X-Men Annual #1 - Review/Spoilers

[JB]

We open with the preview pages, Firestar knocked into the air at the Green Lagoon by seemingly Roulette but definitely the Hellions. They take issue with her living on Krakoa and being an X-Man, representing mutantkind, when she wasn't around during mutantkind's hard times. Firestar, narrating, admits that they're not completely wrong as her previous time as an X-Man didn't stick.

Iceman comes to her defense ready to throw down with the Hellions. Firestars says she's fine and pulls him toward the nearby gate so they can get to their briefing. She doesn't engage with the Hellions.

The X-Men review threats that have popped up across the country (and in Mojoverse.) We almost get a Bi-Beast joke. One of the issues is a cancer clinic in Florida reporting that their Krakoan meds didn't show up. Synch suggests passing this issue over to Hellfire but Angelica thinks it may be a good idea for the team to help a hospital as representation of the X-Men doing good for the world. Iceman offers to go down to FL with her but Cyclops says he'll go instead as Iceman would be more helpful taking on the bigger foes.

Jean and Scott speak privately via TP about Angelica, Scott saying this is the first time she's shown initiative on the team and hasn't just taken orders as if he was Captain America. Cyclops wants to join her to see where it goes. Magik opens a portal for them and they step into a raging storm (I live in south FL so I get it.) A man in a van nearby notices them and is like, "Damn it. Not going to wait around and get hunted down by all of effin' Krakoa. Time to salt the earth."

Our heroes enter the hospital but are not greeted too warmly, one of the patient saying the mutants are rubbing it in their faces showing up to the hospital when they don’t need health care anymore. A woman (hospital director? Head nurse?) greets and thanks them for coming quickly. Cyclops suggests maybe the meds are delayed due to the storm but that isn’t the problem. As they walk the hallway Angelica looks at a “chemotherapy suite” sign on a door they pass. The woman explains that the meds did arrive on time but they found one of the few workers with access to the meds beaten to near death behind the hospital. Someone took his access info and stole the Krakoan meds, leaving regular meds behind.

Angelica wonders out loud why they’d steal them when they’re provided for free. The woman says they may be free here but resellers can demand any price to people who want them in countries like Russia and the UK that don’t recognize Krakoa. The black market. Security footage isn’t any help because it’s all a blur. The woman leaves to get the footage anyway leaving Cyke and Fi alone in the med room. Angelica is looking at the bottles as she recognizes some of the names and Scott mentions how she beat cancer. But she doesn’t like the term “beating cancer”, as if those who lost their lives didn’t fight hard enough. She mentions how she never developed immunity to her powers (Firestar fans, is this true? Someone somewhere else mentioned she did so I'm curious.) and how she had world-class care and was very lucky.

Firestar tries to use her powers to see if the thief left behind any radioactivity or other invisible tracks, but there's too many overlapping signals in the hospital. She mentions how she's still trying to hone greatly precision in her powers, and Scott tells her she'll get there. He relates to her having powers that come with price tags attached. She asks him if he's ever considered fixing his powers via resurrection and he says not once. There's a loud thunderish sound outside that doesn't sound natural. Cyke says he'll get the patients to safe rooms and Fi says she'll find out what's causing the ruckus.

Very funny data page, a transcript of Jumbo and Firestar during her fitting. She explains to him that there's circuitry in her costume, that Hank Pym designed it. Jumbo: "And we're not throwing it in a deep, dark hole to make sure it doesn't gain sentience and try to take over the known universe." LOL. She explains it protects her from her powers and Jumbo is like why haven't you had the Five fix that. Well she hasn't died yet, that's why. He makes a hilarious reference about flames on the side of her face and I'm totally aging myself by saying that was amazing. They discuss the design of her new costume.

Firestar flies outside to investigate. The art is just beautiful and as a Floridian, that's how it looks a lot of the time here.



Quick jump to the other X-Men fighting Harrower and her flying plant dragons (?) in Manila. Jean mentions that they haven't heard from Cyclops and Firestar yet. Synch says at the rate their team is clearing their foes, they may be done before the other two at the hospital. Quick jump to the team fighting Bi-Beast in Vancouver. Jeans says they need to finish this fight as she's picking up something about dinosaurs in Brooklyn.

