Uncanny X-Men #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #5
“Red Wave, conclusion: Thunder in our Hearts”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Rogue has been taking diction lessons, presumably out of insecurity about her accent. The opening flashback shows one of those lessons, “six months ago”; the part at the end is presumably her coming to her senses after being knocked out during her fight with Sarah Gaunt last issue, rather than something that actually happened.
We learn here that she absorbed some of Harvey X’s powers when she touched him in issue #1, which is why she was having psychic flashes over the last couple of issues.
Since her team don’t have any facilities to contain supervillains, she reluctantly hands the defeated Sarah Gaunt over to Corina Ellis, with a warning that they’ll be taking the Mansion back soon.
Gambit resorts to using the Eye of Cyttorak that he acquired in issue #1 when the X-Men are losing to Sarah’s forces; it duly responds with a massive blast of energy, but of course magic normally comes with a cost, as Gambit seems to realise.
Nightcrawler is fighting without a weapon. When Ransom asks about this, Kurt replies that he’s not a killer. (“I thought I was, but I’m not.”)
Jubilee gets some narration to tell us that she wants to live a normal life but knows that she can only have it if she fights for it.
Wolverine is still blinded from his fight with Sarah last issue, but joins the fight against her forces anyway.
SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
Harvey X, who died in issue #1, shows up in a vision for Rogue. According to Harvey, he lied about being a low-power precognitive. He had visions of the future which included Sarah Gaunt coming for unprotected mutants, and touched her in order to “make” her absorb his powers before he died. In issue #1, this hapens literally two panels before he dies. He also claims that he had healing powers that were keeping him alive – the doctor in issue #1 did indeed say that his cancer should have killed him already. Basically, the idea seems to be that Harvey saw the current storyline coming and engineered the X-Men’s visit so that he could lend his powers to Rogue before dying, allowing her to defeat Sarah.
It’s not entirely clear whether Harvey’s ghost is actually manifesting to assist Rogue, or whether this is just a personality echo that she absorbed (much as she used to have visions of Carol Danvers).
Page 15 panel 2 is a montage of other images that Harvey saw:
- A woman in a Silver Age X-Men costume, seemingly with Cyclops’ powers.
- Colossus in metal form, but lying in a pool of blood, with three robotic-looking dogs over him.
- Nightcrawler with two extra arms.
- Magneto putting on his helmet. Or at least, some man putting on Magneto’s helmet – it might not be him.
These images might not be very literal; the following panel shows a clearly symbolic vision of the Outliers as corpses.
Marcus St Juniors, Alice St Juniors and Chelsea St Juniors quite reasonably spend the fight hiding in the basement. Chelsea has a “valuable” collection of Brute Force cards, evidently a Pokemon stand-in. Or she did, until Gambit used it as ammo.
The Outliers – Deathdream, Jitter, Calico and Random, plus Ember the horse – join the fight against Sarah’s forces. Ransom puts on a mask for the fight. Calico and Ember can cover themselves with some sort of energy armour, which resembles Juggernaut; Calico seems to be giving instructions to Ember, which lends more support to the theory that it’s the horse that has the powers. Jubilee notes that Deathdream and Jitter “seem to automatically have each other’s backs”.
Professor X appears briefly in a flashback on page 22. This continues the flashback scene that opened the previous issue, in which Sarah tells him that she’s pregnant. In that scene, Charles simply pointed out to her that the timeline didn’t work and that it was too early for her to know; in this version, he tells her directly that she’s lying, and alludes to his powers. He does seem to express some concern for her mental health.
VILLAINS
Sarah Gaunt is vulnerable to Rogue when she’s using Harvey’s powers, though it’s not entirely clear why that is.
As already noted, she was lying to Charles in last issue’s flashback about being pregnant, and her son (also mentioned last issue) apparently had a different father. For some reason, though, Sarah has convinced herself that the child’s father was Charles, and resents mutants because he was more interested in his political agenda than playing along with her dreams of family. Broadly speaking, she seems to have been driven mad by the loss of her son, but presumably she was at least somewhat unwell from the outset – and none of this explains (yet) where her powers come from.
