Expatriate X-Men #1 annotations
EXPATRIATE X-MEN #1
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Francesco Mortarino
Colourist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Simply a group shot of the cast – except that Colossus, at the back left, doesn’t actually appear in this issue, and Mystique, at the back right, is more of a supporting character who the X-Men are dealing with.
This is the stand-in book for Exceptional X-Men, although that book hasn’t been solicited to return in January. Still, it’s written by Eve Ewing and it features Rift, Melée and Bronze. As for the other Exceptional cast members, Kitty Pryde has appeared in X-Men: Book of Revelation #1; Emma Frost is co-starring in Iron & Frost; and I don’t think we’ve seen Iceman or Axo yet.
PAGES 1-5. Rift, Ms Marvel and Bronze attack a border post.
Rift is Reggie McNair, Trista’s crush from Exceptional X-Men. He turned out to be a mutant in the closing issues of Exceptional when his time portals sent the cast back to Kitty Pryde’s teenage years. He seems to be the narrator here, since the first caption has the same colouring and lightning-flash symbol that appears in his portals.
Daredevil Villains #62: The Congregation of Righteousness
DAREDEVIL #194 (May 1983)
“Judgment”
Writer: Denny O’Neil
Artist: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Editor: Linda Grant
Following Frank Miller on Daredevil is not an enviable task. After two quite decent fill-in stories, the man who takes on the assignment is the book’s editor Denny O’Neil – not so much because he wanted the job as because somebody had to do it, it would seem. He’ll be with us until issue #226, give or take a few fill-ins scattered along the way.
This issue doesn’t read like the start of a planned run, though. The next issue starts some actual storylines, with issue #200 looming on the horizon, but issue #194 this feels like it was intended as the book’s third consecutive fill-in. The editor credit tends to confirm that the book was playing for time at this point. Officially, Marvel didn’t have writer-editors in 1983, but they may have been paying lip service to that policy here. Linda Grant, credited as “guest editor” on this issue and “special editor” on the next, was not a full-fledged editor, but O’Neil’s own assistant. She remains the credited editor up to issue #200, after which the book is finally reassigned to a different office.
The X-Axis – w/c 20 October 2025
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.
X-Men: Book of Revelation #1 annotations
X-MEN: BOOK OF REVELATION #1
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Revelation stands before a crowd of supporters. Most of them are generics, but one has Akihiro-style claws (though we’ve seen him as a dissident in Laura Kinney, Sabretooth) and the one on the right is obviously Sunspot.
As a rule, I’m only doing full posts for the “Age of Revelation” books that map on to ongoing titles. This one doesn’t, but it’s written by Jed MacKay and it’s clearly much more central to the plot than any of the other books.
PAGE 1. Elbecca Voss in her bedroom.
This is effectively a flash forward which takes place between pages 7-8. As we’ll see later, Elbecca is the newest recruit to Revelation’s Choristers, the power-boosting mutants who enhance his powers to godlike levels. Since she’s too young to remember anything before Age of Revelation, she can’t be much more than ten years old and if she even exists in the present day, she’ll be an infant. I’m fairly sure this is her first appearance, and her unusual name doesn’t obviously map on to any established character.
The Last Wolverine #1 annotations
THE LAST WOLVERINE #1
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Edgar Salazar
Colour artist: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Leonard as Wolverine, with the original (in his Revelation-era costume) looming in the background.
This is the “Age of Revelation” stand-in title for Wolverine, obviously.
PAGES 1-4. Wolverine rescues kids from a burning building.
We’re in Vancouver, which is comfortably outside Revelation’s reach and seems to be carrying on pretty much as normal for now. The new Wolverine is Leonard, the kid who debuted in issue #2 of the current Wolverine series. He’ll recap his back story for us in the next scene, so we’ll come back to it. At this point, Leonard is wearing a Wolverine costume and seems to be very well established as the local superhero of Vancouver. He’s remarkably cheerful, in a Silver Age Superman kind of way, and it seems from dialogue later in the issue that he keeps this up whenever he’s in public, so it’s not just for the kids’ benefit. He’s just really keen to be a good old traditional superhero. (Given that he’s a Wendigo, it’s possible that making a conscious effort to keep up the persona also helps him stay in control.)
The X-Axis – w/c 13 October 2025
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #40. By Alex Paknadel, Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Well, this certainly feels like the series is wrapping itself up, with the heroes finally getting to fight the X-Cutioner and a greatest hits selection of his weapons from previous arcs. There isn’t that much more to it, though, and the background storyline about the X-Cutioner and Cassandra has always been rather less interesting than the individual stories along the way. This isn’t bad, but it feels more like an obligatory resolution than something that’s going to kick that overarching story up a notch.
UNBREAKABLE X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) We’re in week two of the “Age of Revelation” proper – as opposed to the prologue one-shots – and they’re turning out to be a broader range of stories than I would have expected. There are four tie-ins this week, and only two of them really involve Revelation at all. The others are pretty much stories that you could do in any near future timeline, at least from what we’ve seen so far. I have no problem with that; I don’t want to spend three months reading a vast array of takes on a very specific story. How well it’ll sell is another matter, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Rogue Storm #1 annotations
ROGUE STORM #1
“Deicide”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Roland Boschi
Colour artist: Neeraj Menon
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: A split image of Storm and Rogue, with Storm in what I’m guessing is a savannah, and Rogue in what looks like the Arctic but… well, we’ll come to that. Rogue is wearing the knuckledusters that Storm gives her in flashback during the story.
