{"id":7866,"date":"2022-05-11T21:46:52","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T20:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7866"},"modified":"2022-05-11T21:46:52","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T20:46:52","slug":"x-men-11-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7866","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #11 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 #11<\/strong>
\n“A Busted Hand”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gerry Duggaan<\/strong>
\nArtist: Pepe Larraz<\/strong>
\nColourist: Marte Gracia<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The female X-Men standing over defeated thugs from Gameworld. They’re wearing their Hellfire Gala costumes from last year.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Opening quote. At the end of last issue, Gambit put Rogue in touch with Rocket, to get information about Gameworld (where Rocket happened to be anyway). Rocket clearly doesn’t fancy Gameworld’s chances now that the X-Men are coming.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: Mojo steers Gameworld towards Earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mojo.<\/strong> The last time we saw Mojo was in\u00a0X-Factor<\/em> #9, when a group led by Magik forced him to put a stop to slavery and mutant exploitation. That issue left him still notionally in charge, albeit under a forced pact. (“You’re partners with Krakoa now. Sign the #$%& dotted line.”) However, this flashback could easily take place before that, because X-Factor\u00a0<\/em>#9 was shortly before the Hellfire Gala, and Mojo is setting in train a plan which will become apparent shortly afterwards (in issue #1).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Basically, Gameworld used to be some sort of side project of Mojo, but the other investors were infected and taken over by Cordyceps Jones. Since Jones stole the casino from him, Mojo has decided to bring it down by – somehow or other – steering the gamblers into launching attacks on Earth. (Presumably the usual targets of Gameworld were backwater planets not under the protection of any of the major Marvel Universe empires.) Mojo figures that this is bound to draw the attention of the X-Men and the Avengers.<\/p>\n

It’s worth noting that throughout the rest of the issue, characters assume that Gameworld was turned towards Earth in some sort of anti-mutant scheme, specifically prompted by the colonisation of Arakko. But according to this scene, they’re wrong – Mojo didn’t even particularly care which superheroes would respond to the attacks.<\/p>\n

Mojo is surrounded by old-fashioned cathode ray televisions, a nod to the character’s background as a TV\/media parody (at least in his early X-Men appearances). Those TVs show the X-Men as they are now – in particular, Scott appears as Captain Krakoa. But if this scene shows Mojo setting in train the events of issue #1, then Scott plainly can’t be Captain Krakoa yet. So either his screens are showing the future, or it’s an art error.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong>\u00a0Lorna, Jean, Rogue and Laura arrive on Gameworld.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mysterium<\/strong> is a miracle metal which was recovered and unleashed onto the galactic economy by S.W.O.R.D., also at around the time of last year’s Hellfire Gala. It serves a similar role on the galactic stage to Krakoan drugs on Earth.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: Rocket explains the premise of Gameworld.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pretty straightforward. The colouring here is curiously subdued and bleak, presumably inviting us to take Gameworld seriously. It also lets Rocket wave a spade symbol at us, for what might be thematic reasons.<\/p>\n

Despite the reference to “Gambit’s extralegal gambling den”, as best I can tell, there’s nothing illegal about private social poker games in New York.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong>\u00a0The X-Men go their separate ways<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And Polaris is immediately distracted. It’s not subtle, this stuff.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.<\/strong>\u00a0The Avengers visit Sunfire.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sunfire doesn’t accept that there’s any problem with increased attacks on Earth – even though it must be completely obvious to the Avengers. Presumably that’s the party line, and driven by a concern that it’ll be blamed on Arakko. Understandably, the Avengers think this is pretty ridiculous and seem to be trying to drive a wedge between Sunfire and his teammates by pointing out (quite correctly) that he’s been left behind. It doesn’t seem to be working.<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.<\/strong>\u00a0Captain Krakoa and Synch head towards Dr Stasis’ base.<\/em><\/p>\n

The narrator refers to Scott as “Captain Krakoa” (as does the recap page).<\/p>\n

As already noted, Scott’s assumptions about why Earth is being attacked are wrong, per the opening scene.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.<\/strong>\u00a0Cordyceps captures Laura.<\/em><\/p>\n

Straightforward.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-14.<\/strong> Synch fights Bornan.<\/em><\/p>\n

We established in issue #7 that Synch can now copy the powers of people that he’s spent a long time around, even if they aren’t actually present; hence his copying Laura’s powers here. (You can tell it’s Laura rather than Logan from the number of claws.) Synch has “been Wolverine longer than anyone alive” because of the time he spent with Laura in the Vault – centuries from their perspective – which only he remembers.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-18.<\/strong>\u00a0Jean confronts the gamblers.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re back to Jean disavowing her codename and asserting that she’s an adult nowadays. Well and good, though we did this cycle in the 90s, and there’s at least something of a social pressure on Krakoa to choose “mutant names”.<\/p>\n

I’m not convinced this story gets the tone right. Granted, the planet that’s destroyed by the gamblers in this scene might well be uninhabited. Nonetheless, everyone feels weirdly relaxed about what logically ought to be casual genocide. Even the X-Men seem to treat it as more of a posturing opportunity than an existential threat. It feels like the book can’t make up its mind how seriously it wants to invite us to take this.<\/p>\n

“I did not even let the Phoenix command me.”<\/strong> Um… what? Jean’s inability to control the power of Phoenix is literally the plot of the Dark Phoenix Saga. You can argue that that technically wasn’t Jean, but it’s still her personality.<\/p>\n

PAGE 19.<\/strong> Data page. A memo from Dr Stasis to his Oblivion Institute. Bornan was disposing of bodies when Synch met him earlier in the issue, so apparently Stasis really did get his creations to kill themselves – but he promises a “next life” at Orchis, so is he making any progress in his obsession with resurrection?<\/p>\n

Captain America was decidedly unsure about Arakko at the Hellfire Gala, and clearly did feel a bit threatened by the exclusion of non-mutants from the colonisation of Mars. If he’s saying the sort of things quoted here, then he’s either come to terms with it or he’s trying to be diplomatic in public.<\/p>\n

PAGES 20-24.<\/strong>\u00a0Cyclops confronts Dr Stasis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cyclops has apparently changed back into his regular costume at some point.<\/p>\n

The “last time” he and Stasis “were alone together” is when Stasis publicly killed him in issue #7.<\/p>\n

The man under the mask is, obviously, a version of Mr Sinister, but with a black club symbol on his forehead instead of Sinister’s red diamond. Presumably this guy is some sort of creation of Mr Sinister, and we’ll find out more about that in due course. If Stasis has Sinister’s memories, then his “have we met” must be sarcastic. If he doesn’t… well, he’s developed an interest in Scott independently, which would make sense given Sinister’s traditional obsessions.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Sinister’s origin story,\u00a0Further Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix<\/em> #3, the red diamond on his forehead is presented as a “mark of Apocalypse”, who transformed him. It had nothing to do with playing cards.<\/p>\n

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

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #11 “A Busted Hand” Writer: Gerry Duggaan Artist: Pepe Larraz Colourist: Marte Gracia Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. The female X-Men standing over defeated thugs from Gameworld. They’re wearing their Hellfire Gala […]<\/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-7866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7866","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=7866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7868,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7866\/revisions\/7868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}