Immortal X-Men #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #10
“Hated and Feared”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Professor X, with his helmet damaged to expose part of his face.
PAGE 2. Carlos Pacheco obituary.
PAGE 3. Mr Sinister creates a new save point.
We saw Sinister doing something similar to this with Moira VI in the previous issue – and then burning through all ten of her iterations before finally managing to be semi-successful in his assassination attempt on the Quiet Council. Once again, he uses Velocidad’s time warping powers to get this seventh Moira clone to a stage where she can be used as a save point. As seen in issue #1, Sinister’s scheme involves killing the Moira clones and using their powers to carry information back in time so that when their lives start over, he has access to the information from the deleted timeline. Hence, the absence of any information in the clone’s memory means this is its first timeline.
“I’m not going back to bloody Judgment Day.” Sinister used up all ten lives of Moira VI last issue. As he explained last issue, he does still have a viable save point in his Moira V – but that would mean retracing his steps all the way back to before Judgment Day, and he really doesn’t want to roll the dice on somebody saving the world from the Progenitor again.
“I really could do without being trapped helplessly in the Pit forever.” Does he really not know – even with the benefit of his multiple Moiras – that everyone in the Pit has escaped over in the Sabretooth miniseries? Then again, given where this issue is heading, maybe he’s being sarcastic. But… he does seem to put up a significant fight in an attempt to escape. Hmm.
PAGES 4-5. Professor X is taken for resurrection.
Sinister succeeded in wiping out all the Quiet Council’s telepaths, plus Hope, during his attack last issue. As the Krakoan security force, X-Force members Beast, Domino and Sage are duly investigating. That winged eyeball Beast is holding was part of Sinister’s attack last issue; it shoots eyebeams. Cable is also here, presumably because of his father/daughter relationship with Hope.
Note that Professor X has lost his helmet and his face is seen clearly.
Professor X is the spotlight narrator for this issue, continuing the structure of each Quiet Council member getting their turn.
The scene of mutants gathered around Arbora Magna recalls some of the particularly ceremonial resurrections of the early Krakoan era. It’s not the first time that Professor X has been resurrected, so it may be the scale of the attack on the Council that’s prompting this response. Maybe that’s why they’re all in traditional X-Men uniforms, too. They’re all carrying candles, so clearly this is a vigil.
The crowd art has been done by mirroring the groups on either side of the aisle (though the colouring is varied to make it less obvious). An unfortunate side effect is that in amongst all the generics, the very recognisable Glob Herman appears twice.
PAGE 6. Recap and credits. The title “Hated and Feared” is, of course, an inversion of the X-Men’s traditional “feared and hated by a world they are sworn to protect” tagline.
PAGE 7. Data page: the Beast explains the back-up plans for Krakoan resurrection. Basically, they’re quietly making a repository of DNA that doesn’t depend on Mr Sinister; plenty of psychics can use Cerebro to restore minds from backup; and most of the Five can be adequately copied by Mimic or Synch. Hope is the potentially tricky one. Beast says that there have been disastrous attempts to perform the process without her, by which he presumably means that the other Four members of the Five attempted it alone – it’s evident that nobody has tried copying her powers to take her place before (or at least, neither Mimic nor Synch have).
The three Krakoan letters are just G, H and M (for Genetic base, Host and Mind). These terms come from a data page in House of X #5, as does the idea that Synch and Mimic could step in.
PAGES 8-10. Hope is resurrected.
The Mimic was previously mentioned as a possible stand-in for Hope in House of X #5. I think this is his first actual appearance of the Krakoan era. He was initially presented as someone who had gained the power to mimic the X-Men’s powers through a lab accident, but later retcons do establish him as a mutant. He was a member of the X-Men for literally three issues in 1966. He’s a complete Z-lister and predictably fails to rise to the occasion.
Synch, fortunately, is made of sterner stuff. Of course, he’s a member of the X-Men right now.
The guy with the brightly coloured stuff growing on his head is mad scientist Dr Nemesis from Legion of X, and the Stepford Cuckoos are also present, as some of the more experiences psychics left. For some reason only four of the Cuckoos appear to be here.
“Even the monster who killed me had a hand in my upbringing, in a failed, foolish attempt to buy himself immortality.” This refers to X-Men: Legacy #211-214, which reveal that Sinister was involved in the Alamagordo project where Professor X’s parents worked, and engineered himself into the DNA of the Professor and other project children. Eventually Sinister tries to take over Professor X’s body and gets repelled. Scott Summers’ involvement with Sinister is much better known; Sinister secretly ran the orphanage where Scott grew up.
