selenak

The penultimate one of Joss Whedon's run. (Thank you,

likeadeuce!)

Firstly, never mind the fate of Earth and the Breakworld, did Joss just kill off my beloved Agent Brand or is she just dangerously wounded? Either way, though, what Brand and Hank stuff we got in this one was excellent. First Hank McCoy suspects her of having set up the prophecy (I wondered, too, see review of the last issue) and basically gets carte blanche from Scott to deal with her as he sees fit, then she saves his life by taking a hit for him mid-battle, and when he asks her why, she says "you're the genius, tabby, go figure it out and save the Earth already". What I especially love about this is that Brand consistently has been portrayed as both ruthless and sincere in her saving-the-Earth-above-everything agenda, and it's entirely in character for her to prioritize Hank's life over her own for that reason... but it also works as a culmination of the way the two of them have been written as a bickering couple throughout Unstoppable. It would have been entirely ooc for her to get sappy about him, but if this was her death scene and not her dangerously-wounded-Joss-is-toying-with-my-feelings scene, this was a great final line.

Also: they so had sex in that snow storm night.

(I just need the damn conclusion to that storyline and then I'm writing the Brand/Mcoy-during-AXM missing scenes fanfic. Yes, I will.)

Otoh: if Brand IS dead, then this thing with Aghanne better not mean that she's secretly EEEEEVIL (tm). Aghanne instead of Brand as the one who set up the prophecy is an intriguing twist and you can make tentative ties to the opening scene of the arc with its dark twist on the iconic Superman origin scene - instead of putting a living child into a pod so it will survive the destruction of a world, symbolizing hope, Aghanne carries a dead one to its burial in space and sees this as a summary of how the Breakworld destroys itself - but I want either another motive beyond the two that can be speculated on right now - i.e. "we're doomed anyway, better end it right now" or "I lost my place as champion, and so I hate the rest of you anyway, muahwahaa" - , or another twist (i.e. for example the fallout of Peter ripping out the core wouldn't be literal world destruction but it would take out the entire powerlord infrastructure). Aghanne as a champion gone healer was a interesting more dimensional character; as long as she remains that way, I'm good with whatever Joss does with her.

(Sidenote: also, if Aghanne ends up as a mass suicidal evil overlord (tm) then we have a troubling political subtext about ALL the prominent Breakworld characters being bad 'uns and better off dead instead of reforming their world.)

Now, on to our gang: lovely scene with Scott and Hank, and I feel smug because I did say Scott got his powers back BEFORE that planned death interlude. It's still up to guesses whether he got them back through the plane crash in a doubling of his origin story or whether it was even earlier than that, once he had processed through the trip through his mind Emma took him on. Kitty currently in the bullet on its way to Earth gives fodder to the speculation as to whether Kitty will survive this trip, but for one thing, given her phasing ability, she's pretty much unkillable that way, and for another, it currently looks like Blindfold's prediction that "not all of them" (i.e. the people leaving for the Breakworld at the end of Torn) would return will be fulfilled by Brand's death. (Unless that hit was not a lethal one, again. Also, admittedly Blindfold did make her prediction in reply to another student saying "don't worry, the X-Men will return". Which points to Kitty rather than Brand. Hmmmmmmm......)

Then there's the Emma-Danger scene in which we find out how Emma enlisted Danger's help for the X-men: by promising her Charles Xavier. Which is totally an Emma thing to do, but you know, even if Xavier weren't up and about in other X-Men storylines set after this one, I would still say that the suspense here isn't in "will Xavier survive?" but "will Emma let Danger have one more shot at Daddy or is she counting on the fact Danger won't come back from outer space one way or the other?" Personally, right now, I think Emma - who back in Dangerous was the only X-men who said she understood why Xavier had done what he did re: the sentient Danger Room - figures Charles can take care of himself. He defeated Danger once already on his lonesome. (With a little help from Magneto off screen who had knocked out the various electronic equipment so Danger couldn't bring anything but the jet alive. And as it turns out the old Sentinel, but everyone had forgotten about that one being still around.) And was better at it than the rest of the gang put together. So he can do it again.

Lastly: Ilyana Rasputin? I dimly remembered she existed but had to look her up to get the "magic" pun. In any case, considering Aghanne is a Breakworlder, this still points to Earth involvement; I doubt Aghanne knew the names of individual X-men before they showed up in this arc.