{"id":5627,"date":"2020-09-19T21:05:46","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T20:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5627"},"modified":"2020-09-19T21:05:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-19T20:05:46","slug":"giant-size-x-men-storm-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5627","title":{"rendered":"Giant-Size X-Men: Storm #1 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

GIANT-SIZE X-MEN: STORM #1<\/strong>
“Disintegration” <\/strong>
by Jonathan Hickman, Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Just a picture of Storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-4.<\/strong> Jean and Emma talk to Storm about her condition.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This flashback is picking up from Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost<\/em> #1, which came out way back in February (although that gap would have been shorter without the pandemic). That issue established that Storm had been infected with a techno-organic virus by the Children of the Vault, which was going to kill her. This obviously ties in to the recurring theme in Hickman’s early issues about the dangers (to mutants) of technology and the accompanying need for Krakoa to be free of conventional technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Emma makes the tactless but technically correct point that death isn’t supposed to be a concern for the X-Men in the Krakoan era since they can just be restored from back-up. Storm returns to this point later in the issue, but in a purely logical sense it’s correct – why waste energy trying to cure people when you can just start over? In the short term, the answer is “because it’s more work for the Five and it delays the resurrection of other mutants”, but in the case of terminal illness, that argument doesn’t really hold water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma is being unusually obnoxious here, and Hickman seems to be writing a throwback version of the character that doesn’t bear all that much resemblance to her behaviour in Marauders<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M is the one who comes up with the solution; it’s not immediately obvious why she’s the one to spot something that eluded all the X-Men’s normal genius characters, but the implication seems to be that she somehow knew about what was in the World. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oddly, in Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex<\/em> #1, Storm told Fantomex that “our best mutant scientists believe the only way to save me is inside the World” – even though M was right next to her. Perhaps Storm had M’s idea checked over by the scientists first, but it seems odd that she doesn’t give M credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong> Credits and recap. The main story overlaps with Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex<\/em>, in which Fantomex was preparing to break into the World to get some technology or other that was apparently going to save Storm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 7-9.<\/strong> M and Cypher recruit AIM agent Ned.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We saw this guy briefly at the end of Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex<\/em> #1. Ned makes clear that he’s already betraying AIM to Fantomex for money. Interestingly, in Fantomex<\/em>, he was already waiting with Fantomex outside the World before the X-Men arrived – but here he’s meeting with the X-Men in advance of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 10-16.<\/strong> The group talk before entering the World.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This scene doesn’t quite fit neatly with the Fantomex<\/em> issue. A big part of this scene is Fantomex openly announcing that he can’t actually pay Ned, and basically trying to persuade the X-Men to stump up the money so that the mission can go ahead. They need Ned’s stolen AIM technology in order to enter the World – as he explains, he was working on the AIM group who were meant to be “hack[ing] the temporal bubble of an artificial world”. In Fantomex<\/em>, Ned was equally concerned about his money but was answering questions – immediately before entering the World – about how much Fantomex was going to pay him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The splash page of them entering the World was also shown in Fantomex<\/em>, but looks entirely different here – not that any of the details matter, but the Fantomex <\/em>version doesn’t even show anything apparently resembling the battle that we see here. Dauterman’s version is a little more abstract and less surreal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 17-20.<\/strong> As the group try to get to the right building, Storm tries using her powers and passes out.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Warlock<\/strong>, who normally disguises himself as Cypher’s arm, acts more openly here. M presumably sees this and doesn’t appear surprised by him, which is odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for Storm, the idea seems<\/em> to be that the World doesn’t naturally have weather, and that she’s trying (and failing) to impose it on the malleable environment using her powers and force of will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 21-27.<\/strong> Storm comes round, and an AIM machine separates her from the virus.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ned gives us some technobabble. The World is a “radical evolutionary experiment in a closed environment”, which is true – the whole gimmick is that it’s a time bubble in which weird evolution plays out over short timescales. For no terribly obvious reason, we’re told that in such places, systems that normally compete tend to intertwine itself – specifically, “organic and technological ones”. This makes more sense within the logic of Hickman’s cosmology, in which technologically-enhanced humans are the main rivals and threats to mutantkind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AIM apparently find this an undesirable side effect of the World, and have built a device to disentangle such systems. This is the thing that separates Storm from the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fantomex and his World-based “brother” Ultimaton have already beaten the World’s AIM cell before the rest of the group get there. There’s a vague hint that Fantomex, being Fantomex, might well have pursued a different plan if the others hadn’t shown up just then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Storm gives us a speech (in captions) explaining why she’s putting herself through this instead of just taking Emma’s resurrection route. She comes very close to saying that Krakoa’s resurrection scheme as undermining the value of life, which is interesting in itself, since very few characters have been in any way critical of it. Of course, you could choose to read this as Storm rejecting the use of resurrection as anything more than an insurance policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 28-33.<\/strong> Ned deals with the virus and everyone says goodbye.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ned isolates the separated techno-virus in a containment field to make sure it doesn’t develop into a dangerous artificial intelligence, while the Klaxons of Foreshadowing go off all around him. Cypher exchanges a few words with the virus intelligence in an epilogue, and anticipates meeting it again. I’m not aware of a key to decode the virus’s one line of dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex<\/em>, Ultimaton once again refuses to leave the World. This time Fantomex decides that he’s going to stay. (It’s not the first time he’s chosen to stay in the World as a base, though.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ned also chooses to stay so that he can pursue scientific experiments in the World – thus passing up all the money that seemed to motivate him up until now. He claims that he’s more interested in the scientific opportunities. Since he’s held up his end of the deal, the X-Men let it slide, but Storm’s naturally sceptical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 34-35.<\/strong> Trailers. Once again, the Krakoan reads NEXT: X OF SWORDS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. GIANT-SIZE X-MEN: STORM #1“Disintegration” by Jonathan Hickman, Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson COVER \/ PAGE 1: Just a picture of Storm. PAGES 2-4. Jean and Emma talk to Storm about her condition. This flashback is picking up from Giant-Size X-Men: Jean […]<\/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-5627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5627","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=5627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5629,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5627\/revisions\/5629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}