X-Men #35 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #35
“A Gift”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Mirrored images of the Beast with the X-Men, and the Chairman with 3K. Aside from Magneto/Joseph, the other individual members don’t match up one for one in the two group shots.
THE X-MEN:
Beast. At the end of issue #25, the Beast figured out that 3K’s Chairman was the original Beast, and made contact with him (with Animalia present). For anyone really coming to this new, the original Beast became a villain during the Krakoan era. The Beast currently with the X-Men is a clone who was restored from a back-up made long before that happened.
We didn’t get to see the conversation at the time. It turns out that Beast has only shared the information about the Chairman’s identity with Animalia and Cyclops. Scott permitted him to keep it to himself for the moment given the emotional sensitivity, but made clear that this could only be a breathing space. Animalia has evidently honoured this as well.
This issue contains a flashback to the actual conversation that followed issue #25, picking up directly from the last line of dialogue in that scene.
Magik. Beast asks Magik for advice on how to deal with the knowledge that he could become the Chairman. She accepts the premise that she has experience in dealing with her own dark side through having to deal with her own Darkchild persona. Arguably, the way it’s played in this issue doesn’t really reflect the recent Magik series, in which Illyana came to terms with the Darkchild persona as something that she had developed to protect herself. But that doesn’t really undermine the basic point that the Darkchild has done pretty terrible things – like invading New York – when left in control, and that Illyana has had to learn to deal with it.
Magik’s basic answer to the question is that being able to see your dark side clearly is a gift which prevents you from deluding yourself into thinking that you are a good person, and allows you to see clearly what you have to do. Ultimately, she briefly drops her persona to give him a hug.
She refers to being “stolen away to Hell”, meaning Limbo; that’s her origin story from Uncanny X-Men #160.
Cyclops. Appears briefly, talking to Xorn about the mysterious force field that was protecting the statute in Juniper last issue.
Kid Omega and Temper both appear very briefly, still keeping watch at Glob Herman’s bedside.
Juggernaut is doing his best to tend to the Factory’s hydroponic garden. This would normally be Glob Herman’s role.
Psylocke is training Ben Liu to fight.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Magneto. He still visits the Sukkat Shalom (temple of peace) in Merle on a regular basis. We have in fact seen it before, in X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #13-14. The Chairman attempts to recruit him, with what seems to be an offer to restore his powers.
Glob Herman. Still in the Factory medical bay, and apparently comatose, after being shot back in issue #26.
Xorn. He show up talking to Cyclops, and has no dialogue.
Animalia. In the main story, she’s helping Juggernaut in the hydroponic garden.
In the flashback, the Chairman addresses her directly and asks her whether she’s taken her mutant name Animalia yet – the name she was using when he met her as a member of the X-Men in the Age of Revelation timeline. This does raise the possibility that she only found out about this codename from the Chairman, but given how hostile she is towards him for transforming her, it seems more likely that she learned about it from Cyclops.
The Chairman refuses to apologise for Animalia’s transformation, claiming that he “took a wasted life and gave it purpose”. Ironically, given how depressing Animalia’s pre-X-Men life seems to have been, from the little we’ve heard about it, he might actually be right – see issue #21 in particular.
Ben Liu. Psylocke is training him to fight. He was wearing a generic X-Men uniform complete with black and yellow jacket in issues #31-33 (and also has it on the cover) but seems to be in civilian gear here, apart from an X-logo belt.
VILLAINS:
The Chairman. He only appears in the flashback that follows on from issue #25. He now regards “the Chairman” as his mutant name, not merely a title within 3K, and claims to have “outgrown” the name Beast, which he patronisingly allows the X-Men’s Beast to use.
He claims to have enjoyed his time in the far future during the Age of Revelation crossover. But he immediately makes clear that this isn’t because he enjoyed the horrifying aspects of the timeline – the accompanying art shows the Age of Revelation versions of Wolverine, Juggernaut and Magik, and the ultimate success of Revelation’s plan to turn the world into a hive mind under his control. Rather, what he seems to have enjoyed is being an X-Man again, with “compatriots that I could trust”. This hardly speaks well of how he’s getting on with the rest of 3K, and sits oddly with his claim to have outgrown the Beast identity and to view it as mere nostalgia.
