The X-Axis – w/c 11 September 2023
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #104. By Steve Foxe, Stephanie Williams, Noemi Vettori, Pete Pantazis & Travis Lanham. Continuing with the series of spotlight stories on the members of the abortive X-Men team from Hellfire Gala, this is Dazzler’s issue. She wins a “Cultural Vanguard” award for (one assumes) diversity or something. The X-Cutioner shows up to complain about mutants appropriating human culture, but everyone loves Dazzler, and she easily defeats him.
Aside from last week’s Frenzy story, these shorts aren’t working – I think there’s meant to be a bittersweet undertone knowing what happened to the characters, but the stories are far too generic to suggest that we lost very much. I don’t think you can really do a story about Dazzler as a massively popular, accepted mutant artist one week before a U-turn where apparently everyone hates mutants now and there’s no pro-mutant sympathy to be seen – well, unless the story is meant to be about the shallowness of diversity awards, but I don’t think that’s the idea. X-Cutioner isn’t the right choice of villain for this – his schtick is meant to be that he resents mutants feeling that they’re above the law, which is at least a semi-legitimate complaint. And the art doesn’t capture the sense of “the music industry’s most prestigious awards ceremony” at all – it looks way too small scale for that. Not good, I’m afraid.
X-FORCE #44. (Annotations here.) I really, really don’t like the fact that we’ve just got Orchis working in both the US and Russia without any explanation. I’m not even sure having them here adds anything to the story. Wouldn’t it have been easier to have the Russians with their own bootleg Orchis – or even to twist the knife by offering “sanctuary” to the remaining mutants? I suppose my bigger problem here is that the whole “Fall of X” set-up doesn’t feel like it’s been coherently thought through – the books keep contradicting each other; the premise is that all the mutants are gone and yet there seem to be more of them around in human society than ever; public opinion lurches to a ridiculously one-sided degree overnight, simply because That’s The Story. The exile side of the plot seems to work, but the Orchis police state rings false to me whenever it comes up.
Still. Orchis are not a key point in this issue, which is mainly about the Chronicler/Colossus mind control storyline that’s been running from the outset of this issue. And that’s a story I am interested in. I really like the idea that the limit on Chronicler’s reality-warping powers is whether he can convince himself that this works as a story. For the purposes of that plot, “Fall of X” serves a function that does seem to work, by clearing away of lot of clutter and forcing Mikhail to bring his plans to a head, or at least to change direction. His basic problem here is that he’s got his one vastly powerful mind-controller dedicated to controlling a character who is no longer of any importance or influence at all. So Mikhail wants to move on to someone more relevant, but that doesn’t work as a story. That stuff interests me, and so do the remnants of X-Force trying to find their teammates – that’s a good role for Domino and Sage. So the actual story being told here works for me – and since “Fall of X” is really no more than the occasion for that story to happen, it isn’t a huge problem.
X-MEN RED #15. (Annotations here.) Since it’s a story about a civil war on Mars, X-Men Red is even more peripherally linked to “Fall of X”. It’s about the conflict between old Arakko and the post-war version shown in X-Men Red; in this issue, that basically means the origin story of the Fisher King. The problem here is different: I’m not interested in the original version of Arakko. Fantasy isn’t my genre at the best of times, but even allowing for that, Amenth just doesn’t engage me. It feels like a trope more than a place, and the bits that are distinctive are so high concept that I can’t relate to them. Al Ewing’s done great work over the course of this series in convincing me that present-day Arakko is a real place with real characters and making me care about that. But none of that makes me any more invested in the original Arakko, because it never felt to me like “Here’s what was interesting about Arakko all along”, it felt to me like “Here’s something better that we’re replacing it with.” I don’t mind Arakko Classic so much when it’s foil for the present day version, but when it becomes a focal point, as it does here, I still don’t get what’s supposed to be interesting about it.
