{"id":9758,"date":"2024-01-17T22:18:40","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T22:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9758"},"modified":"2024-01-17T22:18:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-17T22:18:40","slug":"x-men-30-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9758","title":{"rendered":"X-Men #30 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 #30<\/strong>
\n“Who Says Romance is Dead?”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Gerry Duggan<\/strong>
\nArtist: Phil Noto<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Jordan D White<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> Synch and Talon fight the High Evolutionary and his creations.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4.\u00a0<\/strong>Scott dreams about Jean.<\/em><\/p>\n

This somewhat mirrors the dream scene that opens\u00a0Fall of the House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1, in which Scott dreams about being hanged in the American west, and is apparently saved by Jean. Jean, of course, is still off in the White Hot Room, where we left her in\u00a0Immortal X-Men<\/em>. But the clear implication is that she’s regained contact with him in some way.<\/p>\n

The fire imagery suggests Jean’s renewed connection with the Phoenix Force.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

PAGE 5.<\/strong> Cyclops talks to psychiatrist Dr Goldsmith<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr Goldsmith has been sent to certify Cyclops as fit for trial. That means we’re before Fall of the House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1, which opens with Cyclops arriving at court.<\/p>\n

“I suppose after Ben Urich’s expos\u00e9 on Orchis, you had to move my sham trial out of America.”<\/strong> Urich’s expos\u00e9 was published in Uncanny Avengers<\/i>, and involves Wilson Fisk’s account of what happened at the Hellfire Gala, and the exposure of Captain Krakoa as an Orchis impostor. Quite why that’s supposed to have any less impact in Paris is beyond me.<\/p>\n

“I assume I’m in my first uniform because your masters have decided it’s the most recognizable one for their propaganda purposes?”<\/strong> This is indeed the costume he was wearing in\u00a0Fall of the House of X\u00a0<\/em>#1 for the trial. It’s not his first uniform – that, obviously, would be the black and yellow Silver Age X-Men costume – but it\u00a0is<\/em> his first costume that’s unique to him. Presumably somebody<\/em> trustworthy told him what he was wearing, because he can’t see it. For all he knows it could be bright pink.<\/p>\n

PAGE 6.\u00a0<\/strong>Dr Goldsmith talks to Dr Stasis.<\/em><\/p>\n

Could they really not find a psychiatrist who was willing to say what they wanted\u00a0without<\/em> being pressurised? And I’ve pointed out before that there’s no such thing as a death penalty, let alone standards for it, in France.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Cyclops does indeed refuse to participate in the trial in\u00a0Fall of the House of X<\/em> #1.<\/p>\n

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

PAGE<\/strong>\u00a08.\u00a0<\/strong>A symbolic page of a “Lovers” tarot card, showing Synch and Talon with Jean as Phoenix in the background. (There are no data pages in this issue, unless you count the credits.) Talon is shown connected to various tubes and so forth, possible in reference to the way she looked when Forge found her in the Vault in issue #16.<\/p>\n

PAGE 9.\u00a0<\/strong>Flashback: Synch and Talon fall in love in the Vault.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is just a straight recap of the time that they spent in the time-dilation Vault together, as covered mainly in Jonathan Hickman’s\u00a0X-Men<\/em> #19 (2021).<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-11.\u00a0<\/strong>The X-Men and their allies discuss how to distribute their cure to Orchis “kill switch”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Issue #29 ends with Wolverine (Logan), Ms Marvel and Shadowkat arriving back at the X-Men’s underground base to find it in ruins and blood everywhere. The caption reads “Next: Fall of the House of X #1! Then – find out where Synch and Talon went in X-Men #30!” Well, this is X-Men<\/em> #30 and it has no apparent connection whatsoever to last issue’s cliffhanger.<\/p>\n

Let’s all take a moment to sigh deeply and then move on.<\/p>\n

Orchis doctored the Krakoan drugs starting with the 2022 Hellfire Gala and made that fact public at this year’s gala. By “hostages”, Talon apparently means the people who still have the kill switch inside them, and thus could be killed by Orchis to make good their threat to kill 10 humans for any mutant found on Earth… or returning to Earth or… it’s never been entirely clear, or even clear whether Orchis actually took the threat seriously themselves. At any rate, the idea seems to be that the X-Men want this threat off the table before beginning their invasion.<\/p>\n

The whole subplot of a cure being found has taken place off panel – as far as I know, there’s no Spider-Man tie-in story dealing with this. Gold Goblin, if you’re not following\u00a0Amazing Spider-Man<\/em>, is Norman Osborn with his evil and insane aspects magically removed. Spider-Man’s crack about his newfound concern for ethics is actually about a year or so late given their relationship in their home title.<\/p>\n

