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Post by rberman on Jun 6, 2018 17:57:56 GMT -5
#5 “Gifted” 5/6 (November 2004)
The Story: At the X-Mansion, the students have been left to deal with the attack by Ord of the Breakworld which left Wing both wounded and “cured” of his powers, courtesy of Dr. Kavita Rao’s “ Hope” serum. A golden-skin teen heals Wing’s wounds while the three Stepford Cuckoos try to contact Emma Frost telepathically. In the sub-basement of the BeneTech Laboratory, Colossus has no explanation for how he survived the Legacy Virus that supposedly killed him. He’s been here in this lab for a long time, part of the experiments that developed the Hope serum. Ord was a central figure in his torment, and Colossus wants payback. Upstairs, Cyclops and Wolverine have been wounded by BeneTech soldiers. Dr Rao storms in and administers first aid to the fallen X-Men, who turn the tables on the guards once they have recovered sufficiently to do so. Emma Frost gives them a twisted telepathic implant:  As Wolverine and Emma discuss razing the whole BeneTech facility, Ord busts through the wall, having just returned from his thwarted attempt to find the X-Men at their mansion. Before he can finish his “gloating villain speech,” Colossus strikes him viciously from behind. But before Colossus can finish his revenge, Nick Fury shows up with his green-haired colleague and a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. It’s getting real!! My Two Cents: Ord was upset that the Legacy Virus failed to kill mutantkind. For years he’s been actively helping Dr. Rao develop the Hope serum to end mutantkind less violently. What is his game? He indicated to Wing and Hisako that mutants pose some threat to his planet; we don’t know any more about that yet. Whedon is fond of a concept called “lampshading,” in which characters openly discuss the existence of some story trope or plot hole, chalking it up to the mystery of human existence. It’s a clever technique for forestalling “But what about…” fanboy criticisms. The ramshackle nature of mainstream comic book narratives, with hundreds of authors contributing to shared worlds over the course of decades, makes inconsistency inevitable. The characters, seeing a bright light of narrative irregularity, “hang a lampshade on it,” turning it into part of the décor, so that it becomes a feature rather a bug. And I must say that Whedon gives Kitty some terrifically heartfelt dialogue to distract us from the plot issue:  So, when Kitty asks Colossus how he survived the Legacy Virus, he simply says, “I don’t know.” Well, sure he doesn’t know. He’s just a dumb superhero with big muscles. But does somebody know? Whedon implies that Ord saved Peter for experimentation purposes, following the failure of the Legacy Virus to kill mutantkind. How and when? We never find out; it’s not important. The point is that Peter is back to be a part of the X-Men story, particularly the Kitty Pryde story. Every Buffy needs her Angel. Kavita Rao makes a strong showing here. She’s apologetic that Cyclops has been fatally wounded, but she doesn’t wilt under Emma’s threats either, bluffing that her Hope data has already been shared with other scientists, such that destroying her lab would be of no use.  The students get only a few pages here, but it’s rich all the same. Wing confronts the loss of his powers. Hisako, another strong female Whedon creation, stews over not having defeated the massive alien menace herself. The Stepford Cuckoos are hilarious as always, scoffing priggishly about Emma’s relationship with Cyclops.  How is Nick Fury involved? We learned previously that the human soldiers hired by Ord back in issues #1-2 were using stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. tech. Cyclops alerted Fury to this, but Fury stonewalled. Now he shows up here announcing his intention to prevent the X-Men from carrying out their plan to demolish BeneTech. What orders is he following, and who is the green-haired lady at his side? (Unhint: Not Polaris.) Cassaday gives us a great jab at the absurd 90s costumes of X-Men. While Cyclops is bleeding toward death on the floor of the lab, he hallucinates a vision of Phoenix inviting him to join her in the afterlife. In his mind’s eye, he’s wearing an absurd amalgam of uniforms, including a ballerina tutu, a midriff shirt, and ten thousand Liefeldian pouches encumbering him all over. It seems too much to hope that all those terrible X-years were just a fever dream, but hey, we can hope! I also wonder whether it's intended as a nod to Grant Morrison's "Here Comes Tomorrow" arc, which was Jean's nonsensical dying dream, just as this is Scott's much abbreviated nonsensical dying dream.  Cassaday provides the covers of the issues in this run, and on the whole there’s not much to say about them. They tend to be pin-up style, which is too bad for an issue like this one that has lots of dynamic combat that could have been depicted. Did market research show that to give a sales bump, instead of showing action from within the issue? This issue’s cover features Colossus’ gleaming fist coming right at the reader, which is alright, except for the missed opportunity for his mirrored skin to reveal the astonished face of whoever’s nose he is about to break. (Ord?)  Sabongero’s review of this issue can be found here.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 6, 2018 22:32:31 GMT -5
I remember Elixir being a pretty cool character, but just WAY to powerful.... I was sad when they got rid of him (in X-Force, maybe?) I'm never really 'got' Abagail Brand... she's just to Whedon-y for me I think.
