Thursday, June 11, 2009

My Wheels Grind Slowly

For a reason I can't recall, I was thinking about X-Factor #28 this morning. That's the post-Messiah CompleX issue where Rahne leaves the team. I was thinking about the scene where we see Jamie react to Rahne letting him know she's leaving. Jamie freaks out about it, and says something about having thought she was his friend, but he guesses he was wrong*.

That gets Rahne a little riled, and so she explains the vision Tryp the Eldest hit her with back in X-Factor #11 (12?Either way, she told us, through Doc Samson, what it was in X-Factor #13). The vision where she killed Jamie and Layla on their wedding night**. So she's sure that Layla (at that time lost in that crappy future) will be back, and she needs to get away from them so it won't come true.

After she lays this all on him, Madrox has an internal monologue where he decides that she's still hiding something, that this vision isn't the only reason she's leaving. I can't recall whether my initial reaction to his suspicion was befuddlement as to what else it could be, or doubt that Madrox was correct. Sure, Jamie is supposed to be a private eye, but he never absorbed the duplicate he sent out specifically to learn how to be the world's greatest detective, so I had my doubts as to how good he actually was.

Anyway, I didn't really give it much more thought, choosing to read on and focus on Madrox picking fights with those bigots, and Rahne's various goodbyes. Then I guess it just fell to the recesses of my mind. Today, for whatever reason, it finally hit me, the thing she was withholding was her joining X-Force. That's it, isn't it? For whatever reason, I had just assumed while reading the story that the other characters knew that's where she was going as well as I did. But I'm not sure how many X-Men know about the Stabbity Kill Team, and given how little love Cyclops has for Madrox, there's no way he'd let Rahne spill the beans about his assassination squad.

Well, it's good to know that all I needed was a shade under sixteen months to put that together. Go me!

* I don't have the issue in front of me, so I'm working off memory. That was the gist, he was mad she would leave, and she didn't seem to care enough to explain why.

** Jamie and Layla's wedding night, not some other combination of the three characters.

4 comments:

Jason said...

I would totally be reading X-Force if they had called it X-Stabbity Kill Team!

CalvinPitt said...

jason: Maybe the characters could even sing a song that incorporates the name into the lyrics? It could be the most cheerful, over-the-top violence book ever!

SallyP said...

I'm still having trouble believing that an old stick-in-the-mud like Cyclops actually HAS a Stabbity-Kill team! Considering all the times he used to lecture Wolverine about excessive force, it just seems...odd.

On the other hand, I haven't read X-Men in quite a while, so what do I know?

Seangreyson said...

Well to give a nod to continuity,
Cyclops has been a little bit crazy ever since he was possessed by Apocalypse. Plus all the other high-stress stuff that has happened since then (Messiah Complex, M-day, Morrison taking over as writer).

As for whether the X-men in general know. I believe the answer is no. Beast makes a big deal in the last issue of Uncanny that there's too many secrets on the team and specifically calls out Cyclops on Logan's team, and Emma on her dealings with the Cabal.