Wolverine #40 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #40
“Last Mutant Standing, part 4”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Ibrahim Moustafa
Colour artist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine and Spider-Man in action against Stark Sentinels.
PAGE 2. Tribute to Alison Gill.
PAGES 3-7. Wolverine enlists Spider-Man to help him enter the Orchis space station.
Oscorp. Peter is leaving the Oscorp building, where he currently works in Amazing Spider-Man. (Norman Osborn is good right now, if you haven’t been following it.) Spider-Man is wearing the Oscorp hi-tech version of his costume here, hence the little glowing bits.
“You’ve alive?” Peter knows perfectly well that some mutants are still on Earth – aside from anything else, he’s appeared over in Uncanny Spider-Man – but presumably this is the first time anyone’s mentioned to him that Logan wasn’t among the mutants who went through the gates in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023.
The Orchis jet was stolen by Logan in Wakanda last issue, as the footnote says. If its rightful owner Jun Wei is “expected back at her post in less than an hour”, Wolverine apparently came straight to New York in the hope of getting Spider-Man to help. Seems a bit ambitious, but who knows, maybe he wasn’t specifically looking for Spider-Man. Maybe he just figured that the best way to round up some allies at short notice was to head to Marvel Manhattan, swing a cat, and see who he hit.
The X-Axis – w/c 11 December 2023
Gosh, are we winding down for Christmas? Well, maybe not – there are five books out next week, plus Unlimited. But this is another light week.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #117. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Travis Lanham. This is the end of the Firestar arc, and it goes pretty much how you’d expect. Firestar has successfully screwed up Judas Traveller’s PR event to the point where he’s outlived his usefulness to Orchis, which is a problem when he’s a mutant. He’s lost control of the story he was telling, and nobody else in Orchis realises that it’s because Firestar was messing it up for him. That’s a nice angle for Firestar, and I rather like Sanna’s low-key art on it, which gives Firestar a nicely impassive look. Do I buy Orchis putting her in Traveller’s place? It doesn’t really fit with Gerry Duggan writing scenes in X-Men about the Orchis higher-ups viewing her as expendable. I suppose she’s meant to win the doubters round by throwing Judas under the bus, but it still seems a stretch. I’ll put that one down as a case of dubious inter-title continuity, though, rather than being a problem with this arc in itself.
X-MEN RED #18. (Annotations here.) The final issue, although part of the plot feeds into Resurrection of Magneto. Still, this is the wrap-up of the main series, and … well, it runs up against the fact that it’s an Arakko story. Al Ewing sold me on Martian Arakko as an interesting location, but only by reinventing it as something subtler and more nuanced than the one-dimensional original concept. The war storyline is presumably meant to contrast Arakko as it developed under Storm and co with the original version of Arakko, and that runs up hard against the problem that the original concept of Arakko was very dull, and the nature of the plot makes it difficult for this story to try and convince me otherwise – the comparative flaws of Arakko Classic are a large part of the point, after all.
Dark X-Men #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
DARK X-MEN vol 2 #5
“The Mercy Seat”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artist: Jonas Scharf
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: The two Madelyne Pryors fight.
PAGES 2-5. The Goblin Queen tries to persuade Madelyne Pryor to join forces.
“Carmen Cruz wanted nothing more than to be part of the X-Men.” Referring back to her origins in the cast of Children of the Atom, basically about a group of human fans cosplaying as mutants. Carmen, the one actual mutant in the group, made it to Krakoa with her heroes but has only come to the foreground in the context of this very questionable iteration of the X-Men.
“You let them neuter your mutant abilities?” We were told in issue #2 that Orchis had used Blightswill to remove the Goblin Queen’s mutant powers, and that she didn’t care, claiming to have long since outgrown them. She claims here that she was also lulling Orchis into a false sense of security.
X-Men Red #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED vol 2 #18
“The Mended Land”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Yildiray Çinar
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. A group shot of the cast, for the final issue.
PAGES 2-3. Genesis raises Arakko Prime from the sea to fight Kaorak.
