X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 - Review/Spoilers

[The Regent]

They did have other teleporters

How did nimrod make juggernaut bleed?

I also wondered about that and how Cain being thrown into him at supersonic speeds didn't atleast leave Nimrod in a state that he would need to regenerate. Apparently Juggs is depowered, he no longer is powered by Cyttorak directly but the suit holds the power and he isn't as strong/indestructible.

[Mutant X]

We should have known better:



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[JB]

Thankfully the books will be based on earth and not some alternate universe. Maybe we'll see a bit of Mother Righteous' lantern orb island but that'll likely be happening in one book.

It's cool to see the thread at page 21. Been a while since that has happened.

[Kurolegacy]

TBF Romeo also has mental powers so that’s something to consider

I still can’t believe that of all Inhumans they actually brought this dude back. And the fact that they only brought him back to be Bobby’s boyfriend makes it worse since at that point he’s not even a character with his own agency and just exists to give Bobby a relationship.

[Diammandis]

Finally finished that Duggan podcast interview and a few things to note including some quotes:

- "Krakoa isn't over. It's severely diminished and the future is up for grabs."
- On Tony and Emma's marriage: "There's so much behind it. It doesn't happen in the way you think it does."
- "You would think Shadowkat and Kamala would get along great......"
- Something specific happens in X-Men #25 that makes Kate's reason for transformation into ninja mode very clear.
- "The X-Men vote candidates were chosen for specific reasons."
- "It won't take long for the Firestar story to kick in. Her life becomes hell in August."
- On Polaris, "I love Polaris and it would be hard to imagine her story ending right now. She's not on the list of KIA's from the mutant massacre..."
- The Red Triangle technique was telepathically spreading. It started with a select few that knew it and it started getting psychically picked up by others. (Confirmed that characters like Kamala, Kwannon, Romeo, etc. never actually learned it.)
- Regarding Curse, something happens to the gate they go through and that's why we see a "Pop" sound effect.
- The man in green that Moira kills is one of the human guests that tried to leave with the mutants.
- The host asked about the infamous key from the Giant-Sized Magneto issue and Duggan says that's to be determined
- "If you were not within a reasonable distance to a gate, before this happened... there are people who were coerced by Xavier but never made it to a gate but none of them are on Krakoa. There are still mutants around the world."
- The idea that the gates would eventually reverse and all of a sudden Kate is the only one who can use them was born in 2018 at the very beginning of the X-Slack between Duggan, Hickman, and White.
- While talking about the X-writers he said "Al's not going anywhere". Thank you Lord!
- The Steve's (Orlando and Foxe) are co-writing something and the hint Duggan gave was "Once an X-Man, always an X-Man."

He also mentions that there is going to be a timejump, and Iron Man per Duggans words is “late to the party.”

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Larraz went OFF in those Rogue/Chuck panels. Those closeups on their individual faces. Sheesh!

[Chenpion]

Will Cyke be the new Chuck giving out orders from a wheel chair?

Which begs the question why did Scott go off alone to the treehouse?
It just didn't see tactical of him. Maybe Duggan failed to show that characteristic of Scott.

You're the first person I've seen so far in this thread to pick up that point (Scott being the new Chuck in a wheelchair).

Seems pretty on the nose... but not all that surprising, I guess.

Scott went off alone because they had (arrogantly?) underestimated the Treehouse attack (as stated in that comic) and he didn't want to draw too much attention/resources away from the Gala (a big deal for his ex-flame Emma) and the upcoming announcement of the new X-Men and Jean telling the world that they'd be retiring from the X-Men.

[lefthanded]

never understood these comments because they have been doing SOMETHING these 4 years, it has been shown consistently that they've been working in quiet, without notice. It always comes off across of people just willfully ignoring the story sometimes (this isnt directed towards you but in general)

The problem (to me) is that two fold:
(1) The writers are constantly telling us how strong Orchis is, without showing it. Sure, there will be the random issue showing how devious Modok is, but by and large, the Orchis threat has just been Quiet Council/Emma Frost/Datapage saying that Orchis is a threat. They keep referencing the sway that Orchis has in public sentiment, but we are never shown that that has any effect. In the 90s/00s, they would usually have a scene where the X-men stop an attack, but then are confronted negatively by the human authorities who show up. This shows us the mutant vs human sentiment. In contrast, during this Krakoan era post-Hickman, I can't really recall there being shown this sentiment at all.

