X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF MAGNETO #5
“To Catch a Toad”
by Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1. Magneto and the Scarlet Witch dancing.
PAGE 2. The Scarlet Witch names her murderer.
This picks up directly from the end of the previous issue.
“No matter how your magic may or may not have affected Krakoa today…” Northstar is referring to the kaiju attack over the last couple of issues, triggered by Wanda’s traumatic identity crisis.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-8. The Toad is summarily tried and exiled.
The Quiet Council here consists of Professor X, Magneto, Mr Sinister, Exodus, Mystique, Kate Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Nightcrawler and Storm. This is before Destiny and Colossus join the Quiet Council in Inferno (which is obvious from the timeline, as this story takes place in the days immediately following the Hellfire Gala).
Mighty Marvel Holiday Special – Happy Holidays, Mr Howlett Infinity Comic #1
MIGHTY MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL – HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MR HOWLETT INFINITY COMIC #1
by Ryan North, Nathan Stockman & Chris O’Halloran
Yes, that’s the title. Don’t look at me.
Hey, it’s an X-book. And it’s probably meant to be canon, too. Not that anything’s ever likely to turn on whether this is canon or not, admittedly, but if it matters, it probably is.
So it’s a few years back – the costumes say early to mid 90s – and the X-Men are holding a party for the general public as some sort of public relations event. Which isn’t really the sort of thing they did back then, but sure, they probably should have. Professor X is there in his hover wheelchair, and he’s not openly associated with the X-Men at this point, but he is publicly known as a mutant rights activist so… again, sure. Okay. And Nightcrawler and Shadowcat are there too, but fine, they’re visiting. I mean, it doesn’t quite fit, but it’s not a big problem.
And the schtick is that everyone is having fun at this thing except for Wolverine, who doesn’t like joining in with fun things. Since this is a Ryan North comic, it’s not quite as basic as saying that Wolverine is a grinch. He just doesn’t particularly want to be part of this, he doesn’t really see what his unique skillset of razor sharp blades can contribute to the world of children’s entertainment, and he’d prefer not to be there. (“I’m not grumpy. I’m… I’m brusque. And content in solitude. There’s a difference.”)
Wolverine #19 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #19
“The Old Mutant and the Sea”
by Benjamin Percy, Javi Fernandez & Matthew Wilson
COVER / PAGE 1. Well, it’s Wolverine on the surface with a monstrous sea creature below the surface.When I started doing these posts, I figured there would be plenty of X-books that weren’t that heavy on continuity and where the annotations would be pretty short. As it turns out, there weren’t. This one is getting there, though, so we might not be terribly long here.
PAGES 2-3. Wolverine hunts Krakoan wildlife while a corpse washes up on the beach.
Percy seems to be the only writer interested (however tenuously) in the idea that Krakoa has distinctive animals on it. Anyway, Wolverine is hunting this thing so that he can use it as bait in his hunt for the Leviathan later in the issue. This is the final issue of this volume of Wolverine and, perhaps rather tellingly, it opens with a callback to Wolverine’s first scene in X-Force #1. In that scene, he was also hunting Krakoan wildlife and arguing that the paradise of Krakoa would lead to people dropping their guard and becoming soft. (Intriguingly, with hindsight, the character he lectures about this theme is the Beast, who starts off X-Force much less paranoid than he eventually becomes.)
S.W.O.R.D. #11 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #11
“Final Frontier”
by Al Ewing, Jacopo Camagni & Dernando Sifuentes
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm, Cable and Brand fight the Lethal Legion. Not quite what happens in the issue itself.
PAGES 2-3. Manifold prepares to deal with S.W.O.R.D. Station One falling out of the sky.
Apparently we’re not calling it the Peak any more (and it’s about to become academic anyway). Anyway, after being blown up last issue as part of Abigail Brand’s convoluted plan, the station is falling to Earth over Australia, and Manifold and Cable are going to their powers to stop is causing a disaster.
We saw Baz before in issue #3, Manifold’s solo story.
The Winter Soldier was “Captain America for a while” during Ed Brubaker’s run, circa 2008.
Abigail Brand has drawn our attention before to the fact that Cable’s powers and his techno-organic virus are kept in balance, so that stretching him to his limits like this causes problems for him. As we’ll see, this seems to be part of her plan to depower him and get him out of her way.
X-Force #26 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #26
“Wipeout”
by Benjamin Percy, Robert Gill & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1. The rest of the cast look on as Wolverine dives into a live volcano after… well, who knows? Nothing much like it happens in the issue. There’s an eruption, but no diving into the lava with claws drawn. (And this looks to be a man’s hand, not Pike’s.)
This issue’s pretty simple, annotation-wise.
PAGES 2-4. Pike and her team bring the stolen babies to their submarine.
These are the Krakoan babies that they stole from the Bower last issue. The one that screams is Maximillian, who “nearly killed everybody in a hundred-yard radius” with his uncontrolled powers (according to Kid Omega last issue).
Pike’s unnamed employer is identified at the end of the issue.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits.
PAGES 6-9. X-Force investigate Pike’s attack, and Wolverine talks to Kid Omega about his break-up with Phoebe.
Last issue, Pike and her team entered Krakoa through the supposedly unmanageable Dead Mutant’s Cove, posing as Krakoan surfers, and Wolverine directed them to the Bower (not least because he was attracted to Pike, though he doesn’t say that in terms here).
Excalibur #26 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #26
“The Fantasy is Over”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Saturnyne, with Betsy as her knight, and her sword in a scrying pool that shows the rest of the cast. Unusually for 2021, we get a very old-school piece of lettering trailing the climax. In three mismatched fonts, none of which fit well with the logo, and all of which feel squeezed into a space in the corner. I’m really not sure what it’s doing there, since the cover as a whole doesn’t evoke anything retro, and it drags down a perfectly nice piece of art.