“Sauron wants to turn everyone into dinosaurs.”<\/strong> Referencing the meme panel from\u00a0Spider-Man & The X-Men<\/em> #2. (“But I don’t want to cure cancer. I want to turn people into dinosaurs.”)<\/p>\n

“G.E.D.”<\/strong> “General Educational Development” test. Apparently it’s equivalent to a high school diploma (which isn’t really a meaningful concept to British readers either).<\/p>\n

“The X-Men faced the High Evolutionary, and he wanted to give us a gift – a bioweapon that would sterilize all of humanity.”<\/strong> In issue #3. The High Evolutionary’s argument was that humanity was destroying itself anyway, and sterilising them would at least get it over with relatively painlessly, leaving the way clear for mutants and a few posthumans. According to that issue, this device is called “a nihility sphere”.<\/p>\n

As Synch says, the story ends with him providing a drop of blood in exchange for the Evolutionary going away. (Thus, as the Evolutionary says later in the issue, his offer is no longer open.)<\/p>\n

“I was with your… younger self on the X-Men.”\u00a0<\/strong>The Laura in this flashback is the one who was resurrected, apparently in error, while the “real” Talon was still in the Vault.<\/p>\n

PAGE 12. <\/strong>Iron Man meets Firestar.<\/em><\/p>\n

Phil Noto seems to be under the impression that she’s the Human Torch. Oh well.<\/p>\n

“I can see the water displacement from your boot jets.”<\/strong> This limitation of Iron Man’s stealth technology was previously mentioned in\u00a0Invincible Iron Man<\/em> #11.<\/p>\n

“The A.I. contingent of Orchis threatened me.”<\/strong> Issue #28.<\/p>\n

“My landing force.”<\/strong> This week’s\u00a0Invincible Iron Man<\/em> #14 confirms that it’s an army from Arakko travelling in ships made from mysterium, and shows Forge and Ironheart building the ships.<\/p>\n

PAGE 13. <\/strong>Synch and Talon arrive on Counter-Earth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Counter-Earth<\/strong> is a duplicate Earth on the other side of the Sun, where the High Evolutionary has been experimenting with his evolved animal scientists for ages.<\/p>\n

“The High Evolutionary had committed genocide many times over on his planet.”<\/strong> This is the plot of\u00a0Uncanny Avengers<\/em> vol 2.<\/p>\n

Teslelephant<\/strong> is one of the “Evolutionary Guard” who accompanied the High Evolutionary in issue #3.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-17.<\/strong> Synch and Talon confront the High Evolutionary.<\/em><\/p>\n

Luminous<\/strong>, the Evolutionary’s “daughter”, is a hybrid of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. She also appeared in issue #3, and met Synch then.<\/p>\n

Karma<\/strong>‘s power is supposed to be simple mind control, but for some reason Synch seems to be using it to make Luminous remember the Evolutionary experimenting on her.<\/p>\n

PAGE 18.\u00a0<\/strong>Firestar tells Feilong that the invasion force will land in the Australian outback.<\/em><\/p>\n

As Iron Man asked her to. Because he’s a sucker, Feilong directs that all the Sentinels head for this obvious trap. Another version of this scene, in which Firestar relays the same information to the rest of the Orchis inner circle, appears in\u00a0Invincible Iron Man<\/em> #14. The main takeaway from that scene is that Feilong (unlike Dr Stasis) is oblivious to the fact that the A.I. contingent aren’t his allies, and massively overconfident. The A.I. contingent are starting to see him as a liability who’s been keeping Iron Man around to toy with him, and decide to have Iron Man killed.<\/p>\n

PAGES<\/strong> 19-22.\u00a0<\/strong>Synch reveals that Talon died fighting the Evolutionary.<\/em><\/p>\n

Synch has used his powers to pull her mind into his body and keep her alive. The obvious resolution here is that she ends up merged with the younger Laura in a single body at some point.<\/p>\n

PAGE 23.\u00a0<\/strong>Trailers. The Krakoan reads THE PASSENGER.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-MEN vol 6 #30 “Who Says Romance is Dead?” Writer: Gerry Duggan Artist: Phil Noto Letterer: Clayton Cowles Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Jordan D White COVER \/ PAGE 1. Synch and Talon fight the High Evolutionary and his […]<\/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-9758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758","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=9758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9760,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9758\/revisions\/9760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}