Inglorious X-Force #5 annotations
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #5
“Death War – part 2”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artists: Roi Mercado & Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Archangel, with the Death mask he wore as one of Apocalypse’s Horseman, perches on his teammates’ gravestones.
X-FORCE:
Archangel. According to Mr Sinister (who’s probably telling the truth about this), he experimented on Archangel at the tail end of the Krakoan era, surreptitiously giving him the life-giving powers that he demonstrated in issue #4. He calls Warren’s new persona “Blood Angel” and claims that when fully activated, he’ll be able to bring about “true, everlasting resurrection”. For some reason, to activate this power, Warren needs to take Sinister’s hand. We’re not told directly why Sinister needed to involve Warren in this, but it’s probably reasonable to assume that Sinister is tapping the power of Apocalypse’s Death Seed in some way.
The Blood Angel persona seems to be something of a puritan – he calls Hellverine a “demon” and “unclean”, then shoots him out of the sky with some sort of eye beam. The beams actually extinguish Hellverine’s flame and knock him out for a while. Sinister claims that Blood Angel could cure Cable of the techno-organic virus.
As suggested last issue, the Warren Worthington persona goes to a sort of waiting room while any version of the Archangel persona (including Blood Angel) is in control. However, Warren seems to be able to retake control when sufficiently motivated. The waiting room seems to contain a sofa, a floating orb which is presumably the Death Seed, and a floating diamond which is Sinister’s logo. Sinister claims that the Archangel persona possesses Warren in the same way that Hellverine is possessed by his demon.
After he saved her life with his Blood Angel powers in issue #4, Warren has become mentally linked to Tabitha, who can enter his waiting room mentally. Both Warren and Tabitha disagree with Cable’s theory that Warren only feels truly free as Archangel (which was Cable’s recruitment pitch in issue #1). Tabitha’s theory is that Warren uses Archangel as a way of keeping himself aware of his dark side, and thereby retaining his self-control when exercising his wealth and financial power. Warren seems to agree and rejects the power over life that Sinister is trying to offer him, apparently using the Death Seed to purge it. It’s not obvious how this power is any worse than what the mutants were doing on Krakoa, but at least that power wasn’t concentrated in one individual, which seems to be Warren’s real concern. Nonetheless, the thought that Warren might be able to use this power to bring back resurrection for mutants generally doesn’t seem to be an issue for anyone.
Somewhat out of nowhere, Warren asks to kiss Tabitha in response to her insights. See below.
Cable. After the mission, he reveals to the team why he formed them – possibly because he’s now exonerated all of his suspects to his satisfaction, and possibly because Sinister taunts him for his own manipulative nature. Rather than concluding that he might be the potential killer, Cable concludes that his “one of us” note must have meant that Kamala’s killer was someone in the wider X-community. But in fact, without being aware of it, he seems to be partly under the control of some sort of plant-life virus-thing, which I don’t think we’re meant to recognise. It seems to be trying to use Cable to affect the future.
Ms Marvel. Sinister claims that she’s “swimming in more genetic potential than [her] teammates”, presumably because of her Inhuman side. For some reason he also calls her Madame Marvel. As usual, she’s the peacemaker, and argues for giving Sinister a chance to explain himself, given that his plan really does seem to be to resurrect people.
Boom-Boom. See above re her connection to Warren. She seems interested in his advances, but that might be because of their link – and it might also play in to her rejection of Akihiro last issue.
Hellverine. He claims that he’s been holding back until now, though he might be trying to assert his masculinity in front of Tabitha. When Blood Angel somehow subdues his demon side, he’s able to turn back to human form and fight normally. The fire returns soon enough.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Domino. According to Domino, the reason why she’s been keeping watch on the team throughout this series is that Cable asked her to, because he was worried about his memory glitches and wanted her to keep an eye on him. That must have happened during issue #1, after the scene where he gathers his senses in the Adirondacks base, and before he starts recruiting the team members.
She claims to have spotted something that suggested the techno-organic virus was running out of control without him knowing. She says that she confronted him about it, he wouldn’t listen and she shot him (in the techno-organic parts) in an effort to prove how the virus would react. This is the scene that Tabitha interrupted at the end of issue #4.
Mr Chubby Cheeks. Domino is now just calling her squirrel “Cheecks”.
