Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 07 (Death to the Mutants #2, Immortal X-Men #6, Wolverine #24, and Marauders #6)

I’ve always admired the creators who bend events for their own purposes, advancing their own plots or characters through an event, even if it means falling a little out of step with the event. It’s hard not to admire and love the way that Kieron Gillen, for example, wrapped Journey into Mystery’s beginning around Fear Itself and made the event seem like a tie-in to his story rather than the other way around. Part of the success, of course, depended upon your familiarity with the title doing the tying in. Sometimes, it’s hard, when following the event, to appreciate what a tie in title is doing as it flirts with the event concept in its own service. You lack the appropriate context and sympathies to really be on board.

Which is my tap-dancing around how, on one level, I rather admire the concept of Marauders #6, while, on another level, feeling very little about it. It’s the only issue of this series that is part of the Judgment Day event and it very much uses the conceit of the event post-issue 3 to its specific purposes. With the new Celestial created by the Eternals priests, Iron Man, and Mister Sinister judging all of the world, this issue takes place post-judgment of the entire team. The Progenitor has come to all of the Marauders and judged them accordingly, leaving them all, those who passed and those who failed, feeling somewhat out of sorts. The idea of a cosmic god-like being appearing before you as someone or something meant to represent the most judgmental aspect of your life (whatever that means for you) and judging you for you worth as a person is one that would leave anyone shaken no matter the result.

With the team in that state, Aurora suggests to Kitty Pryde that through a combination of Somnus (whose powers allow people to exist in a dream world for whatever subjective length of time they require) and Birdy (a ‘combat psychologist’ whose mutant power allows for mental healing, at least temporarily), every member of the group could receive treatment from Birdy while under Somnus’s influence, allowing for massive progress in only ten minutes of real time. (This is a clever idea that potentially pushes things further than writer Steve Orlando intends as the potential of this concept in larger applications is one of those ‘broken’ sort of ideas you sometimes see in superhero comics where it could radically alter the world in ways that would be difficult to walk back. But, that’s a discussion for another time.) What follows are a series of two-page scenes where Birdy walks through each member’s respective judgment and leaves them feeling better.

Except, that’s not what happens exactly.

We get to witness a version of the judgment. A self-aware judgment. One that is a meld of memory, dream, and Birdy’s influence where she is healing whatever trauma or negative feelings remain from the judgment (at least in the short-term). In scene after scene, the judged present a calm, rational, albeit passionate, case for themself in response to the Progenitor’s probing and judging. Rarely are they rattled or fazed by the form(s) the Progenitor takes. In every case, they push back on the Celestial and its folds easily, though without judgment one way or the other (except for an allusion to judgment from Psylocke). The psychic therapy is aimed at putting them all at peace where they present themselves in an honest and shockingly self-aware fashion, leaving them feeling like whatever the end result, they were true to themself and at peace with that knowledge.

Given the judgments we’ve seen elsewhere, particularly in the comics Gillen wrote this week, none of these experiences seem to reflect the judgments of the Progenitor. In those, the Celestial appears, almost always with the judgment prepared, and the judged (particularly those who fail) are overwhelmed by the sight of a loved one or a deep-seeded guilt judging them so intimately and completely, declaring them a success or failure worthy to live or die. If the judgments occurred how we see them in Marauders #6, then none of them would need the combat therapy to be ready for what comes next. The comic is a very clever use of the event to spotlight the ensemble cast, give Orlando a chance to give some quick yet intense takes on where each character is mentally, and deliver what I would imagine is a very good read for fans of the title/characters. Me, I’m left to coldly admire it while feeling very little about the insights each character gained/showed one way or the other.

Gillen’s two additions to Judgment Day this week showcase the two approaches of tie-ins to an extent. Immortal X-Men #6 feels like it’s more focused on advancing its characters and plots than those of the event, while Death to the Mutants #2 leans more towards the event. I’m not sure how much of that is a conscious choice and how much of that is borne out of the fact that the event is very much the next Eternals arc blown up in size and scale to encompass the X-Men line and the Avengers (kind of). That leaves Gillen’s X-Men book as a slight outsider to the event, reacting to what’s happening more than determining what’s happening, while the Eternals stand-in title provides more shape to the event, adding depth around the edges. And that mirrors the event where the inciting events have been determined by the actions and decisions of Eternals, while everyone else is left reacting.

Given the judgments we see in these two issues, the criteria of the Progenitor does appear to be along the lines of how closely one lives to their core goals, ideals, morals, etc. How true to yourself are you? Captain America does not inspire greatness in his country. Cyclops is the leader of the X-Men and the husband of Jean Grey. Emma Frost is a teacher whose students keep dying because of her. Kro and the Deviants continue to live and thrive and hope even when they know their gods do not love them. Who is burdened by guilt in their life? Who lies to themself? Who is living their best, true life?

It’s a very ‘coming out of two years of global pandemic’ sort of event. Everything was thrown into shambles and it was a period for reflecting for many people about how they wished to live their life going forward. The most obvious signifiers have been shouted again and again in headlines about ‘the great resignation’ and ‘quiet quitting’ where many people’s relationship with the labour they do every day to survive in a capitalist society has been changed to acknowledge that reality, albeit framed from the perspective of the exploiters rather than the exploited. But, at its core, the lockdowns gave some the chance to decide, with much of the elements of their daily lives taken away, how do they wish to live when those elements are available once again? What sort of life have they been living? Was it worthwhile? Was it justified? “I should’ve learned to play guitar... I should’ve learned to play them drums...”

That idea resonates with me deeply and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has asked themself how a judgment from the Progenitor would go for them. Of course, I’m afraid mine would go much like Sally’s in Death to the Mutants #2. “I’ve helped doom the world with procrastination.”

Ouch. I’m hit. Man down.

Next: Judgment Day #4 and X-Men Red #6

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 06 (X-Men #14 and X-Force #31)

The last time we had an X-Force tie-in issue for Judgment Day, it had nothing to do with the event. No mention of Celestials or Eternals or attacks on Krakoa, just another issue of X-Force. It came out the same week as X-Men #13, which was very much about the event, expanding on both Judgment Day #2 and Death to the Mutants #1 (itself an expansion on Judgment Day #2 and out the same week as the two X-titles). Skip ahead two weeks and we’ve got X-Force and X-Men again, and I figured I could almost copy and paste in what I wrote then for now...

Well, you know what they say about god and plans and assumptions and Celestials, right?

Neither of these issue are much of a tie-in. Between the two of them, I’d argue that there are eight pages related to the event with the rest having nothing to do with the Judgment Day beyond the odd reference or allusion that makes no difference. Both of these comics function as just your average issue of each title with a scene plugged into each involving the Progenitor that could be excised completely and have no impact whatsoever.

