X-Men United #1 annotations
X-MEN UNITED #1
“Welcome to Graymatter Lane”
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Tiago Palma
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Well, that’s assorted X-Men standing around. This book is loosely the successor to the previous series Exceptional X-Men. Despite what British readers might reasonably expect, it is not about a football team.
GRAYMATTER LANE:
The name is obviously a play on “Graymalkin Lane”, the address of the original X-Men Mansion.
The X-Men’s new school is, shall we say, not very clearly explained. Emma describes it as a “mind palace”, which doesn’t really take us very far because a mind palace is a memorisation technique. There seems to be a co-ordinated time when invited mutants are telepathically contacted by Emma and invited in. (However, Juggernaut can get in, so evidently non-mutants can also be invited.) We’re told that “a doorway attuned to your individual psyche will appear before you”, but it’s unclear whether this is a literal doorway or some sort of mental projection technique. Later in the issue, Mariama seems to get there simply by thinking, without any doors involved. Beast says that an “altered mental state” is required to get in, though everyone seems normal once they’re inside.
Some degree of time dilation takes place within the school, which presumably explains how people fit it around their lives.
The school has been built using technology recovered from Mr Sinister’s lab after Exceptional X-Men #10 – presumably involving the same psychic landscape that we saw in that issue, and amenable to Emma and Axo’s control. Supposedly, this technology provides impenetrable protection against “physical or psychic attacks” – which might imply that it physically exists – but we’re also told that it is “nowhere”. The school has an “Empathy Engine” – a Cerebro-like device linked to Rift’s powers, which Axo can use to search for young mutants in emotional distress – and we’re specifically told that it physically exists, unlike “Emma’s conjurations”. So apparently it’s some sort of psychic pocket dimension which has a physical existence but much of what’s there is created mentally.
Laura tells her class that if “you get hurt in here, you get hurt out there”, which seems to imply that it’s a mental projection of some sort (otherwise it’d be a statement of the blindingly obvious). But Melée exits the school by teleporting direct to France, which isn’t where her body was before – so apparently everyone does have their physical bodies there. There’s also an infirmary where Hank treats people as if it was a normal place.
THE X-MEN:
Emma Frost. Despite putting on the usual act while greeting the students, she regards the school as the X-Men’s “most crucial charge”, which is consistent with her usual preoccupation with her teaching role. She seems implausibly confident that the school is impervious. Helping the students to access the school seems to be her main role, but despite presenting herself as something of an authority figure, she’s turned down the title of headmistress, citing the need for everyone to work together.
Kitty Pryde. The official headmistress. She skips most of Emma’s speech to the X-Men just to be annoying, but seems completely on board with everything that Emma is saying, and accepts it as a responsibility. She accuses Cyclops of trying to run away from it in the same way that she was at the start of Exceptional X-Men.
She’s picked up a female clone of Lockheed that was found in Sinister’s lab (we saw her in Exceptional X-Men #10) and was going to call her Martin, but accepts Trista’s suggestion of Marigold.
Nightcrawler gets to exchange exposition with Kitty.
Cyclops. Essentially serving as the villain here, Cyclops objects to the school on the grounds that it’s bound to become a target. This is obviously a reference to past attacks on the school, Genosha and Krakoa, although he rather ignores the fact that this version seems secret. More reasonably, he finds everyone’s faith in the security of something built using technology stolen from Mr Sinister baffling. There’s a suggestion that he’s still rather sensitive about his relationship with Emma, and the rest of the Alaska team seem happy enough with the whole thing. The issue ends by implying that he’s responsible for some sort of catastrophe befalling the school (though it might be a coincidence) – this sort of story would normally end with him being persuaded that the school has proved itself and so on.
Prodigy. The “Dean of Curriculum”, presumably based on his time teaching in NYX. He still wears street clothes. Since his “starting essentials” are combat training, mutant anatomy, “principles of teamwork and leadership” and “history and philosophy with Magneto”, he clearly sees this more as a mutant training camp than a full academic curriculum.
