X-Men: Days of Future Past - Doomsday is a 2023 comic book limited series from Marvel Comics. It's written by Marc Guggenheim, with art by Manuel Garcia.
The series, linked to the shared Marvel Universe, is part of the wider X-Men line. However, it's set in a Bad Future and isn't part of the huge Krakoan Age arc that other X-Men comics have been running since 2019.
The Days of Future Past arc (1981) of Uncanny X-Men centred around a future where the X-Men, along with other mutants and superhumans, were exterminated by fearful humans and the killer robots known as Sentinels. Kate Pryde, one of the few survivors, returned to the present via Mental Time Travel in a desperate attempt to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.
X-Men: Days of Future Past - Doomsday revisits the same future setting, acting as a prequel to the original story and showing how the heroes of this Alternate Timeline were overwhelmed and killed.
The first issue was released 12 July, 2023.
X-Men: Days of Future Past - Doomsday contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptation Amalgamation: A chance encounter with a time-travelling Bishop gives Kate Pryde the idea to use time travel to undo their terrible reality. The thing is, Bishop was only introduced in the comics in 1991, while the original arc was published in 1981, so the man was added to the backstory of the setting.
- Adaptation Expansion: The cast of the original arc had Marvel characters introduced until 1980. The mini-series adds several more to the story that have been introduced since then in the X-Men comics, and were not part of the original storyline.
- All for Nothing; Kate's time travel had apparently no effect and she wakes up back in the same future, her changes having, unknown to her, created a new and better timeline.
- Bad Future: The Days of Future Past timeline (Earth-811) was already established as this in the original 1981 arc. Doomsday is a prequel that shows how that future became such a Crapsack World.
- Broad Strokes: Per
Word of God (the editor's commentary at the end of the last issue), writer Marc Guggenheim tried to incorporate elements from previous storylines that explored the timeline, such as in Excalibur (Vol. 1) and mini-series Wolverine: Days of Future Past (1997-1998). - Career-Ending Injury: Cyclops not only loses Jean Grey but also his mutant power and his sight, as his eyes are destroyed by radiation and have to be surgically removed.
- Continuity Nod: Issues #3 references a lesser-known late-1990s mini-series, titled Wolverine: Days of Future Past, which shows how Magneto lost the use of his legs, and the fate of Scarlet Witch in this timeline.
- Doomed by Canon:
- Cyclops, Angel, and Banshee, then Iceman, who were only portrayed via photos labeled "Slain" and names on tombstones in the original, each have their deaths shown graphically.
- Spider-Man appears and receives a slow and brutal death.
- Kate and Peter's children, who were unnamed and unseen in the original story, are revealed to be a son named Charles (aka Sprite) and a daughter named Jean (Goliath), who inherited the powers of their mother and father respectively, and then shows how they died. Though they were strong and capable enough to take down a Sentinel together, said Sentinel used its last energy to kill them both right in front of their parents.
- Lorna Dane (Polaris) was another name on a gravestone. She's killed in the explosion of government-created Avengers member Nitro described further down.
- The destruction of the X-Mansion and the killing of Charles Xavier, Illyana Rasputin, Kurt Wagner and his wife Amanda Sefton, and the capture of Rachel were depicted for the first time in flashback in the original run of The New Mutants, though without including the fates of the other New Mutants. The military assault on the X-Mansion is featured here, now with all the New Mutants also being massacred.
- Included among the names on gravestones in the original were Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Susan Richards, and Johnny Storm. Grimm and Richards are torn apart by "Hound" Rachel's telekinesis, and Susan is ambushed and speared by Ahab. (A mention is made of Johnny Storm already dead beforehand.)
- Averted by Magneto; in the original DOFP, it was assumed he was killed while covering the escape of the others from the mutant internment camp. The ending of the final issue here has Magneto surviving and eventually leading a resistance war with Kate, Rachel, and other surviving mutants.
- Dying Declaration of Hate: Just before Ahab kills her, Susan Storm-Richards last words to Rachel:I'm going to kill you...
