It’s Not a Dream if It’s a Comic Book Event
THIS IS WHY I DON'T GO TO PARTIES ANYMORE, WELL THAT AND THE OTHER THING
When a comic comes out and does as much as X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1 does --and obviously it does, thank fuck it does, why would we pay nine dollars American plus import surcharges for a comic that doesn't-- it can be hard to know exactly where to start. Some of it will be serious and painfully earnest, at the risk of being controversial. Some of it will be celebratory, because there are things worth celebrating in this. And, yes, some of it will just be the games of a committed lil' stinker. In short: sorry if this is a mess, but this comic is a mess. It's the most cohesive a Hellfire Gala has been, ever, and it is still trying to be exactly one point two comics in one.
Let's take care of that point two of a comic first, since this is also what Gerry Duggan and the finest pencils in Marvel's bullpen have done. The resurrection of Kamala Khan is, by far, the weakest part of the issue, with dialogue like an end user's license agreement for getting a new solo series, and art that feels uncharacteristically uninspired for an Adam Kubert piece, when it's not turned outright offensive by coloring that only barely passes for acceptable when seen in print. There is always going to be some degree of obligation in a comic meant to tease coming attractions (see also Jonathan Hickman and Valerio Schiti coming back for one single page reminding you that G.O.D.S. is arriving soon), but this is the most clunky and inelegant way you could have brought up the admittedly pretty fun themes and ideas that Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant is going to play with. If it had been one thing among twelve others, it could easily be glossed over, but I have to bring it up because that little bit of story is absolutely essential to the issue as a whole, being a counterweight of light-hearted adventure in an issue that's dropping, pun absolutely intended, some heavy shit. It should have been better.
There is the temptation, here, to bring up The Amazing Spider-Man #26, not just because its biggest consequence got predictably undone, but because it was Marvel's first big controversial comic of the summer, with its own parade of death, desolation, and that ever crucial shock value. What makes the Hellfire Gala different? For one, it has an industrial quantity of payoffs and call-backs, demonstrating how much groundwork had been laid down in the years prior. Most obviously, it pays off plot points from last year's Hellfire Gala, retroactively making that comic better and more important, which is always nice, but it also draws from further sources, whether that's Planet-Size X-Men, House of X, or, in the issue's most joyful surprise, Duggan's own Marauders run. Are its decisions debatable? Yes, especially when it comes to its characterizations of Moira MacTaggert and the Orchis high command (nothing new, but still a bummer that we went from "representatives of an antagonistic future" to "cartoon fascists who love genocide"), but nonetheless, it feels of a piece with what had come before it, a logical answer to the questions that had been raised. For two, The Amazing Spider-Man #26 was a bad comic, a fact that has become so widely accepted that even the content mills are calling Marvel out on it now, and that's as strong a signifier of a sea change as there can be. (Story for another day)
Also: boy does it know how to do incredible violence to its characters with panache. When Russell Dauterman gets to immediately dismantle with extreme prejudice his standard introduction of this year's X-Men, all fan-favorites that had fought in the X-Men election, you can picture in your mind the delighted grin of an absolute bastard. From there, it's a misery rollercoaster of awful pleasures, from Iceman horrifically melting to Jean Grey, stabbed in the back, all the way to Charles' final fall. It is the most beautiful gallows in comics, and it comes with its fair share of humor. It's grim, and at times it can feel glib; I can understand why people have a problem with it, but I'm the messy bitch that will defend Heroes in Crisis until the day I die, so, I don't really mind all the bloodshed. What I see through the dust is a concerted effort to put the mutants back into the world, after years of almost-caricatural insularity that was quickly running out of stories to relitigate. This is an X-Men comic where Wilson Fisk, of all people, gets a big moment. It's weird and it's cool and I'm ready for more of it.
Strictly from a storytelling point of view, the problem is that the way comic book preordering works means that none of it can land as hard as it should, until Pepe Larraz shows up to demonstrate why he's the most powerful artist working in comics today. For all the mayhem and the screaming, there will be about as many X-Men comics coming out of this as there were going in, and there are enough outs written within the story for all your favorites to have survived, including those who got their skull crushed under the metallic boot of Nimrod. It is very obviously theater, which is how it can get away with hitting so hard, while having a lower body count of named characters than the Mutant Massacre it calls out as an inspiration. (Say what you will for Mister Sinister, but his tally is at eight; Doctor Stasis could never) The core of the matter is this: House of X has taken death off the board entirely when it comes to potential consequences to an X-Men story, and I don't see that having changed.
