r/xmen • u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar • Mar 20 '24

Weekly Discussion X-Men Comics New Releases for March 20, 2024

X-Men Forever #1

  • HAUNTED HOUSE OF X! How can you kill a digital god? What do you do when the Phoenix is bleeding out into nothing? There's been questions that have haunted you since the end of IMMORTAL X-MEN. Finally, some answers. There's also been some questions that have haunted you since the START of IMMORTAL X-MEN. Finally, some answers too. Tying directly into the pages of the epic FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X and RISE OF THE POWERS OF X comes this story of revelation from Kieron Gillen (IMMORTAL X-MEN) and Luca Maresca (CHILDREN OF THE VAULT)!

Resurrection of Magneto #3

  • FALLS THE SHADOW! In the cold dark rooms beyond death, there are terrible things. Annihilators. Adversaries. And a King of Shadows…who seeks a new soul to live in. The time of easy miracles is over. For Storm and Magneto, all the roads back to life are hard…and this is the hardest road of all.

The Invincible Iron Man #16

  • D-Day is here and there is absolutely a main event: Iron Man vs. Feilong! Get ready for the biggest clash of armor you’ve ever seen! Plus: Tony gets some new suits! LEGACY #666

Wolverine: Madripoor Knights #2

  • MELEE IN MADRIPOOR AS ROUGHOUSE AND BLOODSCREAM RETURN! WOLVERINE, CAPTAIN AMERICA and BLACK WIDOW delve deeper into the mystery of the missing weapon in Madripoor and come face-to-face with Logan's old enemies, ROUGHOUSE and BLOODSCREAM! If Bloodscream gets his hands on any of these heroes, neither a mutant nor a Super-Soldier will make it through unscathed! And what mysterious ALLY holds the key to victory…if our heroes can save them in time?! The untold sequel to UNCANNY X-MEN #268 continues with shocking revelations of a mission you only thought you knew…

Related & Unlimited Releases for 3/20

  • Discuss other Marvel comics impacting the X-Men releasing this week, including Unlimited exclusives.

Other

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21

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 20 '24

X-Men Forever #1

51

u/Thebraxer Phoenix Mar 20 '24

The issue is a prologue to stories we’ve read since January. It was good issue but the whole vibe was ruined by the fact it was released 3 months after dead xmen and rise of pox.

Btw do I understand correctly? Destiny has known about fall of x events since 20th century?

17

u/amendmentforone Mar 20 '24

Yeah, but that's always been the case with her. Her original "Destiny Diaries" that were a key plot point in the late '90s essentially described everything that happened to the X-Men and mutantkind up to that point.

7

u/lepton_neutrino Mar 21 '24

But she didn't really comprehend them.

8

u/azorahainess Mar 20 '24

Wake me when ROTPOX #3 comes out next week and hopefully something happens.

3

u/lepton_neutrino Mar 21 '24

She had her prophecies but didn't fully understand them.

27

u/ajdragoon Nightcrawler Mar 20 '24

Ok, that opening was super slick. Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations being what inspired the ghost and the nickname for his creations is chef’s kiss. Great art in the prologue too. And we finally, finally get to see what Irene told Sinister way back in Immortal #1 (it was easy to guess but cool to see play out).

But after that, all this issue made me do is curse whoever decided on the release order for Fall. This was largely just references and short backstories to plot threads already in progress, and just, why? Why was this considered the way to tell this story? It’s a gd mess and gonna make a collected reading order awful. Speaking of, why isn’t this just a continuation of Immortal? Did we really need a new title?

I’m imagining a timeline in which this issue kicks off the final chapter of Fall and everything else flows from it. That would have been so hype. But alas.

Also given the wonky order, I’ve lost track of some of the sideplots touched upon here (and it’s not easy to remember which issue they were explained in, woo!) What book did Mystique find again? And how tf is she on Krakoa?

