{"id":10666,"date":"2025-01-02T21:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T21:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10666"},"modified":"2025-01-02T21:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T21:08:10","slug":"x-force-7-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10666","title":{"rendered":"X-Force #7 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-FORCE vol 7 #7<\/strong>
\n“The Devil in Heaven”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Geoffrey Thorne<\/strong>
\nArtist: Jim Towe<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Erick Arciniega<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

X-FORCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the previous issue, La Diabla attacked Forge in his VR environment, and got driven out. The issue ended with Forge and Tank finding Captain Britain and Askani hovering in the air in a trance, with little symbols in front of their faces, and surrounded by some sort of energy effect.<\/p>\n

This issue starts by jumping back a few minutes to show what was happening with Betsy and Rachel during the previous issue. Specifically, on page 1, Forge is muttering the same dialogue that he was delivering in the VR world on page 18 of the previous issue, while Rachel and Betsy are off some sort of communal mental projection as they appeared on page 13 of that issue. The end of issue #6 falls somewhere just before page 14 of this issue.<\/p>\n

Captain<\/strong> Britain <\/strong>has created a private mindscape for her and Rachel to rest in between missions; it’s supposed to be the area around the Braddock Lighthouse, and this story follows Krakoan-era Excalibur<\/em> in placing it in Cornwall. Betsy appears in this landscape wearing her purple costume from when she first joined the X-Men. When she returns to the mindscape at the end of the issue to fight La Diabla, instead of appearing as Captain Britain, she appears as Outback-era Psylocke in the armoured costume. (She also says that the Outback would have been her candidate for a happy place.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Askani<\/strong>, then. Oh boy.<\/p>\n

According to this issue, Rachel was killed by Professor X in Rise of the Powers of X<\/em>. Rachel is said to have brought about her own resurrection without the help of the Five or the power of the Phoenix – Betsy mentions that Phoenix was taken off Earth by Jean Grey over in the Phoenix<\/em> book, but that comes later on any view. Besides, that’s the least of this issue’s continuity problems, since the Phoenix was out of commission for other reasons at the time when Rachel was resurrected.<\/p>\n

The plot appears to be that Rachel has somehow used her powers to restore herself to life, which (for no terribly clear reason) has left her overloaded with power, something that Betsy is trying to help her manage. In the mindscape, Rachel is visited by versions of herself from other points in her personal timeline, using their psychic time travel powers, who are also there to help smooth things over. This then gets interrupted by La Diabla, which apparently alters history. The five visiting Rachels appear to be:<\/p>\n