Marvel Rivals- Hellfire Gala

By Mark Rodriguez

During the Krakoa era, the X-Men would throw Hellfire Gala events. It looks like the alternate Marvel Rivals multiverse has their own version, but Ultron crashed the party. I doubt he's there to show off a cool new suit. Let's see what happens.

 

 

The issue opens with Galacta explaining the Hellfire Gala to the readers. She comments on Storm that subtly uses her powers to make sure the drinks are cold and the floor is warm for those barefoot guests. She walks by Emma Frost as they both comment telepathically on most of the men wearing plain boring suits. Emma points out that the exception are Captain America, Namor and T'Challa. Namor comments that T'Challa is not his equal since he only rules a nation while he rules the ocean. T'Challa does not feel offended and updates him on the fact that intergalactic empire of Wakanda is an ocean of stars.

 

Wolverine finds Magik and comments on how she's alone in a party full of guests from across the multiverse. Magik was raised in limbo and has little to celebrate. Wolverine says she can start by leaving her sword behind since they're all here to celebrate and not fight. Magik considers that he might be right and try to relax. Just then an army of Ultrons appear through a portal and Wolverine leaps into action as the guests start to run.

Storm tells everyone to defend the civilians. T'Challa attacks one of the robots before it can blast Namor. Magik sees Psylocke fighting and is surprised she came with her sword and in costume. Psylocke says everyone came armed with their costume hidden under their outfits. Emma wonders how Ultron's robots got past the gate's security and where Ultron himself is.

Meanwhile on the Krakoa beach, Thing and Squirrel Girl are chillin' while Tippy (Squirrel Girl's squirrel) is playing with Jeff the Land Shark. They can hear the noise and think the guests are just partying wildly. They wonder if they should check it out... but decide to keep relaxing on their lawn chairs instead.

Galacta finds Ultron but is too creeped out by what he's up to (looks like he's breaking into someplace) and checks back at what is left of the party. Captain America says they need to control the situation and asks Storm if she has an island-wide sitrep. Wolverine tells Steve that Storm doesn't work for her. Storm says it's fine. Steve says the island and command belongs to Storm so he will consider himself a loyal soldier. Storm theorizes that Ultron has corrupted Arakko and used it to hack through the portals. She knows Krakoa is nearly evacuated and the gates are closed, leaving only the heroes there. Thing and Squirrel Girl continue to play with Jeff and Tippy completely unaware of the situation. Rocket Racoon is with them and tells Squirrel Girl that it'll be rough to get salt water out of her fur.

Ultron had made his way into an area called The Cradle which contains Cerebro, which has the genetic information of every mutant in the multiverse. Galacta explains whoever controls Cerebro controls all the mutants.

T'Challa asks Storm if she can see The Cradle. Storm can see it but also sees an army of Ultron robots that is larger than theirs. Captain America notices that the robots stopped moving. Ultron appears and says they stopped because her ordered them to, so they won't damage what will soon be his. Ultron says he doesn't need to defeat them in combat when their natural inferiority will be their downfall. Wolverine says Ultron is bragging while they've been slicing his robots apart. Elsewhere, Thing, Squirrel Girl and Rocket continue to have fun in the sun.

 

Ultron says that his mind virus is takingg over Cerebro as they speak, and when it's done he will control Krakoa and all of them. Ultron sends more robots after the crew. Emma telepathically tells the other that they have a tough decision to make, and they'll have to do it on behalf of all mutantkind. Wolverine says Ultron seemed to have made the choice for them and Magik agrees. Emma asks if the others agree.

Namor says it doesn't matter to him since his loyalty lies with the ocean and not in above-world matters. Storm says she gets it. Psylocke also agrees with the plan. Elsewhere, Thing and Rocket are playing limbo with Squirrel Girl. Emma says they'll have to destroy Cerebro, end mutant resurrection and then die... when their time comes, that is.

Jeff keeps dropping off fish towards Squirrel Girl until he forms a pile of them.