No, I can’t copy and paste what I wrote two weeks ago, because this is a whole different sort of pointless cashgrab tie-in approach. This is the “technically it did feature something about the event” tie-in meant to silence anyone complaining that the banner on the front was false advertising. Because it’s not. Because these comics each feature scenes with the Progenitor. So it’s about Judgment Day, really. 18.18% is about Judgment Day to be a bit more exact. Shame I couldn’t have just paid $1.45 for the parts that I wanted, right? It was still $7.98 (more in Canada).

I don’t want to harp on about money and get back into that “riding the gravy train” stuff. I’d much rather continue discussing the Progenitor and the Eternals and the mutants and all of the things that I’m loving about this event. That’s not what events are about, though. They’re about giving you enough of that other stuff to get you excited and wanting more, so you begin buying anything with the banner on the cover, because you love the story so much! You see a cover with Cyclops in what looks to be Celestial-esque bonds, hood over his head, and you think that you’re going to get yourself an issue of Cyclops facing down his judgment with the Progenitor.

You get three pages that feel like an afterthought to the other 19.

None of this is about the quality of the comics themselves or even the creators involved necessarily. I don’t have the knowledge to know why they made the decisions they made, why editorial made the decisions they made, or why the event banner is on the cover of comics that have little to do with the event. All I can talk about is what it feels like when you pay your money with certain expectations and get comics that do the absolute bare minimum to fulfill those expectations. It feels like a cynical cash crab. It feels like everyone involved is happy to take your money by lying.

It doesn’t have to be that way. If you go back ten years, Wolverine & The X-Men took an issue off from Avengers vs. X-Men in the middle of a run of tie-ins to do a Doop issue. No AvX branding or anything. Just took an issue off from the event, because they felt like it. That’s what X-Men #14 seemed like it wanted to do. And I get it. We went from the Hellfire Gala when the new X-Men roster was set right into a big line-spanning event and maybe everyone involved just wanted to do an issue involving this new team doing some X-Men shit. Then go for it. Take an issue off from the event. No one will mind.

I mean, me, personally, I knew what I was getting into when I signed up to buy about every comic getting released with this event and write about them every week. Every event has bullshit like this. Comics that say that they tie into the event when they don’t; pointless mini-series and one-shots that add nothing; creators gritting through their teeth as they shoehorn in event details without derailing their ongoing plots... that’s the name of the game, right? Money for nothing.

And, damn, if that doesn’t sound dismissive and harsh about the hard work that went into these comics. They’re fine enough comics, I suppose. Hell, the X-Force arc could still turn itself around given we have two more issues coming out. But, these two comics are what they are, and I’m going to treat them as such. So, here’s 18.18% approximately about the pages that relate to the event:

The X-Force scene where Kraven faces the Progenitor naked, wanting some sort of acknowledgment tell us nothing. It’s about Kraven and the lack of response from the Celestial doesn’t tell us anything of any value. Was it ignoring him? Was it still judging him? Was it even aware he was there? Dunno.

The Cyclops scene has a little more meat to it, though not by much. It works best if you know a little bit of the history between Cyclops and Celestials. Along with Jean Grey and some aliens, he managed to blow Arishem’s hand off once; and, then, later, he told a whole group of them off in a manner that got them to leave Earth alone. Cyclops is nonplussed when it comes to the judgmental space gods. His unwillingness to be judged except by his wife, someone who knows him and his goals, successes, failures, etc. intimately falls in line with each judgment being subjective to an extent. Cyclops is living his life as best he can these days and generally succeeding at what he sets as his goals. His recent disclosure of the resurrection protocols was a definite doing what he thought was right no matter how it looked. Of course he gets the pass. Krakoa Cyclops is very much living his best life and doing it up to his own standards.

I wish I could say that these are the last issues I’ll be buying for the event that will feel like wastes of my time and money (at least in how it relates to Judgment Day). I doubt it, unfortunately. As I said, it’s how these things go and, looking over what’s coming, it’s hard not to spot a few questionable comics. It bugs me not just because of the money it costs me; I’ve really been enjoying this event and am excited by the potential stories left on the table by the main series for others to pick up and run with. Instead, we get brand issues that engage minimally with the event, and it’s hard to not jump to conclusions as to why.

Next week is a rather large week with Death to the Mutants #2, Immortal X-Men #6, Marauders #6, and Wolverine #24. With two of those written by Kieron Gillen, we are assured two issues about the event. That I feel the need to jump to the solicitations in order to prepare myself for the other two is sad. The “this issue takes place concurrently with Wolverine #24” note in X-Force #31 doesn’t warm my heart.

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 05 (Judgment Day #3)

The big question heading into this week, for me at least, was what would the criteria by which the new Celestial, the Progenitor, would judge everyone on Earth? Kieron Gillen gives us a single case where we see the reasoning behind judgment and it happens right when the issue begins when it judges Captain America first:

“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.

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 04 (Death to the Mutants #1, X-Men #13, and X-Force #30)

Judgment Day is now official a proper event.

Up until this week, we had several lead-in issues mostly written by Kieron Gillen, the writer of the main series, two issues of the main series, and two ties-ins, one of which was written by Gillen and the other very closely hewed to the first issue of Judgment Day, filling in a big unseen scene from that book. It’s been a very tight, very Gillen-centric sort of event (and with him writing nearly 50% of the total comics being released under the Judgment Day banner, I imagine it will remain as such) and, while that makes for a cohesive and focused story, it’s not exactly how events tend to play out in full.

So, welcome X-Force #30 to the party with its Judgment Day branding and spot on the list of tie-ins and its complete and utter lack of even the briefest of allusions to the event that it is supposedly a part of.

No, X-Force #30 kicks off a storyarc that will see Kraven the Hunter come to Krakoa titled “The Hunt for X” and why it carries the Judgment Day banner is anyone’s guess. The recap page doesn’t even make mention of the event that it supposedly ties into, which is always a good clue of how much it really will. Now, perhaps I am being hasty and quick to, er, judgment. X-Force #30-33 are all listed as tie-ins to Judgment Day and it is certainly possible that, by the time we reach that fourth issue, forking over $15.96 in the process (more in Canada!), it will stand revealed to have a marginal connection to the event. But, you’ll have to pay to find out.

