{"id":9261,"date":"2023-07-19T22:20:56","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T21:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9261"},"modified":"2023-07-19T22:20:56","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T21:20:56","slug":"x-men-red-13-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9261","title":{"rendered":"X-Men Red #13 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/91RZ5qLUEVL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-9262 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/91RZ5qLUEVL._AC_UY436_QL65_-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"195\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/91RZ5qLUEVL._AC_UY436_QL65_-195x300.jpg 195w, https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/91RZ5qLUEVL._AC_UY436_QL65_.jpg 284w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 195px) 100vw, 195px\" \/><\/a><strong>X-MEN RED #13<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>&#8220;The Annihilation of Arakko&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Writer: Al Ewing<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Artist: Jacopo Camagni<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Colourist: Federico Blee<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Letterer: Ariana Maher<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Design: Tom Muller<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Editor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> A symbolically giant Genesis attacks the Great Ring with the Annihilation Staff.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 2-3.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Lycaon makes his first appearance at the Great Ring.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Lycaon\u00a0<\/strong>makes his first appearance here, but he was previously mentioned by Sunspot in issue #11: &#8220;They&#8217;re a little more imposing than poor Idyll was. Imagine an Omega Wolverine. And then double it.&#8221; Apparently, Sunspot meant the &#8220;double it&#8221; literally, since this guy is apparently a two-headed werewolf centaur.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Lycaon clearly considers himself to be the main character of this story, and is decidedly put out by the fact that nobody else agrees. He perceives his two heads as a symbol of reasoned objectivity and balance, something which is entirely lacking in anything he does in this issue; he seems unable to tell the difference between reasoned compromise and just splitting the difference with anyone who walks in. (In fairness, he&#8217;s probably being affected by Annihilation for much of this story, so maybe he lives up to his billing a little better in normal circumstances.) He doesn&#8217;t clarify what his powers are, other than mentioning a healing factor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Great Ring<\/strong> are now sitting at a single table in a circle of skulls and bones in the middle of a desert &#8211; Arakko itself is no longer present. When we saw this set in issue #7, the table was a full circle, but evidently the Night Seats are not participating once again.<\/p>\n<p>The eight members of the Great Ring, from left to right, are now:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Kobak Never-Held<\/strong>, Sunspot&#8217;s friend from earlier issues.<\/li>\n<li>Lycaon<\/li>\n<li>Storm<\/li>\n<li>Lactuca<\/li>\n<li>Lodus Logus<\/li>\n<li>Sobunar<\/li>\n<li>Ora Serrata<\/li>\n<li>The character once known as Xilo &#8211; the recap page still calls him that, but the dialogue later on indicates that he&#8217;s changing his name to something yet to be decided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>&#8220;You&#8217;re not the first newcomer Lodus has tested.&#8221;<\/strong> Lodus chucked a knife at Storm in the same way at her first meeting, way back in <em>S.W.O.R.D.<\/em> #8.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Jon Ironfire addresses the Great Ring.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Jon is basically recapping the plot here. Oddly, Sobunar seems surprised to learn that Annihilation still exists after the destruction of the Annihilation helm, despite the fact that Saturnyne quite explicitly turned it into the staff in <em>X of Swords: Destruction<\/em>. Apparently that isn&#8217;t universally known. Jon explains (consistently with\u00a0<em>Destruction<\/em>) that the staff influences people more subtly than the helm did.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Genesis arrives to address the Great Ring.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Genesis arrived on Arakko on her own in the previous issue, somewhat to the surprise of her ally Marianna Stern, who was expecting an army. But, as Jon says, the Annihilation staff goes about things in a subtler way than the staff. Evidently Genesis (or perhaps Annihilation) intends to sow some discord here, rather than just launching an attack which would unite everyone against her.