Immoral X-Men #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORAL X-MEN #3
“Sins of Sinister, part 8: Our Nine-Hundred-Years-and-Counting Mission”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Alessandro Vitti
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: Sinister and Rasputin on the run from Exodus.
PAGE 2. Data page, with an opening quote from Candide. Candide is a satire on Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy. Basically, Leibniz argued that if a better world was possible, God would have created that world instead. Therefore, this must be as good as it gets, and what appear to us to be flaws must in fact be optimum in the grand scheme of things, albeit for reasons that we may not be able to grasp. (This philosophy is often referred to as “optimism”, which didn’t have its modern meaning in Leibniz’s day; for modern readers, “optimum-ism” is probably a fairer reflection of what he was getting at.) The basic joke of Candide is to bombard the characters with things that are obviously just plain bad and watch them try to rationalise it away.
PAGES 3-8. Rasputin boards Prayerworld 537-2389 and retrieves a mission.
“Psychic log: the mission continues.” As with the story title, this echoes Star Trek. Rasputin’s ponytail is used as an icon to mark her narration. She makes sure to tell us at the outset that she believes they’re working to save the universe. The crew members who were aboard the Marauder when Sinister stole it last issue have apparently all died and gone unreplaced.
Exodus. As reiterated in early issues of Immortal X-Men, Exodus derives power from people’s faith in him; thus, the Prayerworlds are entire worlds of clones that are programmed to worship him. There are a whole bunch of different Exoduses, all with their own prayerworld, and they’re opposed to one another thanks to some sort of no-doubt-trivial schism.
The art on page 4 seems intended to draw a parallel between Exodus (or at least, this particular giant Exodus) and Mr Sinister, both sitting in something vaguely throne-like and controlling, but both effectively reduced to meaninglessness.
In Immortal X-Men #3, Destiny has a vision of a distant future, which she calls the “eXpanse” and descirbes as “The distant reach of a mutant church-empire.” She witnesses “a fiery starship the size of an actual star corner a second vessel”, which is “lined with cloned meat”, said to be batteries made of tissue cloned from Sebastian Shaw. That timeline ends with Exodus destroying Sinister. This isn’t the timeline we see here – the Immortal X-Men #3 version of Exodus seems to be primarily motivated by avenging Sinister’s destruction of paradise – but there are obvious parallels, and it may explain why the Marauder spaceship seems to be encrusted with organic growths.
Edit: As Jim Harbor points out in the comments, Exodus’s presentation here also seems to be a riff on Warhammer 40K and its Emperor; Gillen has previously written for Marvel’s Warhammer books.
“We should be on the same side” has been Destiny’s message to Sinister throughout Immortal X-Men.
PAGE 9. Recap and credits.
PAGE 10. Data page, summarising more directly what happened to the members of the Quiet Council by the 1000th year of this timeline. Much of this is indirectly hinted at in later pages anyway. The Council itself has collapsed into competing factions.
- Professor X is described as “Protectorate of the Dream”. The next page indicates that the “Dream” is a bunch of disembodied brains who are fighting the forces of the Red Diamond (i.e., Emma), still delusionally attempting to pursue some version of paradise. Rasputin describes them as “lotus eaters”.
- Nightcrawler is simply dead, and the use of his DNA to create the Legion of the Night has been covered in Nightcrawlers.
- Colossus seems to be mainly devoting his time to preventing the fabric of reality from unravelling, which is nice of him. “All Superpowers to the Space Soviets” refers to Lenin’s slogan “All Power to the Soviets”, the idea being that power in Russia would go to the workers councils (the Soviets) rather than the post-revolutionary provisional government.
- Mister Sinister‘s position is self explanatory.
- Emma Frost is leading the Red Diamond forces, having usurped Sinister’s emblem.
- Kate Pryde has been driven into exile and become a “space pirate”. That doesn’t sound too bad, but on the next page Rasputin has her and her crew as just literal marauders.
- Exodus has already been covered.
- Hope remains in the condition where Exodus left her last issue.
- Namor was previously shown as having filled one of the vacant slots on the Quiet Council, but he’s not really important to this story, so he’s busy underwater.
- The Beast was in a similar position; we see him later on as a slave of Emma Frost.
