Planet-Size X-Men # 1 Spoilers – the mutants of Mars

Man oh man did the X-Men get serious in Planet-Size X-Men # 1 right in the middle of the Hellfire Gala no less. Here’s a Planet-Size X-Men # 1 spoilers post to help you understand what exactly happened in this big issue from the X-Folks over at Marvel.

This book was written by Gerry Duggan with art by Pepe Larraz too and serves as a warm-up for the pair’s work in the next volume of X-Men coming in July.

So the narrative and dialogue is spread through a number of days but the initial pages happen right at the end of X-Men # 21 with Emma Frost connecting the minds of every human and mutant on Earth to see what the X-Men are up to and it turns out that they are terraforming Mars as a way to provide “fireworks” for the Hellfire Gala.

And Magneto is just being a damn badass by blasting a number of iron-rich asteroids in to the surface of Mars to start the terraforming process.

With the main materials down in the planet, Vulcan aka Gabriel Summers and Hope Summers work together to burrow the metal elements deep down into the core.

Hope then works together with Proteus to blast off the debris and clear the operating table. Proteus and Hope is then tasked to make sure to warp the temperature to something that will develop life and make it possible for life to live in a barren planet like Mars.

 

To balance out the temperature and bring in the necessary liquid element into the equation, they also brought in Iceman to generate ice.

The book then does a flashback to four days before the Hellfire Gala with Magneto being the central character for the story. During a meeting, its been brought up that they would need a powerful reality manipulator to work on the insides of Mars (probably banking on the idea that Proteus would be spent at the time they finish the initial terraforming). So Magneto gets Jamie Braddock to work for the mission.

Then throughout the days leading to the gala, there were several problems that Magneto had to fix namely the Arraki from Arrako making trouble all around the world and the growing numbers of mutants from Arrako in the island. Lensherr works around that by getting the services of some of the members of the Arrako’s Great Ring, the counterpart of the Quiet Council.

Iska introduces Magneto to three mutants who can help on the Mars terraforming namely Lactuca the Knower, Sobunar of the Depths and Xilo who apparently defended Arrako during the early part of their eon long war.

They bring along Sobunar because his blood contains an “oceanic ecosystem”

aka his blood can make oceans, which Storm also uses to make it rain in Mars.

Xilo is seen with Magneto and Cypher and he can break down his body and mess with nutrients in the soil and that’s what he does. Helps with the nitrogen and to make a water cycle and a weather system.

Back on Earth, Lactuca teams up with Exodus and Jean to use the external Krakoa gate as a vortex to suck the whole second island and bring it safely to Mars together with the mutants living there as well.

Apparently, Lactuca’s mutant ability is to know where and how things should be, so with his mind connected to Jean, they know exactly how and where to open the gate and safely transport the mutants.

Jean and the mutants in Mars also figure out how to defend the planet or how to bring their established defenses from Earth into Mars (because they already have S.W.O.R.D. operational). Thats when Quire and Jean implant an idea in Braddock’s brain.

They literally had Braddock give birth to a space station, tether it to space with Jean Grey’s TK and Magneto’s magnetic powers and voila, SWORD station 2 in orbit around Mars.

They also made a diplomatic ring in Mars’ Hellas lake where they plan to have peace meetings between the different warring tribes of the Arakki.

Magneto then welcomes the guests from the Hellfire Gala as they pass through the gate and into Mars which they have renamed Planet Arakko.

My god this was such a high concept and very tricky but in Hickman we still trust and Duggan did an amazing job with the writing of this story. It does remind me of that one time Marvel wanted to put the mutants in a different planet when Marvel was crazy over the Inhumans and was plotted already by Rick Remender or that time during Extraordinary X-Men when they moved the school to Limbo..

Crazy Planet-Size X-Men # 1 spoilers huh? What did you think of this? Leave a comment below and follow me on Twitter at w