Fall of the House of X #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #4
“The Turn”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artists: Jucas Werneck & Jethro Morales
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Moira and Cyclops fight.
PAGE 2. Paul Neary obituary.
PAGE 3. Data page (!). The opening quote is Magneto’s line “Promise me you’ll watch Charles… Three began Krakoa. Moira betrayed us. I… deserted my post. Now Charles is alone with his dream.” This is from Magneto’s death scene in X-Men Red #7, which has since been positioned as foreshadowing for Professor X caving to Orchis’ demands in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023. That in turn ties to Professor X’s role in this issue, of which more later.
PAGES 4-6. Apocalypse leads his forces against Orchis.
Up in the sky are the two crossed space stations from the previous issue.
Apocalypse and his forces have arrived in time to save Krakoa from Orchis. Krakoa has been on the run from them ever since issue #1. As Apocalypse points out, Krakoa feeds off mutant energy, which wasn’t a problem when it had a whole mutant population and could take trivial amounts from each one. Without the mutants around, he’s been starving, so Apocalypse needs to offer up some life force.
Apocalypse’s objection to machine – “the weapon of cowards” – fits reasonably with his depiction in the Krakoan era but sits more awkwardly with his use of the massive Ship back in his X-Factor days. That said, he didn’t really use Ship as a weapon so much as a resource, so you can make a case that his objection is specifically to the weak resorting to outside aids in combat.
Apocalypse dismisses the final version of the Quiet Council as “the pampered and perfumed so-called leaders of the mutant nation”, and claims that they let Krakoa starve “while they played both sides” (Sebastian Shaw, presumably) “or his in mansions” (Emma Frost) “or scurried about like rats in tunnels” (the X-Men). This is a bit harsh on Professor X, who did in fact go straight back to Krakoa and stayed there. While it’s understandable that the remaining mutants haven’t tried to liberate Krakoa until now, there is some force in Apocalypse’s point that nobody has shown much concern for Krakoa the living creature.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGE 8. Magik rescues Cyclops from Nimrod.
Cyclops attacked Nimrod at the end of the previous issue. X-Men #33 continued the scene, in which Cyclops tried to telepathically call for help from the X-Men, and Nimrod then beat him up and left him lying. The final panel of that scene shows Nimrod departing through a portal, saying “Come and see, if you dare. It matters not.” The art here shows him just teleporting away, but it’s the same basic idea.
There was no obvious reason for Nimrod to leave Cyclops behind in X-Men #33, but this issue clarifies that he was intending to blow up whoever came to rescue Cyclops. That makes some sense, since Nimrod did realise in X-Men #33 that Cyclops was calling for help. Not quite sure when he planted the bomb, but maybe it was already built into the security systems – we established last issue that the Summers House had previously been converted for Orchis use.
PAGE 9. Omega Sentinel tells Nimrod that Professor X is offering a deal.
This comes out of nowhere – the last we saw of Professor X was in Rise of the Powers of X #3, where he apparently accepted Rachel’s plan to defeat Enigma by resurrecting the Phoenix, and then shot Rachel. It seems reasonably to assume there’s more to this than meets the eye.
PAGE 10. Data page: a transcript of Professor X’s pitch to Nimrod.
Professor X’s claim that “My dream was Krakoa” is probably another clue that there’s a scam going on here; in Immortal X-Men and Rise of the Powers of X, he’s been very clear that he sees Krakoa’s mutant separatism as a compromise of his values.
The deal which Professor X offers to Nimrod is to get the mutants to stand down and stop resisting the AI ascension as long as they let the mutants live in peace. He implies that he will force the vast majority of mutants to acquiesce in this plan. Nimrod accepts with the clear indication that he’ll kill the X-Men if they stand in his way, and Professor X agrees to that.
Nimrod proposes “a garden menagerie on Earth”. This is clearly a reference to the Preserve from Moira MacTaggert’s sixth life, as seen in various issues of Powers of X. We were told in issue #3 that Sentinel City was a device to wipe out life on Earth so that AI can ascend to become a Dominion. We haven’t really been told why that’s necessary, or why it doesn’t matter if Krakoa sticks around – but maybe the mutant island is too trivial to worry about.
PAGES 11-14. Apocalypse starts killing mutants who offer themselves up as energy sources for Krakoa.
This is presented as an echo of the “Crucible” ritual which Apocalypse instituted on Krakoa, in which depowered mutants died in order to earn the right to resurrection. Apocalypse appears to see this as having magical significance over and above the mere fact of life energy being absorbed.
