Custom Kitchen Deliveries 07 – Immoral X-Men #2

This issue is the dead centre of the event and provides the twist of explicitly laying out what’s going on here: the four three Essex clones are racing against one another to reach Dominion. Kieron Gillen is even kind enough to give us a one-page synopsis of that plot, complete with a breakdown of what each clone is working with to reach this goal. It makes plain that the goal was to defeat the machines and, now, the goal is to defeat one another. We knew this already and, now, we know this for certain; so, where does that leave us heading into the back half of Sins of Sinister?

Hope narrating this issue is a convenient way to provide context for the +100 timeframe and where mutantkind has gotten in the 90 years since Emma Frost put Sinister under her boot, while also giving a secondary ‘race’ between the Quiet Council members to be the last one standing. Hope, the war-mongering messiah is the first to fall, mostly because she’s more useful dead than alive. If this timelime follows the pattern that we’ve seen previously in Immortal X-Men, then Exodus is the likely last member standing as the focal point of the mutant religion. While not all mutants appear to rally around the faith, it’s interesting to see that there is a distinct portion of mutantkind that’s entered well into the realm that Mother Righteous seeks to exploit. However, as we saw in Nightcrawlers #2, her efforts to exploit belief do struggle with genuine faith. I guess what that means is that Exodus and his followers could be a liability for Righteous to prey upon or a key to overcoming her. If they play a role in that regard at all, to be honest...

The three scenes involving Sinister intrigue me the most about this issue. By having Hope narrate, Sinister is put at a distance to an extent. The only indication of what he’s been up to during the 90 years since Immoral X-Men #1 is the brief bit of hearsay in Nightcrawlers #1 about him being almost a godlike figure within the mutant empire, actually showing up to witness his latest weapon in person. While that description from Wagnerine seemed plausible in the gleeful callousness of Sinister, it also read as heavily filtered through the Nightkin’s relationship with Righteous. The Nightkin would naturally think that Sinister occupies a similar place for the expanding mutant empire as Righteous does for them, when it’s very much the opposite. In the scenes that he appears in here, Sinister is much more the remorseful scientist who has seen his experiment escape his control and run amok, and, now, is looking for any way to put things right.

Or, that’s how he appears in scenes one and three with Rasputin. To Gillen and Andrea di Vito’s credit, you want to believe that Sinister’s confession of guilt to Rasputin at the end of the issue is genuine. Both writer and artist sell the hell out of it. In the two bookend scenes, Sinister is contrite and kind and... tired. He seems worn down by the past century of watching mutants expand and slaughter their way across the galaxy. But, he’s just selling his own self-serving story, creating his own religion of sorts for Rasputin and the crew of the Marauder to believe in as he seeks to regain his lab and the Moira clones inside, so he can undo all of this – and do it again, only properly. The middle scene with Mother Righteous makes it plain that Sinister has not changed in any way except learning to be a better actor.

His tone in that scene is Sinister-as-we-know-him with sardonic wit and a solipsistic streak a universe long. His insistence that he’s the real Nathaniel Essex, for one thing. His chiding Righteous for aping his style. Or, his final words to himself after she leaves: “This does change everything. I can use this... but I need my Moiras to really use it. And I need them before the council crushes me. Oh, Nathaniel. What did you do to deserve this?” Aside from our knowledge of Sinister, these words both undercut and set up that final scene with Rasputin. Sinister is self-aware enough to know what it is he did that resulted in the current status quo. That’s what makes his unburdening to his Chimera captain work to well: he’s not lying about most of it. He did destroy Krakoa. He corrupted it with his strain of solipsism and that created a chain of events that destroyed Krakoa, Earth, and a good chunk of the universe so far. He genuinely wants to undo that damage and restore Krakoa to the paradise-in-the-making that it was when he managed to kill Hope, Xavier, Frost, and Exodus to finally get his genes to stick. He tells Rasputin everything he did to deserve this and does it in a way that makes her believe in his cause. It’s interesting how little he has to lie in the process. The only lie is the guilt.

Another element that stood out was that Sinister’s approach to Rasputin follows that of Righteous and the Nightkin. He frees her from the Sinister gene and, then, gives her something to believe in, which is his self-serving cause. Is this a signal to the similarities between the Essexes that they can’t help but follow the same paths, or did he take this idea from the book she left him? As he thanked her (her method of gaining influence), will this put her in a position of power over not just him but Rasputin and the crew as well? And I’m reminded of something that I mostly overlooked in Nightcrawlers #1: Orbis Stellaris thanked Righteous as well... I admire the way that repetitions and reoccurring behaviours are central to this event. Much like I mentioned above with Exodus, it’s hard to tell if the overlapping of methods is an advantage or disadvantage. Is it being co-opted or is that, after a certain amount of progress, it’s not a matter of the distinct paths, it’s a merging of methods towards Dominion? Or, perhaps, it’s not so easy to separate out the different approaches when it’s the same person trying them all out. Is it truly a race to the top when the participants are all the same person?

Next: Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 06 – Nightcrawlers #2

We jump ahead 90 years to the +100 time period. If you’ll recall, in Powers of X, this was the period of Moira’s ninth life – it was a world where the Earth was ruled by machines, humans clung to scraps and lived in servitude, and mutants were exiles, living under the hospitality of the Shi’ar or the small group on Asteroid K. Immediately, I noticed how much of this status quo played with those ideas.

Mutants no longer live on Earth, but not because they were driven away. No, they live off-world because the Earth was too small and limited for their collective vision. (Sinister)

The Earth is ruled by aliens that attempted an invasion, but found themselves a little late to the party. (Orbis Stellaris)

The true exiles are the Nightking and devotees of the Spark, freed from Sinister’s control, and roaming space on a single ship, the Narthex. (Mother Righteous)

With Doctor Stasis and the possible homo novissima eliminated, things shift and reform, but the basic shape is the same. Mutants head for the stars, mutants find exile in the stars, and mutants are denied Earth. The reformation around the other three Essexes is interesting as, despite not appearing here, Orbis Stellaris remains the most likely opposition to Sinister. Even if Sinister as we know him isn’t at the forefront of mutantkind’s movements and decisions, it’s still Sinister. Mutantkind heads to the stars to crush all that exists in their way, absorbing what they can, killing what’s left. Nightcrawlers #2 suggests a big clash between the two powerful forces of Sinister and Orbis Stellaris without even mentioning the latter, while Mother Righteous remains off to the side, hoping to be the spoiler.

But, perhaps, I am getting ahead of myself. What is it about X-Men comics that encourages speculation and seeing little webs and developing theories?

Despite all of those details sprinkled in throughout the issue, creating a lovely backdrop, Nightcrawlers #2 isn’t really about all of that necessarily. It’s actually a pretty small and personal story for Wagnerine. One of loss. Loss of her faith, of her lover, of her child... and her loss may be a loss for Mother Righteous as well. Sorry, it led right back there almost immediately, didn’t it? That’s the way this event is structured. The small pieces point to the big ones. They suck you in with those personal stories that exist against this large backdrop and that’s what matters. The journey of Wagnerine throughout this issue provides an emotional grounding for the grandscale movement of the Essexes. All of this is the three of them operating on a massive scale as I already indicated. So large that someone like Orbis Stellaris exists through mere allusion and assumption.

The Wagnerine story is one of repetition, in a sense. And revelation. When discussing Immoral X-Men #1, I argued that the addition of Sinister to the Quiet Council added solipsism to each of them. This selfish view that only they are real. That only they matter. In this issue, we see that the same mindset afflicts Mother Righteous and how what separates her from Sinister (and almost certainly the other two) is methodology, nothing more. Instead of genetics, she uses concepts like gratitude and faith to spread herself, all in service of herself. But, like Sinister pushed too far by putting himself in mutants, losing control of the experiment, Mother Righteous’s use of the Spark ultimately puts the Nightkin beyond her control. While she may have put parts of herself – or, rather, her influence, in them all through their gratitude and faith, she also accomplished this task by piggybacking off a concept outside of herself and her control. The rescue of Nightcrawler, his attempt to stop Righteous, and her subsequent killing of him is such a central moment, revealing for all of her followers what she truly is – an Essex by any other name...

