X-Corp #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-CORP #2
“A Shark in the Water”
by Tini Howard, Alberto Foche & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1. A stylised picture of Monet at the gala, with the same mock pharmaceutical layout elements as we had in issue #1. The “mg” after the issue number seems to be standard, and the number of tablets is presumably the number of pages in the print edition (counting adverts).
PAGE 2. Monet prepares for the Hellfire Gala.
Sunspot was shown as being involved in X-Corp before he relocated to the Shi’ar Empire. We’re told later in the issue that he invested a lot of his own money, so he does indeed have a legitimate interest in what they’re up to.
Sebastian Shaw. Monet elects not to listen to his message at all. Again, though, Shaw has perfectly good reasons for contacting her – he’s the Black King of Hellfire Trading, with responsibilities for distributing the pharmaceuticals that X-Corp manufactures.
Professor X. Generally recapping the events of issue #1, and questioning Monet’s decision to reveal the X-Corp HQ at the end of the issue. He seems to be saying that she’s messed up the planned orderly release of a home office technology, and is exposing X-Corp to attention that it isn’t ready to deal with yet, since it doesn’t actually have the product ready to launch. Whether Monet actually has a proper plan, or whether she’s just arrogant, remains to be seen.
PAGE 3. Monet discusses things with Angel.
Sofia Mantega – Wind Dancer – was shooting an X-Corp commercial last issue. The fact that Monet can’t remember her name doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that she’s thought through all the details here.
Monet’s plan for the evening is, to be honest, bordering on incomprehensible. Something about trying to make sure that more people want to meet with them than they can actually accommodate, so that they look impressive? I guess? The recap page clarifies that the urgency to round out the board comes from X-Corp having been prematurely announced by Monet last issue; page 9 spells out a little more clearly that Monet was meant to be using the big shiny headquarters to distract from the loss of the Savage Land holdings. I suppose that sort of justifies the idea that she needs to follow up and keep the momentum.
PAGE 4. Recap and credits. As with other “Hellfire Gala” tie-in issues, the design evokes an invitation.
PAGES 5-6. Madrox and Trinary prepare for the evening.
We’ve seen throughout the Gala issues that all of the waiters and bar staff are Madrox duplicates. This scene confirms that they’re basically being used to let Madrox monitor the whole thing.
Lots of people want to meet during the Hellfire Gala to discuss joining the board. We’ll come back to the individuals named here. I suppose, given that X-Corp #1 is supposed to be very recent and the “launch” is meant to make the board an urgent issue, it would make sense that they’d be ploughing on with this task during the Gala.
PAGE 7. X-Corp arrive at the Gala.
A French 75 is a cocktail. Monet continues to aggravate Madrox for no good reason.
PAGE 8. Data page. This is apparently Sofia’s list of people for them to meet. Given that Sofia’s role was defined last issue and earlier in this issue as marketing, I’m not clear why she’d be advising on this.
Neal Shaara is the third Thunderbird, a little-used X-Man who comes from Chris Claremont’s short-lived 2000 run and the subsequent X-Treme X-Men spin-off. He’s not done a great deal since. Of some vague note is that his back story ties him to his partner Karima Shapandar, who is now involved with Orchis.
Selene Gallio is the former Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, but since she’s not currently associated with them, she’s listed here as the “Black Priestess.” That was her title in her earliest appearances, from New Mutants vol 1 #9. The “nasty rumours about what she’s been up to when she’s away from Krakoa” might relate to her role as a member of the Power Elite in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Captain America run. But Selene was captured in Captain America vol 9 #23 (which came out last September), and that issue says she was going to be handed over to the Quiet Council. This seems to be largely a breakdown of communications between the two titles, since her activities in Captain America really ought to result in her being banished to the Pit with Sabretooth. The X-books don’t want to do that, so it looks like we’re just going to ignore it. This is more of a general problem with the Coates’ Captain America run, which is a very long, extended storyline that doesn’t neatly fit anywhere in particular.
