A traitor in the midst of S.W.O.R.D. as the Shi’Ar visit Arakko in SWORD #9 by Al Ewing, Jacopo Camagni, Fernando Sifuentes and Ariana Maher.

Nola Pfau: Corey, did you know that, when using discussion format, the first instance of text should include the writer’s full first name?

Corey Smith: I’d heard rumors, Nola, but I can’t quite wrap my head around them. But if that’s how we handle the first instance, what should it look like after that?

Nola: Like this.

Corey: Holy shit.

The Shi’Ar Audacity

Nola: It’s not precisely the start of the issue, but a huge chunk of SWORD’s events take place as a Shi’Ar delegation arrives on Arakko so that Empress Xandra can meet with Ororo of the Storm (look, as far as I’m concerned, that’s just who she is now). This almost immediately goes awry as an assassination team makes a play for the Empress’ life. Personally, I’m fine with this idea and with the end of Shi’Ar dominion, as an anti-imperialist, but also, of course, it’s not quite the play that it seems to be, and I guess Krakoa has gone to a lot of effort on Xandra’s behalf already, so whatever. I will say it’s nice to see the actual SWORD team responding here, after being largely absent last issue.

Corey: For the titular team of the book, they haven’t had very many chances to shine as a unit, so it’s definitely fun to see them in their element! Or, at least, as close to “in their element” as they can manage to be. While I don’t think anyone was expecting paradigm shaking feats of prowess from Random or Forearm, the team was only marginally more effective than the Imperial Guard, a group most notable for being the part of the Phoenix Saga no one really talks about, and having a dude who exists entirely for the sake of giving Logan a new costume. [Ed. note: In that grand tradition, Fang is the first one to bite it here]

It’s a damn good thing Ororo managed to show up and carry the rest of them, or Chuck would be down another kid he never speaks to. Alas, our cheerful Lethal Legion is thwarted, but not before sending some useful data to some obnoxious observers, all without Frenzy getting to do much of anything at all. As for the threat themselves, I’ve gotta say, they were pretty fun to watch, though I’ve never been enough of a Legion of Super-Heroes reader to pick up on how they worked as an analogue of the Fatal Five. How about you?

Nola: I know someone’s gonna kick my ass for saying this, but I also didn’t make that connection, despite owning multiple LoSH volumes. It’s fine! It’s fine. I did really enjoy the Imperial Guard getting absolutely owned here, because they’re a team of jobbers and they always have been, so it’s good to see them sticking to form. I do wish SWORD had been a little more effective here, because we’re nearly a year into this book and they don’t seem to have worked out much about functioning as a team yet. Contrast their performance here with this week’s Marauders issue, for instance. Obviously team performance isn’t end-all/be-all (how is that phrase formatted? editors?) but it’d be nice to see a little practice put in!

That’s kind of keying me in to something about this issue that just feels a little…meh? It’s not a comment on the creative team here, I just feel like we’ve got an ersatz DC villain team who we don’t have a lot of investment in, a far-reaches team of alien military heroes we also don’t have a lot of investment in, and then…yeah, like you said, Storm comes in to clean it all up, after having defeated another challenger for her seat on the Great Ring. I dunno, it’s a good punch-em-up I guess, but it’s a real big part of the issue, and it features a lot of characters who we don’t have much reason to care about.

Corey: While I think SWORD is one of the strongest books in the line right now, I’ve been continually frustrated by how little it’s involved the team on the first issue’s cover. Brand’s had a lot less screen time than I expected, Magneto has spent far more time in other books, Cortez is out of the story… sure, we got a damn good Manifold issue, and it looks like we’re going to be getting some Wiz-Kid focus, we haven’t really gotten to see this group as a group be the focus. I’m not sure how much of that is simply due to all of the events the book has been involved in, or if that was the point from the beginning, but there are times where it’s vexing, and I agree that it made this issue feel off. You never know, from issue to issue, just what characters this title is going to focus on, and I don’t think that served the book well this month.

That being said, it can also be an unexpected blessing – I mentioned in our Final Thoughts for last month that no white characters had dialogue in the issue (I stand by Arakko being almost entirely Black-coded), and it’s a hell of a switch to go from that to the Imperial Guard, who are the whitest possible aliens. If this issue’s cast was anyone I cared about more, I’d probably be able to get more invested. As it is? Eh.