Rogue. Much more co-operative than Cyclops but still sceptical. She believes that the school is safe from outsiders but worries about how much you can trust the people who are already inside.
Wolverine and Wolverine. As you’d expect, they’re running combat training classes in the usual drill instructor fashion.
Beast. Teaching “mutant anatomy”, and running the medical bay.
Storm. Teaching teamwork and leadership alongside Rogue.
Magneto. Doesn’t say anything, but he’s teaching a class, so he must be happy enough with this idea.
Glob Herman. Unusually keen to argue back to Cyclops in this interpretation, and unimpressed with his attitude to the school.
Assorted other X-Men also get cameos: Temper, Juggernaut, Gambit, Jubilee, Jitter, Juggernaut, Calico, Kid Omega, Iceman, Magik and Psylocke.
STUDENT MENTORS:
The recap page classes these five characters as “Student Mentors”, and the story describes them as “sophomores” or “2Xs”. Essentially it’s the Exceptional X-Men cast (including Rift, who only just joined) plus Axo’s girlfriend Sophie Cuckoo. It makes no sense for these characters, on the strength of 12 issues, to be treated as more experienced than background characters who have been around for years, and that does get pointed out, but that’s the way it is.
Axo. He seems to be particularly important to keeping the whole school going, as well as hunting out more mutants in need of help. He comes across as rather more experienced than he did before – there seems to have been a time jump – and Emma is presenting him to the other X-Men as something close to a peer. He calls her “Emma” rather than “Ms Frost”, but seems uncomfortable or unused to doing so. He deflects praise for what he’s created, claiming that it was mostly Emma’s work.
Thanks to the school, he’s now actually in the same place as his long distance girlfriend Sophie Cuckoo, who accompanies him and Kitty on a trip back to Verate to pick up more tech.
Bronze. She assists with the combat training class, and actually seems useful – she manages to subdue Wolf Cub by using her cables for a sleeper hold, rather than leaving Wolverine to punch him into unconsciousness. She’s excited that Axo gets to meet so many famous mutants in Emma’s briefing (clearly, the rest of them don’t). She seems to be responsible for greeting first-time visitors, calling herself “student ambassador and experience lead”. She insists on using confetti for this, glitter having been vetoed.
Melée. Despatched to leave an invitation to the new mutant that they discover. She’s now using her invisibility and phasing powers quite effectively and seems more inclined to stick to the mission.
Rift. Reggie has taken on his codename from Expatriate X-Men and now seems quite comfortable with his powers. He is, apparently, “always tethered” to “a constantly rearranging, constantly moving quantum stream”, though what that means in practice is anyone’s guess.
STUDENTS:
Mariama LaChance. The new recruit approached this issue is a 13-year-old French girl from Clichy-sous-Bois, a Parisian suburb. While it’s not spelled out here, it’s a relatively poor part of Paris with a large black population. Mariama looks mostly normal but has a tail, four spikes on her fourhead, and some purple marks on her skin. She’s clearly being bullied at school.
A whole bunch of characters of varying degrees of prominence show up in Wolverine’s combat class, all with speaking parts:
- Ben Liu and Animalia from the Alaskan supporting cast are both here to learn how to fight, and both are understandably a bit put out by being put in a class with teenagers.
- Dryad. Plant-manipulating background character who’s been around since 2004 without doing much of anything. This is only her twelfth appearance. She was last seen in Way of X #1.
- Flourish. Another plant-manipulating character. She debuted in 2014 and this is only her tenth appearance, but she’s slightly less obscure given her relatively prominent role in the Fall of X miniseries Dark X-Men. She showed up in the Hellfire Vigil one-shot as well.
- Loola. One of the Arakko mutants who started in X-Men: Red and moved to NYX. She’s very insulted at Animalia and Ben’s attitude to her, produces a knife and draws blood (though not much). She does seem to regret it.