- Magik has apparently tried to bring her pocket Hell dimension of Limbo to Earth and failed, following which she has retreated to Limbo.
- Sebastian Shaw has become a group of “Sebastian Shaws” who have become the majority rulers of Hell; we saw in Sins of Sinister #1 that Shaw had become one of the lords of Hell.
For fairly obvious reasons, this timeline has not brought about an end to the fear and hatred of mutants. The mutants have notionally won, but achieved nothing.
PAGE 11. The Marauder crosses the galaxy.
A brief tour of some of the elements from the previous page.
PAGES 12-14. Sinister listens to Destiny’s message.
Destiny has apparently recorded it on a wax cylinder, perhaps to annoy Sinister, or perhaps on the view that he’s the only person left alive who would recognise it. Edit: As GN points out in the comments, this is also a callback to Immortal X-Men #8, where Nathaniel Essex left a message for Destiny in the same format.
“I stole your lab with Storm…” In Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #1.
“When I tried to reset the universe…” In Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #2. This scene seems to confirm that Destiny can see past the end of her own life, which makes the way she gets blindsided in that story a little hard to rationalise.
Destiny’s primary motivation of averting Mystique’s death was established in Immortal X-Men #3. Basically, Destiny has acted to bring this timeline about for the sole reason that it maximised the length of Mystique’s life. It’s not at all clear that Destiny has learned anything from this error; she simply thinks her objective has failed.
“When you became the monster you are, you cut love from your heart… but remember the power of grief that led you to do it in the first place.” This is the origin story of Mr Sinister from the miniseries Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. Destiny is referring to the death of Essex’s family, which was the immediate prompt for him to accept being transformed by Apocalypse.
PAGES 15-17. Rasputin turns on Sinister and is ejected.
Rasputin thought they were going to transform the world and save it, not reboot it. This is the same point that was raised in Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #2. From our standpoint, the obviously desirable outcome is to wipe out this timeline and start over – and as readers, we know that’s where it’s going, because of course it is. Conventionally, the heroic characters in this story would align themselves with that reading. But in “Sins of Sinister”, they reject it and behave according to the logic of their ideals – rebooting the timeline is an act of genocide to be resisted at all costs.
PAGES 18-19. Sinister meets Moira and a Doombot.
The Kenji Uedo clone is a version of Zero from Generation Hope, mentioned in both Nightcrawlers #1-2.
The Doombot believes himself to be Doom – which is a stock feature of Doom’s mythos, used to explain away all sorts of inconvenient stories. According to Sins of Sinister #1, the real Doom was killed by Namor and replaced by a clone who was secretly under mutant control. The narrator added that “a sole remaining Doombot, claiming the mantle of Doom, has been reportedly sighted working with the few remaining Orchis cells.” Presumably, this is him – the Beast also refers to him as “the remaining Doombot” in the next scene.
Moira is still alive because she’s been in a robot body since X Lives of Wolverine.
PAGES 20-21. Emma learns about Sinister.
Emma has co-opted Sinister’s red diamond insignia. She already had the power to turn into diamond herself. She’s now red because, somewhere along the line, she’s become a living incarnation of the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak, the magical artefact that empowers the Juggernaut. Presumably this is something to do with “Shaw’s first enchantment of my diamond form” – Shaw being a hell lord now.
As in previous chapters, Emma continues to go through the motions of talking about “schools”, “students” and saving the “children”.
PAGES 22-23. Sinister, Moira and Doom reach the World Farm.
The Moira clones were brought to the World Farm in Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #2. Jon Ironfire, a character from that series, appears to have become an Odin-like figure here. His guard dog appears to be wearing Cyclops’s visor.
Ironfire is aware that destroying the “citadel” would destroy the universe (i.e., reboot the timeline), which is why Storm (“the goddess”) prevented Destiny from destroying it in SatBoM #2. He doesn’t know specifically that the issue is the Moira clones.
PAGE 24. Rasputin is approached by a mystery voice.
From the speech patterns and its offer of a deal, this is obviously Mother Righteous.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The story continues in Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #3.
I do like the way everything has kind of degenerated. It makes sense from the characters involved. Xavier is for the most part a dreamer more than someone who pushes ahead. Yes he set up Krakoa but that was with Magneto and Moira pushing things in a more dynamic range. Emma’s similar. Shaw’s concerned with power and comfort. Colossus is relegated to just supporting a status quo of reality. Exodus Believes more than Does. Etc.
