X-Men #30 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #30
“Danger Room, part 5”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Simply the X-Men charging into battle.
THE X-MEN:
The Beast. He gives Beyond’s techno-organic creature a pep talk about personhood, empathy, and rejecting the roles that have been imposed on them, all of which wins it round to their side. This fits with the broad theme of the story: the plans of the Danger Room psychopaths fail because the X-Men are more reasonable and empathic than they expect. Not all of them, admittedly, but enough of them.
His justification for codenames is that mutants “take on new names of our own choosing to better reflect our ongoing relationships with the genetic expression of our species”. Something broadly similar was put forward in the Krakoan era, with a suggestion that mutants who kept using their birth names, like Fabian Cortez, were seen as vaguely disreputable. (Ben Liu still hasn’t got a codename, which is all the more noticeable because Animalia has.)
Beast doesn’t accompany the rest of the X-Men to threaten Frank Bohannan in the epilogue. Possibly that’s because he’s not normally a field team member – Cyclops refers to the group who show up as the full team – but it would also be inappropriate for the “heart of the team” role that the story is casting him in.
Cyclops. He claims that he didn’t simply blunder into fighting the Beyond creature – he always intended Beast’s diplomacy as a fallback plan. Beast isn’t sure whether Cyclops is bluffing about this.
Juggernaut and Magik are there, but don’t do much.
Kid Omega. He forcibly searches the minds of everyone in Merle, looking for the person who shot Glob. Unlike in issue #28, Magneto is able to talk him down. Perhaps Kid Omega is already realising that he’s not finding anything, though that was precisely what Colton predicted would make him angry. Magneto is also a bit more empathetic in the way he makes his point this time round – in issue #28 he pretty much shouted at Quentin and called him a moron, while this time he leans more on how he used to feel the same way.
At first, Quentin argues for punishing the whole town anyway because the locals deserve to be held responsible for building Sentinels, but he accedes to Magneto’s arguments against collective punishment. Once calmed, he wipes the town’s memories of the incident – which is morally dubious, but not a punishment, and at least arguably intended to thwart Beyond’s plans rather than simply to cover up his actions. Magneto seems very much in favour of this.
Temper also grudgingly accepts that the locals are not to blame, and shifts her revenge quest to the real killer.
Colton mentions that Temper and Kid Omega are both killers. In Temper’s case, that’s a reference to X-Men: Schism #3. Quentin doubtless killed a bunch of bad guys during his time in X-Force.
Psylocke. She bills herself as “the world’s greatest psychic ninja-assassin”. She correctly concludes that the Danger Room are psychopaths who “lack whatever it is that lets them understand the suffering they inflict on others” – it’s not clear whether this is a psychic read or a personality one. The implication seems to be that she gives them empathy so that they can be tormented by their past actions, but we don’t actually see what happens.
Arguably, Psylocke’s strand of this story is the one where the X-Men don’t win because they display more empathy; Psylocke’s trio just beat Beyond in a fight. But then the whole point of her arc is that she insists on going to be with Greycrow because she loves him.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Magneto. He has to follow Kid Omega and Temper to town in a truck – apparently his flying chair isn’t particularly useful as a means of transport. Somehow, he’s able to confront Kid Omega on the psychic plane – it’s possible that Kid Omega simply makes contact with him while frantically searching.
Animalia. She’s left behind at the Factory to look after Glob.
Ben Liu. He used to have a Ferrari when he worked in finance, and knows how to drive a car with a manual gearbox. Ben never really seems too upset about the loss of his previous life, although he does talk here about 3K having “nuked” it by giving him mutant powers against his will.
Paula Robbins is there in the boat scenes, but doesn’t do anything.
Greycrow. His powers can override Beyond’s own systems.
Xorn. He shows up at the Danger Room’s HQ along with Psylocke and Greycrow,
Glob Herman appears in one panel and is said to be stable.
VILLAINS:
Maxine Danger. At the start of the issue she congratulates the Danger Room, but immediately makes clear that she’s unhappy with how long Colton’s plan is taking – she wants Merle to be on fire. When Colton’s plan fails altogether, she seems to be planning to kill him as punishment (at the very least she’s going to fire him). Once she realises that Psylocke and co have the upper hand, she teleports away, and abandons the Danger Room members to their fate.
Colton Colton. He’s understandably rattled at Maxine’s criticisms, correctly anticipating retribution, but stands his ground and argues for patience.
Charlene Jackson, Grigos and Marquez don’t get much to do.
Leviathan. This is the name now chosen by Beyond Corporation Prototype Biomech Weapon Serial #92523-23498. It believes itself to have been created by the Beyond Corporation as a weapon, which is consistent with the little information we’ve had about its origins. (In issue #27, Griggs and Marquez simply say that Beyond “supplied” it; in issue #28, Maxine says that Beyond “couldn’t figure out a way to monetise” it.)