Sara St John. Noblesse Pharmaceuticals was the company that complained about the Savage Land farms in the previous issue, apparently on behalf of Jean-Pierre Kol. St John seems to confirm later on that he’s an investor and it’s her company. Incidentally, the claim here that St John is the only human to ask to meet rather belies the claim elsewhere in the issue that there’s tremendous pressure to follow up on the “launch”.
Trinary tells us that St John has come up with several patents for medical devices which “look like a mess”. It’s not clear to me whether she’s saying that the patents wouldn’t stand up to challenge, or that the devices themselves wouldn’t work (though that would also make the patents invalid in most jurisdictions – the whole point of the patent bargain is that you get a temporary monopoly in exchange for disclosing how to do something). Since Trinary’s power is simply to talk to machines, I’m not clear what qualifications she would have to express a view on patent law and/or medical devices.
Mastermind. Recently seen over in Hellions. His “daughters” both also go by Mastermind or Lady Mastermind. Sofia rightly perceives him as trying to muscle in on her PR role.
X-Corp have also approached Bishop and Risque – presumably for reasons connected with their powers, since neither has any relevant business experience. The entry for Thunderbird seems to confirm that in Bishop’s case, at least.
PAGE 9. Monet and Warren meet Neal and Roberto.
Neal doesn’t get the chance to do much here.
Sunspot barely knows him, as far as we’re aware, so it’s hardly surprising that he barely remembers recommending him. We’ve seen him investing very enthusiastically in the Shi’ar Empire in Hickman stories.
PAGE 10. Madrox swaps places with a dupe.
The first mention in the Krakoan era of Layla Miller, who was indeed married to Jamie Madrox by the end of 2005-2013 run of X-Factor. The two of them had retired to the Madrox family farm at the end of that, since when Layla hasn’t been mentioned. She’s just… vanished. There was some ambiguity in X-Factor about whether Layla was actually a mutant or not – a couple of stories expressly cast doubt on it – which may account for her absence from Krakoa. But clearly it’s a story that needs addressed if Madrox is going to be a regular character.
PAGE 11. Warren meets with Selene.
Selene is basically making a pitch that she’s valuable as a negotiator. Quite why she wants to be on X-Corp’s board isn’t addressed and nobody seems to think it worth asking her, which is a bit silly.
PAGES 12-13. Warren and Monet dismiss Fenris.
Fenris already have a position in Hellfire Trading, according to Marauders, so it’s not obvious why they’re trying to get into X-Corp too. They are indeed basically neo-Nazis, and Warren understandably makes the point that they don’t really have very much to offer anyway. That said, Warren’s precise reasons are a bit incoherent. He seems to be saying that Krakoa is a post-scarcity economy with unlimited resources (which would indeed put them in a destablising position in the global economy)… but “tons of money” was basically what Sunspot is acknowledged to bring to the table. You can’t have it both ways.
There’s something weird about the dialogue between Monet and Jamie on page 13, where presumably she’s offering him a seat on the board. Either they’re meant to be communicating partly telepathically, or there’s something missing – it just doesn’t make sense as printed.
PAGES 14-15. Mastermind makes his pitch.
Mastermind’s basic pitch is that image is everything, and he’s an illusionist. Which… doesn’t really make sense. How do his illusion powers help with image on the scale of public relations involved here? If he’s suggesting that he’s willing to use his powers to manipulate people for X-Corp’s agenda, then okay, but again, what’s his motivation for this?
PAGE 16. Monet realises that Fenris are going after X-Corp HQ.
Apparently X-Corp HQ, despite being incredibly valuable and top secret, is completely accessible to any mutant. That really makes no sense on any level beyond “the plot demands it”. There’s a baffling attempt on page 22 to suggest that this is some sort of analogy to “open-plan work space” but…. what? This is just reciting buzzwords.
PAGE 17. Monet reaches Andrea.
Well, that wasn’t very interesting. It’s also botched on a storytelling level, since it looks like Monet beats Andrea in two panels, but when we see them again, they’re still fighting.
PAGES 18-22. Warren confronts Andreas.
Warren refers to Andreas as “the Swordsman”, which was the identity he used as a member of the Thunderbolts – specifically, at a time when Andrea was dead and he was separated from her. It’s always been strongly indicated that the Fenris twins have an unhealthily close relationship, shall we say. Nonetheless, one of Andreas’s redeeming qualities is his genuine concern for his sister.
