Legion of X #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
LEGION OF X #3
“We’re All Mad Here”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Jan Bazaldua
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Mulller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. The Legionnaires flee weird stuff in the astral plane. Loosely based on page 17.
PAGES 2-4. Weaponless Zsen reports to Ora Serrata; Nightcrawler briefs the Legionnaires; and Pixie welcomes Dr Strange to the Altar.
“I have accessed Krakoan surveillance files.” Zsen broke into the Pointe last issue to access them (and was presumably allowed to do so after the altercation with X-Force that we saw, or managed to access some before she was stopped.).
Banshee has been missing since yesterday. The previous issue ended with Banshee entering the Altar to recover after his possession by Switch, and being approached by Mother Righteous, who offered him “Such clarity. Such power. You’d never be alone again.”
Counselor Birdy. The telepath who served as Sabretooth’s sidekick in the early 90s. She was killed by Graydon Creed in Sabretooth vol 1 #4, but this week’s Sabretooth #5 has her resurrection being proposed (thus confirming that she’s a mutant). We see her later on, in the background of page 9.
Doctor Strange is dead right now, following the Death of Dr Strange miniseries. But Switch doesn’t know that.
Page 3 panel 3 is a side-on shot of a blindfolded person tied to a chair, with some sort of magical symbols on the side of his head. Presumably this is Switch preparing to use his power, and ensuring that his victim (who takes over his body) won’t be able to escape and raise the alarm.
“Your vow of service.” In issue #1, Zsen said that she had “vowed my ten years of service”, and peacetime service is not what she had envisaged. Ora’s attitude to Zsen is curious – she seems to detest Zsen but claims to be willing to release her if she does her job. At the same time, she’s chosen Zsen for a job that seems to be important to her (and there’s blatantly something about the escaped god that Ora Serrata isn’t explaining).
Despite Ora berating Zsen’s war addiction, Zsen has spent most of the scene suggesting that she’s coming round to the Krakoan perspective.
PAGES 4-5. Kurt, Zsen and Blindfold set off for the astral plane.
Note that Kurt is instantly surrounded by Christian symbols when he enters the astral plane, while Blindfold seems to have Psylocke-style butterflies.
PAGE 6. Switch is captured, and Legion talks to Juggernaut.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits. The (lengthy) recap clarifies that the skull image in the sphere that Mother Righteous was holding last issue is indeed “seemingly the power of a Ghost Rider”, and that it’s the power that she offered to both Legion and Banshee. Issue #2 also had a flashforward to Legion with a Ghost Rider skull, but the connection with Mother Righteous’s globe didn’t exactly leap off the page, since it was shown simply as a glowing yellow ball in that scene; it only has the skull in the final scene where she speaks to Banshee.
“We’re All Mad Here.” The title is a quote from Alice in Wonderland.
PAGE 8. Legion and Juggernaut talk.
Juggernaut started the series mistakenly believing that Professor X wanted him on the team, and now finds that Professor X is withholding help as leverage to get him to quit.
Note that Legion is addressing Juggernaut as “Uncle Cain” – which is accurate, but it’s not as if they have an established relationship. Legion’s antipathy to Professor X presumably draws him to Juggernaut (who, in his dopey hero mode, is also the polar opposite of most of the qualities Legion hates in his father).
PAGE 9. Paulie DiCosta’s story.
The characters gathered around Paulie are Forget-Me-Not, Birdy, Dust and Somnus (from Marauders). Basically, it turns out that Paulie didn’t kill his wife after all.
PAGE 10. Legion, Juggernaut, Dr Nemesis and Lost discuss what to do with Switch.
Legion says that Switch “hasn’t broken any of Dad’s laws”. Note that he attributes the laws to his resented father even though they were adopted by the whole Quiet Council, and Xavier didn’t even propose them. Kurt would almost certainly disagree with Legion’s claim that no laws have been broken, given his very broad interpretation of the third law (“Respect This Sacred Land”) as covering essentially any seriously anti-social behaviour. In a data page in issue #1, he claims that “[t]o diminish or harm any mutant without consent – in body or mind” is a breach of the third law.
For Legion, the laws are much simpler and literal (“big, simple laws”) and therefore an illustration of his father’s stupidity and arrogance.
PAGE 11. A data page about how the Altar interacts with the physical world and the astral plane.
“Heisenbergian states of perception…” Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) was a physicist best known for his uncertainty principle; he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1932 for his role in the creation of quantum mechanics.
The Empyrean. An ancient term for the highest level of heaven, supposedly occupied by fire.
PAGES 12-15. Nightcrawler and Zsen in the astral plane.
Nightcrawler’s unconscious mind shows him not just with Zsen, but with a range of other women – Rogue and Cerise are clearly recognisable, and two of the others seem to be Jean and Psylocke.