- Galura. Karma’s girlfriend from the Krakoan era (and thus another full grown adult). This is the first time we’ve seen her in the post-Krakoan period.
- Wolf Cub. A werewolf-like mutant who’s been around since 2002, mostly as a background character. His last significant appearance was in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #68 (part of the X-Men: Green thing), back in 2023.
- Woofer. A civilian who got deported to Arakko during “Fall of X”. He made a couple of appearances in Gerry Duggan’s X-Men and also showed up in Fall of the House of X. This is his first appearance post-Krakoa.
A bunch of other characters are also shown entering through the doors in the opening montage, some of whom might be students, but others can’t possibly be:
- Scout, currently appearing in Generation X-23.
- Forge, who seems to be back to a traditional black and gold uniform.
- Shark-Girl, whose last major role was drumming for Dazzler in Jason Loo’s stories.
- Bishop, looking very 90s.
- Random, of all people, who hasn’t been seen since the fall of Krakoa.
- Vulcan, which is quite a name to throw out there in a cameo. Again, we haven’t seen him since the Fall of Krakoa, and god knows who invited him.
REFERENCES:
- Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor (actually, his only string quartet), was written in 1892-1893. Emma seems to be using the first movement to lull people in the right state of mind to enter Graymatter Lane. As Emma indicates, it does indeed get more lively at the start of the second movement.
- The Exceptional X-Men cast fought Mr Sinister, and got access to his Verate equipment, in Exceptional X-Men #6-10.
- Professor X asked the X-Men to re-start the school in X-Manhunt Omega.
- Rift talks about blue dashers (the insects) – this is what the alternate-future team called themselves in Expatriate X-Men.
- As Axo says, Kitty started as Sprite, then became Ariel, Shadowcat and (in the post-Krakoa Duggan run) Shadowkat.
- The song Axo is playing to himself is “Maria” by ¡Cazamos Cometas!
- Glob refers to Kitty having been killed; that would presumably be Marauders #6, during the Krakoan period when everyone just got better (though it took her longer than most).
- Glob refers to Emma having had to watch her own students die. The obvious reference there is the death of the original Hellions in Uncanny X-Men #281-282.
I liked Exceptional, so Ewing has earned a lot of goodwill from me, but this was overstuffed and underexplained. Not a total mess, but definitely messy.
Also, where are the Outliers? It seemed a given that they’ll be here.
Now I want to fantasy book an X Men futbol 11. Thanks, Paul.
Goal is presumably Blob or Juggernaut.
colossus anchoring a back 4.
Old school Hank in the midfield.
Quicksilver uo front as a striker, maybe with Kurt.
“Beast says that an ‘altered mental state’ is required to get in,”
Grant Morrison once found verself there while writing New X-Men.
This was a mess.
As Paul noted, it’s unclear what’s physical and what’s mental.
Why would they make the mental construct do damage or even kill people in real life? It feels like if you’re building a psychic danger room, one of the advantages is that the safeties are always on.
Cyclops’s objections don’t make sense since the point was that everyone wouldn’t be in the same space. Though he was certainly right about using Sinister tech, especially just after Emma was reborn as a Sinister clone.
The kids from Exceptional getting to skip to sophomore status while mutants who’ve been around much longer are still freshmen is pretty inexplicable except that Eve Ewing wants them to be breakout stars. But none were really ever that interesting.
And speaking of “not that interesting…” I agree with Krzysiek Ceran: where are the outliars?
When a series likely has less than 10 issues to make itself a success, I don’t think it’s a wise move to spend an entire issue on what seems to be setup only to have a cliffhanger of the burning school. Though wouldn’t it have made better sense to ask Cyclops on how to defend it? Or to crib notes from his Encyclopedia on “How to defend Krakoa?”