In short, if you bring out the worst of a lot of the council, it’s just going to be about them making their own little perfect power bases. Hope was the one who pushed them out into the galaxy, and she’s gone now. While she apparently mainly wanted to shoot and blow things up, she at least was the proactive force and now she’s gone.
Otherwise, there’s Beast but this isn’t really his story and so he’s sidelined. A Sinisterized Nightcrawler would have probably been another force for actually making something of their power and dominion, so he’s also been taken off the board.
Basically, Sinister is one of the few people on the Council who actually has an ongoing agenda to push forward the Universe. It’s evil, but it’s a goal. Without him and a couple of others.. well, this is a darkest timeline, but it’s still an example of how the Council might eat itself alive without an actual goal to be working towards.
As far as Destiny goes, here’s where I think the intention goes.
Destiny can’t normally see things in too much detail outside of a few seconds, though can feel for important nexuses where things come down to a point. There’ve only been two times when her vision goes into overdrive — early in her life when she wrote the Diaries and in Immortal #3 (From Immortal #3)
During the visions we see in I3, she’s able to see things she’s nowhere near. Ditto for things in her Diaries. But normally we don’t see anything about her doing remote predictions — I don’t think we’ve ever seen Destiny in a normal state able to predict whether someone across the world is going to do X or Y unless it’s on TV or such. This implies that normally her future-sight is focused on herself, but when she’s in one of those two ultra-visions she’s also able to see more broadly anything ‘important’.
So with that in mind, I can see how she’d have gotten confused in Brotherhood #2. If her visions are usually from her own POV, then ‘everything goes black’ probably does normally mean that she died. It would only be during one of those two incidents where ‘everything goes black’ has a special meaning. Ordinarily there’d be no confusion, but she was expecting a fade-to-black anyway, so oops.
As for her note in this and her seeing past the end of her life, it was mentioned the thing was sent out long ago. So then she sent it out shortly after Immortal #3 in response to her new visions, seeing things whether or not they happened when she was alive. The attack that took away his Moiras and the attack with Storm to take them back were probably both nexuses that she could see as turning points but not necessarily every single nuance. So she knew there was a chance that both she succeeded the first time and failed the second. She didn’t know all the details — otherwise she’d have known that Raven died anyway. If she’d known exactly how things would turn out to that level, she wouldn’t have even had to bother with the note. She could have just gone to Sinister herself right away to say she’d be on his side.
So the note was sent as a backup that would only get found well after she attempted to reset the timeline. And she’d only attempt to reset the timeline if Raven died. So if Raven doesn’t die, then the note is uselessly telling Sinister to look somewhere that the clones aren’t, because she wouldn’t have gone to try and reset the timeline. If Raven dies but Destiny resets the timeline, it doesn’t matter anyway.
tldr; It’s not that she predicted specifically what would happen in this case. She just effective left this (and possibly other) notes around saying “If I die because of an aardvark attack, do X.”
@Jon R: It’s not just that – there’s no resistance anymore, no opposition. Mutantkind has won so decisively that stagnation and in-fighting were inevitable
Just like Immoral X-Men #2 had a Star Trek motif and Storm and the X-Men #2 had a Star Wars motif, this issue as a Warhammer 40k motif.
Gillen previously wrote a 40k comic at Marvel.
Exodus is shown as a god emperor, the universe is grimdark and full of space warps, genetic editing the paragraph at the end of the intro is a riff on the 40k opening shpeel:
It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.
Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
Paul > Destiny has apparently recorded it on a wax cylinder, perhaps to annoy Sinister, or perhaps on the view that he’s the only person left alive who would recognise it.
This is also a callback to the ending of Immortal X-Men 8, where the original Nathaniel Essex left a posthumous message for Destiny in a wax cylinder. There, like here, it was about plans set in motion before the message-sender’s death – Nathaniel had released four clones of himself into the world.
Paul > Destiny’s primary motivation of averting Mystique’s death was established in Immortal X-Men #3. Basically, Destiny has acted to bring this timeline about for the sole reason that it maximised the length of Mystique’s life.
