Fun Fact: Despite Galactus' whole origin story being that he is the last survivor of a previous version of the universe, there is actually one more member of his species in Universe-616.
Loki traveled back in time and ended up bringing Taaia, the Scienceer Supreme of the Planet Taa, into Universe-616 during a journey through the cosmos.
With her knowledge of the future, she realised she couldn't return to her time, and now hangs out with Dr Adam Brashear, aka Blue Marvel.
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RoM is a book that loses something in the highlight format as the big moments are truly earned and impactful. There's an ongoing narration, dialogue or soliloquy running through each issue tying everything together and to truly give context I'd have to annotate it. Lucky for us, Al Ewing and Luciano Vecchio are masters and every panel serves as a coda for Storm or Magneto from SWORD and X-Men Red. This is easily my longest Highlights yet, there's just so much to say.
I wish I dreamt about Magneto
Ororo has a dream of a full page splash - Magneto, Max, saying 'I was wrong' surrounded by five of his iconic helmets. 3 red ones, bloody and facing towards the world. 1 black, 1 white upright behind his back. It's been quite a while since Uranos the Undying tore his heart out on Judgement Day but it's good to see Ororo has some measure of peace and love on Arakko with Craig of NASA.
She's the deuteragonist of RoM so she chooses to follow her dream and seek Max in the afterlife. Ororo shows up at Adam Brashear/The Blue Marvel's underwater base and asks for help with exactly that. He lampshades how bozos like Reed would deem it impossible and leads her to a portal. He's in the middle of explaining how dangerous it is and requires... we don't hear because Storm takes a running leap and YOLOs into it. Tarn the Uncaring and a who's who of Marvel cosmology are there to greet her. Tarn is insulted that Ororo has come for the guy who exploded his head, but as above, so below - he loves to talk and she outwits him.
Ashake is often obliquely referred to but very rarely directly, so it's lovely to see her magical ancestor here to help. As Ororo pets her black cat, Ashake confirms this is a place of magic. Symbols and metaphors are powerful here - something Mags could use help with in his current state. It's also connected to the Kabbalistic tree of life, but I'm not very knowledgeable about that.
Two redrawn and recoloured keystone moments of Max and Ororo's relationship down the bottom.
She resolved to see this through and her thought carries her towards the Sphere of Judgement. Unexpectedly a bunch of Dominions bar her path, though luckily the two mutants are too small to truly be of interest to them. Still, a single mortal arriving in Overspace is significant and they prompt her to ask questions. The face of Dominions are shown but it's still fairy tale rules. The most important thing she learns is about Enigma, though she doesn't know it at the time.
The Sphere of Judgement is hostile, everything is inverted. Lightning is red, the river is lava, clouds are black, everything is broken. She notices this spot from her dream and the charred frames of Max's five helmets still sit in blood. Magneto has been here for months by choice, bypassing the Waiting Room Wanda built but refusing to move on. He believes he deserves this.
Finally she reaches Magneto weeping blood in front of a wall of names. Everyone he ever killed and he's counting every one, remembering their name. He's judging himself, punishing, and doesn't think he deserves to leave.
He shares his greatest shames, his most recent cruelties. Worst, the ones he convinced himself was necessary. He's overwhelmed by the red in his ledger and in this place of judgement lashes out, flinging names off the wall at Ororo while naming the person. What snaps him out of it is the mention that something happened to Charles, heh.
'The no-place of his heart' š
Max turns the judgement on Ororo but she rejects it, calling him out for extending Charles the grace he won't extend to himself plus a little hypocrisy. Magneto has always been prone to drama and that tendency can hurt as much as it heals.
That really gets him going, but he's judging himself more constructively now. Love, friendship, accountability. The things that are keeping some part of tethered to the living world. He pulls one more name down to say the name aloud before he sends it at Ororo - it's his - Max Eisenhardt. Still, he cries 'it's out of our hands.' He truly wants to give up but I think a part of him knows his story isn't done.
Ororo disagrees. Displaying why she's the only person who could assist in the resurrection of Magneto, she covers his eyes and remembers the rules of this place. The wall of the dead becomes its opposite - the wall of the living. Not those he killed but those he saved. It's enough to pull him out of punishing himself. Neither group should be forgotten but he can choose to save life rather than take it - to change.
Torturing yourself in a personal hell might appease some of those dead, but accepting responsibility to the living should be what comes after judgement. Suffering helps no one, and as he says to Logan as he's about to kill Charles much later - 'no more martyrs.' Part of why I enjoyed Magneto identifying Logan Behavior is because he himself is the king of it. Charles too. All three are prone to martyrdom but dying is easy. It's living that's difficult and worthwhile. Secluding yourself from the world, whether it's in the Sphere of Judgement, a mega prison, or with a pack of wolves - is senseless and selfish. Living is better.
