X-Men #19 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #19
“Lord of the Brood, part 1”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fight the Brood. The image continues on the cover of Captain Marvel #46, which is cross referenced on the recap page – but that strand of the storyline, “Revenge of the Brood”, actually began back in Captain Marvel #43. None of that is recapped in this issue, and in fairness, none of it directly matters yet. But here’s what happened:
In Captain Marvel #43, Captain Marvel receives a fragmented video message from Rogue. She asks the X-Men about it, and Cyclops and Jean Grey establish that Rogue has gone into space. Another distress call comes in, this time from Binary. (The current Binary is a duplicate Carol Danvers that gained sentience and has been around for several arcs now.) Captain Marvel leads a team into space to investigate, consisting of herself, Hazmat, Spider-Woman, Polaris, Wolverine (Laura), Psylocke and Hazmat. They find Rogue infected with the Brood.
In Captain Marvel #44, the heroes fight Rogue and eventually resort to killing her, on the basis that she can be resurrected back on Earth. Gambit is still quite upset about it. Psylocke belatedly points out that the Brood are supposed to be under Broo’s control right now (since Hickman’s X-Men #9), and so this incident shouldn’t have happened. The team track Binary’s distress signal to the planet Ceia II, where they find an whole nest of out-of-control Brood. The aliens capture them and trap them in a hallucination about a nice Shi’ar party.
In Captain Marvel #45, the heroes break out of the illusion, but naturally they’ve all been infected with Brood eggs. For unclear reasons, the Brood are trying to steal their powers. They split into two teams and head off to fight the Brood.
Originally, X-Men #19 was supposed to come out last week, between Captain Marvel #45-46, so we’ll come back to Captain Marvel #46 later.
PAGE 2. Data page. A quote from Forge. This reading of Forge has him feel almost compelled to use his powers to solve problems that are put in front of him. Historically, this has had mixed results, since solving the problem hasn’t always turned out to be the best idea.
PAGE 3. Forge and Monet investigate the gate to Knowhere.
Since most of the X-Men are needed elsewhere in the plot, we get Sage from X-Force and Prodigy from X-Factor to serve as sounding boards. Prodigy says on the next page that they were supposedly invited to give their expert opinion, but clearly Forge has no real interest in hearing it.
Presumably this is another example of Forge solving a mystery Because It’s There, rather than because it’s necessarily a very good idea to solve it. But Monet is apparently willing to give it a go.
Knowhere is a severed Celestial head that was turned into a space station. It’s mostly a Guardians of the Galaxy concept. It was sucked into a black hole in Guardians of the Galaxy vol 5 #6, which was indeed published before Krakoa went public in House of X #1. (Only by a month, but it was.)
PAGE 4. Forge explains how there’s a gate on Knowhere.
This is evidently how Forge solved the problem of getting a gate onto Knowhere: time travel. Messing with the timeline is not generally a good idea. We don’t get a clear shot of Cable on this page, but the blurry image of him in panel 3 seems to be Kid Cable, not the adult version with better judgment.
“See you folks at the Arbor Magna.” In other words, Sage expects them to die and need resurrection.
PAGE 5. Forge and Monet see weird images.
None of these images make much sense yet. The dwarf blacksmith is presumably from Asgard (or more accurately, Nidavellir).
PAGE 6.Recap and credits.
PAGE 7. The X-Men arrive on the outer rim world.
We saw Corsair’s distress call at the end of the previous issue, although not the X-Men receiving it.
Talon (the older version of Laura) has apparently joined the team, which wasn’t made 100% clear last issue.
Jean helpfully reminds us of the key plot point that Broo is supposed to have had full control of the Brood ever since X-Men vol 5 #9, so that none of this ought to be happening.
PAGE 8. Data page: the caste system and life cycle of the Brood. This is all basically self-explanatory. The term “dwarf queen” seems to be new, but I suspect some of the hive structure material is an attempt to square inconsistent depictions of Brood queens over the years.
PAGES 9-10. Firestar and Iceman face the Brood.
Again, we’ve got the fire and ice pairing. Iceman seems to be the character that Firestar is bonding most successfully with, on a team where she doesn’t really know anyone that well.
“[W]hen I helped terraform Arakko…” Planet-Sized X-Men #1. I can’t say I’ve really noticed any great change in Iceman since terraforming Arakko, but honestly, the character has been having repeated epiphanies about how powerful he is for years now.
“I think I’ll hate and fear these ugly things forever.” Iceman wasn’t in the first Brood arc, but he has fought them before. He’s in the 1996 miniseries X-Men vs Brood, for example.
PAGE 11. Jean asks other telepaths to help find Broo.
