X-Factor [04] : Swords of X chapter 2 review *spoilers*

[Thievery]

But that's not how survivors guilt works tho innit? It's not about what you could have conceivably have done. Polaris FEELS like she could have saved Santos and thefore she feels guilt about his death amd that feeling of guilt and inadequacy only strengthened when she found out that's Santos had suffered a real death.

As for the mystery of who the Sword Bearers were it's still a pretty necessary issue we the readers may have known who the sword bearers were going to be for months now but they are still needed to be an in story reason for why those particular 9 were chosen otherwise you could have just stacked the 10 circles otherwise you could have just stacked the 10 circles with mutants proficient in weaponry and deadly reality warping powers. And then of course there's a real-life reason which not every reader of this event is a hardcore comic book fan who has been hip to all the solicitations cover Arts over the past few months.

Sorry for not responding to your post right away. I didn't see it until you had already logged out from the forum.

I get your point on survivor's guilt. I just don't see how you can jump to Lorna having survivor's guilt if you don't know the history of the character. She was in no way to blame for Rockslide's death as shown on panel. If you don't know a lot of Lona's history you wouldn't even guess that the first chapter could lead to Polaris having survivor's guilt. That's just my opinion. I think that if you want to do a story about Lorna having survivor's guilt it would have probably been a better idea to show Lorna being upset in the first chapter instead of the second, as Lorna seemed perfectly fine in the first chapter. That or doing a better job of explaining Lorna's history of emotional problems in X-Factor 4 as I suggested earlier. The second chapter really ended up having to ramp up Lorna's emotional distress pretty fast and and came across as being a little over played.
That's just my opinion.

As far as the mystery involving the swords goes, I agree that the non-hardcore fans that don't see every piece of cover art, preview art, or read every solicitation would not know the answer to the mystery of the swords. But I myself don't pay attention to every piece of art to avoid spoilers, nor do I keep close attention to every solicitation. I didn't know the answer to who all of the sword wielders were before chapter one. But I still knew the answer to sword mystery after reading chapter one because the list of swords was mentioned in the very first chapter. There was no mystery left because it was already given away in the first chapter. That's what I meant when I said that there was to much manel time given over to a mystery that did not exist.

[Lucyinthesky]

I think Saturnyne is mentally unbalancing Lorna for some reason, Lorna commented she was not done with her yet, lest remember on issue #1 Lorna almost brings down Saturnyne citadel but this act also seemed to give energy to it and she made Lorna the one in charge of getting the swords for the X-men.

On the other hand, I can see Lorna feeling bad because in her mind she could connect Santo´s death with Genosha but I think Saturnyne did that to her so she would be unbalanced while feeling that way. We are talking about Lorna having to use Rockslide´s corpse to build the link with otherworld for Krakoa´s champions and Lorna said Saturnyne made sure that was neccesary sacrifice for the tournament, so I can see Lorna feeling terrible about the whole situation even if she was not a friend of Rockslide.

[Thievery]

I think Saturnyne is mentally unbalancing Lorna for some reason, Lorna commented she was not done with her yet, lest remember on issue #1 Lorna almost brings down Saturnyne citadel but this act also seemed to give energy to it and she made Lorna the one in charge of getting the swords for the X-men.

On the other hand, I can see Lorna feeling bad because in her mind she could connect Santo´s death with Genosha but I think Saturnyne did that to her so she would be unbalanced while feeling that way. We are talking about Lorna having to use Rockslide´s corpse to build the link with otherworld for Krakoa´s champions and Lorna said Saturnyne made sure that was neccesary sacrifice for the tournament, so I can see Lorna feeling terrible about the whole situation even if she was not a friend of Rockslide.

Well yeah, I guess it could be that Saturnyne is still screwing with Lorna's mind. That's a fair point, Lucyinthesky
My apologies if this was suggested earlier in a post and I missed it.

[Lucyinthesky]

I hope we see more interaction of Saturnyne and Lorna to know for sure.

[loke13]

Sorry for not responding to your post right away. I didn't see it until you had already logged out from the forum.

I get your point on survivor's guilt. I just don't see how you can jump to Lorna having survivor's guilt if you don't know the history of the character. She was in no way to blame for Rockslide's death as shown on panel. If you don't know a lot of Lona's history you wouldn't even guess that the first chapter could lead to Polaris having survivor's guilt. That's just my opinion. I think that if you want to do a story about Lorna having survivor's guilt it would have probably been a better idea to show Lorna being upset in the first chapter instead of the second, as Lorna seemed perfectly fine in the first chapter. That or doing a better job of explaining Lorna's history of emotional problems in X-Factor 4 as I suggested earlier. The second chapter really ended up having to ramp up Lorna's emotional distress pretty fast and and came across as being a little over played.
That's just my opinion.

As far as the mystery involving the swords goes, I agree that the non-hardcore fans that don't see every piece of cover art, preview art, or read every solicitation would not know the answer to the mystery of the swords. But I myself don't pay attention to every piece of art to avoid spoilers, nor do I keep close attention to every solicitation. I didn't know the answer to who all of the sword wielders were before chapter one. But I still knew the answer to sword mystery after reading chapter one because the list of swords was mentioned in the very first chapter. There was no mystery left because it was already given away in the first chapter. That's what I meant when I said that there was to much manel time given over to a mystery that did not exist.

That's fair. And yes I agree that Lorna's emotional distress had to be kicked up a notch for the plot which didn't completely sit right with me. But maybe we'll have another chapter expounding on that.

