{"id":7256,"date":"2021-10-28T20:01:02","date_gmt":"2021-10-28T19:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7256"},"modified":"2021-10-28T20:01:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T19:01:02","slug":"s-w-o-r-d-9-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7256","title":{"rendered":"S.W.O.R.D. #9 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #9
\n“Friends in High Places”
\nby Al Ewing, Jacopo Camagni & Fernando Sifuentes<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Henry Peter Gyrich holds Abigail Brand, Manifold and Frenzy in a globe, with the Orchis symbol behind him. Don’t worry, it’s purely symbolic.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Guardian and Gyrich talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Guardian.<\/strong> We last saw Guardian in issue #6, leaving the Hellfire Gala. He was overwhelmed by the terraforming of Mars, and Henry Gyrich was moving in to recruit him for Orchis. It’s interesting that Gyrich chose to make his pitch in the name of Orchis, rather than in his official capacity as commander of Alpha Flight. It’s still not\u00a0exactly<\/em> clear how much Guardian knows about Orchis, or what he’s been told about their agenda – we know from issue #3 that aspects of Orchis’s organisation are internally confidential and that even Gyrich has only seen a redacted version of their organisation chart.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As a proper, long-established superhero, Guardian is by far the least villainous character to align himself with Orchis to date – though the group does already include Omega Sentinel, who was briefly an X-Man. (More of her when we get to\u00a0Inferno<\/em>.) Guardian has often been written as a morally dodgy character – there’s a string of\u00a0Alpha Flight<\/em> stories which strongly imply that he had a hand in Wolverine’s creation and that it wasn’t just coincidence that he happened to stumble across him in the wilderness. On that reading, he’s one of the “proper superheroes” most likely to sign up for something like Orchis. At the same time, he’s certainly not an anti-mutant zealot, and Wolverine has long been written as regarding him as a close friend.<\/p>\n

Gyrich’s line of argument focusses on the antics of \u00a0Omega mutants as the concern, and grand-scale world-changing stuff like annexing Mars. He suggests that the concern isn’t really lower-powered guys like Wolverine, and generally tries to dissociate Wolverine from being involved. That’s clearly his angle for Guardian. How far it reflects Gyrich’s own concerns is another matter – he’s been involved in anti-mutant projects going back to Project Wideawake in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

What exactly does Guardian think he’s signed up for? Is he trying to reclaim Mars for humanity?<\/p>\n

Gyrich’s office<\/strong>, with the traditional office furnishings in the middle of a space station, was previously seen in issue #3.<\/p>\n

“Mutant revolutionaries – some of them known terrorists…”<\/strong> “Revolutionaries” is highly dubious, at least if it’s referring to colonising Mars. “Terrorists” is fair enough, though, given that the Omega mutants involved in the exercise included Magneto and Exodus.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong>\u00a0Recap and credits. Incidentally, the small print has been changing over the life of this book:<\/p>\n

#1 – “Mutants of the World Unite – Reign of X”
\n#2 – “King Black – Knull”
\n#3 – “King Black – Knull”
\n#4 – “King Black – Knull”
\n#5 – “Snarkwar – Death is Near”
\n#6 – “Hellfire Gala – SWORD”
\n#7 – “Annihilation – Death is Here”
\n#8 – “Planet Arakko – Death is Here”
\n#9 – “Planet Arakko – Death is Here”<\/p>\n

Make of that what you will.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.<\/strong>\u00a0Empress Xandra and her entourage arrive on Arakko.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cannonball<\/strong> is accompanying this group because they need a mutant in order to use the Krakoan gates. (The Krakoan gate on Chandilar was planted back in the first\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> arc.) As Abigail says, Cannonball now lives mainly in the Shi’ar Empire and has been deputised into the Shi’ar forces.<\/p>\n

The security team<\/strong> standing behind Frenzy are Random and Forearm, who are named later in the issue. We last saw them in this role in issue #5. Forearm isn’t normally drawn with grey hair, though, so I’m wondering if something’s gone wrong here. (He’s shown in issue #5 in weird lighting and it might be that the panel was misread.)<\/p>\n

The Shi’ar delegation<\/strong> (from left to right) are\u00a0Deathbird, Titan, Cannonball, Fang, Quantum, Xandra, Gladiator\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Manta<\/strong>. Xandra is the current Shi’ar Empress, as seen over in\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> and\u00a0X-Men<\/em>. Deathbird’s role as her mentor was also established in X-Men. The others are all established members of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard, the Shi’ar superheroes who started life as knock-offs of the Legion of Superheroes back in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Storm<\/strong> is absent because she’s facing yet another challenge from a random Arakkan, under the system that was established in the previous issue (which is where she defeated Tarn). The “noontide seat” refers to the grouping of the seets on Arakko’s ruling Great Ring into dawn, day and dusk. Storm sits in the middle of the day grouping.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> Data page. Abigail Brand’s top secret notes on Cable. The small print reads “Deep Secret” and “Deny Everything”.<\/p>\n

