Uncanny X-Men #15 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #15
“The Dark Artery, part 3: As Close to Evil”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Rogue. She’s “more embarrassed than injured” by her defeat by Sadurang last issue. And she’s s understandably annoyed that Gambit has brought her to Haven without being honest with her about what it actually is.
Gambit. He already knew that Haven guarded the Artery, and for whatever reason, he chose not to tell the X-Men about it. Given its historical status as a mutant burial site and the fact that, well, they’re the X-Men, it’s not really clear why he was keeping it secret – especially as Marcus seems to think that mutants have the right to know about it. The only explanation Gambit offers is that it’s “not an easy conversation to have”, suggesting that he thought the Artery was essentially inexplicable – perhaps he views it as too weird and magical for the other X-Men’s frame of reference. (There’s no Magik on this roster, after all.)
Daredevil Villains #53: Eric Slaughter
DAREDEVIL #159 and #161 (July & November 1979)
“Marked for Murder!” / “To Dare the Devil”
Writer: Roger McKenzie
Penciller: Frank Miller
Inker: Klaus Janson
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Letterer: Jim Novak (#159) and Diana Albers (#161)
Editors: Mary Jo Duffy & Al Milgrom
As I explained last time, Roger McKenzie’s run largely rested on existing villains. There are only two candidates for inclusion in this feature, and even they both debut playing second fiddle to more established bad guys. The new Ani-Men were henchmen of Death-Stalker, and Eric Slaughter is hired by Bullseye.
But their stories are also the earliest issues to be drawn by Frank Miller. And Slaughter has a better claim to inclusion than the Ani-Men, since he makes several repeat appearances over the next few years. Most notably, he’s the villain in issue #168, the debut of Elektra. He’s not exactly the focal point of that story either, mind you, but he does enough to justify us looking at him.
Slaughter’s debut story is simple. Bullseye hires him to kill Daredevil. The story is rather vague about Slaughter’s actual role in the underworld. He’s an elderly man who has a gang of thugs working for him, and who it seems are expected to do the actual killing. Daredevil has heard of Slaughter, but “thought he’d retired years ago”. Still, there’s no suggestion here that Slaughter has to round up some men in order to take on this contract. So apparently he’s some sort of gang leader who’s managed to avoid Matt’s notice. Frank Miller isn’t much clearer on this point, to be honest. Issue #181 describes Slaughter as running a “freelance assassination operation”, but in issue #168 he’s providing bodyguards. Either way, the operation can’t be particularly elite, because Turk holds down a job there, and he’s a comic relief moron.
The X-Axis – w/c 19 May 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #22. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. We’re still in the influencer storyline, although it tacks in a strange direction with this issue. At first we’re still doing stuff about Mondo’s attempts to be a pacifist influencer – and Audino really does make the guy look likeable – but then we tack into what seems to be some sort of origin story for Zero, as a rickety 1950s proto-AI. That’s certainly not what I was expecting here. Seeley also develops his attempt to take Wildside from merely a memorable Liefeld design into a viable lead villain, with some success. His revived extremism is based on claiming that he’s been to the far future with Zero and seen a world where mutants had wiped out humans – therefore, it’s fine for mutants to get rid of humanity because it’s happening anyway and they might as well get it over with. In other words, he’s seen the future and it validates giving up on coexistence. But his revived MLF is now the “Mutant Salvation Front” and he seems to have got a bit messianic. Does any of this tie to the influencer theme? Um… tenuously? I suppose in terms of the radicalisation and propaganda theme, maybe, but the link between Wildside’s schemes and the influencers isn’t terribly clear. Still, there’s a lot of neat details in here.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #9. (Annotations here.) Well, it’s taken us nine issues, but we actually have a fight with a villain. And instead of throwing the kids into the fire, the teachers deal with him while the kids try not to mess it all up. It’s more realistic but… after this long a wait, you kind of want the kids to take the reins more? Then again, their frustration at being left to pointlessly train while the plot goes on somewhere else is nicely conveyed in a montage sequence, and since Emma collapses at the end of the isuse, maybe this is heading towards the kids having to step up and deal with it themselves.
Exceptional X-Men #9 annotations
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #9
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE CORE CAST
Axo. His “affective core”, as visited by Emma, consists of him sharing a meal with his family and friends – despite the fact that we’ve repeatedly seen him blowing off his father’s attempts to have these sorts of moments with him. Emma seems surprisingly touched by it, and describes it as “lovely”.
He’s a powerful enough telepath for it to be worth Emma’s while borrowing his power in order to defeat Sinister.
Bronze and Melée. They bluff their way out of Axo’s clone collapsing with a ludicrous tale about a school science project, which people are apparently willing to accept. Well, it is the Marvel Universe.
They accept the instruction to remain at the dojo while the grown-ups deal with Mr Sinister, but they’re understandably bored and frustrated. Whether because of that or because they’re taken by surprise and railroaded, they fall for Sinister’s fake Iceman. Rather than making a positive contribution to defeating Sinister, their main role is to stay calm and get themselves out of trouble without having to divert the attention of the established X-Men.
The X-Axis – w/c 12 May 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #21. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. The Generation X reunion continues with Mondo, who feels like getting him into this storyline involved some awkward shoehorning. Of course, the Mondo who was in Generation X was later revealed to be an impostor; this is the real Mondo, who doesn’t really know the characters he’s being reunited with, and in fact has only a scattering of previous appearances. In itself, that’s quite a fun inversion of the reunion angle. Getting him into a story about influencers by making him a pacifist podcaster feels forced, though – even if the story then acknowledges that he’s not a particularly successful pacifist podcaster, he still has to be doing well enough to show up at this event at all. Mind you, I do like Banshee’s dad-like bafflement at the online world, which seems like a solid use of his weary father-figure role in this group – if he’s not the headmaster then his role in the cast ought to be a bit awkward.
