<<< XMR History, Welcome to Earth 740

[Cyclops]

April is upon us, almost to May.

We've returned intact from the strange Old West setting of American Gods, our identities as the new genre of hero resculpting the strange collective subconscious that created the West World, and we now stand as new archetypes of hero and villain, the new gods that man builds until they must tear them down.

In Devanagari, Pietro Maximoff is on the road to recovery, thanks to the High Evolutionary

Maverick is in the process of gathering the board's worst for the Thunderbolts project.

With the support of their friends, the Summers Brothers set out to find the secrets of their childhoods. Alex Summers arrived at the school with information found in one of Essex's old labs that suggested something horrible happened to them as children. Scott learns that the life he thought he lived was not the way things really happened, as he and those who care about him explore the place where his powers first manifested.

Our world is a big one, and there is a level of national interference that the X-Men cannot achieve. The Brotherhood have no such moral restriction, and on March 18th, Genoshans mutants who escaped their oppressive country meet with Magneto to reveal the attrocities happening there. Magneto sends Spitfire to confirm their story. If they are telling the truth, Genosha will face the wrath of the Master of Magnetism.

Maverick's Thunderbolts soon began to take shape. Doc Samson as the team psychologist. Mala Suerte. Sabretooth. Sack. Quicksilver, Juggernaut, Balam, all brought together by SHIELD for rehabilitation... or for something more sinister.

A strange twist of events in early June leads Scott and Jean to the criminal port of Madripoor to discover that the father Scott thought died when he was ten has lived a new life as the pirate captain Corsair. Locked in a battle for revenge and dominance with Majestor D'Ken Neramani, the man who murdered his wife, Corsair, aided by his son, and the X-Men, end D'Ken's reign. But there is another Summers, Gabriel, ripped from Kathy's womb, and raised as a Shi'ar. Vulcan now rules Madripoor and seeks the day when he will avenge D'Ken's death by killing Corsair.

[Cyclops]

A trip to the London HFC brings hints of something terrifying to come and the next sitewide plot begins. Enter the Church of Humanity, lead by Reverend William Stryker. The Purifiers have come for all of mutantkind, and they will send these unholy monsters straight to hell.

May 23rd: X-Corps responds to a small town in West Virginia blasted by the Purifiers for harboring Mutants.

May 28th: New York gets a new mayor, Mathew Risman, who has some harsh words for mutantkind that gets strong reactions from the Hellfire Club, X-Corps, X-Factor and of course, those at the Xavier School.

May 29th X-Corps talks to Scott about what happened at Hamm’s Creek.

June 5th Risman takes a mysterious phone call in the middle of the night and the next day visits the Hellfire Club to see for himself the depravity there.

June 11th a riot in Mutant Town in response to the mayor's ultimatum introduces X-Factor to Nate Rivette.

June 14th A student trip to the museum that ends in a *near* riot thanks to bigots.

But random rioting is not the best that the Purifiers can do. Soon their hatred and bigotry turns near murderous, and on June 29th a captured Betsy Braddock is violently blinded and dumped where Kurt Wagner can find her... A warning to all mutants everywhere.

Two weeks later, Two Weeks Later, Mutant Town is violently attacked and members of X-Factor and X-Corps as well as those caught in the crossfire battle against what would be known as the Night of Broken Glass.

There were different ways to deal with the attacks. Some take their fate in their own hands. Some try and gather their loved ones together for safety.

But the hits keep coming, none of us prepared for their viciousness.

On July 28th, X-Corps, a charitable civic organization for mutantkind is attacked by Purifiers.

We all reacted in shock and horror -- the X-Men, our students. Some who were there. Some who wished they had been.

Despite bravery and great sacrifice, when the smoke clears, over one hundred men, women and children are dead at the hands of the Purifiers... and one of our own is taken, and tortured.

Until on August 5th when the Hellfire Club, seeking revenge for the White Queen's blinding, stumbles upon the lost and mutilated Icarus.