VILLAINS:
Mister Sinister. Sinister claims that he’s gone back to opposing Apocalypse, and that Cable ought to be his ally. He seems to think that Apocalypse is planning some sort of mass slaughter (“assault on biological diversity and the art of genetic study”) and regards this as getting in the way of science. This is all a little odd. It does fit with Sinister’s back story, in which he’s given powers by Apocalypse but later turns on him and embarks on schemes to thwart Apocalypse’s rise. But Apocalypse isn’t on Earth right now, he’s on Arakko – and there’s nothing to suggest that he’s coming back. Nobody raises this point. Conceivably, Sinister might view Revelation as Apocalypse’s agent.
Sinister claims that his plan is to offer immortality to everyone who was resurrected on Krakoa. (It’s not clear why they have to have been resurrected there first.) He presents this as a scientific endeavour and as something that will annoy Apocalypse, but when pressed accepts that he expects “an occasional service” and co-operation with his experiments in return for resurrecting people.
Archangel destroys his body using the Death Seed, but he makes clear that he’ll simply jump to a new one.
The Nasty Boys. Archangel restores them to life permanently using the Blood Angel power before rejecting it.
CONTINUITY REFERENCES:
I don’t do this section for every book, but Inglorious X-Force kind of calls for it…
- Page 1 panel 1: “Even called myself the Avenging Angel for a bit.” Warren used the name “Avenging Angel” in his brief pre-X-Men superhero career, as shown in the back-up strips in X-Men #55-56 (1969).
- Page 1 panel 2: “I’ve also spent some of that time as Archangel, Horseman of Death.” Not technically accurate – in his time as a Horseman, he was simply called “Death”. He started going by “Archangel” after he rejoined X-Factor in X-Factor #35.
- Page 6 panel 1: Sinister’s screens show two lists of names in alphabetical order, which he claims are “the national security record of every known mutant to have been resurrected in the Krakoan Age”. The names listed are:
- Joe Caramagna (the book’s letterer)
- Joanna Cargill (Frenzy)
- Jumbo Carnation
- Sean Cassidy (Banshee)
- Fabian Cortez
- Esme Cuckoo
- Sophie Cuckoo
- A mostly illegible name that might be “Daniels”
- Sebastian Shaw
- Shinobi Shaw
- Tomi Shishido (Gorgon)
- Kevin Sidney (Changeling/Morph)
- Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane)
- Sharon Smith (Catseye)
- Jonothan Starsmore (Chamber)
- Jennifer Stavros (Roulette)
- Page 10 panel 2: As the footnote says, Warren used his “Blood Angel” powers to save Tabitha in issue #4.
- Page 10 panel 3: “It took seeing a friend die to free me from Death and bring me back to my body.” Footnoted to X-Factor #25. He beheaded an ice dummy of Iceman.
- Page 17 panel 5: Cable’s photograph shows the original X-Force line-up – himself, Cannonball, Warpath, Shatterstar, Feral, Boom-Boom and Domino. It’s the same one he had in issue #1, when he accidentally set fire to it – that’s why part of it is missing. Except…
- Page 18 panel 1: “You rescued me from Tolliver. Put me on X-Force.” …the “Domino” in early issues of X-Force was later revealed to be an impostor, Copycat. The real Domino spent that time as a prisoner of Tolliver (who eventually turned out to be Cable’s son Tyler). X-Force rescue her in X-Force vol 1 #15, but she doesn’t join the team until X-Force vol 1 #30 – two issues after Feral left. So the photograph that Cable is looking at as he muses that “we used to be so close” doesn’t even show the real Domino. Given that Cable seems a little spaced out in this scene, it’s possible that this is intentional and not a continuity error.
Didn’t Boom Boom start out as one of X-Factor’s kid sidekicks when Angel was already an adult? Between bringing back his healing powers and his questionable predilection for younger blondes I wasn’t expecting Warren’s greatest hits to take a detour into the Chuck Austen era.
Uhm… Boom Boom has ever been resurrected on Krakoa? Does the presence of Sharon Smith’s (Catseye) name in the foreground of the monitor and the absence of Tabitha Smith’s suggest something?