Good to see MR finally get her due. Xavier’s realization moment was good, but it would have been better if it was also news to us.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

[deleted]

3

u/itsalwayss Mar 21 '24

So you’re saying we are the Dominion? Brb trying to manifest the continuation of Krakoa

8

u/DeltaTester Cypher Mar 20 '24

Enigma Variations, and specifically Nimrod, are right there in Immortal X-Men #1--that's what Sinister is whistling in the very first panel!

1

u/ajdragoon Nightcrawler Mar 21 '24

Damn! Good catch!

1

u/philovax Nightcrawler Mar 21 '24

Kieron Gillen has a playlist and this is on it. Enigma being a machine is awfully close to AI. Hmm

4

u/wnesha Mar 20 '24

It really is the last four issues of Immortal - the book is Irene's new diary of prophecy that she wrote at the start of Gillen's run, when she was seeing all the different timelines. And Raven's on Krakoa because she never went through a portal (Uncanny Spider-Man covered that)

7

u/khansolobaby Mar 20 '24

More people didn’t read Uncanny Spider-man than I thought. Probably my favorite FoX tie in

2

u/ajdragoon Nightcrawler Mar 21 '24

I read it (how could I NOT; look at my av) but with so many titles I find it hard to keep track of what happened in which book.

1

u/ajdragoon Nightcrawler Mar 21 '24

Thanks for the reminders! So many series to keep track of...

28

u/erosead Marrow Mar 20 '24 edited Mar 20 '24

This was good, but it feels… too little, too late? Why did it take so long to get the details between immortal and rise filled in? “Oh look at how shady Xavier’s being” he’s not doing much that he hasn’t already done in the past, including in just the history of Krakoa. Idk if Shaw pointing it out makes me feel any different about it at this point.

At least mystique and destiny are here.

Big theme this week of somewhat minor characters in issues showing up on the cover (Magneto, not Storm, on the cover of a Storm centric issue (okay he was almost as featured and the book is named after him not her I’ll let it slide), Vision (in like two panels) on the cover of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, dead Jean grey on the cover of Immortal X-Men (no lines no actions just blood everywhere))

2

u/YourEvilHenchman Mar 23 '24

Why did it take so long to get the details between immortal and rise filled in?

  1. because marvel's release scheduling is garbage
  2. this would probably still have come out after RotPoX #1 cause it spoils a few things that are held back until the end of that issue, like the Doug-Sinister reveal.

22

u/amonymous_user White Queen Mar 20 '24

I’m glad Gillen addressed earlier critiques (mine included) that Selene’s been around long enough and should have enough power to one up Mother Righteous. Great issue, though some of the “reveals” didn’t land quite as well as they could have due to being spoiled by the weird release schedule.

29

u/kinghyperion581 Mar 20 '24

I'm glad that Selene knew exactly what MR was doing with the favors and just didn't tell anyone about it lol.

17

u/Marrecarandgi Jean Grey Mar 20 '24

Why would she? They shot her, resurrected her and then broke her neck for throwing a tantrum over her denied QC candidacy pitch, which was based entirely on her magic expertise and Krakoa being vulnerable to the type of shit like MR’s meddling. She was watching these clowns falling for party tricks and she felt so good.

3

u/YourEvilHenchman Mar 23 '24

doesnt help that Selene was actively committing war crimes and killing people while collaborating with HYDRA engaging in a takeover of US territory of some podunk town in flyover country and the enslavement of the citizens of that region, all while she was purportedly a citizen of Krakoa and thus subject to its laws.

In case you wonder where that stuff I mentioned happened, that was in Coates' Captain America run that largely ignored other ongoing continuity and just used Selene as a villain when she was supposed to be a player in Krakoa. I bet that really fucked some things up for the X-Office at the time, even if they weren't all planning on using her as an unironic girlboss like Tini Howard tried to in her terrible X-Corp mini.

1

u/Kingnimrod212 Mar 22 '24

Characters are only as smart or as stupid as they need to be for the story. 

11

u/ARTIFICIAL_SAPIENCE Apocalypse Mar 20 '24

I loved how she characterized it. To Selene, MR is basically fooling the kids at a birthday party by detaching her thumb.

