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**Best Comics Ever**

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TASCHEN — **Creannotators #14: “Exorsisters” Interview With Artist Gisele Lagace!** Aug 25, 2020
Show notes

This week on Creannotators, I talked with artist Gisele Lagace about her work on the Image Comics series *Exorsisters*, her creator-owned webcomics careers, and the benefits of funding comics through Kickstarter.

On Comic Book Herald’s ‘Creannotators’ I’ll be interviewing some of my favorite creators in comics about specific runs, graphic novels or series, looking for their insights on the inspirations behind the work and ideas or hidden material readers may have missed. Creannotators is an audio/visual annotative guide to enjoying the intricacies and thinking in the art. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the comics!

*Exorsisters* is the story of two “sisters” with a connection to hell, demons, and a business helping people out with those pesky exorcisms they may need. It’s a light-hearted supernatural look at heaven, hell, and family.

You can find more from Gisele’s webcomics at https://www.pixietrixcomix.com/.

*Exorsisters Is:*

Writer: Ian Boothsby

Artist: Gisele Lagace

Colors: Pete Pantazis

Letters: Taylor Esposito

Editor: Branwyn Bigglestone

Production: Carey Hall

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Music for Best Comics Ever by Anthony Weis. Check out more music at anthonyweis.com.

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The post Creannotators #14: “Exorsisters” Interview With Artist Gisele Lagace! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Classified leader of the Swordbearers — **Krakin’ Krakoa #77: X Of Swords (X of Storms) Theory: Who Is Ashake?** Aug 23, 2020
Show notes

I get a fair amount of Krakin’ Krakoa sleuths sending me theories and links about X-Men, which is a really fun way to see that people are engaging with the comics and with my own obsessing about them. In response to my *X-Men FCBD 2020* video review, and theories about *X of Swords* and the mysterious Swordbearers of Arakko, a listener sent me their theory on the “Classified” apparent leader of the bunch. I stored the link away for later, but now that I’ve looked into it, I’m 98% certain their theory is spot on – I can’t for the life of me determine exactly who sent me this, so I just want to be clear I take zero credit for unearthing this, and want to thank everyone who sends me wild X-men theories to get my wheels spinning!

**X of Storms**

In my *X of Swords* Chapter 1 video, I theorized that the Swordbearer since titled “Classified” (for the record, it would be hilarious if that’s just her Swordbearer name) was Storm. My rationale was first that the half visible personage of the character on the “Eight of Cups” is a black woman with all white eyes, but second that the text ties to Storm’s journey:

“That which was once the harmonious lifting of voices is now a mocking echo –then silence.”

In House of X #5, as we learn about Krakoa’s resurrection capabilities, it’s Storm who introduces the resurrected X-Men team to the island of mutants. This to me signifies her “harmonious lifting of voices,” literally leading the island in a chant of “Mutant!” with each new lineup introduction. We’ll know more for sure following *Giant-Size X-Men: Storm #1*, but the “mocking echo” potentially signifies the Children of the Vault corruption of Storm taking place across the “Giant-Size” specials.

A bunch of listeners have been asking why it’s a big deal that Storm has 30 days to live following *Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost*, since mutants can just be resurrected. Aside from the flippant, it still probably sucks to die, I think the bigger problem here is that Storm is threatened with a kind of infective transformation *like* death, but not equal to it. It’s conceivable to me that the Vault’s infection could take root, and Storm could be transformed into an “enemy,” which given her commitment to the X-Men and mutantkind throughout her life, would be a kind of waking death.

Plus, given that the now fully revealed cover of Marauders #14 is an incredible Russell Dautermann and Matt Wilson depiction of Storm dancing with Death (of Apocalypse Horsing fame), it remains very possible that my gut instinct was correct and good ol’ “Classified” is, in fact, Ororo Monroe. Of course this could also just be a fun allusion to the adage “a dance with death,” but I’m sticking to my theory!

**X of Storms Past**

Like I said at the start, though, there’s a literally related theory that works even better! And it’s that “Classified” is Ashake!

If you’re not familiar with the character Ashake, don’t worry, I didn’t know her by name either. Ashake first appeared in *New Mutants #32* in 1985, during a saga that found Magik and Mirage, aka Dani Moonstar, transported approximately 5,000 years into the past in Ancient Egypt (unrelated to this theory, but the issues through around #34 are pretty interesting for my renewed interest in Shadow King!).

