Realm of X #1 Spoilers / Review

[Raz]

Found it weak as well. All characters are interchangeable.

Agreed.

I can't see Illyana immediately defaulting to mopey and lost because she can't access her powers...and she and Marrow are both the last characters on God's green earth I could imagine saying "for goodness' sake"...

Marrow and Mary particularly were both way off-model...am I honestly supposed to believe that Marrow has ever heard of Boromir in her whole life

I'm not sure why Dust was being so weird about helping end the fight, but it's nice to see her in action again I guess...and Dani at least seemed to get some good treatment. I would rather her getting some respect not come at Illyana's expense, but I am glad she's getting respect at least.

Finally, I don't think it's physically possible for me to care about Curse's existence, and it seems like she's gonna be pretty central to the plot here so I think I'm just gonna nope out of this series and come back to it later if it turns out anything important happens in it.

[Kingdom X]

Is anyone else confused about Orchis’ actual plan with the gates? Based on Immortal it seemed like all mutants were supposed to end up in the desert where we see Exodus and Hope. But somehow Forge ended up somewhere else. And I originally thought the cast of this book was gonna to end up in Vanaheim either because of Dani’s connection to the 10 Realms or because Curse used her weird powers before they entered. But now we see a bunch of other mutants came with them. So was Orchis plan just to shoot mutants into random corners of the universe? Seems like after all that planning they could have come up with something more concrete and permanent.

[Havok83]

Is anyone else confused about Orchis’ actual plan with the gates? Based on Immortal it seemed like all mutants were supposed to end up in the desert where we see Exodus and Hope. But somehow Forge ended up somewhere else. And I originally thought the cast of this book was gonna to end up in Vanaheim either because of Dani’s connection to the 10 Realms or because Curse used her weird powers before they entered. But now we see a bunch of other mutants came with them. So was Orchis plan just to shoot mutants into random corners of the universe? Seems like after all that planning they could have come up with something more concrete and permanent.

There are no Krakoan gates in Vanaheim so how they wound up there is a mystery. I wouldnt be surprised if we learn that Saturnyne may be responsible for pulling these characters there

[gonnagiveittoya]

Is anyone else confused about Orchis’ actual plan with the gates? Based on Immortal it seemed like all mutants were supposed to end up in the desert where we see Exodus and Hope. But somehow Forge ended up somewhere else. And I originally thought the cast of this book was gonna to end up in Vanaheim either because of Dani’s connection to the 10 Realms or because Curse used her weird powers before they entered. But now we see a bunch of other mutants came with them. So was Orchis plan just to shoot mutants into random corners of the universe? Seems like after all that planning they could have come up with something more concrete and permanent.

I think Orchis thinks, genuinely, everyone is on Arakko. I think the desert is Righteous shenanigans

[lefthanded]

Like others, I found Curse to be annoying + a macguffin. That is pretty much the worse combination that a comic character can be, since they are not interesting on their own and are just irritating.

I had no idea who she was in the Hellfire Gala, so it makes me wonder, when she was cursing obscenities at Xavier for the mind control, whether she actually cursed him with her powers.

[Arachne]

I think that's the implication. There's was a pop when they went through the gate, and I think one of the interviews said that was due to Curse.

They really should have done a better job tying this to the rest of the Fall of X. I know they said reality is coming apart and is "their" fault, but that didn't come across this issue. We also don't know if "their" refers to the mutants that ended up in Vanaheim or all mutants, but there's been some speculation that it's mining mysterium that's causing the problem.

[Havok83]

I think I may be the only one that loved Curse. I want to see her interact with the French twins from Extermination

[johnnysv75]

This felt like a more coherent version of Tini Howard’s Excalibur.

Even though it is more coherent than Tini Howard’s writing it is still by far the weakest of the Fall of X-titles. Maybe it will have closer ties to the rest of the X-books in future issues, but right now it doesn’t really feel like an X-book. You could have let more of less any Marvel character take Illyana’s, Dust’s, Dani’s and Marrow’s place and it wouldn’t have changed the story at all. Typhoid Mary stood out for me. Curse could be one of the most annoying characters I have come across in recent years.

My guess was the White Witch was either Saturnyne or Enchantress. But I haven’t read any comics with Enchantress since The Asgardian Wars (with X-Men, New Mutants and Loki), so I have no idea what she is up to today. I just thought that this story might be a nod to Claremont’s story.

(This issue had the longest and most boring ”data page” in a great while.)

[CGAR]

The writing kind of reminded me of TH in some parts and I dont how she writes some of the characters. So I shall be checking out the spoiler review threads posted.

I think this was actually the weakest title of FoX. It has nothing to do with the FoX. IMO.

And yes I know its the first issue but still.

[Grunty]

Was the ending really that much of a shocker to people? They were teasing the white witch throughout the issue and it felt obvious to me that it would be Saturnyne. I automatically thought of Emma bc of her association to white which made me jump to her doppleganger Saturnyne who's a multiversal character linked to magic

It might even be the opposite of "shocking" for anyone not invested in the Otherworld/Excalibur side of the X-men, not only in the current "Y of X" era but X-men in general.

