{"id":10805,"date":"2025-02-19T21:29:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T21:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10805"},"modified":"2025-02-19T21:29:01","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T21:29:01","slug":"uncanny-x-men-10-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10805","title":{"rendered":"Uncanny X-Men #10 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

There are a ridiculous number of new titles out this week – eight ongoing titles in total, plus one miniseries – so I won’t be doing annotations for all of them.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #10<\/strong>
\n“Off the Leash, part 2”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gail Simone<\/strong>
\nArtist: Andrei Bressan<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Matthew Wilson<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Nightcrawler.<\/strong> He regards Haven as a “home” rather than a “school”, “base” or “country”. If we leave aside for a moment the confusing explanations we’ve had about the nature of Rogue and Cyclops’ disagreement, the actual distinction between X-Men<\/em> and\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> is that X-Men<\/em> features a mission-focussed strike team operating out of a utilitarian base, while Uncanny X-Men<\/em> features a quasi-family cast with none of those trappings. Rogue presumably considers that this is the real core of the X-Men. Kurt’s standpoint seems to be that this isn’t really the X-Men, and he rather likes it that way. He isn’t sure he wants to go back to something more formal and seems rather wistful about MacKenzie Deneer and her family.<\/p>\n

Chelsea thinks Kurt is worried about the Outliers even before there’s any word of a problem at the mall, although he insists otherwise. He certainly seems to be putting on a cheerful face for her, and perhaps for himself.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wolverine.<\/strong> Remarkably, with the Outliers in danger, he shows up at a police crash barrier and actually argues with the police officer about whether he should be allowed through. Let’s assume that this conversation starts only seconds before we join the scene and that the cop caves almost immediately (Jubilee certainly reacts as if he’s been good to them). Presumably the cop recognises Wolverine, since there’s no other reason to let him through otherwise.<\/p>\n

He congratulates Ransom on his performance, following up on their scene in the previous issue.<\/p>\n

Jubilee.<\/strong> She takes a more diplomatic approach to getting past the cop than Wolverine does, and for some reason decides to flirt with the guy in mid rescue. She claims to be “single at the moment… sorta”, whatever that means.<\/p>\n

Rogue<\/strong> and Gambit<\/strong> go to the ballet – specifically, it’s Adolphe Adam’s\u00a0Giselle<\/em> (1841) – and Rogue is blown away. Much kissing follows. This epilogue scene might well take place some time after the rest of the story; it would probably help simplify continuity if it did.<\/p>\n

Deathdream.<\/strong> He’s 15, according to Jubilee. He wasn’t actually killed by the Wolfpack last issue (or if he was, he’s already used his powers to restore himself to life). Jitter says that he has a broken rib and a punctured lung; once she uses her needle on him, he wakes up. At this point things get confusing: Jitter’s treatment seems to be conventional field medic treatment, which seems like it ought to just stabilise him. But instead, Deathdream is immediately able to run and talk as if he was entirely uninjured, and he goes back to his spooky persona. One possible reading is that once Jitter manages to wake him, his “return from the dead” power includes a healing ability that lets him finish the job.<\/p>\n

He repeats his claim from last issue that his ghosts (“my unliving things”) can’t see inorganic things such as the Wolfpack cyborgs, but says that he now realises that the Wolfpack include “real biological material from stray dogs” – quite how that explains the ghosts’ inability to see them is unclear. He then says that he can “end their torment”, and apparently defeats the Wolfpack singlehandedly by killing the dogs, which he evidently considers a release. But what power is he using here? If he has the power to make living things in the area drop dead, that seems a lot more powerful than anything we’ve heard from him so far. Or is this something about being able to release creatures that are already on the cusp of death?<\/p>\n

He doesn’t recognise All Dogs Go To<\/em> Heaven<\/em> (1989) as the title of a film, presumably because it came out 20 years before he was born – however, a quick search suggests that it was called something slightly different in Japan (something like The Dogs Who Came From Heaven<\/em>), so even if he knew the film itself, he still probably wouldn’t recognise the title.<\/p>\n

Jitter<\/strong>. She’s 16, according to Jubilee. Her power to give herself skills for a minute extends beyond mere physical skills to knowledge such as being a combat medic. Evidently she can’t just repeat the effect immediately (or the one minute limit would be meaningless) but we don’t know what the cool-down period is. She does retain some of her combat medic knowledge after the 60 second period expires – the idea seems to be that if she used the 60 seconds to work out what she needed to do, then she can remember the answer and carry it into practice if it doesn’t call for any special physical skills in itself.<\/p>\n

