X-Men Red #18 - Review/Spoilers

[JB]

It is with a heavy heart that I write up this final X-Men Red recap but I enjoyed this final issue immensely and I'm excited for what comes next.

"Rise" is the first spoken word we see as Genesis uses her powers to raise a piece of Arakko Prime to match the approaching Kaorak, brought to life by Storm and the mutant magic spell cast by -A-. Storm's people stand at the edge of the Autumn Island watching as Genesis' forces approach in ships. Jon Ironfire is in the Morrowlands still fighting the 99, only nine, then eight, then seven remaining.
Preview pages: the two giant kaijus of land battle as we see -A- and the others holding the spell in place. He tells them they are to sustain what Storm sparked. This is a battle of life against life, to decide what life means. Sobunar watches (in fear) as Genesis and Storm begin to fight. Genesis wraps Storm in vines which Ororo quickly freezes and destroys. She says it's her turn and Genesis says to make it her best. As Storm summons a thick bolt of lightning Annihilation says, "Miss." Narration tells us Ororo was directing her rage consciously at the forefront of her mind, making Annihilation her target. To hear the golden mask is to obey and though Ororo does miss the staff, the lightning hits Genesis directly. In that moment of agony Genesis loses grip of Purity the sword and Ororo swiftly lifts it in the air with a cyclone and blows it away.

Ironfire kills the last of White Sword's soldiers and turns to White Sword, Blue, himself. He asks Blue to stand down, that he's worth more than Genesis' empty glory. Blue refuses and in that moment he raises his hand and catches his sword, Purity. He says Genesis is right. Ironfire responds saying "To the death, then."

The ships carrying Genesis' forces are now close enough for Ora Serrata to see Storm's forces. She says she has clear sight and will look at them, each in their turn, and stop them from being. Starting with Sunspot. She locks on to Roberto but Khora is touching his shoulder. He's charging up and Ora notices that his lips are moving. "What is he saying? Did he say my name?"

Sunspot, charging up brighter than ever thanks to Khora: Ora Serrata. Never stare into the sun..."

Ora screams in agony. "I'M BLIND!" Hahaha!

White Sword charges at Jon and swings Purity down on him but Jon catches it on the sides with his hands. Like the organic blades on his forearms, a blade pops out from his kneecap and he drives it into Blue's midsection. Oof. Jon grabs Purity from him, slices him down and across the body, and splits him literally in half. Jon stands over him. Weakly, Blue says he can heal, even from this. Jon says he knows, he knows everything can heal even a heart split in two. Unless something is stopping it. Unless he puts Purity through Blue's heart and holds it there until he finally dies.

The battle between Storm and Genesis' forces is raging as Ora Serrata, completely blind and in the middle of it all, demands everyone stop this. She is the law of the land and the law endures, she says. She's ignored. Fisher Xilo approaches, saying there are stronger forces than the law. He says he once was without a weapon and that defined him, but now history is his weapon and none of them survive it in the end. The worm-like tentacles that are Xilo reach out from Fisher's body and begin to envelop Ora. Weaponless Zsen looks on in shock. "Father?"

As the land masses continue to pummel each other, a blizzard is raging as Genesis has tightly tied her legs to the ground with vines. Storm asks Genesis if she sees what her war is doing, how there is only one way it will end if it continues. Genesis, among other things, says life is an endless war and she attacks Ororo with magic, knocking her to the ground. Genesis uses her powers to turn the very microscopic fungi within Ororo against her. "When the weak do not serve the strong, the body dies." She says that is what became of Okkara, that the only victory is in survival. Just as she and Annihilation culled the weak from Okkara, she's doing so again now. She also says that the humans of earth are winnowing weaker mutants at this very moment in time, thus dooming themselves to... she pauses as Ororo crawls to her and grabs the bottom of the staff. Genesis cannot believe Ororo continues to cling to life, refusing to die "with dignity."

"Ororo." Annihilation begins speaking to her. It goes on and on giving her the usual spiel of how it can offer her great power, allowing her to rule Arakko and Earth in peace and harmony. It talks and talks but Ororo doesn't not say a word despite her organs failing one by one. It talks some more, still nothing from Ororo.

Annihilation: Ororo. This is your life and death. Have you heard a word I've said?
Storm: I have heard the word you have not said.
Annihilation: And what is that?
Storm, smiling: Miss.



