Father and Daughter

X of Swords: X-Men event of the year

mistress-lorna-dane

This is the moment people. The moment where our jaws dropped when we found out how important Polaris is and how she became the center of everything for this BIG event. I am very much aware that for most of you this was (once again) unexpected. I warned you that Polaris was coming big. Ya didn’t believe me… oh well :)

The first event in the ‘Dawn of X’ era of X-Men begins with X of Swords: Creation Part 1 of 22. Hooooo boy, we’re in for the long haul with this one. One hell of an incoming epic.

Opal Luna Saturnyne, Omniversal Majastrix, and High Priestess of the Starlight Citadel has foreseen their coming in an ancient deck of powerful tarot cards. Polaris appeared to be in one of them: The Hanged Man.

When Apocalypse asked for volunteers, we actually ended up getting some pretty formidable characters for volunteers. Polavok get to join with Apocalypse after more than a decade of their separation. Revealing how well they actually know each other, they interacted as friends as they’re part of the friend circle living on the same root. Their interactions were a fresh start and I’m digging it. Also, they are going to do fine in this mission and they’ll make good champions.

Lorna mocking her dad is everything, lol. Polaris joins Apocalypse’s team for the reason that her father says she needs to represent them and Havok is there at Cyclops’s request. It was also wonderful to see some other mutants like Siryn, Rictor, Angel, Beast etc all who used to be an X-Factor.

Apocalypse and the X-Men get ambushed. Summoner and his children betrayed Apocalypse by trying to kill him and thus, the war began.

The plan was to rescue Unus and bring him home but the unexpected always happens. When the crew arrived to Otherwolrd, Apocalypse encountered his original Four Horsemen, alongside an army of demons attacking one of the last great towers.

The mission turns into a massive disaster and 3 mutants ended up dying. The situation got overwhelming therefore, Beast ended up leading the retreat. But Polaris is among the three who remain behind in Otherworld to instead confront the original Horsemen and their armies… trying to hang back to protect the others and making sure no one gets through the gate. Wow, she’s fearless.

Monet manifested her thelepatic ability to communicate with Saturnyne, getting her involved somehow and do something about it. Polaris gave her the idea :)

Saturnyne breaks Monet’s contact knocking her out and it leads to Polaris basically saying if she does not want to get involved… we’ll make her get involved.

Here is where things get interesting. Polaris gets pissed off.

Let’s move beyond the obvious fact that Polaris is attractive and a powerful mutant. As Polaris fires off an energy blast, she’s smothered by a huge light green glow. She ended up using her Magnetism ability, pulling apart the Starlight Citadel on her own (Starlight Citadel is a fortress that serves as the hub to all realities). She decides to make them join the fight by literally dragging them out of their giant metal tower… ripping the Starlight Citadel out of the sky and sending many of the inhabitants into a panic. Even Saturnyne’s chancellor was aware the mutant Polaris was pulling them from the sky. By the time the problem became patently obvious, Saturnyne came down and stopped everything. I guess Polaris got her attention after all. Love to see Polaris rocking this book. Pretty impressive for someone who is not considered to be omega. At least… not yet. But we can all agree that Hickman uses this issue to show readers just how immensely powerful Polaris truly is while also giving a sense of warning as to never underestimate her potential/abilities. In other words, she’s the daughter of an Omega Level.

Polaris (and Havok) didn’t have much of a choice but to fight for their land. Things are going to get more serious.

I LOVE how Pepe Larraz draws Lorna. She looks gorgeous.

After this, Saturnyne pulls out her tarot cards and reveals the true meaning of the 10 swords. Lorna has been cited as the oracle of the X-Men side in the battle by all means. Only Polaris and Pestilence (?) know what swords they need to find and who will be the one to wield them. Now the only clue to the nature of the tournament is hidden in Polaris mind.

They need to find 10 blades and 10 heroes to wield them and the fact that Polaris gets to carry the prophecy was marvelous to say the least. And thus, the game begins.

X of Swords Part 2: X-Factor #4 is the second part of a large crossover and the issue picks up immediately after Creation ends. This is an absolute must-buy if you’re reading X of Swords. This issue has a lot to do with Polaris so get ready for more excitement :)

The X-Men fought their way out of Otherworld after being betrayed by Apocalypse’s own children. Polaris, Havok and the rest made it to the portal and saved Unus from the Horsemen. We felt that indeed there may be a mission accomplished here but unfortunately one of them didn’t make it. And since mutants can be resurrected, that wasn’t a problem (or so we thought).

