X-Force #47 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #47
“The Greenhouse”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Daniel Picciotto
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: X-Force – including Wolverine again – under attack from Stark Sentinels.
PAGE 2. Flashback: X-Force pick up Wolverine.
This takes place after Wolverine #40, which concludes Wolverine’s run of team-ups with non-mutant heroes, and before X-Men #28, where he shows up for the X-Men’s visit to Latveria.
PAGES 3-7. X-Force set up base at the North Pole.
Presumably the narrator means “somewhere deep in the Arctic” rather than “literally the North Pole”, since they’re obviously looking for an appropriately secluded location.
X-Force still have the mobile base that they were hanging around in during the Hellfire Gala (because the remote-controlled Colossus wanted to keep them at a distance where they couldn’t help). Now that the team have escaped Mikhail Rasputin, this means they can actually function as a team again.
Kid Omega did return from a very extended time travel storyline in issue #42, but his power loss subplot actually begins in issue #43, when he transfers his consciousness into a new, younger body and immediately finds that his powers aren’t working properly. So his statement here that his powers have been malfunctioning “ever since I came back from the future” doesn’t match what we saw on the page. Possibly the idea is that his powers were playing up beforehand and he just assumed that the new body would cure it.
(No, Kid Omega doesn’t go straight to his new body on returning home. For some reason he waits until the Hellfire Gala – maybe he had to wait for a body to be prepared. The rest of X-Force appear in at least Wolverine #35 between returning from the future and the Hellfire Gala, and the backup strip in Wolverine #33 also takes place in that period.)
As usual in this book, Wolverine just yells at Kid Omega to try harder rather than offering any kind of constructive support, though he does at least feel bad about it later. He also passes up the more legitimate criticism that Quentin should have told the rest of the team about the issue so that they could plan accordingly.
PAGE 8. Kid Omega is taken to the Medical Bay.
The flashback shows the Orchis attack on the Hellfire Gala in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023, and specifically Moira MacTaggert attacking the Stepford Cuckoos – including Phoebe, Quentin’s love interest from earlier in this series. The specific flashback seems to be original.
PAGE 9. Recap and credits.
PAGES 10-12. Fang, Aurora and Northstar arrive.
These three have been appearing over in Alpha Flight, where they were helping to rescue Canadian mutants from the government with a view to evacuating them to the Shi’ar Empire.
The telepathic signal they received was presumably sent by Kid Omega on page 8. We’re told on page 21 that it actually contains information and isn’t simply a psychic burst that Alpha Flight were able to triangulate. So he’s trying to do what Wolverine asked him to do.
PAGE 13. Data page. Sage’s record of Colossus pleading his case to be allowed to stick around and help the team. He suggests that the mutants who bought into the Krakoan project may not have had a free choice in the matter either. I don’t think he’s literally suggesting that Professor X was mind-controlling everyone but he does seem to be making an argument that beyond a certain point the social pressure of Krakoa became impossible for everyone else to resist. At any rate, I don’t think the groundwork is there in the published stories for whatever point Colossus/Percy is trying to make here – though to be fair, he has consistently pushed the idea that Wolverine is a rare sceptic, and that Beast is what an unmoderated true believer looks like.
PAGES 14-15. Colossus and Domino.
For no apparent reason, a scene which appears to come before the preceding data page (which records the very decision that Domino says hasn’t been taken yet).
Colossus is re-enacting as best he can his usual behaviour from this series of turning his back on everything and devoting his time to farming. He and Domino were positioned as a possible couple in the early issues in particular, which is why he feels particularly defensive around her.
PAGES 16-18. Kid Omega wakes up and goes after Phoebe.
Evidently whatever realisation he’s just had has also restored his full powers. He brushes aside any issue of actually explaining this, simply reasserting that he’s an omega mutant.
PAGES 19-20. Kid Omega finds Phoebe on Mykines.
Apparently we’re to take it that Orchis just left a bunch of dead mutants lying around on the beach, and the Phoebe has been comatose but alive in diamond form all these months.
Orchis have at least posted a Stark Sentinel to keep an eye on the place.
PAGE 21. Data page. Quentin has apparently informed “all surviving mutants” of X-Force’s location. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone that some of those mutants could be working for Orchis (willingly or otherwise), such as the very high profile Firestar.
PAGES 22-24. Kid Omega attacks the Greenhouse.
Wolverine has a typically awkward reunion with his son Daken.
Apparently prompted by Domino asking what information he can provide as a member of the Quiet Council, Colossus asks to speak to Wolverine about Sabretooth. Presumably, he’s planning to tell Wolverine that Sabretooth escaped the Pit. This leads in to the upcoming Wolverine storyline.
The Beast is hanging around with a sniper rifle, though it’s possible he’s just using it here as a telescope. It would be in character for him to hang around the fringes trying to pick off threats to (what’s left of) Krakoa, and to do so counterproductively.
PAGE 25. Trailers. The Krakoan reads GAME RECOGNIZES GAME.
Good God, Sabretooth War is going to be abysmal, isn’t it, if this is what Percy’s bringing to the table.
