Inferno #3 Review/Spoilers

[Odd Rödney]

So I get to these threads pretty late as I don't get to read my comics as soon as the rest of y'all. I especially loved the stuff with Doug and Warlock. This was a fantastic issue and I'm excited to see what comes next!

Y'know, looking back, they really didn't do anything with the Krakoan language, did they? Like, I know not everyone's Tolkien and has the patience for that sort of worldbuilding, but just think about the practical use? You have a language no one else on Earth uses, let's see them shout orders so enemies don't know what they're plans are, or express Krakoan swears that slip under the radar of racist guests.

Yes!!!! This is such a brilliant idea, crazy that it hasn't been done!

First issue of Inferno that I've loved from start to finish. It was bitter sweet read cause I'm sad to think we're so close to the end of Hickman's time in the office.

I felt the same way, bittersweet indeed.

I just want to point out that I believe the proficy said by Irene to the Cuckoos is related to the creation of black brain telepaths

Makes sense. Those black brain telepaths are spooky as hell, by the way, at least, they are to me.

Very boring , like this whole event so far IMO. Lots of talking from characters I don't give a damn about. This is an X-Men event with no real X-Men involved. Where's Cyclops, Storm, Jean, etc.? At least Wolverine got his event coming up(looking forward to that), so maybe they'll be involved in that. Oh and there goes Mystique causing trouble again, who could've seen that coming? Also, is a Nimrod and a bunch of humans with guns suppose to be a threat to Magneto and Xavier? Unless I'm missed something over the years, this should be a cakewalk for them.

If you don't give a damn about the characters and you don't see the stakes in the story then you don't have to read it, let alone come on the internet to complain about it.

But you do you I guess.

So all the fancy stuff Krakoa can suddently do and how it's bio-mass can be used for machinery is indeed thanks to Warlock fusing with it. Which means the entire mutant nation is overy relying on techno-organic machinery too. Just with a different paintjob. Oh the irony.

Ouch for the cuckoos. Seems that being a hive mind is not easy when all the parts are still so human, with individual ability for emotions, feelings and thinking.
Though i wonder if that part is actualy meant to reflect how under all the pretense of superiority, talk of forming "circuits" and being above them, mutants are and remain fundamentaly human (with all the good and bad that entails), compared to the machine humanity that Karima comes which desires to get rid of these traits?

Also great. Now we get another set of time traveling unrealiable narrators on how there is no co-existence possible and one side has to "win".

Overall i think i would feel more tension in all of this, if i didn't knew for a fact that no side here can ever win. Earth in the Marvel Universe has to remain reflective of present day real world Earth (and the general layout of the Solar system too, so Planet Arrako's days are numbered too), because of the "the world through our window" approach to how the universe is set up.

So unpowered humanity can't be replaced by mutants (or any kind of super human people) anytime soon (or entirely given what we know about the division of powers mutants can have), because the world has to remain reflective of our own (My Hero Academy has the advantage there by turning the super humans into normality and make their world reflective of our own anyway) but mutants can't completely "lose" either, because they are a fundamental part of the fictional element of the Marvel Universe and they are a million dollar sub-franchise of Marvel (plus being constant stand ins for metaphors for discrimination, etc.).

Which overall means the only stable and "believable" path for mutant heros is and remains fighting to achieve co-existence.

Moira X and Karima X in this regard are basicly demagogs making the allready tense and problematic situation worse, by trying to enforce their limited visions upon others, who they sway by pandering to their fears and desires.

Still despite the obvious longterm outcome. This is a fascinating read.

Yeah, I think the only way the mutant mythos can move forward (from co-existence to domination) is for the X-Men to be in their own reality, untethered from the 616 "world outside your window". If not they're stuck with that tendency for everything to snap back into it's "satus quo" state like a rubber band. I don't want the X-Men to be off in their own universe but I think that's the only way you get that story, long term.

So if I'm reading this right, the Nimrod who came back from the future in the 80s and became a construction worker is from the original timeline of Moira Life X, and we're now in the branch created by that act; and now this Omega Sentinal has come back from the far future of that same timeline to found Orchis and stop the mutants from winning Life X. A lot more actually makes sense with this information, including most obviously the sudden appearance of Orchis, and how OS seemed to be nudging rather than actively participating in events - she's only intervening at key points to create the outcome she believes will stop the mutant nation. This also explains somewhat why Charles and Erik's attempts to stop Nimrod are not working, as OS has the future foresight to pre-empt anything they might try.

