Inglorious X-Force #4 annotations
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #4
“Death War, part 1”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Philip Tan
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: The caption reads “Cable – felled by the Angel of Death, or his mysterious pursuer?” The “mysterious pursuer” is the person obscured behind Archangel’s left wing. Their costume doesn’t really resemble anything in the issue, but the monochrome clothing and the gun suggest it’s probably meant to be Domino. The fight is taking place in a scrapyard and doesn’t have much to do with anything that happens in the issue.
X-FORCE:
Cable. Last issue, X-Force fought the Beyond Corporation and Cable eliminated Boom-Boom as a suspect for murdering Kamala Khan in a future timeline. At the end of the issue, Boom-Boom found Cable slumped unconscious in his chair with some sort of mark on his chest, and Domino standing over him; the story ended with Boom-Boom attacking while Domino attempted to explain herself. (Akihiro helpfully explains that the art was supposed to show Cable “bleeding from a wound in his chest”, which it didn’t really convey.)
Domino’s flashback in this issue expands on this scene: it adds two panels before Boom-Boom comes into the room, in which Domino aims a gun at Cable, who tries to persuade her to stop. Domino says that she has to do it because “you won’t listen to actual reason, so maybe you’ll hear this”. We then get an abbreviated version of Boom-Boom’s arrival, after which Domino’s luck powers apparently save her from Boom-Boom by bringing the ceiling down, allowing her to escape.
However, while Domino seems to remember these events, nobody in X-Force is at all clear what happened. Cable remembers Boom-Boom coming to talk to him about the mission from issue #3 (which is indeed what she was there for), and thinks that she saw something that made her use her explosion powers (“an attacker maybe”) but doesn’t seem to remember Domino at all – in fact, he seems in perfect health, aside from minor injuries from the explosion. Boom-Boom doesn’t remember Domino either, and seems completely confused about what happened, though this may simply be because of her injuries. All of this seems rather similar to Cable’s lack of memory of what actually happened to the future Kamala in issue #1.
Instead of drawing that connection, though, Cable concludes that Boom-Boom must have been under some sort of outside influence and decides to investigate whether Archangel (his last remaining suspect) had something to do with it. He argues that Archangel is a machination of Apocalypse (which is true, in that Archangel was the result of the upgrades given to Warren’s powers by Apocalypse) and immediately accepts that he’s also been shaped by Apocalypse (as his origin story involves Apocalypse trying to use him as a host body). It’s possible that he’s just looking for an excuse to investigate his last remaining suspect, as nobody else seems to find the Apocalypse theory terribly convincing.
Cable claims to still believe in the presumption of innocence.
Archangel. Warren starts the story preoccupied with how well Boom-Boom seemed to deal with Beyond making clone weapons of her, presumably seeing some sort of parallel with his own transformation.
Last issue, he inexplicably turned Beyond’s weaponised clonse into flowers. He claims here that a “new ‘angel form’ took over” and that his mind went “somewhere else”, allowing this alternative version to emerge. He says that “If the last time I’d used the Death Seed had been an excursion into using some kind of life-giving energies, this was a full immersion.” I’m still not honestly sure what Tim Seeley has in mind here; the storyline in question seemed to involve both a Death Seed and a separate Life Seed.
Warren takes offence at the idea that he can’t be trusted because of his previous dealings with Apocalypse. But when pressed, he concedes that when he was first transformed into the Death persona by Apocalypse (circa X-Factor #19), his mind also went “somewhere else” and was replaced by a different personality.
The healing energies that Warren used on Boom-Boom are apparently at least semi-magical, because Akihiro is able to track their source. The train leads to what appears to be an abandoned beach house in Florida, but is apparently an abandoned SHIELD safehouse currently occupied by Mr Sinister, who claims some sort of influence over Warren. Sinister is somehow able to force Warren into a red and blue form.
Boom-Boom. She was nearly killed by her own explosion but Archangel’s new powers saved her life; she doesn’t remember the details of what happened. The near death experience seems to make her more serious than usual. She isn’t terribly impressed by Akihiro’s display of romantic interest, partly because of the timing, but also because she suspects that it’s prompted by him seeing Warren as a possible rival. Fighting the Nasty Boys seems to cheer her up a bit.
