SPOILER WARNING: This article contains spoilers for A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1, in stores now.
They may not be divine in the truest sense of the word, but Earth in the Marvel Universe is home to two godlike societies. Both of these communities are, for all intents of purposes, immortal, and many of their members wield fantastic and dangerous abilities. So what happens when one of those societies exploits ancient religious texts for political gain and declares war upon the other? Who pays the cost? Can the conflict be de-escalated? These are some of the questions that fuel Marvel's current event series A.X.E.: Judgment Day and its tie-ins. The Prime Eternal, Druig, has declared the mutants of Krakoa and Mars, now known as Arakko, enemies of his people. Luckily, the Avengers are working tirelessly to keep the conflict from getting out of hand.
In the debut issue of the main miniseries, writer Kieron Gillen and artist Valerio Schiti kicked things off with an issue that saw Krakoa under assault, a massacre on Arakko, and the Avengers struggling to find out what was going on. CBR spoke with Gillen about all of those developments. He also talked about the introduction of the sextet of powerful Eternals known as the Hex, an unexpected team-up, the unique role Steve Rogers plays in the series, and what fans can expect from upcoming Judgment Day issues and tie-ins. Marvel also shared a look at some of Schiti and colorist Marte Gracia's work on Judgement Day #2, Michele Bandini and David Curiel's art for Immortal X-Men #5, and a page from Death to the Mutants #1 by Guiu Vilanova and Dijjo Lima.
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CBR: Judgment Day has begun, and the mutants and the Eternals are at war. It looks like the reason it's happened is a very human one; a politician looking to gain and hold onto power. Is that what we're seeing with Druig?
Kieron Gillen: Yeah, I think it's the desperate scramble to stay in place. On a Discord, someone had said to me, "Traditionally, Druig is described as a snake, but he's now the dog who's caught the car." Druig's like, "I think I made a terrible mistake." And it's like, "Yeah, you probably have, Druig!" [Laughs]
One of the aspects I like about Judgment Day is [that] there are a variety of perspectives throughout the cast. It's not just the X-Men who believe this, the Eternals believe that, and the Avengers believe this. Druig doesn't really believe in this. Other Eternals certainly do. In fact, Uranos believes it even more. Then, if you go over to the Avengers, Tony and Steve believe different things. So there's the idea of having them be characters instead of just team labels. That's even more true over on the X-men, with the Quiet Council being in perpetual arguments with one another. It may sound really basic, but to me, that's writing these people. They're people, not props.
The Eternals employed some new tech and members in this issue. The former being the battle suits they wore in the assault on Krakoa and the latter being the gigantic Hex. What was it like designing these things with Valerio Schiti? What else can you tell us about the Hex?
In Eternals: Celestia, we showed the armory of Uranos. So the armor is a riff back to that. That's where we set up the idea that there's an entire armory they lost access to. There's also a really good reason why we've never seen the Hex before. They've been locked away in a moldering cell because Uranos won't let them out because he's in prison.
The process of designing the Hex was a joy. I knew that they were the Hex and that there were going to be six of them. Valerio and I then started talking about ideas to base them on. We talked about elements. Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. We then threw in Magic and Space to make six. Six is the Eternals holy number. They're also titans since they're the children of Uranos. So, I thought we should look at the myths. Then I thought, "Let's add in a splash of Greek monsters as well." So, there's a real Kirbyesque element to them too. They're giant, sure, but they're also very much born of the thinking that Kirby put into Eternals.
When I saw Valerio's chic designs, I thought, "This is going to work." These are huge charismatic monsters. So much so that I've written bios for them all. It doesn't matter if they're skyscraper size. They're still Eternals. It was really one of those magical moments where we came up with a cool beat with a simple idea, "Not all Eternals are human-sized."
They've all got real personalities composed of the creature, the element, and the Titan that inspired them. There's also the fun question of how do the six work as a group of sisters? Not all of that will necessarily come out in the main book. It will be more in the tie-ins. That's the thing about doing events! There's a scale. So you see bits of it. To the X-Men, these are the enormous things that are attacking their island. But if you're reading Death to the Mutants, you get to know them.
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Druig's most dangerous weapon could be Uranos, a character many readers are meeting for the first time. He's Thanos' "Grandfather." So, I imagine many of the people introduced to him in Issue #1 are wondering how different are Uranos and Thanos?
