Spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned. For more, read our X-Force #16 review.
Benjamin Percy and Joshua Cassara’s X-Force has been a delightful mix of CIA operative stuff mixed with behind-the-scenes detective work and in the latest issue, the team is heading to the depths of the sea. They’re killing some corrupted dead things before they reach Krakoa and overrun the island and being in the sea they run into some Lovecraftian nightmares.
It’s an exciting issue involving a very heavy Wolverine–literally–taking it to some rather big undersea beasts. Enter Namor, naturally, to be totally frustrated with anyone not from Atlantis on his home turf. It’s through Namor that Percy delivers some rather chilling lines of dialogue that far outweigh the chilling nature of the undead infected corpses.
After gathering why the X-Force is on the sea bottom, Namor reflects on the infected beast and seems to let out a few opinions on not only Krakoa but Xavier.
Credit: Marvel Comics
This is a fascinating bit of dialogue in part because Namor is clearly speaking to himself. This is not some barb to toss at X-Force. Namor truly believes Xavier is using Krakoa for personal gain. He’s also bringing up the concept of a parasite and a host. This would suggest Xavier is somehow parasitic in his relationship to mutants on Krakoa and may suggest his banking of each soul in his helmet has other purposes outside of saving a personality of a mutant before they die. Could Xavier be getting stronger in some way, feeding off the souls of mutants, or is there something else afoot?
Consider how Xavier is drawn in a creepy way quite often over the last year and it’s not so hard to believe.
Namor says farewell to X-Force by taking care of one of the biggest beasts the team encountered with another barb comparing Krakoa to a resort. Again, Namor seems to think the island nation of Krakoa is in fact a fairy tale vacation location rather than an actual nation of people. This would continue the thought process that the Krakoan mutants are in fact being duped or tricked into thinking all is fine.
Credit: Marvel Comics
At this point, there are many plot threads to keep track of in the X-Men comics, but Xavier being a creep with ulterior motives seems to be one of the best-seeded elements in the series so far. Take for instance X-Men + Fantastic Four #1 with a scene early on showing Xavier is happy to exploit Kate Pryde’s relationship with Franklin Richards so as to convince him to join Krakoa and remove him from his family.
Credit: Marvel Comics
There is something incredibly creepy about Xavier’s eyes never being visible. As if he’s hiding something. This is just one recent example. There is also this iconic page that has all sorts of unnerving visuals at work. From the smirk as if he thinks he’s a god, to the body language that seems giddy like a trickster you get the sense something is up with him.
Credit: Marvel Comics
Those are just two examples.
We also know Xavier is very capable of duping his fellow mutants and downright using them for his own means. Screenrant did an excellent job cataloging some of the biggest transgressions like cheating in school, being a terrible father to Legion, attempted to kill his sister in the womb, and erasing Vulcan from Cyclops’ mind. While some or even all of these details may be expunged thanks to Moira and the reset to the timeline, we have to consider this is still the same man who did those things who is simply on another timeline at this point.
It remains to be seen what Xavier is up to, but nearly all the evidence points to something very bad and something very evil. We’ll have to wait and see how long Xavier turning heel may take–and who knows Hickman’s plan sometimes takes a left turn when needed and may not explore this element–but there are so many clues that suggest Xavier is up to something and X-Force #16 reinforces that.
X-Force #16 is out now in comic book shops and I highly recommend you check it out.
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