
Credits:
X-Men: Red #8 – Al Ewing writes; Madibek Musabekov draws; Federico Blee colors; Ariana Maher letters
X-Men: Red #9 – Stefano Caselli draws
#8: “Mission to the Unknown”
Cable in free fall combat with a giant future-o Mysterio? Nah. What is this? How did we get from A.X.E. to this?! Well, hey dummy, that’s Orbis Stellaris way up there! He just got a big ol’ body since we last saw him in issue #4—and yeah, I guess he identifies as a he, only while he looks like a glittering beachball himbo, he’s really just a scummy interstellar weapons-dealing sleazeball, one of Abigail Brand’s partners in space crime (first appearing in Ewing’s S.W.O.R.D. #6 as a member of another Ewing creation, the Galactic Rim, sort of the EU of the galaxy, economically at least; or that’s what Hercules said in 2021’s GOTG #15!). Also, Orbis’ origins are Terran, per a data page in S.W.O.R.D. #11, but it seems very few know this about him; outwardly, he presents as an inscrutable alien.
(Hmmm. Why make the mysteriously orbed Orbis from Earth originally? I wonder if there’s a surprise under that inscrutable geodesic! Of course, it just wouldn’t do to have a big unrelated reveal before the winter X-event kicks off, right?)
So, Ewing is getting right back to the title’s pre-A.X.E. plot, minus Magneto. It seems like Cable will now be the cast’s old white alpha male, but he is awesome, we haven’t seen enough of him in recent years and anyway, who better to take down Brand? Beto and Takeshi, of course!
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These two issues focus on the culmination of Brand’s secret plot and switch back and forth between Cable and his crew driving into deep space to track down the sample of techno-organic virus Brand stole from him (in issue #2) and a calamitous meeting of galactic powers at Arakko’s Diplomatic Ring.
The story opens with Cable recruiting Weaponless Zsen, whose budding mercenary career has stalled out somewhere in deep space, at Gosnell’s Bar (a Ewing GOTG venue), where she’s wasting time with a pair of lame-wad Rocket and Herc wannabes (actually, Blackjack O’Hare is one of Rocket’s “fellow” Halfworlders, while the full origin of Otherone, aka Prince of Power, is too goofily complex to go into here; suffice to say here that this sweet meathead is the current possessor of the Power Stone, one of the six Infinity Gems; see Ewing’s GOTG Annual #1).
Zsen’s last appearance was Legion of X #5 (she’s a Spurrier/LOX character), where she left Arakko to become an interstellar merc—just before Uranos’ planet-wide attack, over which she expresses regret here that she missed out on the epic call to action. Remember, this seemingly young lady is no stranger to war (like all her fellow Arakkii). X-Men: Red #6 clearly implied that her father is the Fisher King, with whom she’s on the outs according to the opening scene here; that is a tale for another time.
While her father is truly “weaponless” in the Arakkii sense, meaning he has no mutant powers, Zsen is superpowered, only her power-set doesn’t have battlefield application, supposedly; yet being able to “paint the truth” (Legion of X #1) could surely be put to some ingenious martial use—though on the other hand, it should be perfectly okay to have a power entirely detached from any agenda or conflict. Instead, because she has chosen or (more realistically) been conditioned to a life of fighting, she wields fearsome arm blades, for which she says she “paid dearly;” considering she received them from the Locus Vile, there’s surely untold horror and pain behind that stock phrase.
However, Cable tells her here that her mutant powers do have a conflict application, but what he’s thinking will have to wait—until issue #10, presumably!
Khora, whom we just found in issue #6 is Zsen’s sister, first teamed up with Cable in Cable: Reloaded, also by Ewing, and I look forward to Zsen brought into the fold of the X-Men: Red cast. She apparently has drama with both her father and her sibling (who, yes, assassinated royal Snarks at Brand’s behest; see S.W.O.R.D. #5).
As Cable readies his crew to go after Brand “the long way ’round,” we switch to the Diplomatic Zone, where Gladiator, Paibok (the “Power Skrull”), Frenzy and Nova are already in attendance at the Ring. Empress Xandra is on her way, Super-Skrull is too violently angry to attend and Storm is mysteriously absent—call that last Chekhov’s loaded gun conspicuously absent from the stage.
Per the data page, the meeting’s been called over a dispute between the Kree/Skrull Alliance and the Shi’ar, which we’ll find out is Brand’s doing, although the cause of the Skrulls’ grief is quite real. From her station, Brand watches the drama remotely, the sleazy simp Metallo at her side. It is odd that Hulkling would send those parties who would express the most justified grief over the tragedy at Shapeless Ridge (which here receives its first full explanation after brief allusions in previous Ewing stories Rocket #5 and Empyre #3, 6; Super-Skrull apparently chose not to attend of his own accord). Hulkling’s peaceable attitude suggests that he might not be aware of what’s going on? After all, while Empress Xandra is there, there’s no mention of her opposite number’s absence.