Nevertheless, they did everything they could and the mission, which was a dangerous one, was successfully accomplished.

Here is when things started getting more fascinating.

Saturnyne pretty much letting us know that Polaris is some kind of prophet and she needs to figure out a mystical prophecy on her own. In other words, she needs to find and know exactly what swords are needed and so on. Saturnyne destroyed the external gate in order to avoid trespassing into Otherworld. But as soon as she completed that call…..

Krakoa literally caused an earthquake and Polaris is racked with pain as if she’s feeling Krakoa’s anger. She fainted and Monet took her away to the Healing Gardens (Jordan never wanted to state the fact in a too soon interview but Saturnyne has nothing to do with Polaris screaming in agony. Only Leah can tell us what is going on).

Apparently neither Rachael nor Monet (or any telepath) can telepathically see what Saturnyne put into Lorna’s mind. When Saturnyne wrote the instructions for Polaris she used the Earth’s Geomagnetic Spectrum so only Polaris can understand it. Telepaths wouldn’t be able to see it (if they do they wouldn’t be able to understand it) because it’s not a thought, it’s magnetic. Wow. How fascinating. And speaking of GEOmagnetic, Polaris has studied GEOlogy as graduate student so she has a better understanding of the Earth’s physical history.

Meanwhile the beauty Queen enters The Arbor Magna Hatchery.

Polaris arrives to talk to Xavier, trying to find out what the protocols for resurrection are for casualties of war. She takes all of the information and memories to Xavier.

Polaris and Professor-X share thoughts and he sees the Summoner betraying them and discovered it was all a trap.

Xavier orders to bring back Rockslide and Rictor priority resurrection. The Five aren’t sure about that since they have never resurrected anyone this quickly but Xavier says things are different in times of war. The situation they are in right now has nothing to do with time but speed. It must be used quickly to be effective like within an hour. He requested that they at least try.

But very importantly, there are also tests. Xavier needed to put The Five to the test in terms of how they work and what kinds of harmful effects they cause. He needed to see if the resurrection can be done sooner rather than later.

Just when everything seems to go along just fine…….

things started going south. Everything seems to be working fine apart from when Xavier goes to wake Rockslide connecting with his mind, there was some type of feedback that knocked him and The Five out. A HUGE electrical charge it just shoots right out into Professor-X and cerebro and it affects all of the backup cerebro helmets (we finally get to see Moira MacTaggert). Xavier and The Five fell unconscious on the ground leaving Polaris the only one left.

Suddenly all of the signals went offline and they all have lost connection. Polaris can sense and feel something is wrong with Rockslide. She realizes something has happened to him.

Apparently their connection to each other has been severed.

Polaris is beating herself up about Rockslide’s death. She blames herself for not being able to save him because she believes that she could have stopped it with a single thought. Rockslide instantly turned into a pile of rocks and Polaris fell to her knees helplessly and dejectedly after losing a teammate.

So it’s seeming that it didn’t work and Goldballs thought he was the cause of the problem and suggested to destroy all the eggs.

Rockslide begins to reform as Polaris realizes that it wasn’t him. Surprisingly he has undergone a transformation.

The Five (Josh) destroy the rest of the eggs to get rid of the failed resurrections. Little did they know this was not the problem.

Xavier tries to communicate with Santo telepathically and discovered that it was and was not Rockslide. It was Rockslide but not Santo. He has no memories but a blank slate.

They immediately turned to Rictor into thinking he was another failure but he was the real Rictor. So… what is going on or went wrong with Rockslide?

The reason for Rictor being perfectly normal while Rockslide became something or someone else was because Rockslide died in Otherworld whereas Rictor died in the Healing Gardens (Krakoa) and in the process of resurrection, somehow dying in another world corrupts a mutant cerebro backup and Rockslide underwent a transformation, but only in the sense of becoming more new with an entirely new persona. So dying in Otherworld means you’re forfeiting your identity, memories, experiences and your physicality. If you die in Otherworld you have a true death… meaning that this transformation is due to new characters/personality arising.

It’s very sad to see a permanent death of Rockslide and that’s why many won’t forget this day, especially Polaris and perhaps Emma.