ASTONISHING ICEMAN #2. (Annotations here.) This, on the other hand, I’m enjoying a lot more. Yes, it’s a “Fall of X” book, but here that becomes more of a device to strip away most of the cast and give us a story with just Iceman and Romeo, something that would be trickier to do if Krakoa was still around. It’s a pleasantly straightforward story with Iceman as the last hero standing, singlehandedly running rings around the Orchis forces, even if he’s starting to wear down behind the scenes. Perhaps this issue could have made a bit more of the central gimmick of using the Elements of Doom – specifically, Helium, who can’t be frozen. Iceman seems to jump to the solution (you don’t have to attack him directly) a little bit too quickly to get maximum mileage out of that. But maybe not. Maybe it is more entertaining for Orchis to build up a sensible sounding plan and have it just fail – it’s not like Iceman doesn’t have to put in any effort, after all. He just doesn’t take long to figure out the workaround. The bigger story here is meant to be justifying Orchis’ resort to an uncontrollable lunatic in the next issue, and the finish still provides visual flair. Simple but quite satisfying.
CHILDREN OF THE VAULT #2. (Annotations here.) Another Fall of X tie-in that isn’t remotely interested in all the Orchis stuff, but just wants to take advantage of the mutants being off the board. It does seem a little odd for this storyline to go completely unreferenced in any other books, bearing in mind that it’s marketed as part of an event, but if you’re willing to let that slide, this is a pretty decent rendition of the old trope of the bad guys setting themselves up as superheroes in order get into a position of trust – with the added point that the Children are manipulating everyone’s minds as well. I like the way that the tensions between Cable and Bishop remain understated, despite their history – they’re both professionals, after all, and there are more urgent problems to worry about – though at some point the story’s surely going to have to do a little bit more with them. The psychic interrogation with Martillo is patchy; the intercutting between the real world and the psychic plane is appropriately disorienting, but the final beats are a bit too random to really get the idea across.
I get the impression that these X-Men Unlimited stories were meant to be a sort of march up to the Hellfire Gala, and to be published earlier (it is not clear otherwise why each of them is a week closer to an already published event), at least before the publication in Marvel Unlimited, which, however, was brought forward.
A bit of all Infinity Comics seems to me to have fallen a bit “behind”: the cycle devoted to Sunfire in search of Redroot was announced months ago in the pages of X-Men and we have almost forgotten about it by now.
In fairness, the people who go to pretigious entertainment award shows are also the ones least likely to espouse bigotry. Like … You don’t see a lot of avowed Trump supporters at an Oscar ceremony, so THAT part I can easily buy.
What raises my eyebrows the most about Orchis-in-Russia is that Mikhail’s mutant program being one-upped by Orchis makes sense if they’re not “on the same side.” If Orchis has free reign in Russia after Mikhail fell out of favor with the government, that should presumably be a plot point for X-Force and not something glossed over.
The timing of the gala on Unlimited has been very odd. The Infinity comics could all have been published with out reading the gala and may even had been better to bring more of a shock to people that have not read or heard about the gala. Instead we got the Gala 2 month early, 3 issues of Spiderman rushed out in a week and Funeral for a friend so we would have context for Kamala, while the X-line as continued at it’s normal pace, it has lead to a very disjointed read, and the Infinite transfer of the gala was poorly done and hard to read.
The Juggernaut issue is really good. Not much story-wise, but it makes you care for the character, what he’s gained and what he’s presumably about to lose. It does something the others don’t, in that regard.
I like some of the individual stories in Fall of X- Immortal, Red, Children of the Vault, Dark X-Men, & Iceman- but I wish their was more connectivity in the line. How is the Children of the Vault story not a main focus, all things being equal? Obviously, because it’s a side book, but in-universe they represent a threat at least comparable to Orchis. I’ll take a good story over strict continuity, but it feels odd that no other X-characters are at least commenting on the events in the Children… series.
We’ve been spoiled by a few years of really great coherence and plotting. I’m wondering how much is due to Hickman moving on (being central architect of the main story… they’ve probably run out of road from his forward plotting), or just a lack of leadership or attention to detail in the writer’s room?
Editorial hasn’t dramatically changed. But arguably this should be their job!
The problem with the X-Cutioner started earlier than this, in Marauders 6-7, when he was portrayed as a generic bigot working for Homines Vernedi.