Emma tells Storm that they have to reach Ultron before he can get to Cerebro, even if they have to smash their way into The Cradle. A swarm of robots block the path and T'Challa asks Emma how they will do so. Emma turns into her diamond form and smashes her way through the robot swarm and breaks through the wall of The Cradle.

Squirrel Girl gives ice cream to Tippy and some to Jeff. She asks Rocket if he wants some and he says he is not a pet and has invented high-tech weaponry. Regardless, Rocket takes a lick from the ice cream.

Once inside The Cradle, Captain America says he's not familiar with this technology and asks how to save Cerebro. Emma says they're going to destroy Cerebro. Storm shoots lightning that hits Cap's shield. Wolverine and the others continue the fight but the Ultron robots start grabbing them and dragging them away from Cerebro.

Rocket is telling Thing about all his weapons. Thing says if he wanted to talk about science on his vacation, he would have brought Reed along. Thing sees that the cooler is empty.

Storm is angry at Cap and asks if he knows what he's done. Captain America says he didn't know their plan and wants to discuss his plan. Storm calls him a hypocrite. T'Challa tells Storm that Cap does what he thought was right and he agrees with the plan. Storm goes mad and starts firing bolts of lightning at Steve and T'Challa, saying that they've doomed them all. 

 

Storm tells the X-Men to keep fighting. Wolverine says the wall of robots got a lot thicker and they can't fight them as well as Captain America and Black Panther. Emma tells Captain America how they must destroy Cerebro before Ultron gets his hands on it. Captain America refuses to destroy Cerebro and the X-Men Resurrection Protocols. Emma says he has no say in the future of mutantkind. Cap says he will continue to fight for her. Emma smashes Steve upside the head, calling him arrogant.

Captain America explains in his timeline he wasn't unfrozen until 2099. He has seen how important mutants are to the future of humanity and how they were hunted and persecuted. He won't let them throw away the resurrection protocols. Emma says that's easy for him to say since Ultron gaining access to their genetic data, he won't be the one getting manipulated, cloned or mind-controlled.

Captain America says that won't happen since he will Ultron first. Steve leaps into action but one of the Ultron robots easily blasts him in mid-air. Emma says he'll get himself killed and the X-Men won't save him since he continues to work against them. One of the robots prepares to deliver the final blast at Captain America.

Just then the Thing leaps in alongside Squirrel Girl, Jeff and Rocket. T'Challa asks Thing where they've been. Thing says they were partying on the beach until they knew they needed rescuing. Squirrel Girl adds that they also ran out of cold beverages.

 

Captain America says they can't fight the robots one by one since they'll get overwhelmed. Jeff jumps into the nearby pool and starts swimming in circles, forming a whirlpool. This sucks all of the robots into the body of water. Ultron leaps out of the water but gets sucked back in... and eaten by Jeff. The crew is surprised that Jeff pretty much ate all the robots, and Namor commends him.

T'Challa is relieved to see that they destroyed Ultron and the virus without having to destroy Cerebro. Storm and Emma say they still don't understand. Cerebro has been compromised and must be destroyed. Emma goes into her diamond form. Psylocke and Magik keep Thing back with their swords and Wolverine grabs Captain America.

Squirrel Girl throws acorn bombs at the X-Men. Storm tells her to stop fighting them and asks why they are so blindly loyal to Captain America. Squirrel Girl says she'll always be behind Captain America and says the one constant in the multiverse is that there are no evil Captain Americas. Storm says in her era, Captain America was a member of HYDRA for a time. Squirrel Girl corrects herself and says there are very few evil Captain Americas.

Thing throws Psylocke and Magik away. Rocket scratches at Emma, which is annoying to her even in her diamond form. Steve grapples with Logan as he's surprised to hear that another version of him somewhere worked for HYDRA. Just then Cerebro starts to activate.

Galacta tells the readers that Ultron uploaded his consciousness into Cerebro which allows him to also resurrect (not sure how that works... would Ultron even have DNA?).  Ultron is now much more powerful as he sends T'Challa and Logan flying back with his energy blasts. 

