For much of Judgment Day #2, that question seems mostly apparent: the Avengers. The Avengers have no stake in the fight between the Hex and the mutants of Krakoa other than saving lives. They see giant monster-like beings attacking an island mostly of non-combative innocents and spring into action to minimise the loss of lives and, later, direct their forces to help save further lives affected by the battle. They seek only to preserve life and are total bystanders in the war between the Eternals and the mutants, coming to rescue of past allies/friends/the victims of an unprovoked attack. There is a singular agenda of self-sacrifice in the service of others. Total heroics.
But.
Their efforts to help defend Krakoa from the Hex cause the damage to the planet that causes tsunamis that causes them to leave the fight. They are the (partial) cause of the danger that necessitates their intervention to save lives. In essence, their heroics are required, at that point, because, it turns out, no one involved truly seemed to understand the consequences of their actions. Are they, actually, heroics? As Cyclops says, “If you deal with the fallout, that’s one less problem for us to worry about,” treating it like a glass of spilt milk that needs cleaning up and something he would rather he and his people not get shouted at for.
And.
While the Hex attack Krakoa and the Avengers/X-Men work to stop them, one of the founding members of the Avengers, Tony Stark, is working with Makkari, Ajak, Phastos, and other Eternals along with Mister Sinister to resurrect the dead Celestial that the Avengers live in, imparting it with a new scripture/soul to end the Eternals’ efforts to exterminate the mutants of Krakoa. They are successful. The resultant new Celestial/new god for the Eternals immediately commands the conflict end and, then, gives the people of Earth a day to justify their existence or face extinction. In essence, Iron Man helps create the possible cause of the end of the world, because, it turns out, no one involved truly seemed to know what they were doing.
To sum up:
The Avengers join the battle between the Hex and the mutants of Krakoa, while Iron Man works with some Eternals to resurrect/create a Celestial that can end the Eternals’ war on mutants. During the fight against the Hex, the Earth is damaged in a way that threatens thousands/millions of lives and the Avengers leave the fight to help minimise the loss of life. Iron Man and company are successful in resurrecting/creating the Celestial and it orders the conflict ended before telling all of the “people of Earth” that they have a day to prove their existence is justified or it will kill them all.
“Who are the heroes here?”
Perspective matters a lot in Judgment Day so far. What we have been shown and not shown matters. The manner in which the story is presented in each issue highlights specific perspectives, like Exodus’s in Immortal X-Men #5. When discussing the first issue, I argued that the only true candidate for protagonist of that issue was Druig, which sounds, I admit, wrong. But, that issue was crafted in such a way that he was the closest thing it had to a ‘hero.’ Yet, he’s almost entirely absent from the second issue save a single panel when the new Celestial speaks and some allusions to his actions in speaking to humanity/setting the Hex in motion. You wouldn’t even know who specifically started this war in the second issue were it not for the recap page. The focus and perspective of the story shifts dramatically from the first issue to the second...
Here, the perspective is that of the Celestial not yet resurrected/created. It narrates the battle and efforts to resurrect/create it along with, briefly, the lives of six seemingly random humans. There are many ways that this being could have narrated the conflict, yet the focus throughout the issue is on the brutality of it, the harsh violence, and the consequences of that violence. The focus is on the deaths and the pain. Even when there are moments of comradery between Captain America and Cyclops, there is always something that undercuts it – when the Avengers leave to save lives in danger as a result of the fight, Exodus argues that they’re abandoning the mutants even though Cyclops instructed them to go.
I can’t shake the way Exodus kills Syne (and himself) and the focus on her final words before he does it: “Please don’t,” placed on the panel where they both explode. There is pain and suffering even though both return to life almost immediately. Everything we’re shown highlights just how cruel and unjust the conflict is, how it degrades both sides, and is a further example of “act[ing] with unrelenting unkindness to one another,” as the Celestial says once alive. Implicit throughout is judgment even if the tone of the narration is flat and affectless. Choices in what is shown and what is said reveal a perspective.
The presentation of the efforts of Iron Man, the Eternals, and Mister Sinister, by contrast, are presented with a detachment. We get the bare bones of their work, including a two-page quasi-montage that specifies the various elements gathered/used in the effort. What I found missing was any questioning of the task. There is no debate, no doubts expressed. The Eternals are guided by blind belief, while Iron Man seems spurred on by ego, and Mister Sinister by coercion and perverse curiosity. There is no sense that what they create will act in surprising ways that they did not anticipate despite that always being the case in situations like these. But, since they are literally creating the narrator/point of view of the comic, it is unlikely to question the wisdom of its own creation. Just as the conflict focuses on the brutality at play, these sequences are as ‘matter of fact’ as possible...
Which leaves the two pages focusing on the six humans.
I don’t know when I clued into the connection between six humans and the six Eternals that make up the Hex. I was surprised when Kieron Gillen didn’t take the connection to its complete conclusion, only showing the effect of a single Hex death when Arjun dies when his life essence is taken by the Machine to resurrect Syne. But, prior to that connection dawning on me as a I read the issue, I hated the use of these humans. For whatever reason, it brought to mind the way Matt Fraction focused on the residents of Broxton in parts of Fear Itself. It seemed... cheap? Pointless? An unnecessary distraction? A wasted page with the possibility of further wasted pages? Fair or not, that was my kneejerk reaction when reading the first page of the issue. I’m still not entirely sold on the focus on these six humans, but the way they seemingly connect to the Hex was a clever bit. I guess I’m reserving judgment of these two pages until we see if they serve a purpose in the larger story or if they’re just two random pages in this issue. Unlike the other threads of the issue, there isn’t enough here to properly fit into a context yet.
However.
A small, revelatory detail in the first page is that the word ‘hero’ only appears in one of the six panels; Arjun’s panel ends with the caption “The heroes will save us. They always do.”
On the final page, the resurrected/new Celestial says, “If there is more that is just than wicked, you will live. But if you are found lacking, there will be no tomorrow.” Despite this being narrating the whole issue, detailing both a conflict it views with seeming disdain, and the means by which it was created, we don’t have any sense of what it considers just or wicked. We don’t know its moral perspective. While the question of who the heroes are in this situation seems completely relevant still (in an abstract sort of way), we don’t have the proper information to define ‘hero’ in the only way it matters at this point.
“Who are the heroes here?”
Hell if I know...
