X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #7
“The Iron Night”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & Livesay
Colourists: Marte Gracia & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Cyclops. We get a flashback to the “Iron Night”, which explains the giant Sentinel that’s been hovering over the town since issue #1. After Krakoa fell and Phoenix departed for space, Cyclops returned to his family lodge near Merle to drown his sorrows. He resents the expectation that he’ll always be the one to lead the X-Men, but doesn’t take much persuasion from Magneto on the point – he’s already wearing his Morrison/Quitely-era X-Men jacket. It’s apparently just a coincidence that a Sentinel factory had been built in direct view of the Summers family lodge. According to issue #3, Cyclops got the building as a settlement with the US government following his torture at the hands of Orchis; evidently that comes after the flashback.
Temper. She continues to support Piper Cobb, even after a DNA test shows that she isn’t a mutant. She finds the Wild Sentinel attack on Merle reminiscent of her own encounter with a similar Sentinel, footnoted to Generation Hope #11. That’s the Schism tie-in issue with the Sentinel walking through San Francisco Bay to reach Utopia. The flashback specifically shows the opening scene of GH #11; the character sitting next to Temper is Velocidad.
Psylocke. She challenges Temper over her decision to go after Piper last issue with only Magik as an ally. She claims that Temper has “put us in danger”, presumably for the reasons that Magik gave last issue – i.e., they could be accused of abducting a human child. But in fact, Psylocke seems to agree that the X-Men should have responded. Her real issue is Temper not being a good team player and letting the others know what she was doing. It’s curious that Psylocke is the one who feels so strongly about this, given that she’s something of a loner herself. But apparently she sees Temper as unprofessional. Temper doesn’t much appreciate this lecture.
Kid Omega doesn’t appear, but the Beast is arguing with him on the phone on the final page about Quentin stripping his Quinjet for parts. (Why are they using a phone? Quentin’s a telepath.)
Juggernaut and Magik don’t appear in this story at all.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Magneto. The “Iron Night” flashback has Magneto showing up in full costume to talk Cyclops into leading the remaining mutants and forming a new X-Men team. Magneto is less depressed about the fall of Krakoa, seeing things from more of a “live to fight another day” angle, and viewing the wrecked Sentinel factory as a potential symbol of defiance. Presumably Cyclops comes round to that view, which is why he chooses it as a base despite its impracticality.
After defeating the Wild Sentinel, Magneto loses control of his powers. This is apparently the cause of his power loss in the series to date, though it’s not clear why this leads to him being in a wheelchair. Magneto claims that the cause is “R-LDS”, or “Resurrection-Linked Degenerative Sickness” – apparently, a condition linked to Krakoan resurrection. Cyclops suggests that this is merely the leading theory. My guess is that it’ll probably turn out not to be the real issue (not least because it would badly undermine the idea that the mutants of Krakoa went off to live a contented afterlife in the White Hot Room).
Piper Cobb. A DNA test reveals that she is not a mutant, which surprises her. But we see at the end of the issue that her hand transforms in her sleep. Perhaps it’s something to do with 4K giving mutant powers to humans, but then again, their altered humans have registered as mutants in the past.
The Beast shows up to do some science stuff. He gets abducted by someone in the epilogue.
Glob Herman is still catering (and still making quiche), as in the previous issue.
Paula Robbins doesn’t appear (unless that’s her in the final panel), but she’s meant to be meeting the Beast for lunch.
VILLAINS
The Wild Sentinel. The “Iron Night” incident involved a Wild Sentinel suddenly appearing and attacking Merle; Cyclops and Magneto defeated it. The X-Men assume that the Wild Sentinel core was simply overlooked after the Avengers smashed up the factory, but there’s a definite implication in the story that there was more to it than that. It heads straight for Merle, despite Cyclops and Magneto being right there, and in the other direction. Magneto describes it as “stronger than [it] should be”, and Magneto’s powers fail immediately after fighting it. It’s all decidedly suspicious – but then again, presumably the X-Men have examined the immobilised Sentinel and didn’t find anything unexpected.
Rose Ellen Cobb, Piper’s mother, appears briefly at the end of the issue. Once again, aside from her anti-mutant paranoia, she seems perfectly caring.
OTHER REFERENCES
Page 4 panel 3: “X months ago”. Issue #1 opens with an “X months later” caption (which in turn references the “X weeks” time jump in “Fall of X”). The suggestion seems to be that we’re shortly after the fall of Krakoa here.
Page 4 panel 5: “Even Jean’s gone, out in space, where she has to be.” So we’re after X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #3. That does actually fit with the back-up strip in X-Men #35, where Jean is already off in space before any of the other “From the Ashes” books get going.
Page 11 panel 6: “The Avengers trashed the factory, not us.” Avengers #12.
