Daredevil Villains #51: Smasher
DAREDEVIL #149 (November 1977)
“Catspaw!”
Writer: Jim Shooter
Penciller: Carmine Infantino
Inker, colourist: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Denise Wohl
Editor: Archie Goodwin
Marv Wolfman is gone, and next up is Jim Shooter, whose short run lasts from issues #144 to #151. Even some of those are co-written: the first two are co-credited to Gerry Conway, while the last sees him hand over to incoming writer Roger McKenzie. By this point, Daredevil is floundering. With issue #147, the book is relegated to a bimonthly schedule, and it’s going to stay there until the 1980s.
This is the only Shooter issue that we’ll be covering, since the rest of his run relies on existing villains: the Man-Bull (#144), the Owl (#145), Bullseye (#146), Death-Stalker (#148) and the Purple Man (everything else).
There were reasons for this. For one thing, on Shooter’s own account, he was generally averse to creating new characters on Marvel’s 1970s work-for-hire terms – although he did introduce Paladin as a supporting character in issue #150. But in any event, Shooter’s top priority was to tie up some storylines that had been left unresolved by Marv Wolfman.
The X-Axis – w/c 21 April 2025
X-MEN #15. (Annotations here.) No Infinity Comic this week – the pattern seems to be that we skip a week between arcs. So instead, we’re straight into this middle chapter of the twin storyline. And it’s very much a middle chapter, with Quentin still missing and a lot of running around as we keep the evil twin busy. Its new giant monster body is a little comical, but at the end of the day it’s there to be manipulated by 3K, and the real point of this story is to start bringing them into the foreground. It does that well enough, and Ryan Stegman does a nice cuddly monster full of teeth. I don’t think the final page cliffhanger, with the appearance of the rival X-Men, quite works, since we’ve not seen these guys in costume before and it takes a moment to figure out that they’re meant to be the 3K guys from issue #1. Plus, to be honest, my first thought was that the one with dialogue was meant to be Ben Liu until I realised that the hair colour was wrong. They’re nice designs, though, and seem to play to Stegman’s strengths by being a little off-kilter, particularly the floating guy in the containment suit.
X-FORCE #10. (Annotations here.) Oh lord. This is a premature cancellation, and with issue #9 being derailed by a crossover, it’s unavoidably a desperate scramble to tie things up by the end. And not a particularly successful one. Moses Magnum isn’t the sort of character you can just bring in as the main villain in the final act, and besides, nothing in his history makes him remotely suitable for his role in the plot here. Zanda is a similarly baffling reveal, unlikely to mean anything to most readers. And Tank turns out to be Colossus, but there’s no time to even gesture at explaining why. Nor is there space to make most of the team members anything more than generic. You can see the broad shape of where the book was meant to be going, but the bottom line is that it’s a puzzle box series that messed up the landing – not entirely through its own fault, but it was taking its sweet time getting to the point anyway. If you’re been reading the series up to this point, you might as well get the last chapter, but there’s no reason for anyone else to spend time on it. Fabian Nicieza and Edgar Salazar contribute a ten-page back-up strip which is basically an opportunity to reflect on the main versions of X-Force down the ages, at least from Cable’s point of view, and does the job well enough for a legacy anniversary issue.
Magik #4 annotations
MAGIK vol 3 #4
“Reunion”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
MAGIK
She said in narration at the end of last issue that Dani was the last person she wanted to see. That seems to be because she’s defensive about her deal with Liminal and doesn’t want to be judged by one of her oldest friends when she knows it’s a mistake. She tries to push back by complaining that Dani doesn’t trust her, but ultimately suggests that she accepted the deal mainly because she was desperate to escape his domain – after all, being trapped in someone else’s magical realm is a traumatic part of her origin story. Dani essentially suggests that Illyana let that sucker her into a bad deal and she should have looked for a better option; Illyana argues that it’s unfair to expect that of her, but privately seems to agree.