Next time - what does that actually mean for both of them and how do they get out of this place? It's not as simple as turning a key. Choosing to live is hard work. Metatextually, change and rebirth requires a tour of all that he is, all that he's done. What's the point of killing a character and then bringing them back the same as they were? Comic books do it all the time, but Magneto's long history is a study of opposites and extremes. He, the writer and the reader all need to deconstruct Magneto so he can be reconstructed as a better person. With the benefit of hindsight we know he succeeds, but what does that actually look like for him? 60 years of his oversized influence on the world is a lot and it only gets better from here.
Hi anon! Now Iām not sure which lore you want specifically so uhhhh letās do Galans family pre-universe dying!
First up is Taaia, a.k.a his mum and Scienceer Supreme of Taa
(Side Note, anyone else notice the pink in her hair is nearly identical to the pink sometimes appearing in Galactusā suit?)
Taaia is awesome as hell! Her first appearance is Defenders (Vol. 6) #1 August, 2021 (for those that donāt want to go searching lol). Iāll give a short and brief overview of what happens so there will be spoilers for this comic but not finer details.
Essentially the Defenders are transported back to the sixth cosmos, where Taaia is leading a battle against the Omnimax (devourer of worlds for the sixth cosmos), they help her to defeat it and end up all transported to the fifth cosmos. A whole lot happens and the next big thing I feel the need to mention is her literally fusing with the Phoenix force!
Itās a family of comic power stuff I guess. Also she has a thing with Dr Strange. Just gonna throw that here. As of the current time, as far as Iām aware, sheās living in the eighth cosmos, defending it and planning to meet Galactus there.
Next is Aala, the wife of Galan.
She appears in Mighty Thor (Vol. 2) #4 July, 2011, and thatās it. As far as I am aware she has not appeared in another comic since. What we know is she was pregnant at the end of a the universe and the child was not born before the end. We donāt see her on the ship Galan goes into the exploding cosmos in so we can assume she died before hand.
Whatās interesting (to me at least) is her eyepatch.
In the same comic we see some people that appear to be servants (?) of both genders wearing the same eye patch. Is this a status symbol? After marrying Galan would her status not change and so she could take it off? Is it just from an actual injury? Am I overthinking this entirely? I can only be sure of the answer to one of them and itās the last one. The last one is a definite yes.
Anyway, I hope this was at least a little interesting (if small) for you anon! Also if this is the same purple heart anon who requested the art I promise Iām gonna get it to you, pure coincidence meant you sent your ask right when I had four teeth pulled and to say Iāve been struggling is the understatement of the century. I wonāt get into it but I promise I will respond with art!
Okay, loki ship, but like "friend", way so more queer platonic, but I think taaia from defenders beyond and loki hang out a lot. They're both very thrill seeking, and they kinda match eachothers freak. They definitely cry to movies together and cuddle but in the mother to mother way. <3
Woah based
They get together once a month to drink wine and watch a movie while talking about their kids
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Rereading Defenders Beyond for the millionth time and realizing the obvious. Al Ewing and Javier RodrĆguez didnāt just map story telling (conceptual) to the Kabbalah but the physical construct of comic books themselves!
Starting in reverse with issue 5 title āKetherā correlating to the sphere at the top of the tree. This is the house of ideas, essentially the artistās studio. Metaphysically, this is the source of all creation, so fittingly it becomes the source of all of Marvelās creations.
Kether is the top of the tree but there are trees within trees. A fractal reality; as above, so below. Where the world of action ends and the world of creation begins. In this context, we, the readers, live in the world of creation that contains the world of action within- comics
Below Kether is Daath. This is a mysterious realm where ideas are created, traveling down the tree to manifest, or forgotten, stagnating in the sphere. Daath is the secret 11th sphere of the tree that some say does not belong, yet still exists.
Tipheret is the next tier down, and later X-Men comics fully actualize it as the page of creation. In Marvel, itās illustrated as a vast desert with an unfinished building of scaffolding in the center. Think of this as ācreation in actionā
Below Tipheret is Yesod, the scaffolding of consciousness. That building in Tipheret is actually Yesod itself. The Beyonders hang out in there, outside of the story (Malkuth) but within the page. If Tipheret is the paper to write and drawn upon, Yesod is the panel guttering.
At the bottom of the tree is Malkuth. Normally this applies to our physical reality, but considering the fractal nature of the Kabbalahās Four Worlds, this is the realm of Marvelās fictional universe. Its continuity. Its story. Malkuth is the illustrations within the panels. Malkuth is the 10th sphere of the Kabbalah, and thus correlates to the 10th cards of tarotās minor arcana. As the realm of physicality and material existence, itās ruled by our five senses, our methods of perception and interaction.
I love this comic so much. Ewing and RodrĆguez not only created a fantastic story mapping out the metaphysical realms of the Marvel Universe, but also retroactively made every comic ever created, past and future, a physical model of the Kabbalah itself!
