Inferno #4 Review/Spoilers

[Jackraow21]

As you said Logan is grumpier version of Cable. Might as well he walk in his footsteps as well for a change

Yeah, he pretty much has. First by taking over X-Force and then, when he was replaced by OML in the present day, by going on a mission to prevent his horrible dystopian future from happening by proactively hunting down the enemies of mutantkind (in the Jeff Lemire/Andrea Sorrentino series where he started off going after Mysterio, Hulk, etc.). Very Cable-like.

However, since Rob Liefeld has openly admitted that he was trying to create a new “Wolverine archetype” for the X-books when he created Cable, as an enhanced soldier with a mysterious past, and in the Ultimate Universe they even made the characters one and the same… well, I guess turnabout’s fair play, as the saying goes.

Ewing will just have to find something new and exciting to do with Cable over in X-men Red since Logan’s kind of stolen a lot of his schtick in the modern era. I’ve got some ideas on that front… mainly leaning into the whole “mage/warrior-priest” aspect of his character with his Askani heritage and whatnot. Think a redux of the Casey/Ladronn run with the psimitar, but instead with the Light of Galador sword. Basically Cable is like the Witcher of Mars, and acts as Storm’s firm right hand in dealing with “monsters” of all types… from hostile Arakki mutants to aliens to ORCHIS agents, etc. Something like that would be cool IMO and could further differentiate Nathan from Logan. You can tell I’ve put some thought into it. Ha.

I have to say I disappointed w/ how they dealt w/ Cable here.It's a time travel war, Cable should be front and centre and after DP2 he isn't exactly a no name(not that he was anyways).

I know it won't happen in X lives and deaths but they need to get him on the time travel stuff ASAP

I’m of the exact opposite mind regarding the character. See above, but basically Cable needs to be about more than just time travel. The Casey/Ladronn run was brilliant in building him up as a character and expanding his role in the present day Marvel 616 (Prime) Universe. It also made him about more than just guns and pouches too, which was great for the character. So I’m hoping to see Ewing follow in those footsteps with him honestly.

[lefthanded]

She still has her X-gene but can't access it.Storm could access her powers momentarily when in distress though so I'm going to assume it's a better model of Forge's gun.



I think it means machines vs mutants and humans is inevitable.Doesn't mean all machines are bad but the more the evolve the more likely this is.Just a matter of time and w/ everything going on w/ HiX-men Krakoa/mutants just fast-forwarded machines reaching that point.

Moira is still a MASSIVE threat.As she stated what we and other mutants have seen of other lives are glimpses, compared to Moira they are children.She's lived multiple lifetimes and knows so much more than anyone else.And now she's out of hiding, heck I'd say she more dangerous now more than ever.

And her X-gene isn't likely destroyed so 11th life is something that's still open.I'm guessing that's the end act, maybe some sort of sacrifice to save everyone by giving up Krakoa, etc.

Yeah it's a shame they never let Hickman move forward, I am looking forward to Immortal x-men just because the writer knows what he's doing.

His stuff like Once and future that I'm reading rn along w/ his X-men work shows he'll be amazing at such a book IMO

Same here. Disappointed we won't have more Hickman on the X-books, but Kieron Gillen is a nice replacement.
I actually didn't like Gillen's X-books in the past, but I have enjoyed everything else he has done (His Eternals is pretty great). Hopefully his new X-series will also be great.

[pkingdom]

The machine/mutant/human conflict just feels so silly to me. Best way I can describe it is with a couple video game comparisons.

Mass Effect did the same plot with organics vs robots. Except there, like here, it was obvious that like regular people, robots are not all the same and many were just as capable as being nice and reasonable as people are, and when the games tried to make the conflict into black and white type differences it was at its worst.

With Inferno it feels almost like the Law/Neutral/Chaos conflict in Shin Megami Tensei games. Except unlike those games, here we're only stuck with the ******* representatives of Chaos and Law, and there's no Neutral rep in sight. Both want to force their ideas of humankind and the future on everyone else, and replace everyone with people like them. I've been waiting for our Neutral rep to pop up from the start and keep getting disappointed. I hoped it would be Logan, Nightcrawler or even OG Cable, but nope. Now I'm hoping in vain a legit good person like Captain America or Ms. Marvel shows up and just is inspiring or something.

[Maestro 216]

The machine/mutant/human conflict just feels so silly to me. Best way I can describe it is with a couple video game comparisons.

Mass Effect did the same plot with organics vs robots. Except there, like here, it was obvious that like regular people, robots are not all the same and many were just as capable as being nice and reasonable as people are, and when the games tried to make the conflict into black and white type differences it was at its worst.

