{"id":10039,"date":"2024-04-24T22:54:46","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T21:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10039"},"modified":"2024-04-24T22:54:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T21:54:46","slug":"rise-of-the-powers-of-x-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10039","title":{"rendered":"Rise of the Powers of X #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #4<\/strong>
\n“Sentinel X”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: R.B. Silva<\/strong>
\nColour artist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> A distraught Professor X, in his Cerebro helmet, in a field of flaming skulls. Presumably that’s Krakoa in the background.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>Paul Neary obituary.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-6.\u00a0<\/strong>Professor X frees Mother Righteous and kills Rasputin.<\/em><\/p>\n

This picks up directly from the end of issue #3, where Professor X was persuaded to switch tack and try Rachel’s plan of resurrecting the Phoenix as a means of defeating Enigma. As we establish later on, the reason why Professor X is killing Rachel and Rasputin is so that the Five can resurrect them in the White Hot Room – being the only available means of actually getting them there.<\/p>\n

“You have the power to stop Rasputin, yes?”<\/strong> Mother Righteous’ magic gives her control over anyone who’s thanked her in the past, until she cashes that favour in. She used up most of her power in the White Hot Room by cashing in the general thanks that she was given by the whole population of Krakoa (in the closing issues of Immortal X-Men<\/em>), but clearly she hasn’t cashed in her thanks for Rasputin yet. I’m not sure we ever saw Rasputin thank her on panel, but she regarded Mother Righteous as a saviour in Sins of Sinister: Dominion<\/em>, so she’ll doubtless have thanked her somewhere along the line.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I worked out how I could dissolve the me I left in the White Hot<\/b> Room.<\/strong>\u00a0I’ve just made her go bye-bye.”\u00a0<\/b>This scene appears in pages 3-5 of\u00a0X-Men Forever<\/em> #2. The Mother Righteous duplicate does indeed fall apart, but unknown to Righteous, Professor X uses it in its final moments to send a message to Hope, Exodus and Destiny. He tells them to resurrect Rachel, and then assist her in helping Jean. He also gives them the details of the X-Men who have died on Earth during “Fall of X” so that they too can be resurrected. Finally, he says that someone else will have to lead the X-Men now – “My time has passed.”<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.\u00a0<\/strong>Professor X surrenders himself to Orchis.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s not entirely clear why Mother Righteous is unconscious here, but presumably either she was unprepared for the return to reality, or Professor X just zapped her. At any rate, he reasons (apparently correctly) that Dr Stasis will have given a standing order to bring in his wife if she’s discovered, and uses this as leverage to get the Stark Sentinels to bring them both in. You’d have thought that the Stark Sentinels would still be comfortable with just zapping Xavier, but they’re not the smartest.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong>\u00a0Professor X speaks to Omega Sentinel.<\/em><\/p>\n

Professor X’s pitch is that he’s willing to help Orchis destroy humanity as long as mutantkind survives. He frames this in terms of Moira’s line of thinking (“the one thing we haven’t tried”): mutants and AI united against humanity, on the basis that they both represent versions of the future.<\/p>\n

This leads to pages 9-10 of Fall of the House of X <\/em>#4, where Omega Sentinel calls in Nimrod so that Professor X can repeat the pitch. Nimrod is persuaded, and Professor X begins to work alongside the AIs, supposedly to wipe out humanity in exchange for mutant survival. In X-Men Forever<\/em> #2, Exodus presents this as the result of Rachel and the “Dead” X-Men convincing Professor X last issue that Krakoa was a dream that had to be preserved: this is Professor X “martyring himself … for the chance of a new Krakoa”.<\/p>\n

Xavier’s main concern, of course, is the existential threat of Enigma, and it’s pretty clear that he’s hoping to string Orchis along until that’s dealt with. Rachel, in Forever\u00a0<\/em>#2, describes it as “a distraction”.<\/p>\n

“Stasis is dead.”<\/strong> He was killed by the X-Men in\u00a0Fall of the House of X<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

“I am the ultimate Sentinel.”<\/strong> Hence the title of the story, “Sentinel X”. It’s also a play on the name “Omega Sentinel”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.\u00a0<\/strong>Rachel is resurrected in the White Hot Room.<\/em><\/p>\n

This scene takes place between pages 5 and 7 of\u00a0X-Men Forever<\/em> #2 (page 6 being the credits). Destiny, Hope and Exodus already know Professor X’s plan partly from the opening scene in that issue..<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.\u00a0<\/strong>Rachel talks to Hope and Exodus.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you.”<\/strong> Hope is presumably referring to Professor X’s original plan to go back in time and kill Moira; as seen in earlier issues of this series and in\u00a0Dead X-Men<\/em>, Rachel was told that he just wanted to go back and talk to her.<\/p>\n

“I think we’ve got that.”<\/strong> Rachel doesn’t know how the X-Men in the White Hot Room are going to get back to Earth to help the fight. Hope indicates vaguely that a solution is already known. As seen later in this issue, and covered in more detail in X-Men Forever<\/em> #2, Mr Sinister is among the resurrected mutants, and he uses a serum to temporarily link Atlantic and Pacific Krakoa so that the reinforcements can return. He also indicates that he’s exhausted the available resources so that this can’t be done again. Much of Forever<\/em> #2 concerns the implications of this: the X-Men are returning to the real world to fight Orchis and Enigma, and all the background characters are being left behind in the White Hot Room. We’ll see if that sticks, but “Krakoa in permanent exile” is certainly being teased.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-15.<\/strong> Professor X starts work for Orchis.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Killing Orchis? That’s something even the X-Men are doing.”\u00a0<\/strong>Fall of the House of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Professor X belatedly picks up on the fact that his arrival on the Orchis station has not drawn the attention of Moira, who might have been expected to show an interest. As we see in the next scene, she\u00a0is<\/em> interested, but Enigma is telling her to stay away.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.\u00a0<\/strong>Moira and Enigma.<\/em><\/p>\n

“No more humans.”<\/strong> This tagline, referencing House of M<\/em>, also appeared in\u00a0Fall of the House of X<\/em> #4.<\/p>\n

Once again, Enigma’s insistence that he’s seen the future and knows that he wins is undercut by his obvious concern that Professor X could do something to stop him.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.\u00a0<\/strong>Rachel and the Dead X-Men place Jean on her funeral pyre.<\/em><\/p>\n

Much more of this in\u00a0X-Men Forever<\/em> #2, where Rachel is preparing Jean to be consumed in fire and reborn as Phoenix. Rachel won’t actually do the burning bit herself; that’s left to Hope, after the rest of the X-Men have returned to Earth.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-19.\u00a0<\/strong>The resurrected mutants are briefed, and learn that Mr Sinister is sending them home.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is your last batch of resurrections to bring back everyone else who died at the Gala or subsequently. We can take it as read that anyone who future writers want to bring back might have made it into this crowd off-panel. A version of this scene also appears in\u00a0X-Men Forever<\/em> #2, which confirms that Atlantic Krakoa does indeed have a Cradle in it, making resurrection possible.<\/p>\n

Among the mutants visible in this crowd scene are<\/p>\n