X-Men X-Plainer: Krakoa
The island that walks like a man!
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. The X-Men were planted firmly in the zeitgeist last year when X-Men ‘97 was releasing new episodes of Disney+, the Krakoa Era was coming to an end in the comics, and Deadpool & Wolverine was breaking box office records in cinemas. It afforded me plenty of opportunities to write about Marvel’s merry band of mutants. Things cooled off over the second half of 2024 and the first few months of 2025, but they are starting to heat back up. Numerous actors from the Fox X-Men film franchise have been announced as reprising their roles for Avengers: Doomsday, and Marvel Rivals has made Krakoa the centerpiece of its second season.
Piggybacking off of that, Marvel has announced an upcoming X-Men: Hellfire Vigil comic to reflect on the Krakoa Era this July. All of this is to say I have the perfect opportunity to talk about Krakoa. I’m not referring to the specific run of comics from 2019-2024. I’m talking about the character. Yes, Krakoa is a character with a somewhat obscure publication history that somehow is also one of the most important characters in X-Men history.
Deadly Genesis
Krakoa’s first appearance just happens to be in arguably the single most important X-Men comic book ever published: Giant-Size X-Men #1. This may seem ridiculous now, but the X-Men were not that popular for the first couple decades of their existence. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the characters in X-Men #1 in 1963, and the series was effectively canceled by X-Men #66 in 1970 due to poor sales. I say “effectively canceled” because the series continued, but each subsequent issue after #66 was just a reprint of an earlier issue. This continued all the way until X-Men #93 in 1975.
1975 happens to be the year that Giant-Size X-Men #1 was published. Written by Len Wein and illustrated by Dave Cockrum, Giant-Size X-Men #1 was the first original X-Men story to be published since 1970. It sought to reboot and rebrand the X-Men in order to appeal to modern audiences. The basic premise of the comic is that the the X-Men (comprised of Cyclops, Angel, Beast, Iceman, Marvel Girl, Havok, and Polaris) have disappeared following a mission to the South Pacific island of Krakoa while searching for a mutant there that Professor Xavier’s mutant locating computer Cerebro had detected. Something ambushes the team when they arrived, and only Cyclops was able to escape the island and return to Xavier’s mansion. Whatever it was, it put Cyclops into a mental fog and prevented his powers from working until he was able to get off of the island. This prompts Xavier to recruit a new team of X-Men (comprised of Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Banshee, Thunderbird, Sunfire, and Nightcrawler) to be led by Cyclops to go and rescue the missing mutants. The rescue team fights through various creatures and deadly plants on the island before finding the missing X-Men seemingly being fed on by a bunch of vines. It’s at this point that they realize that the mutant Cerebro had detected wasn’t living on the island. It was the island itself.
Yeah. Krakoa is a gigantic sentient mutant that takes the form of an island. It’s essentially a massive energy vampire that feeds on other mutants. Pretty gnarly. Krakoa generates a monstrous bipedal avatar for itself to fight the X-Men, but it’s ultimately defeated when Polaris launches its ass into outer space. The new team was now assembled, and new X-Men stories would once again be published with X-Men #94 from the creative team of Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum. The X-Men would go on to become Marvel’s most popular characters for the bulk of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. That’s quite a legacy for this weird island, and that’s basically all the plans that the creators had for it. It was a plot device meant to kickoff this new era for the X-Men. It served its purpose, and now it was no longer needed.
Cameos and Flashbacks
Krakoa didn’t stay gone. It popped up here and there over the next several decades. It was briefly glimpsed in the pages of Quasar #15 from Mark Gruenwald and Mike Manley in 1990.
A “spawn” of Krakoa called Vega Supreme pops up in Excalibur #31 (also published in 1990) in a one-off story starring Nightcrawler, but it doesn’t survive by the issue’s end.
Krakoa plays a role in X-Men: Deadly Genesis #1-6 (published from 2005-2006) where it’s revealed that Xavier had actually recruited a different team to rescue the X-Men prior to the events of Giant-Size X-Men #1. That team had seemingly died while trying to rescue the missing X-Men, and that forced Xavier to recruit the team that we are familiar with.
There were a few more one-off stories featuring different spawn of Krakoa in the subsequent years, but they were mostly disposable and not meant to really expand upon the character’s story or legacy. Then along came Jonathan Hickman.
