Hellions #11 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #11
“Funny Games Part III: Kill Screen”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1: Psylocke is pinned down by a Mojofied version of herself, while Arcade watches and we see the other Hellions on screens. Kind of an arbitrary choice of a dramatic image for the cover.
PAGES 2-4. Greycrow and Psylocke meet up.
In the previous issue, Psylocke’s illusion involved her living a seemingly idyllic life with her lost daughter, and being tormented by a horrific version of herself wearing the Psylocke costume with Mojo’s eye retractors. (That refers to the 1980s storyline in which the original Psylocke lost her vision and Mojo gave her bionic eyes.) Greycrow, meanwhile, was a soldier angst-ridden about the people he had killed, but being assured by his colleagues that he had been a good person. When Psylocke came under attack, she apparently reached out for help instinctively, with a telepathic call to Greycrow in the next room.
Marauders #20 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #20
“Windriders”
by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli, Edgar Delgado & Chris Sotomayor
COVER / PAGE 1: Storm on a beach, reflecting on her days with a more traditional X-Men. The version of Shadowcat’s costume, with the studded gloves, places this image just before the Mutant Massacre (i.e. just as things started getting really dark) – specifically, the reference seems to be the splash page of Uncanny X-Men #208.
PAGE 2: Data page. Emma gives Kate a brooch. The silver bullet in the brooch refers to the Joss Whedon storyline from Astonishing X-Men where Kitty phased an entire giant bullet through the Earth, and then got stuck in the thing for a while.
An E-grade diamond is the second highest grade of diamond (in terms of how colourless it is). The scale starts at D and runs down to Z, apparently to avoid confusion with previous “A/B/C/” grading systems. The difference between D and E is pretty much invisible to the naked eye.
Cable #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CABLE vol 4 #10
“Depression”
by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto
COVER / PAGE 1. Cable surrounded by his supporting cast and plot elements from the series, basically. That’s Esme and Domino, the older Cable, Stryfe in the background, and the Order of X cultists.
PAGE 2. Data page. The point is obvious enough: Cable’s history is mired on time paradoxes, and if you’re trying to kill him, the important thing is to do it at the right point in the timeline.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-8. Emma stop Cable from taking Cerebro.
Cable has come to the point of deciding that he’s not up to the job of being Cable, and that it was a mistake to replace his older self in the Extermination miniseries. Quite why he felt the need to kill the older Cable was always a little hazy. But the broad idea is that he believed it was necessary in order to unscramble a time paradox which his older self had allowed to emerge, in part by tolerating the presence of the Silver Age X-Men in the present day for such an extended period (in All-New X-Men). Cable has now decided he wants to reverse that.
New Mutants #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #17
“Follow the White Rabbit”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1: Well, that’s Dani walking a mystical path before a surrealist backdrop, I guess. Doesn’t really have much to do with the issue beyond the general weirdness of Otherworld.
By the way, issue #16 came out in the last week of February. So if it feels like some momentum has been lost in this story… well, that’s a big part of it.
PAGES 2-3. Amahl Farouk enlists the help of Wolfsbane.
Wolfsbane. In the previous issue, Wolfsbane learned that her son Tier was still alive (at least according to Cerebro). She was very upset about that, because she figured that if he was fine, he would have been in touch. The issue ended with her returning home to find nobody there to support her (since Dani and Xi’an had unexpectedly gone off on a mission to Otherworld).
Amahl Farouk. This scene seems to confirm that Farouk is indeed living openly on Krakoa. However, he seems to be speaking here not as the Shadow King but as the original Amahl Farouk. Wolfsbane also seems to accept this, since it’s inconceivable that she would believe the Shadow King itself had any sort of benign agenda. Or maybe she’s just vulnerable to psychic manipulation right now. Even allowing for the general Krakoan amnesty, we really could do with an explanation as to how this guy was allowed onto Krakoa bearing in mind that he’s traditionally the host of a massively dangerous (and non-mutant) psychic demon. Did he get his original personality back on resurrection or something?
S.W.O.R.D. #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. #5
“Giallo”
by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGE 1. A relaxed-looking Fabian Cortez with Magneto standing behind him, and a dead Snark. One of these two things happens in the issue, and it’s not the one Cortez would prefer.
PAGE 2. Data page, of sorts. These are the thoughts of the We-Plex Supreme Intelligence System, which is the version of the Supreme Intelligence from the home timeline of Noh-Varr (Marvel Boy). The 18th Kree Diplomatic Gestalt was Marvel Boy’s group in his home timeline. I’m not particularly up on Utopian Kree continuity, but basically they’re a more peaceful offshoot of the Kree Empire under Plex’s government.