With Inferno it feels almost like the Law/Neutral/Chaos conflict in Shin Megami Tensei games. Except unlike those games, here we're only stuck with the ******* representatives of Chaos and Law, and there's no Neutral rep in sight. Both want to force their ideas of humankind and the future on everyone else, and replace everyone with people like them. I've been waiting for our Neutral rep to pop up from the start and keep getting disappointed. I hoped it would be Logan, Nightcrawler or even OG Cable, but nope. Now I'm hoping in vain a legit good person like Captain America or Ms. Marvel shows up and just is inspiring or something.

I wish there was a White group like in IV that was essentially screw all sides kill em all.

[Sutekh]

3.-That arm is a future plot point... Can Doug spy on her? Will she learn to control it? Will Phalanx reach her through the arm? Is Moira the future Trickster Titan who sent Omega across time? I don't know. I suppose that x-men will start a new age of falldown since the moment John Hickman leave the xmen

Ooh, interesting kinda/sorta that Moira, with her new techno-organic arm, suddenly has more in common with Omega Sentinel and Nimrod than with mutantkind...

And wow, did I love Doug Ramsey in this issue. Of all the people to foil Mystique and Destiny!

Nice bits of irony on those last pages, referring to Doug and Krakoa as 'the innocent' (apparently not, given what they do in this issue) and Colossus as 'trustworthy' (not so much...), which makes me wonder how many of those other descriptors are on-their-face wrong. Is Exodus no longer really a 'believer,' for instance (and what happens when he loses his patience and starts taking heads?).

While I have loved this age of Krakoa (the grand ideas, if not always the execution), and don't dislike Charles and Erik for their occasional sketchiness (heck, I love Emma, and she's sketchy AF!) it has also been fun to see Charles and Erik get some comeuppance.

[pkingdom]

OK, I want some help clarifying something. Way back in HoXPoX with the Homo Novismo dude who talked about joining the Phalanx, was that meant to be something like "humankind has decided to be absorbed by the Phalanx", or was it more like "my group has decided this on our own"? Because I had always gotten the impression that it was a 'humans have ascended with technology, and have chosen to join the Phalanx as the next step of that', rather than 'this tech cult is trying to feed the human race to the space robot monster thing'. Because if its the first the hostility to machines as the next step of evolution makes more sense. If its the second, I don't understand why they're making it an 'all artificial life' and not a 'we have to stop the tech cult people' thing.

[Sutekh]

I don't know what Charles did to Nimrod but that was badass.

I think Nimrod (and Omega Sentinel) count as sapient, and so have 'minds' that Charles can affect with his telepathy, unlike standard non-AI Sentinels which just run on programs and would need someone technopathic/cyberkinetic like Trinary, Network, Milan or Suzi Endo to affect.

So Charles was telepathically ordering Nimrod to disassemble himself, IMO.

Or maybe he's just randomly telekinetic now. Writers sometimes conflate the two powers.

[Habis]

OK, I want some help clarifying something. Way back in HoXPoX with the Homo Novismo dude who talked about joining the Phalanx, was that meant to be something like "humankind has decided to be absorbed by the Phalanx", or was it more like "my group has decided this on our own"? Because I had always gotten the impression that it was a 'humans have ascended with technology, and have chosen to join the Phalanx as the next step of that', rather than 'this tech cult is trying to feed the human race to the space robot monster thing'.

At least the high-ups are into it... but we don't know what the majority of the populace thinks about it...

Remember that even the Librarian had doubts... the Homo Novissima themselves aren't going to get integrated into Phalanx... the computers holding copies of their minds are going to be integrated, while their fleshy bodies and minds will just die... so, in a way, a part of themselves will live forever, at the price of their actual lives...

It is similar in a way to the Krakoan Resurrection Protocols... "If my mind, which was copied in a computer, is downloaded in a new body... does that mean that I will be alive? or I will be dead, and the thing in the computer is just a copy and not me...?

Because if its the first the hostility to machines as the next step of evolution makes more sense. If its the second, I don't understand why they're making it an 'all artificial life' and not a 'we have to stop the tech cult people' thing.

The mutants just don't want to be killed by the Sentinels, period. They don't care about some mecha space god eating Humanity a thousand years in the future.

As for mutants joining the post-human cult and becoming integrated with machines themselves... they don't want it, because they want to remain mutants. If they didn't care about being mutants they would find a another way to return their powers to depowered mutants (cybernetic implants, chemical serums, genetic implants...etc.) instead of making them go through the Crucible...

