X-Men #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #8
“The Buffet is Undefeated”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Javier Pina
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
COVER / PAGE 1: M.O.D.O.K. holding Jean Grey’s mask.
PAGE 2. Data page. A quote from Nick Fury, telling us that we should take M.O.D.O.K. seriously despite his appearance.
M.O.D.O.K. – the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing – debuted in the Captain America story in Tales of Suspense #94, back in 1967. Basically, George Tarleton is an A.I.M. technician who was turned into a human supercomputer to help with their investigations into the Cosmic Cube, only for him to overthrow them and seize control of A.I.M. The original M.O.D.O.K. was turned back to human form in Incredible Hulk #610 – the M.O.D.O.K. in this issue (and most stories in the last decade or so) is a clone who debuted in Hulk vol 2 #29.
Originally presented as a grotesque but basically serious villain, over the years he’s become mostly a comedy figure. Even though he isn’t played entirely straight in this issue, it’s actually a pretty credible outing for him by modern standards.
PAGES 3-5. M.O.D.O.K. unleashes his bioweapon on board a cruise ship to test it.
The cells he’s experimenting with seem to be X-shaped, but it’s hard to see if there’s any real significance to that.
M.O.D.O.K.’s main agenda here seems to be to experiment, partly for its own sake, and partly as a demonstration to potential buyers. Classically, A.I.M.’s agenda was to set up a science-based technocracy, but selling their inventions to other terrorist outfits is perfectly standard for them too. The idea of viruses running wild on cruise ships obviously calls back to the earlier stages of the pandemic, which still doesn’t seem to have happened in the Marvel Universe.
The A.I.M. footsoldiers seen here have decidedly modernised uniforms which echo the traditional “beekeeper” look, but are slightly less dorky.
PAGE 6. Recap and credits.
PAGES 7-8. The X-Men arrive at the boat.
As explained in issues #6-7, Cyclops is wearing the Captain Krakoa outfit to avoid giving away the mutant secret of resurrection after his public death in New York. You might reasonably ask why Cyclops is bothering to wear his regular uniform up to the moment he goes into battle, but (a) the Krakoans tend to wear their former uniforms as everyday clothes, no matter how inappropriate they might be for a tropical island, and (b) Cyclops plainly resents being forced to use this identity and is evidently keeping it to the very bare minimum.
“I’m not a strong swimmer after returning from the Vault.” This seems to be covering for a continuity error in issue #5, where Polaris was animating the unconscious Laura using her metal skeleton. Unfortunately, Laura’s not meant to have a metal skeleton – according to her established back story she only had adamantium on her claws. (Because she was a child, and her skeleton needed to grow.) Duggan is essentially telling us that her adamantium skeleton was added as part of her resurrection in X-Men vol 5 #19. Let’s assume she’d requested it somewhere along the line.
The original Wolverine has flagged from time to time that the weight of his adamantium skeleton affects his swimming.
PAGES 9-12. Wolverine and Synch board the vessel.
Wolverine finally gets around to asking some questions about their time in the Vault. Because of its time distortion field, they spent centuries in there together from their point of view. Everett was backed up after escaping and before dying, so remembers it all; Laura wasn’t, and doesn’t.
The flashback on page 12 is Synch’s pitch to join the X-Men during the election that was held at the Hellfire Gala in X-Men vol 5 #21. We’ve had a string of these election flashbacks in recent issues. Prior to the Vault mission – which he was chosen for because of his useful powers – Synch hadn’t shown any great ambition in terms of mutant politics. Obviously several hundred years have changed him, but a big part of it is that he just wants to be with Laura again.
PAGES 13-16. Wolverine and Synch confront M.O.D.O.K.
Pretty straightforward. M.O.D.O.K. is defeated and Cyclops asks to enter his mind.
PAGES 17-19. Cyclops confront M.O.D.O.K. telepathically.
Um… the guy released a bioweapon on a cruise ship and the X-Men’s solution is to give him a stern rap on the knuckles and demand that he makes reparations? Seriously?
M.O.D.O.K.’s weird suburban mindscape alludes to his hallucinations in the 2020-2021 miniseries M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games. His wife is called Jodie and his son is called Lou.
PAGE 20. Data page: Forge writes to Cyclops about the Captain Krakoa battlesuit. Basically, he agrees with Cyclops that mutants should just go public with resurrection technology, but he’s taking this opportunity to get the battlesuit tested. In Forge’s mind, it’s intended for mutants with trivial physical powers who will need the help in a fight.
