The series was launched during Reign of X, the second phase of the wider Krakoan Age retool of the X-Men. It closely follows events in the X-Men comic books and is part of the wider Marvel Universe comic continuity.
Jonathan Hickman, the overall architect of the Krakoan Age saga, wrote the first X-Men Unlimited arc "Latitude", but there is no single story binding the whole series together, and both the cast and the creative team change completely between arcs.
However, as of January 2023, there have been two returning stories - the Wolverine-focused Latitude arc was later followed-up with Longitude (which itself leaves plot threads for a third arc) and the eco-warrior renegades of X-Men Green have returned for four arcs.
There have also been a few single issue stories serving as a break between arcs - and one story ("Downtime") revisited between longer arcs, with three chapters spread across 14 issues.
As with Marvel's other Infinity Comic webcomics, it's a single-column vertically scrolling comic that's designed to be readable on a phone screen, rather than using a traditional comic book approach to panels and pages.
As an Infinity Comic, the series was initially only available via the Marvel Unlimited app. However, the opening Latitude arc has since been converted into a comic book format and republished, as has the first X-Men Green arc.
The first two issues were released September 02, 2021.
Storylines
- "Latitude" (#1-4), written by Jonathan Hickman and illustrated by Declan Shalvey. Wolverine leads a team trying to save mutants who've been kidnapped by A.I.M..
- "X-Men Green" book one (#5-12), written by Gerry Duggan and illustrated by Emilio Laiso, with color by Rachelle Rosenberg. Nature Girl, whose powers link her to the planet, breaks Krakoan laws to strike back against humans causing ecological catastrophes. The leaders of Krakoa - and Wolverine - try to stop her.
- "Paradise Lost" (#13-20), written by Fabian Nicieza and illustrated by Matthew Horak. Juggernaut and his Unstoppables have been hired by Krakoa to discreetly rescue a jailed mutant. Deadpool's been hired by her jailer to stop them. Both sides are out of their depth.
- "Downtime" (#21, 27, 34), written and illustrated by Jason Loo. Madrox and Strong Guy take a quiet day off on the beach. It's a pity that they picked a beach with monsters.
- "Longitude" (#22-25), written and illustrated by Declan Shalvey. Wolverine and his team follow up on loose ends from "Latitude", trying to rescue the last of A.I.M.'s captives.
- "A Paddy's Day Yarn" (#26), written by Declan Shalvey and illustrated by Nick Roche, with color by Chris O'Halloran. Banshee travels home to Ireland to visit his family's castle, only to find it's not quite how he remembers it.
- "So I'm Dating A Pop Star" (#28), written by Jason Loo and illustrated by E.J. Su, with color by Antonio Fabela. Lila Cheney joins a reality TV dating show. It does not go well.
- "X-Men Green" book two (#29-33), written by Karla Pacheco and Steve Orlando, illustrated by Emilio Laiso with color art by Rachelle Rosenberg. Following on from the initial "X-Men Green" arc, Nature Girl and her team have burned their bridges with the leaders of Krakoa. And they've also drawn the attention of some of Marvel's other superheroes.
- "Eany Come Home" (#35-40), written by Alex Paknadel and illustrated by Julian Shaw, with color art by Dono Sanchez-Almara. Former X-Man Maggott is now relegated to Krakoa's post-battle clean-up crew. But when he's sent into one battleground too early, there are lethal consequences - and a mistake that might have a lasting impact for him.
- Birthday Side Quest (#41), by Jason Loo. Jubilee celebrates her birthday by going to a LARP escape room with some of the Generation X mutants.
- Cypher in the Cryptolect (#42-43), by Alex Paknadel and Damian Couceiro, with color by Felipe Sobreiro. A living language is burning its way across Krakoa, and Cypher seems uniquely suited to stopping it.
- "X-Men Green" book three (#44-49), written by Steve Orlando, illustrated by Emilio Laiso with color art by Rachelle Rosenberg.
- Secret X-Men (#50-55), written by Steve Foxe and illustrated by Alan Robinson, with color art by Carlos Lopez.
