S.W.O.R.D. #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #8
“Unbroken”
by Al Ewing, Guiu Vilanova & Fernando Sifuentes
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm fights some Arakkans.
PAGES 2-3. Storm descends to Arakko.
Storm is making a point of using her powers to return through space, rather than doing the sensible thing and taking a gate, in order to assert her authority over the bunch of lunatics who live on Aarakko. As she descends, we get to see some of the landmarks of Arakko that were established in Planet-Size X-Men #1: the statue of Apocalypse in the sacred valley (there’s one of Genesis next to it), the Lake Hellas Diplomatic Ring, and the town of Port Prometheus.
Although Mars is terraformed, the art in this issue still largely depicts it as something of a desert wasteland.
PAGE 4. Recap and credits. Storm isn’t technically a member of S.W.O.R.D., but she’s joined the cast by virtue of her role on Arakko, and she’s our star character for this issue.
Inferno #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
INFERNO vol 2 #1
by Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti & David Curiel
INFERNO. “Inferno” was the name of the big X-books crossover of 1989, in which demons invaded Manhattan. On the face of it, this series has nothing to do with it. But we’ll see. Inferno vol 1, if you’re wondering, was one of the miniseries from the Secret Wars event of a few years back.
COVER / PAGE 1. Moira stands over the fallen members of the Quiet Council.
PAGE 2. Opening quote from Omega Sentinel. It’s from page 12 panels 4-5.
PAGES 3-4. Emma resurrects Charles.
Obviously a flash forward. This scene is a direct callback to the opening two pages of House of X #1, in which Professor X resurrected the X-Men after their first suicide mission against Orchis. The layouts are basically the same. This time it’s Emma resurrecting Professor X and another guy who isn’t easy to recognise – presumably Magneto?
The line “To me, my X-Men” was used by Xavier in the original (and was the only line of dialogue in the scene). Emma’s line here is new. Xavier is cast in the role that Cyclops had originally. Xavier has been killed and resurrected before in the Krakoa era, but this is very clearly presenting a role reversal.
X-Men: The Onslaught Revelation #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: THE ONSLAUGHT REVELATION #1
“Altar/Piece Alter/Peace”
by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia
Despite the title, this is effectively Way of X #6.
COVER / PAGE 1. Nightcrawler and Legion face an Onslaught-possessed Professor X.
PAGE 2. The mutants gather for the Cruciball.
“There was once a sacred land where death had been dethroned…” Obviously, the narration is partly a plot recap for anyone gamely taking that #1 on the cover at face value. But it raises directly the question of whether the resurrected mutants are actually the same people as the original, or just copies who believe themselves to be the same person because they share memories. This is a very awkward question which the X-books have genuinely tiptoed around.
X-Men #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #3
“Fearless, Chapter 3: Problematic Fan”
by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fight the Evolutionary Guard while the High Evolutionary looks on.
PAGE 2. Data page. An opening quote from Mr Sinister.
Herbert is the High Evolutionary, Herbert Wyndham. As Sinister points out, it’s surprising how little interest the High Evolutionary has taken in the X-Men over the years, given the premise of the team. Of course, in reality, the reason is that he’s a character generally associated with other books.
“Anything remotely interesting about him comes from me.” X-Men vol 2 #99 established that the Evolutionary did indeed know Mr Sinister (as “Dr Essex”) when he was a young scientist, that he “learned more from the theoretical heresies of Essex than conventional textbooks could ever have occurred”, and that the Evolutionary regarded Essex as a mentor and “old friend”. So for once, Sinister’s self-aggrandising claim has a basis in history.
X-Corp #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-CORP #5
“Closing Costs”
by Tini Howard, Alberto Foche & Sunny Gho
This is the final issue of X-Corp. It’s possible it gets relaunched in some form after Inferno, but I suspect it’s going to wind up as another Fallen Angels. You can see what they were going for, but it just never quite worked.
COVER / PAGE 1. Angel symbolically falling, and the face of…. I don’t know, honestly. Himself as Archangel?
PAGES 2-3. The Madroxes guard the Noblesse soldiers.
These are the guys who were captured last issue trying to storm X-Corp’s HQ.
“Ces bêtes nous gardent prisonniers.” “These beasts keep us prisoners”, though the printed version is missing the circumflex.
“…cet endroit pue comme des mutants.” “This place stinks of mutants.”
X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF MAGNETO #2
“Welcome to Krakoa”
by Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1. Magneto fights the Avengers.
PAGES 2-4. Professor X and Hope try to read Magneto’s mind.
They’re trying to put him at ease, presumably to lower his psychic defences in order to make it possible to scan his memories. Obviously, this is trying to close the potential plot hole of “how can there by a mystery when you can just read the subject’s mind”?
