Warning! Spoilers ahead for X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) and X-Men: Before The Fall - Heralds Of ApocalypseX-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) saw the third annual Gala, thrown by the X-Men, descend into blood-drenched chaos, marking the end of one chapter in X-history while heralding the next. As the event was attacked by the mutant-hating organization Orchis, Professor X could only watch helplessly as his mutant family was butchered – bearing witness to a "Mutant Massacre" in a calamity that paralleled one experienced by Apocalypse millennia earlier.
Xavier helped establish a mutant paradise on Krakoa, and in a blink X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) took it away. Written by Gerry Dugan, the issue was not only a jawdropping opening to the long-awaited Fall of X, it also drew a striking comparison between Charles Xavier and his frequent nemesis, occasional collaborator, the ancient mutant Apocalypse.
To Be There Was Not Enough
The mutant paradise of Krakoa is not a new idea. It was a role once held by the island's "parent": Okkara. Thousands of years before Xavier and Magneto established Krakoa, there was another island: Okkara. The original paradise for mutantkind - the people of Okkatra lived idyllic lives, free of war, hunger, disease, and persecution. Even death itself had been vanquished. There are stark similarities between the Mutant Massacre perpetrated by Orchis in X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) and the fall of Okkara. As seen in Al Ewing and Luca Pizzari's X-Men: Before The Fall - Heralds Of Apocalypse, Apocalypse was there the day Okkara fell to Annihilation's demon hordes of Amenth.
Rage and Despair, Rage and Despair
"It is not enough to be there. It is not enough to be strong," Apocalypse muses, ing the fall of Okkara. Undisputedly one of the most powerful mutants to ever live, Apocalypse's power wasn't enough to save Okkara from the butchery that befell it. In modern times, Charles Xavier is arguably the most powerful mutant alive – his telepathic influence spans the globe. In X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023), Xavier was there while Orchis struck down Krakoa's mutants, but just as with Apocalypse and Okkara, Charles Xavier's powerful presence at the Mutant Massacre was not enough. As the old saying goes, history may not repeat itself, but it does often rhyme.
Sparring with words and swords alike later in Heralds of Apocalypse, Apocalypse and his wife, Genesis, reflected on the day of Okkara's annihilation. Apocalypse and Genesis ruled over the thriving mutant society on the island until its destruction. Genesis recalled how her husband screamed as the Twilight Blade of Amenth split the island itself in half. "Not a squeal of fear, nor a howl of pain," but a scream of "rage and despair." Hellfire Gala (2023) depicts Charles Xavier falling to his knees as his own paradise is shattered. Like Apocalypse, overcome by rage, by despair at the death of his dream.
Rage that "paradise had been sundered," and despair "that it would always be so." Apocalypse took this flame "burning in his soul" and "gifted it to his enemies" – as Xavier ordered his surviving X-Men to avenge the dead, it appears a torch has been sadly ed, and the founder of the X-men has resolved to wield a similar flame. Once more, mutantdom rose to its seeming apex, only for its enemies to cast it down. Millennia before Krakoa, Apocalypse learned a harsh lesson, one he would never forget, and now the events of X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) have taught the same lesson Professor X and his X-Men the same lesson.
X-Men: Hellfire Gala (2023) and X-Men: Before The Fall - Heralds Of Apocalypse are available now from Marvel Comics.