For approximately 1 page and 1 panel, a mysterious sorceress named Ashake appears to the time-lost New Mutants and provides them sanctuary. Illyana and Dani are struck by how similar Ashake looks to their X-Men mentor Ororo Monroe, Storm, and Ashake is able to divine across time that Storm is a future descendant of hers! Wildly, this entire meeting is over in a flash, and Ashake helps Magik and Dani travel back to the future (naturally, they overshoot the present, and hijinX ensue).

This is an extraordinarily brief appearance, and would be even more of a deep cut reference if that’s all we had, but Ashake actually made a return 23 years later in the 4 issue 2008 miniseries *Mystic: Arcana*. This is where things *really* get compelling, in a flashback story written by Louise Simonson, set during the events of the aforementioned *New Mutants #32*.

*Mystic Arcana: Magik #1* explores the full-fledged adventure Magik and Ashake experience in the past in an untold tale.

A couple thoughts right off the bat —

Tarot Cards play a major role throughout *Mystic Arcana*, which pretty seamlessly connects possible relevance to the Tarot based upcoming crossover event *X of Swords*. Indeed, the term Arcana is used in the “Major Arcana” which references the 22 trump cards (for our non card players, no, this has nothing to do with American politics, thank heavens) in a standard 78 card Tarot pack. Ashake quite literally makes her own Tarot cards with painted images on sheets of bone.

I also love how Simonson and the team are able to dig back into this all too brief moment from an issue of *New Mutants* nearly a quarter century in the past and give it new life, and breath new character into Ashake. It’s a cool reflection of some of comic book’s most unique properties, that these stories and universes are intertwining and connected across decades of real world time, and that something seemingly as tossed-aside as Storm’s long lost great great great great (etc) grandmother could be a major plot point in the future.

In *Mystic Arcana,* Illyana and Ashake are effectively forced to retrieve the Sword of Bone, one of the 4 cornerstones of creation, which eventually becomes the sword of Ashake, as her purity of will is the only capable of tapping into the swords energies. At the conclusion of the four part mini, Ashake returns to aid the forces of good, and then effectively goes her own way in the mystic dimensions, freeing her up to basically anything any storytellers would want to do next. Things like make her a focal point of *X of Swords*.

It’s a tangential detail, but I’ll also note that the second cornerstone of creation is found in the possession of Morgan Le Fey, who of course is currently being held experiment-prisoner by Apocalypse as he uses her magics to make connections from Otherworld to wherever we’re going in *X of Swords*.

**The Stormbearers of Arakko**

Ok, so there are some pretty cool connections here, but a couple major questions remain. First let’s back up a second to look at what we know about the Swordbearers of Arakko. The most relevant info to date is that the first Horsemen of Apocalypse are among the Swordbearers, and until we knew there were 10 Swordbearers, it was my understanding that Apocalypse was primarily planning a rescue mission solely for these four most favored. While it’s not *just* this, a rescue mission for Apocalypse’s first horsemen is what I’ve been predicting *X of Swords* would be about literally since it was announced.

Intriguingly, while War and Death are named among the Swordbearers, Pestilence and Famine are not. Bei The Blood Moon looks like the character *could be* one of the 4 based on the limited images we’ve seen of the group, but the horsemen with an eyeball head is nowhere to be found. Whatever the reason – they haven’t survived the eternal war standing in the gap, the character designs have changed since launch, somebody told Hickman and company that Eye design was way too similar to Jason Aaron’s love for Orb – we know the first horsemen are a part of this group, but most of the group (up to 80%) is from *somewhere else*. So if “Classified” is Ashake, it’s likely she would know Apocalypse, but she is not necessarily one of his first horsemen.

For what it’s worth, we first meet Ashake during an era of BC Ancient Egypt which doubles as the approximate timeframe of the “Rise of Apocalypse” in civilization. So I haven’t seen any direct interaction, but it’s not impossible that they could have met and established a relationship during this time period. My gut feeling, though, is that Ashake / “Classified” is not one of the first horsemen. Given her ties to magic and mystical dimensions – Ashake worships the Egyptian goddess Ma’at, also known as Oshtur, the mother of Agamotoo (of “eye of” fame) – it seems quite believable that Ashake’s path would have taken her to the mystical realms beyond Otherworld that are converging upon everyone leading up to *X of Swords*.