Strictly speaking, Uranos is Thanos' great uncle. But Saying "Grandfather" makes you get it. And how is he different? Uranos is cold! Thanos' most famous exploit is still The Infinity Gauntlet. He is somebody who went to war with the entire universe to win the hand of a woman. It was a very bony hand [Laughs] in that it belonged to Death, but it was a hand nevertheless. So, Thanos is a creature of passion, and Uranos is cold. He has an entire religious structure based around annihilating everyone else in existence because it's the right thing to do. He's also bored with everyone.
I describe him as Logan Roy in Succession. He's got all these children, and they're all disappointments. So, Uranos is like, "I've had enough of this shit." The first issue plays it pretty coy, but when you actually see what he does in action over in X-Men: Red or Legion of X, you'll see his vibe is very different than Thanos. He's not enjoying it in the slightest. He's annoyed [that] you're not all dead already.
In terms of status quo shake-up, Uranos' massacre on Mars is the most immediate. How did this development come about? What was it like working with X-Men: Red writer Al Ewing?
The Eve of Judgment prologue special was an Eternals story, but one of the things I wanted to do in it was answer the question, "Why don't the Eternals do the obvious thing?" If you're trying to wipe out the mutants, why go fight them? Eternals are smarter than that. So, Eve of Judgment removes the obvious first strike from the table.
The question then becomes, "If one was going to do a surprise attack on the mutants, what would be a relatively sensible way of doing it?" Moira and Druig answer that in this issue. Krakoa ain't the problem. Arakko is. So, you do the strike there, and at least remove them from the conflict for the duration. The first two issues of Judgment Day are the first act of the story, and they detail the Eternals vs. X-Men war. So, when I pitched what I wanted the size of the devastation on Arakko was kind of open. I basically said, "Right out of the gate, we've got to take Arakko out of the fight."
Al could have done that on a small scale, but he went all in. He's doing this amazing side quest to what's going on. Who's dead? Who's alive? What the hell happened in the hour Uranos was up there? And what happens next? Because Uranos dropped some hints of what went down, but we don't know the details.
One of the things I love about superhero comics, especially Al's, are the moments of mad poetry. It's not just firing a gun at somebody. These are ideas. It's, "How do they use powers to hurt people? And what does it look like when these gods fight?" It's creativity rather than just violence. That's what Al does, and X-Men Red #5 is a hell of an issue. I think people were expecting the Arakko beat to fall upon Krakoa. The problem for the Eternals is [that] Krakoa is on Earth. So you can't hit it as hard as Uranos hit Arakko. Notice Uranos said, "If you let me out, I'll spare a hemisphere." He doesn't play.
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The Eternals' assault on Krakoa is bound to exacerbate some of the nation's political and interpersonal dynamics. What's it like writing those relationships?
It was teased across a whole year of X-Men books that when humans find out about the immortality, stuff would go down. That was a major part of Immortal X-Men for me, but when A.X.E. came up it was like, "No this is the reaction. You were expecting one, but not from the Eternals." Then, from that, we asked how everyone responds to it.
This links back to what I was saying earlier. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark are on the same page, but not necessarily always in the same way. That's true with the Krakoans as well. Different people take different things. For example, when the Avengers try to help, do you think all the Quiet Council will want them there? That's a wedge issue, and that's interesting drama.
Judgment Day is an attempt to write the whole Marvel Universe at once, but it also has lead characters who are carrying the story. I want to write all these characters though. Even if it's just a single line. Since I'm writing tie-ins like Immortal X-Men, I will get to write more characters and play with those dynamics. Plus, as we move forward into the different stages of Judgment Day, you'll see different kinds of responses. And seeing what people will do when their backs are against the wall is always interesting
While we're on the topic of fascinating dynamics, are we going to see Tony Stark and Mister Sinister collaborate on a science experiment?
Talk about a weird last two pages coming in hard with a team-up. We're going to have what? So, yes, we have a team-up no one would have seen coming. [Laughs] And that is the great joy of events and crossovers; seeing people who don't normally interact in a room and seeing how they get along. This story will have a core science team that some people will join as we move forward, but it starts with Tony, Mister Sinister, Ajak, and Makkari making a god. What could possibly go wrong? [Laughs]
Another Avenger who's in a very interesting place because of Judgment Day is Steve Rogers. I imagine once he knows what's going on, the clash between the Eternals and the mutants is going to seem disturbingly familiar, in that it's one society trying to wipe out another for political gain.