Now, this is where I became agitated… where Magneto had a discussion with Polaris and he’s kind of yelling at her, demanding her to find the information they needed to know in order to survive, which was of course the information that Saturnyne planted in her mind. All of a sudden, Polaris goes into a trance and began speaking all of the prophecy. Exactly what they needed to know.

After she snaps out of it, she grabs the remains of Rockslide and runs off. Magneto was concerned but Xavier insisted to let her go as they have a visit to arrange.

Apparently Apocalypse is dying and sadly the resurrection is currently offline. Magneto letting him know how much of a failure he is because of him everything they have achieved is now doomed. While their conversations were going on we see Polaris’ thoughts crossing her mind simultaneously.

Xavier and Magneto are very disappointed with Apocalypse’s failure.

We see Polaris carrying Rockslide’s remains, piece by piece without using her power.

Bleeding until she completed the process. Polaris uses her bare hands (as a self-punishment) to create a magical circle for all the 10 champions of Krakoa to transport them to the battleground.

As soon as she did her magical work, she has gathered all the others around to show them the real clue and what they needed to do. With the remains of Rockslide, she constructed a portal… a tournament key where the champions will be returning with their swords to the casting circle. After the 10 retrieve their swords, they will return to their corresponding circle and it opens up the tournament portal and will teleport them to where they need to be. While Lorna was explaining the puzzle, we can see a sorrowful expression on Polaris’ face at the death of her fellow mutant. The loss of the mutant weighs very heavily on her and lends to a key moment in her discovery of self, and the riddle that Saturnyne locked inside her mind.

At the very last panel, Magic gets to be the first to bring her sword to her corresponding circle.

Saturnyne isn’t done with Lorna that’s for sure.

X of Swords Part 5: Marauders #13

Polaris made a cameo dictating the prophecy of Storm. She looks very beautiful. Art by Matteo Lolli.

X of Swords Part 10: X-Men #13 and this is more than a cameo and “briefly”

Much of this issue occurs while Apocalypse is in extreme pain being healed as he lays dying.

Magneto ask his daughter if she can contain him so they can heal him since he was getting out of control screaming in agony.

Xavier informs Hope to assist Healer by supplementing his powers for a quick recovery. Both Hope and Healer worked together while Polaris was still containing him but not for long.

Apocalypse was getting more aggressive, the pain was excruciating, and he was determined to stop fighting for his life. That’s when Polaris couldn’t hold him down until her father says “we can” and both combined their powers and were successful.

Finally Apocalypse was completely healed, therefore, mission accomplished. He than went along to get his swords. Apocalypse barely made it but only thanks to Polaris, Magneto, Hope, and Healer since he was in a really bad shape.

Seeing Polaris up there standing with the true leaders as she should be… gets me hyped. Not a fan of Mahmud Asrar’s art. I prefer Pepe or Carlos so I hope Hickman takes note for his next book.

Review:

X of Swords is the first crossover since Dawn of X and to realize Polaris has a huge participation in this spectacular event makes me ecstatic but increasingly nervous. Especially when true death are upon all the mutants who enter to Otherworld. That’s when I knew things were getting serious.

In X of Swords Part 1, we got to see Polaris in combat against the original Four Horsemen and their army of demons. There is a gorgeous panel in the battle as someone gets angry. Polaris is one of the most powerful mutants of the X-Men. She can prove capable of the most surprising feats. Polaris nearly ripped the Starlight Citadel (one of the Marvel Multiverse’s most important places) out of the sky, all by herself before Saturnyne paused time and stopped her. After which Lorna was chosen as Krakoa’s Oracle to find the 10 swordsmen that would represent Earth-616.

Polaris was chosen as one of two Oracles for the upcoming conflict between Arakko and Krakoa; a contest between 20 champions, 10 on each side, wielding 20 swords between them, to stave off total war. Not quite sure if Lorna will be wielding a sword of her own (like we saw in one of her variant covers). I guess it’s too soon for a prediction. Nonetheless, she is the only one who actually knows the swords that need to be picked up and the mutants who need to wield them. And while Lorna isn’t among the sword-bearers, the Mistress of Magnetism who stayed behind in Otherworld looks like she’ll still be important to the story.

