Color Artists: Rain Beredo, Ceci De La Cruz, Matthew Wilson, Erick Arciniega, Marte Gracia Read Full Review

All of the artists bring some beautifully detailed moments together in this issue. The styles are fantastic and the characters look amazing. I love the little details throughout and the crowd scenes are wonderful places to scope out familiar faces. Read Full Review

If this is the end of an era, then it is a beautifully drawn, incredibly violent, and absolutely gut wrenching end to one of the most interesting and unique X-Men storylines ever written. Read Full Review

Marvel somehow pulled off an even better X-Men: Hellfire Gala this year because it is delivered in an impactful extra-sized one-shot. You get the intrigue, melodrama, and beginning of a new year of X-Men with fashion and celeb cameos too. Read Full Review

X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1delivers a major shake-up to the Age of Krakoa, with plenty of superheroic haute couture to spare. Already, plot threads have been set that will spread out into Marvel's other comics, including upcoming issues of Amazing Spider-Man and the upcoming Judgement Day event series. It just goes to show that: whether you're a mutant, superhero, or a regular human, the Hellfire Gala is the place to be. Read Full Review

The Hellfire Gala is great stuff in my opinion. It's a unique and interesting event in its own right, and then it's filled with all sorts of great character and plot developments. This is the sort of character-focused Big Event I can get behind. Read Full Review

Even though the book doesnt offer much in the way of a self-contained story, it serves as a compelling primer to the X-Mens current status quo and provides some foreshadowing that feels truly organic. Other moments do seem more editorial-mandated–such as the second-act cliffhanger that promises a Spider-Man/Wolverine team-up–but it all adds to the fun of a giant-sized X-Men comic that may be light on action but delivers plenty of story for your buck. Read Full Review

X-MEN: HELLFIRE GALA #1 provides a fantastic place to get caught up, brings together a new X-MEN roster thats sure to impress, and all while unloading some dirty laundry in the process. However, its long, drawn-out, and almost entirely action-less. Moreover, if something was to lack action, one would expect more drama to compensate which was sadly also not the case. X-MEN: HELLFIRE GALA #1 was super informative and will certainly get fans' brains cooking with possibilities and ideas for the future. But, thats about all we get this week along with the new team reveal which will probably turn heads. Nevertheless, I highly recommend any comic fan whos wanted to hop on the X-MEN train and never has because of the overwhelming nature of the books, to pick X-MEN: HELLFIRE GALA #1 as the perfect place to hitch a ride. Read Full Review

The "cameos" are as off-putting as they were last year, but they're hardly enough to make the Hellfire Gala anything less the mutant event of the season. Read Full Review

Disappointments on the new X-Men team roster aside this year's Hellfire Gala was a success. That is all thanks to all the great seeds planted for the future as we have a number of plotlines and character arcs to be invested in. All of that set-up creates a lot of excitement for the future of the X-Men franchise. That makes this year's Hellfire Gala a success. Read Full Review

X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 is not the sum of its parts. It is not a better whole than each individual piece. That's partially because each individual piece is in itself rather odd. X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 feels like a zero issue in some ways. It sets up A.X.E.: Judgement Day for the X-Men and like Eve of Judgement being from the Eternal's point of view, this delivers the X-Men's side. It's an issue that had potential but it never quite lives up to the importance it claims it has. Read Full Review

With X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1, Duggan and company have charted the next phase of the Krakoan tapestry, setting up storylines that will touch the wider Marvel Universe, rather than just staying focused on the internal X-line. From Spider-Man to the Avengers, the Eternals, and even the Fantastic Four, the tensions are at an all-time high for mutants and the world around them. Its a shame that the art of this one-shot doesnt quite match those narrative implications, and instead offers a subdued visual entry into the X storyline. Ultimately, this years Hellfire Gala is a fun, if restrained, selection of a new X-Men roster, and set-up for more interesting stories on the horizon. Read Full Review

A triple sized issue with interesting plot points and great art doesn't completely save this mega annual for the entire X-Men line. There's a lot to like that makes it worth picking up, but it's also a weak story that's more of a collection of plot points and set-up than it is a story of its own. Read Full Review

a page from X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1, courtesy of MarvelSomething that did halt the flow of the issue was the inclusion of real-life celebrities. The inclusion of actual people who aren't politicians is a choice that has little upside and a large downside. That downside being there's now a non-zero chance the reader asks, "why is this person here" and ruins immersion. X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 survives Jon Hamm's and Brian Posehn's inclusion, but it could've been avoided all the same. With a cursory knowledge of recent X-Men activity in the last couple of years, a reader can buy this issue and see the major throughlines of the story, and if they want to, come aboard. Read Full Review

X-Men: The Hellfire Gala #1 is a slog of a comic. Read Full Review

For a larger read, it flew by. Set up a lot, and felt pretty excitement.

