Charts – 6 February 2026
Another singles chart that might politely be described as “sluggish”…
Returning to number 1 for a second week, in its fifteenth week on the chart. Harry Styles’ “Aperture”, which always struck me as the sort of track that only a top-tier star could get to number 1, takes a bit of a nosedive in its second week, dropping straight to number 4. “Raindance” is also losing streams, but it becomes number 1 pretty much by default – and by the fact that it’s made it to week 15 without getting hit by the downweighting rule. Once again, if we didn’t have that rule, the number one would be Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need” by a mile. But it’s been out for 25 weeks and got hit by the rule after its first peak ages ago.
10. Noah Kahan – “The Great Divide”
This is the lead single from his upcoming fourth album, the follow-up to his breakthrough “Stick Season”. Obviously his biggest hit is “Stick Season” itself, number 1 for seven weeks in early 2024, but he has had other hits – “Dial Drunk”, “Northern Attitude” and “Forever” all made the top 40, and he appears on the single version of Sam Fender’s “Homesick”, which reached number 5.
The X-Axis – 4 February 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #23. (Annotations here.) The first part of “Where Monsters Dwell”, and it’s an odd thing. We’ve got an apparently-possessed Legion of Monsters showing up to claim New Orleans for monster-kind, which… hmm. I’ve never liked the Legion of Monsters. It’s not so much that magic doesn’t fit in the X-Men – the Dark Artery is already an established element of this book – I just find them a bit wacky. Not my thing. Maybe it plays off the subplot of Gambit’s corruption coming to a head? We’ll see. Alongside that, though, we’ve got a parallel bedtime story about the Rawhide Kid, of all characters. And he’s a different genre entirely. So are we doing something meta about pre-FF #1 Marvel? At this stage, I’m just kind of puzzled about where this is going, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing at the end of chapter 1. And it’s David Marquez on art, so it looks fantastic. A weird enough mishmash of disparate elements to make me curious, at least.
WOLVERINE #15. (Annotations here.) Wolverine and Silver Sable train the Morlocks and fight a bit, and then Department H show up with Alpha Flight in tow for the fight. As you might have picked up, I have a problem with this. Partly, it feels as if Agent Mehta has lurched far too quickly into being a stock hostile government agent, despite the way she was introduced – and she’s a vastly less interesting character as a result. But the whole current set-up of Alpha Flight is a problem.
Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #1 annotations
STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #1
“Tea Ceremonies, Masquerades and Funerals”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Storm carrying two swords of lightning.
This is a five-issue miniseries, but it’s explicitly the final part of the story from the previous Storm ongoing, so I’m going to treat it as the last part of that.
STORM:
I don’t normally do plot synopses in these posts. But, like the previous volume, this issue jumps about in time quite a bit, and it isn’t especially easy to follow as a result. A lot of that, I think, is actually an art or colouring problem. There’s a basically straightforward narrative here, and the later scenes have flashbacks that fill in the earlier scenes. But the art doesn’t adequately signal a distinction between the main scene and the flashbacks – sometimes the flashbacks have different colour panel borders than the rest of the page, but it’s not especially noticeable and it isn’t even consistent from scene to scene.
So, with that in mind, here’s what actually happened. I’ll use the story page numbers for this purpose.
Wolverine #15 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #15
“Alpha Flight”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Mike Henderson
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine, surrounded by headshots of the members of Alpha Flight. Given the signature (“Panosian with respect to Byrne”), I assume it’s a homage, but I can’t place it. (As pointed out in the comments, it’s Alpha Flight vol 1 #12.)
WOLVERINE:
He’s continuing to train the Morlocks and bond/flirt with Silver Sable. The main difference between the two seems to be that she has a “life’s too short” worldview; his extended lifespan doesn’t fit that approach, but she may not be picking up on that. Sable claims to be impressed by his training techniques, saying that he’s done much better with the Morlocks than she ever did – of course, he has much more experience in training complete rookies who’d rather be noncombatants.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Silver Sable. She’s also stuck around to train the Morlocks (which is what she’s being paid for, after all), and seems keen to liven things by sparring and flirting with Wolverine.
Uncanny X-Men #23 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #23
“Where Monsters Dwell, part one”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: The X-Men look shadowy in a swamp.