This issue is about emphasising that connection. Beyond her simmering self-serving actions to date, that side of her is laid bare at the end of the issue. Wagnerine lays it plain after she escape death: “They know she bears a rod as well as a lamp. That her Spark is a cold fire, not a warming glow. As of today? They doubt.” Righteous losing control of their faith is like Sinister losing control of mutantkind after his genetic manipulation. The addition of the pink tethers and glowing balls to Righteous’s outfit recall’s Sinister’s cape and its high strands. Even the way that the Nightkin all wear headbands showcasing Righteous’s heart symbol over their natural diamonds acts a visual play upon the Sinisters of mutantdom. Her efforts to gather various mystical and magical items is like Sinister’s obsessive collection of genetic material. While we’ve only ever had a suggestion of what a mystically-focused ‘Sinister’ means, this issue is almost a practical walkthrough, pointing to as many elements of Sinister familiar to readers.

(I will discuss his art in the larger context of the entire +100 comics, but I want to call out how overjoyed I was to see Andrea Di Vito drawing another Ragnarok for Asgard. In a comic all about various X-Men elements, that callback to the “Ragnarok” Thor arc that he drew is, by far, my favourite reference.)

While Sinister spread solipsism, Righteous mistakenly spread the Spark. She may be positioning herself as the spoiler between Sinister and Orbis Stellaris, but the Spark so far has been the only effective weapon against Sinister’s spread. The Nightking seem freed from Sinister’s influence by that residue of the Spark within Nightcrawler’s genetic code somehow – like, somehow, the soul transcends pure genetic material. Sinister’s obsession with genetics and mutation isn’t genuine. He’s not really interested in new life or new ways of being. He’s obsessed with bending those things to his will for the propagation of himself. Righteous views the Spark similarly and I’m really wondering if, by the +1000 period, she will find himself playing second fiddle to the Spark and its devotees like Sinister finds himself under the thumb of the Quiet Council. Oh, he holds an important position and role as their chief genetic weaponeer... but that makes him a servant. Will Righteous become a mystical servant for the faithful? Something that they pour their faith and gratitude into and, then, use for their purposes? If this is an inevitable point in the schemes of an Essex... what of Orbis Stellaris and the Progenitors?

Next: Immoral X-Men #2.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 05 – Sins of Sinister +10

Powers of S

Okay, so the thing about Sins of Sinister is that it’s Age of Apocalypse for Powers of X. Not House of X/Powers of X, I would argue – specifically Powers of X. It’s more straight forward in its linear storytelling and, unless there’s a rug pull late in the game, it doesn’t play with parallel timelines the same way. What we can assume currently is that Sins of Sinister operates on a single timeline (one that will presumably be reset/wiped out at the end to return us to X⁰). That loose framework is... simplistic when compared to Powers of X, a series that juggled four different time periods across three different timelines.

(At this point, I’m going to presume that you’ve either read Powers of X or don’t care if I explain certain elements in depth. If neither of those things are true, I would advise closing the tab, and doing something else with your time.)

When Powers of X begins, the first issue shows us four different time periods:

X⁰ – ‘year zero’ where Moira approaches Charles.

X¹ – +10 years, the founding of Krakoa. Over the course of the series, that ranges from months before the official founding to a short period after.

X² – +100 years, as the last remnants of Krakoa fight against Nimrod and the machines’ rule of Earth.

X³ – +1000 years, as the eventual result of human/machine evolution (homo novissima) seeks to ascend to be part of a Phalanx

We assume that these are all the same timelines. By the end of the series, we know that X⁰ and X¹ seem to be part of Moira’s tenth life, while X¹ is her ninth life and X³ is her sixth. In her sixth life, she learned the true purpose of the machine enemies of mutantkind and subsequent lives attempted to both stop the rise of the machines, while ensuring the survival of mutantkind. Her ninth life, she finally gained knowledge of the specific moment when Nimrod came online and her tenth life (the Marvel universe as we know it) shows the (failed) efforts to prevent Nimrod from becoming active. Stop Nimrod, save the mutants. But, they failed and Moira was eventually exposed and she was stripped of her mutant abilities and she went from basic human to machine pretty quickly. Meanwhile, Mr. Sinister cloned Moira and began using her mutant ability to optimise the timeline for his goals.

Take that big chart from Powers of X #3 outlining all (but one) of Moira’s lives and you can slot Sins of Sinister right at the very bottom, except this is life... 27? 28? Something like that. It doesn’t appear that Kieron Gillen, Al Ewing, and Si Spurrier are pulling the same trick as Hickman with different timelines. When the +100 time period begins in Nightcrawlers #2, it will be a jump from these +10 issues within the same timeline. So, as I said, simpler.

Yet, Sins of Sinister isn’t simple. Where exactly this story is going is anyone’s guess. There have been two key moments that made for rather extensive changes from the timelines we saw in Powers of X: the destruction of Orchis (specifically Nimrod) in Sins of Sinister #1 and the death of Dr. Stasis in Nightcrawlers #1. These two events together mark a huge departure from the timelines of Powers of X where the main goal was setting up the threat of machine life as the true competing interest on Earth. It was never about homo sapiens – it was always homo novissima. In a world where Sinister had ‘corrupted’ the mutants of Krakoa, they were able to completely neutralise the main threat of Moira’s various lives. The big threat that Hickman set up is shunted aside here. In its place, lie two other potential threats to Sinister/mutants: Orbis Stellaris and his interest in alien evolution; and Mother Righteous and her interest in mystic evolution. (I use the word evolution incorrectly and loosely. I haven’t settled upon a better term for the interest of the four Essexes.) By the beginning of Immoral X-Men #1, mutants have conquered Earth, essentially. The idea that humanity – sapiens or novissima – is a threat has passed. Instead, they begin looking outward. Interestingly, despite closing off the central plot of Powers of X, the three writers do play off several elements outlined in the series, specifically Mr. Sinister’s progression of experimenting with Chimera mutants. That they didn’t go heavy-handed into deviating 100% from elements of Powers of X demonstrates the playful aspects of this story.

The time periods is another way that Sins of Sinister plays off Powers of X. In Hickman’s series, the “+10” time period was the present day X-Men comics, while the “year zero” was the past. Here, “year zero” is the present day, while +10 is the future. This story is dealing entirely in hypotheticals. We know – we know – that it will eventually reset to the present day and be undone somehow. I think it was X-line editor Jordan White who said that this wasn’t an alternate reality story and, while that’s technically true, it’s an alternate future. A future timeline that will be wiped away and knowledge gained as a result... but for what purpose? The main thing that we see here is the template for mutant domination and the defeat of the machines. It is mostly through means that the current Quiet Council would not sanction, but is something that could be useful. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1 features a play off the famous scene from Powers of X that was used in the promos of Xavier reading Moira’s mind and being surprised at what he finds, except with Xavier (helmet on) and Sinister. He gets another vision of a now-aborted timeline, a picture of what could be to come, and that sets up the next stage of Krakoa.

We shall see.

The Rejection(?) of Hickman

Oh, it began as something of a joke. The idea that Mr. Sinister is a metafictional stand-in for Jonathan Hickman, forced to see his dramatic change escape his direct control and be helpless as his influence spreads in ways unanticipated. But, as Sins of Sinister progressed, I realised that it wasn’t quite that simple, though that reading doesn’t seem wrong, exactly. It also relates to what I wrote above about the defeat of Nimrod/Orchis and the death of Dr. Stasis – the progression beyond both Sinister and Stasis is a purposeful rejection of Hickman’s plans, albeit one that’s not necessarily permanent. This is a possible timeline, one almost certainly doomed to be erased and, with it, so is the destruction of the machines. The defeat of homo novissima will be undone. But, for the moment, this is a story that plays with the idea of Hickman’s influence over the X-line and seeks to move past it, while also embracing it. When you go back and read Powers of X, a lot of space is dedicated to the types of society on a universal level. A lot of space. That’s the area that this story looks like it will be exploring, though from a different perspective. Again, Nightcrawlers #1 is the essential comic in this regard with a text page that gives a brief explanation of the highest form of society, Dominion (big neon flashing sign pointing at the final part of Sins of Sinister) – and Orbis Stellaris’s Worldfarm. There are two key parts that I wish to highlight, out of order:

“Typically, Dominions comprise 10 or more unified artificial intelligences at the TITAN level (each being a Type 0 civilization on the Kardashev scale). Other routes to Dominion status are theoretically possible – albeit highly eccentric – hinging in most cases upon the utilisation of incomparably advanced circuits of power, probability and processing.”

As the domination of artificial intelligence (evolution) on Earth has been seemingly cut off, what remains are the other routes. The word ‘circuit’ jumps out as that is the term used to describe mutant powers used in concert with one another. Though, the final three Ps in that short paragraph seem to describe the specific means of Sinister, Mother Righteous, and Orbis Stellaris. While they seem to be in competition, this could allude to collusion.

