{"id":9403,"date":"2023-09-06T22:09:59","date_gmt":"2023-09-06T21:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9403"},"modified":"2023-09-06T22:09:59","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T21:09:59","slug":"x-men-26-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9403","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #26 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN vol 6 #26<\/strong>
\n“Whack-a-Mole”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gerry Duggan<\/strong>
\nArtists: Jim Towe & Javier Pina<\/strong>
\nColourist: Marte Gracia<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> The left half of an image of Emma Frost marrying Tony Stark. The other half is on the cover of\u00a0Invincible Iron Man<\/em> #10. The solicitation for this issue reads:\u00a0“WE’RE NOT LOSING AN X-MAN\u2026 WE’RE GAINING AN AVENGER!” The moment we swore would never happen-heck, the moment EMMA FROST swore would never happen-is here at last! As the Frost\/Stark knot is tied in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #10, Emma’s mutant family reacts to this surprise news!<\/em><\/p>\n

The issue as published bears no resemblance to that solicitation whatsoever – the marriage only comes up in the penultimate panel.<\/p>\n

The cover art features various characters who aren’t available to attend a wedding due to “Fall of X”, but that’s obviously to avoid spoilers in the solicitations.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-3.\u00a0<\/strong>John Romita tribute.<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a quote from Ben Urich about the Kingpin, taken from one of his articles. Urich was investigating the Kingpin in\u00a0Daredevil<\/em> back in the Frank Miller run.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>A flashback montage.<\/em><\/p>\n

Panel 1 shows the Kingpin and Typhoid Mary as they arrived on Krakoa at the end of issue #20.<\/p>\n

Panels 2 and 3 show the Kingpin yelling to Mary as Orchis attack, and Karima Shapandar decking the Kingpin, both on page 33 of X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023<\/em> #1. In this version, Typhoid is being bundled to safety by Magik; the two of them appear together in\u00a0Realm of X<\/em>. Curse, also from that storyline, can be seen to their right. If Professor X, on the left, is meant to be marching everyone through the gates, then that’s artistic licence; it doesn’t happen until later on, after the fighting is over.<\/p>\n

Panels 4-5 show the Kingpin warning the Irish Ambassador that Orchis are going to kill everyone. This is an original scene, which presumably takes place while the mutants are being marched through the gates. In the original issue, the Kingpin escapes with the surviving X-Men on page 60, and the Irish ambassador shows up on page 66 to get killed along with the other human guests.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Emma Frost and the Kingpin.<\/em><\/p>\n

This must be soon after the X-Men’s escape. Emma used to work for the Kingpin in the early days of her career, as covered in the Devil’s Reign: X-Men<\/em> miniseries, and that she resents being reduced to that role again. For the Kingpin, this is probably a mixture of satisfaction at restoring his position of control over her, and simply taking advantage of the opportunity to gain leverage.<\/p>\n

“X weeks ago.”<\/strong>\u00a0X-Men Red<\/em>, in particular, makes clear that the “X” in these repeated captions is meant to be a Roman numeral 10.<\/p>\n

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

PAGES 9-10. <\/strong>Emma Frost warns Tony Stark that Shadowkat is going to kill Firestar.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Kingpin’s role as the new White King was previously established in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em> #14. The suggestion here seems to be that Emma had the Hellfire Club’s assets transferred to the Kingpin as the only available human ally in the immediate aftermath of the Gala.<\/p>\n

Iron Man’s defeat by Orchis (specifically Feilong) and his loss of control of elements of the Iron Man technology, have been covered in recent issues of his own book.<\/p>\n

Firestar<\/strong> became a mole within Orchis during\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023<\/em>, as she explains later in the issue, when Jean Grey altered people’s memories to make them think that she’d been there all along. She wasn’t given any advice on how to contact the survivors, but evidently she’s managed to make contact with Iron Man during this period, and Emma has unsurprisingly figured it out for herself. She’s a fairly obvious candidate for an infiltrator, being a girl scout mutant hero, after all, even if she doesn’t have particularly close ties to the X-Men.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.\u00a0<\/strong>Kamala Khan interrupts a mugging.<\/em><\/p>\n

This seems to be just a general scene of things being bad. Kamala infiltrating the Orchis-funded university programme is the plot of Ms Marvel: The New Mutant<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-21.\u00a0<\/strong>Shadowkat confronts Firestar, and believes her story.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shadowkat was setting off to kill Firestar at the end of the previous issue. Frankly, this seems an insanely stupid idea if it’s really that important to keep quiet about her ability to use the Krakoan gates – even if she kills all the eye witnesses, doesn’t this space station have security cameras? Are they supposed to think she got onto the station some other way?<\/p>\n

PAGE 22.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a letter from Firestar to her father, in character as an Orchis stooge. The last we heard of Bart Jones, I think, was in issue #13 when his letter to Emma Frost appeared on a data page.<\/p>\n

Butter Rum<\/strong> was Angelica’s horse in\u00a0Firestar<\/em> #2 (1985); Emma tricked Angelica into thinking that her powers had killed the horse, when in fact Emma killed him herself. Angelica knows this perfectly well. More to the point, Bart is also well aware of Emma’s past mistreatment of Emma – he refers to it in general terms in his letter in issue #13 – so this may well be Angelica slipping in a reference that Bart will know is false. She also strongly encourages her father to make contact personally with Tony Stark, under the pretext of returning her Avengers ID card.<\/p>\n

Captain Krakoa<\/strong> is the main plotline in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>. He’s an Orchis impostor.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.\u00a0<\/strong>Shadowkat and Emma.<\/em><\/p>\n

Emma seems to have been under the impression that Kate was hunting for leads on Cyclops (who is a prisoner of Orchis, as seen last issue), or at least that she might take the chance to learn something about it while on the Orchis station. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere near the top of Kate’s priorities.<\/p>\n

PAGES 24-26.\u00a0<\/strong>Tony stops Emma from attacking Feilong.<\/em><\/p>\n

Basically, Tony has to restrain Emma from losing her temper and blowing her cover, and winds up having to cover for their argument by pretending he was proposing to her. The idea is that she was taking off the ring that shields her from Sentinel scans, and Tony is having to explain why he’s handing a ring back to her. I’m not sure the art gets that across as clearly as you’d want.<\/p>\n

PAGE 27.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads ALL EYES ON THE X-MEN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #26 “Whack-a-Mole” Writer: Gerry Duggan Artists: Jim Towe & Javier Pina Colourist: Marte Gracia Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. The left half of an image of […]<\/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-9403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403","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=9403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9405,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9403\/revisions\/9405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}