{"id":8356,"date":"2022-10-06T20:23:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-06T19:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8356"},"modified":"2022-10-06T20:23:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T19:23:18","slug":"x-men-red-7-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8356","title":{"rendered":"X-Men Red #7 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN RED vol 2 #7<\/strong>
\n“The Winning Side”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Al Ewing<\/strong>
\nArtist: Stefano Caselli<\/strong>
\nColour artists: Federico Blee & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo<\/strong>
\nLetterer & production: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Storm fights Isca in the Great Ring chamber. This is another\u00a0Judgment Day<\/em> tie-in.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-7.<\/strong> The aftermath of Magneto’s battle with Uranos.<\/em><\/p>\n

Issue #6 ended with Storm, Magneto & co setting off to confront Uranos. Magneto defeated Uranos in\u00a0A.X.E.: Judgment Day<\/em> #4, and this picks up directly from the end of that scene. (Despite what it says on the recap page, at least the vast majority of this story takes place during\u00a0Judgment Day<\/em> #4, not after Judgment Day<\/em> #5.)<\/p>\n

“You have new gods now.”<\/strong> This comes from the end of Magneto’s speech to the human ambassadors in\u00a0House of X<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

Resurrection.<\/strong> In issue #4, Magneto and Storm both destroyed their backups in order to disavow the possibility of resurrection, and prove themselves to their Arakkii colleagues. Magneto’s refusal to waver on this in his last moments was something that impressed the Progenitor in\u00a0Judgment Day<\/em> #4. Storm is clearly less wedded to the idea – at least when it becomes a reality – and immediately proposes resurrecting Magneto even without the benefit of a backup. She seems clear that this would work, despite having presented the backup deletion as a crucial factor in issue #4. Presumably she’s anticipating the return of a blank-slate Magneto in that situation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“Three began Krakoa. Moira betrayed us. I deserted my post.”<\/strong> The creation of Krakoa by Magneto, Professor X and Moira is covered in the\u00a0Powers of X<\/em> miniseries. Moira’s betrayal was exposed in\u00a0Inferno<\/em>. Magneto quit the Quiet Council and retired to Mars in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #1 and\u00a0X-Men Red<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

Magneto’s philosophy has evolved by the time of his death: he no longer wants to protect\u00a0just<\/em> mutants, and extends it to uniting all “so-called undesirables”. His remaining fundamental difference with Professor X is that Xavier still fundamentally believes in integration, while Magneto continues to believe that the “undesirables” can only be safe and prosperous by going their separate ways. Magneto’s more immediate point here is that Krakoa was always a compromise between the visions of himself, Professor X and Moira, and now only Professor X remains – someone who does not ultimately believe in the separatism that lies at the heart of the Krakoan project.<\/p>\n

Magneto also clearly sees Xavier not as an\u00a0inherently<\/em> good person, but as someone who is driven to act in a way that he believes will be perceived as good. That accords somewhat with Magneto’s view of himself as the principled one, but it also fits with the various stories in which Xavier has been written as manipulative, emotionally cruel and so forth when he either thinks he can get away with it, or simply doesn’t understand what he’s doing.<\/p>\n

Anya<\/strong> is Magneto’s late daughter, whose death by lynching was a pivotal moment in his life. Judgment Day<\/em> #4 indicates that this is actually the Progenitor appearing to him.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.<\/strong> Data page (in funereal colours). The quote here is a paraphrase from his speech to the World Court in his trial in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #200.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-15.\u00a0<\/strong>Isca is confronted.<\/em><\/p>\n

Isca<\/strong> betrayed the Arakkii and killed Idyll in issue #5, on the basis that her powers compel her to take the winning side. She did this before when she betrayed the Arakkii to join the Amenth side, which is what Lodus Logos is referring to when he calls her “Isca of Amenth”.<\/p>\n

Tarn<\/strong> was killed in issue #3; as Ora Serrata points out, even though Tarn was a deranged, violent sadist, he did refrain from just directly attacking the other members of the Great Ring (except when actually challenged to a fight).<\/p>\n

Xilo<\/strong>‘s lost memories result from his injuries sustained in issue #5.<\/p>\n

“Earth and everyone of Earth is to be judged…”<\/strong> This is the premise of Judgment Day<\/em>, and specifically places us during\u00a0Judgment Day<\/em> #4. It’s not clear how Storm knows that the Progenitor regards the population of Earth as extending to those Arakkii who were born on Earth, but perhaps she’s already encountered someone else who was in the same position.<\/p>\n

Sunspot<\/strong> is recapping information about the sidelining and dissolution of the Seats of Night from a data page in the previous issue.<\/p>\n

Genesis<\/strong> – Apocalypse’s wife – was the ruler of Arakko while it was in the dimension of Amenth, until she wound up being turned into Annihilation.<\/p>\n