But, more than hinting at the possible way we may see Dominion at the end of this story, there is this sentence that possibly points beyond Sins of Sinister and the longterm ramifications (bold and italics taken from the comic):

Irrespective of how or when a Dominion formed, having done so it has always existed, and will always exist.

If Dominion is reached, will it transcend the resetting of the timeline? Does it already exist?

I find it really interesting that, while Sins of Sinister seems to be a rejection of Hickman, it merely closes off the storytelling path that he already explored and showed us in Powers of X. If you’ve read that, you’ve seen the machines win, basically, and homo novissima on the cusp of ascension into a Phalanx. Sins of Sinister looks like it may offer an alternative path to Dominion. Possibly a circuit of Sinisters...

The Visual Cohesion of Paco Medina and Jay David Ramos

The goal, I believe, with having a single artist draw each time period is visual unity. To both the credit and detriment of artist Paco Medina (and colourist Jay David Ramos), I don’t think that goal was achieved. In an obvious way, it doesn’t work because, after the first two issues of this time period were done exclusively by Medina and Ramos (per the credits), the third (Immoral X-Men #1) featured Walden Wong and Victory Olazba on inks, while Chris Sotomayor did some colouring as well. The unified front of Medina as line artist and Ramos as colour artist was not maintained across all three books, immediately giving that third book a different look from the first two in some ways.

Except, my completely amateurish eye can’t necessarily spot those various differences. In part because I don’t have the ability. In part, because the previous two issues didn’t actually look much like one another either. I actually think that’s to Medina and Ramos’s credit, because they adapt fantastically to the different scripting styles of Ewing and Spurrier. Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1 is written in a brisk action adventure style, roughly adhering to a three-tier page structure. Nightcrawlers #1 is denser, based off a four-tier page structure with more dialogue and, despite covering a larger timeframe, it a bit slower and more methodical. Immoral X-Men is the hybrid issue, alternating between three- and four-tier layouts depending on the scene and need to speed up/slow down.

An interesting effect is that, you would think that the three-tier layouts would lend themselves to more detailed renderings. With more space, it would give Medina a chance to get really intricate and detailed; while the more cramped four-tier layouts would necessitate simpler line work to communicate information in limited space. That’s what makes sense in my logical brain... yet, I find the opposite true in these issues. The more space Medina has, the simpler his line work seems to be. If he’s meant to convey speed and action, part of that comes down to less ornate line work so readers don’t stop to linger over all of the small details. And, on the slower, more cramped pages, the detail increases to slow the reader down a little.

I think the visual cohesion of each timeline will stand out more as we get each trio of issues, as well. Right now, the only point of comparison in this story is to Lucas Werneck on the first issue of the story. I’m curious to see how the visual evolve over the next two months.

The Event Without the Event

A point of comparison that came up several times over the first four issues of Sins of Sinister is Judgment Day. I saw a few purposeful callbacks/comparisons (or what I read as purposeful, to be frank). But, Sins of Sinister is a different sort of event. Part Age of Apocalypse, part linewide crossover that tells a single story through different monthly titles with no central standalone event title, it doesn’t work in the same was as an event like Judgment Day. What I keep coming back to, though, is that it doesn’t work like linewide crossovers either. This doesn’t read like X-Cutioner’s Song or Maximum Carnage or even, I don’t know, The Black Vortex. While the story progresses through these three issues, there isn’t really a linear progression. They are very much trying to both advance the larger story and tell their own specific stories unique to their respective titles.

In essence, they read more like tie-ins to a traditional event and we’re missing the standalone series to tell the true throughline story. The beginning Sins of Sinister one-shot kind of functioned as the first issue of the event in that respect. We just don’t get Sins of Sinister #2-4, though Sins of Sinister Dominion #1 may turn out to be like Sins of Sinister #5. Though it feels like there is that event series-sized gap here, it’s hard to know what would fill it exactly.

Much like the visual cohesion of each time period, the next period will provide insight into the specific structure of this story as an event/crossover.

Next: Nightcrawlers #2.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 04 – Immoral X-Men #1

As Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #1 recalled X-Men Red #5, Immoral X-Men #1 recalls Immortal X-Men #4. In the most obvious way, the repetition of Emma Frost as narrator, the first time a member of the Quiet Council repeats as narrator. Surprisingly, Kieron Gillen didn’t take this issue an opportunity to have one of the post-Sinister members of the Council (Magik, Namor, and Beast, replacing Sinister, Mystique, and Destiny) act as narrator, taking advantage of their novelty and sign o’ the times as it were. After all, this may be the only time any of them sit on the Council. Of course, had he gone with one of them as narrator, this issue would have been quite different as the fixation on Emma and Sinister recalls issue four of Immortal in structure in addition to the narrator.

For those that didn’t read Immortal X-Men #4 (for shame, for shame, etc.), it was the Hellfire Gala tie-in for 2022, and focused on Emma’s trepidation in a post-Moira Krakoa, added in the exposure of the Resurrection Protocols, had her reveal the true face of Dr. Stasis to the Quiet Council, Sinister ran/fought with the Council until he decided the best course of action was to return, at which point he was kidnapped by some unknown party (Eternals), and Emma was left with her anxiety and self-doubts. This issue both follows the general structure of that issue, but inverts many of the ideas, specifically those relating to Emma and Sinister. For instance, Emma sleeping in her diamond form is in the middle of this issue rather than at the beginning and the end, while Sinister doesn’t choose to return/not reset the timeline, he’s unable to and finds himself trapped. Throughout, there are various echoes of Immortal four, and I will save you from a listicle version of this piece where I count them down in some manner.

The main purpose of this callback/inversion is to demonstrate the change in the world in these ten years since Sinister wormed his way into Krakoa’s genes, while also emphasising that it’s not necessarily the drastic change that it appears. At this point, Krakoa rules the world whether or not everyone knows it. Mutant genes proliferate throughout the world, meaning Sinister proliferates. Emma’s narration makes this obvious along with her total confident and ambition to be the sole ruler of the world. The immortal White Queen of Earth. Gone are the moments of self-doubt apparent in Immortal four; but, before you think that this is the corrupted or evil Emma, I would argue that this is the same Emma from that issue. The only difference is the self-confidence and lack of doubts. As we see with Xavier, Hope, and Exodus, the influence of Sinister on each them is to give them the freedom to be themselves without doubts and worries about ‘fitting in.’ All that they needed was a healthy injection of solipsism. Each of them thinks, at their core, that they are the only real person in existence.

Immortal four makes that clear when Sinister reboots his personality. His blank, automatic body states “Add. Core. Motiv. Ations,” before he makes it clear what is at the heart of Sinister:

I AM THE ONLY REAL PERSON IN EXISTENCE. I AM ALL THAT MATTERS.

That is what we see on display in Immoral X-Men #1. For Xavier, all there is is the dream. For Hope, battle. For Exodus, Hope. For Emma, the White Queen. For Sinister, it is himself, of course. With him, though, we see the opposing forces that his solipsism has at its core: he surrounds himself with versions of himself and, yet, he constantly seeks to prove that he’s the ‘real’ one, the important one, the best Sinister. Yet, because he surrounds himself with Sinisters, all of whom share the same solipsism, he constantly chaffs at their efforts to overtake him and ensure their dominion. That’s all we’ve seen from the other Nathaniel Essexes to date with their methods differing. Each seeks to place themself atop the mountain in some way or other, often different mountains. And, as Sinister spreads further and further, what looked like it could be a hivemind situation is looking more like it may turn into one giant battle royal as every Sinister vies for supremacy.

It’s interesting as this is a departure from Sinister as Gillen last wrote him, during his Uncanny X-Men run a decade ago. Not a drastic departure, mind you. That Sinister was also a solipsist and insisted that there was a core, true Sinister that continually, somehow, survived all of the deaths and failures that we saw befall various Sinisters. However, that Sinister seemed interested in developing something akin to a hivemind society. It may not have worked in the sense of a central mind thinking a single thought and making its will known through various bodies; it was more like a designed society with a single guiding mind that set things in motion with the goal of seeing what would happen. In many ways, it was like our society, but where the answer to the question of free will was answered: everything is pre-ordained and planned, but you think it was all your idea. Recall the rebel that looked to kill the despot Sinister... only to learn that the society would be incomplete without the ‘freethinking rebel’ and that his existence only reinforced the ideals of that society that he sought to liberate and destroy... This isn’t that.

