{"id":9019,"date":"2023-05-04T22:28:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T21:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9019"},"modified":"2023-05-04T22:28:26","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T21:28:26","slug":"immortal-x-men-11-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9019","title":{"rendered":"Immortal X-Men #11 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>IMMORTAL X-MEN #11<\/strong>
\n“Part 11: A Hard Reign”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Kieron Gillen<\/strong>
\nArtist: Lucas Werneck<\/strong>
\nColour artist: David Curiel<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Well, that’d be a picture of Storm in a tree, wouldn’t it?<\/p>\n

PAGE 2.<\/strong> Data page. Our opening quote is presumably alluding to the circular arrangement of the Quiet Council meeting chamber, presented as the arena of (political) game-playing. Much of this issue is about the effort to keep up the appearance of the Quiet Council while attempting to prevent the abuse of its rules – with spectacular lack of effect, whatever the X-Men might think.<\/p>\n

Johan Huizinga<\/strong> (1872-1945) was a pioneer of cultural history, who was interested in the role that art and culture played in society.\u00a0Homo Ludens<\/em> (1938) argues that play is an essential feature of culture. The term “dyutamandalam” just means “gaming circle”. The quote here is from a section which indirectly inspired the modern use of the term “magic circle” in the gaming context<\/a> to mean (broadly) a place in which the rules of the game supplant the rules of the normal world.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGES 3-4.<\/strong>\u00a0Professor X, Exodus, Hope and Emma are released from the Pit.<\/em><\/p>\n

Storm<\/strong> is the most senior trustworthy X-Man left on the Quiet Council, so it makes sense that she’s taking the lead here. It’s interesting, though, that the rest of the Council\u00a0aren’t<\/em> present, and instead the newcomer Rasputin IV<\/strong> is being entrusted with this task. She explains on page 11 that she is trustworthy because Sinister created her explicitly to be free of his influence, in order to make sure that the other Sinisters couldn’t control her. This is true – see\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #2.<\/p>\n

Cypher<\/strong> is translating for Krakoa so that the correct prisoner can be fetched from the Pit. Curiously, Cypher is still drawn with techno-organics on his right arm. He was separated from Warlock in Legion of X<\/em> #9-10, and he’s depicted in those issues with a normal right arm. This week’s\u00a0X-Men: Before the Fall – Sons of X<\/em> seems to confirm that these events still happened in the post-Sins of Sinister timeline – certainly Warlock’s soul has still wound up in the hands of Nimrod – so this is probably an art error.<\/p>\n

“I was happy and loved in a place where I was needed, and he dragged me out to help save his project.”<\/strong>\u00a0Giant-Size X-Men<\/em> #1, where Professor X recruits Ororo into the X-Men. Previously, she was acting as a goddess for a remote African community.<\/p>\n

“He came and told me that my life caring for a people was a lie. Because I wasn’t a god. He accused me of hubris.”<\/strong> He doesn’t say that in terms in\u00a0Giant-Size X-Men<\/em> #1. What he says in the original story is: “You have a land, Ororo, and people who adore you. I offer you a world – and people who may fear you, hate you – but people who need you nonetheless. The world I offer is not beautiful, but it is real – far more real than the fantasy you’re living now. You are no goddess, Ororo. You are a mutant, and you have responsibilities.”<\/p>\n

Of course, on most modern interpretations of Professor X, Storm is basically right in accusing him of hypocrisy and hubris – particularly as, per\u00a0House of X<\/em>, he had grand schemes of Krakoa in mind all along.<\/p>\n

“Where I’m from, your words were a brand burned into trillions of minds.”<\/strong> In the “Sins of Sinister” timeline.<\/p>\n

“We went voluntarily to the Pit.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Sins of Sinister: Dominion.\u00a0<\/em>An interesting question not touched on in this issue is what experience the four compromised Council members actually had within the Pit, and how it relates to anything that we’ve seen in\u00a0Sabretooth and the Exiles.<\/em> (That might be part of the reason for sending them there, only to bring them straight back again.) Later in the issue, he calls it “a purgatory”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.<\/strong>\u00a0The compromised Council members are plugged into Forge’s machine.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s not entirely clear how many people have been told about this incident. Forge and other “science brain[s]” have clearly been told. The X-Men\u00a0might<\/em> have been, but Forge is a special case because of his powers. Several random Legionnaires know about it in\u00a0X-Men: Before the Fall – Sons of X<\/em> but… well, that issue has a bunch of continuity problems, so who knows if they’re really meant to be aware.<\/p>\n

