{"id":9952,"date":"2024-03-28T21:20:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T21:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9952"},"modified":"2024-03-28T21:20:41","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T21:20:41","slug":"x-force-50-annotations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9952","title":{"rendered":"X-Force #50 annotations"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"<\/a>X-FORCE vol 6 #50<\/strong>
\n“Violent Answers”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Benjamin Percy<\/strong>
\nArtist: Robert Gill<\/strong>
\nColour artist: Guru-eFX<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Joe Caramagna<\/strong>
\nDesign: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen<\/strong>
\nEditor: Mark Basso<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER \/ PAGE 1.<\/strong> It’s the final issue of this run so X-Force pose for the camera. Look, some of them are even smiling.<\/p>\n

PAGES 2-4. <\/strong>Beast II and Wonder Man reach Beast Prime.<\/em><\/p>\n

We’re picking up from the end of the previous issue, with Beast II and Wonder Man heading out to sea in search of the Krakoa-era Beast, and X-Force opening fire because they figure this new Beast has already turned bad on them. The Krakoan Beast – helpfully wearing a distinctive suit at this point – promptly punts Wonder Man back to the surface.<\/p>\n

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

<\/p>\n

PAGES 6-7. <\/strong>X-Force rescue Wonder Man.<\/em><\/p>\n

Does Wonder Man need a towel? Isn’t he an energy being?<\/p>\n

Quentin is being a bit harsh about Wonder Man’s acting career, though it’s fair to say that the original rationale for him getting into Hollywood wasn’t “he can act”, but “he can do his own stunts”.<\/p>\n

PAGES 8-9. <\/strong>Orchis attack.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jun Wei<\/strong> is the Orchis agent that Mikhail Rasputin tried to get Chronicler to take control of in the previous arc. She’s also shown up since in Wolverine<\/em>. But she’s serving here as a random Orchis leader that we happen to recognise.<\/p>\n

Orchis are still using the robots based around abandoned Wolverine skeletons that we’ve seen in previous issues.<\/p>\n

PAGES 10-13. <\/strong>Beast Prime tries to win Beast II round.<\/em><\/p>\n

Without his Krakoan suit, the only thing that distinguishes Beast Prime from Beast II is the glasses (which the clone has).<\/p>\n

Beast Prime’s argument is framed in terms of protecting the people of Arakko\/Mars from Orchis. He claims that Orchis’ plan is to use the mutant population on Arakko to create a “Worldmind”. This does in fact fit, more or less, with Rise of the Powers of X<\/em>, which claims that Orchis’ AI faction planned to turn Arakko into an AI Worldmind as part of their plan to achieve ascension and merge with an AI Dominion. Whether the mutants were actually intended to be part of this arrangement may be another matter, but Beast Prime hasn’t simply invented this threat.<\/p>\n

The younger Beast can understand how he ended up with this worldview but is simply left convinced that his “future” self has gone the wrong way.<\/p>\n

“Magneto was right.”<\/strong> A slogan which didn’t start being used until the Grant Morrison era. Beast II has been placed as coming from around New Defenders<\/em> #142, i.e. 1985. That would be just before the trial of Magneto in Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #200, published towards the end of that year.<\/p>\n

PAGES 14-15. <\/strong>X-Force smash up some Stark Sentinels.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to Wolverine’s narration on the final page, Jun Wei is not dead here. For some reason, X-Force wipe her memory of the last few weeks and send her home. (Why? They already let her return to Orchis after they encountered her the first time round.)<\/p>\n

PAGES 16-17. <\/strong>Wolverine intervenes in the Beasts’ fight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Beast II’s glasses are broken in the fight; from this point on, the two Beasts are visually identical and only their dialogue allows them to be distinguished.<\/p>\n

PAGES 18-21. <\/strong>Beast is killed saving Wonder Man from the exploding Black Hole Gun.<\/em><\/p>\n

The fact that the two Beasts are visually identical by this point seems to be leaving a back door to claim that the “good” Beast died and the evil one took his place. This might also explain why Sage and Kid Omega were both randomly left behind on this mission, with page 7 going out of its way to establish that they can’t read minds at this distance.<\/p>\n

On the other hand: The Beast who dies declares without prompting that “I am the last hope for mutantkind”, and he calls Wonder Man a fool. He also assumes that Wonder Man doesn’t know that the gun is powered by a nuclear reactor, but Wonder Man does<\/em> know that – he discussed it with Beast II as a plot point last issue. And\u00a0this is the final issue, approaching the end of the Krakoan era, so there’s nowhere for any switch to pay off.<\/p>\n

All of which suggests that it is<\/em> the evil Beast who dies, but that the story has left a back door in case anyone wants to change their minds on it. Or it’s just trying to be ambiguous for the sake of it, even though the surviving Beast’s identity could be easily verified by any telepath the next time he appears. Both readings seem to me to detract from the ending, to be honest.<\/p>\n

PAGE 22. <\/strong>X-Force gather around their table.<\/em><\/p>\n

A weirdly abrupt epilogue page – we’re left with Wolverine’s narration to tell us that the surviving Beast is staying with Wonder Man. (While Orchis are dominating the USA? Seriously? He’s not just a mutant – he’s visually identical to a high-profile terrorist who’s actually a legitimate target even for normal law enforcement officers. And he’s just… living in LA?)<\/p>\n

PAGE 23. <\/strong>Farewell message from the creators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition. X-FORCE vol 6 #50 “Violent Answers” Writer: Benjamin Percy Artist: Robert Gill Colour artist: Guru-eFX Letterer: Joe Caramagna Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen Editor: Mark Basso COVER \/ PAGE 1. It’s the final issue of this run so X-Force pose […]<\/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-9952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annotations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952","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=9952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9955,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952\/revisions\/9955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}