#Cyttorak

[why-i-love-comics]

Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu #0 - "Waxing Moon" (2024)

written by Joe Kelley art by Emilio Laiso & Rachelle Rosenberg

[vertigoartgore]

2008's X-Men: Legacy Vol.1 #219 cover by Mike McKone and John Rauch.

[age-of-moonknight]

”Waxing Moon,” Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu (Vol. 1/2024), #0.

Writer: Joe Kelly; Penciler and Inker: Emilio Laiso; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[comicwaren]

From Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 6 #061, “Inevitable Attraction”

Art by Ed McGuinness, Niko Henrichon, Mark Farmer and Marcio Menyz

Written by Joe Kelly

[dailydamnation]

See Juggernaut and the X-MEN join the fight in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #67-68 by superstar guest creative team, writer Justina Ireland and artist Andrea Broccardo. Then, Spidey is on his last life! After he takes his final fall, the X-Men are left to finish what he started—with disastrous results—in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #68.DEATHS by two industry greats, writer Christos Gage and artist Mark Buckingham!

Mystical stuff? Please make good use of Illyana's knowledge and abilities. Please make good use of Illyana's knowledge and abilities.

She and Cyttorak go way back, too.

Regardless, guess I'm reading Spider-Man. It's been a while.

[justdealingwithsomeissues]

So the first mention of Cyttorak was in 1965, but this is our first book where we actually see him... and he is a real frickin dork here... other writers will jazz him up after this to make him less lame.

[namor-the-submariner-dot-net]

Thursday Two or More: Couple

From Kieron Gillen and Alessandro Vitti Immoral X-Men 3.

1000 years in the future Namor and Emma are still dancing ... sort of. It's a Sinister Clone of Namor and a Sinister Clone of Emma. Sinister Emma is Empress of the Red Diamond. Namor is the Imperator of the Drowned Worlds and Sire of the Knight Consorts. Not sure if that means sired the knights or is lord of the knights ... or both. And this looks like a 7th clone of Sinister Namor?

I don't know what is exactly going on here, as I'm very much behind on my X-Men books.

[black-but-mildly-sunny]

While I'm slowly writing my Exodus and Piotr fic, I had (possibly) inspiration to write a story based on this picture

And how, maybe for a second Illyana was actually genuinely scared of her brother and that's why she quickly took away Cyttorak's power from Piotr 🤷🏾‍♀️ (And I refer to it gas his power and not just overall Juggernaut)

Thanks to @ thevindicativevordan for the panel from their original post about this moment

Tagging y'all cause you like these characters: @radcowboyalmondtree @emma-frxst @sadstonewrites

[xmenshitposts]

original under the cut!

[wanderingmind867]

The most important thing from X-Men #12: We learn Professor X served in the Korean War.

[satoshy12]

Don't ask how it's the FENTONS, that explains all.

DC or Marvel + DP

When Danny was born, he was very weak, and they weren't sure he would survive. So Maddie, driven by a parent's instinct, resorted to unconventional means involving mythogical entities to ensure her child's well-being.

She summoned an entity, an otherworldly being, who, in turn, modified Danny's DNA. But he said he would be a hero in his name in the future. + It could be H'ronmeer, the Martian God of Fire, Rao, a demon, a god, Mamaragan, or even Black Adam. Or of Marvel comics, Odin, Hela, Mephisto, Bastet, Cyttorak, Shuma-Gorath, Skrull God, a Fear Lord, or for comedy, Gorr.

Don't ask how. It's the FENTONS; that explains it all. + Years Later As she and Jack years later see Danny's Danny Phantom form, they are like," You aren't a ghost; it's that demon, god,something we summoned as you were a baby fault. You just got powers from your 3rd parents." Danny was just shocked as he looked at his parents. They attributed Danny's extraordinary abilities to the mystical being they had summoned during his infancy, not the Ghost Portal! I mean, the ghost calls him halfa; he is half-ghost!

[artbyblastweave]

Question based on the fascinating Wild Talent's Axes post. Why do you think most adaptations of High Blue settings change them into lower Blue settings?

I think there's basically two reasons for that.