Really fun, if slightly chaotic issue. Duggan was able to deftly keep all the plates spinning while doing yeoman's work in setting up some intriguing plot lines going forward.

The star of the issue was Emma Frost, and nearly every one of her interactions was perfect. The mental conversation between Scott and Emma was probably the highlight of the issue. I thought Duggan was really smart in the way he juxtaposed Scott's truth-telling regarding mutant resurrections with "foundation of sand" built on lies from the Quiet Council. It's been one of the most interesting subtle plotlines during the Hickman era and I'm glad they're finally brining the cost of all the lies and omissions of truth to the forefront.

I also particularly liked the scene between Tony Stark, Emma Frost, and Feilong. I've been a big fan of Duggan's work in setting up Feilong as a real threat to mutant-kind and he has the potential to make a great foil for Stark as well. The banter back and forth between the two was tense and foreboding. The little bits of humor all over the comic were great too.

The Moira/MJ/Spidey stuff worked less well for me. It feels like Marvel has skipped a few steps in dealing with Moira's heel turn. Having Moira go from working to create a mutant utopia to body snatching an innocent women (MJ) while monologuing about later killing them stretches the boundaries of consistency within the story a little too much.

But other than that particular problem I've been having with that particular plot, the whole package was fun and I'm excited to see the new X-Men team in action next month.
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I would have liked to see more mutants than the stars of the show, even in cameos, but issue did a nice of job of setting up things to come.

While it is a little bit all over the place at times, this was still an enjoyable one-shot introducing the new X-Men team. I’ve stated this before in other reviews, but I’m not really a fan of the art changing mid-issue. It also doesn’t help when you have some of the art being fantastic, and some of it giving Emma Frost a weirdly large forehead. Going back to the story itself, the ideas presented here all provided intrigue, but I was mainly here for the reveal of the new team (which does look promising). Hopefully the flagship X-book has a clearer direction this time around, as Magik, Iceman, and Havok being on the team interests me.

Fun issue, I loved seeing how Duggan wrote all these characters and their interactions

but wow, now you have to read issues of ASM and a whole ass event to see where the plots from this run go??

What a mixed bag. There's lots of lovely stuff in here — the subplot with Emma trying to make peace with Firestar was particularly well-done. But the art is wildly inconsistent, and none of it does a good job at showing off the glamour of the event. (Also, the outfits themselves are by and large a big step down from last year.)

Also, this is my first encounter with post-Hickman Moira and... oof, that's a mess.

I wish the artwork would have been more consistent and they stuck with 1 strong artist - Russel would have been the best choice.. They had a year to prepare kinda weird it's so split.

This year's Gala, though, was an enjoyable experience. Can't imagine reading this without reading literally the last two years of X-Men comics and they set up a lot for the upcoming months.

The plotline with Moira still doesn't sit well with me and feels completely unearned, but they're leaning into hard so I best just move on.

Seriously, they could have gone with a better artist for the bulk of the issue as a lot of the glamour and opulence that made last year's gala so much fun is sorely lacking in this one.

Best part of the issue is Emma Frost, who is the perfect character to be our POV for this event and Duggan writes her really well. Here's to a promising segway into the big MARVEL event of 2022, they got some of their best creators working on it. I have and deserve to have high hopes. more

I like the idea of the Gala being an annual thing, and the idea of rotating the main X-Men regularly.

This issue has lots of important foreshadowing about stories to come, some good jokes, and some good character beats (particularly for Emma).

But it's sprawling and messy, and the haute couture angle is again a disaster. The big artist carousel reveals something to me: Some of these designs suck. But some of these artists just suck at drawing couture.

Hip-shot cameo reactions:
* Jon Hamm: @#$% no. I like him, but no. The fact that he's (slightly) plot-important just makes it *worse*.
* Brian Posehn: I like him too, he's earned it with his writing work, and the Deadpool gag is genuinely funny. But still no.
* Gwenpool: YES. Who's that talking to her? Chris Hastings?
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Filler.