With the X-men franchise often offering a bandwith of different series with different themes, nobody should be expected to be a fan and/or reader of everything. Therefor it should always be considered that a majority of readers only has limited knowledge of all events going on during a status quo (in turn another potential problem with the current status quo being a "everything in the same pot" situation).

This series was not hinted to have any connection to the "Excalibur corner", which has recently gone without success for the 2nd time, featuring a world and set of characters divorced from it. So to throw a character into the main villain role who's recent importance was entirely tied to only that corner, means that rather than shock, her appearance might have easily just caused a unenthusiastic "who?".

Editors not knowing how to do their job is the answer.

Another strike against this book then.

Minor one, but Sarah Rushman was a fake identity created by SHIELD and if memory serves me right, never used again for the character in the past 20 years.

I can't see Illyana immediately defaulting to mopey and lost because she can't access her powers...and she and Marrow are both the last characters on God's green earth I could imagine saying "for goodness' sake"...

Indeed Marrow in particular tends to have her own brand of weird "morlock/mutant" vocabulary, somewhat similar to Ororo "divine" style one, while otherwise defaulting to more a "US american" style of cursing.

In general it seems quite a few people who read this seem confused at how behaved and "team player" she acts compared to her general image among the X-men fans. It likely doesn't help that her infrequent and random appearances do not give a coherent development of her character which would explain why she behaves like this here.

After all she has only been a real team ONCE over the past 2 decades (X-force) and that was as foul mouthed troublemaker, which in turn is very similar to how Mary acts in this issue.

So it can almost give the impression that the writer did not want two of these archetypes on the team at once and instead made Marrow well behaved, overall weakening her presentation in turn.

Marrow and Mary particularly were both way off-model...am I honestly supposed to believe that Marrow has ever heard of Boromir in her whole life

To be fair, she is one of those characters who can have suprising bits of knowledge or awareness of popular works, but mainly in that hidden capacity.

Knowing Lords of the Rings would therefor be in character for her, however making a joke based on it by herself does not.

Finally, I don't think it's physically possible for me to care about Curse's existence, and it seems like she's gonna be pretty central to the plot here so I think I'm just gonna nope out of this series and come back to it later if it turns out anything important happens in it.

She is certainly an odd choice to be given focus (again). Like a bad idea someone doesn't want to admit being a mistake that should be put to the files and instead doubling down on trying to make it "happen" (arguably like X-men Green in general).

Together with the potentialy negative reaction to Saturnyne being the main villain, which might ewoke the feeling that this book is just a stealth continuation of the Excalibur/Otherworld plots or an attempt to keep them relavant, despite what seems to be largely lost interest, it doesn't give this book a good start.

[Havok83]

It might even be the opposite of "shocking" for anyone not invested in the Otherworld/Excalibur side of the X-men, not only in the current "Y of X" era but X-men in general.

With the X-men franchise often offering a bandwith of different series with different themes, nobody should be expected to be a fan and/or reader of everything. Therefor it should always be considered that a majority of readers only has limited knowledge of all events going on during a status quo (in turn another potential problem with the current status quo being a "everything in the same pot" situation).

This series was not hinted to have any connection to the "Excalibur corner", which has recently gone without success for the 2nd time, featuring a world and set of characters divorced from it. So to throw a character into the main villain role who's recent importance was entirely tied to only that corner, means that rather than shock, her appearance might have easily just caused a unenthusiastic "who?".

I dont know about that. I know that most of the people in this thread that were shocked are aware of who Saturnyne was especially bc of X of Swords from just a couple of years ago. She's not that obscure to the current Krakoan era. I have not been following up with the Excalibur spinoffs and Otherworld shenanigans and she seemed obvious to me

[Grunty]

I dont know about that. I know that most of the people in this thread that were shocked are aware of who Saturnyne was especially bc of X of Swords from just a couple of years ago. She's not that obscure to the current Krakoan era. I have not been following up with the Excalibur spinoffs and Otherworld shenanigans and she seemed obvious to me

Fair point.

[Arachne]

I was just assuming the villain would be related to Asgard, or at least the Ten Realms. Otherworld didn't occur to me.

[HomoSuperior]

I wanted to enjoy this but found the writing overwrought and characterizations weak.

Yeah, it’s an Asgardian realm. But goofy exposition like “son of… brother of…” feels suffocating.

As someone else said, two characters saying “My goodness, Mary!” was just weird.

It adds up: where is the editor?

And Curse? I’ll just say that if you read these books long enough, eventually a new character just as annoying as Jubilee will come along.

[Malachi]

And Curse? I’ll just say that if you read these books long enough, eventually a new character just as annoying as Jubilee will come along.

Not that I would ever recommend it but if you read X-men Green you will find that Curse plays in a league of her own in annoying. She transcends personal bias about characters and straight up corrupts what she touches, all the while staying horrible herself.