Uncanny X-Men #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #4
“Red Wave, part 4: The Eye of a Hurricane”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colourist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN:
Rogue confirms that there’s no logical explanation for her suddenly becoming aware of Wolverine’s injuries at the end of the previous issue. The suggestion seems to be that Sarah Gaunt deliberately lured her there after learning about Haven (and the Outliers’ presence there) when she defeated Wolverine in the previous issue. For some reason Rogue decides to stay and fight Sarah alone; maybe some more compulsion is at work, or maybe she just underestimates Sarah’s power even after seeing how badly she thrashed Wolverine.
Nightcrawler is now referring to Rogue as “sister”. When asked for some good news, he replies “Krakoa yet lives”, presumably meaning the spirit of the place rather than anything literal.
Wolverine is nearly killed by Sarah Gaunt, but presumably she doesn’t mind keeping him around as bait.
Gambit wants to go and help Rogue, but is firmly told to stay at home and is effectively leading the Haven group in Rogue’s absence.
Jubilee is still hanging around too.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS:
Professor X gives us another flashback to his time with Sarah. A month or so after they meet, she claims to be pregnant, by implication with his child. He claims in his narration that he was briefly attracted to the idea of having a family with her, but “knew” something, apparently because of his powers. He doesn’t appear in the present day sequences, but we’re told that he’s “gone catatonic” after she visited his cell last issue.
The Outliers – Ransom, Deathdream, Jitter and Calico – all show up at the end to help the X-Men.
Marcus St Juniors and daughter Chelsea St Juniors have minor appearances.
VILLAINS:
Sarah Gaunt claims in flashback that she’s somehow able to tell when she’s pregnant before people could normally tell. It’s obviously possible that Xavier simply isn’t the father, or that she’s inventing the whole thing. Broadly, Sarah seems to believe that Xavier rejected her and the family they could have had together, and she seems to want revenge on him for that reason. A second flashback shows that she had a son, Brian, who died in a hurricane at the age of 9; this prompted her to lose her humanity and become a monster. She insists that she isn’t a mutant, but that her issue is with Charles rather than mutants herself – i.e., atacking mutants is a means to hurting Xavier.
Sarah is weirdly obsessed with parenthood (or at least motherhood); she claims to be able to tell that Rogue is childless and sees it as cause for disdain. It’s suggested that her attack on Rogue is a distraction to allow Sarah to go after the X-Men’s base, “where the kids are”. But when she fought Wolverine last issue, she didn’t know where they were – she was trying to get that information from him. The idea may be that she got the information from Wolverine between panels of the last page, after she defeated him, and just before Rogue got the psychic flash that lured her in.
She’s ridiculously powerful in a straight one-on-one fight, able to injure Rogue with ease. She claims to be more powerful than an omega mutant, but that’s probably not to be taken too literally, since she doesn’t seem to have a very clear understanding of what an omega mutant actually is. She claims to be powered by nature.
She has a whole bunch of robed followerers that she can despatch to Haven, led by some sort of demon woman who shares Sarah’s lettering but doesn’t seem to be the same person. EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, this appears to be Fawn, the girl that Sarah hunted down in isue #1 – although she’s been transformed in some way. However, Fawn was delivered to Graymalkin at the end of issue #2, which begs the question of what she’s doing here.
Scurvy seems genuinely concerned about Sarah going after teenagers, as he was last issue, and tries to persuade Corina Ellis to send the “trustees” to defend them. Corina refuses, but actually breaks from her normal character to phone ahead and warn the X-Men that Sarah is coming. She seems to be sincere – or at least, she may be so unnerved by her inability to control Sarah that she’d quite like to see the X-Men take care of the problem for her. It’s not clear how she’s able to get in touch with them; from the look of it, though, she calls Gambit’s mobile. Where did she get the number?
Corrina has a 16 year old brother, who will presumably be significant at some point.
OTHER REFERENCES:
Page 3 panel 3: “Stop, Jaguar.” Sarah also called Charles “Jaguar” in the previous issue, ultimately referring back to a line of dialogue from their first meeting, in the flashback in issue #1.
