“You are a dream of a better country. You have tried to inspire it for a century. This country is the world leader... and the world is what it is. It is worse every day. You are a failure.”
The judgment is just vague enough that we don’t necessarily get a solid take on the criteria involved. From what I can tell, there are two possibilities with one of them still somewhat vague. The first is that the Progenitor judges based on what the character wants, what their agenda is. Captain America is a superhero, yes, but, more than that, he seeks to be a symbol, an inspiration. Often, his most crucial role as a superhero is to get his team working at its peak, often through leading by example and rousing speeches. But, his name isn’t Captain Superhero; his name is Captain America. At his core, he seeks to make his country better and, by doing so, the world. If he has not been able to do that, then he is a failure. It’s like the Progenitor cuts through a person and has them confess their true judgment about themself – “forgive me father for I have sinned.”
The second has nothing to do with what each person thinks about themself or what they’re trying to do. It is an object measure of do they make the world a better place. There is a strong focus in the Progenitor’s words on how terrible the world is and, in its judgment of Captain America, places a specific emphasis on the idea that Captain America doesn’t make America better, America is the most powerful country in the world, so when it gets worse, the world gets worse. It’s a narrow interpretation of Captain America’s function, ignoring the times he’s been instrumental in saving the world or saving lives. There’s a bit of treating the symptoms, not the disease in what he does, of course. And, moreover, if this world is judged a failure, deserving of destruction, was there anything good about saving it? As I said, this version of judgment is still somewhat vague as we don’t know how that standard would be applied to every single person alive.
Personally, I think it’s more the first than the second. “Justify yourself,” the Progenitor says, a phrase that could skew subjective or objective. Like the Celestials that came before, the Progenitor doesn’t provide a set bar that everyone needs to clear. I’m choosing to view that as it being a sliding scale, quite possibly determined by each person, or at least the version of themself that they try to be. But, I don’t know. The only other judgments we get in this issue are told near the end and only the results, not the criteria: Emma Frost, Destiny, and Mystique all fail, while Kro passes. Not quite a large enough sample size to determine anything yet.
One thing that I’m fairly certain of (and, as always, could be wrong) is that the end of the issue reveal of Eros as a possible means to unite the world is not the answer that the heroes hope it will be. We may not know the Progenitor’s criteria for judgment, but mass mind control and mood altering seems like the sort of thing liable to get an automatic fail for all involved.
His appearance shouldn’t have been surprising given that Eros has his own tie-in coming in October, yet it was. I loved the similarity in his casual sitting on a chair of crystals in the Exclusion and Uranos’s casual sitting on a chair of crystals in the Exclusion from earlier in the issue. This was really the best issue by Valerio Schiti and Marte Gracia yet. Looking back, it’s clear that Schiti’s strength is less in big action scenes where his tendency to craft perfect little panels within layouts that convey chaos can make visual continuity a challenge to follow, and in these quiet yet emotionally charged moments where perfectly crafted panels hit that much harder. The return of “The Civilians” for a page in this issue showcases that ability. Each panel summing up where the characters all are at a specific moment in time coupled with the Progenitor’s narration. I particularly enjoyed the expression on Daniela’s face in the fourth panel...
But, I also feel like I’m looking at the wrong thing despite this clearly being the focus of the event at the current moment, and, seemingly, within the larger structure.
We are now halfway through this event by the standards of the main title. By the standards of the checklist in the back, we’re on comic #9 with comics #10-37 still to come. The tie-ins to this event are very back-loaded with 15 comics seemingly scheduled to come out between Judgment day #5 and 6; and lest you think it’s just a bunch of comics shoved in at the end that are inconsequential, six of those 15 are written by Gillen. This is an oddly structured event and, while we’re halfway through the ostensible main story of it, it still feels like we’re just getting into it.
For comparison’s sake, Avengers vs. X-Men #3 was the eleventh comic released during that event and that was only the quarter mark of its story. If we go by the halfway mark of that story, Avengers vs. X-Men #6 was the 30th comic released out of 65 comics total for that event. That event was larger, obviously, and structured a little differently with when tie-ins came out (for example, ones that came out following the final issue of the main event series), and both numbers are sort of a judgment call on my part. But, the point remains, the halfway mark of the main series happened around the halfway mark of the total number of comics released as part of the event. For Judgment Day, the halfway mark of the main series comes about a quarter of the way into the larger event.
So far, the first two issues of the event were about the Eternals fighting against the mutants of Krakoa and Arakko. Those two issues received four total tie-ins expanding upon those fights. Despite my joke reaction of wanting to call this event “Avengers vs. X-Men 2: Vs. Eternals,” any concept of this being an event centred around the three groups engaging in a series of big brawls ala Avengers vs. X-Men was clearly just the throat clearing. When I look at the fights from those issues, I don’t see much potential for further expansion, suggesting that there was either a limited appetite for it by potential tie-in writers, so Gillen didn’t leave much more room; or there was so little interest on Gillen’s part that he didn’t leave much more room.
Either way, the end result is the same and the focus of the event is not so much the big, sprawling action scenes of our heroes fighting one another; it’s the philosophic focus of justifying one’s existence to a god that was born just this morning. That’s where three-quarters of this event is going to happen and it’s still completely ambiguous as to what it means.
I don’t know about you, but I’m quite excited to find out.
