UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #25
“Where Monsters Dwell, part 3”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: David Marquez & Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Wolverine fights Werewolf By Night.

This issue has legacy number #725, which is presumably why it gets a five-page back-up strip on top of the usual story.

THE X-MEN:

Gambit. Sadurang shows up in the middle of the fight to declare that a year has passed since they made their deal over the Left Eye of Agamotto, and to reclaim the Eye as bargained. Gambit acknowledges feeling addicted to the Eye (as shown in the intervention sequence in issue #23), and having an addictive personality generally, but rejects the Eye  on the grounds that he has other reasons to live for. Unfortunately, the Eye refuses to be returned. The art is ambiguous about this, but Gambit’s closing dialogue seems to make it clear that he’s still stuck with the Eye, although newly determined to resist its temptations.

Rogue, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Wolverine (along with Gambit) free the Legion of Monsters and then show up at Haven House to finish off Lady Darkhold. Wolverine’s transformation into a werewolf is simply cured by his healing factor between scenes. Curiously, Rogue changes costume from yellow-and-green to red-and-black in the final scene – I think this is supposed to be a side effect of her using her power to absorb Lady Darkhold, though it’s unusual for her costume to be affected.

For some reason, Rogue is still inclined to turn over captured villains to Graymalkin, even though they’re a specifically anti-mutant prison several states away. In this case, she thinks better of it and decides to call the Scarlet Witch instead.

SUPPORTING CAST:

The Outliers (Ransom, Calico, Jitter and Deathdream) listen to the remainder of Marcus’ story, which winds up mainly as a pep talk about how they could be mutant heroes. They all seem to find this quite inspiring, though to be honest it’s not obvious to me what this is telling them that they wouldn’t already have picked up from hanging around with the X-Men for a year. (And it must be a year, given the timeline for the Gambit/Sadurang plot.) Suitably inspired, the Outliers take on Lady Darkhold themselves, which seems like it’s meant to serve as a kind of graduation moment for them.

The mapping of the story onto the “real world” fight is a little weird, since it talks about the group being secretly mutants, and says that the “monsters” couldn’t have known this. But Lady Darkhold did know that this was the X-Men’s home. That said, while she claims to be looking for soldiers to enlist (presumably with her hypnotism powers), she only seems to want the Outliers as hostages.

Calico seems particularly struck by the realisation that the mutants can be the heroes rather than the monsters, which fits with her damaged upbringing. She’s now openly rejecting her mother. As usual, Ember joins her in battle.

Deathdream claims to be able to sense “death” approaching the building, though apparently not anything more specific that.

Jitter can use her powers to copy the Black Panther.

Marcus St Juniors. As noted above, his story winds up being pretty simplistic – and all the stuff about the Rawhide Kid falls by the wayside, since he doesn’t fit into the mutant pride angle that Marcus ends up leaning into. The obvious parallels between the story and what was happening outside remain unexplained, though.

He seems unfazed by Lady Darkhold, and confronts her singlehandedly with a shotgun – though he tries to talk her into leaving, rather than actualy firing it.

Chelsea St Juniors. Marcus knows about her powers in this issue – she was keeping them secret in issue #10. Either she’s told him off panel somewhere (or on panel and I forgot about it), or it’s another case of him knowing more than he lets on.

Waffles. He dutifully tries to defend Haven House from Lady Deathstrike and her dog creature.

Sadurang. Despite being rejected by the Left Eye of Agamotto, he helps the X-Men by freeing the Legion of Monsters from Lady Darkhold’s hypnosis. Given how he talks about having to deal with the addictive properties of the Eye for centuries, it’s certainly possible that a year’s separation from the Eye has left Sadurang less than keen to get it back – after all, he changed tack over the course of the year to warning Gambit about its dangers, in apparent sincerity. On the other hand, he queries why Gambit still wants to fight for the X-Men after they tried to persuade him to give up the Eye (in issue #23).

He consumes Manphibian when rescuing Gambit, but regurgitates him unharmed in the epilogue.

He quietly leaves on his own at the end, without saying goodbye. Gambit suggests that he’s gone to find himself a home.

VILLAINS:

Lady Darkhold. The Legion of Monsters’ unnamed employer from the previous issue is a staggeringly obscure character: Agatha Timly, whose only previous appearance was in Marvel Spotlight vol 1 #3 (1971).

In that story, new werewolf Jack Russell is taken in by Agatha (or Andrea, the story can’t make up its mind) and her husband Nathan, who was a friend of Jack’s stepfather. Andrea is convinced that Jack has inherited the Darkhold (Marvel’s answer to the Necronomicon) from his stepfather, and imprisons and tortures him in an attempt to find out where it is. Unfortunately, Jack has no idea what she’s talking about, and escapes. Her main function in the storyline is to give Jack a reason to look into this Darkhold thing.

In an epilogue, Jack claims to have had a dream in which he saw her trying to invoke “long-dead gods”, and failing because she lacked the necessary information from the Darkhold. In his dream, she either passes out or drops dead, and is then set alight by a falling candle.

In this issue, Agatha essentially confirms that Jack’s vision is correct. She describes herself as having been a “monster hunter” and claims that she did in fact manage to summon “dark gods”, though she died in the effort. The term “dark gods” has been used for assorted Marvel Universe entities, but given her Darkhold connections, she’s probably talking about the likes of Chthon (Marvel’s version of Cthulhu).

Agatha claims that servants of “the Dark Lord” punished her effrontery by raising her as an undead creature and burning the entire text of the Darkhold into her flesh in “unseeable scars”. Whether she actually does have the text of the Darkhold on her body or merely believes that she does is open to debate, but she certainly is undead, according to Waffles’ readings. She claims to be a servant in turn of the Dark Lord’s servants, and says that she’s claming New Orleans as a home for them – though curiously, she expects to be treated as its queen. She seems to expect this to be treated as a positive vision.

She can be drained by Rogue, but it takes a while. She seems to fear (or perhaps welcome) death as a possible consequence.

She believes that the Darkhold is “inside” her and “lives through” her. However, what she has (or is) would appear to be a copy of the Darkhold; the original physical object is currently fused with the Scarlet Witch.

Salem. Just a hellhound thing, it seems.

The Legion of Monsters: Elsa Bloodstone, Frankenstine, Morbius, Manphibian and Werewolf By Night. They were all hypnotised by Lady Darkhold (which explains their out of character behaviour in previous issues) and they all return to normal when freed by Sadurang. The possible exception here is Morbius – the one who behaved closest to normal throughout the story – who really did seem very keen to use his serum to turn Jubilee into another vampire. Nonetheless, he’s standing with the rest of the team to confront Lady Darkhold at the end.

CONTINUITY:

• Gambit and Sadurang’s deal was made in issue #1.
• The X-Men’s intervention with Gambit was in issue #23.
• Rogue refers to the “second time I been bit in a day by one of my own”; she mentioned in issue #23 that Gambit had bitten herin his sleep.
• As per the footnote, Agatha Timly died in Marvel Spotlight vol 1 #3.

“They Dwell Too in the Human Heart”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Messina
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer:  Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

This is a five-page Outliers story in which the kids help to rescue a kidnapped girl from a serial killer. It doesn’t seem to have any wider implications.