Uncanny X-Men #28 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #28
“Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, part three: And It Shall Come To Pass”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Gambit, holding the Left Eye of Agamotto, and with dragon wings growing from him.
THE X-MEN
Gambit‘s own search for the Outliers goes nowhere, though he seems genuinely grateful to the Vig for making the effort. When the fake “Cannonball” flies off with Rogue, he suddenly reveals that he can use the Left Eye of Agamotto to grow dragon wings, and gives chase.
Rogue, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Jubilee deal with the weird fake “New Mutants”, but otherwise don’t do a great deal. The X-Men themselves are only in about four pages of the issue.
SUPPORTING CAST
Jitter. She’s the first to clearly point out that the Outliers are in a fake world, since although she can’t remember her history with any of her teammates, she still feels an emotional connection to them – specifically, that she reacts to Ransom as a leader and that she’s in love with Calico. She doesn’t say anything in particular about Deathdream. Deathdream also pointed out last issue that he still had emotional connections with the others, but nobody really paid attention to him.
She has an epileptic fit during the fight with the “Sentinels”, which seems to be the first mention we’ve had of this. The other Outliers don’t know that she’s epileptic, which might be because their memories are being interfered with – however, they don’t seem to recognise the symptoms of epilepsy either, which would tend to suggest they were unaware even in the real world.
Calico. Like Jitter, she felt that the two of them were in love, but she didn’t have the confidence to say it. When she thinks Jitter is in trouble, she takes on a warrior form, and literally threatens to kill anyone in her way. Mutina suggests that Calico might be more disturbed than she is, and she may have a point.
Ransom. Jitter emotionally relates to him as the leader role, and he reverts to that role once things start to become clearer to everyone.
Deathdream. He starts reciting his “X is home, X is family” line (which he started doing after “Dark Artery”). We find out this issue that the Outliers are in an AI environment created by Perimeter. Curiously, the inhabitants of this scenario – or at least the Sentinels – seem to register to Deathdream’s powers as real, as they did in the previous issue. Yet Mutina says that her psychic powers can tell that they have no minds. Curious.
M. Monet is still at Greymalkin, but gives the distinct impression that she’s only there to deal with Inmate X once Scurvy is no longer able to contain him. In issue #20, she claimed that Corina’s brother Oscar was her “friend”, and that his last words were to ask Monet to watch over her. However, it now turns out that Inmate X actually is Oscar, and that Monet already knew this.
Once Oscar emerges, she show up in her regular costume to deal with him, but first she tries to talk him into returning to his cell. She claims that he’s so powerful that “they” will kill him if he doesn’t allow himself to be contained – though she might just be feigning concern to appeal to him, since if he’s that powerful then it’s hard to see what “they” might do about him. Curiously, immediately after telling him to go back to his cell, she asks him to “come with me” – maybe she just means that she’s going to personally lead him to the cell. While she tries to reason with Oscar, she obviously views him as extremely dangerous.
Siryn, Fawn and Blob all have cameos in the prison.
Waffles can be seen at Haven House.
The Vig seems to be making a genuine effort to locate the missing Outliers, though without any results.
VILLAINS:
Inmate X / Perimeter. He’s Oscar Ellis, the brother of Corina Ellis who was first mentioned back in issue #8. She claimed in that issue that he had “died because of trash just like [the X-Men], and Monet also referred to his “last words” in issue #20. Nonetheless, he’s apparently alive in the Inmate X cell. Corina suggested at the end of issue #8 that Oscar was also one of the “Avian” telepaths mentioned by Scurvy earlier in that issue – if so, Oscar ought to be dying of a brain tumour.
As foreshadowed in issues #20 and #27, as soon as Scurvy dies, Oscar’s psychic powers are no longer contained, and he’s able to possess Scurvy’s brother. He seems to be a psychopath, as he immediately kills the doctors who are treating Scurvy’s body – there’s no suggestion that this is simply revenge for being part of the Graymalkin organisation that imprisoned him. According to Corina, Oscar also has reality-warping powers, which he used to torment her as a child. He apparently killed his own parents by turning them into giant rats. Oscar seems to confirm at least the broad strokes of this account.
