#or sacrificed for the layout my brain kept throwing at me

[buttercatrho]

Rough anim

some random crosscode Rho lore/storybeat that i will not elaborate on

song is teachers pet by melanie martinez

[god-hunter]

Astonishing X-Men #7-12

I know I already talked about Issue 7, barely... But as it’s part of this 2nd (and technically final) arc of Soule’s story, I had to include it in the photo set.

So this was the “A Man Called X” arc, which was very cleverly titled.  But it was ridiculously convoluted, which kept me from reviewing it for months!  Admittedly, it was way better on a 2nd read, so here goes:

Issue 7:  X reintroduces himself to the X-Men in this issue.  They had just defeated the Shadow King and rescued Charles Xavier, but it was at the expense of taking over Fantomex’s body.  And Charles acted younger and hipper, now suddenly.  He wants to be called X now.  There’s something they don’t trust about him, and I don’t blame them.

I brought this up before, but in this issue X fixes Archangel.  The first thing X does is stop Archangel dead in his tracks, who was in the midst of an air-battle with the Air Force, or whatever.    Basically, he force-calms him down, so that Warren can still cognitively think and feel like himself, rather than being cold and death-driven.  The Ministry of Defense is concerned about this sudden attack and subsequent ceasefire, and also that more chaos seems to be ensuing elsewhere in London.

This involves Bishop & Gambit, who are still under some sort of spell.  Only it isn’t the ShadowKing this time. It’s something else, which X has yet to discover.  Before Psylocke and the others let him help them though, she needs to see for herself what happened to Fantomex.  So she dives in his head via telepathy, and finds that Fantomex volunteered to stay behind in the Astral Plane. He sacrificed his physical body in order to bring Xavier to the fore.  [Which means that this can be reversed...]

Anyway, Bishop looks into this Green Sun that is looming over the people in his area and is controlling them.  It’s a Future death incident called the Mindkiller Apocalypse, apparently, which is a huge cause for concern.

X tries to stop this green thing, whatever it is.  But instead, all he did was set the green thing free.  This being is called Proteus.

Issue 8 - So, we went from stopping ShadowKing, to somehow setting Proteus free in the aftermath.  How those 2 connect, I don’t know, but I was still curious...

“The ShadowKing must have been using shards of Proteus’ soul to create a psychic feedback loop. It nearly ripped a hole between the Astral Plane and this World...” as X puts it.  The London X-Men quickly get fed up with this, but Psylocke reels them in.  “Can we just set everything else aside until we stop him?”  [That’s fair.]

Bishop spots Proteus absolutely eating people’s souls for energy.  He tries blasting him with his guns, but that only makes him more powerful too.

Old Man Logan claims that he knows how to kill Proteus.  They have to use Metal, which he and Archangel have in spades.

Then... this issue takes a left turn.  This is where I come out of it.

X and Psylocke get in Proteus’ head.  Apparently they’re in Scotland, where the human form of him is really Kevin MacTaggert? Moira’s brother???

He brings up their past history, which I’d rather not get into.  He does a lot of self-victimizing for his past crimes, and says that after years in the Astral Plane he’d like a 2nd chance. Something X should understand big time.

At the end of this issue, X attempts to kill Kevin with psychic guns(?) and Proteus retaliates.  He X & Psylocke together, leaving the rest of the X-Men confused and worries as fuck on the outside.  They’re literally melting into each other, which is quite horrific.

Issue 9 - I didn’t know what the Hell was going on, but Soule still had my curiosity.  

We come to find that this was some sort of mind-meld or something.  Archangel & Logan immediately use their metal to strike/guard them.  Warren protects Psylocke which is touching, because they were once an item.  And Logan decides to stab X in the shoulder, because Fantomex had healing powers.  Same body, same powers, he figures.  But no, that’s not the case.

He couldn’t heal and writhed in pain until Psylocke put him to sleep.

They imediately brought him to the Blackbird to recover, while Proteus shifted over to Scotland to... reclaim his Kingdom, as it were.

He literally invades a bar, where some random civilians are chilling, and.. ‘gives them what they want.’  One civilian was flirting with someone’s fiance big time, and by Proteus doing this, now he caused the person to just savagely kill his best friend. I already skipped a lot of stuff though.

First, Proteus makes this community. He literally builds a spherical wall, and convinces these people that he is their leader, and everyone gets what they want.  Having mind powers, presumably, this is not hard.

So bam. The chaos ensues in this community, and some people are transformed into soldiers

“NO!” X snaps awake, while the Blackbird Jet flies over to Scotland.  {And then I gave away the ending already.  Jealous boy wanted his friend gone, so boom. He blew up.}  This can only mean worse in the bigger picture.  Some sort of all out war, in this community, which may spread to the rest of the World.

Issue 10 - On their way to Scotland, they tell X that they voted that Psylocke is in charge of this gang.  “Nothing personal. We just don’t trust you. At all.”  Thanks Mystique.  He utters something about wanting to drop an atomic bomb on the place, which is super OOC for Xavier.  They remind him that that’s exactly why he is not leading and then say that they’re the X-Men. They Save people.

“You’re assuming there’s anyone left to save,” X says with a dark spin on life.

This is where it gets whacky.  We see all sorts of dragons and soldiers attack the Blackbird jet, while other civilians are having orgies, or exhibiting other such chaotic behavior.

Yet again, the Blackbird crashes, but our X-Men are fine, because telepathic device.  

Then the real fight goes down.  It’s quick and rushed, to get to the point, which I like.  Crazy layout of panels across 2 pages, or our guys fighting random people and creatures.  [I doubt this is what they wanted, and more of what Proteus wanted.]

Suddenly the people stop fighting, and the ground seems to sprout up to capture some of our team.  The Shadow King’s face can even be seen within the ground as Proteus talks to them.

