{"id":6713,"date":"2021-05-20T22:29:02","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T21:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6713"},"modified":"2021-05-20T22:29:02","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T21:29:02","slug":"way-of-x-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6713","title":{"rendered":"Way of X #2 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>WAY OF X #2
\n“Let Us Prey”
\nby Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The swashbuckling Nightcrawler in Kurt’s mindscape battle an attacking Kraken.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0David and Kurt.<\/em><\/p>\n

Legion.<\/strong> The name “Legion” comes originally from\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> vol 1 #26-27, and used to be David’s codename. He started rejecting it in\u00a0Spurrier’s\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> vol 2. Strictly speaking, in the original story, “Legion” was a collective name for all of David’s multiple personalities.<\/p>\n

The Patchwork Man.<\/strong> David is aware of the Patchwork Man, and evidently assumes that his father is jumping to conclusions in blaming him; he sees Xavier as completely distrustful and unsupportive, which is pretty much fair (and stands in stark contrast to his more paternal role with the rest of the X-Men).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong>\u00a0David enters Kurt’s mindscape.<\/em><\/p>\n

While the focus of this series has been on Kurt’s religious and philosophical bent, his mindscape still reflects the swashbuckling bent which is traditionally a core part of his character – though note that alongside the pirate Kurts, the ship also has a clown Kurt, and a priest Kurt kneeling in prayer.<\/p>\n

David removes some sort of object which has somehow-or-other been placed in Kurt’s subconscious (or, possibly, is just a symptom of someone having been interfering). It’s not at all clear at this point who installed this or what it was doing, but Kurt infers later on – reasonably enough – that it was placed by Orchis as part of their plan to spread anomie. In his case it doesn’t take the form of selfishness, but of a feeling of disconnection from a society without boundaries, as we saw in the previous issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-9.<\/strong>\u00a0The Green Lagoon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dazzler.\u00a0<\/strong>For those keeping track of intertitle continuity, Dazzler tells us that the Hellfire Gala is tonight. She’s drinking viognier, which is white wine.<\/p>\n

Fabian Cortez<\/strong> was “fired”, “replaced” and “humiliated” in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#5, and what he says about that is pretty fair. “That idiotic space station” is S.W.O.R.D., and his claim that he was “basically the only thing holding it together” is nonsense – he had a non-job and was only kept around because he had useful powers. In terms of “I saved them all”, he\u00a0did<\/em> make a useful contribution in powering up Sunfire to fight Knull in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#2, but that’s about it. Fabian is still wearing his S.W.O.R.D. logo, and unsurprisingly has nobody else on Krakoa to hang out with.<\/p>\n

Dr Nemesis recalls Cortez as “the fanatic who worshipped Magneto” and had “insane quasi-religious ambitions”, obviously fitting with the religious theme of the book. Cortez doesn’t exactly deny this – he’s more concerned to deny that he harmed any mutants, and claims that he only hurt humans (who, he says, are not “people”). However, none of this is correct. Cortez did indeed found the Acolytes, a Magneto-worshipping cult, but he was always presented more as a cynical manipulator than a true believer; Exodus was the genuine fanatic. Nor is it true that he never harmed mutants – Cortez was a member of the Upstarts, who had an entire game about killing mutants for points. In fact, his criminal activities have been overwhelmingly directed against other mutants.<\/p>\n

Dr Nemesis<\/strong> did indeed spent some time working on Legion’s personalities during the Utopia era, as seen in both\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> and\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> at the time. Despite the way he presents it here, it went rather badly wrong, and resulted in Legion creating the “Age of X” pocket universe in self-defence.<\/p>\n

Loa and Pixie<\/strong> return from the previous issue. Mercury, who Loa is clearly smitten by, was one of the X-Men’s students from the 2000s, from books like\u00a0New X-Men<\/em>; she hasn’t done much in a while.<\/p>\n

Lost<\/strong> appeared prominently last issue, where we established that her powers cause nausea in most people around her. However, it seems to be only the appearance of the Patchwork Man over Cortez’s shoulder that really triggers problems here. The Patchwork Man was also present when this happened last issue, though he wasn’t visible until the following page.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-12.<\/strong> Nightcrawler, Pixie and Dr Nemesis find David’s brain.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rub’ al-Khali<\/strong> is the name of the desert in the Arabian Peninsula. It straddles several countries.<\/p>\n

David’s Scottish accent<\/strong> seems to have started as an error, the idea being that he grew up on Muir Isle. The problem is that he didn’t – he grew up in Israel and was only brought to Muir Isle after he had been comatose for several years.<\/p>\n

Blindfold<\/strong>, as I mentioned last time, was a friend of David’s in Spurrier’s\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> series. We’re reminded again that she’s dead and hasn’t been brought back, despite the fact that a lot of other people who died at around the same time have been resurrected. The real reason, of course, is that she’s a precognitive, and they aren’t allowed on Krakoa. David seemed to have figured this out last issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 13.<\/strong> Data page. An internal Orchis memo.<\/p>\n

Essentially, what’s happened here is that Orchis have somehow got their hands on David or his disembodied brain, and have kicked out the main personality so that the personalities that can remain – an entire community of mutants, each with their own powers – can be used as a sort of Krakoa simulator. This gets explained more fully in the next scene. After all, Legion is a Krakoa in microcosm. Orchis has developed some sort of implant that caused a prompt collapse in Legion society, and the obvious fear is that it’ll work similarly on Krakoa.<\/p>\n

