Fall of the House of X #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #2
“Long Games End”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Polaris in front of Knowhere.
PAGES 2-6. Polaris and the Brood storm the Bloom.
“Feilong has abandoned ship just to go kill one man – Tony Stark, who built some fancy new suit for himself right under his nose…” This is footnoted to Invincible Iron Man #15, which won’t be out for another two weeks. As of issue #14, Feilong was increasingly preoccupied with defeating Iron Man, and the AI contingent of Orchis were losing patience with him.
“Make it so, M.O.D.O.K.!” Dr Stasis is referencing Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the bridge layout is indeed rather similar.
Polaris and Knowhere. Issue #1 ended with Polaris travelling to Knowhere and enlisting Broo’s contingent of the Brood – who have been living there since X-Men #21 – to help. Apparently she wanted the whole head. Knowhere is the severed head of a dead Celestial, as M.O.D.O.K. alludes to.
“The fleet of ships from Arakko hid Stark’s Sentinel Buster armour…” Iron Man was working on the fleet of ships from Arakko in Iron Man #14. The bit about them hiding his “Sentinel Buster” armour is apparently a spoiler for Iron Man #15.
“To me, my Brood.” Polaris is referencing Professor X’s “To me, my X-Men” catchphrase. Apparently, she’s deliberately setting out to have the Brood kill everyone on board.
PAGE 7. Recap and credits.
PAGES 8-12. Colossus, Nightcrawler and Wolverine board the Bloom.
Largely straightforward – they’ve infiltrated an Orchis ship that was returning from Earth, with Wolverine as a supposed prisoner. They weren’t expecting the Brood to be here; when Shadowkat went to see Polaris last issue, Polaris had already gone off by herself to recruit the Brood. It’s not entirely clear what the X-Men were planning to do when they got aboard the Bloom, if it’s simply coincidence that the Brood have shown up. Polaris does mention that she was part of the planning sessions, though, so maybe she’s just attacking the station with even more force than the X-Men originally expected. You’d have thought that they’d have let her know about Firestar being a double agent, though, if this was always her role.
(EDIT: Nonetheless, X-Men #33 did end with Synch telling Shadowkat to “get word to Polaris that the hostages are free. She’s got a green light.” The trouble is that Nimrod is free in that issue, while we see later in this issue that Nimrod is still in the amber where he was imprisoned in Fall of the House of X #1. However, X-Men #33 takes place after the failed attempt to rescue Cyclops in Fall of the House of X #1, since Nimrod mentions it as a past event. For this to work, X-Men #33 apparently has to take place between pages 22-23 of Fall of the House of X #1.)
Wolverine says he has “a bad feeling about [Firestar]” – presumably, he means he thinks something bad has already happened to her. We’ll see later that she’s not on the station, and Stasis claims to have her.
“Firestar has been a double agent for us the whole time. Jean implanted memories in Stasis’ head before she died.” X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023.
PAGE 13. Emma Frost co-ordinates everyone.
“Shadowkat is in Paris trying to back Cyclops up.” Cyclops is apparently still in Paris after being convicted at his show trial last issue. Shadowkat was off touring the world to round up allies at the end of issue #1 (being the only X-Man who can still use the Krakoan gates to get around), but she’s doubled back to Paris on her own.
“Our nation is on the run, literally.” Krakoa (the persona) fled Krakoa (the island) last issue to escape Nimrod’s attack, taking the form of an uprooted humanoid tree.
PAGE 14. The Juggernaut rescues Krakoa.
“I’m also broadcasting on Iron Man’s emergency frequency.” Presumably, Emma can’t use telepathy to communicate with Juggernaut because his helmet blocks telepathy.
“I helped myself to one of Cable’s guns.” He did indeed mention that last issue.
PAGES 15-16. Emma and Synch fight a Sentinel, while Gambit and Rogue go their own way.
PAGES 17-20. Rogue and Gambit wake Manifold.