I get the point Foxe was trying to make- the concept of cultural appropriation has gone from Native Americans complaining about non-Native sport teams using Native American mascots and names to complaining about the normal kind of borrowing between cultures that has happened for millennia- but using a former FBI agent to make this point just doesn’t work.
It seems as if using Hickman’s roadmap for “Fall of X” is a large part of the problem. We saw the outline of where Hickman was going, had he not left, in the pages of Inferno with the alternate Life Ten timeline.
The Children of the Vault emerge. Humanity unites to fight against the Children, but the Children are still winning. Humanity turns to mutantkind for help. Humans and mutants agree to work together and defeat the Children. Humanity turns on mutants and there is a war between humans and mutants.
Obviously, certain elements have been changed, but the Children of the Vault seem to be used in this event solely because they were important in Hickman’s original version.
Don’t get me wrong, the Children of the Vault book is the only series I am finding interesting with “Fall of X”. However, the story doesn’t fit with anything else happening. It feels as if it is happening in its own world.
Perhaps if they had bothered to flesh out Orchis by giving them an actual motivation beyond hating mutants. The Children of the Vault could have been an important aspect to the event, which it seems it should be, rather than a side-plot had Orchis’ agenda been the rise of post-humanity. The only way humanity can survive is to become post-human. The Children of the Vault represent everything that humanity could become. Post-humanity will create a truly utopian world, unlike the false utopia promised by Krakoa, now that mutants are gone. Orchis’ goal could be to police the planet, keeping mutants out of the picture, long enough for the Children of the Vault to succeed.
That would work. Instead, we have a disjointed event with extremely little motivation given to the main antagonists.
When groups of superhumans are pitted against each other in the Marvel universe, I always wonder how civilians keep them straight in their head. Like, they’re supposed to hate mutants now but love the Children of Tomorrow? How are they functionally different to the typical layperson? I know the answer is “suspension of disbelief,” but it still bugs me.
In re editorial coherence
I don’t really know what Marvel editorial does, because they certainly don’t maintain consistency between titles and too many books come out that don’t seem to show signs of having ever been read by another person or given any kind of constructive feedback. If you told me Jordan White only shows up to work to tell people about his beach house, I would believe you.
At the beginning of the Dawn of X era, there was an X-Slack channel where the creators talked among each other. I think that channel has been whittled down to just Ewing, Gillen, Spurrier and infrequently Duggan, with Ayala, Williams, Howard now gone, and Percy presumably just doing his own thing.
@Chris V- well, Children of the Vault is a weird mini because every time the Fall of X writers want to use outside villains, they either have Orchis recruit them (Captain Krakoa, the Battleworld Madelyne Pryor, the Elements of Doom) or have the villains specifically work against Orchis (in X-Force, Mikhail’s plan is to use the Chronicler’s powers to take over Orchis).The Children of the Vault’s plan has nothing to do with Orchis, except that they plan to kill of 99% of the planet’s population and Orchis is part of the planet’s population. (Realm of X also has nothing to do with Orcihs, but it’s taking place in its own, um, realm.)
Really, the Childen of the Vault plot has almost nothing to do with Orchis after Bishop frees Cable- their only role is Bishop sneaks past them to steal some weapons. The plot just requires Cable and Bishop to be unable to contact the other X-teams- they could be off at a Limbo contest in Limbo and the plot would proceed mostly the same way.
Yes, and that’s the problem because it should be a major part of “Fall of X”, considering the series is giving it global implications.
It could have been made to work with Orchis, if Orchis wasn’t just a bunch of generically evil mutant haters. If Orchis knew of the Children’s plan and agreed to work with them, the members of Orchis being part of an elite who will be accepted by post-humanity. Then, Orchis’ persecution of mutants could be a major plot of the event, while Children of the Vault would be a core part of the event, as it seems it wants to be but cannot.
@Mathias X I was wondering this myself. In this week’s X-Men Unlimited comic, the Juggernaut spotlight, the writers have Emma refer to Scott and Jean as Professor X’s “prodigal son and daughter,” noting that he should be happy that since his step-brother is now on the team he should be happy that he still has a familiar connection to the X-Men.