But that's not the optics, is it? From the outside looking in, it sure looks like you turbomurdered at terminal velocity the most contemporary, most interesting, and most diverse X-Men team of this whole era of comics. I don't think it can be argued that this was a move made on purpose. The problem lies in the implications, and Gerry Duggan's interview on the Cerebro podcast did not help; in wanting to make the conflict between Orchis and the mutants about real-life people and real-life organizations, you sound, in my opinion, pretty fucking clueless and offensive.
Which is not to say that you can't make something out of the classic mutant as minority metaphor --I've praised comics for being unambiguous in their subtext before, and I have no doubt I will again-- but rather, that in using something that is close to the truth while not being the actual truth, you miss out on the exciting and interesting parts of the premise. Making mutants stand in for a minority is a lazy shortcut for well-meaning allies. The best X-Men runs, whether that's Hickman, Gillen or Morrison, understand that the X-Men are at their best when they stand for the future. The reason why they are so diverse, why they represent so many, is because the present is diverse, and we should be moving forward, not back, from that. The beauty of the story of Orchis, as it was expressed all the way through to Inferno, is that it involves two groups fundamentally unable to imagine a future without them. Then as it is now, the core of the story is this: when two aggressive species share the same environment, evolution demands adaptation or dominance.
The question the X-Men line should be asking at this juncture, then, goes like this: what happens when they rob you of your future? What will you do then? The hope would be that, at the end of the trials and the tribulations, this beautiful X-Men team we had for all of one page is given back to us. At the very least that's how I would structure it. But considering Marvel is already teasing a throwback to the Age of Apocalypse for after the Fall, I do have some doubts.
I did not expect to go this pessimistic, so let's finish on this: Invincible Iron Man #8, the first post-Gala comic, was pretty solid! It's a clever crossover, with pretty good uses of classic Iron Man imagery, along with smart dialogue and solid action carrying the stakes through. So, one good comic has come out of this. Here's to more.
Look: it's a weird one this week and I'm not sure how well it's going to go over. So, would you allow me to take a victory lap for one second? Turns out I was exactly correct about Knight Terrors, as demonstrated by a couple of books closing out the first round of tie-ins, which take big swings and hit it out of the proverbial park. On top of the list is Knight Terrors: Detective Comics #1, in which Dan Watters, aided by a very game Riccardo Federici, finds an absolutely killer bit of imagery to hang a character study of Jim Gordon on, as a man in a nightmare of his own powerlessness facing off against a cosmic horror in the shape of all he could have done in that very strange time he was Batman and also Briaeros from Appleseed. It would be awful and reductive to say this cements him as DC's answer to Al Ewing, but he has done spectacular work in his own little corner of semi-obscure continuity while being a very impressive second banana writing event tie-ins better than they have any right to be. He's gonna get his big crossover hit at a big two publisher fairly soon-ish, and you will have read that here first.
Meanwhile, I was in fact completely delighted by Knight Terrors: Harley Quinn #1, and yes, I will readily admit that it's just because its premise is basically just "hey, those books you like? yeah we like them too". It's a big weird cosmic Multiversity riff with goofy jokes, executed at the highest levels of the craft. It's a funny little thing, in fact it's a funny little thing twice over because it also has a backup. Great job everyone. Loved it.
Oh boy. I hope this one goes over okay. If you want to yell at me over it, I am on more websites than ever! I am, as ever, on Bluesky, and I have done the freak thing of putting ALL the replies on my timeline. I'm also on Cohost, so you can yell at me with audio now. And now I'm also on Tumblr, where it's just pictures of things I like, real low effort stuff, we're hedging the bets for now. Yell at me at all those places for the things I said here! Allow yourself to be alive with anger! Let your heart take flight! And then, ascend to the plane after, and see how little you are! And then, HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!</em />