The X-Men's Enemies Are Recruiting After The Hellfire Gala
The X-Men's Hellfire Gala has showed what the mutant race can do - but their enemies are using it as a recruitment pitch. Jonathan Hickman's X-Men relaunch began with the entire mutant race gathering on the living island of Krakoa, hero and villain alike - and that was just the start of it. X of Swords saw a mutant group previously stranded in another dimension transported back to this world - a group who had grown in number over the millennia, and now numbered about twenty times as many as the mutants of Earth.
It began with a nation, but during the Hellfire Gala the mutants lay claim to a planet. An alliance of Omega mutants terraforms Mars, and Krakoa's rival island Arakko and its inhabitants are given the world as a new home. The deed is done in front of friend and enemy alike, as much a show of force as anything else, a declaration the mutants are done hiding in the shadows. Storm is positioned as Regent of the Solar System, underlining the point.
But the Hellfire Gala has served as an opportunity for enemies to form alliances as well, with the United Kingdom siding with Russia against the mutants. Worse still, an official preview for SWORD #6, by Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti, reveals not everybody is happy to see the mutants claim a planet. Henry Gyrich - a senior figure in an anti-mutant organization called ORCHIS - is seen approaching Vindicator, leader of Canada's Alpha Flight superhero team.
Vindicator does have something of a point; the superheroes of Earth typically restrict their powers, wary of affecting civilization, but the mutants have no such restraint. They have terraformed an entire planet in order to claim it as their own, not even caring for the NASA Rovers they destroyed in the process. And the imposition of Storm as Regent of the Solar System will no doubt be seen as an attack upon the sovereignty and authority of every single nation on Earth. Gyrich may be prioritizing talking to Vindicator, but he's sure to find many others who are sympathetic to his arguments.
The threat of ORCHIS is growing - and, even worse, ORCHIS scientists recently created Nimrod, the ultimate Sentinel. The mutant race is destined for extinction in every timeline where Nimrods are created, meaning the situation is actually quite dire. The mutants are expanding at a prodigious rate, hoping to outstrip the development of Nimrod and secure their future - but it remains to be seen whether the X-Men's enemies will be able to stop them.