X-Men #29 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #29
“Danger Room, part 4”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: A collective gravestone for the X-Men, with a gloating Frank Bohannan and Maxine Danger reflected in a puddle. Neither of them actually appears in the issue. Shouldn’t it be “Here Lie The X-Men”?
THE X-MEN:
Psylocke. The opening flashback explains how she and Xorn survived the attack from Beyond’s men at the start of last issue: Xorn used his gravity powers to bend Beyond’s laser away from the Marauder, and then Psylocke blasted the Beyond vehicle with the Marauder’s missiles. This fits well enough with the previous issue, though issue #27 had the Marauder dodging hails of attacks as opposed to the single major assault shown here.
She’s unimpressed with Beyond hijacking the “Danger Room” name, but immediately figures out that the plan involves attacking the X-Men through their supporting cast. Presumably she works that out based on the fact that she’s lost contact with Cyclops, whose team were going after Paula Robbins. Curiously, she’s also lost telepathic contact with the Factory, even though Kid Omega is still there – perhaps he’s just too obsessed with the Glob Herman situation to pay any attention to her.
While her default is to start talking about the plot and what she’s going to do about it, she does hesitantly apologise to John Greycrow for indirectly putting him in the line of fire. John correctly identifies that she seems incapable of asking for help (in issue #26, Cyclops had to insist that she accept Xorn’s help).
Kid Omega and Temper. On arrival in Merle, they seem to assume that Glob’s shooter will be known to the townsfolk generally and simply demand that someone gives up their identity. They take it as read that the shooter is a local, and not an outsider. While they don’t simply start smashing everything up (and appear to regard this as taking the moral high ground), they make it abundantly clear that they regard themselves as above the law, even though Deputy Smith (who we saw in issue #26) responds perfectly reasonably towards them. They seem to think that mutants will be safer if humans are scared of them. Of course, logically it ought to be at least in their minds that the shooter could be one of the X-Men’s many enemies from outside town – but that doesn’t accord with their prejudices, which Cyclops has evidently been holding back until now.
Recall that Cyclops tends to justify his dealings with the town to the rest of the team on pragmatic grounds, and hasn’t done a great deal to challenge their attitudes more generally. In issue #26, he specifically told Kid Omega that the X-Men should rescue Sheriff Robbins because she was an “asset”, and if they let her die, then her replacement might be less friendly.
The Beast. Last issue, he hurled himself into the techno-organic ship creature in an attempt to reason with it. He now finds himself in a dream where he’s in the Factory, and the other characters from the ship (Cyclops, Magik, Juggernaut and Paula Robbins) appear as scary techno-organic versions. These seem to be purely the creature’s mode of mental communication, and the real characters don’t appear in this issue.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS:
Xorn. His black hole gives him gravity powers that can bend lasers around the Marauder, though he claims that using his powers in this way is “dangerous” – presumably there’s a risk of it going wrong and crashing the Marauder, but in practice it all goes fine. He doesn’t like his protective helmet (in context, he seems to mean specifically the skull-like design rather than the mere fact of having to wear something). Despite not being a field operative, he regards himself as an X-Man and is perfectly willing to go into action alongside Psylocke and Greycrow.
John Greycrow. Once Xorn has healed his organic parts, his mutant powers are able to fix his cyborg components. This issue gives us a rare outing for his Forge-like power to improvise technology out of the components from his own body. He’s able to track the Danger Room’s signal using his own abilities in combination with the Marauder’s technology, and isn’t sure whether he could do it alone.
As in the Psylocke solo series, Greycrow is devoted to Psylocke and somewhat better adjusted than she is, at least to the point of being able to articulate his feelings. He feels guilty for allowing himself to be used as bait to entrap Psylocke, and insists on helping against the Danger Room.
Deputy Smith. He seems completely reasonable and professional. When Kid Omega and Temper first show up, he tries to calm them down and let him open an investigation in Glob’s shooting. When they start threatening the town, he draws his gun but openly acknowledges that it’s a waste of time and keeps trying to reason with them. He seems to be doing his best in an impossible situation. Smith was a big fan of the X-Men in issue #26, but this encounter might change that – which, of course, was the sort of thing that the Danger Room’s plan was trying to bring about.