I think I can imagine what the writers had in mind here, but it doesn’t work on multiple levels.
“Prodigal” on its own means lavish, which describes neither Scott nor Jean. But of course the word is almost always used in reference to the Biblical parable. That prodigal son was wasteful and lavish and abandons his family at home, only to return home to be embraced by his father nonetheless, obviously a parable for God loving all his children despite our sinful ways. Sure, Scott and Jean left Krakoa to found the X-Men, but they aren’t lavish nor have they returned, which are the salient parts of that story.
Xavier then responds that Emma misjudges his feelings towards Cain, whom he still distrusts, only to go on to give examples of all the ways Cain struggles to be better and make up for his past, even events he wrongly blames himself for, like the death of Samy the fishboy.
So what are the editors actually doing? Deleting repeated words and checking spelling? Relaying corporate mandates?
@Joseph S.
While that might be the original definition, I’ve seen lots of uses of “prodigal son” over the years to simply refer to one who’s left but has not repentantly returned (yet), to the point where it doesn’t even make me blink. The term’s gone the route of words like “decimated” and “sentient” in that it’s specificity has gotten flattened out.
@Chris V
‘Yes, and that’s the problem because it should be a major part of “Fall of X”, considering the series is giving it global implications.’
Would the other books really be better off having to squeeze that in, though?
As I see it, when Camp submitted his outline, editorial could’ve gone one of three ways:
1) Tell him he needed to lower the scope.
2) Tell the other writers they’d need to work the Children plot into their own stuff.
3) Just let the other books ignore it.
None are ideal, but I’d far prefer 3 to 1 or 2.
ylU said: Would the other books really be better off having to squeeze that in, though?
I suppose it would be mean to say “Duggan’s X-Men“, wouldn’t it?
Ylu: “Would the other books really be better off having to squeeze that in, though?”
Individually? No. As a line? Yes. The editors should look at the storyline they already approved and (at least) insert a line of dialogue here or there, maybe stating that they have people working on it, or that Orchis is the priority, or that maybe the Children will clash with Orchis leading to one faction weakening the other… anything to make the books fit together better. It’s like when the Kang Dynasty story and “Planet X” should have had implications for the entire Marvel U in the early ‘00s, but no other books acknowledged those stories thereby weakening their impact.
So was all the stuff post ‘Sins of Sinister’ with everyone fracturing and distrusting one another just a massive red herring to keep readers distracted so the Orchis attack coming out of nowhere would be more of a surprise? Or is the idea going to be that while the heroes can come together enough to defeat Orchis and save mutants from being wiped out they can’t restore Krakoa?
@Mike Loughlin
With most storylines, I could see that. But I think the Children plot, like the Kang War you mentioned, is the sort of thing that can’t just come up in a throwaway way. By its very nature, it overshadows everything else. It’s too big a deal. You can’t really have a group of genocidal post-humans doing their thing or Kang conquering America and then have the heroes of the book go, “That’s not important just now…”
Well, actually, I suppose you could since the plot explicitly involves the Children brainwashing everyone into naively trusting them. But ‘the big threat of this book actually pales in comparison to this much bigger one that the characters are blithely blind to’ isn’t something you really want to signpost…
@ylu: “Well, actually, I suppose you could since the plot explicitly involves the Children brainwashing everyone into naively trusting them. But ‘the big threat of this book actually pales in comparison to this much bigger one that the characters are blithely blind to’ isn’t something you really want to signpost…”
That’s what I’m talking about. “EMMA: The Children are out of the Vault and… acting like super-heroes? Something’s not right. BISHOP: I’m on it. Ed. note: follow Bishop’s investigation in Children of the Atom, on sale now!”
I admit it threatens to strain credulity or diminish the main characters when they can’t suss out a secret plot, but I’d rather there’s some acknowledgment than none.
Meanwhile, over in Avengers, half a dozen cities around the world are being ravaged and destroyed, and neither the COTV nor Orchis seem to care. Or notice.