“This is all a little odd. It does fit with Sinister’s back story, in which he’s given powers by Apocalypse but later turns on him and embarks on schemes to thwart Apocalypse’s rise. But Apocalypse isn’t on Earth right now, he’s on Arakko – and there’s nothing to suggest that he’s coming back. Nobody raises this point. Conceivably, Sinister might view Revelation as Apocalypse’s agent.”
According to the solicits, Apocalypse will be back with a scheme involving Earth in August’s Tomb of Apocalypse series. It’s possible this takes place after Tomb of Apocalypse. Most likely Seely heard that Apocalypse was coming back but didn’t know if his return would take place before or after this issue saw print.
How is it that any modifications Sinister made to Warren before the fall of Krakoa are still in existence? Warren was killed in Dark X-men and resurrected in the White Hot Room. Any modifications Sinister made to him would have been gone.
I agree with yrzhe- Warren trying to get with one of X-Factors; former wards is a bit creepy.
Domino gets her memories wiped at the end of this issue by the possessed Cable. It’s not clear how many of her memories she lost. I wonder if Mr. Chubby Cheeks will have something to do with her getting them back or if her powers will help her somehow.
I don’t think that there was anyone that didn’t realize that Cable was somehow compromised and possibly Kamala’s kiler from issue 1. To call this a Captain Obvious Reveal would be understating it.
Michael:
I concur about the obviousness. Whenever superhero comics do “Who is secretly [X]? Is it [A], [B], [C], or [D]?” The answer is imviably “None of the above.” See also the recent opening arc of All-New Venom.
Yeah Boom Boom and Angel is weird, but it’s almost unavoidable at this point that any two mutants were in a similar position 40 years ago.
By the way, Boom Boom’s origin was Secret Wars 2, where she was hanging out with the Beyonder. She is one of a tiny handful of X-characters who didn’t originate in an X-book.
Let’s face it, the extended X-Men family is already remarkably incestuous. So Warren’s trying to mack on a girl he’s known since she was a teenage runaway. What else is new? I’m a little more bothered by Tabitha being partnered up, however temporarily, with multiple members of the team in just a few issues– it just feels … awkward. She’s basically the Bad Girl to Kamala’s Very Good Girl.
This series really is completely unhinged, but at least it’s entertaining in how it’s rummaging around the characters’ deepest, darkest, weirdest corners of their respective toyboxes.
Though Warren bouncing between Death, Blood Angel, Archangel, and lord knows what else is starting to give me whiplash. He used to just be a guy who flew around!
Tabitha was part of the X-Terminators, true, but she was presented as at least a teenager already from her first appearance. IIRC she wanted training on the use of her powers, not raising as such. She was presumably quite a bit older than Artie or Leech.
Warren’s personality and probably memories were significantly altered at least twice since (by Apocalypse in X-Factor Vol 1 and by his plot in Uncanny X-Force). He also received the cummulative memories of his alternate time-displaced self in Extermination #5 (late 2018) and went through Krakoa ressurrection at least once. While I am blanking on specific examples of any certainty, I believe that he also went through episodes of mind control and gestalts since (perhaps in A.X.E. a few years back).
Tabitha, of course, had her own experiences during these forty years or so of real time publication. I don’t remember any involvement with Mojo or Spiral, but there was her time with Nextwave.
If you ask me, it is anyone’s guess where their mental states and healths are at this point. Heck, for all I know Tabitha may be biologically and mentally older than Warren as of now and perhaps neither of them has first-hand memories of ever having been mentor and mentoree. With at least four other mentors present, Tabitha joining in X-Factor #12 and Warren being pretty much unable to orient her at least from #15 to #26, it is not even clear that he was ever directly her mentor.
So I really don’t know whether there is anything creepy in an eventual mutual interest.
@The Other Michael- I think Seeley is riffing on the classic Warren-Logan relationship with Warren and Akihiro where the two of them not only dislike each other but are attracted to the same woman (Jean). The problem is that the only women on the team are Tabitha and Kamala both of whom are much younger than Warren. (Domino is trying to avoid being seen by the team at this point.)
If 1980’s continuity still stands, Warren and Tabitha have about a 10-15 year age difference. Hank was the oldest of the O5 and he turned 30 in X-Men v. 2 c. 1994. That means during the X-Factor run the O5 are all in their mid-late 20’s. Tabitha came on board around 13-14 years old.
