Shadow and Flame with Magik

Written by Matt Fraction

Art by Mike Deodato and Terry Dodson with Rachel Dodson

Colored Justin Ponsor & Christina Strain

Lettered VC’s Joe Caramgna

Cover Dated November 2009

Utopia Part Six of Six, the Conclusion!

7 Days Ago.  Beast confronts Emma and Scott, in their bed.  I wonder if this dictates what they wear to bed as Wolverine did the same thing to them in Astonishing X-Men Volume Three Issue 1.  Beast is telling both of them that the other is keeping secrets.

Scott’s secret is X-Force and Emma’s is the Cabal.  Emma wants to keep hers but Scott is far to willing to share.  The story continues in Dark X-Men : The Confession, which I read but don’t own any longer so we won’t be revealing it.  Essentially, they share their secrets.

Now.  1.2 Miles off the coast of San Francisco.  The Dark Avengers are on their way to Utopia.  Cyclops starts telling people their orders.  I like this two page spread with the bottom panels.  Where it goes from Cyclops and the X-Men to a panel of Cyclops face to Osborn’s face to him and his team.  Cyclops wants the team to battle stations.  Osborn just wants Mystique to stay in Xavier form and the rest of the team can do what they do best.

Cyclops tells Wolverine and X23 to fight Weapon Omega and Daken.  Cyclops realizes that Hawkeye is really Bullseye.  He tells Angel to take out Hawkeye.  Angel comments that it isn’t him who Cyclops is sending, and Cyclops tells him that he is right.

Ms. Marvel is attacked by the mutants who she attacked earlier in the storyline.  Colossus fights Scorpion Spider-Man, who has given up most of the control to the symbiote.  Wolverine finally gets some revenge for his dead Alpha Flight companions by attacking Weapon Omega.  That’s a nice call back.  Especially as the Dark Avengers and the Uncanny X-Men don’t have much history together, the teams nor individuals.

Marin County.  Bullshawkeye is fighting Archangel now, as Warren is able to shift between the two identities.  He wouldn’t want to stay as Archangel as he is a lot more ruthless in that form.

The Big Guns are now in the fight – Sentry, Ares and Iron Patriot.  Namor goes after Sentry.  Iron Patriot fights Cyclops, which makes sense as they are the leaders of the two sides.  Norman is mad as Scott made him look poorly on the news.

Dani Moonstar comes to Utopia and takes on Ares.  Her fellow New Mutants help her in the confrontation.  I thought Magik was in this sequence but its Magma as you can tell by the flames at her feet.  I had thought it was a portal from Limbo opening up that brought the rest of the team there but its just the flame from Dan’s sword as she is now a Valkyrie.  Not sure where Magik is during all of the fight as she only appears in one sequence, as far as I can see.

Dark Beast fights off Northstar and Dazzler.  I like the idea of those two heroes together.  The X-Club shows up to fight Dark Beast.

Mimic fights Iceman.  Daken makes sexist comments about how women can’t fight.  Armor, X23 and Pixie start beating him down.

Emma finds Xavier, I think in the Dark Avengers ship.  Emma gets help from Xavier to shut down Sentry.  The last time she fought Sentry, in the New Avengers arc, Sentry, she established a White Room in his head.  Kitty’s in issue 8 of New Mutants, so we’ll review that issue one of these days.

The Dodsons did the opening pages for the Dak Confession tie-in and now they kick in for the Emma / Sentry White Room sequence.  Well, Emma and Robert Reynolds (the Sentry’s alter ego).  In the all White Room is one black square.  Inside that black square, is another Black Room where Bob is standing in.   The Sentry’s deal is that he’s super powerful but he has a dark side, The Void, that sort of balances him out.  But the Sentry is also a split personality guy so he has a Sentry persona, a Bob persona and a combo of Bob controlling Sentry sort of personality.  That’s my understanding.  Emma pulls Bob out of the Black Room and into the White Room.  The White Room is Bob’s safe place.  Emma keeps the Void at bay and this lets Bob take over Sentry again.  Sentry snaps out of his fight with Namor, is ashamed of himself and flies off.  Emma now had a shard of the Void in her head and transforms into her diamond form to keep it there.  Which becomes her status quo for a while.  I really like the way it resolves itself with Cyclops.  I think we’ll get to those issues.  Actually, Cyclops defeats the Void in Uncanny X-Men 519 – which doesn’t have Kitty nor Magik in it so I don’t own it.  Shoot!  I really like the Matt Fraction era of Uncanny X-Men due to how heavy on Cyclops it is.

Iron Patriot is just wailing on Cyclops.  Cyclops is annoying Iron Patriot, with how humorous he is being.  Iron Patriot is confidant as they still have Ares, to which, Cyclops asks him if that is the case.

Ares is being overwhelmed by Dani, he wasn’t expecting to fight a Valkyrie this evening.  Dani isn’t just a Valkyrie, she also has a bunch more power to take down a god.  Iron Patriot doesn’t like how the fight is going now.

The Void is chasing Sentry in space.  Daken is being beaten down by girl power.  Wolverine isn’t going down for Weapon Omega.  Ms. Marvel makes her way to Iron Patriot, trying to get him to give up on the fight.  The Dark Avengers are losing by sheer numbers.

 See Magik as the first X-Man on the top left there?  She has a tear in her costume above the knee, how did she get that?  We are now entering the era of “Everyone is an X-Man” which I liked.

Ms. Marvel tells Iron Patriot that no one has won over Americans by committing genocide on live television.  The Dark Avengers leave the island.  Iceman congratulates Cyclops but he still has one last bomb to drop.

In the last Deodato page, Cyclops makes another speech on television.  Cyclops has been an X-Man since he was 15.  He declares that Utopia is a safe haven and no mutants will be harm and all mutants are welcomed here.  It is in international waters, so they are no longer part of America.  They will still defend and support America but they are now free.

The Dodsons take over for the final three pages.  Norman hosts his own press conference, declaring it a victory as he has rid America of the mutant threats.  He and the Dark Avengers take full credit for all of this, working his spin magic.

Utopia.  We learn that Utopia is nowhere near functional.  The X-Club is full of bad news and a full workload.  Since Emma is in her diamond form, she is cut off from her emotions, except for snark.  Emma references the last time the X-Men lived on an island, it didn’t go so well.  I’m not sure what she is referring to with that line.  The island that Magneto used as a base, circa Uncanny X-Men 150, is my best guess.  That sure didn’t work out so well for Illyana.

In future issues, Beast isn’t happy that he was left to be tortured while Scott waited until Utopia was ready to be brought to surface, starting the six years (and running) of hatred that Beast has for Scott.

The story continues in Dark Confession and Dark Reign : The List X-Men 1, which I own so we’ll review that eventually.   There is also a preview of the next big storyline, Necrosha – which we will review one of these days.  The big thing to come out of that story is that Doug Ramsey comes back to the land of the living.