jephyork wrote:Chris McC -- in case Wolvie hasn't thanked you privately yet -- thanks! That is one hell of a list, and I'm sure it'll give our resident Index writer a much better frame of reference to put the final polish on his entries. Good stuff!
I haven't had the time to go through it myself yet, but I plan to when I do my own audit of the X-books sometime next month. Other folks, feel free to kibbitz -- Jason already caught a goof, so if anyone else sees anything, chime in!
-Jeph!
Glad to help, Jeph. I'm sure I've made more goofs than the one Jason caught, so yes, please feel free to jump in with corrections.
BTW, big thanks to ComicBookDB.com and UncannyXMen.net for research help, as well as Paul for his calendar.
A quiet moment just freed up so I could come on here and see ALL THAT! Yikes. Well, thanks for that, Chris...and at the same time sorry my original post made you do ALL that work! Either way, the help is appreciated.
Meantime, I'll soon be starting to run through the chronos I've been working on here to see if I've got all my bases covered. Again, stay tuned.
Lemme run this by any folks who happen to be in the know.
Okay, we've got the ghost box arc of Astonishing, the opening arc of X-Force, and World's Apart that all roughly take place around the same time.
Now, based on events in the various books, I'm inclined to place them like such:
Astonishing-The X-Men go on a mission while their new home is being built, and Storm just arrives on the scene, leading to her being present for...
Uncanny #500, whose ending has a two week gap which could be filled by
World's Apart, where Storm has to decide if she can be both Queen and X-Man and Cyclops is searching for Mutants to bring to San Fran. And, alongside that, the X-Force arc. Cyclops' dispensing the mission in Colorado could be taken as his stopping along the way to NY to meet Storm for a clandestine meeting. It would also explain why Wolverine wasn't present during WA #4 when Cyclops was possessed by Shadow King, and why Warpath suddenly goes MIA in #500 despite his being in San Fran to fall victim to Mastermind's illusion.
You've also got to feed Secret Invasion: X-Men in very close to UX 500, along with XFOR3 7-10 and C3 7-8 - which creates problems, due to the absence of Wolfsbane after XFOR3 8, the fact that she's programmed to kill Angel on sight until then, that Warren can't control the Archangel persona to any extent (especially around her) until after then, and that Wolfsbane and Archangel appear quite happily together in SI:X. [Logically, just reading the books, XFOR3 7-10 would occur well before UX 500, but the Archangel/Wolfsbane situation makes that impossible.]
There's no obvious gap in the XFOR story to pick out, though. Any gap MUST go after Rahne is deprogrammed by the Cuckoos (you can't put anything involving Wolfsbane between #6 and #7), but the Elixir situation, and the way his mindwipe is permanently postposed by the Vanisher situation, and the way Rahne leaves while the others are off doing dealing with that... well...
My solution, and it's a weak one, is to simply ... er, ignore the Wolfsbane/Archangel situation in SI:X. Maybe Cyclops roped in the Cuckoos (or someone) to control her mind during that time, and it was a temporary measure that wore off by the time XFOR3 #7 came about. Or something. *handwave*
Still, XFOR3 #1-6 does need to go before UX #500, for no other reason than Angel becoming Archangel BTS in UX #500 to deal with the Sentinel.
jephyork wrote:My solution, and it's a weak one, is to simply ... er, ignore the Wolfsbane/Archangel situation in SI:X. Maybe Cyclops roped in the Cuckoos (or someone) to control her mind during that time, and it was a temporary measure that wore off by the time XFOR3 #7 came about. Or something. *handwave*
*handwave* is right. Why not just go the whole hog and just say Wolfsbane didn't actually appear in SI:X, however much it looked like she did? [It's got precedent in that [WC?] Avengers Annual with Tigra during Byrne's run, where it was retroactively declared she didn't appear since her situation in the main AWC book at the time didn't allow for it]
The Cuckoos apparently had absolutely no trouble deprogramming Rahne once they got hold of her. The problem was Cyclops refusing to bring them or Frost in on X-Force's continued existence in the first place, leading to the farce in XFOR3 7 where Rahne went nuts as soon as she saw Angel, and set Warren off. [It wasn't even Cyclops that brought them in in the end, but X-23.]
jephyork wrote:Still, XFOR3 #1-6 does need to go before UX #500, for no other reason than Angel becoming Archangel BTS in UX #500 to deal with the Sentinel.
Indeed. It also needs to go before YX 1-6, given Donald Pierce's situation.
Okay, how's this for a handwave? Wolfsbane IS programmed to attack and kill Angel ... but maybe she's NOT programmed to attack and kill ARCHANGEL.
When we see Wolfsbane in SI:X #2, she's with Warren -- and it's notable that this is the only time in the entire miniseries he's in his Archangel form. All other issues, he's in his Angel form and there's no sign of Wolfsbane.
And then, in XFO3 #7, Warren is in his Angel form when they test whether or not Rahne's still programmed.
I don't think it's that big of a stretch to say that X-Force figured Rahne's conditioning out earlier, and when they brought her in for the offensive in SI:X #2, Warren stayed in Archangel mode, where he was safe. Then, they took her away again (for Angel's protection?) once that battle was done, and Warren could relax again.
More plausible, perhaps (and it had occurred to me)... but then I look at the scene where Rev. Craig walks in front of a statue of an angel and triggers her conditioning, which says her brainwashing wasn't that specific. (And besides anything else, there's absolutely no chance that little incident could recur at any point if they let her wander around free without deprogramming her? Hellavarisk)
Also, remind me - is Elixir seen in SI:X at all? I can't recall off the top of my head...
It's not a statue of an Angel. He walks in front of Angel's old wings, hanging on hooks. So, in both cases, Wolfsbane still reacts to the sight of Angel's feathered wings.
And the "hell of a risk" factor is true, but then again -- the Skrulls are invading Earth! And as for "letting her wander aroud free", I addressed this in my last post, when I noted that she appears in #2 only, WITH X-Force (in the custody of X-Force?), and then vanishes again. I theorized that they took her away -- perhaps for Angel's safety -- after that specific battle was over.
I originally had XFor before 500 in my initial research but thought it fit better after. When was it established Angel "hulked out" bts? I don't recall any indication outside of the grim appearance on his face after the job is done.
As Angel flies off, Emma incredulously asks him how he expects to handle a Sentinel single-handedly. We then see the Sentinel on fire and a grim Angel holding its guts in his bare hands...
And something else to consider - in last week's Hulk Team Up (set during the events and aftermath of Teh Lobe's Hulk #4-6), which is necessarily pre-Secret Invasion because of Iron Man's role in the Hulk arc [well before, if I'm recalling Fury's Moon Knight notes correctly], the X-Men are in their SF Greymalkin base, in their Bianchi (UX 500-on) costumes (mostly, the artist appears to have got some bad references on a few), and Angel goes Archangel on a bunch of Harpy robots.
Good stuff!
