-I'm ridiculously intrigued by the Chimera X-Men and who Cardinal, Cylobel & Percival are DNA combinations of. I'm sure we'll get to see their DNA strands, possibly in the next PoX issues. Particularly Cardinal given he's obviously a prominent character. My guesses are:
Percival: Foley (Elixir) + Ramsey (Cypher) given his appearance. Both make sense as an Omega level biokinetic and a big part of Hickman’s HoX/New Mutants respectively. I’d say there’s possibly some Tager (Cipher), Abbott (Trance) or Voght in there given Percival is referred to as a ghost on pg 38. It's hard to say without seeing him in action, and he mightn't even be particularly relevant anymore given he died early one, but it’s fun to speculate.
Cylobel: My guess is Johansson (No-Girl) + Sage + Haddad (Cerebra). Maybe Caliban, Manon/Maxime, Wyngarde or Vertigo in there too. Ex-Hound seems to imply that tracking abilities and psychic abilities would be of use. A somewhat understated but useful powerset given what the hounds are created for.
Cardinal: I'm stumped to be honest. Obviously Nightcrawler and/or Azazel but I've no idea who else. Some seem to think Gambit but outside of the eyes kinda matching I'm not sure I see it. Cardinal possibly has offensive capabilities we won't really see in action, or ‘invisible’ mutations like empathy or enhanced sight or something. It’s plausible that the specific combination or usage of mutations are what cause the outliers, in their pacificism.
-Black Tom, Magneto, Xorn and Wolverine are among the last remaining X-Men, stationed on Asteroid K. Unless if Magneto is a clone or something, I’ve absolutely no idea how he’s lived this long. Exodus, Apocalypse, Selene, Legion, Proteus, Dead Girl and Emma Frost (while in her diamond form) are functionally immortal, and would make more sense as having outlived all other mutants. There are two other mutants on Asteroid K, one of which is referred to as ‘old man’- I can only assume this is Xavier himself. As for the other, perhaps they are one of the others I mentioned. I would hope that the other survivors aren’t white men only. It would have been nice if X-23, Honey Badger or Daken had outlived Logan but alas.
-Xandra is a nice nod to what’s going on in current storylines, and it’s nice to think that she rightfully inherited the rule of the Shi’ar empire. It makes sense for her to have been established in a prior title so that Hickman could make use of her.
-I’m really hoping now that this isn’t the last we see of Rasputin IV. I imagine now that she’s apart of X-Lore she’ll resurface somewhere regardless, but I do hope it’s sooner rather than later. Hickman did say he’s tackling a crazy concept only he could really do, and I’m hoping this is a ‘Chimeras’ book, examining the future history and world he’s building. We’re all falling for Rasputin & co. already, so it’d be great to have a fully-fledged title with her as the lead, rather than a five-issue miniseries. If it panned out this way, it would mean Hickman has free reign to use blank slate characters of his own creation, and full access to whatever X-Stuff he wants without worrying too much about their current roles in the X-Men of ‘now’.
Yeah, you’d think we’d be at a point where miscolouring characters didn’t happen but apparently not. I love that she’s relevant again, but Karima should be retaining her ethnicity, not be another victim of whitewashing. And yeah, making her ethnicity invisible by making her skin colour red for whatever reason isn’t a better alternative either…
It lines up. If Krakoa is capable of reviving mutants, then I’m betting Mystique is going to ask for Destiny to be returned to her in exchange for her services.