{"id":9597,"date":"2023-11-15T22:21:12","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T22:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9597"},"modified":"2023-11-15T22:21:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-15T22:21:12","slug":"dark-x-men-4-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9597","title":{"rendered":"Dark X-Men #4 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>DARK X-MEN vol 2 #4<\/strong>
\n“Up Jumped the Devil”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Steve Foxe<\/strong>
\nArtist: Jonas Scharf<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Frank Martin<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Chasm in the foreground, with Feint, Gambit, Goblin QUeen and Havok behind.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-5. <\/strong>Gambit brings Rogue up to speed.<\/em><\/p>\n

Rogue<\/strong> is appearing over in\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em>. So far, we’ve glossed over the question of why the two married characters aren’t together – but then, Rogue is a previous Avengers, and somebody needs to keep an eye on the Limbo Embassy.<\/p>\n

“What he is not used to … is being the most honourable, responsible person in the room.”<\/strong> I’m not sure it’s\u00a0that<\/em> unprecedented, given the time he’s spent in the Thieves Guild, or indeed his stint with the Marauders… but sure, Gambit is normally the wild card rogue, and he’s being forced here into playing the role of the last normal X-Man.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“You shoulda got out ‘a there when Maggott did.”<\/strong> Maggott quit last issue to stay with Callisto’s group of Morlocks.<\/p>\n

The mutant being rescued from Orchis in page 3 panel 2 is\u00a0Brimstone Love<\/strong>, which is a bit odd, because he was killed by Daken and Johnny Dee in\u00a0Marauders<\/em> #12 back in March. I suppose he could have been resurrected before the fall of Krakoa, but he’s an odd person prioritise.<\/p>\n

“Course, some don’t have enough sense to stay put.”<\/strong> The three seen here are Animax, Fatale and Reaper, who were all seen in the Limbo Embassy in issue #1. They were captured by Orchis Hounds in\u00a0Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em> #3.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>The Goblin Queen II selects a mutant from Orchis’ jail.<\/em><\/p>\n

As we’ll see later, this is\u00a0Abyss<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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

PAGE 8-11.<\/strong>\u00a0The Goblin Queen II, Krol and Vallens attack the Limbo Embassy using Abyss.<\/em><\/p>\n

Abyss<\/strong> debuted in the “Age of Apocalypse” crossover, but his mainstream counterpart was introduced in\u00a0Cable<\/em> #40 in 1996. He’s never done very much of great significance. In the notorious Uncanny X-Men<\/em> arc “The Draco”, in 2003, he was retconned into being one of Azazel’s many offspring on Earth, making him Nightcrawler’s half-brother. He was depowered on M-Day and I believe this is the first time we’ve seen him since he regained his powers, which presumably happened via the Crucible. Basically, he can unravel his body into tendrils, and there’s some sort of portal inside him. While he’s not a character who gets a great deal of use, here his powers happen to be convenient to the plot, and of course he has a connection with Azazel.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a conversation between Professor X and Nightcrawler from the early days of Krakoa about Azazel coming to Krakoa. Basically, Nightcrawler correctly suspects that Azazel won’t like it on Krakoa, but doesn’t really care about the guy one way or the other, despite being his biological son. This is Azazel’s big claim to fame in X-Men continuity, and even Nightcrawler doesn’t care that much about it.<\/p>\n

Mystique<\/strong> would be resentful of Azazel because of the circumstances in which he seduced her and, possibly, in which she wound up abandoning baby Kurt. Stories vary as to how voluntary that was on her part, and recent issues of\u00a0Uncanny Spider-Man<\/em> are clearly setting up an overhaul of this area of continuity.<\/p>\n

Professor X alludes to Nightcrawler’s comments in early Krakoan stories about setting up a mutant religion, though Nightcrawler presents it here as more of an evolution of his thought. (What actually happened, in\u00a0Way of X<\/em>, was that Nightcrawler developed a philosophy rather than a religion.)<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-15.\u00a0<\/strong>The Goblin Queen tears through the other refugees.<\/em><\/p>\n

The four refugees seen here are Brimstone Love again, plus three people we saw in issue #1: the bearded man is 1970s villain\u00a0Solarr<\/strong>, the girl on the stairs is\u00a0Infestation<\/strong>, and the other guy is\u00a0Snot<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-18.\u00a0<\/strong>Chasm refuses to help Orchis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chasm<\/strong> has been in a jail in the Limbo Embassy since the end of\u00a0Dark Web<\/em>, when he was involved in trying to restart Inferno, but his main preoccupation was to avenge himself against Spider-Man. Broadly speaking, Chasm is a clone of Spider-Man who wrongly blames the real Spider-Man for erasing parts of his memory and identity. Given his behaviour in\u00a0Dark Web<\/em>, he’s frankly overselling himself a bit here in terms of moral standing – he tried to restart Inferno, after all – but it’s basically correct that his motivations are all about revenge on individuals whom he believes to have wronged him, and he has no interest whatsoever in Orchis’ agenda. And he doesn’t actually\u00a0fight<\/em> Orchis – he just refuses to get involved.<\/p>\n

PAGE 19.<\/strong> Data page. Bugwort, a limbo demon, writes about Chasm in a rather garbled way. In case it’s not clear, Chasm’s cell is not “the nastiest, foulest, most grossest corner” of the Embassy – it was as nice as Madelyne could get away with making it, which is why the demons find it repulsive.<\/p>\n

PAGES 20-21.\u00a0<\/strong>Azazel and Emplate kill Abyss.<\/em><\/p>\n

This causes the regular cast to re-emerge from Abyss’s portal. Azazel implies that he didn’t know that this would happen. But he may just be posturing, since it’s hard to see what else he was trying to achieve by killing Abyss – unless maybe he was trying to put the guy out of his misery, but would Azazel really care?<\/p>\n

“Fatherhood has never been my forte. Just a means to an end, really.”<\/strong> The plot of “The Draco” involves Azazel fathering children so that eventually he can force them to open a portal to Earth. (How he gets to Earth to father them in the first place is never clearly explained.)<\/p>\n

PAGES 22-24.\u00a0<\/strong>The Goblin Queen subdues Feint and Infestation.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Your Pryor has a means of touching mutant souls.”<\/strong> The Mercy Crown, Madelyne’s magical Cerebro alternative from issue #1. A data page in issue #2 warned that it had the potential to destroy mutantkind.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krakoan reads GOBLIN QUEENS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. DARK X-MEN vol 2 #4 “Up Jumped the Devil” Writer: Steve Foxe Artist: Jonas Scharf Colour artist: Frank Martin Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. Chasm in the foreground, with […]<\/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-9597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597","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=9597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9599,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9597\/revisions\/9599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}