VILLAINS:
Danger Room. None of the higher-ups from Beyond appear in this story, only the generic footsoldiers and the techno-organic creature on the boat.
The creature is some sort of newborn which just wants to understand what’s going on; Beast concludes that the X-Men have hypocritically (or at least ironically) reacted to it with fear and hate because it’s so strange. This is pushing it – it’s a bit of a stretch to read the art in issue #26 as showing the X-Men attacking first, but even if they did, they had also (correctly) identified that the creature was part of a trap intended to hurt them.
Once Beast starts answering the creature’s questions, it seems to calm down and let him speak.
“Beast concludes that the X-Men have hypocritically (or at least ironically) reacted to it with fear and hate because it’s so strange. This is pushing it – it’s a bit of a stretch to read the art in issue #26 as showing the X-Men attacking first, but even if they did, they had also (correctly) identified that the creature was part of a trap intended to hurt them.”
I don’t think Beast was saying that the X-Men attacked first, just that the X-Men and the creature have a lot in common.
I like that of the three groups of X-Men, Quentin and Idie ae the only ones who played into the Danger Room’s hands because they’re stupid enough to fall into a trap after Magneto warned them it was a trap.
At least one part of Danger’s plan went successfully, I guess? But it feels like “Bait Kid Omega and Oya into doing something impulsive and stupid” was the free square on the bingo board… so free that Magneto even warned them about it and they still did it.
It’s interesting to see them continue to redeem Graycrow. The guy led the Marauders and was one of the worst of them so… it’s a pretty uphill climb. He’s not like Magneto, who was a villain because he had a cause or Juggernaut, who was raised by an abusive father and took it out on his stepbrother… Graycrow’s motivations as Scalphunter were much less excusable. But I guess they started this journey back in Manifest Destiny in 2008 and he hasn’t done anything all that bad in almost twenty years so maybe it’s okay to move on.
It should be “lie”, yes. As in “the X-Men lie here”. The person responsible for the cover script probably went with the familiar phrase on a gravestone, as a grave usually only refers to a singular individual, and probably didn’t consider subject-verb order.
‘Shouldn’t it be “Here Lie The X-Men”?’
I think they’re referring to the franchise.
@Salome
Too soon.
Ha, ha! That’s great. It would require a level of self-awareness on Marvel’s part which simply isn’t possible.
Are they redeeming Greycrow though? His day job is robbing banks, he’s probably killed a few security guards recently. Just because he has feelings and is good to his girlfriend doesn’t negate everything else.
@Si ,
Let’s give John the benefit of the doubt , maybe he’s only robbing the banks of evil megacorps like Roxxon and maybe he only knocks out the guards with rubber bullets and/or tranquilizer darts, after all, if he actually still killed people who didn’t deserve it I.e. collateral damage , would Kwannon even still be dating him right now? LOL
Is there are reason Kid Omega doesn’t read peoples minds instead of threatening violence?
I suppose after this long a time period, multiple deaths and cloned resurrections, and sometime spent genuine seeming to seek a measure of atonement, this John Hreycrow is a suitably different person than the Scalphunter of the Marauders who murdered mutant children in cold blood and who did other heinous things in the Army.
I don’t really like that he’s now a cuddly bank robber who’s dating Kwannon and helping the X-Men but hey, they’ve played nice with just about every other villain from their past, why not this one? Redemption arc achieved. Just like with Magneto, Apocalypse, Sabretooth, Sinister, Emma, Shadow King, Frenzy, Proteus, Blob… (results may vary…)
Chris Claremont did his part in Greycrow’s redemption, establishing in last year’s Wolverine series that the Scalphunter in the Mutant Massacre was a clone of the original, and the original has been the one appearing since the end of the Outback era.
@Neutrino,
But aren’t clones of dead people in Marvel-616 their actual physical resurrections ? Isn’t that the whole basis for both Jackal II (Ben Reilly)’s cloning and The Five’s Resurrection ?
