Captain America #12: Coates finishes the opening chapter of the epic story that he's telling as Steve finally makes his way to Sharon. It isn't exactly a happy reunion, though. Sharon makes Steve realize that the Power Elite has successfully introduced enough doubt about whether Steve actually was the Supreme Commander to make Captain America a damaged symbol. Moreover, even if people didn't believe the Power Elite, Steve is forced to acknowledge that there's no "captain" without America. This statement really picks up nicely on Spencer's work on the title, as Sam experienced what it was like to hold the shield when America isn't exactly the unifying concept that it used to be. In the end, Steve become Steve Rogers, Super-Solider once again. It's a great choice on Coates' part: no gimmicks, no costumes, just Steve. Sharon is right when she says that it's what America needs to see, and I'm looking forward to Steve and the Daughters of Liberty taking the fight to the Power Elite. I'm also excited to learn more about Aunt Peggy, who I had assumed was the Black Widow. Surprise!
Powers of X #1: Hickman is brilliant in this issue, and, if you've read this blog for a long time, you know that it's a lot for me to say that. This issue is as perfect as I can imagine one being.
The issue starts with a conversation between Charles and (allegedly) Moira back in the day, a period that Hickman dubs X0. From the start, it's clear that something isn't right: Charles doesn't recognize Moira, and I'm pretty sure that they didn't originally meet on a park bench at a fair. Moira describes for Charles the characters on three tarot cards that a fortune teller showed her: the Magician, the Tower, and the Devil. She then reveals that she does in fact know who Charles is even though he doesn't know who she is. She tells him that he does know who she is and that he should read her mind. We end this interlude with him expressing surprise as he does.
Two of the characters on the cards appear in a future set 100 years from X0, which Hickman calls X2. (The present is X1.) One character, the Magician, is clearly meant to be Kitty and Peter's daughter; her nom de guerre is Rasputin. She's both a metal metamorph and phaser and possesses a sword that looks a lot like the Soulsword. The other character, the Devil, is clearly meant to be Nightcrawler's son; his nom de guerre is the Cardinal. He's described on the card as the "red god and the lost cardinal of the last religion."
When we meet Rasputin and the Cardinal, she is trying to save a fellow mutant named Clyobel whereas the Cardinal is trying to convince Rasputin to abandon Cloybel. He's trying to use a "black seed of Krakoa" to create a portal and leave the area before the Sentinels and Hellfire Club henchmen capture all of them. Rasputin derides him as a coward and leaps into action. She comes close to holding off the Sentinels but ultimately fails in saving Cloybel, who the henchmen capture. The Cardinal manages to open the portal and escape with Rasputin to Asteroid K, where older version of Groot (?), Magneto, Wolverine, and Xorn await them. We learn that the Cardinal and Rasputin stole something from Nimrod's mainframe, but we don't know what yet.
We then learn "the Tower," described on the card as "the pillar of collapse and rebirth," is Nimrod's tower, the headquarters of the Man-Machine Supremacy that rules X2. Nimrod puts Cloybel into a "bath" that apparently merges her with an AI consciousness that he's created to catalogue mutant consciousnesses in an attempt to understand "the mutant anomaly."
In X3 (set 1,000 years from X0), Clobel is still in suspension. We learn the human-machine-mutant war has ended with the extermination of humankind. It's almost the reverse of X2, where we learn that only eight mutants remain on Earth: the remainder are refugees in the Shi'ar Imperium, living either on a converted transport station or on Chandilar to become fodder for the even expansionary Shi'ar.
These sequences obviously raise a lot of questions as they unfold, and Hickman brilliantly uses perfectly timed interstitial pages to answer at least some of them. Just as I'm noting to myself that everyone in X2 are making it sound like mutants are bred not born, Hickman explains. At some point in the future, the mutant population hit a crisis point and the "evasion-relocation-confrontation cycle" made stabilizing it impossible. (Ha! I love this description. It's like Murphy having the Joker in "Batman: Curse of the White Knight" uncover that Gotham elites were profiting off the destruction that Batman's crusade against crime caused. It's so rare that we address something so directly in comics.) We also learn that all senior leaders disappeared in an event called "the Betrayal."
With their backs against the wall, the remaining leadership supports Sinister creating breeding pits on Mars to recover the mutant population, which he does by creating mutants with specific militaristic abilities. The first generation of the Chimera program just had one single X-gene; they were used as fodder to protect Krakoa. For the second generation, Sinister spliced together two X-genes. By the third one, he was splicing together as many as five X-genes to get the outcomes that he wanted. For example, Rasputin is apparently part Phoenix (Quentin), Colossus, Unus the Untouchable (thanks, internet!), Shadowcat, and X-23. We later learn that the Cardinal is part of the ten percent of the third generation who rejected their programming: they became obsessed with creation myths and peace and rejected personal identities. They all call themselves the Cardinal, and they form the religious class of mutantkind.
However, we're still dealing with Sinister here, so it isn't surprising when we learn that he engingeered the Betrayal by introducing a flaw into the fourth generation. A group of Omega-based mutants with a "corrupted hive mind" destroyed 40 percent of the remaining mutant population and brought about the fall of Krakoa as well as the destruction of Mars as they collapsed themselves into a self-singularity. Hilariously, Sinister's betrayal, changing sides to support the Man-Machine Supremacy, went poorly for him: it later executed him. Ha! Hickman's brilliance is on display throughout this sequence when he builds tension not just with the normal scenes but also with these interstitial pages. For example, the first one simply explains the breeding process and alludes to the Betrayal. The second one describes the destruction that the fourth generation causes. It isn't until the third page that he reveals that Sinister created the destruction on purpose.
We later learn that Cloybel wasn't part of Sinister's breeding pits: the Man-Machine Supremacy created her as part of a Hounds breeding program. It's why one of the Hellfire Club henchman initially describes her as a "black brain telepath -- a natural Judas." (Again, Hickman first hints at the fact that the Man-Machine Supremacy had its own breeding program with this comment, only confirming it with an interstitial page later.)
In other words, whoa. Hickman puts a lot on the table here and it's frankly a lot to absorb. But, as he promised, it injects an energy into the X-books that we haven't seen in a long time. He's set a high bar for himself here, as he has a lot of plates spinning in the air that he has to safely guide to the ground if he's going to stick this landing. (Hi, mixed metaphors!) But, if he manages to do so, what a landing it will be!
The Realm #14: This series has always been more than its post-apocalyptic "Dungeons & Dragons comes to Earth!" setting, and this issue is a great example of that. Peck reveals that a psychophage has taken over Jacob and Ellen's son Brian; it is slowly consuming Brian's body as it takes over his conscience. (Rook only escaped its psychic hold by breaking her finger.) Molly and Rook try to convince Jacob and Ellen to let them kill it, but they refuse. Even more heartbreakingly, they acknowledge that it may go onto consume them. Jacob notes that it's the only thing left of Brian in this world, and, when they go, they'll go as a family. Maybe it's because I'm a new dad, but, man, this one hit me between the eyes. Molly and Rook try to argue with Will when he orders them to leave, but he tells them that it's Jacob and Ellen's choice to make. Honestly, I didn't even think twice before realizing that I'd make the same one. This issue really draws a line under the horror this new reality has been for everyday people, and, as such, I think that it's the best issue of the series so far.
Also Read: Conan the Barbarian #8
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