X-Men Monday #251 – Sinister Secrets of the Krakoan Era: Part 1

Welcome, X-Fans, to another uncanny edition of X-Men Monday at AIPT!

Or… are we at Bar Sinister? Because today, we’re revealing some of the Krakoan era’s most sinister secrets. And by sinister secrets, I mean the many burning questions from the past five years X-Fans demanded answers to. There were a lot of questions — so many, I needed to split this one in two. But hopefully, these answers bring some sense of closure as the sun sets on Krakoa and we enter the “From the Ashes” era.

Joining us for this very revealing edition is X-Men Senior Editor Jordan D. White, who recently revealed a sinister secret about the Destiny of X trade paperbacks that never were over on Instagram.

Let’s kick things off with a word of caution from Jordan.

Jordan D. White: So, I’m going to do my best to answer the X-Fan’s Krakoan era mystery questions, but I just want to give a warning upfront.

What this isn’t going to be is me making up canon for things. This isn’t going to be, “Oh, they brought up a good question and now I’m going to tell you the definitive answer, even though it didn’t appear in the comics.” First of all, there’s no reason to do that. But also, even if I did that, it wouldn’t actually count because no other creators or editors would view X-Men Monday as actual canon. No offense.

AIPT: Well, that’s your opinion.

Jordan: [Laughs] Like, official Marvel policy is that letters pages aren’t even canon.

So just get ready. I’m going to do my best to be honest about these questions, but that means that some of the answers really are going to be… “There isn’t an answer.” [Laughs] And some of the answers aren’t going to be the answers you’re hoping for. So let’s get started.

AIPT: Let’s start with a few questions about Al Ewing‘s beloved X-Men Red. X-Fans Isaac Platizky, Mugen, and Sinister asked: In X-Men Red #10, how did the Fisher King know Abigail Brand’s last name? And how did he find her base? What do you think, Al?

Al Ewing: I can only assume he had access to more resources than he let on about — a lot of the Arakkii had some strange powers, and Fisher was on good terms with most of them. Maybe those very un-Arakko-like connections and networks were passed on to his children? A question for future writers.

AIPT: X-Fan Pádraig Kingsley asked: Where the hell is Brand? And X-Fan Isaac Platizky asked: Were there further plans for Brand and her Krakoan endgame?

Al: These two questions are essentially the same question — basically, I had plans to have plans. I thought — IF I had room in what was already becoming a very dense last act — that it might be interesting to maybe bring her back in to be part of the endgame. But that ended up being a beat I was happy to leave for future hands to tackle. I’ve no doubt Brand will be back in some form eventually, and then we’ll see exactly what the Fisher King was getting at — but the nature of this particular genre of serial fiction means leaving the occasional thread to dangle in the hope that someone way down the line will weave it all back in.

Jordan: Al’s amazing, as you all know. But that’s a pretty good example of what I was talking about.

I’m going to reference a thing that came out a while ago. Maybe a year or two years ago, J.J. Abrams did an interview where he talked about the Star Wars sequels. And the takeaway everybody had from that interview was, “Oh, J.J. Abrams admits that they should have planned out everything ahead of time” and everybody was getting on their high horses to be like, “It just goes to show you need to have everything planned out ahead of time.”

I think everybody kind of missed the actual point there because that’s not what happened. I mean, I’d have to go back to that interview to see what the exact takeaway should have been in that case, but what I’ll say about it is, whether you have something planned out or not isn’t the most essential part. What matters is whether you landed. Because look at the other Star Wars trilogies. The one that was not planned out at all is the original trilogy. And I know that in retrospect, George Lucas has said, “Oh, I had all these plans.” But there are lots and lots of behind-the-scenes stuff that shows he didn’t know Luke was Darth Vader’s son. He didn’t know Leia was Luke’s sister. He didn’t know any of that stuff. There are so many things that happened as they went along that turned it into the series we love.

On the contrary, the prequel series is the one that he did plan out much more ahead of time. He actually had the time to think about it and go, “Here’s what I’m going to do because I’m going to write and direct all three movies.” And I know that the prequels have had a big resurgence lately, and I do see value in them, but they’re not the most beloved part of the series. The point is that it’s not about whether you plan it or not, it’s about how you execute it.

And many, many, many successful writers do things where they leave themselves opportunities for stories and problems to solve without having a solution. This Brand one is a great example. Al put that in place going, “Oh, this will be a thing we can use later.” And then we didn’t find a use for it. If we had found a use for it, it would’ve come together great. And it would’ve been like, “Look, they planned it the whole time” and we didn’t actually plan it. We planned to be able to use it if we could, and then we didn’t have a use for it.