Putting aside Luis’ very good points about resurrections and memory wipes and all that, at this point these characters must be at least 10-15 years older. Tabitha is 25-30 and Warren is 40-45. Not a terribly good look, but not per se problematic either.
The relative ages isn’t an issue, it’s that Angel had an authority role over Boom Boom. Sure she was already a teenager in X-Factor, but in real life a woman having a relationship with a man who was her boarding school teacher is not one most would consider healthy.
I always assumed that Tabitha was at the very least 16 when first seen on panel. Probably older than any of the original New Mutants except perhaps Karma and just about to enter her twenties.
She was fairly independent and walking alone and seemed to never once consider going back to her parents’ house. IIRC she rarely ever mentioned her parents after her very earliest X-Factor appearance, even during her time with the Fallen Angels.
She read _a lot_ more like an eighteen years old than any younger, at least to me.
Boom Boom had a dark background in Secret Wars II. She ran away from home because her father was abusing her. She was considering killing herself when she started hanging around the Beyonder.
Warren isn’t in his 40s by Marvel’s considerations. I think Marvel considers Scott to be 30 years old currently. Warren would probably be considered 31 by Marvel, maybe. How does that work with Tabitha being around 25 when she was probably 15 when she was with X-Factor? Well, it doesn’t, but that’s Marvel time.
There’s nothing wrong with a 25 year old dating a 31 year old. The issue people are objecting to is about Warren knowing Tabitha as a teenager and being her teacher, which is somewhat creepy.
No one would blink at a 10 year age gap between two consenting adults, but if you revealed, “Oh, he was a friend of the family. He was always coming over while she was just a girl. In fact, they first met when she in school. He was her teacher. They started dating when she was in her 20s.” Suddenly, that ten year ago gap starts to look a lot more unhealthy.
What if Warren’s Blood Angel power is NOT from the Celestial Death Seed , but is actually from the 1) Celestial Life Seed and/or 2) The Black Vortex ? After all , according to Rick Remender , the CLS’s are designed to revive biologically barren planets , and in fact physically resurrected Warren’s corpse in the process creating an all-new soul (Jason Aaron’s NuAngel)*, while according to Brian Bendis , the Black Vortex boosts all stats to cosmic-levels.
@LuisDantas,
* OG Warren should have also recieved all of the separate memories of NuAngel (during Cullen Bunn’s Uncanny XMen run) when Warren, in his Dark ArchAngel persona resurrected in Clan Akkaba cloned body , fully merged with NuAngel (who again, was an all-new soul in Warren’s OG CLS-resuscitated body)
@S
No-Prize : In Earth-616, as a general rule , X-gene mutants are already feared and hated by everybody else just for existing , so they said to hell with itt and embraced being hedonists libertines whlle on Krakoa , which is why it became notorious as Orgy Island. At this point in time , the global mutant community is mournfully nostalgic for tragically-prematurely-ended First Krakoan Age , so theyre doubling down on being deviants degenerates LOL
Maybe it is just me, but I sortta feel that possibly having been a teacher for about five minutes is way less creepier than having been killed and ressurrected and turned into a mass murderer and whatnot several times.
Call me a prude if you must. It is okay. It really is.
@ChrisV
Tabby became the X-family’s No. 1 Bad Girl when she canonically stopped caring what anyone thought when she became MeltDown* in XForce Volume 1 issue 51 (December 1995) . She’d be the last person to give a damn about being what mainstream society thought of as healthy since she’s openly a Lindsay Lohan/Kesha-style partygirl who is super fond of alcohol (Next Wave) and casual sex (First Krakoan Age X-terminators)
*For those who don’t lnow or remember the backstory , which was when the XBooks were at the peak of their 1990’s interconnected soap-opera best-sales-ever era under group editor Bob Harris, is that after her attempt at being a conventional “good girl” ultimately caused Sabretooth to trick her into becoming his platonic girl-friend while he was in a peacefully childlike lobotomized state (which alarmed the rest of XForce enough to stage a 1990s style intervention to try and break up their friendship) only for it to be revealed that he who had already secretly fully recovered and reverted to his original sociopathic state, but losing both whatever still remained of his conscience and his weakness to the psychic “glow” pacification treatment. Sabretooth was being surrendered by Professor X to the USA Federal Government , and Tabitha confronted him for fooling her while he was strapped down in the Danger Room , and he triggered her by threatening to reveal to her then-romantic boyfriend Sam her hidden past (among other things , being a member of Vanisher’s gang of thieves) which she shared with him while he was still amnesiac. She then suddenly snapped so she tried to blow him up , but he survived and escape, in the process fatally injuring both Betsy (then still in Kwannon’s body) and Warren , which later led to their further transformations as Crimson-Dawn Psylocke and Archangel with Restored Feather-Wings but Still With Blue-Skin Plus Secret Healing Power (he cured Adam Kieros during The Twelve storyline) .