Page 6 panel 4: “First Krakoa. Then what happened with Charles. Then Harvey X.” The fall of Krakoa at the last X-Men: Hellfire Gala one-shot; Professor X allying with Orchis as a delaying tactic in Rise of the Powers of X; and the death of teen mutant Harvey X in issue #1.
Page 9 panel 4: “Take him back to Haven. Jubilee’ll know what to do.” Jubilee? Why Jubilee? If anything, Nightcrawler is the one who used to act as makeshift medic at times.
Page 13 panel 3: “There’s unauthorised access to the old Morlock tunnels below the grounds. The perimeter system is giving us unreliable data.” The suggestion seems to be that Sarah is accessing the Graymalkin Prison through the Morlock tunnels. The issues with the security system were mentioned last issue.
Page 16 panel 2: “I absorb powers. I have Wonder Man’s running through me on the current.” This dates from Uncanny Avengers. In practical terms it’s not much different from the power set she always had, so it tends not to come up much.
Page 18 panels 1-2: “I haven’t slept in 17 years. There was a hurricane… 125 billion in damage.” This is probably meant to be Hurricane Katrina, which did cause $125bn in damage, a record that stood until Hurricane Harvey tied it in 2017. But Katrina was in 2005, which is not 17 years ago. It seems an odd mistake, so maybe it’s meant to be significant.
I think the “demon woman” is Rosa from the first issue.
I think so too. And Krakoa lives on quite literally in the White Hot Room, after all.
“she claims to be able to tell that Rogue is childless and sees it as cause for disdain”
Must be a big a JD Vance supporter.
Oh dear. When was Xavier meant to be born now? 1973? If he was with Sarah at Oxford, and Sarah claimed to be pregnant by Charles, then Sarah had a nine-year old son in 2005, that would mean Xavier was at Oxford in 1996. I was at university in 1996. Am I close to the same age as old man Professor X now?
Yeah. Moira was 52 during the Krakoan Age. So, not that far off.
I can see why Charles wanted to get away from Sarah. There are some definite red flags. He gets away from Sarah only to meet a woman telling him that she’s been reincarnated nine times. I don’t know, maybe the problem wasn’t with Charles at this point.
I don’t know why everyone on the internet except Paul seems to have assumed that Sarah was telling the truth and Xavier abandoned his son. Yes, Brian is Xavier’s father’s name but Brian isn’t the most uncommon name in the world. Everything about Sarah screams unreliable narrator. She somehow claimed to know she was pregnant, Xavier decided not to pursue a family with her after reading her mind. As Paul noted, she claims her son died in Katrina 17 years ago but Katrina was 19 years ago. She claims to blame Xavier for Katrina! She mentioned her “realm” last issue but claims to be a transformed human this issue. She claimed her nails come from the blades of murderers last issue but didn’t mention that this issue when explaining her origin to Rogue. Last issue, when she visited Xavier, she wanted to know where the children were and somehow expected Xavier to know which children she meant despite all the mutant children in the world.
Paul, I think Ellis meant Perimeter with a capital P. We’ve seen a P in Graymalkin Prison on numerous occasions. But now we know what it stands for- Perimeter.
In retrospect, there was evidence of that last week. In Sentinels 1, Lockstep was talking to an artificial intelligence through the P symbol and he calls it Perimeter.
I think that idea is that Warden Ellis decided to warn the X-Men because the teenagers reminded her of her brother.
Re: how Ellis knew Gambit’s number- keep in mind that Scurvy can read minds and they’ve captured Siryn. Presumably, Remy gave his number to Siryn and Scurvy read her mind.
Note that Rogue claims to have some of Carol’s powers as well as Wonder Man’s.
“led by some sort of demon woman who shares Sarah’s lettering but doesn’t seem to be the same person.”
That’s Fawn from issue 1. Apparently Sarah is controlling her somehow.
The annoying thing about this is that you’d think Amelia Voght would be on Sarah’s hit list since she’s Xavier’s ex. But instead she’s robbing banks with Greycrow for… reasons. I get that if she were here, she would probably say something like “No, Charles did not have a kid with that psycho.” But still…
To be fair, based on Gaunt’s line, it could be that being a hardline fiscal as well as cultural conservative, she read that there was $125 billion in damages from Hurricane Katrina two years after the fact and was unable to sleep for the seventeen years which followed. “What percentage of that will be paid by the federal government? What about the national debt? Oh god, and the interest added to it.”
