X-Men #32 - Review/Spoilers

[JB]

I liked this issue a lot more than the last few and I'm more used to Noto's art for this story.

We open on Mykines Island, site of the gala massacre. It's evening and the Lighthouse Keeper is sitting in his lighthouse watching television. The room is mostly dark. An Orchis soldier enters by kicking the door open and points a gun at the Keeper. He says Orchis is moving into the final phase of their plan and they realized they missed the loose end at the lighthouse, killing the Keeper. Social media knows the Keeper from his travels with boyfriend Jumbo Carnation and people are curious about whether he was killed by the mutants during the gala. The Keeper, smiling, questions why they couldn't send a more handsome assassin. He warns the soldier that he isn't the only one to have survived and Lockheed appears from the shadows behind the Keeper. The soldier demands the Keeper to tell Lockheed to stay back but the Keeper laughs and says Lockheed hasn't listened to him since he found him. Lockheeds proceeds to fly over and roast the soldier to death. The Keeper says it's nice to see Lockheed is feeling better and asks if he's going to start paying rent or if he's off to war.

Emma, sitting in the backseat of a vehicle and sipping champagne, sends out a telepathic message to all mutants. She delivers the update that Orchis' orbital weapons platform (the Bloom) is less orbital than it was in the morning. "We have the beautiful and talented X-Woman Polaris to thank for that." She also tells them that Iron Man's Sentinel Buster armor has arrived and is drawing the bulk of Stark Sentinels to the Australian outback. She tells them to continue routing their backup needs through her and to assume all other communications are compromised. "Keep resisting."

Emma then telepathically commands the driver to pull over at the next corner where Orchis soldiers have a few mutants on their knees on the sidewalk, hands tied behind their backs. While one of them is putting black sacks over their heads he asks where the hell the Sentinel back up is. Another soldier says he can't reach command. Emma's car pulls up, she calls them piglets, one of them recognizers her as one of the telepathic X-Men, she says she's the telepath and uses her knuckle rings Tony got her to liquify and kill them. She welcomes the captured mutants to the resistance and tells them they must be nothing less than completely victorious and fabulous. Another Orchis goon appears and these new mutants take him out while Emma rides off.

Now the preview pages as Magik breaks into an Orchis prison/experimentation center for mutant youth in Hersey, PA. Emma telepathically welcomes her back and tells her she'll get a proper welcome. Magik thanks her and takes out a bunch of soldiers. Emma asks Illyana if she's unwell as she notices she's slower and her breathing is labored. Illyana tells her Orchis infected her with something and blocked her teleportation. She says she's gonna get right or die trying. She takes out more soldiers both with her sword and a blaster she picks up from one of them. Emma tells her to perhaps wait for her backup to arrive as Illyana leans against a wall, winded. But Illyana she's good and she'll press on, she's a War Captain of Krakoa.

Magik enters an office to find an Orchis guy without his helmet burning documents/evidence. He turns, surprised to see her. She tells him not to think about reaching for the gun on his desk. He says they're basically in the same boat, that things would've turned out differently if humans had been in charge of Orchis. "Our A.I. 'partners' never really trusted us." Pointing her sword at him Illyana says she cut a lot of weak men to find him, "Doc." He confirms that he was the project manager for the nanites coursing through her blood. She lowers her sword, exhausted. He says she's surprised she's still alive. She says the nanites prevented her from using her teleporting gift and he replies that they're now replicating so much that they'll soon kill her. She says she wants them out and he says he wants to date Taylor Swift and wishes he picked the right side of the war. He grabs the gun and says he'll make it quick.



Kate and Illyana then, in a bloody scene, cut through a control room of Orchis goons. Illyana tells Kate that she looked everywhere for survivors from the gala and Kate says she didn't check the Morlock tunnels. Illyana hits a button letting out the mutant prisoners in the facility. She asks about Peter and Kate confirms he's a survivor and with Logan. Illyana is sitting in a chair feeling and looking weak. Kate takes her hand and says she had already infiltrated the gulag to free the prisoners when Yana crashed the party. Yana asks if Emma didn't send her then who did Emma send. The ceiling above them breaks apart as Kate answers, "A doctor."

The ceiling is pulled off as Polaris floats down. "'Sup ladies." She can taste the iron in the air from Illyana and Kate's kills. She says she can feel the machines inside Illyana and thinks she can remove them but it's going to hurt like hell. She starts suggesting getting a telepath to assist but Illyana makes clear she wants them out now. "Okay. On 'three'. One... three." Illyana yells/roars in pain.



