I'm going to put these issues in what I think is their chronological order, though it isn't the order in which I read them.
X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1: Despite its 66-page length, this issue is pretty to the point.
Beyond the naming of the new X-Men team, this issue's most significant development is Moira informing Druig (the Eternal) and an accomplice that the Five are the secret to Krakoa's resurrection protocols. As we'll see in "A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment" #1, Druig uses this information as inspiration to remove the "deviant" mutants from Earth.
That said, Moira's other actions in this issue don't particularly make sense. At the risk of exposing herself to the Krakoans (as she eventually does), Moira inhabits Mary Jane Watson's body in order to attend the Hellfire Gala. (Mary Jane is apparently Emma's new spokesperson for the Krakoan medicines initiative because it's helping with Aunt Anna's dementia.) Apparently, Moira's only reason for attending the Gala is so that she can taunt Proteus by telling him that she never loved him, seeing his creation as merely necessary to bring about the resurrection protocols. Duggan never explains why Moira does so, particularly now. Given the attention the Gala attracts, it seems she had plenty of other avenues to taunt Proteus. I assume she had reasons why she did so and did so now, but again Duggan doesn't delve into them.
In terms of setting up later developments, Tony learns from Reed that Charles and Erik stole his memories of suppressing the X-gene, which sets up an alliance between them. But Tony also informs Emma that they did so. Scott eventually gets to talk to a reeling Emma, revealing to her that Nathaniel Essex is Dr. Stasis. he tells her that he and Jean only trust her with this information, which inspires her to tell him about Moira. She also tells him what Charles and Erik did to Reed, and he shares her concern that they're almost too far gone.
We have other developments whose directions are less clear. Dr. Stasis appears to invade one of the secret Krakoan facilities where the mutants grow the Flowers of Krakoa that produce the medicines. I'm assuming Moira told him about its location, though Duggan never confirms that. At any rate, he not only seems to steal one of the Flowers but also detonate the facility. Either way, I don't buy it. Shouldn't someone be guarding it? I'm pretty sure the Quiet Council knew that Moira was still in the wind. Since she knows all their secrets, wouldn't they have been more careful with one of the more important ones? Couldn't they see that the Gala was a perfect time for a raid?
In other words, meh. For all it seems like we're going to war with Orchis soon, we're actually going to war with the Eternals. Although I'm stoked that Firestar, Havok, and Iceman joining the X-Men, this promised fight with Orchis is starting to drag out way too long. We need at least a skirmish soon lest it becomes the X-Men's Kindred. [Shudder.]
Immortal X-Men #4: Ugh. I just can't with this series.
On the plus side, we finally get somewhere when it comes to the Sinister drama, as Emma relays Scott's discovery to the Council that someone claiming that he's the "real" Nathaniel Essex is Dr. Stasis. As Emma says, it's hard to tell by his reaction if Sinister knew or not. He opens a portal to escape to his lab. Destiny is standing next to where the portal is and, as he passes through it, tells him not to be a coward. As he prepares to activate a Moira to burn this reality, Destiny's words give him pause. Instead, he returns to the Council to offer his apologies. However, as we'll see in "A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment #1," someone kidnaps him via teleportation before the Council can act.
Also running through this issue is the fall-out from Scott's revelation of the resurrection protocols. Unsurprisingly, Emma has the best answer when an ambassador presses her to give humanity's VIPs the secret. The response? "16 million." It seems a pretty solid position to say that the mutants won't resurrect a human until the 16 million mutants lost on Genosha are resurrected. That said, the grieving woman who throws pig's blood on Emma after she lost her husband shows that humanity won't necessarily accept said position, even if it's a solid one.
Despite the good, I still find myself suffering through these issues as they mostly involve some arrogant mutant leader expositing all over us. This issue isn't too terrible because Emma is the least insufferable of them. I'm dreading when Gillen puts us in Charles' mind.
A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment #1: You have to get through a lot of exposition about the current state of the Deviants and Eternals here, but it sets up an interesting enough premise for this event that it's worth it.
After his appearance in "X-Men: Hellfire Gala" #1, Druig - the Eternal Prime - is advancing two separate schemes in this issue.
First, the Machine that is Earth informs us that the Eternals have three core directives: 1) protect the Celestials; 2) protect the Machine; and 3) correct excess deviation. According to the Machine, the last one is open to interpretation.