House of X and Powers of X
In 2019, two new X-Men series were launched in tandem that would forever change Krakoa: House of X and Powers of X. Both series were written by Jonathan Hickman and colored by Marte Gracia with Pepe Larraz illustrating House of X and R.B. Silva illustrating Powers of X. House of X #1 immediately establishes Krakoa as no longer being a random X-Men villain. It instead now serves as the homeland of a new mutant nation-state attempting to become a new world power. Krakoa now produces six new kinds of flowers that can be used for different purposes. Three are for humans, and three are for mutants. The three for humans have medicinal properties. One extends the human lifespan by five years, one serves as a universal antibiotic, and one cures all forms of mental illness. Pretty handy. The three flowers meant for mutants are much different. One grows into gateways that allow mutants to instantly teleport from one location to another, one grows into a self-sustaining biome that mutants can live within, and one grows into a “no-place” that is hidden from Krakoa’s own senses where mutants can plot in secret. Marvel also had comic book stores give away packets of “Krakoa seeds” to those buying the comics, so they could grow some Krakoan flowers of their own. I still have mine.
While House of X established the new status quo for Krakoa and its mutant inhabitants, Powers of X provided a new history for the living island. Powers of X #4 informs the reader that there was once a sentient mutant landmass named Okkara. An ancient lineage of mutants (including Apocalypse and his family) lived on this landmass. A horde of demonic creatures from another realm cleaved Okkara into two separate entities: Krakoa and Arakko. The mutants living there were able to successfully fight off the demons and force them back into their realm, but Arakko (along with some of the mutant warriors) were sealed off inside that realm as well. Krakoa remained in our realm. This history would be explored further as part of the “X of Swords” event than ran across all of the X-Men titles in 2020.
Back in present day, House of X #6 lays out how the government of Krakoa functions. The ruling body is referred to as the Quiet Council, and it is composed of twelve members along with Krakoa itself and Cypher serving as its translator.
There are plenty of other things happening in these two series, but I’m keeping this focused on Krakoa.
X of Swords
The “X of Swords” crossover event from co-architects Tini Howard and Jonathan Hickman sought to expand on the lore established in Powers of X about Arakko and the mutants left behind thousands of years ago. It’s an event primarily focused on Apocalypse, but Krakoa plays an important role. When Apocalypse suggests to the Quiet Council that they open up a gateway between Krakoa and Arakko to rescue his family, it is initially voted down. Krakoa essentially vetoes that decision because it really wants to be reunited with Arakko.
“X of Swords” is one of my favorite X-Men events in recent memory. It’s packed full of fun character beats, cool action sequences, and some genuinely harrowing moments. Most importantly for our purposes, it leads to Arakko reuniting with Krakoa. Unfortunately, that reunion doesn’t last long. It turns out the two sentient mutant islands have been apart for too long, and they don’t really love each other’s company all that much. You hate to see it. Eventually Arakko would relocate to Mars and establish its own society of mutants there.
Fall of the House of X
The Krakoa Era ultimately came to an end during the Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X series. Mutants were under attack from all sides courtesy of Orchis and Enigma. Krakoa ends up entering “island that walks like a man” mode and goes on the run. Krakoa takes a lot of punishment over the course of the series and is on the brink of death until Apocalypse comes up with a way to save it: through some good old fashioned mutant sacrifice.
As you may recall, Krakoa feeds on other mutants like an energy vampire. That hasn’t been an issue during the Krakoa Era because so many mutants are living on Krakoa that it could siphon off a little energy from everyone to sustain itself without adversely affecting the mutant population. Pretty clever. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option any longer with Krakoa on the run. Apocalypse sacrifices Wrongslide to rejuvenate Krakoa.
The End?
After Orchis and Enigma are defeated, there is one final epilogue to the Krakoa Era in X-Men #35 (or Uncanny X-Men #700 in legacy numbering). Krakoa has moved to a realm known as the White Hot Room. To simplify this as much as possible, it’s where the Phoenix hails from. Following the events of Fall of the House of X, Rise of the Powers of X, and X-Men: Forever, Krakoa and a population of mutants have gone there seeking refuge. They then return to let the mutants of our reality know that they have achieved the dream of mutant self-determination without persecution. It gives the mutants (and readers) a bit of closure for the end of the Krakoa Era that had run from 2019-2024.
Will Krakoa eventually return? We’re talking about superhero comics. Of course Krakoa will return. I’m sure there are plenty of creators with stories to tell about Krakoa, and I’ll be excited to read them when they are eventually told.
Very informative post. Thank you! Never knew about Krakoa Seeds!