AIPT: Hey, there are plenty of X-Men Mondays I planned but never got to do, so it makes sense to me. And thanks, Al, for stopping by to field those questions! Next, X-Fan Alliterator asked: Were the lobsters Don and Bill ever actually going to appear in the Krakoan Era or was this simply a pipe dream?

Jordan: David Gabriel, Marvel’s VP of Print & Digital Publishing, requested that we put Bill in there. Presumably, because he was like, “This guy moves books.” Look, I don’t know why — he probably just liked him. But he requested we put him in there and we never had any intention of using him. Every once in a while, we would joke about using him and mostly it would involve just having him show up on a plate somewhere. But that never actually happened. I mean, Magneto ate lobster at one point, but it was not confirmed to be Bill.

AIPT: Bill’s out there somewhere, X-Fans — hopefully not at a Red Lobster location. Alright, this is a big one. X-Fans Alex Dee, Anthony Murray, Generic X-Fan, Jace Lacob, and MaTasse2T asked for clarity around why Kate Pryde couldn’t pass through the Krakoan gates.

Jordan: OK, so this is one where I didn’t think it was as mysterious as the audience did. So maybe we didn’t do a good enough job of being clear on it.

To my mind, it was just connected to her phasing power the whole time. It was that her phasing power disrupts technology. The Krakoan gates are a unique kind of technology that involves things moving through or going into places they’re not supposed to go. And her powers are similar to that. As she disrupts technology, I thought it was kind of clear that it was just some sort of powers-related feedback. And then when the gates flipped, and suddenly, they didn’t work for anyone, they started to work for her.

So to my mind, that’s all it was. There wasn’t a deeper mystery to it.

AIPT: Perfect. Case closed. Now, X-Fans Max and Nico asked: Did you plan to write a story focused on the X-Men vs the Quiet Council? In X-Men #7, Cyclops said they may be in a two-front war — one with the Council and the other with Orchis.

Jordan: I don’t believe there were solid plans of like, “Six issues later, they will go to war.” I think Gerry Duggan was just emphasizing how much Cyclops was differing from the priorities of the Quiet Council. The X-Men were very much not going to answer to the Quiet Council. As it ended up working out, the Quiet Council had larger problems they were more focused on than whether the X-Men listened to them. And the X-Men had problems to deal with that the Quiet Council probably wasn’t going to get upset about anyway. So yeah, I think it just never came to be. But it wasn’t like, “Step six of our plan will be when the Quiet Council and the X-Men go to war.” It was just always an opportunity for them to disagree more, and it never came back.

AIPT: While we’re discussing Gerry’s X-Men run, X-Fan Rift (with a rare Hellion-less question — you feeling OK, Rift?) asked: Who was that kid Dr. Stasis had a picture of in X-Men #12? Was it supposed to be the original Essex’s son, Adam?

Jordan: That’s what it was. That is meant to be Essex’s original son. Him talking about fixing his son is a reference to that being one of the drivers of his obsession with genetics and mutation.

AIPT: I have to ask this next question to help bring some closure. X-Fan #KrakoaLives asked: What was going on with Shinobi Shaw and Christian Frost? This is my absolute priority and has been for years. I think about it every day. I’d like to say that’s an exaggeration, but it really does seem to come up.

Jordan: I thought they were heavily flirting. At least, that was what I read into it. I thought there was a heavy flirtation and the possibility of more, but again, they didn’t really get enough story focus beyond that to really lock in and say they were in a relationship. But it certainly seemed that way to me.

AIPT: Now that you know #KrakoaLives has been thinking about this daily, do you feel like you should have launched a mini-series?

Jordan: Well, selling a guaranteed copy is nice, but I don’t know that we would sell that many more of the Shinobi Shaw-Christian Frost team-up.

AIPT: Next, a little love for a character you’re familiar with. X-Fan Josie Mitchell asked: When Gwenpool retconned herself into being a mutant back in 2019, was that done because there were bigger plans in store for her? Obviously, if there were, they didn’t pan out because she didn’t show up much. But what was the idea behind it? Any thoughts, Leah?

Leah Williams:  My genuine, deadass approach to this mini-series was that I had to “rescue” Gwen from getting permanently shelved, so the decision of bringing her into Krakoa was both a bureaucratic and a practical one – turning her into a mutant, bringing Gwenpool under the protective umbrella of being an “X-Office” character is what, in my eyes, gives her a open-ended potential future that cannot be taken away no matter what.

