X-Men: Age of Revelation Overture #1 annotations
X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION OVERTURE #1
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Ryan Stegman
Inker: JP Mayer
Colourist: Edgar Delgado
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Simply an assortment of characters from the “Age of Revelation” timeline.
This is the opening one-shot for the “Age of Revelation” event. As things stand, I’m only planning to do annotations for the quasi-ongoing titles: Amazing X-Men, Binary, Laura Kinney: Sabretooth, Rogue Storm, Unbreakable X-Men, Last Wolverine and Expatriate X-Men. But we’ll see how things turn out.
PAGES 1-4. Glob Herman kills Topaz.
“X Years Later.” The X-books started using this formula during the Krakoan era, but it’s explicit later in the issue that in this case, “X” is 10.
“The Revelation Territories.” The general set-up of this world was previously established in July’s X-Men: Age of Revelation #0, though the essentials are all repeated anyway in the course of this issue. That issue consists of an account of the history of the timeline written by the future Xorn for the benefit of the present-day Cyclops, who the (future) X-Men are planning to bring to their timeline in the style of Days of Futures Past. In very brief outline, X:AoR #0 tells us that Revelation seized control of the X-Men after joining the team; that he used power-boosting mutants like Fabian Cortez to increase his powers so that he could control the environment as well as just forcing people to obey his instructions; that a mystery “X-Virus” was unleashed in Philadelphia, which killed most humans and turned the rest into mutants, and which was blamed on 3K; that the virus terraformed the environment to become hostile to humans; that Revelation has tried to make this world into a quasi-Krakoa; and that Revelation rules as a dictator.
Daredevil Villains #60: The King of the Sewers
DAREDEVIL #180 (March 1982)
“The Damned”
Writer, penciller: Frank Miller
Finisher, colourist: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Editor: Denny O’Neil
Frank Miller’s first run as writer covers issues #168 to #191, but it’s built heavily around the trinity that we’ve already covered: Elektra, the Kingpin and the Hand. There are some edge cases in the rest of Miller’s run who might have qualified for this feature, to be sure. The Kingpin’s mayoral candidate Randolph Winston Cherryh gets a major speaking part, but he’s still basically a Kingpin pawn. There’s a subplot about the board of Glenn Industries trying to seize control of the company from Heather, but they’re mostly anonymous white collar criminals. And there are generic drug dealers and the like who drive the plot of individual stories. But these are gimmick-free criminals with a single story, and they all share the spotlight with more recognisable characters.
Once we score all of those guys off the list, this turns out to be our final entry from the Miller run. For those of you who might be wondering, issue #177 doesn’t have a villain – it’s an issue of Stick helping Daredevil to get his radar back. Issues #178-179 are the Kingpin. Issue #181 is Bullseye. Issues #182-184 have the Punisher as guest villain on loan from Spider-Man. Issue #185 is the Kingpin again. Issue #186 is Stilt-Man. Issues #187-190 are the Hand and the Kingpin. And issue #191 is Bullseye.
The X-Axis – 26 September 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #37. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Diaz & Clayton Cowles. You know, sometimes a plot makes so little sense that it’s hard to see past that to anything else. The basic idea here is that Changeling and Morph are a split personality who don’t realise that they’re the same person – okay, fair enough. Changeling wants to start a nuclear war so that mutants can rebuild civilisation in the ruins – bit mad, but okay, it’s what he was trying to do back in the Silver Age as a member of Factor Three. Changeling wants to use his shape-changing powers to impersonate someone with high enough security clearance to get into a military base and fire the missiles – I’m going to doubt that there’s any one military type who can do that, but sure, I’ll go with it. But… the guy in question is a SHIELD agent? Who retired twenty years ago? And he can just waltz in with a bit of facial scanning? What? No, this is silly. Nice art on the shapechanging, and I get that there’s some kind of point being made about Banshee’s attitude to rehabilitation, but… no.
