X-Men: Forever #3 — S.O.S.

[H-E-D]

Realizing now how much effort those recaps take.

The main gist of things is that Hope realizes she needs a weapon in the White Hot Room, and has the Krakoa diaspora use Morse code to signal Krakoa Prime, and Doug relays the message. Ultimately, Manifold reunited The Six, and they help Exodus temporarily travel to the White Hot Room to give Hope Nightcrawler’s Hopesword. Exodus makes it very clear that whatever the plan is, Hope will not survive. Cable shows up for a moment to wordlessly say goodbye to his daughter. Legion is now inhabiting the Hopesword, and transforms it into a big f*cling gun to suit Hope better.

But there’s a problem. Enigma knows that Hope is the key to the plan to stop him. He can’t touch her in the WHR… but he has other options. Cut to Anchorage, Alaska: nine months before Hope’s birth. Enigma approaches Hope’s bio-mom, Louise Spalding, to talk about her impending pregnancy…

[Nicoclaws]

Oh. That's how they take the Hope Sword away then.

[CGAR]

I feel bad for Hope and Gillen really is carrying the end of Krakoa IMO.

I wish they had let Ewing help with FotHoX.

[jwatson]

This was a hot mess. If building and building is jean getting to speak then i guess mission accomplished. This could story could have been told in a one shot and if this is the continuation of immortal i am so happy i jumped ship months ago.

[jwatson]

I feel bad for Hope and Gillen really is carrying the end of Krakoa IMO.

I wish they had let Ewing help with FotHoX.

I'm glad ewing didn't get to help to be honest. one of the most annoying things this era was gillien getting some credit for the amazing work ewing did given what gillien was dishing out like judgement and sins. Ewing made those work because he is ewing not because he was given some great plot.

[gambitxremy]

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How hope was born

“NON-GENETICINHERITANCE?
COSMIC SCALE EVOLUTION WITH METAPHYSICAL-TRANSFERRED QUASI-GENETIC INFORMATION?”

https://x.com/richieterrones/status/...KqTw6z-sgsrizw

[Kingdom X]

Potential here but just too much happening at once. At least Gillen is trying to include other writers concepts and plots as he wraps things up.

I generally like the Hope stuff. I just hope her ending is more, “fly off across space time”, then “is murdered by Enigma”. The Cable goodbye was weird though… he only showed up in one panel so I couldn’t tell if it was a telepathic goodbye or if he actually somehow ported to see her.

The Darkholme family stuff was kinda irritating cause there are WAY bigger fish to fry. Also going from murder attempts to a vow renewal in a month is kinda wild.

Glad Doug did something, but his potential has really been wasted after Inferno and the first Sabretooth series. Don’t really care about Shaw and I don’t get how the Duggan X-Men were ready to murder Firestar and now Xavier for being traitors, but seemingly don’t have an issue with the most traitorous D-bag of them all.

[MythicalChicken]

Realizing now how much effort those recaps take.

The main gist of things is that Hope realizes she needs a weapon in the White Hot Room, and has the Krakoa diaspora use Morse code to signal Krakoa Prime, and Doug relays the message. Ultimately, Manifold reunited The Six, and they help Exodus temporarily travel to the White Hot Room to give Hope Nightcrawler’s Hopesword. Exodus makes it very clear that whatever the plan is, Hope will not survive. Cable shows up for a moment to wordlessly say goodbye to his daughter. Legion is now inhabiting the Hopesword, and transforms it into a big f*cling gun to suit Hope better.

But there’s a problem. Enigma knows that Hope is the key to the plan to stop him. He can’t touch her in the WHR… but he has other options. Cut to Anchorage, Alaska: nine months before Hope’s birth. Enigma approaches Hope’s bio-mom, Louise Spalding, to talk about her impending pregnancy…

It felt a bit rushed, and Nightcrawler's bit felt tacked on, which isn't Gillen's style. Otherwise, I love the story they're telling and -- for the most part -- how well it uses everything they established about krakoa.

Gillen promised we'd love Exodus and Hope, and he's right. I'm going to miss Exodus the most next era.

[MythicalChicken]

Don’t really care about Shaw and I don’t get how the Duggan X-Men were ready to murder Firestar and now Xavier for being traitors, but seemingly don’t have an issue with the most traitorous D-bag of them all.

I suppose because this behavior is expected of him?

[Jackraow21]

Damn. Sad for Cable, but he won't be around in the new era anyway. So I guess both he and Hope are off the board for the foreseeable future.

[Tank]

This is seriously dragging. I just want Jean to actually do something and have some agency. Gillen sold this as Jean consuming the book beginning in issue 2, and it feels like an awful bait and switch.

[cranger]

There is enough here with the Hope part of this story to keep me engaged but the time travel part is really annoying to me. I suppose Gillen wrapped up the Nightcrawler parentage well enough to make things line up with the retcon while keeping the characters basically unchanged for now. Destiny being too obsessed with keeping Mystique alive to allow her to risk her life feels like something that contradicts their entire lifestyle up to this point and hopefully no one else writes them to that extreme.

To bring it back around if Gillen can make the beginning and end(?) of Hope's story arc all make sense and complete than I will have enjoyed having this finale.

[NewMutant]

I hate saying this. But I'm checked out mostly.

[Souther]

I thought it was a good issue and the character interactions worked out well, including Shaw's sequence, despite the pacing being a little too quick at certain moments. Like a few others may have said before, I will miss the Exodus and Hope duo. For that matter, Gillen doesn't write a bad Nightcrawler.

Of course, you need to be willingly interested and invested in what's going on. I don't care for Duggan's side of Fall, frankly, but Gillen is landing the plane for me. In a perfect world, there would be more time to spread out these events. Still, I don't demand perfection here. If life gives you lemons (ie: Krakoa as an era needing to end before a certain non-negotiable date, period), then you make lemonade.

[IllusiveGorn]

Enigma looking like Tony Stark is honestly hilarious. But I very like that it all goes back to Messiah Complex and Uncanny X-Men Vol 2, heading to the end of the long storyline about Hope, Essex and Phoenix.