It’s also tantalizing to consider that while Ashake may not be a ‘horsemen’ she could fall into a “Mother Akkaba” role similar to what we see Moira inhabiting in her ninth life as revealed in the pages of *Powers of X*.

Tying it all back to the character’s appearance on the Tarot ‘8 of Cups’ tease in the FCBD special, the ‘8 of Cups’ most common interpretation effectively boils down to a rousing rendtion of the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I go?” She’s been in limbo fighting for who knows how long, and now she has this choice.

**Bonus Theory: X of Storms That May Yet Pass**

A variation on the Ashake theory that I’m quite proud of is that the “Classified” lead swordbearer *is in fact* Storm, but from a different future. And this would be the sorceress Storm that Illyana thought she killed in Limbo during the *Magik* four issue miniseries.

The story of *Magick*, Illyana Rasputin, is timey-wimey and complicated, and I’ve recapped elsewhere on Krakin’ Krakoa, but the general idea is that a version of the X-Men that traveled to the realm of Limbo were stuck behind, including a version of Storm who grew older and became a fairly advanced sorceress. This Storm rescues Illyana from Belasco’s hellish clutches for a time, and teaches her – or attempts to teach her – some of the magic she knows to try and help Illyana. Ultimately, Illyana is kinda forced to kill Storm in order to prevent her soul from being taken by the Elder Gods.

BUT – Limbo is timey-wimey as hell, and it would be more than possible to bring Limbo-Storm back through magic-time shenanigans. This actually feels like a best of both worlds outcome because it ties in Limbo, Illyana, and Storm heavily to *X of Swords*. All of which, of course, helps pave the way to a good ol’ Inferno 2.0 event coming in 2021.

The post Krakin’ Krakoa #77: X Of Swords (X of Storms) Theory: Who Is Ashake? appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

**Krakin’ Krakoa #73: Did Hickman Actually Retcon Mister Sinister?** Aug 16, 2020
Show notes

The word retcon gets thrown around – sometimes wildly, sometimes recklessly – a lot in comic book circles to describe an act of rewriting a character’s history, changing seemingly fundamental details long thought to be that character’s truth. Spelled out, it’s “retro continuity,” or a sort of revisionist history that upends a status quo. For me it effectively boils down to one question: Does this irrevocably change the way we read the character’s previous appearances in comics?

In the world of writer Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men, a good example is the revelations of *House of X* #2, in which the longtime human ally of the X-Men, Moira MacTaggert, is revealed to not only be a mutant, but a mutant with the power to reincarnate across lifelines with all memories of her previous lives in tact. While retcon has negative connotations – comics fans don’t have a sterling history with adapting to change – the Moira retcon is the centerpiece of the Krakoa era of X-Men. Call it a retcon, call it evolution, call it “I don’t care, this story rocks,” either way it’s the engine that drives this ship. And you can’t read Moira’s appearances in *Uncanny X-Men* now without that in mind.

Another possible character retcon in the works – one that fans have been questioning and debating since *House of X* / *Powers of X* – is Mister Sinister. Until recently, I hesitated really engaging with this question, but recent issues in the Dawn of X have increasingly added layers to the question whether or not Hickman’s working through a sizable Mister Sinister retcon as well.

I’ll start from the earliest suspicions about the longtime X-Villain, and work forward through the Dawn of X to the most recent clues to determine what’s really happening with Mister Sinister here.

(Snack) Bar Sinister

**Glam Rock Sinister**

In the first major appearance of Mister Sinister in *Powers of X* #4, our boy Nathaniel Essex takes the stage like a wrecking ball. He’s fabulous, motormouthed, and practically something out of an R-Rated Loony Tunes special. On this alone, plenty of readers were asserting that this wasn’t *their* Mister Sinister, the cold calculating genetics villain obsessed with Summers DNA but certainly *not* with epic capes.

This, though, is far from a retcon. Instead it’s really just the natural progression of how modern creators prefer to write the character, most notably coalesced in the Kieron Gillen written *Uncanny X-Men*. In “Everything is Sinister,” Gillen struck a goldmine for the character, endlessly cloned, running his own Sinister society, and yes, *finally* funny. Crucially, Gillen’s Sinister is gloriously ludicrous (he uses clone Sinister cows as bombs against Emma Frost) and *still* ultimately threatening (he guns for the power of Celestials and the Phoenix over the course of the run).