The solipsism and selfishness is on full display when Emma catches Sinister and has him at her mercy. He makes the case for not killing him as he can build better, more complex Chimera, and, while that argument seems to convince Emma enough to bring it to the Council, it isn’t quite enough: “...but first, I want something.” The emphasis on the ‘I’ is key to her demand: “Beg.” She requires domination over Sinister, to have him admit, on some level, that she is the superior Sinister. While she thinks of herself still as ‘Emma Frost,’ her core motivation is Sinister. She sees him as useful, she puts him under foot, and only when she is satisfied that she is properly in charge does she go to the others on the Council where, of course, the vote goes the way she wants. She thinks it because she is in charge; it’s more likely because the others wish to assert their own dominance and see Sinister as a tool for that. The issue ends with Emma assured of her place and planning for the future rule of the White Queen, but there is a question left unanswered in truth despite the issue beginning with the supposed answer:

Who rules a world of solipsists?

I guess we’ll find out in 90 years.

Next: a summation of the +10 time period.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 03 – Nightcrawlers #1

I don’t know why entirely, but I can’t get over the one non-mutant Nightcrawler Chimera. We see nine of these ‘Nightcrawlers’ (or, more properly, Legion of the Night) and they’re all crosses between Nightcrawler and a mutant (Wolverine, Toad, Sabretooth, Domino, Pyro, Empath, Colossus, and Pixie), except for one: the Spider-Man Chimera, eventually named Wallcrawler. Why is he there? We first saw him in Sins of Sinister #1 and, here, he reappears as one of the Nightcrawlers affected by Vox Ignis’s Scream of Change, freed from the influence of Mister Sinister alongside the Wolverine and Domino Chimera. While Sinister doesn’t necessarily feel confined to mutants in his experimenting, that has definitely been the direction he’s gone, particularly as the schism/differences between the four Nathaniel Essex variations have solidified. The Sinisters have slowly taken over the world via assimilation of mutants and non-mutants alike, yet that’s come across as expediency in a way that Sinister’s obsession with mutant genetics has felt more ideological somehow. After all, part of the plan was eliminating Orchis, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers alongside the Scarlet Witch and other non-mutant threats. The Chimera are specifically stated in Sins of Sinister #1 as having two X-Genes spliced together, something originally stated in Powers of X #1 where the variation generations of Chimera in Moira’s ninth life’s timeline are laid out:

The first generation of Sinister’s experimentation was simple replication of a single mutant. The second generation was the first group of Chimera, combining two X-Genes. The third generation mixed more than two up to five. And the fourth generation involved Omega-level sources and was sabotaged by Sinister in an effort to switch his allegiance to the ruling class of machines. In every case, it was using mutant DNA for his experiments.

Yet, here is a Spider-Man Chimera amongst all of this X-Gene DNA. Is it as simple as a joke going back to the early days of both Spider-Man and the X-Men when the hero thought he may be a mutant? I wouldn’t put it past the trio of Kieron Gillen, Al Ewing, and, this comic’s writer, Si Spurrier, to include this specific Chimera solely as a bit of a joke. It could be that simple. But, where’s the fun in that? No, if we’re going to read into these comics for the purpose of commentary and criticism, we’re going to overread into these comics for the purpose of commentary and criticism.

Part of the project that the Sinisters roll out is the addition of the X-Gene into homo sapiens. While an effective way to subsume the world, it’s also a direct attack on Doctor Stasis, the Essex variant focused on evolution through augmenting humanity outside of genetic tampering. It’s not just that mutants conquer and dominate the world, they also assimilate humanity into their ranks. By this point, the Sinisters have, for the most part, defeated the true threat of Stasis and his plans: Orchis and, specifically, Nimrod. The subtle, unstated victory achieved in this Sinister World Order is the “mutants always lose” curse of Moira. Homo novissima is cut off. Up until Moira’s sixth life (the +1000 years timeline in Powers of X), she wasn’t aware of the true threat to mutants and the fight for the dominance of Earth. It was both humanity and their machines, interwoven into a “manufactured branch of humanity not restricted by normal evolutionary constraints.” After living long enough to see this branch of humanity – this alternative next stage past homo sapiens – nearly reach ascension into a Phalanx, she reset the timeline with the specific goal of ensuring mutantkind’s victory by stopping the machines, culminating in her ninth life when she learns of the moment that Nimrod came online and entered her tenth life with the express goal of stopping that from happening while building up mutants to a place where they can, maybe, finally win. Of course, she failed. Nimrod came online, her plans were exposed, and she was stripped of her mutant genetic status, prompting her to immediately through her lot in with the likes of Orchis, embracing a homo novissima post-humanity.

And she lost again. Maybe it’s not mutants always lose, it’s Moira always loses.

The man-machine future dominance of Earth has been averted and mutants have won. All that’s left is either assimilation or subjugation or extermination (or experimentation). The assimilation would naturally involve expansion into genetic experimentation involving non-X-Genes. Given their similarities in acrobatic abilities, Spider-Man crossed with Nightcrawler would be a ‘safe’ test. It would be fairly predictable in the results, less likely to produce an unexpected circuit; instead, they would overlap to a large degree with additions like teleportation and Spider-Sense. And, while Spider-Man is not a mutant, his DNA has undergone a mutation of sorts. One wonders if Stasis would view him as one of his own or not. I imagine he would fancy himself more of a Dr. Octopus man as this issue evidences. How inhuman would the likes of Doctor Stasis view someone like Spider-Man? I guess we won’t find out in this event... and what about the Inhumans? He may view this less as a corruption of humanity by Sinister’s genetic manipulations and more an existing part of that threat being aligned closer with reality.

More than that, I think it relates to Mother Righteous, the heart-imprinted Essex variant that has embraced change as deviating further from the Nathaniel Essex template more than any of her brothers and has sought advancement through mystical means. With the Legion of X arc prior to this involving the transformation of mutants into ‘monsters’ and the larger influence of magic along with this issue’s focus on Mother Righteous, I recall the Spider-Man/X-Men story involving Kulan Gath from the Chris Claremont/John Romita, Jr. run where the Conan villain transformed New York into his version of reality, giving us some weird and wonderful classic versions of the X-Men, Avengers, and Spider-Man. In that story, Peter Parker definitely took on qualities of the ‘everyman’ in representing the change to the city. At his core, he’s the character that represents the average person (and Marvel in general) and including him resonates with past stories while also highlighting the importance or largesse of a story. No character is used more effectively in juxtaposition in stories like this than Spider-Man. It heightens the strangeness of things – and, in this case, the complete bonkers nature of the Chimera. We expect combinations of two mutants; but, a combination of the ‘everyman’ and a mutant? Well, shit just got real...

It’s interesting that Wallcrawler is the most devout of the bunch. Connecting Peter Parker’s very Catholic existence and unhealthy relationship with guilt and Nightcrawler’s very Catholic existence and unhealthy relationship with guilt is both obvious and inspired. He is the Nightcrawler to die, because he is the non-mutant. As much as everything I said above is true, this is a mutant story and a mutant dominance of the world, so, sorry, folks, the Chimera with a human stripe has to go. Plus, he likes the stripes. And, in so doing, he both reveals the callousness of Mother Righteous (which isn’t a surprise) and works to further cement her burgeoning faith.

Introduced in Legion of X #1, Mother Righteous doesn’t extend as far back as Orbis Stellaris, and she’s a much more consistent presence over the ten issues of Legion of X than Orbis Stellaris is in X-Men Red. While the space-faring Essex prefers to hide in plain sight, the mystical Essex is flamboyant and obvious, looking to shore up her powerbase by siphoning off from Sinister’s focus, mutants. Her primary focus is Legion, although she does have interests in the likes of Banshee (who she combines with the Spirit of Variance to make Vox Ignis) and Nightcrawler (and even Arakko). She offers power and her only price is gratitude – recognition for her role in the success of her business partner. Her big power play here is to kill off Stasis at the request of Orbis Stellaris for the price of knowledge and thanks – plus, as a bonus, free travel through the Dominion that Stellaris is convinced he can achieve. What exactly she has planned is a bit more obtuse. By the end of the issue, she seems to be positioning herself at the centre of a new religion, one grown out of the Spark concept of Nightcrawler, building it upon the foundation of the freed Chimera who, due to the Nightcrawler elements of their nature, are susceptible to this sort of thing.

