#rotpox

[racefortheironthrone]

Hi Steven, I too am intriugued by the ROTPOX and kinda blown away. I noticed one little thing: the first issue is all in +10 years, will this number rise with upcoming issues? And in the end it will go back to minus years to (almost?) kill young Moita? I would be glad to read your extended thoughts.

It is waaaaaaaaaaaaay more complicated than just +10 years.

As I understand it, and I am very much still in the process of trying to wrap my head around Kieron Gillen's dizzyingly complicated ideas, we have a whole bunch of timelines going on at once:

The main events of the comic are happening in Timeline D, which is the Stasis Dominion scenario in which Dr. Stasis hacks the Vault, turns off the sun, and guzumps the Sentinel's Dominion project. This is "harvested" by Enigma from outside of time and space, and thus never technically happens.

The events of Sins of Sinister took place in Timeline E, where Mr. Sinister wiped out the galaxy to ascend to Dominion. This is also "harvested by Enigma."

The events of most of Immortal X-Men and Fall of X/FOTHOX are happening in Timeline C. However, Timeline C is influenced by escaping elements of Timeline E, such as Mother Righteous' library, the Moira Engine message, and Rasputin IV.

We haven't seen Timeline F, just that it was the one in which Orbis Stellaris ascended and was then "harvested" by Enigma.

Most of the events of HOXPOX and the rest of the pre-Fall Krakoan Era took place in Timeline A and B. However, once Mister Sinister created the Moira Engine, the main timeline diverged into multiple timelines thanks to the influence of Enigma.

The events of Inferno (2021) happen in both Timeline C and Timeline H, where the Trickster Dominion manages to avert the total victory of Krakoa (which, critically involved the use of the Phoenix to defeat the Dominions, something that the mutants of Timeline C don't have access to atm) by sending the consciousness of Omega Sentinel to accelerate the Nimrod project. Thus, Timeline H never happened.

The events of the last few issues of Immortal X-Men and all of Jean Grey take place in Timeline G, where Mother Righteous manages to manipulate a mortally-wounded and timeline-hallucinating Jean Grey as a human sacrifice to give her control of the White Hot Room and ascend to Dominion. This timeline is also "harvested" by Enigma, bringing it into reflexive existence in I (which is technically not a timeline, since Enigma exists outside of time and space). Unusually Mother Righteous isn't destroyed in the process, merely dropping out of ascension back into the White Hot Room (which also exists outside of time and space).

Then there is Professor X's non-timeline K, in which he endeavors to prevent the ascension of Enigma but ultimately reverts back to a contingency plan of killing Moira before her powers manifest, thus averting all the above timelines.

[nthflower]

Killing phoenix force with a gun

Hot girl Messiah shit

[rei-ismyname]

Charles Xavier - Poor Little Meow Meow?

I've been ripping on Count Chuckula pretty mercilessly of late. I don't feel bad, per se (because it's funny) but he does have his moments. A full examination of his actions and legacy is a much larger project, one I've been working on for months. You'll have to wait for that. Here's a couple of recent Professor X moments I think were cool, or at least interesting. Such as his twinkish babygirlification meets beast mode Godkiller.

Totally wholesome kidnapping

JK, he's holding Mother Righteous accountable here. She's the wooooorst, trust me on that. Very mean and just betrays everyone, but not in a fun way.

Who hasn't wanted to kill God? They definitely deserve it. Especially the Old Testament God 🪓💣that dude sucks. Chuck is super relatable here.

Took the L for all of mutantkind. Martyred himself, rather. It's hard to criticise people when their actions have such high stakes, you know? 'The Butcher of Krakoa' is a wild epithet for Xavier - I wonder how long it'll stick. Not especially relatable to my life experience but I have to respect the difficult position he's in here. Also, despite all that stress he managed to achieve some high quality murders. Credit where credit is due.

Gives Sally Floyd a new personality for a while at her request. It's not quite so cut and dry, but his RotPox actions are recontextualised as scamming ORCHIS (which saved all of existence.) MF just needs to learn how to communicate.