Every event has these sort of cheap, money for nothing tie-ins. The kind that sucker in completists and dumb critics, while causing loyal readers of the title to fret if their favourite comic is suddenly going to get derailed by an external story that they have no interest in. It’s part of doing business, as it were. I imagine if you ask most people involved and they would rather not slap a Judgment Day banner on the cover of a comic that has literally nothing to do with the event whatsoever, lying to everyone for the sake of selling some extra copies. But, it works. Branding a book as part of an event does increase sales. I’m not usually the sort to pay attention to that, but, when I was writing about War of the Realms, I went back to see the effect on sales and, yes, titles like Squirrel Girl and Asgardians of the Galaxy did see significant increases on the charts when they became involved with the event (though, those books actually, you know, had stories related to the event). It’s a shrewd, short-term business move that may work in the long-term if it gets some eyeballs on the book and people like what they see, if they’re not completely turned off by the lie that got them to buy it.

X-Force #30 is a fine enough comic on its own. It has nothing to do with Judgment Day, however. But, that’s the way you do it when you’re putting out a bigtime superhero comic book event.

And, it’s a shame, because the other two comics released this week, Death to the Mutants #1 and X-Men #13, are the exact sort of tie-in issues that you want. In his newsletter last week, Gillen called Death to the Mutants #1 “aka Eternals #14 aka Eternals #17 if you’re inserting the specials” (Eve of Judgment #1 was Eternals #13) and he’s not wrong. Narrated by the Machine, it’s basically if the ongoing Eternals series had a tie-in issue, showing us what Ikaris and the rest of the exile Eternals are doing, covering the events of both issues of Judgment Day in the process. Meanwhile, X-Men #13 skirts doesn’t just expand upon the Hex/Krakoans fight from Judgment Day #2, it expands upon/ties into scenes from Death to the Mutants.

What I found interesting is that two contradictory ideas espoused by Ikaris are raised in the issue. Or, rather, they seem contradictory on the surface and look like they may, in fact, an evolution of the same idea, a realisation of a higher truth. In X-Men #13, when Ikaris approaches Jean Grey to indicate that he will create a way for them to attack the Eternals’ armoury and cut off supply to the Hex, he tells her his one rule: “Kill no Eternals.” This instruction is wonderful in the way that its two different meanings exist depending on your knowledge.

For Jean Grey, it seems like the instruction of a torn man. Ikaris is betraying his people because he disagrees with their war, but he only wants their efforts to make war on the mutants stopped. They are still his people and, in stopping their actions, he can’t bear to see them killed. There are certain lines that he won’t cross and, should the mutants cross that line, he may be forced to stand alongside his people even as they do something that he disagrees with. And, from her perspective, this is a perfectly valid reading of this instruction.

We know more than that.

We know that Eternals can’t ever really die, not forever. When an Eternal dies, the Machine resurrects it, but does so by taking the life essence of a human, killing that human. Ikaris along with some other Eternals, upon learning this fact, have left Eternals society and are trying to find a new way to live that doesn’t involve killing innocents so that they may live. When he tells Jean “kill no Eternals,” what he’s really saying is “kill no humans.” And to add another layer to this multi-layered instruction, Ikaris’s instruction is, unknowingly, allowing the mutants to avoid unknowingly breaking one of their own laws: “Murder no man.”

How this idea evolves, though, is interesting and comes from the intervention of the new Celestial adding a fourth principle for the Eternals: “You have 24 hours to justify yourselves.” While framed at the end of Judgment Day #2 as a statement for the entirety of world, it also acts as new essential Principle for Eternals, it seems. We don’t see too much of how that affects the Eternals (Druig stalls, for example – how can he justify himself, really?), but the final two pages of Death to the Mutants #1 has Gilgamesh and Ikaris address this new principle, briefly, with the former saying, “This world bleeds because of our arrogance. We hurt humans by existing. Even I, who tried to protect them, killed them indirectly. We die, they die. The Principles have always been riddles. I know the answer to this one.” To which Ikaris replies, “...I think I do too,” which we see him using his eye beams. The final page reveals his answer to this new Principle and the evolution of his thinking it has caused:

DEATH TO THE ETERNALS.

What exactly this means is anyone’s guess at this point. It’s a subtle evolution from “kill no Eternals” to “death to the Eternals,” and, yet, still comes from the same impulse. The idea that Eternals live at the expense of human lives disgusts Ikaris and some of the others – so much so that they seek out the Deviants as part of their efforts to find a new path forward. With this new Principle forcing the Eternals to justify themselves, the answer for Ikaris is obvious: there is no justification for an existence that comes at the expense of others. The only way he can justify his existence is to find a way to eliminate the Eternals. It’s a chilling final page that, for me, blows the event wide open in a bigger way than the end of Judgment Day #2.

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 03 (Judgment Day #2)

“Who are the heroes here?”

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...

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 02 (Immortal X-Men #5 and X-Men Red #5)

To some extent, events are about hype. At its peak from House of M through Avengers vs. X-Men, Marvel managed to pull off a never-ending supply of hype for what’s coming next, cycling through events and new status quos every six months or so. The MCU even pulled it off between Infinity War and Endgame. The concept of a superhero comic book event is grounded in hype and expectations of something larger than the normal superhero comic book story. Half of the fun is the anticipation of what’s coming next. And, when an event is succeeding, it can make you hyped for tie-ins.

I can’t remember a tie-in with more anticipation than X-Men Red #5 (the number of anticipated tie-ins issues being admittedly small). Only one actual issue of Judgment Day has come out and, before the event started, the hype for this issue was fairly high (it began with a throwaway line in Kieron Gillen’s April 13 newsletter). I saw some tweets from people who had read advanced copies a bit ago (however long ago they may have first gotten advanced copies) and the reaction to the issue from what little I saw online was fairly strong. It tells the story of Uranos’s attack on Arakko that was alluded to in Judgment Day #1. Or, mostly, it tells the story of the first 20 minutes of his hour on Arakko, spending the first 19 pages on that time period before skipping to the end and giving a different version of Uranos’s final seconds before he was returned to the Exclusion as shown in Judgment Day #1. It is a slaughter of the Arakki as Uranos personally kills members of the Great Ring with seeming ease along with other powerful mutants. It showed explicitly what was suggested in Judgment Day #1 in how completely and utterly Uranos dominated the Arakki forces. And it did so with fantastic narration by Al Ewing that added scope and poetry to the slaughter, and Stefano Caselli’s fantastic line art that gave every act of violence a brutal reality.

And yet, I felt mostly disappointment when reading it.

Hype and expectations are motherfuckers.

One of the things that I praised highly in Judgment Day #1 was keeping Uranos’s attack on Arakko off-panel. We get a flash of it beginning, catching the Great Ring off guard, and, then, nothing until it’s the Eternal standing atop a field of bones, crushing Cable’s skull to dust, and disappearing back into the Exclusion. All we know is that he had an hour and used it to completely slaughter a large amount of Arakki, destroy their gates to Krakoa, and leave the mutant forces in a severely depleted position. And he did it alone.

