As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

COVER / PAGE 1. Boom-Boom in a cornfield. The Krakoan letters are “NM” for “New Mutants”.

PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits. This is “Fast and Furious” by Ed Brisson and Marco Failla. Most of this issue speaks for itself, annotation-wise, by the way.

PAGES 4-5. Boom-Boom learns that Armor has been gone for three days.

This version of Boom-Boom, like the version in the recent New Mutants miniseries, is clearly an alarmingly heavy drinker if not an outright alcoholic. The seemingly incessant partying of Krakoa allows her to fit in without being too obvious. And again… just how party-centric is this place?

Aside from Pixie, the other mutants at the party are mostly generics, although Shark Girl can be seen in the first panel, and the guy with his head on fire is presumably perennial background character Match.

PAGES 6-8. Túmolo addresses his captives.

As we’ll find out later, Túmulo and his gang are would-be drug smugglers who want to take advantage of Krakoa’s refusal to deal with their Marvel Universe micronation, Costa Perdita. The implication is that they came to Nebraska because Beak and Angel were recognisable associates of the X-Men, and somebody was bound to come along in the end who would be able to relay a message back to Krakoa. Their big plan is to hold everyone hostage in the hope of getting to deal with Krakoa. In this scene, though, Túmulo plays up his nation as a victim of predatory pharmaceutical pricing, to preserve the twist. (The story he tells is presumably true, since the subsequent data page expands on it.)

Túmulo has purple skin and he’s enormous, but he doesn’t seem to be a mutant, since he keeps referring to mutants as “your kind”.

Costa Perdita. Literally, “the Lost Coast”. This obscure Marvel Universe micronation previously appeared in the 2004 Warlock miniseries by Greg Pak and Charlie Adlard (which featured a version of Adam Warlock, not the X-books’ Warlock). But there’s no obvious connection between the two stories – and most of that series turned out to be a dream anyway. It may just have been plucked off the shelf of pre-existing generic nations.

PAGE 9. A data page about “Kevin MacKinnon”, the pharmaceutical CEO who massively raised the price of a drug that was needed to treat a condition that was particularly prevalent in Costa Perdita due to pollution issues. MacKinnon is a transparent stand-in for Martin Shkreli.

PAGE 10. Túmulo explains his demands.

Self-explanatory.

PAGE 11. Boom-Boom asks Sage about Armor’s disappearance.

Boom-Boom’s aliaes. Boom-Boom, Meltdown and Boomer are definitely genuine. Firecracker doesn’t ring a bell but sounds vaguely plausible. “Doctor Madam McSplode”, believe it or not, is kind-of-sort-of real. It’s a name that she came up with on the spur of the moment while pretending to be a bad guy in Cable & X-Force #11 (2013). (It may have been a reference to Moondragon’s first appearance, when she was calling herself Madame MacEvil.)

PAGE 12. More of the prisoners in the basement.

Again, self-explanatory.

PAGE 13. Tabitha goes to Nebraska.

So if you were wondering last issue – yes, there is no direct gate from Krakoa to Beak’s farm. It’s not clear where Boom-Boom comes out, but Omaha is probably the best bet.

PAGES 14-15. Túmulo explains the plot some more.

We’ve pretty much covered this already. “Llévala lejos” means “take her away.”

PAGE 16. Data page on Costa Perdita. The graphic has been lifted from Marvel Atlas #2, where it illustrated the article on Mexico (which is why Mexico is highlighted) – though the originally published version was cut off before the typo in “Costa Diablo”. The other listed fictional micronations are only really there because they happened to be in the recycled graphic already, but they’re Terra Verde (from early 70s Fantastic Four), Costa Verde (originally from Avengers #35 (1966), but also the home of Silverclaw from Kurt Busiek’s Avengers run), Rio de Muerte (from Captain America #206 (1977)), and Costa Diablo (from Iron Man #148 (1981)). In real world terms “Costa Perdita” seems to be somewhere near the border between Mexico and Guatemala. Terra Verde also gets a mention in this week’s X-Force, but that’s probably just coincidence.

PAGES 17-25. The captives make their break for freedom, and drunken Boom-Boom shows up.

Angel isn’t lying about her digestive system – we’ve seen before that this is how she and the kids always eat.

Maxime & Manon, though acting in self defence, go straight for the creepy mind control angle as soon as the opportunity presents itself. It’s perfectly clear that there’s something not right about these kids, above and beyond the fact that they were under Ahab’s influence in the Extermination mini. They’re still really quite nasty when they feel it can be justified as retribution.

PAGES 26-27. The reading list and trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: COMMANDO.