At first, Leviathan sees its role as a weapon as inconsistent with personhood – displaying empathy, it says, would make it “go insane”. However, it’s obviously not completely sold on this idea, since it’s trying to make contact with Beast and learn about the world from him. Not surprisingly, Beast sees parallels between Leviathan’s enslavement and Wolverine’s origin story. We don’t find out what happens to the creature after it’s freed from Beyond.
Frank Bohannon. He lives in military housing. The X-Men show up to threaten him and tell him that if he goes after them again, Psylocke will come back and kill him.
After all this time, I still don’t feel like we even have all that good an idea of what Ben Liu’s powers are or what he can do. Is it really just illusion casting or something more? Is there a reason he’s done so little besides hang around?
I read this as Psylocke giving the Danger Room people empathy which… yeah, I’m sure that won’t stick. Not eager to see any of them again.
I’m sure Leviathan will return. Maybe it’ll become the X-Men’s new home and/or transportation at some point. It should really get together with Warlock and/or Glitch (Spider-Man’s new pal.)
Ah, Quentin did the Xavier Special (erasing non-mutants’ minds). It’s possible that Magneto used his rarely seen telepathic powers to go onto the psychic plane. He used to be able to do something similar to talk to Xavier.
“In Temper’s case, that’s a reference to X-Men: Schism #3. Quentin doubtless killed a bunch of bad guys during his time in X-Force.”
Also, Quentin killed people when he was leading the Omega Gang and Temper got sent to the Pit because she killed some pirates.
I don’t think Scott was wrong for assuming the situation called for aggression. They found a kidnapped Paula Robbins inside the Beyond creature. He was entirely justified in assuming it was hostile.
I’m also not buying that Scott brought Beast along in case he needed to negotiate with the creature. First, Beast has rarely been shown to be an effective negotiator. Second, Scott had no way of knowing that Beyond’s trap. whatever it was, would be sentient.
At least they saved Glob. It’s not like anything bad will come of that. I’m sure he won’t be chosen as the herald of an ancient evil. Um, never mind.
@The Other Michael- Ben Liu’s powers are apparently reality warping.
When Ben brought Magneto to see Quinten, did he just toss him and the chair in the back of the pickup to drive in, like the Beverly Hillbillies?
If all he was going to do is have a psychic conversation with Quinten, why bother leaving the factory?
While I think this has been the strongest of the post-Krakoa books, I’ve been fairly underwhelmed with the underuse of Magneto in it.
Reality warping is such an overdone mutant power, if you ask me. Mainly because it’s usually an excuse to write completely insane villains (Proteus, Jamie Braddock, Jim Jaspers, Oscar, Legion half the time), or inconveniently plot-convenient characters (Legion half the time, Franklin Richards sometimes, Mister M…)
Ben Liu’s power should literally be to summon fleets of alien ships, with a reverse limit of size to duration. Extraterrestial, extradimensional, whatever. You want 1000 Skrull ships, or 10 Chitauri cruisers, or maybe just Taa II, he’s your guy. They show up pissed, destroy stuff, are sent home again when the power wears off.
I’m 90% sure that cover is an homage, maybe to an old issue of X-Factor? I can’t quite place it, but I’m getting Wilce Portacio vibes.
Oh, I was close. It’s a remix of X-Factor #50 by Liefeld & McFarlane.
@OtherMichael: “I read this as Psylocke giving the Danger Room people empathy which… yeah, I’m sure that won’t stick.” But it worked out so well with Cassandra Nova!
Showcasing a compassionate Beast is an interesting choice. That’s my favorite version of Hank McCoy, but it’s not how he’s been written in, what, over a decade? It feels very deliberate showing that this Beast has empathy, while The Chairman appears to be as much of a sociopath as the Danger Room. It certainly doesn’t fit with Percy’s “Actually, Beast was always a monster” take.
Colton Colton’s plan was pretty terrible. It turns out framing a town for murder doesn’t really work when you’re trying to convince someone who can just read everyone’s minds, then make them forget. We also see a dog with glowing eyes, so apparently Quentin thought Glob might have been shot by a dog.
@MasterMahan- Colton’s plan makes sense when you’re dealing with someone as stupid as Quentin. Quentin fell into Colton’s trap even after Magneto WARNED HIM it was a trap. Quentin probably would have attacked the town anyway if Magneto hadn’t talked him out of it.
You used code names because you were a paramilitary strike team who wanted to keep your identities secret Hank.
I was sure that Quentin was going to do something he couldn’t take back, because… well, otherwise he would have to get talked down into taking it back.
I think the traditional twist here would be that someone in town still remembers, and can use this against him. But it’s probably too late to pull that out of a hat now.
That “What’s your name / what’s your REAL name” bit from X-Men 2 is still paying dividends. And rightfully so, it was a good bit.
