Okay then…

X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION INFINITY COMIC #2. By Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Despite the title, the Age of Revelation Infinity Comic is actually covering events shortly after the X-Virus outbreak, not that far into the future. That means it gets to be the one book where we have Revelation as the leader of the X-Men, still recognisable as Doug Ramsey. That’s probably the most interesting thing about this arc, but this chapter (quite understandably) is mostly devoted to setting up Anton Kruch as a major threat for a Cable story, so that Revelation can show up at the end to kick things up a gear. Kruch is a weird choice of villain at first glance – his only previous appearance was in a single Cable & Deadpool arc 20 years ago. But he has the advantage of being a pre-existing character with his own plan to transform the human race with a virus, which works as an opponent for a pseudo-heroic Revelation pretending to have a team-up with Cable, so I can see why we’re using him. Still, this chapter is mainly setting up Kruch so that we can get to the good stuff next time.

ROGUE STORM #2. By Murewa Ayodele, Roland Boschi, Neeraj Menon & Travis Lanham. If I’d had time to do annotations this week, then this is the only book that would have qualified anyway. Some “Age of Revelation” books seem to be having more trouble with pacing a three-issue story than others. For Murewa Ayodele, it seems to suit him quite well – this feels a lot more focussed than the regular Storm story, and the jumping through time frames works nicely in terms of filling in the back story. After giving the first issue to Rogue, this one is from Storm’s perspective, and it basically turns out that her odd behaviour was due to possession from a demon we’ve seen in the regular series. There’s a bit with Doctor Voodoo that presumably plays into the regular series at least obliquely, as well. But mostly, it turns out to be a fairly straightforward story which leans less than usual on overpowering Ororo. Boschi’s art is really good – the demon design, with the grinning mask-like face, suits him perfectly, but he’s also adding a bit of humanity to the cast. I wish somebody would talk Ayodele out of his gimmick of sticking sound effects on literally everything – I’ll just about tolerate “LISTENING” (which isn’t easy to show), or “SLICE!” (since you’d kind of expect a sound effect in that panel of some sort), but when you get to “POUR”, “TOSS” and “CATCH”, that’s just getting in the way of the artist doing his job. On the whole, though, this is clicking better than the regular Storm title, and I think the discipline of three issues is helping there.

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X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION INFINITY COMIC #1. By Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Huh, turns out we’re not finished with these after all. This is very much in the margins of the crossover proper. It’s a Cable story set “shortly after the X-virus outbreak”, when Revelation hasn’t become established yet, and the plot involves Anton Kruch trying to take advantage of the situation in order to push his own agenda of eradicating discrimination by making all humans identical. Honestly, he’s an established villain. He was in the first arc of Cable & Deadpool back in the day. In itself, it’s a decent enough story, with the usual solid art and Seeley bringing a bit more personality to the bit players. But there’s also some interest coming from Cable not knowing what’s going on in this time period, and the Revelation-led X-Men hovering around on the fringes of the plot, still apparently meant to be the heroes. I’m kind of interested to see that part of the back story filled out, actually.

AMAZING X-MEN #2. (Annotations here.) Cyclops faces off against the Darkchild in a battle of home truths and comes out on top. It’s a very good scene, and it looks great. I’m left wondering about the pacing of some of these “Age of Revelation” titles, though – this is only a three issue miniseries, surely? But then again… no, no, it’s not, because there’s a finale issue, and there was also the Overture one-shot. So this particular issue is really #3 (of 5) and it makes a bit more sense that way. And there’s also the swerve that the A-plot is meant to be happening back in the present day, with future Cyclops trying to nip Revelation in the bud – which I kind of saw coming, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Getting the hints confirmed can be satisfying too. I’m still left a bit confused about what sort of satisfying ending we might get out of the “Age of Revelation” phase of the story, though.