What Mother Righteous does in this issue with Vox Ignis’s assistance is akin to Sinister’s efforts to assimilate humanity via his genetic tampering and the implementation of the X-Gene. When he alters their DNA to bring them to his side, Mother Righteous alters their souls. She’s far more dangerous than she appears at first as her hold over people is something beyond physical. The other three Essex variants all focus on a more physical or genetic level of change and evolution, while she doesn’t care about any of that. Human, mutant, alien, machine... any and all are welcome to worship at her feet and give thanks to her gifts. She shows here how easy it is, in a way, to grow her power base at the expense of Sinister’s (regardless of whatever his view of his X-Men is, they are his X-Men). That makes her tough to pin down entirely. A geneticist who alters DNA in an effort to dominate the world is pretty easy to see and understand; as is a technologist that aspires for a human-machine hybrid. But, a Gaiman-esque pseudo religious figure that trades in favours? She may just be the wild card of this whole event.

Next: Immoral X-Men #1.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 02 – Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1

My first thought was of X-Men Red #5. The way that it took a moment in Judgment Day #1 and expanded upon it, filling in the untold gaps, is repeated here with Al Ewing telling the story of an untold moment in Sins of Sinister #1. At the end of that issue, Sinister returned to his Muir Island base to kill one of his Moira clones and reset the timeline to a prior moment, undoing all of the work of his resurrected tainted mutants and humans. Only, he found his lab gone and, along with it, his chance to pull the plug on his experiment that has grown beyond his control. That reveal is a bit of a one-two punch with the shock of the lab gone, acting as the primary cliffhanger (of sorts) for the issue with the secondary detail of who took the lab coming right after. Well, thanks to Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1, we now know what happened to Sinister’s lab and who has possession of it.

Taking place between pages of Sins of Sinister #1 (specifically after Sinister says “How can I not think I’m better than everyone?”), this issue echoes the first Judgment Day tie-in Ewing wrote as well. However, in rereading X-Men Red #5, the differences are obvious. Where that issue was a poetic death tome that doubled as an exercise in precise, controlled storytelling, slowly unfolding the horror of the inevitability of Uranos’s slaughter on Arakko, this one is a quick burst of action adventure. It propels you forward with a group of plucky rebels on a mission to save the universe from a world gone wrong as former enemies work together and overcome adversity to succeed... and, then, comes the doublecross. Not an unheard of twist, it nonetheless comes as a bit of a surprise here as Ewing and artist Paco Medina (who will be drawing all three of the +10 issues) play off the expectations of the first half of the issue, right from Storm and her Brotherhood seemingly showing up Mystique (disguised as Destiny) to the Star Wars crawl. This seems like a comic where the good guys are going to win by taking the lab and... then, we’ll see. Instead, it’s more like the good guys wi—oh, no they didn’t, whoops. And it works.

The Star Wars text crawl and the cast list pages are somewhat redundant, if you break down the contents of the book. The two pages prior to the text crawl are literally a recap and cast of characters plus credits. But, those two pages are key for the tone of the issue: scrappy sci-fi underdogs taking on a seemingly unstoppable foe, with the text crawl heavily alluding to (as I’ve said a few times) the Star Wars franchise, while the cast page is more like a TV series, both done with 3D text to play into that retro feel. Oddly, for a comic that takes place ten years into the future, it’s rooted in retro vibes and influences, right down to Storm’s ‘Queen of Mars’ outfit that looks like something out of Flash Gordon. Of course, as the comic leans into those influences and gets you rooting for the Brotherhood to succeed, it counts on you to forget that things in those stories always got much, much worse before they got better.

Part of that trick is that, much as X-Men Red #5 used the knowledge from Judgment Day #1 that Uranos decimated Arakko to lead to the surprise hope at the end where everyone expected nothing but death and destruction, this issue plays off the reader knowing that Sinister’s lab is stolen by the end of Sins of Sinister #1. When the Brotherhood and Mystique embark upon the mission to steal it, Ewing is counting on us to know that the plan is a success and, then, assume that that means it goes to plan. Hence the light and breezy pacing and tone during the mission – why wouldn’t it be a nice, fun action issue? We know that they will steal the lab! It’s the same trick as his previous tie-in issue, except done in reverse. X-Men Red was slow, deliberate, almost plodding in its poetic destruction, allowing us to languish in the inescapable onslaught of Uranos; this issue is fast, fun, and entertaining... it’s a popcorn flick right up through the betrayal. And Ewing keeps on playing the same trick, right up to the final page reveal that mirrors Magneto not being dead: Orbis Stellaris working with Destiny and Mystique to steal the lab and keep the timeline from resetting. What’s even funnier, to me, is that the final page of this issue is pretty much the last page of last month’s X-Men Red #10 where it was revealed that Orbis Stellaris is an elderly human with long white hair and a long beard, sporting a blade spades symbol on his forehead. Ewing ripped himself off twice in a single page.

(In another world, I would be a bigger Al Ewing guy. I’ve dipped my toes into his work here and there, but SWORD/X-Men Red is the first sustained work by him that I’ve stuck with. SWORD was marked by continual ‘interruptions’ by events and X-Men Red hasn’t been too different. He seems to love events and crossovers, and he would make for a great study of how a writer doesn’t just navigate them, but dives in head first. He has a way of making events and crossovers seem like they function solely to advance his various ongoing plots. In some cases, because he was the main writer of the event; in others, because he’s just damn talented. It reminds me a lot of Kieron Gillen’s history with events and crossovers at Marvel. I’m not sure if Ewing has pulled off anything as impressive as Gillen’s first Journey into Mystery arc where it rewrote Fear Itself in the background of that event as it was happening, but still... This project easily could have been about Ewing in a different world.)

So, let’s talk Orbis Stellaris...

One of the four Nathaniel Essexes, the one that went to space. He first appeared in SWORD #6 as a representative of the Galactic Rim and drops this telling-in-retrospect line: “Humanity is obviously capable of far more than I had previously considered.” He mostly stays a background galactic figure until the final arc of SWORD when he’s responsible for unleashing a group of cloned cyborg terrorists against SWORD and the Shi’ar, seemingly at the behest of Henry Gyrich and ORCHIS, but we learn more due to his own interest and desires. From there, he works with Agent Brand to try to destabilise Arakko and, until the final arc of X-Men Red, most notably appears in issue 4 where he makes an impassioned case against the resurrection of Shi’ar Empress Xandra. Much as the line from his first appearance reads different in retrospect where the surprise that the humanity he abandoned to seek the next stage of life in space could progress this far. Do I detect a note of jealousy that his sibling Sinister succeeded so? If not, it comes through in *ahem* spades when he says “Why can only Earth’s mutants deny the reaper? Where is the fairness? Where is the justice?” At the time, it read like a moral argument; now, it reads like a man jealous of his brother. “Why can Sinister’s bunch escape death and I’ve never managed to figure it out?” And, then, in the most recent arc, many of his plans are thwarted by Cable and company as they take back the techno-organic virus sample that was stolen and leave Orbis Stellaris humiliated in defeat: “The mutants of Earth have requested my undying enmity—my vengeance in full measure—and Nathan Essex is happy to deliver.”

So, that’s the broad view of Orbis Stellaris to this point... not quite the obtuse, inscrutable possibility to be one of the ‘four Sinisters’ once Dr. Stasis was revealed with his forehead clubs symbol (and being the Essex who put his faith in humanity rather than genetic mutations or aliens or...). With his clone armies and slowly emerging status of a possible main villain within SWORD/X-Men Red, many people guessed his true identity long ago. Looking back, Ewing wasn’t always subtle in his hints (SWORD #11 having him admit in his private “after-action report” that he’s originally from Earth) and, well, I guess, now that he’s revealed at the end of Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1 as not wanting to reset the timeline despite Sinister’s ever-spreading influence/self, we’re left wondering exactly what his goals are...

The line that the issue ends on (“There can only be one... who has dominion.”) suggests that this is very much a competition between the four to see whose methods can produce a dominion-level society first and Orbis Stellaris looks to use Sinister’s project as something to possibly usurp for his own ends. If we continue on last time’s little metafictional thought exercise that Sinister is a stand-in for Jonathan Hickman, then who could Orbis Stellaris truly be other than Ewing’s stand-in? In the X-titles (and Marvel in general), he’s been the space guy, the one interested in exploring and expanding upon the space side of Marvel. While his most critically acclaimed work at Marvel is the now-marred Immortal Hulk, he’s mostly favoured space-tinged stories and specifically tried to evoke the cosmic feel of Kirby, Starlin, Englehart, and Gerber’s works... and has spent the last two years making in-roads in that respect in the X-line, to the point where he writes the comic about the new capital of the Sol System. If the future for the X-line (and Marvel) is in space, who better to be at the forefront of that? Why, in fact, lean into events and crossovers so readily other than to become as central as possible to the Marvel Universe?

