Die #9: This issue is reminiscent of the journey through 1914 of issue #3. Instead of J.R.R. Tolkien, we learn that Angria's master is Charlotte Brontë. It's less crazy than it sounds.
We begin the issue with everyone in dangling glass cages, presumably because Isabelle announced to the assembled Angrians last issue that they destroyed Glass Town. Chuck didn't come with Isabelle and the Angrians took Matt's sword and gagged Ash, so they're in a bit of a pickle. As they're dangling there, Isabelle realizes that Sol is Fallen, and Angela explains that they learned that the Fallen are people who die on Die. Except...Isabelle calls bullshit, because they were the first people to come to Die and the Fallen were already here.
I love this part. I honestly can't recall the last time that someone questions an assertion that the author originally presented to us, the reader, as fact. It isn't even meta commentary. It's just someone bringing up evidence that questions an assertion. Even though it happens all the time in the real world, it rarely happens in comics, mostly because authors don't really have time for it. I love that Gillen does it here, making this completely unreal situation feel all the more real.
Sol acknowledges the disconnect, and their jailor says that she knows the answer. Isabelle then recognizes her as Brontë. Gillen informs us non-English majors that Charlotte and her siblings created Angria, Glass Town, and Gondol after their father gave her brother a dozen toy soldiers after their two elder sisters died. The Brontë siblings became obsessed with the soldiers and created stories related to a shared world throughout their adolescence. But, when Charlotte sees her Zamorna one day in a vision, she is spooked. Later, she tries to summon her Angrian visions, and she's left almost literally petrified. Remembering her sister's chilled bodies, she realizes that the stories are consuming them. Branwell refuses to stop writing the stories and descends into alcoholism. Emily said that she had given up her Gondol stories, but Charlotte found new stories she wrote right before she died. Anne died later and, when Charlotte died, she awoke as a Fallen in Die.
Once again, Isabelle points out this story makes no sense. Charlotte claims that Die had to consume all six children to become real, but Isabelle observes that her two eldest sisters died before the rest of the siblings created Angria and Gondol. Isabelle wonders if it's a trick, and Charlotte says that it's all a trick: she's "a person made of a person," a literary concept. Although she's a master, she doesn't think that Die really has masters, but she protects who she can. At this point, Zamorna arrives in mist form, and Isabelle announces that they need to take over Angria to save Die. Zamorna frees Ash from her gag, and she commands Charlotte to free her. Ash asks Isabelle if she really trusts Zamorna, but she correctly asserts that they don't really have a choice: after all, an angry crowd took away Augustus as they arrested Ash and company. Angela begs Ash not to help, and Ash leaves her and Matt in jail so they can't stop them. Ash repeats something she said at the start of the issue, about how Isabelle defeated them not through weaponry but through guile: "This is how you fight in Angria." Indeed.
New Mutants #1: It took me a while to read this issue, because I was so excited about it that I was worried that I would be disappointed. Unfortunately, I was right.
I love the New Mutants. "Amazing Spider-Man" and "New Mutants" were my gateway drugs into comics as a kid, and I've followed them ever since. The problem is that we get old Hickman here; everyone sounds like robots reciting a script instead of people engaging in conversation. For example, Hickman starts the issue with Dani and Roberto reciting mutant history to each other as they walk through the Sextant, the area of Krakoa where the younger mutants live. Dani literally says things like, "And then came those like Xavier and Magneto -- elders of a more modern time -- and after that came the first wide-scale emergence of mutants" and "And then after that the mutant population exploded. Both exponentially and globally." People don't talk this way, particularly to life-long friends with the same shared experience.
It isn't just a dialogue problem, but a characterization problem. For example, Corsair and Hepzibah seem annoyed that Cyclops asked them to take the New Mutants to see Cannonball, because it brings them near the Shi'ar space. But, Roberto notes that Corsair told Cyclops that they were headed that way anyway. Corsair confirms that they were, that they're pirates who laugh at danger. So, he isn't annoyed then? When the team arrives at a space station called Benevolence, Corsair lies to the team about the Starjammer's plans. Moreover, he expects them to stay on board the ship despite telling them all about the innocent and tortured people who live under a religious cult's thumb on the station. Has he not met his son and his friends? Even more unbelievably, when the team comes under fire from Shi'ar troops as they try to free the prisoners, Corsair abandons them. I'm sure that'll ingratiate him to Cyclops next times he goes for a barbecue. Moreover, Hickman ignores the maturity that Sunspot has exhibited in other series, reducing him to the carefree playboy who he was at 13 years old. I originally thought that Bobby was taking everyone to see Sam just to visit and let him know that mutantdom is (allegedly) safe now. Instead, he seems to want to convince him to leave his wife and child. It doesn't say a lot about Bobby as a man.
The only interesting parts of this issue relate to Krakoa. First, Cypher has Mondo try to bond with Krakoa to learn more about him, but he infuriates Krakoa in so doing. Second, on board the Starjammer, the Krakoa flower that Cyclops gave Corsair is slowing killing the plants that Ch'od has planted, raising interesting questions about what Krakoa is doing to the Earth. It sets up the dropping shoe that we all know is coming as a result of Krakoa's sudden manifestations on Earth. But, I'm not sure if it's interesting enough to outweigh the other problems. If everyone is going to sound like exposition robots at worst or their teenage selves at best, I can't find a lot of reason to hang in here. These characters might in theory be the ones that I love, but until they start acting like the characters I know they're just lines on a page.
Also Read: Amazing Spider-Man #33
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