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Jun 07, 2024
I can't remember the last finale/send-off that I liked as much as this one. I give this a 10 not to mean it was flawless in every way, but to say that after reading it I'm left with nothing but good feels and no critiques. I loved every part of it, especially the Apocalypse fight and the Darkholme-Adler family picnic.
Some of my favorite individual moments were Nightcrawler tele-plucking Apocalypse's eyeballs out, Magneto yeeting Wolverine away to prevent him from ending the Xavier problem once and for all, Irene getting concerned when Nightcrawler was dueling Mystique only to realize she had been had, all the "to me, my X-Men" team teasers (Kate had the best one), and Xavier checking in on everyone before...self-inducing coma? I thoug
ht he had committed suicide at first until the last page he was on. Great stuff. I'm very much looking forward to all the coming books, they all look like top notch creative teams and rosters. more
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Jun 08, 2024
Again, underrated here. A perfect ending.
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Jun 13, 2024
What. An ending.
Its and to put into words how much the krakoan age means to me as an x men fan. Its the first full "era" I followed form beginning to end and introduced me to many characters i now love. I've been an x fan my entire life but this was something special. Its hard to encapsulate all possible thoughts on this era, and it certainly had its uos and downs but i can say for a certainty that given the circumstances this was a great way to go out.
The dream didn't die. It mattered. We just aren't ready for it yet.
This issue is graphic novel length, features many stories; of the past present and future and managed to get it right. Theres action, there's drama, there's love... theres even Chris Claremont. And I'm still gree
n on his works being a 90s kid, but he hasn't missed a beat. But while I feel mixed about the re retcon, I liked his way of interpreting it through the characters.
Nightcrawler remains the best x man, but a lot of others are given great statuses and reminders that these heroes will not forget what was done to them but they also won't forget what they have done.
The art is great, it changes many times but everyone brings their a game, and it works in tandem with the script, to make this story sing. That sequence "zooming" in on Scotts visored eyes is a masterpiece, but I have to say jerome opena did the best of them all I think.
The dialogue is overall great. So very clever wordings, it feels cinematic, it feels right. Charles is done extremely well here i feel.
Im going to miss krakoa, but we knew this day would come. Now to welcome in the new age...
Radiant and with open arms. more
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Jun 05, 2024
This issue has a lot of things going on. The promise of Krakoa fulfilled. The inevitable collapse. The beginning of something new. I went into this issue not knowing what to expect, and what I got, by my estimation, was a pretty thoughtful, mostly quiet issue, at least in comparison to what came before. Big things happen, sure, but the bombast of the FoHoX/RoPoX finales are much bigger. What I find most interesting about this issue is the use of Apocalypse. I'm pretty sure it's been accepted by most readers that Apocalypse serves as an embodiment of trauma. The generational trauma and violence that consumes the marginalized, that they have to overcome. So I find it so interesting how they use him here. When faced with the other side, when f
aced with a world as it should be, a world without hate and fear, Apocalypse turns violent. He cannot accept it. He won't accept it. He is trauma, and he won't be shed. It's such an incredibly powerful metaphor, I think, that genuinely gets to the heart of what X-Men is, and especially was during the Krakoan Era. In that way, I feel like this is an incredible way to send off Krakoa.
The rest of the issue is not quite so excellent. The Clairemont story is well-deserved. We finally get to see him chime in on what was initially his idea. And it mostly works. I feel like a better artist would've been welcome, but I don't have a large issue with it. The preview of what's to come has me both excited and nervous. Something that was so great about this era was how interconnected the mutants felt, and to separate them all again is... A choice. I'm not quite sold on all the pitches here, but I'm willing to give them a chance of course. I've read every single issue of the Krakoan Era, I'm not jumping off here. The creative teams look mostly great. I'm sure it'll be fun.
Also, briefly: Duggan's run on the X-Men had its ups and downs. It at times felt disconnected and all over the place, but I felt like it ultimately had more good than bad. Even the more lackluster issues were a fun read, at the very least. more
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Jun 05, 2024
I loved the Krakoan Age so I wasn't excited about it coming to an end, but I found the ending pretty satisfying. Throughout Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X I was confused why the X-Men couldn't just return to Krakoa after it all, but here they give us the answer. I like that they were able to wrap up this status quo while still giving a feeling that it mattered and was worth something, rather than just dropping a nuke on Krakoa and putting the X-Men back to the brink of extinction. The art here is very good, with the exception of Claremont's backup story, but it still gets annoying changing artists every few pages. I am happy with the Krakoa saga and the way it ended, so I'll definitely pick up a Fall of X omnibus if it's
ever announced. more
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Jun 07, 2024
The ‘Fall of X’ arc should have just been Apocalypse going on a revenge tour because mutants fell to Orchis& then Kafka returning to teach them the meaning of Krakoa. You could have still had major plots like the WHR & done away with the absurdity of Enigma & Dominion which forced writers to explain confusing concepts more than tell stories.
