{"id":10020,"date":"2024-04-18T22:17:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T21:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10020"},"modified":"2024-04-18T22:17:29","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T21:17:29","slug":"dead-x-men-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10020","title":{"rendered":"Dead X-Men #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/81S6jGWergL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10021 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/81S6jGWergL._AC_UY436_QL65_-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/81S6jGWergL._AC_UY436_QL65_-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/81S6jGWergL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg 284w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/a><strong>DEAD X-MEN #4<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>&#8220;Hyperballad&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Writer: Steve Foxe<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Artists; David Balde\u00f3n, Bernard Chang &amp; Vincenzo Carrat\u00f9<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Colour artist: Frank Martin<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Letterer: Cory Petit<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Design: Tom Muller &amp; Jay Bowen<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Editor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The X-Men fight their alt-Moira.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 2.<\/strong> Paul Neary obituary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 3-4.\u00a0<\/strong><em>The X-Men and Moira are dragged back through time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Issue #3 ended with the cyborg alt-Moira from issue #1 attacking the X-Men and their local counterparts in Moira&#8217;s fifth life. This turns out to be a bit of an anticlimax, as Dazzler calls on Rachel to haul them all back through time and bring Moira with them.<\/p>\n<p>The montage on page 4 shows scenes from Moira&#8217;s earlier lives.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Top left: Moira sees Professor X in a bar in her second life. This is page 8 panel 4 of <em>House of X<\/em> #2.<\/li>\n<li>To the right of that, a generic-looking campus scene. By elimination, this is probably meant to be her uneventful first life.<\/li>\n<li>On the second tier, on the left, Destiny threatens Moira before killing her in her third life.<\/li>\n<li>To the right of that, a Sentinel blasts Professor X and Moira in her fourth life. This is page 17 panel 4 of\u00a0<em>House of X<\/em> #2.<\/li>\n<li>Below that, Moira and Logan in the Preserve in her sixth life.<\/li>\n<li>In the bottom tier, on the left, Moira and a wheelchair-bound Xavier in a futuristic city. This is Moira&#8217;s fifth life, where they built a mutant city.<\/li>\n<li>To the right of that, Moira with a sniper rifle, about to kill one of the Trask family. This is her seventh life.<\/li>\n<li>Next, Moira approaches Magneto. This is her eighth life, and specifically page 21 panel 2 of <em>House of X<\/em> #2.<\/li>\n<li>To the right of that, Moira with Apocalypse. This is her ninth life.<\/li>\n<li>And finally, above Frenzy&#8217;s head, a generic head shot of Moira, presumably representing her tenth and present life (from the perspective of this divergent Moira).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n<p>As with every issue of this series, the story title is a Bj\u00f6rk song. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6CSiU0j_lFA\">&#8220;Hyperballad&#8221; <\/a>was a top 10 hit in the UK in 1996.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 6. <\/strong><em>Rachel dispenses with the alt-Moira.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Rachel appears here between pages 14 and 18 of <em>Rise of the Powers of X<\/em> #3; she&#8217;s just learned that Professor X is actually planning to kill the young Moira, and she&#8217;s understandably keen to get rid of this alt Moira summarily.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 7-12.\u00a0<\/strong><em>The X-Men defeat alt-Moira.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Rachel dumps the X-Men and Moira back in the aborted timeline where Moira came from in issue #1. This means that they&#8217;re back at the location where Orbis Stellaris is about to attempt his ascension, and we pick up with that action sequence where we left off.<\/p>\n<p>Dazzler&#8217;s death and return refers to a dropped plot from <em>New Excalibur<\/em> where she was apparently immortal; this was previously mentioned in issue #1. Apparently Dazzler does indeed have a built-in resurrection power as previously shown, but it didn&#8217;t work at\u00a0<em>X-Men Hellfire Gala 2023<\/em> because the damage done to her body by Nimrod was too extreme.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 13-14.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Orbis Stellaris reclaims the M&#8217;Kraan Crystal shard from Prodigy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This thing lodged in Prodigy&#8217;s chest in issue #1. The crystal itself speaks to him here, in what he interprets later in the issue as a lesson that every life matters. Rachel&#8217;s explanation is that taking this fragment of the M&#8217;Kraan Crystal through &#8220;ten lifetimes of the mutant experience&#8221; -has connected the Crystal itself to &#8220;every individual ever&#8221;, which somehow or other creates the power source to resurrect Phoenix. Whether any of this makes the slightest may be respectfully doubted. (If every individual is already the whole, how does hauling the crystal through defunct timelines add anything?)<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 15-16.\u00a0<\/strong><em>The local X-Men and Starjammers defeat Orbis Stellaris.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>We saw all of these characters previously in issue #1.<\/p>\n<p>Orbis Stellaris&#8217; attempted ascension fails for the same reason as all the other Sinister clones: he&#8217;s just there to provide information for Enigma.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 17-20.\u00a0<\/strong><em>The X-Men take stock in the White Hot Room.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Rachel recaps the plot of the first half of\u00a0<em>Rise of the Powers of X\u00a0<\/em>#3 for the benefit of her team.<\/p>\n<p>Page 18 is a double page spread with each of the team members surrounded by images of themselves in early costumes. The point of all this is largely to reject the idea of rewriting the timeline and losing Krakoa (though Cannonball is more concerned about more general losses from a timeline reboot). Frenzy&#8217;s claim that Krakoa allowed her to change her story for good is a bit tenuous; she&#8217;s been associated with the X-Men since the Decimation era, long before Krakoa.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the idea here seems to be that Rachel had previously rejected the fallback plan of resurrecting the Phoenix due to lack of power, but has only just realised that Prodigy has generated a power source &#8211; thus giving her a further reason to reject Professor X&#8217;s plan.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 21.\u00a0<\/strong><em>The X-Men stop Professor X from killing Moira.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This is the very end of page 18 of\u00a0<em>Rise of the Powers of X<\/em> #3, and continues directly into that scene. Suffice to say that Professor X is very moved and persuaded not to destroy Krakoa.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 22.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krakoan reads RISE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. DEAD X-MEN #4 &#8220;Hyperballad&#8221; Writer: Steve Foxe Artists; David Balde\u00f3n, Bernard Chang &amp; Vincenzo Carrat\u00f9 Colour artist: Frank Martin Letterer: Cory Petit Design: Tom Muller &amp; Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. The X-Men fight their alt-Moira. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10022,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10020\/revisions\/10022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}