{"id":5483,"date":"2020-08-12T21:33:09","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T20:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5483"},"modified":"2020-08-12T22:59:23","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T21:59:23","slug":"empyre-x-men-3-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5483","title":{"rendered":"Empyre: X-Men #3 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

EMPYRE: X-MEN #3<\/strong>
“Staff Infection” <\/strong>
by Vita Ayala, Zeb Wells, Ed Brisson & Andrea Broccardo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’re firmly into “quite silly” territory by this point, plus it’s mainly an extended fight scene, so this ought to be quite short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The Cotati on one side, the zombies on the other, and X-Men stuck in between. Cyclops, Polaris, Colossus and Magneto appear, none of whom are in the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-3.<\/strong> Recap and credits. You’ll note that the writers have changed again, continuing the jam session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 4-6.<\/strong> The Cotati who were killed by the zombies return from the dead as zombie Cotati.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’re called “ghouls” later in the issue, to distinguish them from the regular zombies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 7-9.<\/strong> The psychics join the fight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, now I understand what was meant to be happening in issue #2. Black Tom sent some Krakoan golem things (the “organic defense system”) through the gate to Genosha. They didn’t do all that well because they needed a local source of power. And Krakoa feeds particularly on psychic energy, so Magik has called in a bunch of psychics to help provide that local power source. Alright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

We get a different (though overlapping) selection of psychics compared to the ones who were seen arriving at the end of last issue, and Amahl Farouk is conspicuous by his absence. If he wasn’t going to be important to the plot then having him show up in a cameo last issue was a bit silly, given the sort of character that he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the characters who do<\/em> appear in this issue are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • The Stepford Cuckoos<\/strong>, all five of them.<\/li>
  • Mister Sinister<\/strong><\/li>
  • Exodus<\/strong><\/li>
  • Selene<\/strong><\/li>
  • Karma <\/strong>from New Mutants<\/em><\/li>
  • Mirage<\/strong>, also from New Mutants<\/em>. If you’re wondering when she got her powers back, she seemed to have them in Matthew Rosenberg’s Uncanny X-Men<\/em> run after being cured of the Transmode virus – after that point, she’s shown using her psychic arrows again.<\/li>
  • Kid Omega<\/strong> from X-Force<\/em><\/li>
  • Manon<\/strong>, one of the dodgy psychic twins from the supporting cast of New Mutants<\/em>. Presumably her brother Maxime is there too, since they’re rarely separated.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    PAGE 10. <\/strong>Magik takes Opal Vetiver to Krakoa to work with the Beast on her serum.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Black oak”.<\/strong> Opal said “black walnut” last issue, but maybe Magik wasn’t paying that close attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 11-13.<\/strong> Explodey Boy blows up a bunch of Cotati.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGE 14.<\/strong> Opal and Beast work up their serum<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That didn’t take long, did it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 15-20.<\/strong> Nightcrawler takes the serum to Genosha.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Heiliger Strohsack” <\/strong>is broadly equivalent to “Holy crap”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Juhu”<\/strong> is “Yay.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    “Hoppla”<\/strong> is “oops.” Unusually wide range of German vocabulary from Kurt here.yay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 21-23.<\/strong> Magik finds the source of the zombies, and is turned into the Zombie Queen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    More about what this staff is in a later scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 24-26.<\/strong> More comedy with Madrox and Explodey Boy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 27-29.<\/strong> Magik identifies herself as the Zombie Queen.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    According to Magik, the staff she’s carrying is made up of “the World Tree Root, which bridges the realms of life and death”, “the Tri-Crown of the Chaos Godhead, which perverts the law of nature”, and “the eye of Alak-Rah, the Void Spider, who from blood weaves life.” We saw the Scarlet Witch collect these three objects and form the staff in the prologue to issue #1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The World Tree, in the Marvel Universe, is usually Yggdrasil, from Norse mythology via Mighty Thor<\/em>. It’s more a mystic symbol than a physical thing, but Thor<\/em> being the sort of book it is, it’s kind of both. The other two seem to be new inventions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 30-33.<\/strong> The zombies infect the giant “Cotatinaught”<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So now there’s a giant plant zombie in Genosha. Fun place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 34-35.<\/strong> The Krakoan reads NEXT: A BIGGER BELL (with the smaller text “psychic showdown”).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. EMPYRE: X-MEN #3“Staff Infection” by Vita Ayala, Zeb Wells, Ed Brisson & Andrea Broccardo We’re firmly into “quite silly” territory by this point, plus it’s mainly an extended fight scene, so this ought to be quite short. COVER \/ PAGE 1. […]<\/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,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5483","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=5483"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5489,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5483\/revisions\/5489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}