The X-Axis – w/c 30 September 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #17. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. This is a weird high-concept arc, isn’t it? The Beast, who is actually a clone of the Krakoa-era Beast with some of his memories, is copied by Blankslate, a mutant who’s said to have no innate personality and decides that he wants to be the Beast. All this is apparently meant to riff off the Beast’s fear that he’s innately doomed by his biology to become a villain. I like the idea in theory, since this Beast is himself essentially a copy to start with. I’m not convinced it works in practice, though, since the two Hanks don’t feel like the same personality. I think what the story is trying to go for is that Blankslate’s different history is what drives him to act in a more aggressive way in order to hold on to sense of identity that he likes, even though his innate personality is the same, but I’m not sure that’s really coming across. Or maybe it’s just that there’s something inherently uncanny valley about the whole concept of Blankslate, which makes it difficult to get a hold on him.
X-MEN #5. (Annotations here.) This is a homage to the “psychic rescue” story from New X-Men #121, and that’s always a bold comparison to invite. Perhaps wisely, it doesn’t attempt to track the original story very directly, and Quentin Quire simply refuses to play along with the conceit of not talking. And there is a reason for invoking the original story beyond simple self-indulgence, because the main plot point is to bring Cassandra Nova back into the frame as a major villain, and she was the villain in the New X-Men story as well. Still, it’s a much more straightforward story than the original and probably doesn’t benefit from sending signals that something weirder might be on the way. But there’s plenty in here that I like: there’s an explanation of what actually differentiates two telepaths to justify having them on the same team; Psylocke’s relationship with Greycrow is brought back into the picture; and we establish that it’s Quentin who’s trying to ignore all the things that happened to him towards the end of the Krakoa era, rather than the book itself. Stegman does a really good Sabretooth in that scene, too, and if he has a tendency to draw his characters rather young, it works fine for Quentin.
Storm #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
STORM vol 5 #1
“Grand Opening”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artists: Alex Guimarães & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Yes, volume 5. There were minis in 1996, 2006 and 2023, and a short-lived ongoing series from 2014-2015 (which is the one that’s been counted towards this issue’s Legacy Number of #12).
STORM:
She’s opened something called the Storm Sanctuary in Atlanta, which seems to be some sort of flying base of nebulous function. It’s “a haven in the day of adversity, a solace during difficult times and a refuge in the hours of need”, apparently. What that means in practice beyond “it’s a wildlife sanctuary” isn’t at all clear, nor is how anyone’s supposed to take refuge in it when it’s floating above a skyscraper. It doesn’t seem to have any particularly mutant-specific function, and indeed Storm says in her press conference that she wants to pursue some goals of her own rather than simply pursuing the agenda of the X-Men or (now) the Avengers.
As the story begins, she’s riding a wave of popularity after dealing with a disaster in Oklahoma City (though since this was only seven days ago, she must have been working on the Sanctuary for a while). The problem appears to be a series of shockwaves coming from a power plant, which Storm initially assumes to be some sort of nuclear meltdown – and she develops signs of radiation poisoning rather quickly once inside the building. She’s also slightly unwell at the press conference which ends the issue, so that doesn’t bode well for her.
X-Men #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #5
“Psychic Rescue in Progress”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Ryan Stegman
Inkers: JP Mayer, John Livesay & Ryan Stegman
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN:
Psylocke. She’s still in a relationship with Greycrow, which started in Hellions during the Krakoan era and was still in place as of the X-Men: Blood Hunt – Psylocke one-shot. However, this is the first time we’ve seen Greycrow in this series. She claims that what they have in common is being used as living weapons, and that she joined the X-Men in order to have a purpose to apply herself to. She tries to persuade him to join the X-Men, but his refusal – and his return to crime – are evidently not dealbreakers for her. Her nightmare in the “Black Bug Room” sequence is the thought that she’s only good for killing.
