As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #1
“All the Places You Will Go”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

This is the first ongoing series with the title Laura Kinney: Wolverine, but Laura previously had ongoing titles under the name X-23 during 2010-12 and 2018-19, plus All-New Wolverine in 2016-18. Hence the legacy numbering of issue #69.

WOLVERINE:

Laura struggles to understand Kamala’s optimism or even Sophie’s ability to adjust to the fall of Krakoa. She refers here to “the few times I let them talk me into hanging out”. That doesn’t really fit with her arc in NYX, in which she starts hanging out with the rest of the cast in order to get allies against Mojo.

On learning that young Ivan has been abducted to Dubai, Laura’s back story naturally motivates her to address this tale of child exploitation. Much of this story involves her expecting all mutants to be on her side and humans to be against her, and being surprised when neither of those turns out to be true. Logically, the existence of mutant villains shouldn’t come as a massive surprise to her, but to be fair, Laura is still in the mutant nation mindset of Krakoa.

At least at first, Laura is deeply unimpressed by Polly; she seems to regard Polly’s decision to stay closeted during the Krakoan era as a moral failing and takes it as read that Polly will see it the same way. She also regards even willing performers at the Delta as being exploited. But by the end of the story she decides that Polly just has a more balanced view of mutants and humans.

Laura leaves it to Kamala and Sophie to arrange Ivan’s reunion with his sister, the implication being that she feels uncomfortable with handling this sort of emotional moment herself – she watches from nearby, so she clearly could have done it in person.

SUPPORTING CAST:

Kamala Khan and Sophie Cuckoo both appear at the start and end, mainly to play up the contrast with Laura. Laura is hanging out with them, but Sophie still has her telepathic powers, so we’re probably somewhere between NYX #2 and #4.

Ivan is a mutant with mood-altering sweat who’s been abducted to Dubai, and Emery is his sister, apparently a mutant but with no powers beyond an unusual appearance. Emery’s approach to getting help for Ivan, a little oddly, is to write a letter and hide it at the Treehouse, apparently in the hope that someone from the X-Men will find it. Remarkably, she turns out to be right. According to Emery’s letter, she and her brother are Moldovans; she says they were both abducted from there, but it’s not clear how she escaped (or maybe got dumped), or how she got to New York. They’re both new characters.

Polly is a Dubai-based mutant who can detect other mutants. Since she’s white and blonde, presumably she wasn’t born in Dubai. She runs Oasis, which she describes as a “safe place” for mutants, funded by a “benefactor” whom she doesn’t identify. Maybe we’ll come back to that in future issues. After the Madame is defeated, Polly invites her human trafficking victims to come to Oasis as well; she never actually said that Oasis was mutant-specific, just that it was safe for mutants.

According to Polly, she chose to live as a human and was reluctant to out herself by moving to Krakoa; consequently, she missed the whole thing. She regrets this, which motivates her to create Oasis. She’s still very uncomfortable with anything illicit and has an unnamed “cop friend” who she talks to. Much to Laura’s surprise, the cop turns out to be completely legitimate and although we never see Oasis, all signs are that Polly was telling the truth about it.

Elektra – as the second Daredevil – shows up at the end to tease issue #2.

VILLAINS:

The Madame is a mutant based in Dubai and dealing in trafficked mutants. She also has ties with the Delta Disco, which employs low-level mutants as entertainers; several characters claim that these mutants are there willingly, and even Laura seems prepared to accept that, although she still regards them as being exploited.

The Madame turns out to be Cybelle, a bit part character from Uncanny X-Men #211 who was one of the first mutants killed in the Mutant Massacre. We already knew that Cybelle had been resurrected on Krakoa; she appears in Hellions #1.

Cybelle doesn’t ascribe her motivation to the fall of Krakoa. Rather, she points out that Laura doesn’t even know her name, and says that she was “just another random mutant resurrected to fill up the island”. She claims that once she was resurrected she was determined never to be a victim again, and she sees the Massacre as having happened because “the heroes let it happen”. Basically, she doesn’t buy into mutant identity as an organising principle; all this does somewhat fit with the Morlocks being generally unhappy with Krakoa and wanting to go their own way.

An unnamed bouncer at the Delta Disco is also a mutant with size-changing and strength powers. He knows what the Madame is up to but doesn’t much care as long as he’s okay. He puts up an impressive fight against Laura, but she does attack him first, so it’s not entirely clear whether he’s actively involved in the Madame’s activities or just turning a blind eye to them.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Page 3. The narration is a straight recap of Laura’s established back story and the fall of Krakoa, at a very high level.