Also, on a meta level the ban on time travel stories in Dawn Of X makes a lot more sense - the whole thing is a time travel story!

About the "Mutants always win", it is not that Moira lied. Karima came from the future of life 10 of Moira, her current life. Aparently, they did everything right with Krakoa and mutants finally won, instead of lose as previous lives.

But the machines sent Karima back in time, creating a new timeline in Moira's 10th life, the things we're seeing now! So around the time Krakoa was being built, Karima was creating Orchis to counteract the Mutants and prevent her reality, when humans and machines lost.

I think you're both reading this exactly right. If not then we're all wrong I guess.

[Lady Midnight]

I enjoyed this, sad that it is the last time we see Hickman at the helm but i hope he goes out on a high note.

So show of hands, who else here thinks Frost gave them her depowering gun she used on Shaw? *RAISES HAND*

And also, who thinks they will use it on Moira, kill her and secure this time line? *RAISES HAND AGAIN*

Here's hoping.

[Grunty]

I wish this future war between CoV,humans,Krakoans and Arraki (Arraki fighting CoV on Mars perhaps as CoV fight humans and Krakoans on Earth as well)is visualised in a 10 issue ark at some point.Looks epic already and knowing that CoV now have a 'Darwinian' mutation spurt I don't think history will repeat itself.Hickman has laid the groundwork for a reckoning between the 3 species and I hope some writers take this up.

Call me a cynic, but my experience with the cape comics of the big 2 at this point has given me the impression, that the subject matter and the specialization of the selected artists is not suited to display large fights or conflicts between full blown groups of super beings in a dynamic or "epic" manner.

The artistic focus of super hero comics (western or eastern) are stand out individuals, hence why fights either boil down to very small groups of individuals fighting against each other with enough "room" to let them each show their specilizations in one on one encounters (see Captain America: Civil War), OR small groups of individuals against large hordes of generic often faceless grunts/mooks/henchmen, where the individuals can show off by cutting/bashing/blasting down underpowered enemies in mass (see Avengers Endgame).

And unlike other works of heroic stories, they are explicitly not tied to factions which would provide massive armies to back them up, because the whole value of super heros is that they independent and can do everything by themself.

The only exceptions are splash pages where the artist will try to cram as many individuals into a singular scene as possible and have each shown fighting someone to indicate a large scale battle going on, but offers very little dynamic in getting a good understanding of how the fight might be "fair" or how strong any of the sides are.

It's one reason i have started to consider the idea of a mutant army to be a hollow concept, since one major aspects of mutants is that their super powers are entirely randomized which makes forming an army which depends on uniformity of individuals for tactical cohesion a logistic nightmare. Compared to Avatar where the super powers were at least grouped into 4 general elements, allowing each bender to fullfill different styles or roles of combat.
Even in the Krakoa status quo where millions of mutants are grouped together in a nation, the focus lies on a small elite of powerfull beings single handedly bringing victory, rather than the nation having a proper militarized fighting force.
Because their very nature makes coordination of mass units of mutants impossible. At least if the focus is entirely on fighting with powers (as opposed to giving every underpowered mutant a gun, which would make them no more better than unpowered humans).

In addition to that the Krakoan mutants and the Children of the vault explicitly lack the structurs to employ large masses of backround filling "mooks", as the former are explicitly not mass militarized and as hero faction can only ever muster the named characters, while the later are also highly focused on using individuals to the point where there are barely more than 10 Children of the Vault ever shown or used.

Overall there is a reason why all the big wars, which were remarked to have taken place in the history shown in HOX/POX were only ever shown in their aftermath or via very narrow images of Moira standing besides a partner in victory or defeat. The established iconography of these comics aren't meant for detailed depictions of multi-frontal wars and they mostly don't have the artist to provide it.

A victory of mutants is usualy shown by them standing on rubble with dead people and non-mutant heros around them. A victory of Children of the Vault would be similar only with heros from all side lying among the bodies around them. A victory of Sentinels is usualy them standing on a mountain of (human looking) bodies or skulls or flying over ruined cities. The wars themself are never fully shown, because these settings are not suited for proper depiction of large scale wars. Especialy since the X-men lack the quality to provide themself a large army of generic grunts to fill the ranks that clash against other large forces.

