X-Men #29 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #29
“House of Doom”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fight the Daggers of Latveria.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: Dr Doom intervenes as Professor X is about to announce Krakoa to the human race.
This is an insertion into the flashback that opens House of X #6. The opening dialogue and Xavier’s Magneto’s speech about ending all the disagreements between them is from the original, as the opening line that Professor X delivers before Doom answers him back. The rest of the scene is original material that takes place between pages 4 and 5 of House of X #6, boldly shoehorned into the middle of Professor X’s speech.
It doesn’t entirely make sense that Doom has a V-for-Victor style Cerebro helmet of his own, before Professor X has even publicly debuted with this design, though he does suggest later in the issue that he is relying on some sort of actual foreknowledge of events, rather than simply correctly predicting that Krakoa’s collapse. And the design is wonderful.
Note that, even at the start of the Krakoan era, Doom already has the five mutants we see later in the issue, in their current costumes. We saw Nerium, Slag and Volta Doom at the end of the previous issue, and they get flashbacks later in the issue to show their recruitment.
The twins Dreamer and Ironcloak have appeared before on Latverian outpoost Doom Island, in X-Men / Fantastic Four #3-4 (2020), where they gave their real names as Hugo and Ramona. In that story, Ramona immediately reacts to the X-Men as “enemies of Latveria”, but then admits to having made an attempt to flee the country before seeing the light and turning back to Doom. If she was telling the truth, and not just helping to set the X-Men up, then it’s notable that that story comes after this scene, at a point where the twins were already on Doom’s team.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGE 6. Data page. Introduction of the “Seven Daggers of Latveria”, which largely speaks for itself. The writer is obviously Doom. The big dangler is the two blanked out names, for mutants that Doom hasn’t put on the team – a woman who isn’t co-operating, and a man whose powers are out of control. The duration of Ironcloak’s invulnerability touch is also blanked out, though you suspect that’s more to do with ducking being too specific.
PAGES 7-8. Flashback montage: The five Daggers are trained by Doom.
Page 7 has three panels showing the five Daggers in the clothes they were recruited in (in week one), in generic Doom-Men uniforms (in week two) and in their current uniforms (in “year one”). Note that the twins have basically kept their original semi-generic uniforms, particularly Dreamer. Later in the issue, we get more flashbacks to the recruitment of Nerium, Slag and Volta Doom.
Doom correctly predicts not only that Krakoa will fall, but that the surviving X-Men will “invade Latveria and attempt to kidnap you”. Strictly speaking the last bit isn’t quite true, since the X-Men do ultimately take no for an answer, but it’s fair to say that the team is in full-on early Silver Age mode here, swanning in with a monumental sense of entitlement that clearly any mutants are going to want to come with them.
PAGES 9-12. The X-Men and the Daggers fight.
Only Ms Marvel has the common sense to realise that this might not be a good use of time.
“The last time Wolverine stepped on Latverian soil, he murdered one of my subjects.” In Fantastic Four / X-Men #3 (2020).
PAGE 13. Flashback: Doom recruits Volta.
She was already calling herself Volta before he recruited her, so “Volta Doom” seems to suggest that he views her as a daughter. She seems genuinely appreciative of the spear that lets her control her powers.
PAGE 14. More fighting.
PAGE 15. Flashback: Doom recruits Slag.
This guy apparently started off as a refusenik before accepting Doom’s offer to join the team. We’re not directly told why he was in prison (though the obvious implication is that he simply disobeyed Doom’s wishes) or why he chose to stay when he had the ability to escape. At any rate, he’s not obviously being set up as slavishly loyal to Doom.
PAGE 16. More fighting.
We’re told that Nerium is tied to the country. “Nerium” is a kind of shrub, by the way.
PAGE 17. Flashback: Doom recruits Nerium.
Doom claims that Nerium was imprisoned by the circus against his will, but the ringmaster certainly claims that he’s acting with Doom’s authority, and if he’s lying, then he’s running a big risk. Is Doom just engineering a situation where Nerium will be grateful to him?
PAGE 18. The fight ends.
Volta, Nerium and (curiously) Slag all insist that they’re free; note that the twins don’t, though they’re not directly part of the fight.
PAGE 19-22. Doom invites everyone to dinner.
Slag claims that he was “reborn as Slag” nearly 25 years ago, whatever that means – most likely, something to do with his powers emerging.
Doom strongly indicates that he had actual foreknowledge of events. He suggests that the reason why Latveria didn’t recognise Krakoa (or rather, didn’t have dealings with them) was because he knew the whole thing would eventually collapse, and he wanted to keep his own mutants safe.
His comments about Xavier presumably reference events over in Immortal X-Men.
Nerium strongly indicates that she expects Doom ultimately to side with the X-Men against Orchis – if only because he’s gone to all this trouble to preserve his nation’s mutants thus far.
PAGE 23. The X-Men arrive back in New York.
That seems to be the Latverian embassy in panel 1 – presumably Doom teleported the X-Men home, since they parachuted into his country in the first place.
PAGE 24. Data page: a self-explanatory internal Orchis memo by Dr Stasis, basically plugging Cyclops’ trial in Fall of the House of X.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X.