Kintar, the first Arakkii warrior to offer his services, is a new character. He seems to be saying that he’s an old warrior who welcomes the chance to go out with a bang.
Wrongslide is the reincarnated version of Rockslide who came back as a blank slate after dying in Otherworld during the “X of Swords” event. He was moved over to the cast of X-Men Red, where he never really got a chance to do much.
Despite the dialogue here, the sun is not “going nova”; rather, its light is being focussed by Sentinel City.
PAGE 15. The X-Men take stock on their space station.
The team here is Emma, M, Colossus, Rogue, Psylocke (Kwannon), Gambit, Cyclops, Magik, Quicksilver and Manifold.
The X-Men evidently aren’t in on whatever Professor X is doing, but that was also the case back in issue #1, when he pulled away Rasputin to help with the battle against Enigma.
The “red triangle defence” is the psychic defence technique that the X-Men used to resist Professor X’s attempt to force them through the gates in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023.
PAGE 16. Professor X approaches Cyclops telepathically.
Professor X is at the very least going through the motions of presenting his deal with Orchis at face value, though it’s not clear for whose benefit. His deal with Orchis is explicitly paralleled with Xavier caving to Orchis’ demands in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023.
The “softball field” is probably meant to evoke the trope of the Claremont-era X-Men playing baseball in their downtime (which in fact only happened four times). Perhaps the location is some sort of hidden code to flag to Cyclops what’s happening.
PAGE 17. Professor X stops the US Space Force from interfering with the Orchis device.
Professor X invokes the “no more mutants” line from House of M that kicked off the Decimation era, though his “no more humans” is heavily caveated (“at least for now”).
PAGES 18-19. Cyclops gives orders to the X-Men.
Cyclops’s speech balloons on page 18 again evoke the red triangle defence.
PAGES 20-23. Apocalypse kills Wrongslide.
Wrongslide clearly signals that he expects the real Rockslide to be resurrected in his place, so chalk that one up as a likely reset button at the end of the Krakoan era.
PAGES 24-27. The X-Men fight the Orchis AI forces on Sentinel City.
Specifically, Nimrod and Omega Sentinel – but not Moira, even though she’s on the cover.
Storm has been absent from the story until now because she’s been occupied in Resurrection of Magneto. But she and Magneto both returned to Earth to join that fight in Resurrection #4.
PAGE 28. Trailers. The Krakoan reads RISE OF THE POWERS OF X.
What happened to Juggernaut? He was trying to keep Krakoa alive last issue but he’s nowhere to be seen this issue.
Re: Apocalypse dismissing machines as the weapon of cowards- it’s been pretty clear that in Arakki culture, fighting with a laser gun in a duel is acceptable but sending a robot to fight in one’s stead isn’t. He’s not objecting to a cyborg like Donald Pierce fighting him man-to-man but to the leaders of Orchis sending Sentinels to fight instead of facing him man-to-man.
Why does Orchis knowing the Red Triangle Defense mean that they learned it from Xavier? Moira presumably knew the Red Triangle Defense if it was created to fight Emma Frost in her villain days.
My guess is that Xavier shooting Rachel and “betraying” the X-Men to Orchis was part of the plan. However, Xavier didn’t tell Rachel he was going to kill the soldiers to keep her hands clean. So when Rachel comes back, she’s going to be guilt-ridden and the X-Men will be furious at Charles for killing humans who were fighting WITH them against Orchis. And Xavier is probably Prisoner X.
Xavier’s resort to ruthless measures was foreshadowed in several places. In Invincible Iron Man 11, we see that Tony had a feeling that Xavier was watching him and says “It wouldn’t be until much later, after the trial, that I would even understand how much danger I was in.”
Also, in X-Men 29, Doom says “Xavier is in a jail of his own making. Either he will destroy himself…or he will emerge as a much more INTERESTING person.” We saw in Venom 25 that Doom’s mystic senses enabled him to perceive that in Venom War, Eddie Brock will either be saved or damned beyond redemption. Presumably, his senses saw the same thing about Xavier.
Note that Omega Sentinel says Nightcrawler is sabotaging Sentinel City’s repair efforts. Remember Ruth’s prophecy in Before the Fall: Sons of X- “Cataclysm dawns… a Dominion in the dark…the fall of mutantkind… Kurt is the key. We had to save him…” Also note that it was implied in X-Men Blue Origins that Destiny created Kurt to do more than just stop Azazel.
