Analysis Notes
| General |
The Marvel Universe features a team of alien superheroes
— the personal guard of the leader of the Shi’ar Empire —
based on the Legion of Super-Heroes. This New X-Men run
is notable because it produces new designs for several of the Imperial
Guard, and adds or replaces a few existing ones, making it an analogue
of the postboot Legion. |
| 4 |
This love interest of Esme’s will turn out to be
Stuff from the Imperial Guard, who is a Chameleon analogue. |
| 9:4-5 |
This appears to be some sort of a vision power, although
there is no further indication that Stuff has such an ability. Perhaps
he is using a Shi’ar device? |
| 10:1 |
This alien script (the font is called Gobbledygook) is
also used in Legion Worlds #3 (story #2), where we can decipher
the letters into standard English versions. Not so, here, where
the translation appears to be “hbg hHulk jj kjjkaj lko kok”
(obviously nonsense, a random hitting of keys). |
| Gobbledygook is a poorly designed font. Some uppercase
letters are the same as their lowercase versions (A/a, C/c, Q/q), but
worse, some letterforms are very similar in different parts of different
cases (D/o are very hard to differentiate) or even explicitly reused in
different places (G/i, L/k, S/l, and H/s appear to use the exact same
letterform), which makes it basically impossible to successfully read
anything in the font. (It is possible that this confusion of letterforms
is intentional, ensuring that Gobbledygook produces gobbledygook.) |
| 16:2 |
The translation here is (probably): “all ni kiiht
uj...!” |
| 17:2-3 |
These are Squorm (who is new, equating perhaps to Tellus),
Arc (perhaps formerly known as Tempest and later Flashfire [real name:
Grannz, a contraction of Live Wire’s real name], but in a revised
outfit using the same color scheme; he equates to Live Wire), and Monstra
(seen more fully in New X-Men #124, where she clearly is an analogue
of Monstress). |
| 18:2 |
The caped character is Gladiator (a version of Superboy/M’Onel).
The gray character is Cosmo (revealed only in an interview with Grant
Morrison), although he appears to be a new version of Neutron (formerly
known as Quasar); he still equates to Star Boy. |
| 18 |
This ship and the Imperial Guardsmen on it evoke The Authority
and their ship, the Carrier. |
| 19:3 |
The previous Imperial Guard shapechanger was Hobgoblin,
whose base form was very much like that of Chameleon. Stuff is a
new character, since Hobgoblin died, but this could be the real base form
of Hobgoblin’s species, like the robed-and-tentacled form is for
Durlans. |
| 20/21:4 |
The gray character appears to be using a gravity-like effect
to warp the clouds, implying that he is a revised Neutron/Quasar, but
that isn’t clear. Note that the original Neutron/Quasar (no
relation to the Avenger using that name) was confined to Earth as a villain
during the “Maximum Security” crossover (he had supported
Deathbird in her bid to take over the Imperial throne; fellow traitors
Hussar, Warstar, and Webwing were presumably also imprisoned on Earth);
barring an Imperial pardon, this is a new Guardsman. The character’s
outfit will change to a reverse starfield in the next issue. |
| Reprints |
This issue was reprinted in the New X-Men: Imperial
trade paperback collection. |