At the time I was writing Gwenpool Strikes Back, I was also beginning the early stages of X-Factor and there was nothing I wanted to do more than spirit Gwen away to the safety of Krakoa. Jordan will be able to clarify more about the backend of things, but our discussion of bringing her into Krakoa was very much a practical decision. After that point, I tried bringing her into X-Factor a couple times, for a couple different reasons – I thought she’d be great in Mojoverse, and I thought she’d be a fantastic sort of “red carpet interviewer” for the first-ever Hellfire Gala. 

Jordan: Look, Gwenpool is my child and I love her. I wanted to protect her as well. And like Leah said, making her a mutant seemed like a good way to protect her. We didn’t have specific plans for her, no. We didn’t go, “Let’s get her into this so we can use her in X, Y, or Z.” It was, let’s A: put her there because it’ll protect her and B: put her there because I’m the X-Editor. And so now that’s backfired. [Laughs]

But basically, we just haven’t been able to really do anything with her since then. She had an Infinity Comic that was pretty terrific. I didn’t edit that, but I did read it because I’m very protective of her and I thought they did a really great job. I felt like they had a great sense of who she was and how she worked. I would love to do more with her. I want to do more with her all the time and it’s sad that I’m not.

AIPT: There’s always the Venomverse. While Leah’s here, X-Fan Brett Smith said: Not a question, but thank you for letting X-Terminators exist. It’s the best.

Leah: I tried to react with the tearful smile emoji here but it didn’t work. Picture that emoji in your head. Audience participation.

Jordan: X-Terminators rules.

AIPT: You know what always helps a question stand out from the rest? SHOUTING. X-Fan timefortempo asked: WHERE WAS LONGSHOT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Steve Foxe: I desperately wanted to pitch Longshot stuff and it never came up. Before I actually got to do anything in the 616 Krakoan books, I had a very Longshot-heavy pitch ready to go (that was probably a total longshot, tbh). If I could have shoehorned him into anything, I would have. If only Nimrod had squished him, too…

AIPT: Whoa! Steve Foxe!

Leah: There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance of Longshot in X-Factor #9. I’d had more plans for him since I was doing Mojoverse stuff with both Dazzler and Shatterstar, but we ran out of time when the book was ended. One idea I had in mind for Longshot was him doing a Mojoverse version of “The Bachelor” as… The Bachelor. But here’s a screenshot of the script page for p13, issue 9 where he shows up – which should help you find him in the art: 

Jordan: Longshot appeared in Incoming. His name would come up every once in a while. At one point, I thought, let’s do an arc of X-Men Unlimited called “Friends of X,” and it can be the non-mutant X-Men characters. So it would be Longshot, Juggernaut, Deadpool — I’m sure I had another one or two in there that I’m forgetting. I pitched that to Fabian Nicieza and he came back with, “Can I just do Deadpool and Juggernaut teaming up instead?” [Laughs] And so that’s what happened.

So Longshot was going to be there and you can all get mad at Fabian for denying him more comics.

But don’t really get mad at Fabian. I love Fabian.

AIPT: Nobody get mad at Fabian. And thanks for stopping by, Leah and Steve! OK, another big one. X-Fans Denise, JayWhat, and Oscar Owens asked: Will we ever learn why Monet can turn into the Penance form?

Jordan: Listen, it’s just cool and interesting.

OK, this is where I’m going to make the Monet fans hate me. Monet’s great. Her attitude is great. Her personality is great. I think that her powers are not great. Because her powers are everything. [Laughs] Her powers are all of the above. Add to that the fact that there’s this whole confusing identity swap in her story. If you’ve read the whole story, you know about it. But if you only read some of it, there’s a lot of confusion for people. Like, “Oh, Monet, I remember her from Generation X.” And it’s like, well, you don’t, because that wasn’t her actually, she was Penance that whole time. So the version of her that is the most iconic wasn’t actually her. I think she shares that with Domino, who in early X-Force wasn’t actually Domino. So I think this was also a bit of a way to kind of reference that a little going, yes, actually she was Penance this whole time, and then, let’s allow her to shapeshift back and forth.

I don’t think this is canon — this was kind of where I was trying to steer canon — but I think it never quite happened. There was this idea that we maybe can separate out her powers a little bit to say each of her two forms has different powers or at least different strengths. So, if she’s using her more physical powers of super strength and invulnerability, that’s something she does in her Penance form. And if she’s doing more of the telepathic powers, she does it in the human form. That way, she’s not just the person who could do everything all of the time. But again, I don’t think that happened.

