{"id":8474,"date":"2022-11-16T23:16:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T23:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8474"},"modified":"2022-11-16T23:16:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T23:16:07","slug":"immortal-x-men-8-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8474","title":{"rendered":"Immortal X-Men #8 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>IMMORTAL X-MEN #8<\/strong>
\n“Part 8: The Curious Case of Dr Essex and Mr Sinister”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Michele Bandini<\/strong>
\nColourist: Davie Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1: <\/strong>An ageing photo of\u00a0Irene and Raven in Victorian times.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Data page – a quote supposedly from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). “Fate is the word cowards use to describe the things they’re too weak to change.”<\/p>\n

It comes from\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> #214, in which Mr Sinister attempted to take over Professor X’s body, in a scheme which is referred to later in the issue. Sinister claims that, because of his tinkering with Xavier’s DNA, Xavier is fated to become his new body; Xavier defeats him, delivering the line and attributing it to Nietzsche. In fact, I can’t find any reference to this quote on Google that isn’t either referring to the\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> issue, or including it in a list of inspirational quotes that seems to postdate the\u00a0Legacy<\/em> issue. (The inspirational version has it as “things\u00a0we’re<\/em> too weak to change.”)<\/p>\n

Here, of course, the quote takes on a context of referring to Destiny, whose very name is an ironic contradiction of the fact that she devotes her life to trying to use her foreknowledge of the future to alter it.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3-5.\u00a0<\/strong>1943. Mystique breaks into Alamagordo.<\/em><\/p>\n

Alamagordo.<\/strong> Alamagordo is a city in New Mexico, but the local air force base was also the site of the world’s first nuclear test, in 1945.\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #12 (1965) establishes that Professor X’s father worked there, the original idea being to imply that Professor X had become one of the first mutants as a result of his father’s exposure to radiation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Since that no longer works under the sliding timeline, various Fabian Nicieza stories in the 1990s retconned Alamagordo into having hidden secrets and being a site of early mutant experimentation. We’ll come back to some of the details of that.<\/p>\n

“It’s strange to think that even when we were together, we were so often apart.”<\/strong> Mystique – whose spotlight issue this is – is acknowledging that even though she and Destiny have been a couple since the 19th century, they spent long stretches doing their own thing, presumably thanks to Destiny’s determination to follow up something that she believed could steer destiny. This seems like an attempt to square the idea that they were a couple of a century with the large number of stories that show Mystique active solo (for example, in Wolverine’s back story).<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-8. <\/strong>1943:\u00a0<\/em>Mystique confronts Destiny.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mystique is appalled to learn that Destiny has become involved in eugenic experimentation on mutant children. Destiny seems to agree that this is all very bad, and would presumably argue that she isn’t morally culpable because it was going to happen anyway; at the same time, she insists that the work Mr Sinister is carrying out will ultimately benefit all mutants. Presumably, that’s because it enables Mr Sinister to perform his part of the resurrection system – which will ultimately lead to Destiny being resurrected on Krakoa.<\/p>\n

Amanda Mueller<\/strong>, the Black Womb, is a recurring villain from the aforementioned Fabian Nicieza stories. Destiny’s involvement in her projects was previously established in\u00a0X-Men Forever<\/em> #4 (2001), which isn’t on Unlimited yet. In that story, she’s still hanging around late enough to show Juggernaut’s father around when he starts working at the project. Mystique was also breaking in to find out what the hell Destiny was up to in that story as well.<\/p>\n

Mueller was already established to be linked to Mr Sinister.<\/p>\n

“He’s going to hide his DNA in certain individuals…”<\/strong> This is the plot of\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> #214. Obviously, the Shaw and Xavier families need no introduction in this series. Marko is the Juggernaut’s family; his father was established at working in Alamagordo back in 1965. The Ryking family were also involved in the Alamagordo project in Nicieza’s stories; their son Carter Ryking (Hazard) showed up in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #12 (1992) but never really took root. The Sullivan family isn’t ringing any obvious bells.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits. The title is a reference to\u00a0The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde\u00a0<\/em>(1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894).<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.\u00a0<\/strong>1895. Mystique and Destiny in Victorian London.<\/em><\/p>\n

Obviously, the idea here is that Mystique was Sherlock Holmes, who isn’t going to be named outright; and that Destiny was the brains of the operation. Destiny is named after Irene Adler, a character from the short story “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891), where she’s a criminal admired by Holmes for her intellect; a lot of fanfic tries to reinterpret her as a love interest.<\/p>\n

