{"id":10560,"date":"2024-11-27T22:17:33","date_gmt":"2024-11-27T22:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10560"},"modified":"2024-11-27T22:17:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T22:17:33","slug":"uncanny-x-men-6-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10560","title":{"rendered":"Uncanny X-Men #6 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #6<\/strong>
\n“The Change in Ourselves”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gail Simone<\/strong>
\nArtist: Javier Garr\u00f3n<\/strong>
\nColourist: Matthew Wilson<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

THE X-MEN:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wolverine <\/strong>still hasn’t regained his eyesight, even though some time has obviously passed since the last issue (as Marcus has had time to get the Outliers into school). This is unusual for Wolverine but nobody comments on it, so it may just be an editorial decision to drag Wolverine’s healing powers back into more sensible territory than it’s been pitched at in recent years.<\/p>\n

He explains that he’s depressed because he recently acquired a bottle of tequila for outliving the last of a bunch of army friends. We saw Logan collect this bottle from a dying friend near the start of issue #1, but the criteria for him “winning” it weren’t explained. Rogue<\/strong>‘s conclusion is that Wolverine has PTSD which has never been properly treated, which seems reasonable enough – many stories over the years have suggested that Wolverine’s healing factor attempts to deal with psychiatric injury but only in rather unhelpful ways, such as suppressing painful memories. Wolverine isn’t convinced, ahd points out that she isn’t a therapist.<\/p>\n

Gambit<\/strong> proves surprisingly effective at persuading Calico to accept that she’s a mutant – he ascribes it to her needing a new parent figure. Parenthood is a major theme of this series so far, and the basic premise of Sarah Gaunt’s character.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jubilee<\/strong> is missing her adopted son Shogo, who stayed in Otherworld as a dragon in Knights of X<\/em> #5. She and Calico get abducted by the Graymalkin crew to set up the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover, for reasons which aren’t made clear at this stage (assuming that they extend beyond “because mutants”).<\/p>\n

Nightcrawler<\/strong> tells Jubilee that he sometimes thinks about having kids, but thinks he’s a better babysitter.<\/p>\n

SUPPORTING CAST:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Calico.<\/strong> An opening flashback to “six years ago” shows her mother infantilising her; at that point she’s keen to go to a normal school, but gets shut down at once. This is consistent with her account of her origin in issue #3, though that showed her slightly older, and put more emphasis on her isolation than on her not being allowed to grow up. She said in issue #3 that she had “No films, no TV, no music”, but her room here has a TV with a video game console of some sort attached ot it. Maybe it got removed as she got older.<\/p>\n

In the present day, she vigorously refuses to go to school – with both her and Ember’s eyes gleaming. Again, a possible<\/em> reading is that Ember is driving this and resists the prospect of being separated from her. This is the first time that she’s been at all uncooperative. She even has Ember boot Wolverine in the face when he tries to talk sense into her. According to him, the horse is insanely powerful – if we’re to take him literally when he says that he can’t remember the last time he was hit that hard, then Ember is more powerful than Sarah Gaunt, who he fought in issue #2-3. And Sarah was strong enough to break Rogue’s wrist.<\/p>\n

Calico does calm down when spoken to sternly and in a trad-parent manner. She tends to fend off claims that she might be a mutant by citing her (clearly deranged) mother, but changes tack surprisingly quickly when Gambit gives her a pep talk. Everyone seems inclined to take this as a good thing and an act of self-acceptance, but it’s so abrupt that you have to wonder.<\/p>\n

She’s only reluctantly separated from her beloved horse in order to go to school, and the Graymalkin soldiers have little difficulty in defeating her when Ember isn’t around. I still think it’s an open question whether she really is a mutant, or whether the horse is the one with the power.<\/p>\n

Jitter <\/strong>tries to make friends with the kids on the school bus, and is upset by their rejection. Ransom<\/strong> and Deathdream <\/strong>both deal with the bullies on her behalf (and without her involvement). Ransom claims that he was an Olympic boxing hopeful. He also reprimands Deathdream for not supporting Jitter and not caring about anyone but himself – however, last issue we were told that Jitter and Deathdream were particuarly close, so it’s possible that Ransom is just misreading Deathdream’s surface persona.<\/p>\n

Marcus St Juniors<\/strong> insists on any children staying at Haven going to school, which seems fair enough since his own daughter Chelsea St Juniors<\/strong> goes there already. She gives Calico her stuffed toy in orer to comfort her in Ember’s absence. Principal Owens<\/strong> is evidently on good terms with Marcus and willing to bend the rules to admit the Outliers early (though they still need school uniforms). He tells them to “keep a low profile, for everyone’s safety”, which suggests that he knows they’re mutants; it seems to be intended as genuine practical advice.<\/p>\n

VILLAINS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jubilee and Calico are both abducted by soldiers from the Graymalkin Prison<\/strong>; the gunman who first tries to arrest Jubilee is head of security Captain Ezra<\/strong>. Dr Corina Ellis<\/strong> gets a brief cameo at the end of the issue.<\/p>\n

Ezra is accompanied by the Blob, Siryn<\/strong> and an unnamed character who looks to be Wild Child.<\/strong> All are wearing gray uniforms (though Siryn still has her costume wings) and seem to be wearing control collars. We saw Blob and Siryn as prisoners in the Free Comic Book Day<\/em> one-shot, and Dr Ellis invited Siryn to become one of her trustees in issue #2. Apparently she wasn’t giving Siryn a choice. As for Wild Child, this is his first significant appearance since the Krakoan-era Hellions<\/em> book was cancelled.<\/p>\n

Tommy<\/strong> is the school bully who gets a name.<\/p>\n

Calico’s mother<\/strong>, presumably Mrs Simon-Pinette, is a controlling weirdo. She not only fires an assistant groundskeeper for telling her daughter about the outside world, but falsely accuses him of sexual offences. It’s not clear whether the staff were told not to speak to Becca, but the fact that she felt the need to invent a false reason suggests not.<\/p>\n

OTHER REFERENCES:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Page 7: “Harvey X and Sarah Gaunt both tried to warn us. One of the kids here at Haven might be the Endling, the last mutant on Earth, the one who watches as every mutant dies.”<\/strong> In issue #1, Harvey X said: “They’re coming. You have to help them. One of them is the Endling.” He didn’t specify what an Endling was. Sarah didn’t warn them so much as just try to kill the Outliers.<\/p>\n

Page 12: “Everyone has chores.”<\/strong> This was indeed given as the first rule of Haven in issue #3. (The other two were “Everyone cooks” and “Everyone cleans.”)<\/p>\n

Page 13: “Marigny Bywater.”<\/strong> These are actually two different districts of New Orleans, though they do neighbour each other.<\/p>\n

Page 13: “Besson’s Dark.”<\/strong> Previously mentioned in issue #1, where Gambit described it as one of his favourite beers and “only available from a tiny grocery chain in town”, which would apparently be the Guidry’s Grocery chain seen here. Nightcrawler either doesn’t realise that it’s a local craft beer, or has remarkably jingoistic views on the quality of German beer for someone who’s been living abroad this long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #6 “The Change in Ourselves” Writer: Gail Simone Artist: Javier Garr\u00f3n Colourist: Matthew Wilson Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Tom Brevoort THE X-MEN: Wolverine still hasn’t regained his eyesight, even though some time has obviously passed since the […]<\/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-10560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560","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=10560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10563,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10560\/revisions\/10563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}