{"id":6890,"date":"2021-07-09T22:36:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T21:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6890"},"modified":"2021-07-09T22:36:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T21:36:04","slug":"x-force-21-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6890","title":{"rendered":"X-Force #21 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-FORCE vol 6 #21<\/strong>
\n“Fear of a Green Planet”<\/strong>
\nby Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Robert Gill & Guru-eFX<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> X-Force fight Man-Slaughter.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-9.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: X-Force encounter a Man-Thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

More fully: Sage despatches X-Force to the Warroad site on the coast of Washington, which is spilling chemical and nuclear waste into the sea. Their job is to clean up the spill because, apparently, it could somehow threaten Krakoa. (It’s not really made clear why this is any more of a concern for Krakoa than any other global environmental issue, but perhaps X-Force are just feeling especially heroic today.) They encounter a Man-Thing-type creature, which they mistake for a bad guy, but which is actually trying to save the locals from mutated sea creaturs.<\/p>\n

As usual, there’s an obvious parallel between the visuals for Krakoa (complete with red spherical things in the plantlife) and the long-established design for Man-Thing, particularly in the grimier style which this book tends to favour, and which plays down Krakoa’s island-paradise tropes.<\/p>\n

Warroad<\/strong> is not, as far as I can tell, a real facility in Washington. There’s a town called Warroad in Minnesota<\/a>, which doesn’t seem to have any particular significance here. Washington State\u00a0does<\/em> have a significance, because it was the setting for various scenes in\u00a0Weapon Plus: World War IV – <\/em>more on which below.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Man-Thing<\/strong>. Kid Omega says that he “feel[s] the burning touch of fear”. That refers to the old tag line that “Whatever knows fear, burns at the Man-Thing’s touch!” But the character seen here isn’t the Man-Thing.<\/p>\n

Jackson Strode.\u00a0<\/strong>As we’ll see later in the story, this “good” Man-Thing is Jackson Strode, a character whose only previous appearance was in Benjamin Percy’s one-shot\u00a0Weapon Plus: World War IV. <\/em>That issue revealed that Strode was the Weapon Plus Project’s reluctant Weapon IV, who had been given a stolen version of Ted Sallis’s Man-Thing serum. He eventually fled after realising that he was never going to be cured no matter how many missions he did. In the earlier story, he could change back into human form, though he was having increasing difficulty in doing so. According to the data page at the end of the issue, he can no longer do so.<\/p>\n

Timeframe.<\/strong>\u00a0The opening caption says that this takes place “months ago”. This is… odd. To explain:\u00a0Kid Omega is wearing his new costume, which he picked up in issue #17. Issues #17-19 run through without interruption. So there are really only two places for this scene to go: either it takes place after issue #20 (and it isn’t a flashback at all), or it takes place between issues #19-20.<\/p>\n

But the gap between issues #19-20\u00a0can’t\u00a0<\/em>be months. It falls between “X of Swords” and “Hellfire Gala”, and\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1 tells us that that’s only 2-3 weeks. So whichever slot you opt for, it seems that we’ve jumped several months down the line from the Hellfire Gala. That might be intentional – but it means we’ve jumped entirely past any consequences that the Beast suffered after his Terra Verdean schemes were exposed last issue. By all appearances there were none, perhaps because those in the know worry more about the blowback if they push the argument too far – particularly given some of the maniacs on the Quiet Council.<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.<\/strong> Recap and credits. Do I need to point out that the title refers to “Fear of a Black Planet” by Public Enemy? It’s an album from over 30 years ago, so I guess I’d better.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-16.<\/strong>\u00a0Sage briefs the Beast.<\/em><\/p>\n

Basically, someone is using plant-style technology to control mutant allies and make them do incriminating things and\/or sever their ties with Krakoa. There’s a very, very obvious parallel with what the Beast was doing in Terra Verde last issue. This seems as if it’s heading towards a position where the Beast is ultimately driven to concede that he’s got it all horrendously wrong, not because he’s realised the moral implications, but simply because he’s forced to accept that he has himself contributed to the spread of this dangerous technology by trying to take advantage of it when he could have just wiped it out. From a conventional heroic standpoint, this ought to be the very least of the issues with what the Beast has done.<\/p>\n

Multiple discovery<\/strong> is indeed a real concept, the idea being that sometimes the conditions are right for a discovery to be made, and therefore several people are going to hit on the idea at around the same time. The crossbow is indeed one of the examples given in the Wikipedia entry (citation needed), though it’s not a particularly clear case of the same idea being developed simultaneously (the northern Canadian crossbow seems to be several centuries distant from the Chinese one, for example).<\/p>\n

Ted Sallis’ Man-Thing serum.<\/strong> Ted Sallis\u00a0is<\/em> the original Man-Thing, and the traditional account has him being transformed by a serum of his own devising. However, this story – which treats the serum as a purely scientific thing – sits awkwardly with the recent\u00a0Curse of the Man-Thing<\/em> miniseries, which retcons Man-Thing’s origins. According to that story, the Man-Thing serum didn’t actually work until Sallis made a deal with Belasco, and so it’s actually a combination of science and magic. Still, maybe the people who’ve adapted the serum figured out how to make it work the way Sallis always intended.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong> Data page. Sage is tracking appearances of the benign Man-Thing.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-22.<\/strong>\u00a0X-Force try to talk to Jackson Strode.<\/em><\/p>\n

Presumably they figure that if they can examine him, they can work out how to cure (or at least block) the other infectees. This particular Man-Thing has somehow retained his regular personality.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong>\u00a0Weapon Plus.<\/em><\/p>\n

The clear implication is that this is a sequel to writer Benjamin Percy’s 2020 one-shot\u00a0Weapon Plus: World War IV.<\/em> That issue revealed that the Weapon Plus Project’s Weapon IV was a super-soldier created using a stolen version of Ted Sallis’s Man-Thing serum. His name was Jackson Strode, and he eventually fled after realising that he was never going to be cured no matter how many missions he did. This is presumably the “good” Man-Thing seen elsewhere in the issue, although he’s not drawn in quite the same way. In the earlier story, he could change back into human form, though he was having increasing difficulty in doing so. According to the data page following this scene, Strode can no longer do that. Strode is a monumentally obscure character, but to be fair, none of his back story is really necessary to follow this story.<\/p>\n

Dr Bloodroot is a new character.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Data page: Cecilia Reyes’ notes on the new Man-Thing.<\/p>\n

“Man-Slaughter” is the name given to Jackson Strode in the solicitation copy for\u00a0Weapon Plus: World War IV<\/em>, though it doesn’t appear in the story itself.<\/p>\n

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

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-FORCE vol 6 #21 “Fear of a Green Planet” by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara, Robert Gill & Guru-eFX COVER \/ PAGE 1. X-Force fight Man-Slaughter. PAGES 2-9.\u00a0Flashback: X-Force encounter a Man-Thing. More fully: Sage despatches X-Force to the Warroad site on […]<\/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-6890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6890","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=6890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6892,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6890\/revisions\/6892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}