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kurt-wagner-official · 2 months

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Post #111: XF issues 27-29 and XF Annual issue 3

Happy endings never last long, something X-Factor will be soon reminded of. But at the start of this issue, everything seems to be fine. The battle with Apocalypse happened right before Christmas, and to celebrate both the holiday and their new level of celebrity, X-Factor take their students to the top of the Empire State building, where Bobby replaces the spire with a festive ice sculpture. The kids then introduce themselves to the gathered reporters, and Rusty still has a mask on, which makes me realize that the woman he burned who then forgave him and ran off to teach the Morlocks about Jesus (I wonder how that's going?) never dropped the charges against him, so he's just gonna be a fugitive forever. Warren watches from a distance, talking about how Christmas is for idiot idealists and they live in a world of monsters, which is one of my new favorite edgy monologues. They then take the kids to downtown New York to look at decorations, and Scott sees the news from Dallas- including Madelyne's goodbye message to him. One issue after he finally moved on, he learns his wife wasn't dead, but now she is, along with his brother and half of his best friends, and his son is also not dead but just missing somewhere. He tells Jean he needs some alone time and runs off. Jean, heartbroken at the death of her friends who didn't even know she was alive, takes comfort in Bobby, who automatically assumes this is some fakeout superhero death and they'll be back soon. She also takes off to have some alone time, deciding privately that she'll offer to help find Scott's son. It makes her realize how much her parents must be hurting this Christmas, so she finally goes to visit them. They talk for a few hours off panel, and she promises that she'll find her sister, who's been missing since her house was firebombed. This leaves Bobby as the responsible adult taking care of the kids and Hank, who's regressed to an adolescent state of cognition. He takes the group back to their ship, where some of their new cop friends have brought them a Christmas tree and a whole buncha people have donated gifts to the kids. Leech suggests they bring most of the gifts to the kids in the hospital, and other than Tabitha, they all think it's a great idea. Not wanting to wake their exhausted teachers, they sneak out with the presents, but Jean comes back, finds they're gone, and chases after them with Bobby and Hank. They catch up and, proud of their students' kindness, help them transport everything. They have a little Christmas party in the children's ward until Scott arrives and tells Jean that he's leaving tonight to go hunt for his son. Far away, Apocalypse tells his Horsemen that the ship is actually an evil Christmas present that'll have evil surprises for X-Factor. This was a sweet issue. I think seeing the X-Men die made Jean finally come to accept her own "death" and how much it's been making her live in fear. Reuniting with her parents was a big moment for her, and I'm glad she's finally allowing herself to embrace living without constant fear of losing it all again. Also, field trip chaperone Bobby is one of my favorite Bobbys. Poor Scott still can't catch a break, but he will soon before his life turns to shit again. I do like that Simonson has been writing him trying to open up, but he still refuses any help from his friends on this next mission. It shows that growth is never linear, especially for someone as traumatized as Scott.

Scott takes off to the airport, leaving Jean and Bobby the only functional team members when Apocalypse's revenge plan starts to make itself clear. The ship has a mind of its own, and starts changing shape and attacking both our heroes and other boats in the harbor. Scott, sitting in the airport waiting for a flight to be scheduled to Dallas, sees the news of what's happening and runs back. He arrives in time to save his team from a rocket launcher that the ship makes to attack them, but Jean is acting cold towards him, saying they need to learn to live without him. I really admire the way Simonson wrote this conflict, which is very in line with their characters. They built their relationship on the basis of Jean's telepathy. It gave Scott an excuse to not learn to communicate and made Jean believe she would always be able to understand Scott. But now that that's gone, they need to actually learn to understand each other, and neither one wants to admit that. Jean as a person is usually pretty confident that she's right, and she very often is, but when she's not she won't admit it and takes it pretty hard. Jean losing her telepathy was introduced by Layton to be a cheap source of drama and make things as similar as possible to early sixties comics, but Simonson turned it into a great allegory for how these people have changed since high school without their relationships changing too, and now they can't figure out how to connect. Anyway, back to the book. Across town, Warren goes to find Candy and discovers she's missing, the only clues being a poison dart on her carpet and a letter from Trish Tilby. Meanwhile, the kids are in the run inside the ship until they find its brain, which has been enslaved by Apocalypse. They free it, and the ship thanks them and stops fighting. But then it says Apocalypse planted a bomb, which X-Factor defuses just in time. Scott and Jean both apologize and explain where their heads are at, taking an important step towards actually healing their relationship, although they're still lost as to what to do next. But they now have a sentient flying ship on their side, so things are looking up a little.

