Ten swords, ten champions, ten battles for the fate of the world. The fighting begins but things sure aren’t what we expected. Christi Eddleman & Vishal Gullapalli dine with the devils in Marauders #15 by Gerry Duggan, Benjamin Duggan, Stefano Caselli, Edgar Delgado, and Cory Petit. Then Nola Pfau & Charlie Davis fight two very different battles in Excalibur #14 by Tini Howard, Phil Noto, and Ariana Maher. Finally Pierce Lightning & Tony Thornley show us why they are the best they are at what they do with Wolverine #7 by Benjamin Percy, Gerry Duggan, Joshua Cassara, Guru-eFX, and Cory Petit.
Marauders #15
Christina Eddleman: Last time, when I said that Wolverine stabbing Saturnyne would either be catastrophic or laughable, I didn’t really expect both. Hats off to Duggan and Percy giving us the “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Are you ready for this wild ride, Vishal?
Vishal Gullapalli: I don’t think I am Christi, but we soldier on. I think the most surprising thing of all is that it seems like the rest of the dinner went off without a hitch. Which is great, because it means we get to see more Otherworld food. Mmmmmm.
Guest Star
CE: These past two issues have definitely felt like Marauders featuring Wolverine… or even Wolverine featuring a single Marauder. He’s had a prominent role to play and even more so in this issue where Storm, the only member of the Marauder’s crew, has five pieces of dialogue. How well do you feel this story fits into the Marauders title, Vishal?
VG: As much as I love Logan and enjoy his presence, and as much as I like pretty much all of the swordbearers, I have to agree that this does not play well with the series as a whole. I reread the entire second arc of Marauders before this, and I think the transition from “Kate is planning to kill Sebastian Shaw” into “Storm has to get a sword from Wakanda” into “Dinner party!” is really jarring. I can only imagine the confusion of future Marvel Unlimited readers trying to read all of this series at once and stumbling into this crossover. But thankfully, we’re not expected to only read the Marauders issues, because this fits in pretty nicely with the overall X of Swords story. I still have to give some props to Ben Percy for his writing for Wolverine here. It doesn’t always mesh well with the tone Duggan sets, but it keeps Logan feeling consistent across the crossover. How do you feel about Percy’s additions to this issue, Christi?
CE: I’ve really enjoyed that while I can sense his contributions, the end result comes across as fairly cohesive for me. What I found the most jarring about this entire issue was what seemed to be our summary page. I imagine this was its intended purpose, but being greeted by a wall of text that seemed to encompass an entire crossover worth of events was not my favorite form of storytelling. Did it set the tone for some of the more “down is up and up is down” type moments we see throughout this week’s X of Swords tie ins? Absolutely. Could I have maybe done without it? Yeah. I really enjoyed the absolute power and control this entire sequence bestows Saturnyne, however. Not only would Wolverine’s attempt on her life be futile, but the lesson she teaches is perfection. A snacc with a SNAKT. [Ed. note: You really don’t get this kind of analysis anywhere else.]
VG: I’m not sure if you’re reading Wolverine or X-Force, Christi, but those really jarring full pages of fairly dry text have become a staple of Percy’s books. While I do still enjoy his stuff, it’s definitely one habit I could do without. Thankfully we also get some Wolverine content outside of Saturnyne teaching him a lesson, as he also is a general delight as the feast continues. When Death is furious at the heresy of Otherworld, Logan does not care in the slightest. When Ororo is horrified at the butchering of beautiful creatures, Logan’s the first one to chow down. I love how he’s written here – he cares a lot about ensuring his children stay safe, but he’s also always down for some hedonism.
CE: I’m glad dinner wasn’t spoiled by a bit of stabbing, because it was incredibly entertaining to see the rest of this feast. Food, fun, friendship? Let the good times roll!
Scouting the Competition
VG: The real good times came from the post-feast social activities – namely Yana and Cable, the fightiest children, challenging Isca the Unbeaten’s status as The Unbeaten. It was exactly as delightful as it sounds, and I could honestly read an entire omnibus’s worth of these two trying to beat Isca at something. Christi, how did you feel about Isca – is her name just for show?