Scott has consistently been written as a good reader of people and a supernaturally good tactician in the last five years or so (which is an eternity for the purposes of X-Men characterization). He totally would have this auxiliary plan.
@MasterMahan
Since were-canines of various species (x-gene mutant , DarkHold-cursed descendant etcetera) are canon in 616 , you can never be too sure to write off the possibility of a dog with a gun LOL
@M
Clone Hank (“Blue Beast” according to Brevoort in letters column) just being accurate to the Millenial mentality , two things can be both true
@LuisDantas
Even if Scott is lying to save face , Hank has no way to verifying it at the moment anyway and it would be too awkward to ask any telepath to probe Scott’s mind just to learn the truth of the matter KEK
“She bills herself as “the world’s greatest psychic ninja-assassin”.”
Out of a list of how many other psychic ninja-assassins?
“But it worked out so well with Cassandra Nova!”
Didn’t Doug try to do something similar with Sabretooth recently too, and Creed basically laughed in his face?
In the real world, it would be wonderful if we could force empathy and self-awareness on people who lack it. (Barely a day goes by when I don’t wish I could do that to most of our political leaders.) But it’ll never stick in comics because of the nature of serialized storytelling and Stan’s illusion of change. So writers should be probably be careful not to overuse it, because it’s easier for us to overlook “HOW do they keep breaking out of super-prison?” than it is to ignore “Wait, they shouldn’t be psychologically capable anymore of the horrible things they’re doing.”
@wwk5d
““She bills herself as “the world’s greatest psychic ninja-assassin”.”
Out of a list of how many other psychic ninja-assassins?”
And the funny thing is that even though the pool of candidates is extremely small, it’s still questionable whether she should be at the top of the list, given that the other contender for the title is none other than Elektra Natchios (who possesses psychic powers, albeit not of the same caliber). And the fact that over the past five months we’ve been reading a miniseries centered on the confrontation between the two makes it hard not to think of that right away when reading that line…
I suppose “nearly the greatest” does not have the same punch to it.
I’d say she is the best psychic ninja assassin, whereas Elektra is the best ninja assassin, with incidental psychic powers.
There’s also Typhoid Mary, but she’s a mere psychic assassin, not a ninja.
As opposed to Manslaughter, who was just a psychic assassin.
Psylocke, NOT the world’s greatest psychic ninja assassin. But the most enthusiastic!
@Oldie: I thought the cover was an homage to Jim Lee’s X-Men Annual 1 cover. Looking at both X-Factor 50 & X-Men Annual 1, I see elements of both. The Cyclops figure reminds me of the annual, however.
Not a bad issue- I think Cyclops claiming that Beast’s empathy was the back-up plan is Scott’s version of a joke. I’m a little worried that McKay is repeating himself, as Leviathan reminds me of the sentient city from his Avengers run- but I was entertained. Badass Psylocke works. Magneto finally had something relevant to do. I worry that Idie is still getting lost in the shuffle. Hopefully, she’ll get a story arc soon. Also: more Xorn and Greycrow would be nice. Ben, on the other hand, is kind of a non-character to me, I don’t even notice when he’s not on panel.
Also: X-Men Annual 1 has art by Jim Lee (layouts) and BRIAN STELFREEZE! P CRAIG RUSSELL! MARK TEXIERA! GREG CAPULLO! STUART IMMONEN! We don’t know how good we had it in 1992.
I am here for a New Defenders reference. Manslaughter was one of the best characters to come out of that series.
X-Men Annual #1 also has something called “Shattershot”, which was a crossover with other X-annuals, featuring a non-satirical, not funny, grim ‘n’ gritty Mojoworld story…so, not so lucky. Just because these X-Men comics are so mediocre and boring doesn’t mean we need to put rose-coloured glasses on about the early-‘90s. X-Men comics: almost routinely terrible for thirty-four years and counting, minus a few years here and there.
Now, New Defenders, on the other hand…talk about not knowing how good we had it, and that book got cancelled, while a comic with a story titled “Shattershot” was the top-selling comic in the world.
Yeah, the Shattershot cover has some similarities too. But I think we’re missing some cover that it references more specifically. Psylocke’s pose is familiar, Magik looks like Kurt on Peter’s shoulder, and there’s a character there on the center right that’s clearly in an Iceman pose. Even Quire looks like he’s in a familiar pose.
@Chris V- yes, “Shattershot” was a bad story. But… the artists I listed plus Jae Lee (Uncanny X-Men Annual), Joe Quesada (X-Factor Annual), and Greg Capullo (again, this time on the X-Force Annual)… such style, vigor, and weirdness!
Yeah, Shattershot is a nonsense-to-terrible story, but damn, it looks good!
Which really is the early 90s X-comics in a nutshell.