As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 7 #4
“Two Seconds Later”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Marcus To
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso

X-FORCE:

Forge is still refusing to remove his telepathy blocking headband, something that gets quite heavily stressed in this issue. As in the previous issue, he’s puzzled that the information he’s getting from the Analog doesn’t seem to match with the actual location of the problem. He concludes that something’s interfering with it but doesn’t seem inclined to depart from his blind faith in it. He still gets fazed by seeing even an alternate reality Storm.

Captain Britain and Askani are getting increasingly impatient with Forge’s secrecy. Betsy uses her Captain Britain role for the first time in the series by letting the team travel through Otherworld in order to reach the Nexus of All Realities in Florida as quickly as possible; normally she can only go to Otherworld and return to where she came from, but the Nexus is a special case because it’s already connected to Otherworld in its own right.

Betsy and Rachel both seem to expect some sort of trouble in Otherworld given “the way you left things with her” – the obvious candidate would be Saturnyne, and there’s a brief shot of the Starlight Citadel in the background.

Sage apparently keeps thinking with the “computer” side of her mind even while unconscious, not that it seems to do any good.

Tank once again makes a weapon appear in his hands out of nowhere, though again it’s no more complex than an object to hit things with. We’re told he has comparable strength to the Thing. He seems to be getting slightly more chatty as the series progresses, although only to the extent of volunteering relevant information.

Surge continues to do generically heroic stuff.

GUEST STAR:

The Man-Thing shows up in his role as guardian of the Nexus of All Realities.

VILLAINS / ANTAGONISTS:

Nuklo continues to wander around causing damage, presumably under the influence of the same person who reverted him to mental infancy (which was noted last issue to have been imposed on him). His routine of splitting into multiple bodies and reuniting comes from his debut in Giant-Size Avengers #1.

Some Mindless Ones from the Dark Dimension are wandering around Hart Home along with the other monsters, but they’re probably just there to recognisable.

The Avengers show up at the end of the issue. Specifically, these appear to be the Avengers from the “Forever Yesterday” timeline in New Warriors #11-13 (1991). Earth-9105, if you were wondering. They’re the enforcers of an Egyptian-themed USA (the United States of Assyria). It’s kind of an inverted racism world, which also had a mutant rebellion going on.

The costumes have changed a bit from the original group, and the line-up is slightly different, but presumably this is indeed the same time. Horus, Storm and Captain Assyria were all in the original story. There was an Iron Man on that team, but he had red and yellow armour, so the armoured guy shown here might be a War Machine. The Black Panther analogue is new – although since he’s wearing white, he might be called something else.

REFERENCES:

Page 4 panel 1: “In the picosecond after she dies, I’m thinking. Of course I am. I’m always thinking.” This line from Sage’s narration also appeared at the start of  issue #1; the first sentence was repeated at the start of issue #2. Curiously, it wasn’t in issue #3.

Page 8 panel 2: The Temple of the Dragon’s Breath. This temple first appeared in New Warriors #22-25 and has also showed up in Night Thrasher, Thunderbolts and Ironheart over the years. It hosts the Well of All Things, another nexus of realities – although none of X-Force seem to be aware of that. The “American soldiers” Sage mentions were called the Half-Fulls; they included the New Warriors supporting character Chord, and Night Thrasher’s father Daryl Taylor.

Page 10 panel 3: “[Sacred geometry] attaches mystical meanings to certain geometric shapes and proportions.” I’m not saying Sage just looks this stuff up on Wikipedia, but…

Page 10 panel 5: “I have seen this. It appeared just before Nuklo vanished. As if it transported him from here.”

Page 15 panel 2: “Hart Home, Florida.” The specific location is new, but it was the last of the four locations that Forge saw in his vision in issue #1. (Which means we’ve already reached the end point of that vision.) Its Spanish name is given as “El Cielo Escondido”, meaning “the Hidden Sky”.