Determined to weaken Mutant Town and cast doubts on those it calls their protectors, on August 18th, Havok's identity as the former Horseman of War is leaked to the press and he is arrested for crimes against humanity. The next day Mayor Risman declares martial law in Mutant Town.

But one does not order mutants who can change the world at a thought. As Wanda Maximoff places a protective dome over Mutant Town, those inside, those outside react in horror, in concern, in fear, in anger. Some take action. Some continue with their lives. Some are tasked to breach the dome Some use the chaos for their own evils.

Then, something no one expected happened.

On September 1st Nate Rivette revealed himself to be Stryker's most evil weapon, by detonating a suicide bomb that kills forty seven student and staff members, and destroys the Xavier School.

Some of our most powerful threads ever were written during this board changing event.

Initial Explosion and Aftermath
To Guide Us.
Down in the Dark
Disaster
Into the breach
Fear Itself
Asleep.
Sky Is Over
I'm Alive
Jump Start
An Example of the World's Uncontrollability.
And The Walls Came Down, All The Way To Hell.

As the staff and students struggled to survive and escape the ruins of our school, those we thought to be our enemies, put aside old grudges and worked for the good our children, of our species, to save all they could.

The Brotherhood
Not in our house

The Hellfire Club
Bloody Hands

The staff and students, X-Men, Brotherhood and HFC, gathered together in a make shift triage infirmary, in our Outdoor Recreation Center.
Among the Ashes We will Stand

But, we were far from safe, as the true enemy rallied their attacks and the once peaceful school was turned into a battlefield.

Purifier Attacks
True Colors
Bring it on, you sons of bitches
Sic Pacem Parabellum
Kings of the hill
Those Means That God Has Placed in our Power

Now, in the aftermath, the leaders of the factions have gathered to discuss where to go from here.
Cabal

Total loss of life: 47 staff and students, 157 Purifiers.
There was nothing left of the school.

[Cyclops]

The Hellfire Club rallied to our aid. X-Factor reacted with horror and with guilt.

The dead are memorialized, memories are salvaged, and warriors reflect on their actions.

And Scott Summers calls for an evacuation of the school. We are broken but not irreparably. The dream still lives as long as one of us survives. The X-Men withdraw to the Savage Land and the reclaimed temple complex Scott dubbed Utopia.

Some of our people did not evacuate with us. Emma Frost joined Magneto in Sanctuary for his Declaration of War.. Others remained at the School ruins to have a run in with the late arriving Shield.

As Director Hill confronts Mayor Risman, the darker forces on the board gather to investigate Winter Island where they suspect the Church of Humanity to be headquartered.

On September 7th, the surprise support of no less a personage than Captain America brings the Mutant Town dome down.

On September 10th the HFC capture Risman and leave him to Psylocke's revenge.

On September 14th, Alex Summer's trial begins. Represented by Matt Murdock, the blind Hell's Kitchen lawyer who is secretly Daredevil, and facing the prosecution lead by Jennifer Walters who is not so secretly She-Hulk, a parade of friends, family, former victims, current teammates, and the surprising testimony of Captain America dissects the character of a man who sacrificed himself for love, and nearly destroyed the world for another man's hate. After nearly two grueling weeks the Court prepared to give their ruling and the World watched.


All except those who had had enough. As closing arguments are held in New York, on Winter Island, Magneto and an army of Brotherhood members and Hellfire higher up attack, thanks to the contrived and sacrificial capture of Black King, Max Coleridge. But Stryker is prepared and as Magneto publicly executes him and declares war on humanity, an army of Sentinels is unleashed, lead by the Nimrod... Their target?

New York City

In the Streets of Mutant Town, in the skies overhead, helping the injured , bearing bad news, the heroes of earth 740 fight to save us all, and the persecuted Alex Summers makes what is possibly the ultimate sacrifice to use his powers to absorb Nimrod's nuclear final solution.

The world was saved, and no one thought to wonder why New York had drawn such a heavy number of sentinels, which is just how Mr Sinister wanted it.