Hellverine. He’s fairly professional in helping to figure out what happened with Boom-Boom and Cable, and comes to Warren’s defence when he’s accused by Cable, despite not much liking the guy. He claims not to see the former evil Archangel persona in Warren any more, though it’s not clear whether this is an expression of opinion or something he literally claims to be able to sense with his demonic powers. He does claim that he can sense the energies that prevent Boom-Boom from dying, and says he can track it through a combination of his “infernal senses” and the “demonic help” of his inner demon Bagra-ghul; this seems to involve casting a spell of some sort, as he forms a ring of hellfire in order to do it.
His romantic approach to Boom-Boom seems sincere but, as noted above, goes down badly. She’s taken to calling him “wild boy”.
He recognises the robot sentries in the Florida beach house as SHIELD security androids which he saw “when I went to confront my dad”. This is footnoted to Wolverine: Origins #10, in which he does break into a SHIELD facility to confront Wolverine, back in his early days as a villain. The androids don’t appear in that story; it seems to be just an example of a story where he was in a SHIELD building.
Ms Marvel. She stayed the night at the X-Force base after issue #3. She doesn’t have a great deal to do in this issue, but insists on being allowed to go on missions even though the point of the team is supposedly to protect her. Cable approves of this: “leading means putting yourself on the line”. Despite that, he tries to insist that she stay close to him (which is fairly sensible, I guess).
Sonics can stop her from thinking clearly enough to use her powers.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Domino. Her powers allowed her to escape Boom-Boom last issue, but leave her unconscious in the river outside X-Force’s base until after they’ve left on their mission – which apparently means she can’t easily follow them. She gives this as an example of her powers helping her to win in the short term while making her lose in the grand scheme of things.
Beyond the cryptic comments noted above, we still don’t know why she attacked Cable.
Mr Chubby Cheeks. Domino’s squirrel friend continues to follow her around. Akihiro notices him, but isn’t sure what to make of him.
VILLAINS:
Mister Sinister. Last seen in Exceptional X-Men, Sinister – or at least this version of Sinister – has apparently co-opted a SHIELD black ops site and obtained some sort of control over Archangel, but we don’t know what any of that’s about yet.
The Nasty Boys. As henchmen, Sinister has cloned the Nasty Boys – Slab, Gorgeous George, Hairbag, Ramrod and Ruckus – who were his henchmen circa X-Factor #75 (1991). Cable describes them as “second raters”, which is fair enough. The clones disintegrate in battle, which seems to come as a surprise to them.
Strangely, both Boom-Boom and Mister Sinister tell us that the Nasty Boys are supposed to be dead. Boom-Boom specifically attributes this to “the Upstarts’ mutant murder game”. This seems to refer to Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #20, where they were indeed murdered by the Upstarts – but that was pre-Krakoa, and at least four of them were explicitly resurrected on Krakoa. Even if Boom-Boom doesn’t directly know about their resurrection, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to her, and Krakoa even gets mentioned on the same page. It seems like a continuity error.
Maxine Danger. She appears in a one-panel flashback showing her having dinner with Warren after the events of issue #3; Warren still appears to treat her as a corporate CEO, at least to her face.
“Mr Chubby Cheeks. a”
Wait, does this mean Mr. Chubby Cheeks is this book’s Jubilee?
I imagine that Seeley got the Rosenberg Uncanny version of the Upstarts confused with the current one over at McKay’s Adjectiveless. I guess the Nasty Boys were killed again by the new Upstarts off-page.
“Mr Chubby Cheeks. a
Wait, does this mean Mr. Chubby Cheeks is this book’s Jubilee?“
This seems to be a misprint. What Paul meant to write was, “Mr. Chubby Cheeks? Ayyy!” summoning his inner Fonzy.
At this point, I’m thinking that the threat to Kamala was never real. We’re reminded this issue that Cable was a machination of Apocalypse. Which is true. But he was also a machination of Sinister. Sinister arranged for Maddie to mate with Scott in order to produce a child. My guess is that Sinister gained control over Cable somehow and tampered with his memories to make him think that Kamala was in danger and that Warren might be her killer. All as part of a scheme to gain control of the Death Seed inside of Warren.
One other weird thing- if you look at this variant cover, there’s a character that looks like Feral:
https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/4211555/inglorious-x-force-4?variant=5591291
I know that the variant covers don’t always reflect the contents of the story but it’s odd for a cover to feature an image like that if it has nothing to do with the story. Maybe it was a miscolored Domino. Or maybe the plot changed after the cover was drawn.
The secret killer is that future Kamala Khan planned to murder herself in front of everyone for reasons! Everything’s been a cover for that!