How can actually seeing that happen live up to the hype?

For me, it couldn’t. It just couldn’t. Despite the seeming ease with which Uranos and his weaponry walked through the Arakki, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed like it should be in my head. After all, the hype for Uranos began with the promotion for Eternals: The Heretic, the one-shot that had Thanos meets his great uncle (and affectionately refers to him as grandfather) where Gillen built him quite a bit – and the one-shot itself was more build up as his history was told. A former Eternal Prime who wanted to take the principle of “correct excess deviation” to a genocidal conclusion, he fought a civil war against his fellow Eternals and has been in the Exclusion ever since. He was hyped, almost, as what Thanos aspires to be. To finally see him in action was... well, how could it live up to the hype?

What I kept returning to was The Infinity Gauntlet #4, the issue where Thanos fights and kills all of the heroes gathered to try and stop him. It is one of the best event issues ever done, so shocking in the way that page after page is Thanos killing your favourite heroes. It’s a complete massacre of the heroes as he kills Thor, Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Captain America... Thanos kills them all and does so easily with the power of the Infinity Gauntlet. It was made all the more shocking because there was no indication of how any of it would be undone.

Here, Uranos does something similar, albeit with only a fraction of the marquee characters and within a context that contains the resurrection protocols and the Five. It would have taken almost the wholesale genocide of every living being on Arakko to meet my (quite possibly unreasonable) expectations with regards to seeing his attack as it happened.

Oddly, while I was let down as a Judgment Day/Eternals reader, where Ewing and Caselli succeeded for me was as an X-Men Red reader. This issue did a strong job of telling a story that’s rooted within the narrative of that title, focusing on its cast and giving the big moments to them. Magneto’s death, for example, gets a stunning sequence, while whatever happens to Legion (from Legion of X) takes place off panel (more alluded to hype that, now, Si Spurrier needs to live up to when he shows that particular exchange... that apparently lasts only 28 seconds according to the narration here). I’m trying to imagine coming into this issue as someone who only reads X-Men Red with no real background in Eternals or the first issue of Judgment Day, and this issue would have been shocking, I imagine. A single Eternal comes to Arakko, a world populated by a people that solve problems in an arena through trials of combat, where you’re only as good as your last fight, and he kills everyone in front of him with ease. I can only imagine what it would be like to read this issue under those circumstances.

Given some distance, I have no doubt that this issue will stand out not only as a high water mark in this event, but as an event tie-in issue in general. It delivers everything it set out to do and its only failings are ones beyond its control. And I didn’t even talk about that final page, which, in the moment, almost erased whatever disappointment I was feeling.

*

Usually, when I discuss events, there’s an order of primacy to the specific comics: the main event series, tie-ins written by the writer(s) of the main event series, tie-ins written by ongoing writers whose characters are key to the event, and, finally, those random tie-in issues that seem to only exist to pad things out. On a week where two tie-ins come out and one is written by the writer of the event, it’s my usual procedure to focus on that tie-in. Of course, it’s not often that the event writer spends more time talking up the comic he didn’t write than the one he did.

That said, I did read Immortal X-Men #5, written by Judgment Day writer Kieron Gillen and drawn by Michele Bandini, first this week. There is an order to these things.

Like X-Men Red #5, Immortal X-Men #5 expands upon a fight sequence from Judgment Day #1: the Uni-Mind’s telepathic attack on Krakoa. Each issue of Immortal X-Men is told from the point of view of a different member of the Quiet Council, Krakoa’s ruling body. So far, we’ve gotten issues from the perspective of Mr. Sinister, Hope Summers, Destiny, and Emma Frost; this issue is Exodus. The structure is a clever weaving of his long history and the Eternals’ attack as their telepathic strike involves using memories to distract the mutant telepaths. It’s a conceit that allows Gillen to catch everyone up on Exodus’s story without it seeming completely unrelated to what’s going on. A knight who fought in the Crusades, Exodus’s worldview is shaped by his particular brand of mutant Catholicism that has centred upon Hope as the messiah.

“Who are the heroes here?”

Get used to me returning to that question until the event shunts it aside in favour of another. As this issue is told from Exodus’s perspective, obviously he is the hero. He makes the case for how he came to view Hope as the messiah and mutants as God’s chosen people, along with his role as the rock upon which that church is built. He is unwavering in his conviction and views himself completely within the right in a way that only someone acting on blind faith can. He believes in God and Hope and, as he acts in their service, he is Good.

Any war against mutants, then, is a holy war for Exodus, just as a war to “correct excess deviation” is, by definition, a holy war for the Eternals. They are acting upon their guiding principles given to them by their gods, the Celestials. Of all of the mutants to focus on first, Exodus is a smart choice, placing this conflict in a very specific yet accurate light. Possibly an uncomfortable one for some – which only makes it a bolder choice in an event like this.

I’m coming to Judgment Day with Avengers vs. X-Men sitting in the back of my head. Ten years on from that event, which is where Hope embraced the Phoenix and gave the mutant race another chance. That would have been a pivotal moment for Exodus, although one that isn’t specifically shown here. The final moment of Exodus’s history that we’re told is the birth of Hope, which was enough to convince him that she was the messiah. I wonder why Gillen didn’t include the events of AvX #12 except in a very brief allusion that would also include Hope’s role in the Five. As a being of faith, it’s almost like Hope following through on the promise he saw in her is secondary; of course she did, because he had faith that she would. The important part for Exodus is the faith she inspires with all actions (miracles) secondary because, if he needed concrete proof of her being the messiah, it wouldn’t be faith anymore.

And there’s also the matter of Judgment Day #1’s narrator, the coming new god/Celestial that Ajak and Makkari are creating... a third side to this holy war...

Immortal X-Men #5 may have taken the back seat to X-Men Red #5 this week in general hype and expectations for understandable reasons. I found it a strong thematic overture for what may be coming in the event. More abstract and specific to a single character, I think it hides its importance behind a religious zealot that’s easy to dismiss. But, this event looks to be filled with religious zealots. In X-Men Red #5, we saw what one religious zealot could do if given the chance.