That Cyclops pic with the pouches is awesome!
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Post by rberman on Jun 6, 2018 22:51:20 GMT -5
I remember Elixir being a pretty cool character, but just WAY to powerful.... I was sad when they got rid of him (in X-Force, maybe?) I'm never really 'got' Abagail Brand... she's just to Whedon-y for me I think. That Cyclops pic with the pouches is awesome! I forgot to mention some of the other bells and whistles on that 90s Cyclops image. Codpiece, mullet, floppy buccaneer boots, garter bandolier of unclear purpose... this Image-style image has it all! Except no wrestling headgear. Not to mention the rest of Scott's delirium with "Ability-to-hop-man" and the other nonsense mutants. Brand's Whedonesque traits work fine for me, but I'm a fan of his work in general. I have noticed on this read-through that he doesn't insert as many pop culture references as I recalled; just the Sorting Hat so far. |
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Post by Cheswick on Jun 7, 2018 8:53:27 GMT -5
As Wildfire mentioned, the gold student is Elixer. He was a cast member, at the time, of the New X-Men series by married writing team Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Wier. I like that Whedon chose to use a pre-existing character with healing powers, rather than just creating one to suit his needs. Little continuity bits like that are always appreciated.
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Post by rberman on Jun 7, 2018 17:03:41 GMT -5
#6 “Gifted” 6/6 (December 2004)
The Story: This issue divides neatly into four acts: 1) The Flashback: Ord of the Breakworld is in conference with scientist Dr. Kavita Rao, having brought her scientific data that would have helped her stop the Legacy Virus that has ravaged the mutant population. Now Ord wants to help Rao find a cure for mutation altogether, wiping out mutants while leaving them alive. This suits her peaceful outlook, but she also doesn’t ask too many questions when Ord mentions that he has a mutant brought back from the dead. Also present is the green-haired colleague of Nick Fury; she’s identified as Agent Brand.2) The confrontation: Our heroes were about to pummel Ord into a pulp, and then burn Dr. Rao’s laboratory to the ground, when Nick Fury and Agent Brand show up with a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. No can do, Fury says. Ord is recognized by Earth authorities as an alien ambassador with full diplomatic immunity. Fury claims to be unaware that Colossus has been a prisoner of Ord and an unwilling party to the experiments which developed Rao’s Hope cure. He even lamely suggests that Colossus may not even be Colossus, but the X-Men shut him down decisively:  Agent Brand confesses that she knew all about Ord's experimentation on Colossus and deemed it a necessary evil, for planetary security. She introduces herself as an agent of S.W.O.R.D., a taskforce which “handles matters extraterrestrial” and is eager to prevent war between Earth and the Breakworld. War over what? The Breakworld has received prophecies that an X-Man will destroy their planet, and Ord has been sent to Earth to prevent that from happening.  3) The fight: A rampaging horde of mutants breaks into the BeneTech building, some of the many mutants who were loitering outside in hopes of receiving the Hope cure. In the confusion, Ord slips away, kidnaps Rao’s young mutant patient Tildie, and blasts off in his buried spaceship. He doesn’t get far before a Colossus/Wolverine “fastball special” subdues him, and Agent Brand takes Ord into S.W.O.R.D. custody. Is it a victory? Fury says it’s just a step closer to war.  4) The cooldown: Back at the mansion, Hank and Scott are still processing the return of Colossus. Beast promises not to try the Hope cure for the foreseeable future. Kitty is convinced that her return to the team, followed so closely by Peter's return, is no coincidence; it’s part of a greater meaning, a cosmic plan. She’s correct, in the sense that Joss Whedon needs Colossus around to tell an early 80s Kitty Pryde story, since their abortive teen romance was a major feature of X-Men stories in that era. But beyond that, we see Emma Frost watching the two of them from a mansion window. Emma is talking to someone off-panel about a plan of her own:  My Two Cents: “Why can’t it be a woman?” was apparently a Chris Claremont catchphrase around the Marvel bullpen in the 1980s, urging the male writers to think of strong female characters. Whedon’s television shows have introduced a long string of strong women including Buffy Summers, Zoe Washburne, and Caroline “Echo” Farrell. We have three already in Whedon’s first six issues: Dr. Rao, Agent Brand, and Hisako the X-student. All have strong moral centers and stand against opposition for their respective beliefs and agendas.  Whedon’s body of work is widely recognized for his attention to strong female characters, even winning accolades from women for how well he writes them. His biographer Amy Pascale interviewed Whedon about the influence of his mother Lee, a drama teacher: This issue has lots of exposition between Fury, Brand, and the X-Men, broken up by the mutant rampage and a brief fight with Ord. It doesn't feel at all decompressed, mixing plot, exposition, and characterization well. Dr. Rao is a major of piece of this puzzle, but I’m going to wait until tomorrow to say more about her, because she illustrates so well one of the major themes across all of Joss Whedon’s writing. After complaining about the previous issue’s cover, I’m happy to give this one a big thumbs-up. It doesn’t really match the action of the issue, but it does capture Kitty and Peter’s affection. Note that they’re not just doing a “standing spoon.” She’s actually phased. Her arms are inside his arms. Her right hand is inside his face. Her head is literally buried in his chest. 
