Wolverine #24 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #24
“Master and Monster”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Wolverine (with broken claws) posing in front of headshots of Alpha Flight. Apparently no one gave artist Dan Panosian anything beyond a list of names, because he’s drawn current members Puck, Snowbird and Marrina and the previous Vindicator, Heather Hudson. The current Vindicator, Agent Arsenault, wears a black and white costume, and per X-Men #12, she has short blonde hair.
There’s a back-up strip, which is the fourth part of the serial for Disability Pride Month – as before, there’s no attempt to recap the plot and no indication of where you can read previous chapters. They’re in Amazing Spider-Man #32, Uncanny X-Men #31 and Fantastic Four #14, if you care. But it’s got nothing to do with the X-books so I won’t be saying any more about it – except to wonder why Finesse seems to be the highest-profile explicitly autistic character in a universe that includes Reed Richards. (Or, hell, Scott Summers, but that’s another matter…)
Uncanny X-Men #32 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #31
“Mars Needs Mutants, part 3”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: Rogê Antônio, Jim Towe & Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: A B-movie style poster of the X-Men versus aliens, with a hypnotised-looking Rogue.
THE X-MEN:
Rogue. She didn’t appear in the last two issues, the only explanation being Gambit’s comment last issue that she was “off on a consultation”. In issue #28, she told M that she was going on a “journey” to see “someone who might be able to help” with Gambit’s curse. Last issue, Gambit said that he had sent her a message about the alien invasion, but hadn’t heard back. This issue opens with her on her way back from “an unnamed island in the South China Sea”, presumably something to do with that.
She’s powerful enough to punch one of the Nur’s flying saucers out of the sky. She’s not sure what to make of them – she seems to regard slaughtering the Brood as at least arguably genocide.
The X-Axis – 15 July 2026
X-MEN #34. (Annotations here.) Another quiet week, then. Next week will be busier, with five books coming out. In the meantime, we have the final part of “Anomaly”, a three-parter which in one sense is all about Schwarzchild, but more as a plot point than a character. He’s unconscious for pretty much the entire thing. The real meat of this issue is Ben Liu having the chance to kill Schwarzchild and being kind-of sort-of talked out of it by Quire. As so often in this book, we’re getting appeals to pure pragmatism rather than moral principle, and that seems like it’s going to come back to bite us; it’s set up as a story where Ben gets to make the right choice, and then loops back to tell us that he really hasn’t. But MacKay also makes good use of Quentin Quire, who’s perhaps the last person you’d want to be giving pep talks about moral responsibility to anyone. Still, there’s a low-key appeal to seeing him stepping into that role in the absence of any authority figures to wind up. Visually, it’s not the most exciting issue – that’s kind of a consequence of the decision to make Schwarzchild’s mindscape a blank slate, I guess. The silent page of Ben’s decision intercut with flashbacks to his experiments stands out as an exception. At any rate, it’s good to see this arc limited to three issues – it feels tighter than the five issue arc that seem to be the standard, even if in this case it may be dictated by the scheduling need to get it finished before DNX starts.
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #7. (Annotations here.) She’s not technically in the team, but once again this is really Domino’s issue, with Tim Seeley and Michael Sta Maria riffing entertainingly on the idea that, against sufficiently dimwitted opponents, her luck powers will take care of her without her even noticing. It’s all very satisfying and creatively done. The rest of the issue sees Cyclops and Kid Omega drop by at X-Force’s headquarters, in order to gently probe what the hell Cable is up to. It’s a nice enough idea, though Kid Omega feels out of character here to me – he’s a brat, but this more malicious take on the character feels a good few years out of date to me. As for the imprisoned Mutant Liberation Front members, most of them don’t get much to do in this story, but as a group they’re growing on me. They’re quite nicely pitched as a bunch of amateurs who are further out of their depth than they realise, but not so inept as to be a joke. It allows Resonant to be quietly established as the one who has a better grasp on what’s happening. Now, admittedly, I’m not sure about the wisdom of bringing in the wackier elements from Seeley’s Shatterstar mini. But then again, this is the least grimdark incarnation of X-Force in many a year, and while I doubt it’s getting past issue #10, I’m having fun.
Inglorious X-Force #7 annotations
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #7
“As Luck Would Have It”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editors: Mark Basso & Alanna Smith
COVER: Domino and Cable fighting side by side.
