Marvel’s X-Men event, X of Swords, changed the Mutantdom forever

X the swords (pronounced “Ten of Swords”), the 22-part epic story told in all of the books under Marvel’s X-Men umbrella, ended this week. The ancient extradimensional mutant nation of Arakko was overrun by an extradimensional monster horde and rose as a threat to life on Krakoa and the whole earth. The mercury sorceress, who rules the relationship between the dimensions, forced Arakko and Krakoa to a tournament of champions. And the X-Men triumphed.

But did the Omniversal Magestrix Opal Luna Saturnyne get everything it wanted? What did the X-Men sacrifice for their victory? And what’s next? Let’s go through all of the ways X of Swords changed the mutated paradigm.

X of Swords was comic strip prestige TV

First a note about the format: most Marvel or DC crossover events consist of a main comic – either an arc of an ongoing series or a miniseries that shares a name with the event – and a number of connectivity issues that are usually quite difficult to pursue. It should give the event the feeling of having drawn the other characters in the area into its events. When done well, it increases the stakes and ideally makes fans interested in picking up the main event book, but not committed.

X the swords have done something we see much less often. It consisted of 22 editions, and 19 of those were editions of existing X-Men books created by the book’s creative team. And it all felt like a single cohesive narrative with no narration box jumping through the fourth wall to tell you to only read this compound output if you’ve already read it Spider Man # 42069 or what do you have?

It is clear that this brought a lot of coordination on the part of the X-Men Creator Stable, and understandably so since this is essentially a room model for television writers. It’s the type of superhero comic book creation that spawned some of my most memorable event comics, such as: Bruce Wayne: Killer? / Refugee and 52.

The path has some disadvantages X the swords it was accomplished. Readers had to buy one quantity More books in the past two months to keep up with history. Fortunately, they were rewarded with comics that kept you excited for the next panel, and with 2-3 issues of X the swords Getting to the stands every week means there is no downtime to get bored with the procedure.

But if the creative teams hadn’t been keeping the art, the stakes, storytelling and making sure of characters so popular X the swords I felt like a story rather than a clumsy Exquisite Corpse game. It could have been very different. This format may be more difficult to implement than the usual event comic structure. It may take a lot more strength from writers, artists, and editors, but it sure made a hell of a fun comic.

The mutated home is much bigger now

Image: Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu / Marvel Comics

We all know Krakoa is one of all mutants – but the size of the living mutant island will double. With the resolution of X the swords comes the reunion of Krakoa and Arakko, two sentient halves of an entire island called Okkara that were torn apart thousands of years ago when Apocalypse and his family locked Arakko and its mutated inhabitants in another dimension to save the earth from destruction .

And Arakko has “millions” of mutated prisoners who will now live on Earth. What will that look like? There is no way of knowing.

We won’t see Apocalypse again for a while

Image: Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, Pepe Larraz / Marvel Comics

Arakko returns to earth as a goodwill exchange of a mutant for a mutant. And that one mutant is Apocalypse, who volunteered to stay in the Otherworld with his old, long-lost family. That is, his wife Genesis, ruler of the Arakkii mutants, and their four children, the first riders of the immortal mutant, war, death, pestilence and famine.

Among the X-Men’s oldest and most formidable enemies, this may not be the last we’ll see from the Apocalypse. But it will probably be the last time he will be a driving force in Krakoan’s politics. The other world is difficult to reach from Earth and uniquely dangerous for mutants as its magical and ominversal nature disrupts their resurrection process. When a mutant dies in the Otherworld, he dies in real life.

Captain Britain Corp is back, but different

Image: Tini Howard, Mahmud Asrar, Stefano Caselli / Marvel Comics

Why is everything so complicated in Otherworld? Well, part of the problem is that the Nexus of All Marvel Realities has missed its legendary army of protectors who gave their lives to protect the multiverse in advance of the legend of current X-Men architect Jonathan-Hickman Secret wars.

Who are these legendary protectors? OK, in the Marvel Universe, Britain’s eternal protector is a Union Jack clad character who walks past Captain Britain. And the Captain Britain Corp is a reserve army of every Captain Britain from every universe in the Marvel Multiverse.

The corp was resurrected by Lady Opal Luna Saturnyne, ruler of the Otherworld and protector of the Starlight Citadel, the intermediate station between each of the infinite worlds in the Multiverse. But it didn’t go exactly the way she wanted it to. Saturnyne was especially upset that the current Captain Britain of the main Marvel Universe is not her beloved Brian Braddock, but rather his twin sister Betsy, the mutant formerly known as Psylocke.

So she orchestrated the tournament between Krakoa and Arakko to kill Betsy, forcing Brian to take over the cloak from Captain Britain and be her loyal servant and consort again. But it did not work. Brian refused to budge, and her love spell resurrected Betsy Braddock’s Captain Britain Corp – and an army made up of all versions of Betsy Braddock / Captain Britain in the Multiverse. One of them is a swan. Because multiverse!

Oddly enough, Betsy is not to be found among them.

The X-Men are alive again?

Image: Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar / Marvel Comics

One of the weird quirks of the new Dawn of X paradigm for mutant lives is that, while mutants have their own nation, their own laws, their own space program, their own tiki bar, their own covert operations team, their own private investigators to have. and their own immortality – they no longer have the X-Men team.

X-Men # 15, the penultimate issue of X the swords, states that as a concept on a data page, the X-Men are seen as a threat to the power of the Krakoa government.

Image: Jonathan Hickman, Tom Müller / Marvel Comics

That information was juxtaposed with Cyclops and Jean, who defied the Quiet Council’s will to “risk everything we built for a few lives”. Professor X and Magneto seem proud of their kids living up to their ideals, and it seems to suggest that the formal return of the X-Men as a team is imminent. But how will they fit into the delicate balance of power between Krakoa / Arakko? One can only guess.

One more thing?

Uhhh, Cyclops, and Jean assembled an army of X-Men, teleported a space station to the magical realm of Otherland, and opened their doors to let that army out. It was Dope as hell.

Doug Ramsey / Cypher / Warlock is married to a giant Arakii woman named Bei of the Blood Moon and while his mutated power is that he can understand any language, he cannot understand it.

The only mutant to die in Otherland since the tournament started is Gorgon, whom you probably never heard of anyway. But he went out strong and it seems like he is going to get some strange amalgam resurrection.

Maybe one day you heard about it The Gorgon.