Immoral X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORAL X-MEN #1
“Sins of Sinister, part 4: The Bond Age”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Penciller: Paco Medina
Inkers: Walden Wong & Victor Olazaba
Colour artists: Jay David Ramos & Chris Sotomayor
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
IMMORAL X-MEN is the temporary Sins of Sinister re-branding of Immortal X-Men, obviously. The previous chapter of the story was in Nightcrawlers #1.
COVER / PAGE 1. Sinister-ised Emma Frost subdues the original Mr Sinister.
PAGES 2-3. Professor X wipes out a rebel cell before they can actually achieve anything.
He’s not actually named, but that’s the current Nick Fury leading the group.
New Essex is obviously a re-named New York (Essex also being an English location, just in case any American readers didn’t know that). We saw it in Sins of Sinister #1, but it wasn’t named there.
“…since Orchis were taken off the board…” The X-Men and the Avengers defeated Orchis years ago in Sins of Sinister #1, after they were framed for the Sinisters’ own attack on Krakoa. However, according to Hope towards the end of Sins of Sinister #1, “Remains of Orchis are out there, agitating.”
PAGE 4. Professor X laments the deaths.
We already established in Sins of Sinister #1 that the Sinister-ised Quiet Council members still retain key features of their own personalities. Professor X, in particular insists that “I still believe in the dream. If everyone thought like me, there would be no war. Assimilation to the dream is essential.” Apparently, squaring this with his Sinister-imposed agenda has led to a Professor X who perceives all of this as a tragic necessity – though not to the point of him showing any resistance.
Emma, in contrast, framed her motivation as being to “protect the children… and compared to us, they’re all toddlers”. This is one of the reasons why she keeps framing herself as a mother figure in her dialogue, albeit through a fairly blatant BDSM prism. Note, also, that this version of Emma seems much more inclined to take pleasure in destroying the rebels – she was originally a supervillain, after all.
“After the warning, do you think Sinister will submit?” Referring to the scene in Sins of Sinister #1 where the Quiet Council confronted him about having their own agenda. It was more of a veiled warning, in which the Council members demanded to be treated as equal. In fact, Sinister did not submit, but his immediate reaction was to try and reset the timeline – only to discover he’d lost access to his Moira clones. Emma doesn’t know that.
“We are his betters. He admitted as much when he subverted us to conquer this world. He’s oh-so vanilla.” Leaving aside the BDSM overtone, Emma has pointed out the fundamental defect in Sinister’s plan. Sinister intended to create a Quiet Council who were under his control. What he actually created was a bunch of Sinisters who were not under his control and who had the powers and some of the qualities of the Council members on top of that. In other words, they’re all Sinister Plus. And he’s just… Sinister.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits. The title is another reference to Emma’s BDSM overtone; the strapline (“No Brotherhood, Just Evil Mutants”) refers to Magneto’s old Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
PAGE 6. Emma convenes a Quiet Council meeting.
“I wish Erik was still with us.” Magneto died in A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4 and X-Men Red #7. Obviously it’s a gag about undercutting Professor X’s superficial niceness – but might there be another reason for mentioning Magneto? Could Sinister potentially engineer his resurrection via the Waiting Room as an ally?
Exodus‘s enthusiasm for Hope remains undimmed; he’s painting her in the style of Jesus.
PAGE 7. The Council meeting begins.
The Council are now meeting in a psychic projection rather than in front of the corpse of Krakoa. Per Sins of Sinister #1, the Council at this point are Professor X, Hope, Magik, the Beast, Exodus, Namor, Kate Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Colossus and Mr Sinister. The twelfth seat was shown occupied by Nightcrawler, but we know from Nightcrawlers #1 that that must have been one of Sinister’s puppets. His seat (between Colossus and Shaw) is empty here.
Shaw is on fire because he’s become a Hell lord, as shown in Sins of Sinister #1.
“Dad’s gone buggy…” Cable has bonded with the insectoid Xilo, as seen in Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #1. Apparently Hope feels some compulsion to fulfil her destiny as Cable’s heir.
PAGE 8. Data page: Hope sets out her theory that the Krakoans are going to get wiped out by alien races before they grow strong enough to confront them. She was worried about this in Sins of Sinister #1 too.
