UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #20
“Battle in Buenos Aires”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Wolverine and Ransom fight the Word of Strength.

PAGES 1-3. Corina Ellis tries to talk to M.

M. Monet was last seen in issue #9, where she had a background cameo as a newly arrived prisoner at Graymalkin.

According to Corina Ellis, nobody has seen M eat since she arrived at the prison, yet she’s somehow gained three pounds in weight. This is weird, since it has nothing to do with her established powers, but it’s hard to see why Corina would be lying about it. That said, it might be something to do with psychic illusion to freak people out – Monet is apparently immune to the control collar that’s supposed to suppress her powers (and they weren’t wholly effective on Professor X either). She seems happy to show her hand about this, apparently confident that the prison operation is on its way to collapse (for reasons we’ll get to).

Monet claims to have been a friend of Corina’s brother Oscar, and that his last words were to ask Monet to watch over Corina. She previously mentioned her brother and his death in issue #8.

Corina Ellis. According to Monet, Oscar Ellis thought that his sister secretly worshipped mutants and isolised strong mutant women – Emma Frost being a particular template for her. Corina denies this, but it does seem to fit with her taking so long to get around to talking to her idol and making a clumsy and uncharacteristic attempt to befriend her. She seems to expect Monet to treat her as a kindred spirit, though she attempts to go back into character as soon as she’s rebuffed.

Captain Ezra. He’s literally being used to fetch the coffee here. He can’t possibly think this is making the best use of him.

Scurvy. M claims that he’s “going downhill fast”, presumably because the brain tumour mentioned in “Raid on Graymalkin”. The implication is that M needed Scurvy’s psychic powers to keep the inmates in line, and that as his health declines, the operation is starting to go off the rails.

Inmate X. Originally implied to be Professor X, and established to be someone else in “Raid on Graymalkin” (which looked suspiciously like a retcon to allow Professor X to be written out, in order that he could appear in Imperial). We still don’t know who they are, but Monet seems to think that there’s a very good reason for keeping them contained.

PAGES 4-5. Dinner at Haven House.

Present are all of the X-Men, all of the Outliers, and Marcus, Alice and Chelsea St Junior.

“Cinnamon bread for Hotoru.” Deathdream seems to have been obsessed with cinnamon since discovering it in issue #9.

“Jubilee’s had a heart full of sadness.” Another oblique reference to Shogo being left behind in Otherworld after Knights of X.

“Y’all survived Shuvahrak.” In issues #13-16.

“You n’ Calico snuck out to confront Mutina.” Issue #17.

PAGE 6. Benicio tries to call Ransom.

Benicio is a new character, as are the Word of Strength anti-mutant cult. Dialogue later in the issue confirms that they are indeed all male.

According to Ransom in the next scene, Benicio is his half-brother.

PAGES 7-13. Ransom, Wolverine and Gambit head to Buenos Aires.

This is intercut with Benicio’s initiation into the Word of Strength cult, which apparently involves fighting a fellow member, Tommy, with an axe. Benicio only gets a baseball bat, although it’s not entirely clear how seriously Tommy is actually trying to hurt him. On the one hand, he claims that Benicio mustn’t hold back because “they’ll know”, but he seems openly pleased to be defeated. Benicio appears to whack him pretty hard in the head with his bat (which is bent out of shape afterwards, so apparently it’s metal), yet Tommy appears entirely unfazed. So he appears to have powers of some sort. Ransom confirms this in the next scene when he says that they’re “enhanced”.

If Benicio already has powers too then this fight may be more of a performance than anything else – certainly, there’s no apparent expectation that Benicio will genuinely hurt Tommy. On the other hand, Benicio is told after passing that “you shall have your promised rewards”, which might mean that he gets powers now. Still, given the number of Word of Strength members, it’s hard to believe the failure rate for those who get this far is all that high.

Ransom. He claims to be completely unbothered about what happens to Benicio, and even to hope that something bad happens to him. In reality, his emotional reaction rather belies what he’s saying, but you could argue that he’s more upset about his own lack of emotion. Ransom’s basic point calls back to his origin story from issue #3, which involved his wealthy parents refusing to pay the ransom when he was kidnapped, apparently because his mutant powers “shamed them”. Ransom evidently considers Benicio equally bad, and the suggestion seems to be that he’s annoyed that Benicio has come running to him now that he’s got into trouble.

Ransom reacts rather badly to Gambit’s suggestion that everyone has dodgy relatives, and clearly considers his position to be entirely different.

He claims not to understand Gambit’s admittedly cryptic line that “You can be a mutant or you can walk the mutant road” (which presumably renders into plain English as something along the lines of “you can choose to just be a man, or you can choose to act like a man”).

Waffles. Deathdream describes him as “undead”, which makes sense, since he supposedly released the cyborg dogs’ souls in issue #10. Even Deathdream seems puzzled about where Waffles could have found what appears to be a human tibia lying around, though he appears to assume there must be an innocent explanation.

Fernet. It’s an Italian liqueur, but massively popular in Argentina.

“Wasn’t your dad a king or something?” Ransom is referring to Gambit’s adoptive father being the head of the Thieves Guild.

Deathdream. Clearly considers himself to have a close bond with Ransom, and deeply upset that he isn’t wanted on this mission. Deathdream claimed in issue #14 that “I don’t have any ‘feelings’ but I know what they are”, which always seemed a little suspect. He’s perfectly clear here that he does have emotions.

Rogue. Wolverine declines her offer to come along on the grounds that she’d stand out in an all-male cult compound. But that’s hardly a convincing reason, since (1) he could just ask her to hang around outside in case she was needed, and (2) his own tactic in a few pages time is to march into a Word of Strength bar in full Wolverine costume. Perhaps Wolverine just wants to use this trip as a way to bond with Ransom (even Gambit doesn’t stick around after teleporting them to Argentina).

PAGES 14-20. Wolverine and Ransom enter the Word of Strength bar.

Ransom is 17, but tries to order a beer with Wolverine anyway. Wolverine vetoes it, which seems more like something calculated to annoy Ransom than anything Wolverine would actually care about.

He also basically tells us that he suffers from depression.

The flashback scene to his kidnapping is a slightly expanded version of a scene from issue #3, though the thrust is the same.

Choripán. It’s a kind of grilled chorizo sandwich.

“The man I fight with, he sees something in me, something good.” We’ve had scenes before of Wolverine endorsing Ransom’s leadership position in the Outliers, in particular in issue #9. Having been rejected by his family, Ransom apparently attaches great weight to Wolverine’s opinion.

“Jumpin’ the gun a little bit there, Val?” Ransom declares himself to be an X-Man, as the Outliers have periodically in the past. Wolverine seems fairly clear that in his view the Outliers are not technically X-Men, at least not yet.