{"id":11212,"date":"2025-07-09T21:23:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11212"},"modified":"2025-07-09T21:23:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T20:23:05","slug":"uncanny-x-men-17-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11212","title":{"rendered":"Uncanny X-Men #17 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #17<\/strong>
\n\u201dMurder Me, Mutina\u201d<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gail Simone<\/strong>
\nArtist: Luciano Vecchio<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Rogue. <\/strong>She seems genuinely surprised at the existence and success of a slasher movie where the killer is a mutant (see below). She assumes that it\u2019s likely to lead to attacks on mutants, and worries about the Outliers.<\/p>\n

Gambit.<\/strong> He\u2019s entirely unbothered about Calico and Jitter being suspended from school – he seems to be taking it as read that they were defending themselves against a bully (which isn\u2019t quite what happened).<\/p>\n

Nightcrawler.<\/strong> Well, he\u2019s there, but there\u2019s not much to say about him this issue.<\/p>\n

Jubilee. <\/strong>She argues that mutants need a PR firm. They did in fact hire a woman called Kate Kildare during the San Francisco \/ Utopia era.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wolverine.<\/strong> He seems somewhat more open to the film than his teammates. After all, when your arch-enemy is Sabretooth, you can\u2019t really argue that a mutant slasher is an unreasonable character.<\/p>\n

Ransom.\u00a0<\/strong>He assumes that Hotoru\u2019s behaviour must be because he was badly hurt by someone and offers a rather unwanted supportive hug.<\/p>\n

Jitter.<\/strong> She generally likes slasher films. Murder Me, Mutina\u00a0<\/em>made her feel bad \u201cfor some reason\u201d but she can\u2019t articulate why. She\u2019s started calling Calico \u201cBallerina\u201d, \u00a0referring to their dance scene in issue #9.<\/p>\n

Calico.\u00a0<\/strong>She\u2019s never been to a cinema before. She seems very uncomfortable about going to see a horror movie and can\u2019t see the appeal. She has nightmares afterwards, and winds up coming to sleep on Jitter\u2019s bedroom floor.<\/p>\n

She seems unaware of how mutants are perceived by the general public, and asks whether people really think of them as monsters. At first glance, this sits a little oddly with what she\u2019s told us about her mother\u2019s beliefs about mutants (which she was reminding us about last issue). But then again, she seems to be generally rejecting her mother\u2019s views, or at least coming to recognise that her upbringing is idiosyncratic, so maybe she\u2019s genuinely surprised to learn that this particular opinion is more widely held.<\/p>\n

Seeing Deathdream\u2019s powers in action makes her wonder whether mutants really are monsters after all.<\/p>\n

The Outliers are openly mutants at school – certainly, Jitter is known to be a mutant and Calico uses her powers openly. When Tommy Newbury (the bully from issue #6) is seemingly trying to help Jitter, she immediately runs him off – maybe she\u2019s not paying attention to what he\u2019s doing in that scene, or she doesn\u2019t care given his behaviour in the past, or maybe she just wants to keep a potential rival away from Jitter. That last one is how Jitter seems to read it.<\/p>\n

Deathdream. <\/strong>He goes along to see the film with the rest of the Outliers, but doesn\u2019t actually seem very interested in it. He suggests in apparent seriousness that they should see a kids\u2019 film called\u00a0Otter Party<\/em> instead – it\u2019s possible this is a deadpan joke, but he does fall asleep ten minutes into the film. Possibly he just can\u2019t work up any interest in a story which assumes that dying is a bad\u00a0<\/em>thing, although he gives an uncharacteristically opinionated speech later about how the film is an example of showing mutants at their worst in order to break their spirit.<\/p>\n

He orders lots of \u201ccimmonom pretzels\u201d to eat, which he discovered a liking for in issue #9.<\/p>\n

He claims not to know what hugs are, and doesn\u2019t think he likes them..<\/p>\n

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

Marcus St Juniors.<\/strong>\u00a0He strongly disapproves of the film, which will \u201clead to pain and hurt\u201d. This seems to be a view based more on the film\u2019s foreseeable consequences than on any concluded view about the filmmakers\u2019 intentions.<\/p>\n

