X-Force #35 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #35
“Prison Break”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Chris Allen
Colourist: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Beast fighting Maverick and Sevyr Blackmore.
PAGE 2. Stan Lee tribute page.
PAGE 3. Beast ejects a prisoner into space.
I mean, it’s not subtle, is it? There isn’t much to say about this issue in terms of annotations, by the way, but we’ll run through it quickly anyway. The Krakoan text reads AIRLOCK.
PAGE 4-6. The riot continues.
Solem seems to have no ulterior motive here beyond bringing down the Beast. He claims the moral high ground over Maverick on the basis that at least he doesn’t lower himself to working for the Beast, though I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve made the point that Percy’s interpretation of Maverick completely ignores his traditional role as the most decent member of Team X. And I really, really, don’t buy someone from Arakko giving lectures about the lessons of history regarding fascism.
The Krakoan on Beast’s screen reads NO FEED.
PAGE 7. Domino and Jubilee.
Sage is busily apologising to Domino after being too drunk to save her last issue; Domino is being supportive. All of this is terribly heavy handed (the art doesn’t really help it, to be honest) and you may be getting the point by now that I really don’t like this issue at all. Bluntly, I’m not waiting for the pay-off of Beast getting brought down.
PAGE 8. Recap and credits.
PAGES 9-10. Beast turns a prisoner into a monster.
And then takes refuge in a cell, hoping that everything will blow over or that he’ll be safe until someone shows up to rescue him.
Man-Slaughter is the Man-Thing-related character from issues #20-21.
PAGES 11-12. X-Force find Beast’s hidden gate.
The Krakoan on the video screen reads DATASET.
Omega Red, for once, is being a good team player – possibly because he was himself exploited by the Beast when he was resurrected with a tracking device.
Domino is naturally (and correctly) suspicious that Beast is also responsible for Wolverine’s disappearance, as covered over in his solo title.
PAGES 13-14. Maverick abandons the Beast.
Percy’s Maverick still draws the line somewhere, which is fine… but again, this just feels so heavy handed to me.
PAGE 15. Data page – a list of some of the prisoners. All the individual characters are new. One of them has apparently tried to assassinate Abigail Brand. Moord is the homeworld of the Badoon. Sakaar is an alien world from Incredible Hulk. The Cotati are a plant-based alien race from the same homeworld as the Kree.
PAGES 16-17. Domino and Omega Red leave Sage behind.
This is obviously meant to be Sage’s turning point on her alcoholism arc.
PAGES 18-21. Domino and Omega Red arrest the Beast.
The Krakoan on Sage’s display reads RECEIVING.
PAGE 22. Data page. Sevyr Blackmore tells us that he’s appropriating Beast’s prison to be his new pirate ship, replacing the one that got destroyed in Wolverine #14-16.
PAGES 23-25. Sage fights the monster.
Solem steered this thing through the portal to Krakoa in the previous scene for no particularly obvious reason beyond trouble-making (or perhaps, if you’re being generous, he wants to draw attention to the portal, if the Krakoans haven’t noticed it yet). The idea of Sage harnessing alcohol as a weapon is presumably meant to symbolise her taking control of it.
PAGE 26. Trailers.
Initially I was turned off Percy’s X-Force by the gratuitous violence (Domino was being skinned alive in the first arc IIRC). Then something clicked – there were scheming enemies, the team had some chemistry, Beast’s downward spiral was initially credibile…
And then? I don’t know. I still maintain my theory that Percy’s plot revolved heavily around Mikhail and that someone at Marvel axed this after the Russian invasion on Ukraine made it too ‘actually about real politics’.
And this is Percy pulling alternative plot threads out of his ass. Just scripting the first thing that came to his mind.
If my theory is wrong, then I don’t know. He got bored? He’s just racing to the finish? If this is the beginning of Beast’s downfall after all that setup… or worse, if this was it, this was the whole downfall – it’s going to be incredibly disappointing.
“And I really, really, don’t buy someone from Arakko giving lectures about the lessons of history regarding fascism.”
Indeed! That really irked me too.
Anyway… both the alcholism and Beast breaks bad plots require more resolution than this. Better art wouldn’t hurt, but the business with Sage in particular really does read heavy handedly.
