The X-Axis – w/c 18 November 2025
X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION INFINITY COMIC #3. By Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Oh, it’s a three-parter. I figured we’d be spending longer with early-AoR Revelation. Instead, this issue switches to Revelation as its narrator. Tim Seeley does have an interesting angle on how Revelation feels about Cable: he doesn’t really know the guy, precisely because he died before the New Mutants met Cable, and maybe Cable is the hardening mentor that he missed out on. But the plot boils down to Revelation summarily defeating the villain, and then getting rid of Cable too. This might be heading towards Cable being the source of the techno-organics we’ve seen sporadically in “Age of Revelation”, and perhaps it does make sense in the wider scheme of things that Revelation just swans into the story and ends it… but it reads a little oddly.
UNBREAKABLE X-MEN #2. (Annotations here.) I’m not sure this story has very much to do with “Age of Revelation” at all, but the flipside is that it has quite a lot to do with Uncanny X-Men, by picking up the Dark Artery/Shuvahrak storyline in the near future. Shuvahrak is a weird character, with Gail Simone’s stories seeming to be intentionally vague about how she became transformed and how she came to turn against mutants in general. But it kind of works; the story wants her to be a sort of looming, ungraspable presence who’s been changed from a conventional character into a kind of Cthulhuesque monster of unavenged sins, and spelling her out too directly would point away from that. The downside is to leave the stakes a little bit obscure, but I think it’s a more interesting story for leaning into the mood. CF Villa’s art really sells Shuvahrak’s demonic angle too, even while it gives us the clearest view of her that we’ve had to date. The rest of the issue mostly consists of gathering the Outliers for a last stand, with a few more hints of things to come – though the clash with the way Deathdream was written in Amazing X-Men is really, really hard to interpret as anything other than an error. I’m still not sure what Spider-Girl is doing in this book – maybe she’s showing up in Uncanny soon, maybe it’s just a vague gesture at the wider Marvel Universe for the sake of the event.
Last Wolverine #2 annotations
LAST WOLVERINE #2
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Edgar Salazar
Colour artist: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
PAGES 1-4. Vindicator persuades Leonard to help her free Wolverine.
Vindicator. Heather confirms that she was indeed referring to Logan as her husband in the previous issue. Given that he becomes an agent of Revelation not too far into the “Age of Revelation” timeline, this must be something that happens not too far into the future, and so it’s potentially another piece of foreshadowing for regular stories.
Heather said last issue that she had found a way to “save” Wolverine, and she refers throughout this scene to breaking Revelation’s hold on him. Apparently Leonard never asks her what the plan is, because we’ll find out later that she’s simply planning to kill him. She believes, probably correctly, that being forced into service as a weapon again would be the most horrific thing he can imagine; evidently she believes that she’s freeing him from torment.
Leonard certainly takes Revelation’s claims of good intent at face value, and is willing to countenance the possibility that Logan has been driven to this by the need to defend his fellow mutants from human aggression; he’s very reluctant to believe that Wolverine would ever directly turn against his friends.
X-Men: Book of Revelation #2 annotations
X-MEN: BOOK OF REVELATION #2
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons with Livesay
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Kitty Pryde shields Elbecca from Fabian Cortez.
PAGES 1-3. Kitty saves Elbecca.
This picks up directly from the cliffhanger of the previous issue, which Elbecca helpfully recaps for us.
PAGE 4. Flashback: Revelation turns Kitty into a ghost.
“When the X-Virus kicked off, when [Revelation] organized the relief in Philadelphia…” This is the official version of Revelation’s role in history, as recounted in X-Men: Age of Revelation #0. We’ve been told in other books that Revelation was actually responsible for the X-Virus in the first place, but Kitty may or may not know that.
“One of my generation of mutants…” Even though she was principally an X-Men character and he was in New Mutants, Doug was first introduced as Kitty’s friend and peer.
Unbreakable X-Men #2 annotations
UNBREAKABLE X-MEN #2
“Burial At Sea”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: CF Villa with Mario Santoro, Davide Tinto, David Marquez, R.B. Silva, Alessandro Cappuccio & Ramon Rosanas
Colourist: Espen Grundetjern
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Basically an image of the cast looking dramatic. That looks to be Shuvahrak in the background, though she’s largely obscured by the logo.
PAGES 1-3. Henrietta comforts Remy after he fends off the zombies.
We established last issue that Rogue had turned into a giant statue as a side effect of using her powers to defeat Galactus, and that Remy had lost his eyesight afterwards. This is a continuation of the final scene from the previous issue, where the “Tormented” from the Penumbra attacked Haven House, and Gambit was driving them away from the “Unbreakable” memorial which commemorates Rogue. It reads a little oddly, since the previous scene was paced as if he’d already finished dealing with them, but apparently there are more. As in Rogue Storm #2, Gambit can still aim acceptably by sound alone.
