WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the "Dark Ages" backup story in FCBD 2020 X-Men #1 by Tom Taylor, Iban Coello, Brian Reber and VC's Joe Sabino, available now.
Writer Tom Taylor has made a name for himself as the architect behind numerous end-of-the-world comics that have blown away expectations, such as DC's Injustice: Gods Among Us, Injustice 2, Earth 2, DCeased and its ongoing follow-ups, including DCeased: Dead Planet. While he's penned acclaimed runs on Marvel Universe titles like All-New Wolverine, X-Men Red, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and Hunt for Wolverine: Adamantium Agenda, the delayed release of Marvel's Free Comic Book Day X-Men comic brings Taylor back to the publisher for Dark Ages, where he and Iban Coelleo brought life in the Marvel Universe to a screeching halt.
Though we still don't know much about this upcoming event, the catastrophe that occurs during the story has some parallels to Taylor's DCeased and the real-life Y2K bug that was a major concern in the days approaching the year 2000.
DCeased began with Cyborg unknowingly spreading a rogue version of the Anti-Life Equation through digital screens, turning those infected into mindless, savage zombies. Dark Ages begins with an apparent earthquake rocking New York City and Iron Man flying into action to investigate. While he's soaring over the city a mysterious green wave of energy spreads through the nighttime sky, cutting off all power throughout the city. Unfortunately, this also includes Tony Stark's Iron Man armor. Meanwhile, Pepper Potts is stuck inside Avengers Town trying to use an elevator to get to an underground bunker.
As the power starts to drain out of Iron Man's armor, the suit's artificial intelligence begins to cut in and out. One of Iron Man's final commands to the A.I. is to point him towards Avengers Tower and to put in a call to Captain America. With the power going out, the mobile conversation between Iron Man and Captain America barely goes through, but we do see Iron Man say the team's battle cry of "Avengers Assemble." Now stuck plummeting inside an iron tomb, Iron Man clips a falling airplane in a gruesome collision that severs his left leg below the knee. He finally crashes inside Avengers Tower as Pepper rushes to his side, uttering, "Dark... it's all gone... dark."
Taylor did reveal a major detail about Dark Ages the morning of the issue's release. Posting on Twitter, the writer confirmed that Dark Ages does not take place in the main continuity, which also mirrors the structure of DCeased's story. This allows Taylor the freedom to put our heroes through the emotional ringer with very real stakes, such as leaving Iron Man without one of his limbs. In the world of DC, DCeased includes killing Batman, turning Wonder Woman into a zombie, having a zombied Superman to try to eat the Sun after being infected, and having younger heroes like Damian Wayne, Jon Kent and Cassie Sandsmark form an all-new Justice League.
Of course, the Marvel Universe losing all power is reminiscent of the now-forgotten fears of the Y2K bug, which was believed to be a coding issue in technology that would have triggered when the calendar turned from 1999 to 2000. Thankfully, there were no major computer glitches when the clock struck midnight, but the Marvel Universe doesn't appear to be that lucky in Dark Ages. The cause of the power loss is most likely linked to the mysteriousgreen energy coursing through the skies. Could it be tied to the Inhumans' Terrigen Mist, which also spread throughout the world when Black Bolt set off a Terrigen Bomb during 2013's Infinity event.
Whatever the root cause turns out to be, Dark Ages proves this version of the Marvel Universe definitely has some dark days ahead.