Welcome back to Mutantversity, a class offered at the Krakoan Akademos Habitat. This isn’t a place to find big reviews of X-books, (that’s what our Review section is for!) but it’s a great way to keep up with one of the most complicated superhero series around. We’re going to dive into the deep end as we try to parse all the secrets of this new era of “X-Men” comics. As your designated X-Pert, I will do my best to help you work through everything Marvel’s Merry Mutants have to offer!
This month in X-Men
The Orchis Alliance
The X-Men have a pretty legendary rogues gallery, not that you would know it from other media. In most movies, video games, and cartoons, the X-Men face off with Magneto. And sure, there’s a list of classic X-foes who totally deserve wider recognition- Cameron Hodge, Emplate, Cassandra Nova, Sauron, Mastermind, and Shadow King, all come to mind- but I would argue the X-Men are threatened by a cooler (and scarier) team of villains than they ever had in their whole history.
At the center of all the danger is ORCHIS. What’s so brilliant about this team of evil scientists is that they simply give a shape to the real enemy in X-Men, humans. Before it was just assholes in suits. Now there are robots and space stations and flower logos and guys with names like Killian Devo. ORCHIS is the place for all who hate mutants to come together and thrive. They’re like the Avengers of hate.
Dr. Devo is still the top dog at ORCHIS. The guy’s got a cool name and even cooler robot eyes. Dr. Alia Gregor remains the head or R&D. But now we have Feilong, who gave himself superpowers to survive on a pre-terraformed Mars and has now sworn vengeance against mutantkind. He’s such a threat that he’s also taking up all of Iron Man’s time. That makes sense, seeing how Feilong stole his company and is using it to build big Stark Sentinels.
That would all be bad enough, but then some idiot went and hired MODOK. The Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing is completely psychotic, and he’s gotten it in his big oversized head that mutants are to blame for his problems. A monster who has threatened the likes of Captain America and the Hulk is now determined to wipe out mutantkind.
Moira MacTaggert is the character who has been the most changed by the Krakoa storyline, and now she’s literally changed into a synthetic woman. She knows everything about Krakoa and the X-Men, more than anyone, and now she’s a machine serving machines, trying to put an end to her people.
And no X-Men villain team would be complete without the influence of Mr. Sinister, and now there are a bunch of Sinister running around. ORCHIS has got themselves a classic Sinister in Doctor Stasis, who is as brutal as the club on his forehead. He’s another baddie who has the inside scoop on mutant operations.
All of this is to say nothing about Nightmare, Hordeculture, Mother Righteous, the Brood, or any of the other external threats the X-Men are facing. And then you have to take into account the internal threats like a rogue Beast, a mind-controlled Colossus and a whole prison’s worth of criminals out there and on the loose. And I don’t know how much you trust the Kingpin, but he’s a resident on Krakoa now too. Even with all those gargantuan odds stacked against them, I am still on the lookout for one guy to bring down Krakoa, and that guy is Professor X. If you haven’t heard, he’s a jerk. Stayed tuned to find out if Chuck ruins everything.
Action! Romance!
The best part of X-Men is how irrepressibly horny they all are. Iron Man may have become a boring married guy, Captain America might die a virgin, but the X-Men are all hooking up, and breaking up, and falling all over each other. We checked in on a few X-romances this month, and they are all disasters. As they should be.
Continued belowBy far the loveliest and most surprising Krakoa romance has been between Synch and Laura Kinney. It got complicated, but there is finally a lasting relationship between Everett and a comparably-older Laura serving on the X-Men as Talon. And despite their romance going well, it’s tough to be in a super paramilitary strike unit and watch your true love shatter every bone in his body. Ouch.
The premier X-romance between Jean and Scott is on the rocks. They may live in a house with no doors, but Scott says they are on a break. The rules of this break are still unclear, but Jean still sure seems like she’s thinking sexy Scott thoughts. And Scott made his move on Emma, who was happy to rebuff him. Maybe this means we’re one step closer to Emma/Kate endgame? I dunno, X-Men get freaky.
But the most tragic fate to befall a couple happened to Mystique and Destiny. There are so many evildoers in their orbit, poking reality into their preferred shape. While the Russian authority is manipulating Colossus and Shaw into staging a quiet little Krakoa coup, Mother Righteous is messing with mutants in a much more personal way. She casts a spell that turns Mystique into a pointy weapon, and she stabs her wife, killing her. This is Krakoa, so Destiny is back up on her resurrected feet in no time. But things are tough on Krakoa for lovers.
Now all I need is my Juggernaut/Black Tom Valentine’s Day special.