“Autumn Island.” In other words, what’s left of the Autumn Lands now that most of it has got up and walked across the planet. The rebels shown in page 2 panel 2 include Kobak, Khora, Zsen and Sunspot, as well as a bunch of background characters.
“Nine left, eight, seven.” When we left Jon Ironfire last issue, he was singlehandedly fighting his way through the White Sword’s champions – already reduced from 100 to 99 by his own departure. Evidently he’s been doing well.
Genesis is carrying both the Annihilation Staff and Purity (the sword); she still has Sobunar by her side, even though we’ve repeatedly been told that he wasn’t entirely thrilled with some of her choices. Storm challenged Genesis to “raise your island and fight” at the end of the last issue, and she takes up the challenge.
Arakko Prime is the part of Arakko that was the original counterpart of Krakoa on Earth – in other words, Arakko the island, rather than Arakko the planet. The narrator calls it “the living island”, mirroring how Krakoa was billed back in Giant-Size X-Men #1.
Daredevil Villains #9: The Organization
DAREDEVIL #10 (October 1965)
“While the City Sleeps, part 1: The Organization”
Writer, finishing penciller, inker: Wally Wood
Layout penciller: Bob Powell
Letterer: Artie Simek
Editor: Stan Lee
DAREDEVIL #11 (December 1965)
“A Time to Unmask!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: Bobby Powell
Inker: Wally Wood
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Even the most casual glance at those credits might suggest a troubled production, and that’s exactly what this is. According to Brian Cronin’s “Comic Book Legends Revealed”, it goes something like this: Wally Wood didn’t care for the Marvel method and felt that he was writing the book without being paid for it. So he asked to write a story and Stan Lee agreed. But when Wood’s story came in, Lee hated it.
Accounts vary as to how heavily Lee edited issue #10. Wood claims that relatively little was changed. Lee, in a spectacularly ungracious bitching session on the letters page of issue #12, said that “about the only thing left that Wally himself had written was his name”. The surviving original art suggests the truth is somewhere in the middle and that the published story is basically what Wood wrote. Either way, Lee refused to let Wood finish the story, wrote the concluding half himself, and fired Wood after reducing him to working as inker on part 2.
The X-Axis – w/c 4 December 2023
A short one this week, because there’s not actually much out!
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #116. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Travis Lanham. The penultimate chapter of the Firestar arc, and naturally it’s the turning point where Firestar gets the upper hand, still without anyone noticing. Judas Traveller tries to have a press event to depower the captive Justice, Firestar surreptitiously lets him escape, and it all goes horribly wrong. What doesn’t quite work is that in order for the plot to hang together, Judas has to go out and do a public press conference himself for no apparent reason, when until now that sort of thing has always been left to Dr Stasis (for some reason). The story even tells us that Judas doesn’t do this himself normally, which feels like a misstep. Still, the arc is dealing with the twin themes of media manipulation and Firestar’s undercover role better than anything else in “Fall of X”.
X-MEN #29. (Annotations here.) The X-Men go to Latveria to try and recruit Dr Doom’s mutants, and wind up having a fight with them. That’s pretty much the issue. The strength of it lies in the fact that Doom’s team actually seem like a fairly interesting bunch with some potential for future stories, even if it seems weird to be bringing them into “Fall of X” at this point. And Joshua Cassara has some lovely art in this issue, complete with a subtle change of art style for the flashbacks that feels like a direction worth exploring for him. On the other hand, the plot is real Silver Age level stuff – we’re the X-Men, you’re mutants, what do you mean you refuse to drop everything and come with us, let’s fight. The X-Men come across as pretty dim and arrogant, which surely wasn’t the intention.
X-Men #29 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #29
“House of Doom”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fight the Daggers of Latveria.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: Dr Doom intervenes as Professor X is about to announce Krakoa to the human race.
This is an insertion into the flashback that opens House of X #6. The opening dialogue and Xavier’s Magneto’s speech about ending all the disagreements between them is from the original, as the opening line that Professor X delivers before Doom answers him back. The rest of the scene is original material that takes place between pages 4 and 5 of House of X #6, boldly shoehorned into the middle of Professor X’s speech.
