Sins of Sinister: Dominion #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SINS OF SINISTER: DOMINION #1
“Sins of Sinister, part 11: ∞ Deadly Sins”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Paco Medina & Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Mr Sinister in prayer – the present-day version, not the far-future one.
PAGE 2. The Storm System, 1000 years in the future.
This establishing shot joins the action at page 11 of Nightcrawlers #3. As Vox Ignis explained in that story, the Spirits of Vengeance (who left Earth early on) have possessed Galactus, fuelled by his rage at what Sinister has done to the universe.
PAGE 3. Sinister and Moira talk.
So far as these characters are concerned, we’re picking up from Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #3, which ended with Sinister shooting Jon Ironfire through the head. Moira’s absence was noted by Sinister in that issue, but it wasn’t clear that he was in radio contact with her. (There’s no contradiction, though, because Sinister doesn’t know where she is.)
The dead characters lying on the ground around Ironfire are Bloodroot (the red one), Old Oda (the bird) and Genas Mind-Flayer (the furry guy in the hood). Not that it really matters at this stage.
The X-Axis: w/c 17 April 2023
Well, look, it was a very heavy week for new releases, and on top of that I started late…
NIGHTCRAWLERS #3. (Annotations here.) You’ll have picked up that one thing I really like about the “Sins of Sinister” crossover is the way it plays with the trope of the cosmic reset button and specifically asks why any of it matters. Part of the answer is that even if it’s all a dead end so far as the narrative is concerned, it’s very important to the characters who’ve lived and died over the centuries in this reality, and there’s something slightly horrifying about the idea of casually rebooting it all. Another answer is that Sinister always planned to send back the facts of this timeline so that it could affect what happens next time round, and Mother Righteous is thinking along very similar lines. Nightcrawlers also “matters” for another reason: it gives us a clearer understanding of Mother Righteous, building on what’s been teased about her so far in Legion of X. So I’m more than happy with this issue, which delivers nicely on all those counts. Granted, there’s a lot of background characters who are arguably underdeveloped, and Vox Ignis’s turn feels rushed… but it works.
X-FORCE #39. (Annotations here.) Mmm. This is a mixed bag. On the plus side, I like the idea of Sage taking over to try and fix the direction of X-Force – even if she comes across as a little naive. And the Quiet Council deciding that as long as Beast is only going after enemies of the state, he’s not exactly a priority… kind of works, I guess? The Colossus storyline seems to finally be going somewhere too, and with Fall of X around the corner, you figure it’s coming to a climax. On the other hand, while I’m all for bringing in Laura rather than having Logan in two books, Percy doesn’t seem to get the character at all. You can’t do “I am a loner yet I am moved by the chance to be a hero” with someone who literally just finished a year in the X-Men. Plus, Laura is just not a character who does drinking games that involve stabbing people. So in practice, I’m not at all encouraged about bringing her in.
New Mutants: Lethal Legion #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #2
“Terrible Decisions”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Penciller: Enid Balám
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1: Escapade in front of a Lethal Legion recruitment poster, having apparently swapped roles with Grim Reaper – who isn’t in this story, but did have an involvement with an earlier version of the Lethal Legion. The papers blowing around her include photos of Dani, Rahne and Gabby.
PAGES 2-4. Wolfsbane and Morgan flee into an underground survivalist camp.
They disturbed this thing last issue, while hunting for potentially useful technology in an abandoned underground lab that once belonged to Spencer Smythe. It seems to be just some Thing Living In The Tunnels.
They stumble into what seems to be some sort of anti-mutant survivalist camp, hiding away from some sort of mutant-related apocalypse. So far as we can tell from this issue, this bunch seem relatively harmless – they really do just want to hide away in the tunnels and sit out the end of the world.
X-Force #39 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #39
“Internal Affairs”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Colossus and Wolverine (Laura) in action.
PAGES 2-7. The Quiet Council discuss the Beast.
Wolverine‘s appearance here is a direct repeat of page 11 of Wolverine #32. In the original scene, Wolverine has just marched into the Quiet Council chamber and dumped the body of the Beast (complete with the fungal boobytraps seen earlier in that issue). Wolverine complains about Beast being given “carte blanche”, and refuses Professor X’s request to talk about it privately. That scene ends with the first three lines of dialogue here. Wolverine’s brief exchange with Sage as he leaves the room is new.
