As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

STORM & THE BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS #1
“Storm’s Seven”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Paco Medina
Colourist: Jay David Ramos
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

STORM & THE BROTHERHOOD OF MUTANTS. This is X-Men Red, re-titled for the duration of the “Sins of Sinister” crossover. In practice, this is X-Men Red #10A. It’s part 2 of the crossover.

By the way, my plan for this year is to generally limit annotations to ongoing titles (or books like this that are stand-ins for them), partly so that I can make some time to catch up on reviews. I’m making an exception for Sabretooth partly because I’ve already started it and partly because it’s really good, but I’m going to skip over Bishop: War College and save that one for reviews.

COVER / PAGE 1. Storm being generally impressive amidst what’s presumably meant to be the rubble of Arakko.

The logo has a Sinister diamond in Storm’s name, but don’t worry, fans, she’s still herself. As pointed out in Sins of Sinister #1, Sinister can’t take advantage of Storm’s resurrections to mess with her mind, because she renounced the option of resurrection in order to prove herself to the Arakkii in X-Men Red #4.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

LEGION OF X #10
“Among Us Stalk the Sentinels”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers; Sean Parsons & Álvaro López
Colourists: Java Tartaglia & Ruth Redmond
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1: Everyone fights Nimrod. This is a very loose interpretation of what’s happening in the story itself, where Nimrod isn’t exactly there in person. Professor X can be seen in the centre, cradling Legion (which happens on the astral plane). Nightcrawler is there, although he’s otherwise occupied in the story itself. And for some reason that’s Rogue and Gambit on the right.

PAGES 2-3. Professor X realises he’s made a terrible mistake.

So, the giant psychic thing is an astral plane version of a Technarchy, summoned by the Babel Spire that Nimrod is building on Krakoa. Legion ought to be the natural defence against this thing, but Professor X knocked him out with a psychic trojan last issue because he was expecting a fight. In fairness to the Professor, for many years Legion’s routine was that things always went wrong and all manner of damage was caused by his efforts – but that changed quite some time ago, and the Professor obviously hasn’t been paying all that much attention. The very fact that he hasn’t noticed the change is indictment enough, and it’s at least partially to do with Professor X being in denial about Legion being anything much to do with him.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 6 #37
“Unmasked”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: The Man with the Peacock Tattoo removes his mask, which must have been terribly itchy with X-Force inside. Wolverine is shown with X-Force here, but he’s not in the issue – presumably, this takes place while he’s still missing over in his own title, thanks to the Beast imprisoning him.

PAGE 2. Carlos Pacheco obituary.

PAGES 3-5. Deadpool annoys his teammates.

Omega Red threw Deadpool off the waterfall before, in issue #30. But aside from that, what is he doing, staring at the wall? Is he meditating? Does he suspect that something is behind there, maybe to do with one of Beast’s schemes?

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

SABRETOOTH & THE EXILES #3
“Station Three”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Nekra and Sabretooth fight. I assume that red and white swirly background is meant to say “astral plane”, though it’s really more “Jim Steranko”.

PAGE 2. Recap and credits.

PAGE 3. Establishing shot of the astral plane.

Third Eye, as our narrator, describes this version of the astral plane as “the classics”. It’s basically the Ditko Dr Strange version of the astral plane, complete with something in the bottom right that resembles the window from Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum.

PAGE 4. Sabretooth and the Exiles in the astral plane.

In keeping with the general swirliness of the astral plane, the art gives us a breakdown in the passage of time, with a page that’s simultaneously a series of panels and a single static splash page. Everyone appears much as they do on Earth, complete with Nanny and Orphan-Maker in their armour.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

SINS OF SINISTER #1
“Everything is Sinister”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Guest artists: Geoffrey Shaw, Marco Checchetto, Juan José Ryp, David Baldéon, Travel Foreman, Carlos Gómez, Federico Vincentini, David Lopez, Joshua Cassara & Stefano Caselli
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan White

COVER / PAGE 1. Sinister in a central diamond, surrounded by shards with images of other X-Men and Quiet Council members.

This is a one-shot, effectively an extra issue of Immortal X-Men, which leads into the “Sins of Sinister” arc that runs over the next three issues of Immortal X-Men, Legion of X and X-Men Red – retitled for the interim as Immoral X-Men, Nightcrawlers and Storm and the Brotherhood of Mutants.

PAGE 2. Carlos Pacheco obituary.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

IMMORTAL X-MEN #10
“Hated and Feared”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Professor X, with his helmet damaged to expose part of his face.

PAGE 2. Carlos Pacheco obituary.

PAGE 3. Mr Sinister creates a new save point.

We saw Sinister doing something similar to this with Moira VI in the previous issue – and then burning through all ten of her iterations before finally managing to be semi-successful in his assassination attempt on the Quiet Council. Once again, he uses Velocidad’s time warping powers to get this seventh Moira clone to a stage where she can be used as a save point. As seen in issue #1, Sinister’s scheme involves killing the Moira clones and using their powers to carry information back in time so that when their lives start over, he has access to the information from the deleted timeline. Hence, the absence of any information in the clone’s memory means this is its first timeline.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

LEGION OF X #9
“A Voice in the Wilderness”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & Álvaro López
Colourist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1. A corrupted Nightcrawler, leading the techno-organic infection in the Narthex, with Legion and Professor X’s faces hovering behind.

PAGE 2. Data page – a string of alert events, presumably the one that Fabian is reading on the next page. The first one relates to the events of the previous issue. The others seem to be just generic examples of other mutants becoming corrupted by the same thing that’s afflicting Nightcrawler. Item five relates to the Akademos Habitat on Krakoa (the teens’ area), but I don’t think it relates to anything specific from this arc.

PAGE 3-4. Other mutants are corrupted; the Legion react.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and the page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 7 #29
“The Beast Agenda: The Mind Garden”
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. Wolverine surrounded by angry-looking people from his past – Omega Red, Mystique, Storm, Phoenix, Sabretooth, Jubilee and Silver Fox. Well, arguably Phoenix isn’t that angry. They’re linked to his mind by Krakoan tendrils.

PAGE 2. Wolverine hallucinates about his first encounter with the Hudsons.

Obviously, these opening pages are Wolverine hallucinating about key moments in his life, under the influence of the Pit. When we left off, the Beast had tried to more or less lobotomise Wolverine, but he’d escaped, and Krakoa had pulled him down into the Pit. Since his time in the Pit seems to contribute to his personality resetting, that might explain why he starts off at one of the most savage points in his life. (The period immediately after Origin would have worked too, but it isn’t so iconic in his history.)

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 6 #18
“Wounded Wolves”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: CF Villa
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Designer: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Synch fights vampires while using Wolverine (Laura)’s powers. And yes, they are vampires, not just random nobodies. Some of them have fangs.

PAGE 2. Opening page – a quote from both Jean and Scott. I’m sure this has probably appeared in dialogue somewhere during the series, but I don’t have time to trawl through the back issues, I’m afraid.

PAGE 3. Beast recaps the plot.

Laura seemingly died covering Synch’s escape from the Vault, and was resurrected on Krakoa, in X-Men vol 5 #19. The original, older Laura was rescued from the Vault last issue and happily reunited with Synch, her partner from her time inside the Vault, who has been pining for her ever since he escaped. (The resurrected version had no memories of their time together).

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