We haven’t followed up on Quire’s disappearance in a while. And it occurred to me during the scene with Omega Red’s tentacles locating the gate that they have the same color scheme as Quentin’s costume redesign. Since he had been experimenting with resurrection alterations, I wonder if there won’t be some connection there.
There are any number of alcoholic superheroes, and I don’t think even one of them had an interesting resolution. A few don’t even seem to mention the fact again.
It’s not something you can really do in a traditional superhero comic, I think. Month after month of pages that could be full of punching, instead having to be devoted to a character resisting having a drink, the genre format is wrong.
I would counter with the Denny O’Neil Tony Stark alcoholism storyline. The guy loses everything, end up homeless, and almost dies. He finally decided he needs help. The post-drinking stage of the storyline, where Stark is trying to be zen, realizing he can’t handle stress, and starting a new small business with his friends issues are just as perfect. It’s never forgotten. Stark realizes that he can never touch a drink again. He is shown to regularly be attending AA meetings. I’d say O’Neil did a very believable look at a serious disease which didn’t stick to the usual treatment of alcoholism.
(If this doesn’t turn out to be some sort of mind control story that’s forcing Beast to go all sadistic) I’m wondering if this a take on the concept that Hank only turned out decent in the 616 only because he had Xavier lead him down a more ethical path. I know I’ve read in different places before that Dark Beast is what you get without Xavier’s influence on Hank. And if you think about how the most vile and unethical villains have not only been accepted in Krakoa, but also put in charge (Sinister, Apocalypse, Mystique, etc.) then there’s some potential story to be made about Hank just saying “f*ck it” and embracing the darker side.
Not saying that’s being done well in X-Force, but *maybe* that’s the angle Percy is taking.
I agree with Chris V that Tony stark is an alcoholism story done well, both the 1st and second version (Layton and O’Neil) but later retreads like the recent morphine story line or disassembled have not worked.
Sage’s is arc is much closer to Carol Danvers or Syrin, in that is has come quite quickly out of nowhere as an excuse for the hero to mess up, and then after a few issues of getting help it’s rarely brought up again.
Is it a problem that we don’t have a good female addiction story ?
As a non drinker for a few years now, I appreciated when the Scarlet Witch rejected alcohol in her limited series. (She had coffee or tea instead) I related to her because she had these breakdowns previously and was being mindful about what she puts in her body. It was a small thing that I wish was explored more.
As to Krakoa- it’s fun to see everyone so lively at the bar for 2 years, but it’s nice to see this alternative that drinking at the Green Lagoon in paradise might not be metally healthy for everyone. (Honestly does every single character HAVE to have a drink at the bar every time ?) For a bit there it reminded me of early sober days, when lots of recovery folks see their drug of choice everywhere-except mine was on krakoa in a comic book.
On the one hand, I’m glad Percy is finally pulling the pin on the “Beast’s Downfall” storyline ; it’s been bubbling up for long enough. But yeah the actual execution leaves a lot to be desired.
(And next arc is “the truth behind Xeno”, so maybe he’s about to wrap his run up ?)
Speaking of drinking, this is obviously waaaay down the list of “most unbelievable things about Beast becoming a monster,” but do he and Bobby and Warren just… not hang out anymore? Krakoa’s this idyllic place of leisure where drinks are free and everyone raves constantly, and Hank is a legendary party hound. None of his friends think it’s weird that he’s not around? I know he and Scott were on the outs ever since Utopia, and Bobby’s been distracted the last few years making up for in-the-closet time, but no one’s like, “Hey, where’s Hank? Why does he not have a lampshade on his head and a drink in each hand?” Warren, your book was canceled after five issues, how are you not dragging Hank around cruising for single mutant ladies, like, all the time?
I guess it’s supposed to illustrate how completely Hank has cut himself off from everyone, but come on. These are his oldest friends in the world on Free Booze n’ Sex Island and he’s nowhere to be found. There’s no way they aren’t at least checking up on him.
Alastair says: I agree with Chris V that Tony stark is an alcoholism story done well, both the 1st and second version (Layton and O’Neil) but later retreads like the recent morphine story line or disassembled have not worked.
I think the problem is that serialized storytelling means it either becomes a passing reference or it becomes a full-blown relapse for the character, or they become a sponsor for some other character.