Nola: Yeah. I think a big part of it too is that this entire attack is just a staging ground for other players, it’s just a feint. So to have it take up so much of the issue feels excessive, even as fun as the issue is. Speaking of those other players…

Dashboard Oppressional

Nola: Orchis recruited James Hudson, aka Vindicator, back during the Hellfire Gala, but it’s the first time we’re really getting to see what that means. Here, we see Gyrich giving him the whole flashy show, which Hudson actually interrupts, because, well, he’s already been recruited.

I’m fascinated by the use of Hudson here, because he’s specifically a very Canadian analogue to (historical X-Men villain and general foe of mutants) Captain America. His power set is different, but he too dresses in the flag of his country, and represents that country as the leader of a government-funded superhero team. It’s interesting to see him crop up just as we’re seeing writers making some inroads for patching things up between Cap and the X-Men.

It feels like a smooth substitution, but I sort of like the choice, because it creates room in the story for the concept of a superhero with explicit colonialist and imperialist ties being pitted against mutants, without that hero being…y’know, one of Marvel’s biggest moneymakers in the last decade or so. I think I’d still rather the heavy discussion of what it means to be wrapped in a flag and stand against marginalized communities be Cap, but at least with Vindicator the story itself is less likely to be sensationalized for clickbait.

Corey: But, Nola, sensationalizing things for clickbait is what separates us from the common rabble! Joking aside, I’m definitely intrigued by Hudson here, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Gyrich bringing him on using his discomfort towards Omegas specifically, coupled with making him concerned about Logan, is a display of competence and savvy that we rarely see from him. While Gyrich has been a pain in the collective Mutant ass for ages [Ed. note: We’re talking since Days of Future Past], it’s rare to see him portrayed with that level of foresight. Some of Hudson’s best friends are Mutants, sure, but the Beaubier twins and Logan have never shown “terraform a planet” power before, and it makes sense that would unsettle a man as consistently messy as Hudson.

The political aspect you pointed out is also a huge one — it would have been easy to say “oh, bigoted flag dude should be U.S. Agent” for that sweet, sweet, MCU synergy, but Hudson is a character with deep ties to prominent X-Characters in this era. It’s also worth pointing out that shortly after M-Day, Alpha Flight was handed one of their most crushing defeats in a long history of fuck-ups, when most of them were killed by The Collective, a Xorn-controlled, Onslaught-esque amalgamation of the power signatures of every Mutant depowered during the Decimation. Even now, that’s gotta sting.

Nola: I guess old James here just wasn’t enough of an Alpha ma—I’m sorry, I’M SORRY, I’M TRYING TO DELETE IT

Ahem. Anyway, It’s revealed that even though this particular tactic doesn’t quite work, it’s fine by Gyrich’s measure, because he’s apparently got a mole in SWORD, and that mole is…Wiz Kid. Say, if Orchis means testicle and Wiz Kid is secretly a member, does that mean SWORD is confirming that pee is stored in the balls?

Corey: I’m pretty sure that’s just textual canon for Mutants?

Nola: That sounds right to me. Anyway, my read on this particular last page reveal is that it is absolutely one hundred percent a fakeout. Brand is right there behind Wiz Kid as he’s talking to Gyrich, and it honestly just smacks of her ten-steps-ahead line of thinking, to maneuver Gyrich into thinking he’s got a mole inside her organization all the while letting her technopath just run rampant inside Orchis’ network. My only clue for this is, again, her presence in that very panel, plus the conversation she had with Cable earlier about being prepared for things, not getting complacent. Corey, what about you?

Corey: I’m honestly torn! It’s a pretty obvious setup for a fakeout, sure, but the thing about Taki is that he hasn’t spent much time as part of the Mutant community! He went back to his regular school after the events of Inferno, and once M-Day hit, he hacked into the S.H.I.E.L.D. database in order to list himself as depowered. After that, he ended up in the Avengers Academy, rather than joining up with Utopia, and stayed with the AA when Logan opened his own school. I’m not about to get into “Avengers Are Cops” discourse, because I’ve spent enough time on Twitter to know that’s always a disaster, but I don’t think Mutant pride is a big thing on the Avengers curriculum. He’s been detached enough for long enough that I could buy this as a genuine character move! I wouldn’t like it, mind you, but I wouldn’t be overly surprised.