Quentin Quire. He doesn’t get on very well with Psylocke, who clearly finds him intensely irritating. Still, the two of them are reasonably co-operative on the “psychic rescue”. For all his bravado, his personal nightmare is an image of Sabretooth, so evidently he isn’t brushing off his decapitation in “Sabretooth War” as much as he claims. This Sabretooth also mocks Quentin for everyone else he cares about leaving him – interestingly, Wolverine makes the list.
Charts – 27 September 2024
And we’re back to another quiet week on the singles chart. The albums are busier, though.
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Taste”
Five weeks, with “Espresso” still at 3 and “Please Please Please” at 5. That means Sabrina Carpenter has been number one for a total of 17 weeks this year. For those who find such things interesting, this is the most weeks that a female solo artist has spent at number 1 in a calendar year since 1978 (when Olivia Newton-John managed 16 weeks).
There are no new entries inside the top 30, so we skip down to…
35. Alex Warren – “Burning Down”
A second single to join “Carry You Home”, which entered at 39 last week (and climbs). That track has been hanging around for ages in the lower reaches; this is a bona fide new release. It’s another stompy folk-pop track, and perfectly okay at what it does.
The X-Axis – w/c 23 September 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #16. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Ah, so apparently the appearance of a duplicate Beast last issue wasn’t meant to come across as a new villain, which is how I read it… but the plot of this issue is basically that he turns out to be a villain. So that doesn’t exactly work for me. Still, I see what we’re doing here: the duplicate Beast is a mutant who simply takes on the persona of whoever’s around him, with little underlying personality of his own. And the idea is clearly to test the idea that something about the Beast inherently dooms him to become a villain by confronting him with another copy. The idea makes sense but I’m not entirely convinced – I think the issue for me is that the mimic character is just a bit too obviously contrived to fit the theme, so it’s hard to buy him as an actual person.
Oh, and no issue of Savage Wolverine this week, so apparently it was a miniseries. I’m quite relieved about that, to be honest, even though I liked the book, since Marvel seem to be determined to restore Wolverine to the level of overexposure that plagued him for so many years.
UNCANNY X-MEN #3. (Annotations here.) Four ongoing titles in a single week! It’s been a while since that happened, but that’s mainly because they’ve taken their time on rolling out the relaunch. Still, we’re back down to two next week.
NYX #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NYX vol 2 #3
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Artist: Francesco Mortarino
Colour artist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
THE CORE CAST:
Anole is this issue’s spotlight character. He was indeed fired from his bar job after the fight in issue #1, which was strongly implied at the time, but could just have been the bouncer exceeding his authority. His human roommates are letting him stay rent free for the moment. He heads off alone to investigate the new Morlocks, and gets invited to join; the point seems to be that he’s not just a mutant, but a visible mutant (unlike everyone else in the core cast). He objects to the suggestion that he’s an “X-Man” rather than a Morlock, insisting that all he wants to do be left alone to live a normal life, but ultimately seems willing to retain a link with the Morlocks. Still, he believes that visible mutants like him need to be out there in public to set an example; the Morlocks agree to follow his lead and “walk our brother home”.
Ms Marvel takes the lead in rounding everone up for a vigil for Shay, the mutant killed the previous night. (Shay hasn’t appeared before, but we do get a photograph of him on page 4.) Aside from Kamala just being generally nice, it’s striking that she’s the one who seems most keen to promote a show of mutant solidarity despite being a relative outsider to the mutant community. Perhaps she’s also just less jaded about this sort of thing.
Phoenix #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PHOENIX #3
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Alessandro Miracolo
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa
PHOENIX:
Despite the general tone of issues #2-3, she does trust Corsair enough to leave him to defend her body while she enters Hakan’s mind, in order to find out what all the zombie Asgardians are about. She empathises with Hakan’s pain but seems surprisingly reluctant to judge Odin’s punishment – she’s not normally this reticent. She seems to see Hakan as having brought it on himself by starting a civil war in Asgard, but the flashback we see is much more concerned to present Hakan sympathetically, and so Jean’s reaction seems at odds with it. Anyway, she lays the undead Asgardians to rest, then drives off the Black Order.
