The Rise And Fall Of The Krakoa Era, Part Two: A Bright Future That Tarnished Quickly
The Krakoa Era's beginning was amazing, but things started to tarnish quickly
So, in our last installment, I talked about how the X-Men got to the point they’d need something like the Krakoa Era and the effect of House Of X/Powers Of X. Today, we’re going to talk about Dawn Of X and Reign Of X. Welcome to this critique of the Krakoa Era - hope you survive the experience.
Dawn Of X immediately grabbed reader attention. Hickman was billed as “Head Of X” and had handpicked a group of writers to help bring his vision to life. Dawn Of X kicked off with a rather eclectic line-up of titles - X-Men, X-Force, New Mutants, Excalibur, Marauders, and Fallen Angels. Each of these books was meant to appeal to different audiences within the X-Men fandom - X-Men was the flagship book, written by Hickman, although curiously enough there was no actual X-Men team in the book. Instead, each issue focused on several different mutants, with Cyclops co-starring in more issues than anyone else. X-Force was the violent, black ops book, starring a team meant to destroy the enemies of Krakoa. New Mutants starred members of the New Mutants and Generation X as the secondary mutant team, Marauders starred X-Men mainstays in a book that can best be described as pirates meet corporate espionage, and Excalibur was the mutant magic book. Fallen Angels was the odd duck of the early line and is also the book that is most disliked of the early days of the Krakoa Era - in fact, it’s still considered among the worst books of the entire five years.
Hickman built quite a roster of writers - Gerry Duggan (Marauders), Benjamin Percy (X-Force), Tini Howard (Excalibur), and Ed Brisson (New Mutants), with Bryan Edward Hill only writing Fallen Angels before leaving. Readers were regaled with tales of “X-Slack”, the Slack channel were they all worked together to create new ideas. It was preseneted as a golden age of creativity, with fans and critics reacting as such. I was reviewing comics for youdontreadcomics.com at the time, so I was able to read every title as part of my duties. While I didn’t enjoy every book - for example, I never really liked Excalibur - there was a fresh feeling to the X-Men books that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
The early Krakoa Era’s greatest strength was the fact that it had something for every single kind of X-Men fan. X-Men’s rotating cast showcased many different characters - Havok, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Prestige, Cable, Corsair, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Xavier, Magneto, Apocalypse, and many more - and was home to Hickman’s big idea approach to writing comics. New Mutants combined members of the classic New Mutants team with a couple of former members of Generation X. X-Force was the Wolverine-centric black ops book. Marauders starred X-Men mainstays - Kate Pryde, Storm, Bishop, Iceman - as pirates, along with corporate intrigue focused on a battle for control between Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw. Excalibur was a hodge podge team that took readers to Otherworld, much like the older Exaclibur did waaaay back in the 1990s. Fallen Angels starred Kwannon, who had taken the role of Psylocke while Elizabeth Braddock became Captain Britain in Excalibur, and I don’t really know who the book was for, despite liking it. That’s right, I actually enjoyed Fallen Angels.
Fans were energized by House Of X/Powers Of X, and that energy carried over into Dawn Of X. The X-Men books were the hottest thing at Marvel, and were the talk of the Internet. Krakoa as an idea has enflamed both fans and creators. The Krakoa Era wasn’t the first time that mutants had their own nation - there was Genosha from 1998 to 2001, and later Utopia from 2009 to 2012 - but it was the first time that so much work was put into it. Readers never got to spend much time in Genosha because it was controlled by Magneto during a time when he was an enemy of the team. There was basically only the Magneto Rex miniseries and “Eve Of Destruction” before it was destroyed in New X-Men #115. Utopia was never actually treated like much of a mutant nation, but a base that was constantly under siege. Krakoa, though, as different.
Hickman and the X-Men writers set up Krakoa as an actual nation. It was led by the Quiet Council, a group of powerful mutants. It had laws. It had pharmaceutical exports and earned UN membership. The island was able to grow basically anything the mutants there would need, including structures. The Hellfire Trading Company handled the island’s imports and exports, and X-Force was the nation’s CIA analogue. Cyclops was the head of the nation’s military. The introduction of mutant resurrection in House Of X #5 was huge and changed the way death affected mutants and readers. Characters were dying all of the time - especially the members of X-Force - and being brought back to life.