I mean, if I were a mutant with the power of making my farts smell good, I were depowered, and then I was offered a choice between A.-being horribly killed by Apocalypse so I can recover my x-gene and my good-smelling fart power, or B.-becoming a mutate and receiving the powers of Carol Danvers, I would definitively pick option B... But I suspect many mutant characters would see that as me being a race traitor... Being a mutant is important to them, regardless of power...

I think Nimrod (and Omega Sentinel) count as sapient, and so have 'minds' that Charles can affect with his telepathy, unlike standard non-AI Sentinels which just run on programs and would need someone technopathic/cyberkinetic like Trinary, Network, Milan or Suzi Endo to affect.

So Charles was telepathically ordering Nimrod to disassemble himself, IMO.

Or maybe he's just randomly telekinetic now. Writers sometimes conflate the two powers.

Charles's telepathy used to be unable to affect Sentinels. I think that was telekinesis...

Charles always had latent telekinetic powers; Onslaught was a ridiculously powerful telekinetic, and when Charles Xavier gave a small part of his power to Changeling (Kevin Sydney), the latter gained telekinesis in addition to telepathy.

I think Professor X just lost access to his telekinesis somehow... maybe when he became paraplegic...

[pkingdom]

OK, thanks. I guess it can all be chalked up on the growing list of "this really needed more details". Sometimes it feels like 'all human technology is bad and must be curbed' or 'robots are the enemy', and I'm just over here pointing to Vision and Danger and Jocasta going like wha............?

And I pointed out earlier that part of what makes Nimrod dangerous is that he adapts to whatever is thrown at him, so all Charles really accomplished was making Nimrod immune, or at least equipped to deal with, powerful telekinetic/telepathic people.

[Habis]

OK, thanks. I guess it can all be chalked up on the growing list of "this really needed more details". Sometimes it feels like 'all human technology is bad and must be curbed' or 'robots are the enemy', and I'm just over here pointing to Vision and Danger and Jocasta going like wha............?

And I pointed out earlier that part of what makes Nimrod dangerous is that he adapts to whatever is thrown at him, so all Charles really accomplished was making Nimrod immune, or at least equipped to deal with, powerful telekinetic/telepathic people.

I think the Quiet Council would love to destroy Vision, Jocasta, Machine Man and the other sentient A.I. if they could do it without repercussions. Thanks to Hellions we know they are willing to wipe even friendly AIs out if they can do it discreetly...

And truth to be told, the Avengers (and X-Force) have faced at least five large scale AI revolts during the last decade... Three from Father an his Descendants, one from Dimitrios and his followers, and one from a rag-tag group of classic AIs in the pages of Iron Man: Robot Revolution.

And that's without taking into account the like two thousand times Ultron has tried to conquer the world with an army of robots...

So yeah, the AIs are out to get both humans and mutants, and humans are already fighting them...

[Omega Alpha]

OK, I want some help clarifying something. Way back in HoXPoX with the Homo Novismo dude who talked about joining the Phalanx, was that meant to be something like "humankind has decided to be absorbed by the Phalanx", or was it more like "my group has decided this on our own"? Because I had always gotten the impression that it was a 'humans have ascended with technology, and have chosen to join the Phalanx as the next step of that', rather than 'this tech cult is trying to feed the human race to the space robot monster thing'. Because if its the first the hostility to machines as the next step of evolution makes more sense. If its the second, I don't understand why they're making it an 'all artificial life' and not a 'we have to stop the tech cult people' thing.

When has the human race ever agreed collectively on one thing, let alone it's own end?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Doug becomes a man today. I'm proud of him.

[ZeroBG82]

This book got quite meta, with Moira standing in for Hickman in places. You can tell he's grumpy that his grand plan got chucked. I don't blame him one bit.

I find a lot of the opinions on Moira in this thread interesting, because I think I read the scenes with her, Mystique and Destiny a lot differently than you folks did. Moira wasn't intending to cure mutants. She WANTS to cure mutants. In her heart of hearts she believes it's the only way to save them from the man/machine alliance. She wasn't doing it in this life, it was her plan of last resort. She's spent 1000 years trying different solutions, any solution. But she believes that she actually had the best one all the way back when and only hasn't gone back to that well because being burned alive is really traumatic and she's terrified of Destiny and Mystique. But she can't escape the fact that she still thinks curing mutants is the best solution, even if she hasn't attempted it again yet. But as long as she lived as a mutant the chance existed that she could die, reset the universe and NEXT TIME choose to finally go back to the cure. Any next time could be the one where Moira gives up and mutants are destroyed before they can even be born. As long as Moira retained her powers she was a Sword of Damocles hanging over the mutant race.