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Post by Cheswick on Jun 8, 2018 4:32:52 GMT -5
rberman, I noticed you posted over on CBR, asking about Morrison & Whedon X-men-related blogs and podcasts. I don't like posting over there, so I decided respond over here. I don't know of any podcasts or blogs but, over at Comics Cube, Travis Hedge Coke has posted a few articles about Morrison's run that are interesting
and worth checking out.
www.comicscube.com/search?q=pop+medicine+new+x-men
www.comicscube.com/search?q=xorn
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Post by rberman on Jun 8, 2018 7:50:18 GMT -5
rberman, I noticed you posted over on CBR, asking about Morrison & Whedon X-men-related blogs and podcasts. I don't like posting over there, so I decided respond over here. I don't know of any podcasts or blogs but, over at Comics Cube, Travis Hedge Coke has posted a few articles about Morrison's run that are interesting
and worth checking out.
www.comicscube.com/search?q=pop+medicine+new+x-men
www.comicscube.com/search?q=xorn
Thanks! I will check them out. I am surprised there is so little material out there on this era of X-Men. I guess everyone spends their love on the Lee/Kirby and early Claremont eras and then gets tired of the project. I quite liked Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men, (now Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men), but their personal turmoil makes me suspect they are never going to get to these issues, and even if they do, it will take forever at their current pace. I tried out the Danger Room podcast, but the quality of their "insight" was just so low that I didn't have the heart to listen to more than the first installment. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 8, 2018 18:32:19 GMT -5
I still say "I am made of rage!" in casual conversation. I believe that line was from this arc.
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Post by rberman on Jun 8, 2018 20:24:20 GMT -5
I still say "I am made of rage!" in casual conversation. I believe that line was from this arc. Yes, it is in issue 5 when Colossus is clobbering Ord. I was sorry I didn’t have room to post that panel in my review for you. |
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Post by rberman on Jun 9, 2018 22:27:20 GMT -5
Interlude: Joss Whedon is Dr. Kavita RaoHaving spent so much time getting inside Grant Morrison’s head while reviewing his forty issue run on New X-Men, he has become the inevitable point of comparison for my reading in Joss Whedon’s run following him. One crucial difference between the two men now springs off the page at me. Grant Morrison is characterized by solitude, and Joss Whedon by community. Their respective jobs make this inevitable. Morrison’s lifeblood is reading, followed by writing. Not only do other people not help to get either of those done, they can actually be a hindrance. Joss Whedon, obviously, is also a writer, and also well-read. But the bulk of his writing has been for the extremely collaborative fields of television and cinema, where teams of writers sit in conference rooms and bounce ideas off each other all day. More than that, Whedon has a production company, Mutant Enemy, where he sets vision, delegates decision-making, hires, promotes, and fires employees. (At least, he participates in all that; he's not the sole producer/owner.) He’s also a director, again a person responsible for working efficiently with other people, including people of one of the world’s most brilliant yet temperamental sorts, actors. And yet, he’s not his own master. He’s actually a tiny cog in the massive global entertainment industry, utterly dependent for approval by studios like Fox, Universal, United Artists, and Warner Brothers. So let’s take a brief look at how Whedon’s life experience shows up in his work. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy starts as a high school student, in a scenario whose premise is, “High school is hell.” She fights different monsters each week symbolizing various teenage rites of passage, which sometimes on the show become actual demonic rites. Then for the second three seasons, Buffy is a young woman, going to college and working retail. Finally, in the seventh season, she takes a new job: In Hell. That is, she goes back to work at the high school as a guidance counselor, where she attempts to mitigate the damage that the institution is doing to the students. Can she subvert this evil institution and do some good through it?
