{"id":7007,"date":"2021-08-05T22:11:48","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T21:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7007"},"modified":"2021-08-05T22:11:48","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T21:11:48","slug":"x-men-2-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7007","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #2 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 #2<\/strong>
\n“Fearless, Chapter Two: ‘Catching the Wave'”<\/strong>
\nby Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE<\/strong> 1. Group shot of the team. Of course, actually having a team is a significant thing we’re trying to stress in these issues.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.\u00a0<\/strong>A quote from Nova about the Annihilation Wave. This really isn’t my area of continuity, but I don’t think Nova\u00a0did<\/em> die fighting the Annihilation Wave, did he? Maybe he means it destroyed his home and lifestyle.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Rogue breaks up Gambit’s card game.<\/em><\/p>\n

The other players are the Black Cat, the Thing and the Rhino – hardly the worst people around, but Rogue clearly doesn’t want any bad publicity attending this new X-Men team. This feels like an unspoken change of attitude for the Krakoan era, where mutants have been prone to loudly proclaiming how little they care about what humans think. But the X-Men are based in New York, not Krakoa.<\/p>\n

The Bar with No Name<\/strong> is a supervillain underground bar, which has been around in the Marvel Universe since the 80s.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 4-5.<\/strong>\u00a0Gameworld announces its latest bet.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Annihilation Wave<\/strong> was, strictly speaking, the entire invading force of Annihilus from the 2006 crossover\u00a0Annihilation<\/em>. The bugs who appear in this issue were only one part of that force. They’re supposed to be a cosmic level threat, but it looks like their aura of unstoppability is going to go the way of the Juggernaut’s. Mind you, given that the original Annihilation Wave supposedly wiped out millions of worlds on day one, you’d have thought that even the most lunatic villain would be reluctant to release the thing at anything approaching full force. Realistically, what’s getting unleashed in this issue is an Annihilation Wave cell that gets nipped in the bud. The narrator describes it as “a small batch” later on.<\/p>\n

As far as I know, the Numari and Kriv Yu are new.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong>\u00a0Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-8.<\/strong>\u00a0The Annilation Wave is released in Kansas.<\/em><\/p>\n

The narrator tells us that there is no motivation for any of this beyond “sport” and “profit”. I’m not entirely sure I buy even mercenary profiteers being up for betting directly on the deliberate annihilation of planets for no other purpose, to be honest – that doesn’t really seem to me to map on to anything in the real world of cynical profiteering.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-10.<\/strong> Synch practices telepathy with Jean Grey.<\/em><\/p>\n

Incidentally, the recap page has gone back to calling her “Jean Grey”, and not “Marvel Girl”.<\/p>\n

“Your time with Wolverine in the Vault.”<\/strong> The Vault trilogy from X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #5, 18 and 19, where Synch, Wolverine (Laura) and Darwin were stuck in the Children of the Vault’s time-warping Vault for centuries from their standpoint. Wolverine doesn’t remember this, because she was resurrected from memories backed up before she entered the Vault. As a result, she doesn’t know that she and Synch were a couple in the Vault. Synch confirms here that he hasn’t told her yet, and is trying to find a way to.<\/p>\n

“Whoever threw this at us knew to avoid Arakko on the way into the system.”<\/strong> Really? There’s only one Arakko orbiting the Sun… can you\u00a0really<\/em> infer that anyone was consciously avoiding it, as opposed to just coming from the other direction anyway?<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-20.<\/strong> The X-Men defeat the Annihilation Wave.<\/em><\/p>\n

There’s a lot of powers being used in combination here, a recurring feature of the Krakoa-era X-Men when the story wants to justify mutants doing something extraordinary. In particular, it’s Jean and Polaris working together to read the mind of the dead guy who brought the Annihilation Wave to Earth. That’s an image of Gameworld and Cordyceps Jones she sees in his mind.<\/p>\n