Also there is the over reliance of Deus Ex Machinas happening off pannel or in singular recap images. Where the narrative will just say "And then Jean Grey gave everyone an headache and the mutants beat the Avengers." Or "And then Nimrod unleashed a neo-legacy virus and 17 million mutants were dead." and that was that for the victory or defeat.

As such a mini-series about the various wars of the human groups with super powers would not be very "epic" visualy or narratively from my perspective. Beause these works don't have the basis for making it work since the established narrative tools, artistic focus and value of characters, compared to other types of science fiction and fantasy.

That is not to say you can't make epic conflicts in super hero comics. But it needs a specific groundwork, which this conflict does not have.

Of course i might be dead wrong, again i admit i have a much more sober look at what can be done in super hero comics, based on past examples.

On a side note. I refuse to see it as a war between "species". Mutants are humans and the "human" side would involve super powered people at the forfront who are as "detached" from normal humans (or downright aren't human) as mutants are, furthermore making it a conflict of proclaimed or insisted "identities" rather than species.

The only case i see for such a war involving 3 "species" would be if it's about humans (powered by X-gene or otherwise and unpowered), machines (Sentinels) and beings no longer comparable to humans in any way but shape (post-humans, cyber-humans, aliens, demons, etc.).

But as long as it's only mutants and unpowered humans, it's just another inter-human war based on ideologies, identities and overly focused differences between groups. In general a retreat of colonization era ideologies, but with weapons of mass destruction at both sides' finger tips.

[Wolverine12]

I wish this future war between CoV,humans,Krakoans and Arraki (Arraki fighting CoV on Mars perhaps as CoV fight humans and Krakoans on Earth as well)is visualised in a 10 issue ark at some point.Looks epic already and knowing that CoV now have a 'Darwinian' mutation spurt I don't think history will repeat itself.Hickman has laid the groundwork for a reckoning between the 3 species and I hope some writers take this up.

I think JDW said there is an Apocalypse book coming down the pipe here after XLOW. Pretty sure it was in this weeks X-Men Monday.

[jwatson]

So I get to these threads pretty late as I don't get to read my comics as soon as the rest of y'all. I especially loved the stuff with Doug and Warlock. This was a fantastic issue and I'm excited to see what comes next!



Yes!!!! This is such a brilliant idea, crazy that it hasn't been done!



I felt the same way, bittersweet indeed.



Makes sense. Those black brain telepaths are spooky as hell, by the way, at least, they are to me.



If you don't give a damn about the characters and you don't see the stakes in the story then you don't have to read it, let alone come on the internet to complain about it.

But you do you I guess.



Yeah, I think the only way the mutant mythos can move forward (from co-existence to domination) is for the X-Men to be in their own reality, untethered from the 616 "world outside your window". If not they're stuck with that tendency for everything to snap back into it's "satus quo" state like a rubber band. I don't want the X-Men to be off in their own universe but I think that's the only way you get that story, long term.






I think you're both reading this exactly right. If not then we're all wrong I guess.

Seeing Frobisher posts requoted makes me realize the REAL irony of it all is all the times hickman and co said "THIS IS NOT A TIME TRAVEL STORY." and "i get paid to lie." lmao. It's actually quite funny in non sarcastic way. lol

[Odd Rödney]

I get the feeling we won't get much of a conclusion here. Other than just for Moira. She'll die, or be put in stasis, or depowered or something. Orchis, Nimrod and Omega Sentinel will carry on. I'm guessing some sort of truce?

I doubt there will be any kind of truce but I imagine you're right about Moira.

I imagine life 10A is also a teaser for what's to come. The Children of the Vault will come back, and Apocalypse and family will come to help. The version in life 10A looks closer to the third generation of CotV, but in life 10B they evolved further because of Darwin. Gillen's book seems to tease the Phoenix too, so that Phoenix Blade thing may end up happening too.

Yeah maybe, it'll be exciting either way I think.

Perhaps they mean that, mutants always win against humans, but always lose against machines, which could explain why Krakoa is so anti-AI.

That anti-machine stance is gonna be challenged real hard when they figure out what Warlock and Doug have been up to.

a 'child of the sun'. It's 100% Sunspot.