He says that he’s “playing two games remotely”. One is clearly the Outliers’ scenario, parts of which start glitching when his attention is spread too far – though it’s not entirely clear that he realises this. The other is presumably the New Mutants at Haven House, although there’s a bit more leeway on that one. Still, it’s not like there are any other plot threads in this arc that he could be referencing. He’s presumably able to do engage in this because Scurvy’s ability to contain him started failing before he died, as suggested last issue.
Quite what Oscar is trying to achieve by his “games” isn’t clear – they don’t seem to be exercises in pure sadism, despite his back story. Mutina theorises that it’s an experiment.
Oscar takes the name Perimeter, which was hitherto suggested to be some sort of AI within the Graymalkin complex. Oscar seems to be saying that he’s somehow integrated himself into it, though it’s not entirely clear yet. According to Mutina, the environment he’s created for the Outliers is an AI creation.
He doesn’t seem to take seriously Monet’s warnings that “they” will kill him unless he agrees to be contained. Monet, who seems familiar with him, acts as if she’s reasonably confident that she could handle him, but there’s probably a degree of show going on there.
Once he possesses Scurvy, something about his appearance seems to be very disturbing, particularly to Ezra. Ezra calls him an “abomination” and claims that he can’t look at him.
Corina Ellis. The general suggestion is that her anti-mutant stance has been prompted by the torture she suffered at Oscar’s hands as a child, which doesn’t seem to have done wonders for her mental health. She describes herself as an “overachieving narcissist”. There’s also a definite implication that her interest in Scurvy was at least part because Scurvy had the ability to contain Oscar, and that the Greymalkin project exists at least in part as a way of controlling him. Her narration claims that she’s spent her life trying to avoid this showdown with Oscar.
As Scurvy dies, she starts telling Ezra about her history with him, in a way that comes across as fishing for sympathy, although she immediately rejects it when he offers it. She claims that “Everyone I care about dies, so I don’t care about anyone.” She seems to mean her parents.
Ezra specifically asks her for authority to shoot Oscar, but she doesn’t give it. She seems to view this as some sort of reckoning that she’s been due for a while – as Monet suggested in issue #20 – though she also makes an attempt to talk to her brother.
Scurvy. Corina recaps her relationship with him, in broadly similar terms to his own account from issue #8. She claims that she nicknamed him “Scurvy” simply because he was allergic to citrus. He dies, and is immediately possessed by Inmate X. Despite his appearance, he’s 24.
Captain Ezra. As usual, he’s a reasonable professional who stands by Corinna’s side. He tries to offer emotional support and encourage her to be with Scurvy as he dies, but gets rebuffed. Despite being freaked out by Oscar, he won’t shoot without authority.
Sarah Gaunt has a cameo as a prisoner.
Mutina. Not even really a villain in this story, but in the absence of an explicit face turn, I’m not moving her to the supporting cast section just yet. She says that she can read emotions, or specifically fears, and that she can tell that the “X-Men” around her are an AI projection of some sort. Presumably this was also the case last issue, and she was playing along to some extent. It also confirms that, despite her pretence last issue, she did know that the “Moon Boy” she beheaded was a robot. As noted above, Deathdream seems to experience this world differently, but on this score Mutina’s perception seems to be more accurate. Possibly the idea is that Oscar didn’t allow for Mutina’s psychic ability because he didn’t know about it. (The Outliers have all been to Greymalkin before, during the “Raid on Greymalkin” crossover.)
Although she keeps up a facade of being hostile and distant, what she actually does is consistently helpful in this story. Unlike the Outliers, she knows what an epileptic fit looks like, and gives reasonable advice on what to do about it.
“The New Mutants” (Cannonball, Sunspot, Karma, Psyche and Wolfsbane). They believe that the X-Men recruited them as assassins and seem confused that anyone is suggesting otherwise. When asked basic questions about themselves, they get defensive and hostile, presumably because the AI doesn’t have any answers. They’re a weird combination of one-dimensionally in-character (Cannonball remains polite and apologetic even while trying to kill Rogue) and randomly out of character (teen Wolfsbane drinks beer).
