Second Coming Teaser - Someone's Gonna DIE

While it can't be considered a revelation when it was already revealed, a new teaser emerged for Second Coming. This one highlights the already confirmed fact that some major character will die in the course of Second Coming. Now Marvel has given some specifics.

An X-man Dies in X-Force #26

For one, we have an issue. X-Force, a book where blood and murder is as common as the rising sun, will be where the death takes place. That's not much of a surprise. What is a bit surprising is that they offered a list of characters. They include Colossus, Magik, Iceman, Angel, Emma Frost, Nightcrawler, and Cable. One of them is going to bite the dust and considering what has already been revealed, it's not as great a mystery as they make it out to be.

For one, Colossus and Magik are two characters who have already been killed. Would they dare doing it again? Not if they want to come off as unoriginal. Iceman? Doubtful, given he's been so marginalized it would have no impact. Angel? Same story to a lesser extent. He's had his role in X-Force as Archangel, but he's been pretty detached from the team for years. These would all have too little an impact for it to warrant such a tease. So who could it be?

Cable is an obvious candidate. He's been raising Hope in the future and battled hardship after hardship to protect her. Him making the ultimate sacrifice would be so fitting. It may be the thing that sends Hope on a collision course with her destiny. That being said, it makes way too much sense. Besides, Cable is already referenced in the future solicitation for Uncanny X-men 525. You would think the folk at Marvel would know details like that before throwing him onto a teaser.

Uncanny X-men #525

THE STORY:
“SECOND COMING”, CHAPTER TEN Things have never been worse for the X-Men. They’re stuck in an impregnable dome of Bastion’s creation. As if that's not bad enough, inside this dome is a portal to the Days of Future Past timeline through which thousands of Nimrod Sentinels are pouring. Cyclops has sent Cable, Cypher and X-Force on a suicide mission into the future to destroy the portal, but do they stand a chance?

Emma Frost? Now this could potentially be a bombshell. Emma dying would have a HUGE impact on the X-men, especially Scott. It might actually be fitting if the Phoenix is coming into the picture along with Jean Grey. It would take the emotional impact of Second Coming to a whole new level. Riots would break out. Message Boards would be on fire. Fanboys everywhere will be tripping out as if they took a bad hit of LSD. Problem is, it ain't happening.

The Marvel writing staff and editors have a huge boner for Emma Frost. Matt Fraction has declared his love for the White Queen more than once and would probably jump off the Empire State Building if he found out his favorite X-woman was being killed. Quesada loves her too and has gone on record as saying she's just too cool. There's also the little problem of the Heralds mini-series coming out in June. This is a mini that has Emma Frost in a starring role. Now it may be out of continuity, but that hasn't been affirmed yet. All indications are that it happens after Second Coming and Seine, which basically means Emma will be alive and well.

That leaves only Nightcrawler. Yes, here is a character who simply couldn't be a better candidate. He was in the first issue, he played a major role in confronting Scott about X-Force, and he's dealing with other mutants like Pixie and Magik who have the same powers he has. It would seem the teleporters club is getting crowded and who can they kill off? Will it be two adorably cute girls in a comic geared towards young males? Or will it be the demonic morality zealot who does more than any other character to hold true to the core principles of the X-men? Tough call, but Nightcrawler doesn't have boobs so he's out.

The odds are so good that Nightcrawler will die that you could probably mortgage your house and bet on it. This is a guy with too much competition who hasn't had a big moment in quite a while. Could there be a bigger moment than the ultimate sacrifice? If he wants to prove Cyclops that there is a price to pay for using tactics like X-Force, this is it. His sacrifice will send a huge message, one that will reverberate throughout the team. It works so well it might as well be fashioned from diamonds and made into jewelry.