PAGE 2. Merlyn briefs his troops.
Merlyn captured the Starlight Citadel and renamed it the Lunatic Citadel last issue. Those are his siege engines in the background of the first panel.
Aside from Arthur himself, Merlyn is addressing groups from the various factions allied with him in previous issues: the Sevalith (the vampire guys), the Furies (the robot thing) and the Colony (the bees people). There are some more generic soldiers around as well. Saturnyne’s aide Ryl is still there, standing by Merlyn’s throne and apparently being accepted by him. Presumably she’s loyal to the throne rather than its current occupant.
X-Men Legends #7-9
X-MEN LEGENDS #7-9
“Kidnapped!”
by Larry Hama, Billy Tan & Chris Sotomayor
From time to time I read the final chapter of a story and realise I have no memory of what happened in the previous chapters, and none of this feels like it has any particular significance to me. Often I go back and re-read the earlier issues, and the pieces fall into place, and I can see what the story was going for. And sometimes… it’s still just stuff happening.
For its fourth arc, X-Men Legends revisits Larry Hama’s run on Wolverine in the 1990s. And undoubtedly, that qualifies as a landmark run. We’re working through it at the moment over in the “Incomplete Wolverine” posts, but suffice to say that the first few years of Larry Hama’s run are not only vastly entertaining, they also introduce a lot of core Wolverine mythology that gets referenced regularly to this day. The later years of Hama’s run are, shall we say, a bit more patchy; some of that feels like it’s to do with editorial stop-starting, but a fair bit feels like it’s to do with having already done the big ideas, and a drift towards the surreal that often doesn’t pay off.
Inferno #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and the page numbers go by the digital edition.
INFERNO vol 2 #3
by Jonathan Hickman, R.B. Silva, Stefano Caselli, Valerio Schiti, Adriano di Benedetto & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Professor X and Magneto fight Nimrods. Or rather, just the one Nimrod, in his multiple bodies.
PAGE 2. Data page. Our opening quote comes from Omega Sentinel, and we’ll get to it on page 28. At this stage, the natural assumption is that she’s referring to one of Moira’s past lives, but that’s not the idea, as we’ll find out.
PAGES 3-5. Flashback: Professor X shows Cypher his plans.
We’ve seen this scene before, in Powers of X #4. Specifically, this is a repeat of page 19, which takes place after Cypher has already been introduced to Krakoa. The difference is that this time we get to see what Professor X showed Cypher. It seems to be the official vision of Krakoan society, rather than any of the secrets that the Professor learned from Moira.
Hellions #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #18
“The Losing End”
by Zeb Wells, Ze Carlos, Stephen Segovia & Rain Beredo
COVER / PAGE 1:: The Quiet Council judge the Hellions. (This doesn’t quite reflect the interior – in the story itself, Psylocke isn’t shackled, and Empath isn’t on trial with the others at all.)
PAGES 2-3. The Quiet Council prepare for the Hellions’ trial.
The Hellions are on trial after Orphan-Maker killed two park rangers after the fight with the Right in the previous issue.
The Council members present are (clockwise from top) Professor X, Mr Sinister, Exodus, Mystique, Kate Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Nightcrawler, Storm and Magneto. Since the other two seats are vacant, this presumably takes place before Destiny and Colossus join the Council in Inferno. On the other hand, Psylocke is acknowledged as a “Great Captain” later in the issue, and she was only formally appointed to that position in Inferno #1. So apparently we’re between pages 44 and 45 of Inferno #1.
Professor X’s opening comment – “We knew this day would come” – suggests they haven’t had to do this in quite some time, but Storm refers later on to “precedents”, plural. One is Sabretooth in House of X #6. The other is presumably the trial of Nature Girl and Curse in X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #12.
Mr Sinister is openly angling for the whole team to be got rid of, presumably because he no longer has any leverage over Psylocke (following the loss of the AI version of her daughter, which he was holding over her for the entire series), and because the team haven’t yet got their revenge on him for tricking them in “X of Swords” and again in the subsequent Murderworld arc. This incarnation of Sinister is not much of a schemer and is so glaringly unsubtle about it that the rest of the Council more or less ignore him.
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1995
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994
When we left off, Wolverine was making his way back to New York after a year of touring the world and reflecting on his mortality – only for the whole storyline about his healing factor failing after his adamantium was removed to be summarily dumped. We’re in the mid-nineties now…
WOLVERINE vol 2 #89
“The Mask of Ogun”
by Larry Hama, Fabio Laguna, Joe Rubinstein & Marie Javins
January 1995
When the Ogun demon mask – supposedly destroyed in Kitty Pryde & Wolverine – shows up as an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, with Ogun’s spirit still hanging around, Wolverine and Ghost Rider investigate. Wolverine still has conflicted feelings about his old mentor, and is reluctant to simply kill him. But Ogun says the two of them are stuck in a loop where he, the “scientific warrior”, will be killed again and again by Wolverine, “the untamed beast.” Wolverine refuses to succumb to his bestial side, and claims to have split the difference between the sides of his personality. He destroys the mask, briefly exposing a second Wolverine underneath, who instantly vanishes into smoke and dust.
Apparently Ogun was trying to attack Wolverine by turning a part of himself against him, but it didn’t work because of the mental balance techniques that Wolverine learned long ago from Ogun himself. Or something. It’s all rather cryptic – it’s not really clear what Ogun is trying to achieve here, if indeed he has any goal in mind other than playing his role in a pre-ordained loop. Hama does come back to Ogun later, so the main aim may simply have been to get him back into play.
Oh, and Wolverine mentions in this story that he’s given up smoking.