Well, that was a cheat. Who is Inmate X? The person who was mentioned as being dead and once a friend to Monet. Those are fair clues. At least when Claremont created a mystery in X-Treme X-Men when one of two choices was already dead, the reveal was that it was the character who was still alive. Too easy, you say? Perhaps, but at least the clues added up (“the one who is dead is not the solution”).
Sigh…another person who hates mutants because of being abused by a mutant while growing up. She couldn’t just be a petty bureaucrat trying to get ahead by playing off a “hot button issue”. Add her to Graydon Creed and the woman from Guggenheim’s X-Men Gold.
Mutants really are their own worst enemies.
Revealing that a character is epileptic, pretty much out of the blue, after 28 issues plus crossovers, feels a little sloppy. Like, this should have been better hinted at along the way. It’s like revealing “Oh by the way, Character Y is diabetic” after several years of stories.
I mean, it’s no “Oh, I’m gay” after -decades- of appearances, but it should have been seeded better given that Simone’s pretty much the only one writing Jitter.
Like others, I find the idea of a sociopathic reality warping, body hopping mutant to be redundant given the existence of Proteus, Jamie Braddock, Jim Jaspers, even Legion. (And the Gamemaster and the Shadow King, and Mastermind, just to round out the rogues’ list.) I hope Perimeter brings something new to the table. I suppose the insinuation is that he was somehow acting as Greymalkin’s security system while Scurvy was keeping him locked down?
I’m hoping Gail can pull these threads together and give us good reasons for the reality warping games, the fake New Mutants, the fake Sauron X-Men, and while we’re at it, Gambit getting dragon powers through the Eye.
@TheOtherMichael
What does Gail Simone’s latest Donut Steel OC “Oscar” bring to the proverbial table?
Well , 2 Most Important Things:
1) First and foremost , he’s actually an Ethnically POC Male , which has always been the Big Deal Issue for the non-White portioms of x-fandom who have always complained (especially on CBR, which at its peak in the 2000s and 2010s was Xitter and Reddit BEFORE Xitter and Reddit such that then until now its one of the few places that Marvel editorial actually dares to interact directly with fandom ) about the Sheer Failure** of POC Representation (aside from fetish fanservice) of the mainline Marvel-616-universe, especially the X-Books to have marquee main-cast A-listers* who arent the Hollywood-traditional USAmerican European-descended YT Pipol LOL (which is why for the longest time its been Marvel’s Company Policy to glaze Storm so much , OG GirlBoss Yass Queen Claremontian Glamazon Ororo Munroe is single-handedly [over]compensating for the lack of demographic diversity in the casting of the X-Books in particular and Marvel in general)
* and since the perpetual adolescents who have always been the majority of the die-hard hard-core fanbase are pathologically obsessed with PowerScaling , especially in the X-Books , this means a character who is , as formally meme-morilized by Jonathan Hickman , an Omega-Level Mutant
** still always better than their Distinguished Competition though KEK
2) And second, he’s actually , at least for now , a bona fide Bad-Bad Guy Classic Villain (assumimg he doesnt just get his own woobie-uwu sympathy-for-the-devil “broken bird” redemption arc, whether immediately or eventually, which was the top complaint by both the gatekeeping fanatics AND Marvel editiorial* the First Krakoan Age , aside from the geopolitical-isolationism, eugenics-elitism, and “cucks chairs”-sexual degeneracy LOL)
* especially The Conductor of X himself, who has repeatedly gone on record in public about the now-lack of a viable traditional rogue’s gallery of the XBooks (beyond the arguably over-used flatscan speciest bigots) following either the outright heel-face turns or more-or-less “Frenemization” mellowing of most , if not all , of the X-family’s foes (even 616-Mojo himself , if anyone still remembers the Rick Remender & Si Spurrier XForce runs & the XMen Black period in the 2010’s where and when he got Flanderized into becoming a comedy villain like the XMen’s own version of Team Rocket or King Bowser)
“he’s able to possess Scurvy’s brother”
That should be “possess Scurvy’s body”.
