{"id":11545,"date":"2025-11-19T22:27:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11545"},"modified":"2025-11-19T22:27:39","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T22:27:39","slug":"unbreakable-x-men-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11545","title":{"rendered":"Unbreakable X-Men #2 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>UNBREAKABLE X-MEN #2<\/strong>
\n“Burial At Sea”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gail Simone<\/strong>
\nArtists: CF Villa with Mario Santoro, Davide Tinto, David Marquez, R.B. Silva, Alessandro Cappuccio & Ramon Rosanas<\/strong>
\nColourist: Espen Grundetjern<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER:\u00a0<\/strong>Basically an image of the cast looking dramatic. That looks to be Shuvahrak in the background, though she’s largely obscured by the logo.<\/p>\n

PAGES 1-3.<\/strong>\u00a0Henrietta comforts Remy after he fends off the zombies.<\/em><\/p>\n

We established last issue that Rogue had turned into a giant statue as a side effect of using her powers to defeat Galactus, and that Remy had lost his eyesight afterwards. This is a continuation of the final scene from the previous issue, where the “Tormented” from the Penumbra attacked Haven House, and Gambit was driving them away from the “Unbreakable” memorial which commemorates Rogue. It reads a little oddly, since the previous scene was paced as if he’d already finished dealing with them, but apparently there are more. As in\u00a0Rogue Storm<\/em> #2, Gambit can still aim acceptably by sound alone.<\/p>\n

The previous issue didn’t give any particular reason for Gambit losing his sight. He said last issue that it had happened “with time”, but in this scene he says it started when Rogue was transformed. The prevailing theory seems to be that his eyes were damaged in the flash of light in that scene, but Gambit prefers the emotional\/symbolic explanation that he had nothing worth looking at without Rogue. Gambit’s narration also plays up his eyes as symbols in themselves, as the one thing that makes him a visible mutant; this has also come up in regular\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Henrietta offers some sympathetic comments on the topic of survivor’s guilt, presumably referencing the way that she herself has long outlived contemporary mutants.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-6.\u00a0<\/strong>Henrietta tells the X-Men that Shuvahrak is escaping.<\/em><\/p>\n

Henrietta (and by extension the X-Men) don’t know why Shuvahrak and the Tormented are escaping. We saw in the previous issue that she was woken by Galactus, who had himself just woken from his undersea coma.<\/p>\n

Within the Penumbra, we get a clear view of Shuvahrak for the first time; up to this point, she’s been more of a shadowy, immobile statue. She seems to be a sort of giant sea monster, with the lower body of a fish. The inhabitants of the Penumbra appear to be worshipping her, or at least begging for mercy. Shuvahrak then goes to join Galactus on the sea bed.<\/p>\n

The original “Dark Artery” arc, in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #13-16, strongly implied that Shuvahrak was Greta, the mutant who had created the Penumbra as a place to punish humans who had betrayed mutant relatives. Henrietta refers here to Shuvahrak wanting revenge for what happened to her daughter, which accords with the back story given for Greta in\u00a0Uncanny\u00a0<\/em>#15: her husband drove their mutant daughter to suicide. However, Henrietta also tells us that Shuvahrak now wants revenge on mutants as well, “because she feels her own kind betrayed her.” Presumably, this is to do with other mutants – such as Henrietta – working to keep her contained in the Penumbra.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-8.\u00a0<\/strong>The X-Men set out to collect the other Outliers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently the original Outliers have taken a vow to reunite if Shuvahrak ever got free. By this point in the future, the Outliers are apparently seen as enough of a force to be worth rounding up for a fight with a cosmic entity, though admittedly there aren’t many options.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, Dome has picked up teleporting powers, along with her force fields. No clear reason is given for this.<\/p>\n

“Even with a full squad and the Man-Thing, we barely touched Shuvahrak.”\u00a0<\/strong>Ransom is referring back to\u00a0Uncanny<\/em> #15-16.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>Gambit fails to recruit Sadurang.<\/em><\/p>\n

For some reason, Gambit doesn’t go to any of the Outliers, but to Sadurang in Shanghai. As in\u00a0Uncanny<\/em> #13-14, Sadurang is generally respectful towards Gambit, but declines to get involved with Shuvahrak, regarding it as a risk not worth taking.<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.\u00a0<\/strong>Ransom recruits Deathdream.<\/em><\/p>\n

