X-MANHUNT OMEGA
“X-Manhunt Finale: Dreams End”
Writers: Murewa Ayodele & Gail Simone
Artists: Gleb Melnikov, Federica Mancin & Edni Balám
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

This double-sized one-shot is the final part of the “X-Manhunt” crossover. For annotation purposes, I’m going to treat it as an X-Men special.

X-MEN

Cyclops. When trying to reconcile with Rogue in a flashback set after “Raid on Graymalkin”, he makes an optimistic case for the post-Krakoan diaspora as offering a range of different mutant dreams; he seems to be rationalising Krakoa as a dream that went wrong because it was one-size-fits-all.

Nonetheless, he insists that Professor X has to be kept in prison. His official argument is that Xavier is worth sacrificing to preserve deals with the US government (which, to be fair, was Professor X’s stated reason for handing himself in to the authorities in the first place), but he seems to believe that Professor X deserves to be there for the atrocities he committed in House of X, and he resents the trauma that Professor X has inflicted on him over the years. He doesn’t know that the crew of the Agnew were simulacra, something which seems to surprise Professor X (who, on one reading of the original scene, was trying to heavily hint to Scott that all was not as it seemed).  Professor X suggests that Cyclops is caught between hating him and not wanting him to leave.

Cyclops regards Professor X’s escape as a disaster for mutantkind that will prompt another Orchis-style purge, and sees it as a personal failure to protect mutantkind. He then has another of the panic attacks we saw in X-Men #3, which leads to his powers raging out of control until Wolverine stabs him to subdue him. Cyclops says later that it “wasn’t deep”, which really isn’t what the art shows – but then Wolverine recovers from ridiculously excessive injuries sustained in the same scene within a matter of pages anyway, so just write it off as artistic licence, I guess.

He still wants to arrest Professor X even after all that, but doesn’t press the point when nobody else seems that interested. Ultimately, he seems relieved that the Professor is at least leaving Earth and leaving his life.

Rogue. She initially suspects that Cyclops has some hidden plan which isn’t being shared with her, and which explains why he wants Professor X to stay in jail. As a reformed villain (like most of her team) she believes in redemption. Still, the two X-Men teams appear to be on otherwise reasonable terms after “Raid on Graymalkin”, and Rogue tells Cyclops that we’re “still X-Men… all of us”. In Uncanny, she’s previously tended to talk about her team as keeping the X-Men alive.

Magik defends Cyclops against Rogue’s scepticism, and is (understandably) confused about their lack of trust in him.

Gambit is serving as a teleporter, using the Eye of Agamotto.

Wolverine gets to give Cyclops the pep talk about not putting everything on himself.

The rest of the X-Men teams are around but have relatively less to do: Kid Omega, Beast, Psylocke, Temper and Juggernaut for the Alaska team, and Jubilee, Nightcrawler, Calico (with Ember), Deathdream, Ransom and Jitter for the Louisiana team. Ransom is impressed by Temper (“What a woman!”) – they had a similar brief exchange during “Raid on Graymalkin”.

SUPPORTING CAST

Professor X. Shi’ar technology removes his brain tumour and allows for remarkably rapid recovery. He decides that he’s just going to leave the Earth with Lilandra and retire from any involvement in mutantkind, but then decides to visit the X-Men one last time to say goodbye properly. He delivers a farewell telepathic broadcast, presumably just to mutants in the X-Men’s circle. He ends by encouraging Cyclops to reopen the school.

He says that “I haven’t been myself for a long time”, and that with the tumour removed, “For the first time in an age, I feel clarity.” There’s obviously a back door being set up here to excuse a lot of questionable behaviour, though you’d have to go a long way back to get him off the hook for everything that he’s conventionally blamed for – fundamentally, Professor X has been doing questionable things since the early Silver Age.

Lilandra Neramani. She demonstrates her amazing plot-advancing skills with a bit of amateur brain surgery.

Storm. She dithers about how mutantkind should cope with a tainted figure with the symbolic power of Professor X. Her Storm Sanctuary apparently has five engines – in Storm #6, there seemed to be only one “Storm Engine”, which was the alien from Storm #1. That appears to be the one we see here, loaned to John Wraith as a mech. It’s not clear whether the other five engines are the same sort of entity, or something different.

