{"id":10847,"date":"2025-03-06T22:34:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T22:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10847"},"modified":"2025-03-07T00:19:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T00:19:08","slug":"nyx-9-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=10847","title":{"rendered":"NYX #9 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>NYX vol 2 #9<\/strong>
\n“X-Manhunt, part 2: Charles”<\/strong>
\nWriters: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly<\/strong>
\nArtist: Francesco Mortarino<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Ra\u00fal Angulo<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Sabino<\/strong>
\nEditor: Annalise Bissa<\/strong><\/p>\n

This issue is part of the “X-Manhunt” crossover, and also a tie-in to One World Under Doom<\/em> (though that’s not billed on the cover). And it’s also the penultimate issue before cancellation with issue #10. So a lot to do.<\/p>\n

THE CORE CAST.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sophie Cuckoo.<\/strong> Her powers have returned to an extent, but she says they’re “still glitching half the time.”<\/p>\n

She’s still playing Summoner,<\/em> which was previously mentioned in issue #6 as a game that she’d become obsessed with after losing her powers in issue #5; it was indicated that she was spending more time on the chat function than actually playing the game, and we learn here that she’s talking to someone called TarnishedMoodRing who seems to be a boyfriend. The art indicates that the game has Krakoan-era mutant iconography – at least in a meta sense, with the graphics using the font that we as readers recognise from Krakoan-era logos, and what looks to be a version of the Marauders symbol.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sophie describes Summoner<\/em> as “an adaptive game” and claims that it’s not losing that ends the game, but “accepting the loss”. Kamala, who knows much more about gaming than Sophie does, regards this as gibberish but doesn’t push the point. She does express some concern about how much time Sophie is spending on the app, but the revelation of the boyfriend seems to put her mind at ease on that point.<\/p>\n

(EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, the boyfriend is very likely Axo, who was playing the same game in the last issue of\u00a0Exceptional X-Men<\/em>, and whose powers fit with the username.)<\/p>\n

Prodigy.<\/strong> His immediate reaction to Professor X’s arrival is to try and throw him out. Not only is Professor X a wanted man, Prodigy regards him as the mutant “whose sins buried our last chance at a homeland” – which seems unduly harsh, but somewhat reflects the way Professor X has positioned himself following the end of the Krakoan era. He claims that NYX are not a “paramilitary force” or “child soldiers” – standard criticisms of the X-Men, even though in previous issues he claimed that mutant culture was<\/em> the X-Men. Mind you, he didn’t say that that was necessarily a good thing…<\/p>\n

Prodigy is (or at least claims to be) completely unfazed by the prospect of Doom having control of the last seed, if only because he can’t see what possible use it could be to someone who already ruled the world. Generally speaking, everyone in this issue seems incredibly relaxed about the minor inconvenience of Dr Doom having taken over the world, although Doom’s general approach in this storyline has been to encourage life to go on as normal and leave established structures in place. And given the mutants’ dealings with the US government over the last couple of years, including when it was sponsoring Orchis, maybe they just regard Doom as a sideways move, or even an outright improvement.<\/p>\n

Anole.<\/strong> He correctly expects that bringing Professor X to NYX will get a hostile response, but is a little disappointed that he seems to be the only person who wants to help; his motivation is that he regards Krakoa as a friend and sees the seed as something that could let Doom control Krakoa itself.<\/p>\n

Ms Marvel.<\/strong> She agrees with Prodigy that NYX – which, after all, is just a community centre – was the wrong place for Professor X to go to for help, and shares Prodigy’s concern that having the Professor around is dangerous. But, as the one NYX regular in this issue who does <\/em>regard herself as an active superhero (Laura doesn’t appear), she is willing to show up.<\/p>\n

GUEST STARS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor X.<\/strong> His objective in this story is to retrieve the last remaining Cerebro unit from the Treehouse, which he believes will let him help Xandra. To create a distraction, he tries to recruit some allies to storm the Treehouse for a completely different reason: to retrieve the last remaining seed of Krakoa, the one that Dr Doom collected in X-Men<\/em> #35. This isn’t a total lie – the seed is genuinely there, but Professor X has no real interest in it. He’s just exploiting the mutant identity of the people who still trust him in order to achieve his own goals. He first approaches the Morlocks to help, but apparently only Anole is up for going on the mission.<\/p>\n

He shows no sign of any of the hallucinations he was having in the previous chapter (which, to be fair, seemed to be something affecting the Graymalkin guards too). He does claim that his powers have been “weak” since escaping the prison, though that might just be a pretext for Anole’s benefit.<\/p>\n

