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.
Charts – 19 June 2026
Well, someone still cares about being number one.
1. Taylor Swift – “I Knew It, I Knew You”
Two weeks, but that turns out to be because they held back over 40,000 CD copies to ship in week two. That accounts for more than half of its chart point this week; on streaming alone, it would have been number 7. That means we can be fairly sure that it won’t be number 1 next week. But hey, at least she has the satisfaction of stopping…
2. Olivia Rodrigo – “Stupid Song”
This is the release week single from her third album “You Seem Pretty Sad For A Girl So In Love”, which enters the album chart as her third number 1. She also has “The Cure” at number 3 and “Drop Dead” at number 5, so this is still very much her week. The album has enough points to beat the rest of the top 10 combined, and while a majority of that comes from first-week physical sales, she would have been number 1 by a wide margin on streaming alone.
The X-Axis – 17 June 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #30. (Annotations here.) Part 1 of “Mars Needs Mutants”, though the suspect-looking alien invasion is more of a B-plot in this issue, while we focus on the Outliers finally going to that school dance that was mentioned back in issue #21. That issue came out last September, which feels like an awfully long time for that kind of subplot to come to a head, but there we are. And this is playing to the book’s strengths, so I’m happy to see it. There are a ton of character subplots going on here, which means that the main story can get away with being fairly lightweight – though I really do like Rogê Antônio’s art on the opening scene with the alien abduction. I’m less sure about the Greymalkin material – why aren’t they just releasing the likes of Dazzler, even if they want to hand over everyone else to a legitimate prison? And please let’s not sent Blob back to being a villain, he was so much more enjoyable as a bartender. But a pretty fun opening issue for the arc.
X-MEN UNITED #4. (Annotations here.) This book has been rough so far, but issue #4 is at least a step in the right direction, with a more manageable cast and a focus on character interaction. Still, it remains a puzzling book. Issue #1 set up Graymatter Lane as a school, but it seems to have lost interest in that whole angle. And while it’s more of an editorial issue, I’m baffled by the decision to have Ben Liu show up in this book with apparent control of his powers, since it cuts across his long-term storyline in Jed MacKay’s X-Men. Ben being able to do something useful with his powers ought to be a big moment in that book, not something that’s already happened off panel before an issue of X-Men United. And yes, the set-up of this issue is downright contrived – I can just about believe that Scott gets talked into a team-building RPG game by Bobby, but Emma? Really? Come on. And the art is perfectly acceptable but rarely much more than that (though Palma does seem to be enjoying the splash page reveal of the RPG world). So there’s a way to go, but… like I say, a step in the right direction.
Inglorious X-Force #6 annotations
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #6
“Less Than Zero”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Dajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: X-Force, with Kali in the background.
X-FORCE:
Cable. The previous issue ended with Cable turning out to be possessed by some green monster thing, wiping Domino’s memories and abandoning her. We’ll come back to Domino below, but so far as this issue is concerned, Cable seems to have no memory of any of this. We see him briefly turn into the same monster form for a single panel while he’s remotely directing X-Force’s fight against the Mutant Liberation Front in this issue, but he doesn’t seem to remember anything about it afterwards. Presumably, all this is ultimately going to explain the memory gaps that prevented him from remembering who killed Kamala in the future timeline in issue #1. Most likely, it’s going to be him, and the idea is that he wrote down the names of the X-Force members because they’d be able to stop him, not because they were suspects at all.
Oblivious to all this (or possibly being directed by the creature on some level), Cable turns his attention to the new Mutant Liberation Front from issue #1. His rationale is that his “one of us” message must have meant that some other mutant was responsible, and the MLF are a candidate because Kali is radicalising its members against other mutants who aren’t on board with their politics, such as Stryfe.
X-Men United #4 annotations
X-MEN UNITED #4
“Ancient Orc Oaken Arclight”
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Tiago Palma
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Cyclops and Deathdream under attack from some sort of frost monster. Not a scene from the issue.
THE X-MEN:
Iceman. His solution to the tension between Scott and Emma in issues #1-2 is to get them to play what he describes as a specially tailored version of Ancient Orc Oaken Arclight. From the sound of it this would normally be a standard issue Dungeons & Dragons style RPG, but for this purpose. Iceman seems to be a fan, though god knows who he’s been playing it with in the past. Maybe there was a regular game on Krakoa.
Somehow, he’s actually convinced Scott and Emma to play along with this, and he’s roped in Rogue and Ben Liu to help out. Nobody else seems to be quite as keen on the actual game as him, but they do seem to be on board with it as a team building exercise, with varying degrees of reluctance. The game he’s designed seems pretty generic, but then he is doing it with rookie players. It’s clearly intended as a scenario to force Scott and Emma to work together, but it doesn’t get anywhere near his intended plot points before actual monsters show up to derail things.