Xandra surprises everyone by conceding that, yes, the Shi’ar decades ago fed false information to the Kree to get them to attack a defenseless Skrull hospital while believing it was a legitimate terrorist target. How timely in speaking to our own present-day wars of empire. She says it’s one of her empire’s Ten Shames, which were introduced as a concept in Steve Orlando’s first Marauders arc, where the Empress proved effective and quite different from her predecessors in getting out in front of these imperial atrocities rather than continue to cover them up (and stockpile the shame and secrecy and distrust associated).
Back with Cable’s team, we see him and Takeshi briefing the rest of the crew on discovering Brand’s secrets while she was dead. They know she’s working with or rather playing with Orchis, while also teaming up with other unsavories across the galaxy, like Orbis Stellaris (as first seen in S.W.O.R.D. #9-10). First, the team is to go after that stolen T-O virus sample, and it turns out it’s in the possession of the Progenitors whom Cable died fighting back in issue #2 (when Brand surreptitiously sampled his virus). So, they’re rocketing into deep space to raid the Progenitors’ World Farm, which was first introduced in Ewing’s 2017 Royals, where they were depicted as far more powerful and cosmically godlike than what we’ve seen in this title (Gotta love, though, that Ewing really seems in charge of his own cosmic Ewing-verse at this point!).
Hilariously, Cable offhandedly comments that he’s had decades to think about Brand’s scheming since, after all, he was just a teenager at the start of the Krakoa era, haha (Also note that an Einstein-Rosen bridge is a theoretical type of wormhole in space connecting A-Z without passing through the rest of the alphabet)!
At the World Farm, many cosmic mysteries start coming together, including the bizarre trio of aliens Hickman briefly introduced in X-Men #10, the ones who held an unconscious Vulcan captive and psionically vivisected him to plant some kind of timebomb of eldritch evil in the witless hothead. Here, Cable’s team learns as much as readers were given in that baffling issue of X-Men but not much more—yet.
If Brand knew about the specifics of Orbis’ evil alien vivisecting of Vulcan, she’s even more pompous and high on her own swagger than we thought: A completely unhinged Vulcan not in control of himself is not something anyone should want unleashed, especially not in proximity to the planet that they’re supposedly fighting in defense of. Pretty f-ing stupid—such drama, such fun, such fire!
This first cliffhanger is followed by a data page detailing in brief the what and how of Brand’s scheming. Notable references include her twisted “on/off” relationship with the equally despicable Beast, dating back to Joss Whedon’s mid-2000s Astonishing X-Men; the Vescori who infested the old S.W.O.R.D. station during “X of Swords;” Brand quitting Alpha Flight at the end of the “Empyre” event (a great epilogue there in Empyre: Aftermath Avengers #1); her replacement Henry Gyrich, whom she murdered in S.W.O.R.D. #11; her use of Ewing’s Krakoan Six in issue #1 to secure mysterium that she then turned into currency (playing the heroes at this point); using the Arakkii Khora to assassinate claimants to the Snark throne during the title’s early issues; and Knull from the “King in Black” event’s many tie-ins, which gobbled up way too much page real estate during S.W.O.R.D.’s early issues.
Her long-term plan since the rise of Krakoa has been five-phase: Cultivate and Prepare Useful Allies (Krakoa; Beast; Vulcan; Orbis); Seize Opportunities (help along the terraforming of Mars post-XOS; engineer interstellar economic collapse post-Empyre); Consolidate Power (refurbish S.W.O.R.D. station with Krakoan backing; use mysterium to save interstellar economy and get a seat on the Galactic Council; use the Six to unwittingly further interstellar chaos that Brand can reorder to her liking; pitch Arakko Mars as Sol System’s power center; ally with Orchis as useful idiots); Trigger Crisis (Arakkii/Terran establishment friction; resurrect an insane Vulcan; leak the Shi’ar’s role in “Shapeless Ridge” atrocity; during diplo talks unleash “Emperor” Vulcan—lots of death, intergalactic war); Crisis Becomes Advantage (hilariously, she thinks she can “guilt” the X-Men into booting the Arakkii back to Amenth—the hubris! Vulcan’s brothers will feel bad about being fooled by their crazed long-lost sibling; Brand’s S.W.O.R.D. will absorb Orchis, which will then become wholly docile; and speaking for Sol System, she’ll make everything just peachy keen in this far-flung corner of the galaxy—right).
#9: “Return of the King”
But which king is that, now? 😉
On the cover, we see Brand playing her intricate chess game, apparently pausing with a broken Storm piece in hand. If she thinks she’s broken anyone, especially Ororo of the Storm—well, she’s got another thing comin’!