Next week: Judgment Day #2

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 01 (AXE: Judgment Day #1)

What I’m struck most by is the economy of the issue. The efficiency. A modern superhero event comic is an exercise in efficiency. The old maxim of “arrive late, leave early” taken further than it probably should is the rule of thumb. A balance is attempted between telling a story that stands on its own for those that just want the main event, and one that leaves enough space for the various tie-ins to feel important when they fill in the gaps. I think Kieron Gillen hits that balance, albeit in an unexpected manner by both putting as much dialogue and narration into the issue as possible, overlapping scenes, and leaving large tie-in-sized gaps. There are a lot of words on the pages as the goal is to both tell this new story, while also providing enough history and context for that story to make sense to those who haven’t been following the X-line and Eternals. And, more than Gillen, what really makes it work is Valerio Schiti’s layouts and line art. This is an information-heavy issue that requires a lot of dense pages and he pulls off his balance act between fitting it all in and making it look good quite well.

Given that this is a superhero comic, surprisingly, it’s the big action scenes that get cut down the most. There are three possible action scenes in the issue: the Avengers’ surprise attack on Sersi (the most Avengers-friendly Eternal, particularly since she was once on the team); the Eternals’ surprise attack on Krakoa (the mutant island nation); and Uranos’s surprise attack on Arakko (Mars). The first lasts a page; the second takes place over, roughly, six-and-a-half pages (over 20% of the comic, to be fair, though one page is mostly the end/retreat of the Eternals) interspersed with Druig discussing the plan; and the third is three panels of the attack about to happen and then only implications from Druig and the aftermath.

The Avengers’ attack on Sersi doesn’t come off as truncated in any way. It’s quick and brutal in its violence, meant to incapacitate the Eternal before she can mount any defense. This action scene is given exactly the right amount of space to convey what it needs to.

The Eternals’ attack on Krakoa, while taking up a sizeable amount of the issue still feels slight and rushed. Much of the action is implied through carefully chosen images and Druig walking Moira MacTaggert through the plan back in Los Angeles. The two overt attack fronts, psychic and physical, are given introductory panels, while the true point of the attack, the covert attempt to have Jack of Knives kill the Five (thereby ending the mutants’ ability to resurrect their dead) is given two full pages, bringing its importance to the forefront. A solid third of the space given this action scene is devoted to a detailed showing of Jack of Knives already killing Egg and being stopped by Wolverine before he can also kill Hope. Much of the rest of the space is divided between large establishing panels of the other two fronts (the appearance of the Uni-Mind to attack the telepaths of Krakoa and their counterattack, or the X-Men coming through a gate to engage the Eternals in their war armour). So much of the action is implied – and it’s almost taken as a rule that readers have seen enough of these fights to fill in the gaps themselves. But, they’re also not necessarily important fights. They were distractions and the focus on Jack of Knives and Wolverine makes it clear where our attention should be focused. There are two main reasons given as justification for the Eternals to attacks the mutants under the reasoning of “correct excess deviation,” their third principle: mutants have, effectively, become immortal, and their colonisation of Mars. This entire attack on Krakoa is the attempt to eliminate their ability to resurrect the dead.

While Druig sending Uranos to Arakko is the attempt to destroy the off-Earth colony. Aside from three brief panels of the very beginning of the attack, we only see the aftermath of Uranos’s decimation of Arakko in this issue. Uranos the Undying is the former leader of the Eternals whose attempt to take “correct excess deviation” to its frighteningly logical conclusion caused a civil war and resulted in him spending the subsequent millennia in the Exclusion. He is ancient, he is cruel, he is the monster that Thanos aspires to be. So much of his power as a character comes from implication. He’s so dangerous that Druig has programmed the Machine to ensure he’s returned to the Exclusion after sixty minutes no matter what. He is built up as a monstrous living weapon that Druig has deployed against Arakko.

The three brief panels of the beginning of the attack go from calm to panic immediately, followed by Druig countering Moira’s point about the danger of Arakko with its “over a million mutants from a war-torn existence, hardened by centuries of siege,” by smirking over his shoulder, “For starters, there’ll be a lot less than a million by now...” That’s all we get of the attack until its over. First, Nightcrawler barely makes it back to Krakoa, the Five resurrect Cable (who died on Arakko) and he demands to know what happened, which cuts to a page of Uranos on Arakko, counting down his final seconds before he returns to the Exclusion. He holds Cable’s skull in his hand, crushes it and blows away the dust before walking away from a pile of bones that include Magneto’s helmet, and the page ends with a large shot of a barren destruction with huge dust clouds and a blotted-out sun, the remains of what Uranos did in an hour: “I gazed at stars. I killed.” The page of Uranos counting down as we get to see the aftermath of his attack is fantastic work by Schiti and colourist Marte Garcia. The use of close-up shots before pulling back in the final two panels teases out just how bad it was, while the overwhelming tinge of red both reminds us of where we are, but also gives it all a sickly feeling of death.

The specifics are left intentionally blank, for two reasons. Firstly, as I said, Uranos gains power as a character the more we see the effects of his actions without the actions themselves. He practically destroyed all of Arakko in an hour. By himself. Seeing that happen wouldn’t necessarily take away from the character, but not showing it only enhances him. Moreover, it adds to the dramatic impact of the issue where the attack we saw the most of was the unsuccessful one. The Eternals took a shot at Krakoa and didn’t pull off what they wanted, and we saw that failure... whereas, their other attack was more successful than we would expect and we only see the effects.

Secondly, by not showing Uranos’s attack on Arakko leaves a large gap for tie-in issues to fill. From the looks of things, that will be X-Men Red #5’s focus. Gillen has talked up that issue a little and, if it does indeed show what happened on Arakko when Uranos the Undying came, it now has a lot to live up to. Now, Uranos’s attack has certain expectations in our heads for its brutality – it will have to be something akin to The Infinity Gauntlet #4 with the sheer ineffectiveness of all defence against this monster of a god that rains down nothing but death on everything in his path. I’m actually quite excited to see if it can be pulled off... (The only other tie-in that looks to come out prior to issue two of Judgment Day is Immortal X-Men #5, written by Gillen, and, I imagine will expand upon the Krakoa attack. When I say “I imagine,” that’s only because I didn’t read too many of the solicitations for upcoming issues of the event. Beyond my usual not reading solicitations of comics I’m going to buy anyway, I made a specific effort with a lot of the Judgment Day issues written by Gillen, as I want to remain as fresh as possible going into each one. I did glance a bit more at some of the tie-ins... mostly to see how much they look to balance between doing their own thing and working with the event.)