@Jdsm24
I don’t think Marvel has some kind of ‘Clone Rule Book’. Clones get created in a variety of ways in comic books, and the ethics of who they actually are and how they should be treated differs based on the story being told.
Jdsm-The Krakoa cloning process was based on the idea that the Five resurrections weren’t simply “cloning” of the dead mutants, but the Cerebro device was implanting their “soul” back into the host body.
Sinister (who would have performed the cloning of Greycrow) has been shown to tamper with his clones, such as creating a clone of Jean Grey as a tabula rasa and giving her the false memories that she was Madelyne Pryor.
I believe it was established on-panel that some of the Sabretooths (Sabreteeth?) who fought various super-heroes pre-Mutant Massacre were inferior clones. Also, Joseph the clone of Magneto has had power levels and personalities different from the original. It’s not always 1:1. I’ll take any out that gives a character I like an “out” for past evil deeds.
I liked this issue more than the last few. Diaz did a great job depicting Beast as super-athletic, not just the guy stuck in a lab. I liked the Psylocke/Greycrow/Xorn team, and will happy if they get more page-time. Kid Omega & Temper going off the rails was believable. The underwhelming villains didn’t make an appearance. Pretty good stuff!
@MikeLoughlin,
Marvel always pulls the “it was a clone” excuse whenever a character usually-suddenly dramatically changes their moral alignment , such as either when a Hero Breaks Bad or a Villain Goes Good tsk tsk tsk e.g.: Dark Phoenix Jean Grey , Magneto Joseph , Reignfire Sunspot , arguably Xorn Magneto (though they also arguably de-retconned it so now Morrison’s Xorneto was now actually secretly a fusion of BOTH Magneto and “Kwan-Yin Xorn”/Zorn) , Doom , Thanos , Kraven the Hunter (when he actually became a buddy of Squirrel Girl) , Gwen Stacy (arguably her Weapon X latest version , if we strictly apply the rules established during The Clone Conspiracy itself , is the OG 616 Gwen Stacy LOL) , of course Henry Hank McCoy , Steve Rogers , Thor Odinson , etcetera
Maybe Greycrow used to be possessed by a yellow fear parasite from the Distinguished Competition. ‘Scalphunter’ is about as well-conceived a moniker for an indigenous character as ‘Pieface’ after all.
@Bengt
Kid Omega just reading people’s minds easily wouldn’t advance that plot, so now he has to be in their presence and make pink energy shoot out of their eyes and have everyone he’s mind-reading be aware of it.
DC had their own Scalphunter. His real name is Brian Savage, so I’m sure he said, “Why not?” to that nickname.
@Chris V- Yeah, but DC’s Scalphunter was a “white guy raised by Native Americans”, not an actual Native American.
I’m surprised no one tried to claim he was a descendant of Vandal Savage, though.
@Bengt: Seems pretty clear from the story that Quentin *wants* people to know what he’s doing and why. He and Idie are making a statement.
I find it a reasonable story beat, but still pointing out that “Magneto was right” apparently lasted one t-shirt length of time, and is now being ignored by Quire. This trait was why it was funny when he kept dying during Krakoa.
@Jdsm24: The originals were still alive.
@Chris V: Magneto claims the soul is returned, but offers no explanation.
The X-Men does need to keep some villains, villainous!
The problem (stemming all the way from Claremont) was giving the villains rich and somewhat sympathetic motivations. Which makes it all morally grey. Which is good storytelling!
I don’t know why Greycrow was a bad guy. Can we learn? Or, make him gleefully admit to killing a security guard or three. Have Kwannon feel conflicted about this – sure, she was a murderer once too, but now she’s an X-Man, is that still right? That would be relationship conflict and character growth.