Her followers all have similar speech ballons to her, and appear brainwashed. Fawn (who she kidnapped in issue #1) gets most of the dialogue, and seems to have been brainwashed to worship Sarah as a mother figure. We don’t actually see what happens to these cultists after Gambit blasts them with the Eye, but he tells Marcus that they were freed from Sarah’s control after her defeat, and that he just sent them away.
Corina Ellis and Captain Ezra show up in Lousiana to collect Sarah, in what’s clearly an arranged meeting. They’re distrustful – Ellis tells Ezra to open fire if Rogue does anything – but they make no attempt to double cross Rogue and seem quite willing to take Sarah into custody.
REFERENCES:
Page 4 panel 3: “Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye?” This is the opening line of Shakespeare’s Sonnet no 9. It would make more sense if Rogue had read the full sentence: “Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye / That thou consum’st thy self in single life?” – i.e., “do you insist on remaining single because you worry about leaving a widow behind when you die?”
Page 13 panel 3: “You stare what stare? Jeet kune do!” The first bit of Jitter’s line is a Singaporean phrase roughly equivalent to “Are you looking for a fight?” The second half is just the name of her martial art.
Page 17 panel 2: “This is so damn rabak!” Out of control or messed up. More Singapore English.
Is it really that hard to write what a character’s powers are and how they will work in a fight? When Harvey’s powers helped Rogue beat Gaunt,I thought I’d skipped a page because I couldn’t understand how. Just say he doubled her strength or that caused her to drain Gaunt’s powers or something. Otherwise, I’m looking for an explanation that never shows up. Also, I still don’t have a great handle on Deathdream and Ransom’s powers.
I didn’t love the deus ex machina ending the battle with Gaunt’s minions, but I can give that a pass if it’s paid off later.
No, Nightcrawler did not think killing was okay. If that line refers to his transformation and brainwashing during the last few issues of Legion of X, that’s understandable, but the phrasing doesn’t indicate he’s referring to that incident.
Why was Jubilee narrating parts of the issue? She wasn’t integral to this issue. I kept expecting her to have a more substantial role.
I liked a good amount of the dialogue, and the art was great. Still, I think the plots and some of the dialogue might need another draft to make certain aspects of the writing clearer.
Rogue taking diction lessons now just seems odd- she’s been a superhero for years now in Marvel Time. Why did she suddenly decide she needed diction lessons?
“Kurt replies that he’s not a killer. (“I thought I was, but I’m not.”)”
This is a reference to Duggan having Kurt teleport a goon into the vacuum of space and leave him to die with a smile on his face. Everyone. including Breevort, complained that was completely out of character for Kurt.
“Or at least, some man putting on Magneto’s helmet – it might not be him.”
That seems to be Xavier putting on Magneto’s helmet. It could be figurative- a reference to Xavier becoming Magneto. Or it could be literal. (My personal theory is that during Raid on Graymalkin Scurvy challenges Xavier to a telepathic duel and instead Xavier just puts on the Magneto helmet and punches him in the face.)
Note that in issue 2, Jitter says that a voice called the Outliers to the X-Men’s location and said they’d save them. And this issue Harvey says “I called them to the door I knew you would be at”. Harvey was the voice Jitter was referring to.
So Harvey was a telepath AND a precog AND had a healing factor. That seems like too many powers for one mutant.
I KNEW Sarah was lying about Xavier being the father of her baby. I don’t know why so many people on the internet took her claims at face value.
Sarah’s story still doesn’t seem to explain everything. First, there’s the question of whether her powers are mutant or magical. Rogue seemed to think they were mutant last issue but in this issue she says “I can’t fight her magic.”
But also, is there a reason why Sarah seems fixated on killing the Outliers? Out of all the mutant children on the planet, why is she obsessed with killing THESE ones?