Fenris have set themselves up as pharmaceutical consultants, which Warren acknowledges they’re more or less free to do. Um, while being involved in Hellfire Trading…?
PAGE 23. The debrief.
The suggestion here seems to be that Warren did lose his temper while fighting Andreas, and turned into Archangel, but Mastermind helped to cover it up – presumably to ingratiate himself with Warren for his campaign to get onto the Board.
PAGE 24. Data page. Mastermind has now been accepted as an equal CXO with Warren and Monet, and it seems we have two slots still to fill. So we’re likely to be in team-gathering mode for a while yet. Right now, quite honestly, this book feels like a dud on a par with Fallen Angels; I wouldn’t be entirely shocked if it doesn’t last much beyond that team-gathering arc.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: EXPONENTIAL GROWTH.
X-Corp baffles me at the moment.
I was hoping for a Dynasty style, back-stabbing, corporate dealing, wheeling, reneging, meetings and drama kind of premise, but that’s not what this is, is it?
It seems so easy in this era… X-Corp could easily be an Apple for the mutant community. Lean into the mutants as a “we’re cool now, so buy our stuff” premise.
Also, WHY do people want to be on this board? Is it the prestige (sorry, Rachel), is it the allure of the fame, fortune, influencing mutant kind portion of it all?
I did enjoy Mastermind, but I still feel villains working with the mutants is just so wrong. It also will be interesting to see the Archangel fallout.
But this is all over the place at the moment.
Honestly, why do the characters in this book make such a big deal about the Strucker twins being Nazis?
We’re long past the point of Krakoans being able to assert any kind of moral superiority regarding whom they associate with, despite the many sneering comments about “human morality” from Magneto and the like. Sinister, in addition to being one of the most heinously evil characters in the Marvel universe, was a Nazi ally conducting experiments on Jewish children in the camps – to the point where Magneto remembers the actual Nazis being afraid of his barbarity – and Krakoa has not only overlooked his past but placed him in government. It’s fine to say that Sinister gets a pass because his genetics expertise makes him “useful”, while all that Fenris can contribute is money, but it’s another thing entirely to claim that working with Fenris is appallingly beyond the pale and cannot even be considered. Gorgon murdered children and led a fascist cult, so let’s make him a general. Selene kills scores of humans in plain violation of one of Krakoa’s cardinal laws, but that’s fine – give her a job interview. The list goes on.
Much is made of the “mutant metaphor”, where mutantkind are supposed to be a downtrodden minority who are unjustifiably hated and feared, but the Krakoan era has really gone to some lengths to make them seem justifiably hateworthy. It would be more honest for them to simply say that their concern for human life and conventions of morality extends only to the point where humanity isn’t provoked to destroy them before their demographic replacement is complete.
“Honestly, why do the characters in this book make such a big deal about the Strucker twins being Nazis?”
I think it was so M/Penance could make her big speech about the Strucker twins not being relevant anymore.
It seems that Howard really has no idea what she’s supposed to be doing on this title.
It seems almost a case of Hickman not revealing his plans and Howard not exactly sure how far she can go with the premise.
The premise is very promising. If Krakoa are now the most powerful nation on the planet, and mutants can create anything, it very much sets up a direction like Magneto’s vision in God Loves, Man Kills.
It can easily fulfil the potential of mutants, and not just through bribing humanity with some drugs.
The mutants don’t care about money. They can produce everything that people need faster and cheaper than competitors, they could quickly completely dominate the global market.
They can provide anything that humans want for free. Basically, Krakoa could create a post-scarcity Marxist paradise, without all the unsavoury bits about revolution, dictatorship, authoritarianism…
In God Loves, Man Kills the X-Men explicitly ask Magneto what his goals are with humanity, and he says that humans won’t be able to compete with mutants. He’ll conquer the world and then mutants will provide for humans. As long as humans don’t harm mutants, they’ll be left alone.
We could see a similar transition take place now, only filtered through Xavier’s vision, so it’s a bit less harsh than how Magneto described his goals.