The Shi’ar, Kree and the Skrulls are stock Marvel Universe galactic empires. The Rigellians are less often seen in these parts, but they’re a colonial empire that’s been around in Thor since the Silver Age.
Emma’s narration continues below. As she says, Sinister was indeed somewhat dismissive about Hope’s fears when she raised them in Sins #1, though it’s not really clear from that scene that anyone else felt differently.
PAGE 9. Mr Sinister laments the quality of American tea.
PAGES 10-12. Mr Sinister discusses the plot with a hapless clone.
“Talk to the Duck.” This is, apparently, a technique used by some programmers to help with debugging by making themselves articulate the problem in spoken English.
“My most secret lab has been stolen.” Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #1. Orbis Stellaris has it. (Note, by the way, that the other Sinisters – who are very prominent in this arc – don’t appear in this issue at all.)
Dark Beast‘s severed head was seen in Sinister’s lab, kept in a floatation tank, in Immortal X-Men #9. In that issue, he didn’t seem terribly inclined to help Sinister.
PAGES 13-14. Sinister fails to kill Emma.
The “power patches” get mentioned here because they’re going to come up later, but presumably they’re also another way of either corrupting humans, or at least suckering them in to Sinister’s gene-tinkering.
Chimeras. Emma describes them as “living statues”, which is interesting. She doesn’t seem to regard them as sentient, and the ones we’ve seen in this timeline do generally seem to be more like monsters than the blended characters from Powers of X.
“I’ve been sleeping in diamond for a long time.” She was already doing it in Immortal X-Men #4. In this future, she’s taken to keeping B-list illusionist Mastermind around to disguise the fact, so as to sucker in the likes of Sinister. As she says, Mastermind is a specialist at this sort of thing – but, since he doesn’t have wider telepathic powers, no actual threat to her. Apparently there’s a little button on her bedpost that reveals him, though the art kind of struggles to get that across in one panel.
PAGE 15. Data page: the hunt for Mr Sinister. It’s not clear who’s writing this, but it’s apparently not Emma – who tells us in the next scene that she already knew where he had gone, by reading his mind as he fled her room.
The locations listed are:
- The Celestial Abyss is apparently some sort of disaster zone left behind after the destruction of the Celestial that serves as Avengers Mountain. In Nightcrawlers #1, this area was identified as “Avengers Crater”.
- Doomstadt. The capital of Latveria. Sins #1 established in passing that Doom had been replaced by a Sinisterised impostor.
- France. Suggested to be “the last place he would ever go”, but in fact it’s the first place we saw him at the start of Immortal X-Men #1.
- Wakanda. Apparently not under Sinister’s control, which is interesting. Just as they resisted Krakoan drugs, the Wakandans have not fallen for Sinister’s genetic engineering – but presumably they’ve abandoned the rest of the world and retreated into isolation.
- The Bar Sinister With No Name. Presumably a Sinister-ised version of the Bar With No Name, an established drinking den for mostly D-list supervillains.
- Nova Roma. The home of Magma from the New Mutants, along with Selene (the “old Black Queen”). The “British Cosplaying Romans” bit refers to an attempted retcon from New Warriors #31 that didn’t stick.
- The Savage Land. The famous panel of Sauron wanting to turn people into dinosaurs comes from Spider-Man & The X-Men #2.
- Lemurian Plants. Lemuria is the home of the Deviants; I’m not exactly sure whether the “Lemurian Plants” have come up before.
- The Westchester Complex. Presumably the X-Men Mansion.
PAGES 16-22. Emma defeats Sinister.
Emma is really pushing the BDSM angle here, as she brings Sinister to heel.
“You disarmed me once before, a long time ago…” In Gillen’s Uncanny X-Men #1 (2011). Same arm, too.
The Nasty Boys are fairly obscure henchmen of Sinister from Peter David’s X-Factor. This bunch appear to be chimeras of the Nasty Boys and (in every case) Cyclops. Specifically, from left to right we have Cyclops crossed with the following Nasty Boys members:
- Someone in shadow (which is odd since all the Nasty Boys are recognisable among the chimeras).
- A rogue duplicate of Multiple Man.
- Hairbag, the little tiny guy perched on someone’s shoulder.
- Ramrod, who didn’t look anything like Groot, but did have powers to control wood.