Note again that we get a clear shot of everyone’s forehead as they come out of the eggs.
“To me, my X-Men” has become an established catchphrase, even though it doesn’t actually date back to the Silver Age. It just sounds like it could have done.
PAGE 11. The X-Men arrive at Sinister’s base.
The X-Men assembled for this attack are:
- The Quiet Council (Destiny, Mystique, Storm, Kate Pryde, Nightcrawler, Colossus, Sebastian Shaw)
- The X-Men (Cyclops, Forge, Jean Grey, Magik, Iceman & Firestar)
- Angel
- Cable
- Wolverine (Laura)
- Rogue
- Beast
Note that Professor X himself is not present. Magik is wearing her black costume, not the gold one that she acquired in the “Trials of Magik” arc in New Mutants and now wears in X-Men – that’s probably just an art error.
“The question … is if [Destiny’s] more or less sure than she was about the Celestial not exploding.” Referring to A.X.E.: Judgment Day #3, where Destiny manipulates the Quiet Council into launching an attack on the Progenitor by concealing the level of risk from them.
“Sinister had a city beneath Alaska…” This comes from Uncanny X-Men vol 2 #14-17, which was part of the Avengers vs X-Men crossover.
PAGES 12-18. The X-Men fight Sinister and his chimeras.
Sinister’s creation of mutant chimeras has been sporadically hinted at as a big deal throughout the Krakoan era, though these monstrosities are nothing like the otherwise-normal hybrid mutants we saw in Powers of X.
Professor X’s narration claims that he selected the first five X-Men not because they were the first mutants he could find, but because he thought they were especially useful to him. There’s some precedent for this idea, such as a flashback in Uncanny X-Men #300 which establishes that he was already well aware of various future members at the time when he recruited his first members. It’s also clear with hindsight that given the sheer volume of mutants out there, and the fact that Professor X has a working Cerebro from day one, he ought to have been finding loads of people. That said, the basic formula of Lee/Kirby X-Men is “oh look, Cerebro has detected a new mutant, let’s compete with Magneto to recruit him”, but maybe Xavier wasn’t seriously trying to recruit them.
The “ex-Interpol agent” that Professor X lists in the second wave of X-Men is Banshee. It’s maybe less clear how this pattern encompasses peaceful farmer Colossus (who, note, is right there but doesn’t get mentioned). If you’re going for a manipulative reading of Professor X, Sunfire and Thunderbird are possibly explicable as characters whose contribution is to bond the rest of the cast.
Professor X is basically making the point here that, yes, the X-Men do exist to protect humanity from mutants, because the more powerful mutants really are terribly scary and in need of being brought under control.
“I had a boy, and he nearly destroyed the world with runaway thoughts.” Legion. Professor X is probably thinking of Legion’s involvement in creating the Age of Apocalypse timeline.
“Moira’s child was a serial killer who could carve reality with his mind.” Proteus. He used to burn through host bodies and kill them, and never seemed that bothered about it.
“When Jean Grey lost control, a planet burned.” The destruction of the D’Bari homeworld by Dark Phoenix in X-Men #135. Technically Dark Phoenix isn’t Jean Grey so much as a cosmic entity drawing on a fragment of Jean Grey as a template for her personality, but… same thing.
Apocalypse’s “fancy name”. The weird symbol that he used as a name in Excalibur. It’s an A with a couple of things on either side, but sure, it does look a bit like an M, “if you squint”.
“When Magneto came out as a mutant, he killed a whole town in his grief.” In the back-up story in Classic X-Men #12, where he lashes out after the death of his daughter Anya. (Professor X gives her name as “Anna”, which is either a typo or an error on his part.)
PAGE 19. Data page. A quote from Exodus’s, er, unique translation of Mark 14:21. The correct verse doesn’t refer to Hope, but to a more orthodox messianic figure.
PAGES 20-23. Sinister is thrown in the Pit.
Again, Cable gets a prominent role to avenge his daughter. Meanwhile, Professor X’s narration continues his basic point: given his established power levels, he is insanely powerful and you should be grateful that he’s as restrained as he is.