CE: I’m not sure without some thorough scientific studies if we can truly claim that she’s unbeaten, but anyone who gets away with pinning a tail on Pogg Ur-Pogg is pretty impressive in my book. Caselli and Delgado really nailed these sections. I was absolutely in love with the expressiveness of Yana’s face and the pacing of their bizarre challenges. It was a great pick-me-up after Doug nearly bit the dust. That poisoning leaves us a lot to unpack, primarily about the divisions that exist between the Arakkii champions.
VG: Absolutely, yeah – I am so fascinated by their society and relationships with one another, especially the White Sword. He apparently is able to raise the dead and force them to be immortal in their service to him? From what I can tell this seems like an inversion of Krakoan resurrection, with the way they talk about being “eternal fodder” and I would love some more detail into this part of Arakko. But everyone’s reactions to the poisoning were really interesting – while White Sword felt dishonored just by being party to it, Isca actively helped Doug in her own way. And of course, War felt very justified in trying to kill Wolverine early. I almost wish we got over 50 years of material with the Arakkii characters because I feel like they have just as much depth as our beloved mutants.
CE: I love the sense of depth each of the Arakkii characters has throughout this event. They are not othered and demonized. They nearly don’t even feel like villains – at least not in the mustache twirling sense. It’s an excellent diversity of personality entrenched with a sense of history and backstory that makes each truly compelling, if not empathetic. This event feels like a trip through the looking glass for the X-Men, and I have to commend the worldbuilding behind it.
VG: I feel like this issue is the most in-depth look we’ve gotten into the Arakkii people properly. Not their culture and history, which Hickman has explored at length, but what they’re like as individuals. Of course, the individuals with the most meat to dive into at this dinner are Apocalypse and Annihilation – especially after Apocalypse learned of what happened to his wife…
My Wife
CE: Apocalypse as a wife guy is perhaps my most favorite part of X of Swords. Seeing his relationship to Annihilation/Genesis play out over a strained family dinner seems like every holiday family meal gone wrong and I love it. The resignation at War’s attempted assasination of Wolverine was my favorite moment from the issue. Families are messy, and I love mess.
VG: I think my favorite part of that scene was that it felt like Apocalypse was proud of War for the assassination attempt. Like “Yes that’s what my child should do in this situation.” I love comically twisted families like this one. Apocalypse’s scenes with Cable here were also delightful – one demeaning the word “weird” in the most Apocalypse way possible, and the other totally embarrassing Nate by watching him suck his thumb.
CE: Look, he got a boo boo. What was he supposed to do? Apocalypse’s longing for his family doesn’t seem to be dimmed by being locked into a battle to apparent death. There’s a lot of romanticising in this issue that I appreciate. Death takes a classic Apocalypse stance during his discussion with Redroot, and this survival of the fittest attitude being met with insight and compassion from Redroot was downright hopeful. War and Death are definitely children of Apocalypse, but the Arakki champions are definitely not a united front. Yet more family mess in this issue comes from the Braddocks. Do you get the sense that Saturnyne will win this battle of wills, Vishal?
VG: Honestly I have a very strong suspicion that this is going to end with Brian finally relenting and offering to give Saturnyne what she wants in exchange for the lives of all the Krakoan people… only to find out that what she wants now is his death. Brian’s nobility and Logan’s constant guilt tripping will definitely cause him to lose this battle of wills, because he’s just trying too hard to be a good guy. And knowing Saturnyne, it’s what’s going to cost the Braddocks the most.
CE: Really it’s unfortunate that Saturnyne is three syllables and not two because a Saturnyne version of “Whatever Lola Wants” would be my jam right now. I have to agree that playing a little dirty is likely what the Krakoans need to come out on top, but the ones willing to do it *ahem* Logan *ahem* do not have what it takes to pull it off. Who is savvy enough to outsmart the Omniversal Majestrix, Opal Luna Saturnyne? Will Logan and Storm’s plotting succeed? Is it going to take teamwork? Love? A bizarre combination of cup-stacking and pin-the-tail on the donkey? My hope is a combination of all three.
Excalibur #14
Charlie Davis: Well Nola. This week’s installment on Excalibur in our ongoing XOS saga has…thrown me for a bit of a loop if i’m being honest. I feel like I got on the ride, had someone tell me what it was going to happen and then…it turns out that it’s actually much different then I was led to believe. Retroactively, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so sure of the journey to our final destination, this is Otherworld after all, but I am interested to see what you thought of this week’s issue.