In the top half (which is apparently the slightly less secret bit), Abigail basically acknowledges that she appointed teen Cable as S.W.O.R.D.’s security chief because of his family connections rather than because of his innate abilities. Cable pretty much figured this out for himself in the\u00a0Cable Reloaded<\/em> one-shot.<\/p>\n

Abigail now views Cable as a nuisance. Scott and Jean, she says, have “excised themselves neatly from Krakoan politics” – she’s referring to them moving to New York to lead an X-Men team, which does indeed seem to be distancing itself from Krakoa in some respects. And now Abigail is saddled with a Cable who’s potentially a threat to her schming.<\/p>\n

The other part of the note suggests that Abigail has plans of some sort that involve exploiting Cable’s techno-organic virus, potentially as a way to get rid of him. She makes the point that Cable’s virus has sometimes been claimed to be essential to keep his psychic powers under control – which would explain why he was resurrected with the virus intact. Al Ewing also takes the opportunity to tell us that Cable\u00a0sometimes<\/em> uses prosthetics for his left arm (as in recent stories and his earliest appearances), and\u00a0sometimes<\/em> uses his techno-organic infection to form a left arm (as in… a lot of the intervening years), thus resolving that apparent contradiction.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong>\u00a0Abigail talks to Cable.<\/em><\/p>\n

“That debacle with Phobos”<\/strong> refers to\u00a0Way of X<\/em> #5, where Nightcrawler had to stop the moon from crashing into Mars. The S.W.O.R.D. personnel didn’t do a great job in dealing with the emergency.<\/p>\n

“The space threats the X-Men are having to deal with for us”<\/strong>\u00a0refers to the current storyline in\u00a0X-Men<\/em>, where alien gamblers have been sending assorted attackers against Earth.<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.<\/strong> Xandra asks to see Storm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Xandra calls Storm “my saviour”, referring to X-Men<\/em>\u00a0vol 5 #17 , where Storm rescued her from a kidnapper.<\/p>\n

PAGE 11.<\/strong>\u00a0The new Lethal Legion attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

There have been several “Lethal Legions” over the years, most completely irrelevant for our purposes. The last version was an assembly of aliens put together by the Grandmaster as opponents for the Black Order in\u00a0Avengers<\/em> #676, which was co-written by Al Ewing. These characters, however, seem to be entirely new, and are apparently bio-weapons being sold by some sort of interstellar arms manufacturer.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.<\/strong> Data page, with the sales pitch for the Lethal Legion. As I say, they’re all new characters. Orbis Extremis is said to be using “an ‘Orbis Stellaris’ brand organo-mechanical fusion shell, routed through the brain of an Alpha-class psychic sensitive”. “Orbis Stellaris” was the name of the alien ambassador representing the Galactis Rim Collective in issue #6, and we’ll see later that Gyrich has a connection with them.<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong> 13-20<\/strong>.\u00a0They fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

It goes badly until Storm shows up.<\/p>\n

The idea that Gladiator’s powers are linked to his self-confidence dates back to\u00a0Fantastic Four<\/em> vol 1 #250 from 1983. I love the line “extreme frequencies of infrashame”. And the sequence of a cheerful Titan stopping and dropping dead.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.<\/strong>\u00a0Gyrich and Guardian watch.<\/em><\/p>\n

“In my experience, getting past Storm’s powers just takes the right weapon.”<\/strong> Gyrich shot Storm with a Neutralizer in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> vol 1 #185, causing her to lose her powers for the next 40 issues.<\/p>\n

Gyrich’s mole<\/strong> in S.W.O.R.D. was previously mentioned in issue #3. Wiz Kid’s an unexpected choice – but at the same time, his history since the 1980s is a bit of a blank. Still, he’s sitting right in front of Abigail Brand as she says this – is he really on Gyrich’s side?<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads NEXT: INSIDE MAN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #9 “Friends in High Places” by Al Ewing, Jacopo Camagni & Fernando Sifuentes COVER \/ PAGE 1. Henry Peter Gyrich holds Abigail Brand, Manifold and Frenzy in a globe, with the Orchis symbol behind him. Don’t worry, it’s […]<\/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-7256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7256","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=7256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7258,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7256\/revisions\/7258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}