X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1 Review: Yet Another Mutant Charnel House

***This review contains extensive spoilers for X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1***

It has been almost precisely one year since the events of A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1 when the newest round of mutant genocide was unveiled as Eternals massacred most of Arrako's population. This year the X-Men editorial office makes it clear they only have one story to tell when they finish the job on Krakoa in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1.

Readers have been anticipating an attack by the anti-mutant coalition Orchis, but what is revealed in this week's one-shot may exceed even the most pessimistic expectations. After the first 18 pages—dedicated to the joyful resurrection of Ms. Marvel and an introduction to the outfits and characters at the center of this year's gala—Orchis attacks and everything that follows is a massacre. It's made exceedingly clear in dialogue that readers are expected to refer to this event as the "Second Mutant Massacre."

Readers will be calculating the body count for weeks to come. Some notable deaths are made explicit—Dazzler's bisected corpse, Jean Grey's desiccated bones, and Juggernaut's bloody, inverted helmet—but many characters drop into the background in the midst of so much chaos. It's possible to observe current X-Men narrowly averting death, but to remain uncertain of their final fate given the issue's big twist that nearly all of mutantkind on Earth and seemingly every current occupant of Krakoa has been killed.

This revelation cements the bitter taste of this comic book, but the entire onslaught on the Hellfire Gala is a miserable affair to read from the very start. It begins with what is perhaps the most diverse X-Men team to ever assemble being liquified one page after they are unveiled. That pattern is repeated throughout the rest of the issue as each opportunity to turn the tide or find some small victory is undermined in some cruel fashion.

The tools of Orchis' victory are well established throughout the past several years of X-Men comics, but their implementation in this story is purely a mechanism of plot. There are no deeply ironic twists or moments of stunning characterization, only waves of mutilation.

This culminates in the revelation that when Xavier compelled all but a few mutants to flee Earth through the Krakoan gates they went "into a meat grinder." Earlier images in the issue showing long lines of mutants herded from their cities and through gates take on a new significance; it's easy to imagine the phrase "arbeit macht frei" hanging above their departure points. 

In this climax there is obviously no joy, but neither is there suspense, intrigue, tension, or anything approaching a positive attachment to the story at hand. The issue makes it plain that mutants—a flexible metaphor for oppressed people across decades of superhero comics—only have one story and that story only has one ending: extermination. 

It is an ugly perspective that offers no reprieve in the upcoming stories of revenge and resistance. Four years ago the X-Men line began to expand and introduced readers to an island nation and then a new planet. Now in the course of one year, two acts of genocide have purged most of the mutants from both Arrako and Krakoa. It's a pattern that extends long before the current line of X-Men comics into events like "House of M," "E is for Extinction," and the original "Mutant Massacre." Yet with each new iteration there is less joy to be found in an aftermath that promises anything interesting or new will be burnt away to make space for the same formula of misery and desperation revealed in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1.

The story is competently portrayed with a talented line up of artists who generally manage to make the eccentric costumes and explosive events cohere amidst their distinctive styles. Narrative captions summarize those events and provide readers with clear knowledge about all of the terrible aspects of this massacre. Yet competence cannot make X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 an enjoyable comic; it does not even function as tragedy. Instead, it luxuriates in the unending punishments heaped upon Marvel's mutants and promises that this will always be their status quo. Four years after House of X and Powers of X revitalized the entire X-line, Hellfire Gala 2023 has extinguished any interest I still held in a truly dismal affair.

Published by Marvel Comics

On July 26, 2023

Written by Gerry Duggan with Jonathan Hickman

Art by Adam Kubert, Luciano Vecchio, Matteo Lolli, Russell Dauterman, Javier Pina, R.B. Silva, Joshua Cassara, Kris Anka, and Pepe Larraz with Valerio Schiti

Colors by Rain Beredo, Matthew Wilson, Marte Gracia, Erick Arciniega, and Ceci de la Cruz

Letters by Virtual Calligraphy

Cover by Phil Noto