In X of Swords Part 2, Polaris has taken a prominent role in the current X-continuity under Williams’ pen; she’s our point of view character. It’s good to see Polaris getting some panel time. The green on Polaris’ uniform is stunning and will draw your eye on every page. The story gives the mutant layers of inner and interpersonal conflict that make her more interesting as a character in a unique way.

In the continuation, X-Factor #4, we see Lorna settling into her new role as Oracle, although it takes a while. And isn’t it ironic that, having pushed aside the mantle of leadership of the X-Factor team, she is once again thrust into an authoritative position as Oracle by Saturnyne? How fascinating. An oracle is a person considered to provide wise and insightful prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future. As such, It is a form of divination. Lorna is the main key to the mutants figuring out the riddle, and who their champions are for the tournament. So we know she plays an important role in X of Swords.

When a strong emotion hits, we tend to become the emotion. She seems to be conflicted for much of the comic, at war with herself. Her inner dialogue speaking to some self-doubt. Is this Leah continuing the voyage of Self-discovery that she started Polaris on in the previous issues of X-Factor? Or is this some other aspect that is unique to the X of Swords storyline? It isn’t like Lorna to dwell on her faults or wallow in self-pity, although it is VERY MUCH like her to blame herself for Rockslide’s death, perfectionist that she is. I guess we’ll have to wait until after X of Swords to see what the next chapter of X-Factor has in store for the Green Goddess. The ending was more ambiguous, one in which the future of Polaris was in question.

The sorrowful news of Rockslide’s death. Saturnyne predicted a sacrifice and unfortunately, it was Rockslide and how sad that is. Especially to see Polaris all brokenhearted, feeling guilty, and tears were rolling down her face. She never felt pain this intense in any of her battles. But my question remains. Why’d she blame herself? She could not have foreseen the consequences of his death. With his remains she constructed a casting circle where the champions get their swords and stand in their corresponding place because that is how the gate to Otherworld will be reopened so they can be teleported to the fight that is going to take place. But also she built it as a permanent memorial to Rockslide.

Magneto shouting demands at his daughter with a high tone of voice was uncalled for. Yes… there are times that a critical message must be quickly delivered to inform a person about an important event. I understand he wanted desperately to know the prophecy in order to survive but he also wanted his daughter to be perfect and active. Understandable why he didn’t have the opportunity to grieve with his daughter over their fellow mutant’s death with so much sh#! going on. I thought in her mind she shut herself off from everyone and was not thinking but wondering what she could have done differently. If some action on her part could have prevented it. Saved Rockslide’s life. But as soon as Magneto told her to do the work she immediately started to remember and spoke out the prophecy.

I totally like the fact that we get to see The Five having some good panels, since we never see them like we did here. All of them have a role to play in driving the story, regardless of how large or small that role is but at the end of it all the character who actually gets the most character development here is Polaris. She’s the main character in X of Swords Part 2 and of course, Polaris is getting some love here. The remarkable progress we have seen so far has me ecstatic. Polaris is featured very prominently in this issue and I loved that. We are really seeing her on a journey of self-discovery. X-Factor #4 is a good sign for things to come.

Honestly, this is some of Leah Williams’ best work to date. She was very patient and offered amazing ideas for this event. What’s fascinating is that Williams still manages to make sure the second issue of the crossover is just as engaging as the first. She does a great job of moving this story forward while also bringing the reader into what is shaping up to be an unique and interesting conflict for the X-Men and their world. Hickman, Tini, and Leah collaborated very well. Not to mention, Hickman/Tini’s in Creation #1 where Polaris vigorously attacked the Starlight Citadel by using her magnetic powers dragging them down to the battlefield was jaw-dropping. The remarkable strength of Polaris should genuinely be revered after this issue while Hickman/Williams put her on center stage.

Carlos Gomez’s artwork does a good job capturing Lorna’s emotions. He draws nice and clean lines in all his panels. There is a beautiful image of Polaris standing in the center of the sunrise, with a gorgeous lens flare drawn by Gomez and colored by Silva. Truly the art was a big boost to the story and same can be say about Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia. They are a duo. Pepe is one of the best artists working for Marvel.

So happy and excited to see what part of Lorna’s journey will take us and what deepest secret are awaiting to be awaken. Our eyes widen and hearts race as our Lorna strives.

This is not the end….

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I literally can’t wait for more.

Father and Daughter

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

X of Swords: X-Men event of the year