“A useful monster is still a monster.” Taken literally, this would bode ill for the Beast. Nightcrawler certainly seems to take it literally.
Destiny, naturally, realises that something is horribly wrong and wants to get herself and Mystique to safety.
PAGES 24-25. Professor X privately unmasks.
Somewhere along the line, he’s apparently fallen under Sinister’s control.
PAGE 26. Trailers. The next issue is Immoral X-Men #1 (sic).
Note that in issue 1, Selene offered to “help” with the resurrections. And we later found out she had made some sort of arrangement with Mother Righteous. Apparently, Mother Righteous had similar ideas to gain control of the resurrected Krakoans. More proof that Sinister and Mother Righteous think alike- just one uses science and the other uses magic.
Paul, I think you misread the mutants gathering – they’re not there for Xavier, they’re there for Hope. She’s key to the resurrection and she hasn’t died before.
The gathered cheer after the message ‘Hope’s alive’ after all.
It’s curious that Elixir can’t reanimate Hope by himself, since there’s a body, and Cullen Bunn upped his powers to be able to at least partially resurrect someone solo.
Paul> “I really could do without being trapped helplessly in the Pit forever.” Does he really not know – even with the benefit of his multiple Moiras – that everyone in the Pit has escaped over in the Sabretooth miniseries? Then again, given where this issue is heading, maybe he’s being sarcastic. But… he does seem to put up a significant fight in an attempt to escape. Hmm.
Is there any reason to think he has foreknowledge past this point? When he activated “Moira VI” last issue, he had no data, and again this issue with “Moira VII”. And then there’s the whole thing with him utterly failing over and over to kill the QC, since he had no foreknowledge of what would work.
Paul> The scene of mutants gathered around Arbora Magna recalls some of the particularly ceremonial resurrections of the early Krakoan era. It’s not the first time that Professor X has been resurrected, so it may be the scale of the attack on the Council that’s prompting this response. Maybe that’s why they’re all in traditional X-Men uniforms, too. They’re all carrying candles, so clearly this is a vigil.
Eh, given the “HOPE’S ALIVE!” bit, pretty sure it’s because *she* is one of the victims, not Xavier or the rest of the QC, and it wasn’t even clear they could bring her back at all.
@Michael:
Pretty sure this has nothing to do with Mother Righteous. Sinister’s plan all along throughout this series was to kill Hope for Reasons Unknown (with as many others on the QC as possible as a bonus). It looks to me like his plan all along was to compromise Hope, and through her the resurrections – it’s clear from previews/covers that Hope, Exodus and Frost are also compromised, not just Xavier.
Presumably, the mechanics of this will be made clear later.
@Krzysiek: Yes, you’re probably right there.
“Is there any reason to think he has foreknowledge past this point?”
He doesn’t, not as such. But he does have knowledge of what happened in various timelines that he aborted, and in some of those he learned about things that are currently secrets. So we know from issue #1 that he’s aware of the fact that Colossus is under the influence of Mikhail Rasputin, for example.
@SanityOrMadness- What I meant was that Mother Righteous probably had a SIMILAR idea.
Paul > Somewhere along the line, he’s apparently fallen under Sinister’s control.
My interpretation was that Xavier never came back to life. The Hope, Exodus, Professor X and Emma Frost born in this issue were Chimeras created by mixing their original DNAs with Mr Sinister.
The data page on resurrection protocols holds the clues. Sinister curates the genetic database, the Five create the host body, the Telepath inserts the mind. I think the idea is that Sinister spikes all the DNA in his database with his own genetic material. During resurrection, Hope’s abilities (either knowingly or unknowingly) burn out the Sinister influence in the DNA when the bodies are created. Since Hope has been a part every resurrection since the beginning of Krakoa, there hasn’t been a problem yet.
So, my take on Mr Sinister’s plan (during Gillen’s run):
He gets Hope elected to the Quiet Council (IXM 1, he was the deciding vote).
He murders Hope and as many other QC members as he can during a QC meeting in a very public manner (IXM 9, he couldn’t kill that many so he settled for just Hope + the 3 psychics).
Hope is immediately resurrected using a substitute to complete the Five. The substitute (Synch, in this case) either couldn’t or didn’t know to purge Sinister’s influence from the DNA so the four QC members are reborn as Chimeras. The Chimeras have their original minds (I don’t Sinister could tamper with the Cerebro network) but they have hybridized bodies. They will initially act like the original mind until the corruption kicks in.
