{"id":4882,"date":"2019-11-27T23:42:25","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T23:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4882"},"modified":"2019-11-27T23:42:25","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T23:42:25","slug":"new-mutants-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=4882","title":{"rendered":"New Mutants #2 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As we get further into the series, chances are these posts can start to get shorter. But meantime… as always, page numbers are from the digital edition, and this post contains spoilers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> The New Mutants get caught by Gladiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-3.<\/strong> Sunspot recaps the plot, and explains that the New Mutants are in Shi’ar jail, and his lawyer has arranged an early hearing.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I had to lay it on pretty thick to convince my friends to leave paradise…”<\/strong> Not what we saw in issue #1. In fairness, that issue cut directly from Sunspot suggesting it to the team already being in space. So it could<\/em> have happened the way Sunspot claims. But given the tone of all this, it’s more likely he’s talking himself up. Hickman’s Sunspot – and note Hickman is credited as sole writer on this issue – is much more of a comedy figure than we’ve seen in recent years in books like USAvengers<\/em>. Then again, this is also more of a comedy book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

“It’s a Niemeyer.”<\/strong> Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), the influential Brazilian architect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I’ve learned this lesson the hard way – uh, twice”.<\/strong> In terms of having to sort out his legal affairs during absences, Sunspot is probably thinking of his recent death during War of the Realms, and the extended period in X-Force <\/em>when he was possessed by Reignfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X-Corp.<\/strong> Presumably still short for the X-Corporation, the non-profit mutant rights organisation that was set up by Professor X during the Grant Morrison run. Sunspot was involved in X-Corp, as established in X-Treme X-Men<\/em> #35, but I’m not sure why he would be the one signing the papers – unless he was put in charge of it after being revived on Krakoa? Obviously, the fact that Sunspot has “signed whatever they put in front of me” seems like a recipe for disaster in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My Earth lawyers know some pretty decent space lawyers.” <\/strong>Do they? Who’s he using? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magik.<\/strong> It’s made clear here that the New Mutants are ultimately playing along waiting for their day in court, and there’s nothing the Shi’ar could actually do to stop Magik teleporting them away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong> The credits. Title: “Space Jail.” (Where they actually only spend page 2, but never mind!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 6-12.<\/strong> The New Mutants are summarily convicted and handed over to the authorities – in the form of Cannonball and Smasher, who they were looking for all along anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Shi’ar court system.<\/strong> Drawn as a fairly normal courtroom. That thing that looks like the jury box can’t be, though, since this isn’t a trial by jury – instead the judge apparently works from written statements and decides the case himself. (In fact, he seems to eat the statements, though how that would help him decide whether he believed them…) The team seem to have been expecting to get off, but it’s not obvious why, since they were pretty clearly guilty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murd Blurdock<\/strong>, Sunspot’s lawyer, gets remarkably little to do here, considering that he’s been brought back from Rocket<\/em>. This issue doesn’t do anything with the joke that was set up in his previous appearance (he’s a Daredevil analogue), and you wonder why they bothered, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cannonball<\/strong> is the other founding member of the New Mutants, who left to live in the Shi’ar Empire during Hickman’s Avengers run when he met up with Smasher. Note that Chamber and Mondo, the two outsiders to the original cast, look rather annoyed during the reunion. They’re getting rather less out of this whole affair than the rest of the cast. Less conspicuously, Sunspot doesn’t join the group hug either – he’s out of the panel entirely. Clearly, none of this is playing out as Sunspot had imagined; Cannonball is doing just fine without him, and his own interventions have achieved pretty much zero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smasher.<\/strong> This is Izzy Kane from Iowa, another character introduced in Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers<\/em> run. She became the latest Smasher after finding the equipment of a previous version who had crashed onto her farm. Sam and Izzy have an infant son, Josiah, who seems to have similar powers to Sam. Like her predecessors, Smasher is a member of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, the empire’s in-house superheroes. The Imperial Guard were originally a riff on DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes, though they’ve developed in their own direction since then. The original Smasher was the Ultra Boy analogue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasonably enough, Smasher is deeply unimpressed at being dragged away from fighting the Skrulls alongside her teammates in order to sort out her husband’s incompetent schoolmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 13.