Nola Pfau: Y’know, it’s funny…I was building jokes off of songs about weddings in this very column a few issues back, and now here we are. I agree that you can’t really prepare for Otherworld shenanigans, and I also remember Stasis discussing that maybe the contest wasn’t about sword fights at all, and maybe the swords were just the keys.
CD: Yeah. Going back and re-reading clarified a little for me, but I am also kind of stuck on the fact that this very premise was hiding in plain sight all along. The tarot cards revealing different fates, the fact that we’re in Otherworld, which we know if we go back and look at older Excalibur, is filled to the brim with concepts that get twisted on their heads.
I will admit that I have an immediate negative response to swerves, but the more I revisited the more I realized that it should have been obvious all along. Which is inherently what you kind of want a twist to be built on.
NP: If there’s one thing I’ve been saying from the very start of this book, it’s that you can’t trust Otherworld shenanigans. That said, there sure were a lot of surprises in this issue, even if things…kinda mostly went the way I expected? Shall we dive in?
Duel Identities
CD: We start off with what seems normal enough. Or at least…normal enough for a tournament seemingly based on sword fighting. Betsy and Isca are fated to have a duel and I was actually very, very excited to see them face off considering the moment we get between them in the tent just before the duel is about to start. A bit of a flirty competition, even if that’s really only on Isca’s end, Betsy looks…worried and honestly I would too. We get a little bit of a different flavor than we normally do on art here because Phil Noto is our artist on this issue and I was wondering if Betsy’s softness in this moment was due to Noto’s range of expressions not being that deep, but I can see it going either way. We know how competent she is with a weapon and she’s an utter badass inside and outside of a fight, but i’ve got to wonder if she had a bad feeling about all of this considering what she knows about Otherworld and what she essentially knows about Saturnyne. Was she prepared for what was about to happen to some extent? It’s kind of hard to say.
NP: Prepared? Absolutely not. I don’t think there’s a way to prepare for being shattered into many pieces. There’s not really a lot of precedent for it, you know?
That said, for all that everyone is worried, I don’t think she’s dead, for a few reasons here. First, Saturnyne prophesied earlier on that the Captain Britain Corps would return; she intended Brian for that role, but the fact is, the choosing of Captain Britain is beyond her, which is why her schemes haven’t worked in this arena thus far.
Second, the method of her loss here is significant; a shattering is very often used in stories specifically denoting reality altering or warping. She doesn’t say “I’m dying,” she says “I’m breaking.” That kind of breaking has been seen specifically within X-Men before; the shattering of reality leading into the Age of Apocalypse is a notable example. This would also play into the Captain Britain Corp thing; a piece of Betsy for each reality in the omniverse is certainly a possibility!
Third, mention keeps being made of the ominous nature of the card she drew, the Nine of Swords. Betsy’s version differs in a very distinct way; traditionally, the Nine of Swords is a woman sitting up, weeping in bed, with the swords on the wall next to her. [Ed. note: Absolutely twisted] She’s generally interpreted as waking up from a nightmare or something similar. If we extrapolate that to Betsy’s version of the card (depicted in detail back in Stasis) she’s actually being pierced by those nine swords, the design of which all rather resemble the Sword of Avalon—not the sword that Captain Avalon is carrying mind you, but the traditional sword wielded by Arthur. I initially read this as passive aggression from Saturnyne (as I think we’re meant to), but it also makes a sort of formal sense in tying Betsy as Captain Britain to the omniverse and the eventual resurrection of the corps.
CD: Some part of me didn’t think that this would be so literal, but at the same time, magic is something that works in a million different potential ways one of which is extremely literal. It’s why you have to be specific with wishes or why monkey’s paws situations happen. There is no way to be prepared for what comes next and I believe that even though it seems to be overwhelmingly not working out for Krakoa, I think that when the odds get stacked up even further our heroes and the antagonists might have to find a path through this together.
Betsy’s shattering most certainly lets us know that she’s not dead, and I wondered as this all happened if the starlight sword had always been set up to shatter. Saturnyne had wanted to give it to Brian who we know she holds in some sort of high regard. If the sword had been sabotaged from the start then Saturnyne most likely was looking forward to a new Brain based Captain Britain Corps just like the one of old. I love that Betsy has become an outlier, the one thing that Saturnyne can’t seem to predict or control and that lets me know that she’s probably going to come back to the story later on in a major way.