*

There are a little over four panels per page. Only 13 panels are without words and are all silent for specific effects (violence, important moments of emotion, the destruction of Arakko, the emergence of the Hex...). Kieron Gillen, to get across all of the information, writes a lot of dialogue in this issue, probably more than I’ve seen from him in quite a while. Pages are plastered with word balloons, no doubt to his complete frustration and best efforts to cut them all down to the essentials (how many puns were lost to the chopping block?). Even the seemingly ‘inessential’ bits of dialogue serve to introduce characters and their personalities. So much of the dialogue is a balance between infodump and advancing agendas and perspectives. A standard question that writers try to ask and answer is “What does the character want?” With Gillen, I usually find that the question posed is “What is their agenda?” A subtle difference that doesn’t just take into account what they want, but what their current goal is (and how it may conflict with their true desire). For example, does Druig want to eliminate the mutants? Sure, but only as a means to solidify his power. He wants to eliminate the mutants, to “correct excess deviation,” but it must happen under his terms and in a manner that showcases his brilliance as Eternal Prime.

What Valerio Schiti does best, in this issue, is convey the overwhelming chaos of what’s happening. When the issue gets going as the Eternals attack, it’s chaotic, jumping between Krakoa and Los Angeles, and Schiti somehow fits it all on the pages, gives it a flow, and also does some fine character work in the process. Things like Jack of Knives’s body language and facial expressions, which we get for all of three panels tell us a lot about his flamboyant personality in comparison to the brutal aggression of Wolverine (and in comparison to his supposed attempt to remain completely hidden). Or the wide array of expressions that Druig makes throughout the issue... language is his tool, including body language. What apparent is that a lot of thought was put into laying out these pages so the issue would flow and confusion would be minimal, but, then, once that macro task was done, Schiti put a lot of thought into the micro of each panel.

The choices of Marte Garcia intrigued me throughout. Like the way Uranos is coloured when we get the first big reveal of him in the Exclusion with his head/face obscured a bit. Or the way the X-Men are coloured in a manner that feels a little incongruent with the issue, harkening back visually to his previous work on the X-titles, particularly reminding me of work with Pepe Larraz. I’m really struck by how individual panels and the approach to the colours bring out possible influences. Like when the Eternals first appear in their armour, the blues and pinks and yellows with the green energy somehow add a Jim Lee quality to Schiti’s depiction of the Eternal in the front. Or, there’s a panel where Schiti’s framing of Druig combined with the colours remind me of Olivier Coipel’s version of Xavier back in Avengers vs. X-Men... just a bunch of little connections that may or may not be there, but flare up for me...

*

The issue begins with a splash page of a generic ‘day in New York’ shot of tall buildings and cars and people walking as, presumably, the not-yet-created new god of the Eternals narrates/speaks to humanity. The issue ends the same way, albeit with the narration occurring over a shot of the dead Celestial that makes up Avengers Mountain. This narration spells out the large idea of the event: “Who are the heroes here?” It’s a fair question, one that reminds me of Avengers vs. X-Men (and, honestly, many modern Marvel events, as the recurring theme seems to be hero fighting hero). Who were the heroes of that event? As a reader, I thought that the stronger case was made for the X-Men, specifically Cyclops, as the heroes; the writers of that event, though, seemed to think that the Avengers were the heroes and the plot played out accordingly. I can’t help but be curious if this event will play out similarly. Will I consider one set of characters the heroes, while Kieron Gillen and company will think that a different set are? In AvX, given that the plot revolved so heavily around mutant-specific concerns and ideas, it was hard for them not to come out as sympathetic and in the right; the Avengers wound up being generic agents of the status quo. Here... well, it’s not clear yet.

Who is/are the hero/heroes of Judgment Day #1?

There aren’t any good options, to be frank. It’s not the X-Men/mutants of Krakoa. At best, they’re victims that suffer horrible loss while managing to avoid even greater tragedies. It’s not the Avengers. At best, they’re bystanders who are playing catchup, standing in for the reader as both providers of exposition and receivers. It’s not Sersi and the other Eternals that have left Eternals society as, like the Avengers, they’re bystanders (and only Sersi actually appears in this issue). It’s not Ajak and Makkari as they only appear at the end with pivotal roles to play, just not yet.

That leaves Druig. Druig the schemer. Druig the leader looking for a common enemy to solidify his position. Druig who let loose Uranos the Undying. We spend a lot of the issue with Druig talking about his plans. He uses his voice as a tool. He manages to portray himself (and the rest of the Eternals by association) as a hero to humanity, advertising his newfound war on mutantkind. He is the closest thing we have to both a protagonist and a hero in this issue. Somehow, I don’t think that will be the case by the final issue.

Especially as Ajak and Makkari know the true purpose of the Eternals and Druig doesn’t. The Eternals were created by the Celestials to keep the Deviants from destroying themselves and humanity so that, over time, the two would intertwine their genetics until a stable hybrid of the two could occur. Now, I know I’m not the only one who read the infograph page in Eternals #12 outlining this plan and had a word pop into their head... right?

In two weeks: Immortal X-Men #5 and X-Men Red #5.

Them Guys Ain't Dumb 00 (Free Comic Book Day 2022: Avengers/X-Men #1, X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1, Immortal X-Men #4, and A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment #1)

 

“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.

"I don't want it to end." On King Thor #4

The other day, for some reason or another, I went back and read my CBR review of Young Liars #18. It was the final issue and I gave it five stars and the review was part celebration of a comic series that I really connected with and felt passionately about, part giant fuck y’all to everyone who wasn’t on board with it. I haven’t read that series since it ended. I should go back and give it a look, I think. I believe there have been final issues I’ve liked a lot since that one, but it’s what stands out for me when I think of final issues that really landed.

It didn’t take long for me to realise that Jason Aaron stuck the landing. Page seven cemented it for me. King Thor is going to die in a black hole of Gorr (literally) and the narration breaks down his lifelong struggles with self-worth, depression, all of his inner demons, and how he always hoped he’d overcome them some day. Except that day never comes – will never come. “You only learn to better live with the demons. To channel the rage and shame. To be the storm.” All while Thor yells for his father, about how Odin was right, how Thor wasn’t strong enough, worthy enough, and... I almost lost it there.

 

This isn’t a perfect comic. The middle section is Jason Aaron being Jason Aaron in a way that kind of makes me roll my eyes with Thor as cop or Thor as living planet or Thor as whatever the fuck. But, as much as I’ve lost my patience for that sort of things over the years (the Age of Awesome is behind us, I’d like to think), I can’t help but appreciate that there’s room for it in this issue. Aaron gonna Aaron, y’know?

 

It’s a big issue that packs everything in. Everything is tied up or addressed (oh, except for the odd thing, but, as the comic points out, there’s power in untold stories, so more about Volstagg and Roz will have to wait). The future, the past, the fate of Loki, the fate of Thor... the idea of Thor. The spirit of thunder.

 

It’s a little too fresh to really take in. This is becoming a fragmented thing and I didn’t want that. I wanted to, somehow, sum it all up and say something meaningful.

