{"id":9656,"date":"2023-12-06T22:02:38","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T22:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9656"},"modified":"2023-12-06T22:02:38","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T22:02:38","slug":"x-men-29-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9656","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #29 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 #29<\/strong>
\n“House of Doom”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gerry Duggan<\/strong>
\nArtist: Joshua Cassara<\/strong>
\nColour artist: 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 X-Men fight the Daggers of Latveria.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Dr Doom intervenes as Professor X is about to announce Krakoa to the human race.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an insertion into the flashback that opens\u00a0House of X<\/em> #6. The opening dialogue and Xavier’s Magneto’s speech about ending all the disagreements between them is from the original, as the opening line that Professor X delivers before Doom answers him back. The rest of the scene is original material that takes place between pages 4 and 5 of House of X\u00a0<\/em>#6, boldly shoehorned into the middle of Professor X’s speech.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t\u00a0entirely<\/em> make sense that Doom has a V-for-Victor style Cerebro helmet of his own, before Professor X has even publicly debuted with this design, though he does suggest later in the issue that he is relying on some sort of actual foreknowledge of events, rather than simply correctly predicting that Krakoa’s collapse. And the design is wonderful.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Note that, even at the start of the Krakoan era, Doom already has the five mutants we see later in the issue, in their current costumes. We saw Nerium, Slag and Volta Doom at the end of the previous issue, and they get flashbacks later in the issue to show their recruitment.<\/p>\n

The twins Dreamer and Ironcloak have appeared before on Latverian outpoost Doom Island, in X-Men \/ Fantastic Four<\/em> #3-4 (2020), where they gave their real names as Hugo and Ramona. In that story, Ramona immediately reacts to the X-Men as “enemies of Latveria”, but then admits to having made an attempt to flee the country before seeing the light and turning back to Doom. If she was telling the truth, and not just helping to set the X-Men up, then it’s notable that that story comes\u00a0after<\/em> this scene, at a point where the twins were already on Doom’s team.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page. Introduction of the “Seven Daggers of Latveria”, which largely speaks for itself. The writer is obviously Doom. The big dangler is the two blanked out names, for mutants that Doom hasn’t put on the team – a woman who isn’t co-operating, and a man whose powers are out of control. The duration of Ironcloak’s invulnerability touch is also blanked out, though you suspect that’s more to do with ducking being too specific.<\/p>\n

PAGES 7-8.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback montage: The five Daggers are trained by Doom.<\/em><\/p>\n

Page 7 has three panels showing the five Daggers in the clothes they were recruited in (in week one), in generic Doom-Men uniforms (in week two) and in their current uniforms (in “year one”). Note that the twins have basically kept their original semi-generic uniforms, particularly Dreamer. Later in the issue, we get more flashbacks to the recruitment of Nerium, Slag and Volta Doom.<\/p>\n

Doom correctly predicts not only that Krakoa will fall, but that the surviving X-Men will “invade Latveria and attempt to kidnap you”. Strictly speaking the last bit isn’t quite true, since the X-Men do ultimately take no for an answer, but it’s fair to say that the team is in full-on early Silver Age mode here, swanning in with a monumental sense of entitlement that\u00a0clearly<\/em> any mutants are going to want to come with them.<\/p>\n

PAGES 9-12.\u00a0<\/strong>The X-Men and the Daggers fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Only Ms Marvel has the common sense to realise that this might not be a good use of time.<\/p>\n

“The last time Wolverine stepped on Latverian soil, he murdered one of my subjects.”<\/strong> In\u00a0Fantastic Four \/ X-Men<\/em> #3 (2020).<\/p>\n

PAGE 13.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Doom recruits Volta.<\/em><\/p>\n

She was already calling herself Volta before he recruited her, so “Volta Doom” seems to suggest that he views her as a daughter. She seems genuinely appreciative of the spear that lets her control her powers.<\/p>\n

PAGE 14. <\/strong>More fighting.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGE 15.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Doom recruits Slag.<\/em><\/p>\n

This guy apparently started off as a refusenik before accepting Doom’s offer to join the team. We’re not directly told why he was in prison (though the obvious implication is that he simply disobeyed Doom’s wishes) or why he chose to stay when he had the ability to escape. At any rate, he’s not obviously being set up as slavishly loyal to Doom.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.\u00a0<\/strong>More fighting.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re told that Nerium is tied to the country. “Nerium” is a kind of shrub, by the way.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Doom recruits Nerium.<\/em><\/p>\n

Doom claims that Nerium was imprisoned by the circus against his will, but the ringmaster certainly claims that he’s acting with Doom’s authority, and if he’s lying, then he’s running a big risk. Is Doom just engineering a situation where Nerium will be grateful to him?<\/p>\n

PAGE 18. <\/strong>The fight ends.<\/em><\/p>\n

Volta, Nerium and (curiously) Slag all insist that they’re free; note that the twins don’t, though they’re not directly part of the fight.<\/p>\n

PAGE 19-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Doom invites everyone to dinner.<\/em><\/p>\n

Slag claims that he was “reborn as Slag” nearly 25 years ago, whatever that means – most likely, something to do with his powers emerging.<\/p>\n

Doom strongly indicates that he had actual foreknowledge of events. He suggests that the reason why Latveria didn’t recognise Krakoa (or rather, didn’t have dealings with them) was because he knew the whole thing would eventually collapse, and he wanted to keep his own mutants safe.<\/p>\n

His comments about Xavier presumably reference events over in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Nerium strongly indicates that she expects Doom ultimately to side with the X-Men against Orchis – if only because he’s gone to all this trouble to preserve his nation’s mutants thus far.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.\u00a0<\/strong>The X-Men arrive back in New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

That seems to be the Latverian embassy in panel 1 – presumably Doom teleported the X-Men home, since they parachuted into his country in the first place.<\/p>\n

PAGE 24.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a self-explanatory internal Orchis memo by Dr Stasis, basically plugging Cyclops’ trial in\u00a0Fall of the House of X<\/em>.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krakoan reads FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #29 “House of Doom” Writer: Gerry Duggan Artist: Joshua Cassara Colour artist: Marte Gracia Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. The X-Men fight the Daggers of Latveria. […]<\/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-9656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9656","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=9656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9658,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9656\/revisions\/9658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}