Or, she spent two years in a coma state transforming into “The Hag” or something similar.
That quote doesn’t outright say that it’s been seventeen years since 2005.
RE: Page 9 panel 4: “Take him back to Haven. Jubilee’ll know what to do.” Jubilee? Why Jubilee? If anything, Nightcrawler is the one who used to act as makeshift medic at times.
Maybe this refers to when the Reavers crucified Logan back in Australia and Jubilee helped nurse him back to health??
@Andy: I thought the same thing. She nursed him for a good while in the Outback and has been his sidekick on too many occasions to count – it makes sense that she’d know what to do.
I don’t love how overemphasized the connection between Rogue and Logan his, but that might just be me. I just don’t read the bond as that crucial, for some reason – I keep imaging Jubilee or Shadowcat in Rogue’s position instead.
I really don’t like the additional reconning on Xavier’s already convoluted past. But I agree with @Michael above: we have no obvious reason to trust any of what she says, and she always reads as just a little bit off in her own flashback scenes…
With the kids had something to do this issue – but I guess I’m curious to see what the ultimate twist is. Even if this feels much more like a mini-series than a core title, still…
“she calls Gambit’s mobile. Where did she get the number?”
Toilet wall.
“Re: how Ellis knew Gambit’s number- keep in mind that Scurvy can read minds and they’ve captured Siryn. Presumably, Remy gave his number to Siryn and Scurvy read her mind.”
Yeah but who knows anybody’s cell phone numbers? They could read my mind and wouldn’t get any, just “push their name to call them”
@S- Some writers write telepaths as able to access any information in the person’s mind, regardless of whether they consciously remember it. For example, in one of Claremont’s New Mutants issues, the New Mutants saw Cyclops briefly on TV and didn’t recognize him but when Xavier read their minds, he recognized Scott.
“ I don’t love how overemphasized the connection between Rogue and Logan his, but that might just be me. I just don’t read the bond as that crucial, for some reason”
I figure this hearkens all the way back to the 170s when Rogue first joined, when they bonded during the Japan caper (I.e. Logan’s aborted wedding to Mariko) but that’s a hell of a long time ago even for comics time.
If I recall correctly, Claremont himself was undescoring their relationship when he came back in 2000 and Rogue was made team leader for what felt like 15 seconds. There’s definitely a scene there with Logan giving a heartfelt support for Rogue’s leadership.
Deinitely maybe. IIRC. And so on.
Frankly, I don’t see what any of this has to do with Mister Sinister.
Sinister? Hardly know ‘er!
On topic:
I love Mister Sinister.
It’ll all become clear once Sarah Gaunt’s robed followers start addressing her as “Sister Minister.”
I’ll see myself out.
@The Other Michael:
Yeah, to me that felt a little like an emotional beat that could work with the characters’s shared history (i.e, it doesn’t outright contradict existing storylines and appearances), without necessarily being something we’ve been shown on page (as opposed to told, in retrospect).
@Krzysiek Ceran:
Are you thinking of something around the time Destiny’s Diaries came to the forefront, and Rogue slightly lost the plot through excess use of her powers/general lack of control after making out with a Skull (or something)?
I do remember something like a strong mentor vibe happening around this point, though I’m sure folks with better memories can confirm or deny it.
It does still like a bit of a stretch – even though it’s not blatantly out of character or anything.
[…] X-MEN #4. (Annotations here.) The penultimate issue of the “Red Wave” arc, and it’s built mainly around Sarah […]
Gaunt’s a really evil villain. Her motives are best described as…
… Sinister.
So does anyone have a sense of whether Gaunt’s name is a Tolkien reference, a Lovecraft reference, a Stephen King reference, or a D&D reference?
> So does anyone have a sense of whether Gaunt’s name is a Tolkien reference, a Lovecraft reference, a Stephen King reference, or a D&D reference?
…Torg?
How is that not the Demon Bear on the cover? It has to be, right?