All of these changes made the X-Men books the most exciting comics around. There was an orgy vibe to the nation of Krakoa; mutants had been under the gun for so long, that having the kind of freedom and power that Krakoa gave them made it into a non-stop party. Krakoa was fabulously wealthy and no one had to work. Many books showed off the life of mutants on the island, and readers loved to see their favorite characters enjoying themselves. In the background, Hickman was still building the unsettling vibe of the island nation. Sure, everything was a party, but then there was Crucible, where depowered mutants fought Apocalypse for a chance to be resurrected with their powers. Xavier and Magneto were using Mystique for their own needs, dangling the resurrection of Destiny in front of her despite never planning on following through because of a promise made to Moira MacTaggert. Moira was hidden from the rest of the island’s population. X-Force was goign around killing the island’s enemies in secret. Krakoa often seemed like something of a cult, which was at odds with the party atmosphere that was being cultivated.
Soon, the second phase of titles was released - Wolverine, Cable, Hellions, and X-Factor, along with a series of Giant-Size one-shots. Percy and Duggan got Wolverine and Cable respectively, Zeb Wells joined the X-office with Hellions and Leah Williams got X-Factor. Hellions is generally considered the best book of this batch, Wolverine was focused on the superstar hero and his adventures, Cable starred the young version of the charatcer, and X-Factor brought the team back to being a detective group, meant to invsetigate the deaths of mutants outside of Krakoa. The X-books continued to be the cream of Marvel’s crop, but things had cooled off a bit. In some ways, Dawn Of X seemed pretty aimless. Hickman’s X-Men had its moments, but it was mostly just doing set-up and it got bogged down in crossovers by the tenth issue, when Empyre struck the rest of the Marvel Universe. Most of the books were well-received, though, and things were going pretty well until COVID.
COVID did a doozy on the comic industry, much like it did to most other industries. Everything shut down for a while, and the X-books’ momentum, which had played a big role in the success of the line, stalled. There were lots of plans for what was to come, including a book starring Moira MacTaggert, but COVID ended all of that. Some of the books would still get released during Reign Of X, but things had changed a lot by that point.
Dawn Of X was mostly successful, and Marvel wanted to take advantage of that, announcing the crossover X Of Swords. For my money, X Of Swords was where the cracks started to show. I stopped reading Excalibur after the sixth issue - Howard’s work didn’t at all appeal to me - and I was reading and reviewing every other book except Cable, mostly because I was never interested in him as a character. I was excited for X Of Swords, as was basically every other fan. We had no idea what the story was going to be about it, but we were ready for a big crossover.
Event stories were par for the course for Marvel books, and they had actually gave the X-Men books a lot of time before putting them into an event story. Krakoa was well built by the time X Of Swords, and so Marvel was ready to cash-in. X Of Swords was structured like an old school Marvel summer crossover. Instead of doing an event miniseries with tie-in issues, X Of Swords mostly took place within the actual X-books, with three bookends comics at the beginning, middle, and end. X Of Swords was a twenty-two part story, with each book getting one or two tie-in issues, X-Men getting three. The story was the brainchild of Hickman and Howard, who wrote the bookend comics with the House Of X art team of Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia. Hickman had teased the story in House Of X and X-Men, introducing Arakko, which was the sibling of Krakoa, Apocalypse’s history with the island, and the demon realm of Amenth. The premise involved the mutants of Arakko, having fought a millennia long war against the demons of Amenth, returning. This begins a contest between the Arakkii and the Krakoans, fought at the behest of the Omniversal Majestrix Opal Luna Saturnyne in Otherworld.