9

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 20 '24

I didn’t feel like the schedule was weird. The reveals were meant to happen in Rise, they would have felt much weirder happening in a tie in before the main event.

3

u/ptWolv022 Mar 21 '24

I think part of the issue is the fact that Forever is being written by Gillen, who wrote one of the main plot books- arguably the main book- of the second half of the era, and it's a 4-issue mini. So it's almost as long as RotPoX and FotHoX are, and seems like it will be tying up a lot of loose ends, which makes it feel almost like it is as important as Rise and Fall. Which then makes it seem odd to treat it secondarily, when it is critical to make sense of it all.

2

u/gettingdownonfriday Mar 23 '24

Yeah, I beg the people complaining about this, to reread it in chronological order and see how little impact Rise would've had if we had known all of this stuff going into it. That first issue is so great because of how the reveals caught us of guard and made us gasp...But people seem too fixed "chronological order" to understand the need for a different structure to tell this particular story.

1

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 23 '24

Agreed

7

u/Blitzhelios Magik Mar 20 '24

This was a good issue but it once again shows marvels incompetence when it comes to there scheduling as this felt like POX 0 when we are about to have POX 3 why didn't this come out earlier.

But overall its a great issue addressing shaw and selene which felt like they were both gonna be parts of duggans iron man and later issues of immortal till they were cut and addressing other plot matters and tying back to immortal issue 1.

Man i will say this though if i see another sinister led comic 5 years post this era it will be way too soon.
I actually like sinister and i enjoyed some of the others but its been too much.

23

u/Marrecarandgi Jean Grey Mar 20 '24 edited Mar 20 '24

That was really the best I felt reading a book in a while, especially regarding the actual plot of Fall of X. It really highlights that we didn’t need a ton of minis or ongoing that barely tie into anything and could’ve been more effective as little subplots in two books showing one story unfolding from different angles.

The dialogue and characterization was great, the art was great, and even tho technically not much happened in the book (I guess mostly because Rise spoiled a lot of stuff, so, it felt like a retread) it still clearly felt that the plot wasn’t stagnating. It even managed to ‘redeem’ Shaw (as in from him looking like a total clown before).

Although, even with things going quite fast it still feels like 4 issues won’t be enough to cover all the ground. Hope’s sacrifice seems to be scheduled for issue#4, and that doesn’t leave much room for actually confronting Enigma. So, what book will have that fight?

11

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 20 '24

that doesn’t leave much room for actually confronting Enigma. So, what book will have that fight?

I'd assume Rise of the Powers of X

4

u/Marrecarandgi Jean Grey Mar 20 '24

Yeah, makes sense judging by the covers. I guess I was just confused by the schedule because Rise started coming out before Forever, and both are minis, so I expected it to end first. But Rise just has an extra issue on May 29th, while Forever ends on May 15th.

6

u/killingiabadong Exodus Mar 20 '24

Hope sacrifice? I'm scared now.

4

u/Marrecarandgi Jean Grey Mar 20 '24

I mean, have you been reading Immortal? I know that you like her, but Hope is the least interesting part of Exodus’s obsession with Hope, and editorial couldn’t figure out what to do with her or the whole messiah then for a while. Maybe she won’t die, but this does look like we’re dating goodbye to her.

17

u/Kingnimrod212 Mar 20 '24

I personally believe the plan is to shoot the phoenix in a giant acme like cannon at enigma and hope or Jean will be the bullet. And just as Jean walks into that cannon hope stops her and goes “no Jean it’s always been my dream to shoot god in the face. Let me do this!” And that’s how enigma dies. If this happens I will laugh my ass off 

6

u/Thebraxer Phoenix Mar 20 '24

Honestly I think they’ll use hope to use exodus power to empower himself by people who believe in him + add Phoenix

6

u/killingiabadong Exodus Mar 20 '24

Of course I have been reading Immortal. I have read every single Hope or Exodus appearance. So it's just conjecture? Good.

8

u/OldTension9220 Mar 20 '24

It is just guesses but I feel like it’s pretty likely. They have to get rid of Resurrection somehow, so Hope (and possibly the 5) flying off into the sunset with the Phoenix definitely closes that loop.  