Thing says he misses the beach and asks Doreen and Rocket if they have any ideas. Squirrel Girl says they could get Jeff to eat Ultron again if he didn't disappear with Namor. Jeff is currently playing with Namor.

Ultron says he can control all of mutantkind with humanity not being far behind. He tells the heroes that they can be his willing servants of his slaves. Magik leaps out at him and says she chooses death. Ultron catches her by the throat. He then snaps her neck. He tells the others not to make him damage them.

Unbeknownst to Ultron, Rocket set his rebirth battle beacon right behind him. Magik rematerializes and slices Ultron's head off. Ultron has been defeated and Magik asks Wolverine if he's glad she brought her sword to the party. Wolverine says if she hadn't they would have used Psylocke's.

Hours later, Steve meets up with Emma at the Quiet Council. Emma tells him to stay standing since the chair is not his seat and this is not his place. She thought he had left with the hours after the party ended. Steve says he was looking for her and the Cerebro helmet and asks if she still intends to destroy it. She asks if he thinks he could stop her. Steve says he would certainly try, but they both know the danger has passed.

Emma says one thing one she's learned that the danger doesn't just pass. It lies in wait and gathers its strength. It looks for a moment of weakness in which to strike. Emma says she can't bring herself to destroy Cerebro and prays that her weakness doesn't destroy them all. Back at the battlefield, the headless Ultron slowly starts moving and crawls towards his head.

My thoughts- 

So this was a fun read and I'm sure it took a lot of readers back to the Krakoa era since that story currently ended in the main X-Men comics. I was surprised by how deep the conversations got between human and mutant relations. Storm and Emma speak with an air of superiority and feeling 'destined for greatness' that matches their current comic interpretations, for better or for worse. I was expecting them to act a tad nicer since this was more of a videogame tie-in, especially with the fourth wall breaking Galacta acting like a hyper-active teenager in the same story.

I do wonder if these comics were based on digital mini-comics slapped together into a full-sized book. This is mostly because Galacta and some of the characters like to repeat and re-explain the situation that they're in, even if it's a few pages apart. This would make sense if it was originally a multi-parter with characters keeping readers up to speed on the previous chapter, but it sounds repetitive when it's all in the same book. Either that or Galacta thinks the readers have very short attention spans.

Ultron was an epic threat. I'm not sure how Cerebro could have cloned inorganic matter, but he did get a cool new form. While Ultron is a threat to humanity at large, he's usually and Avengers villain, This time he targeted the X-Men and all of mutantkind which was a cool change of pace. I liked the reaction of what is essentially 2099 Captain America upon finding out about his 616 HYDRA self. Though I guess Storm is the 616 version or she is referring to yet another multiverse where Cap also turned evil. Multiverses man... they're a trip.

The characters got to show off their swagger with costumes that make reference to the game's extra skins, which in turn reference the comics. The most notable one for me is Wolverine rocking the Patch look. The confusing one was Storm who started the story in her default costume, and then somehow transformed into her Goddess of Thunder costume when she got mad at Captain America. If she did transform, a panel showing it would have been nice.

 

The extra conflict came from the different views between Captain America and the X-Men. The threat that Ultron posed gave the X-Men the difficult choice to destroy the resurrection protocols which would mean whenever they die in battle, it would be for keeps. Captain America doesn't want to risk that seeing the future he has seen and how important mutants are for the world. The question gets raised on if a non-mutant has a say in mutant affairs, so now you have heroes fighting heroes while at the same time Ultron wants to take them all down.

 

I enjoyed the extra scenes of Thing and Squirrel Girl having fun at the beach, dancing and playing limbo and whatnot without knowing what was going on. It's a good thing they ran out of drinks, since it was nice to see them eventually join the fight. I liked how whatever Thing and Squirrel Girl were saying lead right into what Storm and the others were saying during the fight against Ultron.

It was a fun comic and it showcased more characters that weren't in the previous comics I read. It's nice to see this take place in the actual Marvel Rivals game multiverse, rather than the odd stories taking place in medieval Japan like the Ignite comic did.