The X-Axis – 8 July 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #31. (Annotations here.) Another nice quiet week, then – just two X-books, at least in the main Marvel Universe line. I’m not complaining about that. Uncanny X-Men is still in the “Mars Needs Mutants” arc, which looks like it’s going to be about a bunch of aliens we can’t communicate with showing up to exterminate a bunch of innocent Brood. I’m still puzzled by the fact that the Brood had the aliens’ guns in the previous issue and not in this one. That reads like some sort of error, but it’s one that confuses the plot, so it matters quite a bit. Still, I like the design for the new aliens, and the basic idea seems solid enough. The Vig is quietly establishing himself as a fun supporting character, and the bits with the Outliers’ school dance work well enough. Mutina’s storyline is working for me too, with the continuing mismatch between what she says and what she actually does. As for the Greymalkin B-plot, it feels a bit detached from everything else, and the whole turning mutants into weapons thing is nothing new, but at least it seems to be finally coming to a head.
WOLVERINE #23. (Annotations here.) Well, Julius Ohta’s art has some memorable moments. I do like his Taskmaster towering over Wolverine, and the way he’s using the sai as a kind of improvised claws. He sells the terrified scientist at the end rather well, too. Beyond that, I really don’t know what Saladin Ahmed is trying to do with the book at this point. I’m just about willing to look past the idea that Cecilia Reyes can knock up an anti-nanite serum in ten minutes, but what’s any of it meant to be about? Maybe it’s meant to be something about Wolverine’s anger being both his strength and his weakness, but that’s hardly new either. I certainly don’t know who was crying out for a new incarnation of Post, a character who was killed off more than 25 years ago and never had much going for him beyond his character design (and then only when drawn by Andy Kubert). There’s nothing especially bad about this on a page-to-page level, but when I stand back I just can’t see anything new here.
Wolverine #23 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #23
“Power Grab”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Julius Ohta
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Taskmaster advances on Wolverine, with adamantium claws extended. This doesn’t actually happen in the story, where Taskmaster only has the copied healing factor.
This is a pretty straightforward issue, but we’ll run through it anyway.
WOLVERINE:
For those just joining us, his healing factor has been switched off by nanites, and his right-hand claws are still broken from the fight with the Adamantine in issue #20. The previous issue established that his adamantium is poisoning him without his healing factor (which has happened before), but was rather inconsistent about how far this was affecting him – at times he seemed to be having trouble standing, but he also seemed able to hold his own against Taskmaster. This issue seems to be saying that his berserker rage is partly responsible for keeping him on his feet, and that his enhanced senses still give him some advantage in anticipating Taskmaster’s moves.
Uncanny X-Men #31 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #31
“Mars Needs Mutants, part two: The Devil I Know”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: Jim Towe & David Baldeón
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: One of the Nur holding an unconscious Rogue, with UFOs above. This doesn’t happen in this issue – indeed, Rogue doesn’t appear at all. The slogan “They Came From Beyond!” might just be generic, but there was a film called They Came From Beyond Space in 1967 (based on Joseph Millard’s 1941 novel The Gods Hate Kansas, which seems a bit harsh, but I’ve never been there so I’ll have to take his word for it).
This issue also include part two of “Mind and Matter”, a serialised 5-page back-up strip for Marvel Voices celebrating Disability Pride Month. It’s got nothing to do with the X-Men, so I won’t be covering it. At least in the digital edition, there doesn’t seem to be any indication of where you can read part one – if you were wondering, it’s in Amazing Spider-Man #32.
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.
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?
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.
