{"id":9009,"date":"2023-05-03T21:35:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9009"},"modified":"2023-05-04T09:41:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T08:41:26","slug":"x-men-before-the-fall-sons-of-x-1-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9009","title":{"rendered":"X-Men: Before The Fall – Sons of X #1 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – SONS OF X #1<\/strong>
\n“Run It Again”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Si Spurrier<\/strong>
\nArtist: Phil Noto<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – SONS OF X.<\/strong> This is one of several X-Men: Before The Fall <\/i>one-shots. The others are\u00a0Mutant First Strike<\/em> and\u00a0Heralds of Apocalypse<\/em> in June, and\u00a0Sinister Four<\/em> in July.<\/p>\n

To all intents and purposes, however, this is\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #14 (with the\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> miniseries being issues #11-13).<\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Legion faces down Mother Righteous, while Margali Szardos (carrying the Hopesword) stands over the distorted Nightcrawler, with Nimrod in the background.<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Opening montage.<\/em><\/p>\n

Panel 1, as we’ll see, is Legion doing some Danger Room-style training to fight Nimrod.<\/p>\n

Panel 2 shows a mutant transformed into a monster in New Jersey, continuing the storyline about mutants being magically transformed which was in progress in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> before the “Sins of Sinister” crossover. It’s all the work of Nightcrawler’s sorceress mother Margali Szardos, who in turn has been working with Orchis. The two newspapers in the foreground show art recycled from page 3 of\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #9.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Panel 3 shows Banshee arriving in the Altar. We’ll find out later that his confusion is to do with being separated from Vox Ignis, as a consequence of the rebooting of the timeline.<\/p>\n

Panel 4 is the aftermath of Nightcrawler (or some copy of him) murdering British government officials and teleporting away, presumably under Orchis’s control.\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #10 ended with Margali defeating the increasingly deformed Nightcrawler and conjuring a “Hopesword” from him, then leaving him for Orchis to collected. Mother Righteous then showed up to offer some sort of deal to the unconscious Nightcrawler, but we don’t know if he even woke up and responded. At any rate, apparently she allowed Orchis to collect him as per their original deal with Margali.<\/p>\n

PAGE 3.<\/strong>\u00a0Legion loses to Nimrod in the simulation.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Run it again” is the title of the story, but also refers to the rebooting of the timeline at the end of “Sins of Sinister”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.<\/strong>\u00a0More montage.<\/em><\/p>\n

Panel 1 shows more monstrous mutants being brought to the Savage Land for safekeeping. That’s Chamber and the two Xorn brothers dealing with them.<\/p>\n

Panel 3 is another Nightcrawler attack, this time in Syria. As Nightcrawler explains later on, the common thread is that these are countries that are hostile to Krakoa.<\/p>\n

Banshee<\/strong> was bonded to the Spirit of Change to become Vox Ignis in Legion of X <\/i>#6. He’s woken up with no memory of any of that (and a general feeling of emptiness to boot). Mother Righteous will later attribute this to the Spirit having been erased due to the timeline reboot.<\/p>\n

PAGES 5-7.<\/strong>\u00a0Legion and Blindfold train, then talk to Banshee.<\/em><\/p>\n

“He’s still weak after his father’s visit.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #9, and basically as described here. Professor X attacks Legion with a psychic virus, expecting him to be a threat, but instantly regrets it after realising that Legion has done a good job in the Altar.<\/p>\n