Page 21 panel 4: “Do you still have that weird island base?” Island M, the vaguely Chtulhuesque island where Magneto used to live.
Page 25 panel 1: “Going to be up all night, taking a nap like that.” Magik put Rose Ellen to sleep last issue, and apparently left her that way the whole time that Piper was with the X-Men.
Page 27: The diner, McDade’s, is the same one we saw in issue #3.
I’m glad McKay took a little time here to clean up some loose ends. I enjoyed the banter between Cyclops and Magneto (is this the first time we’ve ever seen Magneto drink a beer?), and it was nice to see Erik do more than just hover menacingly in his chair. Magneto tends to use “Okay, well I was in the Holocaust” a little too often as a way of winning an argument, but it felt appropriate here. It also felt like a natural evolution of their relationship, which we didn’t really get during the Krakoa era.
It seemed like McKay was having Magneto defer to Cyclops a little more than would be necessary during the fight – surely he’s fought his share of all varieties of sentinel. Maybe a little bit of using the fight as a pick-me-up to make Scott feel better about his utility?
I remain largely disinterested in the Ide stuff, but it seems like they’re setting up here that’s she’ll be the irresponsible one on the team, which is pretty impressive given the roster…
Stegman’s art is a big reason why I look forward to each issue, but Netho Diaz has been an excellent complimentary rotating artist for that specific style. This remains my favorite book of the era. It coming out so regularly has definitely given it time to build things in the background and allow each character to get their turn in the spotlight.
Amazing how this works as a team book whereas Mackay’s Avengers really doesn’t for me.
Note that Cassandra Nova has used Wild Sentinels before- so it’s possible that the Wild Sentinel was working for her. OTOH, the Sugar Man seems to have a sick fascination with prepubescent girls, so whatever’s going with Piper could be his handiwork.
“though it’s not clear why this leads to him being in a wheelchair.”
Note that Magneto says that in addition to losing his powers. his body is weakening.
The idea that Magneto’s condition is a result of the Krakoan Resurrection process makes no sense. Magneto wasn’t revived the last time by the Five- he was revived through a combination of a magical key and a portal created by Adam Brashear.
Even if it does turn out to be a misdirect, why would Magneto. Scott and Hank assume that Magneto’s condition is a result of the Krakoan Resurrection process when Magneto wasn’t revived by the Five but by a completely different process? If Magneto’s the only one affected and he went through a different process. then why wouldn’t you assume that the other process is to blame?
It seems clear what happened. We first saw Magneto in the wheelchair in the Timeless one shot in December. Magneto was resurrected in Resurrection of Magneto in March. So when MacKay and/or Breevort came up with this plot, they probably thought Magneto was going to be resurrected by the Five like everyone else. And by the time they learned he had been resurrected a different way, the first few issues were mostly done.
it seems clear that the outgoing writers were writing the last issues of the Krakoan era while the incoming writers were writing the first issues of the From the Ashes era, and in most cases the incoming writers and the outgoing writers didn’t know they were doing. This is not the only time Marvel has done this. As Dan Slott has said, Brand New Day was written this day- the stories were written several months of time and the different writers didn’t know what the others were doing. However, this caused complications, such as with the return of Harry Osborn.
Some From the Ashes writers have made it clear they had no idea how the Krakoan Era ended when they wrote their initial issues. Ayodele has said that he didn’t know what happened to Arrako at the end of the Krakoan Era when he wrote his first issues. Thorne has said he thought Xavier shooting Rachel in the back was a metaphor when he wrote his early X-Force issues.In some cases, it was harmless.
But in other cases it caused problems. Xavier’s being absolved of murder and Maddie and Alex’s breakup had to be handled in contrived ways in the Infinity Comics. Warren lost the ability to turn into Archangel off panel. In NYX, Phoebe is written as a complete sociopath. while in Sabretooth War she’s portrayed sympathetically because Lavelle and Percy apparently had no idea she was going to be turned into a villain. Lanzing and Kelly apparently had no idea of how Kelly was portrayed in Sabretooth War when they wrote NYX- there were references to Phoebe as Quentin’s ex but they were apparently thinking of their breakup circa X-Force 25.
And MacKay’s X-Men had similar problems. In the first issue, Idie is mad at Quentin because she thinks he knew she was in the Pit and left her there- which is odd, because that’s not mentioned at all in Sabretooth War. This is dropped after the first issue. Also, in the first issues, there’s no mention of Quentin’s ordeal at Sabretooth’s hands or how he feels about Phoebe- MacKay adresses these in issue 4, apparently after he found out about Sabretooth War. And now we have this mess with Magneto. An entire storyline built around erroneous continuity- we arguably haven’t seen anything like this in the X-Books since Nicienza’s Psylocke/ Revanche mess in the 90s.