The idea seems to be that, as a result of Liminal’s deal, Darkchild is no longer suppressed by outright psychic or magical blocks, but nor is she in control. Instead Illyana has to actively resist the temptation. She initially talks about feeling Darkchild’s anger, and then immediately ascribes the anger to herself. Darkchild seems to be tied to her negative emotions, or perhaps her self-loathing generally – she starts to turn into Darkchild after feeling that Liminal has defeated her, and then gets talked down by Dani. At the end of the story, when she gets upset after overhearing Dani and Cal talking about her, her silhouette has Darkchilde horns.
X-Force #10 annotations
X-FORCE vol 7 #10
“The X-Equation”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Marcus To
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramanga
Editor: Mark Basso
This is the final issue of the series, and as you might expect, it feels like a desperate rush to the finish line. It’s also legacy issue #300, so the main story gets thirty pages, which helps a bit. There’s also a ten page back-up strip (which we’ll come to) and a three-page cover gallery.
X-FORCE
Forge. According to Sage – who’s apparently right – his powers instinctively directed him to stop Moses Magnum’s scheme, without him ever actually understanding on a conscious level what he was doing. (Yes, Moses Magnum. I know. We’ll come to him.) It turns out that this is not a story about the dangers of blind faith as I’d been thinking – Forge was just right all along to trust in his intuition. Sage claims that Forge was deliberately drip-feeding information to the team (in the sense of it being what his powers told him to do) at the point when it would be most effective to make them stick to the plan. The idea seems to be that Forge knew that he was manipulating everyone to do whatever was required for the plan, even if he didn’t know precisely why it was all meant to work.
Forge is apparently just playing along with Magnum’s attempts to recruit him. Despite Diabla’s clear warnings that she never got the chance to finish testing and preparing Forge, Moses falls for it entirely.
X-Men #15 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #15
“Twin”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Pencillers, co-inkers: Ryan Stegman & CF Villa
Co-inkers: JP Mayer & Livesay
Colourist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Cyclops does his usual team leader routine, and Temper spends the issue trying to save Piper from her twin.
Magik summons up demons from Limbo to help the search operation. We’ve seen her randomly call up demons in the past, despite the fact that Madelyne Pryor is meant to be running Limbo now. On this occasion, she makes the demons an “offer of minionship, short-term”, and lets them drink her blood as the price; she doesn’t seem to have any particular concerns about consequences for this. Perhaps she has to make a more explicit deal if she wants the demons to do something actually useful, instead of just turning them loose and hoping that they cause chaos.
Xorn describes these creatures as “imps”, and there’s nothing to suggest that they aren’t making a sincere effort to carry out their instructions. The imps call Magik “dread mistress”, but it’s not clear whether that’s because of the deal or because of her former status in Limbo. In addressing her demons, she refers to mutants as “witchbreed”, consistently with how they were described in Otherworld during the Krakoan era.
Daredevil Villains #50: The Mind-Master
DAREDEVIL ANNUAL #4 (1976)
“The Name of the Game is… Death!”
Plotter, editor: Marv Wolfman
Scripter: Chris Claremont
Penciller: George Tuska
Inker: Frank Chiaramonte
Letterer: Anette Kawecki
Colourist: Bonnie Wilford
Once again, we’ve skipped a few issues. Issues #134-137 resolve a long running subplot about conspiracy theories being spread by deepfake TV broadcasts created by what sounds awfully like an LLM. It’s the highlight of Wolfman’s run, but the villain is the Jester, so it’s outside our remit here. Issue #138 is a crossover with Ghost Rider, with Death-Stalker as the villain.
That brings us to Daredevil Annual #4. The previous two annuals were reprint books (the first is Daredevil versus a team of established villains), but this one contains an original story. How successful was this issue? Put it this way: Marvel didn’t publish another Daredevil Annual for thirteen years. And when they did, they numbered it as a second Daredevil Annual #4, because they’d literally forgotten that this one existed.
