X-Men #14 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #14
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: C F Villa
Colour artist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: A hooded Cyclops in shackles. This is probably a hangover from an abandoned earlier idea, since it bears no resemblance to the story, and nor does the solicitation copy: “WAS CYCLOPS RIGHT? – AN A.X.E. TIE-IN! Are ANY of the X-Men right? Only one can judge them and the Day of Judgment is here, for good or ill, and the newest team of X-Men must face the truth about themselves and what they have done.”
This is X-Men‘s second and final tie-in to A.X.E..
PAGE 2. Data page. Just a quote from Iceman, literally about embracing his Omega status, but obviously extending to the wider idea of downplaying his gay and mutant identities for the comfort of others.
PAGE 3. The journalist and her editor.
Fairly straightforward subtext. This issue is about why the fact that Iceman is a mutant and (moreover) gay isn’t merely incidental.
PAGES 4-7. Cyclops and Magik fight aliens.
These guys apparently haven’t heard that Gameworld was shut down by the X-Men in issue #12, and still hope that they can claim a fortune by destroying the Earth. They seem to be wearing Nova helmets, though they might just be for show, since they don’t actually do anything.
PAGE 8. Recap and credits. We’re after A.X.E.: Judgment Day #3, which just means we’re in publication order.
PAGE 9. Jean Grey briefs Iceman.
Apparently, regular old Eternals have joined the assault alongside the Hex.
PAGES 10-18. The X-Men make plans and Iceman saves the day.
Iceman doing his Omega thing. The other thing of note is Firestar getting a chance to work with Iceman and to help save the day; obviously, she’s the character most in need of establishing in this book.
PAGE 19. Iceman and Firestar come down to Earth.
Note that Firestar refers to her “power” before correcting herself to the Krakoan-preferred “gift” – she’s still basically an outsider to mutant culture.
The “God hates muties” campaigners are very obviously a reference to homophobic protests, in particular those of the Westboro Baptist Church.
PAGE 20. Data page. Iceman spells out the moral, and draws a parallel with how the aims of minority groups in terms of co-existence and fitting in have changed since the Silver Age. As Iceman points out, with his dual forms, he’s one of the mutants who can pass as an ordinary human if he wants to, and makes a conscious decision not to do so.
PAGE 21. The journalist and her editor.
Ah, subtext.
PAGES 22-24. Cyclops visits the Progenitor.
Since he was with Magik earlier, apparently Cyclops has got someone to teleport him back just so he can confront the Progenitor in this scene. Cyclops gets the Progenitor’s approval, despite ostentatiously rejecting his authority. We still don’t know what criteria the Progenitor is actually applying, but he seems keen on self-confidence and being a success on your own terms.
PAGE 25. Trailers. We’re back to the Children of the Vault next issue, it seems.
To be honest I’m not entirely sure Dugan really gets what Gillen meant to do with the Progenitor either and has just written a more talkative but otherwise normal celestial.
We also had another case of the mutants conspicuously using ecofascist rhetoric by distancing themselves from human environmental damage-Iceman claims that the CME could “finish what the humans started” doing to the atmosphere. This kind of rhetoric is fairly standard “it’s all the mongrel race’s fault for poisoning the Earth and we are blameless so they’re all going to die, but that’s okay” stuff. I expect we’ll see it more and more in the mainstream as climate disasters continue to escalate.
I’m still confused how this works with the Celestial judging people. Cyclops says that only his wife and his friends can judge him and the Celestial approves. So if you’re a serial killer or a serial rapist but your wife and friends think you’re a great guy, this Celestial will give you a thumbs up? (Judging people by their own standards might make sense but that doesn’t explain why Mystique and Destiny got a thumbs down.)
I’d love it if it was revealed at the end that the celestial is barely functional and is just handing out random judgements without even knowing what it’s doing.
Si: that would be great, as the judgements don’t make a ton of sense. On the other hand, I trust Gillen to give us an explanation at some point.
I miss Larraz, but Villa’s art was good.
So… How did Iceman get enough water to make a giant ice shield? Can he generate water? If he used a ton of water in the Earth’s atmosphere, wouldn’t that cause an ecological disaster or two? I can accept the artificial robot god with a hazy sense of morality, but the giant ice shield took me out of the story.
It is all about what risks one takes, I think, and what goals one hopes to achieve.
I don’t think that Duggan knows how to write Scott at all, but this is still the book that exists because Scott wants to expand the reach of mutant actions and good will. And his team has just saved the whole planet, thereby slightly diminishing their own chauvinism.
I think Iceman creates ice from nothing now. Didn’t he supply the water for the oceans on Mars? Of course that means he’s probably made Earth’s sea levels rise by a few centimetres with his stunts.
