Friday, November 1, 2013

Want It Got It TPB : Complete Days of Future Past

 UPDATE: Coming Soon as a TPB/Omnibus at Amazon - 03/18/14Days of Future Past remains one of the COOLEST stories ever told in comics. Since then there have been slivers of that world revealed here and there, but never collected into one TPB. Marvel should grab all those little tid bits and tie them all together.

The problem is how do you go about it? By publication date? By the actual time line? I do not know. It would take a clever editor, but I am sure they can do it.

Comics for Earth 811 in "chronological order":
New Mutants #18
Uncanny X-Men #188
Wolverine #1 #2 #3
Excalibur #22 #75 #35
Uncanny X-Men #141 #142
Excalibur #50 #52
Fantastic Four Annual #23
X-Factor Annual #5
New Mutants Annual #6
X-Men Annual #16
Uncanny X-Men #189 #202
Excalibur #66 #67
Update: and Hulk: Broken Worlds #2

Clipped from Marvel Database:
According to Rachel Summers, the earliest known point of divergence between Earth-811 and Earth-616 took place after Jean Grey had been possessed by the Dark Phoenix. She returned to the home of her parents, and driven by Dark Phoenix's rage she demonstrated her powers in front of them. In Earth-616, this led her father to disown her and cast her out.

However, in Earth-811 her father realized that, as a telepath, Jean could feel the subconscious fear that her parents and sister felt in her presence. Realizing that this was causing her pain that she could not block out, he chose not to cast her out. As a result, Jean Grey did not die in the Shi'ar duel of honor (as she had in Earth-616). She married Scott Summers and had a single child, whom they named Rachel and who inherited Jean's psychic powers.

A second point of divergence occurred on Halloween 1980. In Earth-811, on this date, Senator Robert Kelly, Charles Xavier and Moira MacTaggert were attacked and killed by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in Washington, D.C. (In Earth-616, this attack was prevented by a time-traveling Kate Pryde from the Earth-811 timeline, see Days of Future Past below.)

The death of Senator Kelly made mutants the objects of fear and hatred among baseline humans. At around this time, there were violent anti-mutant riots. In one such riot, John and Elaine Grey, Jean Grey's parents, were killed. In 1984, a "rabid anti-mutant candidate" was elected President of the United States. Within a year, the first Mutant Registration Act Mutant Control Act was passed, although the Supreme Court had it struck down as unconstitutional. Nevertheless, a second Mutant Control Act was passed in 1988 and upheld.

The US administration reactivated the Sentinels, programming them to eliminate the mutant threat once and for all. The robots concluded that the best way to accomplish this would be to take over the whole country. During the takeover, they killed not only mutants, but other beings with super powers, including the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. Survivors were sent to concentration camps.

By the year 2000, Sentinels ruled the entire North American continent. The rest of the world became more frightened of the Sentinels than of mutants, and threatened war if the Sentinels ever moved outside of North America. The Sentinels operated out of their main headquarters in the Baxter Building, New York City.

By the year 2013, people were in one of three classes and marked with a certain letter: Baseline humans (H) have no mutant genes, and are permitted to breed; Anomalous humans (A) are not mutants themselves, but possess mutant genetic potential, and are forbidden to breed; and Mutants (M) who are forced to live in concentration camps and serve the Sentinels, and are shunned and hated by other humans.

At this time, the only surviving X-Men were Kate Pryde, Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine. Wolverine had managed to escape Sentinel capture and became a Colonel in the Canadian Resistance Army, although the other three had been captured and lived at the South Bronx Mutant Internment Center, where they formed another Anti-Sentinel resistance along with Franklin Richards, Rachel Summers and a paraplegic Magneto.

In 2013, the Anti-Sentinel Resistance discovered that the Sentinels, driven by their prime directive, were planning to move out of North America and invade other countries. Knowing that this would automatically trigger a full-scale nuclear strike from the other great powers, and thus destroy the world in a nuclear holocaust, they made a plan to change history and prevent the Sentinels from taking power. In particular, it was Rachel Summers who worked out the plan to use her telepathic powers to send the consciousness of one member of the resistance back to Halloween 1980, to swap bodies with their younger self and prevent the assassination of Senator Kelly. Kate Pryde was chosen, since in 1980 her younger self (Kitty Pryde, aka Sprite) had only recently joined the X-Men and had not yet been trained to defend herself from psychic attack.

With Logan's help, they constructed a "jammer" to disrupt the effectiveness of their control collars, allowing Rachel to send Kate's consciousness back in time to 1980 in Earth-616 (although it was later revealed by Rachel Summers and, independently, by Nimrod that Earth-616 was not in fact the past of Earth-811 and that Kate had "moved cross-time as well as down", and allowing the resistance members to remove the collars permanently and regain the use of their powers.

Logan then helped them escape from the internment center, leaving Magneto behind to cover their escape. They were tracked down by Sentinels, and though they managed to defeat the Sentinels with their powers, Franklin Richards was slain. Leaving Rachel alone to protect Kate's body (and the consciousness of the younger Kitty Pryde), Logan, Ororo and Peter attempted to launch an attack on the Sentinels' headquarters in the Baxter Building, only to be swiftly and mercilessly killed

Back in 1980, Kate Pryde warned the X-Men of Senator Kelly's assassination and the bleak future it would cause. They traveled to Washington, where Kate successfully prevented the assassination before switching places again with the young Kitty Pryde, returning to her own reality.

Later stories, preventing Kelly's assassination did not erase this possible future; it only created a new future. Pryde and Summers tried again. Summers traveled back in time. Nimrod, an advanced Sentinel, killed Pryde and followed. Summers visited Professor Xavier's school but quickly left (it had been destroyed by the army in her future, leaving her the only survivor). She joined the X-Men for a time and then became a founder of Excalibur.

A related event, Days of Future Present, took place in the present but involved the Franklin Richards who apparently died in the first story. It also involved a new character, Ahab, who was Master of the Hounds in the future and had made Rachel one of his Hounds.

Another story, actually a prequel, appeared in a limited series, Wolverine: Days of Future Past. This story explained, among other things, how Magneto wound up a paraplegic in the first story.


Unbeknown to the present-day Excalibur, Kate Pryde had become lost in time and merged with Widget, their robot. When a team from Camelot found her in their time, she brought Excalibur (including Shadowcat, her younger self) forward in time. The Sentinels overran Camelot, leaving few survivors. After removing the machinery inside a defeated Sentinel, Excalibur and the others used it to infiltrate the Hive and reprogram the Hierarchy, the master controller of all Sentinels.

Instead of protecting only "pure" humans, they would now protect all life. One last story has a similar title but definitely takes place in another reality (Earth-2992). In this story, "Days of Future Tense"[10], the survivors of Excalibur were wiped out by Black Air, a British intelligence agency collaborating with the Sentinels.

1 comment:

CRPotomac said...

Pre-ordered this one on Amazon as soon as it showed up on their site! My favorite comic story all in one place is going to be great!