Knights of X #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers and page numbers go by the digital edition.
KNIGHTS OF X #3
“Kill Your Darlings”
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colourist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Designer: Tom Muller
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Gambit in flamboyant action. The other tarot cards show seem to show Besty, Betsy & Rachel, and Mordred. The Betsy/Rachel card has a “VI” number on it, most likely intended to be the Lovers (the sixth card of the Major Arcana). Yes, there’s a prominent sword on display, but the Six of Swords is a rather boring card showing a ferryman in the Slough of Despond, which doesn’t seem terribly relevant.
PAGE 2 to PAGE 3 PANEL 1. Roma and Saturnyne take Shogo to watch the fight.
As in previous issues, this book seems quite keen to have its scene transitions in mid-page. And as before, we’re being told that Otherworld is basically a story-driven place – in the sense that the rules of story literally govern how things work there, and so Shogo needs to undergo the trauma of seeing one of the heroes die in order that his story can move on.
PAGE 3 PANEL 2 to PAGE 5. The Knights of X defeat the Fury.
This is all self-explanatory.
PAGES 6-7. The Knights of X set out to rescue Jim Jaspers.
Mother Askani. The Askani are a religious / philosophical order from the post-apocalyptic far future where Cable grew up. In one timeline, Rachel wound up as the leader of the order, going by Mother Askani. For a time, that was supposed to be the canonical end of Rachel’s life, but it was eventually relegated into a divergent timeline. Rachel is nonetheless aware of all this, since the likes of Cable (and Scott and Jean) have been able to relate some of it. There is no obvious reason why any of these people in present-day Otherworld should know the slightest thing about the Askani, and their explanation that “It’s from a story!” doesn’t really answer the question. “Bright lady” was something Cable used to refer to her as. The Fury also called Rachel “Askani” in the previous issue.
“Didn’t Mad Jim create the Furies in the first place?” The original Fury was created by “Mad” Jim Jaspers of Earth-238, the so-called “Crooked World”. It debuted in the Captain Britain story in Marvel Super-Heroes #387. Jaspers went on to create various more Furies, but Rachel tells us that the Jaspers running the Crooked Market is not the same variant; he’s some sort of composite. The suggestion may be that this isn’t the Jaspers from any particular timeline but some sort of Otherworld creation based on the stories told about Jaspers (who was a prominent figure on his homeworld).
It’s not obvious what authority Merlyn has to strip Jaspers of his control of the Crooked Market, given that he doesn’t seem to have control over Roma or Mercator, but perhaps the answer is simply brute force.
PAGE 8. Recap and credits.
PAGES 9-10. The other half of the team break into Sevalith.
I do love the design of Sevalith. It has so much more impact than the more traditional goth clichés. Anyway, this is all straightforward.
PAGE 11. Lirio reports to King Arthur.
The Sevalith vampires have been depicted as allies of Arthur so far, but the one actually working for him, Shakai, seems more like a true believer. Still, apparently the whole kingdom is formally allied with Arthur and Merlyn, even if they can’t guarantee a minor thing like “not eating Arthur”.
Livio makes sure to remind us that Betsy has split the party, something that was also flagged last issue as an obvious error in terms of conventional story tropes. Since this is a story-driven world, it’s not going to work out well.
PAGES 12-13. Betsy and co speak to Death.
Sevalith did indeed look a bit more trad-goth in Excalibur #24, though we’ve also seen these sort of large geometric buildings before. Still, the idea seems to be that the kingdoms themselves are in some sense fluid and responding to the story.
Death has been in Sevalith since “X of Swords” and seems to be quietly amused by the whole place, despite being notionally a prisoner. Presumably he just likes having all the undead types around. He’s been reasonably constructive and charming in the past, though, and he isn’t exactly unco-operative here – he gives fairly straight answer to the questions asked.
Apocalypse’s grimoire was referenced in data path, ges in the last two issues, including Rictor’s attempts to get Cypher to translate it.
PAGE 14. Flashback: Absolon Mercator is given the Siege Perilous.
We finally get explicit confirmation that the locked-off kingdom of Mercator is now run by Absalom Mercator, something which has been heavily hinted at before. Apparently he was given a deserted province in which to keep the Siege Perilous safe. The character he’s speaking to is almost certainly Apocalypse, in his Excalibur costume, though he’s kept obscured for some reason.