Page 5. The Treehouse was the X-Men’s New York headquarters during the Krakoan era. The plaque reading “Dedicated to those who paid the ultimate price to fight fascism” was added as a memorial in Invincible Iron Man #20.

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

STORM vol 5 #3
“Impending Doom”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

STORM:

Dr Voodoo summarily cures her radiation poisoning by making a bargain with an ancient spirit called Eégún, in exchange for her not using her powers for a week. We’ll come back to Eégún. However, according to Voodoo, she continues to be surrounded by “death sprites”, who are drawn to her because she’s about to die.

Storm correctly points out she’s gone without her powers for far longer than this in the past – specifically, when her powers were removed by Forge’s Neutralizer device between Uncanny X-Men #185 and #226. However, since the other prices that the spirit offered were essentially lethal, the strong implication is that the spirit expects it to be impossible for Storm to get through the next week without using her powers. From her dialogue, it seems that Storm still has her powers, but would be breaking the deal with she actually used them.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

PHOENIX #6
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Marco Renna
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa

PHOENIX

Jean’s attempts to go into space and perform cosmic acts of heroism have simply set off a chain of events that led to Perrikus escaping and Thanos gaining control of the Galactic Council, and she’s starting to think that maybe this was a mistake.

Thanks to Thanos, Jean is now hated around the universe, partly for genuine reasons and partly thanks to his use of the Warlock’s Eye (see below).

SUPPORTING CAST

Adani. In the previous issue, Phoenix met Adani, and “created a psychic barrier” to block out the voices of people around the universe in need of help, which were overwhelming Adani. Their scene ended with Adani threatening to kill Phoenix, but evidently she agreed to tag along back to Phoenix’s ship after all. As Phoenix suggested in the previous issue, Adani’s dreams indicate that she’s torn between Perrikus and Phoenix; she also has visions of herself as an innocent trying to persuade her to follow Jean.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FACTOR vol 5 #5
“Prisoners of the Fun Room”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan

X-FACTOR:

Despite their underwhelming performance so far in the series, Havok, Pyro and Frenzy all draw the line at being asked to support the new Mutant Surveillaince Act (supposedly prompted by X-Term). They also object to having their phones searched in an attempt to find the X-Term informant, though to be honest, given their jobs, it seems pretty remarkable that this is only coming up now.

At any rate, Pyro is so annoyed at this treatment that he unilaterally declares that the team are going to walk out, and threatens to fight the military. Havok tries to calm the situation, but moments later X-Term attack anyway.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #7
“Raid on Graymalkin, part 2: No Walls can Hold Us!”
Writer: Gail Simone
Pencillers: David Marquez & Edgar Salazar
Inkers: David Marquez & Victor Olazaba
Colourist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

This is the second part of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover, which started in X-Men #8 and continues in X-Men #9. In fact, the action of this issue heavily overlaps with the previous chapter, with some scenes appearing in both issues.

Roughly speaking, the sequence of events goes like this.

• X-Men #8 pp2-3. Beast wakes up in Graymalkin Prison.
• Uncanny #7, pp3-6. Cyclops and Rogue have a phone call and he fails to convince her to stand down. The Louisiana X-Men use the Eye of Agamotto to teleport north.
• X-Men #8 pp5-6. Cyclops briefs the Alaskan X-Men and tells them to “gear up, we’re moving”.
• X-Men #8 pp7-17. Warden Ellis talks to Calico, Jubilee and Beast in the meal hall; Beast is beaten up by guards. In this version, the conversation is interrupted by the Marauder teleporting in and taking out the primary generators, and by a Limbo demon atacking.
• Uncanny #7, pp8-10. Warden Ellis and her men take Jubilee to the cells; Ellis instructs Ezra to release Calico, which he does; and Beast is dragged back to his cell. The Alaskan X-Men are shown on the Marauder. This version is written as if the attack is about to start, but if you squint a bit you you pretend that it’s already started and it’s just not being mentioned on the page.
• X-Men #8 p18 and Uncanny #7, p11-p12pn1. Cyclops, Temper and Psylocke teleport into Graymalkin; Cyclops calls Juggernaut to check he’s in place.
• X-Men #8 pp19-22: Cyclops, Temper and Psylocke fight their way through the building.
• Uncanny #7, p12-p15pn2: Meanwhile, Calico returns with Ember and breaks into the building; the rest of the Lousiana X-Men (who have been stuck outside) follow her in. Jubilee escapes. Kid Omega locates Beast.
• X-Men #8 pp23-25 and Uncanny #7 p15pn3-p16pn1. Psylocke declares that Graymalkin is a “place of horrors”. Blob attacks, but is immediately defeated by Rogue as the two X-Men teams meet.
• Uncanny #7 p16pn2 onwards then play out uninterrupted.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 8 #4
“Lost and Found”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE:

