{"id":7774,"date":"2022-04-09T22:09:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-09T21:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7774"},"modified":"2022-04-09T22:09:18","modified_gmt":"2022-04-09T21:09:18","slug":"x-force-annual-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7774","title":{"rendered":"X-Force Annual #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-FORCE ANNUAL vol 3 #1<\/strong>
\n“Lab Work”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Nadia Shammas<\/strong>
\nArtist: Rafael Pimentel<\/strong>
\nColourist: Carlos Lopez<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

X-FORCE ANNUAL.<\/strong>\u00a0This is the third\u00a0X-Force Annual\u00a0<\/em>#1. The others were in 1992 and 2010. There was also an unnumbered annual in 1999.<\/p>\n

This issue seems to take place between\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #26-27.<\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Wolverine, Domino and Kid Omega versus Orchis’s Sentinels.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Sage has doubts about the Beast, and calls Emma Frost.<\/em><\/p>\n

As we’ll find out later, the Beast has sent the X-Force field team (Wolverine, Domino and Kid Omega) on a mission to retrieve a shipment stolen by Orchis from Hellfire Trading. For reasons which will become apparent as the story goes on, Sage is rightly sceptical about this whole thing, and suspects a trap, but the Beast is insistent. This story doubtless contributes to the breakdown in Sage and Beast’s relationship seen in\u00a0X-Force<\/em> #27.<\/p>\n

Erta Ale<\/strong> is a volcano in Ethiopia. It’s a rare example of a volcano which actually has a lake of lava; not only that, it’s had one since 1906.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong>\u00a03-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Emma Frost comes to speak to the Beast.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emma Frost<\/strong> makes it pretty clear right from the outset that as far as she’s aware there\u00a0is<\/em> no stolen shipment of Krakoan flowers. As the Beast points out, she’s no longer directly involved in Hellfire Trading’s operations following the end of\u00a0Marauders<\/em> vol 1, so she wouldn’t necessarily know, but we’re clearly invited to be sceptical of Hank here.<\/p>\n

“Our little heart-at-heart at the Gala”.<\/strong> In\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> vol 7 #13. Emma took the Beast to task over his mind-controlling the whole nation of Terra Verde.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-7.<\/strong>\u00a0X-Force approach the volcano.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Beast has told X-Force that Orchis are reverse engineering Krakoan flowers here, which is supposed to be the real issue. Supposedly, Beast claims to have intelligence to this effect. It’s pretty obvious from the rest of the story that this is a lie.<\/p>\n

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

PAGES 9-14.\u00a0<\/strong>X-Force get stuck in customised traps.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gosh, this is a classic trope we haven’t seen in a while, and certainly not in the grim and gritty world of\u00a0X-Force<\/em>. This is practically Arcade’s wheelhouse. Anyway, X-Force have been suckered into a trap so that Orchis can test their abilities.<\/p>\n

PAGE 15.<\/strong>\u00a0Emma and Beast continue to talk.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emma spells out even more explicitly that there is no stolen shipment of flowers. Moreover, Beast could easily have found this out for himself, making it clear that he hasn’t been duped. Beast, meanwhile, is more concerned about the fact that Sage must have tipped off Emma.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.<\/strong> Data page. Albert Carey, the Orchis scientist running this observation, is a new power. Most of this is just explaining the plot, but Kid Omega is apparently of particular importance because he’s “the key to understanding Cerebro and the plans for [redacted]”. Since Kid Omega has rarely had anything to do with Cerebro, I assume the idea here is that Orchis have a plan to exploit Cerebro to take out Krakoa’s psychics, and they want to test their anti-psychic technology on him as an example of the type. But who knows, maybe it’ll turn out that he specifically has some significance.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong>\u00a0Kid Omega hallucinates about his past.<\/em><\/p>\n

The pacing is a bit weird here, with a single panel of this scene continuing onto the next page.<\/p>\n

Orchis’s device triggers memories, apparently painful ones. Page 17 panel 4 is a panel of young Quentin after he accidentally killed his parents. We were told about this in issue #17, but the actual scene is new. Page 17 panel 6 is just a generic image of his ex-girlfriend Phoebe, who dumped him in issue #25.<\/p>\n

“Usually, I would have been killed by now.”<\/strong> Issue #17 laid great stress on how often Quentin gets killed on X-Force missions.<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.\u00a0<\/strong>Wolverine is experimented upon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Wolverine shouldn’t really be that surprised that magnets are effective against him. He lost his adamantium skeleton when Magneto tore it out. He was obsessed with it for years.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-21.\u00a0<\/strong>Domino’s powers free Wolverine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Orchis made two mistakes here: they didn’t realise just how unlikely Domino’s luck-manipulation can get when it needs to, but more to the point, it didn’t occur to them that her luck could manifest by freeing one of her teammates, so that they in turn could rescue her.<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-23.\u00a0<\/strong>Emma challenges the Beast.<\/em><\/p>\n

Beast continues to make excuses, but Emma is presumably correct in saying that Beast’s only motivation in sending X-Force on this mission was to find out the result of Orchis’s experiments. Emma raises directly the question of whether Beast’s agenda with X-Force is about protecting Krakoa or simply protecting his own position, which he rationalises as being about the protection of Krakoa. A possible reading would be that, having compromised himself to this degree in his fervour to protect Krakoa, the Beast is now desperate to preserve his position rather than have to face the consequences of what he has done; psychologically, he has an awful lot invested in the idea that he’s been doing necessary things that worked.<\/p>\n

PAGES 24-31.\u00a0<\/strong>X-Force make their escape with the core of the Orchis computer.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 32.\u00a0<\/strong>Emma spells out the point one more time.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 33.\u00a0<\/strong>X-Force report back to Beast.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kid Omega obviously suspects that the Beast isn’t just pleased that they stopped Orchis’s anti-psychic research – he’s pleased that he’s got their work to build on for himself. Given what he’s just been through, Kid Omega’s obviously not very pleased about that. It’s hard to tell whether he’s genuinely uncertain about what Beast meant or simply smart enough to keep his mouth shut and not show his hand. Of course, as a psychic, Kid Omega could simply read Beast’s mind – Hank suggested to Emma at the start of the issue that he\u00a0wouldn’t<\/em> be able to detect her reading his mind, although she’s a rather more subtle and skilled psychic that Kid Omega.<\/p>\n

PAGE 34.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-FORCE ANNUAL vol 3 #1 “Lab Work” Writer: Nadia Shammas Artist: Rafael Pimentel Colourist: Carlos Lopez Letterer: Joe Caramagna Editor: Mark Basso X-FORCE ANNUAL.\u00a0This is the third\u00a0X-Force Annual\u00a0#1. The others were in 1992 and 2010. There was also an unnumbered annual […]<\/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-7774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774","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=7774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7776,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774\/revisions\/7776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}