The<\/strong>\u00a0Blob.<\/strong><\/em> Cyclops is thinking of the 1958 film starring Steve McQueen, which does indeed involve an alien blob that lands on Earth and gets bigger with everything it eats. We’re not being subtle with the influences here. The\u00a0other<\/em> Blob referenced by Cyclops, the B-list villain, is the standard barkeeper at the Green Lagoon tiki bar on Krakoa.<\/p>\n

The Unity Squad.<\/strong>\u00a0The Avengers team that Rogue served on in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Sunfire talks to the locals.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first panel seems to show young Shiro mourning a relative. In his origin story from X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #64, she was killed by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which obviously no longer works due to sliding time. Alpha Flight <\/em>vol 2 #7 tried to retcon it into being Sunfire’s grandfather (who survives but eventually dies of radiation poisoning). But by 2021, even that’s a stretch.\u00a0This story chooses to be vague about it rather than give a specific retcon.<\/p>\n

“By the time I realised I was born gifted…”<\/strong> Sunfire’s origin story involves his powers emerging while visiting Hiroshima, which is presumably what we see here.<\/p>\n

“I fought for my country.”<\/strong> In\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #64, Sunfire was being manipulated by a Japanese nationalist relative, and was motivated heavily by revenge for Hiroshima. It… wasn’t very subtle.<\/p>\n

“Then I fought for the X-Men.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Giant-Size X-Men<\/em> #1, though he quit almost immediately.<\/p>\n

“Later, I fought for the Avengers.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> #5.<\/p>\n

“I had already found fighting for country to be unfulfilling…”<\/strong> Like Cyclops in the previous issues, Sunfire seems to be disavowing the mutant nationalism angle of Krakoa and playing up the X-Men as fighting for all humanity.<\/p>\n

“I have always served a powerful interest, with the goal of self-enrichment.”<\/strong> That’s a really odd comment, unless he means his goal was enrichment in the spiritual sense.<\/p>\n

“Those were the words I spoke on behalf of myself at the Hellfire Gala.”<\/strong> I think this material is new. It presumably reflects what he said during the “election” sequence in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #21.<\/p>\n

Of course, we wind up with everything right with the world.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.<\/strong> Stasis kills his family.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the same guy we saw at the end of the previous issue, still working on his investigation into how mutants are resurrecting their dead. His file in the final paragraph seems to contain information about how the X-Men died while raiding the Orchis Forge in\u00a0House of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Last issue, Stasis was also shown working on human\/animal hybrids with the Oblivion Institute. One of them, Bornan, seems to be serving him here. His name and appearance suggest he’s meant to be a hybridised Bornean tiger.<\/p>\n

Bornan indicates that the wife and son who die here are just the latest in a series of despatched individuals. Since Stasis seems to be living on an ordinary suburban street, one wonders how the neighbours have failed to notice the steady turnover of fifties wives. Perhaps his influence runs beyond just the house.<\/p>\n

Stasis’s interest in human\/animal hybrids – and his name – suggest a parallel with the High Evolutionary, who doesn’t appear in this story, but\u00a0was<\/em> in Gameworld last issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> A memo from Dr Stasis.<\/p>\n

Stasis is described as a “Human \/ Resources Director” – humans\u00a0as<\/em> resources, presumably.<\/p>\n

Again, his memo is discussing the events of\u00a0House of X<\/em>. Leaving aside his bizarre agenda, his interpretation of events to date is essentially correct.<\/p>\n

Doctor Devo<\/strong> is the leader of Orchis, as seen in\u00a0House of X<\/em> and the previous volume of \u00a0X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“A reporter at the Bugle … seems to already have a whiff of the story…”<\/strong> Ben Urich, last issue. But how does Stasis know that…?<\/p>\n

PAGE 26.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: HIGH STAKES.<\/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 #2 “Fearless, Chapter Two: ‘Catching the Wave’” by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia COVER \/ PAGE 1. Group shot of the team. Of course, actually having a team is a significant thing we’re trying to stress […]<\/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-7007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7007","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=7007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7009,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7007\/revisions\/7009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}