"...it is over." Jon is sitting by himself quietly, the fallen 99 still dead. Lycaon refuses to listen to Lactuca and wants to keep fighting. He has Lodus by the throat but thankfully he's zapped by an Arakkii and is vaporized. Woohoo! "Enough", says the new Xilora, Xilo and Ora Serrata melded together now. They say Storm has won and Annihilation is gone, that the war ends now. They ask who will defy them? No one responds and the fighting has finally fully stopped. Sunspot, standing over the body of Fisher King, realizes that when FK melded with Xilo he knew this would be the endgame for him. He asks Syzya why she didn't tell him but she essentially says it had to be this way, that after losing his wife the way he did Fisher King wouldn't allow Sunspot or anyone to do this in his place. She says someone has to be the one left behind, to carry on, to live. She turns to look at her nieces, Khora and Zsen, who are quiet and looking down as their father is now gone. Aw.



Aww fantastic!

"...that it is not enough only to be strong. It is not enough only to survive. To truly live... we must thrive." says -A-. The two land masses embrace as the true spirit of Okkara is reborn. He says they have all finally become what he intended them to be and he could not be more proud. He's looking out at the water and says someday when the stars are aligned he'll join his wife in exile. Storm approaches, saying that Arakko has changed. Isca has her mountains, the Spire Vile has their territory, etc. Each area is deciding for itself what peace means. She says they need to rest and heal before Arakko takes the fight to Orchis. "Hasn't that fight already begun? With my wife's place of exile?" Turns out the Great Ring voted to send Genesis to Phobos. LOL! For the record, Ororo voted against it because it's a little too close to home but it is what it is.

We see Phobos from a distance and someone says, "I'm coming to enjoy the Great Ring's joke, Mother." It's either Famine or War, noting that Orchis tried using them as a weapon and now the weapon is turned back on Orchis.

"And who deserves it more? Who deserves it more, Mother?"

[JB]

X-Men Red has been the most consistently enjoyable title of the Krakoan era for me and though I'm sad to see it go, I'm very happy with the ending. Storm destroying Annihilation, an ancient evil, was very satisfying. I'm glad Genesis is alive and I look forward to seeing her without the influence/collaboration of that staff. Exiling her to Phobos was brilliant. I've come to greatly care about the Arakkii characters and was saddened by the death of the Fisher King.

Ewing has left many things in play here - Isca's mountains and other territories, the return of Apocalypse, the reunion of Jon and Blue, Death on the opposing side of his family, and of course what seems to be the upcoming inclusion of Arakko in the war against Orchis. Once Ewing said Resurrection of Magneto would be his swan song, my first thought was that maybe Foxe's spring book would take over the Arakko story. After this ending I feel even more strongly that this may be the case, in addition to this note in Ewing's newsletter today:

Ewing: "And so we come to what's very nearly the end of my allotted X-time, and my last days on Arakko, the planet I shepherded almost from birth and put one hell of a lot of work into over the past couple of years. I leave it in as good a place as I found it, and I'm confident that it's got a future beyond the end of this story – both as part of the Fall of X and beyond. The planet that used to be Mars has a lot of story potential yet."

I couldn't agree more. I pray it survives the battle with Orchis and then is used by Brevoort's X-Office. It's just too good of a setting with so much potential to let it go.

A big thank you to the creative teams of this run, especially Sir Al Ewing. Next up, Resurrection of Magneto!

[GokaiBlack077]

This issue sent me on a rollercoaster. While not all plot threads got wrapped up (Nova, Brand) it was the best conclusion it could get. I hope Arakko or some form of this era stays under Breevort management.

[Jackraow21]

Why is Nightcrawler in a tank on Phobos? I thought he was on Earth running around dressed up like Spider-man?

[Saturius]

This was rushed and not a totally satisfactory conclusion. I had a similar complaint with the end of Ewing's Brand arc. Ewing has so many big ideas that he can't do all of it justice with the limited page count and arc size. I wish he had adequate resources to realize his ambition to the fullest. Still, he did well with what he had. I've enjoyed the ride.

[SugarMan]

Enjoyed the issue. But felt it should have been double-sized. The epilogue should have been expanded. Would have loved to see that story too.

[BobbysWorld]

Why is Nightcrawler in a tank on Phobos? I thought he was on Earth running around dressed up like Spider-man?

Its his body from a previous death. In Way of X, Cortez amped him so he could teleport Phobos back into orbit after Orchis tried crashing it into the planet, but the effort still killed Kurt & he had to be resurrected. In X-Men, when Feilong landed on Phobos and converted it into an Orchis base, they mentioned finding Kurt's body there and putting it on display as a kind of morbid trophy.

