Charts – 14 August 2026
Okay, it’s late in the week, let’s see if we can do this one quickly.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Twenty-one interminable weeks. It is dropping off now that the publicity from breaking the record has passed, though, so it’s probably only a matter of time before it finally, finally, goes to ACR and gets removed from number 1.
8. Madonna & Kylie Minogue – “Love Sensation”
With a combined age of over 125, this is the single remix of a track from Madonna’s recent album. Unusually, it’s here almost entirely on sales, and two thirds of those are CDs. The midweeks have it vanishing. Still, the track’s not bad at all, and it suits Kylie.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 32
New volume, new team, new episode, as Paul and I look at 2005’s New Thunderbolts issues 1-3, and Mach IV assembles a wonky squad of screw-ups to take on one of Marvel’s classic Barons (so what else is new?). There’s also the clunk of victory, the burger van outside TBolts HQ and the hitherto-unsung villainy of Portugal.
The episode is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, or via email.
The X-Axis – 13 August 2026
X-MEN #35. (Annotations here.) Billed as a prelude to DNX, this is mostly a character-based issue with the Beast and Magik, though it does end by leading into the story proper. The heart of it is to show us the conversation between the Beast and the Chairman that took place after the end of issue #25, which apparently still qualifies as recent. I guess logically it does, since “Danger Room” takes about a day, but it doesn’t feel like it, which is another reason I’m not so wild about the four-parters in this series. But this sort of issue leans into the book’s strengths. The broad idea that the Beast sees the Chairman as his dark side is hardly surprising – it’s the entire concept of having a rebooted version of the Beast in the first place – but it’s elevated by giving Illyana’s perspective on the idea, and by the hints of the Chairman himself having a slightly ambivalent attitude towards his “good” self. I’m not especially interested in the X-virus itself, but I am keen on seeing how this character arc plays out.
X-MEN UNITED #6. (Annotations here.) This seems to be cancelled with issue #10, and it’s now acquired a co-writer. To some extent, that does seem to have punched up its superhero aspects, which feel a bit tighter than they did before. There’s at least an attempt here to draw out an idea that the Shadow King is taking advantage of doubts and mutual distrust, so the X-Men need to beat him by drawing together (though that would have worked better as a justification for setting up the school in the first place, not as something that happens after the fact). It’s still a book with a lot of problems, though. Shuhvahrak is miles out of character from the way she was written in Uncanny X-Men, to the point where I was on my third reading of the book before it even occurred to me that she wasn’t meant to be an obvious illusion. The whole idea of all mutants having versions of their dark sides in the Penumbra is just bizarre, and falls apart if you think about it too hard – it’s there to justify a fight against dark doppelgangers, but makes no sense as an actual feature of the Penumbra. The book still can’t figure out the basic ground rules about whether people travel physically to Graymatter Lane or not. Nobody really feels in character, and the Exceptional X-Men cast have almost all been lost in the shuffle. I liked that book a lot. I’m just looking forward to this one being over with, I’m afraid.
Generation X-23 #7 annotations
GENERATION X-23 #7
“Homecoming”
Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Marco Renna
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editors: Mark Basso & Alanna Smith
COVER: Wolverine (Logan) with the regular cast. Surprise! is turning herself into a second Logan. The avian X-66 also appears on the cover, despite the fact that she was separated from the group at the end of issue #5, and doesn’t appear in this issue. This also happened in the previous issue, presumably to avoid spoilers for issue #5 when the covers appeared in the solicitations.
WOLVERINE (Laura):
She says the whole series has only taken a week, and she hasn’t had time yet to figure out a plan for what to do with the Generated. It seems odd that she found time to get costumes made for them, but I guess that’s genre convention for you. Logan sensibly advises her that she needs to start taking the initiative.
Her initial reaction is to refuse to let the Generated return to Facility-23, but she backs down partly because Logan argues that they’ll just go without her, and partly because she decides on reflection that knowing more about where she came from helped her come to terms with her past.
Wolverine #25 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #25
“Eruption”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Um, well, that’s a symbolic image of Wolverine floating in a pool with skulls in the background and giant syringes in the foreground.
WOLVERINE:
He regains his healing factor immediately on shutting down Mor’s nanotech device. It seems to return him to normal within a matter of minutes, complete with regrowing the bone claws on his right hand. This means that Mor’s nanotech must have kicked in just after the fight with the Adamantine, apparently by sheer coincidence. We’re not directly told what happens to the nanotech in Wolverine’s body, either, even if it’s currently not active – let’s assume that, now that it’s completely inert as opposed to biding its time, his healing factor can eliminate it.
Department H still want to speak to him about the New Morlocks storyline, and he has no interest in co-operating with that.
