The X-Men: massacred. Mutantkind: decimated. The Krakoan Age: over. Feared and hated by humankind, Earth’s mutants founded their own nation on the living island of Krakoa. It was paradise for Homo superior… until the anti-mutant organization Orchis attacked the Hellfire Gala, Krakoa’s premier event of the year in which humans and mutants celebrate together. After 2023’s X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 unveiled an all-new X-Men team — Jubilee, Dazzler, Cannonball, Talon, Synch, Prodigy, Frenzy, and the Juggernaut — Orchis unleashed the robot Nimrod and the mutant-hunting Stark Sentinels on the Hellfire Gala. Orchis’ assault on Krakoa targeted and eliminated omega-level mutants, including the telepath Jean Grey.
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Dr. Stasis and M.O.D.O.K. hacked the medicines that Krakoa was providing to humanity with a kill switch, then framed mutantkind for the deaths of the humans present at the Hellfire Gala. The cyborg Moira X murdered Jean, but not before Steve Rogers’ Hydra-raised counterpart attacked the X-Men’s base in New York, the Treehouse, and broke Cyclops’ back. Jean telepathically connected with Scott as she died, telling him: “I loved you.” Moira X then threatened every human on the planet to force Charles Xavier to exile mutantkind. It’s a night that will be known forevermore as the Mutant Massacre.
A mutant named Lourdes teleported the surviving mutants to the basement of New York’s old Hellfire Club, and it’s there that a resistance was born. The few mutants that remained on Earth, like Wolverine, were forced underground and operated in the shadows as they fought Orchis and their mutant-hunting Sentinels. The Fall of the House of X had begun.
This week’s Fall of the House of X #1 sees Orchis put Cyclops on trial to answer for the “crimes” of mutants against humanity. The public spectacle takes place in Paris, where humanity once held the trial of Magneto (way back in Uncanny X-Men #200). “Orchis has me right where they want me — on trial… and all of mutantdom are my co-defendants,” Cyclops thinks as he’s paraded into court.
But the once leader of the X-Men is playing along to give the resistance time to strike back. As Wolverine, Colossus, and Nightcrawler infiltrate the sewers beneath the courthouse to liberate Cyclops, Xavier telepathically summons Rasputin IV to the Green Lagoon on Krakoa before she can phase Cyclops to Wolverine and Colossus below. The trio defeat an electromagnet-wielding battalion of Orchis soldiers and swear that mutants will no longer live in fear. “Then… to war,” says Nightcrawler, BAMF-ing away to rejoin the rest of the X-Men in London: Rogue, Gambit, and Shadowkat.
Omega Sentinel dispatches Nimrod to kill Krakoa, the living home of mutants and the X-Men. The island defends itself and runs as Orchis’ Dr. Alia Gregor broadcasts a message to the people of Earth through the Stark Sentinels: “We were lulled into a false sense of security because of a few good things that the mutants did, but they did not care for you and I. Krakoa has been proven to be an invasive alien species — and Orchis is pulling it from Earth’s garden. The next few hours will be… uncomfortable. We do not relish the threat of violence, but the tree of liberty is dry, and she thirsts for righteous vengeance. Krakoa will be eradicated, and the mutants who don’t leave the planet peacefully will be liquidated. This is their final warning.”
Shadowkat uses Krakoan teleportation gates to rally the troops across Earth: Tony Stark and Emma Frost; Woofer and the mutants on Planet Arakko; Juggernaut at the X-Mansion in New York City; and on Island M, where Shadowkat expects to find Polaris. But Polaris has left Earth for Knowhere, a decapitated Celestial head where the mutant Broo has taken control of the parasitic Brood. “Jean is dead, Broo. But those of us who live… we resist,” says Polaris, wearing an outfit resembling that of her father, Magneto. “Are you ready to go to war?” Jean saved him and these Brood, so Polaris has her army. “Then — TO WAR!”
Representing Cyclops in his trial is Jennifer Walters, Esq., a.k.a. the superhero She-Hulk. “I will offer no defense,” Cyclops tells the judge, refusing to dignify Orchis’ false charges with a response. “I know there is good in humanity… but I am not being prosecuted by it.” He then tells the judge that he can only be judged by one soul, and Cyclops doesn’t think he’d wish to meet her. On The Bloom, the Orchis space station, Stasis and Orchis celebrate Cyclops’ guilty verdict. But the X-Man is not wavering in the face of his “show trial.”
“I plan to present no defense, nor speak in front of cameras. It may seem a strange choice for someone who is innocent of all charges. I’m not guilty,” Cyclops says in a letter released by Walters. “I’m not afraid. I simply don’t want to provide fodder for the Orchis propagandists. We’re in this predicament not because I lost a great battle, but because of big lies told by powerful people. But I know the truth. I am a mutant. I am an X-Man. I belong here.”
“Mutant lives do not beget human deaths. I was born right here in the United States of America,” Cyclops continues. “Does the constitution not guarantee me the same rights as anyone else? I will not be murdered by Orchis without a fight, and I ask everyone reading these words a simple question: Once fascism kills mutants, who will be next? Maybe you. Even now, I’m an optimist, and not because I’ve looked at the world through ruby quartz lenses my entire adult life. I reject Orchis’ jurisdiction over me. I resist. I wish you peace, unless you’re one of the people, or artificial intelligences, that wishes harm upon my family. If you are one of those souls, then I suggest you change your heart. If you have one. It’s never too late to turn away from hate.”
He concludes: “You might wonder why I participated in Orchis’s sham trial at all if I had no intention of defending myself. I was buying time for my teammates and friends to gather their forces. Now I will defend myself. Cyclops of the X-Men.”