Asked how he got the Siege Perilous, Apocalypse says that a human had it, and “they no longer do”. The obvious implication would be that Apocalypse killed the human in question (before the Krakoan laws were set up), but unless I’m missing a story, the last keeper of the Siege Perilous was Wilhelmina Kensington, who has shown up alive and well in Marauders).
PAGE 15. Data page. This is a straight recap of who Mr M is; he was listed as one of the omega mutants back in House of X #1. His time in Mutant Town was covered in District X, the Bishop solo series. His time as a figure in the 198, and his supposed death, come from the miniseries X-Men: The 198. The quote, “Some things do not die, they evolve,” was a message that he sent after his supposed death, in the final issue of 198.
PAGES 16-17. Rictor and Shatterstar.
Rictor has been fairly obviously obsessed with Apocalypse throughout Excalibur, and this scene finally raises the question of how that fits with his renewed relationship with Shatterstar. This does seem to foreground the relationship with Shatterstar and position Apocalypse more as a beloved mentor, but at the same time, if there weren’t at least some romantic dimensions to it, Shatterstar wouldn’t need to offer reassurances that he wasn’t jealous.
I’m not quite sure what Shatterstar means when he says that he couldn’t be jealous of Rictor’s feelings “with my own romantic past.” He may just be referring to their discussion in X-Factor #207, where he wanted to have an open relationship and generally indicated that he was in a phase of sexual experimentation.
Rictor, who understands who stories work, suggests that one of them may need to die, and offers himself up as the sacrifice. Under the rules established in “X of Swords”, any resurrection would bring him back as a blank slate, and a new version of himself.
PAGES 18-23. The groups reunite to fight the Furies.
Mordred’s mutant power is apparently that people just don’t like the poor guy, even when he’s being perfectly reasonable. (This might explain why Betsy yells at him at the start of the scene, too, though that’s a more conventional case of her putting heroic principles over pragmatism.) Kylun felt compelled to fight Mordred last issue, for reasons that weren’t then clear.
Death. Gambit was, very briefly, one of Apocalypse’s Horsemen as Death in X-Men vol 2 #182-187. This comes from the Peter Milligan run, a stretch of continuity that doesn’t come up very often.
The Rider-Waite tarot deck (the most famous one) does indeed have Death as a horseman on its Death card, though of course the actual card doesn’t look much like this.
PAGE 24. Data page. Apocalypse’s notes on Death. We saw the original Horsemen, his literal children, in “X of Swords”, and they include the Death who appeared earlier in the issue. Apocalypse notes that in modern times he’s generally filled the Death role with good men, or at least not-bad ones. That’s true enough, since previous Deaths have also included Angel and Wolverine.
PAGE 25. Trailers.
How come there have been rumours Gambit was going to die way back in the first half of Howard’s Excalibur? Was it just someone guessing and the internet picked it up? I’m curious how the thing started – I think ‘Gambit’s gonna die’ popped up even here in the comments.
Anyway. I liked the ominous ‘this is the issue where an X-Man dies’ theme, even uf putting Remy on the cover would have spoiled any possible surprise even if it wasn’t rumoured for… Almost two years, I think?
The action in the market wasn’t as clear as I’d like to – I’m not sure why their situation was so dire. But at least Gambit’s death didn’t suffer from that – he went against Merlin, he got hit with a spell, case closed.
I wonder if Howard plans to bring him back as his Death persona – the drow-like look would fit with the fantasy setting and it’s an Apocalypse connection…
I actually enjoyed this for the most part. Howard’s ideas have always been solid, but her scripting was often very confusing. Hopefully we’re turning a corner.
Ugh they actually killed Gambit?
Can’t have a happily married couple can we?
So Mordred’s power is to draw aggro? I suppose that fits with the whole isekai thing.
Not to derail the conversation, but have the Crooked World stories been reprinted in full? In the US, it looks like we have a gap between the end of the Captain Britain/Black Knight stories and when the Fury kills Captain Britain.