In last year’s Rogue & Gambit miniseries, Destiny had a vision that Manifold would be essential to the survival of mutantkind, and sent Rogue to bring him to Krakoa for safekeeping. Most of the miniseries consists of Rogue and Gambit rescuing Manifold from the Power Broker, who has implanted Manifold and various other characters with mind-control chips. In the epilogue of issue #5, Rogue brings Manifold to Destiny at the Treehouse – still controlling him with the Power Broker’s device – and reluctantly hands him over to Destiny, since she trusts in Destiny’s visions. We see them about to put him in the stasis chamber seen here, but we don’t see any indication that they remove the Power Broker’s chip.
Rogue says here that she “removed what the villain did to him” before putting him into stasis, which is not what happens in Rogue & Gambit #5. She doesn’t even figure out how to remove her own control chip safely until a few pages later. Presumably, after she figures out how to do that, she returns, removes the device, and puts him back into stasis again.
Gambit tells us that Manifold was not just in stasis, but in a “no-place” outside space and time – much like the one we’re seeing in Rise of the Powers of X. Quite why they’re going to the X-Men Mansion to access it is not clear; Children of the Vault showed that building under Orchis occupation for propaganda reasons, making it a terrible place to leave an important thing. (The fact that the Orchis soldiers aren’t there any more, on the other hand, does make sense. They were only there for symbolic reasons to begin with, and so it makes sense that they’ve been drawn away to deal with Iron Man’s fleet and such like.)
Lactuca. On waking, Manifold apparently has a vision of Lactuca, the “universal shaper” from X-Men Red. Lactuca previously appeared to Manifold in X-Men Red #10, and also referred to him then as “Little brother.” Interestingly, with hindsight, Lactuca also said that she “will always know where you are”, suggesting that she’s been well aware of his location in stasis through this period, and concurs with Destiny’s vision that this was a necessary step to protect him.
PAGES 21-23. The Bloom is destroyed.
“Polaris allowed the escape pods to leave the doomed station… [T]hey were always handing out second chances to their enemies.” We were told on page 5 that Polaris boarded the Bloom with the Brood, rather than just destroying the station, because she wasn’t prepared to risk “losing the bulk of the fascist Orchis agents to the escape pods.” But she did say on page 12 that she was willing to let “any other civilians” off having heard from the X-Men.
“Last time we met, you survived a crashing space station.” I’m honestly not sure what that’s referring to, unless it’s something to do with the invasion that we haven’t seen yet.
PAGES 23-24. Alia Gregor rescues Cyclops.
A bizarrely abrupt sequence. Omega Sentinel is apparently about to just decapitate Cyclops in public. Is this meant to be his sentence? An extrajudicial killing?
“There’s a very special woman who will simply not let you kill me.” Cyclops presumably means Jean Grey; he dreamed about her saving him from execution at the start of issue #1.
Alia Gregor‘s face turn was foreshadowed when she met Cyclops last issue. She’s apparently been cut out of large parts of Orchis ever since Nimrod was brought online in X-Men #20 (2021) – at which point the AI faction took full control of big chunks of Orchis, one assumes. Oddly, Alia refers to “my husband and I” bringing Nimrod online – her husband died in House of X, and the whole point of X-Men #20 was that she was trying to resurrect him in a robot body. The X-Men’s botched attempt to stop that resurrection ended up causing his personality to be lost, thereby creating Nimrod.
At the end of the issue, Nimrod escapes from the amber where Krakoa imprisoned him last issue – which apparently held him for a remarkable period of time.
Sentinel City was mentioned by Omega Sentinel last issue (“Then we celebrate on Sentinel City”), prompting a suspicious reaction from Alia Gregor.
PAGE 25. End of issue quote from Gregor.
PAGE 26. Data page: M.O.D.O.K. quits Orchis, presumably because he can see the writing on the wall.
PAGE 27. Trailers. The Krakoan reads RISE OF THE POWERS OF X.
Oof. Duggan’s spotty, abrupt storytelling from the last two issues of X-Men pops up here.
It didn’t bother me that much how murderous the X-Men were last issue, but seeing Nightcrawler – Nightcrawler! – drop a guy in the vacuum of space was the straw that broke me. I’m not happy about Colossus being all in on the ‘kill whoever’ agenda, but he at least was mind-controlled, broken, basically had a terrible time throughout Krakoa.