She finishes then throws up a magnetic bubble shield to protect them while also informing them that Feilong built countermeasures into the Sentinels and she can't just crush them. Kate starts to phase down through the floor telling Polaris to keep the Sentinel looking at her. Magik is upright looking much better as she opens up a stepping disc. Yes!! "Let's kill this thing," she says to Lorna and they use the stepping disc to land on the Sentinel's head. Lorna asks her how she survived the gala, Yana said the gate she went through fritzed out, Lorna says she left the gala because of her depression. She's been feeling guilty for not staying and Yana feels the same but says it's no use for Lorna to beat herself up, that she'd be dead if she had been there.

Illyana stabs the Sentinel's head creating a small opening. Lorna magnetically pulls over two power lines and places the cut, live part of the wires into the hole created by Illyana. There's a KRAKOOM as it's being overrun with electricity. Kate says let's not take any chances, opens a fire hydrant and Illyana opens a disc so the water pours down into the same opening. Needless to say the Sentinel is destroyed.

As the mutant prisoners run out of the building Emma pulls up saying "well done, all." She tells them to get into the car and says it's delightful to see Illyana again. "And Katherine..."



Lorna, standing on top of the downed Sentinel with hands on her hips, asks where Nimrod is. Emma, holding a glass of champagne, says he's next on their hit list. Suddenly they hear Cyclops via telepathy saying he may have a line on what Nimrod is doing. Emma says it's nice of Scott to join them. He says it's nice to touch all of their minds again. He informs them that he has secured Dr. Gregor who is standing next to him. He says he doesn't think their problems are over, that in fact they're just beginning. He asks Magik if she's up for joining him and she says of course, she's a War Captain. "I was born ready," as she drops through a stepping disc.

Big improvement from the last couple of issues imo. The reunions were great, the dialogue and conversations were great, Polaris had a great moment. The reunion with Lockheed and then Cyclops was great. I'm a big fan of Cyclops and Magik working together so I'm excited that she's teleporting over to his location. Good stuff.

[sunofdarkchild]

This was an ok issue, but I expected and hoped for more. Too many scenes results in everything being rushed, from the not-so-big reunion to the actual promised teamup fight being essentially just 2 panels. I really wish they'd have cut the 2 opening scenes to devote more space to fleshing out the main plot of the issue. The rushing of everything makes it so that it's easy to miss that they saved a bunch of teenagers at the prison.

On a positive note, the nanites doing more than just affecting Magik's teleportation and slowly killing her was unexpectedly smart for Orchis and explains why she's in such a state in the preview. And the fact that she's still going and fighting when she should already be dead from the nanites goes to show how tough/strong-willed she is. And at least there was just enough panel space for her to ask about her brother.

There were a couple of odd moments, like when Kitty appears and Illyana is supposed to be shocked/overjoyed to see her, but the way she's drawn just makes her look stoned. And then there's Polaris asking Magik to make a hole she already made.

[danielsan52]

WTF happened to Firestar?

[CGAR]

Twas ok but like others have said from the previous issue. It seems like we're just making sure to check all the boxes.

Its kind of sad that I kind wanting Duggan to be done already. Seem to be going out with a whimper.

[GoingGreen]

First: LOVE the unexpected Polaris appearance, of course. I love the work they've been steadily doing with Polaris in understanding and shaping up the definition of her moving forward. I really like her role in this event, so far. I love the continued "Doctor" references. I will never understand machines having resistance to electromagnetism, but I get it, they need sentinels to be a threat to Polaris and Magneto, just like everyone else. That said, I'd love if this led to a project where she joins other Marvel Doctors - Stark, Banner, McCoy (a good McCoy.....) and doing some brainy cool thing. I digress...

Two notes: 1- we don't need a coffee reference every single freaking time she shows up, and 2- I REALLY worry about writers taking a non-canon interview about Polaris potentially having bipolar and forcing it on panel may end up being very very disrespectful to people with any kind of neurodivergence, and to a lesser extent, long time Polaris fans who are intimately familiar with her 55 year panel history and clearly being portrayed with severe trigger-based PTSD and never being portrayed with bipolar symptoms / chemical imbalance. If they want to explore this with Polaris, they should be extremely extremely sensitive and careful with it, moving forward. Because what they are doing is proclaiming her inconsistent portrayals over the years are symptoms of bipolar and not lazy writers - and that is a VERY ignorant thing to do.

On the X-Line at large - I do think the issues of this crossover could all stand a few more pages to give extra panels across each issue. Lately, so many of these issues feel "almost" great. They rush through parts that need some extra panels, but somehow linger on parts that don't need much time.