Gail needs to explain Mutina’s powers better. Mutina claims that she can’t read minds, only sense emotions, but she knows specific details like Jitter’s epilepsy and the Endling’s identity.
Yeah, Oscar is definitely Proteus 2.0- warps reality, takes over others’ bodies, is related to a pre-existing character.
Presumably, Oscar reminds Monet of Emplate, her monstrous brother.
Yeah. it does seem that Oscar was the Peremeter system all along- in one of the earlier issues, Ellis complained to Scurvy that the Perimeter system was acting up. And in issue 20, Monet was able to destroy her collar as Scurvy was dying- presumably because his control over Oscar was loosening.
“The other is presumably the New Mutants at Haven House, although there’s a bit more leeway on that one. Still, it’s not like there are any other plot threads in this arc that he could be referencing.”
Look carefully- there’s a P on the refrigerator when the fake New Mutants appear. Oscar is definitely behind them.
Remy agrees to owe the Vig a favor for his help this issue.
What does it mean that Oscar’s creations are AI?
Remy describes Agomotto as a “dragon god”- that’s not how Agomotto is usually portrayed.
Monet says that she didn’t come to Graymalkin alone and she’s calling for reinforcements. Possibly she’s here at Scott’s behest and this was Scott’s plan all along. Which is why Scott didn’t break the inmates out of Graymalkin earlier.
Inmate X being an original character instead of an established character definitely feels like a cheat after all this buildup.
What’s weird about Simone’s run is that she keeps using substitutes for established X-characters instead of the real characters. Issues 20-21 featured a manipulative mutant who
could enhance people’s abilities by touching them but was not Fabian Cortez. Calico’s mother is a rich woman who abused a teenage mutant and killed her horse but isn’t Emma Frost. And in this issue, Inmate X is a mutant who can manipulate reality and take over people’s bodies and is related to an established character but isn’t Proteus. Why did Simone even want to write the X-Men if she wasn’t going to use the real characters but only her own knockoffs?
Gail Simone is to X-Men as Doug Moench is to FF (although I doubt it’s due to editorial with Simone).
@Michael,
In 2026 , why does anyone still bother to introduce new original IP to The Big 2 when they could keep it to their creator-owned series? Royalties!
One of the biggest complaints about James Robinson’s Starman was that Robinson had the second Mist kill Blue Devil, the second Amazing Man and Crimson Fox to show how dangerous she was. (Blue Devil quickly returned but Amazing Man and Crimson Fox stayed dead.) Onw of the problems with this was that the second Mist WASN’T the Final Boss of the Starman series. That turned out to be the original Mist. So basically two heroes were killed off just to build up someone who turned out not to be the Final Boss and was killed off in the end.
And I think there were similar problems with the Graymaikin arc. Warden Ellis was never meant to be the Big Bad- Inmate X was. That’s why she seemed so lame. But in order to make the Graymalkin plot work, Scott’s teams and Rogue’s teams were reuired to appear impotent. “We can’t do anything about Graymalkin, because of , um, satellites.” Now, it may turn out they had some sort of plan. But Rogue and Scott just seemed to be doing nothing while their friends were imprisoned. Beause the main arc couldn’t really start until Inmate X escaped.
Aside from that. though, Simone completely failed to build tension around Inmate X’s escape. There could have been a running subplot where Scurvy grows weaker and Warden Ellis grows more scared of Inmate X. But we just saw one brief and confusing scene with Monet in issue 20.
Yeah, but the second Mist had a personal vendetta against Jack Knight. Jack Knight’s actions led to the second Mist becoming a major threat. It’s not as if Blue Devil, Amazing Man, and Crimson Fox were major characters anyway. The story of the second Mist is about Jack Knight facing his own failures as a legacy superhero and having to deal with the guilt. Even if you do want to fault Robinson’s plot, it’s nothing like Simone’s plot which is just a mess. There’s nothing personal between Corinna and the X-Men, as she is basically a bureaucrat. The satellite excuse was simply a lame excuse to drag out Simone’s Graymalkin story-arc because it wasn’t time to end yet. The second Mist actually served a narrative purpose in Starman, even though the original Mist was the end game.