Warden Ellis is making sure that all the mutant villains the X-temas catch get sent to Graymalkin Prison. This is a clever move. If the X-men turn the villains over to the authorities, and they get mistreated at Graymalkin, then the X-Men look like traitors to the mutant community. If the X-men let villains like Empath go free. and they victimize more humans, then they look like menaces to the humans.
I’m not sure I buy Rogue’s reasoning for handing Sarah over to Graymalkin, though. Yes, the X-Men don’t have access to the Mansion or the Pit anymore. And Beast’s science skills are not up to date anymore- they’re roughly what they were when Maddie gave birth to Cable. But what makes Rogue think that Graymalkin Prison can hold Sarah? Rogue herself says this issue that Sarah’s powers might be magical and not mutant. If they’re magical, then a scientific prison might not be able to hold her. You’d think she’d ask Illyana or Dr. Strange for help. We saw in issue 2 that Sarah was able to get into Xavier’s prison without Ellis knowing how. If she’s able to get into Xavier’s prison, then she’s likely to be able to get out of her own? And yes, Ellis has access to Scurvy, a formidable telepath. But Xavier didn’t seem to be able to stop Sarah with his powers when she got into his cell.
By my reading, the implication is that Graymalkin will have a considerably easier time requesting aid and resources to contain Sarah than Rogue’s and Scott’s teams would – or, at least, Rogue believes that to be the case.
That is probably correct, too.
Even if Sarah’s powers are fully magical (and I am not certain that mutant powers can’t be magical as well), we should expect that Graymalkin will have an easier time requesting, say, a Mysterium-treated cell than any mutant team would. Or, for all we know, Scrambler may now be working for them. Corina Ellis does not seem to be the type of person who would not try to have extensive and wide counter-measures in place, and we have to assume that she will find considerable cooperation from others. Then there is the plot of the current “Sentinels” book, which shows that there is a tense but very real cooperation arrangement between Graymalkin and Larry Trask’s Fireteam “Sentinels”. Larry’s robot Sentinels circa 1970 were nearly unstoppable; it is easy to believe that he would conceive effective countermeasures for Sarah and have the incentive to offer them to Graymalkin.
So that’s the first arc done? It’s… surprisingly sloppy.
The art is great, there are some nice bits of dialogue and general character work, but it’s kind of all over the place. It introduces Sarah, the kids and the new team, but it’s not about any of those things. Sarah and the kids both get a significant part of one issue each, which is something, at least.
But then there’s the team. Which isn’t a team, just Rogue’s friends who still pick up the phone. (Why the others don’t? Who knows?) And sure, they’re all X-Men with decades of experience and past relationships, but there should still be some reason why they’re all together now, in this situation.
I think Simone gave Jubilee narration in this issue because she realized she’s got a character who does nothing in the whole opening arc. Except that’s not a re-write, just a touch-up, so she still does nothing, but now she gets to pontificate about it. (‘Jubilee will know what to do’ about wounded Logan is another weird line that reads as if it’s in the book only to prop Jubes up without having her do anything).
The idea that Rogue would try to get rid of her accent, now, is just… absurd. (Also, you don’t do that to grandpa Claremont’s characters! He worked so hard on those accents!)
(Okay, maybe you do that to Moira. And Rahne. And Banshee. And…)
Maybe she is learning a Cajun Dialect, Living in New Orleans with a husband who is linked to the Guilds, she thinks she will be more respected when they make their play for the “t-ives” guild if she sounds more Louisan and less Caldicott Alabama.
Why is it so hard to believe someone might want to lessen or change his or her accent?
Uh… she’s taking diction lessons because she’s trying to emulate leaders she’s worked with in the past – Cyclops, Captain America, etc. It’s a sign of insecurity, Logan spells it out. And, of course, she doesn’t need them.
But this isn’t the first time she’s been a leader. She first became leader in Claremont’s run in 2000. And she was a leader during Carey’s run.
@Alastair
“Maybe she is learning a Cajun Dialect …”
That’s a terrific idea; Marvel should steal it before they go any further with whatever they were planning.
“But this isn’t the first time she’s been a leader. She first became leader in Claremont’s run in 2000. And she was a leader during Carey’s run.”