Given last issue’s cliffhanger, the narrative starts with a brief flashback to the immediate past…
We open with a memo from Xavier to the Council, which lets us know how much old Chuck has been bamboozled by Brand in getting Vulcan resurrected now that star Omega Magneto is permanently gone. Hilariously, he claims in writing that he would never tamper with anyone’s memories, yada yada yada—unless an “absolute necessity” conveniently presents itself. Oh, how often it has, Charles!
Everyone with any visions of power in this era, even the “good” guys, are drinking their own Kool-Aid.
Stunningly, Vulcan’s husk snatches his engram from Xavier (“he took it from me,” through gritted teeth). Cyclops, too, has been taken in by Xavier’s reckless approach. And that is, um, pretty damn weird, considering the history there (see especially X-Men: Deadly Genesis, which also debuts Vulcan). Havok is, oddly, the voice of reason here—wild (though, come to think of it, he has been much on the receiving end of Quiet Council stupidity, most recently in Hellions). (Note that no one else but Legion, as far as we know, has been able to complete their own resurrection process.)
It appears Vulcan flew straight to Arakko for his meeting with his mad imperial destiny. His first question is for Deathbird: “How’s my son?” Her pregnancy was revealed after his supposed death in “War of Kings” (see 2014’s X-Men #18, the doldrums of the Guggenheim run), but the child wasn’t mentioned again until Hickman’s New Mutants #5—and then nada since. Guggenheim had his multi-species geneticist cabal from across nearby galaxies, the Providian Order, experiment on Deathbird’s unborn babe. Oy vey. Very likely, that’s what she’s referring to here. No doubt, the next time this thread is picked up on we’ll have another cosmic super-baby!
Nova correctly accuses Gabriel of “starting a galactic war for kicks” (2009’s “War of Kings,” which also saw the death of Lilandra, Gabriel’s usurpation of the Shi’ar throne and much more chaos).
And yes, John Byrne established in Fantastic Four #249 that Gladiator is powered by self-confidence, something of a riff on Superman, unsurprisingly (this alien superman always had a similar powerset).
It’s interesting that Brand as master schemer is much more effective than her boyfriend, at least as written by Percy over in X-Force; Beast just comes off as an irritating though homicidal buffoon.
While fireworks are popping off at the Diplomatic Ring, Cable’s crew battles Orbis Stellaris who has commandeered the body of a Progenitor—who, again, have really been taken down a peg in this narrative. Apparently, he even created the trio of ghoulish aliens that we saw in Hickman’s X-Men #10, which is a bit deflating, as well. But who knows, there probably is more to them; they do seem to have their own thing going on, and Orbis’ own nature, whatever it is exactly, doesn’t appear to be inherently superpowered. Again, though, we don’t know at this point.
Back the Ring again, Vulcan beats everyone handily, stealing their energies, before going in for the kill—assassinating Xandra in a wash of fire. But instead of the Empress in the throne, it’s another fire-eater, Beto!
Now, this here is the return of the king, the Sun King of the embiggening cosmic Ewing-verse, the king of no one was paying attention to this apparently himbo playboy—until too damn late! Remember when Bobby bought A.I.M. back in Ewing’s New Avengers and leveled-up as a peer among Earth’s Mightiest? Yeah, not even Sunspot-and-Cannonball diehard Hickman saw that one coming when he tossed that duo into the big leagues at the start of his Avengers tenure a decade ago.
Now, we get Sunspot’s plan, a hilarious counterpoint to Brand’s as laid out last issue. One glaring point of contrast is just how clear it’s becoming that Brand has been much, much, much too clever for her own good (though her ill in this regard means everyone else’s keisters out of the fire, so to speak):
Beto’s plan is devastatingly simple: Check My Reflection (of course, “Style remains vital”); Work Out Brand’s Next Move (his sophisticated read on Brand looks so obvious, it makes you wonder how she ever got as far as she has); and What Would I Do?—Evil Version (putting himself in Abigail’s jackboots) and Non-Evil (brainstorm a few chill ideas, cross ’em off till he gets to the most stylish option: “Empress is me in an image inducer? Boom”)—Boom. Hot Tub (“no secrets” there!)—Boom.
This is Beto’s “steaming pile of secrets” deployed (see issue #6’s best one-liner).
This is: “Roberto accomplished.”
This is one gutsy checkmate, or really a psyche-out. Vulcan is just mad for that throne, so he bugs out before he can do any more damage (most of which has been illusory, thanks to Beto’s tricksy scheme) and goes a-hunting for the Empress—thinking she’s holed up in Magneto’s Autumn Palace.
But hoo boy is he going to find a different empress altogether. Of course, Brand has, once again, underestimated Storm. That’s where you know all along she was going to trip on her own laces.

Next time in X-Men: Red: The culmination of Ewing’s Krakoa work so far?! Hope so! Because after that, it’s time to go sidewise into alterity with “Sins of Sinister,” 2023!
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