When Nightcrawler tries to invoke his faith, he is surrounded by little bamf-like creatures who voice his doubts. These are presumably the creatures that were with him in the flash forward in issue #2.
PAGES 16-19. Pixie and Juggernaut encounter the missing god.
The transition here is confusing, since Pixie is apparently in the real world looking for Switch’s body when she stumbles upon the god (who was apparently empowered by Switch’s worship). But visually it looks like a continuation of the astral plane sequence. It doesn’t really work.
Pixie’s Soul Dagger is her cut-down version of Magik’s Soulsword, created in a similar way from a part of her soul. Pixie is treated in this story as a proper sorceress (albeit a minor one), rather than just a mutant who learned a teleport spell.
PAGE 20. Another data page about the Altar.
PAGE 21. Nightcrawler and Zsen watch events on Krakoa.
PAGE 22. Juggernaut takes stock after the fight.
PAGES 23-24. Banshee rescues Nightcrawler and Zsen.
Evidently Banshee accepted Mother Righteous’s offer oof the Ghost Rider power.
PAGE 25. Trailers.
Poor old Banshee’s copping it left right and centre lately. Here, Unlimited, getting skinned by Moira. I can almost see a comic soon where some vile force trying to use his body and finding to its embarrassment another vile force already in there.
Bizarrely one of the toy creature things is drawn to be…Rex from Toy Story?
Also obviously the bit about Magneto’s impression of Gandalf is in ref to Ian McKellan
Since Mother Righteous is offering Ghost Rider power, could she be a disguised Mephisto?
Why is Wild Cards in the list of upcoming x-men titles? According to solicits it’s an adaptation of the prose series started by G R R Martin.
What is Blindfold’s connection to Destiny? They have similar powers and she seems to be wearing half a Destiny mask in the astral plane.
Bengt > What is Blindfold’s connection to Destiny? They have similar powers and she seems to be wearing half a Destiny mask in the astral plane.
Long lost descendant (I think this was revealed during Necrosha? Not sure, Paul should know).
Destiny must have had children outside of her marriage with Mystique – much like how Mystique had Nightcrawler and Graydon Creed with other men.
The half-mask symbolism is interesting though – much like with Nightcrawler and the Bamfs, the Astral Plane shows the ‘flash-forward’ version of these characters. Is this who they will become? Or who they could become?
neutrino > Since Mother Righteous is offering Ghost Rider power, could she be a disguised Mephisto?
That was my first thought too and Mother Righteous’s red skin could be a big clue. Plus, I know Jason Aaron is getting ready to launch a big Mephisto event early next year and this could be how X-Men ties in.
That said, Mephisto is not the only source of the Spirit of Vengeance. In the new Avengers Forever, Robbie Reyes learnt that his Spirit of Vengeance did not come form Mephisto or any demon but originated from somewhere in the Multiverse. So MR could genuinely be a new character who is able to bestow the SoV.
@Bengt
“Why is Wild Cards in the list of upcoming x-men titles? According to solicits it’s an adaptation of the prose series started by G R R Martin.”
It’s probably just a mistake where someone accidentally copied and pasted it into the list. But I suppose there’s also the possibility Marvel thinks there’s a significant spillover audience because the whole Wild Cards concept has always been rather similar to Marvel’s mutants.
@Bengt, GN:
Destiny is Blindfold’s great-grandmother (if she’s not even further removed, and with the sliding timeline – she will be), and it was indeed revealed in the tie-in to Necrosha in Mike Carey’s X-Men Legacy. Destiny gets resurrected for a day or so and Rogue and Blindfold get to talk with her.
I believe that the Jumper plot starting in book VII or so of Wild Cards was a Chris Claremont proposal, although I doubt that has ever been said in promotional material to any clear extent. (How would I know? Because I read about it in GURPS Wild Cards.)
My reading of the half-mask on Blindfold was that it was a visual representation of pokj uyytttthow being in the astral plane removes or at least diminishes her restrictions of perception. After all, the whole scene was bursting with astral constructs that they all apparently could perceive equally well.
This issue felt a bit rushed to me. The storytelling was far less clear than I expected. Ora Serrata seems to have become considerably more abusive all of a sudden, and it looks like Mother Righteous isn’t the fleeing god after all (the gender pronoums do not match). Unless, of course, said deity has alternate forms, which is always a possibility.
I wonder if we are to notice that Meggan apparently isn’t one of the people that Nightcrawler has fantasies about.
Reyes knew he wasn’t a “real” Ghost Rider since his original series. From memory Johnny Blaze told him. It hasn’t been explained exactly what he is yet, so I’d be surprised if the game is given away in an X-comic.
Haven’t had a chance to read this yet but just wondering… what ever became of Pickles?
Speaking of descendants of Destiny, Howard Mackie’s X-Factor introduced Trevor Chase, the mutant grandson of Destiny. He’s a reality warper and conceivably on Krakoa if anyone remembers he exists.