Paradise X #3!
One must admit that the covers are gorgeous.
It’s been a WHILE since I Paradised the X so uhhhh the quick and dirty recap. Mar-Vell overthrew Death by having Thanos Ultimately Nullify her. Now he and various characters he made into angels seek to build Paradise since Heaven isn’t real. Devil Mephisto was revealed to be just a shapeshifting guy gaslit into thinking he was the devil. He’s taking it so badly that he’s fatally injuring people in a world where people don’t die anymore. There’s a bunch of popular alternate versions of characters hanging out on Earth X because Aaron Stack, Machine Watchman, let them immigrate as reward for helping him expose the Watchers in every universe.
Paradise X is a hell of a thing.
Also, most of the people on Earth (X) have been turned into Inhumans. To offer stability, or something, Inhuman Queen Medusa is getting political married to King Britain. Britain is the center of the world again. This is happening because Medusa’s son very selfishly won’t marry his cousin.
Paradise X is a hell of a thing.
So first things first first is the double two page spread lore dumping about Something. The something this time is Jean Grey and the Phoenix. And Paradise X posits that the Phoenix’s goal in saving Jean and then living her life was a long con to die and go to the Realm of Death. As life and fire incarnate, the Phoenix can’t kill herself unlesssss she did it for love. And by living Jean’s life she loved Scott Summers that much.
(Earth X ships Scott and the Phoenix Force. They are soul mates. In psychic connection with each other even through the veil of mortality. Real Jean at some point dumped Scott to be miserable with Wolverine. She claimed to be Madelyne Pryor in a shock twist near the end of Earth X but she claims in this issue she was just pranking, bro, shes Real Jean. And washed up Wolverine is all =( damn Jeannie you pranked me good.)
Why did the Phoenix need to die? Hooo boy. The Phoenix is from the previous universe that the Celestials ruined. She’s an Eternal of the Universe. Who are now survivors of the previous universe. And according to Nighthawk Who Knows All the Elders are scheming to rebuild the universe out of the deceased. Thats why the Realm of Death even exists. To store all the dead people - the ashes of the new universe - so the old one can rise again like a Phoenix. Sure??
And the Phoenix foresaw the death of Death and put herself in position to continue with the collection of souls. Which are now being gathered in Mar-Vell’s Paradise.
Hmmmm.
Well, it’s been hinted a lot that death is fake. I didn’t expect this to be what that led to…
Anyway. That’s just the opening lore dump!
The bulk of the issue takes place at Medusa and King Britain’s wedding.
Everyone is in attendance! Even the Micronauts, apparently!
Medusa. Your wedding dress. Is so daring.
Since everyone is at the wedding, a lot of characters are in the same place so some subplots can progress.
Bloodstorm and DoFP Logan spot Earth X’s Black Panther and Storm.
Bloodstorm’s whole reason for aiding Aaron Stack was he’d help her with her vampire curse. And her reward from him was dropping her off on Earth X and telling her there’s another her here without vampirism and a blood transfusion will fix ya right up.
So shes here at the wedding hoping to talk to her alternate self.
(And T’Challa and Storm have a kind of “we noticed you across the wedding and like your vibe” response to seeing a younger, vampiric alt Ororo.)
She does go to talk with Storm and T’Challa and they immediately agree to set up the blood transfusion right here since of course there’s a bunch of scientific/medical equipment available.
DoFP Logan’s wish from Aaron was a world that sucked less than DoFP. So he was also dumped off on Earth X. Although this universe wasn’t all peaches and rainbows, things for the X-Men aren’t that bad! Logan looks around the wedding and sees most of the friends he’s lost.
He even runs up and gives a very confused Scott a very big hug.
This world? This may as well be heaven for Logan. His friends are alive and mutant prejudice is dead because everyone got mutated.
Elsewhere at the reception, Dr Strange runs into his old Defenders pal Namor and is able to remove the curse Franklin Richards put on him where he’d burn endlessly while out of water. Dr Strange gives Namor control over the flames and comforts him on now having gnarly burn scars over half of his body.