Druig wants to eliminate all mutants as excess deviations. As the Machine notes, Druig could rule for a million years as Druig the Merciless if he shows the Eternals his commitment to principles "in a fallen age" by destroying the mutants. However, Domo's plan to detonate an anti-matter bomb under Krakoa backfires when it turns out Krakoa is part of the Machine. Druig decides to consult Uranos for some help.
Ikaris, Sersei, and Thena are living in Lemuria to help the Deviants recover from an attack by the Eternals and Thanos. They've separated themselves from the Eternals since they're reeling from the revelation that the Machine kills a human every time it resurrects them. For Ikaris, protecting the Machine means protecting humans, and he's working out this contradiction of his existence.
Meanwhile, Druig releases one of Ikaris and company's allies, Phastos, who is also appalled by the secret of Eternal resurrection. Druig releases him at the request of Ajak and Makkari, two priestesses who want him to determine whether their plans to create a god could work. Their plan appalls him, but his response inadvertently confirms that they could do so. The person they plan to upgrade? Sinister (as seen in "Immortal X-Men" #4). Why did Druig help? He's just currying favor with the priestesses before he can find away to mind-wipe Phastos and the other rebels of the resurrection secret.
Again, it isn't the most exciting issue, but Gillen really does a solid job quickly moving us through the Eternals' status quo without making it too boring. Moreover, as I said, the premise here - of the Avengers between two immortal species at war - could go really interesting places.
Marauders #4: You guys, this issue is so bad.
It starts OK-ish. Kate dies (eye roll) saving Bishop from the Kin soldiers as the team makes their way to the Chronicle. It turns out the Chronicle is a person, so Kwannon reads his mind. It turns out the ancient (and more avian) Shi'ar stumbled upon the First Mutants' colony (named Threshold) on a pre-humanity Earth. Furious the mutants defeated their attempt at conquest, they returned with more troops to commit genocide. But Threshold won again. This sequence is what the Kin mean by "First Blood."
The Shi'ar then engineered themselves to become stronger and less avian, though I lose the plot after this point. Per the Chronicle's memories, the Shi'ar returned to confront Threshold a third time, but it had disappeared. I thought that the focus of the next few issues was going to involve the Marauders trying to find where they went. Instead, the Chronicle says that the Kin's "prescients foresaw [mutants'] desperate lifeboats in time...and vaporized them on arrival." What lifeboats? Previously, we learned that the Shi'ar only survived their first altercation with Threshold because its mutants were scared of space and didn't chase them. What changed? Was it the K-T extinction event? Also, arrival where? Did they try to flee to the Shi'ar? Also, the Chronicle was pretty clear that the mutants were gone before the Shi'ar arrived, so how did they also destroy them?
To make matters worse, Cassandra says that some escapees survived and were kept in "timedrives," which were stored on a destroyed Shi'ar base. As such, Bishop and Cassandra want to travel in time to save them; of course, it turns out the "base" was Asteroid M, and Tempus has them arrive just as Nemesis does to destroy it.
What a fucking mess. It's one thing for an arc occasionally to lose internal narrative consistency, but Orlando can't even keep this issue internally consistent. It's just plain bad.
New Mutants #27: As confusing as this issue could've been, Ayala does a solid job moving the pieces around the board in a followable way.
Young Illyana accidentally turns Limbo - or, at least, her part of Limbo - into Alice in Wonderland, summoning not only Dani, Illyana, Madelyne, and Rahne but also Colossus. Young Illyana saves Illyana as the Red King (i.e., Belasco) kidnaps Dani, Madelyne, and Rahne. She, the ever handsome Colossus, and Illyana confront the Red King, and Illyana manages to summon the Soulsword briefly again to break the spell.
She's hesitant to leave her former self to the torture that she knows is coming, but young Illyana assures her that she has to do so so that she can become her, who she'd be proud to be. She then gives Illyana an acorn she created in her 1983 limited series ("Magik"), though I don't remember why it's significant. (It's been a while.)
The most compelling parts of this issue are Colossus and Magik's interactions, as they're full of hurt and sorrow. You have to hope that Ayala is showing us these emotions with the intent on addressing them down the line, particularly as it seems like Illyana might unify her soul next issue. Belasco's comments about how broken she is makes it seem like her soul is still fractured. I remember a previous iteration of "New Mutants" tackling this issue, but I don't think we ever got a clear resolution. I'd love for us to get one here.
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