Isca.\u00a0<\/strong>Sunspot’s basic point here is that for all Isca’s supposed unbeatability, her participation did precisely zilch to bring about an actual victory for either side. The obvious reason for that is that Isca’s power has consistently been defined as “cannot lose”, which is a different thing from “must win”, since (1) she doesn’t have complete control over which side she chooses to fight for, and (2) it’s consistent with a futile stalemate. Isca’s fundamental problem is that (perhaps compelled by her powers) she sees victory in relatively narrow terms and doesn’t see herself as “losing” merely because she is failing to achieve anything of value. Fisher King, in a sense repeating the trick that Sunspot tried in issue #3, forces her to change perspective by defining that as a victory condition.<\/p>\n

Fisher King.\u00a0<\/strong>The bit about Isca recognising the Fisher King, and him being a nuisance to the Amenth forces while in prison, is new – though the fact of him being in prison has been covered before.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.<\/strong>\u00a0Data page expanding on Isca’s thought processes.<\/p>\n

“One who has lived ten thousand [years] and more”.\u00a0<\/strong>That would make Isca much older than Apocalypse, who was a child in the time of the Pharaohs. Apparently, Okkara dates that far back.<\/p>\n

“Little Isca always lagged behind…”<\/strong> Because her powers only emerged at puberty, as used to be the norm for mutants.<\/p>\n

“Her sister married a blue-lipped boy…”<\/strong> Genesis and Apocalypse.<\/p>\n

“The First Summoners”.<\/strong> Some kind of priests who could control Amenthi demons. One of them showed up in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #2 (2019) and hung around through to “X of Swords.”<\/p>\n

“She took one … a genomic mage .. to be her lover.”<\/strong> Tarn, as strongly implied in issue #3 (when she reacted to his death).<\/p>\n

“And that too was in some way because she could not lose.”<\/strong>\u00a0In issue #3, Sunspot bet Isca that Tarn would beat Magneto, thus apparently forcing her to take the opposite position. (The obvious plot hole in that scene was that she didn’t accept the bet, but she apparently does accept Fisher King’s challenge. Maybe she accepted it in her mind and realised the implications before she could say so.)<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-18.<\/strong> Isca resigns from the Great Ring and passes Progenitor’s test.<\/em><\/p>\n

The implication is that Isca cannot be properly “of Arakko” without facing the threat of defeat, for precisely the same reasons that were advanced in issue #4 in relation to Magneto and Storm’s immortality – but she hasn’t previously recognised that hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-21.<\/strong>\u00a0The Great Ring is reconstituted.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lodus Logos<\/strong>, the artist, is using the Eternals as the basis of his argument that Arakkii society needs to change (something that he was recognising anyway over the previous two issues).\u00a0The central premise of\u00a0Eternals<\/em> is that the Eternals are locked into a role dictated for them by the Celestials and, despite being aware of it, can’t break free of it – at least not easily.<\/p>\n

Note that Storm forms Magneto’s helmet in the clouds as she takes the seat.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a022.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-25.\u00a0<\/strong>Epilogue: Cable and Wiz Kid discover Abigail Brand’s notes.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cable and Wiz Kid were already working on salvaging the Keep last issue; they’ve also both been sceptical about Brand for a while now.<\/p>\n

“My dead mom just gave me a thumbs-up.”<\/strong> That’ll be the Progenitor passing Wiz Kid. His parents (who have never been named) were killed in the same car crash where he lost the use of his legs, per\u00a0X-Terminators<\/em> #1 (1988).<\/p>\n

“The Keep is a reality-warped duplicate of the Peak…”<\/strong> The Keep was created as a duplicate by the reality warper Jamie Braddock in\u00a0Planet-Sized X-Men<\/em> #1, at the time of the terraforming of Mars. The suggestion that it’s more closely linked than that to the original station is new.<\/p>\n

“She’ll have left notes for herself…”<\/strong> Brand’s notes have been seen both in this book and its predecessor\u00a0SWORD<\/em>, and were kept for precisely the reason theorised here: to make sure she knew about her own scheming if she was resurrected with memory gaps.<\/p>\n

“If she did kill Henry Gyrich…”<\/strong> She did, in\u00a0S.W.O.R.D.\u00a0<\/em>#11.<\/p>\n

“I say we take it to Nightcrawler first, rather than the Council.”<\/strong> Wiz Kid is implying that he doesn’t want Brand to be sent to the Pit for murdering a human, and is figuring that Nightcrawler and the cast of\u00a0Legion of X <\/em>will have a more forgiving attitude.<\/p>\n

“What she’s been doing…”<\/strong> Brand has so many schemes that they could have discovered all manner of things, but the most obvious candidate is her dealings with Orchis.<\/p>\n

PAGE<\/strong> 26. <\/strong>Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN RED vol 2 #7 “The Winning Side” Writer: Al Ewing Artist: Stefano Caselli Colour artists: Federico Blee & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo Letterer & production: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. Storm fights Isca in […]<\/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":[31,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356","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=8356"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8362,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356\/revisions\/8362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}