This is the template everyone since has followed to some degree or another, whether in shorter appearances like *Spider-Man and the X-Men* or Hickman’s own trial run in the 2015 *Secret Wars* event. If you’re less *into* this version of the character than the tired Summers and Grey obsessed geneticist of the 90’s, sure, but that doesn’t make it a retcon. On the surface it just means times have changed.

**Sinister’s Past**

The revelation that Professor X and Magneto are working with a mutant Mister Sinister is where we start getting into more interesting waters. Despite his presence as an X-Men villain since the late 80’s (cemented with his role in 1989’s *Inferno*), Mister Sinister was not actually known as *a mutant* until this moment.

On the surface, it’s hard to argue against this measuring up to retcon status. Not only is this version of Mister Sinister actually a mutant, but he’s been working – at least theoretically – at the behest of Charles Xavier and Magneto for years before the launch of Krakoa.

The initial meeting (from Powers of X #4) occurs during the nebulous timeframe of X^0 “The X-Men: Year One,” during a period where Magneto and Professor X were allied. It’s also (apparently) the first meeting between Sinister and these two, as Sinister wonders how they know about his work in genetics. In comics publication terms, this would most likely put the meeting between 1981’s Uncanny X-Men #150 (when Magneto first begins to really develop some potential allyship with the X-Men), and I’d argue 1986’s “Mutant Massacre” (while he doesn’t appear, Sinister is first named in this event, which he orchestrates).

Crucially, during this meeting the first Sinister in charge is not actually that interested in prioritizing the study of mutant DNA. He denies “mutantdom” as a cause of his. For his grandstanding, this Sinister clone is promptly shot in the head by the Sinister with the mutant gene (or at least, one of them). Xavier then mentally convinces him to prioritize mutant DNA collection, giving us the Summers / Grey obsessed Sinister we know throughout X-Men history, telling him he’ll forget this is because of Professor X and Magneto until the day the Prof wants him to remember.

The whole visit is a fairly neat trick because it allows a “secret history” while ostensibly maintaining Sinister as we’ve known him throughout X-Men comics history.

At the same time, “Sinister Secret #10” tells us – again, with whatever certainty we can put in Sinister’s gossip mag! – that we’re following a new Sinister in the Dawn of X; one that’s well aware of Professor X and Magneto’s previous attempts at brainwashing. As the secret reads:

“Which brainwashed mutant Sinister was replaced long before a certain bald somebody knew and has been in on the game for almost as long as the game was being played? Shhhhhh!”

So, we don’t know when the Sinister in on the game “took over,” but it’s entirely possible he’s been working out his own schemes as long as Sinister’s been in X-Men comics. This likelihood makes moments like Sinister’s experiments in the Kieron Gillen written Uncanny X-Men stand out so much more, when his experiments on mutant clones of Gambit, Summers, and Sabretooths, include a pit of the Phalanx!

Intriguingly, there is one extremely fun theory about Sinister’s Secrets – one I didn’t fit into my 20 theories for each secret Krakin’ Krakoa video – that takes this retcon to the next level.

The very first “Sinister Secret” states: “He’s trying to pretend that no one noticed he was wearing red shoes, but this truly sinister Sinister isn’t fooling anyone.” I had a bunch of theories on what this *might* mean, but it wasn’t until I heard a tidbit on *Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men* that anything really blew my mind.

On the podcast, Miles mentioned that right after *Giant-Size X-Men* #1, in the two part *Uncanny X-Men* #94 and #95, the All-New All-Different X-Men lose Thunderbird, who sacrifices himself on the mission. Due to a coloring error, shortly before Thunderbird’s death, there’s a brief panel where Thunderbird, John Proudstar, is suddenly wearing red shoes – in every other appearance, they’re blue.

This alone could easily fall into the ephemera of inside baseball comics facts, but for Sinister Secret #5 which states:

“Certain people are wondering where the tyrant-dispelling Sinister got his mutant gene. And while that really isn’t an interesting story, whom the DNA originally belonged to is. [John Proudstar/Thunderbird]”

Connecting the dots, what if that red shoed Proudstar was a Sinister clone (or Sinister himself), masquerading as John Proudstar? This would insert Sinister into the formation of the All-New All-Different X-Men, with access to the X-Mansion and all the potential secrets that might entail!