Sinister stages a distraction with the Alaska city set up, complete with a decoy brain to deceive telepaths. The remaining QC + the X-Men head to Alaska on Destiny’s word that Sinister was there. (I’m not sure if Destiny was mistaken or if this is another one of her schemes – maybe she lets Sinister take the win in the hopes he defeats himself?) This group gets held down in Alaska where they fight a series of Chimera montrosities.
Meanwhile, the newly-born Sinister Four confront Sinister Prime at his real hideout where he is ‘attempting to make an escape’. This entire scene is an orchestration by Sinister. It’s not shown how the four of them found Sinister – he probably directed them there. Sinister loudly proclaims his guilt for all to hear while theatrically attempting to escape in a big spaceship. The four bring Sinister down and Sinister-Xavier kills a bunch of soldiers (all Sinister clones) in an uncharacteristic display of violence.
Sinister Prime is exiled to the Pit (an easy verdict given his loud proclamations). The Krakoans believe the threat of Sinister is over and mostly let their guard down. One-third of the QC (mostly psychics) are now Sinister chimeras – all QC verdicts from now on will be in Sinister’s favor. Sinister-Hope is in charge of the Five – every mutant resurrected in Arbor Magna from now on will be a Sinister chimera.
It will take 10 years for Professor S to implant psychic triggers into all of humanity to love mutants (as foreshadowed earlier in the issue). Within that 10 years, the entire Earth will align to Sinister’s way of thinking. Within 10 years, Sinister Prime will be released from the Pit. Within 10 years, the Empire of the Red Diamond will begin.
Yes. Remember, Sinister had known about Xavier’s plan, unbeknownst to Xavier, the entire time after Xavier and Magneto met with him. Xavier thought he mindwiped Sinister, but that Sinister-Prime was killed by another Sinister who took his place and knew that Xavier was having Sinister collect all mutants’ DNA on his behalf.
I’ve said continuously since Hickman wrote that issue that Sinister had years to tamper with the DNA and work to sabotage Krakoa. I knew it would pay off eventually.
So given it’s referred to in the narration, is this going to go back to Sinister’s DNA being somewhere in Xavier?
Speaking of DNA, shouldn’t the X-Men have virtually all mutant DNA on file now that they’re all together on one island?
And speaking of the narration, it must be coming after Sinister’s attack but before he’s been controlled/replaced, right?
Also, is it supposed to be news that there’s a reason the X-Men’s enemies have included lots of mutants? That’s always been obvious.
SanityOrMadness > Is there any reason to think he has foreknowledge past this point?
Getting exiled into the Pit was a key component of Sinister’s scheme (he even mentions it in the Sinister Secrets of IXM 1). It allows the Krakoans to believe that Sinister has been taken out of the picture while his secondary schemes kick in slowly over the years.
That said, I believe this is the first time he’s actually got to this point. He’s gone through Judgment Day a few times, he’s done the QC attack 10 times, but this is the first iteration of the ‘get exiled’ scheme (no previous data). Let’s see how it works out for him.
Krzysiek Ceran > they’re not there for Xavier, they’re there for Hope. She’s key to the resurrection and she hasn’t died before.
I agree, they’re gathered there for Hope. Gillen portrays Hope as the Jesus Christ figure for Krakoa – a mutant messiah. The populace is devastated by her death and rapturous at her resurrection. Of course, the irony is that Hope wasn’t resurrected this time. A Sinister-Hope chimera was born instead. Basically the anti-Christ, if we follow Gillen’s metaphor.
GN > My interpretation was that Xavier never came back to life.
Xavier never came back to life after the QC attack in issue 9, I mean. We’ve obviously been seeing the real Xavier until that point.
There is some serious art confusion with showing Xavier’s corpse but then having Cable carrying an unmarked body bag which is not Xavier.
GN –
That sounds mindbogglingly plausible enough to be Sinister’s long-term plan, and it makes sense in a weird way.
I have to say that attempting to restructure Xavier’s recruitment of the O5 and Giant-Size teams as part of a specific agenda is an interesting retcon. Again, it makes sense when read in a certain light, just as with anything else in the grand retcon of the Krakoan era altogether.
