{"id":8791,"date":"2023-03-01T21:25:40","date_gmt":"2023-03-01T21:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8791"},"modified":"2023-03-01T21:25:40","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T21:25:40","slug":"x-force-38-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=8791","title":{"rendered":"X-Force #38 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-FORCE vol 6 #38<\/strong>
\n“Xeno”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Benjamin Percy<\/strong>
\nArtist: Robert Gill<\/strong>
\nColour artist: GURU-eFX<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The Man with the Peacock Tattoo creates a Frankenstein’s Monster out of X-Force parts. Not what happens in the story, but it relates to the Omnimutant.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-5.\u00a0<\/strong>X-Force arrive in Genosha.<\/em><\/p>\n

X-Force here meaning just Domino, Deadpool and Omega Red. Black Tom, Beast and Sage don’t go on missions, and this story is set during the period when Beast is keeping Wolverine prisoner (i.e. probably between\u00a0Wolverine<\/em> #27-28).<\/p>\n

Domino\u00a0<\/strong>seems to be saying that despite her luck powers, she’s been rather depressed by the whole experience of being in X-Force – which isn’t\u00a0that<\/em> far out of line with her mercenary career, but admittedly doesn’t give much space for the recklessly cheerful side of her personality. At the end of the issue she ascribes this specifically to her torture at the hands of Xeno, but the logic of what she’s saying here is that she felt this way even during the period when her memories of her torture at the hands of Xeno were wiped.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Deadpool\u00a0<\/strong>is in fact using the word “peritoneum” correctly. It’s a membrane that surrounds the abdominal organs.<\/p>\n

The Donner Party\u00a0<\/strong>was a group of American pioneers whose trek west went disastrously wrong, leading them to spend the winter of 1846-1847 stuck in snowbound mountains, where some of them turned to cannibalism.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong> Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

Where Monsters Dwell.<\/strong> The strapline refers to a Marvel series that ran for 38 issues between 1970 and 1975, reprinting old horror stories.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-8.\u00a0<\/strong>Max flees the Man with the Peacock Tattoo.<\/em><\/p>\n

As established in the previous issue, the MwtPT considers himself to be carrying on the work of the Genegineer, who cloned him but treated him as a lab experiment. There’s at least some ambiguity about how far he’s genuinely trying to bond with Max and sees him as a potential heir – though the last panel of the scene appears to come down on the side of “not genuine”, which is the least interesting answer.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-13.\u00a0<\/strong>X-Force hack the XENO database and discover the Omnimutant.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Omnimutant<\/strong> is… whatever it is that the MwtPT was somehow able to create using the Krakoan egg that Beast leaked to him two issues back, plus Max’s powers. How does any of this give him access to X-Force’s DNA? Who the hell knows. There was a whole data page about it last issue, but it made no sense at all.<\/p>\n

XENO.<\/strong> Meanwhile, XENO’s plan turns out to involve cloning people in positions of influence and replacing them with compliant clones (also including powers that they’ve stolen from captive mutants along the way). This is presumably the personal scheme of the Man With The Peacock Tattoo – it doesn’t have a great deal to do with the original explanation for XENO’s origin, which involved renegade factions of various government bodies joining together after their employers decided to stand them down rather than aggravate Krakoa.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page with more details on the Xeno scheme. None of the three individuals mentioned are pre-established characters.<\/p>\n

PAGE 15.\u00a0<\/strong>The Man with the Peacock Tattoo is interrupted before dissecting Max.<\/em><\/p>\n

Presumably he’s just going to kill the kid and clone him, though it’s not exactly clear why it’s necessary to strap him down in order to do that. The Man reverts to superficial sympathy here, promising to “bring back a better version of you” – i.e., clone him, doubtless in more compliant form. Of course, there are echoes here of Krakoan resurrection, and the Man himself clearly thinks of clones as real people – he is one, after all.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-19.\u00a0<\/strong>Max helps X-Force defeat the Omnimutant and the Man with the Peacock Tattoo.<\/em><\/p>\n

So… how did Max escape the gurney? I suppose he must have got one of the other clones to break out and free him?<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. The Beast casually argues for killing all of the XENO clones via their psychic signal. Given that these are infiltrators in positions of influence, who are apparently programmed to be anti-mutant, and who would presumably have a lot of opportunities to do damage if X-Force tried simply distributing a list of names, this is actually one of the less ludicrous things Beast has suggested of late. But Sage is obviously correct to point out that the clones are people in their own right – there are enough duplicates on Krakoa to prove the point, after all – even if her only suggestion for why they might alter their attitude is the possibility of greater freedom once severed from the XENO psychic network. It’s more Beast’s disregard for the very notion of a moral dilemma arising that makes him unsympathetic here.<\/p>\n

Curiously, Sage claims that some of these clones have been in place for years. I’m not sure that works in Marvel time, unless he had access to psychic powers from some source even before capturing Kid Omega.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Domino hands the Man over to his creations.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is Domino’s revenge for being tortured in issues #1-2.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.\u00a0<\/strong>X-Force head home.<\/em><\/p>\n

And this is Domino’s closure – despite having passed up the opportunity to capture the Man with the Peacock Tattoo, she gets to be the straightforward hero in this scene who brings Max back to Krakoa.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-FORCE vol 6 #38 “Xeno” Writer: Benjamin Percy Artist: Robert Gill Colour artist: GURU-eFX Letterer: Joe Caramagna Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Mark Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1. The Man with the Peacock Tattoo creates a Frankenstein’s Monster out […]<\/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-8791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8791","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=8791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8793,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8791\/revisions\/8793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}