Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: jonathan hickman, marvel, orchis, x-men

Orchis – The Big Bad Of All The Marvel X-Men Comics

Yesterday's news about Jonathan Hickman's departure from Marvel's X-Men books was accompanied by an Entertainment Weekly run through the history of the Krakoan X-Men project from the creators who worked on it. We also got a few revelations about Orchis along the way, introduced in House Of X #1 as an amalgamation of all sorts of other Marvel groups, from SHIELD to Hydra, the human-only movement fighting against what they see as mutant domination of the species, the planet, and the solar system. With the establishment of Mars as the new Planet Arakko, and Storm declared as regent of Sol, they do seem to have a point right now.

HICKMAN: From time to time, I have been accused of enjoying writing the bad guys in superhero comics more than I like writing the good guys. This is a terrible accusation to make, as it implies that I'm taking the wrong lessons from the books or that I'm asking uncomfortable questions about heroism in general. Honestly, it stings a little bit. It's also not a lie.

DUGGAN: They're the heroes of their story! In another universe there's a team book called Orchis. There was a side convo about Orchis between Si and Al, those two jammed on something that really blew my mind. You'll get to see it play out!

SPURRIER: Al and I sat down for a long time to come up with that organizational structure diagram that we're now all using as our cheat sheet. There's a few sneakily coded things in there if people want to go hunting for anagrams. It struck us that if we're going to run with this big bad organization that we can slowly reveal bits of it and what it's really all about and what's behind it and what can do, it's not just the baddie in my book, it's THE baddie in all of our books. For that to work it has to be sprawling, it has to at least be as clever as the cleverest writer. They would be holistic, they would have a holistic approach. It's not just a bunch of scientists coming up with mutant weapons; it's propaganda, it's sociology, it's a few things we haven't even mentioned yet that are really sneaky and clever. Each of us is telling a story or series of stories which come to satisfying modular conclusions, and always pick up again for the next season. But none of them will be, this is the story where the X-Men fight and beat Orchis. There will be bits of that along the way, but it's always much bigger than just the stuff that goes on in one book. The goal is to make each book feel really satisfying on a human character level, while making sure they each perpetuate this beautiful tapestry. It's like fighting a war. You don't just see planes flying over there, fighting, and coming back. It's just one piece in the theater of operations. That's the thing about being in the X-office: it's the nicest war I've ever fought

And of course, if Mystique is indeed working with Orchis to bring down Krakoa at Destiny's instructions…? Will Inferno see this play out? Did Orchis kill The Scarlet Witch as well?

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