{"id":9488,"date":"2023-10-06T22:53:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T21:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9488"},"modified":"2023-10-06T22:53:46","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T21:53:46","slug":"x-force-45-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9488","title":{"rendered":"X-Force #45 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 #45<\/strong>
\n“A Slip of the Pen”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Benjamin Percy<\/strong>
\nArtist: Robert Gill<\/strong>
\nColour artist: GURU-eFX<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller and Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> A weird image of Colossus, Quentin Quire and Wolverine (Laura) as prisoners of Mikhail Rasputin with multiple perspectives and a kind of 3D effect. The solicitation for this issue read: “X-Force is held captive. But what powerful force can keep Wolverine, Colossus, Omega Red and Quentin Quire from their compatriots, and what will this mean for the future of mutantkind? And, as the Chronicler focusses his powers on a new subject, how will his control shift the balance of power in the Fall of X era?” That last sentence is certainly in this issue, but Wolverine, Omega Red and Quentin Quire only have brief cameos in this issue (a single panel of each of them, on page 23).<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.\u00a0<\/strong>Chronicler recaps the plot, and Colossus kidnaps Jun Wei.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Chronicler opens by reflecting on how Colossus was perfectly placed to be the first person narrator of his story about Krakoa precisely because he’s a secondary character in the grand scheme of things; it accords with his sense of how this sort of story ought to work, and as we’ve seen, Chronicler’s reality-warping powers are constrained by what he can rationalise as a sensible story. Mind you, given how often Chronicler has taken to writing directly about his control of Colossus and the way in which Colossus is being manipulated, this book must be a very strange read.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But perhaps that’s intentional on Chronicler’s part. Even though he’s explicitly positioning Colossus as the narrator on page 2, and rationalising their targeting to Jun Wei, the actual first person narrator here is Chronicler himself. Chronicler is no longer writing about Colossus – he’s writing about himself and Mikhail, which implies that this<\/em> is the sequence of events that he’s actually dictating now, and the subtext is that Chronicler is himself in a position to change the course of events. Since Mikhail is watching over his shoulder, Chronicler has to be careful here, but he seems to be deliberately steering this to a point where he can make his move – as he does later in the issue. After all, Mikhail doesn’t do subtext.<\/p>\n

Chronicler specifically warned Mikhail that if he stopped writing Colossus’s story without a resolution then Colossus might die; his concern is presumably that if the story just stopped dead, Colossus would too. Another reading of what’s going on here is that Chronicler is trying to shift the focus of his narrative onto the very fact of Colossus being under his control, so that he can then present the act of relinquishing his control as a form of resolution, and at least try<\/em> to release Colossus in a controlled way.<\/p>\n

Jun Wei.<\/strong> Jun was in one of the photographs of possible new subjects that Mikhail gave to Chronicler last issue. Aside from that, I think this is her first appearance – or at least, if she\u00a0has<\/em> appeared before, it was indeed as a background character.<\/p>\n

Colossus is sent to abduct her, as Mikhail directed last issue. That issue suggested that Colossus was likely to be in some terrible danger while carrying out this mission – which Mikhail wasn’t much bothered by, since Colossus had outlived his usefulnessIn the event, Colossus seems to have no trouble with it at all.<\/p>\n

The portal which he uses to access the Orchis station is created by Mikhail’s powers.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page about the history on Jun Wei. Jun was radicalised when her parents were killed in the collateral damage from a “seaside battle” 13 years ago. This is unusually specific stuff for Marvel time, because we’re told that this battle involved “Magneto, Astra, Toad and the Scarlet Witch”. Astra is a villain from the late-90s Alan Davis run who was apparently a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants for a brief period before they made their public debut against the X-Men – apparently, Jun ran into her during this period. That’s basically the dawn of the Silver Age, so it’s unusual that we get a time frame as specific as 13 years for it, though like most things to do with Marvel sliding time, it’s best not to think too hard about it.<\/p>\n

I don’t think we’ve ever actually seen any of Astra’s exploits with the Brotherhood, so the specific incident mentioned here is new (and probably unimportant).<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.\u00a0<\/strong>Colossus brings Jun back to Mikhail, and gets banished to a “void”.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is one of the “dimensional rifts” that Mikhail created for the other X-Force captives last issue. As his last act as Colossus’ narrator, Chronicler gives Colossus his signature painting equipment, effectively inviting him to express himself again. This seems to be Chronicler’s way of trying to relinquish control of Colossus in a way that at least plays as an open-ended resolution rather than a dead halt.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-10.\u00a0<\/strong>Sage and Domino ask Deadpool to help.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sage told us last issue that Deadpool was offline and uncontactable.<\/p>\n

Despite his desperation to join X-Force in the first place, Deadpool has no interest in joining the battered remnants of X-Force. As he points out, he’s already doing anti-Orchis stuff in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>, and Sage’s remaining group are not really the team he wanted to join any more. He wanted to be part of Krakoa and hang out with Wolverine (Logan). None of that is on offer any more.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-12.\u00a0<\/strong>Sage and Domino discuss the ring.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the ring that Domino stole from Mikhail’s former ally Boba Golubev last issue, which was implied to be some sort of device for contacting or otherwise reaching Mikhail. It’s stored in the scan-proof No-Place tumour where Sage put it last issue. The little cube things floating around it suggest it’s a creation of Mikhail’s reality warping powers. Since this doesn’t respond to any sort of scientific principles that Sage understands, she decides to ask Dr Strange for any insights from a magical perspective.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-14.\u00a0<\/strong>Chronicler begins to talk to Jun Wei.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although Chronicler needs to talk to a victim in order to understand them and write their life, his powers apparently force his victims to co-operate in the exercise. It seems that Chronicler can only write one life at a time, because as soon as he starts to bond with Jun, Colossus finally comes to his senses.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-18. <\/strong>Sage and Domino visit Dr Strange.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m including the data page in this block because it’s basically an exposition dump that follows directly from the scene before. Strange tells us that Mikhail’s powers are not<\/em> magic, but that his reality-warping powers operate on somewhat similar principles, and the ring is probably a key to access one of his voids. More to the point, Strange believes that Mikhail’s voids have to be actively sustained by him, so if he dies then the people inside – i.e., X-Force – will either be expelled back into the real world, or crushed to death as the voids cease to exist.<\/p>\n

PAGES 19-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Chronicler makes Jun shoot Mikhail.<\/em><\/p>\n

At last, Chronicler gets a moment when he’s got his puppet and Mikhail right next to one another, and Mikhail isn’t paying attention, and he does exactly what you’d expect. And then desperately scrabbles to get Jun back under control before she kills him too.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.\u00a0<\/strong>Mikhail’s voids start to collapse.<\/em><\/p>\n

We see Wolverine, Quentin and Omega Red in the situations as last issue. Mikhail, apparently dying, somehow winds up in Colossus’s void – presumably the idea is that his instinct is to turn to his brother for help.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krakoan reads A TALE OF TWO BROTHERS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-FORCE vol 6 #45 “A Slip of the Pen” Writer: Benjamin Percy Artist: Robert Gill Colour artist: GURU-eFX Letterer: Joe Caramagna Design: Tom Muller and Jay Bowen Editor: Mark Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1. A weird image of Colossus, Quentin Quire […]<\/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-9488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488","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=9488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9490,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488\/revisions\/9490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}