{"id":6494,"date":"2021-03-17T22:47:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T22:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6494"},"modified":"2021-03-17T22:47:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T22:47:31","slug":"s-w-o-r-d-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6494","title":{"rendered":"S.W.O.R.D. #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>S.W.O.R.D. #4
\n“The Krakoan Sun”
\nby Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti & Marte Gracia<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Knull corrupting Cable. Yes, it’s still a\u00a0King in Black<\/em> tie-in.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Cargill’s monologue.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cargill is stuck inside Knull’s black symbiote goop stuff, following the previous issue. She experiences this as a sensory-deprivation void, which she’s trying to find a hook for. We can see on the next page that she’s not\u00a0actually<\/em>\u00a0surrounded, so this must be some sort of mental effect that the symbiotes have.<\/p>\n

When she says that “something stole Cable’s face”, she basically means that one of Knull’s symbiotes has taken him over.<\/p>\n

PAGES\u00a03-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Symbiote\u00a0<\/em>Cable rants at Manifold.<\/em><\/p>\n

Manifold addresses this character as Knull later in the issue, so we should presumably take it that Knull is speaking through the symbiote.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The two prisoners that get killed are Sunfire and Fabian Cortez (the “immaculate friend”). Cortez gets killed because he powered-up Sunfire last issue, allowing him to do immense damage to the symbiotes.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong> Recap and credits. Cable is shown on the gallery with a black framing instead of his usual colour.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong>\u00a0Wiz-Kid and Abigail Brand.<\/em><\/p>\n

Self-explanatory, really. The problem isn’t that they can’t get a signal to Krakoa, the problem is that nobody’s there to answer.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-11.<\/strong>\u00a0The Five are not convinced by Abigail Brand’s plan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mentallo<\/strong> was meant to be evacuating the Five to safety, but evidently he hasn’t had much luck in convincing them. There’s no suggestion that he tried to influence them telepathically, though doubtless he wouldn’t have got anywhere with Hope anyway. It’s not exactly his fault – he’s been left with quite a few problems to overcome. Nobody has bothered to tell the Five about this plan (more about that in a bit), the whole thing seems suspiciously haphazard, and the guy who’s been sent to explain it is a D-list villain. What did Abigail Brand expect?<\/p>\n

Hope Summers\u00a0<\/strong>acts as the spokesman for the Five here, which is preferable to trying to give them all dialogue. She can see glimmers of sense in this plan, but she’s not up for abandoning the Cradle, and certainly\u00a0not up for being bounced into this. Part of this is dogmatic – the Five’s role is to bring every mutant back and she won’t accept any compromise on that even in an existential crisis. But Hope is also serving here as a voice of reason to gets to tell Abigail that this plan is fundamentally defective – reversing Abigail’s normal role as the hyper-competent one.<\/p>\n

Abigail Brand.<\/strong> So what’s Abigail up to here? A couple of things are worth noting. First, her priorities are entirely different from the Five’s. They take the standard Krakoan line that this is all about mutantdom. Abigail is simply not interested in mutant nationalism; her perspective is interplanetary, and mutant exceptionalism doesn’t motivate her in the slightest. The reason she’s interested in the Five is not because they can bring back mutants, but because they’re the best option to bring back\u00a0humans<\/em>. (Hope attacks this as “the same old human thinking”.)<\/p>\n

Second, Abigail seems to have made a conscious decision to keep this plan need-to-know for reasons that she doesn’t explain. Either she has an ulterior motive, or she simply doesn’t believe that the Krakoan authorities would go along with this if they had a chance to oppose it. Most likely, it’s the latter, since the Krakoans are very, very protective about their resurrection technology.<\/p>\n

Abigail says that she doesn’t “blindly serve Krakoa” – but then who\u00a0does<\/em> she answer to? Presumably she just has her own agenda which she wants to get on with, and would prefer Krakoa to give her the budget and get out of her way.<\/p>\n

Maybe worth noting here that S.W.O.R.D. – both Mentallo and Wiz Kid – are showing up on Krakoa in conventional technology, which is a bit of a no-no in normal circumstances.<\/p>\n

“We’re all still reeling from losing Rockslide and Gorgon.”<\/strong> In\u00a0X of Swords<\/em>; they’ve both been resurrected, but as new versions with different personas.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-18.<\/strong> Manifold and Symbiote Cable.<\/em><\/p>\n

Manifold.<\/strong> Our attention is drawn to the fact that Manifold is not classed as an omega mutant, despite his seemingly unprecedented teleporting powers.<\/p>\n