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite his long history of hunting down Bruce Banner/Hulk, Thunderbolt Ross shows that he is this when he refuses to obey Henry Peter Gyrich and Valerie Cooper's orders to attack the X-Mansion and kill everyone inside, reminding them of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which expressly forbids the US military from enforcing any laws - like e.g., the Mutant Control Act - on American soil.General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross: Truth is, I never knew what I'd say if the day came when I was given an order I considered to be immoral. Now I do.
- Eye Scream: The radiation from the nuclear blast that killed Phoenix/Jean Grey(?) also destroyed Cyclops' eyes, which then had to be surgically removed, leaving him with empty sockets.
- Foreshadowing: Early in the last issue, a failed uprising at a San Francisco mutant concentration camp is shown, though only two from there — Laura Kinney and Synch — are identified by name. They are among the few surviving mutants shown with Kate, Rachel, and Magneto at the series end.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: At the start of the first issue, as the mutants are fleeing, Angel gets grabbed and torn apart by one of the Sentinels.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
- During the escape sequence that opens the first issue, Cyclops stays behind to buy the others time. A Sentinel throws him out of the way, impaling him on a huge, jagged spike in the rubble.
- Just after Rachel kills Reed Richards, grief and rage blinded Susan Storm-Richards and made it easy for Ahab to impale her from behind.
- Mythology Gag:
- What If? describes Phoenix surviving instead of dying on the moon, then later she and Mastermind are killed by a nuclear bomb which also destroyed Pittsburgh and irreparably damaged Scott’s eyes, all of which happens here.
- Jean Grey's funeral is staged much like it was after The Dark Phoenix Saga, including without any remains to bury.
- Days of Future Past role-playing games describe the mutants allying with Nick Fury and SHIELD to attempt at forming a resistance movement against the Sentinels, which is hinted at in Issue #1.
- The original story mentions Kate and Piotr had children but outlived them, with nothing else told about them. Years of Future Past (Secret Wars) in 2015 featured them being a son and daughter, which is what they are here.
- The incident that allows President Stryker to declare martial law is when during a fight between the X-Men and a government-organized Avengers, Nitro explodes and devastates Stamford - the same event that caused the first Civil War event in 616 continuity.
- Exactly like in the original, nothing is shown or mentioned of what's become of Havok.
- Oppressive States of America: Even before the Sentinels take over, the United States is this by the time the X-Mansion is destroyed and Charles Xavier is killed: President Stryker is effectively president-for-life due to the 22nd Amendment being repealed and declares martial law using the destruction of Stamford as an excuse, the government all but ignores the Constitution during its persecution of mutants and other superhumans, Congress has been reduced to a rubber stamp, and the Supreme Court is otherwise neutered.
- Outliving One's Offspring: We get to see how Piotr and Kate’s kids died - killed battling a Sentinel.
- Prequel: The mini-series acts as a prequel to the Bad Future explored in the classic arc, showing how society and government changed so much as to allow the locking up of mutants and other surviving superheroes.
- Sequel Hook: A few DOFP details left unexplored at the series finish include the final fates of the last surviving mutants and their resistance efforts, and Rachel's eventual escape to Earth-616.
- Too Dumb to Live: Spider-Man decides the best way to talk to an enraged anti-mutant mob is to leap down right into the thick of it; he's then slowly beaten to death while he makes no attempt to fight back.
- Twilight of the Supers: Being a prequel to the classic arc Days of Future Past, it is shown how the U.S.A. devolved into a mutant-hating society and mutant-hunting government, culminating into the death of many of the heroic (and not so heroic) mutants. Also in-story, the anti-mutant sentiment bleeds into anti-hero sentiment. One of its casualties was Spider-Man, lynched by an angry mob.
- Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Issue #3 shows Kitty Pryde in labour, and giving birth to her twin children, a boy and a girl.
- Wartime Wedding: Kitty Pryde decides to marry Piotr Rasputin, who is older than her, after the destruction of the X-Mansion and the death of the New Mutants, fully aware that they may not have much time, since the Sentinels and the American government are gunning for the mutants.
- Your Head Asplode: The first sign that the Fantastic Four's attempt to rescue Rachel Summers from being a Hound isn't working is when the back of the Thing's head detonates.
