{"id":7159,"date":"2021-09-30T22:37:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T21:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7159"},"modified":"2021-09-30T22:37:25","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T21:37:25","slug":"inferno-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7159","title":{"rendered":"Inferno #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>INFERNO vol 2 #1<\/strong>
\nby Jonathan Hickman, Valerio Schiti & David Curiel<\/strong><\/p>\n

INFERNO.<\/strong> “Inferno” was the name of the big X-books crossover of 1989, in which demons invaded Manhattan. On the face of it, this series has nothing to do with it. But we’ll see.\u00a0Inferno<\/em> vol 1, if you’re wondering, was one of the miniseries from the\u00a0Secret Wars<\/em> event of a few years back.<\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Moira stands over the fallen members of the Quiet Council.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Opening quote from Omega Sentinel. It’s from page 12 panels 4-5.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong> Emma resurrects Charles.<\/em><\/p>\n

Obviously a flash forward. This scene is a direct callback to the opening two pages of\u00a0House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1, in which Professor X resurrected the X-Men after their first suicide mission against Orchis. The layouts are basically the same. This time it’s Emma resurrecting Professor X and another guy who isn’t easy to recognise – presumably Magneto?<\/p>\n

The line “To me, my X-Men” was used by Xavier in the original (and was the only line of dialogue in the scene). Emma’s line here is new. Xavier is cast in the role that Cyclops had originally. Xavier has been killed and resurrected before in the Krakoa era, but this is very clearly presenting a role reversal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-7.<\/strong> Data pages about Orchis.<\/p>\n

Page 5 is largely a straight summary for anyone coming to this new. We have indeed seen Orchis actively recruiting allies, mainly via Henry Peter Gyrich, in other titles.<\/p>\n

Page 7 is a list of failed attacks on the Orchis Forge space station, representing an increasingly desperate effort by the mutants to destroy Nimrod before Orchis can attack mutants. Since many of them are listed as “result unknown”, this is apparently from the Krakoan point of view. Mainly, the approach is to keep chucking X-Force in there and hoping for the best – and then resurrecting them every time. They’ve tried some other things too, including something involving a “Mystique gateway” (the exact details being unclear, since those entries are still ascribed to X-Force).<\/p>\n

At the bottom are three attacks by allies, two of which are unredacted. The Technet<\/strong> are alien bounty hunters initially introduced in the 1980s\u00a0Captain Britain<\/em> run, who also appeared regularly in\u00a0the original run of\u00a0Excalibur. <\/em>A flashback to their attack can be seen in page 11 panel 4.\u00a0The Brood<\/strong> are the longstanding\u00a0Alien<\/em> knock-offs, who have been under the control of\u00a0Broo<\/strong> since\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #8. Their attack appears in flashback in page 11 panel 5.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-10.<\/strong>\u00a0X-Force attack… again.<\/em><\/p>\n

They get slaughtered, partly because Nimrod is very tough, but also for the reasons explained in the next scene. Nimrod’s “duplicate body” trick was previously seen in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #20; there’s just one of him, in two bodies.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.<\/strong> Orchis discuss the plot.<\/em><\/p>\n

The man is\u00a0Killian Devo<\/strong>, the director of Orchis. I’m fairly sure this is the first time he’s mentioned having any sort of temporal perception issue.<\/p>\n

The woman is\u00a0Alia Gregor<\/strong>, the creator of Nimrod. As we saw in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #20, Nimrod was intended to be a host body for the consciousness of Gregor’s husband (who was killed during the first mutant attack on the Forge in\u00a0House of X<\/em>). Nimrod is an obvious parallel to Krakoan resurrection. Mystique’s attempt to stop Nimrod from being created backfired and resulted in the personality being lost, hence Gregor’s objection to the description of Nimrod as her husband.<\/p>\n

As Alia points out, the repeated attacks by X-Force are a desperate strategy, because each time, Orchis learns more about how to beat them – but the mutants seem to learn nothing. In\u00a0House of X<\/em>, when the mutants first attacked the Forge, we established that it was too far away for Xavier to remain in contact with them and maintain backups. So, when they die and are resurrected, they come back with no memories of the attack. It must be obvious to Xavier that trying the same thing again and again is unlikely to work, so the implication is that he’s desperate.<\/p>\n

Note some wider implications of this. It’s not clear whether X-Force even know that they’ve been sent on all these missions. They may have been (deliberately?) restored to a point in time before of that happened. More alarmingly, the data pages earlier expressly said that the mutants don’t know what the outcome of the earlier X-Force missions was. (“Result unknown.”) If we’re to take that literally, does that mean Xavier has been resurrecting X-Force without actually being certain that they’re dead? (In\u00a0House of X<\/em> #4, Jean Grey was able to relay a message that the X-Men had been killed. It’s not clear from the incursion we see on pp8-10 that anyone’s doing the same here.)<\/p>\n

As it happens, the previous X-Forces are indeed dead, so crisis averted. But still.<\/p>\n

The cyborg on page 12 is\u00a0Karima Shapandar aka Omega Sentinel<\/strong>. She’s a former X-Man whose reasons for aligning with Orchis haven’t yet been explained. Interestingly, she makes the point that “someone remembers – it’s why they keep coming.” Whatever Karima has in mind, the line is clearly intended to bring to mind Moira MacTaggert, whose memories of her previous lives are the driving force behind current Krakoan policy, and the desperation to defeat Nimrod.<\/p>\n

PAGE 13.<\/strong> Recap and credits. The small print in the bottom left reads “AUTUMN, WINTER, SPRING, SUMMER”, referring to the four divisions of Krakoa’s Quiet Council ruling body. The top right reads “THE BOOKS OF DESTINY”, referring the books of prophecy written by Destiny that were a major plot point in\u00a0X-Treme X-Men<\/em> back in the day. Moira was seen reading some of them in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #20.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-20.\u00a0<\/strong>Moira’s third life.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an expansion of a scene from\u00a0House of X<\/em> #2, in which Moira celebrates her creation of a cure for the mutant gene, only to be instantly attacked, lectured and slaughtered by Mystique and Destiny. This scene is the root of Moira’s fear of Destiny, who specifically warns that she is older than Moira, and will become instantly aware of the changes that Moira seeks to bring about in her next life.<\/p>\n

More specifically…<\/p>\n

Page 14 is a new scene, but panel 2 is based on\u00a0House of X<\/em> #2 page 10, panel 4. In the original, she was holding up the cure, rather than a glass of champagne. Other than that, the layout is the same. In this version, her fellow scientists – Singh, Hatwell, Moorr and Gil – get names, and our attention is specifically drawn to the fact that it was a collaborative effort of five people. There’s an obvious allusion here to the Five, the mutants who combine their powers to achieve resurrection on Krakoa. The references to Moira’s dream also position her as a quasi-Xavier figure.<\/p>\n

Pages 15-18 and 20 are a re-drawn version of\u00a0House of X<\/em> #2 pages 11-15- not a reprint, but re-drawn with the exact same layouts. There are a couple of minor dialogue changes:<\/p>\n