Legacy<\/strong>\u00a0House\u00a0<\/strong>evidently supplied the brain to Orchis. They’re villains from\u00a0Wolverine<\/em>, who specialise in black market superhero memorabilia. While we’ve seen that they have some genuinely impressive stuff (and know it), they also have plenty of material of purely collectible value.<\/p>\n

“Gyrich and his flunkies in Second Petal”.<\/strong> Gyrich is Henry Peter Gyrich, currently running Alpha Flight. The Orchis org chart last issue showed his Second Petal division as “Infrastructure \/ Influence.”<\/p>\n

Sixth Petal\u00a0<\/strong>were redacted on the org chart, and are evidently super duper top secret.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-17.<\/strong>\u00a0Nightcrawler kills David, freeing the way for resurrection.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is, of course, a very different scenario than Pixie’s wilful self-destruction last issue; Kurt regrets this, but can accept it as a practical way for David to be resurrected. Kurt attempts to start praying before pulling the trigger, but then abandons it. Given the availability of resurrection, it’s not like David’s request is suicidal. Note that this time it’s Pixie who seems troubled by what’s happening, perhaps because this time everyone else is taking it seriously.<\/p>\n

“I don’t even know how these buggers got me.”<\/strong> Nor do we, beyond the mention of Legacy House earlier. At the end of Spurrier’s last X-Men Legacy<\/i> run, Legion attempts to erase himself from history, as he says here. It evidently didn’t take, since other characters continued to mention him occasionally. He showed up again without explanation in Peter Milligan’s\u00a0Legion<\/em> miniseries, and then served as a villain during “X-Men Disassembled” and “Age of X-Man”. How he got reset to his previously dominant personality is unclear.<\/p>\n

David remembers hearing Ruth’s voice – “one word, whispered in the dark”. That’s significant, because he clearly ended up in Orchis\u00a0after<\/em> the “Age of X-Man” arc. So this incident with Ruth must also take place at that point in history… but Ruth was dead by then. Is her persona still floating around somewhere? In\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em>, she was the one person who he allowed to remember his existence, so they’re linked in some form.<\/p>\n

David thinks that Ruth’s “inevitable” comment has something to do with the inevitable collapse of Krakoan society. This seems quite likely, given the reasons why precognitives are not allowed on Krakoa.<\/p>\n

Anomie<\/strong> is indeed a sociological concept, first coined by \u00c9mile Durkheim (1858-1917). This is straying some way out of my area, mind you. Durkheim’s definition of anomie was somewhat imprecise, but the etymology is broadly “normlessness” – i.e., a society lacking shared norms about how one should act and what one should find desirable. Or, potentially, a society in a state of transition between two different worldviews. However, the term also seems to cover a mismatch between the norms of an individual (or smaller group) and the norms of society as a whole. Or a psychological disillusionment with society based on the above. It’s all a bit hazy. One of Durkheim’s preoccupations was the social role of religion in avoiding anomie, which fits nicely for this book.<\/p>\n

“The derangement of the infinite” is a paraphrase of Durkheim, who actually referred to anomie as “a derangement” and as a “malady of the infinite”. What he meant – as best as I understand it – is that in the absence of social norms we are faced with apparently open-ended desires, which can never be fulfilled, and which only make us unhappy in the long run. A lack of boundaries ultimately just leads to a sense of meaninglessness. You can’t have a functioning society without a degree of shared social values, because the shared values\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0society. And so on. That’s what Nemesis has in mind when he refers to a society without limits – a lack of social direction.<\/p>\n

The Orchis interloper seems to be just repeating “Me before we”, presumably indicating that it’s helping to reinforce a move away from collective social norms to un-anchored individualism.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a018.<\/strong> Data page. Kurt writes about these events after the fact, describing his killing of David as breaking “thoughtless conditioning”. It’s not clear whether we’re to take this as him moving away from his religious views or simply coming to the view that his values have to be applied differently in the context of resurrection, and the rules he grew up with no longer accurately give effect to the underlying principles.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-24.<\/strong>\u00a0Legion is resurrected.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is apparently a very big deal for the people of Krakoa; if nothing else, an Omega mutant is being re-established. Given that Dazzler told us earlier that the Hellfire Gala was that night, the Five have created his new body very quickly indeed. Kurt’s narration tells us that the Five did this on their own initiative. Xavier certainly doesn’t seem happy about it.<\/p>\n

And this is potentially very important, because Legion has all sorts of powers, including precognition. We saw his precognition personality\u00a0in\u00a0X-Men: Legacy<\/em> vol 2 #1-5, where it took the form of an evil version of Professor X. This may well be what Xavier has in mind when he says that with one lapse, David “could tear down everything we’ve built.” Unfortunately for him, David is able to reinstall his own mind.<\/p>\n

Following Kurt’s pep talk, David now adopts the name Legion.<\/p>\n

The Patchwork<\/strong>\u00a0Man<\/strong>, according to Legion, is Onslaught – not exactly a character many people would have expected to see this book bring back. Onslaught, insofar as he ever made any sense, was a combination of the evil side of Professor X and aspects of Magneto’s personality – he is, in that sense, “patchwork”. The shape in the clouds is Onslaught’s stylised helmet.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: THE JOY OF X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and the page numbers go by the digital edition. WAY OF X #2 “Let Us Prey” by Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia COVER \/ PAGE 1. The swashbuckling Nightcrawler in Kurt’s mindscape battle an attacking Kraken. PAGE 2.\u00a0David and Kurt. Legion. The name “Legion” comes originally from\u00a0New […]<\/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":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713","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=6713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6715,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions\/6715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}