“All of which is to say that Kieron Gillen is the secret weapon writer of Avengers vs. X-Men. He wrote the lead-in, the lead-out, and some fairly good tie-in issues. He even wrote the expanded Hope/Scarlet Witch fight in AVX: VS #6. He’s like the Fifth Beatle of the event. He’s quiet and works around the edges, and, ultimately, makes all of the best points.”
—Riding the Gravy Train, Chad Nevett
Ten years ago, we were about halfway through Avengers vs. X-Men, the ‘years in the making’ event lead-up by ‘The Architects,’ a group of five writers seen as Marvel’s best and brightest. The main series was 12 issues with three of the architects writing two issues (Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, and Jonathan Hickman), while the other two wrote three each (Brian Michael Bendis and Jason Aaron) along with a slew of tie-ins across the Avengers and X-Men lines, including a title solely devoted to fights titled AVX: VS. It was a massively overblown affair that purported to pay off several long-running plotlines, most notably the Scarlet Witch’s “No more mutants” moment from House of M, a previous event, that dropped the mutant population down to less than 200. It marked Bendis’s transition from Avengers writer to X-Men writer, while Jason Aaron would begin his landmark Thor run, Jonathan Hickman would take over Avengers and chart the course towards Secret Wars, Matt Fraction would take over Fantastic Four with an eye towards the Inhumans, and Ed Brubaker would quietly finish up his longstanding work on Captain America and depart completely to creator-owned comics and TV/film work.
It also marked the end of Kieron Gillen’s time as writer of Uncanny X-Men. Maybe I’m remembering things differently from my current perspective, but there was a feeling at the time that Gillen was going to be the next ‘big writer’ at Marvel. He had done some minor runs, picking up where J. Michael Straczynski left off in Thor and made the book his own before transitioning to the Kid Loki-centric Journey into Mystery, which was quite the cult hit. At the same time, he went from Generation Hope where he defined the first group of new mutants post-M Day to writing Uncanny X-Men post-Schism after a period of co-writing with Fraction. Add in his creator-owned bonafides and, as absurd as this sounds when I write it, hailing from England, and he seemed like the Next Big Thing.
And he was. Just not in the way that I (and others?) thought at the time. He took over Iron Man and... well, that’s a book that no one seems to talk about much (cue critical reappraisal in three, two, one), did Young Avengers with Phonogram partner Jamie McKelvie and everyone still talks about that, co-wrote Angela’s solo title, continuing his surprisingly large body of Asgardian work, and did some Star Wars comics that I assume loads of people read (I guess I’m underselling how big a deal it was at the time for him to write Darth Vader – and, then, co-create an insanely popular character in Doctor Aphra and launch her solo title). But, as all of those things eventually wrapped, his time at Marvel kind of came to an end without any super high profile non-Galaxy Far Far Away titles. From the outside, it seemed mostly by design on Gillen’s part as he skewed heavily to creator-owned work (I think some folks have heard of Wicked + Divine and Die). It seems like a move that decreased his profile in some places, while only making him an even bigger deal within the circles I run in. Somehow, he seemed to get more popular after leaving the likes of the X-Men and Darth Vader behind.
And this is a gross oversimplification of everything, of course. Let’s take the last ten years of the man’s career and cram it all into a couple of glib paragraphs...
Anyway...
2021 began with the release of Eternals #1, Gillen’s big return to Marvel with artists Esad Ribic and Matthew Wilson. Partly another redefinition of Jack Kirby’s characters that seem to get another redefinition every decade or so, partly a response to some of what Jonathan Hickman had done with the X-titles, and just a gorgeous book (you saw the art team, right?), it felt like Gillen was returning with some swagger. He had left Marvel, done some very good comics, and was returning to tackle a title that always failed with a show of utter confidence stylistically. Over the ensuing year-and-a-bit, Gillen, Ribic, Wilson, and a few other talented artists would make, for me, consistently the best Marvel comic. Gillen built upon the mythos of the Eternals, added depth and tragedy into their core, and also brought clarity (of a sorts) to their purpose. He also wrote a Thanos that I didn’t hate (except in the ways I was meant to).
Then, he succeeded Jonathan Hickman on X-Men by writing Immortal X-Men post-Inferno, Hickman’s exit (for now?) from the X-line. Focusing on the Quiet Council, Krakoa’s ruling body, Immortal X-Men is the quasi-lead title of the line with, probably, X-Men as the only other contender. A bit over nine years after ending his time on Uncanny X-Men, he was back.
And the announcement of Judgment Day soon followed. Or, as I called it to only my own amusement: “Avengers vs. X-Men 2: Vs. Eternals.” A decade after he was the “secret weapon writer” of Avengers vs. X-Men, Gillen would be writing an event book at Marvel, coming directly out of Eternals (literally) and tying into Immortal X-Men (presumably), it seemed... shockingly well-conceived as far as events go. A lot of events spring up out of nowhere, while this one was, literally, an Eternals story taken to a larger scale and involving characters Gillen had just began writing again.
Before the event proper begins, we’ve gotten four lead-in books of varying importance to give us some idea of what this event will be about. The basic premise is this: Druig is the new Eternal Prime and, looking to make his mark, has turned his eye towards the mutants of Krakoa. One of the Eternals’ principles is “correct excess Deviation” and Druig is viewing mutantkind as a form of Deviant, and their mastering resurrection and colonising Mars as signs of excessive Deviation. So, the mutants must die.
