{"id":8068,"date":"2022-07-14T20:52:06","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T19:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8068"},"modified":"2022-07-14T20:52:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T19:52:06","slug":"immortal-x-men-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8068","title":{"rendered":"Immortal X-Men #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>IMMORTAL X-MEN #4<\/strong>
\n“Part Four: Diamonds Are Forever”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Michele Bandini<\/strong>
\nColourist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Emma in silk sheets, with one arm in the process of turning to diamond.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Neal Adams obituary.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-5.<\/strong>\u00a0Emma Frost at night.<\/em><\/p>\n

Immortal X-Men<\/em> is structured with a focus on a different Quiet Council member in each issue, and this is Emma’s issue.<\/p>\n

Emma’s planned excuse for sleeping in her diamond form is that she is less vulnerable to psychic intrusion in that form. Originally, Emma’s diamond form was presented as removing (or at least reducing) her emotions and empathy and cutting off her access to her telepathic powers, but it’s been shown over the years as protecting her from telepathic attack as well. Her actual reasoning is that she doesn’t age in diamond form. This is setting up the motif that Emma won’t drop her persona in public but will admit her actual feelings to herself, and that there’s a degree of self-aware doublethink going on in her self-image.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I made a girl think she’d cooked her own horse so she’d come to me for sympathy.”<\/strong>\u00a0In\u00a0Firestar<\/em> vol 1 #2, as part of Emma’s schemes to manipulate the novice Firestar, she kills Firestar’s beloved horse and tricks Firestar into thinking her powers had something to do with it. The horse actually just drops dead after she rescues it from a burning stable, but Firestar assumes that her microwave powers must have had something to do with it. And yes, the horse really was called Butter Rum.<\/p>\n

Scott.<\/strong> Note that Emma refers to her relationship with Scott in the present tense (“I don’t know what he sees in me. I also know exactly what he sees in me.”)<\/p>\n

“I funded Utopia and then was ruined by it.”<\/strong> Utopia was the X-Men’s island base off San Francisco in the late 2000s. The Utopia era ends, so far as Emma’s concerned, with her being carted off to prison by the Avengers, and winding up as a fugitive after Scott breaks her out.<\/p>\n

“Last year’s revelation of bringing life to a dead world.”\u00a0<\/strong>Planet-Size X-Men<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Data page (kind of). This is the Bugle<\/i> front page from\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #12, with some comments by Emma over the top. We see Emma actually reading the page for the first time in\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong>\u00a0Flash forward: Emma returns from the Gala covered in blood.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’ll find out why later. Obviously, given her preoccupation with image, Emma doesn’t take this sort of thing well.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-11.<\/strong>\u00a0Emma talks to the Chinese ambassador as she leaves the Gala.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ambassador Mingyu.<\/strong> This is Ma Mingyu, the Chinese ambassador who was given a tour of Krakoan facilities in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

16 million<\/strong> dead.\u00a0<\/strong>Emma is referring to the slaughter of mutants on Genosha by Sentinels in\u00a0New X-Men<\/em> #115. Despite Emma’s righteous speech, she’s instinctively willing to discuss buying off the human elite with special treatment.<\/p>\n

Wolverine’s presence here might be a continuity error, since he leaves the Gala before the end to hunt down Moira alongside Spider-Man (as shown in\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala<\/em> #1 and\u00a0the upcoming\u00a0Amazing Spider-Man<\/em> #9). Also, he ought to be in his security tuxedo outfit.<\/p>\n

“Dearest, dearest Scott brought be a present…”<\/strong> He told her about Dr Stasis, as depicted in\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala<\/em> #1. As in that issue, Emma seems conspicuously affectionate to Scott even in her internal monologue, even though he’s largely been shown with Jean in recent months.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-13.<\/strong>\u00a0The Quiet Council discuss the resurrection crisis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mutant Growth Hormone<\/strong> is a drug which, among other things, gives humans temporary superhuman powers.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, I’m sure there’s a story somewhere which establishes that Nightcrawler prefers to crouch like that rather than sitting in a chair because it’s more comfortable for his mutant physique. He’s not just being quirky for the sake of it.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-15.<\/strong>\u00a0Emma tells the Council about Dr Stasis.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is a fairly straight account of what Cyclops learned about Dr Stasis in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #11-12. The shot of Stasis turning to face the camera is more or less re-drawn from the cliffhanger of\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #11, and Stasis does indeed claim to be the “real” Mr Sinister.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-18.<\/strong>\u00a0Sinister flees the Quiet Council.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sinister is giving himself temporary powers in the same way that he did in issue #2. Specifically, he seems to be copying Madrox’s powers in order to cause confusion (which raises the possibility that there might be Sinister duplicates left on Krakoa after all this ends – do they vanish when his temporary powers wear off?).<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-21.<\/strong>\u00a0Sinister takes stock.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since he’s now alone, we can probably take at face value his apparent confusion about who on earth this Dr Stasis guy is. He also helpfully points out to us that the existence of a Diamond and Club version of him tends to suggest that Spade and Heart are also out there somewhere.<\/p>\n

Judgment Day<\/strong> is the upcoming crossover of the same name.<\/p>\n

Destiny<\/strong> doesn’t directly reveal to Sinister that she knows about his ability to reset the timeline, but does successfully prompt him not to use it. Once again, Sinister comes close to resetting the timeline the moment things go wrong, but thinks better of it.<\/p>\n

“Little James.”<\/strong> Wolverine (James Howlett).<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-23.<\/strong>\u00a0Sinister returns to the Quiet Council.<\/em><\/p>\n

“This really isn’t what the Spark is about.”<\/strong> Nightcrawler is referring to his creativity-based philosophy from\u00a0Legion of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“There’s always the Pit.”<\/strong> A curious proposal by Destiny, since she appears in\u00a0Sabretooth<\/em> #5 to be well aware of what’s going on in connection with the Pit.<\/p>\n

Sinister’s kidnappers<\/strong> are the Eternals, as seen in\u00a0A.X.E.: Eve of Judgment Day<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a024.\u00a0<\/strong>Emma goes back to sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emma seems to be suggesting that the very fact that she worries about getting old shows that she doesn’t really believe Krakoa is going to last.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a025.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page – a quote from\u00a0Through the Looking Glass<\/em>. Originally, the Hellfire Club officers were obviously named after chess pieces, but the addition of red offices does invoke Lewis Carroll.<\/p>\n

PAGE 26.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers.<\/p>\n

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

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. IMMORTAL X-MEN #4 “Part Four: Diamonds Are Forever” Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Michele Bandini Colourist: David Curiel Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. Emma in silk sheets, with one arm […]<\/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-8068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8068","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=8068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8070,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8068\/revisions\/8070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}