X-Force #50 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #50
“Violent Answers”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. It’s the final issue of this run so X-Force pose for the camera. Look, some of them are even smiling.
PAGES 2-4. Beast II and Wonder Man reach Beast Prime.
We’re picking up from the end of the previous issue, with Beast II and Wonder Man heading out to sea in search of the Krakoa-era Beast, and X-Force opening fire because they figure this new Beast has already turned bad on them. The Krakoan Beast – helpfully wearing a distinctive suit at this point – promptly punts Wonder Man back to the surface.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
Rise of the Powers of X #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #3
“The Ex Life of Moira”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: R.B. Silva
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Moira, on a bench, is approached by someone holding a gun. This is Moira as she appeared in the opening scene of Powers of X #1, where she approaches Charles Xavier and tells him about her earlier lives. The gun is presumably intended to be the same one that Professor X is holding when he approaches a much younger Moira in the issue itself.
PAGE 2. Young Moira leaves the house expecting her powers to emerge.
As established in House of X #2, Moira is reborn with the full memories of her previous lives but has to go through the motions of being a child in her first few years. This is the day when her powers are expected to emerge; until then, she can die permanently. We saw a version of this same scene at the start of issue #2, from Enigma’s perspective. In this version, from Moira’s perspective, her mother Lady Kinross is more clearly visible. Enigma’s version also has a panel of her looking rather downbeat before she leaves the house; here she seems more enthusiastic.
Daredevil Villains #18: The Jester
DAREDEVIL #42 (July 1968)
“Nobody Laughs at the Jester!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Dan Adkins
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not known
It’s been a while since Daredevil introduced a new villain with a proper concept and some real fanfare, but the Jester certainly gets that treatment. He’s not just on the cover and in the title of the story. He gets the whole opening scene to establish his schtick. Then, after a brief check in with Matt and co (who are mourning the “death” of Mike Murdock last issue), we’re back to the Jester so that he can tell us again how great he is, and explain his back story. Of the first ten pages of issue #42, seven are pure Jester. Today he may be a D-lister, but in his debut he’s a major new villain.
The Jester is a man in a jester costume who robs a bank vault with sleep pellets and some gimmicked toys. Then he makes his getaway by flagging down a passing car, which he steals by knocking out the driver with a yo-yo. But as the Jester drives home, he wishes had had an audience to applaud him. It’s the one thing he regrets about turning to crime.
Even so, the Jester is delighted with his achievements. “With my superb skills, my titanic talents, I’ll reach the most dizzying heights of all! Never has a dedicated arch-criminal been endowed with the background, the training, the natural genius that I myself possess! Here, among my innocent-looking, specially-modified toys, I am ready to launch a crime campaign the like of which the world has never known!”
Charts – 22 March 2024
It’s a very quiet week for new entries, but we do have a new number one.
1. Benson Boone – “Beautiful Things”
Beyoncé’s run ends after five weeks, as “Texas Hold ‘Em” drops straight to number 3. Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends” climbs to 2, and Benson Boone climbs to the top. This record entered at number 18 at the end of January, climbed into the top 5 in week three, and has been hovering in the top three ever since. It makes number 1 in its ninth week on the top 40.
The X-Axis – 18 March 2024
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #131. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. I think we’re far enough into this arc now to be pretty confident that it’s not going to miraculously come together into something coherent. Which isn’t to say that it’s outright nonsensical or anything, but it’s weirdly diffuse and unfocussed, meandering from character to character and relying on a rather dull plot about Selene and the Externals to hold it all together. This issue, X-Corp decide that it might be a good idea to send a Madrox dupe into Selene’s clutches to die, and use nanotech to spy on her. Which… I mean, I just don’t buy that any of the Madrox dupes are fine with that just because they’re dupes, rather than because they’re heroic. Which is certainly how this story seems to be playing it.
X-MEN: FOREVER #1. (Annotations here.) Apparently this started life as Immortal X-Men #19, which would have been out a couple of months ago, before getting reworked into a miniseries for scheduling reasons. It’s a curious choice on Marvel’s part, but on the whole I think it works out reasonably well. The jump forward in time to Rise of the Powers of X #1 allows for a few surprises and reveals to be set up, and then this book gets to go back and fill in the connective tissue, so you get the best of both worlds. That said, it doesn’t feel at all like the first issue of a miniseries, not least because it doesn’t really set up any story that’s independent of Rise of the Powers of X; as a tie-in issue of Immortal X-Men, it would have made much more sense. Still, Marvel do love their #1s. The best parts of this naturally relate to the expansion of earlier Immortal plots, and it works very nicely as a part of that larger jigsaw. As an issue #1, it’s a little weird.