“The humans haven’t quite taken the hint after Arakko…” If terraforming Mars didn’t intimidate the humans enough, this will. And really, what’s the logic in the mutants publicly demonstrating their power to terraform a planet instantly, yet trying to keep resurrection a secret.
“Artie, Leech or Cypher.” Artie Maddicks and Leech were supporting characters in the original X-Factor and Generation X, and haven’t done anything much in years. Cypher is self-explanatory, though he normally has Warlock to serve as his armour in battle.
Ugly John. A random mutant with three faces who appeared in New X-Men vol 1 #114-115 (the first two issues of the Grant Morrison run), and got killed by Sentinels. He has no useful powers at all, unless you count a slightly wider field of vision.
“Did you know one of us makes ice cream…?” Duggan is canonising some tweets by Way of X artist Bob Quinn, who identified a non-speaking background character in Way of X #2 as having this power. Her name’s Soft Serve. Not to be confused with Eye Scream from Obnoxio the Clown Versus the X-Men, who has the power to turn into ice cream. Very different.
“If you need a technologist, I suggest Bling”. We haven’t seen much of Bling – or Bling!, but maybe she’s finally dropped the exclamation mark – since she was abortively added to the cast of Fallen Angels in its final issues. There are indeed a few precedents for Bling! being presented as an engineer of some sort – she was credited with making the amulet that creates a protective force field around Shogo, for example.
PAGES 21-24. Synch and Cyclops talk.
Negasonic Teenage Warhead was a one-off character from New X-Men vol 1 #115-116, who died during the Sentinel attack on Genosha. Somehow or other she apparently returned to life permanently after the Necrosha crossover, and went on to become a supporting character in Deadpool (following the lead of the films). She’s named after the 1995 Monster Magnet single, which was a slightly dated reference when she debuted, and now presumably makes her an enthusiast for music released years before her birth.
As depicted in Deadpool, Negasonic is actually pretty powerful and would indeed be a potentially useful X-Man.
Ben Urich. Synch reveals that he was responsible for wiping Ben Urich’s memories and thwarting his investigation into mutants, as shown in the previous two issues. Rather dubiously, Cyclops tells Synch that he shouldn’t feel bad about trying to do the right thing, but he kind of should, really. Then again, this is classed as a Krakoan state secret, rightly or wrongly. Urich’s notebook indicates that his coverage of resurrection was going to be positive, which will presumably reinforce Cyclops’s feeling that they should just go public with it all.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: ORCHIS.
Oh, I like when MODOK is played straight. And yet I also like when they slip in the family from the TV show. Sounds like this comic is for me.
As for Negasonic Teenage Warhead’s name, I read an article on The Atlantic just yesterday about how kids aren’t into new music any more. Less than 5% of streams are top-200 songs, and it’s shrinking. So it’s now actually more likely the kid would name herself after a song that came out ten years before she was born than Billie Eilish’s latest track. Maybe.
Finally, is it safe to ask where the ice cream actually comes from?
For some reason, I always connected Negasonic Teenage Warhead with either an oblique reference to a Marc Laidlaw book or the band Sigue Sigue Sputnik. No idea why, really. I didn’t realize it was the name of an actual Monster Magnet song. I’m not really a fan.
“As depicted in Deadpool, Negasonic is actually pretty powerful…”
Which misses the point of the character, but the films already missed the point first I guess.
To me, Monster Magnet’s not bad but they sound like if Clutch took themselves a little too seriously.
Not gonna lie,though, I still remember the “born & raised on Venus” and “I will deny you, baby” parts of the Negasonic Teenage Warhead song 20-something years later.
Man, this book… I’ve read a few issues and I’m keeping up with summaries but I struggle to see anything interesting developed there. I don’t thing Duggan can do long-term plotting or explore a theme to save his life. Everything feels so superfluous, the whole Urich thing that could go somewhere is already getting squandered and it baffles me editorial thought it was a good idea to have this guy on the flagship.
Yeah oh boy, M.O.D.O.K gets a demerit for killing a bunch of people and Synch mentally assaults Ben Urich and both are handled in baffling fashion.
Also the dialogue was a little awkward, is Synch asking if M.O.D.O.K is handicapped so he knows whether to beat him up or not?
Yikes.
Miyamoris-It is a baffling decision. Then again, Hickman gave a lot of power to Tini Howard too. It was only short-term though. “Inferno” was the X-book everyone was waiting for after Hickman left X-Men and now this is just during the brief gap before Gillen on Immortal X-Men becomes the flagship title.
