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Oct 19

X-Men #16 annotations

Posted on Wednesday, October 19, 2022 by Paul in Annotations

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

X-MEN vol 6 #16
“The Mutant We Left Behind”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Forge, wearing his Caliban-based harness.

PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.

PAGE 3. Data page. Quote from Mr Sinister, which I can imagine he might have said somewhere. Obviously, in this context it’s a reference to the living suit that he’s produced for Forge.

PAGES 4-6. Flashback: Forge and Mr Sinister.

Forge is asking Sinister to create a suit for him based on the powers of three mutants: Mystique, Caliban and apparently a third yet to be identified. The obvious candidate would be Tempo, given the time distortion involved in the Vault.

Port Genosha whiskey is a recurring background feature from Duggan’s Marauders run. Tempo’s powers are responsible for its 50 year maturation.

“I’ve watched several governments pervert what I do…” This refers to Forge’s time as a weapons designer when he was first introduced, and most obviously to his Neutralizer design being used against mutants. Forge actually created the thing as a reverse-engineered version of Rom’s Neutralizer, for use in fighting the alien invader Dire Wraiths.

Nonetheless, there is an obvious irony (and a degree of self-delusion) in Forge claiming the moral high ground, and asserting a risk of governmental perversion, while striking deals with Mr Sinister to appropriate Caliban in the way we see in this issue.

“Trust, but verify.” Generally associated in the west with Ronald Reagan and nuclear disarmament, though it’s originally a Russian proverb.

Cradles. Forge presumably has access to one of the cradles through a back door that he inserted when he created it in the first place.

PAGE 7. Recap and credits.

PAGES 8-9. Forge and Caliban in the vault.

Caliban. Introduced in Uncanny X-Men #148 (1981), Caliban is a mutant with the power to detect other mutants; he originally helped identify new members for the Morlocks. He told us last issue that the last thing he could remember was having a drink with Forge in the Red Lagoon, which sounds awfully suspicious. Nonetheless, Forge insists that Caliban agreed to what’s being done here (which presumably means Forge is suggesting that Caliban’s memories happen to cut off there by sheer coincidence). And to be fair to Forge, Caliban seems genuinely quite enthusiastic about this mission, which suggests that he might well have agreed to it if asked. But it seems much more likely that Forge didn’t risk giving him the choice.

“Your gifts have been used for the wrong reasons over the years.” Although he was a member of various X-teams (most notably X-Force), Caliban spends a lot of his time being exploited for various purposes. Most obviously, he was a Horseman of Apocalypse on two separate occasions. Forge might also be referring to Caliban’s time as a member of one of the black-ops versions of X-Force.

PAGES 10-20. Cyclops and Havok argue, and accidentally release Perro.

“Supposedly I was the one who got brain damage when we fell out of that plane.” Cyclops and Havok’s back story, from flashbacks in Uncanny X-Men #144 and #156, involves them parachuting from a plane as children in order to escape an attack by the Shi’ar. Cyclops suffers a head injury during the fall, which is usually given as the reason why he can’t control his optic beams.

Havok’s place on the team. The scene in X-Men: Hellfire Gala #1 is basically as Scott describes. He proposes that Forge should join the X-Men, and a surprised and irritated Forge responds by nominating Havok, to the bemusement of both brothers. Cyclops’ interpretation is that Forge only did it as a joke, but while it’s clear that Forge had ulterior motives, it’s not at all clear that he thinks quite so badly of Havok as that. As Havok points out, this whole sequence of events makes something of a mockery of the idea that the X-Men are consensually selected by the Krakoan population; the big names carry a lot of weight.

Havok’s always had something of an inferiority complex when it comes to Cyclops, but Cyclops isn’t usually quite so condescending to him. They certainly don’t normally come to blows like this.

Firestar. Magik could teleport Firestar anywhere to get her to safety, but she dumps her in front of Avengers Mansion. The subtext is that Magik sees Firestar as an outsider to the X-Men. (As in previous issues, Iceman seems to be the team member making the biggest effort to welcome Firestar.)

PAGES 21-24. Forge finds an older Laura in the Vault.

So let’s go back to X-Men #19 (2021), which was the end of the first Vault arc. In that arc, Synch, Wolverine (Laura) and Darwin spend centuries of subjective time in the Vault. Darwin is captured by the Children, who apparently destroy him in an experiment to appropriate his powers. It’s explained in technobabble – “Subject Darwin final atomization and biomass seeding complete; fourth-generation Children now possible; begin Child evolution” – but the basic idea seems to be that they reduce him to atoms, and somehow manage to steal his adaptability powers, thus enabling them to evolve and develop even more quickly during the long stints that they spent in the Vault (from their point of view). Synch and Wolverine were well aware of this, and it’s what they were trying to warn Krakoa about when they tried to escape from the Vault.