It doesn’t entirely make sense that Doom has a V-for-Victor style Cerebro helmet of his own, before Professor X has even publicly debuted with this design, though he does suggest later in the issue that he is relying on some sort of actual foreknowledge of events, rather than simply correctly predicting that Krakoa’s collapse. And the design is wonderful.
Daredevil Villains #8: Klaus Kruger
DAREDEVIL #9 (August 1965)
“That He May See!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Layout penciller: Wally Wood
Finisher: Bobby Powell
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: Not credited
You can tell that a 1960s Stan Lee character is a real dud when they never appear again. These are the early, foundational issues of long-running books, and later creative teams frequently mine them for ideas. A certain generation of creators idolised the Silver Age and loved to draw on its forgotten corners. So when even they don’t touch a character, well, there’s probably a reason.
All the Daredevil villains we’ve met until now have returned in later stories – except for the Fixer, but he’s a special case, because he dies in Daredevil’s origin story. Even the Matador gets a few further appearances. But no one has gone back to Klaus Kruger.
Duke Klaus Kruger is the “hereditary ruler of the tiny principality of Lichtenbad”. He’s visiting New York for undisclosed reasons, which somehow is front page news. By a remarkable coincidence, Klaus knew Matt and Foggy at law school as a foreign exchange student – the art for this flashback shows him in a lab coat with test tubes, which suggests someone wasn’t quite thinking this through. By a further remarkable coincidence, the world’s top eye surgeon, Dr Van Eyck, has recently emigrated to Lichtenbad. So Karen Page phones up the Duke, which apparently is a thing you can just do, and asks if he can help Matt get his sight back.
The X-Axis – w/c 27 November 2023
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #115. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Travis Lanham. Continuing the Firestar arc and, hey, some pro-mutant protestors! I mean, some of them are plants working for Judas Traveller, but still, one of my bigger problems with “Fall of X” is that it seems to want me to believe that all this is basically uncontroversial, which, um, no. All told, the Firestar story is turning out quite well here, and it’s a bit of a shame that it’s wound up in the walled garden of Marvel Unlimited. Firestar biting her tongue to play the turncoat hero works; there’s a nice little angle in how far Judas Traveller might be willing to make some kind of alliance with her against the rest of Orchis and how far he’s just manipulating her.
X-MEN BLUE: ORIGINS #1. (Annotations here.) It seems a bit odd to label this as a one-shot rather than as part of Uncanny Spider-Man – presumably someone thought it was a more marketable event this way, and I suppose they’re probably right. This is the big rewrite of Nightcrawler’s origin to explain why he’s the son of Mystique and Destiny after all. Some people will applaud this on gender grounds. Some people will applaud it because it’s closer to what Chris Claremont originally intended. Others will just be pleased to see the back of Azazel as a millstone blocking off chunks of Kurt’s back story.
X-Men Blue: Origins #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN BLUE: ORIGINS #1
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artists: Wilton Santos (with Oren Junior) & Marcus To
Colour artist: Ceci De La Cruz
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1: Mystique and Nightcrawler (in his Spider-Man costume) in action together. I think the thing in the background is meant to be the Stark Sentinel from Uncanny Spider-Man #4.
X-Men Blue: Origins. The title is a play on the ongoing series X-Men Blue that ran for 36 issues in 2017-2018.
PAGES 2-5. Flashback: Mystique resists Professor X’s mental control and falls off a cliff.
This is a straight recap of a scene in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 #1. We were told in that issue that her body was taken away by the sea, and naturally she showed up again in New York in Uncanny Spider-Man #1.
The recap narrator is the mysterious Bamf that hangs around talking to Nightcrawler, invisible to everyone else, in Uncanny Spider-Man; for present purposes, though, he just gives us a bare-bones recap of Hellfire Gala.
PAGE 6. Flashback: Mystique escapes the Hellfire Gala.
Basically, Mystique picks herself up pretty much immediately, already obsessing about “my baby” (as she has been in Uncanny Spider-Man). She kills and replaces a random Orchis soldier and escapes that way.