Here’s a version of how this could play out: Sinister captures John Proudstar, steals his DNA, then uses that to sneak his way into Xavier’s new X-team. He fakes his own death (or sends a clone with a kamikaze trigger) once he’s acquired the information he needs to secretly plot against Professor X, Moira, Magneto and company.

There are approximately a gajillion other possible integrations, but either way, Sinister’s involvement in this era of X-Men, puts his hands all over the formation of the most well known X-Men team of all time, much like his hands are all over the entire history of the Summers’ brothers.

Couple this with the *X-Men Legacy* revelation that Mister Sinister implanted a backup of himself into a young Charles Xavier to ensure his immortality, and I’m looking around Krakoa wondering who *isn’t* being directed by Nathaniel Essex on this island?

**Lil Baby Essex**

The most recent entry in the case for Sinister’s retcon came in the pages of *Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex*, in a detail so seemingly besides the point, I didn’t even really begin to see what was in play until a number of eagle eyed Krakin’ Krakoa listeners called it out in the comments.

The *Fantomex* one-shot opens with a sequence of two scientists discussing their baby clone factory. One observes that among the randomly generated clones, there are two exact replicas (which is apparently unlikely to the point of near impossibility). The head tells him to keep one, and “throw away” the other, and one baby is given a circle on their forehead, and the other a diamond.

Now, as the issue plays out, every implication is that these two babies grow up to become Fantomex and Ultimaton (aka Weapon XV). *But* when you’re telling a story in the world of X-Men, and you choose to place a diamond on someone’s forehead, that raises Sinister questions!

A handful of Krakin’ Krakoa commenters have wondered if that could be baby Sinister. Personally, I find this quite unlikely for a few reasons. First, the remainder of the issue has absolutely nothing to do with Sinister, nor does he *appear* to have a likely role in the upcoming and final *Giant-Size X-Men Storm*. Second, we know Nathaniel Essex was born in England in the 1800’s, and while we aren’t given a date, there’s not much reason to believe this lab is set in that time period (although to be fair, until this issue we had no idea Fantomex had a history dating back as far as World War II).

That doesn’t mean I don’t think Sinister could be involved though. In fact, I think it’s actually very likely that one of the Doctors we see here is in fact a disguise of Mister Sinister’s.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think Sinister could be involved though. In fact, I think it’s actually very likely that one of the Doctors we see here is in fact a disguise of Mister Sinister’s. Not only does Mr Sinister have a history with the Weapon X program (see the early 2000’s Weapon X series for examples), but he’s basically a walking “was secretly involved in every part of your past” machine.

Just ask Cyclops, or again from X-Men Legacy, Professor X. Adding a secret degree of control to the rise of Fantomex and Ultimaton is a billion percent up Sinister’s alley, although certainly to what end is entirely up for unfounded theorizing.

This doesn’t really retcon anything I know about Sinister, but it adds yet another corner of the X-Men Universe under his thumb.

**So Is He Retconned Or Not?**

Strictly based on what we actually know to date, making this version of Sinister a mutant is close to a retcon! The problem is that since we don’t know when the Sinister aware of the Professor and Magneto’s grander plans really took over, it’s close to impossible to nail down any history of the character at odds with what Hickman’s presented since.

The potential change for me comes depending on what Mister Sinister knows and when. Again, Sinister is a virtual retcon engine by design, making him extremely difficult to truly change in ways that don’t reflect his creation. The character travels in secret origins, so what’s one more?

If the Red Shoes theory turns out to be true, though, all bets are off, and the history of Mister Sinister has the potential to be deeply changed. Not only might he have infiltrated the X-Men at their New Genesis, but who’s to say he didn’t hack into a secret conversation between Moira and Charles during his time at Xavier’s? If this Sinister is the one true Sinister aware of the brainwashing, then he’s integrated into the whole fabric of X-Men in ways we never could have guessed. And yes, I’d say that validates Moira’s fear of the schemer, and puts him firmly into an epic retcon I’m more than happy see play out.

The post Krakin’ Krakoa #73: Did Hickman Actually Retcon Mister Sinister? appeared first on Comic Book Herald.