UNCANNY X-MEN #14. (Annotations here.) So we’ve got three threads here: Henrietta’s flashbacks in the 1920s (or so?), the Outliers in the Dark Artery in the present day, and Gambit’s encounter with Sadurang. Thus far, the third of those threads doesn’t seem to have much to do with the other two, beyond perhaps keeping the regular X-Men occupied while the Outliers do their thing. It’s neat enough in its own right, but I’m not quite sure what it’s doing in this arc yet. The other two threads are coming together nicely, though – we’re getting some advancement about who the Outliers are and how they actually wound up coming together in the first place, and at the same time Gail Simone continues to try and flesh out a historical mutant underground community. David Marquez’s art is naturally beautiful, especially on the historical flashbacks.
Wolverine #9 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #9
“The Long Road Home”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Javier Pina
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
WOLVERINE
The previous issue ended with Logan in a motel room receiving a mysterious letter supposedly from his mother, apologising for rejecting him (in Origin) and asking for his help. According to Logan, that was “[a] couple of days ago”. He also claims that he’s rejoined the X-Men and that “I left the wilderness weeks ago”.
Unfortunately, if we take everything in the series so far at face value, there is no time for that to have happened. The series began with him hiding out in the wilderness and Nightcrawler trying to persuade him to come back. Also, footnotes explicitly had it taking place before X-Men #1. The only gaps in the action since then have involved Logan hiding out in remote cabins trying to train Leonard the Wendigo, and also take place at a time when Nightcrawler still somehow has access to the Blackbird, which isn’t around in Uncanny X-Men.
Phoenix #11 annotations
PHOENIX #11
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa
PHOENIX
The previous issue ended with Jean receiving a psychic message from someone claiming to be her sister Sara. Since then, Jean hasn’t had any further psychic contact with Sara, but she has had recurring nightmares about Sara being taken away by villains. The one we see features demons.
Jean is certain that the woman she sensed was the real Sara, and somewhat irritated by Scott’s scepticism. She places particular importance on this not simply because it’s her sister, but because the rest of her family are all dead (having been slaughtered by the Shi’ar in Uncanny X-Men #467).
When Jean meets Sara, she’s equally certain that it’s her real sister. But she acknowledges in narration towards the end that she very much wanted to believe this, and didn’t ask awkward questions.
X-Factor #10 annotations
X-FACTOR vol 5 #10
“Survivors Guild”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
This is the final issue of X-Factor, which has been cancelled. So as you’d expect, it’s a cut-to-the-chase wrap-up issue.
Although the solicitations always had the cover art showing Havok laying flowers on X-Factor’s grave, the solicitation text bears little resemblance to the story as published: “General Mills gives X-Factor one final test of loyalty! How will Angel, Pyro and the others complete their mission without selling out their people? Can Havok still make a difference? And what final secret is X-Factor hiding?”
X-FACTOR
Angel. The subplot about his out-of-character behaviour is completely dropped, assuming that it actually was a subplot (after all, Darkstar’s been wildly out of character for the whole series). But since Angel’s behaviour is basically back to normal in this issue, it looks like someone just made a call that there wasn’t time to resolve the plot and it was best to brush it under the carpet.
Uncanny X-Men #14 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #14
“The Dark Artery, part 2: An Infectious Mind”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Gambit. He repeats his story from the previous issue about people panicking at the sight of his eyes when he was a child. He rejects Sadurang’s offer to return the Left Eye of Agamotto, a decision which Sadurang accepts without protest – but he makes sure to draw the prophecy of madness to the attention of the rest of the team.
Rogue. She vigorously defends her husband against Sadurang, to little avail. Gambit claims that you have to tread carefully with her when she’s in a bad mood (and makes a time-of-the-month reference).
Jubilee. Sadurang reminds her of Shogo, her adoptive son who turned into a dragon and remained in Otherworld after Knights of X. Sadurang claims that Shogo misses her, and advises her to visit.
The X-Axis – w/c 6 May 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #20. By Tim Seeley, Adoardo Audino, KJ Diaz & Clayton Cowles. This feels like it backs off a bit from the cliffhanger of the previous issue (which I liked a lot). But the basic setting of a bunch of influencers who don’t really care about anything other than engagement – including the ones who are supposedly the good guys – seems like a good angle. Building up Wildside as the leader of a new MLF is, um, a choice, but I guess that of the established MLF guys he’s the one with the most charisma. Audino makes good use of the format, bringing a lot of personality to his bit part characters. It’s pretty decent, all told.
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY 2025: FANTASTIC FOUR / GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1. This came out last weekend, but it was added to Marvel Unlimited on Wednesday. There are three 8-page stories here, and the main attraction is the FF strip by Ryan North, Humberto Ramos and Edgar Delgado. It gets across the strengths of North’s FF run – a simple strong idea, and genuinely self-contained – which also makes it ideal for FCBD. The X-Men story, by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Iban Coello and Brian Reber, is basically just an advert for the upcoming Giant-Size X-Men one-shots and does nothing to increase my interest in what currently looks like a rather tiresome gimmick. It’s certainly hard to see why it would hold any interest to the new readers that FCBD is ostensibly targetting. Finally, there’s a Chip Zdarsky story about a fan and his non-fan wife ending up the Marvel Universe as “Wolverpool and Deadverine” which… feels too close to what Gwenpool did already, I guess?