The previous issue didn’t give any particular reason for Gambit losing his sight. He said last issue that it had happened “with time”, but in this scene he says it started when Rogue was transformed. The prevailing theory seems to be that his eyes were damaged in the flash of light in that scene, but Gambit prefers the emotional/symbolic explanation that he had nothing worth looking at without Rogue. Gambit’s narration also plays up his eyes as symbols in themselves, as the one thing that makes him a visible mutant; this has also come up in regular Uncanny X-Men.
Daredevil Villains #63: Tarkington Brown
DAREDEVIL #195 (June 1983)
“Betrayal”
Writer: Denny O’Neil
Artist: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Editor: Linda Grant
Technically, Denny O’Neil’s run as writer began with issue #194, which we covered last time. But that story reads as if it was intended to be a fill-in. This story is really where we begin his run, which will take us through to issue #226 in 1985 – albeit with more than a scattering of fill-ins along the way.
At first, O’Neil sticks with the crime milieu that had become the book’s established format. He’ll start deviating from that fairly quickly, and the villains will get rather more eccentric. But we’ve just had some format-breaking fill-in issues, so it’s probably a good idea to go back to basics.
“Tarkington Brown” is a strange name for a villain. It sounds like a firm of estate agents from Cornwall, or a whimsical otter voiced by Stephen Fry. In fact, Tarkington Brown is the mastermind behind an NYPD vigilante death squad, who hunt down and kill mobsters that escaped conviction. The story opens with Daredevil stopping the death squad from killing Bruno Ponchatrane, who is not just a mobster, but a child murderer to boot. Ponchatrane got off on a technicality, thanks to the efforts of Foggy Nelson. Foggy wasn’t desperately keen on representing him either but couldn’t see a reason to turn down the instructions.
The X-Axis – 10 November 2025
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.
The X-Axis – w/c 3 November 2025
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.
Laura Kinney, Sabretooth #2 annotations
LAURA KINNEY, SABRETOOTH #2
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Valentina Pinti
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Laura fights Gabby and Akihiro.
PAGES 1-2. Revelation sends Laura to stop mutants from escaping his Territories.
It’s not made clear why Revelation has chosen to send Laura to deal with the escape plan, but he uses his powers to impose his will on her in the first panel of page 2 (indicated by the inverse colouring on his word balloons). Most likely, he sees this as an opportunity to cement his control over her given her obvious concern about her son.
Laura seems oblivious to the fact that Revelation has used his powers on her, and apparently just believes that she’s come to her senses.
Binary #2 annotations
BINARY #2
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Giada Beluiso
Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Annalise Bissa
COVER: Binary turns to face a mysterious figure (presumably Goblin Queen).
PAGES 1-3. Flashback: Jean dies quarantining the Earth, and gives the Phoenix to Carol Danvers.
We were told last issue that Carol had been Binary for “almost ten years”, and this seems to confirm that she gets the Phoenix power (and the X-virus is released) a year into the future.
It’s fair enough that Phoenix wants to quarantine the X-virus on Earth. It’s not exactly obvious why she’s doing it on this scale when (at this point) the virus must be localised to a small area of North America. Nor does her barrier seem to be especially effective – we’ve seen teleportation between Earth and Arakko in X-Men: Book of Revelation #1 and Laura Kinney, Sabretooth #2, and aliens in Rogue Storm #1 and X-Vengers #1. Is it specifically a virus-filtering barrier? If she can do that, why not just purge the virus from Earth?
Amazing X-Men #2 annotations
AMAZING X-MEN #2
“A Duel of Truths”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Mahmud Asrar
Colourist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: The Darkchild, with the X-Men as prisoners.
PAGES 1-7. Cyclops accepts the Darkchild’s challenge.
We’re picking up directly from the end of issue #1, where the X-Men teleported into Providence apparently as a result of a teleporter accident. In X-Men: Age of Revelation #0, we were told that Magik died when the X-Men broke Fabian Cortez out of jail, but “the Darkchild did not”; and that Juggernaut quit the team soon after. The AoR X-Men basically confirm that account here (and throw in that this happened just one year into the future, relative to the mainstream titles). Apparently, Illyana literally died in this attack but was magically revived in some way, with just the Darkchild persona remaining. We’ll come to how that squares with the recent Magik series.
Juggernaut has been demonically transformed to some extent, which Darkchild ascribes to his role as “my demon knight”. He’s very protective of Illyana and gets frantically upset at the suggestion that she might be dead, something that doesn’t seem to bother Darkchild herself at all. It’s unclear whether he simply refuses to believe the story or whether he’s convinced that she fully returned from the dead. There’s a definite implication here of Cain being, at the very least, puppyishly loyal to Illyana, which we haven’t really seen in the present day.