CitizenBane-I think it’s the ideology of the Strucker Twins which is the problem.
They were both mutant supremacists and racists. They could be destabilizing for a society which promotes that all mutants are superior to humans and all mutants are equal.
The Strucker twins might appeal to old loyalties of the nation or race. “ OK, mutants are the next stage in human evolution…but aren’t Aryan mutants really the superior race? Shouldn’t Storm be excluded?”.
@Chris V
“The mutants don’t care about money. They can produce everything that people need faster and cheaper than competitors, they could quickly completely dominate the global market.
They can provide anything that humans want for free. Basically, Krakoa could create a post-scarcity Marxist paradise, without all the unsavoury bits about revolution, dictatorship, authoritarianism…”
I still think an X-Men as Apple kinda allegory could work here. The X-Men try to gain acceptance as a lifestyle kind of company while trying to influence public opinion and win humans over to their side kind of deal.
It was basically the direction Grant Morrison was trying to move the X-Men before Marvel decided that “No More Mutants” has more potential.
“It was basically the direction Grant Morrison was trying to move the X-Men before Marvel decided that “No More Mutants” has more potential.”
I haven’t read this since it came out… I’m a stone’s throw away from it in my re-reading order (I just reached Eve of Destruction). I’ll view it through this lens when I reach New X-Men 😀
Chris V – if we’re holding people’s past beliefs against them, should Beak be afraid that Apocalypse was on the Council, given his belief that the weak of the species should be culled so that they don’t pollute the genepool of future generations?
I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything suggesting that the Struckers refuse to go along with Krakoan ideology about mutant equality, since they only ever surface so that writers can make some inscrutable point over how their presence on Krakoa must be suffered.
Between adopting corporate cosplay for what is plainly not a corporation in the legal sense, building it via conventional wisdom about PR, and doing a big exclusive party/media event, it’s really hard to see how Krakoan society is actually about not doing things like humans do. Rahne was right in New Mutants this week, but it’s not just that the gala was an event to impress humans. This is all human nonsense in the context of what we’re meant to understand about Krakoa’s ability to produce unlimited magic beans.
CitizenBane-Well, yeah, Apocalypse probably would do that.
Then, Xavier and Magneto would resurrect him. So, everything would be fine.
The Nation is more important than anything else with Krakoa.
Anyone who challenges the tenets of Krakoa are dangerous.
Although, yeah, I’m probably reading more in to it than we’ve seen on the page. That’s the fun of the new direction, you get to write a lot of it in your own head!
The rejection of the Fenris Twins should have been a good moment. It’s been unnatural that no one’s seemed to have any problem with even the most monstrous of mutants.
But Monet’s little speech would work a lot better if it wasn’t the page after M declared she liked Selene, the unambiguously evil mass murderer who once attacked Utopia with a zombie army. It makes it look like Monet is against Nazis without understanding *why* the Nazis were bad.
Then there’s the general incoherence. The weird insistence that having a flying island is somehow a major product launch. The apparent miscommunication that has Xavier thinking a flying island was going to have a big impact after terraforming Mars. The incompetence of leaving your headquarters unlocked and unprotected right after someone blew up another of your locations. Etc.
I wanted to like this book, if only for Monet and Madrox. Now I’m not sure who would like this.
The Fenris Twins seem like mischievous children claiming they like Hitler to get attention compared to the horrible things a lot of the “evil” mutants, including Magneto, have done in the past.
Apocalypse and Sinister are simply on another level compared to names like the Fenris.
Sinister is there because Xavier and Magneto decided they need him.
So, it looks very odd and attempting to appeal to real-world readers to judge the Fenris while praising Apocalypse or Selene.
That’s why I feel it has to be read in a different manner than simply “Nazis are evil!”.
It actually would be a nice direction to play up, that the Fenris refuses to conform.
They love what Krakoa represents, but they hate the idea that Magneto, Kitty, and Storm are part of the Krakoan elite, while they are pariahs.
There’s always something “off” with the cadence of writing in Howard’s books. I wondered if it was the letterer — but that is credited as Clayton Cowles who is a stalwart.
