{"id":9667,"date":"2023-12-13T22:08:17","date_gmt":"2023-12-13T22:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9667"},"modified":"2023-12-13T22:08:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-13T22:08:17","slug":"x-men-red-18-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9667","title":{"rendered":"X-Men Red #18 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN RED vol 2 #18<\/strong>
\n“The Mended Land”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Al Ewing<\/strong>
\nArtist: Yildiray \u00c7inar<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Federico Blee<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Ariana Maher<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> A group shot of the cast, for the final issue.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-3.\u00a0<\/strong>Genesis raises Arakko Prime from the sea to fight Kaorak.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Autumn Island.”<\/strong> In other words, what’s left of the Autumn Lands now that most of it has got up and walked across the planet. The rebels shown in page 2 panel 2 include Kobak, Khora, Zsen and Sunspot, as well as a bunch of background characters.<\/p>\n

“Nine left, eight, seven.”<\/strong> When we left Jon Ironfire last issue, he was singlehandedly fighting his way through the White Sword’s champions – already reduced from 100 to 99 by his own departure. Evidently he’s been doing well.<\/p>\n

Genesis<\/strong> is carrying both the Annihilation Staff and Purity (the sword); she still has Sobunar by her side, even though we’ve repeatedly been told that he wasn’t entirely thrilled with some of her choices. Storm challenged Genesis to “raise your island and fight” at the end of the last issue, and she takes up the challenge.<\/p>\n

Arakko Prime<\/strong> is the part of Arakko that was the original counterpart of Krakoa on Earth – in other words, Arakko the island, rather than Arakko the planet. The narrator calls it “the living island”, mirroring how Krakoa was billed back in\u00a0Giant-Size X-Men<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 4.\u00a0<\/strong>Recap and credits. Obviously, the title “The Mended Land” alludes to the repeated description of Arakko as a “Broken Land” in this series.<\/p>\n

PAGE 5. <\/strong>Apocalypse & co inside Kaorak.<\/em><\/p>\n

We saw Apocalypse, Vulcan, Sunfire and Orc<\/strong> joining forces to magically animate Kaorak last issue; evidently this exercise requires their continuing support. The narrator is clearly most interested in Apocalypse, described as “he whose name was relevation” – presumably referring to the alternate name for the Book of Revelation.<\/p>\n

Storm<\/strong> is derided by Genesis as a “queen of commoners” and “degrader of Arakko” because the effect of her leadership was, in Genesis’ view, to move Arakko away from its proper martial culture.<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7.\u00a0<\/strong>Storm and Genesis fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Annihilation<\/strong> forces Storm to miss when she tries to strike it with lightning, and Storm strikes Genesis instead – causing her to drop Purity, which instantly returns to its rightful owner the White Sword. At first glance this looks like Annihilation’s intervention has backfired, but it may be trying to get shot of Genesis and make its pitch to Storm, as happens later.<\/p>\n

Genesis<\/strong> has had the White Sword since issue #13. She hasn’t\u00a0literally<\/em> been holding it the whole time since then – she’s wearing it on her back in issue #15 and at the end of the previous issue. But in both of those scenes she’s still exercising control over it. The suggestion seems to be that the sword would always have jumped back to its master if she hadn’t been making a continual effort to stop it from doing so, and the lightning strike distracted her from doing that.<\/p>\n

PAGE 8.\u00a0<\/strong>Jon and the White Sword start to fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

The White Sword remains completely under the influence of Genesis\/Annihilation, as he has been since issue #12.<\/p>\n

Jon alleges that Genesis’ only cause is “her own empty glory”. That’s basically what Annihilation says later in the issue. Ostensibly Genesis’ cause is the restoration of traditional Arakko values, but we established in issue #16 that only Death actually seemed to literally believe in this, and he switched sides on realising that everyone else was just paying lip service to it.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>Ora Serrata tries to erase Sunspot.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ora’s power is supposed to be that she can make anyone vanish from existence just by looking at the – one of those powers that’s almost impossible to actually use in practice in a story, unless you’ve got an expendable crowd member lying around. The solution here is for her to try it on Sunspot and get blinded by his energy. Note that Khora is using her powers to supercharge him.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.\u00a0<\/strong>Jon defeats the White Sword.<\/em><\/p>\n

We get a thematic segue between scenes with the blindness motif. Obviously, this scene is set up with Jon as the sole survivor of the One Hundred claiming the Sword for himself, whether he likes it or not.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12. <\/strong>Fisher King transfers Xilo to Ora Serrata.<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s not entirely clear whether Ora Serrata is telling the rebels to surrender or telling both sides to stand down, not that it really matters. Of course, there’s a reference here to the trope of the law being blind (though it’s also largely irrelevant in war zones where the legal system can’t function).<\/p>\n