Are the X-Men Villains Now? | Krakin’ Krakoa #68 Aug 09, 2020

Show notes

Even during the promotional build to Jonathan Hickman’s takeover as the “Head of X,” there was theorizing that Charles Xavier – if that even was our once and future Professor X, adorned in his Maker-esque Cerebro helmet at all times – and the X-Men would be taking on a more sinister, antagonistic role in the Marvel Universe. Through House of X / Powers of X, the establishing of Krakoa as a sovereign mutant nation, and now one year into the Dawn of X the question has persisted: Are the X-Men villains now? I see this thinking and question pop up with virtually every new episode of Krakin’ Krakoa and given the persistence – and the degree to which this progression clearly bothers some readers – I think it’s worth laying out the case for why readers would think this, and why I ultimately wholeheartedly disagree with the assertion. Spoilers for comics in the Dawn of X may follow! The X-Men Are Behaving Differently – This Doesn’t Reflect Charles Xavier’s Dream! One of the core tenets of X-Men since Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created the franchise in Marvel’s 60’s Silver Age is Professor Charles Xavier’s dream that mutants and humans can co-exist peacefully together. Over the years, and coalesced across media like the X-Men Animated Series and the early 2000’s Patrick Stewart helmed film franchise, the message has become the ultimate amalgamation of “Turn the other cheek,” “Love thy neighbor,” and “I have a dream.” In Uncanny X-Men #1 (then just “X-Men,” although according to Kirby, he originally wanted to call the team “The Mutants” which is a book title I’m still waiting for in the Dawn of X), Professor X states his mission as follows: “When I was young, normal people feared me, distrusted me! I realized the human race is not yet ready to accept those with Extra powers! So I decided to build a haven… a school for X-Men!” “…We learn to use our powers for the benefit of mankind… to help those who would distrust us if they knew of our existence.” “Not all [mutants] want to help mankind! Some hate the human race, and wish to destroy it! Some feel that the mutants should be the real rulers of Earth! It is our job to protect mankind from those… from the Evil Mutants!” By the time Jonathan Hickman took over the franchise in 2019, this dream had evolved heavily. Krakoa is a nation exclusively for mutantkind – all of mutantkind regardless of their past actions, some of which are particularly heinous. In regards to the new drugs that Krakoa produces, and make life for all on the planet significantly better, Professor X says in a speech to all humans in House of X #6: “In the past they would have been a gift. Something freely given by me to you because I believed it would create harmony between our two peoples. That was my dream–harmony–but you have taught me a harsh lesson: That dream was a lie.” He goes on: “We wanted to save you–and we did, many times–but in return all you did was stand by while evil men killed our children. Over 16 million of them. So there will be no gift for you have not earned it.” I can see how this progression might seem like a jump to some, and clearly it spawned plenty of theories that this isn’t really Professor X. That this feels at odds with the X-Men of the past is no doubt intentional, and meant to represent the earnest assertion that this is something new (probably the thing I personally crave most in superhero storytelling today). Keep in mind, though, It’s not like we jumped from the Silver Age idealism of Professor X to the Krakoa era and Professor X admitting his dream was the wrong dream. Throughout the 2000’s in particular, the X-Men franchise have seen the following developments (among many, many others): 16 million mutants were murdered by Casandra Nova in “E is for Extinction” 1 million mutants were suddenly depowered in the aftermath of House of M, nearly finalizing mutant extinction and ensuring no new mutants until the appearance of Hope Summers in Messiah CompleX The X-Men – led by Cyclops – formed the island nation of Utopia in an effort to create a new safe haven for all mutants Cyclops and his Phoenix Five straight up took over the world imbued with the powers of the Phoenix in Avengers vs. X-Men Many mutants were driven to literal Limbo in an effort to escape a worldwide Inhumans virus that would decimate their numbers once again So again, when we get to House of X / Powers of X, and the revelations of Moira X convincing Professor X – over time, mind you – that his beautiful dream means mutants always lose, it’s also within the context of everything that’s come before, much of it tragic, traumatic, and terrible. Even through this modern legacy of near extinction, the inability to quote-on-quote solve mutant prejudice isn’t for lack of trying. From 2012 through 2017, Marvel’s Uncanny Avengers squad sought to improve human and mutant relations by combining an Avengers unit full of superpowered humans and mutants. Mutants have been saving an ungrateful world every week, even in their darkest moments. This is why House of X #4 breaks the mold so intentionally, calling attention to most of the known violent acts against mutants throughout Marvel history, and with Professor X so emotionally and resolutely resolving “No More.” When the context of your existence