He seems to regard Animalia as evidence that his goal of transforming humans into mutants is just. What he appears to be getting at is that she led a mundane and depressing life and 3K turned her into someone who wound up in the X-Men. But moreover, in Age of Revelation, he seems to share the Beast’s attraction to her.
His answer to other moral criticisms of his work is simply that his cloning technology will give him a series of bodies that will let him live until all his actions have been forgotten. The idea that morality might be relevant for anything other than reputational reasons no longer seems to register with him.
Although the Chairman had Wyre deliver an invitation to the Beast in an attempt to recruit him (in issue #18), he’s since lost interest. The Chairman claims that he thought Beast would be more suited among 3K’s ranks, but there’s a definite implication that he actually wanted Beast’s scientific knowledge, and no longer needs it given the information he learned about the X-virus in the Age of Revelation timeline.
The 3K X-Men and Joseph attack the Factory at the end of the issue. As before, the 3K X-Men are Constellation (the one with the cape), Galatea (the stone woman), Juice (the orange glob guy), Psychovore (in the containment suit) and Timebomb (in the red). The implication is that Joseph has replaced Schwartzchild as their team leader, rather than promoting from the ranks. One might assume that they’re here to recover Schwartzchild after he was recovered by the X-Men in issue #33.
> In the flashback, the Chairman addresses her directly and asks her whether she’s taken her mutant name Animalia yet – the name she was using when he met her as a member of the X-Men in the Age of Revelation timeline. This does raise the possibility that she only found out about this codename from the Chairman, but given how hostile she is towards him for transforming her, it seems more likely that she learned about it from Cyclops.
Wasn’t she talking about the name in #25, immediately before this scene?
“He only appears in the flashback that follows on from issue #25.”
And in the last two pages.
I think the idea is that the Chairman needs whatever crippled Magneto to complete the X-Virus. Maybe Magneto’s condition was somehow caused by the message Future Beast sent back from the future? It will be good to get the “Magneto-in-a-wheelchair” plot over.
Are there multiple Josephs? Magneto could have his own clone saga.
I hope they’re not setting up a Magneto heel turn. I don’t think they’ll kill him off (he did just die and come back, after all), but I could see, in the name of movie synergy, wanting to make him a villain again.
But he’s been largely on the side of the X-Men since 2011 (or earlier – his time in Genosha with Xavier before House of M was pretty benign, and there was the time when he ran the school before becoming a villain in the 90’s). And he’s seen significant character growth there, as a crusader for the downtrodden instead of a mutant supremacist. I hope he doesn’t revert to trying to realign the Earth’s magnetic field for some reason again just to make it work like the movies.
(for that matter, I think that moviegoers would rather see him as a hero as well, with the Sentinels and humanity as the X-Men’s real archvillain)
I don’t see them turning Magneto back into a villain. All the movie talk seems to point to Marvel wanting to bring the X-Men franchise back with something Dark Phoenix related, not turn the clock back to the first X-Men movie. Secondly, while I understand a lot of the controversy revolves around Magneto accepting fascism, during Secret Empire, Marvel wanted Magneto to make a deal with Steve Rogers, and the fans were very upset leading Marvel to change plans. I imagine a lot of fans would grow upset simply at the idea of turning Magneto back into a supervillain after all these years.
The other problem with turning Magneto into a supervillain again is that unless he’s made into a scenerry-chewing mass murderer, he’s just not so different from Cyclops these days. Where will the conflict come from?
What, you think Magneto was ever not a villain?
Anti-hero is not synonymous with villain.
I’m pretty sure there are multiple Josephs, yes. The one who showed up in a Scarlet Witch book a few years ago was way closer to currentMagneto in both age and character, than 3K-Joseph.
@Scott B- Yeah, there are multiple Joseph clones. According to the Chairman, this is the third or fourth Joseph.
I also doubt Magneto will turn into a villain again. At this point, Magneto has been replaced as the X-Men’s archenemy by Sinister. Sinister was the Big Bad of Krakoa, not Magneto. In fact, there have been rumors that the MCU is trying to cast Sinister.
