Daredevil Villains #81: Ammo
DAREDEVIL #252 (March 1988)
“Ground Zero”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Al Williamson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Max Scheele
Editor: Ralph Macchio
For some reason, Daredevil #252 is a double sized issue. It’s not an anniversary issue. It’s not a fresh start. It’s not the climax of a long running storyline. It’s not even a turning point. Instead, it’s a tie-in to “Fall of the Mutants”, which was taking place over in Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and X-Factor.
“Fall of the Mutants” wasn’t even a crossover. It consisted of three separate turning-point storylines that barely interacted with one another. But despite that, there were four tie-in issues. All four of them linked to X-Factor‘s storyline, in which Apocalypse and his Horsemen attack New York. The only connection with Daredevil is that it happens to take place in his city.
This turns out not to be a problem. Ann Nocenti has a story that she wants to tell here, and it’s about how everyone in Hell’s Kitchen reacts when a disaster hits and they fear the world might be ending. To do that story, you need a disaster, but the disaster itself isn’t the point, and so Nocenti doesn’t want to waste time in this book on actually setting it up or resolving it. A crossover provides a wonderful solution to this problem: it means that she doesn’t have to explain the disaster at all, and anyone who really cares can be referred to another book where the details actually matter. She doesn’t even need to recap the plot of the crossover, because it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know what’s happening or why… well, nor do any of the regular characters, and that’s the whole point.
Charts – 3 July 2026
We’re almost at the point where this has stopped being boring and started being interesting again.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
That’s 15 weeks at number 1, and it remains miles ahead of the number 2 single. Fifteen weeks is enough to tie with Drake’s “One Dance” and Wet Wet Wet’s “Love Is All Around”. There are only two tracks left to beat. Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” lasted 16 weeks in 1991, and “Rein Me In” only needs one more week to match that. The all-time record is 18 weeks, set by Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” in 1953. That could happen, but “Rein Me In” did drop in streams this week and it could yet get hit by downweighting before making it to 18 weeks.
27. Sombr – “My Body Isn’t Ready”
The X-Axis – 1 July 2026
X-MEN UNITED #5. (Annotations here.) I have no idea how much weight you can really put on Amazon listing this as issue #5 of 10, but I can’t say it would surprise me, because the book isn’t working at all. The art’s decent enough in this issue – probably as good as we’ve had it so far – but the fundamental concept of Graymatter Lane just doesn’t work, and I’m not entirely convinced that even the people making the comic understand it. It’s taken five issues to clarify that this is in fact just a mental projection and that everyone’s body is meant to be asleep at home – but if that’s the case, how does any of this stuff about Rift teleporting people direct to places on Earth work? This isn’t nitpicking, this is really basic, rudimentary stuff that feels like nobody has thought it through properly. And now we’re doing a psychic projection inside a psychic projection? I can live with things like the new characters being given inexplicable seniority over the long-time students – it doesn’t make any logical sense but that’s just the nature of rotating casts, and at least there’s some sort of gesture towards a reason for Axo to have a role here. And sure, we’ve defined Ransom and Melée as potential alpha figures, so let them take control. Fine.
But the premise of this book requires us to either buy into Graymatter Lane as a cool idea, or accept its USP as the team-up book where characters from different parts of the franchise get to interact. Graymatter Lane is a confusing mess, so that leads the interaction angle. That could work, in an era where the X-books are individually siloed, but they aren’t really interacting in a convincing way. The likes of Cyclops feel off, and the whole thing feels very inconsequential. If the basic format of this book really boils down to “a bunch of random characters go on a mission that doesn’t matter” then that’s Secret Defenders and the X-books doesn’t need one of those.
X-Men United #5 annotations
X-MEN UNITED #5
“Shadow Play”
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Eduardo Pansica
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: The Shadow King manipulates Cyclops, Wolverine (Laura), Emma Frost and the Beast. This is a puzzling cover, since neither Wolverine nor Beast is actually in the issue.
There seems to have been some change of plan since this issue was solicited, since although the solicitation copy did describe something recognisable as this story, it also promised more about Lourdes Chantal and someone called Justina LaGuardia, neither of whom appears in this issue at all.
Amazon is billing this series as ending at issue #10.
THE X-MEN:
Five issues into the series, we finally get a clear explanation of whether people physically travel to Graymatter lane, as a discussion among the students about the whereabouts of the missing teachers includes Scout saying that “their bodies are back wherever they left them when they entered the campus”. Except… the very same scene has Rift opening a portal to send people direct from Graymatter Lane to a location in the physical world which isn’t where they came from. That’s happened several times in this series, but… how?