is prejudice, massacres, and zero progress, how do you keep playing out the same cycles expecting a different result? What good is a dream if you can’t have a better one? The Two Sides of Professor X Specifically in regards to Charles Xavier, there’s been a retroactive sainthood applied to the character that is deeply, deeply misguided. Modern stories have certainly painted the Professor as more and more ethically compromised, but frankly this behavior runs a course through his entire history. At this point, I definitely tend to associate the more generous interpretations of Professor X to cultural osmosis of his onscreen presence instead of his actual appearances in comics. The 2000’s for Professor X are a sequence of revisionist history revealing he enslaved a sentient artificial intelligence (now known as Danger) and sent 3rd Summers brother Gabriel and a team of mutants to their deaths on a Krakoa rescue mission, followed by the Professor getting shot and nearly killed in Messiah CompleX then actually killed by a Dark Phoenix possessed Scott Summers in Avengers vs. X-Men. If you’re of the mindset that certainly things were better in the halcyon days of Chris Clarmeont and collaborators, I’d point you to any variety of actions such as wiping Spider-Man’s memory during Secret Wars, threatening to wipe Storm’s memory during Secret Wars, bailing on the team and especially the New Mutants to gallivant in space with Lilandra time after time, possibly coercing Gabriel Haller to fall in love with him, being the literal worst Dad, and finishing second in the Silver Age power rankings for the “Faked Your Own Death” awards to only Doctor Doom. So, yes, I do think the Professor’s history supports him ending up in this position, especially when you factor in the radical truth of Moira MacTaggert. The Moira factor is ultimately the only thing that matters, and given that her lifelines tell the Professor she tried it his way multiple times, and they all ended in extermination for mutantkind, of course he’d eventually break and need to try something else. The only real question there is why he waited as long as he did. What Are the X-Men’s Crimes? If we’re going to consider the assertion that the mutants of the Marvel Universe are behaving like supervillains, all this background is essential. It’s a bit of a strawman argument because it’s not an opinion I share, but I believe the thinking is effectively that mutants have not only turned their backs on humanity but have declared themselves superior to humankind, and at least implicitly deemed humankind – and their Sentinel / Nimrod manufacturing ways – the enemy. More than once I’ve seen readers label the new look franchise “Mutant Supremacists,” which certainly is an ideology most commonly associated with Marvel’s villains, however nuanced, such as Magneto or Apocalypse. There are a couple key details that keep the Krakoa era X-Men from falling into this simple trap, and it’s in the nuance that the aggregate collective of all of mutantkind -or much of it as it stands – is deliberately not set up as an enemy to humankind. First, I think of Scott Summers speaking to Marvel’s first family – the absolute center and embodiment of non-mutant power in the Marvel Universe – in House of X #1. Reed and Susan Richards have a chance to question the mutant’s move to Krakoa, and the appearances of it all, and Scott replies: “My family has spent our entire lives being hunted and hated. The world has told me that I was less when I knew I was more. Did you honestly think that we were going to sit around forever and just take it?” Mutants should not have to subjugated and harassed due to the fears of small-minded people in order to play by the imagined rules of decency that have never extended to mutants themselves. The idea that mutants should be locked in this endless cycle of persecution and unaccountable violence in order to retain their “goodness” is increasingly flawed. I get the ideal. I quite love the hope of Professor X’s early dream. It’s a very nice dream. But it wasn’t working. So, no, storytellers don’t have to repeat the same old song and hope for a different outcome. The actual extension of the mutant metaphor as it extends to real life oppressed minorities – and please keep in mind this is a fictional metaphor and it’s not my intention to equate the two – is served more poignantly right now through a group that says enough is enough. No More! It’s not supremacy to want a better, fairer life. It’s not supremacy to demand change. Crucially, too, Krakoa is not actually mutantkind fighting back via direct and obvious violence. Magneto details the philosophy most eloquently in X-Men #4 (paraphrased significantly here for brevity since Mags gets real into his soliloquy): “…We will take the outrageous sums of money you will gives us because it also means more wealth for you… and we will buy your banks. We will buy your schools. We will buy your media. We will buy your politicians. And then.. we will buy you because you have taught us that everything has a price. [We will use this influence] to make sure the wrong sort of people – and you know who – no longer have any economic power. And that is how it will end. Like a fire with no oxygen… There will be no war.” When you think about the state of Marvel’s comparable nation-states – the Inhumans of Attilan, Namor’s