Got some backissues, but will only do a review for this one:
Inferno #4 of 4 Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Valerio Schiti, Stefano Caselli and David Curiel
What Happened Before: Mutants have organized and live together now on the living island of Krakoa. This all has become possible due to the mutant power of Moira MacTaggert: every time she dies, she returns to the moment of her birth, but retains all her memories of events that have happened. In the 10 lives she has lived so far, every world ends with a war of Mutants vs. Humans and/or Machines. Moira is therefore focused on her 2 major enemies: the Sentinel Nimrod who is the main threat to mutants in the future and the mutant Destiny, whose precognition can endanger her true goals.
Plot: Xavier and Magneto have entered the base of Orchis, the organisation dedicated to stopping mutants, to save Moira. As they face Nimrod and Omega Sentinel. The two Machines also kill all their human allies, revealing that they care for neither men nor mutant. During the fight, Nimrod tells Xavier that Moira is not there.
On Krakoa, Mystique and Destiny have taken Moira and prepare to end her threat once and for all.
The Good: As the other recent X-Men mini-series, the trial of Magneto, ended in a disappointing way, I was happy to see that this one has a better ending. X-Men is still an ongoing comic, but this story concludes the role of Moira on Krakoa and the secrets Magneto and Xavier carry. The Machines are still a threat. Orchis probably has taken a big loss here, but I don't think they are done. On Krakoa, power has shifted as the results of these events, so it's set up future storyline.
So spoilers cause I need to go a bit more into the scene where Moira finally faces Mystique and Destiny:
So Mystique's plan is to depower Moira (using the weapon Forge once created) and then kill her. Without her powers, her death won't reset the timeline.
Moira plans to depower all mutants, before they ever manifest their power: in all of her lifes, it ends with Mutants vs. Humans and/or Machines, and Mutants always lose. But if no mutant ever manifests, there won't be a war.
Cypher appears and stops Mystique before she kills Moira: he can allow the depowering but killing humans is against Krakoa's laws. So Mystique is left with 3 choices according to Destiny's precognition:
- Kill Moira and face Exile (eternal imprisonment) for her crime. Destiny will die shortly afterwards with no resurrection.
- Kill Cypher as well, but Cypher has not come alone: Warlock is inside his arm, Krakoa itself and Cypher's wife Bei both are also there. This option will end with Mystique's immediate death, though she has a chance at resurrection years later.
- Let Moira go and retain their seats on the Council so they can plan for the future.
Obviously Mystique has no real choice here and choses the option that gives her another shot at Moira in the near future.
Cypher has been dismissed a lot, but in the end he is the deciding factor and he's really confident in his choice. And I'm always happy to see an outside force that many parties dismiss be the key factor.
I really like the way the scene plays out: all parties motivations are completely logical as we have seen over the last few years how each has come to their decisions.
The Bad: It's definitely not a series for new readers; it's the conclusion to Hickman's run and sets all the pieces on the board for other writers for the coming year.
Two minor complaints:
- Colossus got appointed to the Council in this series and it was presented as an important plot point, but in the end, he has no role to play in this story at all.
- this series is called Inferno, but has nothing to do with the earlier Inferno story in X-Men and there does seem to be no real reason storywise for the series to be named this. At one point I thought that Orchis Solar Flare weapon which they wanted to use to burn Krakoa would come into play. Mystique and Moira both have a burn-it-all-down attitude so I guess you can point to that. Still a minor point.
8/10: But probably mostly because I'm really into all these parties plotting against each other and having their agendas.