- Slab, the bald guy, who’s shown up occasionally as a background guard in S.W.O.R.D..
- Ruckus, the sound-powers guy, which he why he has a second visor over his mouth.
- Gorgeous George, by elimination, on the right.
Sinister’s argument for his continued usefulness is based on Hope’s concerns about the future, which Emma apparently shares – even though we know that Sinister himself apparently doesn’t.
PAGES 23-24. A defeated Sinister is “accepted” back into the Council.
PAGE 25. Trailers. Note that the issues of this storyline don’t rotate between the participating titles like normal – the next issue is Nightcrawlers #2.
I’m not liking the idea that Stellaris and Destiny stole a device that enables them to destroy all the Sinisterized people and never bothered to use it. Between Destiny’s powers and the World Farm’s computers, they must have realized what it was. There was a reason for them not to restart the timeline with the Moiras- Destiny wanted to keep the timeline where Mystique lived intact and Stellaris needed to become a Dominion because his body was failing. But why wouldn’t they get rid of all the Sinisters? (I suppose you could say that it was because Destiny was afraid that destroying the Sinisters would lead to Mystique’s death, although it’s not clear how.) It’s annoying because not destroying the Sinister Quiet Council will probably bite them in the ass- for example. I have a feeling a chimera will kill Mystique. And again, we just had Dark Web where the characters ignored the obvious solution (Jean) to fixing Ben Reilly.
Nothing interesting to add other than stuff happened in this issue. The event is moving along briskly but the compressed timeline and pending cosmic reset are suffocating all emotional beats or stakes so far (not that I would expect much character drive from a Sinisterized QC).
New York was first called New Essex in Nightcrawler 1.
Mastermind DID put Emma in a coma once- that’s presumably why she has him as her slave. He can’t effect her in diamond form, so she’s safe.
Am I the only one that thinks that Gllen overdid the BDSM with Emma? Yes, there were always BDSM aspects to Emma when she was a villain but here she’s basically a Batman villain whose theme is BDSM instead of duality or fear. It might have been better to see Sinister Emma corrupt or mistreat her students, for example, like she did when she was a villain.
Following the style of Immortal X-Men, it looks like Gillen is rotating the narrator of the issues between different QC members.
Issue 1: S-Emma Frost
Issue 2: Mystique and/or Destiny
Issue 3: S-Exodus and/or S-Hope
The ‘five-mutant’ chimera in the vat that Sinister shows S-Emma is this timeline’s version of Rasputin IV. Though perhaps she’s just Rasputin I here. I suspect she might make the jump to the ‘main reality’ when this SoS timeline resets, but that’s just a theory.
And of course “Bar Sinister” was also the name of Sinister’s domain in Battleworld, populated mostly by his clones. (And apparently a location in the game Marvel Snap of which I know nothing) Also, it appeared in the prime continuity in Powers of X, as another one of Sinister’s cloned communities. So to see it mashed up with the Bar With No Name is no surprise.
Seeing Sinister, the penultimate plotter, utterly wrecked by not only the alternate versions of himself (Orbis Stellaris, etc) but all the people he coopted with his DNA, is oddly fitting. Given how his current personality has him convinced that he’s the center of the universe, it’s suiting that his worst enemies are himself.
It seems to me that since Destiny can foresee the future, she realizes that the Sinister Council is important to motivate Sinister to progress the timeline. As Paul points out, Emma and Hope are concerned about the future while Sinister has stopped caring. Sinister is offering Emma the creation of the next generation of chimeras, with the intent seemingly being that without the Sinister Council’s prodding, Sinister wouldn’t be pursuing his experiments.
Based on what we saw from Moira’s Life Nine, I believe Destiny realizes that Omega-class chimeras are necessary for the creation of a non-machine Dominion. In Life Nine, the Omega-class chimeras formed a hivemind which collapsed Mars into a self-singularity. We know that Titans are a collective society whose knowledge has grown so advanced that the society collapses into a singularity. This pertains to Machine intelligence, hence why the Dominions we have seen are Machine-gods. In order for a non-technological singularity, it would require a collective hivemind of exceedingly powerful beings…the Omega-class chimeras.
Based on this and Destiny seeing the future, it would seem that she realizes the Sinister Council is needed to push Sinister into pushing his experiments to the creation of the Omega-class chimeras.
