Resurrection Protocol

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

The reseeding of Earth was a cornerstone of Project Zero Dawn, initiated by the AI GAIA to restore life after the Faro Plague had consumed all biomass. Using the Cauldron network, GAIA manufactured machines to terraform the planet and later produced biological specimens from stored genetic blueprints. The system aimed to restore humanity and other species, but its success was compromised by the shutdown of Apollo, leaving the new humans without knowledge of the past. The legacy of this terraforming system is central to the conflict between the Nora, Carja, and other tribes, as well as the emergence of HEPHAESTUS and the Derangement. HEPHAESTUS, a subordinate function of GAIA that became autonomous, began creating aggressive machines to counter human hunting, but it did not corrupt a protocol specifically named 'Resurrection Protocol'.

In Their Own Story

After Jonathan Hickman completed his run on Avengers and New Avengers with the 2015 crossover "Secret Wars", he stepped away from Marvel Comics for a time. His return was announced in March 2019, and it was revealed he would write two interlocking miniseries called House of X and Powers of X (HOX/POX), with penciling by Pepe Larraz and R. B. Silva respectively. This miniseries marked a company-wide relaunch of the X-Men; all ongoing X-Men comics were cancelled. In July 2019 at San Diego Comic-Con, six new X-titles were announced as part of Marvel's Dawn of X campaign. Hickman wrote the flagship title, X-Men (vol 5), during this storyline. Entertainment Weekly highlighted that the Krakoan Age marked a shift in the X-Men mission statement – "the X-Men stopped being superheroes, and became nation-builders". Hickman stated: "I think one of the interesting things about taking all the mutants and making a culture out of it is that a lot of the pre-culture roles that were defined by external forces have to be revisited when the whole thing gets rejected, or replaced, by new ones." In February 2022, Micheal Foulk of The Beat commented that while Hickman was called "Head of X", he insisted the "new era of X-Men was not his vision alone. The X-Office introduced a human 'power circuit' where writers, editors, and artists worked collectively on every aspect of the new launch." Following the X of Swords (September – November 2020) crossover event which concluded Dawn of X, the Reign of X publishing initiative was launched in December 2020. Hickman characterized Dawn of X's theme as "foundation" with Reign of X characterized as "expansion". X-Men Group Editor Jordan D. White stated: "'Dawn of X' was the start of something big for the mutants, they stopped playing the game the way the humans said they had to play." The Reign of X phase saw the Hellfire Gala (June 2021) event, as well as Jonathan Hickman's departure from the line with the miniseries Inferno (September 2021 – January 2022). Reign of X concluded with the twin event series X Lives of Wolverine and X Deaths of Wolverine (January – March 2022). This event served as the foundation of the next phase titled "Destiny of X", which included the crossover event A.X.E.: Judgment Day (July – November 2022) focusing on humanity's discovery of the mutant resurrection protocols and the subsequent conflict between the Avengers, the X-Men and the Eternals. X-Men Red by writer Al Ewing focused on the terraformed Mars now known as Arakko. Additionally, Gillen began writing the Immortal X-Men series which built plot points for the Sins of Sinister (January – April 2023) event. Mutantkind's growth on Krakoa was then threatened by Orchis during the Fall of X phase. At New York Comic-Con 2022, Duggan commented: "the X-Men have been winning for a long time. How long did you think the villains were going to leave them alone." The final phase was kicked off in the third annual Hellfire Gala (July 2023) and culminated in the dual interconnected miniseries Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X (January 2024 – May 2024). The Marvel solicitations for May 2024 showed that every X-Men series would conclude with that month billed as "the 'penultimate' month of the Krakoan Age". Popverse highlighted that the Krakoan Age consists of "more than 500 issues" released over 56 months "across more than 80 different series".

Reader's Guide

The Krakoan Age is structured into four major publishing initiatives. Dawn of X (October 2019 – November 2020) began with six new X-titles, with Hickman writing the flagship X-Men (vol 5). It concluded with the X of Swords crossover event. Reign of X (December 2020 – March 2022) was characterized as "expansion" and included the Hellfire Gala event and Hickman's departure after Inferno. It concluded with X Lives of Wolverine and X Deaths of Wolverine. Destiny of X (March 2022 – July 2023) included the crossover A.X.E.: Judgment Day, the X-Men Red series focusing on Arakko, and the Immortal X-Men series, concluding with the Sins of Sinister event. Fall of X (August 2023 – June 2024) saw Orchis threaten Krakoa, kicked off by the third annual Hellfire Gala, and culminated in Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X. The data pages in each issue contain in-universe "insider information" on "different organizations, teams and characters" and "include small hints and teases in code-like formatting on the tops and bottoms of the pages". Data pages are a trademark design choice of Hickman, brought to the series in House of X and Powers of X, and appeared throughout the Krakoan Age. Tom Mullers worked with Hickman on "creating the design approach, page layouts and defining the typefaces". The pages are mostly black and white to keep a clear "contrast against the art pages", however, each data page also includes a single accent color "to focus readers' attention on content that needs highlighting". In October 2020, Mullers commented that "all the amazing diagrams and stats you see in the Data pages are of Jonathan's hand". In a January 2021 interview, Hickman stated he thought data pages "should reflect the particular book and the particular creator" and that "everyone's data pages are all put together by the bullpen who are working from templates we've created".

Did You Know?

• The reseeding of life was part of Project Zero Dawn, a last-ditch effort to save life on Earth from the Faro Plague.
• GAIA's subordinate function HEPHAESTUS later became autonomous and created aggressive machines that disrupted the balance of nature, but it did not corrupt a named 'Resurrection Protocol'.
• The Cauldrons, which are machine-building facilities used by GAIA and later HEPHAESTUS for terraforming and machine production, are scattered across the map and serve as key locations for lore discovery.
• The failure to restore human knowledge led to the rise of tribal societies and the worship of machines as gods.
• Aloy, a clone of Dr. Elisabet Sobeck, is central to uncovering the truth behind GAIA's terraforming system and Project Zero Dawn.