Also, remember that Hickman's run on New Mutants ended up with Sunspot setting up camp in the Shi'ar space with Cannonball. It makes sense he'd be able to claim and reforge the Rookshir's Phoenix blade which is a prominent cultural artifact to the Shi'ar.

Hickman absolutely loves Roberto, and he also had him find the Phoenix Egg in the end of his Avengers run.

Yeah, it's definitely Sunspot. Can't wait to see where they go with this. Hickman has plans at Marvel after X-Men. I wonder if those plans involve Bobby. In fact, I wonder if Hickman's endgame here, and his next project at Marvel, is all about Moira's life rebooting again and messing up the wider Marvel universe in the process. Wouldn't surprise me.

[Rev9]

Call me a cynic, but my experience with the cape comics of the big 2 at this point has given me the impression, that the subject matter and the specialization of the selected artists is not suited to display large fights or conflicts between full blown groups of super beings in a dynamic or "epic" manner.

The artistic focus of super hero comics (western or eastern) are stand out individuals, hence why fights either boil down to very small groups of individuals fighting against each other with enough "room" to let them each show their specilizations in one on one encounters (see Captain America: Civil War), OR small groups of individuals against large hordes of generic often faceless grunts/mooks/henchmen, where the individuals can show off by cutting/bashing/blasting down underpowered enemies in mass (see Avengers Endgame).

And unlike other works of heroic stories, they are explicitly not tied to factions which would provide massive armies to back them up, because the whole value of super heros is that they independent and can do everything by themself.

The only exceptions are splash pages where the artist will try to cram as many individuals into a singular scene as possible and have each shown fighting someone to indicate a large scale battle going on, but offers very little dynamic in getting a good understanding of how the fight might be "fair" or how strong any of the sides are.

It's one reason i have started to consider the idea of a mutant army to be a hollow concept, since one major aspects of mutants is that their super powers are entirely randomized which makes forming an army which depends on uniformity of individuals for tactical cohesion a logistic nightmare. Compared to Avatar where the super powers were at least grouped into 4 general elements, allowing each bender to fullfill different styles or roles of combat.
Even in the Krakoa status quo where millions of mutants are grouped together in a nation, the focus lies on a small elite of powerfull beings single handedly bringing victory, rather than the nation having a proper militarized fighting force.
Because their very nature makes coordination of mass units of mutants impossible. At least if the focus is entirely on fighting with powers (as opposed to giving every underpowered mutant a gun, which would make them no more better than unpowered humans).

In addition to that the Krakoan mutants and the Children of the vault explicitly lack the structurs to employ large masses of backround filling "mooks", as the former are explicitly not mass militarized and as hero faction can only ever muster the named characters, while the later are also highly focused on using individuals to the point where there are barely more than 10 Children of the Vault ever shown or used.

Overall there is a reason why all the big wars, which were remarked to have taken place in the history shown in HOX/POX were only ever shown in their aftermath or via very narrow images of Moira standing besides a partner in victory or defeat. The established iconography of these comics aren't meant for detailed depictions of multi-frontal wars and they mostly don't have the artist to provide it.

A victory of mutants is usualy shown by them standing on rubble with dead people and non-mutant heros around them. A victory of Children of the Vault would be similar only with heros from all side lying among the bodies around them. A victory of Sentinels is usualy them standing on a mountain of (human looking) bodies or skulls or flying over ruined cities. The wars themself are never fully shown, because these settings are not suited for proper depiction of large scale wars. Especialy since the X-men lack the quality to provide themself a large army of generic grunts to fill the ranks that clash against other large forces.

Also there is the over reliance of Deus Ex Machinas happening off pannel or in singular recap images. Where the narrative will just say "And then Jean Grey gave everyone an headache and the mutants beat the Avengers." Or "And then Nimrod unleashed a neo-legacy virus and 17 million mutants were dead." and that was that for the victory or defeat.

As such a mini-series about the various wars of the human groups with super powers would not be very "epic" visualy or narratively from my perspective. Beause these works don't have the basis for making it work since the established narrative tools, artistic focus and value of characters, compared to other types of science fiction and fantasy.

That is not to say you can't make epic conflicts in super hero comics. But it needs a specific groundwork, which this conflict does not have.

Of course i might be dead wrong, again i admit i have a much more sober look at what can be done in super hero comics, based on past examples.

