{"id":12224,"date":"2026-08-12T22:48:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12224"},"modified":"2026-08-12T22:48:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T21:48:49","slug":"x-men-35-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=12224","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #35 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN vol 7 #35<\/strong>
\n“A Gift”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Jed MacKay<\/strong>
\nPenciller: Tony S Daniel<\/strong>
\nInker: Mark Morales<\/strong>
\nColourist: Arthur Hesli<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER:<\/strong> Mirrored images of the Beast with the X-Men, and the Chairman with 3K. Aside from Magneto\/Joseph, the other individual members don’t match up one for one in the two group shots.<\/p>\n

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

Beast.\u00a0<\/strong>At the end of issue #25, the Beast figured out that 3K’s Chairman was the original Beast, and made contact with him (with Animalia present). For anyone really<\/em> coming to this new, the original Beast became a villain during the Krakoan era. The Beast currently with the X-Men is a clone who was restored from a back-up made long before that happened.<\/p>\n

We didn’t get to see the conversation at the time. It turns out that Beast has only shared the\u00a0 information about the Chairman’s identity with Animalia and Cyclops. Scott permitted him to keep it to himself for the moment given the emotional sensitivity, but made clear that this could only be a breathing space. Animalia has evidently honoured this as well.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This issue contains a flashback to the actual conversation that followed issue #25, picking up directly from the last line of dialogue in that scene.<\/p>\n

Magik. <\/strong>Beast asks Magik for advice on how to deal with the knowledge that he could become the Chairman. She\u00a0accepts the premise that she has experience in dealing with her own dark side through having to deal with her own Darkchild persona. Arguably, the way it’s played in this issue doesn’t really reflect the recent\u00a0Magik<\/em> series, in which Illyana came to terms with the Darkchild persona as something that she had developed to protect herself. But that doesn’t really undermine the basic point that the Darkchild has done pretty terrible things – like invading New York – when left in control, and that Illyana has had to learn to deal with it.<\/p>\n

Magik’s basic answer to the question is that being able to see your dark side clearly is a gift which prevents you from deluding yourself into thinking that you are a good person, and allows you to see clearly what you have to do. Ultimately, she briefly drops her persona to give him a hug.<\/p>\n

She refers to being “stolen away to Hell”, meaning Limbo; that’s her origin story from\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #160.<\/p>\n

Cyclops.\u00a0<\/strong>Appears briefly, talking to Xorn about the mysterious force field that was protecting the statute in Juniper last issue.<\/p>\n

Kid Omega<\/strong> and\u00a0Temper<\/strong> both appear very briefly, still keeping watch at Glob Herman’s bedside.<\/p>\n

Juggernaut<\/strong> is doing his best to tend to the Factory’s hydroponic garden. This would normally be Glob Herman’s role.<\/p>\n

Psylocke <\/strong>is training Ben Liu to fight.<\/p>\n

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

Magneto.\u00a0<\/strong>He still visits the Sukkat Shalom (temple of peace) in Merle on a regular basis. We have in fact seen it before, in\u00a0X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic<\/em> #13-14.\u00a0The Chairman attempts to recruit him, with what seems to be an offer to restore his powers.<\/p>\n

Glob Herman.\u00a0<\/strong>Still in the Factory medical bay, and apparently comatose, after being shot back in issue #26.<\/p>\n

Xorn.\u00a0<\/strong>He show up talking to Cyclops, and has no dialogue.<\/p>\n

Animalia.\u00a0<\/strong>In the main story, she’s helping Juggernaut in the hydroponic garden.<\/p>\n

In the flashback, the Chairman addresses her directly and asks her whether she’s taken her mutant name Animalia yet – the name she was using when he met her as a member of the X-Men in the Age of Revelation timeline. This does raise the possibility that she only found out about this codename from the Chairman, but given how hostile she is towards him for transforming her, it seems more likely that she learned about it from Cyclops.<\/p>\n

The Chairman refuses to apologise for Animalia’s transformation, claiming that he “took a wasted life and gave it purpose”. Ironically, given how depressing Animalia’s pre-X-Men life seems to have been, from the little we’ve heard about it, he might actually be right – see issue #21 in particular.<\/p>\n

Ben Liu.\u00a0<\/strong>Psylocke is training him to fight. He was wearing a generic X-Men uniform complete with black and yellow jacket in issues #31-33 (and also has it on the cover) but seems to be in civilian gear here, apart from an X-logo belt.<\/p>\n

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

The Chairman. <\/strong>He only appears in the flashback that follows on from issue #25. He now regards “the Chairman” as his mutant name, not merely a title within 3K, and claims to have “outgrown” the name Beast, which he patronisingly allows the X-Men’s Beast to use.<\/p>\n

He claims to have enjoyed his time in the far future during the Age of Revelation crossover. But he immediately makes clear that this isn’t because he enjoyed the horrifying aspects of the timeline – the accompanying art shows the Age of Revelation versions of Wolverine, Juggernaut and Magik, and the ultimate success of Revelation’s plan to turn the world into a hive mind under his control. Rather, what he seems to have enjoyed is being an X-Man again, with “compatriots that I could trust”. This hardly speaks well of how he’s getting on with the rest of 3K, and sits oddly with his claim to have outgrown the Beast identity and to view it as mere nostalgia.<\/p>\n

He seems to regard Animalia as evidence that his goal of transforming humans into mutants is just. What he appears to be getting at is that she led a mundane and depressing life and 3K turned her into someone who wound up in the X-Men. But moreover, in Age of Revelation, he seems to share the Beast’s attraction to her.<\/p>\n

His answer to other moral criticisms of his work is simply that his cloning technology will give him a series of bodies that will let him live until all his actions have been forgotten. The idea that morality might be relevant for anything other than reputational reasons no longer seems to register with him.<\/p>\n

Although the Chairman had Wyre deliver an invitation to the Beast in an attempt to recruit him (in issue #18), he’s since lost interest. The Chairman claims that he thought Beast would be more suited among 3K’s ranks, but there’s a definite implication that he actually wanted Beast’s scientific knowledge, and no longer needs it given the information he learned about the X-virus in the Age of Revelation timeline.<\/p>\n

The 3K X-Men\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Joseph<\/strong> attack the Factory at the end of the issue. As before, the 3K X-Men are Constellation (the one with the cape), Galatea (the stone woman), Juice (the orange glob guy), Psychovore (in the containment suit) and Timebomb (in the red). The implication is that Joseph has replaced Schwartzchild as their team leader, rather than promoting from the ranks. One might assume that they’re here to recover Schwartzchild after he was recovered by the X-Men in issue #33.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

X-MEN vol 7 #35 “A Gift” Writer: Jed MacKay Penciller: Tony S Daniel Inker: Mark Morales Colourist: Arthur Hesli Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Tom Brevoort COVER: Mirrored images of the Beast with the X-Men, and the Chairman with 3K. Aside from Magneto\/Joseph, the other individual members don’t match up one for one in the two […]<\/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-12224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12224","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=12224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12226,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12224\/revisions\/12226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}