X-Men #32 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #32
“Anomaly, part 2”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Kid Omega, Beast, Animalia and Xorn fight off Department H.
THE X-MEN:
As before, it’s the Science Team in this issue. There isn’t a huge amount to say about this issue in continuity terms – it’s a pretty straightforward middle chapter – but let’s run through it anyway.
The Beast. After failing to make much headway with his diplomatic approach last issue, he does rather better this time. When everyone else starts squabbling about what to do about Schwartzchild and Department H, he takes command and successfully asserts his authority. He’s able to get the likes of Magneto and Kid Omega to do what he wants them to. And he does ultimately manage to talk down the panicky officer in charge of the downed Department H ship, who finally accepts his help.
Magneto. He doesn’t care about helping the Department H people who crashed. As far as he’s concerned, they’re the bad guys and it’s their problem. When Beast directly instructs him to help keep Department H at bay – Beast believes that if their aircraft attack then they’ll get killed by Schwartzchild’s gravitational anomalies – Magneto initially protests, then shifts to arguing that he can’t do anything useful against a gunship in his current state. Beast responds by giving him another injection of Dextroamphetamine-X to temporarily restore his powers (as in issue #16), which works wonders.
Once his normal power levels are restored, Magneto is downright delighted to take on the task of dealing with Department H. Although he is genuinely trying to keep them at bay, he really enjoys having his normal power levels back, at least briefly. He blatantly takes pleasure in running rings around the Department H ships and generally humiliating them.
Kid Omega. Generally, he seems to be in a fairly professional mood this issue. He says he can’t use his powers to warn the Department H pilots about the gravitic anomalies because they’re psi-shielded. According to him, he could force his way through it, but he thinks that would prompt an attack. This seems to be a sincere explanation of why he isn’t helping – while he might not care that Department H are about to crash, he probably does care if they’re going to do it on top of him.
He warns Beast that his instruction to “psychically stabilize Schwarzchild” is easier said than done, but does make a serious effort to carry out the order. He enlists a reluctant Ben Liu to help – according to Kid Omega, because Ben also had a 3K psychic defence system, he can use that to help defuse Schwarzchild’s own psychic defences. (Kid Omega dealt with Ben’s psychic defences in issue #5, and – as he says in a footnote – adapted them as a weapon against Professor X in issue #13.) Interestingly, when Ben refuses to co-operate, Quentin drags him into it anyway, and then gives him something of a lecture about this being what the X-Men do. While many X-Men would do this as a way of taking the moral high ground with Ben, Quentin seems to see Ben as a bit of a whiner who likes the idea of being an X-Man without taking on the actual work.
Animalia. Her instinct is to help the Department H men in the downed aircraft. She aligns with Beast’s diplomatic approach.
Ben Liu. He argues for killing Schwarzchild in order to stop his powers going out of control, but this seems more like a convenient excuse given that he also wants to kill Schwarzchild simply because he was associated with 3K. When Kid Omega enlists his help to stabilise Schwarzchild, he point blank refuses. Kid Omega responds by overriding his wishes.
Xorn. As in the previous issue, he’s firm about not killing Schwarzchild (or anyone else). His helmet completely blocks his sense of smell. He says that he can sense recent deaths in his vicinity, which is certainly in his Official Handbook entry, though I’m not sure where it ultimately comes from..
VILLAINS:
Department H. Not unreasonably, they consider themselves to have jurisdiction over the situation. Somewhat less reasonably, they attempt to detain the X-Men on sight, though you could probably make a case that they are, at the very least, in the country illegally. They do at least ask the X-Men to surrender first.
They don’t seem to recognise Ben Liu or Animalia (though in her case, she’s in a new form). Interestingly, they do recognise Schwartzchild, even though he’s done little or nothing in the public eye.
When Schwarzchild’s powers knock one of their aircraft out of the sky, they assume it’s an attack – a very questionable reaction, because they’ve already identified Schwartzchild by this point, and they know he’s associated with 3K. Despite being reasonably familiar with the X-Men, they seem to think all the mutants must be on the same side.
Schwartzchild. He remains unconscious throughout this issue. His mindscape, when visited by Quentin and Ben, is completely blank aside from a giant brain which seems to be wired up to time bombs.
“Despite being reasonably familiar with the X-Men, they seem to think all the mutants must be on the same side.”