Nola: I mean, fair point, but I take a little solace in the fact that Brand’s organization technically has a level of distinction from Krakoa. That was a big point she harped on early on in the series, that they might be mutants, and involved with some mutant business, but their organization and their mandates are different from Krakoa’s. I just don’t see Taki abandoning his cool-ass spaceship home where he gets to do what he likes for…Orchis. Y’know? But that Ewing, he’s a wily one.

Anyway, I think that about wraps up this issue, right? I don’t think there’s much else to cover here…wait. Corey? Corey are you okay?

Technarchy In The U-Cable

Corey: Oh, buddy. I’m better than okay. I’m beyond okay. I’m in full-blown tinfoil hat, checking over my shoulder, muttering to myself, absolute fucking ecstasy. Let me preach to you, my friend, the glorious gospel of Cable.

Okay so here’s the thing, right? The giant techno-organic elephant in the room? The X-Office has been picking up most of the seeds planted in HoXPoX, but hasn’t focused too much on the Phalanx of it all. Oh, sure, we’ve seen emergent AI, and there was whatever dropped plot point was going on with Warlock for the first year of the grand Krakoan experiment, but the P-word? Oh, the P-Word.

BRAND CALLED CABLE’S VIRUS PHALANX! SHE CALLED WARLOCK PHALANX! DON’T YOU GET IT!

Nola: I…do not. Didn’t we already know that stuff? That Cable’s T/O virus was derived from the Technarchy, as was the Phalanx? What are you getting at here?

[Redacted so Ewing doesn’t get me]: You don’t see because they don’t WANT you to see. The relationship between the Technarchy and Phalanx has always been contradictory, and somewhat muddled. The information we got in HoXPoX cleared things up, with the Phalanx being the end goal [Ed. note: Well, on their way towards becoming a Dominion but I’ll allow it] of machine evolution, but that’s not information that’s easily found in-universe. What’s more, there’s absolutely no reason that Abigail Brand should know it! Sure, knowing things she shouldn’t is her thing, but this is information that Moira had to spend thousands years in a zoo with Logan trying to get!

Nola: Okay, but that was a previous life, right? So…like not quite a different universe but definitely a divergent timeline from the one we’re on now. We know Moira’s powers let her retain the memories of her past lives, but how would that information spread elsewhere? How would it get from Life IX to Life X?

Corey: That’s the big question, and there are a few possibilities I can think of. The easiest solution is simply that Ewing messed up, but he’s traditionally been pretty tight on the continuity details. I don’t think he’d mix up the Technarchy and the Phalanx. Another easy one is that Brand, in universe, is making a mistake, and just

happened to arrive at more-or-less the right answer, but, like Ewing, Brand’s usually factually right about stuff, even if she might make the wrong choice with the information she has.

Nola: Such as dating Beast, right. Continue…

Corey: Exactly like dating Beast. So, while the connection could just be space-information she picked up in space, I can’t help but think there’s a little bit more to it than that. I’m tempted to get a little paranoid, with a certain line from this week’s Inferno indicating that a certain character’s memory might have transferred from Life IX to Life X, and that it might lead to another character having their personality overwritten, but the more I think about it, the more obvious the solution becomes. There’s a leak in the Moira/Erik/Charles triad, and I ain’t talking about Wiz-Kid. Riddle me this: who was there at the start, who has been trusted beyond all others, who has been close enough to the trinity to be drunkenly told secrets, and who, prominently, has been given a position of power close to Brand, in this very title?

Nola: I’m gonna guess you don’t mean Sean Cassidy.

Corey: Of course not, it’s the one man I’d trust even more than him. It’s obvious, if you just look.

At the end of the day, everything comes back to Peepers.

Nola: My god.

X-Traneous Thoughts

Deeply loved Fang instantly biting it this issue. Love a man with consistency.
I lied, I’m getting into it, Avengers are cops.
I mean they’re alternately funded by an arms dealer with the world’s best PR or a clandestine spy agency that answers to no one, so yeah. They’re definitely cops.
Apropos of nothing, what if Joanna Cargill really wanted her mutant name to be “Friendsy” because she was excited to make new friends, but everyone misheard it and things went horribly wrong from there.
Krakoan reads “INSIDE MAN”

Lex Smith

Lex Smith is probably tired right now. They're definitely trying not to think about everything they have to write! When they're not staring at a blank Word document, odds are they're tweeting, playing Pokémon or wondering how they ended up with such a smart-ass kid.