That being said, it may make too much sense. Everybody is expecting Nightcrawler to die. That may be the only reason Marvel doesn't do it. The odds are still stacked against him, but there's always a chance it could go the other way. Someone completely unexpected could lose their battle with the grim reaper. Even if they do that doesn't mean they'll STAY dead. Who in comics ever truly dies these days? It's pretty much a joke, not that anyone can blame them. Good characters are hard to keep down. Whoever bites the dust, they can take comfort in the knowledge that the gates of Hell are a revolving door in the Marvel Universe.

X-men Second Coming: Prepare

The countdown has begun and Second Coming is merely a month away! To bill the event as the can't-miss X-men tale of the decade Marvel released a short teaser comic called Prepare this past Wednesday. It starts off by showing the teasers that have been released over the past few weeks that include

One will rise
One will fall
One will lead
One will sacrifice
All will unite

Then it breaks right into the event, showing a scene that occurs two days after Hope and Cable return to Utopia. Someone has died and various reactions are shown from the likes of Bobby, Cannonball, Cyclops, Magneto, Cable, and Wolverine. At one point the body is shown, albeit covered by a white sheet. It's impossible to see who it is, but it seems to be a major character. It has been listed in the solicits that someone will perish and Matt Fraction said himself in a recent interview it's someone he cherishes. So who could it be?

I'm tempted to be reasonable in determining who this may be, but as history has shown being reasonable doesn't always pan when you're trying to decide what Marvel is going to do. The prevailing sentiment is that Nightcrawler will die. He's not someone Fraction has written about that much so it may be a bit of a long shot. However, Wolverine did state that the victim was his "Friend" and he and Nightcrawler have always been good friends. I'm not sure about this. I give it about a 30 percent chance of happening.

Some go so far as to say that Emma will be the one that dies. This is just plain stupid. Marvel and Matt Fraction LOVE Emma Frost. Fraction would have quit months ago if he learned they were going to kill off his favorite X-woman and the other half of his favorite X-men couple with Scott and Emma. Plus, Quesada has said before he loves Scott and Emma as a couple too much. There's no way in hell he'll do anything to break them up. There were some hints. The outline of the body did show some female characteristics and Cannonball did say at one point he worried about how this was hurting Scott, but it's still doubtful. This is Emma Frost and Marvel seems determined to make her and Scott the new Jean and Scott, turning Emma into what is essentially a Jean Grey replacement. I've never liked this and always thought Joss Whedon did a better job of showing Emma as she should be shown. But the Marvel writers seem determined to undo history and turn Emma Frost into the golden girl Jean Grey once was. It's sad and maybe killing her would help put a stop to that, but for that very reason I give this a ZERO percent chance of happening.

I'm led to conclude that the one who dies will be Pixie. Here is a character that Fraction clearly loves and who has become more prominent as of late. Her dying would cause quite an impact and it wouldn't destroy too much of the core team. It would show just enough impact to really bring about the necessary shock value, but so much that it takes away from the story (unlike bullshit shock comics like Ultimatum). Of all the possible deaths, Pixie is the one that seems most likely and for that I give her a solid 50-50 shot.

Now aside from the death, there was also a part at the end that went over the history of the Phoenix Force. It asked What is the Phoenix Force? as if many X-fans don't already know. It gave a brief history of the Phoenix and spent time highlighting recent events where traces of the Phoenix force left both Rachel Grey and the Stepford Cuckoos. Then the focus turned to Hope Summers, offering yet another clue that she's going to be a new bearer of the Phoenix. They left it vague, stating only the Phoenix knows. But it also offers yet more proof that Marvel is trying to separate the Phoenix from Jean Grey. This is something that cannot and will not end well.

As I blogged earlier, Marvel has been trying since Phoenix Warsong to take Jean Grey out of the equation so they can have the star power of the Phoenix without bringing her back. Because bringing her back may mean that they can't have this bulldog version of Cyclops and cannot continue the Scott/Emma relationship, it's just unthinkable that they would use her again. Yet because she has so many passionate fans they can't just ignore her. So just using the Phoenix gives them a way to have their cake and eat it too. Even after they overtly said in Phoenix Endsong (which by the way sold WAY more than the Jean-less Warsong) that Jean is always Phoenix, they're treating the Phoenix like a separate entity. With no explanation, that's just poor storytelling. Jean and Phoenix are forever linked and to use one without the other is to completely disrespect the characters.