Also, what kind of course is “mutant anatomy”? Either it’s just human anatomy except they don’t want to use the word “human” or it’s too varied to go into all the one-offs that occur because of powers. “Sorry, we learned about Nightcrawler’s tail, but not about Angel’s wings and, uh, I guess I don’t know what to do now that there’s an energy harpoon stuck through them.” or “I learned about the *other* Angel, the insect one who has babies with Beak, not this one. To be fair, with the kids it’s more common than Warren.”
So which one’s next?
X-Men FC
X-Men City
Real X-Men
Sporting X-Men
Inter X-Men
Atlético X-Men
X-Men 1963
Something else?
Red Bull X-Men
x-Menspor
As I understand it, Rift’s powers are interfacing with Emma’s mental landscape, which is why Melee can teleport to France. While this is being treated as a pocket dimension, it is apparently more like a collective telepathic rapport.
Presumably Emma’s powers are being boosted (quite a lot) by Mister Sinister’s tech. That can’t possibly be dangerous.
The reason why the Outliers are here while the other two groups of new recruits are is fairly self-evident and closely mirrors the meta reason: neither Gail Simone nor Rogue thinks that they are ready to play roles in this book just yet. In Deathdream’s case specifically I would think that he is still in need of some measure of social integration before he is ready. Generally speaking they are simply a bit younger, which has been pointed out by Jubilee in Uncanny – certainly significantly younger than the Alaskan recruits Ben and Animalia.
Curious to see how they explain Storm’s presence – assuming that she will continue to make appearances. At this point I half expect her to found her own Avengers team or instead become one with existence in order to teach silly whippersnapper Eternity how it is done.
Based on Exceptional, the time dilation will be needed to explain why 2 issues worth of plot takes a year to happen. Ha!
I was happy to see Lockheed appear, then it wasn’t Lockheed. Boooooo.
I’m still not sure who the lady on the cover with the tiara is supposed to be but it doesn’t matter since half the characters on the cover don’t appear in the issue.
What’s the point of the cameos of Random, Vulcan and Multiple Man? They don’t appear in the rest of the issue, Random and Vulcan don’t have skills that could aid in running a school and they’re all security risks- Random and Vulcan were villains and Jamie seems to generate an evil dupe every alternate Tuesday.
Why aren’t the Outliers part of the school? (I have a feeling the real life answer is that Gail didn’t want her characters to appear inferior to Ewing’s.)
Magneto teaching “history and philosophy” sounds funny. I know what Prodigy meant but it’s funny to imagine Magneto lecturing about the Peloponnesian War.
“Storm. Teaching teamwork and leadership alongside Rogue.”
Rogue isn’t teaching anything.
Emma and Kitty using Sinister’s technology for defenses is just idiotic. Especially after what happened with Sinister and Krakoa. If they need defenses, who do they need to use Sinister’s technology? Can’t they just ask Reed or Tony or T’Challa to build something or Wanda to cast a spell? Forge had a cameo in this issue. Inventing things is his WHOLE DEAL!
Regarding Dryad and Wolf Cub still being students- that’s probably because they died, and stayed dead for years. That’s probably why Sophie is still a “sophomore” and hasn’t graduated yet. Rift being a “sophomore” is just idiotic, though- all he did was accidentally send Kitty into the past and then help rescue her.
Speaking of Sophie, it’s ridiculous that she’s now a part of the X-Men United cast and has no interaction with Emma. Ewing doesn’t seem to want to follow up the NYX plot at all. How does Emma feel about Sophie and her sisters siding with Empath? Has Sophie made peace with her sisters?
I thought that Graymatter Lane is definitely on the astral plane. Otherwise, Laura’s “if you die here, you did in real life” line makes no sense. But if they are on the astral plane, then Magneto should be able to walk- Xavier was always able to walk on the astral plane.
Storm didn’t have one line of dialogue this issue. This is a problem. Storm’s no longer an Avenger and her limited series is ending three months from now. So this will be the only book in which Storm is appearing. So Ewing actually needs to give her something to do- she can’t just leech off Storm’s popularity to attract readers. Maybe that will get better in future issues.