In issue 29, we're introduced to the new villain Infectia, who made a teaser appearance on the last page of the previous issue. She can give humans superpowers, but the first one we see her do it to burns out his power and disintegrates pretty quickly. Across town, reporters have come to ask about the ship and the bomb that almost blew up the city. Bobby takes point on this press conference, which is nice to see and a good use of his talents. He, and the ship itself, assure the reporters that X-Factor will soon be taking to the sky in order to attract less violence to the city and to be better prepared to respond to crises anywhere else. Infectia sees this on the news in a bar and gets upset, wanting the ship for her own mysterious purposes. A sleazy guy says he'd do anything to help her, so she takes him back to her apartment and zaps him to turn him into a powerful monster. Inside the ship, Scott storms away from the press conference to have a breakdown, and Jean follows him and tells him directly that she and the rest of the team will be taking the ship to go find Scott's son with him. This is actually a huge step forward for them. Jean is pretty rarely this honest and up front with Scott, because she never had to be when she could talk to his brain. And Scott needs that kind of clear communication because he can only see the worst when he tries to read between the lines. Of course, the moment is ruined when the news replays Maddie's message to Scott and Jean yells that she's a hypocrite for not contacting Scott before this. I've been on Jean's side for most of this book, but now she's hurling petty insults at Maddie out of jealousy, so fuck you Jean. Bobby walks into the middle of this lovely scene from his press conference and makes a joke about their lover's quarrel. Bobby is becoming my favorite character in this book, which I did not expect before I started. I've read a lot of the big arcs in this book before but never in order and never with all the filler issues. And Bobby's arc is the most subtle; you can't see it in the big moments, but when you read the whole thing you see him slowly become the only chill rational adult in the soapiest X-book. Just then, Infectia shows up with a whole lotta monster minions, which she throws at the ship. Up on a nearby rooftop, Hank and Trish Tilby were having a conversation, their first in a while. It's interrupted by Warren, who learns from Trish that Candy was her informant on Hodge and the Right until she stopped calling. Warren flies off to go find Hodge, even though Trish tells him he died in a plane crash (which we saw in New Mutants but Warren doesn't believe). Back to the fight on the ship, Jean's inner monologue lines up exactly with what I was saying earlier about her and Scott's relationship, which makes me feel very good about my own literary analysis skills. Our heroes beat up all the monsters and Jean and Scott embrace. I know Jean cares about Scott, but this whole issue, including their reunion conversation here, she's been bashing Maddie and calling her selfish for not tracking down Scott. I really don't like the presentation of Maddie as Scott's crazy ex. They had a deeper and more real connection than Scott and Jean ever really did, and the breakup was almost entirely on Scott. But I am glad Jean isn't holding it against Scott's son. To wrap up this issue, Infectia watches from afar and schemes about how she's gonna use Bobby to steal the ship. This has been a great run, proving that Simonson can keep up the momentum the book has had lately even in the aftermath of a big event.