The FLOW of characters’ speeches within their dialogue balloons does not scan easily. Words and phrases are split or arranged in a way that makes it come across stilted and puncutated.
Example from page 1:
As written:
It is
not like you to
be evasive. Shame
does not suit you. So
I wonder why you have
avoided my calls
since Brazil.
What if it was:
It is not like you to be
evasive. Shame does not
suit you. So I wonder why
you have avoided my calls
since Brazil.
It’s still weirdly stilted dialogue, but it’s definitely better.
The original is like beat poetry.
Actually if you read it in William Shatner voice it works.
Reading X-Corp in a William Shatner voice makes it all better.
Nothing
physical. And if
she saw anything,
she won’t
remember
it.
Layla made a brief appearance in Uncanny X-Men #11, at the start of the Rosenberg run, where she said she was done being a superhero and happy being a mom to their son David. But yeah, nothing since.
Within the logic of that story, perhaps she was killed in the run up of mutant hysteria, and she can’t be brought back because of her knowledge of the future? Or maybe she wasn’t because she’s not really a mutant? But then what would explain her power to raise the dead?
I thought she was a mutant. She is listed as a mutant on the Marvel website.
She is listed with the mutant ability to resurrect the dead, without their souls!
The rule is that “no precogs” be brought back.
Layla only knows things due to her older self travelling back in time to tell her what is going to occur.
It sounds like there’s an entire mini-series here involving Layla Miller and Moira.
That would be something. Shame we won’t get it. At this point I’d rather Layla didn’t appear at all than appear in this book…
As for this issue, I liked Warren drying off by flapping his wings, that was a fun bit (I remember it was used in Parker’s First Class). Warren should do bird-like things more often.
Also I kind of liked that Howard has an idea for Mastermind that does something new with him, even if it’s on a tenuous logic that a master of illusion knows how to do PR. Then again, he was in Hellfire. He should be ambitious. I don’t think he’s ever been ambitious since the Dark Phoenix Saga.
It’s obvious that Layla Miller is a problematic character as far as the Krakoa concept is concerned, and it’s to everyone’s best interest to leave her offscreen. Because either her resurrection power or her time-travel-knows-stuff comes into conflict/threatens to muddy things. I doubt they want her on the island. Someone might ask her power leaves out the “soul” and the Krakoan process involves it or something.
Adding Mastermind to the board of X-Corp makes no freaking sense whatsoever. Surely they can do better than him as far as running a business is concerned. What about Anole, who has a degree and who spent time on the board of Worthington Enterprises? How about Iceman, an actual CPA, which makes him more qualified than 99% of mutants? What about Karma, who was running her own corporation as of recently? Hell, resurrect Gideon, if anyone cares about bringing back the Externals after using them for magic portal purposes, since he was a corporate executive…
But no, it’s Mastermind, whose claim to fame is creating illusions, spurring the Dark Phoenix story, and dying of the Legacy Virus. And the Fenris Twins–incestuous Neo-Nazis. And Selene, an immortal energy-vampire. These are your choices, ladies and gents.
Funny that I’d expect a book about a mutant corporation to reflect actual business structures.
And a flying island in the Marvel Universe should be routine, given how many other things fly that shouldn’t. (Helicarriers, Attilan, secret volcano bases…) Why should anyone be impressed?
I wish Tini Howard’s presence in the X-Books would be reduced considerably. I don’t understand just what Hickman sees in her to make her so much of a co-architect.
A lot of what’s going on doesn’t scan if you consider it in the wider context of the Marvel Universe. Planet-Size put forth the claim that one of the Mars rovers was “the most advanced human scientific laboratory operating off-Earth,” which isn’t even true in the real world.
They were talking about a fictional Marvel universe rover built by the fictional Feilong Industries though, so it’s as advanced as the story says it is.
That doesn’t make sense with everything we know about Orchis.
They have the Forge in orbit. They are terraforming Venus and there is already a Sentinel city there. Plus, they have some type of project operational on Mercury.
You could argue those aren’t really scientific laboratories.
I’d think you would have to do a lot of scientific research and investigation in order to terraform a planet.