“Didn’t Boom Boom start out as one of X-Factor’s kid sidekicks when Angel was already an adult? Between bringing back his healing powers and his questionable predilection for younger blondes I wasn’t expecting Warren’s greatest hits to take a detour into the Chuck Austen era.”
Rich blond nepo-baby with a knack for running businesses into the ground and a penchant for much younger women? I dunno, maybe Marvel is just trying to be topical.
Are the Nasty Boys immortal now?
She was definitely younger than 16 in her early appearances. I’m at work so I can’t lay my hands on the issue, but she’s clearly established as younger than her peers.
Come to think of it, there was an early plot where she was trying to flirt with Bobby. X-Factor #12, IIRC.
The nice thing about Krakoa is that now all canonical ages are irrelevant and muddled, after a few resurrections. For all we know, both Tabitha and Warren are in their 20s now.
Honestly, teacher/mentor-student relationships in the X-Men feels like such a non-issue. Remember Rahne hooking up with Elixir? Lol.
You are all remembering wrong because even in NextWave Tabitha would drink alcohol. That means that she had to have been at least 21 in the United States. Right?
.
.
What do you mean? I’ll point out that ‘underage drinking’ certainly isn’t a thing.
To be fair, while the other members of X-Factor were Tabitha’s mentors for a while. Warren was only her guardian for a brief time. He was in the hospital when they took her in and “died” shortly afterward. Then he rejoined the team during Inferno and the kids briefly stayed with them from X-Factor 40-43 when X-Factor was sent off to the Judgement War and then X-Factor was their guardians again from New Mutants 88-89 until they hooked up with Cable.
@Jdsm24- It’s odd. Sabretooth asks Tabitha if Sam would pity her if he knew what she used to be. But he couldn’t have been talking about her being one of the Vanisher’s thieves. Hank. Bobby and Roberto already knew she was one of the Vanisher’s thieves. so Sam probably knew as well. It’s not clear what Sabretooth was talking about.
I think Sabretooth was hinting that Boom Boom was working as a child prostitute at some point after running away from home and joining up with X-Factor.
@ChrisV
Indeed such things were reportedly common in New York City in the decades pre-gentrification, for instance , during John Francis Moore’s XForce run , it was shown in a flashback during the story where guest-star Pete Wisdom aaks them to help him retrieve a Macguffin in Genosha (which Warren Ellis apparently liked so much he used it as the high concept for his Counter-X X-Force run) that Tabby regularly dealt with rough types while hanging out in literal backalleys, and its also implied she may have very well have even been forced to kill in self-defense on at least one occasion (like Ororo in her own backstory)
@ShadZ
As with everything in 2026 from the House of Ideas :
1) The readers demand it;
And/or
2) The writers are interested in it;
And/or
3) The editors are desperate for new beats LOL
In X-Factor #22 we are told that Tabitha is 14-years old by an agent of The Right who is referring to her database entry.
Tabby never met Warren while she was a student with X-Factor. By the time she joined up with X-Factor in #12, Warren was already hospitalized. Warren didn’t re-join the team until Inferno, which is when the X-Factor kids were written out of that book and Tabby joined the New Mutants. It’s possible she met him off panel by visiting him in the hospital, or that they were both on Ship at the same time for a couple hours during Inferno, but that’s just speculation.
When she meets X-Factor she”s one of several girls working as thieves for the Vanisher. One could certainly read that as a comics code compliant way to hint that Telly Porter was actually her pimp.
Whoops, Michael is right. She was on panel with Warren briefly after Inferno. Once at a funeral, and once carrying the kidnapped babies onto Ship. In neither panel to they speak to one another.