[Steroid]

The issue was okay I guess but really after reading it my only thought was "Enough with the goddamn coffee"

[JB]

WTF happened to Firestar?

I have to imagine that Firestar is next! I can't think of anything else outstanding aside from the final battles with Orchis.

Wait, I just remembered Doom's X-Men come back next issue. Sigh.

[davetvs]

Duggan comes so close, sometimes. I loved his Polaris in this issue (agree that the coffee thing is overdone at this point though; if she's going to mention it she doesn't also need to be holding it) but wasn't a fan of his Magik. Even a throwaway line about being too woozy to focus on spellcasting would have taken the issue further but as-is, this Magik was giving Storm-as-Lightning-Lass levels of I forgot I have other powers.

Also, what did Emma actually do to those soldiers? I couldn't tell, I know she left them dead in pools of blood but do I need to be reading Iron Man to understand what those rings were? The callback to "We must be nothing less than fabulous" was almost cute, but replacing fabulous with another word was enough...Duggan has to hammer the point home by unnecessarily continuing the line to tack "fabulous" onto the end, like we'd missed the reference. It's just a very hamfisted way to write imo.

[sunofdarkchild]

Duggan comes so close, sometimes. I loved his Polaris in this issue (agree that the coffee thing is overdone at this point though; if she's going to mention it she doesn't also need to be holding it) but wasn't a fan of his Magik. Even a throwaway line about being too woozy to focus on spellcasting would have taken the issue further but as-is, this Magik was giving Storm-as-Lightning-Lass levels of I forgot I have other powers.

Also, what did Emma actually do to those soldiers? I couldn't tell, I know she left them dead in pools of blood but do I need to be reading Iron Man to understand what those rings were? The callback to "We must be nothing less than fabulous" was almost cute, but replacing fabulous with another word was enough...Duggan has to hammer the point home by unnecessarily continuing the line to tack "fabulous" onto the end, like we'd missed the reference. It's just a very hamfisted way to write imo.

That was another wonky moment. And then a third Orchis goon suddenly appeared when he didn't exist in the previous panels just so the freed prisoners could have someone to beat up.

[Mutant X]

I'm reading it on autopilot.

Nothing interesting to comment on, not even the bad things.

[Havok83]

“To me my power lines” has got to be one of the worst piece of dialogue ever written

[RAWRlrus]

Duggan comes so close, sometimes. I loved his Polaris in this issue (agree that the coffee thing is overdone at this point though; if she's going to mention it she doesn't also need to be holding it) but wasn't a fan of his Magik. Even a throwaway line about being too woozy to focus on spellcasting would have taken the issue further but as-is, this Magik was giving Storm-as-Lightning-Lass levels of I forgot I have other powers.

Also, what did Emma actually do to those soldiers? I couldn't tell, I know she left them dead in pools of blood but do I need to be reading Iron Man to understand what those rings were? The callback to "We must be nothing less than fabulous" was almost cute, but replacing fabulous with another word was enough...Duggan has to hammer the point home by unnecessarily continuing the line to tack "fabulous" onto the end, like we'd missed the reference. It's just a very hamfisted way to write imo.

She got it in the last one, but I don't think it was fully explained how it worked there either.

That was another wonky moment. And then a third Orchis goon suddenly appeared when he didn't exist in the previous panels just so the freed prisoners could have someone to beat up.

They walk out the building with the 4th mutant.

[JB]

I'm glad the resistance is growing and Magik and Lockheed join the others in the sewers. Emma pulling up to different places is kind of funny and I'm fine with seeing more of that. (If it was up to me it'd be an ongoing gag across the Marvel universe next.)

I'm also glad they're targeting Nimrod next so things can continue to move along. I'm ready for less no-name Orchis goons and more of the main villains as we're just a couple of months away from the end now.

[GoingGreen]

“To me my power lines” has got to be one of the worst piece of dialogue ever written

While I agree that it's stupid... I kindof think it's "stupid-fun", given that it's another little quirk they give Polaris. "To me, my fillings!" "To me, my Brood!" "To me, my Power Lines!" ...I'm kinda into it for some reason.

[Malachi]

It reads like it was written in minutes. It's a frustrating experience since comics cost money, both to buy and to produce. Yet it reads like Duggan wrote it on his coffee break and I very much doubt he did. It's a shame that all the work put into it isn't refleted in the final product.

I have read so much worse comics then this one, but few who have been this unoriginal. But maybe that is just me not remembering said comics. Most probably a fate this comic will share, a fade into oblivion.