Firestar struggles to see in the rain and the wind knocks her into a car. She looks up and it's Whirlwind. Kudos to the posters that called it a few weeks ago. He says he almost didn't recognize her in her spiffy new costume. He wants payback and wishes Justice was there to beat up too. We get a small flashback panel of Justice and Firestar carrying a beaten Whirlwind. Angelica is all I kicked your ass as a teenager, you sure you want some of this. They speed fly towards each other.

Data page on Whirlwind:



Quick jump to Brooklyn where Brainchild of the Savage Land is attacking Prospect Park, saying all public parks are hereby annexed by the Savage Land. This fuckin' guy. A raptor is about to attack Forge and a woman he's protecting when Synch fries it with electricity. Forge thanks him and asks where the electricness came from. Enter Miles Morales Spider-Man! *cue music* He says that electricity is his, his venom blasts. Ev apologizes for not asking permission but Miles is like it's all good in dinosaur emergencies, as long as they let him visit the Treehouse. Magik makes me laugh out loud when she says, "Deal. You're much less annoying than the other one." He says he gets that a lot.

Jean checks in on Scott saying he's missing all the fun but he explains how things have taken a turn for the worse in Florida as he's trying to protect the patients from pieces of falling ceiling and what not. Jean offers to bring the team down but Scott says not necessary, not yet anyway.

Firestar questions Whirlwind on why he's attacking a hospital. He says a gig's a gig, some trust-fund brat hired him to kill her father in the cancer ward to speed up her inheritance. He noticed how crappy security was so he took the opportunity to steal the meds. He's quite the idiot telling her all of this. As they're talking Cyclops hits him with an optic blast from a hospital window.

Quick jump to the other X-Men in the Mojoverse fighting zombie X-babies. Apparently it was a bad idea for a TV reboot and Mojo called them for help. It's a funny page as these little zombies attack the X-Men. Magik is having fun. Jean checks in with Scott again and says they're almost done and heading to him. He's like "awesome." Whirlwind declares that he won't be made a fool again when Firestar hits him with an intense microwave dome blast thingy. He falls from the sky and crashes into his van, on the ground now, ass fully kicked. She asks him why as a fellow mutant he didn't take the amnesty deal. He says why would he when some bigot with a nuke eventually destroys the island. He asks her isn't that why she continues to stay buddy buddy with human heroes? He chuckles and says he'll still get the last laugh then stupidly tells them that he planted a bomb in the body of the dead father because the daughter underpaid him. He pulls out a detonator and Firestar rushes inside, Cyclops asking Jean to gather chrono-manipulators, energy absorbers, and speeders ASAP.

Flying through the hospital Angelica uses her powers to sort through the many pinging signals and focuses on the remote detonator's signal, feeling and finding the receiver several floors down. In a cool move, she blasts through the floor and down into the morgue, destroying the receiver in the body. Gross. Forge and Havok go down to remove the bomb from the body. Bobby puts his arm around her and says once they get the frozen Whirlwind locked up, they have one more activity for the day, a family-bonding one.

Quick jump to the whole team in Michigan fighting junkyard Sentinels purchased by some dumb militias. It's like old times.

They return to Krakoa and the Green Lagoon, Angelica looking at the Hellions table. Blob is like don't start this crap again. The X-Men sit down but Angelica says she'll be right back.



The end.

[sunofdarkchild]

I appreciated how pro-active this annual makes the X-Men in terms of being superheroes and stopping threats.

[shadowbox]

I’m very happy they finally addressed why Scott didn’t fix his powers after his many deaths. I’ll definitely pick this up although I’m definitely annoyed by the discolored Catseye. It’s like her one defining trait from the other werecats and werewolves.

[Fokken]

I’m very happy they finally addressed why Scott didn’t fix his powers after his many deaths. I’ll definitely pick this up although I’m definitely annoyed by the discolored Catseye. It’s like her one defining trait from the other werecats and werewolves.

