Sounds like Fury As Mad Jim Jaspers Is In Trouble in Knights of X #2.

The Knights fan out into the provinces of Otherworld as Merlyn cracks down on the mutants, even mad Jim Jaspers in Knights of X #2, written by Tini Howard, drawn by Bob Quinn, colored by Erick Arciniega, and lettering by Ariana Maher.

Karen Charm: Hi Nola! Sorry if our connection last time was a little fuzzy, but the quality should be a lot better now. I’ve got a hot, red-headed psychic helping boost my psychic abilities this time and, at least on my end, things sound great! Am I coming through pretty clear for you?

Nola Pfau: I’m sorry, what? “Would I like to accept the charges?” I mean, I suppose, how bad can fees from Otherworld really be?

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Karen: The issue opens with a striking scene by Quinn and Arciniega of the Lunatic Citadel’s meeting chamber. Merlyn is big mad and raging at the assembled regents because Captain Britain is doing a better job of helping mutants thrive in Otherworld than he would care to see. He starts to take his anger out on the representatives from Mercator because it’s one of the two provinces still under mutant control. We’ve pretty much known the identity of Mercator’s elusive regent since X of Swords first defined the map of Otherworld, but is this the first time he’s been directly called “Mister M” on page?

Nola: You know, I actually went and hunted that down, and I think it is! He was mentioned a couple of different times in X of Swords, and then again in S.W.O.R.D. #2 as a potential alternate for Fabian Cortez, but even there, Abigail Brand didn’t know where he was or how to get in touch with him. Knowing things is kind of her whole deal! Magneto knew, but didn’t actually say it on panel—he just went and visited him right before the first Hellfire Gala. I suppose it’s possible information could’ve filtered from there?

Karen: Perhaps, perhaps! It could also be that Merlyn is just a wizard and can figure things out like that even if Saturnyne couldn’t? Anyway, it’s fun how this has been one of the longest running mysteries of the Krakoan era.

Mercator’s goons just stonewall Merlyn like they’ve done everyone else (presumably even Magneto), and Merlyn turns his waves of rage at the other mutant in attendance, Jim Jaspers. Poor Jim, who was so sure his financial necessity would save him from fascism. There’s a famous poem I’d like to tell you about, Jim. It’s pretty ironic also that Jaspers is carted away by the Furies, a menace he is personally responsible for in another life/reality.

Nola: He didn’t think the leopards would eat HIS face! I gotta say, it’s interesting to me that Merlyn has opted to imprison him instead of kill him outright. I honestly expected the latter, given how hardline his and Arthur’s ascent to the rule of Otherworld was. Obviously with Jaspers, his powers are an issue, but they appear to have neutralized those. Merlyn tells the Furies to “find a use” for him which is…ominous.

Either way, the Knights decide to mount a rescue mission, with Gambit making the point that, while they might hate Jaspers, he still deserves to, y’know, not be a prisoner and possibly a victim of war crimes.

Karen: I really liked Gambit in this issue, he gets my MVP. He leads half of the team to the Crooked Market where he has gotten pretty familiar with the locals and their preference of Pop Tart. Meggan notes how desolate and dour the Market has gotten since their last visit. The denizens are all pretty much in hiding, rationing what little food they could secure, so Gambit’s smuggling is greatly appreciated. He narrates this whole situation out loud and in the third person which brought a smile to my face. Meggan and Remy buddying up was similarly heartwarming.

It doesn’t take that long, then, for them to get attacked by giant Furies.

Nola: Fortunately, they have a Furry to fight back with. Kylun gets the chance to show off his vocal duplication powers in a pretty fun fashion, luring a Fury away so that the Knights can use divide-and-conquer tactics to defeat them. I have to say, for all that KoX #1 [wait….KoXToX] made sure to disambiguate between Furies and Sentinels, the Furies we’ve seen so far are certainly fulfilling that role. They’re being used to hunt and contain mutants in virtually the same exact manner Sentinels always have been. I suspect the reason they’re being used here, aside from their historical relevance to Captain Britain, is that there’s some element of them that functions better in Otherworld? I’m not certain that Sentinels wouldn’t, but it is a faerie realm, and usually super technological stuff and fae stuff don’t get along on an intrinsic level. Either way, we don’t get to see the end result of that fight, as we instead get the tease that Betsy’s half of the team is in Sevalith.

Karen: Ok, but real quick can I point out the moment I SCREAMED this issue?? You’re spot on about the Furies acting like Sentinels, down to their whole shtick of announcing the identity of each mutant they’re engaging. When they turn their CallerID on Rachel, she shows up as “Askani.” If this is going where I hope it is, I want to thank Tini Howard. You hear that, Nola? That’s the sound of one little thing in the universe being put right again (sorry about the charges, btw).

How To Train Your Baby/Dragon

Captain Britain worries about taking Shogo with them.

Karen: The road to Sevalith is as crooked as a Candyland board. See, it all started back on Krakoa, where Jubilee busts into the Quiet Council meeting chamber to interrupt a call from Betsy. Is she allowed in there? Betsy assures her that Shogo is doing just fine as a dragon, and vows to keep him safe.

Speaking of disambiguation, Betsy was in the middle of updating Xavier about the Siege Perilous, which gets its own datapage covering all the stuff I was nerding out over last issue. What we need to know is that no matter what form it takes, the Siege Perilous is always about journeys of the self, and personal transformation. Seems like a bright, flashing pink sign of foreshadowing to me.