At the end of the issue, Laura stays behind to fight off the Children while Synch gets to safety. The Children catch up to him quickly, so they must at least get past Laura, but we don’t actually see what happens to her on panel. The Children blast Synch, but he gets a telepathic message to Professor X in time to be backed up before he dies. Synch is then resurrected back on Krakoa along with two other people, one of whom is Laura. The other, apparently, is not Darwin (despite appearances), but just some random being resurrected at the same time. It would have made sense to resurrect Darwin – as I say, Synch was trying to convey a message that the Children had killed him – but apparently the Krakoans chose to err on the side of caution and assume that his powers had somehow helped him survive.

That leaves the awkward question of why they resurrected Laura, who apparently wasn’t dead after all. Two key points flow from this. First, Synch’s storyline since leaving the Vault has been all about the fact that he remembers spending centuries with Laura, and he is in love with her, while she has no memory of any of it (because she was restored from a back-up that predated her entry into the Vault). Second, there are now two Lauras running around, which isn’t meant to happen. Granted, other versions of Laura do exist – Scout is a younger clone of Laura – but this is ostensibly the same person, and that is very much not supposed to happen. The closest we’ve had to this story so far was the recent X-Men Unlimited arc in which Maggott was resurrected despite one of his maggotts still being alive, but that story turned on the peculiarities of his powers.

PAGE 25. Data page, largely spelling out what we’ve just seen. Forge also mentioned in the previous issue that his containment device would only work for as long as Krakoa stayed around (perhaps because some sort of connection to Krakoa Prime is needed to power the organic containment technology), so he’s being pretty sensible in suggesting that the Avengers and Fantastic Four should be brought into the loop in order to provide redundancy.

PAGE 26. Trailers.

Bring on the comments

  1. Michael says:

    I’m not sure I buy Scott’s visor falling off like that when Scott gets punched. The entire point of the visor is that it DOESN’T fall off when he gets punched or falls down, unlike the glasses.
    “Havok’s always had something of an inferiority complex when it comes to Cyclops, but Cyclops isn’t usually quite so condescending to him. They certainly don’t normally come to blows like this.”
    Havok hasn’t been acting rationally since the events of Hellions- its not clear whether it’s a result of whatever caused his multiple personality problems, his trauma over destroying the means to bring Kwannon’s daughter back to life under Empath’s control or both. Other examples include acting like he owned Maddie in the final issue of Hellions and his nonchalant attitude upon learning that the Five may have been killed 3 issues ago.
    Scott’s attitude is bizarre, though, since it’s been pointed out that Scott’s powers mean that he has to avoid provoking people to avoid incidents like this. Maybe Maddie’s resurrection has stirred up old issues.
    I wonder what’s going to happen with Alex. We see him holding hands with Maddie on the cover of Dark Web:X-Men 3. I guess this means he’s going to side with Maddie AGAIN during an Inferno.
    I wonder where they’re going with the two Lauras. Too many people have been resurrected to say that all the resurrected people aren’t the real deal. And what about the people resurrected via the Waiting Room, which was created by a witch? Are they also not real?

  2. Chris V says:

    My guess as to why Xavier had the rule about only one unique individual could exist at a time was to convince people that what they are doing on Krakoa is superior to cloning. The reason was to avoid the situation which occurred in Moira’s Life Nine where Sinister was in control of the cloning process. If the population of Krakoa felt that the resurrection process was just a convoluted and time-consuming version of cloning, they might turn to Sinister for help in bringing back the dead.
    Since the next event is Sinister-centric, most likely involving his creation of the chimeras, this could very well be setting up the event.

  3. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    I can’t believe we finally get a double trouble situation and it’s in a Duggan book I dropped.

  4. GN says:

    Regarding Havok, it was strongly implied that his current condition is due to a botched mindjob. If we recall X-Men Blue, Emma undid his ‘magic inversion’ by creating a new personality based on Polaris’ memories of him that she grafted on to his inverted one.

    However, Hellions hinted that this was not done thoroughly so Havok developed a split personality – a cordial one when he’s around friends and family and a demonic one that flares up whenever he’s near dark magic (the Hellfire Cult or the Goblin Queen).