(2) The readers have seen every problem that Orchis can create for Krakoa for years, and yet there have been no issues where Krakoa acknowledges it. It is not exactly the same as PIS (like saying "Why didn't X mutant use Y power"), it is more about the writers trying to gaslight the Readers that what they are noticing years ago is not a problem.

With regards to the problem with the gates: Way back in 2019, there was an issue where Hordeculture took control of a gate. Looking at X-men #3, it ends with Emma Frost telling the QC they have a problem. Smash cut to now in 2023, where the mutants are suddenly surprised that gates don't work. If there was even one panel in the past 4 years showing that the mutants created Krakoan Gate 2.0 with better security, then it would feel like they did something in response to issue #3. As it stands, it just seems like the mutants did nothing this entire time, just so it could be turned against them in this issue.

As another example: Once Moira turned on Krakoa and joined Orchis, the QC is never shown at all discussing that, since she was privvy to all their secrets/security, that maybe they need to change something. She already managed to circumvent security in the previous Hellfire Gala, and yet there is no sense given to the Reader that anything has changed. Even your standard company will change passwords and product information if a disgruntled employee joins a rival company.


I can accept a good amount of "telling not showing", but if there are obvious problems that the characters in a story don't really acknowledge, it makes their fall from grace feel insubstantial.

[Marvelman]

The problem (to me) is that two fold:

(2) The readers have seen every problem that Orchis can create for Krakoa for years, and yet there have been no issues where Krakoa acknowledges it. It is not exactly the same as PIS (like saying "Why didn't X mutant use Y power"), it is more about the writers trying to gaslight the Readers that what they are noticing years ago is not a problem.

Well, speaking of "why didn't X mutant use Y power"... Eva Bell was right there. She could have frozen time for the X-Men and allowed them to incapacitate or kill the Orchis leaders.

[CGAR]

Dang a lot of you are really hating on this but I just read it again and thought it was entertaining.

Though I did notice the colorist and artist changes were more distracting this time after some called it out.

I wish it was all done by Russell, Pepe and RB but I know Marvel cant pay them the big bucks they deserve.

I will say my only nitpick after reading it again is that the mutants COULD have done more damage and the transition to Pepe's art specifically where he's dragging Juggernaut.

One scene he's dragging Juggy and then Pepe's scene looks like a normal human sized person.

I will say this IF we do get another HFG the artist line up needs to be:

Pepe Larraz, RB Silva, Russell Dauterman, Clay Mann, Olivier Coipel, Carmen Carnero and Jerome Opena.

Just putting that out into the universe.

[thechronic92]

I didn't hate it but like Duggan's X-Men, it's inoffensive and let down by poor execution

[Majesty]

If this isn't the new X-Men lineup we actually get after all this I'll never forgive them.

[CaptainUniverse]

Safe and sound with the Imperial Guard. It's Shogo Lee I'm worried about. Jubilee's adopted son. She's dead too, so what happened to him?

Oh, that's good. Smasher and Cannonball became two of my favorite characters from Hickman's Avengers run. I hope Smasher can get revenge for Cannonball. As for Shogo...I wouldn't know. Hopefully nothing bad has happened.

[Maestro 216]

I take back my complaints about this story, I love this story now!

I don’t think Mutantkind is dead, I do think they are disabled. Possibly in camps, or possibly comatose. Maybe even being harvested. Depends on how long this arc goes on for. I don’t think longer than a year, probably much shorter.

Question is do they go back to the school to set up MCU X-Men.

[Wolverine12]

A lot to process with this issue. I don’t think all those mutants are dead but Marvel better not leave us hanging for long because even though I love a grim dark story Mutant genocide is played out. The dialogue was all over the place, some of it was great like Jean and Rogue and some of it was bad like Nimrod and Moira, tbh though I always will want Nimrod the lesser now so if Nimrod isn’t portrayed as a bi polar maniac it will let me down. I think the next story about how the X-Men recover could be amazing if done right and hopefully that’s what we get.

I’ve also complained a lot about the X-line just spinning wheels and nothing happens but this was definitely not that so I did enjoy that aspect. I am very excited for the Xavier focused Immortal X-Men. Absolutely loved the page with Logan, I can’t wait to see him wreck shop, I just wish Magneto was around for the fight also.

I’m willing to see Orchis have their day in the sun only to see them fall apart due to internal conflict between their quiet council. There is no way that Stasis and the machines and the humans last now that they don’t have something to unite them and watching their downfall mirror Krakoa is gonna be great.

I feel like I say this all the time but we really are blessed with the art in the X books right now. The whole issue looked stunning.