Joss Whedon’s second television show, which overlapped Buffy and lasted one year later (five seasons total) was Angel, which followed Buffy’s former boyfriend, an age-old vampire turned private detective in Los Angeles, hoping to atone through good deeds for the evil he had wreaked in the past. Many of his investigations led back to the same place: the law office of Wolfram & Hart, whose occultic name is quite appropriate, since it is owned by demons. After four seasons of Angel fighting these demons, the fifth and final season has a twist: Angel has been put in charge of Wolfram and Hart. Can he subvert this evil institution and do some good through it?
Joss Whedon’s next television show Firefly died as a toddler after a dozen episodes, so we’ll never know where it was going, though I have my suspicions. The next one, Dollhouse, is about a global mega-corporation engaging in human trafficking using mind-wiped victims who can be programmed to take on any personality and skill set required for a given mission. FBI Agent Paul Ballard tries to bring the system down, but it is too strong for him. He is fired from his FBI job and, after floundering as an independent agent, ultimately agrees to work for the Dollhouse, hoping to find a way from within to free the “dolls.” Can he subvert this evil institution and do some good through it?
Joss Whedon’s next project was the massively successfully film The Avengers. Its focus point is Captain America, who having fought the good fight against the Nazis in World War II and then hibernated in an ice floe, has just awakened and accepted employment with S.H.I.E.L.D., the global police force of America, now the world’s sole superpower. When poking around the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier’s closets, Captain America stumbles upon a cache of weapons and supplies from the evil H.Y.D.R.A. organization which he had spent so much effort fighting. S.H.I.E.L.D. has shown itself to be distressingly morally flexible, which makes Cap ask himself: Can he subvert this evil institution and do some good through it? Agent Phil Coulson deals with essentially the same challenge on the companion television show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.The same basic story, repeating itself in Whedon’s works, shows his deep ambivalence to working in Hollywood. It’s brought him fame and fortune and his own band of recurring characters, a troupe of actors like Nathan Fillion and Eliza Dushku and Fran Kranz and Amy Acker who not only star in his productions for pay but also come over to his house on Sunday nights to act out Shakespeare plays together just for the fun of it. His work is celebrated for empowering women. And yet, the institution of Hollywood is deeply corrupt, destroying lives, mistreating people, especially women, in the quest for the almighty dollar. Does Whedon’s involvement in it amount to making lemons out of lemonade? Or is he just stoking an infernal fire further? Or both, in what proportions? This brings us to Dr. Kavita Rao, the brains behind BeneTech’s intention to develop and market a serum which will remove mutant powers. There’s clearly a market for it, as the long line of mutants outside the laboratory attests. This plot element was included in the film X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) two years later, in which Rogue eagerly signs up for the cure, while soldiers forcibly cure Mystique. Very likely some combination of those two fates lies in the future for the mutants in Marvel’s comic book universe. Dr. Rao says that she just wants to help people, but is she oblivious to the potential for her science to be used as a tool of oppression?   Not only is the goal of Dr. Rao’s project morally ambiguous, but the means are distinctly evil. Ord of the Breakworld may be honestly trying only to save his world, but human life (including mutant life) is of no consequence to him. Torturing Peter Raputin for years in biological experiments? No problem, if it gets results. Agent Brand of S.W.O.R.D. is willing to go along with it too, to keep the peace between Earth and the Breakworld. Dr. Rao never answers Hank McCoy about whether she knew that Peter was imprisoned, so we don’t know whether she’s more Jonas Salk or Josef Mengele. One suspects that she didn’t fully know, may have suspected, and chose not to investigate. Why? Because she was hoping to subvert this evil institution and do some good through it, and she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she knew too much about the behavior she was enabling. Dr. Rao doesn’t play a major role in Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men going forward, but she does become a vital part of the X-universe as a member of the science squad known as X-Club. But that group is pretty well integrated into the “heroes” camp and doesn’t have the Whedonesque “conflicted inside man” vibe that she has here under Whedon’s own pen. She also seems quite a bit younger and more glamorous in X-Club than the confident-in-her-frumpiness, middle-aged colleague of Beast envisioned by Whedon. 