Also, as someone else pointed out, if the Five’s resurrections cause problems, then why didn’t Rasputin notice? She spent 900 years fighting Sinisterized resurrectees?
It does make you wonder though- was Scott’s panic attack in issue 3 PTSD or R-LDS? Even Scott might not know.
Also, Rachel’s problems controlling her powers in X-Force and Lifeguard’s loss of control of her powers- were they due to R-LDS?
“It’s apparently just a coincidence that a Sentinel factory had been built in direct view of the Summers family lodge.”
I’m trying to figure out the geography in my head- how close is Merle to the Factory and to Anchorage? Scott moved to Anchorage to be closer to his parents. So surely that means his grandparents’ house has to be within driving distance of Anchorage, right? So is the Factory close to Anchorage? Is Merle a suburb of Anchorage? Why would the inhabitants of Merle be dependent on the Factory for labor as opposed to the city of Anchorage? Or is the Summers family lodge nowhere near Scott’s grandparents’ homes?
Regarding Beast’s inability to determine that Piper is a superhuman- keep in mind that in the previous issue it was pointed out that this Beast is nowhere near as smart as Beast Prime.
In fairness, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen telepaths use phones.
@John- “(is this the first time we’ve ever seen Magneto drink a beer?”
Well. we saw Xavier and Magneto get in a bar fight in Haifa in Uncanny X-Men 320. And in Percy’s Wolverine 3, Logan got Magneto drunk and stole his helmet.
Magneto was resurrected by the Five, alongside Xavier, after being killed at the end of “Inferno”. It just wasn’t the last time he was revived.
Maybe Magneto is going by the assumption that anyone who was ever resurrected by the Five on Krakoa is at risk of eventually succumbing, which may be MacKay’s intent to make the reader think that something similar is going to happen to all of these mutant characters (like with the hint about Scott). Having Magneto specifically point to his last resurrection would mean this condition would only apply to him, negating MacKay’s possible intent at misdirection.
Honestly, I’d be more likely to blame nanosentinels or genetic time bombs left by Sinister than any lingering flaws in the Krakoan process, especially since as noted, Magneto wasn’t revived that way.
But enough characters are having power-related issues across the books to suggest there’s some sort of larger effect at play.
Interesting that we have “some mutants are experiencing power loss/fluctuations” at the same time we’re seeing “bad guys make artificial mutants through evil experimentation.” I wonder if we’re being primed for a deeper exploration of what exactly defines a mutant.
@Chris V- but it still doesn’t work. Magneto is revived by the Five. He’s got no problems. Magneto’s revived by a magic key and a gate. He’s got problems. Why would you assume that it was the Five that caused the problems?
Besides, we’re supposed to believe that Magneto’s problems come from being revived from the Five when he’s not in the body the Five made for him?
I’m pretty sure the resurrection-related debilitation is a red-herring. Magneto & Cyclops fight the wild Sentinel. Magneto & Cyclops develop issues with their powers. Quite the coincidence there.
The Magneto & Cyclops dialogue was the highlight of the issue. I also liked the subplot involving Rose Ellen’s mutant status. The flashback sequence should have been part of issue 1, however. The mystery of why so many new, adult mutants are appearing and the X-Men’s response would have made for a better storytelling hook than “wait and see.”
Red herring seems more likely to me as well.
Krakoa has been done away with, why would the writers invent problems originating from it that the current stories need to spend time fixing?
Far more logical if the problems originate from other sources that are actually relevant to the new era.
This series is shaping up nicely. It didn’t hit the mark right out of the gate, but it’s getting there. I only hope Assault on Graymalkin will serve this book instead of derailing it, as crossovers this early in a run are wont to do.
Also,it’s a shame Beast got kidnapped before meeting the sheriff, not after. I’d like it if the X-Men’s interactions with the people of Merle were a constant part of this book. (And sure, we’ve got Piper here, but she’s already not a baseline human). I miss the times when x-books were at least a little grounded by having regular people showing up on the regular.
Establishing that the power loss problems are tied up to Krakoan ressurrections is so unlikely (for meta reasons) that I won’t even call that a red herring. It is either a throw-around line to make the transition from the Krakoa era appear more organic or a complete surprise.
Character writing in this book remains good. It is not easy to make me enjoy Magneto panels. But I, too, wish we had more interactions with baseline humans happening on panel.
It was this week that I looked at the pages and said “this is bad comics”. I know that it can’t all be brilliant, but are we really back to ‘Hey, which B-character do you like? Sorry, they’re dead now.’
[…] #7. (Annotations here.) Continuing to bring the plot threads together, as we find out what the “Iron Night” […]