{"id":9519,"date":"2023-10-20T23:07:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T22:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9519"},"modified":"2023-10-20T23:07:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T22:07:15","slug":"children-of-the-vault-3-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9519","title":{"rendered":"Children of the Vault #3 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>CHILDREN OF THE VAULT #3<\/strong>
\n“War on Tomorrow”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Deniz Camp<\/strong>
\nArtist: Luca Maresca<\/strong>
\nColourist: Carlos Lopez<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Cory Petit<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Bishop and Cable (with their big guns) in the foreground, with the Children floating over their City in the background.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-6.\u00a0<\/strong>Bishop and Cable attack the City.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last issue, Bishop and Cable captured Martillo and Cable obtained “access codes, layouts, City defence protocols” and so forth from him. This is them acting on that plan. The basic idea is to fire a “micro-singularity” at the City, simply as a distraction to leave the Children open to Orchis. We’ll see in the next scene how Cable and Bishop got Orchis to attack.<\/p>\n

Most of the Children are just defending themselves here, but\u00a0Capit\u00e1n\u00a0<\/strong>is singled out as the one who really looks down on the mutants. The previous issue established that he was the leader of the losing “Traditionalist” faction that argued for just wiping out humanity and starting over with the Children; the whole idea of posing as superheroes and assimilating (some of) the humans is a comparatively liberal plan pushed by Serafina.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 7.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-9.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Orchis are manipulated into attacking the Children.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Reforge.<\/strong> Described as a “rebuilt Orchis Photospheric Headquarters”, this is apparently an updated version of the Orchis Forge space station, still with the giant Sentinel head in the centre, but apparently now on the actual surface of the sun. I don’t recall anything in particular happening to cause the Forge to be rebuilt, though.<\/p>\n

Anyway: Orchis haven’t been attacking the Children up to now, because they’ve been affected by the Children’s mind virus just like anyone else. Cable has (somehow) managed to sneak aboard the base – or affect it remotely – and draw the attention of a mid-level scientist to what’s going on. Orchis have responded by handing everything over to AIs that the Children can’t affect. This results in the AI despatching not just the Stark Sentinels but a bunch of traditional Sentienls too.<\/p>\n

The narrator tells us that the Sentinels are being controlled by\u00a0“untouched A.I.s trained on ten million years’ worth of intergalactic war scholarship.” That’s an odd comment given that Orchis is basically a human organisation – where did they get hold of something like that? Is it just some random bit of alien tech, or is there more to it?<\/p>\n

PAGE 10.\u00a0<\/strong>Capit\u00e1n tells Serafina that she’s “lost the argument”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Capit\u00e1n sees this as vindication of his “Traditionalist” stance. He tried being nice to the humans, and look what happened.<\/p>\n

Serafina is puzzled – not just because the mind virus didn’t work, but also because something is blocking her attempts to control the Sentinels with her powers. Serafina will get back to this point on page 15.<\/p>\n

PAGES 11-13. <\/strong>Cable and Bishop squabble about their favourite guns.<\/em><\/p>\n

Comedy interlude! I don’t think we’ve heard of the Beyonder \/ Phoenix was of the 43rd century before, but it doesn’t sound like anything we should be worrying about. These must be excellent guns if they were of any use in a fight between those two, though.<\/p>\n

The unnamed sword guy seems to be new.<\/p>\n

“The Order of the Fallen Bishop”<\/strong> also seems to be new, but it would presumably be something that Cable set up during the 2008-2010\u00a0Cable<\/em> series where Bishop was pursuing Cable through time. If this bunch was active from the 26th to 28th centuries, then that’s hard to place exactly since Cable <\/em>generally avoided giving exact years, but they were probably set up somewhere in the region of Cable<\/em> #6.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a letter from Cable to Hope, apparently in the form of a thought broadcast which is “intercepted” by someone or other.<\/p>\n

“Once, we ran from roaches the size of<\/strong> men.”\u00a0<\/strong>In\u00a0Cable<\/em> #8-10.<\/p>\n