Shatterstar’s secret origin , at least his sexual history, was revealed in the second Shatterstar mini-series, which retcon reveals that originally he wasnt aromantic-asexual but only became that way when he got traumatized bu having his heart broken by his partner/mentor , bad-girl Grimgrin , in the Mojoverse gladiatorial-scene , in the years between his origins in Peter David’s X-Factor and Fabian Nicieza’s X-Force
“There is no obvious reason why any of these people in present-day Otherworld should know the slightest thing about the Askani…”
Agreed, although story wise IIRC Rachel was lost int he time stream and eventually shunted off into the future to become Mother Askani after switching places with Captain Britain in Excalibur #75(?), so there’s at least some slight Excalibur/Otherworld connection. Of course Lobdell’s Excalibur issues were uniformly terrible, and that issue was largely a deck clearing exercise which introduced Britanic… But since Howard keeps referencing generally ignored bits of continuity and runs we’d rather forget, perhaps she has something in mind for Rachel, who could certainly benefit from a bit of character development.
As for Gambit… I think it all works fairly well. I don’t exactly buy that Shogo has any special relationship with Gambit, besides having spent time together in Otherworld in Howard’s Excalibur. Gambit had been holding those cards like Chekhov’s gun so it’s about time we saw him deal some magic cards again. I suspect there will be a twist though, as he dealt the death card himself, and given that we’ve seen him cast spells in the form of throwing cards in Otherworld previously, it would make sense that the death card should have some effect beyond his own death. As some of you have speculated perhaps it transforms him into his Horseman persona (only while in Otherworld akin to Shogo the Dragon)?
Also the Claremont series has been solicited as taking place when Gambit met Kid Ororo so that also seemed to telegraph Gambit’s death.
@Taibak: a quick research shows that “X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain” #1 reprints the Captain’s appearances from Marvel Super Heroes #377-383.
Apparently that is a direct continuation from the last appearance of Captain Britain and Jackdaw up until that point (from Hulk Comic (UK) #60). Down to sharing the same scene of the two being dispatched to Earth from different perspectives, even.
I don’t think that the gap that you mention exists. If it does, it must be in the Black Knight side. AFAIK Crooked World was introduced, shown and destroyed in stories that have all been reprinted in the USA in the “X-Men Archives Featuring Captain Britain” series.
Yes, and there was a TPB titled Captain Britain: Legacy of a Legend which reprinted those issues spoken of by Luis. I’m sure it is long out-of-print, but they were collected in the United States.
As far as Claremont’s Gambit series, I don’t think anything is given away by the series being a “legacy” comic. This seems to be a new direction for Marvel, to bring back fan favourite writers from the 1980s or 1990s and let them work within the margins of series they are fondly remembered for writing during that time period.
Gambit’s time with young Ororo is one area of Claremont’s original run which can still be mined for stories within continuity.
For other examples: JM DeMatteis just completed a Ben Reilly: Spider Man mini-series which took place during the period when Ben was Spider Man.
Larry Hama is writing a Wolverine mini from the period where Logan was operating on Madripoor as Patch.
Peter David is going to be writing a Genis-Vell Captain Marvel mini this year.
And he’s been writing Maestro miniseries for the past… two years? Three years?
Anyway, I thought that Claremont Gambit/Ororo mini has been cancelled – I thought it’s been announced so long ago, it must have been canned – but I just checked and it’s coming out next month.
Which might be a pleasant surprise. Depending on which brand of 21st century Claremont we get.
@Uncanny X-Ben: this issue hammers the point that the Death card in Tarot symbolizes change, so I’ll be surprised if we don’t see Gambit back before the end of the year.
Yeah fair enough but all those series are quite apart from the main line in branding etc as well. Maybe because it’s Claremont, but Gambit even gets a Gala variant cover, which Larry Hama is definitely not getting. (Also that Patch book is terrible, but that’s another issue and it remains to be scene of Claremont’s book will be any beyyer$
There is a 688-page Captain Britain Omnibus from 2009 that ought to have all the Crooked World stories and then some.
Mighty expensive, though.
I believe there has been a recent new printing of the Captain Britain Omnibus, but it may be from Panini UK rather than Marvel proper.
Howard announced on her Substack today that Knights of X ends with #5, but she’s working on another Betsy-centric project to follow. I cannot imagine how this story could cram a satisfying conclusion into the two remaining issues.
So our “heroes” gleefully, willingly and needlessly murder some innocent vampires because they were in the way and joke about it afterwards, and they just assumed Death would be on their side by virtue of being mutant. Meanwhile, the villain of the piece defends their right to exist when his allies express discomfort at their simply being. Oh, and the reason everyone hates Mordred is because of his mutant powers, not because he was a bloody egomaniacal tyrant. And for some reason Shogo has to witness “suffering” when he’s pretty much witnessed nothing but suffering since the day he was born.
All hail the conquering heroes…