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Post by rberman on Jun 10, 2018 14:45:46 GMT -5
#7 “Dangerous” 1/6 (January 2005)
The Story: The X-Men, eager to astound the world with feats of heroism, jump at the opportunity to defeat a Godzilla-like creature in Manhattan, resulting in a humorous encounter when the Fantastic Four arrive to do the same thing. The two teams collaborate, then give some high-fives and banter:   In some undisclosed location, a S.W.O.R.D. board of inquiry debriefs Special Agent Brand, who is completely unapologetic for collaborating with Ord of the Breakworld, who is now a prisoner of the U.S. Government, in the matter of Colossus’ imprisonment and experrimentation. Brand believes that the alien threat is sufficiently dire to overrule all moral considerations:  The student Wing, having had his mutant flying ability “cured” by Ord in issue #4, contemplates jumping off a cliff. His friend Hisako appears and… urges him to do it? So he does, and of course he dies. Then we see that he’s really in the Danger Room inside a holographic simulation of the mansion grounds, but the death was no less real. I’ll jump ahead and tell you that we later learn that Hisako was just part of the simulation. But who programmed it, for what purpose?   My Two Cents: Whedon and/or Cassaday are trying to make sense of what the X-mansion would look like as a prep school with 150 students, presumably 7th-12th grade if they matriculate around puberty. Morrison’s previous vision of an X-shaped building has given way to a crab-like structure with a large paved courtyard in front, a large glass-roofed rotunda in the back, walkways to boys’ and girls’ dormitories, a single basketball court, two tennis courts, and a pool. It still doesn’t look nearly large enough unless it goes down a few stories underground just for the school part, which may well be the case.  Two different plot threads are in play in this issue. The first is the tragedy of Wing, who is no longer “Gifted” and thus has no place at the “Gifted School.” His death will trigger a series of events which comprises the bulk of the “Dangerous” arc. The second story is the conclusion of the “Astonishing” arc, relating to the X-Men’s attempts to impress the world with super-heroics, atoning for the twin scandals of Magneto and Quentin Quire. This issue has both the wind-up and the punch-line for this one. They find that doing a great deed doesn’t help your reputation if the media is determined to tell a different story. Cyclops has some bitterly insightful things to say about this topic.  I suspect this is Joss Whedon venting his spleen about something in his own life. I was thinking it might have been the Writer’s Guild of America strike which led to his Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog project, but no, that was in 2007. But living and working in Hollywood since the late 1980s, I’m sure Whedon has no shortage of horror stories to tell about the media manipulating the reporting of events in order to serve a pre-ordained meta-narrative. In his Danger Room simulation, Wing is shown walking away from the mansion, off into the woods, and up the same steep hill where Xorn previously made the Special Class go on a hiking/camping trip. He arrives at the same cliff we saw twice during Morrison’s run. The first page shows Wing starting his walk while an unknown narrator (captions in white background) gives us several boxes worth of ominous “It is coming” style text. The second page has further blue-backgrounded captions reflecting Wing’s internal monologue, and the color of his blue shirt, and of course his blue emotional state. During the fight with the monster, Whedon gives us some nice characterization in the form of each character’s internal monologue during the battle. The obvious comparison is to Chris Claremont’s “Fate of the Phoenix (X-Men #137) story, which contained each team member thinking about Jean Grey. Here it’s played for laughs, as Kitty and Peter give us two pages of thoughts about each other, but Logan in comparison has only four words on his mind:    “Wolverine really likes beer” will be one of the running jokes of Whedon’s run.
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 10, 2018 16:59:33 GMT -5
First post here. I stopped following the X-Men somewhere around Uncanny #209/210 and X-Factor #3 so I've been trying to catch up somehow and this has helped. I have gone in for the Alan Davis runs of the various X titles circa late 1999 into 2000, plus have most of the Flashback special minus issues circa 1997. I was thinking I should be getting this run after Astonishing X-Men Vol. 2 #1-3. Does that sound like a good idea?
It's because of Kitty Pryde I got hooked on reading the comic 'back in the day' as I happened to start with #131 where someone my age was on the run in Chicago, a great hook. Searching for back issues led me to a comic shop sometime in late 1980, an amazing sight to behold as before that once a comic was gone from the spinner-racks in your area they were out of reach.