All in all, X-Men #35 was probably as perfect an ending to Krakoa as possible at this point, given how poorly things were executed towards the end. The issue had way too many epilogues & tried to set too much up for the next era, but the Apocalypse stuff was perfect.
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Jun 13, 2024
I think this issue revolves around one very large question: was Krakoan worth it?
And while I have plenty of gripes about the way Fall of X was handled from an editorial standpoint, I'm left with the same conclusion that Ewing, Gillen, and Duggan come to: Yes, Krakoa was a resounding success. I can't remember the last time X-Men comics in particular felt this interesting and fresh. There was a level of excitement around the line that I don't believe has existed since the early '00s at best. The vast majority of books that came out in the Krakoan era presented new ideas, fresh concepts, and bold character interactions that challenged me as a reader.
This issue in particular is fascinating because it somehow manages to perform magic i
n the following ways:
- It wraps up Krakoa in a satisfying way while leaving the door open for it's return. The idea that mutants have evolved to meet the needs of their environment rather than as some sort of survival of the fittest is truly brilliant as it takes evolution to it's logical conclusion. The resurrection of ALL of the Genoshan mutants truly felt like a perfect bookend, undoing the original sin from Morrison's highly influential run.
- "The Quiet Counsel listens. That's why we're quiet" - from Kafka was chef's kiss good.
- It manages to set up a return to a normal status quo (ie mutants as outsiders in a world that distrusts and hates them) without it feeling forced. The mutants who fought for Krakoa just aren't necessary anymore for the nation to thrive in the White Hot Room in times of peace and prosperity. I honestly can't believe how well they threaded the needle here. It makes perfect sense that those who have only known war, bigotry and trauma would be unable to let it go. Apocalypse's role this issue perfectly exemplifies this.
- The conversation between Xavier and Charles was damn near perfect. No notes. I also loved how we're both starting and ending Krakoa with Charles in a helmet. While I'm not sure they nailed all the little details of Xavier's downfall, the broad strokes worked and it sets up McKay and Simone and the rest with a good jumping off point.
Overall I'm going to miss Krakoa dearly. It was easily the biggest, boldest swing either Big 2 publisher has taken in a decade and we're all the better as readers for it. Congrats and thanks to all the creative teams (and Jonathan Hickman especially) for taking us on this wild ride. more
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Jun 05, 2024
And thus ends an era. The issue itself is a solid conclusion, with the idea of what happened to the mutants stuck in the White Hot Room being a particularly lovely idea — I adore the concept of the Krakoan dream ascending to Heaven, leaving its flawed architects behind to exist forever in an unreachable eternity. But it suffers in places from the rift in talent between its writers, with (presumably) Ewing giving a lovely scene between a reborn Magneto and Xavier and (unmistakably) Duggan giving us one last moment of out-of-character ultraviolence with Nightcrawler casually ripping out an enemy's eyes.
The Krakoan era was an odd beast, reinvigorating the X-Men at a time when I would have sworn they were a dead concept continuing on for
no reason except that they were lucrative IP, but designed to merely be phase one of a never-completed Hickman megaplot.
The concept always had a sloppiness that reiterated its originally limited intentions, a sort of Potemkin village where only the protagonists were ever real. Krakoa was an island with no media, no art, no sports, no culture, few living spaces and no place to go except the one tiki bar with the one bartender, a place where nobody seemed to mind that the architect of one of the worst genocides in mutant history was on the ruling council or that the ruling council was self-appointed. (While much of that is because it wasn't meant to last so long, an innate aversion to democracy has always marked Hickman's constructions.) For all its immense utopian promises Krakoa was never more than a storehouse for NPCs who seemed to do little with their lives but stand around waiting to be added to the cast of the 27th monthly X-title. One could fairly accuse Krakoa of being little more than the high-concept equivalent of the smoke that endlessly drifts around a Liefeld character's feet.
But Krakoa was also a framework that forced writers to tell new and exciting stories at a time when the X-Men had been lost in the metaphorical wilderness through years of storytelling that was either sloppy (Bendis, Fraction), lazy and uninspired (Guggenheim, Lemire), or Whedon. Krakoa forced writers out of the comfort zones that they'd been trapped in with brilliant new ideas like the resurrection protocols, which broke the X-Men free from the drab cycle of routine deaths and returns and forced writers to find new ways to make the threat of death meaningful. Krakoa opened the door to new stories and new ways of looking at the X-Men in a way that nothing else had even come close to since Morrison. And while the era had its duds, there were some truly great comics that came out in the last five years: HoXPox, Way of X, Hellions, Sabretooth, X-Men: Red, Immortal X-Men — and of course the greatest of them all, X-Terminators.
