Immortal X-Men #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #8
“Part 8: The Curious Case of Dr Essex and Mr Sinister”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Michele Bandini
Colourist: Davie Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kieron Gillen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: An ageing photo of Irene and Raven in Victorian times.
PAGE 2. Data page – a quote supposedly from Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). “Fate is the word cowards use to describe the things they’re too weak to change.”
It comes from X-Men Legacy #214, in which Mr Sinister attempted to take over Professor X’s body, in a scheme which is referred to later in the issue. Sinister claims that, because of his tinkering with Xavier’s DNA, Xavier is fated to become his new body; Xavier defeats him, delivering the line and attributing it to Nietzsche. In fact, I can’t find any reference to this quote on Google that isn’t either referring to the X-Men Legacy issue, or including it in a list of inspirational quotes that seems to postdate the Legacy issue. (The inspirational version has it as “things we’re too weak to change.”)
Here, of course, the quote takes on a context of referring to Destiny, whose very name is an ironic contradiction of the fact that she devotes her life to trying to use her foreknowledge of the future to alter it.
PAGE 3-5. 1943. Mystique breaks into Alamagordo.
Alamagordo. Alamagordo is a city in New Mexico, but the local air force base was also the site of the world’s first nuclear test, in 1945. X-Men #12 (1965) establishes that Professor X’s father worked there, the original idea being to imply that Professor X had become one of the first mutants as a result of his father’s exposure to radiation.
Charts – 11 November 2022
It’s another week when a major album release dominates the singles chart. But first…
That’s three weeks, which is her longest run at number 1. Her only previous number 1 single is 2017’s “Look What You Made Me Do”, which lasted two weeks. (Yes, really. Forty-three top 40 hits, and that’s the only other one that made number one.)
3. Drake & 21 Savage – “Rich Flex”
5. Drake & 21 Savage – “Major Distribution”
7. Drake & 21 Savage – “Circo Loco”
That’s the maximum three tracks from their album “Her Loss”, which enters the album chart at 1. It’s Drake’s second album of the year, after “Honestly Nevermind”, which reached number 2 in June. That got three singles into the top 10 as well, but the highest got to number 7, and that one had… er, 21 Savage on it. Drake now has a total of 37 top 10 hits, thanks in part to album tracks, and this is his fifth number 1 album.
Sabretooth & The Exiles #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SABRETOOTH & THE EXILES #1
“X-Isle”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
SABRETOOTH & THE EXILES is a 5-issue miniseries and a direct continuation of the recent Sabretooth miniseries by the same creative team. The recap page covers the set-up, but for any newcomers, the following points are worth flagging. First, Sabretooth was sent to the Pit for breaking the “murder no man” law before it was actually made, and without any sort of trial, and in circumstances where he arguably believed he had a promise of amnesty. Much of the first miniseries is a discussion of the nature and function of prisons and authority. When he escaped, his fellow “exiles” (meaning here prisoners in the Pit) were sent after him by Mystique and Destiny, but the rest of the Quiet Council don’t yet know that the prisoners have all escaped.
This series has no connection with any of the previous incarnations of Exiles.
PAGE 2. Data page. A prologue by Mole, originally a very minor background character from 1980s X-Factor, who got to play a more important role in the plot of the first mini. He’s restating another of the core themes of the first series, that the background characters are marginalised and ignored by the stars, even the heroes.
Legion of X #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
LEGION OF X #7
“The Hand That Mocked Them, And The Heart That Fed”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1: Beast, Lost, Jean Grey, Vox Ignis, Pixie and Blindfold reacting in horror, while a thorned and horned Nightcrawler looks to be in pain.
PAGES 2-4. Nightcrawler briefs the Legion.
The two characters heading through the gate into the Altar are Maggott and Blob. Maggott’s getting an unusual amount of page time these days, albeit mostly as a background character.
The recognisable Legion members are Lost, Dr Nemesis, Chamber, Pixie and Fabian Cortez (standing separately from the others, but behind Kurt – without knowing his background, he’d look like a completely normal second in command). There are a couple more that don’t seem familiar, though I feel sure I ought to recognise the unnamed woman with the black hair and the cape. I’m completely blanking on her, though.
Marauders #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #8
“Here Comes Yesterday, part 2”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. A rather nice pin-up of Fang, Psylocke and Aurora by Peach Momoko. Nothing specifically to do with the story, but very pretty.
PAGE 2. Obituary for Tom Palmer.
PAGE 3. Flashback: The Threshold Three are sent into the future.
The unnamed character speaking here is Grove, who was named in the previous issue and identified as the leader of the uninfected Thresholders. The three characters that they’re sending into the future are Theia, Amass and Crave, the three Thresholders who were revived in the present day in the previous issue.
Wolverine #27 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #27
“The Beast Agenda: Skulls”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine with Beast’s control collar around his next.
PAGES 2-4. Wolverine is resurrected.