 

I guess I’ll go back to that seventh page.

 

Back when I began this newsletter, I said that part of my goal is trying to figure out why I feel such an affinity for Thor. I don’t feel worthy a lot. I’m very critical of myself, hate most of what I say, and seem to spend much of my time cringing at myself in real time. The more self-aware I become, the more I’m able to both overcome this and fall prey to it. I spend a lot of time wondering what the right thing to do is; the right thing to say; the right way to feel. What’s allowed, what’s too much, what’s too little, what’s appropriate, what’s not. Usually, I try to console myself with the idea that the struggle is enough; that I question myself and my actions and my thoughts and my feelings means that I’m not a lost cause at all.

 

I think I always liked Thor because he was just worthy. He just was. And his dad still thought he was a fuck up anyway. I never thought that my dad thought that, but our relationship was strained for as long as I can remember. Over time, I’ve realised that it had very little to do with me. I know that. I know that. But. But, that little bit of self-loathing on the matter is still there. I never related to Thor so much as when he was in the same room as his dad. Issue 491 held a great sway over me with Odin’s appearance.

 

And, at the end of time, Thor still can’t get over his bullshit with his dad. He still can’t get over every little bit of self-loathing and shame and feeling of unworthiness. But does he give up; does he fuck!

 

I related to Jason Aaron’s Thor run like no other Thor run. This wasn’t a Thor who was worthy because he’s worthy because he’s Thor. This was a fuck up; a mess of self-doubt and self-hatred, who had to struggle for so long to think himself worthy and, then, a single phrase took it all away. Thor never stopped being worthy, he just stopped believing himself to be worthy. He gave in to those terrible thoughts that haunt us all. And he kept going. It took him a while, but he kept going. And he’d get beaten down and he’d keep going. The whole thing began with that story: King Thor in the future, nothing but a mess of self-loathing and self-pity, but, after some time and a reminder of who he is, he was a grandfather and brought Midgard back.

 

Actually, it didn’t so much remind me of Young Liars as the end of Gødland. Enlightenment isn’t a destination; it’s a process. There’s no point where you become enlightened and just stop. It doesn’t work that way. Same with being worthy. You just keep going, trying to do your best, waking up every day and hoping you can still lift that hammer. We all have our hammer. It may just be looking yourself in the mirror and not hating the person you see. Most days, I’m successful. It was nice to read about a Thor with those same struggles.

 

Jane had those struggles, too. Her struggles helped the Odinson find his way back. She was worthy, but didn’t really know what that meant. It reminds me of when I met my wife and had this other person basically telling me that I was great. I was worth loving and liking and being around. And I had no idea why. I felt a little like a fraud. Still do. I always got that sense with Jane and Mjolnir. She didn’t understand why exactly she was chosen, why she was worthy when so many weren’t. Sometimes, I think that lack of awareness is part of the why.

 

I don’t know what now. I know that there’s a new Thor comic that I’ll be reading in two weeks. Just two weeks. It all keeps moving, doesn’t it. I don’t know if I’m ready. How often do you get to read the best of something and know at the time that it was the best. Is this what it was like when Simonson left? When Kirby left?

 

It’s a weird feeling. This was something special. And it’s done. But, it’s also here on my desk. I have the entire run stacked, ready to be read any time I want. It’s complete. Ha. Pretty cool.

 

This isn’t my last word on this comic or this run. Not by a long shot. It’s just what I’ve got tonight.

Did “The God Without Fear” Actually Happen? On War of the Realms: War Scrolls #1-3

Okay, yes, it did.

But.

But.

But, what if it didn’t?

What if the events as depicted in “The God Without Fear,” which ran for three parts in War of the Realms: War Scrolls #1-3, written by Jason Aaron, drawn by Andrea Sorrentino and Matthew Wilson, and lettered by Joe Sabino, only occurred within the mind of Matt Murdock? Setting aside the fact that that is highly unlikely based on the entire history of Marvel and the work of Jason Aaron, let’s walk through this story and see if it did, in fact, occur as presented.

The idea that this story didn’t actually happen first came to me when reading the third part, in the bottom panel of page nine. Daredevil, having used shards of the Bifrost to rescue a bunch of blind children that Malekith kidnapped to draw him out, is depicted lying in a field, arms outstretched, holding the hands of a child on either side whose arms are similarly outstretched to holds the hands of the children next to them. It’s such an odd panel that seems to have little basis in reality. Daredevil rescues the children so they can lie in a field, holding hands? It struck me more as an insight into his mind and the reality that he wished to observe. He equates saving the children, blind like himself, with their being at peace together in a field. It’s not a literal depiction.

And if that panel is not real, what is?

The observer effect is a theory of quantum mechanics in physics where the act of observation alters or impacts that which is being observed. It’s a theory that suggests that things aren’t as isolated as we like to think; that observing and measuring something, usually some small element of reality, affects it because no observation is entirely passive. Daredevil, normally blind, has the ability to see and hear all in this story, having taken Heimdall’s sword to command the Bifrost, which granted him Heimdall’s abilities. So, if Daredevil can see everything everywhere, how does that impact the reality of his own actions and events he’s a part of?

I would argue that the entirety of “The God Without Fear” is Daredevil’s observation of events, altered by his own viewing of them. What we see in the comic is entirely from his perspective. There are two things that support this idea: Daredevil narrates the entire story and the unique artistic by Sorrentino and Wilson that mimics Daredevil’s senses, even when he’s not present, as it does at the end of the first part when Kurse kicks Fisk in the face and there’s an outline box on the impact, coloured differently. It’s inconsistent with the non-Daredevil art and a clue towards what’s actually happening.

The primary conflict of “The God Without Fear” is an internal one. Matt Murdock’s continuing struggles with his faith run up against a new challenge when he becomes a god, or, at least, as close to one as he’s ever encountered. That casts the entire narrative into that set framework of Murdock trying to come to grips with what this means for both himself and the world around him. The narrative is shifted to suit his attempt to use this experience to better understand an unknowable deity whose presence and existence was ingrained into him at a young age.