Deathdream is hanging around a cemetery in Istanbul. In present day\u00a0Uncanny<\/em>, Deathdream is terribly excited about his brotherly relationship with Ransom, but evidently they’ve fallen out somewhere along the line.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, this seems to flatly contradict\u00a0Amazing X-Men<\/em> #1, where Deathdream was hanging around with the ghosts at the X-Men Mansion, and still looked as young as he does in contemporary\u00a0Uncanny<\/em>. In this version, he’s clearly older. The reference to him “c[oming] back to life, one last time” might be an attempt to smooth this over by implying that he’s somehow respawned in Istanbul after his decapitation in\u00a0Amazing<\/em>, but it really doesn’t make sense, and it’s hard to read this as anything other than a serious continuity error.<\/p>\n

PAGE 11.\u00a0<\/strong>Temper recruits Jitter.<\/em><\/p>\n

With training, Jitter is able to copy skills permanently instead of just for one minute, but at the cost of having people’s voices in her head – a problem that Rogue also used to have. She confirms here that she is indeed copying the abilities of specific people when she uses her powers (even if we’ve seen her define them as things like “world’s best dancer”, rather than naming someone).<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.\u00a0<\/strong>Spider-Girl recruits Calico.<\/em><\/p>\n

Calico is still horse themed, and apparently spends a lot of her time ignoring the current problems of the world and going riding in other dimensions. She seems to have an entire herd of Embers, though it’s not clear how she’s created them, and she only actually brings one with her in the next scene. She and Jitter, who are clearly a couple in present day Uncanny<\/em>, have also obviously broken up, though the final scene of the issue makes clear that they’re still in love. It may simply be that Jitter wanted isolation because of her trouble with her powers.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-16. <\/strong>Shuvahrak emerges from the Penumbra and is confronted by the X-Men.<\/em><\/p>\n

Evidently Shuvahrak has returned to the Penumbra after her encounter with Galactus – perhaps just to smash up the Dark Artery in revenge for being imprisoned.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-20.\u00a0<\/strong>The X-Men fight Shuvahrak.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ransom is presented rather more clearly as an effective leader in this issue, with everyone deferring to him in combat. He’s certainly the best placed to do it.<\/p>\n

“Been told she will be the last mutant.”\u00a0<\/strong>Gambit seems to be off-handedly confirming that Dome is the Endling, or at least that she’s been identified as a likely candidate – this has been a subplot in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> from the outset, with the original implication that one of the Outliers was the Endling. The significance of being the Endling remains unclear, but this might explain why Galactus was trying to recruit her as a herald in the previous issue.<\/p>\n

“He was called the first mutant for a long time.”\u00a0<\/strong>It’s not really obvious why Namor the Sub-Mariner is of particular interest to Shuvahrak – as far as we know, he’s never really taken any interest in her at all, and he’s rarely been very bothered about mutant affairs. It seems more likely to be something to do with Galactus’ current whereabouts in the ocean. However, Marvel did indeed market Namor as the first mutant for a while back when the X-Men franchise as at its peak and attaching the “mutant” label was thought to help literally any character. Even though his origin story has him as a human\/Atlantean hybrid, the rationale for calling him a mutant was that his flight power couldn’t logically be attributed to either parent.<\/p>\n

Calling him the “first” mutant was a meta reference. In the Marvel Universe, he obviously isn’t really the first mutant; never mind the likes of Apocalypse, even Henrietta is probably older. However, since Namor debuted in\u00a0Marvel Comics<\/em> #1 – the first comic in the Marvel Universe – he was quite literally the first mutant, albeit by retcon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNBREAKABLE X-MEN #2 “Burial At Sea” Writer: Gail Simone Artists: CF Villa with Mario Santoro, Davide Tinto, David Marquez, R.B. Silva, Alessandro Cappuccio & Ramon Rosanas Colourist: Espen Grundetjern Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Tom Brevoort COVER:\u00a0Basically an image of the cast looking dramatic. That looks to be Shuvahrak in the background, though she’s largely obscured […]<\/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":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545","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=11545"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11548,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11545\/revisions\/11548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}