The X-Axis – w/c 4 August 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #31. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. This is the final part of “The Cuckoo Song”, the story about the Scottish islanders becoming a weird anti-mutant cult after the Krakoan drug supply was cut off. It really doesn’t work. It doesn’t convincingly sell the idea that they blame the fall of Krakoa on the mutants themselves; the religious angle, which is fine in theory, doesn’t really go anywhere; and the symbiote thing is just another “they got it from the X-Cutioner” subplot, which is the norm for this series. And did I miss the bit where the Scottish islander that Husk impersonates has an English accent? Anyway, it there are plenty of promising elements in here, but it winds up as just a half-formed thing.
UNCANNY X-MEN #19. (Annotations here.) So this one is less than the sum of its parts, but the parts are very good. It’s a David Marquez issue, for a start, and they’re always a pleasure. I particularly like the X-Men’s confusion at how to deal with people’s overly enthusiastic embrace of mutants – they’re not quite used to this, and not entirely sure how to respond to horribly clumsy marketing proposals that seem to have the right idea at heart. Deadpool and Outlaw seem to be here mainly so that Gail Simone gets a chance to write them again – they really don’t do anything that they couldn’t have achieved by picking up the phone – so the A-plot is really the sequel to the Free Comic Book Day issue from last year, with the rich thug from that issue coming back to the diner for revenge.
Storm #11 annotations
STORM vol 5 #11
“Thunder War Rises”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artists: Mario Santoro with CF Villa
Colour artists: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo with Slex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Well, that’s Storm on a hippo. Hippo enthusiasts should be warned that one only panel of this story features hippos, and they are riderless.
PAGES 1-2. Zeus convenes the meeting of storm gods.
As we’ll see, the purpose of this meeting is for the storm gods of assorted pantheons to decide whether to align themselves with Storm or with Hadad. Of course, Storm herself has yet to take any particular interest in Hadad, but we clarify later on that the storm gods are aware of her possession by Eternity, and regard her as having been selected by Eternity as his champion whether she knows it or not.
Hjem Spíti. Described as a “neutral realm for all pantheons”, this seems to be new – it’s not a pre-existing mythological term, either. Google Translate suggests that it’s Icelandic for “Sorry Home”, for whatever that may be worth.
Uncanny X-Men #19 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #19
“Skin Condition”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Deadpool and Outlaw flee the X-Men.
Hey, Outlaw’s got a logo!
PAGES 1-3. Ellis and Ezra stop by the All Star Diner.
The All Star Diner. As a footnote points out later in the issue, this is the same diner from last year’s Free Comic Book Day 2024: Blood Hunt/X-Men with the same mutant waitress. The sign that reads “Stop on in and make a friend” was in that story too, although it was just advertising the food there.
“She says I have a skin condition.” This is the same claim that was made in the FCBD issue. In that issue, Jubilee interpreted it as a sign that Uva’s mother was ashamed of her being a mutant, despite the obvious possibility that they might just be legitimately afraid.
The Midnight M. Uva makes the Midnight M signal to Ellis and Ezra on page 2 panel 3, presumably hoping that they’ll recognise it. It’s not clear whether Uva recognises them, though Ellis seems to think it’s at least a possibility. Ezra is in full uniform, so for that reason alone Uva might think he was able to help.
Daredevil Villains #56: Elektra
DAREDEVIL #168 (January 1981)
“Elektra”
Writer, penciller: Frank Miller
Inker, embellisher: Klaus Janson
Colourist: “Dr Martin”.
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Denny O’Neil
This feature began with me wondering why there were so few major Daredevil villains, despite the book having been around since the early sixties. Back in the first post, I wrote: “There’s the Kingpin, the Hand, Bullseye, um, Typhoid… um… does Elektra count…?”
Over fifty posts in, we’ve only met one character from that list: Bullseye. Typhoid won’t show up until 1988. But the other three are about to join the book in rapid succession, because we’ve now reached Frank Miller’s run – initially as writer / artist, with Klaus Janson as his finisher and inker, though Janson takes over on art entirely towards the end.
It’s a statement of the obvious, but Miller’s run genuinely is a quantum leap in quality. It’s not that the plots are that much deeper than before, so much as that the storytelling really kicks up a gear. Miller turned Daredevil into a book that people were talking about, and the sales increase got it back onto a monthly schedule again. And this run is the template for Daredevil going forward.
The X-Axis – 30 July 2025
Well, this is quiet. There’s no Infinite Comic this week, though they do take skip weeks sometimes. I notice they just axed Astonishing Spider-Man, which does make me wonder whether somebody’s starting to have doubts about how many subscriptions these things are selling, but we’ll see. Remarkably, that leaves us with a grand total of one X-book.