Wolverine is trying to teach the Wendigo to hold on to its humanity, with moderate success. For fairly obvious reasons, he sees parallels between his own situation in Weapon X and Leonard’s transformation into a monster. They’ve sneaked across the border into the US, and Logan has rented a cabin to live in. (Logan’s dialogue says they crossed the border “two days ago” and a “few days” ago within the space of a page, but you get the idea.)

He shows up in costume to investigate an explosion in the area, even though he doesn’t regard himself as a superhero that anyone would want to be rescued by.

He gets a bit animalistic while fighting the Constrictor, but doesn’t cross any lines and recovers his composure soon enough. He attributes this to the length of time that he was living in the wilds.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 7 #6
“The Devil is a Liar”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Jim Towe
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso

X-FORCE:

It’s been nearly a month since issue #5. With Surge dead and Sage having quit, X-Force has continued as a team of Forge, Tank, Captain Britain and Askani, and have been continuing to deal with more seemingly random threats.

Forge is dwelling on the loss of Surge and Sage by retreating into a virtual reality environment where he’s being “advised” by avatars of Storm and Mystique, apparently representing the “angel and devil on the shoulder” trope. Essentially Forge is trusting to ChatGPT for guidance, which is bound to work out well. Ultimately, though, he claims to be reconciled to his relationship with Storm being in the past.

“Storm” makes Sage’s argument from last issue that Forge is paying insufficient attention to the members of X-Force as people, while Mystique makes the argument that Forge himself has been advancing throughout the series about the overriding importance of carrying out the “mission” and trusting to his powers to guide them as to what needs done.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

NYX vol 2 #6
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Penciller: Michael Shelfer
Inkers: Michael Shelfer & Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Raúl Angulo
Editor: Annalise Bissa

This issue is an informal crossover with Dazzler #4, which takes place on Wednesday. However, the link seems to be just that both stories take place at Dazzler’s New York concert, so you don’t need to know anything about the plot of Dazzler for this book.

THE CORE CAST:

Kiden Nixon is the narrator for this issue, though that isn’t made clear until the end. Presumably, she joins the regular cast here. So far as I can see, she hasn’t appeared outside flasbacks since X-23 #1 (2010), but Laura did talk about her in issue #2 in order to set up her return here. Laura is delighted to be reunited with Kiden, her “first” and “best” friend.

Kiden’s narration indicates that she’s been living on the streets and using her time-stop powers to hide away from the world. She was living in a camp of homeless mutants until everyone else got lured away by Mojo; she’s come to the Dazzler concert because she’s investigating him.

The weird colouring effects on pages 3 and 10 are meant to be a version of the rainbow aura effect that appeared in the original NYX when she used her time-stop powers; the rainbow image in page 6 panel 4 is Kiden stopping time in order to walk past security.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 7 #8
“Raid on Graymalkin, part 1”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Ryan Stegman
Inkers: JP Mayer, Livesay & Ryan Stegman
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

This is officially the first part of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover which runs between X-Men #8-9 and Uncanny X-Men #7-8. In practice, though, the story really began with Beast being abducted in the previous issue; this issue confirms that he was taken to Graymalkin. Jubilee and Calico were abducted in last week’s Uncanny X-Men #6.

THE X-MEN (ALASKA)

The Beast hasn’t been treated as a team member thus far, but Cyclops calls him an X-Man here, and he introduces himself to Calico as an X-Man. So let’s go with that.

He’s been abducted to Graymalkin so that he can be extradited to Terra Verde. This refers back to the Krakoan-era X-Force series, where Beast took over the minds of the entire country; this was supposed to be part of the Beast’s corruption. In X-Force vol 6 #20 and Wolverine vol 7 #13, Terra Verde was freed and X-Force did a deal to keep the whole thing quiet for a fairly paltry one billion dollars. The whole story is and always was ridiculous, because it expects us to believe that the entire population of the country – who were aware that they were under mind control – decided to keep quiet about it for no good reason. But taken at face value, it was a crime against humanity, making the Beast a rare case where the Graymalkin authorities actually have a point.

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