{"id":7882,"date":"2022-05-18T23:17:54","date_gmt":"2022-05-18T22:17:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7882"},"modified":"2022-05-18T23:17:54","modified_gmt":"2022-05-18T22:17:54","slug":"immortal-x-men-2-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7882","title":{"rendered":"Immortal X-Men #2 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>IMMORTAL X-MEN #2<\/strong>
\n“All Mankind’s Woes”
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Lucas Werneck<\/strong>
\nColourist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Storm, Exodus and Magneto fight Selene.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Hope reacts to Selene’s giant monster.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the creature that Selene created by bringing the Arakko gate to life at the end of the previous issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Recap and credits. Hope’s image is shown in colour, presumably to indicate that this is her spotlight issue. (The same was done with Mr Sinister last issue, but it wasn’t as obvious because as a Winter member, his group colour is a dark purple.)<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong>\u00a0Selene arrives in London.<\/em><\/p>\n

Coven Akkaba<\/strong> are villains from\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> – basically an anti-mutant mystical cult which has somehow or other acquired influence over the UK government. We’re not told quite why they’re dealing with Selene, but evidently the plan is for Selene to get herself onto the Quiet Council by proving her point that the mutants need someone who knows how to deal with mystical threats. Whatever she planned to do after that, the Coven clearly think it’s going to be helpful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Remember, in issue #1, Sinister had the benefit of information sent back in time by twenty-five previous iterations of himself, and on the basis of that information, he was convinced that Selene was bluffing when she made veiled threats in an attempt to get onto the Council. Her attack on Krakoa in this issue was apparently a deviation from what she had done in previous timelines.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong>\u00a0Hope leads the Five to deal with the attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

Exodus’s “M” word is “messiah”.<\/p>\n

Hope used to be more of an active leader figure, but in the Krakoan era she’s\u00a0mainly<\/em> been just a background figure operating the resurrection plot engine with her fellow Five members. Of course, she’s been getting more proactive lately.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong>\u00a0Storm and Magneto team up against the monster.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mutant powers in synergy being more than the sum of their parts is a standard theme of the Krakoan era.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong>\u00a0Doctor Nemesis warns everyone not to destroy the monster.<\/em><\/p>\n

Doctor Nemesis<\/strong> is mainly a character from\u00a0Way of X<\/em> \/\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> at the moment; for present purposes, suffice to say that he’s a friendly mad scientist. His basic point is that since the monster is an interdimensional portal brought to life, simply destroying it is going to cause damage to space-time. So just blowing it up on Krakoa is not an attractive option.<\/p>\n

Destiny<\/strong> is presumably getting agitated for similar reasons – there are timelines in which the creature is destroyed and reality gets horribly warped, and that’s either interfering with her powers, or leading her to see disturbing things.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-9.<\/strong>\u00a0Exodus and Hope.<\/em><\/p>\n

Exodus<\/strong> clearly inspires no confidence in Hope at all – she thinks he’s a religious lunatic – but beneath the religious language, much of what he actually\u00a0says<\/em> in this scene is fairly sensible. He’s got a reasonable point that Hope’s importance to Krakoa means she should be kept out of harm’s way, for a start. The unspoken issue with the Five going into battle in any form is that the whole Krakoan resurrection system depends upon them. If one of them dies in battle then they’re\u00a0not<\/em> coming back, and nor is anyone else, ever – unless another mutant with similar powers can take their place, but we’ve yet to see that happen. So there are good reasons why the Five have been treated as precious noncombatants. That seems to suit most of the Five okay – Egg, Tempus and Elixir were never comfortable in action, and Proteus seems happy enough just being \u00a0stable for once – but it’s out of character for Hope.<\/p>\n

The idea that Exodus’s powers are increased by having devoted followers is obscure, but it’s not new. Pinning down actual examples of it is not straightforward, but the 1997\u00a0Magneto<\/em> #3 does seem to suggest that he draws power from his followers when he’s leading the Acolytes, for example.<\/p>\n

Hope.\u00a0<\/strong>Obviously, Hope is trying to ride two horses here. She’s rejecting Exodus’s insistence that she’s a messiah figure, but taking advantage of that status to power herself up.<\/p>\n

“Dad” is her adoptive father Cable, who raised her in a complex time-travel storyline in the 2008-2010\u00a0Cable<\/em> series.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-13.<\/strong>\u00a0Mr Sinister powers up to fight the monster.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Some of the gifts I once gave myself…”<\/strong> Sinister used to be routinely portrayed as vastly powerful, something which has tailed off dramatically over the years.<\/p>\n