I wonder if Magneto assembled his own Brotherhood in much the same way, either consciously or unconsciously. Even without knowing his relationship to Wanda and Pietro, one can argue they had the potential to be immensely powerful and thus useful. Mastermind, when not being a weasel of a person, had useful powers. Toad–um… er… okay, I got nuthin’. Point is, if we accept that there was a long-term plan in effect, it puts the whole “fighting for each new mutant as they appear” thing into a whole new light.
(Especially as we learn how MANY mutants existed who either weren’t worth a visit from Xavier, Magneto, Emma, Apocalypse, or who didn’t make the cut for one of their schools/teams. Why else was the school restricted to a mere handful of mutants for so many years, when there were dozens or hundreds of mutants out there? How come both schools wanted Kitty Pryde but no one came recruiting Doug Ramsey or Larry Bodine when they were both in the X-Men’s backyard?)
I kind of like this idea that the mutant leaders recruited with an agenda beyond “grab any available mutant” even though it still leaves a lot of 60s and 70s era plotholes.
Xavier fells under Sinister’s influence just with this most recent resurrection. If you go back to issue 9 you can see that Sinister’s doodles on his plans in retrospect reveal that he wasn’t trying to kill the entire Quiet Council. He wanted to kill enough of them (and the right ones) to put his plan into place. There are times when he kills more than four but not Hope and times when he kills Hope but fewer than four total. There is a handwritten note from Sinister that says he needs Hope and three others. The power rankings he gives them elsewhere in the issue, in retrospect, aren’t just how much of a threat they are but how valuable they would be to control. So I think what has happened is he kept rebooting the timeline in issue 9 until he killed Hope and at least three other quiet council members, which is necessary for his plan, and brought all four of them – Hope, Xavier, Emma and Exodus – as versions of themselves whose genetics have been tampered with to make them Sinister chimeras.
This was the first issue where Sinister’s resets feel like he’s playing a video game.
The line about looking in the mirror hits differently on re-read. Xavier’s entire narration, in fact.
Why do they bother with Sinister’s DNA database in cases where they have a corpse full of DNA at hand? It makes sense for people that have been dead a while or died in an inconvenient place, but the for the ones in this issue?
How is the Sinister mark supposed to work? Is it really supposed to only manifest sometimes? And what about people who don’t normally wear masks, like Hope?
I don’t think this was a very good issue, I couldn’t tell what was supposed to be happening for a lot of it. And not in a fun way of seeing a mystery being teased, I was just confused. It’s only thanks to you guys that I know what was probably supposed to have happened. 🙂
I think the intent with the mention of people gathering DNA outside of Sinister is that the only DNA they don’t have yet is whoever is both dead and hasn’t been resurrected in the Krakoan era. They’re beholden to Sinister up until they get completely through the backlog and can get the samples of the people who are otherwise unavailable. It sounded like they had gotten close to clearing the backlog back during Trial of Magneto, but since then people have acted like there’s still a long way to go.
Speaking of which, I can’t recall — did we ever get an answer about how the waiting room deals with the genetic component? Sinister probably doesn’t have the genetic samples of *everyone* there. There’s got to be some mutants from before he started his work, or someone born in the boonies who died before their powers manifested and Sinister had any way of finding him. I’m guessing the answer is “Look! Behind you!”.
That’s a good question, Bengt. It made sense that Xavier would have gone to Sinister before Krakoa was founded, for a number of reasons. Cataloging all the DNA of mutants who died prior to the founding of Krakoa. Having an extensive database while the island becomes established, in case of mass death or an individual dying without leaving accessible DNA.
It seems like even if Xavier and Magneto did ignore Moira’s warning, they’d still realize they were trusting a psychotic to live on their island with vast amounts of power over the society.
Perhaps Sinister made an agreement with Xavier and Magneto that he would always be kept in a prominent position on Krakoa with the resurrection process if they wanted him to remain loyal to Krakoa. That’s an easy out, but something should have been out on the page.
Xavier and Magneto may have acted arrogant assuming they could manipulate Sinister prior to the founding of Krakoa (without Xavier realizing that Sinister had outsmarted him), but once Sinister was living on Krakoa (when Xavier, Magneto, and Moira’s agenda was no longer a secret), they should have known he could sabotage the society from within.
Oh, and as to why bother with Sinister’s samples when they have a corpse full right there, I’d guess habit. Before now they didn’t want to tip their hand about any plans to edge Sinister out, so they always requested samples from him. Presumably they don’t go to ask Sinister for the DNA personally each time, and Destiny was a special case. If he was planning this, he probably set things up to make normal DNA requests for resurrection as easy as possible. Enter a name on a terminal and something wheels the genetic sample over. You’re not thinking about Sinister each time you do it, but the procedure and the results.