Reason one is that I think that on some level the executive-suite-level aversion to looking too silly or wacky and scaring off unfamiliar audiences was, at the time that it reigned supreme over all of these creative decisions, unfortunately just kind of correct. You're doing Spider-Man, alright, you can kind of bank on the audience's ambient knowledge of Spider-Man to buoy along the question of "How and why Spider-Man" and maybe "How and why Green Goblin." You bring in enemies outside of that paradigm, you bring in wizards, vampires, aliens, now you gotta explain those things too, you gotta spend bandwidth on that. There's a real murky middle ground here between a cynical fear of looking too silly, and a genuine scope and focus problem- how much value added is there in pulling away from the core mutant stuff to start mucking around with the Shi'ar or Cyttorak or Belasco or Dracula? I don't think it's a coincidence that I don't hear people bringing up the fact that there were aliens in Dark Phoenix.

The Suicide Squad(s) are actually a really good example of this issue. Suicide Squad, while very bad, was actually a very high blue movie, to the extent that it actually fucked with the pacing when they kept turning to the camera to introduce new origin stories, to the point of creating a tone-and-theme clash with the previous two movies where this stuff was mostly framed as much rarer and more disruptive. The Suicide Squad was equally high-blue, but also much more deliberate and naturalistic in conveying that this was a superhero setting rife with weirdos. Naturalism is a watchword with this kind of thing.

Which brings us around to issue two, right, which is that, as much as I love the high-blue bullshit of the golden and silver age, you're huffing glue if you think those settings became like that due to some deliberate creative ethos. They needed to meet monthly deadlines and they were writing for small children, it was the corporatized version of making up a bedtime story off the cuff, and over time the nonsense simply accumulated. Later writers take that precedent and run with it to do interesting and valuable things, but if you're creating a classic high-blue superhero setting from scratch these days it's almost always a form of emulation. Approached without clarity of purpose, it can make for weird or bad or messy writing!

Ultimate Spider-Man is an example of a comic adaptation that bleached the blue, and that decision- to tie all of Spidey's villains to a common origin- resulted in a really strong story. Stronger themes, stronger character dynamics, stronger worldbuilding and stronger, cohesive political messaging. Objectively the correct decision for the project they were going for. Tightening the blue can let you do things- it lets you sift through and find the strongest shared points between the disparate elements of the mythology, assemble them into something thoughtful and directed.

[journeytothewestresearch]

When an Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object

In chapter 59, Princess Iron Fan uses her magic, divine wind-producing fan to blast Sun Wukong into the heavens (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 126). The book provides two conflicting figures as to its effectiveness, stating that the fan can blow a target a total of 84,000 li (八萬四千里; 26,097.59 mi/42,000 km) or 108,000 li (十萬八千里; 33,554 mi/54,000 km) (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, pp. 127-128 and 148). To combat this weapon, the Bodhisattva Lingji (靈吉菩薩) sews a precious Buddha treasure, the "Wind-Arresting Elixir" (定風丹), [1] into the collar of Monkey's robe (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 128). But our hero later accidentally swallows it, and his body is strengthened by it. Chapter 61 explains:

He [the Bull Demon King] did not know, however, that when the Great Sage changed previously into a tiny mole cricket to enter the stomach of Raksasi [in ch. 59], he still had in his mouth that Wind-Arresting Elixir, which he swallowed unwittingly. All his viscera had become firm; his skin and bones were wholly fortified. No matter how hard the Bull King fanned at him, he could not be moved (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 149). 不知那大聖先前變蟭蟟蟲入羅剎女腹中之時，將定風丹噙在口裡，不覺的嚥下肚裡，所以五臟皆牢，皮骨皆固，憑他怎麼搧，再也搧他不動。

The elixir essentially turns Sun into an immovable object. This is forgotten in subsequent chapters, but this would be an interesting element to make use of in fanfiction. I can see this being a great setup for a battle. Hear me out ...

Sun Wukong vs Juggernaut!!!

Both are fierce and super strong, and both of their respective static and kinetic abilities are tied to divine beings (Buddha and Cyttorak). So, what do you think would happen if the two met head-on?

I know who I would bet my money on.