Surge: The Moodiest of X-Teens
Noriko Ashida aka Surge first debuted in 2004’s New Mutants #8. I love that run, but it’s a really hard sell. The front half is one of the frothiest “X-Men” series ever. It has a YA tone which means it’s sort of gentle and predictable (but remember, I love it). Then the creative team changed, half the children in the ensemble were killed on an exploding bus, and the book got dark. It ends with almost the opposite tone that started it, thus this is not a series for everyone. But the incidental characterization that happened in there is the kind of creative choice you could never make on purpose.
Surge ostensibly has electricity powers, but what she can really do is absorb electricity to move like Quicksilver. She can barely control the lightning half of her powers without the assistance of some nifty gauntlets that Beast built for her. She is sort of the main protagonist of the YA portion of the series. As a team leader, she is stoic and humorless, in the spirit of Cyclops of Mirage. Surge is very driven to complete her goals.
In the back half of the series, she was given a new roommate: Sooraya Qadir aka Dust. On paper, Dust is a pretty racist idea for a character. She is from Afghanistan, and her power is she can turn into a dust storm. In the very least, it’s not very original. Dust observes hijab and wears an abaya and a niqab veil over her face. Surge sees herself as an empowered modern woman, and clashes with Sooraya for what she views as a pretty regressive attitude. Though the earliest stories to explore this relationship read as pretty cringe today, the conversation has gotten more nuanced over time. Dust has gotten a lot of page time, Surge not so much.
Surge’s flirtation with outright racism felt very teenage. She was scared of something she had never seen before and she didn’t try to understand what she was seeing. In fact, her hypocrisy is rooted in the main theme of X-Men: what it means to protect a world that hates and fears you. Surge experiences anti-mutant intolerance, but she’s got some intolerances of her own. She’s perfectly positioned to become a major antagonist, perhaps of a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
In the years that followed, Surge has been in a number of different series, but she never was the star. In fact, I don’t think she’s really gotten significant characterization since 2009. I wouldn’t call her stint in “Bishop’s War College” a major step forward, but I’d really like to see what kind of adult Surge can become. She has a lot of growing up to do.
Continued below
The Slowball Special
Charlie Jane Anders is the co-founder of io9.com and the author of novels such as All The Birds in the Sky. She’s dabbled in Marvel comics before (it’s thanks to her that we know that Punisher and Frigga both like to rock out to Carol King) but she’s never written a substantial number of consecutive issues. And I’d really really like her to.
Anders is writing “New Mutants: Lethal Legion” which has been running for a couple of months now. It is very much in line with the sorts of the rambling and recently concluded volumes of “New Mutants.” The story focuses on a generation of young adults including Karma and Mirage and a younger generation that includes the likes of Gabby Kinney and Martha Johanson. Anders does a really good job at distinguishing between adult soapy drama and teen soapy drama. As the series goes on, her voices for every character have grown more confident. I don’t know where “New Mutants” is headed, but I’d be very happy to hear she was part of its future.
In this issue, Gabby Kinney (who keeps changing her codename) teams up with newcomer Galura to blaze a new path in the Kinney/Howlett family legacy. The slowball special is exactly the kind of goofiness I want in my superhero comics.
Next Time On X-Men
…Don’t screw me on this major return “X-Men!”
X-Books Read:
“Immortal X-Men” #11 – Shaw can see that the Krakoan government is crumbling. There’s so much going wrong. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
“Immortal X-Men” #12 – This was the most jam packed issue of the series yet; I hardly remembered to breathe.
“Sons of X” #1 – I wish this series would just stay in one lane long enough to commit to an idea. Mother Righteous gets a lot of page time.
“X-Men Red” #11 – A long awaited confrontation between Storm and Professor X delivers in every way, plus a million other crazy things happen.
“Wolverine” #33 – If you had told me evil Beast would save this book, I would have said you’d be lying, and I would’ve been wrong.
“Rogue & Gambit” #3 – The plot is a little perfunctory, but it’s clear that Stephanie Phillips has a lot of good ideas for Krakoa. Get her on an ongoing!
“X-Men” #22 – I continue to marvel at how exciting the X-Men’s rogues gallery has become in this series.
“X-Men” #23 – Do the X-Men ever sleep? There is so much going on in the flagship series, which is feeling stronger than ever.
“X-Force” #40 – On paper, a dark future timeline ruled by an evil Beast sounds pretty overdone, but this is one of my favorite issues in this whole run of “X-Force”
“Bishop’s War College” #4 – Shaping up to be one of the stronger miniseries of the last year.
“New Mutants Lethal Legion” #3 – I’m growing fond of Charlie Jane Anders’ voice for these characters, but the story lacks lasting impact. Get her on an ongoing and let her really run wild!
“Storm” #1 – Ann Nocenti just might be the most influential living creator in all of comics, and here she is doing one of those flashback miniseries the X-Men keep doing.
“X-Men: Before the Fall – Mutant First Strike” #1 – This didn’t really grab me, but I am excited for what comes next.