Kurt’s story thoughout that time was about finding hope again. To have that story capped with him just killing mooks left and right – hell, even having him on this team of killers – is just wrong.
And then the book does an abrupt turn and underlines how the X-Men are all about second chances? Just… what?
Good thing existing outside of space and time is such a simple matter. The mutants look like idiots for allowing Krakoa (the nation) to exist in space and time like a sitting duck. All this could have been avoided by taking the sensible step to exist outside of space and time, which any individual can do any(none)time they feel like it.
The capsule from which Rogue and Gambit free Manifold here is drawn as being in the same place as it was in Rogue & Gambit #5… which is pretty clearly Central Park, near the Treehouse. To be fair, the caption says “at what once was Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters,” and the mansion *was* in Central Park during X-Men Gold.
How does Nightcrawler know that Firestar’s working for the mutants (and Polaris NOT know), given that Kate said she wouldn’t tell anyone?
@Krzysiek Ceran: I couldn’t believe Duggan had Nightcrawler kill a bad guy so casually. I gave him some leeway with Shadowkat- she’s traumatized, and expresses her trauma as murder, it made sense enough-but Kurt was used as a brainwashed assassin recently. He had pretty much the opposite reaction. So stupid, but writing everybody as pro-murder is a lot easier than writing characters with more than one trait.
Speaking of murder, did Polaris expect the Brood to spare civilians? How? I guess Broo can somehow telepathically stop them or something, but that’s really dumb. Par for course with how Duggan writes X-Men. Ugh.
Nimrod still being trapped in amber in this issue puts a new perspective on the placement of X-Men 31. Apparently, X-Men 31 takes place after the X-Men’s original plan to rescue Scott was thwarted but before Nimrod tried to kill Krakoa, in Fall of the House of X 1. I think the idea is this- Kurt, Peter and Logan went to Paris with Rasputin to rescue Scott. After that plan failed, Kurt and Logan went back to New York where they help fight Nimrod. Then Kurt, Kate, Logan, Spider-Man, Kamala and Synch get teleported to the Adirondacks. So Synch decides they need to try to reduce Scott again. Rogue arrives with Peter and Remy and they drop off Synch, Spider-Man and Kamala in New York. Then, on their way back to Paris, they learn that Orchis’s final scheme has started. They drop Kate off in London and Kurt, Peter and Logan go to the Bloom while Rogue and Gambit go to find Manifold. Presumably the reason why Nimrod was incapicated by Krakoa’s amber attack so easily was because it was still recovering from Synch’s attack.
What confused people was the scene in Fall of the House of X 1 where the team is flying. Most readers thought they were flying home and Rogue, Kate and Remy were asking questions because the mission had just been a failure but apparently they were flying BACK to Paris and Rogue, Remy and Kate were asking questions because they hadn’t been on the previous mission. Duggan should have made that MUCH clearer.
@Douglas- I think the idea is that Kate only told Kurt at the last minute, when he was about to go in a situation where he could hurt her, to keep Angelica’s cover intact- remember. MODOK is telepathic. Presumably, she was going to tell Lorna at the last minute too but she left before Kate could explain things.
A lot of people didn’t like Emma putting the Orchis goons on leashes, even though she gets away with this kind of stuff a lot.
I never assumed that “normal” No-Places were outside of space and time, just the one depicted in Rise of Powers of X (since the X-Men were using it to stop a being outside of space and time).Manifold does say “You buried me like a corpse outside time”, though.
I think that Ewing and Duggan are overusing the idea that Lactua only intervenes when necessary. I know that Enigma and/or the Trickster Dominion are cosmic level threats, like Annihilation, but at least in the Genesis War Lactua only intervened once.Here Lactua has already teleported Storm to Adam Brashear and explained the situation to Manifold. But she can’t simply teleport Kurt, Peter and Logan to the Bloom or teleport Firestar to safety, because that would make things too easy for the heroes. Lactua, who only intervenes when the plot requires.
If we’re doing some kind of managed reset with the going back in time to get rid of Moira’s powers plot, I guess the writer may believe he has an opportunity to push them into places he wouldn’t normally be able to go, and so has decided to have multiple of them just start killing people.
