It's the bloody Phoenix again
X-Men: Forever is a four issue limited comic book series from Marvel Comics. It's written by Kieron Gillen with art by Luca Maresca and is part of the wider X-Men: The Krakoan Age and its grand finale.
The series forms part of the Fall of the House of X (Crossover) and serves as a continuation of the plot of Immortal X-Men.
The Dominion has finally been revealed. Mother Righteous has failed to reach Dominion status. The mutants are still stuck in the White Hot Room. How do they get out of this and most importantly, how do they kill a digital God when the very thing it fears is bleeding in the afterlife?
The first issue was released March 20, 2024.
X-Men: Forever includes examples of the following tropes:
- Affably Evil: Enigma, in its chat with Destiny, is surprisingly cordial and polite, mainly because it doesn't yet feel like risking the timeline changing things by killing her... yet.
- Arc Words: As with Immortal X-Men, "We must be on the same side."
- Batman Gambit: Unable to find Mother Righteous on their own, Charles and Sinister tipped off Orchis to her whereabouts, and captured her after she's weakened from fleeing.
- Blind Seer. In issue #1, while still at the piano concert, Irene keeps hearing a whistling. Despite being blind, she sees god: the Enigma Dominion.
- Break the Haughty: Mother Righteous's smugness gets punctured, first by her failure to ascend, discovering a version of her progenitor's husband has beaten her to it, then Stasis and Orbis Stellaris storm her hideout, and Selene overpowers her. Escaping that, she's taken captive by Charles and Sinister.
- Chekhov's Gun: The book Destiny wrote in Immortal X-Men #4, and which she told Mystique not to read until the time came. Mystique finally reads it.
- Dirty Coward: Mother Righteous, now that she's revealed to the X-Men. Her initial plan is beg to be spared long enough to destroy her remote-controlled clone and spite them, and when confronted by Stasis and Orbis, set them on one another while she runs away.
- Dramatic Irony: Rasputin refuses to trust Mother Righteous, and thinks the X-Men should just kill her, what with having spent near a thousand years being manipulated by one Sinister already. She's unaware that she's already working with another Sinister, in the cloned body of Cypher.
- Drop Dead Gorgeous: The cover for issue 1
depicts Jean Grey sprawled unconscious on the snow in her form-fitting suit, seemingly uninjured but with a huge splatter of blood in the shape of a Phoenix around her. - Enemy Mine: After being captured, Mother Righteous agrees to cooperate against Enigma because she really doesn't want a version of her progenitor's ex-husband Nathaniel Essex as god.
- Foregone Conclusion: The first issue ends with Charles dispatching Rasputin IV into the timeline to try and prevent Dr. Stasis' own ascension attempts. Rise of the Powers of X having already shown their failure to do so, a fact Charles was aware was always a possibility.
- Hide Your Gays: In issue #1, Irene and Raven are accompanied by two gentlemen "from the clubs" to a piano concert, the gentlemen being their chaperones to cover up the women's relationship, and vice versa. This being the late-19th century Victorian Age, this subterfuge was necessary for everyone involved.
- How We Got Here: Issue #1 shows how Xavier captured Mother Righteous and drafted her to the No-Place X-Men, as seen in Rise of the Powers of X.
- Hysterical Woman: Orbis Stellaris mocks Righteous for being too emotional to be a Dominion.
- Immediate Sequel: Issue #1 happens immediately after the end of Immortal X-Men #18: Destiny beats the crap out of Mother Righteous and scolds her for contributing to the Dominion Enigma's ascension, as Jean Grey lies dying and tended to by Exodus.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Shaw helps Charles catch Mother Righetous, and then asks him to wipe the knowledge of this from his mind so Orchis can't extract the knowledge from him later.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Shaw's motivation for helping get Righteous is screwing her over for screwing him over first.
- No-Sell: Previously, every time Mother Righteous has cashed in one of her favors from a mark, there's been no way for them to resist it. When she tries it on Selene, however, Selene just shrugs it off. She's got several thousand years more experience, and knows the loopholes.
- Once More, with Clarity: The scene from Immortal X-Men #1 where Destiny and Sinister talked is revisited, showing exactly what Irene told him.
- Recycled Title: The X-Men Forever title has been used before, although the colon is a new addition.
- Sequel Series: To Immortal X-Men. Kieron Gillen and Mark Brooks continue as the writer and cover artist respectively from Immortal X-Men.
- Simultaneous Arcs: With Rise of the Powers of X and Dead X-Men.
- Synchronization: One of the downsides of her remote body is Mother Righteous feels everything her duplicate feels, and as the story begins Irene is beating the tar out of her.
- Tears of Joy: When Righteous tells Xavier the mutants that went missing from Krakoa are alive, he falls to his knees and sheds tears of relief.
- Tell Him I'm Not Speaking to Him: Destiny's immediate concern on regaining contact with regular reality is demanding to know what's become of Mystique, who is physically fine and dandy... but she's found that book of Destiny's prophecies and is refusing to speak to her.
- Wicked Cultured: Enigma may be a Mechanical Abomination out to crush everything and absorb it into itself, but it still has some appreciation for music.Enigma: If you are free from time, why not spend some of it appreciating the best of British music?