Basically this book seems to be a reworked Exceptional X-Men. Only using high profile characters like Storm and Magneto as instructors in an attempt to boost sales. Considering how badly Exceptional X-Men flopped, I don’t know why Ewing is getting a second chance.
This book is calling back to Avengers Initiative with the cover and the accident training in the first issue. But Avengers Initiative actually did a good job with a large cast, and gave characters who weren’t being used at the time a place to appear. It wasn’t just about boosting Slott’s OCs from a failed project.
Magneto: “The Spartans were the Homo Superior of their age! They ruled over Athens, much like Homo Superior will rule over the puny Homo Sapiens! The only difference being our glorious victory will not take 27 years…write that down; dates will be on the test, students.”
Cyclops is clearly right about the dangers of using Sinister’s technology. The last time they used it the result was a thousand years of dystopia.
I’d more persuaded by Glob’s argument that Emma watching her students die meant she’ll be more safety-conscious if her students had only died en masse once or twice.
@MasterMahan to be fair to Emma her students have only been directly targeted and wiped out once with the hellions.
The next time with the bomb in Gen x she only lost 1 student.
Genosha her class was collateral damage.
New X-men all the kids on the bus where leaving the schools so ex-students and most were no longer mutants
It is odd the Exception kids are now in charge while they less experience then the Outliers, due to how slow the previous volume was compared to all the other books in the line.
Magneto: “Bueller… Bueller.. Bueller?
The best team book starring more OG X’s, while being significantly less decompressed. It feels introductory but I like Glob being used to question Scott’s motives.
@ Michael
I didn’t really get the sense that Storm or Magneto are becoming part of the cast. It’s more along the lines of the standard X-Men trope where there is a school and rando X-Men pop as teachers in ‘the thing they are good at’.
-Colossus is in the background teaching farming/art/whatever.
-Bobby is in the background teaching accounting/ice sculpture/whatever.
-Wolverine is in the background teaching hand-to-hand combat/Japanese history/whatever.
I think the only characters whose continuity will even slightly be paid attention to are the core cast of Emma and Kitty and Prodigy and the Exceptional kids, and maybe a handful of other characters that get pulled into storylines. Everybody else is likely to just be background cameos to give the impression that this is a real school.
Colossus is an Art teacher not a farming teacher, last time he was a farmer he killed and buried someone under the crops which is not good practice.
They haven’t done “X-Men Academical” yet, have they?
It’s wild that we still get covers where every X-person ever is facing front except Rogue, who is confidently showing us her butt. Comics!
“last time he was a farmer he killed and buried someone under the crops which is not good practice.”
You prefer cremation?
I thought plants could feed off decomposing bodies.
Not at first, no. After time, yes, it could help the growth of crops, but the early stages of human decomposition can be detrimental to plant growth. Human remains need to be composted first in order to help crop/plant growth.
Now I want to see Colossus being taught how to properly dispose of (or in this case, compose) a human body in the agropecuary classes of the Grey Lane.
Under Kitty’s supervision, perhaps?
Talk about sensitive subject matters.
“last time he was a farmer he killed and buried someone under the crops which is not good practice.“
Ivan Barleycorn must die
Calico of the Outliers is indeed present, right behind Juggernaut, with her horse, from the very first pages of the comic.
Very brave to bring a horse to a school run by Emma as no-one role Calico the tale of Butter rum or is this their way of proving which one actually has the power
“Colossus is an Art teacher not a farming teacher, last time he was a farmer he killed and buried someone under the crops which is not good practice.”
Wait… so this is bad for farmers but good for artists?
Worried about art schools now.
Thom H> It’s wild that we still get covers where every X-person ever is facing front except Rogue, who is confidently showing us her butt. Comics!
Go back to the original version of this image from the Shadows of Tomorrow announcement (well before X-Men United was announced).