“Fight not with monsters in case you become a monster.”\u00a0<\/strong>This is a common rendering of an epigram from\u00a0Beyond Good and Evil<\/em> by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). It’s a mistranslation – what Neitzsche wrote is closer to “People who fight monsters should take care not to become one”, but without any particular implication that they should avoid the fight altogether. Either way, Sinister is ignoring Neitzsche’s advice.<\/p>\n

Chimeras.<\/strong> The possibility of Sinister developing mixtures of mutant genes has been a lurking promise since House of X<\/em>, and was also foreshadowed in\u00a0Hellions<\/em>. It’s generally been implied to be a big development, when he finally gets round to it.<\/p>\n

MGH<\/strong> is mutant growth hormone, a designer drug that shows up as a common background feature of the Marvel Universe.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-15.<\/strong>\u00a0Mr Sinister and Nightcrawler.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sinister seems to think that he’s easily manipulating Kurt by appealing to his sense of decency. In fact, it’s far from clear that Kurt is doing anything more than just being polite. After all, Sinister\u00a0did<\/em> fight the monster and contribute something useful.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.<\/strong>\u00a0The Quiet Council discuss the situation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Note that Hope isn’t invited to this meeting, and on the data page they’re effectively discussing whether to change tack and get someone else. (Everyone else\u00a0is<\/em> present – Sebastian Shaw is missing in the first panel, but he’s next to Emma in the second.)<\/p>\n

“To me, my Quiet Council.”<\/strong> “To me, my X-Men” has become a standard Professor X line, though it wasn’t actually used until relatively recently.<\/a>\u00a0Emma is mocking Xavier’s loss of control over the Council following\u00a0Inferno<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Magik<\/strong> would indeed be the obvious mutant to ask for advice on magical defences. Note that it’s Colossus who shuts down that idea, and he’s the one compromised by Mikhail Rasputin’s long distance mind control. But the reasons he gives are somewhat fair – Magik\u00a0is<\/em> very busy, which is why she’s trying to palm off Limbo on somebody else in this week’s\u00a0New Mutants<\/em>. Maybe that really is what Colossus thinks.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.<\/strong> Data page. Some largely self-explanatory thoughts from Cyclops on how to deal with giant monsters. The “X-Mech” is what Synch called the improvised robot from the most recent\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-21.<\/strong>\u00a0Destiny tips off Hope, who kills Selene.<\/em><\/p>\n

Destiny<\/strong> is clearly steering Hope to kill Selene, and one reason for doing that is to put a stop to Professor X’s plan to try and cut a deal with her. But Hope rightly wonders why Destiny doesn’t just send Mystique. Clearly, Destiny sees some advantage in getting Hope more involved in active missions, and perhaps more complicit in her own schemes. This is driving more of a wedge between Hope and the traditional X-Men on the Council. Conversely, she’s being driven closer to Exodus, despite her instinctive dislike of him – though she leaves Exodus to actually kill Selene a second time.<\/p>\n

It’s not entirely clear whether Exodus or Hope actually restore Selene from back-up. Maybe it works differently with her, being an External and all.<\/p>\n

Externals.<\/strong> A small group of immortal mutants who long predate Krakoa; Selene was one of them.<\/p>\n

Mysterium<\/strong> was introduced in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>and serves mainly as a wonder material for Krakoa to exploit on the interstellar stage.<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-23.<\/strong>\u00a0The Quiet Council discuss.<\/em><\/p>\n

Everyone seems to assume that Selene will languish in the queue like everyone else, if the Five choose not to resurrect her. But… is that right? Selene’s an External. Unlike almost everyone else on Krakoa, she has other routes to resurrection. For once, Sinister might actually be correct that booting the Selene problem into touch is not the right way of going about it – though Destiny certainly warns him off it.<\/p>\n

By this point Hope seems to be positively warming to Exodus.<\/p>\n

Destiny and Mr<\/strong> Sinister. <\/strong>Destiny is referring to the conversation she had with Sinister in flashback at the start of issue #1, where she said something to him that apparently caused him to have a seizure and die. He probably doesn’t remember the incident, having moved on to a new clone body. Sinister died repeating the word “You’re a ghost”, just as Destiny starts repeating at the end of this scene.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. IMMORTAL X-MEN #2 “All Mankind’s Woes” Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Lucas Werneck Colourist: David Curiel Letterer: Clayton Cowles Editor: Jordan White COVER \/ PAGE 1: Storm, Exodus and Magneto fight Selene. PAGE 2.\u00a0Hope reacts to Selene’s giant monster. This is the […]<\/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-7882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882","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=7882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7884,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions\/7884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}