{"id":6893,"date":"2021-07-10T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-10T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6893"},"modified":"2021-07-10T20:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-10T19:30:00","slug":"x-men-1-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=6893","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN vol 6 #1<\/strong>
\n“Fearless, Chapter One: In Threes”<\/strong>
\nby Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGES 1-2.<\/strong>\u00a0The new X-Men team in battle in New York. That’s the main cover, obviously. There are tons of variants.<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong> 3-5.<\/strong>\u00a0The back story of Feilong.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the first appearance of Kelvin Heng, a self-made scientific genius who was on the verge of beginning his own project to terraform Mars when the Krakoans marched in and took the place over in\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men\u00a0<\/em>#1. Though we didn’t see Feilong himself in that issue, we did see the probe sent by the company that shares his name. The word “feilong” refers to a flying dragon and isn’t particularly unusual as a name for a Chinese company. We establish here that Feilong went to the trouble of altering his own body so that he could live on Mars – an effort now entirely redundant following the Krakoan terraforming.<\/p>\n

Nikola Tesla.<\/strong> We’re told that Feilong is a descendent of Nikola Tesla via his mother, described as “a Nobel Prize winner from Serbia”. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was indeed ethnically Serbian (though he was born in modern-day Croatia), but he emigrated to the United States in 1884 and had no children – indeed, no known relationships. However, Tesla’s name should be ringing alarm bells in a Hickman-adjacent comic, since he was a major character in Hickman’s much-delayed\u00a0S.H.I.E.L.D..\u00a0<\/em>In that series, he has super powers and goes by the name “Night Machine”. And he\u00a0does<\/em> have an adoptive son, Leonid.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the real world, that are no Serbian Nobel Prize winners. (There have been two from Yugoslavia, but they were both Bosnian.)<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Recap and credits. The small print now reads “Heroes of Krakoa”.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-9.<\/strong>\u00a0Cyclops meets Ben Urich.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Treehouse<\/strong> is, of course, new. It keeps the Krakoan theme of everything being plant-based, with a giant tree \u00a0as a skyscraper. Notably, though, the heroes of Krakoa have chosen to set up their headquarters in New York rather than on Krakoa itself. Krakoa already had a presence in New York – we’ve seen the embassy in\u00a0Children of the Atom<\/em>. Cyclops seems to be distancing himself a little bit from the mutant nationalism of Krakoa, expressly disavowing any good-for-a-human angle when speaking to Ben Urich. He was making similar we-are-all-alike comments in the previous issue, none of which is entirely on message for the Krakoan era. That said, he’s still put a massive Krakoan tree in the middle of New York.<\/p>\n

Ben Urich<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0Daredevil<\/em> supporting character who’s been around since the late 1970s and basically serves as the epitome of quality journalism in the Marvel Universe.<\/p>\n

Seneca Gardens.<\/strong> As spelled out more directly later in the issue, the Treehouse’s park is named in reference to Seneca Village, a settlement founded by free African-Americans in the 19th century, only to get demolished to make way for Central Park. (In fairness to the planners of Central Park, it wasn’t their first choice – they tried twice to acquire Jones’s Wood on the upper east side, and lost in the courts each time. But that still leaves the question of why the result was different with Seneca Village…)<\/p>\n

Jumbo Carnation.<\/strong> Jumbo Carnation died in\u00a0New X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #134. As Urich says, that story involved some confusion about whether he had died of a drug overdose or a hate crime – it eventually turned out to be an overdose. Krakoa’s resurrection facilities are still not meant to be public knowledge, and apparently the many thousands of mutants living there have been quite good at keeping their mouths shut. So Jumbo Carnation’s return has thus far gone unexplained.<\/p>\n

It’s a little odd that Cyclops doesn’t have a pre-planned response to this question, since it’s a very obvious one for someone to ask. Presumably the X-Men have been relying on the general public to just shrug and assume that another superhuman has inexplicably returned from the dead, as they tend to do.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-12.<\/strong>\u00a0Scott and Jean.<\/em><\/p>\n

The zoning board of Manhattan.<\/strong> Evidently the Treehouse is being presented to the New York authorities as a\u00a0fait accompli<\/em>. Well, the X-Men got away with it when they plonked the Mansion in Central Park a few years back in X-Men: Gold<\/em>. In fact, despite what Cyclops says here, they\u00a0did<\/em> have to deal with the city authorities in that storyline.<\/p>\n

Generally, the X-Men are setting up home here and presenting themselves as a traditional superhero team, inviting phone calls from the general (human) public.<\/p>\n

John Proudstar\u00a0<\/strong>is the original Thunderbird, who died in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #95.<\/p>\n

PAGE 13.<\/strong> Data page about the origin of the treehouse. Note that again, despite their tag as the heroes of Krakoa, the X-Men are expressly positioned as defending the whole world. This is, at the very least, an outreach project.<\/p>\n

