X-Men #20 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #20
“A Civilized Discussion”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Cyclops and Agent Lundqvist in jail.
PAGE 1. Cyclops arrives for his meeting with Lundqvist and is immediately punched in the face.
This is the third issue to feature an extended conversation between Cyclops and Agent Lundqvist – the first was in issue #3, and also took place in McDade’s Diner, and the second was in issue #10. Cyclops came off comfortably better in each of those arguments, which is at least one reason why Lundqvist doesn’t want to argue with him again.
Note that Lundqvist sets his gun aside at the start of the fight – evidently this is about asserting status rather than actually trying to hurt Scott. Scott seems to take the situation accordingly, and doesn’t use his optic beams – he claims towards the end of the issue that he believes Lundqvist is trying to provoke him into using his powers, though Lundqvist denies this.
PAGES 2-3. Kid Omega, Magik and Juggernaut work on rebuilding the Marauder.
The Marauder was shot down by 3K in issue #14. Its back story comes from Gerry Duggan’s Marauders, and specifically issue #24 of that series. Its shape-shifting properties are previous established from that series. Kid Omega evidently believes that the core AI should be able to rebuild itself from random materials.
The “wreckage” which Juggernaut brings in is presumably mostly from the damage that the giant twin monster did to Magneto’s piloted Sentinel in issues #17-18. The “spare Sentinel crap we have lying around” refers to the Factory’s previous function as a Sentinel factory. It’s possible that they’ve also raided parts from Beast’s Quinjet (though it seems unlikely that Juggernaut would call that “wreckage”).
Kid Omega previously claimed to have “salvaged” the Marauder – and Cyclops implied that he had stolen it – in issue #11. We still don’t know the details.
Kid Omega seems quite attached to the Marauder. Even though we haven’t seen much of this AI as an active character, the ship functions by psychic control, and Kid Omega has spent most of the series as its main pilot. So he has a much stronger engagement with it than we do.
PAGES 4-5. Lundqvist complains about being kept out of the loop.
Lundqvist says that “I thought you and I had an understanding after last time. That maybe I didn’t much like you, but I could count on your sense of what’s right.” That would be issue #10, in which Cyclops gave Lundqvist a lecture on brinksmanship and threatened to annihilate Washington if the US government didn’t back off – though he also made clear that he was giving Lundqvist the ammunition to justify leaving him alone. Lundqvist’s characterisation of that conversation here is interesting; it may suit his ego to view it as an understanding, or perhaps he really was more persuaded than he appeared.
3K made their public debut with an address to mutantkind at the end of X-Men: The Hellfire Vigil. Lundqvist says that they followed this by releasing a press release and manifesto – we didn’t see that in Vigil, but it would seem a natural thing to do.
According to Lundqvist, 3K have claimed responsibility for the “mutant contagion”. This relates to the series-long plotline about 3K turning adult humans into new mutants; in issue #3, we learned that this had spawned a conspiracy theory about mutants being contagious. 3K didn’t claim responsibility for this in Vigil, so apparently this must have been in their press release. It’s not entirely clear what 3K have claimed – whether they’re still putting it forward as a contagion, or whether they’ve openly claimed credit for turning humans into new mutants. Lundqvist’s dialogue seems to suggest the former, and given 3K’s mutant-nationalist stance, it would seem odd for them to openly claim credit for creating “artificial” mutants. On the other hand, if 3K didn’t explain what they were doing, that begs the question of how Lundqvist (or his staff) have figured it out.
Lundqvist is, of course, absolutely correct that the X-Men have known about 3K creating new mutants pretty much from the start of the series, and have chosen not to share that with him.
PAGE 6. Temper and Psylocke talk.
Temper refers to her romantic subplot with Ransom from Uncanny X-Men, which has cropped up (in passing) in both “Raid on Graymalkin” and “X-Manhunt”, and advanced somewhat in the Vigil one-shot. Reasonably enough, she stops short of calling Ransom her “boyfriend”.
Psylocke refers to the Uncanny team as the “opposing camp”, even though the teams seem to be on good terms these days, but it looks like she’s just teasing.
Temper knows that John Greycrow is a bank robber, and apparently doesn’t much care. Presumably this is common knowledge among the X-Men. Psylocke goes through the motions of being slightly evasive on this point.
Temper has also picked up on the romantic subplot with Beast and Jen Starkey which featured in issue #18 and the Vigil one-shot.
PAGES 7-8. Beast and Jen talk.
They refer to Wyre’s invitation to Beast to join 3K, from issue #18. Beast hasn’t told anyone about that, and Jen has evidently decided to respect that. Beast is generally depressed about the whole thing, as 3K’s increasing prominence makes the invitation hard to ignore.
PAGES 9-10. Scott and Lundqvist fight.
The “mutant problem” that “almost flattened” Merle is presumably the giant mutant twin monster from issues #14-18. Somehow, Lundqvist has learned that Ben Liu was in Merle during that story – the X-Men were still under the impression that Liu’s survival was a secret in Vigil, which takes place alongside issue #19. As Lundqvist says, the X-Men faked Liu’s death in issue #2 after he caused chaos in San Francisco.