Has a complicated chat with his old boyfriend. There's definitely some bitterness here but he does genuinely wish him well. They should have fucked, but that's not really his fault. Sure, he could have propositioned Mags here but he doesn't look very comfortable and Wolverine just tried to kill him. We all know the Master of Magnetism could crumple his confinement like paper and move dick to mouth in seconds, but maybe they're not into public/dangerous/conjugal sex. *AHEM* I'm sure I had a point here.

I love their conversation so much. Krakoa wasn't doomed to fail - mistakes can be fixed and people grow. It's huge for Magneto especially, and therefore Charles as well. This is the synthesis of both their misguided ideologies. Solidarity, intersectionality, nobody is free until we all are. The oppressors are everyone's enemy. Strength in numbers. It's not an easy fight but it's been won many times before. I'll definitely come back to this dialogue, though I need to see how From The Ashes follows it up. It's a writer's dream, frankly, but fumbles are common and even intentional. Joy is fleeting and the struggle never ends.

I've reached Tumblr's image limit. What are your favourite Chuck moments?

[braddocklegacy]

FotHoX/RotPoX connecting variant cover by Paulo Siqueira

[monsieuroverlord]

BECAUSE I'M STILL UPSET BY RECENT EVENTS...

Warning: my convoluted conspiracy theories and ranting lol

We're only on part one of the Sabretooth War arc, and while I'm deeply unhappy with how that issue turned out, there's technically still plenty of time to introduce a twist that fixes everything (or at least provides a glimmer of solace from that clusterfuckery.)

I've thought on it, slept on it, and came up with a few theories that COULD dampen the blow of last issue.

In no particular order:

Twist Option 1: It's a fake-out and Akihiro is technically not dead. How, you may ask?

The Sabretooth crew's first target was Quentin Quire -- who is supposedly an omega-level telepath. Now, Logan's got telepathic resistance, but he's never been completely immune.

We also saw the Sabretoothes (Sabreteeth?) use a device to knock out Sage and Black Tom, one that distinctly has Quire's Pink Power Signature:

They haven't explained exactly WHAT this device is, but it wouldn't surprise me if they took Quire's brain and made a telepathic brain scrambler device. (wouldn't be the first time Marvel did something similar AND we don't see Quire's head in the final page). Creed's a savage, but also a clever bastard. He wouldn't be opposed to strats like that.

Who knows what that device is? Maybe its some bullshit like "projecting Logan's fears" and that's what he THINKS happened.

Though in this case, it is likely that Akihiro WAS at least captured and greatly injured (but still has his healing factor and is alive). Perhaps will come up later when Creed feels like fucking with Logan some more. (Cue badass sibling rescue mission when Laura finds out)

Not great, but perfectly in character for an extra-savage Sabretooth to draw out the Logan Birthday Bash. (And I'm sorry, but at the barest of minimums, Akihiro wouldn't go down that easy -- he's younger, faster, and much more conniving than his father. Logan has significant training, but he tends to drop it in favor of charging headfirst every time. Aki's always been more disciplined than that. Same with Laura, but that's another rant.)

Now this means Quire is definitely dead, but he also has a bunch of body doubles from X-Force, and he recently self-resurrected after that Cerebrax thing and a back-up body. If a character was going to self-resurrect, it'd be him. (Not to mention, if Betsy Braddock can restore her entire body via telepathy/telekinetics, he should be able to as well)

Twist Option 2: Akihiro IS dead, but there is a secret back-up resurrection (maybe limited use or something)

In the description-preview thing of X-Force #49, they're indicating they're gonna bring back Avengers-era Beast to take down current Beast. Now maybe they just happen to find a Beast clone to upload it to, but there's gotta be at least the groundwork for secret cloning somewhere (I mean, he cloned Wolverine too, so I don't see why not). Avengers-era Beast and Sage (Or just Sage alone honestly) could figure it out.

Then we just need a back-up database of Cerebro to upload memories and all is well. (I'm pretty sure X-Force already had a complete secret back-up database, or if not in canon yet, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out they did.).

Twist Option 3: Whatever is going on in ROTPOX comes to at least a partial fruition.