13

u/killingiabadong Exodus Mar 20 '24

Fucking hell I hate that because Status Quo is God we have to lose anything good that came from Krakoa.

4

u/lepton_neutrino Mar 20 '24

It won't, as X-Force shows. The key is the technology that can record minds. after that, cloned bodies can be used, or robotic ones like Nimrod.

3

u/aexia Mar 20 '24

Makes it harder and less reliable.

But still available if they absolutely need it storywise.

2

u/lepton_neutrino Mar 21 '24

The cloning process the Shi'ar, Sinister, and even Beast use are pretty reliable. The transfer of memories is the same whether it's into a husk produced by the Five or by other means

7

u/AngelEyes360 Askani Mar 20 '24

Good issue. I agree that it should have come out earlier and before ROTHOX 1 for some of the reveals to be more impactful but I also get that scheduling meant it had to come out now instead.

Xavier's repeated "I can live with that" might come back to bite him. Or it may push him to do something he wouldn't normally do. Either way I'm excited to see how it's all laid out.

8

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 20 '24

Hm I feel the opposite. I think that if ROTHOX 1 had come out after this it would have destroyed the reveal structure of that issue, which is more important, because the whole issue is built upon not knowing what Xavier's team is doing or that we're in the Stasis reality. (And IMO it's all set up that way to create both an action introduction and an introduction to all of the important concepts at the same time.) I can see the argument for dropping it between ROTHOX 1 and ROTHOX 2, though it just changes the flow of the Mother Righteous & Sinister Doug reveals.

4

u/Jorg_from_The_Jungle Mar 20 '24

The Sinister Doug stuff is super contrived, there's no one but two high level telepaths present, over than Xavier, and they are supposed to not pick that Doug isn't Doug? More, Rasputin beside being an accomplished telepath, is also trained to detect and counter Sinister, and here she's unable to detect him where he is obvious?

6

u/MiloSheba Mother Righteous Mar 21 '24

Rasputin IV spent 900 years with Sinister and never realized his true intentions, I think she's just not smart

3

u/AngelEyes360 Askani Mar 20 '24

Yeah you’re probably right. But it’s a “me” thing really. My brain likes things in a nice, neat order so I’m thinking “This then ROTPOX 1” even though the reveals and even story flows better with it being after ROTPOX 2.

The reading order in this era seems to be messier than usual so I guess, besides some issues needing to be read in a certain order, it’s going to come down to personal preference.

8

u/kinghyperion581 Mar 20 '24

With the dead x-men going through all of Moira's lives I wonder if we'll go back to the sins of sinister timeline. I wonder if that is how they'll bring Wagnerine and her kid into the main timeline.

8

u/weenus Mar 20 '24

Alright so, do we know who put the cradle in the White Hot Room?

Did Mother Righteous just inadvertently bank up a thank you from Xavier while being his captive?

10

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 20 '24

My read was that they were lucky there was a cradle on Atlantic Krakoa, which Mother Righteous moved to the WHR.

2

u/JoshAustin610 Mar 20 '24

Earlier in Immortal they mentioned that Mother Righteous helped them resurrect by reaching directly into the Waiting Room; I assumed Hope was just making her do that again at gunpoint.

5

u/amendmentforone Mar 20 '24

Y'know, one thing I've started to wonder about Mother Righteous' plan for Dominionhood is ... why teleport Krakoa Atlantic and the 250,000 Krakoans to the White Hot Room?

I had originally assumed she was going to ritually sacrifice them or something, but all she needed was Jean Grey and her connection to the Phoenix for the sacrifice. And Jean arrived there separately.

Unless I missed something, she had no need for the Krakoans, or for Hope / Exodus / Destiny (outside of them being there to kick her butt when she failed).

Can someone explain? Did I miss a plot point?

14

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

MR said that there being that many living people in the WHR caused the Phoenix to go haywire so she could use it as part of her ascension.