On September 27th, Scott Summers addresses the enraptured audience of humanity in the wake of loss, violence, and neglect. Mutantkind will not be turned into a race of victims, or the human population of the world will loose those who champion for them, those who defend them. The X-Men remain supporters of peace, but how much longer will they toe the line?

[Cyclops]

Life returned to what passes for normal around here.

X-Factor divided itself into two groups.X-F Investigations remained in Mutant Town as sort of a detective agency, while Havok, Polaris and a few others moved down into the Old City, an abandoned ruin a mile below Manhattan, adopting three exiled and strangely evolved Moloid children Volt names Marshall, Will and Holly.

Psylocke received new bionic eyes to replace the ones stolen from her by the Purifiers.

Magneto addressed Sanctuary on the nation's impending state of War.

And, Christmas shoppers in Times Square were attacked by mind controlled Santas. You know, the usual sort of thing that happens around here.

But in Utopia, things had begun to stir, beginning with Scott and Jean's bodies being possessed by the Nameless Ones, the stored life energies of ancient Savage Land dwellers who delivered a dire warning of gods turned into demons. What did they mean?

Elsewhere, the Hellfire Club, while infiltrating one of Sinister's lab discovered a child, a little girl code named Luna. Looks like Max Jr. had a sister now, but who were her parents?

Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were recruited into Director Hill's new Defenders team with no less a personage than Captain America leading the team.

And on December 12th, we learned for the first time that something horrible was happening in Sanctuary as one of Magneto's own Acolytes fled into X-Factor's arms for asylum, bringing with her Joseph, a young boy that has become Magneto's obsession. Alex Summers sends them both to Utopia so that the X-Men can protect them. Who is Joseph and why does Magneto turn against his own people to keep him near?

[Cyclops]

The New Year began with a Holiday Party gone terribly, terribly wrong as Selene invaded the Hellfire Club in search of the Infinity Gems in The Shroud's keeping. The battle wass won, and Selene was trapped within one of the gems, taking Storm's soul with her.

Unaware of Magneto's growing mania to recapture him, the amnesiac refugee Joseph found himself bonding with his enemy's own daughter!

In Utopia, new things went wrong, things that shouldn't. Fences break, supplies are misplaced, and we're invaded by tribbles. and wendigos. You know, every day problems.

Down in Subterranea, the Morlocks and X-Factor got into a bit of a kerfuffle, as Callisto grew increasingly more antagonistic towards Havok and his people. Why? No one yet knew that this was all part of something far worse than mutant PMS even when she abandoned one of her own, the genosha refugee Reptil because he dared to disagree with her or when she attempts to kill a child as he loses control of his powers.

In Sanctuary, Exodus tortured Mystique to try and find Joseph and when that doesn't work Magneto went to Warren's penthouse to demand answers.

And two young people with a strange lack of memory appear, separated by half the world, but connected in ways they can't remember. Franklin Richards was rescued by X-Factor and his sister Valeria was lost to the machinations of Dr. Doom, himself.

Then, on April 4th.connected something no one could ever have suspected happened. Dr. Strange received a visitor who he believed to be Speed, who after attacking the Sorcerer Supreme was killed only to reveal that he was not human after all. The Skrull had come, but it was too early for us to understand what was happening.

The first method of attack was subtle. Divide. The New York X-Men were grounded in the States, as saboteurs blew up Scott's precious Blackbird. In the Artic Circle, the Defenders were captured by a face familiar to their leader, the Winter Soldier, a man who appeared to be his lost sidekick Bucky Barnes!

At the opposite pole, the X-Men in Utopia found themselves trapped as the Savage Land shields went into lockdown mode. A trip to find out what's causing it led to Marrow secretly being infected with something that would change them all in more ways than one...

... and it also brought a new surprise in the form of another semi-amnesiac whose mind revealed two things. 1. Franklin Richards came from the future, and 2. this new arrival from the same timeline is Rachel Summers, Scott and Jean's full grown daughter.