Time to editorialize - I hate X Of Swords. There are a lot of reasons for that. For one, Tini Howard’s writing did nothing for me at all. I didn’t care about Otherworld, or at least her version of it, which felt like badly thought out D&D settings. I didn’t like the fact that to get the whole story, I had to read all twenty-two parts. That felt like Marvel’s characteristic greed kicking in. The first half of the story was all about the Champions of Krakoa finding the swords they would use to fight the Champions of Arakko. It all went by so slowly. I enjoyed X Of Swords: Creation and part two, which was an issue of X-Factor, but the story died quickly for me. I felt most of the first half of it was terrible, besides the Wolverine and New Mutants issues. The second half of the story was a little better, but I didn’t enjoy the way the contests worked. Readers thought they would be no holds barred battles between Krakoans and Arakkii, but instead they were a variety of contests between the two sides. I was rather disappointed by this.
I wasn’t a fan of the Apocalypse retcon that was at the heart of the story either. I didn’t like Apocalypse’s whole “survival of the fittest” ethos coming from wanting to make a powerful army to battle Amenth. In a lot of ways, that ruins every prior Apocalypse story because why the fuck didn’t he just tell the X-Men that? I remember hearing Hickman saying he wanted to flesh out Apocalypse, but sorry, I hated it. X Of Swords just didn’t work for me at all as a story. The only parts of the story that I can say I genuinely enjoy are the Wolverine issues. I love Solem, the Arakkii champion introduced in the book to fight Wolverine. That’s it. The second half is better than the first half, but overall, I think it’s a lousy story and it is the place where I started to realize that the Krakoa Era wasn’t perfect.
X Of Swords was also the end of Dawn Of X. Among the fandom, X Of Swords has a checkered reputation. Some fans love it, some fans hate it, and some are indifferent towards it. I do think it burned out a lot of people on the Krakoa Era, but that’s just an opinion. However, it can’t be denied that sales had started to go down by this point. Of course, that can’t be entirely blamed on X Of Swords - comic sales are a harsh mistress and readers definitely have a “what have you done for me lately” mentality. I do feel that X Of Swords did play a part of the fall, though. Dawn Of X had a lot of problems, and I don’t think that fans were ready for it to be so directionless. While it did give every type of fan something, I feel like there was just too much going on and no indication where it was going for modern fans to enjoy. Plus, there was a massive difference in tone between what Hickman was doing and what everyone else was doing.
Looking at HoX/PoX and X-Men, there’s definitely a feeling that Krakoa isn’t an entirely good thing. Hickman was laying out why this idea of an ethnostate was bad, something that flew in the face of the idea that mutants having a homeland was a party. However, it seems like readers and the other writers didn’t want to use this idea nearly as much as Hickman did. In fact, in my opinion, the only other book that played into this was X-Force, which had Beast start committing atrocities and Jean Grey question her place among the team.
Reign Of X began after X Of Swords. There was no Moira MacTaggert book, and books that were first thought to be ongoings - Children Of The Atom and X-Corp - became miniseries. There was also Way Of X, a book starring Nightcrawler, that was partly about establishing a Krakoan religion and the return of Onslaught. Reign Of X also coincides with some interesting behind the scenes stuff.
Hickman’s original outline for the Krakoa Era began to be changed by the writers that he had chosen. Hickman has gone on record about this and how he supported it. However, these changes also meant that whatever the original story that Hickman wanted to tell couldn’t be told anymore. There are multiple conspiracy theories among the fandom from this time. Some Hickman diehards liked to say that he was forced out of the books at this point, which is part of the reason the Moira MacTaggert book that Hickman was going to write never came to be. My personal conspiracy theory was that Marvel, seeing how much money the books were making, went behind his back and talked the other writers into asking Hickman to slow down the pace of his story. However, interviews from this time saw Hickman saying that everyone had mutually decided to extend the Krakoa Era and that he left voluntarily. Of course, this wouldn’t occur til the end of Reign Of X. Hickman continued to write X-Men until issue #21, with his last X-Men story being the four issue miniseries Inferno.