Okay, that sounds a lot more calculated and, well, sinister than reality almost definitely is. But, I want to plant that little extra meta detail now – and you can see where I may look to be heading as we get deeper into this event, though that will depend on the actual comics. We’ll see if this holds up at all or it’s just me going way over the top into wanting to ready an obviously collaborative story as a secret confession of creative in-fighting and power struggles to be the one guiding voice for the X-line (and Marvel in general).

Beyond that, there are two other elements that I want to be mindful of as we move through this event: the use of single artists for each time period and the relationship to Age of Apocalypse. I don’t think we’ve got enough information yet to speak intelligently to either (they may even need to wait for a post-event piece, for all I know). For the latter, something that really needs to be emphasised is that, as much as Sins of Sinister has not been framed as an alternate reality story necessarily, it actually is. Except, while Age of Apocalypse deviated and ran parallel to the regular Marvel Universe, Sins of Sinister deviates from and runs parallel to Powers of X. The influence of Hickman is inescapable...

Next: Nightcrawlers #1.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 01 – Sins of Sinister #1

It’s rare that something does exactly what you think it will and still surprises you. As usual, I have eschewed as many details about Sins of Sinister that I could so as to maintain the element of surprise. I like surprise. As everyone is oh so fond of pointing out, comics are not cheap and, as such, I refuse to sacrifice my money’s worth. Of course, there is also the enjoyment factor of experiencing a complete work unsullied by previews and spoilers and writers talking too much in promo interviews (something that Kieron Gillen is actually quite adept at doing in a manner that gives little away). All I had were some of the broad details of this X-Men event and the comics that led us here. I even gave out some theories previously and wasn’t far off. In many ways, Sins of Sinister #1 is exactly what I thought it would be. In a shocking number of ways. Sinister needed to take Hope out of the resurrection equation to ensure a little piece of him was in anyone resurrected and slowly begin turning the world into a world of Sinisters. This issue is devoted to that plan playing out and, under many circumstances, that would be dull beyond belief. If I wanted to read a story that I already knew, I’ve got plenty of comics to reread. If I’m buying something new, I want to encounter something new.

Yet, I was surprised throughout Sins of Sinister #1, much to Gillen and company’s credit.

I think what surprised me was the straight ahead boldness of the issue. There was no pussyfooting or dancing around the topic: it was pure, straight ahead Sinisters take over the world in an unrelenting, methodical way. And, eventually, Sinister grows weary of how things are progressing and looks to pull the plug and something gets in his way. When boiled down, it was everything that I expected, executed in a manner that left me somewhat speechless. It was about halfway through, right at the end of the first series of splash pages by the guest artists that I also realised that the trick here wasn’t just that it was Sinister turning the world into what he wants, it was him doing so by making Krakoa succeed. This issue is the overlapping area of a Venn diagram of Krakoa’s plan for success and Sinister’s plan to turn everyone into him. The only thing that’s missing in the issue is Hope walking around in a “SINISTER WAS RIGHT” t-shirt.

That element of showing the Krakoa experiment actually succeed on the global stage through manipulation and betrayal and pure, logical ruthlessness is what makes this issue so surprising. It’s a surprise to see that Sinister’s plan not only works for his purposes, but is also the key to the elimination of Orchis, uniting humankind and mutantkind, and setting up Krakoa as a respected world power with the X-Men as the world’s premier superhero team. Sinister makes the dream come true – albeit in ways that Xavier, Emma, Hope, and the rest would never sanction under normal circumstances. It’s utterly surprising to see how easy it would be for this to happen if everyone put their personal morals aside and just focused on accomplishing the goal. It’s shocking in how quickly it all happens. A few scenes, a montage of splash pages and, bam, Krakoa is everyone’s favourite country and almost all opposition has been neutralised.

It’s what we’ve all wanted since House of X/Powers of X, isn’t it? The X-Men eliminate Thanos, Doom, the Eternals, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Orchis, the Scarlet Witch... anything and everything that could prevent the unchallenged rule of Krakoa is done away with (save Storm). Moira was wrong; mutants do win. All they needed was to stop acting nice and get a little Sinister. Oh ho ho... Like Hickman’s reinvention of the X-Men franchise, this issue does a lot of things very quickly, making broad, sweeping changes to the status quo in an effort to set up what comes next: the +10, +100, +1000 timelines of the next three months of comics. Yet, I’m struck that we’re +1 from Jonathan Hickman’s departure at the end of Inferno and Gillen gets to write the success of Krakoa in a single issue.

In his essay “Football” in Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman discusses the way that football seems like a conservative, never-changing sport, when it’s really a constantly evolving, ever-changing spot. He discusses the way that offensive and defensive schemes change over time and the way that radical thinking has a tremendous effect on the spot. There’s one quote, in particular, that came to mind when reading Sins of Sinister #1: “But this is how football always evolves: Progressive ideas are introduced by weirdos and mocked by the world, and then everybody else adopts and refines those ideas ten years later.” It’s not quite that extreme in comics. It’s more like “Progressive ideas are introduced by weirdos and praised by the world, and then everybody else adopts and ruins those ideas ten years later.” Basically, I kept thinking about Sinister’s influence on the world, the way things go from the point where his influence takes effect, and, how at the end of the issue, he hates what it has become and wants to wipe his influence from the world entirely and cannot. I kept thinking about Alan Moore, honestly. Not the most flattering comparisons (though, with Moore, not the worst comparison anyone has ever made either) and it only works if you tilt your head and squint a little.

But, let’s confine ourselves to the X-books for our meta reading too much into the event comic discussion. You could look at Sinister and see Hickman if you wanted. His influence and direction reshaped the X-Men franchise, turned it into not just an exciting and popular line of books again, but a critically praised one at that. And, down the road we go, and he wants to keep doing his plan, while the rest of the room who had been operating under his plan go “Well, actually...” and make their pitch to do something different. He, of course, was much more gracious than Sinister in accepting their desires and taking a step back. But, the point remains that, like Sinister, he provided the framework for success and, when he was ready to move on to the next stage of the plan, he was outvoted. It’s a gentle echo – particularly the use of similar language to when Hickman left (I think he called it the second act of his plans) and this is Sinister’s second stage of the plan...

I also can’t help but see the coincidence that we’re +10 in the comic from Sinister putting his plan for Krakoa into motion successfully and we’re also +10 from the dissolution of Sinister’s plans and Gillen’s departure from Uncanny X-Men in the real world. The building on his Mr. Sinister stories from his time on Uncanny X-Men, especially the Sinister Society that he created is a key touchpoint/foundational work for what’s going on here. We’ve seen one attempt by Sinister to make a society that is all him fail, mostly due to the intervention of the X-Men and Phoenix Five. Here, he’s trying again – both ten years on, and finding the same people responsible for screwing up his desired plans. When Gillen left Uncanny ten years ago, it was due to Brian Michael Bendis coming aboard as the new writer of the franchise, leaving the Avengers books are turning them into Marvel’s premier franchise. I don’t know how much more Gillen had planned or desired to do with those characters – his final issue of Uncanny X-Men featured a discussion between and imprisoned Scott Summers and a Sinister-posing-as-a-trusted-ally where the issue ends with Sinister throwing down the gauntlet for Scott to stop them from whatever they cook up in the future. The issue, Gillen’s last, literally ends with Scott saying to himself, “This isn’t over.” (Gillen, of course, then wrote the five-issue Consequences mini-series that bridged the gap between Uncanny X-Men #20 and All-New X-Men #1 written by Bendis, so...) And, here we are, +10 and it’s not over...

But, what does it mean to put something out into the world and have no control over what’s done with it? That seems, to me, to be the fundamental question at play here. It’s why I thought about Moore and Hickman and Gillen. They write stories and that leads to other people writing stories and even more people writing stories and, very quickly, it’s beyond them. They can’t control their influence or steer the direction of characters that they don’t own when someone else says no or even force their hand-picked group to do what they want (if they actually wanted to try). What’s it like to put something out into the world that changes a part of it and leads to unexpected consequences and be able to do nothing about it? I genuinely don’t know what will happen in the remaining ten issues of this event. Even if I thought I did, Sins of Sinister proved that knowing what will happen isn’t the same as knowing how it will happen.

Next: Storm & the Brotherhood of Mutants #1.

Custom Kitchen Deliveries 00 – Immortal X-Men #8-10

“I didn’t fail. I didn’t pass. It didn’t judge me.”

