WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Men #3, by Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, Sunny Gho, Rain Bereo, VC’s Clayton Cowles and Tom Muller, on sale now.
Earlier this year, Krakoa went from being a historical footnote to the literal center of the X-Men’s world within a few weeks. Even though the living island inspired the formation of two X-Men teams, it only made sporadic appearances until House of X.
In that era-launching event, Charles Xavier, Moira MacTaggert and Magneto turned Krakoa into an independent nation that’s home to the X-Men and the rest of Marvel’s mutants. Throughout all of this, Krakoa has flourished like never before, even producing designer pharmaceuticals and creating portals that can span the universe.
However, things aren’t going too well in Krakoa at the moment. While the X-Men are still reeling from the loss of Xavier, Krakoa’s ecosystem is severely disrupted by Hordeculture, a small band of eco-terrorists, in X-Men #3. As a text data page simply puts it, “Krakoa is screaming.”
That data page also reveals that all of Krakoa’s current achievements come at a steep price. To sustain itself, Krakoa must consume two mutants a year or take in other forms of mutant energy through a more sustainable workaround. While this detail might seem moderately horrifying, it hearkens back to one of the X-Men’s most important tales.
When Krakoa was introduced in Len Wein and Dave Cockrum’s Giant-Size X-Men #1, the living mutant island was defined by its hunger. When the original X-Men traveled to the island, it captured all of them and began feeding on their various energies.
By the end of the issue, the original X-Men and new recruits like Wolverine, Storm and Nightcrawler successfully defeated Krakoa and sent it into space.
While Krakoa was apparently in its smaller “winter” version then, the island has blossomed and grown since Xavier and the New Mutants’ Doug Ramsey established a way to communicate with it.
Since Krakoa became home base for an ever-growing number of Marvel’s mutants, the island can sustain itself by taking a minimal, theoretically harmless amount of psychic energy from every mutant on its shores.
As this issue reveals, that process is tightly monitored by two other mutant energy vampires, Selene and Emplate. Those two ex-villains are sustained through a similar process, and the shared pool of resources probably keeps any one character from going on a mutant feeding frenzy.
Even with those safeguards in place, there are still several questions about the current nature of Krakoa’s relationship to the mutants who live on it.
After breaking one of Krakoa’s newly established laws, Sabretooth was effectively consumed by the island. As punishment for his crimes, the Quiet Council that rules Krakoa exiled Sabretooth, sending him to a sunken place deep within the island. Supposedly, Sabretooth would be kept alive and aware but immobile and trapped in perpetual stasis.
While Marvel may already be teasing Sabretooth’s return to a more active role, this particular punishment seems designed to give Krakoa a potential feeding source who wouldn’t be missed on the island.
Although there’s no indication that Sabertooth is being fed on, this arrangement still tempts fate by effectively putting a piece of candy in Krakoa’s mouth and asking the island not to bite down on it.
On a more pressing note, the current disturbance on Krakoa’s ecosystem has already started taking a toll on the island’s residents. Beyond some unusually aggressive wildlife and a minuscule decrease in landmass, Jean Grey, Emma Frost and the other telepaths on the island have already noticed that Krakoa is taking more psychic energy than normal.
While Cyclops and a small covert action team are already dealing with Hordeculture, this is still a relatively small disturbance shows in the grand scheme of Krakoa While this particular incident has only really given headaches to some telepaths for the moment, it highlights just how fragile the Krakoan ecosystem really is and sets an ominous precedent for what other disturbances might cause in the future.