“I’m still confused how this works with the Celestial judging people. Cyclops says that only his wife and his friends can judge him and the Celestial approves. So if you’re a serial killer or a serial rapist but your wife and friends think you’re a great guy, this Celestial will give you a thumbs up? (Judging people by their own standards might make sense but that doesn’t explain why Mystique and Destiny got a thumbs down.)”
It’s probably because Duggan isn’t that good of a writer.
“I don’t think that Duggan knows how to write Scott at all, but this is still the book that exists because Scott wants to expand the reach of mutant actions and good will.”
“It’s probably because Duggan isn’t that good of a writer.”
Duggan seems to write characters as either badasses or rookies* learning how to be badasses. I like certain touches and moments, but he hasn’t shown that he can write different personality traits on a regular basis. The data page in which Iceman talks about passing and his decision to not let fear rule his life was probably the best character writing he’s done on the series.
* Firestar is a veteran superhero and a former Avenger. I don’t buy the starry-eyed newbie treatment in X-Men for a second.
Duggan plainly had no ideas for a tie-in and just wrote a generic X-story.
Ceries – We’ll see it more and more from…who?
I’d think Mystique would be an easy thumbs down for things like trying to kill her own ‘daughter’, and being on a council that sets a ‘Kill no human’ law having previously tried to release a virus that kills only humans.
Duggan isn’t a very good writer, IMO. I still have to assume that the Progenitor’s judgement of Cyclops was approved by Gillen. It is just too obvious a plot point to be neglected.
Someone on Reddit said Duggan’s last panel wasn’t advancing a story, it was indulging in a meme.
Maybe Firestar could team up with Cannonball and they could make a connection over still feeling like rookies.
It’s usually good when a series can maintain its own identity and plotlines during a big crossover, but god, this Gameworld stuff isn’t substantial enough to merit taking up all that space. This felt like a fill-in issue.
It occurs to me:
Duggan’s run on X-Men would get a thumbs-up from this Celestial.
The Gameworld plot should logically be significant, and I guess it was significant for a brief moment.
The stakes were very significant. As were those of this issue. But it does not feel like they were. The main characters are just way too casual about it all. Too blasé.
One gets the sense that not even Duggan himself expects as much as a throwaway line in the main A.X.E. books acknowledging that this judgement matter almost turned irrelevant.
This book and team treat saving the world as a chore that does not deserve too much of their focus and passion. World-threatening crises are just experiences to color the characters’ dialogue later on. Their personalities and attitudes are not subject to a lot of variation according to the actual situation. This book is all about the character showcase.
Si: Random Celestial *would* be amusing.
Thor: Celestial, am I to be judged as righteous or not?
Celestial shakes briefly before answering. “Ask again later.”
“The only person who can judge me is my wife. My second wife, obviously, my first wife is still pissed at me over some light abandonment. And don’t do something cute like get a version of her from the past when she’s still angry at me about my infidelity. Anyway, if you want to meet her… I can arrange that.”
I HAVE MET HER. SHE TRIED TO KILL ME.
“Right. Forgot about that.”
…YOU’RE LUCKY YOUR FLIP CAME UP HEADS.
One can only imagine how fluid/kinky x-relationships could be if you started introducing alternate versions of people into it.
(That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me Ellis had already written a Scott/Jean/Maddy threesome in the mid 2000s during the Jemas Era.)
We got something even better than that in the abysmal X-Man series. Where we discover that X-Man subconsciously recreated Madelyn Pryor due to missing his mother, the AOA Jean Grey. Then, he and Madelyn found themselves attracted to each other.
I don’t even know what to make of that, but it seems impossible to believe that a Marvel book in the mid-1990s lasted fifty more issues after that warped revelation about the main character.
Michael
I’m still confused how this works with the Celestial judging people.
I suppose we’ll have to wait until AXE #4 to see whether Gillen really intends it to be like The Inquisitor from Red Dwarf or whether that’s Duggan’s thing. I mean, it judged Captain America as a failure, probably because he can save the universe from destruction and still fret that he could have done more. Presumably when it gets round to deciding on Sinister he’ll pass because he’s given pleasure to the world because he has such a beautiful ass.
This volume has been one forgettable mega-battle issue after the other. We got some interesting threads with Orchiris, that red guy (whose name I forget because he hasn’t been in the last several issues), and Dr. Stasis, but none of it has tied together.
And now we have the Children of the Vault coming back for what looks like only one issue? Even if they’re in the 2 after that because the solicits are vague, I don’t have any trust that the story will be good. Is Synch even going to mention that he was in the Vault for hundreds of years?