It was changed for the XMU reveal. A clue: Emma’s finger…
@Mark Coale: this issue made me feel like I was staring at Empty Pages. I was Glad when it was over…
I wanted to like this issue. I tried to like this issue. The premise was flimsy and the art was just okay. I would much rather read the next issue of Exceptional X-Men, but that’s obviously not to be. I’ll give this book a chance to find its way, but I’m not optimistic.
Can’t we just have a book about characters living their lives without having a hamfisted iteration of yet another school or yet another exclusive enclave or yet another encyclopedia of characters we’ll never explore alongside pet characters no one except the author wants to see?
This read more like fanfic who wanted to explain their “nuh-uh, it’s actually a superfantastic cool sci fi thing” worldbuilding so they could mashup their favorite action figures
This was just too handwavy for me. With a good writer and a good editor I could be confident that everything is a mystery that will eventually be revealed. Based on Exceptional and seing what Breevort understands as coherence within the X-Men line… nope, not buying it.
@Woodswalked good art needs tragedy
@SanityOrMadness: That is definitely unfortunate finger placement. Wow.
@MisterMeh: I couldn’t agree more. After getting burned by Krakoa, I’m done with the “all the mutants” version of the X-books. Trim the cast down and jettison the constant crossovers.
But maybe writers don’t have the time it takes to build good characterization anymore. They’re probably only going to get 10 issues and that’s going to be interrupted multiple times by pointless crossovers.
But maybe if X-editors focused the line and writers got to the point faster, series would last for more than 10 issues.
Ugh — it’s gotten to the point that I can have the entire argument with myself. But again, I agree entirely. I’d be happy to read more X-books if the characters showed anything like an emotional arc.
@Alastair – About bringing the horse to school – it has already been on fire a few times in Uncanny, so it might be the exception to the rule.
Oh, Axo has set up a place where he gets access to the newest mutant that depends on him being in charge? You mean the guy who was kidnapped by Sinister and was in fact cloned by him at least once? Rogue warning about the snakes in the cast making Cyclops’ histrionics about the tech into a red herring?
I’ve been vaguely thinking about this book, and without a strong premise, I think maybe it is what MisterMeh says, fanfic. Specifically, it is crossover fanfic where the author gets to use whatever characters they desire. Kitty, Emma, and the Exceptional kids are ostensibly the leads, but Rogue and Cyclops have dialog as the skeptics, and the Wolverines* get to show off.
The idea of getting to use whatever characters wanted is not a terrible idea on the face of it, in the 90s it was called X-men Unlimited. The execution of this issue was lacking, and it would be better if multiple authors got a turn at their own arcs (though that might look like Marvel Comics Presents). Whether that model is viable these days is a question (one I would lean towards “probably not” on).
Probably worth a flip through of the second issue, but if it doesn’t do anything, then I’d just skip it.
* – the two characters named Wolverines, not the team that was so bad it lost to the Wrecking Crew
[…] UNITED #1. (Annotations here.) Well. I liked Exceptional X-Men, even if it did have a languid approach to pacing, and even if it […]
I’ve said for a while that given we are in something like the 4th or 5 generation of fans as creators, a lot of big 2 comics really are just sanctioned fanfic.and there’s probably better unofficial fanfic online, maybe not the slash/shipping kind mind you.
That prob holds true for genre fiction in other media too. Directors making movies who studied the previous generation of film school graduates who became directors.
@Sam: Honestly, the X-Men cast has gotten so bloated, that rotating the characters and/or writers in an anthology series might be the best solution at this point.
This book is a stealth continuation of Exceptional(ly Boring) X-Men. 13 issues of Emma and Kate “mentoring” three boring mutants in a nondescript room with barely a plot or conflict to be seen. And now those three mutants are mentors in this new “school” to a group of random background mutants? No thank you. Also what happened to the real Lockheed and why doesn’t Kate particularly care about where is he?
Hopefully the summer X-event will save the line from boredom and obscurity.