    The final issues of Hellions suggested that Emma was aware that the inverted personality still exists within but she used Empath to exploit it so that Havok would join Sinister’s team.

    Havok should either go confront Emma again or have Jean Grey take a look into his mind to see if it can be fixed. Otherwise, the best option is a factory reset with a pre-AXIS Cerebro back-up.

    Wells and Duggan will probably return to Havok’s condition during the Dark Web event since he’ll be meeting Pryor again. In fact, Duggan seems to have chosen his ‘Year 2’ team of X-Men with Dark Web in mind.

    Four members of the team have connections to Pryor:
    Jean Grey – genetic template
    Cyclops – ex-husband
    Havok – ex-boyfriend
    Magik – former ruler of Limbo

    Two members of the team have connections to Spider-Man:
    Iceman – Amazing Friends
    Firestar – Amazing Friends

  5. Si says:

    Is the cover a tribute to the Kulan Gath story where Caliban and Xavier were merged?

  6. Drew says:

    It’s a little weird to bring up Scott’s brain damage, no? When one of the (many) unanswered questions of the Krakoa era is why he still needs his visor when he’s in a new, undamaged body. Lampshading it doesn’t make it go away, guys.

    Obviously the actual answer is “Because the visor is his thing and they’re never going to get rid of it because it’s central to the character,” but I think I just have to accept they’re never going to offer any kind of pseudo-explanation for why, say, Scott still has brain damage or Warren still has access to metal wings, and just pretend the answer is, “Proteus couldn’t alter that in making their new bodies for, uh, reasons.”

  7. Si says:

    I’ve said for years that the way to do something with Cyclops is that he learns to hold the beams back, but on missions he still needs the visor just in case. They actually did that with Hazmat and her containment suit recently. It keeps the unique look of the character, while preventing stagnation.

  8. Luis Dantas says:

    @Si: that storyline was already done, wasn’t it? In Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, IIRC.

  9. Si says:

    The Whedon story started down that line. It was revealed that his problem was mental not physical. But nobody ever revisited it, and now we’re back to brain damage.

  10. Jon R says:

    @GN: Yeah, they’ve set this up a bit, but it still requires everyone around Alex to be holding the idiot ball. Alex himself seems befuddled about his entire mental state and not asking questions, that’s fair. But Scott or Jean apparently have never said “Oh great, you’re doing better than when you were shipped off to Hellions… so what happened?”.

    You can get around that with him putting them off, but his mental state has been such an important part of his arc the past few years that it feels bad to not have it questioned more on-panel.

  11. Mike Loughlin says:

    Cassara’s art is great, but his Havok looked rough. I think this is because Havok’s metal headpiece looks dumb from the side. He also drew the concentric circles on his chest as part of the costume, rather than as Havok’s energy pulsing from his body.

    Whedon’s retcon regarding Scott’s lack of control over his powers was stupid. I’m fine with no one ever referencing it. Just give him control and say the visor amplifies or focuses his powers, like Si said above. Cyclops is already damaged from a lifetime of trauma. Controlling his optic blasts won’t change him too much.

  12. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    Nah, the most uptight guy in the world not being able to control his own powers which is what demands he be so self controlled is a great hook for a character.

    As is the fact that the team leader has purely destructive death rays for powers and nothing else.

  13. Mike Loughlin says:

    It’s a great hook. I’m sure we’ll never move away from it because it works so well. I just don’t think it’s necessary these days. I get why characters with acquired disabilities like Karma would choose to keep them in order to prevent disability erasure. Cyclops, however, could kill people by looking at them. I would think he’d want to prevent that from happening. After the Krakoan era is over, Scott can bono his head again and go back to needing ruby quartz eyewear.

  14. Michael says:

    @Jon R-Plus there’s the idea that Havok is unstable because he punched Scott, when really the issue is that the visor usually doesn’t come off easily. Hilariously, Jean describes Alex as a loose cannon, when she herself telekinetically attacked Scott while he had his visor on when her teammates were in the room twice- she threw a mattress at him in X-Factor 6 and pelted him with ice balls in X-Factor Annual 5, and he was knocked down in that issue. No one treated Jean like she was a loose cannon in those issues, because Scott’s visor never falls off when he’s hit or falls except when Duggan is writing!

  15. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    Erasing what makes characters unique is one of the big problems of infinite perfect resurrection with customization.

    God it really does seem like something from a fan fiction, I hate it so much.

