X-Men Says Goodbye to Its 2019-2024 Krakoan Era with a Genuinely Heartbreaking Image

The long anticipated end of the X-Men franchise’s Krakoan Saga has come, with its final issue bringing the journey full circle in a single image, one that will provide bittersweet resolution to readers who have gone along for the ride. In an emotionally resonant reflection of Krakoa’s first image, Marvel has closed the book on another chapter in X-history.

X-Men #35 – written by Gerry Duggan, Al Ewing, and Kieron Gillen, the three pillars of the Krakoan Era’s third act, and featuring contributions by an Omega-level roster of Marvel artists – provides the final coda to the Era. The issue features several notable cover designs, including one by David Marquez, which inverts the image of Pepe Larraz’ cover for House of X #1.

The instantly iconic cover by Larraz announced the dawn of the Krakoa Era by showing some of the X-franchise’s most recognizable characters emerging from a Krakoan Gate. Now, the Marquez variant depicts them exiting, just the way they entered.

Krakoa Comes Full Circle With A Perfect Parallel

X-Men #35 David Marquez Variant Cover

The Marquez variant for X-Men #35 is instantly recognizable for its re-creation of the Larraz cover of House of X #1. The gutpunch comes from the way the action of the cover is flipped; Cyclops, Jean Grey, Professor X, Magneto, and Wolverine are shown leaving through the Gate, walking into a blinding white light, with Xavier the last to step foot out of the Krakoan Era, just as he was the herald of its arrival. For a franchise that trades heavily in cyclical narratives – something it can be said the Era firmly transformed from a bug into a feature – it is a fitting way to end, just as it began.

Whereas Pepe Larraz’ House of X #1 cover featured the franchise’s iconic characters stepping through the gate as refreshed, reborn – literally, as it would turn out – and revitalized version of themselves, Marquez’ mirror image for the cover of X-Men #35 ends the Krakoan Era by sending the same characters once more into the unknown, as significantly different heroes than they were before. However, thanks to the groundbreaking work done during the five-year tenure of the Krakoan Era, the future for the X-Men franchise is bright.

House Of X #1’s Cover Set The Tone For The Krakoan Era

Artist: Pepe Larraz

Part of the joy of 2019’s X-Men relaunch was the unraveling of the mysterious surrounding the franchise’s radically altered paradigm. The questions began with the cover for House of X #1: Professor Xavier, wearing a sleek-looking version of the Cerebro helmet, strides confidently through some kind of portal. It’s not only his X-Men following in his footsteps; his oldest friend, and at times greatest enemy, Magneto, is also at his side. Just as contained in the pages within, House of X #1’s cover offered a cascade of questions, each promising exciting answers with significant implications for X-lore.

Most notably, the use of Jean Grey’s classic 1960s “Marvel Girl” costume signaled that the relaunch ahead was going to engage with the entire history of the franchise, reshaping and reforming sixty years of continuity into a narrative that was, if not always entirely coherent, at least cognizant of the need to synthesize old and new. There is, to some degree, also an ominous quality to Larraz’ House of X #1 cover. Rather than suggesting a “dark” Era ahead, though, it connoted – accurately, in retrospect – a lived-in, weary timeline, full of characters whose optimism had been worn down to realism.

With X-Men #35, The X-Franchise Hits A Double Milestone

Uncanny X-Men #700 Cover By Pepe Larraz

In addition to the end of the Krakoan Era, X-Men #35 also serves as another milestone: the 700th-issue of Uncanny X-Men, according to Marvel’s “legacy” numbering system. The main cover for X-Men #35/Uncanny X-Men #700 is fittingly illustrated by artist Pepe Larraz; more than just giving him the opportunity to contribute to the end of the Era, which he was essential to ushering in, it signals that he ranks among the upper echelon of pivotal X-Men artists, as he gets the honor of visually rendering the franchise’s achievement.

Appropriately, Larraz’ cover packs decades worth of history into a single frame, as classic and contemporary versions of characters mingle. Magneto, in his classic attire, pushes a wheelchair-bound Xavier, as characters walk –​​​​​​​ and fly – in their wake. Unforgettable X-Men characters from Wolverine and Beast, to Rogue and Banshee, as well as the dragon Lockheed, and even Deadpool, are all represented, in an image that serves to perfectly encapsulate the double milestone of the Krakoan Era’s conclusion, and the uninterrupted publication of X-Men stories for over six decades.

Saying Goodbye To The Greatest Era Yet For Marvel’s Mutants

Now, The X-Men Rise “From The Ashes”

The Krakoan Era took the X-Men franchise to new heights; it reinvigorated Marvel’s mutants at a time when they desperately needed a new direction, and set the conditions for the very nature of mutantkind, and mutant storytelling, to be radically reconsidered by some of the best creative talents in the comic book industry. Readers will dissect and discourse on every detail of the Era in perpetuity – and whatever comes after will always be held up to Krakoa in comparison.

More than just an Era, Krakoa was an epic – an ambitious ongoing storytelling initiative not quite like anything previously done in the medium. For this reason alone, it was a monumental achievement. Now, the X-franchise will look to follow that with “From the Ashes,”a relaunch that will follow the aftermath of the Krakoan Era’s climax, while at the same time resetting X-Men, in some ways, to an earlier style of storytelling. It remains to be determined how the lessons of the past five years will be applied to X-Men stories moving forward, and that is part of the thrill.