Now this could all be made right if Hope turns out to be Jean in human form, but again that would make too much sense. Marvel seems intent on keeping Jean out of the picture so they can keep Scott and Emma. This is something that only hurts stories, having to force something so that a bias version of a character must remain. This is what led to One More Day and the Clone Saga. It seems it can only be remedied if someone other than Matt Fraction or Joe Quesada aren't present anymore. Since that doesn't appear to be happening, the chances of a clean resolution are slim at best.

As always, however, I hold out because I have been wrong before. Marvel has surprised me with uncanny awesomeness like Messiah Complex, Messiah War, X-Force, and Nation X. So I go into second coming with an equal amount of excitement and trepidation. I'm not expecting everything to be cleanly handled. I'm expecting awesomeness that will blow my face clean off my skull. This is the third and final chapter to the Messiah Trilogy. The first two set the stage in a big way and I'm just aching to see how it all comes together. Despite my cynicism for how Marvel handles characters like Scott, Emma, and Jean Grey there is far more awesome than non-awesome. March cannot come quickly enough and my appetite for Second Coming has officially been stoked!

The Final Second Coming Teaser (For Now)

Well, Marvel has finally come full circle. The last of the Second Coming teasers was released earlier today.

All Will Unite

No, it's not referring to the second X-men movie. It's referring to Second Coming, but you would be forgiven for making that mistake. It does seem to have a similar theme. But hey, the second X-men movie was actually good (the last dose of awesomeness before Ratner destroyed it). If they're going to lift anything from another source, it might as well be awesome.

So the final message says as follows:

One will sacrifice...
One will lead...
One will die...
One will rise...
All will unite.

You could practically put it in a Hallmark Greeting Card and send one to every X-men fan and they should be able to get the gist of it. So the Messiah Trilogy is finally set to come to an end and these teasers have made some ominous hints. They've implied that there will be a power struggle between Magneto, Cyclops, and Emma. They implied that a major character will die (whether they'll stay dead, however, is another matter). They imply someone will rise and in the X-universe the only being famous for that is the Phoenix. So it would be quite an oversight if that wasn't at least mentioned (and Jean Grey as well, but that's a long shot considering how much the X-staff seems to hate her). In the end it's supposed to unite mutants even as they stand on the path to extinction. That doesn't exactly seem to fit with the very gloomy references mentioned in the recent X-Solicitations for May 2010. There appears to be a lot of doom and gloom through much of this event. Unless Marvel is now partnered with Prozac as well as Disney, there better be some uplifiting news in the June Solicitations.

But what form could it take? The premise is all centered on Hope. The X-men have been holding out for her and are hoping she can finally fulfill her destiny. But what that destiny is hasn't been revealed and some seem to want to guide it down a certain path. Magneto certainly seems to have his own agenda as he always does. Then there's Bastion, who appears to be the main bad guy here. Although I have to admit I think they could do better. Bastion never struck me as a villain on the same level as Sinister or Apocalypse. I suppose since they already used up all the big villains they're tapping the bottom of the bin. Can he measure up? Only time will tell.

Whatever the case it does not appear that there are any long term plans for Hope. Either she's going to die at the end of this or she'll become marginalized in some way. I still want to believe she'll lead to the return of Jean Grey, but as Marvel has shown previously they really don't care for her and will do everything they can to resist bringing her back. Plus, the idea of another redhead just seems to sicken them so I have little hope for Hope. If and when she does have to make that sacrifice, it better be drenched in awesomeness to make it worth while.

Second Coming is shaping up to be a big event, looking to draw together everything since M-Day. It's a tall order. A lot of loose ends have yet to be resolved. Will all of them be addressed? We can only Hope. And yes that pun was intended.