This series is just a confusing mess and the art barely communicates what’s supposed to be happening. Just a dreadful way to wind down the Krakoa era.
This series is rapidly approaching The Draco/Ultimatum/IvX tier for me. Characters randomly appear and disappear, don’t sound like themselves, and do nonsensical things. The dialogue and artwork is largely bland. The most important dialogue just gets turned into a “data page” that is literally just a script.
@Matt C: At least The Draco, Ultimatum and IvX were stupid in ways that made sense – FotHoX is straight-up incoherent.
Every beloved X-Men era ends with some kind of underwhelming whimper, often accompanied by hastily slapped-together creative teams going through the motions to get the book onto the shelves, but this era is really taking that to another level entirely. This rivals Claremont’s sudden disappearance halfway through UXM 279, something I never thought would be topped.
I don’t know. Even though the books were on a steep downhill slide before that point, I think Lobdell disappearing before Uncanny #350 and turning the scripting duties over to Steven Seagle stands at the top of nonsensical finales (although, nowhere close to the disappointment as to how Claremont’s run ended).
-Gambit’s secret finally revealed…by Magneto dressed as Erik the Red disguising his voice as Mr. Sinister.
-The X-Men agreeing to allow their team member to die in Antarctica.
I mean, the Lobdell run wasn’t that beloved to me but it was a beloved period to many. The Krakoa-era ending so poorly is far sadder.
It felt strange for the Red Triangle protocol to be something that Xavier could apparently just upload into Orchis members’ heads to work immediately. I don’t remember if it’s ever been stated clearly, but I definitely had the impression that it was something that took time and training for people to learn.
I’m glad about one thing. When the crucible came up, I got the sinking feeling that it was going to be the way that they dealt with the Okkaran mutants. Kill them all to replenish Krakoa, clean slate, one less thing to worry about when the era ends. Thank god Duggan didn’t go *there* at least.
@Jon R- Duggan said in an interview that some of the people at the Gala who avoided being sent to the White Hot Room, like Kamala, learned the Red Triangle Protocol by having it telepathically implanted in them. It would be nice if he had actually mentioned that in the STORY though.
Mostly just a summary of a story more than a story. Glad that it’s signposted that Rockslide’s coming back. I did like the Wrongslide/Sunspot scene from X-Men Red, but there was no followthrough much less payoff, so I’m happy to just reverse course and have Santo back. With Anole in that book’s main cast, hopefully he crops up in Nyx.
The ship Xavier destroys is, the Agnew, almost certainly a reference to Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s disgraced first vice-president who resigned for his corruption. It seems Duggan briefly forgot he’s not writing Deadpool anymore.
He also forgot he’s not Steven Englehart and this isn’t the 1970s, apparently.
@ Matt C:,your comparison to past stories is apt, unfortunately. Given the incoherence and slapped-together feel, I’m thinking Fall of… is the new “The Crossing.”
Boy, that Nimrod sure is threatening. He almost got ‘em! I hope issue 5 has a scene in which the X-Men distract Nimrod using the “up high! Down low… TOO SLOW!!!” trick before immobilizing him with a gallon of maple syrup.
Reading this blog and the comments, I imagine, is a lot more entertaining than reading these comics, so thanks to Paul and everybody for this.
@Michael: Ah yeah, that would have been nice to know. Especially for the “some people” part, because after this issue the impression this gives is that this is just how you learn the protocol — Professor X implants it in, all done. The stuff about how he “taught” it to people is just people putting a more formal and pretty face on it.
This is all personal feelings on something, things going from my own imagination that may have been contradicted elsewhere, YMMV. But having it as a thing you can just implant really changes the tone of it from something I felt he shared with his students with hard learning and work to just this power-up he can give on a whim if he chooses. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Like, I think Duggan could have added a really effective panel or two about how this betrayed a special bond between teacher and student. This thing that they worked to develop with Xavier is now being handed out like popcorn to their enemies. Sure that’s not as bad as him, ah, killing a bunch of humans, but it’s *personal*.
All that said, it’s not necessarily a failure or anything. There’s only so much page space to put things in and writers make their choices. I don’t like a lot of things Duggan’s done, but this is all more of an “I wish” than “He Messed Up”. I just wanted to dig at why it bugged me.
The Red Triangle protocol is an Al Ewing invention, though he left it very abstract as to what it actually was. There was a scene of Xavier teaching young Sunspot by word, then all the USAvengers using it because Sunspot – not a psychic – taught them the same way.