So that was some of the thinking behind it. But I think that it ended up giving her a slightly more memorable and cool ability.

AIPT: This next one’s very recent, but since we didn’t discuss it in our Fall of the House of X #4 discussion, I figured I’d toss it in the mix. X-Fan Reece asked: Can you explain how fast Storm was traveling to Sentinel City in Fall of the House of X #4? The comic mentions Storm using a solar tempest blistering across space. Was she flying at light speed? 

Jordan: I’m going to say no, she’s not moving at the speed of light. I would imagine she’s approaching the speed of light. It’s a comic book, so real science doesn’t apply, but I tend to lean a little bit towards it when I can. And I know that a human body moving at the speed of light is pretty outrageous of an idea, especially on its own — even with omega-level powers. Like, it would do things to the physical atoms that I think would be bad. So I’m going to say she’s not moving at the speed of light, but she’s moving very, very, very fast.

AIPT: Alright, as we near the end of part one, let’s touch on a few of those mysteries related to Jonathan Hickman plots everybody likes to theorize about. X-Fans Alex of X, Jeanknowsall, and Michael Seth asked: Were there bigger plans for Namor that were abandoned? He appeared in House of X and Powers of X but vanished after the first Hellfire Gala. 

Jordan: 100%. There were plans, but not locked-in plans. It’s not like, “Yes, he was going to be the one who kills Nimrod.” But it was like, yes, of course, there were plans to use him — that’s why Jonathan set things up. He fully intended to use him in probably a few different places. But that’s the risk of trying to do things with characters that aren’t yours — by which I mean, not under our editorial purview. Namor is a character who was part of the Brevoort office as part of the Avengers. They had plans with him that they started doing that prevented him from showing up in our books.

And I might as well tell you because it’s only a spoiler for the fact that he’s not going to show up. He’s not going to show up in any of our endings. We very much wanted him to show up in the Fall of X era, but he’s kind of in a place where we can’t use him.

AIPT: And then, X-Fans Jeanknowsall and Mark asked: Before Franklin Richards was retconned into not being a mutant, were there bigger plans for him?

Jordan: 100% the same answer. Absolutely. It is not an oversight that he is so prominently talked about in the first issue of House of X. Obviously, that’s a character that Jonathan has spent a lot of time thinking about and caring about when he wrote Fantastic Four. So he was 100% going, yes, Franklin Richards is one of, if not the most powerful, mutants of all time. Obviously, he’s going to be an important player in the history of mutantkind and in what happens on a species-wide level with them.

We mentioned that Incoming book earlier — that was the other beat from Incoming if you remember. Mister Sinister was talking about the fact that Franklin is the one omega-level mutant he doesn’t have the DNA of yet and how he wants it. So, 1 million percent. But again, as much as we wanted to use him because he’s a mutant, he’s clearly a Fantastic Four character. And they made the decision that I — sorry, guys, do not agree with — to make him not a mutant. And he’s their character to do that with. And that’s the direction they went. And as a result, he was not on the table for us anymore.

AIPT: Is there anything you can share about what could have happened with Namor or Franklin?

Jordan: Well, no. Again, it’s not that there were solid plans, like it would’ve been this. It’s more like, yes, these are hugely important pieces, we are absolutely going to use them. I mean, Namor would have, I don’t know, joined in the fight against Orchis for sure. If I remember, the scene is him going, “Come back when you really mean it” to Xavier. And we would’ve had him come back when he really meant it. We would’ve absolutely just paid that scene off for sure. That’s an easy one.

With Franklin, whether Sinister would have gotten his DNA, I don’t know, but he was thought of as the most powerful mutant or one of them because he deals in whole-cloth reality manipulation kind of stuff. So, had he been a tool in our toolbox, we would have probably done a big story with him. But he wasn’t.

AIPT: I know part of this next one has been talked about a bit in the wild. X-Fan Patch888 asked: Was there a plan or intention to make the Shi’ar a larger part of the Krakoan Era narrative? We saw it prominently featured in the Moira VI’s timeline (particularly in the data pages); they and Xandra made their appearances here and there during the run; Sunspot featured prominently in X-Men Red but he was teased in Giuseppe Camuncoli’s Powers of X #6 variant cover sitting atop the Shi’ar throne. But all that seemed a lot of build-up that never quite fully paid off (with the deep space angle).