How would Mister Sinister have fared had the Progenitor judged him? It’s the sort of question that only Kieron Gillen knows the answer to, though, perhaps, he doesn’t even know the answer. Maybe he never decided. Maybe there is no answer until it’s canon. I can speculate based on my impressions of Sinister as Gillen writes the character and my observations of the Progenitor’s criteria when judging individuals. If you use the level of a person’s hypocrisy, then Sinister passes. Sinister is Sinister to a fault. Unless Sinister is working against himself, except that’s usually a part of the plan to advance Sinister’s causes. If that makes sense. You would perhaps need to go back to Gillen’s time on Uncanny X-Men to fully appreciate the idea of Sinister working with and against himself as a means for moving his plans forward. Sinister can contain multitudes, a veritable society of diverse peoples that are all a single person. All Sinister. And, as the Progenitor was partly birthed from Sinister’s plans and contributions... was the Progenitor Sinister, too? Perhaps, that was the reason for the absence of judgment. Judging Sinister would be judging itself and judging itself as Sinister would mean confronting the fact that destroying Earth was never the plan, because, if the Earth is destroyed, how can it serve Sinister’s grand ambitions to make all Sinister?

“Clearly I cannot choose the wine in front of you,” I murmur to myself. You could run in circles all day with this bullshit...

Sins of Sinister is fast approaching and it’s weird how, depending on your view, Judgment Day is a building block along the way, ensconced within the framework of Sinister’s plans that have been building since before Immortal X-Men #1. Sinister’s plans are moving right along with a few stumbling blocks (Destiny, Exodus, Stasis) and, suddenly, he’s kidnapped by Eternals and charged with helping to make a new god. I don’t know about you, but I think they didn’t need to kidnap him to gain his assistance. The Progenitor seemed to have very little of Sinister in his behaviours. His arrogance, maybe? Even that, I must admit, seems like a stretch. The Progenitor was nothing like the sort of Celestial you would imagine Sinister crafting if he had free reign. It had very little style. And it wanted to destroy all life on Earth. Like many of Sinister’s experiments and attempts to create something grandiose, it went awry. At least, in this case, he could blame Ajak and Tony Stark; if only they listened to him more and so on...!

All of which is my rambling way to figure out the function of Judgment Day within the larger Sinister story that Gillen has been telling since returning to the X-books in early 2022. Its prominence within Immortal X-Men has shifted from foreground to back and back to the front up until issue eight, the first post-Judgment Day issue, where it has dominated the comic once again with it about to be subsumed by a mini-event that’s also pulling in X-Men Red and Legion of X. And, honestly, we still don’t know entirely what to expect from Sins of Sinister. Is it the full-on culmination of this story or merely a major chapter on the road to something bigger? What we know is that it is bookended by one-shot issues with the main body of the event being three three-issue series, each replacing one of three ongoings involved, and each month following the progression from Powers of X: ten years, one hundred years, one thousand years. It seemed, at first, based around the idea of Age of Apocalypse, an alternate reality that replaced the main one that we all know and love. There are suggestions that it’s not entirely that.

In looking back on how we got here, issue three of Immortal X-Men seemed like a possible place to look. That issue was told from the point of view of Destiny and, at one point, we see a double-page spread of possible futures coming out of NOW. Various futures all hit dead end stops like “Cassandra Supernova,” “Krakoa Dissolution,” “Unity,” and three separate instances of “Nimrod Extinction Event.” How literal this map of possibilities is is hard to tell. One branch has Judgment Day at a focal point, which then had “The Empire of the Red Diamond” as another possible focal point after. Is that Sins of Sinister? And, if we’ve already experienced Judgment Day, does that mean all of the other possibilities are closed off? The map gives way to a confrontation between Exodus and Sinister, the former fueled by belief and powerful beyond his current status, and the latter called the “Gene-Corsair” and ranting about how everything is him. Their conflict ends when Sinister activates his ace in the hole: the Moira clones that he uses to set ‘save points’ and end a timeline to return and try again.

But, how far back did his reset point go?

Ah, but that’s a triviality. Gillen has gotten to this moment through intrigue and innuendo. We don’t know what Sinister wants specifically. He spends issue nine repeatedly trying to “get the second stage up and running,” which mostly involves trying to kill Hope and others on the Quiet Council. Issue ten seems to point to wanting a previously resurrected mutant being involved with resurrecting Hope and the others as the end of the issue reveals a red diamond on Xavier’s head. We know that Sinister has been integral to the Resurrection Protocols by supplying a genetic database and it seems like he slipped a little extra in there that required a non-original mutant’s involvement in the resurrection process to activate. I could be wrong, but I can’t see another reason to kill Hope other than to ensure that she isn’t involved in bringing herself and the others back. In this case, Sync takes her place and we’ve seen him die before. Is this where Krakoa becomes a new version of the Sinister society we saw in Gillen’s Uncanny run? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he retreats to that location in issue ten to ‘escape’ from the Quiet Council and X-Men. Hell, I’m not really convinced that he didn’t want to be thrown into the Pit, worming his way deep into the bowels of Krakoa.

To this point, only two characters have stood out as possible opposition to Sinister: Destiny and Exodus. The former because of her precognition abilities allowing her to see the possibilities of his plans and work with and against them as it suits her needs. She has a long history with Nathaniel Essex, one that positions her as a longtime adversary of sorts; though, sometimes opposing him involves working with him. But, as we learn, her abilities aren’t perfect and her motives are not aligned with the ‘good guys’ necessarily. We know that Sins of Sinister is a story and, at the end, we will get Immortal X-Men #11 and, while the in between may be less than great for all involved (except us, the readers, I hope), it winds up in a place that Destiny desires. While it appears that Sinister has outsmarted everyone, Destiny is quick to get Mystique and leave, abandoning the rest to whatever is coming, seemingly with the hope that it will lead back to somewhere palatable.

Exodus, on the other hand, is Sinister’s opposite. Sinister is a man of science; Exodus is a man of unquestioning faith. Sinister believes only in himself; Exodus believes only in something beyond himself. Sinister seeks to remake the universe into himself; Exodus seeks to remake himself to serve the universe as demanded by his faith. These opposites do position the two similarly at times: that future where Exodus fought the Gene-Corsair involved an Exodus fueled by the beliefs of thousands or millions of the faithful, a unified group working towards a singular goal as channeled through a single entity. It’s the same as Sinister’s little society of himself, albeit driven by people willingly giving up their individuality towards that singular goal rather than a singular goal necessitating the creation of individuals that serve it by design. I do wonder what role he will play in Sins of Sinister (and the choice of that first word in the title...). And I can’t help but note that he was resurrected alongside Xavier, Emma, and Hope... is Exodus a little Sinister now as well?

I like that all I have are questions. I’m not really one for speculation or trying to ‘solve’ stories. I like to ponder possibilities and think about what brought us to this point. It seems like everything is going to plan for Sinister and we don’t know entirely what that plan is – and that’s exciting. However, we’ve also seen Sinister fail. A lot. Even when he supposedly succeeds. For a grand genius that plans things in great detail, he often overlooks things and winds up having to bang his head against the wall again and again and again until he breaks through. Head on back to Immortal X-Men #1 and there’s a text page that previews what’s coming up in the title. Entries 10 through 12 are particularly relevant:

10. Finally! Someone who actually deserves it gets thrown in the pit. Good riddance.

11. Oh no.

12. Help. Just help me. It stretches on endless and cold. Infinity balloons and a scream is too big for my head. This is a hell of my own making. Hell is other people. Hell is also me.

Sinister (or a version of him) getting thrown in the pit is portrayed as a positive, while the seeming success of initiating stage two of Sinister’s plan is a possible negative. When everything is Sinister and he achieves a truly solipsistic existence, is that actually a good thing? Or is he the proverbial man who gets everything he ever wanted only to find that his every desire was a mistake?

Is this the part where Sinister is finally judged by the only being capable of doing so and found wanting?

Next: Sins of Sinister #1.

Judgment Day Reading Order

As with past reading orders, my methodology is that the main event series is the ultimate guide for the reading order. Next come any tie-is written by the writer of the event, followed by the rest using my best judgment. In a few sections, the specific reading order does not matter as tertiary tie-ins often can be shuffled around with little to no impact. In those cases, the order that I have here is simple personal preference/instinct. This is just my personal guide and it may change over rereads. Comments are added to clarify choices with as few plot details mentioned specifically, so, if you haven’t read the event, you won’t have anything spoiled if you wish to use this guide for your first time reading it.

I have added a new feature to this reading order in the formatting. Bold means main event series, underlined means tie-in written by Kieron Gillen, and italics means tie-in that I think fairly important/essential. This gives you four levels of reading the entire event: just the main series, just the Gillen stuff, just the stuff I think is good/important/essential, and the entire event including all of the tie-ins. That italics group is entirely my own taste/judgment and you may not agree.

