{"id":7999,"date":"2022-06-26T19:46:30","date_gmt":"2022-06-26T18:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7999"},"modified":"2022-06-26T19:46:30","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T18:46:30","slug":"knights-of-x-3-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=7999","title":{"rendered":"Knights of X #3 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>KNIGHTS OF X #3<\/strong>
\n“Kill Your Darlings”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Tini Howard<\/strong>
\nArtist: Bob Quinn<\/strong>
\nColourist: Erick Arciniega<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesigner: Tom Muller<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong>\u00a0Gambit in flamboyant action. The other tarot cards show seem to show Besty, Betsy & Rachel, and Mordred. The Betsy\/Rachel card has a “VI” number on it, most likely intended to be the Lovers (the sixth card of the Major Arcana). Yes, there’s a prominent sword on display, but the Six of Swords is a rather boring card showing a ferryman in the Slough of Despond, which doesn’t seem terribly relevant.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2 to PAGE 3 PANEL 1.<\/strong>\u00a0Roma and Saturnyne take Shogo to watch the fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

As in previous issues, this book seems quite keen to have its scene transitions in mid-page. And as before, we’re being told that Otherworld is basically a story-driven place – in the sense that the rules of story literally govern how things work there, and so Shogo needs to undergo the trauma of seeing one of the heroes die in order that his story can move on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 3 PANEL 2 to PAGE 5. <\/strong>The Knights of X defeat the Fury.<\/i><\/p>\n

This is all self-explanatory.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.<\/strong>\u00a0The Knights of X set out to rescue Jim Jaspers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mother Askani.<\/b> The Askani are a religious \/ philosophical order from the post-apocalyptic far future where Cable grew up. In one timeline, Rachel wound up as the leader of the order, going by Mother Askani. For a time, that was supposed to be the canonical end of Rachel’s life, but it was eventually relegated into a divergent timeline. Rachel is nonetheless aware of all this, since the likes of Cable (and Scott and Jean) have been able to relate some of it. There is no obvious reason why any of these people in present-day Otherworld should know the slightest thing about the Askani, and their explanation that “It’s from a story!” doesn’t really answer the question. “Bright lady” was something Cable used to refer to her as. The Fury also called Rachel “Askani” in the previous issue.<\/p>\n

“Didn’t Mad Jim create the Furies in the first place?”<\/strong> The original Fury was created by “Mad” Jim Jaspers of Earth-238, the so-called “Crooked World”. It debuted in the Captain Britain story in\u00a0Marvel Super-Heroes<\/em> #387. Jaspers went on to create various more Furies, but Rachel tells us that the Jaspers running the Crooked Market is not the same variant; he’s some sort of composite. The suggestion may be that this isn’t the Jaspers from any particular timeline but some sort of Otherworld creation based on the stories told about Jaspers (who was a prominent figure on his homeworld).<\/p>\n

It’s not obvious what authority Merlyn has to strip Jaspers of his control of the Crooked Market, given that he doesn’t seem to have control over Roma or Mercator, but perhaps the answer is simply brute force.<\/p>\n

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

PAGES<\/strong> 9-10.\u00a0<\/strong>The other half of the team break into Sevalith.<\/em><\/p>\n

I do love the design of Sevalith. It has so much more impact than the more traditional goth clich\u00e9s. Anyway, this is all straightforward.<\/p>\n

PAGE 11.<\/strong>\u00a0Lirio reports to King Arthur.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Sevalith vampires have been depicted as allies of Arthur so far, but the one actually working for him, Shakai, seems more like a true believer. Still, apparently the whole kingdom is formally allied with Arthur and Merlyn, even if they can’t guarantee a minor thing like “not eating Arthur”.<\/p>\n

Livio makes sure to remind us that Betsy has split the party, something that was also flagged last issue as an obvious error in terms of conventional story tropes. Since this is a story-driven world, it’s not going to work out well.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-13.<\/strong> Betsy and co speak to Death.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sevalith did indeed look a bit more trad-goth in\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> #24, though we’ve also seen these sort of large geometric buildings before. Still, the idea seems to be that the kingdoms themselves are in some sense fluid and responding to the story.<\/p>\n