Either Xavier somehow succeeds (I don't think that'll be the case, tbh) and Krakoa is no more but everyone killed is reset or there's some partial success that resets Krakoa and resurrection can resume.

Either way, it'll reset the progress Akihiro and Logan have made and bleh.

(This would be such a fucking cop-out, in my opinion, but I digress)

Twist Option 4: Secret Weapon From the Exiles Crew.

Now called The Maroons, Nekra and crew still have that weird Krakoa seed. We don't know what it does yet. Implied to be really bad for Sabretooth, but maybe it also has secret powers like "restoring life to Creed's recent kills via draining his corpse" or some bullshit.

idk Krakoa science-magic.

Twist Option 5: There's another goddamn Muramasa blade/weapon out there.

What ever happened to Laura's Muramasa Armor? And the shield? How many weapons does Muramasa still have out there?

a. that armor will come up, and Laura will reclaim it. Since it also has a piece of Akihiro's soul, they'll extract that (probably breaking the armor in the process) and restore him via dope sword magic.

b. There's conveniently ANOTHER Muramasa weapon, one that can kill Sabretooth but ALSO has life restoring abilities (a weapon created for the perfect balance between life and death)

c. Solem lost his sword via general debauchery. And now Logan is gonna go get it. But also there's secret sword magic (which has life restoring powers) that Muramasa conveniently didn't tell Logan because he didn't feel like it

d. Logan's gonna go get his Muramasa blade (or one of them -- I'm pretty there's at least a couple at this point. wouldn't be surprised if there's secretly more) and there's the same secret sword magic as point c.

e. Percy and LaValle shock us all by giving Itsu some actual character -- where she knew Muramasa herself and gave up a bit of her soul for a secret weapon cuz it turns out she was a badass in her own right, which now can be used in the present day to both kill Sabretooth AND restore her beloved son. (And Logan never knew because he's a dense SOB and has a tendency to put his deceased love interests on a pedestal)

Twist Option 6: No twist at all. Akihiro is dead, gonna be dead for a bit, and everything is pain and suffering :(

At bare minimum, I wanna see Aurora pull her brother's moves from X-Men #163:

Just full speedster mode and kick his ass. She'd probably be more ruthless and I'd like to see that.

Or speedster sibling tag-team mode with said ruthless ass-kicking.

(I crave vengeance)

That's all I got. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading lol

[lovecatsys]

okay x men forever #1 was very fast. just tying in the end of immortal to where we already were in rotpox. but overall i thought it was good and its clear this issue was just the setup for the rest of it.

[orangedodge]

I think Gerry Duggan has been a good, character driven, author whose major flaw is he gets lost when he tries to tie together too many disparate threads into one cohesive narrative. When he has just one or two characters and their drama to focus on (the Callisto and Storm relationship, Kitty's loneliness, Synch's grief when he first escaped the vault, the ups and downs of Scott and Jean's marriage, Madelyn's lingering resentment, Tony's daddy issues, etc), he's delivered consistently enthralling work.

But when he tries to juggle a lot of different elements on his own, all moving at their own speed (such as: when writing X-Men, Iron Man, Uncanny Avengers, and Fall of the House of X all at the same time, without a consistent art team to fall back on, and, in one case, not even edited by the same person) he's gotten lost and produced issues that seem choppy and directionless. I think this will all read better in a complete collection, when the reader can just see how things are meant to pay off without the month long pauses, but at the moment it's very rough reading and not what I think people were hoping for when FotHoX/RotPoX was first announced.

(And I have to stress, because I think some of the criticism has been unfair, he does have a good track record of wrapping things up: Kitty's gate troubles, Emma's lie about Lourdes, the physical toll of Everett's power upon his body, Scott's fateful decision to rescue that Orchis team. It was all paid back, in its own time. Nothing was dropped, nothing was forgotten. It's just that the waits before those moments are ones that have asked for an indulgence of patience).

I think it would have been better had Gerry Duggan and Kieron Gillen been partnered more closely. Instead of each writing their own half of the story, it could have been a single work co-plotted by both of them. I think they would have covered one another's weaknesses nicely, with Gillen's more disciplined plotting but lack of interest in character, offsetting Duggan's tendency to leave plot in the background of social drama.