We left off last issue with Wolverine imprisoned by Legacy House and the Beast bidding for the opportunity to kill him. We pick up that scene later on in a flashback, but for now, this is Logan being resurrected on Krakoa. It’s a routine enough event that only Hope and Tempus show up. When the Krakoa era started, resurrections were a huge deal with a quasi-religious ceremony (admittedly, mostly for the first return from the dead). Mind you, if they made a song and dance about every resurrection of X-Force, then it’d probably look a bit bleak to the mutant in the street.
House to Astonish Episode 200
Or “Goodness me, is it that time already?”
To quote the Bard, it’s been a long road, getting from there to here, but we’ve made it to episode 200 of House to Astonish, and we’re indulging in our traditional vices of cake and fizz, and talking about Vault Comics’ Headshell line, Titan’s new Conan series, Joe Kelly and Kim Niimura’s Immortal Sergeant, and Ty Templeton’s cancer-free all-clear. We’re also reviewing a bunch of comics on a theme, as we look at Batman #200, House of Mystery #200, Amazing Spider-Man #200, and, er, Deadpool #58? And as always, the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is ringing in the new. All this plus the villainy of Soupface, the world’s least efficient purse-snatching scheme, and a small haystack that looks like a big haystack.
As we recorded this episode on Sunday evening, the news hadn’t yet broken of the incredibly sad loss of Kevin O’Neill, an absolute giant of British comics. We’ll have more to say about him on a future episode.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And has there ever been a better time to snag yourself one of our gorgeous t-shirts from our Redbubble store? Depends on your personal circumstances, I guess?
The Incomplete Wolverine – 2006
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005
We left off in the aftermath of House of M. Almost all mutants have been depowered by the Scarlet Witch – though by a happy coincidence, almost all the main characters happen to be exceptions, including Wolverine. On top of that, Wolverine has regained all of his memories. That took us through to the “Origins and Endings” arc from Wolverine vol 3 #36-40, where Daniel Way kicked off his Wolverine: Origins storyline. That arc already took us through to March 2006, but it continues into Origins itself. And that arc runs for a good long while before allowing a break in the action. So…
WOLVERINE: ORIGINS #1-5
“Born in Blood”
by Daniel Way, Steve Dillon & Dan Kemp
April to August 2006
Origins is Wolverine’s second ongoing monthly series, running for 50 issues and attempting to tie his back story into a coherent whole. On that score, it was a failure. It ties everything into a byzantine conspiracy arc involving Romulus, which has barely been mentioned since, presumably because nobody finds Romulus very inspiring. But it would be unfair to say that nothing in Origins matters. It also introduced Daken, and he’s still appearing prominently today.
In the opening arc, Wolverine starts hunting down people who were part of the conspiracy that exploited him in the past. He feels that he’s done terrible things in his life, that it’s no excuse that he wasn’t in control of his mind, and that he’s beyond redemption – but that’s not going to stop him from taking revenge. We establish that Logan started as a thug for the conspiracy, but went on to become a handler who treated other people the same way in a cycle of abuse. One of his victims, Nuke, resurfaces to lure Wolverine out. Wolverine defeats Nuke, but Captain America shows up to stop Wolverine from killing him. Wolverine beats up Cap, then gives the Muramasa Blade (which he retrieved in the previous arc) to the X-Men for safe keeping. Finally, he heads off in search of his long lost son Daken, believing that the conspirators are planning to engineer a fight between them.
Charts – 4 November 2022
Taylor Swift, it turns out, can dominate the top 10 for two weeks in a row.
Two weeks. The parent album “Midnights” remains at number one for a second week. The other two tracks that charted from it, “Lavender Haze” and “Snow on the Beach”, drop out of the top five… but only to numbers 6 and 8.
3. Rihanna – “Lift Me Up”
Huh. And there was me thinking that a new Rihanna single was bound to be challenging for number one. She hasn’t had a single out, even as a guest vocalist, since 2020 (when she appeared on a PartyNextDoor single that got to number 12). She hasn’t released a single of her own since 2016. So you’d think this would be a bigger deal. I mean, number 3 is quite a big deal. But bigger.
X-Men Red #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED #8
“Mission to the Unknown”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Madibek Musibekov
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Cable fighting Orbis Stellaris (or rather, Orbis serving as the head of the giant body).
PAGES 2-4. Cable and Khora recruit Weaponless Zsen.
Gosnell’s Bar is a bar which appeared in several issues of Al Ewing’s Guardians of the Galaxy run.
Weaponless Zsen was last seen in Legion of X #5, where she left Nightcrawler a letter and signed up to work as an interstellar mercenary. As she says, she managed to leave the planet just before a massive war broke out – Legion #5 ended with Uranos showing up to attack Arakko.
This scene confirms that she’s the daughter of the Fisher King and sister of Khora, as very strongly implied by a data page in issue #6. Fisher King “returned from his shadows” in issues #6-7 when the Night Seats members of the Great Ring resurfaced in the wake of Uranos’s attack. We don’t know yet why she and Fisher King aren’t talking.