Atlanteans, even T’Challa’s Wakandans – they too keep a distinct geopolitical status that in many ways separates them from the rest of the world. The Inhumans in particular are rarely integrated into actual international politics (there are, of course, exceptions), have not attempted to integrate through selfless acts of heroism nearly as often as the X-Men, yet are rarely questioned as outright villains. Naturally, a huge part of this is the X-Men’s popularity and status. If House of X taught us anything, it’s that literally nothing in Marvel comic books can capture fandom’s attention like good, interesting X-Men. Still, mutants of the Krakoa era are simply putting themselves on the same playing field as several other in-universe civilizations. That they’re good at the game does not make them villains. The Crime of Troubling Ethics More specifically, the X-Men’s new status as a global superpower has led to a number of decisions ranging from ethically dubious to outright criminal. The first handful that jump to mind include: Emma Frost psychically manipulating members of the international voting community to get Krakoa sovereign status Creation of a Mutant CIA in X-Force that both easily throws away Krakoa’s “Kill No Man” law, and, under the unregulated direction of Beast, has covertly interfered in a variety of international spy games, in the case of Terra Verde leading to what may well be a genocide Sentencing Sabretooth to an endless waking imprisonment inside an as yet unexplained pit of Krakoa – I don’t even think Sabretooth should have escaped justice but hot damn The increasing number of times the “Kill No Man” law has been violated by X-Force, Wolverine, or even twisted by Gorgon in the pages of X-Men #4. Professor X threatening Reed Richards and wiping his memory without permission in X-Men/Fantastic Four #4 I’m sure there are more. Virtually all of the crimes – Sabretooth perhaps notwithstanding – can be boiled down to the long term goal of survival, and the messy business of truly running a nation. Point to a global superpower that does everything right and a historian will point you to example after example of compromise, mistakes, and lasting shame. While I don’t know that this outright forgives the action, it certainly makes it understandable to me. It’s a lot of compromise to be sure. I’ve been saying for a while now in X-Force that Hank McCoy’s actions in particular are truly too far gone – to the point that meeting a Sabretooth like punishment eventually does not seem preposterous. But on the whole, the actions are those of a group playing for the long term survival of their species. Nothing they’ve done so far is particularly surprising or so egregious that it doesn’t fall within what I’d expect. The Allusion of Impropriety Perhaps moreso than what we’ve actually seen in the Hickman era of X-Men so far, the possibility of sinister – of the Mister variety and otherwise – action is a tempting rabbit hole. Because we’re completely in the dark on Moira and the Professor’s plans since the conclusion of Powers of X, the possibility – and outright teases – of a darker truth at the center of Krakoa is unquestionably a credible argument to suspect foulplay. Moira MacTaggert, in her 10th life, and scheming for mutant survival based on everything she has learned, is hiding things. She is hiding things from mutants at large (her existence, her powers, and the fact that “mutants always lose”), she is hiding things from Professor X (as we’ve seen in her “redacted” journal entries), and she is hiding things from mutants who don’t even know she exists (for example, Mystique and Moira’s demands that Destiny never be resurrected to avoid precognitive mutants). Given the secrecy, there’s a strong possibility that her longterm plan features elements mutantkind would resist. And if this is the case, and there’s a darker truth to all of Krakoa, then the actions of the mutant nation are unknowingly complicit in everything they do. This is also where we start to get into the allegations that many of the Krakoan mutants are not here of their own free will. There are definitely instances of converts to Krakoa that give me pause. I’ve talked before about the jump from Jean Grey’s call for understanding between mutants and humans in X-Men Red to Jean’s place on the Quiet Council in the Dawn of X. Yes, peeling the curtain back, there’s the practical matter that writer Tom Taylor was crafting X-Men Red prior to the vision of Hickman’s House of X, but on a purely fictional level, the two Jeans are incongruous. Here’s Jean’s beautiful philosophy in X-Men Red: “The X-Men will fight for you anyway” “You’re always so quick to confuse empathy with weakness. Empathy isn’t weakness. It just means we have something bigger than ourselves to fight for. And that makes us dangerous.” Now factor in the fact that we know Jean has been resurrected at least once via Krakoan resurrection protocols (and the fact that she’s suddenly very into her Marvel Girl costume), and it’s not unreasonable to wonder if alterations could have been made. The very likely possibility that revelations of this nature is where the Dawn of X is heading is the closest I come to thinking the X-Men could tilt full villain. Imagine, for example, that Moira’s plan involves sacrif…

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