Given that we know this as the premise and this is an event book, we know there will be a twist (or several) coming. Gillen delivers a couple in the most important of these lead-in books, Eve of Judgment. Druid attempts to destroy Krakoa completely with a bomb beneath the island as an efficient manner in eliminating most of the mutants. This strategy, however, falls afoul of one of the other Eternals’ principles: “protect the Machine.” The Machine being planet Earth and, somehow, Krakoa is an essential part of the Machine. It’s a clever little hand-wave away of the obvious and simple solution where Druig accomplishes his goal before the event even begins, thus negating the need for the event. The lead-in ends with him going to his grandfather, Uranos, for assistance. (Uranos, he was a former ruler of the Eternals and sought to “correct excess Deviation” through massive, genocidal methods. He has been in the Exclusion (Eternals jail) ever since the other Eternals stopped him. He appeared in the Free Comic Book Day comic advising a younger Odin (who then led a version of the Avengers) that they were going to wipe out a primitive primate that had developed a telepathic hive mind, if you needed a bit of foreshadowing for the event.)
Another major seed planted is that two Celestial Priests, Ajak and Makkari recently invaded Avengers Mountain (aka a giant dead Celestial body), learned the truth of the Eternals’ existence and mission, and have decided to build their own, new god. In Eve of Judgment, they obtain Phastos’s freedom from the Exclusion to gain his insight into their project. While he objects strongly to their plan, he can’t help but slip the feasibility of it, leaving the two ready to proceed with creating a new god(/Celestial?). Oh, and they kidnapped Mister Sinister at the end of Immortal X-Men #4 to help somehow. This is one of the more difficult plot to foresee in how it will develop over the course of the event. We know that Celestials will be involved and there will be judgment... but... what Celestials?
There are also “The Lemurian Mission” Eternals made up of the Eternals that most people know and associate with the title: Ikaris, Sersi, Thena, Kingo, Phastos, and Khoryphos. These are Eternals that, upon learning that their resurrections happen at the price of a mortal’s life, have gone to the Deviants to try and find a new way to live and be Eternals. They don’t want to carelessly crash through life, causing nothing but pain and death. We see them helping to rebuild Lemuria after Thanos’s attack. What role will they play in the event?
And, on the other side are the Devia—sorry, mutants. Krakoa’s secret of resurrection has been exposed, the mutant-hating group Orchis continues to find new ways to attack, aided by Doctor Stasis, a Mister Sinister lookalike (save for the clubs symbol on his forehead in place of a diamond) that claims to be the real deal, and the robotic Moira MacTaggert who now seeks the destruction of all mutants. At the same time, Destiny has seen many possible futures, and Mister Sinister has been using clones of Moira to replicate her ability to ‘reset reality’ when he feels the need to give things another go. The revelation of their resurrection abilities has placed the nation in a weirdly defensive position just as their were trying to champion the good their drugs have done the world in a bid for further recognition. And they don’t even know Druig and the Eternals are coming for them...
All that leaves are the Avengers. Much like in Avengers vs. X-Men, the group seems like a secondary concern here (tertiary even). In the Hellfire Gala one-shot, there are some Tony Stark scenes that seek to position the Avengers as apathetic bystanders, unwilling to step into mutant affairs except when it’s to contain them. As I said a decade ago, I’m not a fan of using past mutant tragedies against the Avengers given that the true reason for the lack of Avengers assistance is that it would make for less interesting comics. If every time the X-Men and other mutants got into trouble, the Avengers showed up to rescue them, readers would (rightly) tune out. The Avengers didn’t stop Genosha because the story needed the destruction of Genosha to happen. To, once again, frame that as something character-based strikes me as disingenuous and misguided. But, I’ll admit, it’s hard to reconcile the characters with their lack of action within the world of these stories. Basically, the real world needs to craft interesting stories for mutants can’t help but position the Avengers and other non-mutant heroes as anti-mutant by implication.
Which is to say that the Avengers will appear in this event in some capacity. They recently tangled with the Lumurian Mission Eternals when Ajak and Makkari sought to commune with the dead Celestial that the Avengers currently live in, so there is a connection between those two groups as well. As it stands, this event is currently skewed towards an Eternals/X-Men conflict with the Avengers in the middle somewhere. Looking at the slate of tie-ins, the Avengers side of things is fairly light, though, so we’ll see how much of a factor they really are given the large multiverse story Jason Aaron is currently building in his two titles.
What I’m really looking forward to is how Kieron Gillen handles his first event. After doing so many tie-ins and assists for other events, most notably the excessive story bolstering work in Avengers vs. X-Men, it’s exciting to see him get a chance at his own event finally. He comes off as someone who has thought long and hard about how to approach something like this, structuring the main series and story in a way where there’s freedom for others to join in and expand upon certain plot points. Moreover, he’s writing a large chunk of the overall event. If you go off the checklist at the back of Eve of Judgment, there are 37 comics listed; from what I can tell, Gillen is writing 18 of them, basically half. For an event this size, that’s an incredibly large proportion of the comics and speaks to how much this event is driven by him. I think we’re in for a treat with a talented, smart writer like Gillen telling this story on such a large canvass.
Next: Judgment Day #1.