This “psychic implant” thing makes me wonder why every X-Man isn’t Prodigy. It should be like Emma Frost saying “hey guys I ripped Dr Strange’s brain overnight. Here, you’re all master sorcerors now.”
@Si: Thanks, I’d read that but it’s been a while. I wasn’t sure how much my mind was filling in based off of my tastes versus what’d been shown. So that also did mean that Kamala could have learned it without a telepathic implant — Young Cyclops gets to learn it in the future from someone, passes on to the other Champions, then forgets it again when traveling back to his time. Then learns it again from Xavier, who’s surprised at what a natural he is.
I don’t remember if it was mentioned by anyone before, but there are apparently some popularized Kundalini-related meditation systems that make a big deal out of blue, red, and other colored triangles as symbols of the chakras.
I found this website, which claims that a downward-pointing “red triangle” is associated with “the manipura chakra, the abode of fire, at the navel center.”
Other sites suggest that the red triangle is for the lowest chakra, the “root,” but the fire association is still there. Apparently this is all emblematic of the spirit’s connection to matter, rootedness, and so on.
So perhaps it’s of a piece with Al Ewing’s play with the Tarot and other esoteric symbolism. The “fire” imagery would certainly remind one of the Phoenix, and classic-model Phoenix also wears a downward-pointing triangular design on her shirt (although not usually a red one).
I also recall Alan Moore referencing a “blue triangle” technique for meditating past pain in an early issue of his Tom Strong series, so the whole triangles and chakras thing may have some history to it.
Or maybe Al Ewing just really likes the evil circus gang from Batman Returns.
The way at least this era has gone – brains are effectively computers and telepathy is a networking protocol without limits – they should be able to directly install all sorts of things in anyone they want. Marvel telepathy is just program loading from the Matrix now.
The preview for X-Men Forever 2 is out today, and it makes it clear Xavier’s actions this issue are indeed part of the plan he came up with with Destiny and Exodus.
@Jon R maybe I just read the issue incorrectly, but I thought that’s essentially what happened with Apocalypse’s “Crucible”. We only see two mutants offer themselves up to die, Wrongslide and the new Arakki, but the implication to me was that since Apocalypse was talking to mostly the Arakki population, it was mostly them dying off-page. I hope I’m wrong.
Duggan only has one way to tell a story and that’s the “and then! and then!” structure. As opposed to “and because of that… and because of that…”
This is less a story and more an illustrated wikipedia entry
@Rinoa: It felt like Kintar, the new Arakki, was the first person up and fell after one exchange of blows. Then Wrongslide stepped up immediately to say maybe he had enough power so that no one else had to die. They fight a bit and then after Wrongslide dies Krakoa immediately gasps and starts talking, seemingly restored.
The only space for more people to have died between the two fights is if Apocalypse kills a few more people during the two panels of Krakoa getting a little strength back, and I felt like the dialogue from him on either side of those panels was meant to be a continuing conversation.
So unless the Apocalypse/Wrongslide battle turned into an all-out brawl off-page, then also resolved itself off-page, I don’t think anyone else died to the Crucible itself. Maybe the Iron Sentinels flying around and exploding killed some of them though.
Marvel’s press release about the Heir to Apocalypse miniseries seems to confirm that Arakko will continue. Presumably with the Arakki population still on it, otherwise what’s the point?
https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/x-men-heir-of-apocalypse-steve-foxe-netho-diaz
It also details… well, a surprising amount, to be honest. Including listing a number of currently dead characters who will pop right back up, starting this May.
Anyway, if the Heir to Apocalypse miniseries ends with anybody other than Rictor becoming the heir to Apocalypse, then the Tini Howard books will become completely pointless.
@ASV: Bendis established that minds would eventually reject any telepathic suggestions he made, so you can assume telepathic induced information eventually fades.
@ASV: Yeah, but are these psychic implants really any different than Xavier downloading fluent English into Nightcrawler and Colossus back in 1975?
How was that presented, @neutrino? Was it clearly shown to apply to random information, or is it more of a tendency of emotional and ideological stances to reassert themselves after being changed by a telepath?
I can easily picture the later scenario, but the former is a bit of a puzzle that would require further exploration and clarification.
But like a lot of Bendis stuff, that doesn’t fit with what other writers had already done. Take Illyana Rasputin. She learned English telepathically, then spent years in Limbo with no way for any telepaths to refresh that knowledge. When she got back her English hadn’t degraded in the slightest.
The cleanest compromise for me is saying that implanted knowledge has to be used at the same level it’s implanted in to retain it. Basically it gives you an open textbook for a while, but it’s up to you to use the knowledge regularly enough to retain it when the initial implant fades.
Illyana managed to keep English because everyone in Limbo was using it, so as the implant faded out, it was replaced by ingrained knowledge. She might have lost some implanted vocabulary that she never had a chance to use, but was perfectly able to converse.
On the other hand, if someone implants advanced mathematics in your head for a mission to a math competition and afterwards you just play Sudoku, that stuff will fade out fast. Part of Prodigy’s special talent is that his mind is specially elastic and can actually retain things without constant practice.
That also no-prizes why you don’t have telepaths usually uploading skills for a mission. Some times it might be worth it, but constantly gaining and losing skills would be pretty unpleasant. Best to stick to “I’ve uploaded the map of the compound” level stuff.
[…] OF THE HOUSE OF X #4. (Annotations here.) Fall of the House of X is feeling a little more coherent than it was when it started, but […]
@Jon R: That’s a lot like the Geoff Johns take on the Flashes: they can learn something at superspeed, but then the knowledge fades quickly, as if they’d crammed for a test.
I am getting a little pleasure out of seeing how the villains exit the Krakoan era and how they will be turned back into just plain villains again.
Mr Sinister will just go back to his usual genetics shit and will gloat about how the experience has given him so much knowledge to progress along with his vague plans that never come to anything.
This issue makes it look like Apocalypse (who seems to have forgotten all that hippy stuff about ditching the name and coming up with a new one that literally cannot be pronounced) will decide that the X-Men have betrayed the ideals of the Krakoa era so he has not choice but to resume his ‘Survival of the Fittest’ schtick.
Considering how they were clearly the most powerful villains the X-Men faced during the Krakoa era I’m surprised the X-Men tried to make a deal with Doctor Doom before reaching out to Hordeculture, but perhaps the writers realised that would end the Fall and Rise both in issue 1.
@Luis Dantas: It was one of Bendis’s Illuminati issues, where Tony Stark asks if Xavier is ever tempted to remove anti-mutant prejudice from everyone’s minds, and Xavier tells him they would eventually reset.
@MasterMahan: Presumably Belasco or Illyana used magic to maintain her fluency.
@neutrino- I never thought that applied to knowledge implanted in someone’s mind. I thought Bendis just meant that you can’t brainwash a KKK member into being a crusader for racial equality without their original beliefs originally reasserting themselves. Here’s the dialogue from New Avengers:Illuminati 4:
XAVIER: Sure, I could suggest a small thing, like having someone not see me as I walk by, but… If I reached into your brain and told you to wear a dress and call yourself “Sally” –yes, you would do it. But eventually, over time, your mind would find a way to work against that which, in your case, it kew to be false. And if it couldn’t…it might find a way to do something to hurt you or others…
And as further evidence that Bendis was only talking about deeply held beliefs and not ordinary information, note that Bendis had Jean implant a technique for resisting the Purple Man in Jessica Jones’s mind in case he came after her again.
Plus, the idea that any information Xavier implants into people’s brains fades makes no sense since Xavier often gives people orders telepathically and they act on them. For example, in the preview for X-Men Forever 2, Xavier telepathically tells Hope who she should resurrect. So after Hope resurrected these people, would she forget she resurrected them? Or forget why she resurrected them?
So, the same issues that revealed that the Beyonder is a mutant Inhuman?
@MasterMahan- no, the one with Noh-Varr.
@Michael: That’s what Bendis wrote, but it raises the idea of the brain resetting.
Jessica Jones’s immunity seems to have been forgotten by later writers from what I’ve heard.
The point is, in analogy to Charles’s comparison of a simple invisibility command to restructuring of beliefs, this isn’t simple information, but knowledges that require months or years of training. Even those acquired normally can atrophy from disuse. You can lose fluency in your native labguage if you don’t speak it for long time and you’re immersed in another one.
@neutrino- But Bendis din’t suggest any of that. He was just talking about Xavier making changes to a person’s mind that they DIDN’T want. The way Bendis described it, a person’s mind naturally resists unwanted changes.If Illyana wants to learn English but is a slow student, and Xavier teaches her English telepathically, then her mind won’t resist that because Xavier just helped her go to where she wanted more quickly.
@Michael: Bendis is rejecting the view stated above that “brains are effectively computers and telepathy is a networking protocol without limits”. So there are limits. Some aren’t conscious, as in the Xavier’s example. A person wants to have a transplanted organ work, but still has a chance of rejection.