Chelsea St Junoirs.\u00a0<\/strong>She appears as the kids are leaving for school, but doesn\u2019t do much.<\/p>\n

Waffles. <\/strong>The name given to the Sentinel dog from last issue, which was reset to \u201cgood boy\u201d personality and found its way to Haven. It seems particularly affectionate towards Deathdream, presumably because he was responsible for restoring its personality.<\/p>\n

Ember. <\/strong>Calico claims that she can\u2019t call Ember to fight Leticia because \u201che hates knives\u201d. It\u2019s not entirely clear whether she means that he would literally refuse the call, or whether she simply isn\u2019t willing to put him in that position. Nor is it clear how Calico knows Ember\u2019s feelings on knives, or what happened to lead him to have any in the first place.<\/p>\n

Tommy Newbury. <\/strong>The bully from issue #6. He apologises to Jitter here and offers to help her clean anti-mutant graffiti off her locker. He claims to empathise because he also used to have a stutter.<\/p>\n

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

Leticia Leech. <\/strong>The actress who plays Mutina. Her name is given on the poster that Scott and Betsy are looking at – which also gives her an \u201cintroducing\u201d credit, implying that it\u2019s her first significant acting role. According to Jitter, she\u2019s an anti-mutant online troll. In the past, she seems to have appeared wearing an improvised mask with a simplistic face on it, showing crying eyes and a smiling mouth.<\/p>\n

We see the lower part of her face in her dressing room, but she keeps the rest in shadow. In the part of the film that we see, she\u2019s wearing a mask; she puts the same mask on before turning to face Jitter and Calico.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s apparently a mutant: she says that calling her a \u201cnormie who hates mutants\u201d is \u201chalf right\u201d, and complains that \u201cAll mutants ever do is talk. You make them hate us.\u201d She seems to think that other mutants have brought on anti-mutant sentiment themselves by not choosing to blend in, which has led to her being caught in the crossfire.<\/p>\n

Her powers aren\u2019t directly explained, but she claims that \u201cYou can\u2019t hide from me in shadow, it\u2019s kind of my thing\u201d and that \u201cI live in every shadow\u201d. She seems to be able to disappear into the shadows and reappear elsewhere (possibly in the same way as Silhouette from New Warriors<\/em>). She also knows Jitter\u2019s real name, suggesting some mind reading ability. She reacts to Jubilee lighting up the room as if it\u2019s causing her real pain.<\/p>\n

She attacks Jitter and Calico almost immediately, which is arguably reasonable enough, since they\u2019ve got into her dressing room without permission. However, she clearly means to kill them and seems convinced that it\u2019ll be good publicity for her.<\/p>\n

She refers to \u201cyour little county fair\u201d – the mutant friendship event announced by the mayor last issue.<\/p>\n

Elliot Spence.<\/strong> Credited as the writer, director and producer of Murder Me, Mutina, <\/i>which is described as an indie film. We see him briefly during the news report at the start of the issue. He insists that his film is not anti-mutant and argues that it\u2019s actually a pro-mutant revenge story – in other words, he\u2019s positioning it as a mutant version of I Spit on Your Grave<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What little we see of the film does seem to confirm that the plot involves Mutina returning to her high school to kill the bullies who persecuted her. Jitter\u2019s inability to articulate precisely what unsettles her about the film, and the equivocal comments from some of the talking heads in the news report, suggest that it isn\u2019t simply an anti-mutant propaganda screed. That might suggest that Spence is being sincere, or at least that he\u2019s not trying to do anything worse than make an exploitation film. On the other hand, he did cast an anti-mutant lunatic in the lead role, which seems like something he\u2019d be unlikely to miss.<\/p>\n

The film poster credits Elliot Spence as writer, director and producer of the film, and Edgar Armand and Felicity Forrest are the other main actors.<\/p>\n

GUEST CAST<\/strong><\/p>\n

A whole bunch of characters have cameos in this story, either phoning the X-Men to talk about the film, or appearing as talking heads in the news report.<\/p>\n