X-Men Get New Costumes From Wakanda

Jean Grey’s new X-Men squad has their new looks, and they come from an unexpected ally to Jean’s new mutant nation.

SPOILERS for X-Men Red #4 follow.

Fans already knew that the team of mutants Jean has assembled in X-Men Red would be getting new costumes. What X-Men Red #4 reveals is that the new costumes are more functional than fashionable and that they were developed in Black Panther’s nation of Wakanda.

Though Jean Grey doesn’t know it yet, her efforts to build a new mutant nation have been opposed by Professor X’s deranged sister, Cassandra Nova, who has been stoking the flames of hatred in humans.

She’s also been injecting people, human and mutant alike, with nano-Sentinels that embed themselves in the brains of their victims, triggering unfettered hatred towards mutants. This even works on mutants. The highest profile victim so far has been Storm, who turned against the X-Men as they tried to return to their secret haven in Wakanda. After nearly destroying the X-Men, Storm tried to destroy herself. Luckily, Jean Grey was as able to combine her powers with those of the technopathic Trinary and the knowledge of Black Panther to remove the Sentinel from Ororo’s brain.

With the X-Men now exposed, they needed a new place to hide. Luckily, they have an ally in the mutant king of Wakanda, Namor, who provides them with the forgotten ruins of a dead society as a new based, which we know from X-Men Red #1 will come to be called Searebro.

However, the X-Men also need protection from the tiny Sentinels if they’re to find the source and shut it down. Luckily, Black Panther is also an ally, thanks to both his commitment to justice and love for Storm, his former queen. The scientists of Wakanda teamed up with Trinary to develop new X-Men costumes capable of blocking the Sentinels. Here’s the reveal:

Now the X-Men are properly equipped to deal with the Sentinels, but they may be too late. The end of the issue reveals that Cassandra Nova has already made contact with all of the major leaders of the world and has infected them with hate. The X-Men have already discovered what Nova is capable of manipulating others into doing through the revelation that the Indian government was building new, full-size Sentinels to hunt mutants. Jean and team are going to have their work cut out for them.

X-Men Red #4 is on sale now.