On a side note. I refuse to see it as a war between "species". Mutants are humans and the "human" side would involve super powered people at the forfront who are as "detached" from normal humans (or downright aren't human) as mutants are, furthermore making it a conflict of proclaimed or insisted "identities" rather than species.

The only case i see for such a war involving 3 "species" would be if it's about humans (powered by X-gene or otherwise and unpowered), machines (Sentinels) and beings no longer comparable to humans in any way but shape (post-humans, cyber-humans, aliens, demons, etc.).

But as long as it's only mutants and unpowered humans, it's just another inter-human war based on ideologies, identities and overly focused differences between groups. In general a retreat of colonization era ideologies, but with weapons of mass destruction at both sides' finger tips.

I agree with you in the main as a large scale LoTR style battle is not easily transmitted to comics.I was thinking the war to be shown in piecemeal skirmishes ,in 'chess moves' as teams jostle for specific elements or items to win the war for example the Phoenix Spear. It can be done but the story has to be very engaging through individual characters serving a specific purpose similar to how Second Coming played out.As for a definition of species yes mutants are born to humans but right now birth or death is of little meaning to their survival ,they have more in common with CoV than humanity as they have embraced genetic tinkering, consciousness storage technology to make a quantum leap over humanity.The CoV are a different species in the sense that being so isolated in artificially accelerated time,they have drifted from human genetics .I think in the first Supernovas arc it was hinted they probably cannot reproduce with humans(not merely because they multiply asexually..which I guess is a way of saying cloning is their forte) Who knows with Arraki being in Amenth thousands of years, same genetic drift applies.It's not just Krakoans that are mutants after all.With that 'scientific' kind of explanation I don't see any problem terming it a species war, it may not sound diplomatic but it is in-universe probably right.Although that is not to say the factions are monolithic and there can't be switching of sides or unexpected alliances.

[Grunty]

Yeah, I think the only way the mutant mythos can move forward (from co-existence to domination) is for the X-Men to be in their own reality, untethered from the 616 "world outside your window". If not they're stuck with that tendency for everything to snap back into it's "satus quo" state like a rubber band. I don't want the X-Men to be off in their own universe but I think that's the only way you get that story, long term.

The interesting thing to consider is that if they would have their own universe free of constant status quo snapbacks and near extinction events or mass quantity death and suffering of mutants every few weeks (because of the sliding timescale Genosha was barely 4 years ago, House of M barely 3, M-Pox less than 2 and Age of X barely 1), basicly all the piles of continuity marked by misery, there would be less reason (or even basis) for something like Krakoa and the total seperation of mutants from the rest of humanity to happen.

Likewise the mythos wouldn't need to move from co-existence to domination and could instead follow a path of co-existence seeking "progression".

Because the more reasonable way to adress the rise of mutants is that they would be what humans are becomming, a continuitation in a different shape rather than "replacing" them.

A perspective obviously not allowed to take root, since mutants can't become normality and need to suffer setbacks to keep the status quo and mutant and anti-mutant human villains need to follow an ideology of hate and seperation.
Again something that would not need to be as enforced if they had their own universe.

So it could progress towards examining a global society in which a notable amount of the global population having super powers is a normality and how the societies around the globe would evolve or stagnate under it, or in which nearly everyone has some form of super power and the logical emerging problems like discrimination based on form and level of powers have to be adressed.

I agree with you in the main as a large scale LoTR style battle is not easily transmitted to comics.I was thinking the war to be shown in piecemeal skirmishes ,in 'chess moves' as teams jostle for specific elements or items to win the war for example the Phoenix Spear. It can be done but the story has to be very engaging through individual characters serving a specific purpose similar to how Second Coming played out.

I agree it's possible. But i have my doubt about the established narrative used by the publisher and their writers being able to fullfill it.

Still if it does happen, i hope it will be satisfying for those who are looking foward to it.

