NYX #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NYX vol 2 #9
“X-Manhunt, part 2: Charles”
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Artist: Francesco Mortarino
Colour artist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
This issue is part of the “X-Manhunt” crossover, and also a tie-in to One World Under Doom (though that’s not billed on the cover). And it’s also the penultimate issue before cancellation with issue #10. So a lot to do.
THE CORE CAST.
Sophie Cuckoo. Her powers have returned to an extent, but she says they’re “still glitching half the time.”
She’s still playing Summoner, which was previously mentioned in issue #6 as a game that she’d become obsessed with after losing her powers in issue #5; it was indicated that she was spending more time on the chat function than actually playing the game, and we learn here that she’s talking to someone called TarnishedMoodRing who seems to be a boyfriend. The art indicates that the game has Krakoan-era mutant iconography – at least in a meta sense, with the graphics using the font that we as readers recognise from Krakoan-era logos, and what looks to be a version of the Marauders symbol.
Uncanny X-Men #11 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #11
“X-Manhunt, part 1: Echoes of Madness”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Javier Garrón
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This is part of the “X-Manhunt” crossover, which ships its first three chapters in a single week. It doesn’t come up in this issue, but part two establishes that One World Under Doom is also in full flow at this point. The plot of that series basically involves Doom getting all national governments to pledge allegiance to him, presumably through magical means, which is why the normal day-to-day authorities are continuing to operate.
THE X-MEN:
Rogue. Despite running the cuddly X-Men team, she’s becoming worried that everyone is treating their training exercise as a game, and that it’s actually making people complacent – the Outliers in particular. In classic Claremont fashion, her solution to this problem is to have Gambit chuck an exploding card at one of the group in the middle of a training session which has been specifically described to the kids as a game. Gambit sides with her on this, and doesn’t even seem particularly bothered about it. Wolverine says that he understands but seems a bit less convinced.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 24
We’re back in re-reading mode this time round, and we’re taking a look at Thunderbolts issues 60-62, as Marvel’s Most Wanted put the T in both TBolts and Teleported To counTer-earTh. What will our heroes do when confronted by the planet of doomed NPCs? What is the dark secret of Fixer’s terrible Tamagotchi? And how do power-dampening manacles work when your power is “big teeth”? All this and definitely some more, Thunderbuddies!
(We should have called this podcast Thunderstudies, shouldn’t we? Ah well.)
The episode is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, via email, or over on Bluesky. And if you want a House to Astonish t-shirt that will make you look cool and keep you warm, then that’s a helluva coincidence, because we’ve got you sorted.
Daredevil Villains #47: Brother Zed
DAREDEVIL #130 (February 1976)
“Look Out, DD – Here Comes the Death-Man!”
Writer, editor: Marv Wolfman
Penciler: Bob Brown
Inker: Klaus Janson
Colourist: Michele Wolfman
Letterer: John Costanza
Once again, we’ve skipped some issues. Issues #126-127 are the debut of the Torpedo, a rookie rival superhero who does the obligatory misunderstanding-and-fight routine. He actually had some legs: he returns in issue #134 as a supporting character, then gets a try-out as a solo hero in Marvel Premiere , and finally winds up as a supporting character in Rom. But he’s not a villain, so he’s outside our remit. Issue #128 is another Death-Stalker story. And issue #129 brings back the Man-Bull.
In fact, focussing on the new villains will give us a rather unrepresentative view of Marv Wolfman’s run. He’s the first writer who seems to have looked at Daredevil’s pre-established rogue’s gallery and deemed them to be basically serviceable. There are only a handful of new villains in his run. And one of them is a very big name, but we’ll get to him.
It’s not that Wolfman didn’t create new characters for the book. He absolutely did, but they were mostly supporting characters. As well as the Torpedo, the issues we’ve skipped introduce Daredevil’s new love interest, Heather Glenn. We might not have much reason to talk about her here for a while, since her first major storyline involves the Purple Man, but she’s a major character who’ll stick around well into the 1980s. At this point, she’s a sort of prototype manic pixie dream girl.
Charts – 28 February 2025
This is a fairly busy week in terms of chart movement, but quite a quiet one in terms of actual listening…
1. Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us”
Two weeks, but it has the lowest chart score for a number 1 single in 70 weeks. It holds on by default more than anything else. He still has two other singles in the top 10, both with SZA: “Luther” at 6 and “All the Stars” at 7.
10. Tate McRae – “Revolving Door”
25. Tate McRae – “I Know Love”
Her third album “So Close To What” enters the album chart at number 2, which is her best position to date – her first two albums reached 7 and 5. This turns out to be a bigger deal than I’d expected in terms of the singles chart, as she maxes out her three songs, with “Sports Car” returning to the top 10 and hitting a new peak of number 3. It becomes her joint highest placing single along with “You Broke Me First” (2020) and “Greedy” (2023).