Michael> Am I the only one that thinks that Gllen overdid the BDSM with Emma?
I think the idea Gillen is going for is that these Sinisterised mutants are the most flanderized versions of themselves. Xavier’s become the ‘well-meaning’ assimilationist people have always accused him of being, Emma’s a dominatrix, Hope’s a gun fetishist and Exodus is the same as he’s always been (which says a lot about him).
Perhaps the shadowed character is Ricochet/Senator Shaffran.
He was an associate of the nasty Boys in their first storyline, a mutant with vague probability-manipulation and telepathic powers who could essentially make things go wrong for others.
Sinister went to a lot of trouble to discredit and kill him in the Peter David-written X-Factor arc that introduced the Nasty Boys.
Paul> Exodus‘s enthusiasm for Hope remains undimmed; he’s painting her in the style of Jesus.
The style of the painting is in the style of Jesus Christ, but the painting itself is of Hope as a Phoenix host, probably foreshadowing the end of this event.
The two things that can kill a Dominion: a Phoenix host and Galactus.
At some point in this timeline, Hope will host the Phoenix Force again, ridding her of the Sinister influence in her. She, with the aid of her most devout follower Exodus, will then endeavor to bring salvation to the rest of the Sinisterised mutants. A mutant messiah, if you will.
In fact, I suspect it will be revealed that the ‘unknown unique quirk’ of Hope’s powers that burned out Sinister’s influence in mutant resurrectees prior to IXM 10 is the vestigial remnants of the Phoenix Force from back when she hosted it temporarily. (Gillen can’t have not noticed the similarities between Phoenix resurrection and Krakoan resurrection – Jean Grey, the quintessential Phoenix, is always reborn through a Phoenix Egg that looks similar to a Krakoan egg.)
Phoenix Hope will probably take out the Sinister Dominion at the end of this timeline (with a headshot, like Paul predicted before).
As for Galactus, I believe Mother Righteous has some connection to him. Galactus was on the cover of a LoX issue (but wasn’t in the issue itself). I wouldn’t be surprised if the ‘super-weapon’ that MR plans to use on the World Farm (the weapon that the Nightcrawlers are stealing artifacts to empower) was related to Galactus in some way. The World-Eater vs the World-Farm.
(Of course, Hickman’s original plan was for Franklin to command Galactus as his herald against the Dominions, but not only is Franklin not a mutant anymore, he has travelled one year into the future with the Baxter Building).
Sinister Ducks is the name of Alan Moore’s band. I imagine a reference was inevitable.
“Bar Sinister” is also the heraldic symbol denoting bastardry.
Paco Medina’s art has changed a lot since he was drawing Superboy and Suicide Squad; every time I see him I have to remind myself that that was 20+ years ago. I
really like a lot of his current stuff (haven’t read IXM yet) but I kind of hope he gets a chance to bring back the giant chins and goofy grins someday in the context of all the skill he’s gained since then.
Why isn’t there a Magneto here? Just clone an infant with his genetics and raise him to be a loyal soldier. His personality backup wouldn’t be required. I’m surprised Sinister hasn’t made a chimera from him.
@neutrino They could also have used a Joseph backup.
I would really like Madeline Pryor to be involved in this event, but I think it’s unlikely. Still, it would be a sight to see her be involved in Sinister’s defeat (and I can’t see her going along with his schemes).
This issue touches on something that’s come up before – some mutants are easier for Sinister to clone than others. He can only get so many Moiras, and Hope
“doesn’t clone well”, whereas Nightcrawler and Cyclops apparently go into chimeras very well. It’s enough that I can accept that Sinister can’t just make an Onslaught army.
It seems that Omega-level mutants have DNA more difficult to work with compared to other mutants. It’s building up to the point where Sinister can create chimeras based upon Omega-level mutants. We saw it in Moira’s Life Nine. Sinister’s chimeras started out as a hybrid of two mutants. From there, he moved on to the next generation of chimeras, which were a combination of five mutant genes. Finally, he created the Omega-class chimeras.