So not immediately dumping the process and taking fresh samples from the bodies makes sense if everyone is calm and thinking things through, but in a panic it’s easy to rely on normal procedure. It’s a terrible mistake, but I think it’s an easy oversight to make. And with Professor X now compromised, it’s now something people won’t manage to think about at all.
Jon R-They still have a long wait to get through all the Genosha mutants. I forget how long they said it would take to finish resurrecting every mutant who died on Genosha, but it was quite a while. That doesn’t count other non-essential mutants who died along the way and were placed after the Genosha list.
As far as Sinister’s DNA, we’re to accept he has acquired every mutant’s DNA now, except for the explicit mention of X-Man and Mister M (which Hickman pointed out that Sinister had failed to collect yet). It was mentioned in one of the Death of Wolverine comics that Sinister’s catalogue of every mutant was complete (which just happened to work well for Hickman’s plans).
As it happens, a recent X-Men Unlimited mentioned there being a Shadow Docket of mutants Sinister doesn’t have the DNA of, including the Armageddon Man. It was just casually brought up without much explanation, so I suspect it was meant to be introduced in Marauders first, only the unpredictability of release schedules is what it is.
Toad–um… er… okay, I got nuthin’.
Well, he did manage to steal/copy a bunch of stuff from the Stranger at one point, so maybe it’s his technical skills and ability to hack alien tech?
But really, between Toad and Amphibius of the Savage Land Mutates, it just seems like Magneto is secretly really into submissive frog people.
Question…how is Rogue there? Isn’t she in space/became a Brood or whatever as per the Captain Marvel series?
Honestly, it seems the artist used the previous X-Men line-up for reference? Magik’s in her old costume, Rogue and (young adult) Laura are there…
It seems far too slow to gather and purify DNA off a corpse on the spot (which has been blown up and mutilated, on top of everything else) when you have purified DNA samples ready to go.
Especially if you’re in a hurry.
Ugh, are they trying to make Mimic a latent mutant again? That never takes. His main claim to fame is being the first non-mutant X-Man. Just let him have that.
And who’s to say that someone/something hasn’t tampered with the DNA of that corpse in some way? Turned it into a Brood? Nullified its mutant powers? Better to have a clean sample when you need it.
Of course, if the one person you trusted to keep the clean samples starts tampering with them, then…
The art DOES create problems for figuring out when this is supposed to take place. Kurt has the horns he had in Legion of X 7 but doesn’t have the more monstrous form he mutated into later in the story, and Dr. Nemesis is normal too. But Xavier seems to be normal in Legion of X 8-9.
Wasn’t there one of those “Sinister Secrets” back in Powers of X or wherever that noted that Sinister had secretly taken over one of the Quiet Council members? I vaguely remember it saying that “Charles will never notice until it’s too late” which makes me wonder if this is Gillen going back and putting a spin on that.
I might be forgetting something, but the closest “Sinister Secret” I remember to what Jenny is describing was, “This brainwashed Sinister was replaced without Xavier being aware and has been playing the long game this entire time alongside Xavier” (paraphrasing). Which was, obviously, a reference to the scene we saw of a Sinister aware of Xavier’s plan killing the Sinister Prime Xavier mindwiped and taking his place.
Ahhhh, that’s right. My mistake.
It’s absolutely Hope being resurrected there — on the previous page we see Cable placing her in a body bag before carrying her to the Arbor Magna (p4 panel 3).
I’ve always found the Mimic to be a bizarre character, especially given that, at least for a long time, the better-known version of the character was the alternate one from Exiles. Given he was a prominent character for such an extended run, he became a much more interesting version.
@Drew: The only reason Mimic is still alive is because he’s a mutant. He was killed by Ahab in Extermination and was presumably later resurrected in Arbor Magna on Krakoa.
Continuity hiccups aside (almost never something I care about), this issue was stellar. Xavier’s entire narration/monologue was him “saying the quiet part out loud” – he’s a jerk who chose mutants who were useful to him and manipulated everyone around him, but we should all be grateful he’s not worse- but only to the reader. I’m surprised Marvel signed off on the issue, but I’m glad they did. The last page reveal caught me by surprise, too.