And now we're headed into the backlash era. Just as Austen and Whedon followed Morrison, the conservative "back to basics" retrenchment must come after all experimental phases in superhero comics because corporate IP management means superheroes can never grow and change more than temporarily these days. I'm excited about the creative teams (I mean, Gail Simone writing X-Men!!!) and ready to love the new era and certainly ready to move on from the quagmire of Fall of X. But whatever critiques I had of it, I'm truly sad to see Krakoa go. more
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Jun 27, 2024
A fitting end to the Krakoan age. A representative issue of all that made this era special yet flawed. Duggan/Ewing/Gillen have taken over the reigns, flown and landed the Hickman plane albeit with much tumultuous turbulence yet memorable work on many like Sinister, Storm, Eric and many others that will live on. I enjoyed most of it. The art team on this mini book was damn good. they all delivered but the highlight for me was Jerome Opena. Yes those pages were a neck breaker but masterpieces nonetheless which makes me long for him to come back and do some Marvel work soon.
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Jul 17, 2024
I have read a good chunk of the comics from the Krakoa Era (and I still plan on reading certain ones I missed out on), and I can say that this was a fairly strong conclusion. I'm sad to it go, as I feel like it drastically changed the status quo (in the primary timeline/continuity) for a group of characters in a way that isn't seen a whole lot in Marvel and DC currently. It gave way to so many interesting and great ideas, in my opinion. But, all great things must come to an end. I do feel as though From the Ashes has promise, considering the creative teams and pitches. Moving back to this issue itself, there's a lot to like here. The main story really felt like a nice way for the mutants to move on from Krakoa, while also not completely eli
minating it from the world. Noto was a great pick to do the majority of the art here. The backup stories weren't bad either. Overall, this felt like a nice, heartfelt ending of an innovative era, with seeds for the future planted as well. more
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Jun 12, 2024
A mostly satisfying end to a flawed but interesting run.
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Jul 02, 2024
Art: 4/5
Story: 4/5
Total: 8/10
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Jul 21, 2025
I have mixed feelings about this final issue. I love the Krakoa era. Probably one of my favorite eras of X-Men honestly. I really don’t understand why it had to go. I feel like a new crop of writers could have continued telling intriguing stories while mutants still have their island nation. But since good things don’t last forever, especially in comics, is this a satisfying farewell to Krakoa? Well…mostly I guess. I appreciate the writers finding a way for Krakoa to continue; even if all our favorite mutants won’t be tagging along with it. That page showing Krakoa rising out of the ocean did make me tear up a tad. So on an emotional level I think this issue hit the way it was supposed to. The Apocalypse scene was pretty fitting for
his character and I like the way that fight played out. Overall I’d say this was a decent issue even though I think Krakoa should’ve been here to stay. more
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Jun 16, 2024
It's a decent send off and tribute to Krakoa. Nothing extraordinary, nothing bad.
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Nov 15, 2025
Well, there you have it. So ends the "first" Krakoan age. I wager any ending to my favourite X-Men era of all time would've been bitter no matter what, but I can't help but be slightly disappointed. I'm definitely glad they left open the possibility for a return to Krakoa down the road, but it's hard not to lament what could have been. Even for a big fan of a the Krakoan era like myself, it's undeniable that this whole era peaked right at the very beginning and that it's lowest point was the very end. I don't think anyone can argue that Gerry Duggan at his best during this era holds a candle to Jonathan Hickman at his worst. That in itself is sad, but all that being said, it still doesn't take away from the many, MANY highlights from this e
ra: Immortal X-Men, X-Men: Red, Hellions, S.W.O.R.D, Way of X, Legion of X, A.X.E. Judgment Day...to name a few. So even though Krakoa goes with more of a fizzle than a bang, I choose to remember the best that this era gave us and hope, like I'm sure the mutants do, that the next Krakoan age will be even better. more
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Jun 11, 2024
This issue is a totally nonsensical, complete disgrace of storytelling and an insult not just for X-Men fans, but for the trees that were pointlessly cut down to produce this garbage that pretends to be a comic book.
Thus, a fitting ending to the Krakoan era.
I'm just so glad it's over that I'm not going to criticize the fact that these writers are so dumb they simply can't come up with better ideas to end the story than "the whole island literally just disappears", "it moved to another dimension or something, please don't ask".