[rei-ismyname]

The GOAT. When I refer to the heights of the Krakoan era, it's pretty much this moment. It's mind boggling that Ewing would be able to pull that off during a crossover event, but he's that good (Gillen has this ability too.)

The crazy thing is that this isn't even close to being the climax of either of their arcs or their relationship (despite Magneto literally not having a heart in his chest rn, an affliction he dies from next issue unsurprisingly.)

I was/am disappointed how absent both of them were from the final run (FOTHOX/ROTPOX), though they both showed up for the Nimrod fight. Max and Ororo had really strong arcs that positioned them well for future stories, especially Magneto (he now understands that it's not human vs mutant, it's oppressed vs oppressors - HUGE for him.)

Krakoa was so strong and iconic that I was always going to be wary of what comes next. Conceptually, where do you go? I've accepted that aspect will just be worse (for me at least). Everyone goes back to feared and hated living in places that look like the world outside the window, but the character work that was done left them in such a fantastic place, somewhere I'd kill to be able to write about. To put it simply, I'm scared they're going to drop it - in every sense of the word. I *hope* not, but Marvel's 'illusion of change' (fuck you Stan Lee) is a powerful force of narrative inertia.

Still thinking about this. Forever thinking about this.

[racefortheironthrone]

What did you think about Rise of the Powers of X 3?

As I said elsewhere: "Holy shit is Kieron Gillen on fire with ROTPOX. This is how you do morally ambiguous Xavier without falling into Deadly Genesis. This isn’t an evil or stupid man, there is a recognizable A to B as to how he gets to this place, and he’s not relentlessly evil, but he’s still doing the wrong thing for the right reason."

[racefortheironthrone]

Seems like the Atomic Age inspired every second superhero to get his or her powers through radiation. The radioactive spider bite is probably the most well known example, but I saw some pretty wacky ones. Wondering if you know any other crazy or interesting ones too?

A lot of the Silver Age superheroes were radioactive, in no small part because Stan Lee was a nut on the subject and didn't particularly care about the actual science. So in addition to Spider-Man (and many of his rogues' gallery), you have the gamma bomb test that created the Hulk and many of his rogues' gallery (although Al Ewing invented a fascinating Kabbalistic mythology on top of the whole gamma radiation thing), the radioactive ooze that blinded Matt Murdock (and created the Ninja Turtles), and on and on...

The one you're probably less familiar with is the first origin story for mutants in the X-Men:

While the nuclear origin of Professor X and the 05 were eventually superseded by Chris Claremont's decision to shift from atomic radiation to genetic mutation, which would be formalized as the X-Gene, X-comics didn't completely abandon the Silver Age origin story for mutants. Building on Xavier's backstory of being the children of government scientists working at a top-secret project at Alamagordo, New Mexico (a clear allusion to the Trinity Test conducted at Los Alamos as part of the Manhattan Project), Fabien Nicieza, Craig Kyle, Chris Yost, and especially Mike Carey invented the Black Womb Project.

In a feat of paranoid conspiracy rarely seen outside of a game of Illuminati, the Black Womb Project was a secret genetic mutation research group using nuclear research as a cover story. Led by "Dr. Nathan Milbury" (aka Mister Sinister aka Nathaniel Essex) and the almost-as-evil Amanda Mueller (aka "the Black Womb Killer"), the Black Womb Project hired Dr. Brian Xavier (Charles' father), Dr. Kurt Marko (Cain Marko's father), and Irene Adler (working undercover to foil Sinister's bid for Dominion).

This project involved wildly unethical experimentation on thousands of children abducted by FBI agents Fred Duncan (who would become Professor X's FBI liason) and Carl Denti (the future anti-mutant villain "X-Cutioner"), including many of the Silver Age villains like Fred Dukes (the Blob) and Mortimer Toynbee (Toad), as well as experiments conducted by Drs. Xavier and Marko on their own children Charles and Cain. Supposedly, the Black Womb Project was designed to test a number of different methods of activating latent X-Genes...