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ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #41. By Alex Paknadel, Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Cancelled, although it does at least get to use its final arc to wrap up the overarching story. Marvel seem to be winding down the in-continuity spin Infinity Comics generally, although Astonishing Miles Morales: Spider-Man Infinity Comic is still around (as well as Marvel Rivals and Jeff, which I guess might be canon, though it doesn’t really matter one way or the other). I’ve always had my doubts about how far these books were actually helping to bring readers in to Marvel Unlimited, which is principally a back catalogue subscription service, and perhaps Marvel is taking the same view – especially as their current strategy for digital comics seems to be to give up on Amazon and sign up for rival platforms like GlobalComix and Neon Ichiban. The Infinity Comics would have made a lot more sense in a world where Marvel was selling its new digital comics directly on Marvel Unlimited, but that’s evidently not the direction.

Anyway, X-Cutioner shakes off Cassandra Nova’s control but doesn’t seem that different for it; I still don’t think anyone in recent years has actually understood the character. Vague mutterings about wanting to start a war don’t really fit with what Cassandra’s doing in 3K, and a random one-panel cameo by other Generation X characters who never got around to joining the regular cast feels a bit forced. Ultimately, I don’t think this worked; the better stories in this series have played off the idea of Cassandra exploiting, if not legitimate concerns, at least understandable anxieties. So if X-Cutioner is just as mad and only objects to Cassandra’s version of the plan because she’s a mutant, that falls a bit flat. Still, I did quite enjoy this book’s curiously cut-down version of Generation X, and Sean’s uncomfortable role as the outgrown mentor. There’s something in that I’d like to see more of.

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ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #41. By Tim Seeley, Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Mmm. This isn’t really working for me. At this point it feels like we’re mainly just going through what needs to be done to wrap up the story, and while the beats make sense, and the art is perfectly decent, it’s all a bit routine. Morph hasn’t been developed to the point where I care about him – as I’ve pointed out before, he was kept on the fringes of storylines that were supposedly about him, and at this point that no longer looks like a longer-term storytelling choice but just a weird decision. There’s a vaguely interesting idea about the X-Cutioner being under the influence of Cassandra Nova, since he was always weirdly cast in this role. His motivation was never meant to be that he hated mutants as such, so much as that he objected to them placing themselves above the law. Now, there’s a trope in X-Men books of “the bigots are actually just being corrupted by evil psychics” which dates back to the Shadow King in the X-Men and has never worked, because bigotry is not just a feature of a world where evil psychics exist. I can see something in using it as a radicalisation metaphor with characters like X-Cutioner who really do start off motivated by, well, legitimate concerns, and then get toppled into something else by Cassandra. But I don’t think it’s really landed. Plus, it runs up against the problem that your main villain winds up being Cassandra herself – and in this interpretation, she’s… not very interesting?

THE LAST WOLVERINE #1. (Annotations here.) We’re three weeks into the “Age of Revelation” tie-ins and… you know, this is going pretty well. I still think it’s wildly ambitious to try and get this many tie-in books out of an X-event in 2025. But the actual stories are holding up well, even though only two of the minis genuinely seem to be relevant to the core plot. Sixteen books written in the margins of another story sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it’s serving a couple of functions. For one thing, we’re only about ten years into the future, so you can use these stories to do some actual foreshadowing for the regular stories and it doesn’t feel like the total detour you might expect. For another, it gives some space to flesh out the Age of Revelation world, which leaves the core books free to get on with the plot. And since the vast majority of that world is not occupied by Revelation, it isn’t just a string of post-apocalyptics stories. This, instead, is a story about Leonard the Wendigo attempting to take up Logan’s mantle as the beloved local superhero of a still-basically-normal Vancouver. It’s remarkably upbeat, even if that comes with an undertow of the value in clinging to optimism when everything is falling apart on the horizon. For regular Wolverine readers there are obvious questions about why Leonard is still a Wendigo, which is why it feels relevant to that series even (mostly) in the absence of the lead character. Good fun.

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