Destiny is presumably joking when she says that she can’t read the newspapers, because she’s normally been shown as\u00a0de facto\u00a0<\/em>able to perceive the world around her simply by having visions of the\u00a0very<\/em> near future. But perhaps those visions aren’t specific enough to let her read text.<\/p>\n

PAGE 11.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a newspaper clipping about Essex’s attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

We find out later that Sinister\u00a0is<\/em> the “attacker”, but has a split personality at this point.<\/p>\n

Saucy Jack<\/strong> is one of the names for Jack the Ripper, coming from a postcard sent to the Central News Agency in 1885, purportedly from the killer – though it may or may not have been a hoax. The Jack the Ripper killings took place in 1888, though some murders in the following years have also been attributed to the killer. By the time of this story, the killings had been over for years on any view.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-13.<\/strong> 1895: Mystique and Destiny meet Nathaniel Essex.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sinister’s wife died, and he had himself transformed by Apocalypse in order to remove his emotions and become more objective, in the\u00a0Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix<\/em> miniseries (1996). His term “Essex Factors”, to describe the mutant gene, also comes from that book.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-17.\u00a0<\/strong>1895: Mystique confronts Mr Sinister.<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea that Mystique’s clothes are part of her body isn’t new (though traditionally, she defaults to her costume when knocked unconscious).<\/p>\n

The Jekyll & Hyde angle with Mr Sinister is new, but makes sense as a way of squaring the repressed scientist of\u00a0Further Adventures<\/em> with the hyper-camp villain from Gillen’s take. On this view, Apocalypse didn’t remove the emotional side of Sinister, but split it off into a deranged personality.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-20.<\/strong>\u00a01895: Essex explains himself.<\/em><\/p>\n

“An ancient Essex-Man came to me…”<\/strong> Apocalypse, in\u00a0Further Adventures.<\/em> The bit about Apocalypse giving him great power is true. The part about trying to escape him is somewhat true: Sinister rapidly decided that Apocalypse was a lunatic and started trying to subvert his schemes. Apocalypse interpreted that as a laudable show of strength, warned him not to do it again, and then just left, declaring that he’d be back some day.<\/p>\n

The timeline here is a little odd. In terms of narrative logic, this seems to be intended to fill the gap between\u00a0Further Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix<\/em> and the time travel arc in\u00a0Gambit<\/em> vol 3 #13-14, by which point Essex is a doctor in New York. But that story is set in 1891. If you really want to take the dates literally, I suppose it’s possible that he comes back again.<\/p>\n

Charles Babbage.<\/strong> Essex is anticipating the rise of artificial intelligence, which (along with posthumanity) is one of the core threats of the Krakoan era. So, from the perspective of most of the Quiet Council, Victorian Essex was actually right. It’s not clear at this stage how Destiny feels about this, but she seems at least motivated to keep him around in some form, even if she rationalises it as giving him another chance.<\/p>\n

“The Byron daughter.”<\/strong> Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), sometimes credited as the first computer programmer, who worked with Babbage on his Difference Engine. Her father was the poet Byron. For some reason Essex refers to them here as active (“she is a genius, as is he, but the machines they are birthing…”). However, they were both long dead by the 1890s.<\/p>\n

“We must be on the same side.”<\/strong> Irene flatly rejects the idea at this point, but in a flashback in issue #1 she approaches him in 1919 and tells him that “I think we need to be on the same side.”<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.<\/strong> 1895: The death of Essex.<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, this is all very mysterious.<\/p>\n

Considering that this is Mystique’s spotlight issue, she’s somewhat marginalised by being kept out of the loop of what Destiny’s really thinking. But obviously that’s part of the point – Mystique gets things done but she’s not really party to all of the schemes.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.<\/strong> 1895: Destiny in Essex’s basement.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sinister has apparently created four clones of himself, one with each of the suit symbols. (The diamond symbol was given to the original Sinister by Apocalypse in\u00a0Further Adventures<\/em>.) The suggestion seems to be that the familiar Sinister is the one with the diamond; the club Sinister is Dr Stasis, who insists that he’s the real one and is at least no less real than the others; and there are two other Sinister variants that we haven’t met yet.<\/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. IMMORTAL X-MEN #8 “Part 8: The Curious Case of Dr Essex and Mr Sinister” Writer: Kieron Gillen Artist: Michele Bandini Colourist: Davie Curiel Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kieron Gillen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE […]<\/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-8474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474","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=8474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8476,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8474\/revisions\/8476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}