{"id":5937,"date":"2020-11-25T21:31:46","date_gmt":"2020-11-25T21:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5937"},"modified":"2020-11-25T21:31:46","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T21:31:46","slug":"x-men-15-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=5937","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #15 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-MEN vol 5 #15<\/strong>
“X of Swords, Chapter 20”<\/strong>
by Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar & Sunny Gho<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Apocalypse’s bloodstained sword, reflecting the Annihilation mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 2-5.<\/strong> Cyclops and Marvel Girl prepare to address the Quiet Council.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Krakoa is presented at its most utopian here, to hammer home the point that Cyclops sees it as a home worth fighting for. He says that he “dreamed” of a home like this but “never thought” they would have it – implicitly referencing “Xavier’s dream” of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants, which the X-Men used to go on about all the time. Of course, Krakoa is only very debatably an example of that dream, since it’s a separatist project – it’s only coexistence when viewed on the global level. But as Cyclops says, what good did that version of the X-Men’s dream ever do them? They never made any obvious progress towards achieving it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Quiet Council.<\/strong> As before, the Council members seated here are (clockwise from top) Professor X, Magneto, Mister Sinister, Exodus, Mystique, Kate Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw and Nightcrawler. The three vacant seats belong to Apocalypse and Storm (who are in Otherworld) and to Marvel Girl herself. Krakoa is, as ever, present in the background, but without Cypher to translate for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“One hour ago, our son, Nathan, cried out for us to save him.” <\/strong>In Cable<\/em> #6. Cable didn’t exactly do this, though – he reported that they were losing, talked about how he wasn’t ready, and warned them to prepare for invasion. But he didn’t actually call on them to come and rescue him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The basic tension of this scene is that Cyclops wants to do the traditionally heroic thing of racing to save his son, while the Quiet Council are more focussed on the bigger picture and the preservation of Krakoa. And there’s a contradiction of sorts between that motivation and Scott’s talk about preserving what’s been built. What he’s interested in preserving, presumably, is not the mutant nation of Krakoa, but simply the home of his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 6-7.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 8-9.<\/strong> Apocalypse and Genesis\/Annihilation begin their fight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturnyne <\/strong>is accompanied by Shogo (who always becomes a dragon while in Otherworld, as seen in Excalibur<\/em>), Ryl (the fish woman) and Quaddeus Quo (the minotaur, who’s apparently leaking information to Mojo). She never clearly states the rules of this contest, but she strongly implies that you lose by death or submission, which turns out to be correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Annihilation mask <\/strong>is obviously a corrupting influence on Genesis with a mind of its own, and so it makes sense that Apocalypse tries (successfully) to prompt her to take it off. While Genesis gives a vaguely snarky reason for doing so, we know she’s strong willed enough to keep Annihilation’s influence somewhat under control, so it’s reasonably plausible that on some level she’s quite keen to have the opportunity. Certainly the mask itself tries to reject the invitation out of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 10-17.<\/strong> Cyclops and Marvel Girl address the Quiet Council.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Our connection was severed before we could find out everything.”<\/strong> By Saturnyne, again in Cable<\/em> #6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cyclops<\/strong> basically relays the information that Cable managed to pass on to him. Shaw is being incredibly tactless and unsympathetic, but in a sense he has a point – to the people he’s addressing, the fate of all Krakoa is quite legitimately <\/em>a bigger deal than the fate of Cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate, Cyclops’ plan is basically to abort the contest, rescue the Krakoan contingent from Otherworld, and blow up the gates behind them. In previous issues, Krakoa has objected strenuously to any suggestion of closing the gates, but for some reason nobody makes that point here. Exodus and Magneto make the pragmatic point that this seems to be a plan that leaves the island defenceless if it doesn’t work.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Avalon gate<\/strong> is the gate from the Excalibur lighthouse to the realm of Avalon (as opposed to the External Gate which leads direct to Otherworld proper).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Beast recently stole the technology from Hordeculture to hijack gate control…”<\/strong> In Empyre: X-Men<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marvel Girl, Nightcrawler and Kate Pryde<\/strong> are the three Council members who volunteer to join the mission. They are, of course, all mainstay X-Men of a traditionally heroic bent. (Xavier, Magneto, Emma and Mystique have all been X-Men too at one time or other, but they’re all more morally flexible or big-picture types.