Traditionally an “omega mutant” was just a flashy term for a really, really powerful mutant. A much more specific definition was given in\u00a0House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1: “a\u00a0mutant whose dominant power is deemed to register – or reach – an undefinable upper limit of that power’s specific classification”. However, House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1 specifically said that you can be the most powerful mutant of your type without being an omega – Forge was given as an example. He’s not an omega mutant (according to House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1) because the upper limit of his powers is measurable.<\/p>\n

Presumably, then, the point Knull is making is that there theoretically\u00a0could<\/span><\/em> be someone more powerful than Manifold, rather than that there necessarily\u00a0must<\/span><\/em> be.<\/p>\n

Manifold claims, a little unconvincingly, that he has never really though about who else might be out there. On the face of it, he’s not particularly good as a conventional fighter, and he seems mainly to be stalling in the hope that someone will turn up. But he ultimately wins by using his powers in a more creative way than simply teleporting (which is kind of the point the book was making last issue). He can warp space (or persuade it to warp, if you prefer), so that sunlight appears on Krakoa despite the symbiote shell currently surrounding Earth.<\/p>\n

“Bodyslide”<\/strong> was Cable’s traditional instruction when using his teleporter. The idea that his cyborg arm is outright prosthetic (as opposed to just infected by the techno-organic virus) has come up before, and of course was standard in the character’s early appearances before anyone had figured out his back story. Most recently, see\u00a0Cable<\/em> #3 for an example of the arm being treated as a detachable thing full of goodies.<\/p>\n

Cargill<\/strong> says that she’s “only ever loved one person. And if he’d felt the same, you’d be my stepson.” Cyclops, in other words. This refers back to the “Age of X” storyline in\u00a0Mike Carey’s\u00a0X-Men: Legacy<\/em>, which involved a reality warp to a pocket world in which she and Scott were married; she remained infatuated with him in subsequent issues. See in particular\u00a0X-Men: Legacy<\/em> #248 for Scott rejecting her.<\/p>\n

Knull’s comments weren’t specifically about\u00a0romantic<\/em> love – on the contrary, he specifically included family members. Cargill apparently doesn’t consider that she loves her immediate family either. The main source of information on her back story is X-Men: Legacy<\/em> #268, which has a string of flashbacks about her abusive father.<\/p>\n

PAGE 19.<\/strong>\u00a0Five have a party.<\/em><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Five, Mentallo and Wiz-Kid are just blasting the symbiotes with light and sound, i.e. having a party.<\/p>\n

PAGES 20-21.<\/strong>\u00a0The aftermath.<\/em><\/p>\n

Other than Random and Banshee, the characters in the background seem to be generics.<\/p>\n

Cable<\/strong> feels like he’s let the side down again. His complaint that “this keeps happening” presumably refers to his underwhelming performance in “X of Swords” – he had a similar reaction to losing his fight with Bei in\u00a0Cable<\/em> #6.<\/p>\n

Magneto<\/strong> takes charge, which is fair enough, since he’s the only Council member present. And, well, he’s Magneto. Note that Cargill immediately defers to him, but Manifold<\/strong> is more worried about what Brand will think. As a non-X-character, and one with an intergalactic canvas, maybe his perspective is less mutant-nationalist and more aligned with Abigail Brand’s.<\/p>\n

Magneto isn’t being unreasonable in fast-tracking Cortez’s resurrection – people who died in battle always get fast-tracked, and Cortez is an essential member of the Six. But he’s clearly interested in Cortez’s pitch from the previous issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong> Data page, convening a Quiet Council meeting to discuss “the second law of mutantdom and potential amendments thereto.” The second law is the one about not murdering humans.<\/p>\n

Magneto’s memo says that the meeting will have a quorum of eight “as certain members of the Quiet Council are unable to attend”, but that any decisions will be revisited by the full council of twelve at a later date. Note though that it’s presently impossible to convene the full council, because two of the seats are vacant – is Magneto trying to bounce something through?\u00a0The vacant seats formerly belonged to Apocalypse and Jean Grey. It’s not immediately clear who the other two missing members are, or why.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong> Another almost completely redacted data page, this one saying something about the current Snarkwar (the war over the succession to the Snark throne), Amelia Voght (who we saw on the SWORD station in issue #1 as one of their teleporters) and the sun. The small print reads “deep secret” and “burning heart”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: MURDER.<\/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. #4 “The Krakoan Sun” by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti & Marte Gracia COVER \/ PAGE 1: Knull corrupting Cable. Yes, it’s still a\u00a0King in Black tie-in. PAGE 2. Cargill’s monologue. Cargill is stuck inside Knull’s black symbiote goop stuff, following […]<\/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-6494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494","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=6494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6496,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6494\/revisions\/6496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}