Did Sunspot purchase Modok along with the rest of AIM?
Fun factoid – like many of their metal brethren Monster Magnet have a pretty geeky lyrical approach. Their 1998 song Baby Götterdämerung mentions MODOK:
“So what would M.O.D.O.K. do if his memory got too full?
He’d find a powersource and then he’d pick what plugs to pull”
(One would have to assume the Marvel Universe version of the band are talking about the ‘real’ supervillain in their song)
I hate seeing Javier Pina’s name in the credits of a comic.
Not because I think his artist is particularly bad.
It’s because he’s been used as a fill-in artist for a decade now, and his name on the credits signals to me that the editors didn’t care all that much to maintain a consistent art team.
I would be fine if he finally got promoted to being the regular artist for a book somewhere.
Artie and Leech have spent most of the past decade as members of the future foundation. I pretty sure they were left the group building galexies and exploring space post secret war so would have only returned to earth just over a year ago which is why they have not been used much in xbooks.
I went cold turkey on buying comics when I moved abroad about ten years ago, and mostly follow the X-line via Paul’s great annotations and reviews. But I actually had a chance to read this issue, and I have to say, I was blown away by how little content Marvel is selling for $4-5 bucks. This took me all of five minutes to read, which is nothing. Are all comics this thin on substance nowadays?
That’s decompressed storytelling for you.
They’re not all like that – I’d say this series is actually one of the most ‘decompressed, wide-screen, cinematic’ (or however you want to call it) superhero series in publication right now.
The recently cancelled X-Factor by Leah Williams was very much the opposite. Most other books fall somewhere in between.
I think the writers of the Deadpool films just pulled her name from the ip catalog because it really stands out and that’s about it.
It was technically Cyclops who killed Ugly John, albeit as a mercy kill given that he was going to die a pretty slow, agonizing death thanks to the Sentinels.
You’d think that quality of life issues for injured mutants — not just Decimated ones — might be a minor plot point itself around resurrection. If someone suffers some kind of painful accident that lowers quality of life, but they’re still alive and have their powers, wouldn’t they want to get resurrected back into the state they’d like? Heck, what about plain old debilitation from age?
But so far all we’ve gotten has been Wiz Kid over in S.W.O.R.D. and some handwaving so characters with “cool” techie prosthetics can keep ’em. Well, that and some convenient expansions of what the Krakoan wonder drugs can do.
@Chris V
Yeah, Howard is not very good either.
But frankly I’m not sure I buy that padding was necessary with most attention on Inferno; SWORD, Hellions and New Mutants were doing their own thing just fine.
Meanwhile Duggan don’t seem to have much of an concept in mind other than his Strong Female Characters that reek of showing how progressist he is for writing badass women without actually pulling the effort to make these strong women interesting. And the whole Captain Krakoa thing is silly in a bad sense.
@Ben
I was finishing Ewing’s New Avengers yesterday (real fun stuff) and didn’t see anything regarding Modok in that run.
Omar: Some of what you’re talking about was touched on in New Mutants. A young mutant who was deformed by her own power requested the Crucible & was denied. There was progress to a possible solution in the most recent issue.
Maxwell’s Hammer: they did away with caption boxes & thought balloons, and put less panels on the page. 5-minute reads are the norm, at least for most of the recent Marvel and DC comics I’ve read. There are exceptions, as Krzysiek noted, but not a ton.
“Finally, is it safe to ask where the ice cream actually comes from?L
@Si: Luckily, there’s no need to ask! Bob Quinn helpfully had Soft Serve make clear how she, er, produces the ice cream.
https://henchman4hire.com/2021/05/25/i-fully-support-soft-serve-the-mutant-who-poops-ice-cream/
Omar: That’s another point about resurrection that I wish the X-Office would handle but I don’t think they will. It’s one thing to write with the mutant metaphor like the Decimated mutants, but if you write about real-life issues you have to put the work in to research those real-life issues. Plus, you’re guaranteed to be criticized no matter what you do — which is not a bad thing! It sucks but that’s an inherent part of writing for an audience. I get the feeling that a lot of the X-Office is scared of criticism, which I can’t blame them for considering X-Twitter, but I wish they’d be a bit braver.
Disability is such a wide-ranging topic. I could see something very interesting coming out of the subject, if the writers were careful and the editors gave them the creative freedom necessary. At this point I’d even take the mutant metaphor as written for a disabled lens. Chamber is disabled, for instance: he can’t talk, he can’t eat, he can’t do anything you need a mouth for. But his disability is inherently tied to his mutation: curing the former would mean changing the latter.