@Michael: Destiny and Orbis might not realize what they have – the self-destruct is presumably inside the lab, which is still sealed away by the layered force field. Orbis wouldn’t have any reason to lower that protection since he doesn’t actually want to reset
@GN: And Gillen’s Sinister acts like the most flanderized version of himself as a disarming tactic, too. It makes sense to me that, say, Sinister-Xavier is crying over the poor people he has to kill. While internally not actually giving a crap about them, I’m sure.
The choice of bondage for Emma rather than anything else isn’t necessarily my favorite one. Evil mom Emma might be more fun. 🙂
The ordered list of who I’d like to see more focus on as Sinisterized Council members:
* Hope (evil manic pixie killer Hope is fun)
* Beast (just because I wish we could see Gillen take the stuff Beast is already doing and turn it up even more as a silly thing)
* Exodus (I want to see how far his obsession now goes from his own POV)
* Namor (asking Sinister for new chimera combinations to seduce for the glory of Imperious Rex)
* Magik
* Kate
* Xavier
* Shaw (where do you go with Sinisterized him that he doesn’t already? Gillen could do something fun I’m sure, but whatever)
* Colossus (meh)
GN>”(Of course, Hickman’s original plan was for Franklin to command Galactus as his herald against the Dominions, but not only is Franklin not a mutant anymore, he has travelled one year into the future with the Baxter Building).”
I haven’t heard that before, but sounds like the ultimate culmination of Hickman’s Marvel work. Did Hickman reveal this in an interview?
It sounds like they are going to put the FF kids into the future for the entire current run, which would be a bit disappointing as Jo and Nicki were probably the best part of Slott’s run, and I’m sure the X-Office wanted to un-un-mutant Franklin the first chance it got, but now that will be on hold I guess.
It was never stated outright. Hickman planted seeds for that being partially something he would use. He stated that the only things that could threaten a Dominion we’re the Phoenix and Galactus. Franklin Richards had ties to Galactus from Hickman’s FF run, and we saw that Franklin being a part of Krakoa was of the utmost importance to Xavier and Magneto. The hint was that they wanted Franklin with them so they’d be able to weaponize Galactus at some point, along with bringing back the Phoenix. There were hints given that Hickman might have been planning to utilize Jean Grey as the Phoenix host again. He made a big deal out of the fact that Jean was calling herself “Marvel Girl” again and wearing her costume she wore when she died on the Moon. Hickman seemed to be setting up that Xavier had reset Jean back to the point where she became the Phoenix so that Krakoa could also lure back the Phoenix.
Marvel editorial took Franklin away from the mutant camp. So, that ruled out using Galactus alongside the Phoenix. We saw Hickman’s change of plans in the alternate Life Ten timeline during Inferno, with the return of the Phoenix Five of which Krakoa used them to destroy the Dominions.
I thought the humor of this issue landed, as did the fact that Sinister’s ego was the cause of his loss of power. It was nice to see a version of the Nasty Boys, too. Let’s get the Dark Riders in the mix next!
@Zachary Q Adams: I remember the early ‘00s, when all the Superman artists drew in manga-inspired styles. I hated it! Medina, Kano, Ed McGuiness… their art looked off to me. Luckily, the above listed artists all got better and the manga-like features of their work were either toned down or better integrated to the whole. I really like seeing artists evolve, and Paco Medina did a great job on these first SoS issues.
Michael: Do we know that Destiny or Stellaris know about the Sinister killswitch? Even Sinister is unlikely to leave such a thing clearly labeled and in plain sight.
More on the Sinister Ducks, including their eponymous song (well worth a listen): http://wyrdbritain.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-sinister-ducks.html
Btw in the last chapter of Dan Slott’s Reckoning War (the penultimate issue of his run, the final one being the Richards half-siblings/Nathaniel Richard’s bio-kids reunion issue) , Franklin Richards revealed to everyone else that going to the “Imagination Dimension” (with the rest of the Future Foundation kids) enabled him to revert himself to being “what he was before” I.e. a mutant , and indeed he rescued the rest of his family & friends with his own powers. I believe that the revelation that he wasn’t a natural X-gene mutant to begin with in the first place will eventually and inevitably be retconned as simply and merely Xavier lying (at this point, it’s only to be expected from Charles after all) to him as an excuse to keep him off Krakoa while he recovered from overexerting himself causing to temporarily burn-out (there IS precedent with other mutants : Banshee , Magneto , Xavier himself) , since there is no reason why Franklin would be lying to himself or Galactus when he revealed to Galan at the literal End of Time of the 8th Marvel Multiverse , that he, FR , was the most powerful X-gene mutant ever born , in Mark Waid’s 2020 History of the Marvel Universe limited series , which apparently updated the Marvel 616-continuity by retconning virtually ALL of the personal histories of Earth-616 which involved military-tours-of-duties during the WW2/Korean/Vietnam/Iraqi/Afghan Wars as now taking place in the decades-long “Sincong Conflict” in IndoChina
@Jdsm24: I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. In Fantastic Four 45, Franklin used the power of the Thought Space to change his body to match ‘the way he feels inside’. The exact details of this transition was intentionally left vague to allow the next FF writer room to work but an example given was that he genetically changed his hair colour to black – he’s no longer blond and using hair dye. That’s not the same thing as reverting to what he was before.