This is in contrast to Thor, where the title has been struggling to find a new Big Bad since Loki abdicated the role. Ewing seems to be trying to solve this problem in two ways. First, he’s basically trying to slot Jormugandr into Loki’s role as Thor’s archenemy. That makes sense since Jormugandr is Loki’s spawn and fated to kill Thor in Norse Mythology. Ewing’s even playing up Jormugandr’s Loki-like traits- his manipulative tendencies, his refusal to accept blame for his actions. Meanwhile the Enchantress is taking over the role of plotting to steal the OdinPower and rule Asgard, which was previously Loki’s role.
Magneto is no anti-hero. He just happens to be a knack for deluding himself mightily deep on occasion, and to have become close to people who indulge him.
I think people are misinterpreting just what Ashley Allen did with Darkchild. Yes, it exists primarily to protect Illyana, but it’s still evil and still a threat she can’t afford to be complacent about or lose control to. She can use its power more freely since she knows it doesn’t want to hurt her, but she can’t cross certain lines or she still risks turning into a world-destroying monster. Allen was never trying to eliminate the risk or the inner struggle entirely, as that would eliminate the entire core of the character.
@Michael, the Thor writers also tried to slot Tyr in to replace Loki as Thor’s evil brother
I liked this one, just like last issue it’s nice when McKay slows things down for some character work. But even with the best will in the world, I just cannot buy into Evil Beast. Writers had been shitting all over him for years, probably since Bendis, and him going full villain in Percy’s X-Force was so disappointing. The Chairman might as well be a new character as far as I’m concerned, because it’s not the Henry McCoy that’s been around since 1963.
I wish they’d either just make this plot go away and leave clone Beast as the real McCoy (pun intended) without mentioning it again, or go the obvious route and say it was AoA Dark Beast all along.
“In fact, there have been rumors that the MCU is trying to cast Sinister.”
Umm… is it really a good idea for the MCU to use a character whose name was specifically chosen as the sort of thing an immature, emotionally-stunted 11-year-old would think was cool? I know we’ve all grown accustomed to it, but won’t the normies hear it and think (correctly), “That’s the stupidest villain name I’ve ever heard?”
(On the other hand, maybe it would work great under the unified theory of American reality that “everyone is twelve now.”)
I’ve never liked Sinister, but if putting him in the movies means filming even one story they haven’t made before, then it might be worth it.
They’d have to get rid of that awful costume, but the MCU is pretty good about that.
Mr. Sinister is a dumb name, but also the biggest MCU production in seven years centers on a guy called Dr. Doom, so…
And we’ve already had references to Essex in X-Men:Apocalypse, The New Mutants, and Deadpool 2 and to Millbury Hospital in The New Mutants.
Plus, I think movie-goers expect media based on comic books to be dumb. It’s about shutting off their minds and just enjoying some big, dumb fun. It’s what they associate with our hobby. We take these stories seriously and try not to think about a character called Mr. Sinister who looks like that. The movie-goers just accept that this is what the comic book world looks like and why they used to look down at the kids who bought and read the comics. They should play up the camp Sinister of Gillen and Hickman if they use him in a movie instead of trying to make him super-serious and intimidating. Movie fans will probably think of him as similar to a Marvel-version of the Joker.
@Chris V: Look no further than the way people accept that Spider-Man’s archfoe is a guy called “Green Goblin,” a name that, shorn of context, surely rivals “Mister Sinister” for sheer inanity.
The Joker’s an odd case in films, though. Jared Leto’s performance was widely panned, while two other Joker performances won Academy Awards. The Batman films seem to be among the few comic book movies that at least some critics and non-comics audiences will treat with a degree of seriousness.
Do you think we’re ever going to get an explanation for why they had no idea what Magneto’s resurrection linked sickness was in the future? Or is that a detail that’s just sort of been forgotten?
The 3K X-Men were so unremarkable that I literally don’t remember a single one of their names or powers.
@Jeremy H- The solicits make it clear that Magneto is the key to the Chairman’s scheme, and that he has a message from the future “written in his very blood”. I think that the idea is that somehow, Magneto’s condition was caused by the message Future Beast sent back and that’s why the Chairman needs him to complete the X-VIrus.
Chris M: I think making KrakoaBeast be DarkBeast would be a terrible idea. As is, we have a compelling (IMO) porttait of how a good man can become evil, one gradual bad decision at a time over the course of years. He absolutely *isn’t* 1964Beast, because he grew and changed. That is a rare thing to see in any medium, especially comics.