“[T]he old man was sharing his brain with Mr Sinister.”<\/strong> This is the basic storyline of “Sins of Sinister”, where Sinister’s original plot was to resurrect several of the Quiet Council in compromised form with his personality inserted. It’s not clear that in the rebooted timeline, Sinister actually got as far as activating his plan. However… this is as good a time as any to stop and ask the awkward question of how the hell\u00a0Legion of X\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> are meant to fit together.<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem:<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #7, Nightcrawler already has his Adorable Little Horns, and he’s already made some investigations into them. At the start of the issue he assigns Husk and Chamber to deal with an investigation request from Angel. Then he visits Mr Sinister, who tries to cure him by killing and resurrecting him. It doesn’t work. In the next scene, Nightcrawler’s condition has deteriorated, and he and his allies go to visit Angel. That continues directly into\u00a0Legion of X <\/em>#8-10, where Chamber and Husk finally show up at Angel’s office, and the plot has three threads with no scope for a break. In the A plot, Nightcrawler and allies confront Margali Szardos, and his condition continues to worsen, until eventually he becomes a monster and is left for Orchis to capture. In the B plot, various Legionnaires deal with Nimrod’s infiltration of the Narthex on Krakoa. And in the C plot, Professor X visits the Altar, poisons Legion, and helps to fight off a Technarch. After\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #10, Nightcrawler remains a captive of Orchis until being rescued by Legion and Mother Righteous in this issue, and cured of his condition. Professor X is still around.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #9, after nine abortive attempts in cancelled timelines, Mr Sinister succeeds in killing four of the Quiet Council. Nightcrawler is present for this, with his Adorable Little Horns – so it must be before his condition starts deteriorating in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em>, right? This continues directly to Sinister creating the save-point Moira clone at the start of\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #10 (which diverts into the SoS timeline after three panels) and in\u00a0Sins of Sinister: Dominion<\/em>. Sinister is then arrested by Rasputin IV and handed over to the remainder of the Quiet Council. The four dead members are resurrected off panel (presumably in the same way that was shown in\u00a0Immortal\u00a0<\/em>#10). Rasputin IV then introduces the Quiet Council to Mother Righteous, who tells them about the SoS timeline and explains that the four resurrected members have been compromised. The four compromised members then banish themselves to the Pit, and the issue ends with Mother Righteous being thanked on behalf of Krakoa. In\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #11, the four are released from the Pit and Sinister’s contamination is purged by Forge.<\/p>\n

So… if we’re going just by Nightcrawler’s condition, which is far and away the most glaring visible cue, then the arc in Legion of X<\/em> #7-10 comes after “Sins of Sinister”. That doesn’t fit with Sinister appearing in Legion of X\u00a0<\/em>#7, but you can fix that by inserting a break in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #7 immediately after Nightcrawler is resurrected, and shoving Sins of Sinister in there. That results in Chamber and Husk taking an inordinately<\/em> long time to get around to answering Angel’s request, but maybe they’re just incredibly useless.<\/p>\n

Except… the Legionnaires claim here that Xavier was compromised by Sinister when he visited Legion in Legion of X<\/em> #9. But the only point in time where Xavier is compromised by Sinister and outside the Pit is during\u00a0Sins of Sinister: Dominion. <\/em>You can just about make that work by forcing a gap between pages 42-43, but it means that Legion<\/em> #9-10 take place at a point when Xavier knows that he’s been compromised and hasn’t decided to go to the Pit yet. That doesn’t read at all naturally. Also, Righteous claims later in the issue that she’s been thanked by the Krakoans, which happens right at the end of Dominion<\/em>.\u00a0So we should probably ignore the bit about Xavier being potentially compromised by Sinister – which can easily be explained away as misguided hearsay – and place the whole Legion of X<\/em> arc (aside from the opening scenes with Sinister) after Xavier returns in Immortal #<\/em>11. This is painfully awkward, and it flatly contradicts the claimed sequence of events on this issue’s recap page, but it’s the best I can do to make it work.<\/p>\n

(EDIT: It still runs into the problem that Banshee appears as Vox Ignis in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #8-10, which are after the reboot. The apparent answer to this is that the events in those issues play out similarly in both timelines, and LoX<\/em> #8-10 is the SoS version – Vox’s powers are used to advance the plot in Legion of X<\/em>, but presumably some other way was found without him. At any rate, the fundamental problem here is that Immortal X-Men<\/em> seems to think Nightcrawler is with the Quiet Council at the moment of reset, and Legion of X<\/em> seems to think he’s a monstrous prisoner of Orchis, and plainly those can’t both be true.)<\/p>\n