And then there’s the social aspect of disability: since Krakoa doesn’t have sidewalks/cars/skyscrapers, a person who uses mobility aids will have a different experience there than they would in New York City. It’s another way that mutants as a society are different than humans.
So much to read into it, so little that’s actually there…
Sorry for the double comment! I rambled and completely forgot what my point was supposed to be.
The X-Office is afraid of criticism… + there are some disabled people who want to be cured! It’s like that infamous scene from the movie where Storm says they can’t cure mutants because they don’t need to be cured, and she’s saying this to Rogue.
I think a writer could have a resurrection-as-cure story for a disabled mutant. It would just require having more than one disabled character in the same issue and multiple nuanced perspectives on the topic.
Yeah. I mean, what about Humus Sapien or that kid Ultimate Wolverine killed because he was lethal to be around (and the Ultimate X-Men didn’t want the bad publicity)? Or even Sienna Blaze, who can’t safely use her powers without risking all life on Earth?
Or on a more prosaic level, someone like Lost from Way of X. Because of the way she disrupted people’s balance, most people couldn’t be around her without vomiting. You can argue – and some people did in those comment threads – that she should be allowed to go about her business on Krakoa as she pleased. But that wasn’t a case of her offending people, she *actually made them literally, physiologically ill* in her presence. Is that really fair to Random Mutant N who’s just reading a book, and suddenly finds themselves vomiting over the page they’re reading without [otherwise] even noticing that she’s there?
That’s not the story that Marvel is telling with mutants anymore. Mutants are superior to humans and their mutant ability is their identity. The writers of the Krakoa-era can never admit that a mutant power could be a curse.
It’s this weird split personality aspect to Krakoa between Hickman and writers like Howard and Duggan. Hickman wanted to move away from the idea of “mutants as a metaphor” by making mutants a separate species from humans. Meanwhile, writers like Howard and Duggan are doubling-down on the mutants as metaphor direction to the point where the metaphor-aspect is almost being dropped. I’m wondering how much that had to do with Marvel editorial and their decision to move away from Hickman’s vision.
It’s become almost a parody with how these writers are treating mutants now.
Devin: Don’t forget that Weapon X managed to fix Chamber’s body without affecting his powers.
And the one thing X3 got right was making it pretty clear that Storm was wrong: Rogue went right ahead with the cure, lost her powers, and became a much healthier and happier person as a result.
Devin: I think you’re right that the X-Office is afraid of criticism. I also think it’s better to have some super-heroes with disabilities than to give them all cures just because it’s more logical (not suggesting you’re against super-heroes w/ disabilities, just to be clear). Disability erasure in pop-culture has always been a problem, although there seems to be more representation in media now than ever before.
You’re absolutely right that some people with disabilities want to be cured, even though some don’t. I know there are people in neurodivergent and deaf communities who want to stay as they are. I think there should be a mix of outcomes (e.g. Karma gets her leg back, but Wiz Kid elects to stay disabled). I also think there should be more representation in general, including explicitly-identified neurodivergent and trans mutants in major roles. If the WB Supergirl show can introduce a trans character and stay on the air despite the usual noxious pearl-clutching, the least Marvel can do is introduce a handful of trans mutants.
Deeply amused by Synch’s realization of wiping Ben Urich’s mind being wrong coming not from any kind of ethical qualms or realizing that, in point of fact, suppressing the press is wrong in addition to generally mindwiping people being wrong, but by his realization that Urich was properly worshipful of the mutant master race and thought they were pretty cool actually. Like it would have been okay to violate a journalist’s mind if he didn’t agree that mutants were inherently the superior race?
Ben: MODOK actually defected to SHIELD shortly before Sunspot bought out AIM. He then promptly attempted a coup.
Ceries- it’s absolutely bizarre.
I don’t think Duggan or Marvel as a whole understand what they’re doing with this stuff.
I’m supposed to root for these guys?
It’s Civil War Stark/Richards era crazy.
“Are all comics this thin on substance nowadays?”
I mean, I frequently enjoy the writing of Tom King, but he does NOT write for the single issue. You’re going to be pretty mad if you pick up one of his books.
“To me, Monster Magnet’s not bad but they sound like if Clutch took themselves a little too seriously.”
Reverse that: Clutch sounds like Monster Magnet if they took themselves a little less seriously.
MM pre-dates Clutch by a couple of years.
Either way, Clutch is miles better than MM.
But Laura always hungry? Sigh….
Pregnant??? OMG!!