{"id":9695,"date":"2023-12-22T17:26:54","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T17:26:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9695"},"modified":"2023-12-22T17:26:54","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T17:26:54","slug":"uncanny-spider-man-5-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9695","title":{"rendered":"Uncanny Spider-Man #5 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>UNCANNY SPIDER-MAN #5<\/strong>
\n“Fade to Blue”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Si Spurrier<\/strong>
\nArtists: Lee Garbett & Simone Buonfantino<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Matt Milla<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Sarah Brunstad<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1<\/strong>. Nightcrawler with techno-organic stuff rounding on him.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-7.\u00a0<\/strong>Nightcrawler and Silver Sable reveal their ruse.<\/em><\/p>\n

Okay, now on one level, this is quite clever. Issue #4 went out of its way to verify that they’d checked Nightcrawler’s DNA and it definitely wasn’t Mystique. But since then,\u00a0X-Men Blue: Origins\u00a0<\/em>has established that Mystique\u00a0does<\/em> change her DNA when she copies someone, in order to rationalise the Azazel\/Nightcrawler connection (as shown in flashback on page 6). So when this issue does the reveal that the scan was just wrong, it’s not just a cheap retraction of the cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On the other hand… what do they actually\u00a0gain<\/em> from having Mystique pose as Nightcrawler and Nightcrawler pose as one of Silver Sable’s men, when they could just have had Mystique in the Wild Pack uniform all along? I think <\/em>the idea that the real Nightcrawler is shielded from mutant detectors (as seen in earlier issues), so he can pose as an Orchis soldier, when Mystique would have been detected. At any rate, I can’t think of any other advantage that justifies simply revealing the ruse unprompted. But if that’s the idea, it’s not very clear.<\/p>\n

Panel 5 on page 4 shows Nightcrawler and Silver Sable with Kremer, the Wild Pack member who turned on them last issue. They’ve beaten him up and taken his uniform for Nightcrawler to wear. This must happen somewhere between pages 19 and 21 of the previous issue (page 20 isn’t a story page), with Mystique already replacing Nightcrawler from page 21 onwards, and Nightcrawler being among the Wild Pack soldiers who capture “him”.<\/p>\n

Mystique’s ability to conceal weapons within her body was mentioned last issue.<\/p>\n

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

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>Data page: a memo about the Orchis Hound Program, or “Project Garmr”<\/p>\n

Garmr<\/strong> is a wolf from Norse mythology. He’s basically the Norse equivalent of Cerberus.<\/p>\n

The part about Warlock falling into Orchis custody is a recap of\u00a0Legion of X<\/em> #10; the fact that Orchis have been exploiting him to create the Hounds has been apparent throughout this series.<\/p>\n

We’re offered an explanation of why\u00a0the Vulture<\/strong>, a Spider-Man villain, signed up for this. He’s not particularly anti-mutant, but he’s always had some degree of preoccupation with his own mortality, and we’re told that he was influenced to turn against mutants by focussing on the perceived injustice of resurrection. That’s fair enough as far as it goes, though it does leave the bigger question of since when the Vulture had any relevant skill set for this in the first place – he’s a guy who makes a flying harness, and messing about with techno-organics feels way, way above his pay grade.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.\u00a0<\/strong>The Bamf spirit possesses an Orchis employee to free Warlock.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the first direct confirmation that the Bamf exists outside Nightcrawler’s mind, although it’s been fairly obvious for a while that \u00a0he was shielding Nightcrawler from mutant detectors.<\/p>\n

“That’s the one who tried to get into Raven’s mind?”<\/strong> That’s Travers, who tried using a gadget to communicate with Mystique telepathically and suffered a massive aneurysm. We saw him in this state last issue.<\/p>\n

PAGES 12-14. <\/strong>Warlock frees the Hounds.<\/em><\/p>\n

The idea seems to be that because the Hounds have no control over their infection, Warlock can take control of it, reabsorb it, and free them. Vulture’s TO is different (as explained on the data page), and he does have control.<\/p>\n

PAGES 15-16.<\/strong>\u00a0Nightcrawler defeats the Vulture.<\/em><\/p>\n

With the Hopesword, naturally.<\/p>\n

PAGE 17.\u00a0<\/strong>Warlock tells Nightcrawler that he has evidence.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of Nightcrawler’s preoccupations in earlier issues was to find evidence that exonerated him for the killings that he committed under Orchis mind control, as shown in X-Men: <\/em>Before the Fall – Sons of X <\/em>#1. Warlock apparently\u00a0does<\/em> have that data (it’s not entirely clear whether they download it, but presumably they do), but Nightcrawler seems to have decided that this was all part of him having the wrong priorities and hiding from his responsibilities to stand up to Orchis.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-19. <\/strong>Warlock releases the Rhino.<\/em><\/p>\n

We saw the Rhino under Orchis control in issue #2. Evidently he was taken back into their custody after Nightcrawler defeated him.<\/p>\n

PAGE 20.\u00a0<\/strong>Spider-Man drops by.<\/em><\/p>\n

To rationalise what this book had to do with Spider-Man, I suppose. The idea seems to be that adopting Spider-Man’s identity was all part of moving away from Nightcrawler’s normal political and philosophical preoccupations and hiding from his problems, although at least it got him in touch with reality again. It’s a bit of a stretch, if I’m being honest.<\/p>\n

PAGES 21-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Mystique and Warlock leave together.<\/em><\/p>\n

Promising to come back for the big showdown, naturally.<\/p>\n

“The attractive couple with the light-and-dark gimmick”.\u00a0<\/strong>Cloak and Dagger, who were among the Hounds.<\/p>\n

PAGES 23-24.\u00a0<\/strong>The Bamf is identified as Legion.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Bamf seems to be saying that the real Legion is hiding inside Nightcrawler himself, and that this is just one of his personalities serving as a projection.<\/p>\n

PAGE 25.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. Unusually, no Krakoan text – instead, we’re directed to\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #30 for the main X-Men storyline, and to\u00a0Amazing Spider-Man<\/em> #41. That issue doesn’t come out until the first week of January, and it’s part of the Spider-Man event “Gang War”, but it’s presumably meant to be significant because Kingpin and Typhoid are in it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. UNCANNY SPIDER-MAN #5 “Fade to Blue” Writer: Si Spurrier Artists: Lee Garbett & Simone Buonfantino Colour artist: Matt Milla Letterer: Joe Caramagna Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Sarah Brunstad COVER \/ PAGE 1. Nightcrawler with techno-organic stuff rounding on […]<\/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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9695","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=9695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9697,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9695\/revisions\/9697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}