“It’s a bloody timeline alteration. I know whereof I speak.”<\/strong> Legion is probably referring either to his role in creating the “Age of Apocalypse” timeline, or to that time he tried to erase himself from reality in\u00a0X-Men Legacy<\/em> vol 2 #24.<\/p>\n

“What’s it worth?”<\/strong> Mother Righteous’s standard question in this timeline, apparently. Legion recognises her from Legion of X<\/em> #1-2, when she tried to make a deal with him.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page, though note that we’ve broken from the normal design form here. It’s an excerpt from a manuscript by an unidentified author entitled “Fall of the House of X”, presumably about the fall of Krakoa. The sequence of events here seems to confirm that\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #7-10 take place after the timeline reboot in “Sins of Sinister”. Note that the author insists on referring to everyone primarily by their real names, despite the tendency in recent years for mutant characters to insist on their “mutant names”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-13.\u00a0<\/strong>Legion and co speak to Mother Righteous.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I bet you can relate, Davey boy.”<\/strong> Mother Righteous is drawing a parallel between Kurt’s awkward relationship with his mother, and Legion’s relationship with his father Professor X. In practice, Margali is a much less prominent presence in Kurt’s stories than Professor X is in Legion’s, but it’s a comparison that probably makes sense for Legion.<\/p>\n

Mother Righteous can apparently use her floating globes as scrying devices to locate people – specifically, Nightcrawler, Black Knight, Dr Nemesis and Pixie, all of whom were in earlier parts of this storyline, and were presumably carted off as prisoners by Orchis along with Nightcrawler. Nemesis’s fungal growth was sent out of control by Margali in Legion of X<\/em> #10.<\/p>\n

“All that crap down on Krakoa lately – babel spires and such…”<\/strong> The Legionnaires’ plot thread from\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #8-10.<\/p>\n

“Gift from meself.”<\/strong> As seen in\u00a0Sins of Sinister: Dominion<\/em>, the books in Mother Righteous’s library are the way in which the information was sent back to her – though presumably it’s symbolic to some degree, as she can’t possibly have read them all.<\/p>\n

“I wish I’d learned sooner that a real leader doesn’t push or pull…”<\/strong> This is page 15 panel 1 of\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #2. She didn’t strictly speaking ask him what he regretted, but she asked what he would have done differently. In the original scene, Legion goes on to condemn Mother Righteous for her manipulations, states that she always has an ulterior motive, and declares that “I’m taking what remains of my people and leaving for the higher planes. We’ll explore. We’ll rapture. That’s all that’s left, isn’t it? Heading toward the light.” Mother Righteous’s account of this is\u00a0basically<\/em> accurate, but obviously omits the bit about her.<\/p>\n

“I already did it in the other future – I know the trick.”<\/strong> I don’t think this was established in\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em>, but several centuries pass between issues, so sure, why not?<\/p>\n

Evidently Legion hasn’t picked up on the fact that Mother Righteous gains power over people when they thank her – which is somewhat odd, since he’s a telepath, but clearly she has some sort of shielding that doesn’t put telepaths on notice.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.<\/strong> Data page. More of the “Fall of the House of X” manuscript; this is basically recap, and confirmation that Orchis have been responsible for Nightcrawler’s attacks.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-22.<\/strong>\u00a0Legion and Mother Righteous raid Orchis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stasis<\/strong> is Dr Stasis, an\u00a0X-Men<\/em> villain and another of the Sinister clones. He didn’t fare that well in “Sins of Sinister”.<\/p>\n

The Hunter shards<\/strong> may be offshoots of Nimrod.<\/p>\n

Evidently, Legion can’t beat Nimrod in a straight fight because of its superior reaction time, but Nimrod doesn’t know how to react to Mother Righteous – either because she’s magical in nature, or because he just doesn’t know enough about her.<\/p>\n