X-Men: Forever #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: FOREVER #1
“A Ghost”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Luca Maresca
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kat Gregorowicz
Editor: Jordan D White
X-MEN: FOREVER. There have been two previous series called X-Men Forever (plus a sequel X-Men Forever 2), neither of which have anything to do with this book. The official solicitations and the trailer page give the title for this book as X-Men: Forever, with a colon. The cover says X-Men Forever. The credits page has it both ways. I’ll go with the solicitations.
COVER / PAGE 1. An unconscious Jean Grey lying in a Phoenix-shaped pool of blood in what appears to be a snowbound forest. This doesn’t happen in the issue, though we do see Jean lying in a circle of blood on page 12.
PAGE 2. Flashback: Irene and Raven attend a concert.
This is the first performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which took place at St James’ Hall on 19 June 1899. Irene and Nathaniel Essex both mentioned having been at this performance in the flashback that opens Immortal X-Men #1. We were told there that Irene had had a fit at the opening of the Nimrod variation; Sinister remembered someone having a fit but didn’t know Irene at the time. More of that scene shortly.
The establishing shot in panel 1 is pretty much a copy of a drawing of the Hall in 1858, artist unknown. (It happens to be the picture that illustrates the Hall’s Wikipedia entry but hell, it’s out of copyright.)
Resurrection of Magneto #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO #3
“Falls the Shadow”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artists: David Curiel & Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The Shadow King grips Magneto.
PAGES 2-4. Annihilation confronts Storm.
Issue #2 ended with Storm and Magneto arriving together in a black space and being confronted by what was strongly implied to be the Shadow King; that’s confirmed in this scene. Somehow, since the last issue Storm has been separated from Magneto and is now being confronted by Annihilation instead of the Shadow King. We’ll see later on that Storm can apparently unite with Magneto again through an effort of will, so either this is an illusion, or at least it’s the sort of magical weirdness that Storm is in a position to override once she understands it.
Charts – 15 March 2024
Ariana Grande has a new album out, and nobody’s going up against that with new releases.
Four weeks. It was fairly close with Benson Boone at number two, though, so he’s got a shot next week. She’s also now relying on the downweighting rule for her number one position – without it, “Stick Season” would be back at the top.
3. Ariana Grande – “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)”
13. Ariana Grande – “Bye”
“We Can’t Be Friends” is the release week single from “Eternal Sunshine”, which enters at number 1 – if you hadn’t figured it out, the video is basically a four-minute remake of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film released when Ariana Grande was 11. It’s a very Robyn-esque track. “Bye”, on the other hand, is just an album track. She maxes out her three song limit with “Yes And”, which rebounds to number 6 – though it only dropped out of the top 10 last week. She hasn’t had a number 1 from this album yet, but “Yes And” peaked at number 2 and it’s had eight weeks in the top 10, which I’m sure will do her fine.
The X-Axis – w/c 11 March 2024
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #130. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. In which Gambit and Feint go to New Orleans to see if Candra knows what Selene is up to with the Externals. On the one hand, this does actually do something useful: it follows up on Feint becoming a proper X-Man, of sorts, in Dark X-Men, and on Gambit taking her with him at the end of the issue. Basically Candra explains that Selene is planning to sacrifice a bunch of mutants so that she and her allies can become invulnerable as well as immortal. Well, at least we’re advancing the plot, but bringing in yet more characters to do so only compounds this arc’s lack of focus, and the book still has the basic problem that – with the exception of a couple of characters created independently and retconned into the group – the Externals simply aren’t interesting. If you’re going to bring back a concept that’s been largely ignored or used simply as a plot device for a quarter century, you need a compelling case about what it is that everyone else has missed, and this arc doesn’t have one.
FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #3. (Annotations here.) Well. I mean, I’ve read worse. But it’s not good, and as an anchor series paying off a whole era of the X-Men it’s really not good. I’m inclined to give the creators the benefit of the doubt that some sort of backstage chaos has been going on, given oddities like entire trailed storylines going missing, cliffhangers not connecting with the next issue and such like. Or Alia Gregor turning out to be important to the plot of this series when basically nobody has done anything with her in a year or more, even though X-Men‘s “Fall of X” issues seem to have been marking time with Latverian filler. Or… you get the idea.
Wolverine #45 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #45
“Sabretooth War, part 5: X Marks the Spot”
Writers: Victor LaValle & Benjamin Percy
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colour artist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Well, that’s a big X with Wolverine and Sabretooth at the sides, a Stark Sentinel at the top, and the three main alt-Sabretooths at the bottom – although “Cap” Sabretooth died last issue.
PAGES 2-4. Sabretooth returns to Krakoa.
The Stark Sentinels have been guarding Krakoa (to little effect) ever since the Hellfire Gala.
As Sabretooth points out, he was banished to the Pit right at the start of the Krakoan era (in House of X #6), so he never really knew the place.
Sabretooth has an Orchis ship because his Station Five base was stolen from Orchis in the Sabretooth & The Exiles miniseries.