And KrakoaBeast is clearly aware of the changes. The fact that he wiped all his backups *except* the one that was before his first really bad decisions was no accident. KrakoaBeast knows that he’s not that guy anymore, and on some level misses being him.
Whatever happened to the idea we could get the return of “stars and garters” Beast?
Was it all just wishing/fantasy booking by older fans?
I don’t think Beast going full on evil in X-Force was character growth at all. Of all the characters to adopt a mutant supremacist ideology, Beast would have been low on my list. He’s the guy who left the X-Men during the Utopia era because of all the shady stuff Cyclops was doing. He may very well make bad decisions that he can rationalize away, like bringing the OG X-Men to the present day, but vivisection and mass murder?
Maybe it is nostalgia on my part. Watching X-Men ’97 reminded me why I liked Beast so much as a character. I don’t want characters to stay stagnant, change and evolution is good, I just don’t think Beast’s makes any sense at all.
@MarkCoale
But you did get him back, that’s why there’s Blue Beast again
@ChrisM
He probably thought Krakoa would last forever, so his buy-in to mutant CIA went all the way , like Julius Ceasar when he burned all the Roman ships in Britain tsk tsk tsk
@Jdsm24 about @MarkCoale
“But you did get him back, that’s why there’s Blue Beast again”
I think Mark is referring to actually seeing the happy go-lucky, joking, “stars and garters” version of the Beast in terms of characterization.
I did drop out of this run of X-Men after the first 10 or so issues, but the Blue Beast in that didn’t seem very happy go-lucky or joking.
I get that he has trauma to process from what he/his Krakoa self did, but I would prefer to not see it drag on as long as it has/did (since I’m not current, other than through these annotations, I don’t know if he’s gone back to the joking happy version, although I don’t think that’s the case from what I’m seeing here).
These days I just find myself appreciating that MacKay came up with a story, figured it out, is juggling a moderately-sized cast, and gives each of them moments of spotlight. The fact that I don’t really like the story is almost beside the point. Tallest kid in kindergarten energy.
@Chris M- What really cemented the idea of Beast as a villain was Warren Ellis’s Ghost Boxes arc in Astonishing X-Men in 2009. In it, Beast and Abigail Brand decide to respond to the threat of the Ghost Boxes by killing everything in the alternate universe they come from within a 10-mile radius of the base they originate from. Killing everything within a 10-mile radius seemed ridiculously disproportionate to the threat. And Scott seems to agree that it was justified or at least understandable. Of course, this is also the story where Forge goes nuts, which has to be walked back in later issues. Ellis’s characterizations in this story seemed off and the editor shouldn’t have let him get away with it. But this story seems to have cemented the idea of Hank and Brand as villains in certain writers’ eyes.
But later on. during Bendis’s run, Kitty explicitly said that everyone was worried Hank was turning into the Dark Beast.
Yeah, I meant personality-wise, that Avengers era Beast, not just the blue and furry visuals.
95%+ of my X-News I get here, and that’s often browsing rather than reading intently, I certainly have not an actual X-book since Kratoa.
I know we’ve moved on, but my husband literally just said, “Who’s the villain in that new movie? Mister Doom?”
So, yeah, non-comic readers think all the names are silly.
And getting back to Sinister in the MCU, it’s confirmed that Adam Driver will be playing Sinister.
Apparently at D23, Driver was announced as ‘Nathaniel Milbury,’ but everyone knows that’s Mr. Sinister. This might be like in Spidey: Brand New Day, Bernthal is only called ‘Frank,’ but the audience knows he’s the Punisher.
@John Wyatt- Sinister has used the “Nathaniel Milbury” alias before on multiple occasions. If an actor in a Spider-Man film was announced as “Dr. Ludwig Rinehart” you could be pretty sure he’s playing Mysterio.
Driver is a good choice for Sinister.
Physically he is a great match.
I hope he performs the role like Nicholas Cage would.
I keep seeing him going for dark and brooding, but that’s because I can’t get his portrayal of Kylo Ren out of my head.
But if there’s one place Marvel has earned the benefit of the doubt, it’s in casting.
Ooooh. Will Sinister have his cape? I hope he starts off without it and gets one about halfway in.