The appearance of Psylocke here is odd, since she’s busy in the Captain Marvel arc. Emma and the Cuckoos are presumably back on Earth, but let’s assume the X-Men have brought some sort of communications device to deal with the long distances.
PAGES 12-18. Cyclops, Wolverine and Synch cut the Broodling out of Corsair.
I’m… pretty sure that’s not been an option in the past? Not least because the Brood used to physically transform their hosts, not just use them as pregnancy carriers. That said, these Brood are slightly different, and something along these lines did happen in Wolverine and the X-Men vol 1 #5.
Cyclops loses his normal composure with his father’s life at risk, and Synch and Talon effectively take the lead.
“Like when we were separated from Darwin.” Talon is referencing a scene in X-Men vol 5 #19 where she, Synch and Darwin – during the hundreds of years they spend trapped in the Vault timewarp – try to infiltrate the heart of the city and walk into an ambush by the Children of the Vault. It’s an odd thing for Talon to mention here, since in itself it was a fairly standard ambush – but then again, something that reduced her social circle from three to two for the next few hundred years doubtless registers as a major event in her life.
PAGES 19-21. The X-Men take shelter under an ice fort.
Talon (not Synch, note) reveals that the reason Synch has been ageing rapidly is because of his use of his powers to copy people who aren’t within reach. Synch clearly didn’t want to disclose this information, partly because he wants to be heroic, but partly (you suspect) because he sees himself being benched from the team just as Talon has finally come back to it.
PAGES 22-24. Forge and Monet on Knowhere.
They find their own bodies alive and unconscious, and assume that they’re astrally projecting or something. Or maybe it’s a time loop?
The closing page shows Knowhere, itself looking much as it did when he was saw it. It’s a slightly odd piece of art, since what we’re apparently meant to be reacting to is the weird visual effect in the background, but the art actually draws our attention to the most familiar thing instead.
PAGE 25. Trailers.
Although it’s not listed here, the story continues in Captain Marvel #46, also out this week. It doesn’t directly connect to this story, though. The heroes find Binary as a prisoner, along with the real Rogue (the one in issue #44 was apparently a Brood who had copied Rogue’s powers). Oh, and Psylocke learns that Captain Marvel has been to an alternate future timeline where Psylocke and Forge had a daughter. According to the trailer page in that issue, the two arcs don’t actually converge until Captain Marvel #49.
Just like Duggan’s Vault trilogy was a sequel to Hickman’s Vault trilogy, it seems Lord of the Brood will be a sequel to Hickman’s Brood duology. In which case, Broo most likely has been compromised by ORCHIS creating a rival King Egg. This was hinted to be possible in X-Men (Vol 5) 9. We could conceivably head into Fall of X with Broo controlling a fraction of the Brood and ORCHIS controlling another fraction.
The Forge and Penance subplot looks like it explores the origin of the Brood. Knowhere has ended up in an inverse universe (the space is white and the stars are black). Hickman dropped hints that the Brood were created in another universe and travelled to the Marvel Universe. His intention likely was that they came from the Alien universe (Hickman is a big fan of the movie Prometheus) but it looks Duggan is going for a more Marvel-centric answer, which might be better.
Typo alert : the team lineup in the Captain Marvel #43 recap has Hazmat listed twice, and Gambit missing.
As someone who doesn’t want to buy Captain Marvel (I’m sure it’s fine but I already buy too many comics), I like that the X-Men chapters are their own story. The recent Dark Web crossover had a similar structure- you didn’t have to buy Spider-Man or Venom if you just cared about what was happening with Maddie and the X-Men. I wonder if this is a structure Marvel is experimenting with in order to see if it effects people’s buying habits.
I get Forge needs someone to exposit at now that he’s realized sapient armor is a bit wrong, but Monet is an odd choice to for Forge’s companion. She’s not part of the cast of this book, she’s not an explorer type or even particularly curious, and I’m not sure we’ve even seen her speak with Forge before.
Speaking of odd choices – Psylocke and Forge? Does Kwannon just have a thing for Indigenous men?
Wasn’t Monet established as being genius level intelligence back in the Generation X days? Or has that been mostly forgotten?
As for Psylocke and Forge having a kid together, that is extremely random.
So does the mean this storyline will drag on for another 2 or 3 months?
@wwk5d I think part of M’s original power set was above average intelligence combined with a bit of a haughty attitude about how average everyone around her wa. Kind of like Quicksilver. Over time the emphasis on intelligence took a back seat to just being harsh, but I feel like Peter David tried to dig into her character a little more in X-Factor. There’s also simply too many X-Men characters currently for them all to be given justice ever again.
I recall M’s initial presentation being something like “What if Superman was a dick about it.” Invulnerable, can fly, great at everything, and still in need of validation.