Slott’s big reveal for Franklin was that he was born a human, enhanced by Cosmic Rays (which Ewing established comes from the TOAA) like his parents. At a young age, he unintentionally projected himself as a mutant when his reality-bending powers grew stronger. Later, when Franklin was reconstructing the Multiverse with the Future Foundation, his powers hit an upper limit and began to deplete. The complete depletion of his powers depowered the reality shift that made him appear to be mutant.
Based on the language used in FF 45, I’d say Franklin is now a trans-species mutant – he was born a human, but self-identified as a mutant and with mutant culture, so he permanently transitioned into a transmutant. The difference between this transition and the one from when he was younger is that this one is independent of his powers and this was done at an age where he is cognizant of the species and culture he’s transitioning into.
But again, this is not explicitly spelled out in FF 45, just that Franklin had changed to reflect his ‘true self’, so the ball is in Ryan North’s court to interpret that.
The thing about Waid’s HotMU is that the Franklin and Galactus presented there are from the future, which categorically makes them AU variants to the present day 616 versions. It’s like the Hulk Below All from Ewing’s run or Old King Thor from Aaron’s run. They present a future that could be.
It’s entirely possible that this HotMU Franklin was born a mutant or started out as something else and became a mutant at some point before the end of time.
Hey , you’re right , memory is a tricky thing hehehe
But aren’t Alt-Future versions of characters still supposed to share a Common Past with the current present-day versions (as per the Sliding TimeScale) otherwise they’d be from an independently separate (thought still similar) timeline
It would depend on when the timeline branched off for that future.
“Evil Mom Emma” – worst Karen ever.
Because I’m an old nerd, Bar Sinister to me means the Underdog villain.
Things Evil Mom Emma Does:
Keeps calling Kate Kitty. “But Kitty, it’s so much *cuter* on you.”
Makes Namor her shirtless pool boy.
Insists Rachel wear the old spiked bodysuit. “No not-quite-step-daughter of *mine* is going to step outside in anything less than full fetishwear!”
Makes their first space conquest be Kymellia III, then gives it to Firestar. “To make up for killing your horse, dear, here’s a planet full of them.”
“It was never stated outright. Hickman planted seeds for that being partially something he would use.”
It would be great if he would confirm this one way or the other.
Wouldn’t 616-Emma be an Evil STEPMom? After all , She doesn’t have any biological children of her own , except her own egg-cell-derived , the Stepford Cuckoos/Weapon XIV , and they were test-tube babies
“Mr Sinister laments the quality of American tea.”
Is this an actual complaint from British tea drinkers?
Rasputin has the DNA from Omega mutant Quentin Quire, so it’s not impossible with third stage Chimera.
Hickman’s use of Jean Grey’s Marvel Girl costume was a callback to Uncanny #137, where she says she started as Marvel Girl so she might as well end that way. It was the first time she (or that version of her) rejected the Phoenix.
neutrino yes, American tea is generally considered weak compared to British tea. I would have to use two bags to get a halfway decent cuppa.
As a SEAsian that wasn’t one of the British colonies , I’ve never yet drank British tea , does it taste similar to the either the milkteas that are popular here in the Eastern half of Asia or the milk-less Nesteas which was popularized by North America?
Masters of Reality did a song in the early 90s called T.U.S.A with a British singer (maybe Ginger Baker) lamenting Americsn tea.
https://youtu.be/DTuXBoA688Y