How would Colossus even know that Sabretooth escaped the Pit? Doug only told Xavier right before the vote to dissolve the Council.
Percy just seems to hit the same beats over again. When Beast was still on the team, he would have been the one to make sketchy, poorly-considered proposals such as mandatory genetic testing for fear of human terrorists (as opposed to considering the far more likely threat of Orchis dumping a robot army on them). Now that he’s gone, Sage takes over the role.
Percy and Duggan really were the dregs of the Krakoa era. X Lives of Wolverine was when the wheels really came off. It’s astonishing to me that both of them are sticking it through to the end, though I suppose the Fall of X part of this era is in large part their making.
I’ve been reading the 2015 Inferno series recently, possibly for the first time. Was that the first time Piotr and Domino were romantically linked? Was that the seed of this?
A particularly good issue from Percy. Who, granted, is a very weak writer IMO. But the characterization and dialogue here were good.
@Jaymes: No, Colossus and Domino became involved in the Cable&X-Force series by Dennis “Hopeless” Hallum. In 2013. The ‘the fans are clamoring for two X-Force ongoings to be published concurrently’ era.
This does seem to take place before X-Men 28-29, since this seems to be the first time that Wolverine’s worked with an X-Team since the Gala and Quentin’s summons would explain how Synch and Talon knew where Wolverine was. The complicating factor is that in Invincible Iron Man, one of the reasons for Emma’s depression is not knowing what happened to Phoebe. We’ll see how the chronology works out in future issues.
Does anyone know the names of any of the mutants on pages 21-22? At first I thought one or two of them might have appeared in Dark X-Men but now I don’t think so.
@Diana- I’m going to defend Percy on Colossus and Sabretooth. Colossus was in charge of X-Force, which was in charge of security at the Gala. it make sense for Xavier to tell him that Sabretooth escaped. in case Sabretooth decided to attack the Gala.
@MasterMahan- I think that a genetic test in case Orchis sends an agent to infiltrate the Gala is a sensible precuation. In contrast, Beast CLAIMED to be attacking Krakoa’s enemies but the reality is that he killed an American general badmouthing Krakoa and people developing medicines to compete with Krakoa while ignoring the real threats to Krakoa. He failed to do anything about Orchis. He never considered that someone might try to poison the drugs. He never considered that someone might try to sabotage the DNA for the resurrection process. He failed to anticipate Sinister’s many betrayals.
My read was that Quentin was simply not telling the truth about the timing of his power loss. In the issue where it happened, he concealed the fact entirely.
OTOH, one could certainly chalk it up to sloppy writing, since it’s a plot element that came from nowhere, and appears to have *gone* nowhere, leaving me wondering why introduce it in the first place.
Well, Quentin’s still infected with the evil Cerebro, isn’t he? It could still go somewhere.
Somewhere underwhelming, considering this series, but somewhere.
@Michael
There’s a green guy who could be Anole. I don’t know about the rest.
@Krzysiek Ceran
“Well, Quentin’s still infected with the evil Cerebro, isn’t he? It could still go somewhere.”
Uhmmm, no, if I’m not mistaken in the future where they fought Beast Quentin had rejected Cerebrax, in issue #42
I don’t know about rejected, but he at the least vomited up the Cerebrax unit that went on to mount Beast. But we don’t really know if the cradle being destroyed has ended the infection — it had looked before like Old Man Quentin had all sorts of TO innards now, and Quentin is still in that old man body (piloting a younger body telepathically.) His powers are shown to be functioning improperly in issue 43, so it’s really not clear what the long-term effects of that Cerebrax merger were.
@Mathias X- I assumed Quentin transferred his consciousness into the younger body. It’s been over 70 days- the old man body would have died of dehydration.
Back in X-Force 28 (which is pretty much the only other issue where these husks are shown), Quentin was shown to be piloting his Juggernaut-husk to fight Silver Samurai while meditating in bed. They’re described as “vacant bodies that he [] remote-pilots via some combination of telepathy and telekinesis.” Transferring his consciousness into the body to inhabit it permanently is definitely well-within the capabilities of a Marvel telepath, but I do tend to assume that, until told otherwise, the mechanics of him piloting one of his skin-suits is the same as described the last time they appeared.
@Matthias X- But Quentin says “psionic download begins now” when he gets into the younger body. That sounds more like transferring his consciousness than piloting the body remotely.
I don’t think that this is as much of a concern as it used to be, but there was a time when we would already be expecting some sort of serious drawback to this body switching trick that Quentin is using. If for no other reason, because the implication would be that other _at least_ any other Omega telepaths who were once Phoenix hosts (currently only Jean Grey, I think) could effectively become immortal by using it as well.
Luis — since his powers aren’t working properly, I think we should assume that whatever he’s doing isn’t wholly working out the way he wants.
Well, I’m looking forward to evil Beast’s suicide attack on X-Force next issue which will kill him off and allow the nice Beast to be restored so there’s no dangling plot threads left before the Krakoa era ends.