“The whole timeline is in upheaval – note as it should be. Something has made a mess of time.”<\/strong> Cable is citing this as an explanation of why his knowledge of the future is unreliable. But Destiny has been saying something similar in Immortal X-Men<\/em> ever since “Sins of Sinister”. Destiny seems to credit the instability to the defeat of Mr Sinister’s plan to control the future by using Moira clones to keep rebooting reality whenever it doesn’t go his way; this opened up a range of new possibilities.<\/p>\n

It’s also worth recalling here that in\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #24, we saw the\u00a0young<\/em> Cable attack Orchis and try to thwart the Hellfire Gala. So there are two Cables running around in the present at the moment, but we don’t know yet what’s become of the younger one. Presumably he’s still an Orchis prisoner.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-17.\u00a0<\/strong>Serafina expands her mind to understand what’s happening.<\/em><\/p>\n

Her positioning compared to Capit\u00e1n, and what she discovers in this scene, seems to leave her primed for a face turn. She identifies the Orchis A.I. as “a nascent war mind, an ancient precursor to our City.” She recalls meeting Cable before (in the “Supernovas” arc from\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #188-193).<\/p>\n

More to the point, though, she detects a\u00a0Dominion<\/strong> exerting influence behind the scenes – which is a much more central plotline for the X-books than anything so far in this book. The Dominion concept dates from\u00a0Powers of X<\/em>, where it was a collective society that had developed into something outside time and space. In\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em>, the focus has been on which of the four Nathaniel Essex clones (Mr Sinister, Dr Stasis, Orbis Stellaris and Mother Righteous) will personally ascend to Dominion-hood.<\/p>\n

The fact that Dominions operate outside normal time may explain why this series is using time travellers Cable and Bishop as its protagonists, and why the preceding data page was stressing Cable’s unusual perception of the mutability of time.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-19.\u00a0<\/strong>Orchis struggles to counteract the Children’s Message.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an odd scene. Orchis are often shown as manipulating the narrative and such like, but this scene involves mass rebellion against Orchis for having the temerity to criticise the Children. That… seems like the sort of thing that ought to be a big deal in other books. Maybe it will be?<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Bishop’s diary.<\/p>\n

“For weeks after gala heard Xavier screaming ‘go to gate'”.\u00a0<\/strong>After-effects of Professor X ordering everyone through the gates in\u00a0X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023<\/em>. Sunspot reported something similar in X-Men Red<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“What is, is.”<\/strong> Askani mantra heavily used back in the days when Jeph Loeb was writing\u00a0Cable<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Nega-Bomb<\/strong> was a genocidal weapon used at the end of the Kree-Skrull War, in the 1992\u00a0Avengers\u00a0crossover “Operation: Galactic Storm”.<\/p>\n

The Psimitar<\/strong> was Cable’s signature weapon while Joe Casey was writing his book.<\/p>\n

“How could you ever go far enough?”<\/strong> This series has been explicitly reminding us of Bishop’s acts of mass destruction in the 2008-2010\u00a0Cable<\/em> mini, and this page tells us that Cable has given him access to weapons of mass destruction – one of which, apparently, he has pocketed. This is not encouraging.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Bishop enters the City and fights Madre.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.\u00a0<\/strong>Serafina tries to warn the City about the Dominion.<\/em><\/p>\n

Serafina says that the humans are “not even in control” and that the Dominion “wears them like a glove” – this seems to suggest that the Dominion is acting through the A.I. that is now controlling Orchis’s systems. Cable brought that result about, but he doesn’t seem to recognise what Serafina is talking about.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.<\/strong> Trailers. The Krakoan reads KILL THE FUTURE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. CHILDREN OF THE VAULT #3 “War on Tomorrow” Writer: Deniz Camp Artist: Luca Maresca Colourist: Carlos Lopez Letterer: Cory Petit Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1. Bishop and Cable (with their big guns) in […]<\/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-9519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519","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=9519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9521,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9519\/revisions\/9521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}