X-FORCE:
Cable. He claims that he can’t interrogate the captured Mutant Liberation Front members telepathically because they’re being held on a level with power dampers that also affect him. Mind you, we know he’s under outside influence at the moment, so we don’t necessarily have to take that literally.
He claims that Professor X’s injunctions against invasive telepathic interrogation don’t apply “in times of war”, and apparently regards this as applying to the Mutant Liberation Front even though they’re amateur-hour bozos.
He greets Cyclops warmly and calls him dad, but we’re told later that beneath the surface he’s telepathically deflecting both Cyclops and Kid Omega with everything he’s got. He references Cyclops “rais[ing] me in the distant future to save me from a weaponized infection”, which is the Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix miniseries.
X-Men #33 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #33
“Anomaly, part 3”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Magneto, in his classic costume, holding off a hail of bullets – precisely the sort of thing he can’t do any more.
THE X-MEN:
The Beast. Well, he’s still in charge in this issue, but it’s not really about him. Magneto rather marginalises him, and he can’t do much to help Kid Omega and Ben Liu. He does manage to persuade Department H to back off, though, even if it happens off panel, so you can chalk that up as another successful bit of diplomacy from him.
Ben Liu. Kid Omega references him being experimented upon by 3K and then dumped on the streets, which is the lead-up to his debut in issue #2. There are some brief flashbacks in this issue to the experiments themselves.
Kid Omega views him as a newbie who isn’t as hardened as the other X-Men (which is obviously right). This lack of faith seems to encourage Ben to step up and help to defuse Schwarzchild’s psychic traps, though really his only contribution is to experience some pain while Kid Omega does all the work. The booby traps set by Cassandra Nova are supposed to take the interlopers to their “Black Bug Rooms” – from New X-Men #116 – which Kid Omega describes as a manifestation of your shame and fear. For Kid Omega, this apparently works, though it takes place off panel. In Ben’s case, he ends up in Schwarzchild’s room – presumably because he has the same traps himself, which screws up how it works, but it’s not directly explained.
The X-Axis – 8 July 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #31. (Annotations here.) Another nice quiet week, then – just two X-books, at least in the main Marvel Universe line. I’m not complaining about that. Uncanny X-Men is still in the “Mars Needs Mutants” arc, which looks like it’s going to be about a bunch of aliens we can’t communicate with showing up to exterminate a bunch of innocent Brood. I’m still puzzled by the fact that the Brood had the aliens’ guns in the previous issue and not in this one. That reads like some sort of error, but it’s one that confuses the plot, so it matters quite a bit. Still, I like the design for the new aliens, and the basic idea seems solid enough. The Vig is quietly establishing himself as a fun supporting character, and the bits with the Outliers’ school dance work well enough. Mutina’s storyline is working for me too, with the continuing mismatch between what she says and what she actually does. As for the Greymalkin B-plot, it feels a bit detached from everything else, and the whole turning mutants into weapons thing is nothing new, but at least it seems to be finally coming to a head.
WOLVERINE #23. (Annotations here.) Well, Julius Ohta’s art has some memorable moments. I do like his Taskmaster towering over Wolverine, and the way he’s using the sai as a kind of improvised claws. He sells the terrified scientist at the end rather well, too. Beyond that, I really don’t know what Saladin Ahmed is trying to do with the book at this point. I’m just about willing to look past the idea that Cecilia Reyes can knock up an anti-nanite serum in ten minutes, but what’s any of it meant to be about? Maybe it’s meant to be something about Wolverine’s anger being both his strength and his weakness, but that’s hardly new either. I certainly don’t know who was crying out for a new incarnation of Post, a character who was killed off more than 25 years ago and never had much going for him beyond his character design (and then only when drawn by Andy Kubert). There’s nothing especially bad about this on a page-to-page level, but when I stand back I just can’t see anything new here.
Wolverine #23 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #23
“Power Grab”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Julius Ohta
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Taskmaster advances on Wolverine, with adamantium claws extended. This doesn’t actually happen in the story, where Taskmaster only has the copied healing factor.
This is a pretty straightforward issue, but we’ll run through it anyway.