Come to think of it, wasn’t Monet originally being written by Lobdell as being a fusion of twin sisters and that there was no real Monet to begin with?
Money’s back story is a bit complex (Algerian mother, Black French father, yet born in Bosnia for some reason, Muslim but her last name means Holy Cross… still, ok, life is often like that) but apparently the Penance/ twins story was the plan all along, IIRC.
X-plain the X-Men covered this recently – the twins were the plan all along, but Penance was supposed to be an unrelated character.
But after Larry Hama was brought in, he was told by the editors that the character was popular, so he had to keep M, whilst also explaining the twins (since that reveal happened just before he came on).
So, Lobdell’s version is two little girls who create one teenager, but what we got was two little girls who impersonate one teenager, who’s currently transformed into Penance.
Monet’s story was such a mess. We went from the twins being Monet with Penance as a separate character to the twins being Monet and wait the real Monet was Penance all along to the twins being Monet and Monet was Penance all along but wait Penance is also now a separate character too…
“Money’s back story is a bit complex (Algerian mother, Black French father, yet born in Bosnia for some reason, Muslim but her last name means Holy Cross… still, ok, life is often like that)”
Well, under Lobdell Penance’s original backstory was her being a deaf girl from somewhere in the former Yugoslavia (I guess Bosnia was specified later).
And don’t forget, Monet’s dad was biracial, as we also met Monet’s paternal grandfather, Louis St. Croix, who was a white man who was also a member of Xavier’s Mutant Underground. Monet and her dad could be Muslim with that name if her dad converted to Islam, which he probably did when marrying her mother.
I suppose it’s for the best that I completely forgot about all that nonsense
In their first arc, Wolverine said, the Brood embryo couldn’t be removed surgically. That should especially be true for amateurs like Synch and Laura.
The Brood have been interested in obtaining superpowered hosts since their first appearance.
@GN: How would Orchis know about the King Egg, let alone be able to duplicate it?
@JD Was that a typo or some editor’s secret wish revealed? XD
@Ben
“There’s also simply too many X-Men characters currently for them all to be given justice ever again.”
Do you want more Decimation? Because this is how we get more Decimation. XD
@neutrino- Orchis now has access to all the knowledge Moira accumulated during her ten lives.It’s entirely possible someone mentioned the King Egg to Moira during one of her lives.
wwk5d > So does the mean this storyline will drag on for another 2 or 3 months?
Lord of the Brood is issues 19-21 (with a thematic crossover with Captain Marvel 43-49).
I believe issues 22-24 is an X-Men vs ORCHIS arc (quite possibly a crossover with Iron Man as Feilong is the villain there).
The third Hellfire Gala is in July, where the Year 3 X-Men line-up will be revealed and the events of Fall of X kick off. Then, Fall of X itself starting from August.
I believe the current volume of X-Men will go on until issue 35 (legacy numbering 700) in mid-2024, when the Hickman era of X-books ends with Fall of X. The next era of X-books will launch with Uncanny X-Men (Vol 6) 1 (LGY 701) in summer 2024.
neutrino How would Orchis know about the King Egg, let alone be able to duplicate it?
Some Broo-controlled Brood did attack the ORCHIS Forge in Inferno, so there was some opportunity to study them. Like Michael speculates, Moira could have informed them about it as well.
But this is mostly guesswork on my part. When Hickman introduced the King Egg bioweapon, he also introduced the idea that a rival King Egg could disrupt the control of the Brood King. Standard foreshadowing.
While the other major X-books are currently embroiled in Sins of Sinister, Duggan is building towards Fall of X in X-Men – the big Krakoa vs ORCHIS showdown. It makes the most sense to me that ORCHIS would be behind it. That said, this is just a guess and any number of things could have happened to Broo.
neutrino In their first arc, Wolverine said, the Brood embryo couldn’t be removed surgically. That should especially be true for amateurs like Synch and Laura.
Synch and Talon aren’t amateurs anymore though. They’re nearly as old as Apocalypse, and far older than Logan. The real purpose of this scene is to show how much Everett and Laura have changed in the Vault and how well they work together as a team. That said, I agree with Paul that Duggan is going for a slightly different variant of Brood here to make this scene work.
@wwk5d I think part of M’s original power set was above average intelligence combined with a bit of a haughty attitude about how average everyone around her wa. Kind of like Quicksilver. Over time the emphasis on intelligence took a back seat to just being harsh, but I feel like Peter David tried to dig into her character a little more in X-Factor. There’s also simply too many X-Men characters currently for them all to be given justice ever again.
It seems like “haughty, but talented” as a character trait inevitably gets reduced to just “arrogant ass who needs to be taken down a peg.”