“You know I’ve got experience cleaning up when science goes bad.”<\/strong> The obvious example here being the period in the 80s when Storm lost her powers thanks to a Neutraliser device that Forge had created. They were a couple off and on from the mid 80s through to the early 90s.<\/p>\n

The Krakoan on the large eye-screen-thing reads “DANGER”.<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.<\/strong> Data page. Basically, Forge has figured out what Sinister did, and knows how to reverse it. Kind of.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-11.\u00a0<\/strong>The compromised Council members are marginalised.<\/em><\/p>\n

Forge explains that he’s solved the problem he could find, but isn’t sure he’s got everything. Since Forge’s power is basically defined as the ability to build a machine to solve any problem, you could argue that he ought to be able to be more definitive. But Forge’s power is to get there in the end – there may be a whole load of hoops that he needs to jump through first.<\/p>\n

Storm seems to imply that resurrection will be continuing “at a reduced rate”, and acknowledges that nobody who is resurrected can be trusted any more. This ought to mark the end of the mutants treating resurrection as a get out of jail free card – but of course, making that too explicit would essentially advertise to the Krakoan population the very problem that Storm is trying to keep under wraps.<\/p>\n

“She is a true believer in Krakoa. We’ve seen where that can lead.”<\/strong> Storm might be thinking of Beast.<\/p>\n

Exodus and Hope<\/strong> are presumably upset about Exodus killing Hope in\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #2.<\/p>\n

“We can’t be seen to publicly dismiss\u00a0another<\/em> four members.”<\/strong> Storm is probably meant to be referring to Mr Sinister, whose banishment obviously has to be public, and Nightcrawler, who quit the council in\u00a0X-Men: Before the Fall – Sons of X<\/em>. However, as covered in the annotations for that issue<\/a>, the timeline is screwed up, and that issue looks like it has to come\u00a0after<\/em> this story (or at least between the main story and the epilogue).<\/p>\n

“What has happened while we’ve been gone? The Moiras?”<\/strong> This is a slightly odd question, since the Moira Engine was destroyed in\u00a0Sins of Sinister: Dominion<\/em> before Xavier and co consigned themselves to the Pit. Maybe he just wants to know if anything further has been learned about Sinister’s thwarted scheme and its existential implications.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-14.<\/strong>\u00a0Storm, Professor X and Destiny.<\/em><\/p>\n

From what we’ve seen in previous issues, Destiny is basically telling the truth when she says that she didn’t expose Sinister’s machinations with the Moira Engine because she feared that he would simply reboot time to stop her. She may also be telling the truth when she says that she was trying to engineer scenarios where that would no longer be a threat. But we know from “Sins of Sinister” that Destiny was attracted to that timeline primarily because it was a world where she got to be with Mystique for as long as possible, irrespective of the damage to the rest of the universe.<\/p>\n

“In that future, you tricked me into stealing the Moira engine.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

“You know how to deactivate the X-Gene, as you did with the real Moira.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Inferno<\/em> #4, though Storm is being slightly unfair: Destiny and Mystique removed the original Moira’s powers using a device that was supplied to them by Emma.<\/p>\n

“I remember visions of Ororo’s future self believing that we couldn’t access the Moiras without risking activating them…”<\/strong> In\u00a0Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants<\/em> #2. Presumably these are events in the far future that Destiny was able to foresee before the Sins of Sinister timeline even started.<\/p>\n

“I saw some timelines where after a reset the Moira engine would be destroyed.”<\/strong> That begs the question of why Destiny couldn’t see these as possible futures, and could only see the limited possibilities allowed by the Moira engine. Maybe those options only opened up once somebody actually travelled back in time and did it.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.\u00a0<\/strong>Mystique and Mother Righteous.<\/em><\/p>\n

The message that Mother Righteous delivers to Mystique is the one that Destiny left for Sinister in\u00a0Immoral X-Men<\/em> #3. The rest of the message, which Mystique presumably goes on to listen to, is quite long and I’m not going to type it out in full. Basically, however, if she got the full message, Mystique learns the following information:<\/p>\n