There was no time to wrap their mind around this though, because the catastrophes kept coming. Dinosaur attacks. Shield arrested The Shroud. Psylocke and Longshot are lured to England by someone claiming to be her dead brother, Jamie. X-Factorfound out about the imposter that wore Speed's shape and the NYC X-Men are informed. Mystique, escaped from Sanctuary, comes to X-Factor for help.

But throughout all this calamity, as the Skrull make us dance like puppets without us even knowing we are on strings, they have woefully underestimated us, and those who have been taken prisoner in their phased dimension of Skrullos are about to be rescued.

Meanwhile in Utopia on May 5th, the X-Men learned of the Skrull when the unlikeliest of mutants revealed that they were of that usurper race. Artie Maddicks had been replaced by a skrull child named Nat'ren. But they don't have time to deal with it, because Marrow's infection was beginning to affect her.

[Cyclops]

Things weren't going well in Sanctuary either, people were going missing, but apparently Magneto didn't care.

In New York, Wolverine called a meeting of what X-Men were left to him. Something was happening, something had to be happening here, but what?

Meanwhile, still oblivious to the growing Skrull menace, X-Factor continued to try and save the world by taking in a new mutant in trouble, the mysterious Foxx.

And, in Utopia, the first clues about who or what the skrulls were came when Jean questioned Nat'ren, the child skrull who had replaced Artie. They were once Nuwali, the creators of the Savage Land, but something bad happened that changed their very nature and to combat it, their scientists de-evolved the whole race with the unfortunate side effect of turning them from gentle scientists into monstrous world conquerors... and, Nat'ren warned, the outside world was about to fall to their Queen. Inside the Utopian biosphere, the X-Men are safe... or are they.

Because the Brood has taken one of our own, and a horrible change has begun... the very change that Nat'ren's people called the bad times.

On May 18th, comes the first confirmed death by Skrull as the body of Hartley Lindwall is discovered broken on the grounds beneath the X-Corp building.

Then on May 20th,, the world at last knew that it had been conquered, as the Skrull Queen took a town and her armies took the skies. X-Factor and the New York based X-Men leaped into action, but the Skrull were making themselves known. Another life is claimed by the skrull in the form of Jamie Madrox.

In the light of the invasion, Nick Fury, himself, emerges from secrecy with specially chosen team, to rescue the Defenders. Are they too late to save the world? Not if they go back in time, they aren't.

On that same day, as if reacting to the attack by the Skrull, the Brood Queen attacks the Utopian temple and infects the X-Men. In mere days, they will become Brood and then, when the biosphere shields drop, anyone left from the Skrull Invasion would be caught in a battle between alien races, unless the X-Men come up with a plan to stop themselves from losing themselves to the infection.

But there might be hope yet for the outside world, because in Skrullos, the escaped captives make their attack against their captors. Can they escape in time to help save the world?

[Cyclops]

The Utopian X-Men begin their plan to use the artificial sentience known as Danger to create their own hive mind to protect themselves from the worsening brood infection. March 24th, the Brood attack! Has the cure Hank developed from the blood of the few who have proven immune come in time?

The Skrull however take a different approach on the outside world, and Ra's, who had taken the place of Dr. Nemesis, proposes a radical idea, an electronic wave that will cause worldwide complacency. As the whole world falls before them, Hellfire comes to rescue X-Factor, and give the world their only fighting chance. Havok goes to the reopened Utopia to warn the X-Men, and give the world some hope.

On May 28th, the few heroes left in the Skrull conquered world attack! The HFC strikes out at the Complacency Device! The Kathy Ann , The Phoenix Flight and the flying mutants begin to spread the Cure, while all over New York the heroes fight their former friends for the freedom of world! While on the Helicarrier, the Skrull Queen, revealed to be Maria Hill fights a battle of her own.

But at last, the Complacency Wave was destroyed, the Skrull were cured of the Brood Infection that had made them monsters, and the world began to return to normal... or at least what passes for normal for us. How long before something new comes to threaten us? No clue, so let's just enjoy it while we can.