This is the stand-in book for Storm during “Age of Revelation”.
PAGE 1. Montage: “Five years into the Age of Revelation.”
The main time frame for “Age of Revelation” is ten years, so this is effectively a flashback.
The first panel shows a shattered Mjolnir in orbit, presumably to do with the fate of Thor in this timeline. We don’t know yet what might have happened to him.
The second panel is captioned as the Sahara Desert, but the art shows a snowy wasteland. We’re told later in the issue that Storm has frozen the desert.
Unbreakable X-Men #1 annotations
UNBREAKABLE X-MEN #1
“Guarding the Gate”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Age of Revelation Gambit, with the tombstones of Rogue and Marcus St Juniors, and… well, that looming face in the background might be Shuvahrak, but the green gloves seem more like Rogue.
This is the “Age of Revelation” title standing in for Uncanny X-Men.
PAGES 1-8. Rogue dies fighting Galactus.
“Seven years from now.” The main time frame for Age of Revelation is ten years into the future, relative to the present day. By this point, the Revelation Territories should be well established. However, this is Louisiana, and it’s not part of Revelation’s territory even in the main time frame.
Haven House. The base of the X-Men team from Uncanny X-Men. Evidently they’re still there years into the future – or at least they return there at some point.
The X-Men. The team at this point consists of Ransom (as team leader), Rogue, Gambit, Temper, Dome, Spider-Girl and Sentinel Boy. Taking them in turn:
The X-Axis – w/c 6 October 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #39. By Alex Paknadel, Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Well, someone didn’t get the memo about “Age of Revelation”. Astonishing X-Men ploughs gamely on as normal. Then again, it might not have a choice, because this looks a lot like it’s meant to be drawing the book’s storylines to a head – Morph goes on trial after the previous arc, and the X-Cutioner attacks the court with a greatest hits selection of all the weapons he’s used in the series to date. So that sounds a lot like we’re getting to the pay off, and it wouldn’t be the first Infinity Comic they’ve wrapped up recently. Now, there’s an inherent problem in a marginal book like this trying to play the “mutant trial of the century” card – quite aside from the fact that Magneto and Cyclops have both been put on trial before – and it means that my plot problems with the previous arc are rolled forward to this one, since I don’t really buy that the ground rules of the Marvel Universe allow people to waltz in to nuclear facilities and launch missiles just because they happened to have a high security clearance a decade ago. And this book’s take on X-Cutioner has always been a bit one-dimensional as well. So… it clunks a bit, this. But we’ll see if it can pull everything together.
AMAZING X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) It’s the first full week of “Age of Revelation”, and this is obviously the core series – the whole thing grows entirely out of MacKay’s X-Men. In many ways I’m happy to see that there’s a clear and contained core to the thing, rather than inventing all manner of busywork sidequests to justify all the tie-ins. From all we’ve seen so far, the answer to the question “Which Age of Revelation books do you really have to read to follow the event” is… this one. Just this one. And… great! It can outsource a bit of the world building to the other titles and focus on its own story, which ultimately seems to be an episodic road trip around the AoR, coupled with a mystery about why the future X-Men are clearly lying to Cyclops about at least some of this. And a subsidiary mystery about what’s up with the Beast; I suspect the twist here may be that he is from the past, but not from the same point in the past. I’m not entirely sold on Wolverine being so unstoppable that he can just get out of a black hole, and the art feels a bit muted at times… but then again, the sequence of Revelation reprogramming Wolverine is very nicely done. It’s a solid chapter of a relatively tight core story, anyway.
Laura Kinney, Sabretooth #1 annotations
LAURA KINNEY, SABRETOOTH #1
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Valentina Pinti
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Laura as Sabretooth, in an overgrown city from Age of Revelation. Specifically, the sign says it’s Market Street, which is a main road in Philadelphia, Revelation’s capital.
Obviously, this is the Age of Revelation stand-in book for Laura Kinney, Wolverine.
PAGE 1-11. Laura asks Akihiro and Gabby to get her son Alex out of town.
Yes, it’s an 11 page scene.
“This is what mutants wanted all along…” Laura’s introduction to Age of Revelation Philadelphia presents it as a Krakoa-style utopia, which is basically how the Revelation himself portrays it. The ordinary inhabitants of Philadelphia certainly seem pretty relaxed here. It may not be significant, but for an all-mutant population, they skew much more heavily to human-passing than they ever did in Krakoa. Come to think of it, so did the Babels we saw in Binary.
“Before the government tried to destroy Revelation’s compound, they sent in super villains and assassins to stop us…” This comes from X-Men: Age of Revelation #0. Xorn’s narrative in that issue says that “when they gave up on soldiers and resorted instead to assassins, Revelation had any number of mutants to protect him” (and makes a point about the memory of Krakoa being a driving factor). The art shows Psylocke defending Revelation from Bullseye, but evidently Laura had joined him by this point.