That's actually OK, this way I can pretend that the last 4 or 5 years just never happened. I can pretend that the X-Men are not evil, and that they are actually themselves instead of clones, I can pretend the
y never did the horrible things they did.
Still, Magneto is good and Xavier is evil now, that's weird.
Well, Xavier is a white privileged dude who lives in a mansion, of course he was bad all along, it's just that we were too bigoted to see it.
Being cancelled is no fun, so I won't share my thoughts of the politics in here and the leftist utopia propaganda speech presented by the fairy, diverse, and not very masculine krakoan mutant of the other dimension.
Let's talk about the extras, first, the Chris Claremont short Nightcrawler story:
I would have never thought I would deeply dislike anything written by Chris Claremont, yet here we are. Are we sure Claremont did that?
It feels so weird and off-putting.
There's a reason why Jim Shooter (allegedly) rejected THAT original idea for Nightcrawler's origin, that short story is why.
The worst part is that there's a moment where Nightcrawler says he was tempted to commit murder, which is completely out of character, even worse is that it was his mother Mystique he wanted to kill. I mean, DAMN!
The prologue of From The Ashes was... not bad and... somewhat refreshing? I guess? At least it was nice to look at and it was well put together (unlike anything from the X-office in the past 3 years), it's also pleasant to see that the status quo is somewhat back to normal even though Xavier being a captive villain and Magneto being a hero doesn't make sense and the fact that Jean Grey is now a goddess because she has completely merged with the Phoenix force undermines the great importance of the Dark Phoenix Saga and her first real death, now it was all for nothing.
I guess it doesn't matter if you destroy decades of history of a character if you get in return an empowered female icon so OP that doesn't have any challenges, isn't that right, Carol Danvers?
But how is she still married to Scott? How can they still be a couple if she is out there in the cosmos reigniting suns or whatever? When was the last time they got married? When Jean hooked up with Wolverine during Krakoa, was she Scott's wife? Sorry, I digress.
Another thing that doesn't make sense is that Cyclops' team is supposed to be people he trusts, right?
He trusts Hank, of course, but does he trust Magneto? Or good ol' Juggie? What about obnoxious Kid Omega? Is he the only one who cares about Oya?
I'm sure he trusts my man Colossus, but he is not in the team, her sometimes crazy sister is, does Cyclops trust her? Maybe...
I understand why anyone would like asian Psylocke in the team, but Betty's character (eternally butchered to fit into the lesbian icon category) is not under that body, Kwannon is, and nobody knows anything about her really, other than she is a ninja (and one of the hottest girls in comics), would Cyke trust her?
X-Men needs good character dynamics, if the characters mix well the book will work, but I don't think they will, I'd like McKay to prove me wrong, but I don't think he will.
Inconsistent stuff across the board, but if we get just a couple of good on-going series in a sea of awful mini-series waiting to be announced, it would be a WIN. Problem is, that is unlikely.
Asking for 1 good title is a lot for the big two right now (there aren't good titles), asking for 2 is a dream. No hope. Still, I want them to surprise me.
I'm telling you, if "From The Ashes" doesn't bring any good series at all, I give up on new comics, I can't take it anymore, it's not healthy. more
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Jun 09, 2024
I assume the grade for this book is so high because most people who actually like X-Men have long since left the book. I suppose someone has to post an alternate view for those in the future wanting to get a read of what this book is like. Avoid this like the plague. This is a disaster.
This book sums up the failure of the Kraoka era. Please note for this review I am not an America and I assume it is this cultural difference which puts a different lens on it for me. I do not take pleasure is segregation or hating my neighbour. This book is almost a love song in some ways to the idea that segregation is right and that things are always better if you just eliminate people who dont have the same views as you. It endorses everything about th
e fear that sweeps the world (in 2024). It is hard to work together with others. Real life is hard and its hard to do the right thing most of the time. X-men 35 finishes off this era with the bad guys winning, the good guys joining them in a pro-segregation way and the destruction of Xavier's dream. The fact that Magneto gives that speech to Xavier in the dream. You literally have the mutant supremacist giving the good guy speech.
This all felt dirty. It ends and era and starts a new era deeply tainted. Mutants are monsters with many of them seemingly ok with just separating themselves (this Krakoa in a bubble BS). Xavier getting a guy to kill himself at the end is just madness. Like way to establish him as a total monster. Way to ruin his dream. This entire era was a disaster and a terrible 'take' on the X-Men. So If you have loved the old x-men. This isnt it. This era feels like a celebration of hate.
I honestly shouldnt even be rating this book as I dont want (I have hated this series the last while) to but seeing all these 9 and 10/10s baffles me so future readers deserve a bit more of a balanced take.
Phil's art is mostly good. more
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/35.webp "X-Men #35")