For right now though, she’s left shattered on the ground with her friends and family watching.I will admit, I let out a bit of a gasp when it happened and I sneered when Saturnyne just walked all over the pieces. Someone should really give her a piece of their mind. I absolutely agree that Betsy’s shattering is very much a symbol of what is going on with the Omniverse, but it’s also an interesting representation of Betsy herself. She’s been holding herself together so tightly as things around her changed so quickly. Getting her old body back, Krakoa, being Captain Britain…it’s like someone finally hit the right spot and everything just broke after being pulled together.
NP: That’s a really good description of it, I think, yeah. I also curled a lip at Saturnyne stepping on Betsy—it wasn’t even in a gay way! It was just mean, and I can’t imagine how she could ever think she’s going to get Brian on her side treating his sister like that? Or perhaps she’s given up on that idea, who knows. Either way, that’s the kind of thing that feels like it deserves a reckoning, and it was a level of disrespect that, once again, has me thinking of Sat-Yr-9. There’s no way to know it’s her for sure right now, but she’s not doing a lot to assuage my suspicions. At any rate, that’s a point to Arrako.
Some Kind of Whetting/Wedding Pun, I Don’t Know, I’m Tired
CD: This was. A lot. And I knew I loved Bei before this, just due to her bloodthirsty nature, but we get some deep lore AND a wedding that was specifically designed by Saturnyne to cause both teams to lose a point. Doesn’t she know that opposites attract? I think there is a song about that. ANYWAY. This was the turn of events that initially made me feel like I was in a fever dream and I think that was pretty much how Doug felt here as well. We don’t get to talk about Doug Ramsey a lot around these parts considering he’s not a member of the team, but he and Illyana’s really nice friendship managed to be showcased even though the series of events unraveled very, very quickly here. Again, we should have known something interesting was going to happen given Doug’s card, but I would have had my money on Red Root. Damn you red herrings.
NP: It’s funny to me that Bei resonated so strongly with you—not funny haha, just…I didn’t feel like there was much there to start with? I really, really liked the story about her powers, her lack of speech, and the reason Doug can’t understand her. It has me thinking of Isca in the first part, as the Unbeatable. Bei is similarly absolute in her power, and that absolutism negates Doug’s. It makes me curious about the ways in which Isca and Betsy relate power-wise, what is it about that matchup that carries that same sort of weight? Is it that this destiny was inevitable for Betsy, I wonder? Anyway, I’m digressing.
There’s been a lot of buildup about Doug’s inability as a swordsman, and how overmatched he is in this contest. To not just swerve, but into a wedding of all places, given how typically Doug’s relationship with Warlock is read is fascinating to me. What does this union signify? What effect does it have on the power structures of Arakko and Krakoa? Bei is not like some of the other Arrako contestants in that she’s not a member of whatever ruling class it is they have, so it’s not the sort of union that ends a fight…what is the significance of it, then, especially in a place like Otherworld?
CD: I never met a bloodthirsty warrior that I didn’t want to get to know better. I think that’s why I fell for Bei. It’s just fate.
As for what this marriage means going forward, I am certain that we will uncover more about that as we continue on here. It’s worth noting also that Doug is so taken aback by the fact that he cannot understand her. Doug is usually so focused on the logic of a situation as his powers tend to lean towards understanding things. Bei seems to run off of pure emotion. You can see it in her tendency toward violence and also the way she simply kisses him to get her point across. I felt that for as fast as things started moving right around this point that it at least felt very plausible for Doug to kind of fall head over heels for a mystery.
There was also a bit of sweetness here despite what this might mean for Arakko and Krakoa for the long run be it between Bei and Doug or Doug and Illyana. I think it’s interesting to pair Doug with Bei also because of his previous affiliation with Betsy somewhat romantically even if it was just a crush [Ed. note: waaaaay back in the 80s] and also this burgeoning friendship he has with Illyana, who is also a very strong murder woman. Maybe Doug just has a type and Saturnyne knew it. Also is this going to cause an issue down the line. Will Doug do something foolish because he’s married to a member of the other team now or vice versa?
