{"id":8558,"date":"2022-12-11T13:37:48","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T13:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2022-12-11T13:37:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T13:37:48","slug":"x-men-red-9-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8558","title":{"rendered":"X-Men Red #9 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 #9<\/strong>
\n“Return of the King”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Al Ewing<\/strong>
\nArtist: Stefano Caselli<\/strong>
\nColourist: Federico Blee<\/strong>
\nLetterer and Production: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1:<\/strong> Abigail Brand playing an increasingly convoluted chess-like game, with a broken Storm piece.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Stan Lee tribute<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong> Data page: a memo from Professor X to the rest of the Quiet Council. Essentially, Abigail Brand has persuaded Xavier that after Magneto died in A.X.E.: Judgment Day<\/em>, leaving clear directions not to resuscitate him, they need to resurrect Vulcan (following his death at the hands of Tarn in issue #3) in order to have access to his power. She’s also persuaded him that an excellent idea would be to give Vulcan a crash course in some sort of therapy as part of his resurrection, supposed in order to stabilise him.<\/p>\n

Obviously this is all part of Brand’s plan for Vulcan to go crazy (as seen at the end of the previous issue), and Xavier walks straight into it. He comes across here as gullible but also overconfident in his own abilities, despite paying lip service to his limitations. Ewing also writes Xavier confidently proclaiming absolute moral rules that he would never break “under any circumstances” – only to immediately qualify them with “absolute necessity”, which could mean anything. Basically, Xavier’s fatal flaw in this reading is that he believes his own hype.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Harry Leland<\/strong> was resurrected, and appointed as Krakoan ambassador to the UN, in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> vol 1 #26.<\/p>\n

PAGES 4-7.<\/strong>\u00a0Flashback: Vulcan is resurrected.<\/em><\/p>\n

In fairness to Xavier, Cyclops also supports his approach. Unusually, it’s Havok who gets to be the voice of reason here, perhaps because he’s the one least likely to have confidence in the X-Men’s decisions. He’s also entirely unconvinced that any of this is going to make a difference to Vulcan’s erratic behaviour; he might also have in mind that the X-Men never really sorted out the split-personality behaviour that led him to wind up in the Hellions for a while.<\/p>\n

Kate Pryde<\/strong>‘s inability to be resurrected, because of the way her powers interacted with the eggs, was a long-running storyline in the first volume of\u00a0Marauders<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Vulcan<\/strong> is able to jump-start his own resurrection. There’s a precedent for this; Legion did it in\u00a0Way of X<\/em> #2, completing his own resurrection without Xavier’s involvement.<\/p>\n

Vulcan says that “the shell is broken”, referring to the surface-level personality that was imposed on him by the three aliens that were seen in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #10 and in issue #2; last issue implies that they’re part of Brand’s scheme.<\/p>\n

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

PAGES 9-12.<\/strong>\u00a0Vulcan confronts Deathbird.<\/em><\/p>\n

“How’s my son?”<\/strong> Deathbird was revealed to be pregnant with Vulcan’s child in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> vol 4 #18 (2014), by which time Vulcan was already dead. That plot was dropped when Deathbird next appeared, but the child was confirmed to have been born in\u00a0New Mutants<\/em> #5. We don’t know much more about them than that. The “scientists and their endless experiments” that Deathbird mentions are probably a reference to X-Men<\/em> vol 4 #18-20, where the Providian Order experimented on the unborn child to add Kree DNA.<\/p>\n

Vulcan<\/strong> refers to starting a “second reign”, which amounts to a rare acknowledgement that he\u00a0isn’t<\/em> the emperor any more (even if he considers himself the rightful one). His mind is clearer than it was before.<\/p>\n

“He came out of the Fault alive…”<\/strong> Vulcan fell into the Fault at the end of 2009’s War of Kings<\/em> crossover;\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #10 (the Hickman one) established that he had emerged from it rather than simply being resurrected.<\/p>\n

“He started a galactic war for kicks…”<\/strong> Nova is referring to War of Kings<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Gladiator<\/strong> being powered by self-confidence is a concept introduced in\u00a0Fantastic Four<\/em> #249.<\/p>\n

PAGE 13.<\/strong>\u00a0Abigail Brand and Mentallo watch the chaos.<\/em><\/p>\n

As usual, Brand insists that she is acting for the greater good; it’s a similar angle to Beast over in\u00a0X-Force\u00a0<\/em>(but with rather more complex schemes that actually work).<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.\u00a0<\/strong>The Progenitors detect Wiz Kid.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong>\u00a015-17. <\/strong>Cable’s team fight Orbis Stellaris.<\/em><\/p>\n

The three “heralds” that Orbis wakes are the creatures that altered Vulcan’s mind in the flashback in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #10.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-20.<\/strong>\u00a0Sunspot shows his hand.<\/em><\/p>\n

Vulcan has a point that Deathbird is showing uncharacteristic loyalty to the Shi’ar throne right now; for most of her history her main activity has been trying to overthrow the Emperor, even when it’s a close relative, unless she was actually on the throne at the time. Does the kid have anything to do with that?<\/p>\n

Brand seems to believe that there’s a moral imperative to acknowledge what she’s doing, but for all that, she never seems to show any actual regret about it. Rather, her sense of moral righteousness is bound up in believing that she’s acting for the greater good, and her (half-hearted) acknowledgement is part of that.<\/p>\n

PAGE 21.<\/strong> Data page: Sunspot’s plan. This is a parody of the data page from the previous issue with Brand’s plan. Sunspot’s plan is much simpler and keeps getting distracted by him wondering about his own image – all of which is typical for Ewing’s Sunspot, who is simultaneously superficial and the smartest guy in the room. And certainly smarter than everyone else gives him credit for.<\/p>\n

“The Total Selleck.”<\/strong> Way back in the early days of\u00a0New Mutants<\/em>, Sunspot was obsessed with\u00a0Magnum PI<\/em>, starring Tom Selleck.<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.<\/strong>\u00a0Vulcan retreats.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Vulcan fought Sunspot in the Red Lagoon bar in issue #1, he apparently drained Sunspot’s power and said “You’re powered by solar energy, like me. but I don’t have to take mind from the sun when I can take it from you.” That’s the exchange he repeats here. He seems to be implying that either he was playing along in issue #1, or that he could pull the same trick and outpower Vulcan if he wanted – at least when he had advance warning. On the other hand, the final panel suggests that Sunspot is just bluffing and that Vulcan could indeed have depowered him as he did in issue #1.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.<\/strong>\u00a0Vulcan confronts Storm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Vulcan is supposedly looking for Xandra, but he’s drawn the the Autumn Palace – the home that Magneto built in issue #1 – where Storm is waiting for him. It’s not clear whether he’s been tricked into going there or whether Xandra is indeed present off panel.<\/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 RED vol 2 #9 “Return of the King” Writer: Al Ewing Artist: Stefano Caselli Colourist: Federico Blee Letterer and Production: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1: Abigail Brand playing an increasingly convoluted chess-like […]<\/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-8558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558","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=8558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8560,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8558\/revisions\/8560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}