{"id":5540,"date":"2020-08-27T19:53:44","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T18:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5540"},"modified":"2020-08-27T19:53:44","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T18:53:44","slug":"x-factor-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5540","title":{"rendered":"X-Factor #2 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

X-FACTOR vol 4 #2<\/strong>
“Suite No. 2: Mojoverse Sonata Xf. 3 Op. 45, Danse Macabre”<\/strong>
by Leah Williams & David Baldeon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 1 \/ COVER: <\/strong>Um… well, it’s a shot of the team in their new costumes, presumably with Aurora in red behind them, and a display of skulls with X marks on their foreheads. It doesn’t really seem to have very much to do with the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-3.<\/strong> A mysterious person teleports onto Krakoa and leaves a parcel for X-Factor.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we’ll see, this person is delivering evidence designed to prompt X-Factor into investigating the Mojoverse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pod<\/strong> is the home of the Five, the mutants who are responsible for growing the new bodies used to resurrect dead mutants (Hope, Egg, Tempo, Elixir and Proteus). They’re discussing Proteus’ need for periodic new bodies; originally, he used to burn through bodies quite quickly. Proteus’ Scottish accent is frankly abysmal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Transit<\/strong> is the location responsible for monitoring the comings and goings from Krakoa; uncharacteristically, Sage is asleep on the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 4-5.<\/strong> Recap and credits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story title continues the musical theme from the previous issue, which was billed as “Suite No. 1: Prelude: Aurora Moratorium.” There’s no obvious significance to Opus 45<\/a>. A Danse Macabre was an allegory about the universality of death – death depicted as the great leveller, basically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mojoverse<\/strong> is the home dimension of the lunatic dictator Mojo, and the X-Man Longshot. Once it was brought into the X-books’ orbit in the late 80s, it started to be depicted as a TV-obsessed world (something that wasn’t quite so prominent in the Longshot<\/em> miniseries), with Mojo as an idiot ruler obsessed with dubious ideas for new film and TV products. This all started during the window when Marvel was owned by New World Entertainment, at which point Mojo was serving as an allegory for management. (This is very<\/em> obvious in the first Excalibur<\/em> special, where Mojo’s studio has a version of New World’s logo.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we’ll see later in the issue, Mojoworld has been updated to make it less about cable TV and more about YouTube. A side effect is that the normally-invisible passive audience of Mojoworld has become rather more visible and active. This is basically a case of keeping the joke up to date. I think this is the first time we’ve seen it mentioned that Mojoworld has news services, though you suspect they’re only interested in entertainment news – though in fairness, the particular story they’re reporting here is genuinely newsworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main connection between Mojoworld and the regular cast is Rachel Summers, who spent some time as a prisoner there before escaping back to Earth and joining Excalibur. Her Warwolf puppy, Amazing Baby, is also from a Mojoworld species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 6-10.<\/strong> The package reveals that there’s been a murder in the Mojoverse.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Kyle already left for work.”<\/strong> Kyle is Northstar’s husband. Arguably we were meant to infer this from the greenery in his kitchen last issue, but this confirms that Kyle is living on Krakoa despite being a human. This feels like it ought to be more of an issue – nobody else has suggested that they were allowed to bring their families and dependents with them, and if they did, it would rather change the character of Krakoa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eye-Boy’s T-shirt.<\/strong> The Krakoan reads KRAKOA QUE HERMOSA ERES (“Krakoa, you’re so beautiful”). Don’t think too hard about how Krakoan Spanish is meant to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I don’t recognise any of these brands.”<\/strong> One of these logos really ought to mean something to them – the symbol that has a picture of Spiral<\/strong> and the words “Spiral’s Body Mod Shoppe.” As becomes more obvious later, the logo itself is a parody of the Starbucks logo, but Spiral and her Body Shoppe should be well known to the X-Men and their satellite teams. Spiral is a sorceress with six arms from the Mojoverse (originally a stuntwoman from Earth) who started as a Longshot villain, but got brought into the X-Men’s orbit in the 80s. Her Body Shoppe, selling cyborg body modifications, goes back a long way; it was responsible for turning Lady Deathstrike into a cyborg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You guys know how I have some Multiverse experience?”<\/strong> Prodigy is presumably referring to his time as a supporting character for America Chavez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prodigy’s display.<\/strong> The Krakoan across the top reads KRAKOAN SEARCH ENGINE. The three windows are headed “MOJOWORLD NEWS”, “HEADSHOT TV NEWS” and “TRASHTALK”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 11.<\/strong> X-Factor arrive on MOJOVERSE.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Um… how? They go through a gate, but they can’t do that unless somebody’s been there already to plant one. Did Longshot do that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It did unlock 500 Mojoverse cable channels at the Boneyard…”<\/strong> So if you were really hoping to canonise the “Death to Basic Cable” short from Crazy <\/em>vol 2 #1 – where people on Krakoa are watching Mojoworld broadcasts – well, happy days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 12.<\/strong> Aurora looks after the puppy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The crazy Beaubier twin.”<\/strong> Jeanne-Marie’s multiple personalities were pushed heavily back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 13.<\/strong> Data page. I love the idea of Mojoverse being the sort of place that would crowdsource immigration policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 14-20.<\/strong> X-Factor get voted in, and meet Mojo.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mojo<\/strong> was apparently last seen in Spider-Ham<\/em> #4-5, but they aren’t on Unlimited yet, and I haven’t read them. In the X-books, we last saw him in Mr & Mrs X<\/em> #7-10. This is his first appearance of the Krakoan era. So far as it goes, he’s telling the truth about Mojoworld loving mutants; many of his stories involve him trying to rope the X-Men into participating in his shows or unknowingly providing him with footage, due to their apparently huge popularity with the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Five”.<\/strong> The five most popular streamers on Mojoverse’s YouTube equivalent. Obviously, the re-use of the Five’s name is not a coincidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 21.<\/strong> Data page. These are the Five brands of Mojoverse, and the black star symbol seems to have come from nowhere. Until that happened, Spiral was the comfortable leading brand (which might be why she’s being equated to Starbucks). The other three symbols don’t mean anything to me, and I assume they’re new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 22-23.<\/strong> X-Factor get into a fight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 24-25.<\/strong> Kyle and Aurora watch the feed.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 26-27.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: SPINAL. (Mojo and his race have no spines; they either get carried around in spider-like carts like Mojo, or they wear some other sort of equipment. The humanoid inhabitants of Mojoworld are mostly lab-grown, like Longshot.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-FACTOR vol 4 #2“Suite No. 2: Mojoverse Sonata Xf. 3 Op. 45, Danse Macabre”by Leah Williams & David Baldeon PAGE 1 \/ COVER: Um… well, it’s a shot of the team in their new costumes, presumably with Aurora in red behind […]<\/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":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540","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=5540"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5545,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5540\/revisions\/5545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}