NP: I don’t think so. By which I mean, of course he’ll do something foolish, but not necessarily for that reason. He’s just…he’s a silly boy, that Douglas Ramsey. [Ed. note: but not a himbo as it is important to point our] If anything I feel like this union gives me a little hope for the way things will turn out at the end of this event, even if I’m side-eyeing Saturnyne’s scoring practices.
Y’know, on second thought, I know exactly why this went the way it did. Doug Ramsey is kind. He is a creature of communication, and empathy, and understanding. He is an utter and absolute sweetheart in the way that men usually are not allowed to be in fiction. Bei is, as you said, bloodthirsty. The victory here is in the metanarrative; love has beaten hate. Even without being able to talk, Doug and Bei are so fascinated with each other that when she puts on her helmet and grabs her blade to deal with what she thinks is an approaching threat, the sight of Doug gazing raptly up at her is enough that she chooses to share a kiss with him, instead.
That’s the significance here. That’s the victory.
Many of the Arrako residents have called the Krakoans soft, and weak, conflating the two things for the same, but they aren’t. It is possible to both stay soft and stay strong, and Doug proves it here, marching into this situation without what he thinks is the slightest hope of survival.
CD: That’s a really nice sentiment and one that’s actually been at the heart of the X-Men for a long time. Love conquering hate, using sentimentality and the power of friendship to combat so many rotten emotions. I’m glad that Doug is the bastion of that here. I also wonder what Warlock is going to think of it all. I suppose we will find out sooner rather than later. Now…we’ve got one of piece to talk about here so shall we discuss a dragon?
This Section Tends to Dragon
NP: Y’know, one of the more annoying things for me has been people going “where’s so and so?” in the crossover, because…we already knew who the players were. Why would the crossover spend time on characters who aren’t necessarily part of the narrative, especially when it’s already clocking in at twenty-two issues? It would just make the entire thing even longer if we had to spend time checking in with every single X-Man along the way.
That said, Shogo was in pretty dire straits when last we left him, and it was really nice to see him and Jubilee here, especially in the context of Betsy checking in on them. No real motive beyond “hey, I’m thinking about you, are you okay?” It’s that kind of relationship that really drives the X-Men for me, and I liked seeing it here a lot.
CD: Exactly. You’ll notice how I haven’t said a word about Rictor this entire time (except for when he got his ass handed to him by Pestilence) because I knew going in that he wasn’t going to be a focal character. Not everyone can have the spotlight, but it was really important to give Shogo and Jubilee some time here because I believe that they have a really important role to play going forward. They took some time to remind us that Shogo’s fire can melt reality and that’s really something we should probably keep an eye on. In any case, Saturnyne remains awful and manipulates Shogo’s fragile little self into being her pet at the expense of Jubilee.
NP: See, again with the really despicable stuff on her part. Saturnyne has always been a little difficult to deal with but the way she’s been acting since the start of this era of Excalibur, combined with the fact that we really don’t how she got from the end of Spider-Verse, where she died in New Avengers #30, to here, where she’s very much not dead, just makes me increasingly suspicious. Add to that her unrelenting designs on Brian, a married man, and the disregard she has for the fact that he is married…it reminds me of the latter part of Alan Davis’ run on the original Excalibur, when Sat-Yr-9 was still posing as Courtney Ross and taunting Meggan. It just…all of it fits that behavior. There’s only one sure way to tell, and that’s that Sat-Yr-9 has a small, stylized tattoo of a dagger on the outside of her right thigh, which, conveniently, is the thigh we aren’t allowed to see given the asymmetrical slit in her gown.
She may call herself a White Witch here (which, given the Nazi undertones of Sat-Yr-9’s original role is a little grimace-worthy), but she’s overplayed her hand, I think, in deciding to take someone’s child—in the lands of myth, that’s purely evil villainess territory.
CD: It’s something I have been thinking about since we brought it up all that time ago when we first encountered Saturnyne. She’s been hard to work with in the past, but hardly this malicious. It also fits with her very clear obsession over Brian which was also something we saw Sat-Yr-9 do all that time ago. I think we are onto something here and I just wonder who’s going to be the first person to figure it out. My money is on Betsy.