The cover still has the “Shadows of Tomorrow” strapline. It also bills this as “Where Monsters Dwell, part one”, using the logo of the Where Monsters Dwell series that ran for 38 issues between 1970 and 1975 and consisted of reprints of old monster books. (The first issue reprinted “I Brought the Mighty Cyclops Back to Life!” from Tales of Suspense #10, “Gorgolla! The Living Gargoyle!” from Strange Tales #74, and “I Alone Know the Dread Secret of Gor-Kill, the Living Demon!” from Tales of Suspense #12. You know, that sort of book.)
THE X-MEN:
Gambit. He’s being corrupted by the Left Eye of Agamotto. Exactly as predicted by Sadurang, he’s started hunting cats to eat (presumably a stray rather than one of his own pets) and he’s bitten Rogue in his sleep, somehow managing to draw blood. When the rest of the team stage an intervention, he starts by denying a problem, then refuses to give up the Eye on the grounds that he’s a monster and nothing can change that; finally, he fights the other X-Men to hold on to the Eye. It’s an addiction angle, basically.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 29
It had to happen. And now, it finally has. It’s time for me and Paul to bite the bullet and step into the squared circle to take on Marvel’s Most Merciless, the Masters of Mayhem, the Mush-Mangling Mavens of the Marquis of Queensbury, the… Thunderbolts?
It’s Fightbolts time, but will they float like butterflies, or sting like bees?
The episode is here, or available through the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, or via email.
Daredevil Villains #71: Sunturion II
DAREDEVIL #224 (November 1985)
“Abe”
Writer: Jim Owsley
Pencillers: Daniel Jurgens & Geoff Isherwood
Inkers: Mel Candido & Bruce Patterson
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Colourist: Ken Feduniewicz
Editor: Ralph Macchio
We’re only two issues away from the end of Denny O’Neil’s run, but there’s still time to squeeze in one more fill-in. It’s a weird story, and not in a good way.
Daredevil is investigating Continental Trucking, a transport firm which is secretly a front for the mob. He fights his way into their warehouse, planning to interrupt a drug deal. But moments before he reaches the real bad guys, someone else gets to them first, incinerates them all, and disappears. Naturally enough, Daredevil turns his attention to this vigilante killer.
The one survivor of the massacre is the building’s janitor, Abe. Abe is an old blind man who has been working at Continental since the days when it was a legitimate business. He was kept on as janitor after he lost his sight, but he doesn’t know anything much about the mob – in fact, he assumes that he was kept around precisely because he wouldn’t be able to identify anyone.
Charts – 30 January 2026
Well, there aren’t many new entries this week, but at least they’re notable.
1. Harry Styles – “Aperture”
This is the lead single from his upcoming fourth album, “Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally”. The last album was 2022, and we haven’t heard from him in the top 40 since its final single “Satellite” in 2023. Now in his thirties, he’s the sort of star who can get away with releasing a track like “Aperture” – it’s the longest number 1 of the century at over five minutes, and takes its time on a slow build. On a first listen, I was wondering if he’d discovered the Postal Service. It’s a grower, though, for all its lyrical obscurity and liminal-spaces video.
The X-Axis – 28 January 2026
There weren’t any X-books this week.
There you go, that was easy.
Daredevil Villains #70: The Council of Ten
DAREDEVIL #220-221 (July-August 1985)
“Fog” / “Behold My Vengeance”
Writer: Denny O’Neil
Artist: David Mazzuchelli
Colourist: Christie Scheele
Letterer: Joe Rosas
Editor: Ralph Macchio
We’ve skipped another a couple of issues. Issue #218 is a Jester story. Issue #219 is a small-town crime story by Frank Miller and John Buscema where Matt only appears as a silent, unnamed stranger. As a straight crime story with one-off villains, it doesn’t get an entry in this feature, but it’s an intriguing oddity that has more in common with Sin City than it does with Miller’s previous Daredevil stories.
That brings us to issues #220-221, which will be our final entry for the Denny O’Neil run. He stays on the book for a few issues more, but issue #222 involves some people fighting over a sample of Mr Fear’s fear gas, and issue #223 is a Secret Wars II tie-in, with the Beyonder as the antagonist. Issue #224 is another fill-in (which we’ll be covering), issue #225 is the Vulture, and issue #226 is the Gladiator.