The Audobon Society<\/strong> is basically the US equivalent of the RSPB.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-25.<\/strong>\u00a0Fighting time.<\/em><\/p>\n

A thing crashes in New York for the X-Men to fight. Nice traditional superheroics. The attacker is a machine, always a bit of a warning sign in Hickman-era cosmology. It’s identified later on as “the Mind Reaver”.<\/p>\n

Sunfire has a new costume, a little unusual for the Krakoan era, where most people choose to cycle through their greatest hits as a wardrobe.<\/p>\n

The jointly-piloted robot, aside from evoking a whole bunch of anime, is another example of mutants combining their powers to be greater than the sum of their parts -a \u00a0recurring theme in the Krakoan era.<\/p>\n

Mainly, though, this is a chance to get a good extended action sequence into the extra-length debut issue and let everyone show off their powers – and, perhaps most important, to send a clear message that this is now a more conventional superhero book in which an actual team behave as such.<\/p>\n

PAGE 26.<\/strong>\u00a0The X-Men debrief.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a thing from outer space and, as Wolverine points out, its focus on “mammalian” brains is a bit odd – why would alien invaders be concerned about specifically one category of animal?<\/p>\n

PAGES 27-29.<\/strong>\u00a0Gameworld.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s a space casino, and owner\u00a0Cordyceps Jones<\/strong> is running a game to encourage people to take out the earthlings before they get any further. Presumably it’s the terraforming of Mars in\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1 that’s prompted this response (“Let’s take out the Earthlings before they ruin a planet we all care about.”)<\/p>\n

Jones’ only previous appearance was in 2017’s\u00a0Rocket<\/em> #4, where he was depicted as a spore that possessed host bodies. Since we last saw him, he’s apparently taken over and entirely consumed this poor schmuck. A cordyceps is a type of (mostly parasitic) fungus.<\/p>\n

Among the crowd of gamblers – and singled out on page 29 panel 5 – is\u00a0the High Evolutionary<\/strong>, the cosmic scientist type. Not exactly a villain so much as a scientist of questionable perspective, the High Evolutionary is at least a very serious type of character, who wouldn’t normally have any interest in hanging around in a place like this. So he’s presumably here to keep an eye on something.<\/p>\n

PAGE 30.<\/strong> Data page. A column written by Ben Urich in the Daily Bugle.<\/p>\n

Ben’s comments about Krakoa claiming Mars for themselves rather than for all humanity echo comments that were made in\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> itself. Cyclops seems to be conspicuously reaching out to try and bridge that gap.<\/p>\n

The United Kingdom broke off its trade agreement with Krakoa in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> #21. I’m not quite clear what Ben means when he says that fewer countries\u00a0recognise<\/em> Krakoa than before the Gala – recognition normally means just recognising that a country exists, and I don’t recall any scenes in the Gala tie-ins which indicated that anyone was now taking the view that Krakoa wasn’t a country at all.<\/p>\n

New Attilan<\/strong> was the Inhumans’ capital city during the period in 2014 or so when Marvel were trying to replace mutants with Inhumans for reasons of licensing synergy. As Ben says, it hovered over New York and generally looked intimidating.<\/p>\n

The Sentry<\/strong> did indeed have a huge Watchtower in New York, and was erased from everyone’s memories for a time. The original gimmick of the Sentry was to imply that he was a Silver Age Superman-type character who had always been there and just never got mentioned before – the eventual reveal being that he\u00a0had<\/em> been, and it got wiped from all our memories.<\/p>\n

PAGES 31-34.<\/strong>\u00a0The Oblivion Institute<\/em><\/p>\n

The “Oblivion Institute” and “Dr Stasis” are new. They seem to be trying to hybridise humans with animals, which means this is another post-humanity project of the sort that the Hickman-era X-Men get very nervous about. Like Feilong, the narrator here considers that his years of labour have been overshadowed by the mutants.<\/p>\n

His pinboard shows him working on an investigation into how the mutants are resurrecting their dead. Of the two photos in the final panel, one shows Jumbo Carnation. I’m not entirely clear who the other one is meant to be.<\/p>\n

PAGE 35.<\/strong> Data page. “Space lawyer” Murd Blurdock invites clients to claim compensation for distress caused by the terraforming of Mars. This is a callback to the similar poster that appeared in\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> vol 4 #1, with the same art (which comes from\u00a0Rocket<\/em> #2). It almost certainly won’t matter, but Murd is a parody of Daredevil – he’s secretly the one guy who can see, in a race who rely on echo-location, and he fights crime as Seeing Being, the Sentient Without Self-Preservation.<\/p>\n

PAGE 36.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: KANSAS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #1 “Fearless, Chapter One: In Threes” by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia COVER \/ PAGES 1-2.\u00a0The new X-Men team in battle in New York. That’s the main cover, obviously. There are tons of variants. PAGES 3-5.\u00a0The […]<\/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-6893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893","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=6893"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6896,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6893\/revisions\/6896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}