NP: At any rate, I can’t wait for Jubilee to blow her entire world up for taking her son. [Ed. note: again]
Wolverine #7
TT: So after that heartbreaker of an Excalibur issue, we get into the actual tournament and… Holy cow Pierce. I kinda feel like Illyana in those first couple of pages as she steps into the upside down fae kingdom. I mean, this issue works on a narrative level and a meta level both, but I can’t lie, it REALLY threw me for a loop the first read-through. What did you think?
PL: I actually really loved this issue. Oftentimes, reversed cards in tarot can be read as a warning or an indicator of some sort of trouble brewing and in a lot of ways, that’s exactly what the team gives us here. There’s a flip on expectations in almost every facet of the story here for both readers and the characters. It’s a deft little bit of storytelling.
Also, I’m here for the Pogg content we got this issue.
Turned Upside-Down
TT: I mean, yes but also I’m sorely disappointed that we don’t get to see Illyana stab the hell out of Pogg. But this first vignette is almost like Percy and Duggan winking at us and saying “hey, you know how you expected a big ol’ stab-off? Wellllllllllllllllll….” [Ed. note: That’s exactly the number of L’s I picture them using, by the way.]
So Illyana walks into a fae kingdom, Soul Sword blazing, ready to stab the hell out of a demon Kaiju… and Saturnyne immediately rains on her parade. They’re not sword fighting…
They’re arm wrestling.
I have to say, Dawn of X ‘Yana has been and continues to be the best. I adore her in this scene.
PL: She’s great and a kind of fun counterpoint to Pogg. Feels like they could be friends when this is all over. I dug that we got a little X-Men “Over the Top.”
As Lincoln Hawk would say, “The world meets nobody halfway. When you want something, you gotta take it.” That feels pretty indicative of a lot of this issue. But Lincoln Hawk also says that arm wrestling makes him feel like a truck so maybe he’s not the person to be taking any sort of advice from.
TT: Yes, and to that point, this “fight” works on a meta level too. Like… Excalibur was meant to throw us off our game as a reader. This issue is meant to show us that our expectations are being flipped topsy turvy. You want to see Magik stab a Kaiju? Tough, you’re getting arm wrestling. You want a drinking contest? Well, guess what, it’s going to be Wolverine versus Storm. You want Wolverine versus Solem after last month’s issue? Nope, that’s not how it’s gonna go.
Really, it threw me, but then when I re-read the issue, I got the metastory being told alongside the actual story. This is a story where things are not what they seem, and the enemy appears to be a different antagonist than who we were told. Surprise!
Blight
TT: Okay, we’ve now gotten two fight issues so far, with 6 fights between them and this is the one that’s the most straightforward of the bunch. Wolverine versus the Summoner in Blightspoke- the realm of dead universes. And holy cow, this scene is just Percy and Duggan letting Cassara go nuts for a few pages isn’t it?
PL: Yeah, I was really into this scene. Cassara’s work gives me a lot of Yannick Paquette on Swamp Thing vibes here with the yellow framing so many of those panels. But the panel that stood out the most to me is where Guru e-Fx opts for a really interesting flat approach. Almost makes me wish someone would color Cassara like that all the time. What did you glean from that sequence, Tony?
TT: I feel like this might be partly a Secret Wars callback and partly a deconstruction of what a sword fight can be. This is a brutal violent fight. But the actual crossing of swords barely happens. Instead we get energy spiders attacking (a Spider-Verse callback?), the really cool flat panel, an actual wolverine versus a cobra (a nice touch given the Summoner’s nature so far), and so much more… Saturnyne calls the fight the swordsmen versus Blightspoke, and that really comes across in these pages. I want to go back to Blightspoke, like, immediately.
PL: Yeah, I definitely got a sort of “this is a battle that you’ve waged for ages” feel from the whole Blightspoke sequence. That might be a bit on the nose for a superhero comic (and not something we haven’t seen before) but then the outcome is a bit of a flip on expectations. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the fix is in. Our merry mutants don’t stand much of a chance in this fight.
TT: Yeah, if the Pogg/Yana fight was a sign things were not as they seem, the outcome of this fight was “and it’s rigged against our heroes.” I also sorta feel things aren’t as they appear here, because this seems like a bit of a chump way for Summoner, who’s now received so many issues of build up, to go out. He was the most diabolical of the Arakko crowd, and surprise! He’s dead.
