Keeping the X-Men’s Greatest Secret Requires One Hell of a PR Campaign

Marvel’s mutantkind doesn’t die proper now. Well, mutants do—they only come again. But solely Krakoans know of the nice secret their island nation has given their species… which makes it a really huge downside when one in every of them perishes fairly publicly. Just as Krakoa faces turmoil inside, the X-Men proper now are having to face the weirdest PR disaster they may consider.

Superhero comics have at all times handled loss of life, outdoors of a sure few iconic expirations, as much less of a everlasting sacrifice and extra of a short lived trip. Within and with out the texts of the style, audiences and characters alike have come to deal with loss of life not completely as one thing of a joke, however one thing extra transitory. So when House and Powers of X made one of many Krakoan Age’s best twists that Charles Xavier, Magneto, and a take care of the satan that’s Mr. Sinister gave beginning to the Resurrection Protocols—a structured workflow combining the powers of 5 explicit mutants with the island of Krakoa itself to resurrect any lifeless mutant in a brand new physique, their recollections restored by way of Cerebro—loss of life grew to become to Mutants because it was to probably the most seasoned comedian e book reader: an attention-grabbing downside that may very well be overcome, roughly, fairly simply.

The means to cheat loss of life has develop into a significant department of Krakoan society, remodeling the sovereign nation into the utopian superpower it has develop into—with all of the occasional moral crises such a factor may entail. But it’s additionally one of many mutant civilization’s greatest factors of leverage towards their foes, and so it’s one of many island’s greatest secrets and techniques. That was all properly and good when Krakoa’s position on this planet was extra insular, even because it shared wondrous medicines with the world in a bid to fast-track recognition of its sovereignty. But as Krakoa’s residents and leaders alike have begun to look to the broader world extra brazenly—particularly now that the X-Men as a workforce has begun to exist as soon as extra, establishing their very own base of operations in New York—making an attempt to maintain the truth that mutants can come again from the lifeless a secret is getting more durable and more durable.

Even more durable when one in every of their most well-known heroes dies messily and publicly.

That’s the case in final week’s X-Men #6, by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia, Clayton Cowles, and Tom Muller. Having beforehand teased the arrival of a brand new X-Men chief within the type of Krakoa, to date the mysterious masked mutant is posing an much more attention-grabbing concept than mutantkind adopting, like different sovereign nations, a strolling nationalist ubermensch of a PR marketing campaign of their very own. America has its Captain, Britain has hers (properly, truly, Krakoa has dibs on that one too as of late)—so why not a brand new Captain for the Krakoan Age? But X-Men #6 is much extra within the rapid concept of why Krakoa wants its Captain past the desires of a nation on this regard. It’s thinking about sustaining an altogether completely different type of dream altogether: how far are the Quiet Council and its commanders prepared to go to protect the key of mutant resurrection?

Captain Krakoa’s debut doesn’t simply reveal the brand new hero, however their id—and it’s not fairly who we thought it will be. Captain Krakoa is a brand new masks for an previous mutant, however the circumstances are revealed to be rather more sophisticated: set at a nebulous “six days in the future,” the difficulty reveals that in some way, Scott Summers, present chief of the first Krakoan X-Men workforce, goes to die. He’s carried out that earlier than, that’s high quality. The downside this time is that he’s going to die on human soil, and die in a method that’s so very public that Cyclops simply can’t merely present up once more blasting eye beams like at all times. Fellow heroes console the mutants they know for his or her loss, crowds collect outdoors the X-Men’s New York habitat to pay tribute to the workforce’s fallen chief—and one of many metropolis’s finest journalists round, Ben Urich, is sizzling on the path of a mutant story that might make the Resurrection Protocol public even when Scott didn’t simply present again up once more. But Scott Summers is Scott Summers, and he’s a mutant: loss of life means nothing to him, till it has to imply one thing past him. Which is that he can’t be Krakoa’s Captain as Cyclops, and for now has to tackle a brand new id begrudgingly: that of Captain Krakoa.

Captain Krakoa, after all, is a really completely different hero than Cyclops, to really throw the scent off. His costume is an elaborate holo-disguise for Scott to put on (hilariously, over his Cyclops go well with), and what few powers we glimpse in X-Men #6 are far past Scott’s ruby-tinted power blasts. The good captain can fly, for starters; he can shoot Krakoan vines from wrist-mounted gauntlets, and has no less than some stage of superhuman power and sturdiness. What extra he can do is left unknown for now—his origin is left to be advised for the subsequent challenge—however what he’s, to Scott’s annoyance, is basically that aforementioned strolling ubermensch of a PR marketing campaign in a really completely different method. Having a mutant publicly avow vengeance for the autumn of Cyclops, a brand new hero in his stead, throws Urich off the path of resurrection, and lends credence to the concept that for the X-Men, loss of life remains to be an idea to grapple with in the best way all comedian e book heroes do. Captain Krakoa doesn’t exist to advertise his namesake isle’s best strengths, however to guard its best vulnerability from turning into public.

How lengthy that ruse can final stays to be seen. Even with out the Resurrection Protocols, loss of life in superhero comics is at all times going to be in flux. One day, Cyclops will return, however not as quickly as he hopes—and fellow New York heroes like Spider-Man and the Avengers aren’t going to bat an eyelid as a lot as they apparently would, ought to he return proper now, within the wake of no matter his messy loss of life shall be revealed to be. Cyclops as an concept might need to be laid to relaxation, however Scott Summers hasn’t been—and now he’s actually going to have to look at the worth he’s prepared to pay to take care of Xavier’s dream, for himself and for all mutantkind within the course of.

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