The same thing happened to Moondragon, originally* conceived as a character who was usually right, but infuriating about it; and, of course Quicksilver. Both of them have recurring stints as raving villains, when they were conceived of as irritating but ultimately noble sorts.
*I’m not counting Moondragon’s very first appearance as, ahem, “Madame McEvil,” a pretty odd creation from the tail end of Bill Everett’s career. The character everyone knows is really an entirely different character concept bolted on to the visual design of Everett’s character, with the Moondragon name and mental powers coming from Starlin and Friedrich. Seems like Starlin adopted and reinvented her mainly because she was in the issue of Iron Man right before the one where he introduced Thanos.
@GN: They spent about 500 years in the Vault before Synch escaped and Laura was captured, but they weren’t attending medical school. Specialized knowledge like surgery needs training.
Regarding Penance,
Yes, her backstory is convoluted, but then again a lot of Generation X is convoluted. The character of Mondo being another example. The Krakoa-era writing for Monet has been based around Hickman’s reinvention of her, where Penance is Monet’s secondary mutant form.
As to why she’s in this arc, she was part of the reader Year 2 X-Men Vote, where I believe she came in second place next to Firestar. Perhaps Duggan felt that he wanted to do something for the fans who voted, or maybe he had already formulated plans involving her that he did not want to waste.
She’s also very likely a part of the new Uncanny Avengers cast, a book which I believe Duggan is writing, so maybe Duggan wanted to set something up for that book.
@neutrino: Synch is a ~500 year old mind in a teenage body (albeit one that is rapidly aging every time he uses his indirect synching). Talon has to be in her 1000s (two Hellfire Galas elapsed between the time Synch left and the time Talon left the Vault).
The Vault isn’t devoid of medical knowledge though – the mutants stole advanced information from the Child Diamante and likely from the child Madre. Using that, plus 500 years of trial and error while ‘playing doctor’ as Synch puts it, should have turned them into professionals.
Like I said, Talon was undoubtedly captured at the same time that Synch escaped and spent subsequent time imprisoned or in stasis. They got some information about the Children’s plans and procedures, but it shouldn’t have been specialized skills since neither is a telepath and Diamante wasn’t a doctor IIRC. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the minimal technology surgery they were doing anyway. Would you want to be operated on by someone who learned by trial and error, especially if unlike them you didn’t have a healing factor?
Maybe the “Forge” who is Alt-Future-Kwannon’s babydaddy (and Sora’s biodaddy) is actually John GreyCrow (aka ScalpHunter) , JGC actually has intuitive inventiveness as one of his X-gene mutant powers (along with a healing factor that let him survive being courtmartialed by firing squad in WW2), but it’s apparently limited to weapons and vehicles (see the Electra series volume 4 where he was killed by Aboriginal cannibal supervillain Bloody Lips, who absorbed JGC’s mutant powers)
And “Penance” was already established as maybe actually being a seperate entity all along , in Jay Faebar’s Generation X run , “Hollow” was shown to have memories of a past that apparently had nothing at all to do with Monet (she carved a statue of an old man who she somehow remembered) and in CB Cebulski of all people had her romantically-hook-up briefly with the 3rd Green Goblin Ben Urich (after he retired from superheroing but before he was brainwashed into becoming the Goblin Knight by Norman Osborn-as-Goblin King and subsequently killed) and she later became a resident of the Avengers Academy (acting the same way she did in Gen-X, living around its grounds) but she vanished into character-limbo after it was closed down after A vs X over a decade ago IRL
And here I was, certain that ‘Talon’ will never become Laura’s codename after DC published a book with that title.
It’s weird. Logically speaking, Talon is the ‘actual’ Laura, and the one from X-Terminators is an accidental clone. But she’s the ‘right’ age and demeanor, so of course the ‘original’ reads like another older visitor from a possible future.
And Krakoan cloning was supposed to be a ‘true resurrection’, so what we have now is… basically a transporter accident. Welcome to the X-Men, Thomas Riker, hope you survive the experience.
Except the most likely course of events still ends with Vault Laura dying and Young Laura going on as the one and only She-Wolverine, and we’ll all pretend that all this never happened.
Possible , but not likely , what with the way Marvel is apparently desperately trying to show just how “Woke” it is with its prominent featuring in recent years of monogamously-committed serious-longterm interracial relationships (w/c I personally don’t mind myself) , particularly BM/WF (when traditionally , Marvel usually did the opposite with WM/BF*): Tyrone & Tandy (the OG trope starter who was brought back together by editorial after being broken up, for the nth time) Luke & Jessica , Rodney & Carol , and now Everett & Laura
* all of whom were eventually broken up anyway , with the characters going into monoracial pairings : Warren & Charlotte , Danny & Misty , James & Ororo , Quentin & Oya