A.X.E.: Judgment Day may be over, but what comes after judgment? And who will be left to seek the most penance for theirs?

PRE-JUDGMENT

The actual final issue of the event, A.X.E.: Judgment Day Omega #1.

RE-JUDGMENT DAY

At the Temple of Ajak Celestia, Makkari —Priest of the New Way— finishes the first book of her revised scripture, recounting the events of Judgment Day. The second book, according to Ajak, will be about heresy. Zuras similarly recaps the events of Judgment Day, but warns that any Eternal who follows Ajak’s dogma over his new principles for their society will be excluded.

In New York, Ikaris seeks penance from Sophia Robson, the mother of the human whose life was sacrificed for his most recent resurrection. She becomes violent towards him because of it, but neither of them feel any better from the experience. In London, Syne apologizes to her internet pen pal Sally for what she and her siblings did on Judgment Day, and encourages her to continue writing even if she won’t see it.

At the Temple of Ajak Celestia, some of the Eternals gather to eulogize the fallen Sersi. Ajak says they should use Sersi’s sacrifice as motivation to better themselves and transcend their selfish nature. She reiterates the classic principles of the Eternals, with some modifications: protect Celestials (from themselves), protect the Machine (and one another), correct excess deviation (protect the weak from dangerous), and “you have 24 hours to justify yourself” (act as though you are constantly being judged).

In the Exclusion, Zuras informs Uranos that his “services” will someday be called upon by the mutants of Arakko. He looks forward to being let out of his prison cell while having the newly-jailed Druig to serve as his permanent chew toy until then. On Lemuria, Thena and Kro bid one another farewell for now, hoping they’ll be able to move on with their lives and never need to get back together as they did on Judgment Day. On Krakoa, Phastos presents the sentient island with a message from the Machine, revealing that the Machine took initial inspiration from Krakoa and even regards it as their spiritual parent.

Back in New York, Ikaris and Sophia have reached a mutual place of understanding, with her allowing him to pay rent there to do random acts of goodness as his final penance. The Machine observes the Eternals as they proceed in their new way of life, approving of them as follows: 🙂

JUDGING JUDGMENT

As with most “omega” issues, Judgment Day Omega #1 is essentially an epilogue for the preceding storyline that mostly reiterates how it ended and gives some amount of closure to both the reader as well as the characters involved. Here, we see how the main cast of Eternals react to their new status quo —mainly hated and feared by humans, not unlike mutants— after the events of Judgment Day. There’s not much “new” revealed here that the ending of Judgment Day #6 offered, but it does clarify some loose threads that remained from it.

We get a little bit more of the new, deified Ajak and how she intends to serve as a spiritual leader for the Eternals moving forward, but most interestingly, how she’s being set up as an antagonist of sorts to Zuras, the newly-reinstated Eternal Prime. Whereas he wants to mostly return to the business as usual for his kind, Ajak thinks Eternals need to do better (and more) than that. She’s probably right in this regard, even if believing so will apparently spell doom for any Eternals who disagree.

There’s currently no Eternals series running or announced for us to see where this new status quo takes them, so it’s not clear when we’ll get to see any of the hooks presented here pay off. Kieron Gillen has done great work with this side of the Marvel Universe, and I’d love to see him get an opportunity to continue what he started, but this issue does feel somewhat like an ending (season finale?) of this era for the Eternals. Part of that might be down to the relative underperformance of the Eternals movie (even if there’s a sequel reportedly in development) but who knows? I certainly don’t. Nobody knows anything, nothing is real—

What if the next Eternals MCU project is a Harry Styles-led Eros series on Disney Plus? lol.

FUTURE JUDGMENT

That’s it! A.X.E.: Judgment Day is officially over. Marvel is teasing a few upcoming issues that will apparently address some fallout from the storyline (Avengers Assemble Alpha #1, Immortal X-Men #9, and X-Men Red #9) so you can seek those out if you’re so inclined, but we’re done with judging judgment!