The irony, of course, is that this time the changes Moira made succeeded. Mutants were going to win. Until the machines got a Moira of their own in Omega Sentinel. Two operatives with utter conviction that their side is going to lose in the end. Both desperate to change that by any means necessary. Both now seemingly removed from the equation they created with their respective interference. Leaving the future completely up for grabs, all bets off.

But the most interesting bit here was Doug. Look at what Destiny says when he shows up. Doug IS THE ANSWER. Doug is the future that neither Moira or Omega or anybody on the quiet council can see. A world where mutant and machine work together instead of against one another. Where Doug appears, the most important nexus of choice Irene Adler has ever encountered becomes unstable and unreadable until he makes his choice. And Doug Ramsay chooses life, over death. He chooses cooperation and coexistence over vendettas, over petty feuds. He doesn't need to forgive Moira for her self-loathing or her lies. He simply doesn't need to blame her for them either. I think Krakoa was why mutants won. But I think Doug Ramsay is how the war could end for good.

Inferno was an oddly appropriate name for this story. Not because of the story itself, but because this was Hickman burning down his master plan and getting rid of Moira so the X-office can play with Krakoa without the threat of his master plan hanging over them.

[jwatson]

This book got quite meta, with Moira standing in for Hickman in places. You can tell he's grumpy that his grand plan got chucked. I don't blame him one bit.

I find a lot of the opinions on Moira in this thread interesting, because I think I read the scenes with her, Mystique and Destiny a lot differently than you folks did. Moira wasn't intending to cure mutants. She WANTS to cure mutants. In her heart of hearts she believes it's the only way to save them from the man/machine alliance. She wasn't doing it in this life, it was her plan of last resort. She's spent 1000 years trying different solutions, any solution. But she believes that she actually had the best one all the way back when and only hasn't gone back to that well because being burned alive is really traumatic and she's terrified of Destiny and Mystique. But she can't escape the fact that she still thinks curing mutants is the best solution, even if she hasn't attempted it again yet. But as long as she lived as a mutant the chance existed that she could die, reset the universe and NEXT TIME choose to finally go back to the cure. Any next time could be the one where Moira gives up and mutants are destroyed before they can even be born. As long as Moira retained her powers she was a Sword of Damocles hanging over the mutant race.

The irony, of course, is that this time the changes Moira made succeeded. Mutants were going to win. Until the machines got a Moira of their own in Omega Sentinel. Two operatives with utter conviction that their side is going to lose in the end. Both desperate to change that by any means necessary. Both now seemingly removed from the equation they created with their respective interference. Leaving the future completely up for grabs, all bets off.

But the most interesting bit here was Doug. Look at what Destiny says when he shows up. Doug IS THE ANSWER. Doug is the future that neither Moira or Omega or anybody on the quiet council can see. A world where mutant and machine work together instead of against one another. Where Doug appears, the most important nexus of choice Irene Adler has ever encountered becomes unstable and unreadable until he makes his choice. And Doug Ramsay chooses life, over death. He chooses cooperation and coexistence over vendettas, over petty feuds. He doesn't need to forgive Moira for her self-loathing or her lies. He simply doesn't need to blame her for them either. I think Krakoa was why mutants won. But I think Doug Ramsay is how the war could end for good.

Inferno was an oddly appropriate name for this story. Not because of the story itself, but because this was Hickman burning down his master plan and getting rid of Moira so the X-office can play with Krakoa without the threat of his master plan hanging over them.

This pretty much sums it up perfectly. Could not have said it any better.
We done here folks. lol

[Habis]

Mystique and Destiny a lot differently than you folks did. Moira wasn't intending to cure mutants. She WANTS to cure mutants. In her heart of hearts she believes it's the only way to save them from the man/machine alliance. She wasn't doing it in this life, it was her plan of last resort. She's spent 1000 years trying different solutions, any solution. But she believes that she actually had the best one all the way back when and only hasn't gone back to that well because being burned alive is really traumatic and she's terrified of Destiny and Mystique. But she can't escape the fact that she still thinks curing mutants is the best solution, even if she hasn't attempted it again yet.

If she wasn't actually trying to cure mutants this time, then Emma, Mystique, Destiny and even Doug are the worst kind of scum... with everything she has done for them, and they treat her like trash for something she just thinks?!

When I read MYSTIQUE, of all people, calling her liar and traitor, I want to puke...

If Moira has yet another life, I hope she spends it getting rich and enjoying life and that she ignores all these costumed clowns!