SPIDER-MAN & WOLVERINE #3. By Marc Guggenheim, Kaare Andrews, Brian Reber & Travis Lanham. Yeah, even if it’s the only book out, I can’t get worked up enough about Spider-Man & Wolverine to give it its own post. Well, except by default. This kind of is its own post. But you know what I mean.
The plot of this series is ostensibly something about a directory full of confidential information about SHIELD double agents, with Kraven and Omega Red also hunting it, and the title characters learning that Wolverine might have killed his parents back in the days when he was working for Romulus. For present purposes we’re doing the memory gaps thing again, so Wolverine can’t say for sure whether it’s true or not. That’s all perfectly serviceable as far as it goes.
The X-Axis – w/c 21 July 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #30. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Somewhere in here, there ought to be an interesting story about the embittered humans whose supply of anti-dementia drugs was cut off with the fall of Krakoa, but this really isn’t it. The plot requires the islanders to blame mutants for their own downfall, which could work, but feels like it would need a lot more scaffolding than it gets here. Instead, we end up jumping from that mildly promising starting point to a rather by-the-numbers affair in which people who hate mutants hunt mutants, and it just doesn’t feel as if this is heading anywhere much.
Psylocke #9 annotations
PSYLOCKE vol 2 #9
“A Bird in Hand”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Vincenzo Carratú
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
PAGES 1-5. Mitsuki welcomes Kwannon in and tells her story.
The seal on Mitsuki’s costume is the same symbol that was burned into Kwannon’s wrist by the ghost figure in issue #7. We saw it on the door of Hayashi’s house in the previous issue (though it isn’t visible in the establishing shot at the start of the story), and we were also told that Matsu’o Tsurayaba had it as a tattoo.
Essentially, Mitsuki claims that Hayashi beat her and left her for dead, but she was saved by the yokai that she had previously befriended using her powers.
The umbrella. It’s a kasa-obake, which is a stock form of yokai. Basically an umbrella come to life.
Storm #10 annotations
STORM vol 5 #10
“Thunder War Begins”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
PAGES 1-2. Flash forward: Bishop releases an energy blast.
Bishop. This is the first time we’ve seen him in this book – his last non-cameo appearance was in the Timeslide one-shot at the end of last year. As we’ll see later in the issue, Bishop has been entrusted with looking after the mutant child from issue #1, who is offhandedly given the name “Jaden” on the recap page. The previous issue indicated that Storm had either had her knowledge of the child’s whereabouts magically suppressed in order to keep them safe, or at least had magically prevented herself from being able to disclose it.
We’ll see later that Jaden has had a nightmare and lost control of their powers; Bishop has to absorb the resulting energy; and this is him discharging it, which is likely to make Jaden traceable, hence Bishop’s regrets. The flashforward takes place around page 13 of the story.
Wolverine #11 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #11
“Only a Mother”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
PAGES 1-2. Wolverine and Sabretooth start to fight.
So, okay, let’s stick with this format…
“He’s found us!” Elizabeth’s comment doesn’t make much sense logically – they’re in the room where she was kept chained up. If Sabretooth was her captor, what would he need to find? But the whole point of this story is that the sense memories cause Wolverine to gloss over the logical problems, as we’ll see.
PAGES 3-5. Wolverine and Sabretooth fight.
“Disappointed I ain’t dead?” Wolverine killed Sabretooth in Wolverine vol 7 #50, just last year.
“This ain’t the first time you proved too stupid to die, Victor.” Sabretooth has indeed come back from apparent death on plenty of previous occasions. He was beheaded in Wolverine #50; mind you, he was also beheaded in Wolverine vol 3 #55, and that turned out to be a clone. Oh, and he was beheaded for real in War of the Realms: Uncanny X-Men #3, but that was just before Krakoa, when everyone was conveniently dropping dead. Since it was presumably resurrection that brought him back that time, he ought to be dead for real this time, but… come on, it’s Sabretooth.
Phoenix #13 annotations
PHOENIX #13
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
You know, I’m thinking maybe I’ll go back to the scene-by-scene format, especially now that the post-Krakoan books have been around long enough to build up a bit of continuity. As with the last time I did this, I’m going to use the story page numbers, since Kindle still can’t count.
Page 1. Flashback: Jean raises Nathan Summers.
This is an original (and largely generic) scene which takes place somewhere during the 1994 miniseries Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix. It’s attempting to set up Jean and Cable’s relationship without getting too far into the weeds of 90s continuity. For anyone not familiar, however:
Nathan is the child of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor, who was a clone of Jean. In X-Factor #68, Nathan is sent into the far future so that the Askani can save him from a techno-organic virus; after some back and forth, it turns out that he returns to the present day as Cable to try and avert that future timeline. In Adventures of Cyclops & Phoenix, Scott and Jean are brought forward in time to that future and wind up spending several years raising Nathan as his adoptive parents, though Cable only discovers this later on.