WOLVERINE:
For those just joining us, his healing factor has been switched off by nanites, and his right-hand claws are still broken from the fight with the Adamantine in issue #20. The previous issue established that his adamantium is poisoning him without his healing factor (which has happened before), but was rather inconsistent about how far this was affecting him – at times he seemed to be having trouble standing, but he also seemed able to hold his own against Taskmaster. This issue seems to be saying that his berserker rage is partly responsible for keeping him on his feet, and that his enhanced senses still give him some advantage in anticipating Taskmaster’s moves.
Uncanny X-Men #31 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #31
“Mars Needs Mutants, part two: The Devil I Know”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: Jim Towe & David Baldeón
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: One of the Nur holding an unconscious Rogue, with UFOs above. This doesn’t happen in this issue – indeed, Rogue doesn’t appear at all. The slogan “They Came From Beyond!” might just be generic, but there was a film called They Came From Beyond Space in 1967 (based on Joseph Millard’s 1941 novel The Gods Hate Kansas, which seems a bit harsh, but I’ve never been there so I’ll have to take his word for it).
This issue also include part two of “Mind and Matter”, a serialised 5-page back-up strip for Marvel Voices celebrating Disability Pride Month. It’s got nothing to do with the X-Men, so I won’t be covering it. At least in the digital edition, there doesn’t seem to be any indication of where you can read part one – if you were wondering, it’s in Amazing Spider-Man #32.
Daredevil Villains #81: Ammo
DAREDEVIL #252 (March 1988)
“Ground Zero”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr.
Inker: Al Williamson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Max Scheele
Editor: Ralph Macchio
For some reason, Daredevil #252 is a double sized issue. It’s not an anniversary issue. It’s not a fresh start. It’s not the climax of a long running storyline. It’s not even a turning point. Instead, it’s a tie-in to “Fall of the Mutants”, which was taking place over in Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and X-Factor.
“Fall of the Mutants” wasn’t even a crossover. It consisted of three separate turning-point storylines that barely interacted with one another. But despite that, there were four tie-in issues. All four of them linked to X-Factor‘s storyline, in which Apocalypse and his Horsemen attack New York. The only connection with Daredevil is that it happens to take place in his city.
This turns out not to be a problem. Ann Nocenti has a story that she wants to tell here, and it’s about how everyone in Hell’s Kitchen reacts when a disaster hits and they fear the world might be ending. To do that story, you need a disaster, but the disaster itself isn’t the point, and so Nocenti doesn’t want to waste time in this book on actually setting it up or resolving it. A crossover provides a wonderful solution to this problem: it means that she doesn’t have to explain the disaster at all, and anyone who really cares can be referred to another book where the details actually matter. She doesn’t even need to recap the plot of the crossover, because it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know what’s happening or why… well, nor do any of the regular characters, and that’s the whole point.
The X-Axis – 1 July 2026
X-MEN UNITED #5. (Annotations here.) I have no idea how much weight you can really put on Amazon listing this as issue #5 of 10, but I can’t say it would surprise me, because the book isn’t working at all. The art’s decent enough in this issue – probably as good as we’ve had it so far – but the fundamental concept of Graymatter Lane just doesn’t work, and I’m not entirely convinced that even the people making the comic understand it. It’s taken five issues to clarify that this is in fact just a mental projection and that everyone’s body is meant to be asleep at home – but if that’s the case, how does any of this stuff about Rift teleporting people direct to places on Earth work? This isn’t nitpicking, this is really basic, rudimentary stuff that feels like nobody has thought it through properly. And now we’re doing a psychic projection inside a psychic projection? I can live with things like the new characters being given inexplicable seniority over the long-time students – it doesn’t make any logical sense but that’s just the nature of rotating casts, and at least there’s some sort of gesture towards a reason for Axo to have a role here. And sure, we’ve defined Ransom and Melée as potential alpha figures, so let them take control. Fine.
But the premise of this book requires us to either buy into Graymatter Lane as a cool idea, or accept its USP as the team-up book where characters from different parts of the franchise get to interact. Graymatter Lane is a confusing mess, so that leads the interaction angle. That could work, in an era where the X-books are individually siloed, but they aren’t really interacting in a convincing way. The likes of Cyclops feel off, and the whole thing feels very inconsequential. If the basic format of this book really boils down to “a bunch of random characters go on a mission that doesn’t matter” then that’s Secret Defenders and the X-books doesn’t need one of those.