In the Krakoa days, they pretty much all were, from the rest of the world’s perspective. And the Krakoa days were about 2 minutes ago due to Marvel Time.
I’ve always thought that the panic by the governments and creating Orchis were in large part due to the perception that “oh no, the X-men have finally joined the rest of the mutants to act against humans.” Historically, most named mutants were opponents for the X-men and associated teams, so a large percentage over 50% were supervillains (off the cuff, I would say somewhere between 75% and 90% but I don’t pretend that I’ve spent time coming up with a real calculation).
To be fair, I don’t even recognize Ben Liu as an X-Man. No codename, no real use of powers, barely a personality or backstory to mention–he’s about as vague and blank a slate as one can really be. I mean, at least Jen’s got a codename, visually interesting powers, and a personality trait to her.
I love MacKay’s work but Ben is such a misfire of a character so far. (Mind you, I also blame MacKay for creating entire teams of forgettable weirdos over in the Avengers, so maybe he’s not -always- on top of things when he tries to juggle large casts?)
MacKay seems to be taking the position that although Magneto no longer hates ordinary humans, he still has plenty of anger towards humans that actually persecute mutants.
The Beast displays leadership skills by being able to get strong-willed individuals to do what he needs them to do, just like the Chairman. Which is ironic, since he’s cleaning up a mess the Chairman made.
Brevoort said on the letters page that Jean will later be appearing in X-Men. But “be careful what you wish for”.
Sam-The impetus behind the creation of Orchis was the realization that more and more mutants were being born, and that it was only a matter of time before mutants outnumbered baseline humans, and humans were on the way to extinction.
The reason that Orchis became active was due to Krakoa, as mutants forming their own nation was considered the tipping point for an extinction-level threat. Now, mutants could organize and ensure that Homo Sapiens weren’t able to act towards preserving their species against extinction (as seen in Moira’s past lives when humans turned to nanotech or genetic engineering to try to preserve their species at the expense of Homo Superior).
As far as the governments going along with Orchis, yeah, probably.
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“Brevoort said on the letters page that Jean will later be appearing in X-Men. But ‘be careful what you wish for’.”
It’s creepy childlike Jean from that John Byrne project.
I feel like it has been telegraphed that “Xorn” is a Joseph clone. Like why else would Astra be there.
He helps the X-Men ZERO in every single thing they do, he just stands around. He is monitoring them.
@Oscar: That would be very funny. Quentin had a weird line about him last issue iirc – he said neither Magneto nor Xorn are the Magneto/Xorn who was there when Cassandra Nova attacked the school. Which makes sense for Magneto due to the Xorneto retcon… but doesn’t make sense for Xorn – it was Shen Xorn who was retconned into the Morrison run.
As for this issue – I like it. I like more focus on Beast. This is still one of the lesser MacKay titles (though miles ahead of his Avengers), but when it hits, it’s good fun.
Nope, I got my Xorns confused, Kuan-Yin was Xorneto. Disregard everything.
@Oscar- We saw Xorn heal Glob a few issues ago. He can’t be a Joseph clone- Joseph isn’t a healer.
Maybe Glob was shot by the nano-Sentinels, in the same fashion as Magneto (as Xorn) healed the X-Men under Morrison. Everyone was saying Magneto isn’t a healer also. It’s all a clever hint.
Any Xorn post-Morrison isn’t a character. It’s an editorial fiat or a cipher. Who even knows who Xorn is? Why he’s with the X-Men?
Arguably he suffers the same yellowface problems as bodyswap Psylocke. ‘Xorn’ was originally Magneto cosplaying as a Chinese man, who the others didn’t question as he’s hidden behind a mask and didn’t have enough knowledge to challenge. Xorn has subsequently been retrofitted into an actual character, but hasn’t had the wider rehabilitative work that Kwannon has received. And.. there’s two of him, as a twin!! What a mess.
(can also argue if representation counts if the race isn’t visible!).
@Michael –
he didn’t heal him. He just took out the bullet.
I would love to know what Beast did to dexies to make them help Magneto like this. It’s an odd choice, as Mackay totally could have invented some MacGuffin drug with a drawback. Nope, dexies with an X.
He probably just added a ‘90s-style X to dexies. Good thing it was Xorn and not Magneto from Morrison’s run, otherwise it would be very irresponsible of Beast to get a recovering addict started on those drugs.