We begin with Charles in front of a big fish tank talking to someone about powering a new version of Cerebro over whiskey. Big reveal: It’s Forge, not wearing short shorts. Forge is automatically a big data backup expert and could easily get a top job working in enterprise now. He explains that the energy needs would be astronomical, but of course Charles already has a magical invisible Shi’ar Reactor, because aliens.
Text explains how not only are mutant minds copied by Cerebro, but versions from different points in each mutant’s life. So basically like Amazon S3. Apparently it’s not as easy as putting an the wrong mind or version of a mind in the wrong body though, so we’re not just to think that everyone is swanning around in someone’s else’s body. Supposedly, Charles has reverted himself to an earlier back-up twice. How peculiar.
Next up is X^1, where Charles gallantly fails to impress Emma at all by making everyone leave the gallery of the Louvre she is in. We’re obviously still pre-House of X here - it’s another in the sequence of Charles recruiting people to the sex cult idea, and Eric shows up too. Emma reacts in reader’s voice to their insane plan to put millions of mutants on an island again, but is seemingly won over by an off-panel tour of Krakoan botany.
On Krakoa, Emma breaks the dynamic duo’s balls over her involvement. They want her to team up with the assumed dead Sebastian Shaw to run Krakoa’s legal and illegal drug trades. They’re kind of shit at negotiating though so she takes them to the cleaner, demanding a third seat for Hellfire at the krakoan council.
Did I mention the Krakoan Council yet? It’s the government we’ve all been waiting for! Rather than a dictatorship, there will be twelve prominent mutants to make every decision about law and policy on the island, assisted by Krakoa itself and Doug Ramsey as liaison. I predict from this that we’ll definitely see the conclusion of Sabretooth’s arc next week with an example of Krakoan justice.
Next up, we’re in X^1 again, and Xavier is broadcasting a welcome to all the mutants of the world to come to the new country. We see the Acolytes, Omega Gang, Sinister (post-murder of other Sinisters - this is the only time we’ll see him this week, despite the cover), and Gorgon. Hickman love Gorgon. Charles then calls Namor in person, who calls him out on his conviction that mutants are really superior to humans. Namor knows what it means to be truly superior - superior abs, superior pointy ears, superior foot wings...
Finally, we’re back in U Wot M8 land of X^3, where the Phalanx send a weird machine clone out of the Elder, who then eats the real Elder. Nimrod the lesser explains to the librarian that the Phalanx are just a bunch of hungry bois who are going to eat every living thing on the planet to power the ascension. So the human’s minds will be copied, but their bodies annihilated. Er, I think. We also get an info dump about how the Phalanx work for a bunch of super-mind bros who live inside black holes, cos their brains are so big and dense they just collapse space. These Titan consciousnesses are also in touch with each other, because singularities are also wormholes. I wonder where else we’ve seen a black hole in this series.