Reign Of X also saw the first time that the X-Men books of the Krakoa Era experienced failure. X-Factor was cancelled at issue ten, and would see its last story made into its own miniseries, The Trial Of Magneto. Readers also didn’t love Children Of The Atom, a book about human mutant fans who used alien technology from Empyre to copy mutant powers. X-Corp was roundly panned, with many considering it the worst Krakoa Era book. Marauders went from a book that everyone loved to something of a disappointment for many fans, who didn’t enjoy the way that Duggan ended the book’s plots. Reign Of X was where the massively popular X-Men books fell back to the Earth. The books were still had many fans, but the COVID delays and some lackluster series and stories saw fans’ love for the Krakoa Era cool down immensely.
It wasn’t all bad. Hellions was beloved by fans, and is still considered one of the best, if not the best, X-Men books of the era. However, it too would end with Reign Of X, after which Wells would begin his run on The Amazing Spider-Man. Inferno was typical Hickman brilliance, closing out many of the plot lines he had begun in HoX/PoX. The Hellfire Gala crossed through all of the books, much like X Of Swords before it, and was generally well-received. It ended with the stellar Planet-Size X-Men, which led into X-Men (Vol. 6), which would be written by Gerry Duggan. I personally hate Duggan’s run on X-Men, and fan consensus on it is mixed. Some people love its simplistic villain of the month structure and the art was always great, especially when Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia were drawing it. However, other fans found it to be rather disappointing, a throwback to when the X-Men were a regular superhero team doing regular superhero things, abandoning the big idea storytelling that Hickman had brought to the X-books. Al Ewing joined the X-writer corps with SWORD, a book that concentrated on the space arm of Krakoa, another comic that is beloved by fans. Writer Vita Ayala took over New Mutants for a run that many fans are wild about.
Reign Of X ended with three different event books. Inferno revolved around Moira MacTaggert and the dissolution of her relationship with the mutant race. It also reintroduced Destiny into the mix, which would have major repercussions as the Krakoa Era went on. After Inferno, Reign Of X would end with X Lives Of Wolverine/X Deaths Of Wolverine, two five issue miniseries that would run biweekly, with the rest of line going on hiatus. X Lives followed Wolverine being sent through time by Xavier and Jean Grey in order to stop Omega Red from killing Xavier in the past. Red was working for Mikhail Rasputin, who was established in X-Force as the head of Russia’s anti-Krakoa mutant forces. X Deaths followed Moira MacTaggert as she was on the run from Mystique and also introduced Omega Wolverine, a Phalanx-possessed Wolverine from the future of Moira’s sixth life. It ended with Moira becoming a cyborg and joining Orchis. Both books were written by Benjamin Percy, the writer of Wolverine and X-Force, and their reception by fans is quite mixed. Personally, I love both of them, but I’m apparently in the minority.
Dawn Of X and Reign Of X are interesting because they represent both the dizzying heights of the Krakoa Era and how bad things would get. Dawn Of X was basically a victory lap, with fans praising the Krakoa Era books pretty universally. Not every title was unequivocally loved, but overall, fans were happy. Reign Of X was when the worm turned. There were some rather big failures, and many stories were panned by fans and critics alike, but there was still great stuff there.
Hickman leaving the X-books was a huge blow. Post-Hellfire Gala, the books felt completely different. Gone was the unsettling vibe of earlier and the writers bought in on the endless party vibe of Krakoa. That said, Hickman’s time writing X-Men was probably his weakest team book at Marvel. While there are some excellent issues on this run - the fourth issue, the Mystique/Nimrod issues, and the Vault issues - Hickman’s work never reached the heights it did on Fantastic Four, The Avengers, or New Avengers. However, losing his guidance definitely had a huge effect on the Krakoa Era. His X-Men wasn’t perfect, but it was always interesting, which isn’t something that could always be said about Duggan’s time on the book.
However, things weren’t all doom and gloom when Hickman left. Big things were coming to the X-Men books, and readers would get some of the best books of the era. Of course, they would also get some of the worst as well. It was their… Destiny.
Of X.
So, that’s all for this installment. We’re going to have an intermission where I write about Wolverine (Vol. 8) #1, because I have a lot to say about that book. Then, we’ll see part three of our little retrospective, where I dig into Destiny Of X.
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