The Quiet Council. As in Wolverine #32, Nightcrawler and Mr Sinister are both missing, without explanation. This avoids the need to address their status quo changes in Legion of X and Immortal X-Men.
Nightcrawlers #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NIGHTCRAWLERS #3
“Sins of Sinister, part 10: The Sacred Heart”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artists: Lorenzo Tammetta & Phillip Sevy
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Mother Righteous, in front of a Ghost Rider-possessed Galactus.
PAGE 2. Mother Righteous recaps the last few centuries.
The Silver Mercator is apparently some kind of hybrid of the Silver Surfer and Mr M (most recently seen in Knights of X).
The Low Key Corps appear to be some sort of collection of alternate versions of Loki, perhaps under reference to the Loki variants seen in his TV show. The name seems to imply something akin to the Council of Cross-Time Kangs.
Auntie Fortune is the Nightcrawler chimera based on Domino, as seen in the previous two issues. As Righteous says, she was one of the first Nightcrawler chimeras to be recruited. We saw her in the previous issue as a frail old woman – apparently she’s been kept around as some sort of ghost (she appears to be see-through), perhaps for her symbolic value as an original. The thing floating next to her is presumably one of the Cortez lanterns mentioned in issue #1, which use the brain tissue of the late Fabian Cortez to provide power boosts.
The X-Axis: w/c 10 April 2023
Okay, you seem to approve of this. Let’s stick with it.
STORM & THE BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS #3. (Annotations here.) The risk with “Sins of Sinister” and its vast timescales is that everything becomes a little bit abstract. Sometimes the crossover has played off that very effectively – I’ve noted before the way that we’re obviously inclined to root for the cosmic reset button to be hit, yet the hero character refuse to play ball by lying down and letting their universe be destroyed. But this issue feels a bit too remote. Sinister’s role is kept fairly small, and our main focus is on Jon Ironside as Storm’s heir, accepting Mr Sinister’s proposal to resurrect her. The tension here, in theory, is between Ironside’s faith in Storm – which he seems to have adopted in part as penance for something that went badly wrong when he doubted her in the past – and the Arakkii culture of rejecting resurrection, with Storm herself as one of the most explicit cases of that. But Ironside has always felt more like a trope than a character, and I have trouble getting very invested in him. It might also be that Ewing’s cosmic-scaled concepts aren’t such a good fit with Alessandro Vitti’s art, which feels better suited to something more intimate. Either way, this didn’t really click for me.
X-MEN #21. (Annotations here.) This is part of a curiously structured crossover with Captain Marvel, which involves two completely unrelated Brood storylines that seem to come together in the final chapter – which will be Captain Marvel #49. Other than the fact that they involve groups of Brood being freed from Broo’s control by Nightmare, the two arcs don’t seem to be connected in any particular way, and thus far, buying the Captain Marvel issues hasn’t notably added to the experience of reading the X-Men ones. It feels a bit more like the books came up with unrelated Brood stories by coincidence and then decided to try and tie them together after the fact, instead of tossing a coin. Maybe Captain Marvel #49 will prove me wrong.
Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #3
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
STORM AND THE BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS #3
“Sins of Sinister, part 9: The Song of the End”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Alessandro Vitti
Colour artist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. A symbolic image of a godlike Sorm with a hazy crowd looking up at her.
PAGE 2. Establishing shot of the World Farm.
It was on fire when Mr Sinister arrived at it in Immoral X-Men #3 – apparently, this is just its standard appearance.
The narration follows the 6-4-5 syllable pattern of Lodus Logos’s dialogue in X-Men Red – the “Great Lodus” referred to here.
The Storm System. In Immortal X-Men #3, Destiny’s vision of possible future timelines includes “the Storm System” as one possible end point, following “the Empire of the Red Diamond”.
PAGE 3. Jon Ironside and Khora.
“What Arakko once meant – what it’s come to mean again”. The inhabitants of the World Farm consider themselves the continuation of Arakki culture, since they’re based on the survivors of the original Arakko’s destruction. Prior to relocating to our dimension, Arakko spent centuries in eternal war in the dimension of Amenth; as this particular timeline has turned out, the society’s relatively peaceful time on Mars turned out to be a blip.