The Forge is very much a laboratory. Everyone working on the Forge is a scientist as well.
The Forge is a HQ. It no doubt contains a lab but it isn’t one. And in any case this is the Marvel universe, where we’re supposed to believe that Iron Man’s armor is more advanced than some giant alien spaceship be blasts out of the sky. If they’re saying some fictional rover’s more advanced than Dr. Gregor’s lab, I can roll with it.
Howard isn’t going anywhere as she is Hickman’s protege. You can see it more if you think of her work as a big idea, with characters bent to fit the concept. Unlike Hickman, Howard’s execution is very inelegant.
Well, this is going to be another cheap dig at Hickman, but considering we’ve discussed for more than a year whether the X-Men are brainwashed pod people due to how off they sounded and acted, I’m not sure I’d call his execution elegant either.
Orchis has a watchtower of Venus, but no terraforming. The Sentinel city is on Mercury, as is the subterranean habitat.
@Krzysiek, I could have gone on to describe Hickman’s several faults that Howard emulates, but even more so… Though in the end, I thought I’d just leave it hanging. Fill in the blanks 😉
If nothing else, I like the idea of seeing Thunderbird III again.
Not that I was a fan particularly but I remember how big a push Claremont gave him in 2000 and particularly during the first 18 months of X-Treme X-men before basically giving up on him.
The weird relationship with Psylocke and the hilarious Australian twins (who came from my home city, funnily enough).
I’m feeling fairly dumb for not thinking about Layla before in terms of the resurrection protocols. If she is actually a mutant, then she’s an interesting Plan B if The Five aren’t available or are too busy. If she can bring someone back from death without their soul, then a telepath could download the person’s “soul” back to the body from Cerebro. No need to make a new body for every single person that might die, as long as a body is relatively intact.
I think Hickman wants to avoid bringing up Layla.
He might handwave it away too, by saying that the soul must be downloaded before the body reaches maturity, so there wouldn’t be any way to return the soul to a once-dead body.
Part of his agenda is to show the potential for communal action over individual action.
A mutant can’t bring individuals back to life on their own, a group of mutants must work together in order to accomplish a goal.
Issues with Layla’s powers could be written around pretty easily, but having Madrox as a regular cast member (at least of the line as a whole) and not even mentioning her or their son comes off as bad writing.
“Not that I was a fan particularly but I remember how big a push Claremont gave him in 2000 and particularly during the first 18 months of X-Treme X-men before basically giving up on him.”
Yeah. He gave up because of the feedback he was getting on the character from fans.
His own fault, though. If there’s a masterclass lesson anywhere in published comics history on “How to introduce a brand new character to an ensemble cast and have fans accept him/her.” I’d point to Kitty Pryde as that lesson. With Kitty, Claremont did everything right. He couldn’t have done it better.
With Neal Shaara, he did absolutely everything wrong. He gave readers every reason to reject that character.
At the end of the Multiple Man mini, Madrox says he’s going to find Layla. Madrox didn’t remember her (because of shenanigans) and he wanted to meet her (or something; it’s been a while since I read it).
Until proven otherwise, I like to think a Madrox is still on the farm with Layla.
But that mini was by Rosenberg – and his Uncanny X-Men run came after that. In it the ‘new’ Madrox was with Layla, their relationship seemingly rekindled despite him not remembering her (?), but left to help Wolverine and later joined The Last X-Men Murderfest. During which he died like most everyone else.
Anyway, Layla was fine and tending to the infant. Not on the farm, just a New York apartment, I think.
Oh, dang. I forgot Madrox was part of that.
Either way, after his resurrection, what’s stopping Madrox from having a dupe live a nice life with Layla anywhere? New York, the farm, move to Australia, whatever?
I know that’s not likely what the current creative teams have in mind, but I like to think that’s the case, anyway. 🙂
@Col_Fury:
I agree it’s probably not the way the current creative team will go, but that sounds totally plausible to me; and Layla herself was depicted as pragmatic enough that she might even encourage it. (As in, the only way to remove themselves from random mutant craziness is to have at least one Madrox engaging in that side of things at all times.)