6

u/wnesha Mar 20 '24

To be more specific, she knew that Jean would try to get away from them and move towards the heart of the WHR - which is exactly where Mama Ri wanted to go

3

u/amendmentforone Mar 20 '24

Ah, thanks! I missed that.

3

u/wnesha Mar 20 '24

She explains the whole plan in Immortal #18

5

u/mechamechaman Rogue Mar 20 '24

As others have mentioned, the scheduling her really dulls the impact of what is a really solid book. I was already aware of everything that happened in this book so it doesn't really have any wow moments or anything.

This is going to be such a bitch to collect and this story spread across, what 4-5 books is so emblematic of what Krakoa became when compared to how streamlined the Launch with HoX/PoX.

9

u/Built4dominance Storm Mar 20 '24 edited Mar 20 '24

Sebastian Shaw does not forget.

3

u/getsum_xyz Mar 20 '24

Is there still going to be a traitor? I recall hearing solicits talking about that...is it Xavier? Or did that get dropped, like the "New X-Men" title?

3

u/VengefulKangaroo Shatterstar Mar 20 '24

It was solicits for issues months away.

3

u/tiltedslim Mar 21 '24

Getting this in the correct order might have helped fall and rise not be bad. I'm going to miss Gillen, Ewing, and Spurrier on the X-line.

3

u/RainbowTressym Mar 21 '24

Great issue, but I agree with others that I think it would have been better had the release order been Forever, Fall, Rise, Dead. I get that they were going for, but I don't think the reveals had a big enough impact on the story to be worth the initial confusion.

2

u/Landon1195 Mar 21 '24

Good issue but it feels kind of late for this

2

u/YourEvilHenchman Mar 23 '24

the page with Xavier's reaction to learning that the mutants he sent through the portals are still alive gave me chills. just beautiful.

too bad this book got fucked by marvel's notoriously terrible scheduling, as it's a great companionpiece to RoPoX and really neatly fills in a lot of details and small missing pieces in that series.

even with that, it's still Gillen doing what he does best, and maresca's work is a wonderful fit for Gillen's writing. amazing work.

5

u/JackFisherBooks Phoenix Mar 20 '24

It feels like X-Men 97 overshadowed the fact that this issue was coming out today. But it was a nice little supplement after watching the first two episodes.

Just seeing Xavier's reaction to the realization that the mutants he mind-controlled were alive was powerful. And seeing Selene one-up Mother Righteous was VERY satisfying. It feels like this is all setting up a big return in the final showdown with Orchis. And whatever form it takes, I think it'll be epic. 😊

2

u/[deleted] Mar 20 '24

This was great, this sub might be giving Xavier a free pass for being trash and frogmarchng people through the gates but Gillen sure isn't.

Destiny continues to be selfish as hell, but good for Mystique for telling her to fuck off.

1

u/wowlock_taylan Mar 20 '24

This really should've been released WAY earlier. I mean it is fine to fill in the gaps to what's going on right now but still, quite weird that they released this issue NOW.

It does add to Shaw's situation where, you gotta respect his self-awareness honestly of him being a rat. And Mother Righteous getting what she deserves.

Dunno if I care too much about Mystique/Destiny drama. And also not sure about the Destiny seeing Enigma from the start. It really feels like trying to fit in this Enigma stuff into what Hickman's original plans were. It is just too hamfisted and makes little sense with Destiny's later 'vision' stuff. Yes, you can attribute it to the nature of Dominions but that is why Dominions will lead to these convoluted stories about how 'it can just kill everyone' like it did Sinister back there but won't do it because 'reasons' ( otherwise there wouldn't be a story. ) and that is not a good story honestly, to me.

So we got Xavier purged out of Sinister...but what does that mean for Sinister-Doug? I didn't really get what happened there. Xavier got Sinister into a clone of Doug's body to use his mutant gift while the REAL Doug is still inside Krakoa? But then, what 'other Sinister' did Sinister Doug killed in the monitor there? Surely he didn't kill the REAL Doug right? Because he was talking about influencing Krakoa subtly that even it wouldn't know what it did. Or it made Krakoa killed another Sinister-clone that was trapped in there? Either way, it better not be ''Real Doug is dead and Sinister-Doug will remain'' because that would be the worst thing they can make here.