Nola: Every time I think about Betsy interacting with the Siege Perilous again I go a little feral. The implications of the last time were huge, and I don’t think she’s ever really had to reckon with it directly. Thematically, sure! But directly? I really don’t think there’s ever been a point where the team has sat down and discussed the events that led to them going through the Perilous, and it’s really, really heavily implied that Betsy manipulated them into doing so (a thing that is then reinforced by where and how she ends up afterward). I really can’t wait to see what the implications of it here are.

Either way, Betsy opts to leave Shogo with Roma for a bit, so that she can train him, since he’s still functionally a baby, despite being a dragon in Otherworld. It’s a cute little bit where Roma’s like “but he’s one of your knights” and Betsy’s like “he is a literal child, I’m not THAT irresponsible.”

I really enjoy that one of Howard’s themes, first for Excalibur and now for Knights, is the level of responsibility that’s involved in minding a child. From Rogue talking about how she doesn’t want to have kids, to Jubilee’s constant focus on protecting Shogo throughout, and now to Betsy’s responsibility for him in his mother’s absence, Tini’s really treating the subject with a large amount of care, and it’s something that’s neat to see in a comic book, especially given how babies have often been treated in past X-Men stories.

Karen: Yeah totally. I keep expecting for some kind magical aging contrivance to happen because we’re so conditioned to. Howard is instead taking it seriously, even while having the magical dragon transformation so Shogo fits a bit more with the action fantasy setting. That said, I am very curious what he’s going to be like on the other side of training with Roma. I feel like anything could happen and I’m looking forward to being surprised.

While in Roma Regina, Betsy’s half of the Knights figure out how Merlyn is suppressing powers, leading them into the wilds of Blightspoke. Normally friendly to their kind, no one’s heard a peep out of Sheriff Gia Whitechapel in quite some time…

I Caught the Sheriff

Gambit demands that they rescue Mad Jim.

Nola: You know, I was certain she’d been renamed after the news about her sharing one with a certain other celebrity, but I looked and I can’t seem to find any mention of it. Did it actually happen? Was it a fever dream? Who knows! It’s a shame we don’t have some kind of worldwide interconnected information resource to help me uncover such a mystery.

Sheriff Whitechapel is, in fact, in Blightspoke! She’s just kind of hanging in a cage over a pit, unfortunately. Under Merlyn’s rule, the Vescora are apparently refining Blightswill, which is normally tame enough to drink, into a substance strong enough to suppress mutant powers, as they’ve done with Jim Jaspers. We talked last time about how well Bob Quinn suits this book, and I gotta say, that’s definitely still holding true for me. The action scenes in this issue are just phenomenally well put-together.

Karen: Yes, all the movement flows really well. This is another scene that Arciniega brings a ton to as well, drenching every panel with an eerie green that suits Quinn’s heavy blacks. Maher shows off with some well-matched sound effects here too. This scene is largely eye candy and very satisfying at that.

I laughed when I saw the cage Whitechapel’s gang was trapped in, like it’s such an elaborate set up it couldn’t be anything other than a trap. Howard is sure to lampshade this likelihood, and given how Jaspers was used in a similar fashion, I think we can get some idea of what purpose the Furies found for old Jim.

All that said, my favorite part here was Shatterstar kind of losing it to bloodlust.

Nola: It’s so great when he has fun! I know that it’s probably a thing that needs some further exploration (especially given how he had to lean into it during his time in Mojoworld in Leah Williams and David Baldeon’s X-Factor), but seeing him in situations like this, where he can kind of just let that feeling have free reign, is fun.

I also found Whitechapel clarifying that she’s not a mutant, just good, interesting. On the one hand, I love that she’s just naturally super competent at what she does. On the other hand, the scene read very much to me like those times when an actor known for queer roles goes “oh actually I’m straight” (looking at you, Natasha Lyonne). Like, it’s fine, but it feels almost a little incongruous given what we’ve seen of Whitechapel’s ability so far. She can curve bullets!

Anyway, I’m very interested to see what happens in Sevalith next issue, because I love me some vampire adventures.

Karen: Yes! I’m really enjoying the Otherworld tour format this book seems to be taking. It will also be pretty interesting to reconnect with Death, looking forward to his reunion with Bei. With all the teasing, I wonder if we’re going to finally see the inside of Mercator. On the one hand, the designs we’ve seen are so cool I just want to see more, but on the other it’s too good a mystery to reveal. We shall see.

I’m really locked into this quest right now, with no good idea of what to expect other than the major character moments Howard is clearly teeing up. We still have to see what Mordred’s power is… watch that end up being a critical piece toward finding the Siege Perilous.

X-Traneous Thoughts

I really love these Yanick Paquette covers.
Maybe it’s because the Fury is a “cybiote” that makes it more susceptible to Otherworld’s mutability? (I just wanted to bring back the word “cybiote.”)
Is it “cy-BEE-ote” or “cy-BYE-ote”?
Is it “oat” or “ott,” for that matter? Made up words smh.
Part 2 of Doug’s email to Rictor was great fun, especially the PS warning that Bei might try to join them on their quest to Otherworld. Woopsie. I’m sure everyone will be back in time for the Gala.

Does this email tease stuff happening in Marauders or something to come in Knights?