At the end of the story, she focusses on Calico and has a heart-symbol in her dialogue.<\/p>\n

Calico.<\/strong> Team powerhouse, at least until Ransom gets Ember<\/strong> to power him up instead. In her narration, she’s increasingly framing her mutant identity as a defiance of her mother, and talking about how mutants watch out for one another. But when the Wolfpack have them on the ropes (just before Deathdream sorts it all out) her narration switches to thinking that her mother was right, that “we’re being punished” and “we’re going to die”.<\/p>\n

Ransom.<\/strong> Team leader, described by Calico as “the one we look up to”. He certainly seems to be looked to as a figure of support by both Calico and Jitter. (Deathdream doesn’t interact with him enough for the question to arise.)<\/p>\n

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

Chelsea St Juniors.<\/strong> She has a mutant force field power and wants to be called Dome when she’s older (presumably this is the only shape that the force field takes). For some reason she doesn’t want to tell her saintly father about this. Nightcrawler finds out when she uses the power to stop a paint tray falling on them both – this is hardly a major threat, so it’s not clear whether she’s more comfortable revealing her power to him, or whether she just reacts instinctively.<\/p>\n

MacKenzie Deneer.<\/strong> We saw her before in issue #6, when Kurt stopped her daughter Lena Deneer<\/strong> from being hit by a runaway truck. (Lena and her unnamed brother both show up in this issue too.) MacKenzie was effusive in her praise for him in that story, kissed him on the cheek, and told him “you look every bit an angel to me”. This issue, she shows up at Haven – apparently it’s public knowledge that the X-Men are living there – with a large selection of cakes to thank Kurt yet again for saving her daughter. There is, conspicuously, no mention of a Mr Deneer.<\/p>\n

Marcus St Juniors<\/strong> has a cameo but doesn’t do anything important.<\/p>\n

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

The Wolfpack.<\/strong> One of them goes out of control and starts attacking ordinary humans, so it turns out that they can’t be relied upon to attack the right target after all. They give Calico and Ransom a serious fight, but Deathdream seems to defeat them singlehandedly by killing their organic components.<\/p>\n

Corina Ellis.<\/strong> As in the previous issue, she’s appalled that the Wolfpack have been released in a shopping mall, but mainly because it’s bad PR. She also thinks that the Outliers will become local heroes for defeating them. She has the scientist who released the Wildpack thrown into a cell (although to be fair, he has in fact committed a crime).<\/p>\n

Captain Ezra.\u00a0<\/strong>Stands next to Ellis as usual. He’s slightly snarkier than normal this time.<\/p>\n

Larry Trask.<\/strong> Last issue had an apparent continuity problem, presenting Trask as the creator of the Wolfpack when in Sentinels<\/em> the dogs were Ellis’ attempt to replace him. A footnote on the contents page tells us that this issue takes place before\u00a0Sentinels<\/em> #4, which would mean we’re between\u00a0Sentinels<\/em> #2-3 here. In this issue, Trask simply denies being responsible for sending the Wolfpack out and makes a curious comment that “You think, with my family history, I’d murder kids?” That doesn’t seem to refer to anything in established continuity.<\/p>\n

Jerry Greentree.<\/strong> The scientist who released the Wolfpack last issue claims that he did it because Larry Trask told him that their funding was in jeopardy. He didn’t mention this last issue, but the suggestion might be that Trask was trying to sabotage the rival Sentinel program.<\/p>\n

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

Page 5: “Was in aller welt?<\/em>” = “What on earth?” “Wilkommen<\/em>” = “Welcome”. “Apfelkuchen<\/em>” just means “apple cake”, but presumably MacKenzie looked up a German recipe.<\/p>\n

Kurt saved MacKenzie’s daughter from a runaway truck in issue #6. The girl’s name is Lena.<\/p>\n

Page 9: Deathdream’s comment about Calico was last issue.<\/p>\n

Page 12: Larry Trask already told Corina that he didn’t send the Wolfpack last issue.<\/p>\n

Page 13: We didn’t see Calico take Chelsea’s stuffed toy with her to the mall last issue, but she did take it to school with her in issue #6.<\/p>\n

Page 17: Ember gave Wolverine a concussion (or at least booted him through a large tree) in issue #6.<\/p>\n

Jubilee was talking up shopping malls last issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. There are a ridiculous number of new titles out this week – eight ongoing titles in total, plus one miniseries – so I won’t be doing annotations for all of them. UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #10 “Off the Leash, part 2” […]<\/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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10805","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=10805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10808,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10805\/revisions\/10808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}