But secretly, Nathaniel Essex/Mister Sinister was intending to use the Project as a springboard for his goals for immortality and ultimate dominion through something called the Cronus Device. This involved the implantation of Sinister's DNA into Xavier and Marko so that if Sinister ever died, a failsafe would activate that would wipe the minds of Charles, Marko, and their descendants and implant Sinister's mind and abilities into them.

While Sinister's plans were foiled by Irene Adler's precognition and Amanda Mueller's attempt to usurp the Cronus Device and replace Sinister's backup with her own (Mueller's mutant power gave her immortality but not eternal youth, so she wanted to use Sinister's backdoor to clone herself into youthful bodies), it did succeed in installing a Sinister backdoor into Charles Xavier and Cain Marko that Sinister would eventually infiltrate into the mutant DNA database at the heart of Krakoan resurrection. Sinister then used his backdoors to attempt to seize control of the Quiet Council and create an intergalatic mutant empire, which he would then sacrifice to fuel his ascension into Dominion.

Unfortunately, he didn't know that Enigma had gotten there first...

[racefortheironthrone]

Incoherent Rambling About Rise of the Powers of X #1

So I had talked about FOTHOX #1 with @alfietalksaboutcomics, and generally liked the plotting and character work even if the dialogue didn’t always work for me.

I have no such reservations about ROTPOX #1. Kieron Gillen comes in with astonishing bravura, throwing a million ideas at us at once, turning all of our many fan theories over the years into his Lego pieces, and producing a deeply satisfying evocation of what made us fall in love with HOXPOX in the first place. This is exactly what I hoped for as a conclusion to Krakoa and I look forwards to trying to understand all the timeline and scheme shenanigans.

[racefortheironthrone]

Now that the fall of x is well underway and the nation state of Krakoa has crumbled (whether or not it’ll resurge in a better image is to be seen), where do you think they went wrong? Some would say from start go, but I’d disagree (idk how people can still think of them as an “unlikeable cult” ) esp since they formed their nation on uninhabited territories with partnership with the land itself. To quote wolverine “it bothers you because it’s something you can’t have.” But there are definitley seeds that sprouted their downfall - a lack of govermental transparency, compromises with evil actors / actions like Sinister or keeping Destiny dead, not as hands on w X Force, etc. What do you think did it ?

Come back and ask me this again once Fall of X and Fall of the House of X/Rise of the Powers of X/X-Men Forever wrap up. If I'm going to do a comprehensive retrospective on the Krakoan Era, I think I really need all the data on hand.

[rei-ismyname]

TFW your girlfriend is a God

Current state of canon is that this is not Jean Grey at all - it's the Phoenix/it's complicated. Something I've always wondered is - how does the Phoenix feel about Scott Summers? Clearly it cares about Earth and specifically mutants enough to keep coming back to them (except Chuck - kill his ass) so there must be something going on. There's a lot to be said about the gender politics and power dynamics in this panel, but I'll write about that another time.

As I've said before I don't like how The Phoenix has been beaten to death as a storytelling vehicle (though Kieron Gillen's X-Men Forever/RotPox was a rare exception) and diminished in universe through overuse. I find it hard to believe it would force a bunch of Avengers + Wolverine into a bizarre tournament as part of a million year old legacy resulting in multiple Phoenixes fighting Dark Phoenix Mystique (and being Thor's mother.)

It makes the Phoenix look fickle, capricious, and above all arbitrary - with its recent interest in either possessing or fucking members of the Grey-Summers clan a passing fad. Then again, Jean is 'mother-me' and together they impregnated Hope's mother so there must be at least a corner of the White Hot Room that's just for them.

[nthflower]

Okay I think I enjoyed rotpox. Rasputin was not annoying, art was super pretty, I know now what is dead xmens deal and books are more connected now. Enigma and Moira plot also didn't bother me I am actually interested. Doug being sinister actually is something I absolutely hated tho.

[nthflower]

Rotpox was great wish the other book was not duggan

[nthflower]

Wait rotpox were released I didn't know that