I say the above tongue in cheek, but I fear that there’s at least a 25% chance that will be the real story.
“The secret killer is that future Kamala Khan planned to murder herself in front of everyone for reasons!”
Probably after she found out everyone was faking being impressed with her motivational speeches.
Does Warren still have “healing blood”? Or has that been replaced by this death/life seed nonsense? Not that “healing blood” isn’t also nonsense. But at least it’s somewhat easier to comprehend. Or maybe they are all connected? #confused
This series is playing a very strange, kind of surreal “greatest hits” storyline that’s part unhinged road trip and part murder mystery. I really have no idea where Seeley is going with this or why.
First there’s Tabitha’s Nextwave baggage, and now Warren’s Death/Archangel/Angel baggage. The return of the Nasty Boys, for all of five minutes. I swear, if this Domino turns out to be Copycat again…
I have never really understood what death seeds and life seeds are, and they’ve never seemed interesting enough for me to try to find out.
That said, this story does look interesting.
If this give an workable explanation to an Austin plot point after 20 years then it will be worth the journey. First explain the healing blood and then explain why he would do that in sky above poor Ma Guthrie.
“Cable claims to still believe in the presumption of innocence.”
Probably for the best, since if I recall correctly, he (somehow) holds a law degree from Harvard.
Not that I recall him concerning himself much with due process over the years…
Eh. The character concept is that he keeps travelling through time without rhyme nor reason while carrying overcompensation guns, and he was a Harvard Law Degree? Class of 1988, I have just learned?
At this point you probably could have a more entartaining series about him deciding that he wants to be a lawyer. It will be more difficult to avoid the schemes of Sinister, Apocalypse and Stryfe in order to have time for CLE requirements than to actually engage and fight for his life.
How come he was never invited to the law firm where She-Hulk used to work? Goodman, Lieber & Kurtzberg seems to be its the current name and they have been acquired by the Beyond Corporation as of 2022. Maybe this is Beyond ‘s headhunting division at work?
“First there’s Tabitha’s Nextwave baggage, and now Warren’s Death/Archangel/Angel baggage.”
If there’s one good thing coming out of the Brevoort era X-Men, it’s that some writers are streamlining characters and making them usable/interesting again.
Ashley Allen seems interested in rehabilitating both Magik and Dani Moonstar. This book is trying to reconcile the many lives of Boom-Boom and Archangel.
Now if someone could do the same for the X-Men as a whole. Instead of finding the next cool thing like Krakoa, maybe draw a line under the whole enterprise to this point and set a solid foundation for the long-term.
Mike Mac-Warren’s healing blood was simply his secondary mutation, when that was still a popular thing for mutant characters.
The “death seed” is a seed created by the Celestials and given to Apocalypse (on Earth), and apparently other “superior beings” on other “evolved” planets. The death seed possesses a being chosen by the Celestials’ chosen one to become an agent of evolution. On Earth, this means ensuring the rise of mutants by culling the planet of other “less evolved” species.
“Life seeds” are simply the technology used by the Celestials to create life on barren planets. They are entrusted to the Gardeners who find barren planets and start the lifecycle by planing the life seeds. Archangel, still possessed by the death seed but after the death of Apocalypse, decided that Earth’s evolutionary cycle had been corrupted by allowing Homo Sapiens to flourish after the point they should have gone extinct. Archangel (and Dark Beast) decided he would eliminate all life on the planet, then use a stolen life seed to restart life on Earth again, hopefully with the desired end goal of the Celestials being achieved this time.
At the end of the story, Psylocke stabbed Archangel with the life seed which purged the evil Archangel persona, but also led to Warren Worthington being reborn as a tabula rosa.
That is the best and most succinct summation of that storyline I’ve ever seen… and it still sounds like such comic book nonsense when laid out like that.
Chris V At the end of the story, Psylocke stabbed Archangel with the life seed which purged the evil Archangel persona, but also led to Warren Worthington being reborn as a tabula rosa.
Wasn’t that retconned by Cullen Bunn?