This annual is part of the Evolutionary War, an event that happened when Marvel realized they could turn all theirs annuals into crossover issues to sell a bunch of copies without the scheduling headaches that come with crossovers in ongoings. But the event doesn't interrupt the plots of the main books and each issue is pretty standalone so it's pretty inoffensive. It's about the High Evolutionary and some big plan he has to... I don't know, evolve the Earth? I've never been super clear on his motivations. Anyway, it affects X-Factor when his minions are exterminating the subterrestrial creatures that live with Mole Man and one of them lets out a psychic scream that both Jean and Caliban feel. One of the subterraneans is a mutant with psychic powers, and he's rallying his people to fight back. X-Factor goes to investigate and is attacked by the frightened and confused creatures. Meanwhile, alerted by Caliban, Apocalypse goes to confront the High Evolutionary. Apocalypse doesn't like people who force evolution, preferring to nurture it and fan the flames of war, so he and the Evolutionary start fighting. They have some philosophical debate which is fun but kinda nonsense because they're both insane. There is kinda an interesting dichotomy; Apocalypse sees himself as a force of nature motivating change, like a classical god. The High Evolutionary wants to be an Abrahamic God, in complete control and using his own judgement to change the world. Eventually they teleport down to see the subterraneans and are surprised to see X-Factor has made contact with the psychic subterranean, who's rallying his people against the would be exterminators. Apocalypse laughs at the Evolutionary, saying that by trying to control evolution he's actually pushed it forward the way Apocalypse likes. The Evolutionary leaves in a ponderous mood and the psychic guy thanks X-Factor. It was an okay story. It was nice to see Apocalypse's philosophy a little more fleshed out. I don't get what happened with the subterraeans? Anyway, after I finished there were still like 20 pages and lo and behold, there's another story in this annual! It's about the kids. Or so I thought when I started reading it. They're just hanging out on the ship when they find Hank's old photo album and narrate the history of the original X-Men for each other. It's a cute little story. I know these recaps used to be important before the internet, but I know all this stuff so I'm not getting much out of it. Then there's one more backup story that's some Evolutionary War thing that appears in all the annuals, which I'm not reading. And we're done!

#wes reads xmen

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hannaonprime · 5 years

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Hanna Season 1 - Teaser: Fugitive Fakeout

#videos #series #teaser #hanna #hanna amazon #amazon hanna #hanna prime #prime hanna #hanna series #amazon #prime video #fugitive fakeout #esme creed-miles

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figureofdismay · 6 years

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I was up all night and this morning working on a fic chapter i wanted to finish (not TBL) and finally crashed this afternoon. I had literal stress dreams that I’d come back onto tumblr and found SO MANY angry posts about how Tom dying was all a big fakeout and how cheap a trick it was....

Imagine my utter joyous relief that the lying creep is really killed off! and Megan might get to have actual scenes again! and they won’t be able sacrifice anyone else to the Tom alter like Kate Kaplan and Nik and Liz’s complex profiler and powerful fugitive plots! Red’s characterization! everything the writer’s ‘economized’ on to try to make the tom plot central.

god speed to Ryan Eggold, who deserves to move on to bigger and better things as well. I mean, even he had to be bored of playing the same like three scenes on TBL in perpetuity.

#spoilers #I AM SO HAPPY ABOUT THIS #AFTER 4 YEARS OF HOPING THIS CHARACTER WILL BE WRITTEN OUT FOREVER HE FINALLY IS #lizzington #kind of #i'm just so relieved!!!!!

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seren-pen · 7 years

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Saw your request for writing prompts. Can you write Steve Rogers/Darcy Lewis (ShieldShock), fakeout makeout? Maybe Darcy steps in to help fugitive Steve avoid discovery/capture?

Captain America tastes like what Darcy thinks the color ‘red’ would taste like. Nothing so cliched as ‘cherry’ or ‘blood’, but something richer, fuller, with a bite... Raspberries? Maybe?

It’s about the time she starts wondering if he’d mind moving his large (sweet zombie jesus, SO large) hand a bit further north (up her ribcage, dude, her girls are amazing and are feeling somewhat neglected and rather jealous of the action her mouth is currently getting) perhaps this little ‘show’ has gone on long enough and either they knock this off before she gets any wild ideas (too late!) of they adjourn to a comfier spot.

Steve must have the same thought, because he lifts his head and oh, hello, lips. And a blush! She mentally ‘squees’.

“Think they’re gone,” he says and his hand flexes but he doesn’t actually remove it.

“Well, chalk that particular trope up as actually being effective,” she manages.

“Bit too effective,” he says and ah, oh. Oh, my.

She bites her lip. “Is it oversharing if I say that I’m kind of in a similar state and wouldn’t mind continuing this, um, somewhere less here?”

He grins. “My place is in Brooklyn.”

“Mine’s closer.”

“Sold.”

#steve/darcy #ficlet #darcy lewis #glynnisi

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personalaunlimit · 5 years

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