<\/p>\n<p>This whole issue consists of the Great Ring imploding under Genesis&#8217; pressure, in what seems like a deliberate parallel of\u00a0<em>Immortal X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits. The title, &#8220;The Annihilation of Arakko&#8221;, is obviously a double meaning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 7.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. This is another extract from\u00a0<em>The New History of Arakko<\/em>, a page from which also appeared in the previous issue. Another extract appears later in the issue, where the author identifies himself as the former Xilo &#8211; here, he refers to himself in the third person as &#8220;That-Which-Was-Xilo&#8221;. Xilo lost most of his memories when parts of his body were destroyed during\u00a0<em>A.X.E.: Judgment Day<\/em>, hence his attempts to write a &#8220;new history&#8221; reconstructing what has been lost.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Kobak, more than most, was not afraid of a life that ends.&#8221;<\/strong> This refers to the recurrent theme of the Arakki rejecting the Krakoan option of resurrection. Kobak holds the Seat of Victory, replacing Isca; she in turn took the seat when Genesis left Arakko to remain in Amenth at the end of &#8220;X of Swords.&#8221; So, as Xilo says, Kobak is sitting in Genesis&#8217;s old seat &#8211; Genesis did\u00a0<em>not<\/em> hold the seat formerly held by Storm, and now by Lodus Logos, with the extra casting vote. Evidently she didn&#8217;t need it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lactuca<\/strong> evidently takes the cosmic-scale view that none of this really matters because the universe will go on regardless.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lodus Logos<\/strong>&#8216; thoughts are recorded in his usual poetic form. He&#8217;s been one of the Great Ring stalwarts most receptive to Storm&#8217;s more co-operative ideas and immediately realises that Genesis isn&#8217;t going to like any of this at all. Genesis&#8217; purpose here is basically to confront the Great Ring members who have evolved in their attitudes over the course of Al Ewing&#8217;s run with someone who embodies the way that they started out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ora<\/strong> <strong>Serrata &#8220;had made a number of mistakes recently.&#8221;<\/strong> This refers to the opening storyline in <em>Legion of X<\/em> where Ora Serrata was trying to foment chaos and was revealed to be under the thumb of Mother Righteous.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Survival requires a fusion&#8230;&#8221;<\/strong> Xilo is considering finding a new body to merge with. In &#8220;Sins of Sinister&#8221;, we saw that he had merged with Cable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 8-12.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Genesis lectures the Great Ring.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Annihilation Mask is whispering throughout this scene (and the rest of the book) and presumably influencing everyone, including Genesis herself. Oddly, only Ora Serrata appears to notice this at all, and she&#8217;s rapidly persuaded to drop it.<\/p>\n<p>Jon Ironfire accuses Genesis of failing to show up with her forces to help battle the demons of Amenth, leaving the White Sword and his 100 soldiers to fight them alone and rely on the Sword&#8217;s powers to resurrect them each day. Genesis ducks the criticism by pointing out that Jon is asking for help in a way that is contrary to pre-Ewing Arakkii notions of self-reliance. Jon, who has only just arrived, seems to have no objection to making this point &#8211; but then the 100 do not hold typical Arakkii values. They always believed in co-operation, and they were unfazed by resurrection.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, Jon\u00a0<em>seems<\/em> to be saying that Genesis was &#8220;meant to be&#8221; their reinforcements against the Amenth demons, and failed to show up for some reason &#8211; not merely that she ought to have come to help on her own initiative. He invokes the standard &#8220;I was there \/ where were you?&#8221; mantra commonly used on Arakko and gets no direct answer.<\/p>\n<p>Sobunar tries to stand up for the change of attitude, but is also the first to openly concede that it&#8217;s a collapse of values. Maybe he was always a bit equivocal about it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Our mutant weapons define us.&#8221;<\/strong> Interestingly, Genesis seems to be giving the sort of mutant essentialist speech that dovetails with the less edifying aspects of Krakoan exceptionalism, where mutants have value simply because of their powers. But she also maintains that there have to be winners and losers, and that the Arakkii must make sure that they&#8217;re the winners. It&#8217;s a zero-sum-game worldview.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 13.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Storm responds.