Catseye is such a gem. I would find it hilarious if she wound up on the next voting ballot. People love cats.

[JB]

Catseye is such a gem. I would find it hilarious if she wound up on the next voting ballot. People love cats.

Great idea. She and her tail deserve to be on the ballot.

[Krakoa]

This was a really good issue! I think Foxe has killed it with his one-offs and minis. I would be curious to see how he would fare on a Krakoa-era ongoing title.

[Pumpkin King]

I appreciate the nice little moment with the Hellions at the end! Catseye's brief dialogue in the book actually got her voice right, better than Hellions did (although I loved Hellions).

[CGAR]

Better than expected.

[gonnagiveittoya]

Love this. Wouldn't mind Foxe taking over Duggan tbh

[Kingdom X]

Love this. Wouldn't mind Foxe taking over Duggan tbh

Same or have him do Uncanny Avengers. It was such a light read that obviously spotlighted one character but managed to do right by the entire team.

[jwatson]

This was good. This has been a good day for good art and good story. Absolutely loved Synch syncing with Miles and that was a very unexpected guest appearance. Synch looks younger here than the main book. Really enjoyed the Angelica story and the parallel between her powers and her lack of immunity at the time and Cyclops and his powers and how the question was answered that they are still "broken" because he doesn't want to fix them, at least not via resurrection, maybe it's something he will control one day, maybe it's never meant to be. I like that not everyone wants plastic surgery resurrections especially with such a high queue.

I thought the bi-beast joke and jean saying "bobby.." was hilarious and it was used at the right points throughout the story so it didn't go stale, but one of the weak points i have to say is Bobby comes off so desperate to make angelica work with everyone and it was like i get it, but it's a bit much. lol

The mention of Vance was a nice touch as well when it came to whirlwind and i look forward to more firestar, i also was pleasantly surprised Scott and i had the same thought when Angelica spoke up for the first time and i remember saving the panel as that before continuing on and reading what Scott said.

Overall great issue, havok was wallpaper here but i don't think there is much investment in him here and i can't say it bothers me at all not that i'm not a fan but he feels like a peg in a square whole in this.

findinghervoice.jpg
magick.jpg

i also like the way magic powers are drawn here. It makes it feel more visual that she no longer has to go to limbo so you see more of a direct walkout closer to the krakoan gates.

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and again, really good comic book wednesday. only thing left is Sabretooth and the exiles hopefully there is a thread for it later or i can find the sabretooth on when i read it. lmao.

[ZephyrSurf]

Pretty rich of the Hellions to try reading her the riot act, when all they've ever been is dicks to her.

But what are the Hellions if not massive hypocrites?

[Rising7]

really enjoyed this one. I've always been thinking I'd like more slice of life issues and this one pleasantly highlighted a way to seamlessly combine slice of life with superheroics. After all, superhero stuff is sort of their day job. In that, it was cool to see them going after a good variety of threats over the span of a day. I also appreciate Bobby's comment that he's missed fighting evil mutant teams as "X-Men 101" since I've been thinking the same thing this whole time, lol.

Was great highlighting Firestar's Avengers past and, since she first joined, contrasting how they operate (the iteration she was in, anyway) versus the X-Men. I do wish maybe the New Warriors could have gotten more mention, another time perhaps. As well as Angelica's unique perspective as a "new" X-Men member who's mostly been heroing elsewhere. In that, Whirlwind was a good foil as a mutant villain outside the big X-Men baddie circles.

Also nice spot from Miles, the sort of thing I can imagine going on in NYC all the time

[Frontier]

Not even Mutants let Hank live Ultron down .

[Mercury]

This issue was wonderful and very well paced and written. I think Steve Foxe could easily take over X-Men after Duggan leaves. He writes great, natural, substantial dialogue. He brought much needed development to Angelica, while paying respect to her history. And I absolutely love the way he wrote and handled mom and dad. 🥹

Them. 👇🏻 (Andrea Di Vito’s art is exquisite.)



Also, Jean telepathically contacting Scott from Mojoverse, which is an “extradimensional and extratemporal realm,” is so Omega of her. 🤌🏻