Because that’s really the main thing that’s going on, the mutants are fighting back by largely just by killing Orchis, which works this time. Kate, Polaris, Colossus, obviously Logan and now Kurt all just loving the ripping and tearing.
He may also want to rush through all this as it’s not that interesting or important for the future as this stuff won’t carry forward. Hence why there’s not many subplots and the exisiting ones are just being suddenly ended.
It reminds me of the pre-HoxPox comics where there was no plot except everyone just getting killed off constantly because the writer knew it didn’t matter and they’d be coming back.
…I am *so glad* Gillen’s getting the last word on Krakoa. The thought of this era ending with Gerry Duggan would just make the entirety of it feel like a colossal waste of time.
A No-Place, outside of the one created by Doug apparently, was not presented as being outside of space and time. They were outside of Krakoa’s (the being’s) knowledge and invisible to scans by technology. After Warlock merged with Krakoa, Warlock was able to find and spy on Moira. Moira’s No-Place wasn’t outside of space and time.
This is a stunningly amateurish comic. I have no idea why anyone at Marvel thinks this level of storytelling quality is acceptable for a high-profile title.
“Polaris totally allowed the escape pods to escape because the X-Men believe in mercy” was something edited in later, right? Someone thought that maybe the X-Men were being a bit too monstrous in this and threw in a disclaimer?
So many problems with this comic but one thing that really bothers me – Polaris looks so badass in her father’s costumer on the cover, and it’s a nice nod, and then instead in the issue itself they put her in a pretty boring and kinda ugly costume, despite her even saying “I’m the new master of magnetism”
I had “did I miss an issue?” moments several times through the issue, and was wondering if this was a fill in artist. Was the original plan for these books to be weekly like HoxPox maybe that would have worked better?
I can’t imagine anyone planned for this to be weekly, it would end up being months out of sync with Iron Man (instead of mere weeks it’s been out of sync since issue #1).
Cool cover, though. Shame that’s not the costume Lorna has in the comic itself. Maybe it’ll wind up as a variant in Marvel Snap, then something good will come out of this.
…
Pure conjecture, but even next to killer Colossus and Nightcrawler Polaris is just… vicious here. And she’s the new ‘master of magnetism’. And she took it pretty badly the last time Magneto was dead (…was it the last one? I mean the Morrison-Austen era).
And the Timeless one-shot teased a new brotherhood with a silhouette of someone in a Magneto helmet.
I mean. This would be blatantly obvious foreshadowing if not for the fact that Polaris is far from the only killer mutant in the issue.
@Krzysiek – I almost threw up in my own mouth at the phrase ‘Morrison/Austin era’. How dare you, sir?!
Do not besmirch the former by comingling it with the latter 😀
Well, in case of Polaris at least, it’s literally that – the inciting incident happens in New X-Men, Lorna is found incoherent in ruined Genosha, and the rest of her subplot, such as it is, takes place in Uncanny.
It’s the Morrison/Austen/Claremont era to be precise, and now that I type that, I almost wish there was an editorially mandated crossover between their books, just because that would be an incredible piece of comic book history.
You forgot Joe Casey, who was the writer on Uncanny X-Men before Austen (at the time Morrison started on New X-Men).
Because to really get at what makes Juggernaut an imposing physical menace, give him a gun.
Also, Knowhere has always seemed to be at least the size of a large city, but here it’s about as big as a space station. Imagine the splash page that could have been, with an immense space skull chomping down on the Bloom like a candy bar…
Knowhere was the size of a moon on Battleplanet. Which is way too big, even if it was really close. Being the size of a city is still too big, to be honest. Celestials are giants, but they’d have to be hundreds of kilometers tall to have heads that size. Thousands maybe.
“I had “did I miss an issue?” moments several times through the issue”.
Me too, with things like the Iron Man reference, and “you survived a crashing space station” which Paul referenced, and really just not getting what was going on with Manifold’s vision.
[…] OF THE HOUSE OF X #2. (Annotations here.) What a strange comic this is. The A-plot is relatively straightforward: the X-Men take down the […]