X-Men Killed an Iconic Mutant, But Marvel Already Destroyed Its Impact

In September 1992, the world of pop culture was all abuzz about a shocking news story. Superman, the Man of Steel, the most iconic superhero in the world, was being killed! Few comic book events have ever matched the public interest that accompanied the Death of Superman. For whatever reason, the public really responded to Superman’s death in a massive way, much greater than anyone (including DC) could have ever imagined. However, taking a step back, note the date of when this became a media frenzy. September 1992. Wait, when did Superman actually die? His death occurred in Superman #75 (by Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding), which was released in…November 1992.

Yes, the news frenzy that got the public up in arms, and drove the sales of millions of copies of The Death of Superman (including the special black bag edition, complete with a funeral arm band) all occurred months before the actual comic book came out (it was the preview catalog that comic book retailers use to make their future comic book orders that kicked off the first news articles). This speaks to often contradictory goals at work in the world of comic books, where on the one hand, you want to promote future comic books to help with sales, but on the other hand, you want to protect the secrecy of comic book storylines, so that readers will still be surprised. It’s a balance that is very difficult to achieve, and in the case of the recent death of Rachel Summers in Rise of the Powers of X #3, the publicity machine has essentially “ruined” her death by revealing future plans for the character days BEFORE she was seemingly murdered by Professor Charles Xavier.

How was Rachel Summers’ seemingly killed in Rise of the Powers of X?

Rise of the Powers of X (by writer Kieron Gillen, artist R.B. Silva, colorist David Curiel and letterer Clayton Cowles) is one of two main miniseries that make up the conclusion of the Krakoan Age of the X-Men. It spun out of the end of Kieron Gillen’s run on Immortal X-Men, where we saw a last ditch effort by Mother Righteous, one of four clones created by Nathaniel Essex (the other three being Mister Sinister, Doctor Stasis, Orbis Stellaris and Mother Righteous, the first three clones of Essex himself, and Mother Righteous a clone of Essex’s wife) to ascend to Dominion status, the highest form of intelligence in the cosmos, where you exist beyond time and space (Dominion was first introduced in Jonathan Hickman’s House of X/Powers of X miniseries that launched the Krakoan Age of the X-Men). However, Mother Righteous discovered that an artificial intelligence version of Essex, a fifth “child” known as Enigma, had beaten her to it, and in fact, the other clones were all designed to gather enough information so that Enigma could ascend to Dominion.

Rise of the Powers of X shows that the rise of Enigma is connected to Moira MacTaggert, whose death restarts the timeline, which was something that Mister Sinister took control of by creating a “Moira Engine,” which created clones of Moira that Sinister used to explore alternate timelines (which would end whenever one of the Moira clones was killed). Moira had found a “No-Space” that also existed beyond time and space, and Charles Xavier used that No-Space (renamed “No-Place-X”) to plot against the ascended Enigma, with a deadly plot against Moira. Since Moira’s mutant powers kick in when she is thirteen, Xavier believed that the only way to save the X-Men and stop Enigma was to go to one of these alternate timelines and kill Moira…before her mutant powers kick in. However, in this issue, he realized he could not do that.

The other members of Xavier’s team include Sinister (within a cloned version of Doug Ramsey’s body), Rachel Summers, and the powerful mutant from the future known as Rasputin.

After Xavier failed to kill young Moira, Rasputin then killed Doug/Sinister, and Xavier seemingly killed Rachel at the end of the issue, claiming that it had to be done…

Now, obviously, comic books being comic books, cliffhanger deaths can always be revealed to be something else entirely (the X-Men literally had a whole Resurrection Protocols). However, they are at least based on the idea that you don’t KNOW that the character is DEFINITELY going to be alive. Cliffhangers like these are built on the idea that it COULD be an actual death. And yet, Marvel’s publicity machine had other ideas.

How did Marvel blunt the impact of Rachel Summers’ seeming death?

A week ago, Marvel announced plans for Pride Month this year, and it includes featuring team-up covers of major Marvel superheroes teaming up with major Marvel LGBTQIA+ icons, to demonstrate the importance of allyship.

Rachel Summers has recently started a romantic relationship with Betsy Braddock, the current Captain Britain…

Well, one of the characters who will be featured in this new series of cover variants in June is, in fact, Rachel (she is one of the two sample covers provided, as the other covers will be revealed later on). Rachel will appear on the cover of Daredevil #10 in a variant cover team-up with Daredevil drawn by Davi Go (Go and Betsy Cola will be drawing all of the ally variant covers)…

In the press release announcing the variants, Marvel notes the various LGBTQIA icons who will be appearing on variants, and while discussing Rachel, state:

Rachel Summers, AKA
Askani
, currently playing a pivotal role in Krakoa’s final battle in RISE OF THE POWERS OF X. She will star alongside her girlfriend, Betsy Braddock, in a yet-to-be announced X-Men title in the upcoming FROM THE ASHES era.

Therefore, before Rachel’s death even occurs, readers have already learned that it is not an actual death, since Rachel will be appearing in a future series along with Betsy.

Again, this is a balancing test that comic book companies have long had to manage, and in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s still a case of blunting Marvel’s own shocking cliffhanger days before the cliffhanger was even released.