(This article contains spoilers for this week’s X-Men #20.)
Marvel Comics has released one of their patented cryptic teasers for a new X-Men series, Inferno, from writer and architect of the current X-era Jonathan Hickman.
“The biggest mysteries of Jonathan Hickman’s X-Men era burn away in Inferno!,” the text accompanying the image reads. The image itself, which features images all in shades of fiery red and yellow, includes identifiable figures Magneto, Xavier, Mystique, and (most likely) Emma Frost. The larger part of the teaser below the text features a close-up of an unidentified woman’s eye, and an image of a baby.
Mystique’s inclusion, the title of the series, and the timing of the teaser’s release indicates this story may spin directly out of the end of this week’s X-Men #20. The issue followed up on Mystique’s deal with Xavier and Magneto to have her wife, the precognitive Irene “Destiny” Adler, moved to the front of the line for resurrection on Krakoa. After Mystique fails to stop Nimrod from coming online – a failure it’s implied that Xavier and Magneto anticipated – the two refuse to address the issue of resurrecting Destiny. The issue brings back
The final pages of the issue, seen above, feature dialogue from Destiny that first appeared last year in 2020’s X-Men #6, in which Destiny tells Mystique that she needs to bring her back, and that “if you cannot…if they will not…then burn that place to the ground.” The ‘Inferno’ of the teaser, then, seems likely to be Mystique taking her anger out on Krakoa for its leaders’ refusal to resurrect her wife.
Of course, Charles and Magneto promised Moira MacTaggert — who was revealed during House of X and Powers of X to be a mutant with the ability to reincarnate, in her own body, with all the memories of her previous lives — that they would not resurrect Destiny, for fear that having a precognitive mutant on Krakoa would reveal the secret that mutantkind always loses to humanity.
Or it could be something completely different! Who knows!
Look for more info on Inferno as it’s released by Marvel. The series, whatever it may be, is set to debut in September.