Despite what Hope says, this process is quite plainly not torture. Torture would be extracting a confession by inflicting, or at least threatening, pain and suffering. What Professor X is trying to do here is the exact opposite. That may be an invasion of privacy or an unacceptable violation of the right to silence, but it isn’t torture. In fact, if Hope has ethical problems with this, she should really have problems with most of the telepaths on Krakoa.
PAGES 5-6. The X-Men greet the Avengers.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t actually the newly elected X-Men, but rather Cyclops and Phoenix (who are on the team) and Wolverine (who isn’t). But they’re a natural trio to act as ambassadors to the superhero establishment. It’s also a somewhat retro-classic Avengers group, rather than the current regular line-up: Captain America, Iron Man, the Vision and the Wasp.
Note that Hope asked on page 4 why Jean and Emma hadn’t been asked to help with the psychic search. Xavier claimed that they were both “busy with an urgent matter of diplomacy”, but that seems to be true only of Emma. It also doesn’t really explain why Xavier is turning to the relatively inexperienced Hope in place of, say, one of the Stepford Cuckoos – or indeed Exodus. Is there some reason why he wants to carry out this scan without the rest of the Quiet Council knowing?
Marauders #24 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #24
“Date Night”
by Gerry Duggan, Phil Noto & Cory Petit
COVER / PAGE 1. Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost nad Kate Pryde face off against aliens in the Red Lagoon bar.
PAGES 2-4. Eden Rixlo arrives at Port Prometheus.
Port Prometheus is the main intergalactic hub on Mars/Arakko. This is the first time Marauders has spent any significant time on Arakko since the terraforming during “Hellfire Gala”.
For the most part, Port Prometheus in this issue is basically just Star Wars which… seems ill-advised when the place hasn’t really been defined very clearly yet. Doesn’t it have an identity of its own?
Eden Rixlo is, as far as I can tell, a new character.
X-Force #23 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #23
“The New Tsar”
by Benjamin Percy, Martin Coccolo & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1: Mikhail Rasputin drives the Cerebro Sword into the Beast’s head. A very symbolic rendering of the attack on Beast’s mind by one of Mikhail’s agents.
PAGES 2-6. The Man With the Peacock Tattoo brings soldiers to Mikhail Rasputin.
Mikhail’s very uneasy alliance with XENO – an alliance of convenience against Krakoa – was established back in issue #12. The artificial red soldiers seen here are the same type of XENO agents previous seen in issues #11-12 and, before that, Wolverine #3. We saw their “nesting doll” schtick in issues #11-12, which is of course a reference to Russian nesting dolls.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGES 8-11. A nesting doll enters the Beast’s ear.
As usual in this series, the Beast is doing something both morally dubious and practically unwise. One of the issues with the way Beast is being written here is that he’s not hypercompetent but unethical – which would invite the obvious moral dilemmas about whether the ends justify the means. Rather, he’s both unethical and massively arrogant and incompetent. Then again, that’s not necessarily a problem, depending on where Percy is going with this. Arguably the “ends justify etc” character has been done to death, and if the idea here is to have a character who gets away with far more than he should because too many people assume he’s that character – including himself – then maybe that works.
Excalibur #23 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #23
“In the Service of Lord Doom”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Dr Doom leading a somewhat reluctant Excalibur. The composition loosely echoes the cover of Excalibur vol 1 #1.
PAGE 2. Betsy dreams.
Braddock Isle is now “several kilometres off the coast of England”. Last issue it was “Just off the coast of England” and the art showed the distance to be pretty much swimmable. Maybe Rictor’s been moving it.
Betsy’s dreams show a mixture of images from the series to date, most of them fairly generic. Merlyn and Morgan Le Fay are at the top. The woman emerging from the golden egg is probably meant to be Malice, upon her reincarnation in issue #20. The group above Betsy’s head are all members of Krakoa’s Quiet Council (from left to right, Magneto, Mr Sinister, Nightcrawler, Kate Pryde, Mystique, Emma Frost, Storm and Professor X). To her left is a silhouetted image of Pete Wisdom being killed by Marianna Stern of Coven Akkaba in issue #21. To her bottom right are her brothers, Brian (Captain Avalon) and Jamie (Monarch). And bottom left are Stern again, with fellow Coven leader Reuben Brousseau.
New Mutants #21 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #21
“Krakoa Welcomes Gabby Kinney”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1. Magik, Mirage and Karma confront a shadowy Wolfsbane, which doesn’t bear much resemblance to anything in the issue. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn it was based on an early version of the plot.
PAGES 2-3. Warpath takes his trainees to the moon.
The Summer House is the home of the Summers family, seen extensively in X-Men and Cable.
Warpath’s class are apparently here to look at the space slugs and, er, clean the more senior X-Men’s house. Heaven only knows where the space slugs came from; maybe someone brought them back from the Shi’ar empire, maybe they just happened to be passing and fell to the surface.
The kids in Warpath’s class today are:
