X-Men #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #2
“Invasion”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Ryan Stegman
Inker: JP Mayer
Colourists: Marte Gracia & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This issue also includes a back-up strip: the eighth and final chapter of “Weapon X-Traction”, which is basically a Deadpool & Wolverine comedy strip. I’m not going to be covering that.
THE X-MEN:
The X-Men have access to a Cerebro, presumably from one of the satellite locations of Krakoa.
Cyclops is very clear that even in the midst of an alien invasion, the X-Men’s primary concern is rescuing the new mutant that they’ve detected. He does insist that they’re still going to do the superhero stuff and help San Francisco, and acknowledges that the city has been good to mutants in the past (i.e., in the Utopia era), but he makes plain that it’s a secondary objective at best. His interest in relations with the humans seems to be largely instrumental: on a purely practical level, it’s good for the X-Men to be liked.
When he realises that the aliens are a projection of his new mutant, Cyclops’ main concern is to cover it up so that the humans don’t find out. He goes to the length of faking the new mutant’s death. Of course, this is the sort of thing that might count as a legitimate worry about uncontrolled mutant powers, but Cyclops feels there’s a bigger picture. (He surely can’t be that surprised to learn that there’s a connection between his new mutant signal and the alien invasion, but maybe he just figured that mutant powers often emerge for the first time under stress.)
Kid Omega mocks Cyclops’ superhero speech to San Francisco as insincere… but he seems to be right. He insists on being called by his codename, mainly to annoy Cyclops. From the look of it, Cyclops is using him to stay behind and co-ordinate everything with his psi-powers – which would be beyond Psylocke’s ability – but he’s happy enough as long as he gets to shoot at stuff while piloting the Marauder.
Magik can apparently teleport the entire Marauder thousands of miles thanks to something called the “X-Drive” that boosts her powers. Previously, this would have been done with the Krakoan gates, and it’s admittedly a larger object than she would routinely be teleporting with her stepping discs alone.
Psylocke regards Magik as significantly weirder than her, which is fair enough, since for all Kwannon’s traumatic back story, she didn’t grow up in Hell. Although she doesn’t have the raw psychic power of Kid Omega, she’s confident that she’s stronger than him in terms of her ability to commune with weird minds.
Temper and Juggernaut seem to be the most interested in just fighting the aliens, though admittedly that’s teh task they were given. Juggernaut is very happy to just be fired at the alien ship like a bullet.
Magneto and the Beast only appear on the final page, in the Factory’s hospital; neither says anything. Magneto is still in his chair.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS:
Ben Liu is a new character. He’s a homeless mutant living on the streets of San Francisco who claims to be a survivor of alien abduction. This being the Marvel Universe, he might be right, but he certainly presents as mentally ill. He seems to be some sort of reality warper, whose powers create the very alien invasion that he’s terrified of.
His powers seem to have emerged in adulthood, for no apparent reason. This is very rare, since mutants normally have their powers either from birth or at least from puberty. However, it’s not completely unheard of to have latent mutants whose powers are triggered by some sort of event later in life – Polaris was in that category. So it’s possible that something happened before the story. But issue #1 also featured mutants who had seemingly gained their powers in adulthood, as members of the Fourth School. That story implied that they had been given powers by 3K, and the obvious suggestion is that something similar may have happened to Ben. Are 3K just trying to turn adult humans into mutants for some reason?
The X-Men fake Ben’s death and take him back to the Factory, where he seems to be comatose.
A social worker called Keith is trying to take care of Ben for most of the issue, but he doesn’t give the impression of being a recurring character.
VILLAINS:
There are no villains in this story, just the aliens that Ben Liu creates. Of course, as just noted, there’s at least a hint that 3K have something to do with Ben’s mutant powers emerging in adulthood.
OTHER SPECIFICS:
Page 6 panel 4: “Remember the Iron Night – helping humans makes our lives easier.” We don’t know yet what the Iron Night is, but the solicitation for issue #7 suggests that it’s something to do with whatever unspecified thing the X-Men did to save the town of Merle (as mentioned last issue).
Page 9 panel 1: “Get in the mass-driver, Juggernaut. Get in the mass-driver, or Temper will have to do it.” Kid Omega is shoe-horning in a reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion; it doesn’t really fit, which is kind of Temper’s point.
Page 11 panel 1: “There’s been contact with two different alien species that fit this physical description. The Brll’nah Zhhk and the Grey Family.” The aliens seem to be standard issue “greys” of the sort from UFO abduction conspiracies, which of course fits Ben Liu’s hallucinations. The two species Cyclops names are genuine Marvel Universe aliens similarly modelled on the greys. The Brll’nah Zhhk come from Peter Parker Spider-Man #23-24 (2000), while the Grey Family are from Iron Man #10-12 (2013).
Page 19 panel 2: “Well, the Marauder is a spaceship.” It is indeed; it’s the ship formerly known as the Mercury and latterly the New Marauder from Gerry Duggan’s Marauders run. The New has been dropped from the name somewhere along the line.
I haven’t read it in a while but I’m struck by this being kind of similar to a Generation Hope plot where, in my memory anyway, a character presents a huge psionic alien seeming threat only to realize they are, in fact, a mutant creating it unknowingly
Why didn’t Quentin or Psylocke telepathically prove the “aliens” as soon as they arrived on the scene? If you want the team to have to fight a bunch of aliens, just have them trace the source of the invaders to the new mutant’s mind, but be unable to stop him. Did anyone reading this issue not think the “aliens” were connected to the mutant?
Why is the story treating Quentin’s insistence on being called Kid Omega in the field as something that’s bothersome to Scott? Quentin has had the Kid Omega code name for YEARS. So why is it unreasonable for Quentin to keep the same code name he used when serving in X-Force under Logan’s leadership when he goes to the X-Men under Scott’s leadership? It would be like if in Uncanny X-Men 94, Scott insisted that Banshee change his code name because banshees are female. Or if in X-Men 1 in 1991, Scott insisted that Psylocke changed her code name because “Psylocke” is a dumb word Mojo made up.
I think that MacKay wanted to do something similar to the gag in PAD’s early X-Factor issues, where Alex repeatedly mocks Strong Guy’s codename. But in that case, Alex takes over leadership of X-Factor, is told his job involves publicity and shortly after Guido adopts the Strong Guy codename, which Alex thinks is stupid. But Alex only had a point because Guido first adopted the Strong Guy codename after Alex became leader. In this case, Scott’s complaining about a codename Quentin’s had for ages.
Scott making a joke implying he finds Illyana and Psylcoke sexy is just weird. Scott first met Illyana when she was 6 and he kissed Betsy when she was in Kwannon’s body. Besides, Scott doesn’t usually make jokes like that.
Why does Scott find it odd that these aliens aren’t either of the species that fit the description of the “grays”? Why would it be surprising that there was a third alien species with roughly similar appearance out there if he already knew there were two?
So…Yeah. Between this and today’s X-Factor, I just don’t think there’s anything to like here. I get that the book is aiming for some bright, loud superhero moments – ie, Juggernaut as a bullet, which would have worked rather nicely if we weren’t so explicitly told to like it -, but it just feels overwhelmingly flat.
Cyclops is complete out of character, not only in terms of visuals, but with the tongue in cheek, oversexualized joke. Ilya a reads like a simplified knock-off of the character itself. And the cast still feels really
arbitrary, and like a meaningless combination.
Why Quentin? Why Temper? Why Juggernaut? What makes these characters make sense together?
I miss the worst if Krakoa, even, because this feels like an absolute rehash of past failures, and little else.
There’s umpteen dozen alien species in the Marvel universe that look almost identical to humans, so three that look like Whitley Strieber’s pals really isn’t a stretch. But Marvel universe is always funny when it comes to aliens, gods, and the supernatural.
The story worked for me once they got to the twist. It is similar to an old Justice League cartoon, but it works in the context of the X-Men discovering a new mutant.
I’ve been enjoying this series a lot. Stegman’s style is kinetic and distinct. Uncanny seems to be the X-Men as family approach. This seems to be heroes who like to fight and stand in cool poses. Which there’s always a place for.
Excited to see where the plot threads go! Hopefully Beast gets more focus soon.
Well, *I* am happy for Juggernaut. He’s often gotten a raw deal. But here, he gets to be a giant bullet; a simple pleasure, but a sincere one.
It certainly went much better for Juggernaut than the last time he was turned into a bullet.
I think I figured out why this book isn’t working for me. Despite there only being two issues, it feels like generic Single,issue stories. with no overarching, ongoing plot. Uncanny had stronger characterization and set up and foreshadowing of an ongoing plot. Also, uncanny had the one thing that Marvel doesn’t realize creates impact in these books, the characters being familiar with each other, Talking about their pasts, and
having in depth relationships.
Furthermore, Marvel seems to have split the school aspect across all three main books for no real reason lessening its impact.
@NS- This is how Breevort defends splitting the school aspect on his blog:
bic:Why should readers interested in the new mutants/students angle of the franchise read Exceptional X-Men now when Uncanny is already doing that, and with more students to boot?
Tom:You know, this is only about half a step removed from asking, “Why should readers buy other super hero comics when SUPERMAN is still being published?”, bic. And the answer is that what EXTRAORDINARY X-MEN is going to be doing is something different, with different characters. That said, it’s always up to you completely what and how many books you choose to follow. And really, there are going to be new mutants cropping up all over the place, not solely in those two series.
If I’m right (which I certainly may not be), we’re headed for a reunification of the X-Men around the mansion to save Charles and reclaim the property. I assume it’s a way of returning them to the school without just resetting the status quo in issue #1.
If that’s the case, then having new mutants popping up in several books might be a way of seeding a young mutant class that unifies at the mansion and eventually gets its own book.
It’s also a smart way to create new mutant characters to see who catches on and who doesn’t. Keep the popular ones, write out the others, create a couple more, and next thing you know, you’ve got Young New X-Mutants #1.
I suspect that to some extent this current line of X-books is not aimed at Krakoa fans. Further, that Marvel can not afford to allow it to be aimed at said fans, of which these comments can reasonably be expected to have a somewhat higher incidence than other plataforms.
We had an incredibly incestuous cycle reach its culmination in the Krakoa era (in “Sins of Sinister” by my estimation), now we need to either finish the franchise or start a new, more sustainable configuration.
Splitting the school’s aspects in three books is IMO desirable for at least two reasons. First, it creates the possibility of having three different writers offering their proposals to the public in something that may be perceived as a core book. Second, it makes sales numbers more reliable indicators of reader interest in each of those aspects.
Kid Omega is a silly name, in equal parts pretentious and meaningless. Scott has the right to dislike it, simple as that.
@NS The overarching plot seems to be – after two issues – the mystery of the x-gene activating in multiple adults. (And we the readers know that the 3K, whatever they are, are responsible at least for some of those activations).
@Thom H.- But merging the students from different books could cause problems. In 1988, Marvel decided to merge the New Mutants (Sunfire, Cannonball, Illyana, Dani, Rahne, Warlock) with the X-Factor trainees (Rusty, Skids, Boom-Boom, Rictor, Leech, Artie). But the problem was that 12 characters was too many for Louise Simonson to write in the New Mutants book. So first, Leech and Artie had to be sent off to boarding school because they were too young to be New Mutants, where they stayed until Scott Lobdell remembered them and used them in Generation X.Then, Illyana was reverted to childhood, where she stayed until she died. But 9 characters was still too many for Simonson to write, so Rusty and Skids were sequestered in their own plot involving Freedom Force and the Vulture, and eventually drafted into the Mutant Liberation Front, which basically ensured they would be nothing but D-Listers for the rest of their publishing histories. The last time it was decided to merge students from two different books., it created problems that literally took decades to fix.
@Michael: I take your point, but I think that was a very different time. In 1988, every new mutant was still part of a small minority and was expected to be special. When they were written off, it was a big deal, especially characters as established as Illyana.
We’re much more used to cohorts of new students coming and going at this point. They’re part of a cast of hundreds of named mutants and many thousands of unnamed ones. If some of the emerging mutants of the “From the Ashes” period don’t make the cut, then they can go stand in the back with Redneck and Cipher and Shark Girl and everybody else.
Apparently Shark Girl will be a supporting character in the Dazzler comic.
Also, merging student generations became quite common in the last 10 years or so. While Aaron’s Wolverine and the X-Men introduced plenty of new characters, it also used previously introduced students, for better or for worse, from Morrison’s New X-Men to Generation Hope. Bendis’s Uncanny mixed new students with the Cuckoos. And while the Krakoan era New Mutants book focused on the 80s characters, their students were a mixed group.
Christina Strain’s Generation X is a fun example, since it took student(s) from Morrison (Quentin), Milligan (Bling!), Aaron (Eye Boy, Nature Girl) and Bendis (Benjamin ‘we’re supposed to call him Morph’ Deeds), as well as introducing a (singular) new one. Whatever happened to Hindsight?
…whatever happened to Ben, come to think of that?
My issue with splitting the school aspect between the three ongoings is that all three introduce new young mutants, while fans of the scores of throngs of older new mutants can… cross their fingers their favourites pop up in NYX, I guess?
@Alexx Kay: You know, it was actually kind of hard to find “new mutant” type characters who hadn’t been re-used in some way (even Redneck!). I guess one advantage of having dozens of them around means that you can pluck any one of them out of obscurity whenever you want.
[…] #2. (Annotations here.) The X-Men head to San Francisco to help a new mutant whose powers have emerged in the middle of an […]
Was anyone else very confused by Cyclops mentioning the Grey Family? I was trying to remember a story where it was revealed his in laws are aliens.
@Jeremy: You are not alone, I did the same thing. Thought maybe it was some remnant of that Claremont run where the S’hiar killed all of Rachel’s remaining family.
I’m liking this series best of the Ashes books so far, not that that’s a high bar to clear. Simone’s UXM could overtake it, but it’s still in set-up mode, so we don’t really know what it’ll ultimately look like yet.
I can’t be the only one who was reminded of Seth Green’s character in the ITALIAN JOB remake by Quentin’s insistence on being called “Kid Omega”, can I?