Xilo, the living repository of Arakko’s history, was badly damaged in\u00a0the\u00a0Judgment Day\u00a0<\/em>crossover, and Fisher King has been serving as a host for him since issue #14. We don’t see it here, but Xilo has consumed the left side of Fisher King’s body, so parting with Xilo is going to kill him – this is what Zsen is discovering and reacting to in the final panel.<\/p>\n

PAGES 13-14.\u00a0<\/strong>Genesis downs Storm.<\/em><\/p>\n

Genesis makes the argument that Storm is not a true omega mutant because there are limits on what she’s prepared to do. She then gives us a survival-of-the-fittest philosophy which is basically what Apocalypse used to claim in the 80s and 90s.<\/p>\n

PAGE 15.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: Annihilation tries to persuade Storm to become its new host. We should probably be cautious of taking any of this at face value, since obviously Annihilation is saying what she thinks Storm wants to hear. The subtext seems to be that Genesis is ultimately conservative – not just culturally but in the sense that she would rather consolidate and hold what she has, as we saw last issue. Storm has more ambitions to chance the world, and Annihilation sees more potential in there for even greater destruction.<\/p>\n

PAGE 16.\u00a0<\/strong>Storm destroys the Annihilation Staff.<\/em><\/p>\n

Genesis is freed from Annihilation’s influence, in other words. Annihilation was remade into a staff at the end of “X of Swords”, supposedly to be a bit more controllable in that form. But apparently the resulting form was also rather more fragile; presumably Annihilation was working quite hard from the outset to stop Genesis (or Apocalypse) from just chucking it in a furnace.<\/p>\n

Lactuca describes Annihilation as simply “removed”, and it’s certainly possible that Storm has simply freed Annihilation (whatever it actually is) from the physical object in which it was contained.<\/p>\n

Lactuca also characterises this as Storm winning a “debate”, presumably on the view that she’s proved the superiority of her world view in the process.<\/p>\n

PAGES 17-18. <\/strong>The aftermath: Ora Serrata.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before we get to that, we have a single panel of an exhausted Jon Ironfire after winning his fight. We’ll find out in the next scene that he’s actually waiting for the White Sword to heal, and passed up the opportunity to kill him.<\/p>\n

Lycaon refuses to accept Genesis’ defeat and is promptly vaporised by the merged “Xilora”, who declares Storm to have won a challenge in accordance with Arakko law. This time, her appeals to Arakko law meet with a rather broader assent, possibly because Genesis has actually been defeated, and possibly because her Xilo aspect is also making an appeal to tradition and history.<\/p>\n

Syzya confirms to Sunspot that she knew<\/p>\n

We can also see Death from the Horsemen, Lodus Logos and Sevyr Blackmore in the background on page 17, and the Prince of Power and Blackjack O’Hara on page 19.<\/p>\n

PAGE 19.\u00a0<\/strong>Jon reconciles with the White Sword.<\/em><\/p>\n

PAGES 20-22. <\/strong>Apocalypse watches the islands embrace.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apocalypse’s speech includes a callback to his speech about mutantkind coming together on Krakoa in House of X <\/em>#5: “For centuries, I have fostered war and conflict, all in the hopes of mutantdom finally asserting dominance over this world. Now look at you… look at all of you… You have finally become what I intended you to be. I could not be more proud.”<\/p>\n

Apparently, Apocalypse is staying on Arakko for now. We’re reminded that Isca is still off guarding her mountains, and that the Spire Vile – mentioned during the war issues – is out there too. Orc has apparently brought a whole bunch of demons through from Amenth to form their own community.<\/p>\n

Genesis, meanwhile, is “exiled” with her two remaining horsemen to the Orchis base on Phobos, where she’s apparently killed everyone. Note that she’s still holding a staff – apparently the damaged Annihilation staff – and her face seems scarred. The line “The Brotherhood does” is a callback to the end of issue #1. (“Who defends the broken land?” “The Brotherhood does.”)<\/p>\n

The Nightcrawler corpse in the background is the Nightcrawler who died saving Arakko in\u00a0Way of X<\/em> #5, and was immediately resurrected on Krakoa. Orchis found his body and have had it in their possession since\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #6.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. This is the final issue of\u00a0X-Men Red, <\/em>but the story continues into Resurrection of Magneto<\/em>. You won’t be shocked to hear that the Krakoan reads RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN RED vol 2 #18 “The Mended Land” Writer: Al Ewing Artist: Yildiray \u00c7inar Colour artist: Federico Blee Letterer: Ariana Maher Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. A group shot of the cast, […]<\/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-9667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667","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=9667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9671,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667\/revisions\/9671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}