What Happened to Genosha in the Comics?
X-Men 97 Episode 5 which was also titled “Remember It” revisited one of the darkest moments in mutant history with the attack on Genosha but did you know that it first happened in the comics? So here’s what happened to Genosha in the comics?
The destruction of Genosha happened in Grant Morrison’s X-Men run which was retitled as New X-Men and was part of the first story arc for the book titled “E is for Extinction”.
To preface the tragic attack, the story goes that the X-Men have been pared down to a number of characters namely Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Wolverine and Charles Xavier. At the start of the E is for Extinction, Jean, Hank McCoy and Charles Xavier are doing their plans for the Xavier School. Meanwhile Cyclops and Wolverine are on a rescue mission in Australia rescuing a mutant named “Ugly John” from a Sentinel attack. The duo were on the way home when they intercepted a report of Sentinel activity in Ecuador. The two X-Men together with Ugly John land in Ecuador get attacked by a bunch of makeshift Sentinels and are eventually captured by the Sentinels and brought to the Master Mold controlled by the new villain named Cassandra Nova.
During the banter between Cyclops, Wolverine and Cassandra Nova its revealed that she took the DNA of a Trask family member to gain control of Mastermold and send out its killer sentinels in the most densely populated mutant nation – Genosha.
In Genosha, we see Emma Frost teaching a class when the attack happened…
Even the paralyzed Magneto (who was injured in a previous story arc) was not spared from the attack.
We could even see some inspiration from New X-Men in one panel in X-Men 97 episode 5 with that kaiju Sentinel.
And just like in the books, the X-Men are powerless and have no way of responding to the Genoshan attack.
And the scary part here is that Charles Xavier using Cerebro counts the survivors of the attack. In the next New X-Men issue, we see Jean Grey and Beast searching for survivors and finding Emma Frost alive. That of course is another story for another time.
Aftermatch of Destruction of Genosha in the Comics
Even to the current books, Genosha has not been revived and no plans have been made to fix them. In Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s Astonishing X-Men book, we see Charles Xavier and Danger going at it in the ruins of Genosha.
Charles Xavier takes out Danger in Astonishing X-Men
During the events of House of M, Xavier and Magneto are seen talking about what to do with Magneto’s daughter, Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch.
Later in the story, the Avengers and the Astonishing X-Men decide to pay Wanda a visit to decide what to do with her powers.
This was also the time that Quicksilver took Xavier and convinced his sister to rewrite reality with the mutants becoming the dominant species and Magneto becoming the leader of Genosha which has become the world’s premiere superpower.
Magneto surveying Genosha in the House of M reality
In the recent Empyre: X-Men limited series, the Krakoa X-Men visit Genosha because of Scarlet Witch and alien activity. Scarlet Witch tried to revive the dead mutants of Genosha but ends up turning the dead into zombies which the X-Men end up cleaning up and wrapping up.
Empyre X-Men – Cotati versus Genosha zombies
So that’s it, Genosha is still a wasteland.
The mutant island also appeared in a panel in Avengers/JLA