Notes:

1) Lingji twice reveals (ch. 21 and 59) that the Wind-Arresting Elixir (定風丹) is a treasure bestowed by the Buddha (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 419; vol. 3, p. 128). Yu (Wu & Yu, 2012) translates this magic pill as the “wind-stopping pearl” in chapter 21 (vol. 1, p. 419).

It's interesting to note that a “wind-stopping pearl” (定風珠) is said to be one of many heavenly jewels decorating Tripitaka’s cassock in chapter 12 (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 282).

[rei-ismyname]

X-MEN - MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

A lot of X-Men, indeed a lot of Marvel characters, have transformations, alter egos, symbiotes, etc that cause trouble. Jean Grey has the Phoenix, Angel has Archangel, Malice takes over a lot of women (Dazzler, Sue Storm, Rogue, Mirage, Betsy Braddock, and many more), Gambit has Death, Magik and Darkchilde. That short list is really only scratching the surface. So many heroes get transformed or similar once and once it's defeated or overcome it becomes an ongoing trial for them.

Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin made a deal with Cyttorak of Crimson Bands fame for the power of JUGGERNAUT once, for reasons I don't recall right now. I always thought it was a bit of a boring choice tbh - his angsting over being a big dumb monster isolated from the things he loves is already a thing he does. Sure it was fun here and there but it was more of a 'struggling with the Dark Side' thing and Cyttorak didn't have all that much power over him. I think a better choice for a recurring alter ego would have been....

THE PROLETARIAN - WORKER'S HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION! With Vladimir Lenin's face on the chest of his sinister communist red overalls and everything. Obviously the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore but that's even better IMO. What does the Proletarian do after the Cold War ends and capitalism has 'won'? Siezes the MFing means of production for the people, that's what! Does he smash the X-Men too? Probably, they are definitely neoliberal bootlickers who are allied with several billionaires, and while they're not as bad as the Avengers they have an awful lot of faith in the USA as an institution despite it constantly trying to kill them.

Obviously this would never happen. Stan Lee was very anti communist, even if he didn't know a damn thing about it, and Marvel has remained so to this day. More broadly, a century of McCarthyism and Red Scare messaging has done some serious damage. Also, Marvel just does not do anything other than the most milquetoast liberal politics. Anything else is mocked and defeated by the narrative itself. Personally, I think that would make it even more interesting, as being committed to any form of anti capitalism to any degree is soul crushing while living under it.

I'd do anything for a Colossus solo where he interrogates his relationship with Communism, because the man is a true believer despite often defending capitalist interests (as far as he's shown to believe anything.)

This question, for instance. Does his power belong to the state? Xavier handwaves it by saying it belongs to the world (AKA his interests) but it's never truly touched on again. Krakoa would have been a great opportunity, a mostly moneyless society that already had bartering and mutual aid happening. Not everyone's needs were met and plenty of people fell through the cracks - Colossus or The Proletarian would have been the perfect advocate.

It's Kurt and Legion who come closest to forming a commune without hierarchy, and Kurt was working on justice reform. Forge had global poverty and homelessness solved, but ORCHIS and The Fall of X put a stop to that. Lenin's Ghost!

Bring back The Proletarian, you cowards!

[the-antiapocalyptic-man]

Piotr Rasputin, covered some light Krakoan floral overgrowth and wearing a ceremonial mask associated with the archipelago's Cyttorak Religion. Parts of Piotr's skin have been lost and replaced with Uru metal grafts, making him among the most physically powerful of Krakoa's X-Men.

[xplainthexmen]

Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, Episode 451 - Meanwhile in Another Dimension

In which we remain fascinated by Magneto’s robot butler; murder is Logan’s love language; the Juggernaut punches a hole in reality; Professor Xavier makes it weird; and Storm lectures several gods.

X-PLAINED:

Silly mutant powers

Uncanny X-Men #368-369

X-Men #88

Alan Davis’s X-Men run

Magneto’s robot butler

Joseph’s funeral

Nun-sense

A voyage to another dimension

Eyebrow power

Ejulp

The Trion

The other Gem of Cyttorak that’s like the first one but somehow worse

Several comas

Juggernaut vs. Juggernaut

Evil, kind of

Vacationing with X-Men characters

Illyana Rasputin and Rachel Summers

NEXT EPISODE: Magneto Rex

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