{"id":5148,"date":"2020-02-27T22:56:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T22:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5148"},"modified":"2020-02-28T08:02:11","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T08:02:11","slug":"x-men-7-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5148","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #7 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the collected edition. And since we’re running behind, I’m going to see if we can keep this week’s annotations posts a bit shorter.<\/em> But there’s a lot to say about this issue.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

COVER<\/strong> \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Apocalypse with his sword, smashing a stained glass window version of Nightcrawler.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-3.<\/strong> Melody Guthrie gets word that her Crucible ritual is today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krakoa.<\/strong> Note that in the establishing shot, there’s still smoke rising from the volcano on the atoll that appeared in issue #2. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Akademos Habitat, the Sextant.<\/strong> The home of the characters from the X-books’ various teen teams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melody Guthrie.<\/strong> Melody Guthrie is one of the miscellaneous siblings of Cannonball who eventually turned out to be a mutant. It’s a large family – officially her first appearance is in New Mutants<\/em> vol 1 #42, but that’s as one of a number of generic background children. She didn’t get a first name until Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #444, where she showed up as a flying student at the school. Not that long after, House of M <\/em>hit and Melody – or Aero – was depowered. So basically she’s a minor background character who was very briefly promoted to slightly more prominent status before being relegated again. The name Aero is currently being used by an unrelated character who has her own series, so we’ll see if Melody is allowed (editorially speaking) to take it back again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Melody was last seen in the recent Fearless<\/em> miniseries, where she was among the attendees at a superhero summer camp for girls; only the first half of that series if currently on Marvel Unlimited, so it’s always possible something more significant happened in the back end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The characters sitting around the table are Melody’s siblings Cannonball<\/strong> (Sam Guthrie), Icarus<\/strong> (Josh Guthrie) and Husk<\/strong> (Paige Guthrie). Icarus died in New X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #27, but he’s evidently been resurrected. The guy in the background is Skin<\/strong>, who has nothing to do with this sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That coffee the green kid is famo–“<\/strong> Refers to an exchange about the excellent but apparently slightly suspect coffee in New Mutants<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 4-5.<\/strong> Recap and credits. The story is “Lifedeath” by Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Gho. “Lifedeath” was the title of Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #186 (with a sequel in issue #198). The original story focusses on Storm coming to terms with the loss of her powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 6-8.<\/strong> Cyclops and Wolverine discuss Crucible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not sure how the daily cycle works for the Summers family in their house, but evidently this is the “night”. Logan seems to be saying that he never sleeps well. That doesn’t quite sit with Wolverine<\/em> #1, where he’s pretty happy about the state of affairs on Krakoa, at least at the start of the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been strongly implied in previous issues that Jean is currently in a relationship with both Scott and Logan (we’ve seen in the floorplan that her bedroom has connecting doors to both). Hickman has consistently treated that as something that the characters accept as the current status quo and don’t feel the need to talk about, but hasn’t explained how it came about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chandilore.<\/strong> An apparently beautiful location in the Shi’ar empire. Over in New Mutants<\/em>, Cyclops specifically cashed in the X-Men’s favour from the Shi’ar Empire by having a portal put there. There’s an implication that he has an ulterior motive here – but he does pitch it to Wolverine as a sightseeing trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucible.<\/strong> We’ll see later that Crucible is basically a ritual in which depowered mutants get themselves killed in combat with Apocalypse in order to earn the right to be resurrected (and thus get their powers back). I’ll come back to that, but suffice to say neither Cyclops or Logan is particularly happy about it, but neither seems to want to push the point very much – even though Scott goes out of his way to point out that this is somewhat uncharacteristic for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have to have a way to deal with this particular problem…”<\/strong> As we’ll see later, “this particular problem” is the mutants who were depowered on M-Day trying to get their powers back by mass suicide, thus overloading the Five. One of the functions of Crucible is to offer a route to re-powering which is so unattractive as to dissuade people from taking it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implication seems to be that the depowered mutants are still being backed up on Cerebro, since nobody suggests that Melody is going to lose all of her memories after M-Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Go find a priest.” <\/strong>On Logan’s suggestion, Scott decides to go and discuss the moral dimensions with “a priest”, i.e. Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is probably the most religious of the core X-Men (certainly the most Christian). He’s shown an interest in becoming a priest at times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong> Cyclops briefly sees Cypher separate into three.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first panel, Cypher appears with a normal arm instead of his techno-organic one; Warlock<\/strong> is sitting in the chair opposite; and the tree of Krakoa behind them has a face. In the second panel, Warlock is absent, the tree has no face (though it speaks in some sort of incomprehensible symbols), and Cypher has his techno-arm back. It’s all very suspicious, and Cyclops registers it, but immediately concludes that he can’t have seen it. More alarm bells that something is not at all right on Krakoa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 10-13.<\/strong> Nightcrawler tells Cyclops about the mysterious tower.