Somehow, he’s obtained codes to deactive the Doombots in the Treehouse. We’re not told how. He seems to be using telepathy on one of them, which doesn’t make a huge amount of sense, though there are some scattered examples of him using telepathy on sophisticated but non-sentient AIs.<\/p>\n

The narration is extremely negative about Professor X throughout, but the narrator does turn out to be Mojo at the end, so we should be slightly cautious about how literally we’re supposed to take it.<\/p>\n

Volta.<\/strong> Last seen in X-Men<\/em> #35, she’s one of Doom’s Latverian mutants from the Gerry Duggan run. She appeared in that issue collecting the seed we see here. She has little interest in Mojo’s blathering and tries to cut the meeting short when he starts rambling about meta things. (EDIT: Mojo at least badly injures her, but on usual Marvel Universe rules, I wouldn\u2019t say she\u2019s verified as being actually dead.)<\/p>\n

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

Dante.<\/strong> Is hanging around NYX helping with the catering. He has no dialogue.<\/p>\n

Sobunar.<\/strong> He verifies that the seed really is in the Treehouse – apparently he can feel this “through the ecosystem”. He’s apparently willing to vouch for Professor X to that extent, but not minded to get involved any further.<\/p>\n

Loolo.<\/strong> She stands next to Sobunar (as does another random Morlock who we haven’t seen before).<\/p>\n

Synch.<\/strong> He’s sitting on a couch in NYX and has no dialogue.<\/p>\n

Local<\/strong> is a prisoner of Mojo, who turned on him in the epilogue of issue #6. Mojo plans to use his connection to the city to help transform it in conjunction with the Krakoan seed.<\/p>\n

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

Dr Doom.<\/strong> Rules the world. He doesn’t appear in this issue, but he does occupy the Treehouse with his Doombots, and despatches Volta to negotiate on his behalf with Mojo over the seed. Evidently Doom regards meeting Mojo in person as beneath his dignity.<\/p>\n

Mojo.\u00a0<\/strong>As “Mr Friend”, he approaches Doom to “negotiate media rights for the discoveries soon to be found in this place”, whatever that means. Presumably “this place” is the Treehouse.\u00a0Mojo is very meta in this issue, but presents himself less as a TV\/video entity and more as a fourth wall comics entity. He claims that his interest in the seed is “to close a plotline”. His actual plan seems to be to bring back a Krakoa of sorts, using Fauna’s powers to help it grow, in order to deliver on the promise he made to all of those mutants who have been following him through the series to date. But Mojo is going to embed himself into this new Krakoa.<\/p>\n

When Ms Marvel says Anole’s name, Mojo’s amazed to find out how it’s pronounced. (It’s uh-NOH-lee – presumably Mojo thought it was AN-ohl.)<\/p>\n

Fauna.<\/strong> We last saw Fauna in issue #1, where he was falling under Mojo’s influence. Presumably it was Fauna who told Mojo about the seed (which he saw Volta take). Mojo describes Fauna as his “majordomo”, alluding to the long suffering functionary who always used to accompany Mojo in 80s and 90s stories – surely his actual functions are beyond little Fauna, though?<\/p>\n

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

Page 4 panel 1: The graffiti (“Had a home, it went into another dimension”) obviously refers to Krakoa going to the White Hot Room at the end of the Krakoan era – although if this guy literally lived on Krakoa, then either he somehow avoided being taken to the White Hot Room at the Hellfire Gala, or he chose to come back in X-Men<\/em> #35.<\/p>\n

Page 4 panel 2: “Is this what you’d hoped when you first built that hubristic monument to mutantdom in Westchester?” Presumably referring to the X-Men Mansion, although it must mean the school as an institution, since Xavier didn’t literally build the mansion – he inherited it from his parents. The art in this panel shows the Morlock tunnels, though nobody is in sight.<\/p>\n

Page 4 panel 3: The workman putting up the Wanted poster seems to be an echo of the many panels in this series of Prodigy’s graffiti art.<\/p>\n

Page 4 panel 4: This is the X-Men’s Krakoan-era New York base, the Treehouse, but the guards outside are now flying Doom’s flag, because One World Under Doom<\/em> is in progress.<\/p>\n

Page 5 panel 2: Sophie lost her powers in issue #5.<\/p>\n

Page 10: The flashback is a straight recap of a scene from X-Men<\/em> #35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. NYX vol 2 #9 “X-Manhunt, part 2: Charles” Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly Artist: Francesco Mortarino Colour artist: Ra\u00fal Angulo Letterer: Joe Sabino Editor: Annalise Bissa This issue is part of the “X-Manhunt” crossover, and also a tie-in to One […]<\/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-10847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847","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=10847"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10852,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions\/10852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}