While not completely essential, before we even get into Judgment Day, I truly would advise reading Eternals and the first three issues of Immortal X-Men. Eternals #1-12 along with the specials, in particular, inform Judgment Day. The event basically began as the third storyarc of that title after all. The Immortal X-Men issues are less essential, but they’re quite good. Mostly, you should read all of these comics before reading the event because they are good comics.

* Free Comic Book Day 2022: Avengers/X-Men #1, X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1, and Immortal X-Men #4. These all set up different elements of Judgment Day. The FCBD stuff that really ‘matters’ is mostly repeated in Eve of Judgment, while the two X-Men comics are nice background on what’s going on with the mutants right before the event starts.

* AXE: Eve of Judgment #1. The proper prologue to the event that gets listed on the official checklist.

* Judgment Day #1

* Immortal X-Men #5 and X-Men Red #5: Both issues expand upon scenes in Judgment Day #1, but Gillen wrote Immortal X-Men, so it comes first.

* Judgment Day #2

* Death to the Mutants #1 and X-Men #13: Expansions on Judgment Day #2 and Gillen gets priority. But, I genuinely think X-Men #13 works better after reading Death to the Mutants.

* Judgment Day #3

* Death to the Mutants #2 and Immortal X-Men #6: I find that Death to the Mutants #2 is a little more related to/expands upon the events of Judgment Day #3 and would suggest reading it prior to Immortal X-Men #6.

* X-Men #14, X-Force #30, Wolverine #24, X-Force #31, Wolverine #25, X-Force #32-33, Avengers #60, Amazing Spider-Man #10, Fantastic Four #47-48, AXE: Iron Fist #1, and Captain Marvel #42: For this bunch of judgment-related tie-ins, the order does not matter really, except in the case of the X-Force and Wolverine issues. You can shift that chunk of six issues wherever you like in this group, but I would recommend keeping them in the order that I have here. X-Men #14 is a borderline important issue as the final three pages are referenced later on in the event, but the rest of the issue is completely unrelated. However, I wouldn’t call the reference essential or something that isn’t explained enough later on to warrant putting that issue in italics.

* X-Men Red #6: This issue leads directly into Judgment Day #4 and is best read right before it.

* Judgment Day #4

* X-Men Red #7, Legion of X #6 and Marauders #6: X-Men Red #7 is a nice expansion on the Storm/Magneto scene from Judgment Day #4 and, then, largely unrelated to the event anymore. Despite Legion of X #6 expanding upon a moment in X-Men Red #5 (which expanded upon a moment in Judgment Day #1), it ultimately takes place after Judgment Day #4, covering a lot of ground. The Marauders issue was released fairly early in the event, but takes place around the effort to reopen the Arakko gate, so it seems best placed here.

* Judgment Day #5

* Immortal X-Men #7, Death to the Mutants #3, and AXE: Starfox #1: The ‘outside the Progenitor’ tie-ins between the final two issues. This order is based on Gillen’s advice for reading them. Who am I to disagree? (Especially when I don’t.)

* AXE: Avengers #1, AXE: X-Men #1, and AXE: Eternals #1: The ‘inside the Progenitor’ tie-ins between the final two issues. These three issues are more directly related to the resolution of the event in the final issue and seem better suited to read right before it.

* Judgment Day #6

* Judgment Day Omega #1: The epilogue to the event and Eternals.

Hopefully, this is a help to anyone looking to make sense of how to read the event and its various tie-ins.

Them Guys Ain’t Dumb 15 (Judgment Day Omega #1)

“Who are the heroes here?”

In the end, it might just be a small group of Eternals. The Lemurian Eternals who, at the end of the first storyarc of the Kieron Gillen/Esad Ribic run, split themselves off from the rest of Eternals society, so disgusted at the knowledge that their eternal life comes at the price of one human life every time The Machine (Earth) resurrects them. That divide has been increased since Sersi revealed this secret to the world and was killed for it – the first Eternal truly killed, never to be brought back; paired with the transformation of Ajak into Ajak Celestia, a new attempt at a god for the Eternals, it has allowed a new path for these Eternals. No longer just outcasts, they are now heretics.

Judgment Day Omega moves in two directions at once. On the one hand, it returns to the status quo of Zuras as Prime Eternal and Eternals society falling into its old routines of quiet background overview of Earth. There are minor changes in their relationships with humans, mutants, and Deviants, but, in general, the concept of Eternal has returned to what it was in Eternals #1. There is lip service towards change, but... how much can a society that has never changed truly change itself? On the other hand, there is the splinter group that fall under the guidance of Ajak Celestia. A new Eternals religion that offer a different interpretation of the Four Principles and seeks to make amends for the Eternals’ crimes against humanity one good deed at a time. Eternal lifetimes dedicated to service. But, for a society that has always had its factions, is one more a true change? Are these acts of servitude different from before? Ikaris posing as a human is how we first met him, after all... has there been change or is this just a variation on a very old, very Eternal theme? Are they heroes? Have they always been?

Less an epilogue to Judgment Day than an epilogue to Gillen’s Eternals run as whole, Judgment Day Omega #1 focuses on the core cast of Eternals and setting them in place within their ‘new’ status quo after the event. This is basically Eternals #17 after Eve of Judgment #1 and Death to the Mutants #1-3 were issues 13-16, and the Starfox issue was this group’s one-shot special. Separating Judgment Day from Eternals is a tough bit of business given that the event rose out of Gillen’s plans for the next story in that run. But, that’s the way it is with these events (or the goods ones, I find): they rise up out of existing titles and, then, flow right into what comes next. Except, unlike a lot of events, there isn’t really a what comes next here as Eternals is done. Gillen is full time X-Men at Marvel (as far as we know) and there has been no announcement for a new Eternals series by a new creative team. Usually, these Omega epilogue issues are part wrap-up, part teaser for the next comic you need to buy – or, honestly, the three or four different comics you need to buy. Here, there may be a “Next” page at the back that points readers in the direction of Avengers Assemble Alpha #1, Immortal X-Men #9, and X-Men Red #9, but none of those comics get a lead-in in the Omega issue proper. It would be overly dramatic to declare this issue a dead end as there is no such thing in corporate superhero comics.

But.

This is an end. And that is incredibly unusual for an event.

There is a specific structure to events, especially for Marvel. It’s a structure perfected in the period of Brian Michael Bendis writing the Avengers titles: status quo leads into event leads into new status quo leads into event leads into new status quo and so on forever and ever amen. You read the monthly comics and they got you hyped for the event, so you read the event, and it ended with a dramatic change that affected the month comics, so you read them, and they got you hyped for the next event. As such, events could wind up feeling very unsatisfying by the time you reached the end as, instead of an end to the story you were reading, you were greeted by a sales pitch for what you needed to read next. And this has largely been the structure of their events ever since. Even events tied specifically to one monthly book like War of the Realms still ended in a way that said “And now you should read the end of Jason Aaron’s time on Thor along with the new Loki and Valkyrie series!”

What I was left with when I finished this issue is a desire to skip ahead a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand years. This issue is the beginning of “Acts of the Apostles” after Judgment Day’s gospels. A new religion has begun, a splinter of society has broken away, and the heretics are tolerated until they get in the way. An interesting concept, yes – but the real meat is further down the road when the novelty becomes entrenched and we can see if this is cult or religion. Part of me is upset that Gillen isn’t sticking around to develop that; part of me knows that it probably wouldn’t get the chance to develop enough. This is still a superhero comic after all. It may have begun as something a little different when Jack Kirby wrote and drew the first issue, but even he couldn’t keep it from becoming more and more like everything else on the shelf – and, then, after he left it behind, he couldn’t stop it from literally becoming part of the rest of the Marvel story. So, we get an ending.

Again, I’ll state: there is no next for the Eternals that we have been told of. There is no sales pitch in this issue. It is simply the end of the story with elements in place for someone to pick up later. Or not. Who knows. It’s not that they don’t want our money as is the usual driving point of these events and the purpose of the cycle I mentioned above, it’s that there are no Eternals stories to buy next.

Finally, an event that ends with nothing for money instead of the other way around.

(Next: my Judgment Day reading order post, unless Immortal X-Men #8 warrants a post as another epilogue to the event, one that actually encourages the reader to keep buying more comics. If so, I will do that first and, then, sometime after, the reading order post will go up. And, then, be on the look out for the continuation of these posts in January 2023 in a new series on the Sins of Sinister story. That will begin after Immortal X-Men #10 comes out where I will write about it and issue nine together as the prologue issues. Thanks for reading these, hope to see you again for what comes next.)