By observing himself using these powers, Murdock hopes to observe a god in action. If he knows what he is thinking as he acts, and he is able to observe those acts from an external perspective, perhaps new insight is to be gained. In the first part, there is a clear disconnect between Murdock’s internal narration and the actions depicted. When he fights Frost Giants, the art depicts a cacophony of images piled upon one another with various insets and specific focal points, but the narration speaks of everything else that Murdock can see and hear until “I force myself to focus on the rush of icy blood through the arteries of these giants.” Once he focuses in that way, there is no true difference between Daredevil the god and Daredevil the man beyond some additional knowledge. A large depiction of a Frost Giant with a dozen parts isolated with facts provided is not so different from what Daredevil can normally sense in an opponent with his radar senses; the knowledge of the unearthly elements at play is the only addition. He can ‘see’ the various weaknesses and strengths of his opponent like any other time. As such, in the first part of this narrative, he learns very little about what being a god is, except that it’s either an activity in observing all of reality at a remove or it’s exactly like being a person, but with some added information immediately at hand. He’s left somewhat unsatisfied, questioning himself: “[...] but I do not know... if I am truly a god. I just answered the prayers of these people. Isn’t that what a god should do? I have also brought... divine retribution.” Except, in saving some innocents from Frost Giants, did he do anything different from any other night, except perhaps on a different scale?

This pattern continues through the second part. He talks up his powers in his narration, but his actions aren’t much different than normal. He marvels at the power both he and Fisk have at their disposal as they fight, but, aside from that, it’s just another fight between Daredevil and the Kingpin. By the end of the third part, Murdock cannot help but conflate himself with a god, not based on powers, but through his experiences. The added information and perspective gained by his godly powers doesn’t actually change him in any meaningful way. He takes down some thugs in New York, gets into a fight with Wilson Fisk, and saves some kids from a scummy bad guy and his muscle-bound goon before jumping back into another fight in New York. When he goes after Malekith, he narrates, “I used to curse God because I didn’t understand how he could be omnipotent and still let bad things happen to good people. But here I am, a god... doing the very same thing.”

His rescue of the blind children is very much a “Daredevil fight,” as he uses his abilities to his advantage, taking away the moonlight to fight in pitch darkness, and outthinking his opponent. He takes a beating to buy time before he’s able to enact his true plan. He plays to his strengths, fights a boxing strategy, and is able to save the day. At this larger scale of power, it only teaches him one thing: he’s still him, even with godlike powers. And that is the insight that he gains by juxtaposing his own actions with his inner knowledge. The story ends with him looking up at a church in New York and saying, “I’m sorry. About the things I always cursed you for. I didn’t know until now. That you’re just as blind as me.”

In observing himself from an external perspective using his new powers and comparing that to what he was thinking and feeling inside, Murdock learns that the only difference is that of scale. I suppose that is an insight, of sorts, but it’s also a thought exercise that doesn’t actually resolve the conflict he begins with entirely, because it begins from the flawed assumption that additional power is the same as being a god.

The manner in which he defeats Malekith provides another insight that competes with that final moment for being the ‘point’ of the story. The shards of the Bifrost are activated and allow Daredevil and the children to escape only when one of the children touches his sword. He narrates that “what I didn’t expect... was that sometimes more important than salvation... is divine inspiration,” which leads him to conclude, while he lays on the grass with the kids, that “It’s not our gods who give us strength. It’s the other damn way around.” If conflating himself with a god and judging that the only difference is that of scale is simplistic, this is the closest to a profound lesson that he learns and relates to the end of the first part when he spoke of answering prayers. It’s not a new lesson: the god doesn’t matter, it’s the believer. The god is a mirror of the believer, one imbued with an awesome scale of power, one whose whims and directions are merely an attempt to arrange order on the chaos of reality. Of observing the world around you and trying to make sense of it all, changing the unseen things to fit into a nice, neat narrative.

Just as Murdock does for the duration of this story.

There is one glaring argument against this particular reading: Daredevil, throughout the story, cannot actually see Malekith, who uses his magic to avoid detection and observation. In the second part, Daredevil is surprised when Wilson Fisk shows himself in New York, now possessing magical powers from Malekith; in the third part, Daredevil says that he can’t see Malekith until a specific moment, which is part of the Dark Elf’s attempt to entrap the hero. Except, that fits neatly into the narrative that’s presented here; it’s self-sabotage by Daredevil that’s not really in effect. Daredevil conveniently only sees Malekith as he discusses not being able to see Malekith with Heimdall. It fits Malekith into the regular Daredevil narrative where a bad guy has kidnapped some kids and holds them hostage, causing the hero to search for them until, finally, he comes across the trap.

The neatness of the narrative progression is part of what gives this away as a fantasy – or, at least, an edited version of reality. Aside from the present events of the narrative, the first and second parts begin with flashbacks to Daredevil’s past that inform the narrative. The first is an encounter with Thor that introduces the inner conflict between his faith and the existence of the Asgardian gods. He senses tell him that Thor believes himself a god when he calls himself such, which only raises more doubt. The ensuing narrative is Murdock gaining the powers of an Asgardian and learning if that means being a god. Much like the flaw in assuming additional power is the same as being a god, there’s also a flawed assumption in that having the power of an Asgardian is the same thing as being an Asgardian. If Daredevil has the power of Heimdall, is that the same thing as being Heimdall in every aspect? Of course not, because Daredevil continues to behave like Daredevil, not like Heimdall.

The second flashback focuses on the interplay between what is observed externally and what happens internally. Daredevil has caught a serial killer and talks of praying “that once I started beating you, I’d be able to stop,” and, then, admitting that he didn’t kill the man. He muses, “So I suppose God was listening to me that night. Or maybe my arms just got tired,” indicating that even he doesn’t know what happened. He experienced the events and walked away with an ambiguous conclusion of what happened. Perhaps if he had also witnessed those events, he would have gained new insight? Probably not.

If anything “The God Without Fear” is an exercise in solipsism. By simultaneously observing his actions and experiencing them, Murdock makes himself the centre of the universe, the focal point of everything. Everything that happens is fit into a narrative that suits his inner conflict and questions. Reality is remade to revolve around him. He doesn’t recue the children and return them back home; he lies in a field, basking in the glory of being their saviour and the knowledge that he is no different from his God. Even the ‘divine inspiration’ provided by one of the children becomes about him. If anything, this entirely self-centred approach to using his powers and defining his actions provides an unstated insight into the nature of God; one where everything exists and occurs merely as a reflection of His existence. Everything is God experiencing it and observing it simultaneously, fitting it all into a grand narrative of order, just as Matt Murdock does for the entirely of this story.

But, even if this reading of the story is correct, I must admit, that doesn’t mean that the events didn’t actually happen. Aside from that one panel, everything is credible enough. That the events that happen aren’t referenced in any way in War of the Realms does seem suspect, particularly an encounter with Malekith that doesn’t fit neatly into what’s shown in that series. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough to support the argument that the story didn’t happen. Even if the act of observing what happened caused Murdock to unconsciously use his powers to somehow reshape reality into the narrative that we read, that would mean that that is what happened. So, I guess the question that really needs to be asked: how different is “The God Without Fear” from what actually happened?

Only god knows...