She declines to get directly involved in the hunt for Professor X because she doesn’t trust herself to keep control of her cosmic powers. But later on she remotely takes down Cyclops from the next continent, in order to let Professor  escape – which must involve drawing on those powers.

Sage. Arranges a whole bunch of distractions to help Professor X and Lilandra get off earth.

John Wraith. Sage sends him in with a mech to deal with Magik, who very conveniently has happened to conjure up a kaiju for him to fight. As in the X-Force chapter, he’s obsessively quoting the Bible in his dialogue, far more so than he did in the past. This can’t just be a dialoguing quirk, because it’s different writers involved.

Magneto shows up for the farewell beach scene.

GUEST CAST.

Maggott is still in his cocoon from Storm #6.

NYX. There are cameos by Anole, Ms Marvel, Prodigy, Laura Kinney and Sophie Cuckoo – and Mammomax, for those interested. Ms Marvel is at the beach scene.

X-Factor. Pyro and Cecilia Reyes have brief appearances on a wild goose chase looking for Professor X. Angel shows up for the beach scene farewell, and Granny Smite and Xyber are in the opening flashback montage. Havok and Frenzy have a cameo at the end.

X-Force. Forge makes the beach scene, and Tank, Captain Britain and Askani also cameo in a flashback.

Extraordinary X-Men. We get a cameo of Kate Pryde, Emma Frost and Iceman training Melée, Axo and Bronze in their dance studio. Kate and Emma make the beach scene.

Page 39 also has cameos for Mystique (showing no signs of her injured state from the end of her miniseries), Banshee, Sunfire and Thunderbird (in his Krakoan redesign rather than his costume from Weapon X-Men).

FOOTNOTES

Page 1 panel 3: “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” This is a quote commonly misattributed to Friedrich Nietzsche. In fact, according to QuoteInvestigator, it wasn’t attributed to him until 2003, by which time it had been doing the rounds for decades. Leaving aside people making the same basic observation in different language, clearly recognisable versions of the quote can be traced back to 1927, but the earliest available source – an article in The Times – claims it to be an “old proverb”.

Page 2 panel 1: This is an echo of X-Factor on the red carpet in their first issue, though it’s the current (post-Havok) roster that’s shown.

Page 2 panel 2: X-Force’s mission in the Marianas Trench was shown in flashback on page 1 panel 2 of X-Force #6. The art here wrongly shows Sage with the team, but she had quit the team by that point.

Page 2 panel 3: This is just a generic image of a training session in Extraordinary X-Men.

Page 2 panel 4: This is Cyclops as a prisoner of Orchis during “Fall of X”, with his eyelids sewn shut.

Page 3 panel 4: “During the fall, Orchis almost ended all of us, and it’s ‘cus they took out Phoenix.” In X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023.

“But Jean is a galaxy away now, far from anyone’s reach.” In Phoenix, obviously. In fact, Cyclops is in telepathic contact with Jean in that book, and Jean seems to have no trouble getting in touch with the likes of Captain Marvel either… but Rogue’s assumption is reasonable.

Page 4 panel 2: “If his freedom sparks a schism among the mutant factions…” Cyclops alludes to the X-Men: Schism crossover from 2011 which split the X-Men into two camps during the Utopia era.

Page 5 panel 3: “The beginning of the first Krakoan era.” The art shows Professor X resurrecting the X-Men near the start of House of X #1.

Page 5 panel 4: “Fall of the first Krakoan era.” I think this is meant to be Professor X on the verge of killing Moira in Rise of the Powers of X #3, although she ought to be a child.

Page 6: The destruction of the Agnew happened in Fall of the House of X #4. The line in the original story was “Officer, what are you doing with our warheads?”, and the other guy was saying something else entirely. How any of this fits with the claim that the Agnew crew are mere simulacra is difficult to fathom, but that’s the story.

Page 9 panel 1: Reynisfjara is a real location in Iceland. It’s a black sand beach; it was used as a location in Game of Thrones.

Page 9 panel 5: Note the Marauder hovering in the background.

Page 18: The Biblical quotes are correct.

Page 24 panel 2: “Moira is safe – tucked away in a place of her own choosing.” Moira got her own private timeline in Rise of the Powers of X #5.

Page 28 panel 4: “We always lose.” Cyclops is alluding to one of Moira’s predictions about the fate of mutantkind in the Krakoan era, based on her knowledge of other timelines.

Page 36 panel 4: This is the Dark Phoenix Saga, obviously.