{"id":7044,"date":"2021-08-19T22:35:59","date_gmt":"2021-08-19T21:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7044"},"modified":"2021-08-19T22:35:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T21:35:59","slug":"way-of-x-5-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7044","title":{"rendered":"Way of X #5 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>WAY OF X #5<\/strong>
\n“The Fall”<\/strong>
\nby Si Spurrier, Bob Quinn & Java Tartaglia<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Onslaught marches forward, dragging Nightcrawler behind him. This is pencilled by Giuseppe Camuncoli, but it really reminds me of Adam Kubert.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Professor X is resurrected.<\/em><\/p>\n

Legion and the Xorn brothers annihilated Professor X and a whole bunch of surrounding customers in the Green Lagoon last issue, when Onslaught started to manifest there. The first panel is Onslaught, in the “Patchwork Man” guise where he’s appeared as a bogeyman figure on Krakoa.<\/p>\n

Resurrection requires a telepath to restore the memories from backup. Normally Professor X does this, but it’s all hands on deck here, so Emma Frost, Jean Grey and even Exodus are all visible joining in. Oddly, they’re all drawn with their own Cerebro helmets, and I’m pretty sure there’s meant to be only a limited number of those in separate locations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The four kids also resurrected on this page are Pixie, Blink, DJ and Loa. Evidently they’ve had the idea of the Cruciball party implanted in them by Onslaught during the resurrection process.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Professor X confronts Legion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Legion retreated to Mars at the end of last issue, claiming that he was going to create a temple where mutants would be free of Onslaught’s influence. For some reason, although Mars is meant to be entirely terraformed, Professor X is wearing some sort of space suit here. David doesn’t seem to need any such support. Needless to say, Professor X’s communication skills with his son remain utterly hopeless, despite the generally fatherly role he’s played to many younger mutants over the years.<\/p>\n

The Xorn Brothers said last issue that they were hanging around with Legion in order to kill him if he got out of control. However, they seem to be serving as more general bodyguards here.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong>\u00a0Nightcrawler with Lost and Cortez.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nightcrawler is evidently trying to mediate between these two. In issues #3-4, Lost indicated (in quite vague terms) that Cortez had been responsible for doing something terrible to her, and that she wanted revenge on him, but was being blocked by the Krakoan amnesty. Just like the kids in issue #1, Lost and Cortez both believe that the availability of resurrection has made death meaningless (though you’d think people would at least be pain averse). Kurt clearly struggles to see how life can have meaning without death.<\/p>\n

Cortez is suffering the nauseating effects of Lost’s gravity manipulation powers.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Recap and credits. The recap helpfully points out that we’re meant to have been doing the three laws of Krakoa, one at a time; this issue brings us to “Respect this Sacred Land.”<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> Data page. Another excerpt from Kurt’s religious work. I think this is the first time it’s been named as the Book of the Spark (perhaps in reference to the vaguely spark-like X-logo at the top).<\/p>\n

Note that Kurt says he reached this stage in his pondering “Before the end, before the revelation was stolen from me by devilry and death.” This is explained on page 19: Kurt has his revelation, but then dies saving Mars, knowing that he won’t\u00a0remember it when he’s resurrected. On page 19, he specifically asks Fabian Cortez to tell him about his realisation. Apparently, Cortez honours this wish.<\/p>\n

Kurt’s basic point here is that, of the three Krakoan laws, the one about respecting the sacred land has the most promise as an organising principle for Krakoan society – which might seem blindingly obvious, but Kurt’s point is that the sheer vagueness of the rule makes it wonderfully open to interpretation and therefore a framework within which cultural ideas can grow. (He’s also right in a more prosaic sense that laws have to strike a balance between clarity and flexibility.)<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong>\u00a0Xavier continues talking to Legion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Xavier is completely wasting his time here, since Legion isn’t listening. He\u00a0does<\/em> have a point that someone who killed 63 people on the spot in order to contain Onslaught might be a little bit dangerous to have running around on Krakoa, particularly as Legion presumably hasn’t clearly explained what he was doing. Xavier frames his priorities as defending Krakoa in terms of a fairly literal interpretation of the law, which feels like a bit of a strain to connect this scene with the theme of the issue.<\/p>\n