- X-Friends (#56-58)
- The Fall of the House of X (#59). A horror story about a shipwrecked mutant and his wife on Krakoa.
- In the Dark (#60-61)
- World Without X (#62-67), Charles Xavier is dumped into Age of Apocalypse where he must do battle to the opposite of his dream.
- "X-Men Green" book four (#68-73)
- Et Tu, Crouton? (#74)
- Unbreakable (#75-79)
- Unofficial X-Men (#80-85)
- "X-Men Green" book four (#86-91)
- Madrox Family & Fantastic Four Team-Up (#92-95). The Fantastic Four help Multiple Man, Layla Milly, and Strong Guy save Davey from space pirates.
- Control (#96-99). Lorna is forced to confront an old enemy.
- The Little Stuff (#100). Prodigy helps a newly resurrected mutant cope with all the changes that happened while they were deceased.
X-Men Unlimited contains examples of the following tropes:
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Latitude and Longitude
- Cavalry Betrayal: Inverted, as the first mutant rescued in Longitude is Maddie, who Wolverine doesn't recognise from Krakoa. That's because she's actually working for A.I.M. and positioned to betray her 'rescuers'.
- Collateral Damage: At the end of "Latitude", Nightcrawler frees a furious Chamber from the tube imprisoning him, and Chamber immediately finishes off the remaining A.I.M. footsoldiers with one huge, fiery blast - before realising that Wolverine was fighting them and in the blast radius. Good thing he can heal.
- George Lucas Altered Version: Discussed in-universe during the story. When Wolverine physically attacks the M.O.D.O.K. mainframe of the 'Paradigm Shift', it starts to lose data and memories. Among them are its copies of the original, unaltered, Star Wars trilogy, which can no longer be purchased or streamed. Losing them prompts it to negotiate.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Wolverine beats captured A.I.M. goons until they start talking. One's punched in the face until his helmet's visor shatters. Another's interrogated offscreen and left face-down in a toilet bowl. Much to Wolverine's surprise, Torture Is Ineffective - despite the beating and threats, both of them lie and send him in the wrong direction.
- Rescue Arc: Wolverine's mission is to rescue three mutants kidnapped from the S.W.O.R.D. station by the terrorist organisation A.I.M. - the "Latitude" arc reveals that two of them are Nightcrawler and Chamber.
- Title, Please!: The webcomic itself never provides titles for the two arcs. They're only listed on the website, in the app, and in the Webcomic Print Collection.
- Torture Is Ineffective: Both of the A.I.M goons Wolverine subjects to his Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique lie and send him in the wrong direction.
X-Men Green
- The Bus Came Back:
- Alchemist returns for the first time since the 1990s Pryde & Wisdom series.
- The Armageddon Man returns for the first time since his 1988 X-Force appearance.
- Gwen Warren, the mutant Spider-Girl cloned by the Jackal in Avenging Spider-Man, makes her first appearance since 2013.
- Category Traitor: Sauron hates birds as inferior, quitter dinosaurs.
- Continuity Nod:
- In the third arc, Birdy, who's working with the Marauders, mentions that she hasn't seen such savagery since Sabretooth. Prior to her death and resurrection, she was Sabretooth's partner, using her powers to calm him and clear his mind.
- Kate and Alchemist mention hunting serial killers together in England, years ago. It happened in the Pryde and Wisdom series, released in 1996.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Curse alludes to past problems with her powers, expressing an uncharacteristic degree of guilt or shame, but refuses to elaborate any details.
- Funetik Aksent: Sauron's dialogue is written this way after he loses the tip of his tongue.Sauron: [struggling to speak] A speesheez thad so bagdly neebs eggstinchonn...
- Gaia's Vengeance: Nature Girl positions herself as the agent of Earth's retribution for man's pollution. In Africa, she communes with the collective rage of the animal kingdom and inherits their vengeful feelings towards humanity.
- Deconstructed in the final issue of the arc. Gaia herself says that humanity is more self-destructive than an actual threat to her well-being, as it would take the core being destabilized to do any harm that won't heal eventually. She cares for all life on Earth, including humans, and Nature Girl devolving them is so destructive as to be not as different from them as she likes to think.