[JB]

This issue sent me on a rollercoaster. While not all plot threads got wrapped up (Nova, Brand) it was the best conclusion it could get. I hope Arakko or some form of this era stays under Breevort management.

A rollercoaster indeed. I'm glad Arakko is still standing.

Why is Nightcrawler in a tank on Phobos? I thought he was on Earth running around dressed up like Spider-man?

Nightcrawler sacrificed himself by teleporting Phobos back into orbit in Way of X I believe (what BobbysWorld said.) They never retrieved that body and Feilong discovered it and kept it way back in the early days of Duggan's X-Men.

[Jackraow21]

Its his body from a previous death. In Way of X, Cortez amped him so he could teleport Phobos back into orbit after Orchis tried crashing it into the planet, but the effort still killed Kurt & he had to be resurrected. In X-Men, when Feilong landed on Phobos and converted it into an Orchis base, they mentioned finding Kurt's body there and putting it on display as a kind of morbid trophy.

Nightcrawler sacrificed himself by teleporting Phobos back into orbit in Way of X I believe (what BobbysWorld said.) They never retrieved that body and Feilong discovered it and kept it way back in the early days of Duggan's X-Men.

Got it. Thanks.

[Kingdom X]

Enjoyed the issue. But felt it should have been double-sized. The epilogue should have been expanded. Would have loved to see that story too.

Right. We needed one issue to finish the war and another quieter issue to wrap up plots threads and character arcs. I don’t trust the remaining X-office writers with the Arraki, but I’ll wish for the best. Ultimately, I’m glad I had this book for the past (almost) 2 years because I certainly would have lost faith in the line w/o it.

[Grunty]

Its his body from a previous death. In Way of X, Cortez amped him so he could teleport Phobos back into orbit after Orchis tried crashing it into the planet, but the effort still killed Kurt & he had to be resurrected. In X-Men, when Feilong landed on Phobos and converted it into an Orchis base, they mentioned finding Kurt's body there and putting it on display as a kind of morbid trophy.

And once again the X-men's odd disregard for their physical bodies in this status quo, because of the sudden and uncharacteristic embrace of their cloning technology, results in their enemies being given access to something which could bite them in the butt down the line.

A rollercoaster indeed. I'm glad Arakko is still standing.

Time to mark the date and look at the watches for how long that will last.

[Cyclone_Ablaze]

Well, X-Men Red #18 is Done. This was REALLY Fun.

As for the Issue, honestly I didn't really like it. And i'm a HUGE advocate for this whole Book. However, this issue was REALLY Rushed. And the Storm v Genesis was also Rushed and delt with too fast. I did enjoy their Fight, but yeah.

And the same goes with everyone else. The fight with Blue v Jon was fast as well. I think the X-Office didn't give him enough time.

[BobbysWorld]

Time to mark the date and look at the watches for how long that will last.

*Shrugs* Seems to me its lasted quite a bit longer than you've expected considering you've made this literal exact same doomsday prediction for Arakko at the start of every single major story & event since the beginning of X of Swords. And yet here we are at the end of X-Men Red and the grand finale left us with a new status quo that demonstrates the exact opposite of signs its going away any time soon. Just saying.

[Dante Milton]

It was a good issue with a mostly satisfying conclusion. As others have said, I do wish it had been double sized to give a bit more resolution to some plot points. I think Ewing will explore some of those in RoM but there’s still so much story to tell with Arakko (Okkara?). I hope it gets picked up soon by a writer that’s up to the task. Cinar’s art was good, but I do wish Caselli was on art instead because I prefer his work.

The thing I’m wondering about most right now is about Ironfire. We know in the SOS timeline he killed Blue and considered it his greatest mistake. This time around he didn’t, and I wonder if that’s because of a deal he unconsciously made with Mother Righteous, or if he simply made a different decision.

[Grunty]

*Shrugs* Seems to me its lasted quite a bit longer than you've expected considering you've made this literal exact same doomsday prediction for Arakko at the start of every single major story & event since the beginning of X of Swords. And yet here we are at the end of X-Men Red and the grand finale left us with a new status quo that demonstrates the exact opposite of signs its going away any time soon. Just saying.

Indeed. Being wrong is certainly an option for me here. Albeit the big status quo shift has not yet occured and the protective hand not removed.