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve seen this forked tower before. In fact, the whole establishing shot of the landscape repeats Emma Frost’s introduction to Krakoa in Powers of X <\/em>#5. The fact that all those buildings were already on Krakoa before the X-Men had really moved in always seemed a bit odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nightcrawler has teleported into the inaccessible tower. He doesn’t normally teleport into places he can’t see, because materialising inside another object could be fatal. This is uncharacteristically risky – yes, they’ve established it’s hollow, but that doesn’t mean there’s no chance of appearing inside a table or a light fitting. Perhaps he was reassured by the prospect of resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implication seems to be that the island has made the tower just for him, because as a teleporter, he’s the only one who can get inside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, while Kurt is meant to be the man of faith, he’s being much more critical and thoughtful about the conditions on Krakoa than other characters we’ve seen; he accuses Cyclops of blind faith. Perhaps it’s the fact that Kurt already has an especially strong philosophical commitment to a worldview that doesn’t fit with Krakoa. He’s being offered things that look wonderful, “and all it costs is the suspension of everything I used to believe”. This seems to suggest that he’s lost his faith but remains troubled by the thought that this is a place of temptation – which in Christian terms, tends not to come from the good guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Are we really going to sit around and just watch a mutant die?”<\/strong> Yes, you are. And this is one of the clearest indications yet that something’s just wrong here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 14-17.<\/strong> Exodus tells the children about Crucible.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We haven’t seen that much of Exodus until now, but he’s certainly serving his traditional role here of a religious zealot. Exodus isn’t explaining the position to older mutants; he comes across as if he’s running a Sunday school, and the children’s responses are a bit cult like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scarlet Witch.<\/strong> Wanda was indeed responsible for depowering most of the world’s mutants in House of M<\/em>, with the “no more mutants” line. The “pretender” line has come up before and basically refers to the fact that she used to be presented as a mutant, but has since been retconned into something else. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exodus says that the depowered mutants were “trapped in a body that was a prison.” Doubtless many of them felt that way, but there were presumably other with massively inconvenient “powers” that were pretty much happy to be rid of them – the likes of Beak, for example, who was not at all happy about being “re-powered” in X-Men: Blue<\/em>. There’s an obvious irony in Exodus complaining (reasonably enough) that Wanda thought she knew what was best, at the same time as taking the religious leader role for the children – though of course there’s no indication that Exodus is imposing his will on the children, which is the real moral distinction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 17-33.<\/strong> Melody dies in the Crucible, and is reborn with her powers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nightcrawler makes clear that he argued against the Crucible. He recognises that the risk of depowered mutants committing mass suicide had to be addressed somehow, but disapproving of the solution because, well, it’s self-harm and suicide. For him, entering the Crucible is an act which causes intangible harm to yourself and to the world around you, and is therefore a sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nightcrawler appears to have been outvoted by a combination of pragmatists who don’t really care about the mechanics of the solution, and Apocalypse (and Exodus, presumably) promoting it as a mutant-nationalist ceremony to cement the values of their new society. Apocalypse’s spiel to Aero, however ritual, is all about talking up mutants as the master race, and depowering as not merely a personal loss but something literally degrading. Apocalypse really is in full-bore fascist territory here, and the fact that the X-Men are comfortable with this – or rather, that their discomfort doesn’t push them to actually doing anything about it – is troubling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EDITED TO ADD:<\/strong> Note, by the way, that the other character who seems to have a real problem with Crucible is Cannonball, who is hesitant when speaking about it in the opening scene, and has to be stopped by Paige from intervening during the ceremony itself. Cannonball, of course, doesn\u2019t live on Krakoa. One reason for using Melody in his story may be that it gives him a reason to be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soul. <\/strong>Nightcrawler also raises the awkward question of how this whole resurrection thing fits with the soul. He raises three possibilities: (i) the soul doesn’t depart for eternity because somehow it knows it will be needed again; (ii) the soul is drawn back from the afterlife upon resurrection; (iii) the real Nightcrawler is relaxing up in heaven and he’s just a clone. This has always been an obvious philosophical quandary raised by the Five’s resurrections – and it’s clear that we are<\/em> meant to take these as the “real” characters, since otherwise, er, Wolverine’s dead. But Kurt is the only character actually asking these awkward questions – and again, Cyclops’ first response is to say he doesn’t really want to think about it. (Indeed, at the end of this long discussion, Cyclops is “convinced” only of the fact that Kurt<\/em> has questions – he seems to treat it as a mildly diverting academic debate.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kurt also makes the obvious point that if you’re religious, eternal life on earth may not be all that great. Don’t you want to go to heaven some time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wills.<\/strong> Some mutants have been expressing the desire to be reborn in other bodies. House of X <\/em>has acknowledged that this might be a theoretical possibility, and it was always inevitable that someone would raise it. Scott and Kurt both seem to agree instinctively that this is a bad thing, and that taking the opportunity to upgrade yourself is one thing, but changing your body into something else (or someone else’s) is not. Neither is able to clearly articulate a moral justification for drawing the line there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I think I need to start a mutant religion.”<\/strong> This sounds like trouble, because surely Apocalypse and Exodus have done that already. What Kurt seems to be proposing, then, is a rival<\/em> religion. Given everything that Kurt has said, it’s surely not going to be uncritically accepting everything that Apocalypse is saying and doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 34.<\/strong> Trailer. The Krakoan reads NEXT: ACANTI. The Acanti are gigantic whale-like aliens who were enslaved by the Brood back in Uncanny X-Men <\/em>vol 1 #158.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the collected edition. And since we’re running behind, I’m going to see if we can keep this week’s annotations posts a bit shorter. But there’s a lot to say about this issue. COVER \/ PAGE 1. Apocalypse with his sword, smashing a stained glass […]<\/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":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148","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=5148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5154,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5148\/revisions\/5154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}