  16. Mathias X says:

    Drew — the visor problem was touched on back in House of X. Scott has a psychological block now — his optic blasts were controllable after his resurrection up until the part where they put his mind in his body, and then he needed his visor. He was once brain damaged, but that injury was “cured” on screen when he hit his head on a rock again way back in the dog-face Wolverine saga in the ’90s.

  17. Michael says:

    @Mathias X- Not quite. This is Hickman’s explanation:
    https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-x-men-jonathan-hickman-wolverine-adamantium-resurrection/
    “”What the more interesting question is is why does Cyclops need a visor?” Hickman says, alluding to the fact that Cyclops’ inability to control his optic blasts isn’t genetic, but developed as the result of an injury sustained as a child. “Why doesn’t Chamber have a jaw? Does the imprinting of the backup of their mind mean they have to be broken in that familiar way to actually be them?”

  18. Taibak says:

    Uncanny X-Ben: It’s not even unique to Krakoa. I know I keep going back to Barbara Gordon as an example here, but part of the way Dan Didio convinced Gail Simeone to reverse her paralysis was by asking why Gordon is the only character who never gets better.

    We know it’s because Oracle was a far more interesting character than Batgirl ever was, but it doesn’t make sense that she’d stay paralyzed when other characters are coming back from far worse injuries or getting resurrected. By the same token, in a universe where Tony Stark and Reed Richards can create reliable nanotech, it doesn’t make sense that nobody would cure Cyclops’s brain damage.

  19. Uncanny X-Ben says:

    Nothing about superheroes makes sense in the first place.

    Why doesn’t Cap have an Iron Man suit made out of adamantium blessed by Asgardian runes?

    Because that would suck.

  20. Michael says:

    While we’re on the subject of Scott’s optic beams not making sense, another thing has always bothered me about sequences where Scott loses his visor or glasses. Scott always seems to have more control over his powers when he takes off his glasses then when they fall off. For example, in Uncanny X-Men 144, Scott takes off his glasses and uses his powers to shoot a pool ball into the hole. He had to be able to lower the intensity of his beam or he could have destroyed the pool table. In Uncanny X-Men 170, Scott takes off his glasses and uses his power to shoot a hole through a penny he tossed in the air without damaging the ceiling of a room he’s in. He had to be able to lower the intensity of the beam or he could have damaged the ceiling.In both cases, the owner of the building didn’t know his secret identity and none of the X-Men’s telepaths were nearby. So he had to be sure he could control the intensity of the beam when he removed his glasses. How could he explain any damage if he couldn’t? So if Scott can lower the intensity of the beam when he removes his glasses, why can’t he do it when his glasses or visor fall off? Perro might have not escaped if Scott had been able to lower the intensity of the beam?

  21. Jason R says:

    I rolled my eyes not just at the visor flying off but that Scott’s optic blast blew a hole through the dome… Forge has thought of everything for this brilliant solution that we’re all supposed to be so impressed by and the dome can be penetrated by ONE optic blast? Really?? I can forgive Havok and Scott fighting because X-Men is always going to be a soap opera but this would have worked fine if it had just been a fight between the two of them outside the dome, with the rest of the team trying to break it up or whatever. The scene of them arguing could have been longer to show an escalation so that it’s more believable when Havok punches Scott. Duggan didn’t have to have Perro get loose to fight everyone (and in the process make Forge look incompetent), but that’s easier to write.

    And why did Forge go through the trouble of getting Mystique’s DNA if he’s going to walk and fly around without disguising himself? He just takes for granted that he won’t be spotted until he gets to a “more densely populated” area. It’s an incredibly advanced megacity with untold numbers of superpowered beings and he’s stupid enough to assume Mystique’s shapeshifting would be enough to fool them (there’s no way) and he doesn’t even use it the whole time. This bothered me last issue too when he first enters. Why risk it?

    I know the kind answer is that comics are primarily a visual medium – they wanna show off the Caliban suit and show him and Forge talking to each other, and not have a whole issue with two different Perros (it is a hideous design) where one of them is just talking to himself. But instead of thinking of a creative way to get around the problem, they just go “Forge has to be dumb as rocks in order for this not-very-good story to work”

    The first year of Duggan’s X-Men was fine. It was boring at times but inoffensive. It had great art. I think the best issue is issue #9, the post-Inferno issue that sets up Immortal X-Men and X-Men Red, because those plots are actually interesting. I don’t want to judge him (ha ha) for the throwaway Judgment Day tie-ins. But now this is really starting to chafe. Despite the number of (however dubious) threads it has thrown at us, this title has felt like it’s been in a holding pattern since its inception. What is the point of these X-Men? Sometimes it feels like it’s just to keep Scott and Jean occupied and away from the Council and actual goings-on.

