{"id":6147,"date":"2021-01-13T22:01:07","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T22:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6147"},"modified":"2021-01-13T22:01:07","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T22:01:07","slug":"s-w-o-r-d-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6147","title":{"rendered":"S.W.O.R.D. #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

S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #2<\/strong>
“In the Dark”<\/strong>
by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti & Marte Gracia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Cable, Frenzy & Abigail Brand, alongside an image of the S.W.O.R.D. space station impaled into a Venomised Earth. This is a King in Black<\/em> tie-in, though unusually there’s nothing else on the cover to indicate that fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> A mystery figure in New York.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of King in Black<\/em>, New York is overrun by Knull’s symbiotes, and there’s a symbiote shield surrounding the planet. The shadow figure is a Venomized Cable, as we’ll see later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits. I don’t know enough about the plot of King in Black<\/em> to know about the X-Men’s involvement as recapped here. The small print has changed to read “King black – Knull X”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 4-5.<\/strong> Abigail Brand checks in with the Six.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abigail’s recap is just sketching out the basic concepts of Venom<\/em> and King in Black<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As indicated in the previous issue, Fabian Cortez has no real role in S.W.O.R.D., except when he’s called upon to use his powers. Predictably, he seems more interested in talking up his role – though in fairness to him, it’s not obvious that his department really should<\/em> have anything to contribute at this stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Galactic Council<\/strong> is an established UN-type organisation (or at least meeting chamber) for the major alien races of the Marvel Universe. Al Ewing has also been using it over in Guardians of the Galaxy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indigo – Security.<\/strong> The head of department is Cable; he doesn’t respond for the obvious reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Violet – Analysis.<\/strong> This is Mentallo<\/strong>, who was redacted out in the previous issue. He’s an unusual case of a long-time mutant villain who has no particular history in the X-books – he debuted in the Nick Fury story in Strange Tales<\/em> #141 in 1966, and he’s fought various heroes over the years. Peepers mentioned him in the previous issue as “Marv” – they were teammates together in the Resistants, a mutant-rights group which opposed the Mutant Registration Act in late-80s Captain America<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a member of the Resistants, Flumm rode in a little tank full of weapons that he could control with his mind, and went by the name Think Tank. As we see later, he thinks this is the coolest thing he ever did, and he wants his tank back. Note that he’s reading a magazine about tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mentallo is convinced that he knows what Abigail Brand really thinks about him, but the next page implies that Abigail has more plans than he’s actually aware of, and she mentions later on that she has psychic shields. Mentallo isn’t a particularly powerful telepath – it’s been acknowledged in the past that he can’t compete with the big guns in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Data page, mostly with Abigail’s personnel notes on Mentallo. Abigail’s account of his history is broadly correct – he’s just a career supervillain with no particular direction. His “last foray into mutant rights” was the Resistants, and “the you-know-what” is his beloved tank. Brand describes Mentallo’s involvement in the group as a “grift”, and it was certainly an uncharacteristic period in his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 7-12.<\/strong> S.W.O.R.D. gather in the launchpad.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paibok<\/strong>, the Power Skrull, was in the previous issue as well – presumably not much time has passed. Although he’s traditionally a villain, Frenzy’s quite right that he’s got every reason to help here, partly because Knull is a universe-level threat, but also because it will go down well with his new emperor, Hulkling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hope you survive the etcetera.”<\/strong> Another reference to “Welcome to the X-Men [name] – hope you survive the experience”, which was also referenced in the previous issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A Brashear portal” <\/strong>is presumably something developed by Adam Brashear, the Blue Marvel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Random<\/strong> is presumably here because Cable is absent, and he’s the next person down in the security-department pecking order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGES 13-16.<\/strong> S.W.O.R.D. help out on Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Flatscan.”<\/strong> A term used by mutant villains to disparage ordinary humans, which was big in the 90s and rather tailed off later. Cortez, of course, hails from that era of X-books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The X-Men<\/strong> seen here – or Krakoans, at any rate – are Magneto, Banshee and Sunfire. Emma Frost is appaarently off-panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cortez<\/strong>‘s power is not healing; it’s to supercharge other people’s powers. That seems to generate something of a euphoric \/ painkilling effect as well, since presumably Sunfire is still flying around fighting with two broken legs here. Cortez describes himself as “the power behind the throne”, though that was only really his role in his first storyline – he showed up at Magneto’s door with a bunch of cultists and insinuated himself into place as Magneto’s new trusted adviser, giving him power-boosts along the way. Naturally, they were bad for Magneto in the long run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

More generally, Cortez’s main schtick in the 90s was to hold himself out as a follower of the absent Magneto, and to lure a bunch of cultists into following him in turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong> Data page, this time with Abigail’s notes on Fabian Cortez. Obviously, he’s been selected because of his unusual and useful powers, and Brand wants to marginalise the scope for him to create trouble. Clearly she would prefer to replace him with somebody more useful, but the examples she lists here are even less workable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Michael Nowlan<\/strong> was a mutant with the power to boost other mutants’ powers, who appeared in X-Factor<\/em> vol 1 #5-6. His power was indeed addictive. Nowlan died by reabsorbing the energy he’d given to Apocalypse’s henchmen the Alliance of Evil, so evidently he’s been resurrected on Krakoa. Perhaps Brand was pressing for anyone better than Cortez. Susan Nowlan<\/strong>, his wife, was also in that earlier story; she was killed by Stinger. <\/li>
  • Boost <\/strong>was a member of the Morlock splinter group Gene Nation, and his only actual appearance was in the 1997 Uncanny X-Men Annual<\/em>. He was reported to have been depowered after M-Day (see New Avengers<\/em> #18), so either he’s died and been resurrected, or he got his powers back (presumably in the Mothervine nonsense).<\/li>
  • Mister M<\/strong> is an Omega-class mutant who appeared in District X<\/em>. He’s been mentioned before as a major, powerful mutant whose whereabouts is unknown to Krakoa.<\/li>
  • The final one is redacted; all we know clearly is that it’s a female character and has some connection with the Snarkwar storyline in Guardians of the Galaxy<\/em>. Chance from the original Fallen Angels team would tick the box of being a female mutant who enhances powers, but she has no obvious connection to Snarkwar. (Then again, she hasn’t been seen in years, so who knows what she’s up to now?)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 18-19.<\/strong> Mentallo rescues the Five.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Proteus is a massively powerful character, and so there’s an obvious question of why he isn’t getting more involved in a world-shattering event. The official line, evidently, is that the work of reviving the dead mutants always takes priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGES 20-22.<\/strong> Cortez makes his move, and Cable arrives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Cortez gets what he wanted – a bit of attention from Magneto, which he tries to leverage into an opportunity to build some political influence. He seems to have some sort of anti-human policy that he wants to promote. Magneto seems receptive, but what he actually says is “I think that would be instructive”, which is a little more ambivalent. Frenzy, who picks up on what’s happening, was one of Cortez’s teammates in the Acolytes and knows him best.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    PAGE 23.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: SIDE TRIP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #2“In the Dark”by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti & Marte Gracia COVER \/ PAGE 1: Cable, Frenzy & Abigail Brand, alongside an image of the S.W.O.R.D. space station impaled into a Venomised Earth. This is a King in Black […]<\/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":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6147","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=6147"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6149,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6147\/revisions\/6149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}