I like the symmetry Gillen is going for here: the first half of the Krakoa-era storytelling was propelled by an increasingly desperate Mystique trying to find ways to bring her deceased wife back to life. The second half of the Krakoa-era is about an increasingly desperate Destiny trying to find ways to prevent her wife’s death. It’s an unique approach to an epic love story.
Just as Mystique eventually found a way to her goals, I fully expect Destiny will find a way in the end (Earn Your Happy Ending, and all that). Though I don’t think this proposed alliance with Sinister is the way.
Paul > This isn’t the timeline we see here – the Immortal X-Men #3 version of Exodus seems to be primarily motivated by avenging Sinister’s destruction of paradise – but there are obvious parallels, and it may explain why the Marauder spaceship seems to be encrusted with organic growths.
This is continuing the HOX/POX idea that similar types of events occur in very Moira timeline (Dream > World > War > Ascension), but the circumstances of these events differ based on the starting point.
The Exodus in Immortal X-Men 3 had a Phoenix Host allied with him (she’s perched on his shoulder, probably Hope), whereas in this SoS timeline, Exodus had abandoned Hope centuries ago to begin worshiping himself.
Paul > Destiny’s primary motivation of averting Mystique’s death was established in Immortal X-Men #3. Basically, Destiny has acted to bring this timeline about for the sole reason that it maximised the length of Mystique’s life.
I like the symmetry Gillen is going for here: the first half of the Krakoa-era storytelling was propelled by an increasingly desperate Mystique trying to find ways to bring her deceased wife back to life. The second half of the Krakoa-era is about an increasingly desperate Destiny trying to find ways to prevent her wife’s death. It’s an unique approach to an epic love story.
Just as Mystique eventually found a way to her goals, I fully expect Destiny will find a way in the end (Earn Your Happy Ending, and all that). Though I don’t think this proposed alliance with Sinister is the way.
I mean, I kind of figured the intention with the Destiny thing was that she knew that no matter what, she would never succeed at getting the Moira clones destroyed herself, and so she took the only possible route that would allow for it to happen; i.e. allow herself to get killed to get them away from Orbis Stellaris, allowing for this point to happen 1000s of years later.
Yes, I think anyone who thought Destiny was outplayed at the end of SatBoM #2 will have to reconsider that in light of this issue.
Destiny and Mystique had, what?, a hundred+ years together? That’s more than the rest of us will get – and probably more than they’ll get the next time ’round. Irene should have a bit of perspective here.
It’s still a dystopian universe. I’m not sure why Destiny would be in favour of Sinister creating his own Dominion. Restarting the timeline seems like a good idea, regardless of the reasoning.
If Destiny can continue to restart the timeline after being together with Mystique for over one hundred years each cycle, they can (conceivably) be together for an eternity.
A hundred years together will make some couples more co-dependent, not less.
@Jon R- yes, Destiny can do remote visions. For example, in X-Force -1, she meets a young James Proudstar and sees his brother’s death. Also, the recording Desiny sent out was sent out after Destiny and Mystique stole the Moiras- she speaks of them stealing it in the past tense. So at least a decade after Immortal 3.
I agree with Jenny and Loz that Destiny was just pretending to be tricked in Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants 2. Keep in mind that by getting the World Farm away from Stellaris, Storm prevented him from becoming a Dominion and Destiny presumably didn’t want that.I have to admit I feel silly complaining that Destiny shouldn’t have been outplayed in that issue when that turns out to be part of the plot.In retrospect there was a hint that might be case in Storm’s dialogue. It is hilarious though that Storm’s Crowning Moment of Awesome took place because Storm misunderstood how Destiny’s powers work and Destiny decided to humor her.
(In Storm’s defense, even if she did suspect that Destiny was playing her, she didn’t have a choice if she wanted to stop Stellaris from becoming a Dominion.)
Illyana’s attempt to bring Limbo into the universe is another one of Destiny’s visions from Immortal X-Men 3- we saw an evil Illyana standing over the defeated X-Men and one of the bad futures was labeled “Limbic Infernality”.
Michael: Ah yeah, I wasn’t reading it that way with Destiny’s comment.. I was taking the past tense as her speaking from the now, but I think you’re right when I reread it.
Point also on X-Force -1. I think the vast majority are her seeing things centered immediately around her, but I suppose you could also just argue that’s because she’s focused on herself and Raven. 🙂
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