All of those have to be done with thoughtfulness and care; they don’t really lend themselves well to Iron Man’s latest epic struggle with the Mandarin.
It’s telling that O’Neil’s version required not writing Tony as Iron Man anymore, and more or less dropping him entirely out of the superheroing aspects of the title. Yeah, the catalyst was Obadiah Stane’s scheming, but the actual story was just Tony Stark falling into drunken apathy, and once Tony was gone as Stark CEO, gone as Iron Man, and lost in his addiction, yo could genuinely cut most of his scenes out, tell them without the “Iron Man” trappings, and they’d read about the same.
That’s why it worked, really: it wasn’t a story about Iron Man, but about a rich guy with an addiction problem exploited by a rival business owner, and his painful process of recovery.
Not coincidentally, O’Neil wasn’t doing much with Tony’s alcoholism once he was back in the suit and beat up the Iron Monger and all that.
The few issues of O’Neil’s run after that are standard superhero fare, with stuff like body-switching stories, single-issue fights with Avengers villains, and a spy/sabotage plotline around AIM.
Telling a Marvel or DC Universe story about a superhero with a substance abuse problem generally means having to show that they can’t function that well as a superhero due to the addiction.
And then you’re either pulling them back from their heroing role, making them everyone else’s problem, or fixing the addiction problem so they can keep being a main character.
That is… A lot of damage from one mouthful of burning alcohol. Added dice of Symbolism Damage I suspect.
There’s a good story to be told about Hank’s moral decline. It’s not this, but it’s there.
Apparently Xavier was what stopped Hank from going full Mengele, so make it about his disillusionment with the Professor after the bastard Xavier revelations like Danger and making everyone forget Vulcan’s team. Both Hank and Scott went all ‘the ends justify the means’ after that, and it took dying and a resurrected Jean for Scott to work it out of his system.
@Drew: and yes, it is frustrating that Hank’s friends seem to have abandoned him. Jean even saw he was being evil, but she just quit in disgust.
Karl_H: Yeah, she’s playing in a system where something on your sheet can be used as either an advantage or disadvantage depending on circumstances. The GM’s been adding Alcoholism against her rolls a *lot* for the past few sessions, and she finally had an excuse to add it to her dice pool instead.
You know, thinking about this, there may be a Beast rehabilitation story that hinges on his friends reaching out to him, but I don’t think it’s an Angel or Iceman story.
It’s a Wonder Man story.
Think about it. Beast hasn’t been a full-time Avenger for a long time, but it’s still a reasonably well-known part of his backstory. The friendship between him and Wonder Man was a big part of that dynamic. It’s arguably the period when the Beast was at his happiest too. It even gives Wonder Man an issue that his pacifism might actually help with by showing just how harmful Beast’s unethical behavior has been.
The speed and compression from which Sage’s alcoholism arc suffers from makes her turning point feel completely hollow and unearned. Domino lets her off the hook far, far too easily.
Wonder Man hasn’t been around much lately, but he *is* getting a Disney show, and Marvel hasn’t bothered too much with making tie-in comics match the shows lately. Even if it’s not the direction Percy’s plot is going in, I would not be surprised to see a throwback “Wonder Man and Beast” comic miniseries some day.
Taibak: And it was Beast who helped Wonder Man when he went all dark in his solo series near the start of the nineties. That was a great 25 issue run… shame it went on for a couple of unnecessary issues after that before they cancelled it and then killed Wonder Man off in WCA, but that’s another thread.
If this weren’t a Benjamin Percy ultraviolence comic then ‘A Few Good Men’ with Hank ‘You Can’t Handle the Truth!’ McCoy against someone like Kate or Kurt could be worth reading. As it is they probably won’t have enough time to even punish him before they need him to help deal with Sinister, with maybe a light martyrdom which will make everyone decide that he’s suffered enough.
@Loz
I fear you may have misrecalled a couple of titles. Wonder Man was killed in the debut issue of Force Works and left behind a few plots. Beast helped him deal with his psychological issues, but that was years later in early issues of Avengers Vol 3 by Kurt Busiek.
Loz: Alternatively, Beast could get killed off, be recognized as a martyr by the Krakoans, but find himself forced into introspection by his resurrection and turn that into the springboard for his new start.
And getting away from Krakoa and hanging out with Wonder Man in Los Angeles might be the best thing for him.