“The Shadow King wanted a Hellscape... so that’s what the Astral Plane was.  But I think there’s another way.  That’s why I did my little experiment here...  If you create a World using only one mind’s ideas, you get something twisted, stunted.  But if you use many minds...you get a Garden.”

Logan is pissed because he believes he killed them 100%.  Proteus explains that he gave them what they wanted.  They’re just different now.  Then he shifts the conversation over to Xavier’s dream.  “Do you still believe in that dream?”

“I do,” X proclaims.  He also says that none of them would have chosen this, if they knew it would turn out this way.

Proteus then says it’s time to let his garden grow.  On the last page, the spherical walls are broken down, and I guess this reality is lopping itself onto the rest of Scotland.

Issue 11 - The Garden quickly spreads into Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Philadelphia, Dublin, Cairo... Tokyo!!

[Whenever things get Worldly like this, I can’t help but wonder, where are the Gold & Blue teams in on this, then??]  Or anyone else for that manner??

Proteus is at the point where he feels he’s won.  But Logan and Archangel go after him with their metal.  While Psylocke and X try to attack him from inside his head.

There’s a lot of slashing and beam throwing.  It’s cool to watch, but where’s the substance or the stakes, here??

X & Psylocke use their brain waves to calm down the people in Japan.  Or ‘stop the seed’ as they call it...  [Seed of Proteus’ ever-growing Garden, I presume.]

Inside Proteus’ head, Moira appears to comfort him, but he’s not buying into the illusion.  At least, not at first.

They pull a fast one on Proteus and X gets cocky.  He says that with this kind of power, they could do anything, with a sinister grin.  

The fight on the outside gets somewhat exciting with Gambit & Rogue involved.  Bishop jumps in to try to convert his energy as well.  I like the semblance of teamwork, happening here.  Proteus shrieks, “Why? Why?  Why won’t you ever let me live?”

Then at the end of this issue, X, drunk with power cracks open his skin to reveal that he is really the Shadow King, after all.  [THAT explains those black and white dialogue boxes!]

Issue 12 - This was Soule’s big bad conclusion, and I couldn’t care less by this point.  It was morbid curiosity by this point and a quest for all things to end, which was why I got it at all.  The artistry was way better on this, from Gerardo Sandoval, though.

So despite killing the Shadow King on the Astral Plane, Mystique confirms to Rogue that none of that is real.  He he is, living, breathing before them in the Real World and it’s a double splash page of the whole bunch ganging up on him.

Then we see something crazy.  Shadow King got to Old Man Logan and made him kill himself.  I recall reading that and being super-shocked, thinking that it could actually be permanent.  Everyone else dealt with their own shit as well, and as X narrates “Only Psylocke still stands.”

Psylocke fights him in panels, while we see Bishop feeling guilty that he let the Mindkiller Apocalypse happen.  Gambit apparently tries to kill himself with his cards.

Rogue and Mystique apparently have a fatal embrace with her glove off.  Archangel feels shame, and I think flies himself into space, where he can’t breathe, then lets himself fall to the ground.

But then, we eventually see Xavier put himself back together.  He’s wearing a new outfit now, but still looks young and buff.  He uses his mind powers to help Psylocke defeat the Shadow King.

We get to see more X-Men than just the Astonishing Team, which is neat.  (It’s a bunch of heads in the background, making me believe that it’s a psychic thing.) Betsy asks, “What is this?” and he says, “All of us. Together.”

As if he mentally siphoned the power of every living Mutant, to mentally help them against the Shadow King, I guess.

And it’s their bravery, which seems to shrink the Shadow King into a little bug, which X flicks away.

Betsy asks if he’s Xavier now.  He affirms that he’s still X, but whatever shadow was in him is gone now.

By the end of this, none of them still trust him, and he just tells them, “I said I had gifts for all of you... and so I do.”

[This was kind of interesting.]

He gives Warren choice, so I guess he can go back to Angel, Archangel or just Warren. Whatever he wants whenever he needs...  He gives Remy purpose and tells him to find Fantomex and pay him back whatever he owes him.  He gives Mystique & Rogue understanding.  This one, I don’t care to understand.

He gives Bishop permission to enjoy the world, and not always worry about the future.  He gives Logan vision, to see that he is walking towards the light from his dark past.

And then, the most fucked up, but also brilliant thing is him giving them all Oblivion.  “Forget.”

He tells them.  Then he mind-wipes all of them!  Except for Betsy. She gets to remember.

“For now, you’ll be the only one who knows I’ve returned. You’ll watch me. Keep me honest.”

After they exchange threats, she asks him what their Psychic be-all-end-all was.  She suggests that maybe he could find the stronger empaths, and bring them to the school.

He tells her, nah, though.  “Why would I go back to the School? I’m sure Kitty Pryde has things well in hand.  The school was Professor Charles Xavier’s place.  His dream... There is nothing for me there.” He smirks as the sun sets in the background.

“I am not Xavier. I am X...  I have a new dream.”

-The End-

Jeeeez.  Cool that he’s back, but man oh man.  Where was Soule going with this.  He just planted this giant seed, in hopes that someone else could pick this up and run with it???

I’m not sure if Astonishing got cancelled, or if it was always meant to be a 12-part mini-series.  But either way, Soule’s story was done by this point.

And I was NOT interested in getting Issue 13, with a new writer coming on board.  But I accidentally got it in my pile anyway.  And it was waaaay fucking better than any of this.

All things considered...  I like that Charles is back.  Even if he's younger and different... and, in the background.. and none of this really matters, ‘cause it’ll get reset anyway.

In the meantime, it’s still interesting.  And I guess that’s why I collected this in the first place.  Because it seemed interesting.  So that’s that.