- Given Name Reveal: Just over 25 years after her introduction, Alchemist's name is finally revealed - she's Soudabeh 'Sudi' Abadi.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: A number of issues end with a last page reveal of the person to be confronted next issue, all titled to the effect of "Oh $#!+ it's [insert name here]".
- It's All My Fault: In the third arc, Curse claims everything that's happened is her fault because she tried to use her powers to make Nature Girl her friend. She then tries to use her power to put everything right again... and, due to the backlash when she uses her powers for 'good', it seems that Redemption Equals Death.
- Just Following Orders: A lot of people Nature Girl kills defend themselves as just being people trying to support themselves and their families.
- Metaphorically True: When confronted by the Quiet Council on Nature Girl's release, Doug omits that Krakoa covertly released her on its own behalf and instead says the Earth did due to her growing connection to it and desire to preserve it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: One of the hunters the team overpowers in Africa was the Black Panther's mole inside the operation, and they've just ruined his attempt to take down the whole organisation.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: While Nature Girl believes she's taking drastic action to save the Earth, Sauron and Curse are along on the ride mostly for murder and mayhem.
- Psychic Block Defense: Cypher claims a variant in the third arc. He's effectively encrypted his thoughts by translating them into a language of his own invention. While the information can be taken, it'll take decades to decrypt.
- Redemption Rejection: Before Magik can banish her to another dimension, Nature Girl is rescued by Gaia herself. Offered one last chance to stop her crusade and be free of the curse placed on her, Nature Girl declines and is in turn rejected by Gaia.
- Satanic Archetype: Nature Girl was cast into the bowels of the Earth from the paradise of Krakoa for vengefully taking a life in cold blood to punish a sin. Released onto the world, she sets out to punish all transgressors, eventually mutating into a horned, cloven-hooved appearance and seeking the total destruction of man through seizing control of armageddon.
- Tongue Trauma: When the team splits and Nature Girl attacks Sauron, she tears off the end of his long tongue. He can still talk, but his dialogue slips into a distorted Funetik Aksent.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Nature Girl wants to save the Earth's environment, but some of her victims aren't exactly villains. The first man she kills runs a corner shop - his crime was to provide a customer with a branded plastic bag that later killed a turtle. By the third arc, her team are routinely killing humans and most definitely in this territory.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Nature Girl gets it from everyone who knew her of works with her, her old friends for how drastic a shift in character this is for her and her allies for how threatening and abusive she is when they don't comply to her standards.
So I'm Dating a Pop Star
- Blind Date: Lila is meant to have three of these to see which of them she wants to date.
- Kayfabe: Lila Cheney has no interest in dating someone normal and is only doing the reality show to promote her music.
- Hypocrite: Lila is annoyed to find out the first contestant is only interested in promoting himself. Which she is also there to do.
- Reality TV: In-universe, Lila Cheney agrees to be on one of these.
- Romance on the Set: In-universe, this is the goal. Also Subverted. Lila has no interest in any of the guys but was willing to fake it.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: Dazzler managed to resurrect her career with her appearance on the show.
Paradise Lost
- Sequel Series: A direct sequel to the Juggernaut (2020) miniseries.
Eany Come Home
- A Day in the Limelight: Maggott, who's had very little attention since his short-lived time as an X-Man, is the lead for this arc.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: The new Eany can't easily kill herself, and her now-huge predecessor is about to digest Japheth and Meany while rampaging through Krakoa, so Eany asks Laura to kill her to save them. And she does.
- Kaiju: By the time the original Eany heads back to Krakoa, she's grown very, very big.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Maggott's own death and resurrection. Krakoa knew Japheth was dead, so brought him back. But they didn't consider that Eany and Meany can survive without him, or check for their bodies - which inadvertently broke the rule about copying the living, as well as causing telepathic confusion due to the two different versions of Eany.
- Superpower Meltdown: The two Eanys are causing discomforting telepathic static, making the original one go on a feral rampage devouring everything in her path towards Krakoa. All this eating also increased her size to kaiju proportions, which will eventually destabilize and detonate her if not safely discharged soon.
