The X-Axis – w/c 22 July 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #7. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Since they aren’t keeping the “From the Ashes” branding beyond the first few months, I suppose this is also going to be renamed or relaunched at some point? It certainly seems as if it has a specific remit at the moment, which is to bridge the gap between old and new status quos while saving the regular titles the hassle of taking up time on it. This is the first part of a Havok storyline, seemingly designed to explain why he’s not looking dead any more in the upcoming X-Factor book. There are worse ways to use the Unlimited books, and it’s a better solution than just saying “we’ll come back to that later” when telling that story isn’t really a top priority for the new books. This first part is basically set-up: Madelyne’s attempts to heal Havok still aren’t really working, and eventually the demon who’s charged with looking after him takes pity on the guy and tells him that they could sort him out properly in Limbo. It’s got a job to do and it’s decently entertaining along the way.
DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE: SLASH ‘EM UP INFINITY COMIC #6. By Christos Gage, Alan Robinson, Carlos Lopez & Joe Sabino. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a Deadpool and Wolverine film out. I guess somebody’s sat down and run the numbers and decided that it makes more sense to take advantage of that by commissioning random new Deadpool/Wolverine stories for Unlimited rather than promoting decent ones that already exist, but it seems odd to me. This is the concluding part of a functional mini which elevates itself with a few good moments but doesn’t actually have much going on under the surface. It’s absolutely fine, it has a nice enough ending, but it’s still hard to see why it’d be of much interest beyond completists like me.
NYX #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NYX vol 2 #1
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Artist: Francesco Mortarino
Colour artist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
The original NYX was a 7-issue series from 2003/4 about teenage mutant runaways in New York, best remembered for featuring the comic debut of X-23. This book is also set in New York, and also has Laura in the cast, but otherwise has nothing to do with the original NYX. Instead, this seems to be the street level book, about the mutants whose response to the fall of Krakoa was to move back to the big city and try to make a life there.
THE MAIN CAST:
Ms Marvel. Despite the title of the book, Kamala Khan still lives in Jersey City with her family, though she gives us an opening monologue about how she’s always been dazzled by New York across the river. She’s signed up for an “after-school school” at Empire State University where David Alleyne is teaching a course entitled “Examinations of Post-Krakoan Diaspora”. She uses her powers quite openly to swing or stride around the city at speed, and nobody seems to have any problem with that. Despite her openly associating with the X-Men during the “Fall of X” period, the general public (and even the anti-mutant bigots) seem to assume that she’s a non-mutant. She’s back to wearing her normal costume, rather than her X-Men uniform, and generally behaves as a solo superhero.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 21
Who is Humus Sapien? If you don’t know, we can help you with that! We’re covering issues 53-55 of Thunderbolts vol. 1, as Charcoal’s dad makes his dazzling debut and we meet the winner of the 1973 F.O.O.M. Magazine Create A Marvel Character contest! There’s people dying of asterisks and a krill-filled moustache! Comics!
The episode is here, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Bluesky, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And you can get a very handsome House to Astonish t-shirt over here, in this other bit of the internet.
Daredevil Villains #32: El Condor
DAREDEVIL #75-76 (April & May 1971)
“Now Rides the Ghost of El Condor!” / “The Deathmarch of El Condor!”
Writer: Gerry Conway
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores (#75) and Tom Palmer (#76)
Letterer: Sam Rosen (#75) and Artie Simek (#76)
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee
In certain parts of South America, January 1971 was an exciting time to be a diplomat, particularly if you fancied leaving the house. In Brazil, guerillas kidnapped four diplomats, and ransomed them to secure the release of 130 prisoners. At around the same time, in Uruguay, the Marxist-Leninist group Tupamaros kidnapped the British ambassador.
What, you might ask, does any of this have to do with Daredevil? And… well, yes, that’s a good question.
What it has to do with Daredevil is this two part story, billed on the cover of issue #75 as “A shocker… ripped from today’s screaming headlines!” Just to prove the point, it includes a Daily Bugle front page story about a kidnapping in Buenos Aires (or a “kidnaping”, as the cover says in three separate places). But this being the Marvel Universe, the story is not set in Argentina. We’re in the previously unheralded nation of Delvadia.
Charts – 19 July 2024
Well, Eminem’s got an album out, so something is happening.
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”
That’s seven weeks in total, two weeks in the current run. “Espresso” has been either 1 or 2 since the start of May. “Please Please Me” is still at 2, which means Sabrina Carpenter has occupied both number 1 and number 2 for five weeks in a row. Both tracks are past their peak but… there’s just nothing coming along to challenge them. We’re really overdue for a shake-up. “Espresso” isn’t likely to make it to week eight, though, because barring a miracle it’s due to be hit by the downweighting rule next week.
11. Eminem featuring White Gold – “Habits”
13. Eminem – “Renaissance”
These are the first two tracks on the album “The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grace)”, which might well be the main reason why they top the list. “Renaissance”, in particular, is under two minutes long and it’s not obvious why you’d be singling it out for re-listening. The lead single, “Houdini” rebounds 7-4. Most of the album would have made the top 75 if it hasn’t been for the three song rule.
The X-Axis – 15 July 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #6. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Hmm, so we are indeed already retconning the bit from Fall/Rise about Professor X killing the crew of the Agnew. I’m not especially hostile to the retcon in principle – I’m willing to buy that he fakes it if he has the chance, and that he’s convinced himself that the best thing he can do for mutantkind is to present himself as the villain and draw fire from everyone else. And the way in which he’s trying to cover his tracks hardly tries to rehabilitate him as a straight hero, rather than just getting rid of the single worst thing he did in Fall/Rise. But… honestly, blowing up one ship doesn’t seem so extreme in a world where Wolverine is a hero as to call for urgent reversal. And this does feel way too early. It only happened a couple of months ago and even if you do think it was a beat too far, it’s not obvious what’s so urgent about undoing it. That aside, the story makes a reasonable fist of selling it, but I don’t get why we’re doing this now.
DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE: SLASH ‘EM UP INFINITY COMIC #5. By Christos Gage, Alan Robinson, Carlos Lopez & Joe Sabino. Serviceable movie tie-in romp, innit? Decent for what it is, has some good lines, looks perfectly decent, but there’s not a great deal going on beyond that.
Phoenix #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PHOENIX #1
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Alessandro Miracolo
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Tom Brevoort
I haven’t decided yet how many of the second-tier X-books I’m going to do in the “From the Ashes” era, but I’ll probably cover at least the first issues of everything and see where we go from there. So: this is the first Phoenix series, although there was a short-lived Jean Grey ongoing about the time-travelling Silver Age version of the character.
PHOENIX
Phoenix is Jean Grey, and following Rise of the Powers of X, she’s now at full-blown cosmic power – but presumably without the risk of going mad like in the Dark Phoenix Saga. At least, nobody seems very worried about that. As foreshadowed in the X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic, Jean is off in outer space, doing cosmic things.
Her power levels are pitched as insanely high here. She can stabilise a star by absorbing energy from it. She can stabilise a black hole by… dancing with it? It seems to be a way of trying to visually represent her being in harmony with the universe, and it’s certainly more interesting to look at than a page of her thinking really hard. She can casually hold telepathic conversations with Cyclops back on Earth. It’s suggested that – much like classic Superman – the risk with Jean is not that she gets outpowered by anyone, but that she’s tricked into doing the wrong thing or overlooking the real threat. Specifically, there’s a suggestion that she’s a god who still thinks like a mortal and risks getting her priorities wrong as a result. She’s still too inclined to save the lives right in front her rather than look at the bigger picture. Or so the narrator suggests.
Daredevil Villains #31: The Committee
DAREDEVIL #74 (March 1971)
“In the Country of the Blind!”
Writer: Gerry Conway
Artist: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee
We’ve skipped issue #73, which is a crossover with Iron Man. The villains are Zodiac and Spymaster, but they’re not getting an entry because it’s not a Daredevil story. It’s an Iron Man story, and there’s absolutely no reason for Daredevil to be in it, other than (presumably) a vague hope of boosting sales. Daredevil’s contribution is to join in some fight scenes and to stand around listening patiently to pages of exposition about the origin of the Zodiac Key. Two issues in, Conway has yet to write anything for Daredevil which isn’t a complete dud.
Issue #74 is better, though it’s still not exactly good. It’s the second of Conway’s two stories about blindness. We open with Daredevil fighting some random thugs, getting clocked over the head, and miraculously regaining his sight. But alas, it was all a dream. This takes up a quarter of the book, because Daredevil‘s eccentric pacing decisions are unaffected by the change of writer. We still have languid opening scenes, and a desperate rush to finish the plot at the end.
Charts – 12 July 2024
Once again, not a great deal is going on. Perhaps this is just seen as a bad time of year to promote singles, since there’s not much happening outside the top 40 either. Still, even with rules designed to shoulder records out of the chart if they’ve been out for more than 10 weeks and have passed their peak, we’re very much clogged up with long running records right now.
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”
No, that’s not a typo. “Espresso” gets a sixth week at number one, after five weeks at number 2. In the interim, we had two weeks for Eminem’s “Houdini”, and three weeks for Carpenter’s own “Please Please Please” – which is now number 2. The difference between the two tracks is absurdly small – the equipment of 962 sales, a margin of 1.8% – and both tracks are actually past their peak. There just isn’t anything else to take them on.
20. David Baddiel, Frank Skinner & The Lightning Seeds – “3 Lions”
The Euros are on right now, and England are doing quite well, so here’s the obligatory England football perennial. In fact, we had this as a re-entry at number 32 three weeks ago, but it promptly dropped out of the top 75.
The X-Axis – w/c 8 July 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #5. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Hmm. So from the look of this, where we’re going is that Professor X didn’t actually kill the crew of the Agnew, but wanted it to look as if he had – and he’s psychically trying to cover his tracks, leading to anomalies which Sally Floyd has been misinterpreting as something to do with her alcoholism. That’s interesting, even if I have my doubts about teasing the reversal of such a major plot point that quickly. Then again, it also raises the question of what Professor X is really doing in a cell, having framed himself for murder. I’m certainly intrigued, though I’m not sold on the timing.
X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) The thing about “From the Ashes” is that it doesn’t have a unifying theme, unless you count “diaspora”. And it’s broadly intended as, if not an outright reset, at least a restatement of the core idea. I don’t have a problem with that; you need to go back to the themes from time to time. But it’s going to come across as fairly conservative (with a small C) and it’s never going to create the same sort of first issue excitement as something like House of X.
And that’s pretty much what we have here. We’re setting up Cyclops’ X-Men team, we’re establishing the cast, we’re introducing the new location, and we’re fighting some bad guys. I’ve read enough of Jed MacKay’s Marvel work to have some confidence in him, but taken purely on its own terms, this is a good-but-not-great issue. The new team go into action so we can get a sense of the team dynamic. The immediate villains are the Fourth School, basically an Orchis faction who’ve reinvented themselves as the U-Men; the bigger picture is the introduction of 3K, who are obviously the main villains of MacKay’s run.
