{"id":7148,"date":"2021-09-23T22:05:53","date_gmt":"2021-09-23T21:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7148"},"modified":"2021-09-23T22:05:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T21:05:53","slug":"x-men-3-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7148","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #3 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 #3<\/strong>
\n“Fearless, Chapter 3: Problematic Fan”<\/strong>
\nby Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong>\u00a0The X-Men fight the Evolutionary Guard while the High Evolutionary looks on.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Data page. An opening quote from Mr Sinister.<\/p>\n

Herbert<\/strong> is the High Evolutionary, Herbert Wyndham. As Sinister points out, it’s surprising how little interest the High Evolutionary has taken in the X-Men over the years, given the premise of the team. Of course, in reality, the reason is that he’s a character generally associated with other books.<\/p>\n

“Anything remotely interesting about him comes from me.”<\/strong>\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #99 established that the Evolutionary did indeed know Mr Sinister (as “Dr Essex”) when he was a young scientist, that he “learned more from the theoretical heresies of Essex than conventional textbooks could ever have occurred”, and that the Evolutionary regarded Essex as a mentor and “old friend”. So for once, Sinister’s self-aggrandising claim has a basis in history.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong>\u00a0The Evolutionary’s ships arrive in Vietnam.<\/em><\/p>\n

The bridge<\/strong> with the giant hands holding it up is real. It’s called the Golden Bridge.<\/p>\n

Rogue<\/strong>‘s dislike of the High Evolutionary stems from her encounter with him as a member of the Avengers Unity Division in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> vol 2 #1-5, another Duggan storyline. It’s the arc which retconned Pietro and Wanda’s history to make them non-mutants. Rogue spends most of it held prisoner, and has Wonder Man’s mind separated from her body, much to her distress.<\/p>\n

The Evolutionary in that story is an amoral monster, casually wiping out millions of animal-people on Counter-Earth each time he decides he wants to wipe the slate clean and start his experiments afresh. So it’s hardly surprising that she formed a bad impression of him.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong>\u00a0The Evolutionary gets out.<\/em><\/p>\n

The woman with him is\u00a0Luminous<\/strong>, who was created by the Evolutionary using the DNA of Wanda and Pietro. She’s another character from that same\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> arc. She is his “daughter” only in the sense of being his creation.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5-7.<\/strong>\u00a0The Evolutionary explains the plot, and the fighting starts.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Its birth has caused dominoes to fall…”<\/strong> As he makes explicit later, the Evolutionary is referring to the attacks on Earth from Gameworld in issues #1-2, which he says were prompted by the colonisation of Mars in\u00a0Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

Nihility spheres<\/strong> appear to be an actual thing. I can’t find a clear explanation of what they are, but I can tell you that on interrogation by a plane-wave, their back-scattering efficiency is identically zero<\/a>. So now you know.<\/p>\n

The Evolutionary is basically telling us that humanity is doomed through its treatment of the Earth, except for a few people who might become posthuman – another mention of a repeating theme in the Krakoan era. But… can you really do “mutants brought Mars to life in an hour” and “humanity is doomed to ecological collapse” on the same page? I don’t think you can… At any rate, the Evolutionary is offering humanity a peaceful extinction over generations, which he considers to be kinder than the alternative.<\/p>\n

The Evolutionary Guard\u00a0<\/strong>are new, though as we’ll see, it’s basically another bunch of evolved-animal henchmen, which is standard for the Evolutionary. The name is obviously a pun on “Revolutionary Guard”. Duggan likes that joke – the\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> arc was called “Counter-Evolutionary”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong>\u00a09-17.\u00a0<\/strong>The fighting continues until Synch offers a blood sample.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Guard are new characters. Teslelephant is apparently an evolved elephant named in honour of Nikolai Tesla, which is wacky. Counter-Earth<\/strong> is their home planet, created by the High Evolutionary, and a feature of his mythology going back to the 70s.<\/p>\n

Luminous’s “I’ve heard of you and you’re turning out to be a tremendous disappointment” schtick is basically how she acted in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

War Captains<\/strong> haven’t been mentioned in a while, but Jean is basically suggesting that they call in the (very informal) Krakoan army.<\/p>\n

Note that\u00a0Synch and Wolverine<\/strong> are presented more like a couple here, playing off their long, long relationship in the previous volume while they were locked in the Vault. He remembers that, she doesn’t, and as far as we know he’s yet to tell her.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-19.<\/strong>\u00a0The Evolutionary tells the X-Men about Cordyceps Jones, then leaves.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jean picked up this image of Jones from the invaders in the previous issue. Apparently, during this scene Jean and the Evolutionary have the conversation shown on page 20.<\/p>\n

The depiction of the locals feels more than a little patronising (though the “please stay and eat with us” is a parallel to the ending of the previous issue). The locals aren’t peasant farmers, they’re theme park staff<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.<\/strong> Data page, expanding on the telepathic conversation between Jean and the Evolutionary. A few points here:<\/p>\n

First, the Evolutionary says that mutants are operating on a bigger and bigger scale, but they’re “not preparing for the small scale of the next conflict.” Back in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>, he did mention a coming Evolutionary War. Or perhaps he’s making a more general point that in his view the real battleground is genetics and the body itself.<\/p>\n

Second, the Evolutionary dislikes Gameworld for its lack of scientific principle. That’s pretty much in character for him. The Evolutionary positions himself here very much as an old-school “drive evolution forward” take on Apocalypse, though with more of an air of neutrality. He’s not always been written that way, but he’s one of those characters who really doesn’t have any consistency to speak of.<\/p>\n

Third, the Evolutionary describes Gameworld as “the natural progression of Mojoworld”. There’s an obvious parallel between the two in the general “smash things up for entertainment” sense. But is he suggesting there’s a literal connection between the two?<\/p>\n

PAGE 21.<\/strong>\u00a0Scott and Jean discuss the plot.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s not clear\u00a0why<\/em> they’re splitting the team, but presumably some of them are going to guard the Earth while the others head to Gameworld?<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong>\u00a0Gyrich tries to recruit Feilong to Orchis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Feilong thinks the attempt to get him to go to Mars is a suicide mission, and has plans of his own. But he’s going to join Orchis anyway, apparently. That should work out well.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.<\/strong>\u00a0Dr Stasis gives Ben Urich information about mutant resurrection.<\/em><\/p>\n

We saw in issue #1 that Urich was asking awkward questions about resurrection, and issues #1-2 have both covered Stasis investigating the phenomenon. The photo of Cyclops’s broken visor that he shows Urich is the same one that Stasis was looking at last issue. Recall, by the way, that Stasis was\u00a0also<\/em> keen on evolved animal men.<\/p>\n

“Back when the U.S. government loaned the services of a Super-Soldier to the Kingpin…”<\/strong> In\u00a0Daredevil<\/em> vol 1 #232-233. The “super-soldier” is Nuke.<\/p>\n

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

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #3 “Fearless, Chapter 3: Problematic Fan” by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia COVER \/ PAGE 1.\u00a0The X-Men fight the Evolutionary Guard while the High Evolutionary looks on. PAGE 2. Data page. An opening quote from Mr […]<\/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-7148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7148","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=7148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7150,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7148\/revisions\/7150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}