    Also Firestar remains just… absolutely unwelcome. I don’t have anything against her, she just makes no sense whatsoever on an X-Men team in the Krakoan era. And her new costume is equally baffling. Marvel should have just rigged the vote in favor of Micromax.

  22. Mike Loughlin says:

    Jason R: I’m not even a Firestar fan (she’s fine), but she was portrayed as a smart, capable heroine back in New Warriors and Avengers. Making her a star-struck rookie is a bad choice. It reminds me of when Lobdell wrote X-Force leader Cannonball as a hapless greenhorn when he joined the X-Men.

    Michael: I chalk Scott being able to control his optic blasts when he takes off his glasses to intense concentration and focus. He can’t ever stop the blasts from coming out, but he can alter their intensity and size to a degree. The blasts come out full force when he’s surprised and unprepared. Does that make complete sense? No, but neither does being able to shoot a hole in a penny flying through the air but not punching the same hole through the wood and plaster of the ceiling.

  23. Thom H. says:

    “What the more interesting question is is why does Cyclops need a visor?”

    Hickman made a lot of these “isn’t that interesting?” points in interviews that were never very consequential to his stories. Isn’t it interesting that Jean is wearing her Marvel Girl uniform? Isn’t it interesting that Xavier’s face is covered by his new helmet? Etc. They seem to exist to paper over inconsistencies in the Krakoan set-up and/or to tease possible reveals that never happened (or at least haven’t yet). Lots of hype for little to no payoff.

  24. Chris V says:

    I think some of the ideas Hickman teased may have been plot-points which were dropped by Hickman having to change his plans and leave the books early.

    Wasn’t the “Xavier’s helmet” mystery covered in the book when it was revealed he was still in Fantomex’ body? In X-Force #1, Xavier was killed and reborn in his own body.

    The “Marvel Girl” reveal, I think, was going to pay-off with some revelation about the Phoenix, considering what we do know about the dropped future plans of Hickman. Based on the alternate Life Ten timeline, we do see that Krakoa would eventually make use of the Phoenix Force in order to destroy the Dominions. This was teased in House/Powers where it was stated as the Phoenix or Galactus being the only things which were a threat to a Dominion. I think the Jean/Marvel Girl mystery would have tied into that information.

  25. Krzysiek Ceran says:

    After I gave up on Duggan’s X-Men being anything other than well drawn, rather mindless action setpieces, he goes and writes an interesting setup.

    I am surprised.

    I am also, however, doubtful whethe he’ll actually do anything interesting with this setup. All his previous stories had way too neat resolutions, so I’m not holding my breath here.

    Because there isn’t a simple, neat solution here. The Vault Laura is another person. They can’t download her memories into Laura Prime – VLaura would overwrite her personality, she’s experienced so much more time.

    So. It would require an interesting approach.

    Which is why I fear Duggan will:
    a) have them download VLaura’s memories into Laura Prime and then the subject will never come up again.
    b) have VLaura sacrifice herself heroically next issue, but there won’t be a backup so she’ll be truly lost.

    You know. Boring and disappointing. Neat.

  26. YLu says:

    A powerless Storm famously snatched Cyclops’ visor right off his face in a leap. That’s maybe the most famous example of it getting pulled off, but there’s also been others. Which is to say it can’t be all that secure if someone can do that with just their hands.

  27. Karl_H says:

    About Forge’s little diorama of a developed Krakoa… It really points up how underdeveloped Krakoa is on the page, even after so much time. The implication is that Forge is planning major infrastructure development, which is fine but seems a bit late? considering that we’re to believe that 200,000 people already live on the island. Are they all living in huts?

    Forge’s big secret plan seems to be building what logic would dictate already exists in some form.

  28. Chris V says:

    I thought that Krakoa, the island, would grow a habitat for the person to dwell.

    That was always the problem with Krakoa. It felt a lot like simply a base for the mutants, as if it were strictly a replacement for the mansion. The more interesting aspects of Krakoa as a workable society were downplayed in favour of the popular mutants going into action. Even if Hickman intended Krakoa as “a trap” for mutants, the detailing of everyday lives would’ve been more interesting than battles.

  29. neutrino says:

    “Port Genosha whiskey”
    Isn’t Sinister a wine connoisseur though?

    Forge definitely intended his neutralizer for mutants and other superhumans. His version in the X-Men didn’t even work on Dire Wraiths.

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