Charts – 26 June 2026
This won’t take long – it’s spectacularly uneventful singles chart.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Yes, this again. “Rein Me In” has now been on the top 40 for 53 weeks without interruption. The all-time record is 54 (held by Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”), and obviously “Rein Me In” is going to shatter that. In an admittedly very quiet week, it returns to number 1 for a fourteenth week. This ties it with Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You”. Only four tracks have spent more weeks at number 1 – if it can manage another week (and it almost certainly will), then it will tie with Wet Wet Wet’s “Love is All Around” and Drake’s “One Dance” to be joint third.
The X-Axis – 24 June 2026
X-MEN #32. (Annotations here.) I know, I know, we’re into the next week now… but let’s run through these anyway. This is part 2 of “Anomaly”, which is basically the X-Men’s science team finding a comatose Schwarzchild and running into Department H. I’ve said before that this book is generally stronger on its shorter stories, but this time the pacing is working better for me. Purely on a plot level, not a huge amount has actually happened in these two issues beyond, well, finding Schwarzchild and running into Department H. But that’s left plenty of time for the book’s second-tier characters to breathe, and I’m actually pleased to see we’re getting the generic Department H guys rather than Alpha Flight characters who would demand more of our attention (and redirect the focus of the story). Tony Daniel does a rather nice take on Magneto getting a chance to be himself again briefly, and Schwarzchild’s intentionally blank mental plane avoids being visually dull thanks to some nice colouring work. I’m liking this arc so far.
WOLVERINE #22. (Annotations here.) In which the loss of Wolverine’s healing factor turns out to be to do with nanites that have stolen his powers and given them to Taskmaster. It’s rather weird to see nanites being presented as cutting edge stuff – they were a bit of a cliche twenty years ago – and the book can’t really seem to make up its mind whether Wolverine is on his last legs or whether he can still put up a fight against Taskmaster. And come to think of it, it’s a bit weird to treat the loss of Wolverine’s healing factor as life threatening stuff while referencing the fact that Cecilia Reyes has seen it before – which she has, in a story where it turned out to be pretty manageable, really. I don’t really mind if you want to ignore that story to sell the drama of this one, but don’t remind me about it while ignoring it! Still, I quite enjoyed this – the idea of a regular hospital which actually has the ability to treat mutants is quite interesting, and Logan’s reaction to the prospect of dying at least feels right. This run of Wolverine has been patchy, but this story feels fairly solid on the bits that really matter.
Generation X-23 #5 annotations
GENERATION X-23 #5
“A Numbers Game, part 5”
Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Marco Renna
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Just an action shot of Laura.
WOLVERINE:
Five issues in, this still feels more like a Wolverine solo title with an extended supporting cast, rather than a team book. So we’ll stick with that for now. Nonetheless, while she’s the lead character, there’s more to say this issue about the rest of the cast than there is about her.
She says that her healing factor is a little slower after it’s recovering from being suppressed – apparently this has happened often enough for her to know.
She’s surprisingly judgmental about X-Infinite having helped Facility 23 to give the Generated their extra powers and seems unimpressed by the suggestion that he could have felt that he had no choice. She seems to see both him and X-66 as pretending not to have a choice in order to duck their responsibility. X-80 is noticeably more sympathetic, so we’re not necessarily meant to be completely on Laura’s side here; there’s a definite sense that she feels that anyone in her position who didn’t resist successfully is showing a lack of backbone.
Wolverine #22 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #22
“Doctor’s Orders”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Julius Ohta
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine is sad about his broken claws.
WOLVERINE:
As we established at the end of the previous issue, his healing factor isn’t working, although his senses are still fine. We’re essentially told that Wolverine will die without his healing factor. The reasons for that aren’t explained here, but various earlier stories have said that Wolverine would die of adamantium poisoning without his healing factor – this was a major plot point in Paul Cornell’s Wolverine run in 2013-4, for example. It doesn’t really make any sense, because if adamantium is totally indestructible then it ought to be inert. And Bullseye gets by just fine with an adamantium skeleton and no healing factor. But… it is the established way this works.
Wolverine has grudgingly agreed to see a doctor, and he’s reluctant to have Nightcrawler hanging around for the process. He seems to have intermittent bouts of weakness – Cecilia has to help him down the hallway, but he seems basically okay later in the issue when he’s fighting Taskmaster.
X-Men #32 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #32
“Anomaly, part 2”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Kid Omega, Beast, Animalia and Xorn fight off Department H.
THE X-MEN:
As before, it’s the Science Team in this issue. There isn’t a huge amount to say about this issue in continuity terms – it’s a pretty straightforward middle chapter – but let’s run through it anyway.
The Beast. After failing to make much headway with his diplomatic approach last issue, he does rather better this time. When everyone else starts squabbling about what to do about Schwartzchild and Department H, he takes command and successfully asserts his authority. He’s able to get the likes of Magneto and Kid Omega to do what he wants them to. And he does ultimately manage to talk down the panicky officer in charge of the downed Department H ship, who finally accepts his help.
Housekeeping
Annotations will be at the weekend again, for anyone waiting.