- Temporary Bulk Change: Absorbing the energy built up in kaiju Eany makes Japheth bulk up so much he's tearing out of his clothes.
Cypher in the Cryptolect
- Brown Note Being: The visitor's speech is actively harmful to anyone who hears it, and also transmits it from host to host.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Justified. When you've got a Brown Note Being in the form of a living language burning his way across Krakoa, the ideal person to understand and contain the threat is superhuman Omniglot Cypher.
- Patricide: Etienne initially infected his father, who died from Possession Burnout while trying to contain him.
- Possession Burnout: Etienne's hosts start to burn up if they don't speak and transmit him onwards. If they hold back the speech long enough, this can become full Spontaneous Human Combustion.
- Spontaneous Human Combustion: Anyone who hosts Etienne and doesn’t transmit him to a new host quickly enough starts to burn up this way.
- Take Me Instead: Bei offers to host Etienne to spare her husband Doug.
Secret X-Men
- Power Incontinence: Hydra's chemicals leave Gorgon's power out of control. Everything he sees, from plants to beer bottles, ends up Taken for Granite.
The Fall of the House of X
- Dishing Out Dirt: Silas Ellerby, protagonist of the historical Halloween Episode, The Fall of the House of X, has geokinetic powers. He can reshape earth, stone and sand, as well as wood and trees, moving them telekinetically.
- Downer Ending: The historical Halloween Episode, "The Fall of the House of X", ends badly for everyone. Lucy Ellerby and her unborn child die in the shipwreck, and her mutant husband Silas, starving and unhinged, is driven to his death by her animated corpse. Even Krakoa itself suffers through most of the story, as Silas's Dishing Out Dirt powers torture the living island while leaving it unable to directly retaliate.
- Halloween Episode: Issue #59, "The Fall of the House of X" is presented as a story told around the campfire at Halloween, in which a 19th century mutant is shipwrecked on Krakoa.
World Without X
- Armor-Piercing Question: Logan asks Charles if the thing that he's really afraid of is the possibility that his dream has moved on without him. Afterwards, when he's alone, Charles acknowledges that Logan's right.
- Big Bad: Apocalypse is the ruler of the Earth and has exterminated most of humanity. However, it is actually Nightmare who sent Xavier here.
- Call-Back: Nightmare returns and is initially looking for payback for what Jean did to him in X-Men (2021).
- The Cavalry: Professor Xavier calls on all of his psychic friends and then all of the X-men to pummel Nightmare.
- Godzilla Threshold: Professor Xavier lobotomizes Apocalypse the same way that he did Magneto in Fatal Attractions.
- Multiversal Conqueror: When Apocalypse finds out about Krakoa's power, he believes he can use it to become one of these and invade countless realities.
- Or Was It a Dream?: Nightmare is a master of lies and illusion but the final panels at the end imply that the world Professor Xavier visited might have been real after all.
- Sequel: This is one to the Age of Apocalypse story.
Tropes from other stories & more general tropes
- Artificial Zombie: In Halloween Episode The Fall of the House of X, Krakoa retrieves Lucy Ellerby's corpse from the shipwreck and animates it with roots and tendrils.
- Date Peepers: The rest of the X-Terminators follow Boom-Boom on her date in Et Tu, Crouton? in an effort to ensure that Boom-Boom's Valentine's Day date goes well.
- Infinite Canvas: As with Marvel's other Infinity Comics, it’s presented in the vertical scrolling variant. Each issue is a single long page, with one column of panels.
- Valentine's Day Episode: Et Tu, Crouton?, in #74, features Dazzler, Laura Kinney and Jubilee trying to ensure that Boom-Boom's Valentine's Day date goes well... ideally without Boom-Boom knowing that they're meddling.
- Webcomic Print Collection: Some of the arcs were later reprinted as comics, with art rearranged so that the panels worked without the Infinite Canvas:
- X-Men Unlimited: X-Men Green is a two-issue limited series collecting the initial "X-Men Green" arc.
- X-Men Unlimited: Latitude is a one-shot collecting the initial "Latitude" arc.