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Post by rberman on Jun 10, 2018 19:03:58 GMT -5
First post here. I stopped following the X-Men somewhere around Uncanny #209/210 and X-Factor #3 so I've been trying to catch up somehow and this has helped. I have gone in for the Alan Davis runs of the various X titles circa late 1999 into 2000, plus have most of the Flashback special minus issues circa 1997. I was thinking I should be getting this run after Astonishing X-Men Vol. 2 #1-3. Does that sound like a good idea? It's because of Kitty Pryde I got hooked on reading the comic 'back in the day' as I happened to start with #131 where someone my age was on the run in Chicago, a great hook. Searching for back issues led me to a comic shop sometime in late 1980, an amazing sight to behold as before that once a comic was gone from the spinner-racks in your area they were out of reach. Welcome! Your X-Men story is very similar to mine; I didn't make it far past UXM #200 either. I would recommend that you read Grant Morrison's 40 issue run on New X-Men if you want to get the most out of Whedon's work, since Whedon was partly building on and partly reacting against what Morrison did. I first read Whedon and then went back to read Morrison to see what I had missed. So you can certainly understand Whedon without Morrison, but you'll get more bang for your buck if you read Morrison first. And reading Whedon will make you want to read Morrison anyway. Here is my thread reviewing Morrison's run, which like much that he writes can be a bit difficult to follow because of his non-linear storytelling and big philosophical themes. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 10, 2018 22:42:20 GMT -5
Cool, thanks for the directions, I will definitely add those New X-Men to the list!
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Post by rberman on Jun 11, 2018 6:12:31 GMT -5
#8 “Dangerous” 2/6 (February 2005)
The Story: Several things happen at once, with each panel intercutting between the scenes. In a barn near the Xavier property, a ruined Sentinel emerges from the earth and, crying out for “My Lord,” drags its way toward the mansion, where after a pitched battle, Cyclops dispatches it with a massive blast.  Simultaneously, Emma Frost and her Cuckoos are felled by a mental attack. Locked inside her brain, Emma endures a monologue from an unknown mocking figure. Cyclops instructs Kitty Pryde to keep the students safe during the Sentinel attack by herding them into the Danger Room. They discover Wing’s corpse on the floor. The Danger Room activates itself, speaking through an illusion of Wing’s animated corpse, and locking the doors to keep the students in and the X-Men out. Emma Frost awakens to report that the Danger Room is “angry,” which implies that it is sentient and thus a proper subject of her telepathy. My Two Cents: Let’s review the Danger Room. In the very first issue of X-Men, Xavier had a computer-controlled gymnasium for training his students. Its narrative purpose was to introduce us to the abilities of the different characters in a school context.  By issue #2 it had acquired its ominous name and included pitfalls and target-shooting machines.  Issue #4 made good on that threat; now instead of just having gym equipment, it was a deathtrap gauntlet with projectiles and gouts of flame. Robot warriors began to appear as well.  It maintained this configuration well into the Claremont/Byrne era:  But then when the X-Mansion was rebuilt with Shi’ar assistance, it gained a holodeck atmosphere, so naturally “trapped on the holodeck” became a regular story, just as it did on Star Trek:The Next Generation.  However, I don’t recall the Danger Room ever generating interactive AI characters before now. The door to the Danger Room is now a round portal with a “X” embossed into it, exactly like the door to Cerebro in the X-Men films. Sure, why not? And the control room is far above the room’s floor, with a transparent floor to observe the doings below.   Special Agent Brand is apprised of the goings-on at the X-Mansion. She’s been watching it from afar and apparently has a spy on campus, because of Ord's belief that one of the X-Men is going to destroy his home planet, The Breakworld. We see that Brand has the name “Anna” tattooed on her left upper arm, and “Grace” tattooed on her right upper arm. To my knowledge, neither Whedon nor another author has explained the significance of those names.  Whedon is doling out bits of an Emma Frost-related plot thread. We saw her at the end of issue #6 conversing with someone off-panel. Now she’s hearing more telepathically from somebody nasty, perhaps that same person. It will be several more issues before this plot thread reaches a boiling point. Suffice to say that it is no coincidence that the Sentinel attack and this malignant transformation of the Danger Room happened at the same time that Emma and all the other telepaths suffered a psychic attack.  I also notice that she's ditched her Quitely-era platform shoes for something less stylish but more functional.
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