmortem, lol. Your effort and quality of work on your various X-Men related projects have been staggering, Paul. Thanks for bringing us together.
Hm. An X-Force team spurred on by the leader’s terrible visions? Forge has been on that team already (Cable & X-Force, iirc).
Well. This issue was not without flaws, but it was decent to actually-very-good in some instances. I’ve hoped for more but I will gladly settle for this, considering how much worse it could have been.
The From the Ashes status quo does not raise my interest at all. Apart from scattering the teams throughout the USA (why not throughout the world? Spread your wings, people!) there doesn’t seem to be a single idea that hasn’t been done before.
But. I’ve had my issues with the Krakoan status quo. And I’ve defintitely had issues with the Decimation status quo. And some of my favourite x-books ever were published during those eras.
So what I’m saying is, the editorially mandated status quo might be crap, but the books can still be brilliant. Just on the merit of the creative teams and/or hooks I have some hope for X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, NYX and X-Factor. We’ll see what we’ll get.
Paul, as a fan since the Ninth Art days, I wanted to echo others here in thanking you for your work on these annotations. It’s been a pleasure to follow along with this era of the X-comics through your notes even as the stories themselves often (imo) failed to live up to the promise of the HoXPoX relaunch.
Huh, I guess I missed that. My bad.
He’ll probably come back in one of the books Al Ewing is working on. Maybe Thor?
I would have killed him off and kept MR, but then I have a weakness for sarcastic magicians. 🙂
There’s a character named Kafka?
I hope his power is to turn into a giant cockroach.
Or better yet, to act like a bewildered cipher in the face of bureaucratic intransigence.
Kafka makes some type of joke related to his name in this very comic. He says something akin to, “Just because my name is Kafka and I represent Krakoa, don’t think that our Krakoa should be considered Kafkaesque.” Something like that, as I’m not going to bother digging out my copy again for accuracy.
That’s going to get tired very quickly. .Heck, I was tired of my own joke 2 seconds before I clicked “submit.”
[…] #35. (Annotations here.) On the other hand, this is much more like it. The final X-book of the Krakoan era (well, except for […]
“There are still plenty of unanswered questions”.
I for one am never going to stop asking what was up with Kate and the gates. #Kategate
Wolverine is running with wolves
If I had absolute power over Marvel Comics, every writer’s desk would have a picture of a wolverine on it with the caption “This is what a wolverine is. It’s basically a fat weasel. The name probably means ‘little wolf’, but it’s wrong.”
Wait until Marvel finally finds out that the name for the animal in Norway means “mountain cat”. It’s going to open up so many story possibilities.
Just tell them that Wolverine has also been known to go by the name of Gulo Gulo to set them straight.
Thanks so much for all the work you’ve done annotating the Krakoan Era, Paul. You really enriched a reading experience that was, at times, too intricate or scattered for me to fully enjoy on its own terms.
And in the cases where certain books were…well, let’s say less than the sum of their parts…your commentary was like the dessert waiting at the end of an unappealing meal.
I’m a little disappointed that the new status quo for the Darkholme clan is…Mystique and Destiny are back to doing plots and crime while Nightcrawler and Rogue will be disappointed in them and won’t forgive Irene.
For all that the Krakoa era was different (and, admittedly, not to my personal taste), it seems that the lasting mark it made is…nothing? Maybe Apocalypse will come back with an army of Arakki mutants, but they seem more like the ones that will be wiped out in the next big crossover to show what a threat it is over Krakoan society. Maybe there will be a villain who comes over to the X-men’s side (Magneto or Exodus), but that’s pretty small potatoes. Orb Stellaris might be the only surviving villain that was introduced in the era, and he had the least contact of the Sinister Suits. Hordeculture was dropped rather quickly, thankfully.
I’m looking forward to Jean blowing up the planet of the Brussel Sprouts aliens!
Also, I feel that new Krakoa has kind of stolen the Children of the Vault’s schtick.
Feels like LOST to me
I concur — the annotations have been wonderful. They turned me on to at least one series that I wouldn’t have read otherwise (Hellions). And while I wasn’t interested in Dominions, it was fun to follow along during the latter part of the Krakoan era. Thanks, Paul!
I’m not particularly interested in the neo-90s direction the line is taking soon, but who knows? Maybe I’ll find a book to follow after the next wave of annotations.
According to Gillen, he, Duggan and Ewing came up with the synopsis together. Then Gillen wrote 25 pages, Duggan wrote 25 pages and Ewing wrote 10 pages.
The whole of krakoa has passed and I still don’t know why the pit is considered to be bad ?
Paradise is established and terrible people who do bad stuff are thrown into a place where they don’t suffer and we’re supposed to be sad about that or consider it to be bad ?
They described the Pit as the person being kept in stasis aware of what was happening around them but completely unable to react. That sounds like it would be an utter hell where you’d go completely insane within a few days. Basically, imagine being tied down to a bed for months on end, completely unable to move, with an IV drip making sure you stay alive, but never seeing or hearing anyone else.
In Sabretooth’s case, it was even more horrific because they said his sentence would last forever.
Hickman always intended it to show the hypocrisy and hubris of the mutants. They thought they were better than humans so they had no need for prisons and would create something better. In reality, they did create a prison and it’s easy to argue that it’s worse than what humans created.
It would be far more humane to put someone in a coma for the allotted period of incarceration, then awake them at the end of their term.
Being kept aware but immobile at all times seems like several magnitudes more cruel than prison to me.
Not to make light of prisons, but you can at least read a book and play basketball every once in a while.
One more grateful reader here for these years of annotations. They definitely improved my reading experience.
Jamil:
The earliest attempt at building a modern prison was Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The basic concept was to lock inmates in a small cell with little light and as little human contact as possible. Even with four brief visits a day from prison staff, the forced isolation meant that inmates invariably suffered mental breakdowns. Its designers meant well, but they wound up creating a situation designed for psychological torture.
The Pit is basically the same concept, only with no social interactions whatsoever and without the possibility of death as a release. It’s MUCH worse.
If you don’t think an eternal nightmare prison run by a tinpot dictatorship who throw people into it without trial is horrific, I don’t know what to tell you.
Didn’t he have a trial, basically? The Quiet Council is even TWELVE people. Does it make a difference that they weren’t 12 random
Krakoans? Plus there was no question of his guilt anyway.