The top right panel lists a bunch of problems that Plex has been dealing with lately: Knull (from King in Black), the Olympian gods (from Guardians of the Galaxy), the mainstream Kree (just generally), and “the Korvac apotheosis” (presumably referring to the return of cosmic villain Korvac over in Iron Man). But right now, Plex is mainly concerned with the Snarkwar – the war for succession among the Zn’rx, which began over in Guardians of the Galaxy and has already been mentioned in earlier issues.
X-Force #19 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #19
“Dead of Nightmare”
by Benjamin Percy, Garry Brown & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1. Marvel Girl is plagued by demonic images of X-Force.
PAGE 2. Phoebe calls Jean for help.
Jean is talking about the nightmare vision she had in the previous issue, one of a number of nightmare hallucinations that were presumably caused by XENO’s evil copy of Quentin Quire.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-7. Quentin is pursued through his mindscape.
Last issue, Quentin went to the astral plane to confront the predatory thingy, and found himself in this laboratory setting – which he correctly infers later on to be the XENO lab where his copy was cloned. As in that issue, astral Quentin doesn’t have his regular glasses, but instead has a pink energy shape, the same effect as is used for any psychic weapons that he conjures up. What use a pair of psychic glasses is, it’s not immediately obvious. At any rate, this is clearly meant to be symbolic, because Quentin starts using a similar effect in the real world later in the issue.
Way of X #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WAY OF X #1
“Way of X”
by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia
COVER / PAGE 1: Nightcrawler, in familiar swashbuckling mode, fighting two of the Orchis soldiers. The stained glass window behind him has the faces of his team from the opening mission: Blink, DJ, Loa and Pixie.
PAGE 2. Recap and credits. The recap sets up the general premise of Krakoa, and the vague disquiet which Kurt expressed in X-Men #7.
PAGE 3. Data page. An excerpt from a book (title redacted) evidently written by Nightcrawler in mock biblical style, but trying to set out the development of his philosophy.
A “florilegium” is a compilation of excerpts from other writings (an anthology, more or less). Literally, it means “gathering of flowers”, which seems quite appropriate for Krakoa.
Children of the Atom #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CHILDREN OF THE ATOM #2
“Prison Break”
by Vita Ayala, Bernard Chang & Marcelo Maiolo
COVER / PAGE 1: The… let’s call them the Children of the Atom for now, even though they don’t actually use that name in the story. Anyhow, they’re fighting prisoners while the prison seems to be on fire.
PAGE 2 PANELS 1-3. Someone makes a phone call from prison.
She’s unnamed, and not immediately identifiable without her costume, but this is Vague from Hell’s Belles, the minor villain team that our heroes captured last issue. She’s phoning Briquette, the one member of the team who kept her mutant powers, and asking her to come and break them out. Briquette is evidently still loyal to her depowered teammates, which raises the question of why she wasn’t with them in the previous issue. Perhaps we’ll get to that.
PAGE 2 PANEL 4 TO PAGE 4. The Avengers visit the Krakoan Embassy to talk about the kids.
This meeting doesn’t go particularly well. What’s objectionable about the Avengers’ behaviour, really, is that the Avengers seem to have shown up unannounced (or at least uninvited) at the embassy and demanded to see Professor X, who is a foreign head of state and probably has better things to do than worry about a bunch of kids running around in costumes.
Wolverine #11 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #11
“A Confusion of Monsters”
by Benjamin Percy, Scot Eaton, JP Mayer & Matthew Wilson
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine and Louise fighting vampires in, well, a pool of blood or something. Omega Red and Dracula loom behind. Or Omega Red’s attacking and he’s just very big. One or the other.
PAGES 2-5. Wolverine destroys a nest of vampires.
This issue returns to the Vampire Nation storyline, last seen in issue #5. Logan’s narration here is basically a summary of what the vampires were up to in that issue. We did see a group of vampires in that issue who had resisted the group control and were surviving on animal blood; however, those three didn’t ask Wolverine to kill them, and seemed really quite keen that he shouldn’t. On the whole, though, Marvel have tended to present vampires who reject their transformation as being quite keen to be put out of their misery.
Excalibur #20 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #20
“No Pity From Your Friends”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1: Rogue, Captain Britain and Psylocke are menaced by Malice.
PAGES 2-5: Flashback – the origin of Malice.
Teenager Alice McAllister is found by her mother in her bedroom, having apparently committed suicide as threatened. The suggestion here is that Alice doesn’t actually commit suicide, but rather that her astral form spontaneously leaves her body, and that she chooses to stay that way rather than attempt to return. Quite why she leaves her body isn’t clear here, since there’s nothing obvious to trigger it. It might just be her powers emerging, though she’s a bit old for that.
Alice is wearing the familiar Malice choker when she comes in, though the art largely keeps it obscure, presumably to avoid spoiling where the scene is going. It’s visible in page 2 panel 3, though.