True, but she’s never been comfortable with it.
Of course, the real problem is that it’s
a throwaway gagcanon that Rogue has been an elocution teacher herself.Dumb question, but what even is the “Red Wave” of the arc’s title?
I read Nightcrawler’s
“I’m not a killer, Ransom.
I thought I was.
I was wrong.”
as a direct rebuke of how Nightcrawer was written all gleefully murdery during FotHoX. Was it Duggan who had him Bamf ORCHIS grunts out into space? Editor Brevoort has repeatedly written in his blog how much he disliked that (in his mind, mis-)characterization.
@Michael, @Pseu42:
I forgot that there was a panel during Fall of X that showed Nightcrawler teleporting someone into space, that makes sense that he’d be referring to those acyions. I agree with Brevoort, that was terrible and out of character.
As for Rogue taking elocution lessons and being uncomfortable with leadership, I can give any character involved in Krakoa a pass for minor inconsistencies. They went through a massive trauma during Fall of X, and I get that they’d be doing and feeling things in different ways as a result.
I remember in the last Rogue solo series she was losing her accent because she’d been in New York for so long. A nice little detail but it would never stick, Rogue’s accent is iconic at this point.
I’d have done some dumb retcon about how Nightcrawler knew all the bad guys had emergency space belts that would teleport them back to Earth or something. Who’d bother questioning it?
Agreed with the frustration about Jubilee’s place in this story. It helps create a dynamic where Logan’s importance for the X-Men becomes central without him, himself, being the central character. And given overexposure (and overwritten back histories, to wit), I think that’s an intelligent approach to the character.
I don’t think the earlier line about her knowing what to do is as out of context as other folks seem to think – it read as a very explicit call back to the Outback and the Reavers attack.
But yeah: why here? We’re shuffling do many different characters and drawing the first story arc to an end. It feels overwhelmingly awkward.
I do like the idea of Rogue using her powers as a sort of reservoir/arsenal of different tools at her disposal – and I think it charts really well with Carey’s run and more recent attempts at repositioning her as being in control of her power.
The way I read the accent bit, incidentally, is as a concern with assimilating as much as possible and reducing any more visible differences – though granted, it’s a bit of a push.
Hoping the next arc sorts out the loose ends around Sarah, properly centers the kids, and finds it’s internal logic for the cast other than “folks love X-Men 97” (literally thinking of the visit to Genosha in the show – isn’t it precisely Rogue, Gambit, and Jubilee meeting up with Nightcrawler?).
Oddly I think so much of this would have helped that much better if they’d just gone the typical aughts route of 6-issue stories.
Still, this was mostly pretty good..!
In my head canon, Rogue is taking diction lessons because she’s auditioning for the part of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.
@Salloh: Jubilee didn’t go to Genosha in X-Men 97 (she was a prisoner there with Gambit and Storm in the old TAS episode that introduced Genosha, though).
Other than that, yes, from the first solicit it was clear that Uncanny would be the perfect 90s X-Men team everybody remembers that didn’t actually exist (since Nightcrawler was over in Excalibur, and only a rare guest star in the cartoon).
I don’t know, maybe a little part of my disappointment with this arc comes from the fact that I like all these characters – the team mainstays, the cartoon core (not really), the ‘for me these are the X-Men’ (not my sentiment, but I’ve seen a lot of takes like this on bluesky) – and I wish something more interesting was being done with them. And I know it was just the opening arc, but, well, it was really patchy.
Krzysiek put it perfectly, this opening arc was sloppy. Nothing I really disliked, nothing I can’t forgive, just a story that’s real slapped-together in a way I wouldn’t have expected from Simone. Absolutely gorgeous art, though.
Also…and this is just a me thing…my interest goes right out the window whenever a new generation of mutant kids is introduced. Same thing with new kid sidekicks for Batman. Nobody’s fault, but they just can’t help but shatter the illusion of the passage of time.
[…] X-MEN #5. (Annotations here.) This is billed as the concluding part of “Red Wave”. But you might be better off […]