Yeah, Steve's position as the moral center of the Marvel Universe is really interesting. In some ways, he's being judged more than anyone else by this story. He's the idealist in a world that isn't. That's the most interesting thing about Captain America for me. I don't believe I've ever properly written Steve. Maybe a little in AvX. So, it was quite important for me to give him a big entrance. When Cap arrives in Issue #1, he walks in and is immediately this moral authority. He's going to take that role, and it's a hard one to take. He's not an idiot. He knows what the world is like, and anyone who's fought against Nazism knows how bad the world can get. At the same time, he's a person who believes in a concept of "right" that's perhaps simpler than other people's ideas. That is difficult.
I also think Steve has an interesting relationship with mutants. He put together an Avengers "Unity Squad" of humans and mutants in the aftermath of Avengers Vs. X-Men and he was present at both Hellfire Galas.
Steve recognizes mutants as people in a difficult position. If you want to sum up what Cap's like and his relationship with mutants, check out the first page of Issue #4. I think it's a really striking image, and it almost killed Valerio. It's a crowd scene. [Laughs] I swear, I thought he was going to do a close-up, and Valerio did not do a close-up in the slightest.
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What else can you tell fans about the action in the upcoming Judgment Day books like Immortal X-Men #5, A.X.E. Death to the Mutants #1, as well as A.X.E.: Judgment Day #2?
Immortal X-Men #5 is very much Exodus' perspective on the attack on the Quiet Council. So, you'll get some more about the psychic warfare with the Eternals' Uni-Mind. You also get a really deep dive into Exodus as a character. It's sort of my profile of him while also doing the big tie-in battle.
Then, Death to the Mutants #1 happens after Judgment Day #2. So, I can't say much. It's our Eternals' book. It involves the good Eternals like Seri, Phastos, and Ikaris. You may have noticed that, apart from Sersi in Judgment Day #1, they're not aware of what's going on. It's like, "Druig did WHAT?" The book also features mutants, politics, and some tighter focus on our bad Eternals like Druig. We get to see behind the curtain and see them quake.
Judgment Day #2 is a follow-up to the sneak attack in Issue #1. So it's the X-Men and Eternals grudge match and the Avengers trying to stop it, and all the cataclysmic fall-out from it. At the same time, our science team of Sinister, Ajak, and Tony are trying to put together a god to stop it all. Then, of course, we have our narrator that might be hinting at the way things are going. So, it's a race against time to see if they can stop the fight before it consumes the world.
The other thing that Issue #2 does is that it really starts to broaden the scope. Yes, there's a lot of action, but you also get to see more normal humans. The human's perspective on the mutants and Eternals is obviously important. We've got crowd scenes, but you get more of the person on the street stuff in Issue #2. That issue is the end of Act One. Act Two is when the event changes shape. It's where our narrator's presence starts wearing everyone down like a vise, and we'll see what people are made of. It's a Marvel comic. It's about people, in every form, superheroic and otherwise.
Finally, what can you tell us about your plans for the Deviants?
They're on the cover of Death to the Mutants #2, and the good Eternals are living with them. So, characters like Kro are certainly in this story. Kro has strong feelings. Kro meeting Emma Frost was a joy. What is a serial flirt Kro going to do when he meets yet another of the most beautiful people in the Marvel Universe? [Laughs] Settle down, Kro. There are some interesting things there for the Deviants. It's not just that mutants are Deviants. It's that Deviants are mutants. That's an arguable way of looking at it. So, what does that mean?
This is an event that motors. Valerio and our colorist, Marte Gracia, are doing astounding things on the page. Our letterer Clayton Cowles is heroically wrestling with my scripts. I think their great work making things accessible is key. I wanted this to come from ongoing stories in the Marvel Universe like Eternals and the X-books. So, if you're reading those, you'll already know this stuff. And what you don't know, we'll tell you. It's a summer event! We want you to be able to walk in, and we'll go, "This is the Marvel Universe. Here's what's going on!" Join us! You'll have a hell of a time. You'll be delighted, horrified, and charmed. It's been a lot of fun for me too. Writing the entire Marvel Universe is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Marvel's A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1 is on sale now.