Jordan: Yeah… can I tell you something? This is sort of a bummer. In some ways, this is probably the saddest part of the entire thing — that was a book Jonathan was going to do that he was really excited about. Because it was the Sam and Bobby book. So for him, personally, that is the one he would’ve loved the most. It just wouldn’t be the one that would sell the most, so it wasn’t a top priority.

So yeah, when we made that cover, the idea was Roberto, not necessarily becoming the actual emperor of the Shi’ar, but at the very least, becoming the lover of the acting empress, Deathbird. That would’ve been his primary book, where he and Sam would have space adventures. It would’ve been such a joyful book because Jonathan really does love those characters. So it is a bummer to me that Jonathan came and created this whole era and didn’t get to do the thing that he would’ve enjoyed the most.

AIPT: Hopefully someday! OK, we’re going to close with Jean Grey and everybody’s favorite green dress.

I’ll be honest, Jean fans. I was a bit shocked to see so many questions about the dress and codename — Jordan and I discussed this stuff way back in X-Men Monday #110 in 2021. So, please give that a read for additional details. But let’s do this one more time.

X-Fan Max asked: When Jonathan Hickman was asked about Jean’s return to the Marvel Girl costume, he said the following… 

Billy-Vell (@williamaximoff) asked: Marvel Girl going back to her old ’60s costume is probably the most controversial wardrobe change in a while, can you talk about why she’s wearing it again, and if there’s any chance she might get a new one (or even go back to another old one)?

Jonathan: I’m not going to lie, this one has been disappointing.

I was pretty sure everyone would figure this out as soon as House of X #1 hit the stands. And while I’m not going to spoil the story for you, I will say go back and look at the most famous time she put this costume back on. That should help. 

He said he wouldn’t tell us why because it would spoil the story. So can you tell us why Jean returned as Marvel Girl?

Jordan: I think Jonathan is referring to the most famous time that she put this costume back on, which is “The Dark Phoenix Saga.” He’s referring to when “she,” but also Phoenix, died on the Moon wearing this costume, because that was her trying to be normal Jean again. And we’re doing a bit of a Phoenix thing right now, and it’s already been announced that she has a book called Phoenix in the future, but we were steering away from the Phoenix at the start of this because we didn’t want Phoenix-powered Jean. We wanted Jean-powered Jean. We wanted Jean Grey, not Phoenix.

So, that was him referencing her steering away from Phoenix and going, “When I’m the most me, I’m Marvel Girl.”

AIPT: [Laughs] Well, it seems the Jean fans disagreed, Jonathan.

Jordan: But you know what? It’s on the page. It’s canon. You can’t argue with it. Now you have to incorporate that into your understanding of who Jean is as a character.

AIPT: [Laughs] And similarly… X-Fan @Jean_RED_Grey asked: Did the seeds for Jean embracing her identity as a singular connection to Phoenix begin with Jonathan Hickman and his decision to have her return to her Marvel Girl garb and moniker?

Jordan: Again, it wasn’t like, “Oh yes, in his 53rd issue, she was to have become the Phoenix, you know, so she could use the Phoenix power to overturn a dumpster or something. There weren’t specific plans, but he was very much seeding when he said, “Well, the only thing that could stop a threat this level would be the Phoenix.” 

Also, you may remember we literally gave away the Phoenix at the beginning of this We were like, we are so not going to do a Phoenix story for a while, that we are going to say, “Hey, Avengers Office, do you want to do Phoenix stories?” [Laughs] And we let the Avengers do Phoenix stories. And that was because of us saying we weren’t going to use the Phoenix. It wasn’t like they came to us and said, “Can we do Phoenix?” And us going, “Well, I guess we’ll give up the Phoenix for a while.” That was Jonathan going, “I’m not going to do Phoenix, so somebody else can do Phoenix if they want.” And the Avengers did.

Now that being said, we also said to them when Jason Aaron was wrapping up his run, “Can you please return the Phoenix to its proper owner?” [Laughs] So yes, we always planned to do something with the Phoenix, but it was very much a specific choice to not lead with it.

AIPT: Perfect. And now nobody will ever debate Jean’s dress again. You’re welcome, X-Fandom.

And on that note, that concludes part one. Thank you for the transparency, Jordan! Next week, we’ll dig into whispers, omega-level powers, Moira MacTaggert, plans that didn’t pan out, and more.

For now, here are some eXclusive preview images from stories that are definitely happening.

Until next time, X-Fans, stay exceptional!