ADVANCED REVIEW! X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1: Party Down (Spoiler-Free)

Last year, Marvel readers were introduced to the Hellfire Gala, Emma Frost’s opportunity to throw a massive party for the residents of Krakoa and selected honored guests. The event was a first in a lot of respects, but the biggest reveal of the night was the mutant terraforming of Mars. It was a moment that echoed the opening of Jonathan Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X, which stated “Humans of the planet Earth. While you slept, the world changed.” Just like HoX and PoX, the Hellfire Gala focused on the line of X books, indicating the storylines to come, along with establishing a democratic process for selecting the core X-Men team. 

With this year’s Hellfire Gala, the X-office takes a different approach, choosing to focus the event on a one-shot issue rather than a crossover between books, and that decision informs the tone of the story. The one-shot is written by current X-Men scribe Gerry Duggan, with art from Kris Anka, Russell Dauterman, Matteo Lolli and CF Villa, colors by Rain Beredo, Frank Martin, Matt Milla and Matthew Wilson, and letters by VC’s Cory Petit. The issue picks up as the Hellfire Gala starts to come into full swing, and immediately deals with the revelations from the end of X-Men #12, in which Ben Urich breaks the story of mutant resurrection. Duggan wastes no time dealing with the fallout and implications of the reveal in this issue and lets the reactions of various Marvel figureheads shine through the event. It’s the primary throughline of the one-shot and gives the book a tighter narrative core than the last Gala, which was more of a snapshot of everything happening in the X-line at the time. 

On the same side of the coin, however, that focus also gives this Gala a more subdued feeling.That isn’t to say the one-shot is bad or boring, but after the swings this corner of the Marvel Universe has been willing to take since the 2019 relaunch, it just feels a little lackluster. The choice in format may have a part to do with that as well. It’s the same problem as streaming releases, in that by providing a single finished product (a one-shot in this case), there’s been little build or development. Outside of Duggan’s X-Men and this year’s Free Comic Book Day Issue, there’s been little seeding for the Gala itself, and it shows. The format and tighter focus were a double-edged sword, as it rewards mainline X-Men readers with a solid continuation of the first year of plots and characterizations, but for readers of the larger X-line, the other books serve as little more than window dressing. 

The art in this issue echoes that restrained feeling of the book, with each style being a solid addition to the one-shot, but nothing popping the way the Dawn/Reign/Destiny of X era has allowed its art to. The only distracting element of the book is its celebrity cameo, which exists in uncanny valley territory. They only appear in a few panels, but the way their face is rendered is distracting every time it appears. It’s an issue with certain Marvel books, usually reserved for Star Wars books. Last year’s cameos like Kevin Feige and Patton Oswalt avoided that uncanny appearance, but here it’s worth noting, as it speaks to that lesser feeling of the issue. While all of the artists working on this issue are strong and work well together as the book moves through such a large and well-dressed cast, the magic of a Pepe Larraz, R.B. Silva, Valerio Schiti, or even a Phil Photo is missing. Luckily, the coloring for the issue does well to elevate the line work, working to sync it with the visual expectations of the X-line.