As for a definition of species yes mutants are born to humans but right now birth or death is of little meaning to their survival ,they have more in common with CoV than humanity as they have embraced genetic tinkering, consciousness storage technology to make a quantum leap over humanity.The CoV are a different species in the sense that being so isolated in artificially accelerated time,they have drifted from human genetics .I think in the first Supernovas arc it was hinted they probably cannot reproduce with humans(not merely because they multiply asexually..which I guess is a way of saying cloning is their forte) Who knows with Arraki being in Amenth thousands of years, same genetic drift applies.It's not just Krakoans that are mutants after all.With that 'scientific' kind of explanation I don't see any problem terming it a species war, it may not sound diplomatic but it is in-universe probably right.Although that is not to say the factions are monolithic and there can't be switching of sides or unexpected alliances.

Yes the implication is that the COTV are basicly in the third group i mentioned.

Though you raise an interesting point about the Arraki being potentialy allready too detached from humanity aswell. Which makes me wonder if they are actualy still affected by anti-X-gene technology, or even still able to mix with the Krakoan mutants without requiring artifical genetic manipulation first (not mention unpowered humans)?

That would be a suprising twist about trying to unify both groups again (a mirror of Krakoa and Arrako no longer desiring to bond because of having evolved away from one another).

Still my point was that i refuse to see the conflict between present day unpowered humans and mutants to be one of species.

[Spiderfan001]

Y'know, looking back, they really didn't do anything with the Krakoan language, did they? Like, I know not everyone's Tolkien and has the patience for that sort of worldbuilding, but just think about the practical use? You have a language no one else on Earth uses, let's see them shout orders so enemies don't know what they're plans are, or express Krakoan swears that slip under the radar of racist guests.

They already do these things telepathically but I agree they should have done more w/ the language

Also I heard a theory that Omega Sentinel is actually Moira and it's a loop or smth. Any idea how that would work?

[Rev9]

Seeing Frobisher posts requoted makes me realize the REAL irony of it all is all the times hickman and co said "THIS IS NOT A TIME TRAVEL STORY." and "i get paid to lie." lmao. It's actually quite funny in non sarcastic way. lol

Although I'm not certain, I think Hickman's original story was different. I think he probably had plans for OS, but I think his story was for her not to travel back in life 10 ,but jump across from life 9 when she was sucked into a black hole and I think the reveal was meant to be that life 10 was also lost and we are in life 11 already(hence the clue of Destiny there will be an island not the first but the last). Anyway I think he changed his plot a little.I could be wrong but some things just seem too sudden ,like Emma becoming part of the inner circle seems strange ,because she might as well have been part of the inner circle from the beginning but broken with them if it was revealed to Xavier and Magneto that Krakoa had already existed once before.

[jwatson]

Although I'm not certain, I think Hickman's original story was different. I think he probably had plans for OS, but I think his story was for her not to travel back in life 10 ,but jump across from life 9 when she was sucked into a black hole and I think the reveal was meant to be that life 10 was also lost and we are in life 11 already(hence the clue of Destiny there will be an island not the first but the last). Anyway I think he changed his plot a little.I could be wrong but some things just seem too sudden ,like Emma becoming part of the inner circle seems strange ,because she might as well have been part of the inner circle from the beginning but broken with them if it was revealed to Xavier and Magneto that Krakoa had already existed once before.

I mean technically he told the truth, this isn't a time travel story in the sense of a time travel story where the present is in flux. Karima showed up before House of X and Powers of X so those issues were current and she had already changed which would have been a future that didn't matter to us as the day she showed up we were already in the new present. Also by waking up the Omega Sentinel early it technically still isn't a time travel story because he was awoken in the present to a future that was already changed before the first issue. lol. it's quite clever.

[gonnagiveittoya]

I dug it but for an event that promised to burn everything down there sure isn't a lot of thing-burning

[Rev9]

I dug it but for an event that promised to burn everything down there sure isn't a lot of thing-burning

Let's wait for issue 4, though yeah I don't foresee much burning

[Agatha's Ghost]

If I have this right, Rogue doomed mutantkind when she took in Omega Sentinel. So, Moira is correct. Destiny and Mystique are true menaces.

[Toonstrack]

Hickman is just so good at this. Its incredible to read his stories unravel and I dont know if they will be able to keep the same level of quality without him but well see.

Loved this issue back and forth. Exposition heavy yes but at this point thats a feature, not at all a bug. Destiny and Mystique.... who knew they'd become so important to mutantkinds future. This is now a battle across time and Place and the sames couldn't be higher.

Only thing I'm wondering is there is a distinct ignorance of the fact mutantkind made a new planet for themselves. That has to play a part in the next issue right?