X-MEN #22. (Annotations here.) Okay, now this is good. I was saying last week that most of the line wasn’t doing a great job of building up to “Age of Revelation”, and to be honest I still see it as basically an X-Men storyline that seems to be interrupting the other titles. But as an X-Men storyline, I’m quite looking forward to it. This is pretty much an entire issue of conversation, picking up on a series of character subplots, and it even sells me a bit more on Juggernaut killing Ocelot last issue – I’m still not convinced that that’s in character, but there’s follow-up which feels more convincing. C F Villa’s art keeps a very talky issue interesting and I’d really like to see more from them. The pay-off of all this is Doug Ramsey showing up to join the X-Men, which we already know from the Age of Revelation one-shot is a slippery slope towards disaster. I’m not quite sure whether he’s meant to come off smug as the art makes him look here – he didn’t come across this way in issue #19, his spotlight story. But then again he’s talking to a different audience here, and trying to sell his alpha male status to an audience who aren’t used to thinking of him that way so… I guess it makes sense. Anyway, this was fun, and it was one of those stories where there turned out to be a lot more to say about it in the annotations post than I thought there would be. And it does raise my interest in “Age of Revelation”.
Storm #12 annotations
STORM vol 5 #12
“Thunder War Ends”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Mario Santoro
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER. Storm confronts Hadad, who is perches on a dead Galactus.
This is the final issue of the current run of Storm, but the book continues into “Age of Revelation” as Rogue Storm and seems to be getting a fresh issue #1 in January for its next season.
PAGES 1-2. Doctor Voodoo and…
Actually, hold on. The cosmic plotlines in this series are so incredibly convoluted that we’re best off just trying to draw them all together. So, rather than attempting to annotate this conventionally, I’m just going to attempt to draw together all the threads from the cosmic plotline in this series and see if we can make it make sense.
Spoilers: it does more or less hold together if you read it all in one sitting and put it in order, even though the plot hinges on a murderous rivalry between Eternity and Oblivion that seems out of character for both of them.
X-Men #22 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #22
“Dawning of an Age”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: C F Villa
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER. A split image of Cypher and Cyclops, with their symbolic predecessors Apocalypse and Professor X in the background.
This is the final issue of X-Men before it goes on hiatus for “Age of Revelation”; the story continues into the stand-in mini Amazing X-Men.
PAGES 1-2. Magik collects Cyclops from the Merle town jail.
Chief Robbins arrested both Cyclops and Agent Lundqvist in issue #20 when they got into a fight in a diner. She tells us here that she was putting on a show to demonstrate that the authorities will treat mutants (and Lundqvist) just like anyone else. She’s well aware that Cyclops could have left at any time, and once Lundqvist is out of the way, she’s willing to say so openly.
The X-Axis – w/c 15 September 2025
UNCANNY X-MEN #21. (Annotations here.) No X-Men Unlimited issue this week – they often take weeks off between arcs but for some reason they’ve started doing it mid-story of late. Which is a silly idea but what the hell, it’s only the Infinity Comic. So we’ll move straight on to Uncanny X-Men as it wraps up for “Age of Revelation”.
Now, I remember the original “Age of Apocalypse”, which also did the stunt of “cancelling” the line and replacing it with stand-in books for the duration of the event. And the first time around, they made a point of actually leading in to the event. The official prologue was confined to the core X-Men titles, but the other books at least ended on a cliffhanger before going into their break. We’re not getting that here – in some cases that’s because the book had been cancelled, or perhaps they just weren’t sure what it was doing on the other side of the crossover, but even Uncanny X-Men isn’t actually doing anything to set up its participation in the story. Which is very weird in terms of momentum. It hasn’t felt in the slightest like we’re leading in to a big event – it feels like the line is closing down for the winter.
Magik #10 annotations
MAGIK vol 3 #10
“Above All”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
COVER: Magik and Mirage pose dramatically.
This is the final issue of the current run. Magik doesn’t have an equivalent title during “Age of Revelation”, but some sort of sequel with the same creative team has been announced to start in January.
PAGES 1-2. Magik, Mirage and Liminal hold the Society of the Eternal Dawn at bay.