While this series is clearly much more sympathetic to Legion than it is to Xavier, Legion himself acknowledges that he’s no good with people either, and he might well agree that the lack of a meaningful relationship between the two of them is not solely down to Xavier.<\/p>\n

Mercury and<\/strong> Loa.\u00a0<\/strong> Legion was interfering in their relationship, as a vehicle to get as Onslaught, in issue #3. As he says, he showed no particular regard for the wedge he drove between them.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-13.<\/strong> Nightcrawler threatens Cortez and Lost with death.<\/em><\/p>\n

His plan, from the look of it, is to confront them with death in a way so drastic as to force them to take it seriously. This actually seems to be working until Onslaught intervenes to stop Lost from revealing her back story. That might be because it relates directly to Onslaught, but it seems more likely that he just doesn’t want people communicating instead of fighting.<\/p>\n

Traditional continuity would have it that this stunt would be fatal for Kurt too, by the way – when he teleports, he’s supposed to reappear with the same speed he had before. So if he’s falling from an airplane then he only has a short window in which to teleport and still land safely.<\/p>\n

“There are millions awaiting the gift of life you think so meaningless.”<\/strong> The mutants slaughtered on Genosha. As Nightcrawler says, every mutant who gets resurrected pushes someone else a bit further down the queue.<\/p>\n

“We are the sacred land.”<\/strong> Nightcrawler is claiming here that the “land” is figurative and refers to Krakoan society in general.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.<\/strong> Data page. A report on the Phobos incident with annotations from an irritable Abigail Brand. She mentions here that she’s relocating her command to the Keep (the S.W.O.R.D. station around Mars, introduced in\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1). Presumably we’ll see more of that in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGE 15.<\/strong>\u00a0Abigail addresses the people of Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n

Panel 2 shows Dust, presumably still dealing with the sandstorm from last issue.<\/p>\n

The alien ambassadors in panel 3 appear to be randoms, aside from the Skrull on the right, who might be Paibok.<\/p>\n

The defiant lunatics in panel 4 are the Arakkii. The one on the right appears to be Sobunar, either miscoloured or standing in a lot of red light.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.<\/strong>\u00a0Storm, Professor X and Legion react.<\/em><\/p>\n

Storm is the regent of Arakko, as established in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D. <\/em>#6. The narration confirms that we’re still only “mere days” after the Hellfire Gala.<\/p>\n

Legion figures out that Onslaught’s emergence on Krakoa is to do with resurrection. Apparently he’s being empowered by the bits of people that are lost when they’re resurrected, due to their memories being reset to the last back-up. Let’s not ask too closely about how that works; this is psionics as magic, and it’s the coherence of the symbolism that matters. It’s an explanation that fits with Onslaught’s appearance as a “patchwork man” in earlier issues, but also aligns nicely with Onslaught’s own origin as a creature arising from the merger of elements drawn from Professor X and Magneto.<\/p>\n

Over the page, Legion continues to voice his theory that Onslaught fills the gaps left by these lost memories. If this is right – and if Onslaught isn’t dealt with – then it goes to the heart of resurrection as a project.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-20.<\/strong>\u00a0Nightcrawler dies putting the moon back.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Cheese toasties.”<\/strong> Call back to issue #1, where Nightcrawler tried to pick up a conversation with Pixie after her resurrection, and she didn’t remember.<\/p>\n

Cortez<\/strong>, in this interpretation, is driven to crave acceptance by his own self-loathing. He apparently\u00a0does<\/em> embrace Kurt’s argument here, which is potentially interesting. As already noted, Kurt’s data page earlier in the issue strongly implies that Cortez will at some point honour Kurt’s request to be reminded of his revelation.<\/p>\n

The flashback panels in page 19 tier 3 are mostly repeats of specific panels from earlier in the series.<\/p>\n