Marvel's X-Men line is hotter than it's been in years, thanks to a massive status quo change for mutantkind and the launch of numerous best-selling new titles. At this point, it's becoming harder and harder to keep up with the various mutant-themed monthly books and limited series hitting the stands.
But it's safe to say that if you plan on only reading one X-Men comic over the next few month, it should definitely be Inferno. This four-issue series is the latest book from the "Head of X" himself – writer Jonathan Hickman. It promises to pick up on the biggest loose ends from House of X and Powers of X and redefine the Krakoan era all over again.
If you're not up to date on all things X-Men, fear not. Let's break down where the franchise is at right now, why Inferno will be such a game-changer and why this may well be Hickman's X-Men swan song.
The State of the X-Men in 2021
If you've been paying any sort of attention to the X-Men franchise over the past three years, you're probably aware much has changed for mutants in the Marvel Universe. Once flirting with total extinction, the mutant race is now more powerful and prosperous than ever. Mutants have a nation to call their own on the island of Krakoa, and they've already made a big impact on the world stage (and beyond).
This mutant renaissance is all thanks to the long-term planning of Moira MacTaggert, whom we know now is a mutant who continuously relives her life with all her old memories intact. Moira is now on her tenth life, and she's determined to finally end the cycle of failure that inevitably results in mutant annihilation. Professor X and Magneto are both committed to that cause, though neither is fully aware of the sacrifices and moral compromises Moira has made in pursuit of her goal.
This status quo was established in 2019's twin books House of X and Powers of X. Marvel then relaunched the entire franchise under the Dawn of X umbrella, introducing new teams and new conflicts in the era of Krakoa. 2020's X of Swords crossover added a major new wrinkle, with the mutants of Krakoa reuniting with their estranged cousins on the island of Arakko.
Currently, the franchise is operating under the "Reign of X" banner. Mutantkind has reached a new pinnacle of power and influence. Cyclops has spearheaded the first official team of X-Men since the birth of the Krakoan nation, and the planet Mars has been terraformed to provide a new home for the mutants of Arakko. But new threats continue to emerge, whether from the increasingly desperate human scientists at Orchis or the mysterious assassin who murdered Scarlet Witch at the Hellfire Gala. And perhaps no threat is more dire than that of Mystique, the ultimate mutant turncoat.
What Is Inferno?
Like many recent X-Men comics, Inferno shares its name with a classic X-storyline without being directly related to that story. The original Inferno was a 1989 crossover that dealt with Madelyne Pryor's transformation into the Goblin Queen and a demonic invasion of New York. This Inferno involves a very different conflict.
Inferno continues a major plot thread introduced in House of X #2. That issue first established Moira's unique power and the struggle she's faced in each of her ten lives. The precognitive mutant Destiny saw the full scope of Moira's unnatural life cycle, predicting that Moira will ultimately live either ten or eleven lives, depending on the choices she makes. Moira's ambitious plans may have finally come to fruition, but she fears Destiny's resurrection above all else. Moira has secrets she doesn't want exposed. Her very existence is now her most closely guarded secret. After all, it would only take one well-placed assassin to end Moira's tenth life and send the mutant race back to square one.
That's where the Mystique problem comes in. Mystique is desperate to see her lover Destiny returned to life, which should be an easy feat now that the X-Men have developed their own system of resurrection. The promise of seeing Destiny again is the reason Mystique has been cooperating with Xavier and Magneto this whole time. But now that she's realized her "allies" are never going to make good on their promise, Mystique is determined to follow Destiny's once-cryptic orders:
There will be an island — not the first, but the last. This place will seem to be hope for our kind. When those days come, remember these words: bring me back. And if they cannot… if they will not… then burn that place to the ground.
Inferno is a story about Moira, Xavier and Magneto's biggest mistake coming back to haunt them. Mystique will happily destroy an entire nation of her own people if it means getting revenge on her enemies. Whether Mystique actually succeeds in destroying Krakoa or simply exposes Moira's existence and the hypocrisy of Charles Xavier, we'll just have to wait and see.
Fortunately, Inferno won't require a huge commitment from readers. Rather than playing out as a massive crossover like X of Swords, Inferno is a single, four-issue limited series with no tie-ins. All four issues will be written by Jonathan Hickman, with a rotating art team that includes X-Men veterans Valerio Schiti, R.B. Silva and Stefano Caselli.
Once the story is done, we doubt readers will have to wait long to see the ramifications of Inferno play out in the rest of Marvel's X-Men line.
How Will Inferno Change the X-Men Franchise?
Whatever the immediate outcome of Inferno, it's safe to expect a major shift in the tone and direction of Marvel's X-Men line in 2022. We've seen the mutant race on top of the world in Dawn of X and Reign of X. Inferno may usher in the inevitable "Fall of X" – a new era when the brilliant façade of Krakoa is shattered and mutants have to come to terms with the reality of their new home. In the worst case scenario, Krakoa itself could literally burn, robbing mutants of their home and again making them a species desperately scrabbling for survival.
However, recent announcements from Marvel suggest that even two years after the conclusion of House of X and Powers of X, we're still only in the first phase of writer Jonathan Hickman's grand vision for the franchise. In fact, that vision seems to have outgrown Hickman himself.
We now know Inferno is Hickman's last major X-Men project for the foreseeable future. Hickman is among a number of high-profile creators who recently signed deals with Substack, where he and artists Mike Del Mundo and Mike Huddleston are developing a "concept universe" dubbed Three Worlds, Three Moons. This has raised concerns among many X-Men fans that his story is being cut short, or that the X-Men ship will now sail ahead with no captain at the helm.
However, Hickman has also made it clear his time at Marvel isn't finished. He's teased another mystery project involving a different Marvel franchise altogether. He's also reaffirmed that the remaining X-Men writers will continue to build on his ideas and follow the general outline for the franchise that was established with House of X. The scope of this story has just grown bigger over time.
"Oh, plans have changed entirely," Hickman told Entertainment Weekly. "When I pitched the X-Men story I wanted to do, I pitched a very big, very broad, three-act, three-event narrative, the first of which was House of X. And while this loosely worked as a three-year plan, I told Marvel upfront that I honestly had no idea how long the first part would last because there were a lot of interesting ideas that I had seeded that other creators would want to play with, and so, we left this rather open-ended. I was also pretty clear with all the writers that came into the office what the initial, three-act plan was so no one would be surprised when it was time for the line to pivot."
Hickman continued, "However, I also knew that I was cooking with dynamite, and it was very possible that what I had written in House of X, and the ideas contained within, was not actually the first act of a three-act story, but something that resonated more deeply and worked more like Giant-Size X-Men, where it would represent a paradigm shift in the entire X-Men line for a prolonged period of time. So, during the pandemic, when the time came for me to start pointing things toward writing the second-act event, I asked everyone if they were ready for me to do that, and to a man, everyone wanted to stay in the first act. It was really interesting, because I appreciated that House of X resonated with them to the extent that they didn't want it to end, but the reality was that I knew I would be leaving the line early."
Fans of the current X-Men status quo can take heart that we're still in Act 1 after more than two years. Better yet, Marvel seems content to let this new normal last, rather than arbitrarily restore the X-Men to a more traditional status quo.
Whatever is coming down the pipeline, even Inferno won't be the catalyst that brings this story to its climax. But between Inferno and other upcoming titles like Benjamin Percy's X Lives of Wolverine/X Deaths of Wolverine and Victor LaValle's Sabretooth, we may have a better sense of what's next for mutantkind by the end of 2021.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.