Then again, the ‘X-Men don’t kill’ ship seems to have sailed a while ago
@Evilgus,
Well , since he was a Native American * male from the region that was once the USA Wild West , who was drafted as a teen/20-something as a USA soldier in WW2** , and he himself also said in XMen Divided We Stand that he grew up working-class poor such that he learned to become a cook because of it , that obviously explains why he became an amoral macho mercenary
* fanon top theory is he is Comanche
** maybe that’s his Freudian Excuse why he massacred and scalped 8*** of his fellow officers in Sergeant Nick Fury’s unit , because they were either racists bullies (example , see the Nicholas Cage movie WindTalkers about the legendary WW2 Cherokee unit) or they were descended from the European settlers who genocided his own ancestors just less than a century before WW2
*** 4 and 8 , representing the directions of the compass , are apparently sacred/holy in many , if not most , North American Native Tribal cultures
“I don’t know why Greycrow was a bad guy.”
Was he though?
Sure the Sinister clone was a bad guy, but that can be said of almost all of his clones.
What we know of the non-Sinisterized clones are that he feels guilt over things in the military during a war, which could also apply to so many other people. We also know that he took blame, and didn’t try to defend or defuse the hatred and anger against him for things that he didn’t do, that the Sinister clone did. The only example on panel example of his being a bag guy is that he is apparently robbing banks with off-site support. Why? This is a dangling thread, and I am invested in finding out.
“Shouldn’t it be “Here Lie The X-Men”?”
It depends. Sort of. Ish.
In general, collective nouns are singular in US English and plural in UK English, *but* it also depends on whether the context is referring to the X-Men as a group of individuals, or a team.
I was hoping for a shout out about the Easter egg in Beast’s dream. “Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend” was an early comic strip in newspapers in the early 1900s, drawn and written by Windsor McKay. McKay is a truly legendary comic artist, probably better known for his Little Nemo in Slumberland. In the Rarebit Fiend, the lead character spends several panels in a surreal nightmarish landscape, ending in a cliffhanger of sorts in the penultimate panel. The final panel was always the lead waking up in his bed, commenting on the rarebit he had eaten for dinner. Welsh Rarebit being, of course, a dish of a melted cheese concoction on thick toast.
I love *Little Nemo in Slumberland* and never knew McKay had another strip. I am thrilled at the prospect of discovering for the first time *Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend.*
Rarebit Fiend was often brilliant.
Sometimes McCay would use reader-submitted ideas, with credit. There’s one about a Star Trek-style transporter suggested by a young Hugo Gernsback!
I also feel like this arc shares a lot with the second Fighting in the Snow arc. That also spent five issues fleshing out characters we may never see again, while the protagonists waited patiently for the script to tell them what to do. I’m glad Xorn and Greycow are getting some shine. The former and Magneto have felt like New X-Men wallpaper most of the time, which is a shame. I find it ironic that Exceptional X-Men had a reputation as being slow, when adjectiveless fits the bill way more in my book. Being a monthly book is going to hurt there, but nothing you can do about it.
Greycow should be a difficult one to judge the morality of, but seeing as this is a clone of a clone by Sinister, his agency is pretty questionable and victimhood significant. I guess it comes down to how he feels and how the people he hurt feel.
Last we heard from the Morlocks they hated his ass and beat him up on the anniversary of the mutant massacre. Or at least, Callisto’s group did. I don’t remember if he fought back, but refusing to say ‘they attacked me’ was the whole reason he was on the Hellions.
He remembered Maddy, though it’s impossible to say if that’s epigenetics, Sinister’s idea of a joke, evidence he’s the same person, or something else. She certainly remembers him, though she had bigger fish to fry. Generally not a fan though, understandably.
They’re all alive again, but definitely traumatized. Speaking of trauma, that’s my primary ethical qualm with bank robbery. The banks themselves can burn but traumatising tellers etc isn’t great. It’s certainly better than killing people for Sinister, so I guess he’s a better person than he was.
I’m not qualified to comment on the US military’s often predatory relationship with young First Nations men and he himself has complicated feelings on the subject. I don’t think there’s any attempt to ‘redeem’ him, per se, which I like tbh. He’s not who he was but he’s definitely not a hero. Just a fictional character who’s not meant to be looked up to. I would love to see more of a character study from him, but that’s not very likely.