Yep, I really enjoyed this issue too. Great writing, character voice, and reveal at the end. Comics need to remember to deliver cliffhangers so we come back each month!
I get that somehow Sinister inserted himself into the resurrection process as part of his attack. But it would be been a much cooler reveal if we’d never had Xavier take his cerebro helmet off for several issues prior. Also not sure how this ties in timeline wise with Legion of X
“@Drew: The only reason Mimic is still alive is because he’s a mutant. He was killed by Ahab in Extermination and was presumably later resurrected in Arbor Magna on Krakoa.”
They can resurrect non-mutants now, right? That’s my understanding. (Scarlet Witch in Trial of X.) And the Mimic copies mutant DNA and was (briefly) an X-Man and later an X-Men ally (during Carey’s run on Legacy), so I’m sure Xavier grandfathered him in to Cerebro’s recordings, along with (presumably) Longshot, Warlock, Meggan, etc.
Non-mutant who copies mutant DNA. A MUTATE, as they used to call them. 🙂
Isn’t Warlock canonically a “mutant” even though that makes no sense?
Yes. He’s considered a mutant of the Technarcy species due to his ability to experience empathy. His mutant power is empathy…
There is a long-standing question as to Mimic’s identity as a mutant. He was introduced gaining his powers from being exposed to an experimental gas created by his father. When he was brought back from the dead in the early-1990s though, Lobdell refers to him as a mutant in the story, saying he was a latent mutant whose powers were only triggered by the gas.
For what it’s worth, the Marvel Comics web-site still has Mimic listed as a mutant, while he used to be listed as a “mutate”.
If the 616 Mimic is a mutant, it seems odd that his powers not only had to be “catalyzed” by a chemical exposure, but also that they could be suppressed again by a machine his father built, restored by a second chemical accident, and then suppressed and screwed-up by a weird interaction with the Super-Adaptoid’s artificial power mimicry. (Would his father’s machine work on any mut
Perhaps, rather than being a latent mutant all along, perhaps he’s a bit like Sinister himself, a non-mutant who now has the X-gene thanks to artificial genetic alteration (in this case an accidental byproduct of al the fluctuations of his mimic powers).
That would be explained by the way he ended up “stuck” with mutant powersets for long periods of time. Because the Siklver Age is relatively distinct, he’s long since gotten permanent versions of the powers of the Silver Age X-Men (minus Professor X, because then he’d be absurdly powerful for such a minor-leaguer).
There’s also the way his original return from death involved his turning into a copy of Wolverine for a while.
I wonder if we’ll ever get any follow-up on his original “death” back in the 1970s, which involved his powers raging out of control and potentially killing people by draining away all their life energies.
Messed up my copy-paste in the post above, but I guess I’ll expand a little on the intended thought.
There’s a bunch of weirdness about the Silver Age plot device with the machine that suppressed the Mimic’s powers at the end of his first appearance.
Initially, the machine erases his powers and apparently explodes.
Later, a chemical explosion in a lab — a worryingly frequent event in the Marvel Universe — somehow restores his mimicking powers.
Much, much later, when the Mimic is brought back from the dead in a 1990 storyline in Marvel Comics Presents, it turns out his father’s machine is still working, and that it contains an Artificial Intelligence version of the Mimic’s father because…his father was touching it when it overloaded and killed him back in the 60s stories…or something.
The machine finally conks out, and Wolverine tells the Mimic to go to Japan and study meditation to control his powers.
This is also the story where the Mimic theorizes he was always a latent mutant, introducing that idea.
Weirdly, the machine doesn’t seem to have affected any other mutant’s powers, and no oner ever again mentions either the Mimic’s need to use meditation to avoid fatally draining people.
And then he turns up again in the Onslaught storyline, barely in control of his mimicry, and permanently manifesting the Silver Age team’s abilities, which seem to have stayed at the Silver Age versions’ levels since then.
And I’ll never stop being absurdly happy by the fact that cannonically, since before the Silver Age ended Angel only has wings because Mimic’s copy of his wings was grafted to his back.
Omar-When Mimic returned during the events of Onslaught, wasn’t the intimation that Onslaught used his abilities to tamper with Mimic’s powers (the same as how he did with Blob and Toad, I believe)? Of course, it’s part of the Onslaught story, so nothing is going to be clear.