@ChrisV,
To elaborate further , according to then-top X-writer Rick Remender in an interview , when Psylocke (still Betsy in Kwannon’s body at that point in time) exexuted Archangel , his OG soul (corrupted into irreversibly becoming the New/9th Apocalypse of Marvel-616) actually departed his OG body , and a new spirit was created when the Celestial Life Seed (which also boosted OG Nate Grey to Franklin Richards-levels in XMen Disassembled and Age of XMan) revived his corpse*
* this exact new souls-into-old bodies reverse reincarnarion scenario is the high concept of the Japanese romcom/dramedy anime Golden Time
Later , then-head X-writer Cullen Bunn would bring back OG Warren during the I vs X era when hippy-manchild Nu-Warren would himself become corrupted by Clan Akkabba into becoming their New Age demagogue: in a convoluted storyline , OG Warren’s spirit apparently tried to repossess his own body (but now already inhabited by Nu-Warren’s own spirit which it spawned) through the metal wings (Nu-Warren couldnt change it back to its OG organic feathers version) so he obviously freaked and joined Clan Akkabba in exchange for them amputating the metal wings from his body, but the problem is , because of Warren’s OG body’s own healing factor secondary mutation [introduced by previous X-writer Chuck Austen] the wings kept regrowing, so Nu-Angel had to continue staying with Clan Akkabba indefinitely while they regularly harvested his wings. Unknown to Nu-Warren, CA would transplant his regularly-harvested metal wings into Sinister-style clones of OG Warren, who became their own private army , “The Choir”. Now , apparently , the very first such clone was secretly a successful reincarnation of OG Warren (arguably this is the very basis for the later 2010’s 616-retcon in Spiderman Clone Conspiracy and the XMen Krakoan Era that when a dead being is cloned physically , their OG soul is actually automatically resurrected into said cloned body [unless magick is intentionally used to prevent this]) who then rejoined Magneto’s team of XMen , until a final confrontation would cause Nu-Warren’s spirit in OG Warren’s body to fuse with OG-Warren’s spirit in a cloned body (which apparently caused Perfect Warren to regain his ability to shapeshift between his OG Warren and Horseman Death personas).
When we factor in time-displaced Angel’s wing replacement shenanigans, I think Angel is starting to rival Cable for most convoluted backstory.
The Beyond Corporation?
Vegans?
I would read “Nathan Dayspring Askanison Summers, Attorney at Law.”
He’d show up to court in a suit with a million pockets, use whatever his powers are that week in incredibly mundane ways, and shout “Stab his eyes!” whenever one of his objections got overruled.
Thanks, Chris V! I read those comics but the whole thing never clicked for me. Really helpful (and brief) summary.
I agree that a potential silver lining of this era could be more useable characters. Inglorious is the most interesting book of this era so far. No idea where its going but its fun.
John: My God, would I read that book.
“No counselor, I will not ‘stab my eyes,’ and the court further cautions you that any more attempts to jump backward in time and intercept jury member summons will be seen as grounds for immediate sanctions. Do I make myself clear?”
Having now gone back and looked at the panel where Cable reveals his law degree, I call shenanigans on one point. He claims he took the NY bar exam “a year later” and that it was pretty easy. Maybe, but the bar exam is offered twice a year, in July and February, specifically timed to the end of law school semesters — you graduate in May or December, then you have two months to study before taking the bar. (And brother, you will need EVERY ONE of those weeks, although I’m sure Cable just had the Professor subliminally recite fact patterns to him while he slept.)
Nowadays you get your scores back quicker, but back then it took a while… if you sat for the July exam, you wouldn’t find out whether you passed until October. So if Cable says he passed the NY bar “a year later,” factoring in the two months between graduation and the exam, and the roughly three months it took back then to get your scores back, that would mean he failed his first bar exam and had to take it again. No shame in that (plenty of great lawyers failed the bar the first time), but I’m sure Harvard wasn’t happy about the hit to their bar passage statistics. Not so easy to memorize the hearsay exceptions AND foil genocidal dictators, eh Dayspring?
A year later.. could simply mean in the next calendar year instead of 12 months– but I think that as a telepath, he read all of the other test taker’s thoughts, was allowed use of Rosie, his favorite AI prostetic, and still had to spend twelve months time-travelling during the test in order to pass. Easy!
I imagine it might overlap too much with Daredevil. Cable would time travel back into the past to discover the guilt of a client. He’d have the moral quandary of deciding if he should time travel to the future for the purpose of killing the guilty party with his big gun after an acquittal.
“Stab his eyes! Why must I be such an amazing defence lawyer? Sure, I could throw the case after knowing my client was guilty, but that would be unethical.”
“Isn’t it more unethical to get your guilty client off then murder them?”
“Nah…”
Still, it’s probably the most interesting idea for using Cable outside of the far too brief Darko Macan stint.