The previous issue ended with the trio confronting the Embodiment and retrieving Cal’s heart (which Embodiment magically removed in issue #7), ultimately with a view to exorcising Liminal from Cal’s body. Magik also removed the limits on Liminal’s powers so that he could help them, presumably relying on the fact that he hadn’t fully adjusted to Cal’s body to keep him under some sort of control.
Phoenix #15 annotations
PHOENIX #15
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa
COVER: Well, that’s Phoenix being a bit upset, I guess.
This is the final issue of Phoenix before “Age of Revelation”, where it’s being replaced by Binary. Spoilers: it’s a bit of a mess.
PAGES 1-3. Flashback: Oblivion is persuaded to join the intervention against Phoenix.
This flashback takes place before the final scene of the previous issue, where Marvel’s pantheon of abstract cosmic entities lured Phoenix to the White Hot Room to confront her about her refusal to destroy Sara Grey. We established in issue #13 that Sara is not Jean’s real sister, but rather a copy inadvertently created by Jean from her memories of Sara in issue #10. We are assured that Sara’s continuing existence leads to a future timeline which is some sort of zombie wasteland, and so she must be destroyed. Why? It just does. But it’s really important to the plot that it just does. It’s literally the entire premise of the plot. So make a note of that, we’ll come back to it later!
Uncanny X-Men #21 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #21
“Of Mice and Mutants”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Wolverine and Ransom at a comic convention. We’ll come to which one below.
This is the final issue of Uncanny X-Men before it goes on hold for the “Age of Revelation” event. In practice, the next issue is Unbreakable X-Men #1.
PAGES 1-3. Flashback: Ransom’s origin story.
This is a significantly expanded version of Ransom’s origin story from issue #3. In the original version, Valentin says that he was born with no heart; that his parents were “wealthy and vain” and “my imperfection shamed them”, and “when I was kidnapped, they wouldn’t pay the ransom. His powers then activate when they try to kill him. He finishes that account by saying that “I ran away from home. 13 years old. Better to belong to nothing than to belong where you aren’t wanted.”
Daredevil Villains #59: The Hand
DAREDEVIL #174-176 (September to November 1981)
“The Assassination of Matt Murdock” / “Gantlet” (sic) / “Hunters”
Writer, penciller: Frank Miller
Finisher: Klaus Janson
Colourists: Glynis Wein & Klaus Janson (#174), Christie Scheele & Bob Sharen (#175), Glynis Wein (#176)
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Denny O’Neil
We’ve already had Elektra and the Kingpin, and now we complete the trinity of enduring creations from Frank Miller’s Daredevil.
Ah, the ninja! Historically, an expert in stealth, spycraft and infiltration. Over time, a part of Japanese folklore, with quasi-magical abilities. And in the Marvel Universe, a bunch of anonymous guys in bright red who attack in large groups and die. Or at least, that’s how they come across if you first encounter them in later stories. They’re the ultimate redshirts.
But what about their first incarnation? After all, recurring villains tend to rack up a string of defeats over the years – that’s the nature of the beast. Surely it was different when they started? Right?
The Hand make their debut in issue #174, when they assassinate one of Elektra’s targets before she reaches him. The narrator tells us that they’re “the same order of master assassins that taught her the many ways of murder before she broke training to operate on her own.” We’re told that the Hand want to kill Elektra because she left. But that’s not why they’re here – instead, the Hand have been hired to kill Matt Murdock.
Four anonymous ninjas do indeed attack Matt in his apartment. You might think that this was overkill when dealing with a blind lawyer – the random target in the prologue was taken out by a single ninja with a crossbow – but it sets the tone for the Hand right from the off. Why bother with stealth when you can just chuck expendable swordsmen at the problem? Now, these particular ninjas don’t know that Matt is Daredevil, and so they have an excuse for being taken by surprise when he fights back. And Matt duly beats them, almost singlehandedly – Elektra helps him out with the last one. In the aftermath, we learn that the ninjas always commit suicide and into gas when they’re defeated.