SUPPORTING CAST:
Corsair turns out to have been after a feather from one of Odin’s ravens which was buried in the Asgardian graveyard, and which is apparently valuable to collectors or something. To be fair, the idea that he would rope Phoenix into this adventure when his main priority was to find a trinket is fair enough – and Phoenix lets him keep the feather. But the story still seems to expect us to be surprised that Corsair would do something as low-level decent as taking the Black Order’s slave labour force home (despite the fact that his origin story involves him being an escaped slave himself). I try to be fairly open minded in the annotation posts about how flexibly a character can be interpreted, but this book’s approach to Corsair seems just downright incorrect to me.
X-Force #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 7 #3
“The Walking Man”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Marcus To
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
X-FORCE:
Forge is a little troubled by the fact that Nuklo is causing havoc in Phnom Penh when the Analog says they’re meant to be heading somewhere 100 miles north – but not to the point of shaking his confidence in following the directions from his powers. He’s reassured when the Analog tells him that Nuko is merely connected to the “fracture” that they’re investigating.
Sage is frustrated by the vagueness of what the Analog actually is; she’s reluctant to just trust to Forge’s mutation. Her narration takes a detour to lament the fact that Professor X gives his students a simplistic, “binary” view of the world only for them to find out that it’s more complicated than that. Although she suggests that this was a problem for his other students rather than for her, there’s a fairly obvious subtext that she’s really talking about herself; Xavier sent her to infiltrate the Hellfire Club as a long-term mole.
Uncanny X-Men #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #3
“Red Wave, part 3: The Inside Man”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN:
Rogue and Gambit have chosen to stay at Haven even though they have options; she feels they qualify as “orphans”, and besides, the Outliers certainly do (at least in a metaphorical sense).
Wolverine leaves, just as he refused to stay with Cyclops’ team in X-Men #1. He satisfies himself that Rogue will be able to take care of the Outliers, and claims that something feels wrong with him and that he doesn’t feel people are safe around him right now. As a parting gift, he leaves something outside for Rogue – presumably the makeshift Danger Room in the grounds, or maybe part of it. He then heads for the Kisatchie National Forest, apparently in search of Sarah Gaunt. At least, that’s where she finds him. Somehow, he’s able to psychically warn Rogue when he’s being killed by Sarah, but that might be more to do with Sarah’s magic.
Jubilee sticks around. Wolverine expects her to take his departure badly, but we don’t actually see that.
Daredevil Villains #38: Angar the Screamer
DAREDEVIL #100-101 (June-July 1973)
“Mind Storm!” / “Vengeance in the Sky with Diamonds!”
Writer: Steve Gerber
Pencillers: Gene Colan (layouts #100) & Rich Buckler (#101)
Inkers: John Tartaglione (finishes #100) & Frank Giacoia (#101)
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourists: Stan Goldberg (#100), George Roussos (#101)
Editor: Roy Thomas
We’ve skipped issue #99, which doesn’t have a villain. Instead, it has Daredevil and Hawkeye literally fighting over the Black Widow as part of a loose crossover with Avengers. Natasha is so unimpressed by this display of 1970s machismo that she sticks around in Avengers for an extra month and skips Daredevil #100 entirely, despite being billed as co-star on the cover. So, in her absence, Daredevil has an anniversary issue all on his own.
In trying to find an approach to the book that works, Steve Gerber’s first thought is to play up the location. If this is Marvel’s only comic set in San Francisco, then surely it’s got to be about the counterculture, right? And so issue #100 guest stars Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone, who spends a good chunk of the book interviewing our hero. Daredevil endorses Rolling Stone as a quality publication, but “didn’t think the counter-culture was interested in anybody who works with the police.” Wenner assures him otherwise: “Of course they’re interested! You work with the cops, but you’re fair! You want the system to work justly, up-front – and even people who oppose the system can respect that!”