The X-Axis – w/c 24 February 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #12. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz, Clayton Cowles, Darren Shan. So the thing about Black Tom going mad turns out to be a teaser for another storyline, which was perhaps inevitable given how much he’d been kept to the margins of the story after the set-up. What that leaves us with is a Juggernaut rehabilitation story with some very nice art but which feels like it’s way, way too late – the Juggernaut first joined the X-Men over twenty years ago, for heaven’s sake! Even his last run as a villain ended before Krakoa. This would be a good story if it wasn’t so detached from where the Juggernaut actually is right now, but… well, that’s a problem, isn’t it?
X-MEN #12. (Annotations here.) Mmm. I know Jed MacKay is Canadian, and I know this is kind of the status quo that was inherited from the previous editorial office, and I even think the new Vindicator is an interesting character, but… Canada is the North American country where the people who opposed Orchis are still in jail? Canada? Seriously? Because I don’t think you can do that story in 2025. At a bare minimum, it’s extremely tone deaf. At worst… look, I realise there are lead in times involved here and so forth, but my gut reaction to the whole angle was still a strong one. This sort of dissonance is likely to be an increasing problem for the X-books and Marvel in general in the coming months and years as the lead-in time issue fades away and the reality of writing X-Men stories for Disney under the second Trump administration sinks in – and I have a sinking feeling about how I’m going to feel about that. Maybe the creators will have a better idea of how to thread that needle. None of which is really a direct reflection on this issue, of course. But look, it’s the main thing I was left thinking about.
Hellverine #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLVERINE vol 2 #3
“The Devil’s Orphan”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Raffaele Ienco
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Ravis Lanham
Editor: Mark Basso
HELLVERINE:
Mephisto has been taking locations where Akihiro suffered “great personal tragedy” and turning them into places that corrupt mutants in the vicinity and make them into serial killers. The incident at X-Force’s Greenhouse last issue was one of these places, the significance apparently being that Akihiro died there rather than anything to do with the mechanics of his resurrection.
It’s not entirely clear whether the people affected by these locations need to have any awareness of the relevant events; the people at the Greenhouse and Jasmine Falls presumably did, but it seems more likely that Mephisto is just somehow weaponising Akihiro’s emotional link to these places. At any rate, this means that Akihiro has to sort the problem out for magical reasons, rather than just handing the whole issue over to the experts.
X-Men #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #12
“Work Release”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & John Livesay
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN:
Cyclops. The alien mercenaries want him so that he can be used as a hostage to keep Phoenix under control – or at any rate, that’s what they understand that their unnamed employer wants. For once, he doesn’t really contribute a great deal to the X-Men’s victory, but he remains as calmly confident as ever while waiting for his team to sort it out. He offers to break Alpha Flight out of jail if they want, but seems to regard it as their choice whether to play along with Department H.
Juggernaut. He can be stopped with “inertia foam” – since he isn’t as powerful as he used to be, presumably he isn’t literally unstoppable any more. It’s also possible that the foam doesn’t completely stop him but slows his progress to such an extent that it comes to the same thing in the heat of battle.
Charts – 21 February 2025
In which a Canadian manages to lose a popularity contest with an American in 2025.
1. Kendrick Lamar – “Not Like Us”
The Superbowl half time show has never been a big deal in the UK before, but apparently this is a special year for some reason. “Not Like Us” reached number 6 on release last May and hung around for a decent amount of time – it had thirteen weeks in the top 40. It re-entered at 27 two weeks ago after the Grammys and climbed to 2 last week. Meanwhile, “Luther” climbs 10-4 and “All the Stars” climbs 11-5, so Kendrick has the maximum three tracks in the top 10.
Kendrick’s previous UK peak was number 4, shared by “Squabble Up” last year and, um, Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” from 2015. (“Luther” also climbs to that position this week.) The enduring popularity of “Not Like Us” would probably be galling for Drake at the best of times, but as it happens, he has a new album out this week. I’m sure we’ll be seeing the singles from that momentarily, right?
The X-Axis – w/c 17 February 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #11. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. So we have an absolutely ridiculous number of X-books out this week. Perhaps they’re trying to get through stuff before One World Under Doom gets fully under way. Maybe they needed to get some things done before the “X-Manhunt” crossover. Or maybe they knew they were announcing a bunch of cancellations this week and thought that if they put out ten X-books in a single week then the news would come as a blessed relief.
Look: I had no problem with the end of the Krakoan era. With the number of titles set there, I think there was a decent argument to be made that it had run its course, or at least that it was time to quit while they were ahead. And frankly, the post-Hickman back end of the Krakoan era was seriously patchy. Still, whatever came after it was always going to struggle to have the same impact. I think Tom Brevoort took a basically sensible approach in the circumstances by not even trying to compete on the “high concept” front and just going for a broad range of mostly standalone titles instead. I’m largely sympathetic to what the current office is trying to do, and there are some genuinely good books in the line. But we’ve got ten X-books this week and I’d struggle to recommend more than two, maybe three. That’s not a good hit rate.