It’s not altogether clear how Lundqvist found this out, but Ben did make a semi-public appearance in that story by persuading Rose Ellen Cobb to confront the twin. Perhaps she reported him, or maybe he was simply spotted by the local authorities. At any rate, this is the first point where Lundqvist has actually seemed to be one step ahead of Scott.
PAGES 11-12. Glob Herman and Ben Liu play basketball.
Specifically, they’re playing the basketball variant H-O-R-S-E.
The “evil school” that Glob attended is the Hellfire Academy, from Wolverine and the X-Men #20-23 (2012-13). The teacher he speaks to is Taskmaster.
Ben Liu correctly thinks that Lundqvist knows he’s alive. Given that Ben has been complaining throughout this series about being kept in reserve when he wants to help, is it possible that Ben himself has forced the issue?
PAGES 13-15. Chief Robbins tasers Scott and Lundqvist.
Lundqvist correctly points out that Scott’s X-Men (and Scott especially) sided with the US government in recapturing Professor X during X-Manhunt.
Lundqvist knows that “X-Manhunt” ended with Professor X leaving Earth and, perhaps more surprisingly, believes the X-Men on this. Again, that might be seen as supporting his claim that he thought (however bizarrely) that he was starting to develop some sort of relationship of trust with Scott. Scott, however, evidently regards Lundqvist as a pointless distraction.
He correctly identifies Jen Starkey as another 3K creation. The Upstarts broadcast was in issue #4.
Chief Robbins, who has been extremely reasonable throughout this series, jumps straight to tasering both men despite them offering to talk to her. She seems rather panicked by the whole situation.
PAGE 16. The other X-Men have dinner.
PAGES 17-20. Cyclops and Lundqvist in jail.
Lundqvist claims that he has nothing against mutants, but specifically hates Cyclops. He then gives us a reference to Battle Royale, the thrust being that Lundqvist believes O*N*E’s role to be levelling the playing field against those mutants who are dangerously powerful. He claims to have no concerns about the mutants with low-level powers, and the implication is that his issue with the X-Men is more about them conducting themselves as above the law. Cyclops dismisses all this as rationalisation, but it’s fair to say that we haven’t really seen Lundqvist dealing with low-powered civilian mutants and what he says here is at least consistent with his appearances to date.
Lundqvist’s point about Cyclops being pressed into service by Professor X without really getting a free choice is not a new one, and indeed formed part of Cyclops’ own complaints about Professor X in recent issues; note that Scott doesn’t reply.
Obviously, we don’t know who the new leader of O*N*E is. A “Director Talyn” has previously shown up in Deadpool / Wolverine, but it’s unclear whether she’s meant to be the overall leader of O*N*E or just someone with a senior position.
So far, the Cyclops/Lundqvist issues have been the highlight of this series and this one is no exception. Both raise reasonable points here – while Lundqvist is the latest in a line of varyingly-jerkish government liasons to the mutants, he seems pretty genuine in his position of not hating mutants, just uncontrolled super-terrorists (who make up the majority of Cyclops’s team).
So now in addition to trying to figure out who the 3K director is, we also need to figure out who the O*N*E director is. We got the hint that he’s a mutant… did Forge become available in time? Havok is also a possibility, in how much Lundqvist was looking forward to it annoying Cyclops, but he has the same scheduling questions. Longshot candidates who’d still make some sort of sense: Sunspot and Cable.
If Lundqvist hadn’t identified the new director as a man, I’d suggest that Abigail Brand, Storm, and Mystique all would do an excellent job of being connected to this team and making for a good adversary.
This series did not need another mystery character. The “Chairman” identity has been drawn out the entire series. What other mystery characters can be teased before the reset in October?
Shouldn’t Lundqvist be wondering if Magneto is part of 3K if he saw the video? Unless 3K was considerate enough to identify their Magneto as a clone of Magneto when they issued their press release.
I like Kwannon’s reasoning regarding Greycrow- “Look, he robs banks and endangers innocent people but hey, he’s good in bed.”
“Obviously, we don’t know who the new leader of O*N*E is. A “Director Talyn” has previously shown up in Deadpool / Wolverine, but it’s unclear whether she’s meant to be the overall leader of O*N*E or just someone with a senior position.”
As John pointed out, Lundqvist identified the new leader as “he”. So it can’t be a woman.
I wonder if Dark Beast is the new leader of ONE. He could have convinced the government he’s the real Beast.
@John, Chris V- I’m wondering if the Chairman and the ONE leader are the same person.
@John- Lundqvist describes his new boss as a “real hard-ass. A nightmare, really.” That doesn’t really apply to Alex or Sunspot.
3K are supposed to be mutant nationalists (at least on the surface level). Didn’t they attack the X-Men for using Sentinels against fellow mutants? It would seem difficult to reconcile their pro-mutant propaganda while also working with the human government.
Again, there’s a fresh angle on the mutant identity. First there’s the 3K X-Men which makes you ask, who does decide who does and doesn’t get to be an X-Man? And now Lundqvist, potentially not being a bigot, making us ask, are the X-Men even the good guys?
