Warning! Spoilers for Sabretooth & The Exiles #3 ahead!The X-Men's villains are no strangers to utilizing horrifying methods to destroy all mutants, but the evil Orchis organization recently added to its depravities with a base ripped from the pages of H.P. Lovecraft. Often, the lengths the X-Men's enemies will go to in pursuit of eradicating mutantkind isn't burdened by restrictions like empathy or basic humanity. Orchis' many crimes against humanity are often a result of their ardent belief that mutants aren't humanity. Past Orchis efforts include the creation of a legion of Sentinel robots and horrific medical experimentation to create mutant power-suppressing implants.
Orchis has also recently established a foothold in the Astral Plane, looking to exploit its resources for whatever advantaged they can gain. Sabretooth & The Exiles #3 by Victor Lavalle and Leonard Kirk opens with the X-Men-adjacent team having cast itself into the Astral Plane in the previous issue. The desperate measure is brought on by the team's mystic, Third Eye, as he believes bringing Orphan-Maker to this realm will delay his powers from fully manifesting and generating a global extinction-inducing explosion. While their astral forms float through the void, the Exiles make a startling discovery: defying what few laws the Astral Plane has, Orchis has somehow managed to construct a mining station within it. Station Three rises out of the corpse of a native creature, literally mining it for astral energy. The oil rig-like structure impaled into the torso of the astral being is a visually stunning, if grotesque sight that offers ominous implications for Orchis' activities.
Orchis' Station Three Is a Surreal Nightmare
This also sheds some light on the recent events in Legion of X #9 by Si Spurrier and Netho Diaz, where Orchis orchestrates an attack through the Astral Plane on both Krakoa and Legion's Altar. Station Three likely played an integral part of this operation, and the attack in Legion of X demonstrates that Orchis' operation in the Astral Plane is bearing horrifying, tangible fruit. This fusion of organic Astral Plane structures and Orchis' man-made constructs is present in the interior of Station Three. Inside another eldritch pile of eyes and mouths, the Exiles make yet another startlingly discovery: an emaciated, dying duplicate of their self-appointed leader, Sabretooth.
The Astral Plane's Appearance is Influenced By Classical Horror
As Third Eye ruminates, there's "no one way" to see the Astral Plane, and he himself views the Astral Plane as reminiscent of how Lovecraft described realities outside our own. Much like the Outer God Yog-Sothoth of the Cthulu Mythos, the Astral Plane exists in a state the human mind cannot fully comprehend. How it is perceived is not its true appearance, only the limited human brain trying to make sense out of impossibly shapeless forms beyond our capability for understanding. For Yog-Sothoth, this often caused it to appear as a mass of tentacles and eyes or orbs, and Third Eye takes a willing approach in how he views the Astral Plane: down to fleshy masses of tentacles and eyes. Interestingly, Third Eye appears to be presenting his interpretation of the Astral Plane to his fellow Exiles, with Sabretooth commenting on his dislike for the dimension's appearance. However, the Orchis operatives that built Station Three likely had a different perception of the Astral Plane, and to them their defilement of it may not have resulted in a visage as twisted as viewed by Third Eye.
For now, Sabretooth and his Exiles remain in the Astral Plane, and the mystery of Station Three only continues to deepen. One thing is for certain: combined with Third Eye's "classic" take on how the Astral Plane appears, Orchis' Station Three is a nightmarish sight straight out of the mind of H.P. Lovecraft, and there's no telling what horrors it could unleash on the X-Men.
Sabretooth & The Exiles #3 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.