This being a Duggan issue, clarity is of course at a premium, but I think the idea is supposed to be that rather than have direct knowledge of future events, Doom’s just playing out that trope where he’s so intelligent he can accurately predict how things will play out…
The helmet with a V on it didn’t bother me. As the Thing once put it, Doom could probably find out what the FF were having for breakfast tomorrow.
Introducing the Daggers of Latveria this late is just a bad idea. If Duggan wanted them to be important, he should have introduced them earlier. Meanwhile, we have plots related to the actual Fall of X that aren’t going anywhere- when was the last time anyone mentioned Stellaris’s alliance with Stasis, or poor Manifold, or Deadpool’s daughter?
The editors need to be more careful with the details of Fall of X. In the last issue of X-Force, the Chronicler mentioned going to France to hide out from Orcihs. But in the data page this issue, Stasis mentions that one of the reasons to hold Scott’s trial in Paris is because Orchis has influence over the French judiciary.
I don’t mind Doom’s presentation of protecting mutants in his nation. It fits with Doom’s characterization.
I liked Doom’s earlier views from the Krakoan-era, where he rejected the idea that Homo Superior was the future simply because of their genetics. Doom said the truly superior individuals would rise up and overcome evolution (which is what Moira saw happening in her sixth life). I thought that fit very well with Doom.
He also stated that he wasn’t opposed to the idea of mutants founding their own homeland. He had rejected the treaty with Krakoa because it involved undermining Latveria’s sovereignty by setting up a gate, and that Latveria wouldn’t become dependent on anything from another nation (in this case, the drugs).
It seems Duggan is changing that motivation for Doom. I guess it’s part of sweeping under the rug the disreputable elements of Hickman’s Krakoa. It was more interesting than this version of Doom.
This issue was… well, it was another Duggan X-comic, not great, but it makes me want to read a Dr. Doom story drawn by Joshua Cassara. The detailing on the armor and character acting was excellent.
@Michael: “Introducing the Daggers of Latveria this late is just a bad idea. If Duggan wanted them to be important, he should have introduced them earlier. Meanwhile, we have plots related to the actual Fall of X that aren’t going anywhere- when was the last time anyone mentioned Stellaris’s alliance with Stasis, or poor Manifold, or Deadpool’s daughter?”
Absolutely agree. The whole issue felt like a backdoor pilot, or Duggan got the idea for a Latverian cavalry at the last minute. Immortal and Red feel like they’re wrapping up, X-Force just ended one of its biggest storylines, we’ve had a few miniseries tell complete or near-complete stories, but this title gets to just waste an issue. So annoying.
@Mike: In point of fact, Immortal and Red aren’t technically wrapping up at all – the X-Men Forever and Resurrection of Magneto minis seem to be the actual final arcs of those respective series.
Joshua Cassara’s design work elevates this above Duggan’s writing. Doom’s Cerebro, the twins wearing modified training uniforms like so many X-Men do – nice touches.
But how exactly can Kamala identify vibranium on sight?
Chronicler
“Joshua Cassara’s design work elevates this above Duggan’s writing”
You can say that again. This felt very slight, despite the page count (more data pages than usual), but it sure has a lot going for it visually.
As for Chronicler, maybe we can No Prize it and say that when he writes of living in Paris above a bookstore after the resolution of Fall of X. It doesn’t actually say anything about hiding out from Orchis, and we don’t know when the text was written. Surely other data pages we’ve seen (the new history of Arakko, maybe something from Destiny) are not meant to be contemporary with the story but rather describing contemporary events from the standpoint of the future.
Doom is a polymath genius with magic powers and a time machine. I’d be surprised if he didn’t at least have some idea of how things would play out, or to extrapolate a cerebro helmet based on earlier technology.
In a recent-ish issue of Fantastic Four, Doom travels time between the future and the now hundreds of times trying to get the best timeline, kind of similar in theme to the Jean Grey comic. He was probably sitting there between jaunts going “pop, there goes Krakoa, three weeks early this go round.”
Obviously I’m judging on a curve, the curve being Duggan’s X-Men is a mediocre book, but I liked this issue. The art was great, Doom was good, the Daggers are fine (I liked the recruitment flashbacks), and it’s so rare nowadays for the X-Men to lose a stand-up fight (other than at the start of a major crossover, of course).
@Chris V: Doom also thought it was presumptuous of Krakoa to make all Krakoan citizens into diplomats to get diplomatic immunity.
Between this and Iron Man, something I think is really interesting with Fall of X is how much this crossover seems to involve the wider 616 lending some aid. (Not really enough — kind of whack Reed isn’t personally studying the Gates to find an entire missing race of humans). But still, having Cap, Tony, a little Thor and now Doom trying to stop mutant genocide feels good, and I hope somewhere post FoX we see some reflection from Tony and Reed about how they did allow Orchis to bloom on their watch.
[…] #29. (Annotations here.) The X-Men go to Latveria to try and recruit Dr Doom’s mutants, and wind up having a fight […]
@Mathias X: X-Men did say that Reed and the Black Panther were trying to find out where they’d gone.
I’ll say something nice about Duggan’s writing in this issue – it deals with the concept of Identity with more nuance and complexity than all of last week’s books put together. The X-Men think that mutant identity is all-important and are just plain confused when Doomsie’s team see their national identity as trumping their genetic one. That’s quite interesting – verging on subversive in the current landscape.