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Storm&#8217;s point is basically that this is a pretty bleak vision for mutants to aspire to. Genesis argues that the time of peace should have been used to prepare for the next war. She appeals to the fact that the Arakkii spent millennia fighting the demons to hold them at bay from Earth (&#8220;that world &#8211; which we coddled with our sacrifice&#8221;). Instead, Genesis argues, Storm led the Arakkii to &#8220;fle[e]&#8221; to a &#8220;world of luxuries&#8221; where they all got wiped out by Uranos.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 14-15. <\/strong><em>Other Great Ring members chip in.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Genesis too invokes the &#8220;where were you&#8221; line, denying Storm&#8217;s position as a proper Arakkii leader. Her criticism of Storm for not being present when they were fighting demons in Amenth is on one level absurd &#8211; Storm couldn&#8217;t have been there &#8211; but makes the point that she&#8217;s a newcomer and cultural outsider. Her point about fighting the &#8220;Eternals of Earth&#8221; is a better one, since that&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Judgment Day<\/em>, and Storm was indeed absent at a key moment &#8211; continuing the theme that Storm overcommits and is often not where she needs to be.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;The words of the Unarmed King&#8230;&#8221;<\/strong> Fisher King. I&#8217;m not immediately sure what line Sobunar is referring to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;I faced Ororo in the Circle Perilous myself&#8221;. <\/strong>Interestingly, Kobak seems particularly resistant to Annihilation&#8217;s influence &#8211; or maybe he&#8217;s just being provoked to be contrary. Anyway, he challenged Storm in the Circle Perilous in\u00a0<em>S.W.O.R.D. <\/em>#9.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;She was instrumental in caging Uranos.&#8221;<\/strong> In\u00a0<em>A.X.E.: Judgment Day<\/em> #4. The aftermath of the battle is shown in issue #7 of this series.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 16-19. <\/strong><em>Jon Ironfire challenges Genesis, and Sobunar challenges Storm.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Storm is presumably under Annihilation&#8217;s influence too, given how angrily she responds to Sobunar. Lodus Logos <em>does\u00a0<\/em>seem to recognise that they&#8217;re being manipulated, and the following data page has him claiming to be aware of the Staff&#8217;s influence &#8211; though he does get uncharacteristically emotional about it. However, Lactuca clearly understands what&#8217;s happening, and chooses directly to intervene by teleporting Kobak, Storm and Jon away. Considering that he&#8217;s already stressed his lack of interest in anything below the cosmic scale, the suggestion is that he believes this is a potentially very important event.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also not obvious how Lactuca does this, because his mutant power is to know everything.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 20.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page &#8211; another extract from <em>The New History of Arakko.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>According to Xilo, these events trigger an Arakkii civil war, in which parts of Mars are apparently going to fall under the control over various groups. The exiled Ring member Isca gets one; Tarn&#8217;s old group the Vile re-emerge to claim another.<\/p>\n<p>Lodus argues that Arakkii challenge traditions are obsolete and points to the Crucible in Krakoa as an aspirational example &#8211; a pretty low bar, really. Xilo assumes that Lodus isn&#8217;t approving of the Crucible because it leads to resurrection, but rather because it&#8217;s more of a symbolic trial leading to self-actualisation (in the form of a restoration of the &#8220;true&#8221; body).<\/p>\n<p>Xilo mentions that by the time of writing this history, parts of his memory have been erased &#8211; implying that he&#8217;s going to take another kicking somewhere along the line.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGES 21-22.\u00a0<\/strong><em>Genesis backs down from Lactuca.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Lactuca has generally hung around the fringes of this series to date. Here, neither Genesis nor anyone else seems willing to take him on. Instead, Genesis tries to shrug it off and move on with her big speech. Note the irony in her referring to &#8220;my banner&#8221;, when the banner is Annihilation itself.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PAGE 23.<\/strong> Trailers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN RED #13 &#8220;The Annihilation of Arakko&#8221; Writer: Al Ewing Artist: Jacopo Camagni Colourist: Federico Blee Letterer: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. A symbolically giant Genesis attacks the Great Ring with the Annihilation [&hellip;]<\/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-9261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261","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=9261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9263,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9261\/revisions\/9263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}