<\/strong> Data page with the court’s order. Let’s be charitable and assume that the actual sentence was made in a separate <\/em>order. This one remands the team to Smasher’s custody for the duration of the sentence (“according to a prearranged agreement”, so clearly Murd wasn’t all that <\/em>surprised to lose).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some reason the order also sanctions Murd for incompetence, though aside from failing to manage the New Mutants’ expectations, it’s not really clear what he’s done wrong. It’s not like they had a defence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 14-15.<\/strong> Since Smasher happens to be in the right area now, Gladiator sends her on an urgent mission.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gladiator.<\/strong> Originally the Superboy analogue in the Imperial Guard, and he still has the power set – though with the wrinkle that his power levels fluctuate according to his confidence. Fortunately, confidence is not normally a problem for Gladiator. Usually a loyal if somewhat nationalistic soldier for the Shi’ar Empire, Gladiator took control of the empire after Emperor Vulcan vanished in War of Kings<\/em>. Of course, Vulcan is back now on Krakoa, but we don’t know if Gladiator is aware of that (though as we’ll see, he does <\/em>seem to have become quite keen to hurry the other <\/em>heir to the throne into place). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 16.<\/strong> Data page, which really just reminds us that long-established Imperial Guardsmen Oracle and Mentor are Gladiator’s lieutenants. They’re the analogues to Saturn Girl and Brainiac 5 respectively. As usual, the Krakoan symbols are just the initials (G, M and O).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 17-21.<\/strong> The New Mutants play an unintelligible version of poker, while Cannonball and Sunspot catch up. The New Mutants are pardoned, but they’re also conscripted for a special mission…<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The card game.<\/strong> They’re trying to play Texas Hold’em without understanding the cards or the coins. Or maybe Dani understands them, if you think she’s telling the truth about having played this game before. She might<\/em> be. But I like the scene better if everyone’s just playing along with the joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I fight bears”.<\/strong> Dani’s early storylines focussed around a demon bear, which the New Mutants eventually defeated in New Mutants<\/em> #19-20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lila Cheney.<\/strong> Sam and Bobby are watching a Lila Cheney concert on – I don’t know, it’s probably called space TV. Lila was an intergalactic rock star who was Cannonball’s girlfriend for much of the original New Mutants<\/em> run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 22-24.<\/strong> Gladiator tells Xandra that she needs to be ready for the throne – so they’re bringing in Deathbird to teach her. The New Mutants’ mission is to bring Deathbird back.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xandra<\/strong> was introduced in the first arc of Mr & Mrs X <\/em>not so very long before the relaunch – and might now have to be added to the list of set-up work being done during that period. As established in that story, Xandra is the genetically engineered child of Professor X and Lilandra, and thus the technical heir to the throne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Titans are assembling for war.”<\/strong> According to Gladiator and Oracle, the urgency to get Xandra up and running as empress is to do with “Titans” who have already conquered the “nearest galactic cluster” and who are believed to be setting their sights on the Shi’ar. We heard about Titans in Powers of X<\/em> #5, where it referred to one of the large collective-mind societies into which humanity – and everything else – would eventually be subsumed. So the Titans appearing on the scene in the present day is quite a big deal, despite its offhand treatment here. Each of these things ought to have ten million minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quite why<\/em> Gladiator believes that this calls for a Neramani on the throne is unclear, but he may simply believe that he needs to be free of his head-of-state responsibilities in order to focus on leading the Imperial Guard. Maybe Xandra’s significance to him is simply that she’s an acceptable monarch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deathbird.<\/strong> Deathbird – or Cal’syee, if you prefer – is Lilandra’s sister and thus Xandra’s aunt. She’s a mutant throwback who has wings and can fly (the Shi’ar are supposed to be evolved from birds, though they look mostly like humans with feathers instead of hair). She first appeared in Ms Marvel <\/em>#9 (1977), and her writer Chris Claremont soon imported her into the X-Men mythos. She was last seen in Mr & Mrs X <\/em>#3-5 (2018), where she was running a rebellion and trying to get her hands on Xandra in the belief that if she had Lilandra’s progeny by her, she would be accepted as empress. That didn’t work out so well for her, but Gladiator would have to be desperate to let Deathbird anywhere near Xandra, given how keen he was to stop it in that story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 25-26.<\/strong> The trailer reads NEXT: HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we get further into the series, chances are these posts can start to get shorter. But meantime… as always, page numbers are from the digital edition, and this post contains spoilers. COVER \/ PAGE 1: The New Mutants get caught by Gladiator. PAGES 2-3. Sunspot recaps the plot, and explains that the New Mutants […]<\/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-4882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882","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=4882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4883,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4882\/revisions\/4883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}