Note that the last contact Psylocke had with Rogue’s team was when she snuck in and accidentally got Deathdream possessed. The teams might be on good terms, but Psylocke probably is far from it.
By the way, Juggernaut has been in Avengers Academy the past few weeks. It has a fascinating take on Cyrtorak, as generational trauma of abuse.
I’m not sure they should be continuing that direction now that Krakoa is gone. Sure, Marvel did everything they could to try to assure us that the mutants were in the right as soon as Hickman was gone, but Hickman’s Krakoa definitely did not portray Krakoa as the “good guys”, if they hadn’t outright switched places with humans, at the least all the different sides had as valid a point.
Krakoa asked if the mutant nation was shady. This is (maybe) asking if the specific team currently run by Cyclops really represents the common mutant, and if so, why?
“As John pointed out, Lundqvist identified the new leader as “he”. So it can’t be a woman.”
Maybe it’s Cloud.
Si-Krakoa went beyond that to ask the question of what does it mean if “the mutants win”. Other questions were asked as to whether Krakoa represented the average mutant, or if Krakoa was just going to set up a new caste-system with some mutants being “more equal than others”.
I don’t think that Marvel should be going in that type of direction with the mutant protagonist characters after Krakoa. We saw that mutants can become the oppressors just as easily as humans (although, granted, we had been shown that with earlier depictions of Magneto or Apocalypse). If Marvel wants to do those type of stories, then it should bring back some of the “evil mutants” instead of continuing to question the purpose of the X-Men who were ostensibly always akin to superheroes in the past. They’ve already gotten rid of Xavier, who was apparently too problematic at this point.
I liked the shades of gray and pointing out that just because mutants had been persecuted in the past it didn’t make their actions right during Krakoa, but I don’t feel it fits with the current presentation of mutants.
Although, that may not be the point.
Never rule out Mystique, even if they say the mystery person is a guy.
Mark: Yeah, she could be either, but when I made my list, I figured she’d get the job by trading on her DOD experience as head of Freedom Force, using her Raven Darkholme identity. While she could take the job pretending to be any number of men, they would also have to be mutants to fit.
Michael: I agree that I can’t think of a single time when Sunspot could be described as a nightmare. Even as Reignfire, he wasn’t unreasonable. But maybe Lundqvist is being sarcastic, or maybe he sees Cyclops’s nightmare being having to work for a happy-go-lucky billionaire who just wanders off during all mutantkind’s biggest crises.
And Havoc has actually dug in from time to time, when he’s not being treated as a joke. Maybe they found a clone of his inverted self. Or maybe he’s actually taking this job seriously and is good at it, which would make him a nightmare to mutants.
I think both Sunspot and Havoc are a huge stretch, but I’m having a hard time picking a male mutant whom O*N*E would make director who would also be described as a nightmare.
I wouldn’t be so quick to declare Lundqvist isn’t a bigot just because he says he isn’t: “some mutants are weapons” isn’t that far a jump from “some Haitians eat dogs and cats”. O*N*E isn’t tasked with “supervising” *specific* mutant criminals, their job is to watch and suspect *all* mutants because of what they are and what they might *potentially* do. That’s racism in a nutshell.
@Diana – Yeah, that’s not good, but if O*N*E’s current leader is a mutant, then we know they practice DEI policy, at least.
If MacKay is *really* clever, he’ll have the O*N*E Director be Emplate just to really drive home the “opportunist feeding on his own people” metaphor
Trask, last seen in the now ended/cancelled Sentinels, seems the obvious answer. It would also explain how Lundqvist knows all of this, and would fit in with being enough of a hard-ass for him to warn someone he hates. Of course, McCloud would a fun, unpredictable answer. I am hoping for McCloud but thinking it is Trask.
@Chris V- The weird thing is that in the print books 3K are mutant nationalists but in the Infinity Comics they’re helping the X-Cutioner for some reason.
The more I think about it, the less sense tasing Scott in a public place while he’s trying to explain makes. How does Robbins know that Scott’s spasms won’t trigger his visor? We saw Scott’s visor being triggered by a panic attack as late as X-Manhunt. I guess that Chief Robbins is up on the latest specs of Scott’s visor.
The 3k director can be Dark Beast – the beast most likely to be involved in genetic experiments
The ONE Director can be X-force Beast – a hard man willing to do anything for his ends.
3k once to sound out new Hank so it makes send for them to have a beast connection the Idea of the 3 beasts all working against each other is quite fun.
@Diana Emplate is being given a slow burn redemption arc in the Avengers Academy Infinity Comic, so it probably won’t be him.
@Woodswalked: That doesn’t seem likely given his fate at the end of the Sentinels mini – not just a complete basketcase, but a prisoner of Ellis/Graymalkin.
@Michael: Unless I’m mistaken, we’ve only seen Cassandra Nova’s involvement in the AXM storylines – it’s entirely possible she’s pursuing her own agenda independent of 3K’s goals.
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