Nimrod’s origin story<\/strong> is, as per the footnote, given in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #20 – basically, Alia Gregor tried to create Nimrod as a body for her late husband, but the X-Men’s attempt to stop Nimrod from coming on line resulted in his soul being (mostly) lost.<\/p>\n

The panels on page 18 panel 1 are from Legion of X<\/em> #10 and relate to Warlock being separated from Cypher and absorbed into Nimrod. Apparently, this has backfired, giving Nimrod something of the soul he didn’t previously have.<\/p>\n

Nimrod the Lesser.<\/strong> Mother Righteous refers to Nimrod under the title that was used by his counterpart in Moira’s ninth life, apparently indicating that he’s a version of the same character.<\/p>\n

“In another future … I have seen you crushed.”<\/strong> Mother Righteous is referring to Orchis’ defeat at the hands of the superheroes in the\u00a0“Sins of Sinister” timeline, as part of a montage in\u00a0Sins of Sinister<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

Margali<\/strong> Szardos<\/strong> turns on Orchis again, as she effectively did in\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #10 – she evidently has her own reasons for making a deal with them, and she’s got what she’s going to get out of him. Margali also turns out to be yet another character who made a deal with Mother Righteous, again failing to appreciate that Righteous has weaponised thanks. Presumably, Nightcrawler would have something to say about Margali being kidnapped by Righteous – but she disappears for such long stretches anyway that he’s unlikely to notice any time soon.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.\u00a0<\/strong>Mother Righteous kills Dr Nemesis.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the primary purpose of resurrecting him in a cured state, but still. She’s not doing a great job of concealing her disdain for other characters’ values in this page and the previous one.<\/p>\n

PAGES 24-30.<\/strong>\u00a0Legion retrieves the Hopesword from Mother Righteous.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently, this thing literally represents Nightcrawler’s sense of hope, and he needs to have it on him to retain his sanity. Again, Righteous is surprisingly willing to show her hand to Legion – but maybe she figures she already has Krakoa’s thanks.<\/p>\n

Righteous claims that when Legion ascended in\u00a0Nightcrawlers<\/em> #2, he was consumed by the Dominion. This isn’t something we saw in that issue, and she may simply be lying. Like Mr Sinister in\u00a0Sins of Sinister: Dominion<\/em>, she assumes that the Dominion is one of the Sinisters who were vying to achieve the role, but we’ve not actually seen any direct evidence that this is the case. If she is<\/em> telling the truth, then it may be notable that this Dominion absorbs Legion, when it rejected Sinister.<\/p>\n

Blindfold’s visions mention “the wall-crawler”, presumably to do with the upcoming Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em> series.<\/p>\n

Somehow, Legion is able to resist Mother Righteous – he ascribes this to the power of hope, but it’s also presumably a factor that he’s very, very powerful. Anyway, Legion departs Krakoa and Arakko at this point, perhaps to keep off her radar.<\/p>\n

PAGE 31. <\/strong>Nightcrawler is resurrected.<\/em><\/p>\n

Professor X is showing much more concern about Legion following his epiphany in Legion of X <\/em>#9-10.<\/p>\n

Banshee’s traumas have somehow been erased from his back-up tapes, perhaps something to do with Vox Ignis. At any rate, he’s much improved.<\/p>\n

PAGES 32-34.<\/strong>\u00a0Nightcrawler tells Cyclops that he’s leaving Krakoa.<\/em><\/p>\n

The painting was produced by Weaponless Zsen in\u00a0Legion of X\u00a0<\/em>#5, but this is the first time we’ve seen it. At any rate, Nightcrawler is so disillusioned by everything that he decides to quit the Quiet Council and leave Krakoa.<\/p>\n

PAGE 35.<\/strong> Trailers. We’re directed to\u00a0Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em> #1 for the next issue, and that isn’t due out until September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – SONS OF X #1 “Run It Again” Writer: Si Spurrier Artist: Phil Noto Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – SONS OF X. This is one […]<\/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-9009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9009","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=9009"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9018,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9009\/revisions\/9018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}