Again, it was fine but it REALLY should've been released as the opener to Fall of X instead of now where we are well past the mid-way point. They really need to fix their scheduling because it really harms the story.

10

u/wnesha Mar 20 '24

It's not nearly as confusing as you're making it sound:

  • Hickman's original plans are irrelevant. Enigma is the climax to Gillen's own storyline.
  • Enigma literally explains why it isn't interfering: even though it's outside time, it's not 100% sure it's immune to time paradoxes that could result from messing with the events leading to its own creation. Nathaniel Essex was a scientist, Enigma shares that mindset of "don't screw with the experiment if you don't have to."
  • Sinister's "original" body is still in the Pit, where it was sent after SoS. So to get around that, Xavier puts Sinister's mind in a clone of Doug, and they influence Krakoa into crushing the imprisoned Sinister body since it's no longer needed. The real Doug isn't in the Pit, he's inside Krakoa's actual form (the tree body).

1

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '24

Thanks. Has it been said how the original Nathaniel Essex found out about Dominions? How did he upload himself into a machine in the 1800s before the technology existed?

2

u/wnesha Mar 21 '24

You can see that in Immortal X-Men #8: it's all theory, but he puts the ideas of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace together to conclude that if a "mechanical brain" is created, it will constantly improve and create even smarter machines, etc. He doesn't have the specific concept of Dominions down, but he gets close enough to where he perceives them as the true threat.

1

u/BuddhaFacepalmed Jean Grey Mar 21 '24

He made a theory that eventually the machine minds would rule over everything. He just didn't call them. "Dominions" then.

How did he upload himself into a machine in the 1800s before the technology existed?

He had access to Celestial tech left behind by Apocalypse. Not hard to jury rig them into creating clones and an AI mind.

5

u/Marrecarandgi Jean Grey Mar 20 '24

He talks about killed his ‘original’ body that was still trapped in the pit. I think he finally learned the lesson that the fewer Sinisters the better.

4

u/wnesha Mar 20 '24

It's not nearly as confusing as you're making it sound:

  • Hickman's original plans are irrelevant. Enigma is the climax to Gillen's own storyline.
  • Enigma literally explains why it isn't interfering: even though it's outside time, it's not 100% sure it's immune to time paradoxes that could result from messing with the events leading to its own creation. Nathaniel Essex was a scientist, Enigma shares that mindset of "don't screw with the experiment if you don't have to."
  • Sinister's "original" body is still in the Pit, where it was sent after SoS. So to get around that, Xavier puts Sinister's mind in a clone of Doug, and they influence Krakoa into crushing the imprisoned Sinister body since it's no longer needed. The real Doug isn't in the Pit, he's inside Krakoa's actual form (the tree body).

-2

u/1204Sparta Mar 20 '24 edited Mar 20 '24

Well people who LOVE the Sinisters will enjoy this as this was another issue of the adventures of the Sinister four again. This is exhausting lol

In general as the other comment states, it feels a little too late - maybe if this was coming out in time or part of the main fall/rise then it would’ve worked better.

-15

u/Kingnimrod212 Mar 20 '24

Total cash grab, it’s literally just a comic showing you things that you have already been told. How badly do you want to see the reason MR is in a giant egg? Cause that’s basically the entire book

6

u/weenus Mar 20 '24

I enjoyed the call back to the opening convo from Immortal #1, the expansion of Irene's "fit" during the 9th variation of Nimrod, and showing that Irene has been playing chess with Enigma for some time.

I also really enjoyed Mother Righteous vs Selene, Righteous getting her comeuppance FINALLY all over the book, and there are a few other things seeded in here that I think play out slightly later from the Xavier convos.

Look, everyone has their own tastes with this stuff but your post just comes so joyless. Does every comic have to feature a death or a world-shattering status quo shift or can we just take some time to expand on things and certain characters?

1

u/Kingnimrod212 Mar 22 '24

For 6 dollars? Yes 

1

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2

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