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Council promptly pass a vote expelling anyone who leaves to join the mission – on the logic that their seat has to be quickly filled if the mission goes wrong, presumably. The resolution passes by 6-4, with Professor X and Magneto voting in favour. The four no votes come from the three members who wanted to leave, plus Emma – perhaps because she’s less invested in the Krakoan project than Xavier and Magneto, or simply unaware of all the things that make it so important to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following that vote, Nightcrawler is persuaded to stay, and Kate realises that she can’t go because (as seen in various issues of Marauders<\/em>) she can’t go through the gates – although more of that in a moment. So only Jean actually quits the Council, presumably to be replaced by another classic X-Man in due course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You really shouldn’t lie to Katherine…”<\/strong> Emma thinks that Cyclops is lying to Kate about using the gates, to make her stay behind – presumably in order to maintain a trustworthy presence of actual heroes on the Quiet Council. And indeed, in X of Swords: Destruction<\/em>, Cyclops doesn’t use the gates – he returns to the SWORD space station and gets Magik to open a portal from there. (Emma’s line indicates that this was his plan even before the Council vote to close the gates behind him.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emma Frost<\/strong> offers to go – though not very insistently – and Cyclops publicly gives the same reason for declining as he did for Kurt and Kate. Privately, he doesn’t think she would ever sacrifice herself for this, and perhaps he’s right; it’s a mission that only makes sense from a traditionally (and irrationally) heroic standpoint. Self-interest and general pragmatism would both lead Emma to be more concerned about Krakoa as a whole. She does send the Stepford Cuckoos to help, even so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 18.<\/strong> Apocalypse and Genesis fight.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is accompanied by captions continuing Cyclops’ speech, so presumably we’re supposed to see a parallel in Apocalypse’s refusal to accept Genesis’ corruption by Annihilation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 19.<\/strong> Cyclops reminds the Quiet Council of the X-Men’s role.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The significance of this scene becomes more apparent on the upcoming data pages, which establish that the X-Men ceased to formally exist as a team when Krakoa was founded. What Cyclops is doing here, then, is re-establishing the team as a rival and less morally compromised power on Krakoa. Xavier and Magneto both seem rather pleased about this – perhaps it suits them to have the X-Men out there given the sort of compromises that the Quiet Conucil involves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 20-21. <\/strong>Data pages. This is a report on Krakoan governmental structures prepared at the outset of independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two main points emerge. The first is that the Quiet Council was hoped to contain competing ideologies (naturally) with limited recourse to violence. There’s a reference to a “FORCE protocol”, which is presumably X-Force – though if so, it’s a bit of a stretch for this document to be prepared in the week following Krakoan independence; X-Force weren’t approved by the Quiet Council until X-Force <\/em>#4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the X-Men were formally closed down, apparently to avoid them being a rival power base. A footnote acknowledges that people will keep using the term even if it’s not official, so the policy is to promote other names rather than actively suppress the “X-Men” term. But the practical point is that for the whole of the Hickman era, there has been no X-Men team – just agents of Krakoa who some people still call the X-Men. And that does indeed accord with what we’ve seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 22-25.<\/strong> Apocalypse defeats Genesis.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sort of. His sword is shattered, but he manages to grab hers and wound her. But the practical effect seems to be to weaken her to the point where the Annihilation mask can take control again. As it points out, Genesis has neither died nor submitted. There’s a bit of a storytelling disconnect between this cliffhanger and the start of the next chapter, unfortunately – apparently, what’s meant to happen next is that Genesis\/Annihilation abandons the contest and just calls on the forces of Amenth to wage war. Presumably the idea is that she’s not willing to continue with a contest that nearly got her host killed, now that (for the first time) she’s in danger of losing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 26.<\/strong> A quote from Apocalypse, which is straightforward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 27.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: ALL IN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 5 #15“X of Swords, Chapter 20”by Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar & Sunny Gho COVER \/ PAGE 1: Apocalypse’s bloodstained sword, reflecting the Annihilation mask. PAGES 2-5. Cyclops and Marvel Girl prepare to address the Quiet Council. Krakoa is presented […]<\/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-5937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5937","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=5937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5939,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5937\/revisions\/5939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}