The Marvel Rivals game has taken off like a storm, dazzling millions of fans around the world, and introducing them all to the wide and wacky world of Marvel Comics. With the release of its second season just on the horizon, now is a good time to look at one aspect of the game that most non-comic fans probably knew nothing about when they first learned of it: the mutant island nation of Krakoa. In the game, Krakoa appears to have served as a mutant safehaven for some time, and with its displacement into the year 2099 in a new dimension, has opened its doors to all mutants in this era. But that is a different story from its original comic counterpart.
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Krakoa has a long history in Marvel Comics, but came into prominence thanks to Jonathan Hickman’s 2019 X-Men event, House of X and Powers of X. Considered by many to be the best era of X-Men history, there’s a lot to dig into when it comes to Krakoa and how it factors into the story Marvel Rivals is telling. So let’s dig into this iconic living island.
Krakoa Has Long Been Part of X-Men History
The island of Krakoa first appeared way back in Giant-Size X-Men #1 in 1975, the issue that started the X-Men’s ascension from a D-list team of nobodies to one of Marvel’s most popular and influential groups of all time. The new team of X-Men came to investigate the capture of the original group, only to find that the very island itself was a living mutant of some kind, and it fed on the life energy of human mutants. After freeing the original X-Men, the two groups combined forces and managed to launch the island into outer space. Eventually, it found its way back to earth, and the story of Krakoa as a nation began.
Professor X and Magneto were approached by Moira McTaggart, longtime friend of the X-Men, who revealed that she was a mutant herself, with the ability to return to the beginning of her life whenever she died, with all of her memories intact. She showed them her memories of a future where humans wiped out all of mutantkind, and were themselves replaced by the technological, mutant-destroying Sentinels. In order to avert that disaster, Xavier and Magneto couldn’t waste time fighting each other. The only chance they had of surviving was bringing every mutant together under one banner.
A Mutant Nation… For a Time
With Professor X and Magneto leading the charge, they united every mutant they knew, hero and villain alike, under the idea of crafting a singular mutant nation. They chose the island of Krakoa because its abilities would make it impossible for any non-mutants to get to the island, and by having so many mutants always on it, the island’s hunger would be satiated. Professor X announced to the entire world that mutants would no longer be the ones at the edge of humanity’s sword, and that Krakoa would serve as a haven for all mutantkind. Good or evil did not matter, rather mutants would judge the problems themselves, and no matter what, being a mutant earned you a home on Krakoa. Even outright monstrous villains like Apocalypse where welcomed on the island.
Krakoa was constructed from the ground up to be the ultimate safehaven for mutants. While created by Professor X, Magneto, and secretly by Moira, they were not the face of rulership on Krakoa. Rather, a governing body called the Quiet Council was formed to oversee matters of law, headed by trusted mutants like Storm and Nightcrawler, but also less savory folk who knew how to handle the shadier sides of business, like Sebastian Shaw and Mister Sinister. They council decided that their ultimate goal was to ensure peace between mutants and humans, and ensured that their laws reflected that. The first law of Krakoa was that no mutant ever kill a human. And beyond that, with Krakoan technology and botany, they developed a medicine that could cure any disease and sold it to the wider world, so long as those countries allowed their mutants to join Krakoa if they wished. Eventually, they even shared their greatest secret with the rest of the world. By combining the powers of several mutants, a group that earned themselves the name the Five, they discovered a way to revive people from the dead, effectively making themselves immortal. While a closely guarded mutant secret at first, they spread this out to the disenfranchised of the world after the A.X.E. Judgement Day event.
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But despite all this, Krakoa was never a paradise. Xavier and Magneto hid Moira’s abilities from everyone, and followed her wish to never revive precognitive mutants. Even they were unaware that it was because the precogs would see Moira’s true plan wasn’t to save mutantkind, but use Krakoa as a way to gather them all together and slowly erase the mutant gene from existence. She was uncovered and stopped, but the faith in Krakoa’s leaders was shattered. They learned their home was built on lies. The pressures of running a country had negative impacts on many mutants. Beast was so driven to protect his home that he turned to murdering and mindwiping his own friends if they ever stood in the way of him fulfilling his goals. Magneto grew disillusioned with the council and retired, and Storm left completely to lead a different section of Krakoa, called Arakko, on Mars.
Eventually, the many dark deeds done to protect Krakoa caught up with it, and the nation fell apart in the Fall of X storyline. The island itself relocated to the White Hot Room, the other dimension home of the Phoenix Force, and the many mutants who lived there all once again scattered across the world. And although this era is looked back on fondly for revitalizing interest in the X-Men and giving a bold new status quo, something the new From the Ashes era is not looked favorably on for, perhaps Krakoa ending was for the best.
While it was nice to see the ever-tortured mutants finally have a safe place to call home, it was built on the death of a dream. Professor X’s original dream, the one that has guided the X-Men as heroes since their inception, was that one day humans and mutants could live side by side, realizing they are all one people. Krakoa wasn’t just a home, it was a separation, founded by Professor X literally saying to the world that mutants are better than humans. The X-Men have always fought to show that no one is inherently better than anyone else. Krakoa has faded away, but the mutants in the Marvel universe are still here, and they will still fight to show that everyone deserves to live.