Death<\/strong> has been in Sevalith since “X of Swords” and seems to be quietly amused by the whole place, despite being notionally a prisoner. Presumably he just likes having all the undead types around. He’s been reasonably constructive and charming in the past, though, and he isn’t exactly\u00a0unco-operative\u00a0here – he gives fairly straight answer to the questions asked.<\/p>\n

Apocalypse’s grimoire<\/strong> was referenced in data path, ges in the last two issues, including Rictor’s attempts to get Cypher to translate it.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.<\/strong> Flashback: Absolon Mercator is given the Siege Perilous.<\/em><\/p>\n

We finally get explicit confirmation that the locked-off kingdom of Mercator is now run by Absalom Mercator, something which has been heavily hinted at before. Apparently he was given a deserted province in which to keep the Siege Perilous safe. The character he’s speaking to is almost certainly Apocalypse, in his\u00a0Excalibur<\/em> costume, though he’s kept obscured for some reason.<\/p>\n

Asked how he got the Siege Perilous, Apocalypse says that a human had it, and “they no longer do”. The obvious implication would be that Apocalypse killed the human in question (before the Krakoan laws were set up), but unless I’m missing a story, the last keeper of the Siege Perilous was Wilhelmina Kensington, who has shown up alive and well in\u00a0Marauders<\/em>).<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong> 15.<\/strong> Data page. This is a straight recap of who Mr M is; he was listed as one of the omega mutants back in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1. His time in Mutant Town was covered in\u00a0District X<\/em>, the Bishop solo series. His time as a figure in the 198, and his supposed death, come from the miniseries\u00a0X-Men: The 198<\/em>. The quote, “Some things do not die, they evolve,” was a message that he sent after his supposed death, in the final issue of\u00a0198<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-17.<\/strong>\u00a0Rictor and Shatterstar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rictor has been fairly obviously obsessed with Apocalypse throughout\u00a0Excalibur<\/em>, and this scene finally raises the question of how that fits with his renewed relationship with Shatterstar. This does seem to foreground the relationship with Shatterstar and position Apocalypse more as a beloved mentor, but at the same time, if there weren’t at least some romantic dimensions to it, Shatterstar wouldn’t need to offer reassurances that he wasn’t jealous.<\/p>\n

I’m not quite sure what Shatterstar means when he says that he couldn’t be jealous of Rictor’s feelings “with my own romantic past.” He may just be referring to their discussion in\u00a0X-Factor\u00a0<\/em>#207, where he wanted to have an open relationship and generally indicated that he was in a phase of sexual experimentation.<\/p>\n

Rictor, who understands who stories work, suggests that one of them may need to die, and offers himself up as the sacrifice. Under the rules established in “X of Swords”, any resurrection would bring him back as a blank slate, and a new version of himself.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-23.<\/strong>\u00a0The groups reunite to fight the Furies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mordred’s mutant power is apparently that people just don’t like the poor guy, even when he’s being perfectly reasonable. (This might explain why Betsy yells at him at the start of the scene, too, though that’s a more conventional case of her putting heroic principles over pragmatism.) Kylun felt compelled to fight Mordred last issue, for reasons that weren’t then clear.<\/p>\n

Death.<\/strong>\u00a0Gambit was, very briefly, one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen as Death in X-Men<\/em> vol 2 #182-187. This comes from the Peter Milligan run, a stretch of continuity that doesn’t come up very often.<\/p>\n

The Rider-Waite tarot deck (the most famous one) does indeed have Death as a horseman on its Death card, though of course the actual card doesn’t look much like this.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong> Data page. Apocalypse’s notes on Death. We saw the original Horsemen, his literal children, in “X of Swords”, and they include the Death who appeared earlier in the issue. Apocalypse notes that in modern times he’s generally filled the Death role with good men, or at least not-bad ones. That’s true enough, since previous Deaths have also included Angel and Wolverine.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers and page numbers go by the digital edition. KNIGHTS OF X #3 “Kill Your Darlings” Writer: Tini Howard Artist: Bob Quinn Colourist: Erick Arciniega Letterer: Ariana Maher Designer: Tom Muller Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1.\u00a0Gambit in flamboyant action. The other tarot cards show seem to show Besty, […]<\/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-7999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999","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=7999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8001,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7999\/revisions\/8001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}