Also, not to put too fine a point on it but if I’m meant to sympathize with Ellis after the monstrous things she’s said and done throughout Uncanny so far, then Gail is *seriously* off her game thinking a page recapping childhood trauma would be enough to achieve that.
I think Ezra couldn’t look at Oscar because he was eating the medical staff.
Come to think of it- is there any reason Oscar is choosing to torment the X-men with the original lineup of the New Mutants? And how does he know the original lineup of the New Mutants anyway and that Moira helped recruit them? Is that supposed to be public knowledge?
I’m ashamed to say that it took me this long to realize that Paul was being passive-aggressive with listing the Outliers under supporting cast; I thought by the annotation where it first appeared that Simone had actually shifted more of the attention towards the traditional team members.
On the annotation, I will simply say that this gives me more ammunition for saying that this batch of X-writers is worse than Chuck Austen. Yes, Gail Simone wrote some things in the past that I liked, but this is bad, nonsensical, and poorly crafted. If I was reading a physical copy of this, I would have thrown it to the ground when Gambit suddenly grew dragon wings.
I don’t think I’m being passive-aggressive; it’s just that the regular X-Men clearly don’t regard the Outliers as full members of the team, but as something akin to the New Mutants. This isn’t unprecedented – Wolverine & The X-Men was primarily a book about the students but officially they weren’t the title characters.
Mea culpa, I had not realized that this was a change when you changed the format of the annotations. I looked back at the other titles, and characters like Ben Liu are in the supporting cast section, but they seem to do little in the issues they are listed (at least lately).
That said, I think it seems clear that the Outliers are the main cast of the book, even if they aren’t the title characters (because I don’t see a book titled “The Outliers” lasting more than whatever the editorially mandated minimum number is).
@Sam: I think that cuts to the heart of what’s wrong with Gail’s Uncanny right there – if the Outliers are the main cast, why did we just find out *this issue* that Jitter is epileptic? How has Calico still not developed a third personality trait besides “Mommie Dearest no more wire hangers” and “loves Jitter”? Why haven’t we heard more about Ransom’s connection to Sunspot?
The fact that the Outliers keep getting the spotlight is at odds with how precious little they’ve actually been developed so far.
Gambit has dragon wings now. That’s the most character development anyone has gotten during this run of Uncanny X-Men. Oh, and let’s not forget…The Vig. I guess this is a stealth Gambit solo title.
I dunno. I’m still liking this arc. The Inmate X reveal was a little “huh?” But I’m also wondering how much Imperial really boned this storyline. Based on solicits it seems like editorial is changing a lot. I’m still enjoying the other plot and when I think about whether or not I like a comic I include the art, too, and this title has had consistently great art. I like that Gale is doing new stuff as opposed to trotting out a parade of b-list villains like adjectiveless is.
Where’s Strange’s dragon wings.
It definitely feels like Simone is writing her own book with the X-Men stapled in. Power Fantasy this isn’t.
The whole Inmate X plot also has a little in common with the plot of the film X2: X-Men United. An anti-mutant bigot with military ties running an internment camp for mutants turns out to be motivated by their torment by a perception-warping mutant relative.
Of course, the film kind of merged elements of the original Proteus story with God Lives, Man Kills and the 1990s-era “Weapon X” backstory.
I like this arc… except for the prison sequence. But I’m having fun.
And the art is very good – Luciano Vecchio leveled up considerably in the last few years, the splash page with Deathdream’s attack is amazing. And however silly winged Gambit is, Vecchio makes the reveal look cool.
@jdsm24
“the Hollywood-traditional USAmerican European-descended YT Pipol LOL”
“OG GirlBoss Yass Queen Claremontian Glamazon Ororo Munroe”
“oobie-uwu sympathy-for-the-devil “broken bird” redemption arc”
“geopolitical-isolationism, eugenics-elitism, and “cucks chairs”-sexual degeneracy LOL”
Those are definitely some sequences of words and letters you wrote!
@Arrowhead,
I spent ny youth reading the work of USAmerican and British writers, especially in comics (among others) since the 1980s and I’ve been involved in global English-language internet-forum culture (dominated by USAmericans) since the 1990s LOL