“And I’ll never stop being absurdly happy by the fact that cannonically, since before the Silver Age ended Angel only has wings because Mimic’s copy of his wings was grafted to his back.”
…which still makes no sense, since wings designed to lift the Beast’s mass shouldn’t be calibrated for Warren’s slimmer, lighter frame, but whatever, comics. 😉
Following up on Omar’s thoughts, after Onslaught, I think Mimic next showed up in Excalibur, where the team accidentally found him while searching for Xavier because he permanently retains Xavier’s telepathy, along with the other 05’s powers. He stuck around through the end of that title, attending Brian’s bachelor party and wedding, but didn’t really do much.
Much later, Norman Osborn recruited him for his “Dark X-Men,” seeing him as a malleable and powerful tool. It *seemed* like Rankin genuinely thought he was doing good, even though he obviously wasn’t. And then Christos Gage added Mimic to the cast of X-Men Legacy, but that only lasted a couple issues before he and Rogue foiled a mass supervillain prison break in X-Men Legacy #275 and he left the team. And then I guess didn’t appear again until that story where the Silver Age X-Men went home and he died.
Technically Warren isn’t using Mimic’s wings anymore, if my reading is correct.
Back in HoX/PoX he was killed in the Orchis satellite and ressurrected on Krakoa, presumably according to Cerebro’s recordings as interpreted by Proteus.
Much like X-23 the younger now has an Adamantium skeleton, Warren is presumably with wings fully adapted to his own current body.
Come to think of it, and given what we have seen since in HoXPoX and X-Corp, he had the power to switch forms at will inside a fairly wide spectrum between classic Angel and steelclad Archangel before his very recent Legion of X appearance. Presumably any lingering ill effects from Hodge’s and Apocalypse’s meddling have been superceded during that or some earlier resurrection.
@Chris V- No, it gets weird. The eventual explanation was that Onslaught just murdered the Mimic’s friends, scientists that trusted Xavier, and it was some guy named Sledge who helped him gain control of his powers after he escaped from Onslaught.
(The original idea seems to have been that Onslaught was in control of Mimic and Blob but that didn’t make it into the final Onslaught story, so Sledge was introduced to explain what happened to them.)
I know this horse has long since bolted (you could make a case for it being untrue right from the teams inception), but with all the recent dissatisfaction at Beast’s slip into darkness, I just want to say, somewhere on the internet, that I really miss the days where you could believe Xavier was a decent-ish bloke who largely just wanted to do good in a harsh and resistant world.
It’s almost certainly nostalgia talking, but I think of things like the post-crossover rollerblading issue with Jubilee and it bums me out to imagine he was coldly imagining her uses as a pawn on the board whilst trying not to fall into the lake.
I liked this issue, but it still felt like a means to justify his endlessly unspooling manipulations, rather than an attempt to show any real regret on his part. Still, a good ‘un, and one that felt needed in this era.
The thing is that Hickman’s ret-con left plenty of room to try to redeem Xavier (except the Legion ret-con). Moira says that Xavier never changes. He’s a decent and caring man (if also flawed by arrogance, or at least in Moira’s eyes) who always holds on to his ideals, and that’s why she must attempt to break him if mutants are to have any type of future. There are holes left in the history of Moira’s master plan showing that Xavier refuses to give up on his dream. He still believes that his dream is possible and sees the X-Men are a way forward, regardless of what Moira has shown him. He has to try it his own way before he is willing to surrender and accept that Moira is right.
@Luis: Of course – to be comic-book-nerdy-precise (the best type of precise), Angel was using Mimic’s wings from that point in the Silver Age when the O5 got back from the future up until they were mangled and amputated in X-Factor. Whatever grew back in the 90s was fully his again, I presume.
I might as well join the nerding regarding Angel’s wings.
When he went through the Black Vortex, young Angel didn’t just get nifty new wings. He got the ability to fly through space and beat up the entire Kree homeworld, as well as a lingering bloodlust. Those powers faded in everyone else, but he kept his for the whole time he was in the present, even if he rarely used them to their full extent. You could explain it away as something psychological, everyone else chose to release their cosmic boost while he subconsciously held onto his. When he went back to the 60s, with bird wings, it was like a psychological block that prevented him from retaining the boost. But as far as I know it was never actually addressed. I think the writer just didn’t know, and nobody’s wanted to think about the time displaced team since, unless Cyclops meets the Champions.