Elsewhere elsewhere at the reception, Belasco!Nightcrawler talks with Colossus. See, they have a lot in common now. Nightcrawler turned out to be Belasco All Along and Colossus was, apparently??, Mr Sinister. I have no idea why. This is apparently just something that happened and people know about.
Feels weird that Colossus doesn’t have anything to say to Kurt about the whole kidnapping and grooming his kid sister thing. Kurt!Belasco was manipulated by Mephisto and all but that’s. It’s very big of Colossus to decide that’s water under the bridge??
Washed up out of shape native Earth X Wolverine also runs into DoFP Logan. They don’t have time for a long conversation but they clearly do not like what they see in each other.
Whatever conversation they’re about to have is interrupted by Scott marching their way and trying to OPTIC BLAST! Seemingly at native Wolverine, for grudge reasons one might assume. But, no. Scott just tried to kill Banshee for the simple reason that Banshee is already dead. Phoenix told him over their psychic link that she sees Banshee in Paradise.
So who the hell is this imposter?
Probably Mephisto. Since “Banshee” shapeshifts into Grey Gargoyle. Another guy that’s dead in this universe.
In not party news, Annihilus and Blastaar get fed up with watching Paradise eat up the Negative Zone. Blaming this on Reed Richards (because he’s supposed to be the only guy that can access the Negative Zone from the positive universe) Annihilus and co storm through the Negative Zone portal only to find the Baxter Building sideways (because Absorbing Man bulged New York) and the place a museum now.
This just makes them even more mad at RICHARDSSSS!
Reminder. Reed has nothing to do with this. Mar-Vell is colonizing the Negative Zone by expanding Paradise in the middle of it. Dick move, Mar-Vell.
Up in the Paradise, the Angels continue to feel disillusioned with the seemingly perfect system Mar-Vell set up for the dead.
Remember? People are transported from the Realm of Death, given a new form of life with the Resurrection Stone, and then fed a sliver of Cosmic Cube so a perfectly personalized paradise is conjured from their subconscious?
Why the fuck was Red Skull so close to the front of the line??
But the Angels have a concern that the personal paradises are power fantasies, hedonism, and in some cases self-flagellation. Some, like Real Banshee, imagine a simple existence with his family. But. He’s not actually with his family. He’s happily hanging out with figments.
Giant Man Angel is concerned this “Paradise” is little different from the experience of being trapped in old conflicts and old patterns that the dead in Death experience. Actually, those in Death are living less lonely existences. They’re actually with the people they think they are with. Punisher is with his actual family. That’s why he refuses to realize he’s dead and go to Paradise.
So. There’s Concerns that this Paradise isn’t all Mar-Vell promised.
But Captain Angelmerica needs this to be real and good because he needs something better to bring his parents to if he manages to epiphany them out of Death.
Giangelt Man says the only way they could grab the rest of the dead in one go is if they all tried to kill themselves at the same time and realized they couldn’t die.
But that very facetious suggestion makes Captain Angelmerica remember the antagonist teen the Skull from Earth X who could mind control armies of people at a time. With his powers, Cap COULD force all the dead to kill themselves and not die of it!
Now the Angels have a Concern that Steve is being a little irrational but they leave him to it.
But in Death Cap finds that the Skull is just an innocent child. Because before the very intense first manifestation of his powers, he was just a kid.
Please don’t traumatize this child, Cap.
Sooo. Paradise X #3 has a ton going on. If you don’t already know where things are going, it’s hard to predict. Mephisto is up to things, the Elders of the Universe are up to things, Mar-Vel is up to something, Annihilus and co are in the mix now, so are the Guardians of the Galaxy and Aaron’s Heralds. So many moving parts.
But some things are starting to be resolved. Bloodstorm is getting her cure for vampirism. Namor’s burning forever problem that’s been going on since the backstory for Earth X has been fixed.
A universe is a big, complicated thing full of so many people and problems. Not everything has to be resolved forever but it is good to see some of the more manageable issues getting managed.
I can’t say when the next post will be but I’ll try my best to make it not another long while. Stay tuned for the post on issue #4!
