{"id":8496,"date":"2022-11-23T22:08:27","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T22:08:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8496"},"modified":"2022-11-23T22:08:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T22:08:27","slug":"x-men-17-annotations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8496","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #17 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN vol 6 #17<\/strong>
\n“Size Matters”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gerry Duggan<\/strong>
\nArtist: Joshua Cassara<\/strong>
\nColourist: GURU-eFX<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Magik leads the team into action, in a generic action shot with no particular relevance to the issue.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Data page. Forge’s opening quote comes from his scene with Caliban on page 23. Obviously, given what we already saw Forge do to Caliban in the previous issue, the correct answer to this question is “absolutely not”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.\u00a0<\/strong>Synch is summoned from the Treehouse.<\/em><\/p>\n

Synch wasn’t with the rest of the team for this mission, presumably because he already spent centuries of subjective time there (ending in vol 5 #19) and finds it too upsetting. Arguably he’d have vital intelligence for anyone going into the Vault but (a) they can always get that information from him telepathically, (b) it will have changed beyond recognition since he was last there, and (c) the X-Men are not monsters. With the possible exception of Forge.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-6.<\/strong>\u00a0Forge decides to leave Wolverine behind.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re picking up from the cliffhanger of the previous issue, where Forge and Caliban (as his harness) found that the Wolverine (Laura) who had been in the Vault was still alive after all, meaning that they’d accidentally revived a duplicate in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #19. I’m not sure why the art obscures her in this issue when she was completely visible last time – it’s clearly less effective this way.<\/p>\n

The basic arc of this issue is that Forge (who is, after all, a recent transfer from the cast of\u00a0X-Force<\/em>) starts off with a completely instrumental and manipulative approach to everyone, represented in particular by poor old Caliban. He tells Serafina later that while he is\u00a0<\/em>here to avert war, he’s also driven by scientific curiosity.\u00a0But he turns out to have enough empathy to change his position, particularly when confronted directly with Caliban’s faith in the integrity of the X-Men. In fact, he turns the corner on page 6 when he relents on his decision to simply switch him off.<\/p>\n

“I thought the Five only accidentally resurrected one mutant, not two.”<\/strong> Interesting. At the end of X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #19, the Five do indeed resurrect three mutants, so apparently they\u00a0did<\/em> create a second Darwin after all. Of course, in itself that shouldn’t prevent Forge from coming back to rescue the original Darwin. But it’s clear that Darwin is a higher priority for him, and the obvious implication is that Darwin has some instrumental value to Forge that Wolverine lacks. Forge confirms that on page 6 when he claims that finding Darwin “could mean the survival of our species”.<\/p>\n

“You don’t exist! Not really!”<\/strong> Forge seems to be saying here that this is actually a copy or clone of Caliban’s mind rather than the original in mutilated form – and indeed we’ll see Caliban alive and well at the end of the issue, with no mention of any recent resurrection. Forge’s willingness to create a duplicate Caliban tends to confirm that he’s not very bothered about the clone resurrections in themselves.<\/p>\n

“Everyone that has ever come to me has always misused my curse.”<\/strong> This is a bit of an overstatement, and seems weirdly harsh on the Morlocks. I’m not sure Caliban is normally this down on his mutant status, either.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-11.<\/strong>\u00a0Forge fights Serafina.<\/em><\/p>\n

Serafina.<\/strong> We saw Serafina on page 9 of the last issue, when Forge wandered past her in disguise, and she seemed to register that something was up. We see her more clearly this time, and as usual, she’s gone through some changes in this latest iteration. She retains her monochrome stripes, though.<\/p>\n

Forge’s claws<\/strong> are obviously based on Wolverine’s but, being energy blades of some sort, they might be specifically based on the “Adamantium Men” arc from\u00a0Wolverine: Weapon X<\/em> #1-5.<\/p>\n

“I remember being captured by humans. Of the Orchis clan.”<\/strong>\u00a0Serafina was rescued from Orchis custody by Krakoan forces (not technically the X-Men, since the team didn’t exist at that point) in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 5 #1. They weren’t specifically looking for her. From that issue and vol 5 #19, we get the impression that that incarnation of Serafina had been activated early for some reason, and had got herself captured by Orchis as a result. Caliban is slightly overstating the X-Men’s moral probity here – they never made a conscious choice to release her with the other Orchis prisoners, it just kind of happened. Given the Krakoan government’s paranoia about posthumans, based on what Xavier and Magneto learned from Moira, I wouldn’t be so confident that they\u00a0would<\/em> have chosen to release Serafina given the chance. Still, she seems to feel some gratitude.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-17.\u00a0<\/strong>Forge and Darwin.<\/em><\/p>\n

Forge’s vision of Krakoa<\/strong> is, conspicuously, a city rather than a utopian island. He has three fairly recognisable trad X-Men flying around to make it all look more cuddly.<\/p>\n

Darwin\u00a0<\/strong>basically tells us that his evolution powers allowed him to survive by uploading his mind into the Children’s computers. He says he doesn’t want to have a body again, but note in particular the reason he gives: “Now I can be in many places at once.”<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.<\/strong>\u00a0Forge relents and rescues Wolverine after all.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES 19-22.<\/strong>\u00a0Synch and Laura are reunited.<\/em><\/p>\n

This pays off Synch’s main storyline throughout this series: that he’s in love with the Laura who spent centuries in the Vault with him, but Krakoan Laura has no memory of any of those events.<\/p>\n

“Where’s Havok?”<\/strong> Havok walked out last issue after getting into a fight with Cyclops.<\/p>\n

Forge’s harness<\/strong> is destroyed with a flamethrower, with Forge clearly regretting having created it in the first place. But… wasn’t it sentient? This doesn’t\u00a0seem<\/em> like a very good way of showing that he’s learned his lesson.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.<\/strong>\u00a0Forge meets with Caliban in the Green Lagoon.<\/em><\/p>\n

This seems to be Forge calming his conscience by verifying that Caliban would indeed have consented to what he did. But he does seem determined to make amends by apologising.<\/p>\n

Background characters: the Blob and Forearm are behind the bar (though doesn’t Forearm already have a job working security for SWORD?). Black Tom, Tempo and Wolverine are in panel 1. In panel 2, Sage and Domino from X-Force<\/em> are talking behind Forge; Deadpool and Colossus are clearly visible; and there are some generics I can’t place. The girl with the glasses over her forehead might be a miscoloured Jubilee.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.<\/strong>\u00a0Data page. This is where the “size matters” title comes in. Cecilia Reyes (who manages to get her own name wrong) tells us that Forge’s first backup after returning from the Vault was massively large, but now it’s back to normal. She initially attributed this to an error or something to do with Forge’s mutant powers, but is more worried now. The implication is that a version of Darwin escaped the Vault through Forge’s mind and has now relocated itself to Cerebro.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #17 “Size Matters” Writer: Gerry Duggan Artist: Joshua Cassara Colourist: GURU-eFX Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. Magik leads the team into action, in a generic action […]<\/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":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8496","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=8496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8498,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8496\/revisions\/8498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}