Total War
PL: Tony, if you had to guess, what are Wolvie and Storm drinking here?
TT: No joke- Klingon bloodwine came to mind the moment I saw the Page of Cups card (and I fully anticipate Mad Jim Jaspers actually has a bottle of it somewhere). However, it’s clearly something that gets Logan and Ororo drunk quickly and has a strong enough taste and smell that it covers up anything mixed into it…
PL: Hey, Disney doesn’t have the Star Trek license yet!
The Page of Cups inclusion struck me though. Often, that’s a card that signals that a new opportunity will appear out of nowhere. The almost kiss with Ororo and Wolverine subsequently getting blipped into another fight both fit the bill in that case. But this scene was another one where the proceedings feel a little off-kilter, a little suspicious. Is that really Storm? Is that really Saturnyne? Just as we saw time and reality warping around Logan in the Blightspoke, could this just be some sort of illusion?
TT: The sudden scene transition added to that too. One moment Wolverine is standing in the blackness in Blightspoke. The next he’s sitting in Mad Jim’s study in the Crooked Market, complaining about the fight to Saturnyne. And Ororo was so out of character, I wondered the same thing you did.
PL: I’m sure the magic(?) alcohol had something to do with the odd characterization but I do appreciate the writers doing what they can to keep us off-balance. It is the kind of thing that will likely be a bit more satisfying in trade since we’ll be able to get some clarity a bit sooner but it’s still working for me even if the every end felt especially abrupt.
TT: I think that’s the biggest thing here- we’re missing some story that I have to think will be revealed soon. There’s a reason Saturnyne is playing the Krakoans. There’s a reason why things feel off, especially in the pacing of what’s happening. If I had to guess, we’ll get that missing bit of the story in two weeks in the story’s last Excalibur chapter.
I was pleasantly surprised to see payoff to Logan’s vow to Solem so soon though. I think this fight wouldn’t have had the same emotional heft if we didn’t get Wolverine #6. Not only is the fight here between Wolverine and War loaded because Logan JUST killed War’s son, but also because Solem killed their husband. So now, we’re facing an actual swordfight, with the emotional weight of several deaths behind it. It kinda rules.
PL: I love a man who keeps his promises.
The Three of Swords card also makes an appearance here. Typically, this is a card about pain inflicted in different ways – words, action and intent. The scene and the issue might play that out fairly literally but if you’re going to do the tarot thing anyway, you might as lean into it. I think throughout X of Swords, we’ve seen the entire writing team treat the inclusion of the cards as more than a gimmick. Tarot is very open to interpretation and they’ve all let that inform their work across the books.
TT: Yeah, I really liked that. Its added quite a bit to the story, even if there’s been quite a bit that’s gone over my head.
Overall, this was a tough read the first time through, but I feel like it sat better after a couple read-throughs. The more I digest on it though, the more I’m ready for the rest.
X-Traneous Thoughts
- Yana not thinking of any number is peak Yana
- It appears we’ve gotten a glimpse of Death’s power – and that poor waiter got a little more than a glimpse
- The dedication to this menu over two issues is exactly the commitment to food I want from comics
- I did not know the “horned beast” was a unicorn and that was maybe more than I needed. IS THE MEAT EVEN TENDER?
- Fireworks are nice for a wedding. Too bad Jubilee couldn’t have blown Saturnyne up.
- Minecraft Wolverine vs. Summoner and Tron Wolverine vs. Summoner both ruled.
- I’m sure someone is going to complain about Tron Wolverine but what if that’s how the mutants get to the MCU?!
- The data pages? Didn’t love them this time around. That’s actually where I’d like to see more synergy with the tarot concept.
- Krakoan reads: Deathblow. We all know that that means…
Christi Eddleman is the world’s first Captain Kate Pryde cosplayer and co-host of Chrises On Infinite Earths.
Vishal Gullapalli is highly opinionated and reads way too much.
Nola Pfau is Editor-in-Chief of WWAC and generally a bad influence.
Charlie Davis is the world’s premier Shatterstarologist, writer and co-host of The Match Club.
Pierce Lightning is a longtime comics journalist and critic, singer for a band called Power Trash, and staving off the crushing heel of capitalism with every fiber of their comic book loving being.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist, and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble.