X-Men United #6 annotations
X-MEN UNITED #6
“Shadow Play, part 2”
Writers: Eve L Ewing & Evan Narcisse
Pencillers: Tiago Palma & Eduardo Pansica
Inkers: Tiago Palma & Oren Junior
Colourist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
COVER: A generic image of Beast, Nightcrawler and Axo in action, with Axo’s colour-changing matching the other two. Nothing along these lines happens in the issue.
Curiously, this story is billed as “Shadow Play, part 2”. The previous issue was indeed entitled “Shadow Play”, but it was the second part of a storyline that had begun in the previous issue. Still, if Marvel say it’s part 2, then part 2 it is.
By way of recap, then: In issue #4, Iceman ropes Cyclops, Emma Frost, Rogue, Deathdream and Ben Liu into a team-building exercise that involves an RPG in a fantasy landscape created using Ben’s powers. An outside entity hijacks the scenario and Deathdream gets dragged away into a portal. In issue #5, Deathdream emerges back in Graymatter Lane, and alerts the other students. It turns out that “all of the adults” are also missing. One of the students, Mal Chance, is privately approached by the Shadow King, who is apparently responsible for all this. A psychic attack on the students as a whole is fended off by Sophie Cuckoo.
X-Men #35 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #35
“A Gift”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Mirrored images of the Beast with the X-Men, and the Chairman with 3K. Aside from Magneto/Joseph, the other individual members don’t match up one for one in the two group shots.
THE X-MEN:
Beast. At the end of issue #25, the Beast figured out that 3K’s Chairman was the original Beast, and made contact with him (with Animalia present). For anyone really coming to this new, the original Beast became a villain during the Krakoan era. The Beast currently with the X-Men is a clone who was restored from a back-up made long before that happened.
We didn’t get to see the conversation at the time. It turns out that Beast has only shared the information about the Chairman’s identity with Animalia and Cyclops. Scott permitted him to keep it to himself for the moment given the emotional sensitivity, but made clear that this could only be a breathing space. Animalia has evidently honoured this as well.
Daredevil Villains #83: Typhoid
DAREDEVIL #254-256 (May to July 1988)
“Typhoid” / “Temptation” / “Blindspots”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Colourist: Max Scheele
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Up to this point, Ann Nocenti has given us a lot of one-off villains, and a few who showed more staying power. But Typhoid really is a major addition to the rogues gallery, and someone who goes on to be used across the Marvel Universe.
She’s also the first Nocenti creation to get an extended storyline. Previous new characters appeared in one or two issues, but Typhoid is around for nearly a year. While I’ve given the credits for issues #254-256 above, she appears in some form in every issue from #254 to #263, except for a fill-in story in issue #258.
Issue #254 opens with a splash page of Typhoid, complete with her swords, her one-armed jacket, her weird metal shoulder plates, her fishnets, her braids, and the white make-up on the right half of her face. She has a serious expression. Meanwhile, the narrator tells us that poisonous people live among without knowing what they are, doing what they have to do to survive. “Touch her, she’s the best,” the narrator adds. The opening scene has her breaking up a mugging, only to enlist the mugger as her sidekick – she “brands” the guy by clawing his face with her fingernails, offers him excitement, kisses him, and declares that “Typhoid’s on top, she calls the shots”. It’s mostly played as if the mugger, Rip, is receiving some sort of infection.
Charts – 7 August 2026
Oh god, it’s going to be here forever.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Twenty weeks. Last week, it set an all time record for the longest run at number one; the publicity from that has resulted in a sales boost, and so once again it’s off the hook for potential downweighting for another few weeks. It continues to have 20% lead over the number 2 single, and it simply can’t be stopped.
It’s maybe worth mentioning that while this sort of rein is unheard of on the singles chart, it’s not so exceptional where the album chart is concerned. Adele’s “21” had 23 weeks as the album number 1, and the South Pacific soundtrack was number 1 for the entirety of 1959.
4. Ariana Grande – “Petal”
15. Ariana Grande – “Kiss Me”
The X-Axis – 5 August 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #33. (Annotations here.) Well, this is certainly a quiet week. To be fair, I think Midnight X-Men #1 may have originally been scheduled for this week before they decided to launch the whole line in October. But as it is, we have just the two books.
First up, we have Rogue and Gambit looking for an exorcist. And Gail Simone continues to dust off unlikely genre characters for the purpose, with an improbable guest-starring role for Devil-Hunter. It doesn’t really matter whether you recognise him or not (you almost certainly don’t, he had a vanishingly short run in a horror anthology in the mid-seventies), since he’s basically serving here as an all-purpose grumpy exorcist. There’s a nagging question about why they’re going to this guy at all. Isn’t Magik the obvious first port of call? I know there’s a limit to how far you can take the consequences of a shared universe, because that way lies “why doesn’t everyone just call the Avengers”, to which the answer is “because it would be boring”. But Magik’s in the other X-Men book.