This issue slots neatly into the ongoing storyline between issues #138-139, but it’s something of an afterthought. Wolfman only plotted it, leaving the script to Chris Claremont, and the whole thing is basically an excuse to have Namor and the Black Panther as guest stars. It does have a new villain, but he exists simply to drive the plot rather than to be a focal point of the story in his own right. And when he does get around to doing something, it’s… um… well, look, I’ll explain what happens.
The X-Axis – w/c 14 April 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #18. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. And so we reach the end of the second arc by this creative team, with the long term game seeming to be a very slow reunion of the cast of Generation X in order to take on the grass roots allies of 3K. This issue, Emma Frost wanders by as a guest star, and Skin heads off to hang around with Sean and Paige some more. At the same time, the story is trying to illustrate how basically sympathetic characters can be radicalised, which is basically what the first arc did too. All this sounds like it ought to work, but in practice it feels like we’re treading water – it’s basically the same as the first arc with added Skin, and it hasn’t really found a compelling angle on the characters. It’s okay but it needs to kick up a gear in the next arc.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #8. (Annotations here.) Even as someone who appreciates the languid pace of this book, I can’t help raising an eyebrow at devoting the first third of the book to a Mr Sinister monologue that doesn’t really advance the plot much, and then spending the rest of the issue on the rest of the cast figuring out that there’s a crisis they ought to be doing something about. You have to admire the book’s commitment to not letting itself be rushed. And yet it does work – certainly once it gets past Sinister’s monologue. Carmen Carnero’s art does a lovely job with the malfunctioning Axo clone as it ambles awkwardly through his life, while Trista and Thao trying to summon Emma by thinking really hard at her is a neat spot. Still, things have to come to some sort of head next issue… right?
X-Factor #9 annotations
X-FACTOR vol 5 #9
“Lost Causes”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
X-FACTOR
Archangel. He’s now being pushed as the star of the team. Back in issue #1, Broderick seemed to think that the whole point of X-Factor was to build around Archangel’s popularity, and told Warren that “they are your supporting cast. You don’t need competition.” Since he returned from hospital, Warren (and X-Factor’s military backers) seem to be acting according to that agenda. Obviously, Warren’s behaviour remains out of character.
He seems to be regarded as the most truly loyal team member, and is sent to personally deal with Polaris while most of X-Factor are packed off on a nicer mission to keep them out of the way.
Wolverine #8 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #8
“Adamantine Unleashed” / “This is Your Life”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
This issue is legacy number #400. The numbering ignores the original miniseries because the legacy numbers are supposed to represent the number that the ongoing title would have reached if it had never been rebooted.
To celebrate, we get a very odd issue which opens with a ten page story resolving the Adamantine storyline (or at least ending its first act), followed by a 30 page story resolving the Wendigo storyline and setting up the next arc. Since both of those stories are by the same regular creative team, I’m treating them here together.
There’s a break in the action of “a few days” before the end of the second story, but it seems we still haven’t reached a point where Wolverine can go off and appear in any other X-books – and so this whole series is still apparently set back before X-Men #1.
Exceptional X-Men #8 annotations
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #8
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE CORE CAST
Axo. He spends the entire issue as a prisoner of Mr Sinister, and so he doesn’t actually do or say anything. According to Trista, it’s out of character for him to enjoy Dazzler songs.
Bronze. She’s the only one observant enough to recognise that Sinister’s Axo clone is an impostor. She uses her powers in public to contain the guy who’s panicking in the shop fire.
Melée. She absolutely isn’t observant enough to recognise that Sinister’s Axo clone is an impostor, although she understands the clues immediately when Trista points them out. She’s open to Trista’s fashion advice (which does indeed seem to be appropriately tailored to her tastes). Her first reaction to a crisis is to try and contact Kate, followed by Emma – nobody seems to think of contacting Bobby – but she does correctly figure out that something has happened at Verate and decide that they’re going to have to do superhero things and get inside.