[salarta]

Whatever the reason for Lorna's behavior, the context to understand why she's behaving that way is needed. Saturnyne affecting Lorna's mind is a possibility (I noted it as an option in the Polaris thread), but the lack of context leaves casual readers to assume this is just the way Lorna is and there's no reason for it. Just as Xavier leaving a mental image in someone's mind wouldn't ordinarily lead someone to think that mental image is making them act very differently from usual unless something prompts the reader to make that connection.

[Lucyinthesky]

"I think there´s something wrong with me " "I can still feel an itch in my head, like Saturnyne is not quite done with me yet" I think those are clues to know for sure the Lorna we are seeing is not well and is different to the one we saw on the first issue of X-factor or even Creation #1 because she looked self assured and well on this issue it looks like Lorna´s insecurities were taken to the surface of her mind and she only changed after Saturnyne made Lorna be the person to bring the prophecies to the X-men but I guess we will have to see them interact more to know for sure what´s happening, for example Lorna prepared 10 places for 10 champions but she only talked about 9 people so her job is not done yet.

[salarta]

I think only the second quote could be potentially picked up as a clue, and as a clue, it's vague enough that a reader could take it as simply saying she thinks Saturnyne will have more prophecies to give her or something similar.

In any case, I think we agree that more is needed to clarify (e.g. Lorna and Saturnyne interacting more if that is the reason).

[Lucyinthesky]

Agreed I thought it was interesting why Saturnyne had Lorna and only Lorna know the prophecies and even keep telepaths out of the way until she said them,given it´s her world the X-men are defending it would be a priority for her to get their swords as soon as possible but she seemed to make neccesary for Lorna to figure out everything with a message only she could read. Saturnyne seems to be doing a lot of forethought on this crossover so everything alings the way she want´s and her being so focused on Lorna is no accident imo.

[loke13]

This is the first time we've seen Moira since HoX isn't it? Have you surprised at the end of this event we don't get another Moira, Xavier, Magneto meeting.

[Rev9]

I didn't really enjoy this issue as much as the first chapter of this crossover. Partly because I didn't think that this issue fit together with what actually happened in the first issue.

Polaris seems to blame herself for the death of Rockslide. But if you look at the panel of Rockslide's death in chapter one, Polaris isn't even close to Rockslide when he dies. She is on the other side of the battle with her back turned to Rockslide. Given that, I don't see how Polaris should feel like she could have saved Santo just by lifting a hand and using her power to stop Summoner from killing him. Lorna would have had no way of even knowing that Rockslide had even been killed. Unless I missed a panel somewhere that explains this, but I don't think that I did.

If the story wanted to show Lorna as suffering from survivor guilt and ptsd, I think that more should have been shown of Lorna's history of why she may be suffering from survivors guilt. Especially Lorna's history of surviving the the Genosha massacre. If this was a readers first time they had a story about Lorna, they probably wouldn't have completely understood why Lorna would feel this way. I've seen other people post this and I agree with it.

I found it to be a little bit silly that it was made out to a bit of a mystery of who would be the sword wielders. In the last chapter, Lorna actually listed the swords that would be used. Unless their is some kind of swerve coming I dont know why you would waste time having the characters figure out who the sword wielders are going to be when the readers already know who they are.

My own surprise is how it is inevitably suggested that Summoner's sword is made of metal.Like he is a mutant sure but he is also into dark magic, that is very similar to Magik and her soul sword.No one even suggests that it is metallic, yet somehow we are made to assume Summoner's is. I mean we are told Summoner found out how to kill Santo using a magic game and yet we are being led to believe that Polaris could do something about it?

[loke13]

My own surprise is how it is inevitably suggested that Summoner's sword is made of metal.Like he is a mutant sure but he is also into dark magic, that is very similar to Magik and her soul sword.No one even suggests that it is metallic, yet somehow we are made to assume Summoner's is. I mean we are told Summoner found out how to kill Santo using a magic game and yet we are being led to believe that Polaris could do something about it?

I mean I just took it as Polaris sensed enough metallic components within the sort of feel like she could have stopped it from killing Rockslide.

[Sutekh]

So upon a reread, I get a definite vibe about Technarch foreshadowing from the Cypher/Warlock prophecy (one who becomes many or whatever).

And I want someone to slap the smug out of Magneto. He's being a toad. To Apocalypse, which is fine, and kind of hilarious, but also to Lorna, which is completely out of bounds. I can see her running to the High Evolutionary, "Can I just pay you to claim that you engineered me as well as Wanda and Pietro, and then laid down some bogus story about Magneto being our dad?"

[Criticalfan]

Friend-self, friends lost. Out of one comes many, into many comes one.

I would have said that part is a Legion tease, but that doesn't make any sense with the solicits, previews, etc.

[cranger]

So upon a reread, I get a definite vibe about Technarch foreshadowing from the Cypher/Warlock prophecy (one who becomes many or whatever).

And I want someone to slap the smug out of Magneto. He's being a toad. To Apocalypse, which is fine, and kind of hilarious, but also to Lorna, which is completely out of bounds. I can see her running to the High Evolutionary, "Can I just pay you to claim that you engineered me as well as Wanda and Pietro, and then laid down some bogus story about Magneto being our dad?"

Well I think that may be clumsily setting up Magneto to take up the final sword that Lorna did not get to finish in her prophecy before fainting.