X-Men #21 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #21
“Lord of the Brood, part three”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Cyclops and Rogue fight the Brood. This continues the fight scene which has been shown over the covers of recent issues of X-Men and Captain Marvel (which is where Rogue has been appearing).
In Captain Marvel #47, Captain Marvel’s team defeat a bunch of Brood and rescue Rogue. Binary is found hooked up to some sort of organic machinery. In what might politely be termed a high degree of plot convenience, it turns out that Binary can only be freed if someone else takes her place, and Captain Marvel duly makes the required heroic sacrifice. Rogue explains that the Brood faction in the Captain Marvel arc are led by a Brood Empress who resents Broo’s control over them and took the opportunity to break free of him when it arose. (X-Men has established that this was brought about by Nightmare, but the Captain Marvel cast don’t know this yet.) The Empress blames the Kree for creating the King Egg that gave Broo control over her race in X-Men vol 5 #9, and has a convoluted scheme to convert superheroes into Brood in order to use them as an army against the Kree; the part-Kree Captain Marvel is particularly key to this plot. The issue ends with the heroes largely defeated and a groggy Captain Marvel apparently unable to register the giant Brood Empress looming over her.
The X-Axis: w/c 3 April 2023
So, the review backlog has got to unwieldy proportions. It’s time to go for a fresh start and round out each week with a quick run through of all the week’s X-books. This week, that means…
IMMORAL X-MEN #3. (Annotations here.) The Sins of Sinister crossover enters its third month, with Sinister and Rasputin as practically the only characters left in a galaxy dominated by corrupted versions of the Quiet Council who have all gone to seed. Alessandro Vitti is the artist for this final phase, and I rather like the smeary griminess of it all; it’s sci-fi, but long after everything started falling apart. The structural gimmicks of the story are a tricky balancing act but I think it’s worked nicely so far, with the three books following different threads even if you do need to be reading all the titles to fully understand what’s going on. But what I really like is the meta theme that’s emerged both here and in Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants #2: as readers, our inclination is to root for the timeline to be reset, but the handful of remaining heroic characters, true to their never-say-die ideals, want to stop that happening. Because of course they do. It’s the destruction of the universe. That’s a nice little subversion of the tropes.
WOLVERINE #32. (Annotations here.) Well, if you enjoy monologues covering basically the same territory as the previous issue, only again, you’ll love this issue, in which Beast spells out everything he spelled out in the previous issue, only again. All that being said, my basic problem with the Beast storyline isn’t the premise so much as the fact that it was allowed to escalate to absurd proportions before anyone acted against him. I do wonder whether this is a book that suffered from the decision to extend the Krakoan period, since if it had ended as originally scheduled, then Beast’s schemes would have come crashing down not too long after his secret conquest of a South American nation came to light, which would have worked fine. Instead it’s had to try and keep finding ways to escalate.
Wolverine #32 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #32
“Weapons of X, part 2”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. The real Wolverine amidst an army of Beast’s clones.
PAGES 2-4. Beast’s Wolverine clones kill Lord Stewart.
Lord Stewart is a one-off character. Some publishers try to avoid using the names of real people; Marvel’s legal department is apparently made of sterner stuff.
“Since the UK pulled out of the treaty…” Back at the first Hellfire Gala, thanks to the machinations of Coven Akkaba over in Excalibur.
The Krakoan flowers were sourced via Maverick, as he confirms in passing on page 15. It’s rather odd for Lord Stewart to plant the things here and then express surprise that the local wildlife are eating them (particularly as the stag will be part of a herd that he deliberately keeps for hunting purposes), but then he’s probably not meant to be very bright.
Beast presumably deems this an assassination-worthy event because Stewart is trying to break the monopoly on Krakoan plants, but that’s hardly much of an excuse. And, of course, the poor stalker is there to make sure that we have an unequivocal victim.
The Wolverine clones are all wearing the same control collars that Beast put on the real Wolverine in the previous arc – implying that there would be a real risk of this going very badly wrong for him if one of them happened to get cut free.
