Uncanny X-Men #18 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #18
“Corn Dogs and Carnage”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Calico. Either she’s having nightmares about Mutina following the previous issue, or Mutina is genuinely stalking her. These encounters prompt her to sleepwalk, something she’s been doing “almost every night of late.” The very strong implication is that Mutina really is teleporting into Calico’s room to threaten her at night – when Gambit and Jubilee try to take her back to her room, they find the bed slashed, along with the painting on the wall. It was fine when she got up to start her sleepwalking a few pages earlier.
According to Gambit, she’s a hopeless cook (“she don’t know how to cook toast”), presumably because her rich family always had people to provide her with food. Despite this, she tries to make pancakes while sleepwalking, and seems at least to be vaguely aware of the correct ingredients. While sleepwalking, she recites some of Mutina’s threats, but also says “Everyone cooks, everyone cleans”, which are two of the Haven house rules from issue #3.
Daredevil Villains #55: Edwin Cord
DAREDEVIL #167 (November 1980)
“…The Mauler!”
Writer: David Michelinie
Penciller: Frank Miller
Inker: Klaus Janson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Editor: Denny O’Neil
So here’s what happened since our last instalment. Issues #163 and #164 don’t have villains: the first one guest stars the Hulk, and the other is the story where Daredevil admits his secret identity to Ben Urich, who decides not to publish. Issue #165 has Dr Octopus, on loan from Amazing Spider-Man. Issue #166 brings back the Gladiator. And that’s the end of Roger McKenzie’s run as writer.
By this point, Denny O’Neil has taken over as editor, and as of issue #168, Frank Miller will be writing as well as pencilling. But first, we have another fill-in.
This one is a rather better fit than the Steve Ditko story we looked at last time. For a start, it still has the regular art team of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson. But this time, our guest writer is David Michelinie. At this point, he’s about 30 issues into his run on Iron Man, and he’s already completed “Demon in a Bottle”. So this feels like a contemporary Marvel comic from 1980.
The X-Axis – w/c 14 July 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #29. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Right, so the story really is just that the island is run by people who hate mutants, and somehow they’ve got their hands on a symbiote? That’s… not very interesting, honestly. There’s the occasional glimmer of a story about how some people might see mutants using their Krakoan drugs for political leverage, but really it’s just the usual in a slightly different location, isn’t it? If it’s doing something more than that, I really don’t get it – and I’m afraid this is a story where I’m getting less interested with each chapter.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #11. (Annotations here.) Since the book is set in Chicago, it was only a matter of time before Eve Ewing brought in Ironheart. Here she seems to be picking up on a dropped plot from her Ironheart run six years ago, though it’s simple enough to repeat the set-up for new readers – the original story pretty much just established Tank as a mysterious guy who was interested in small portals for some unclear reason, and then never got back to him before the book was cancelled six issues later. Remarkably, this means we get an actual action sequence for the second story in a row, something that hasn’t exactly been common in this book – much as I like its focus on character scenes, it’s odd to see everyone talking as if the kids have proved themselves on the strength of a single encounter with Mr Sinister and that time they helped to evacuate a shop.
X-Men: Age of Revelation #0 annotations
X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION #0
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Humberto Ramos
Inker: Victor Olazaba
Colourist: Edgar Delgado
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This one-shot is basically an extra issue of X-Men, acting as a prologue for the upcoming “Age of Revelation” crossover. It’s a 20 page story with some promotional material at the end. Since the story basically consists of Xorn narrating how this timeline came about, it doesn’t really lend itself to a character-by-character breakdown. So we’ll do it page by page.
Kindle’s page numbering for comics is still broken – it still insists that they start on page 2 – so I’ll just go with the story page numbers. (When does this Neon Ichiban thing start, anyway?)
PAGES 1-3. The Seraphim down a Quinjet.
Xorn. Our narrator throughout this issue is Shen Xorn, who’s been hanging around in the background throughout Jed MacKay’s run, not doing a great deal. We’ll come to why he’s potentially important to the “Age of Revelation” storyline.
Exceptional X-Men #11 annotations
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #11
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Nolan Woodward
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE CORE CAST
Axo. He recognises Bronze’s crush Reggie (see below) – it’s not immediately clear how, but presumably she pointed him out somewhere along the line. He seems to be bringing it up to change the topic from a game that he clearly has no interest in playing, but it seems that he and Thao already know about Reggie, and there’s no suggestion that he’s embarrassing Trista just by pointing him out.
His reaction to encountering a tiny energy phenomenon in the park is to say that they should call Kitty or Emma. (Yes, he says “Kitty.”) As he points out, not only is he the most naturally cautious of the trio, but he was also the one who was most directly at risk of death in the previous arc; not unreasonably, he thinks that this gives his view on the matter some weight.
He’s seen the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, or at least recognises the notorious Mojo-style eye scene.
The X-Axis – w/c 7 July 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #28. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Back to the storyline in progress, following the Vigil tie-in last week. And apparently we’re not doing the Wicker Man – we’re just doing an island community where the people in charge are out for revenge on mutants after the drugs ran out, and have forced everyone else into line. And there’s a symbiote involved somewhere, which is played as a reveal, but I thought was already pretty clear last issue. It’s not clicking for me right now, but there’s nothing wrong with it.
UNCANNY X-MEN #17. (Annotations here.) In which the hot film of the summer is a slasher film with a mutant as the killer. I like the idea, particularly because it avoids making the film itself an outright anti-mutant screed. If you were making horror films in the Marvel Universe, then a killer with powers would be a pretty natural direction to go in, and it’s not like there haven’t been plenty of murderous mutants over the years. Okay, yes, it does strain credibility a bit that we’ve made it to 2025 without someone doing this before. But if you apply that sort of logic too rigorously to a book that’s been running since 1963, you’re going to wall off an awful lot of story material.
Magik #7 annotations
MAGIK vol 3 #7
”Beneath the Veil”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
MAGIK
Since Dani took Cal (in issue #5), she hasn’t been able to sense the tracking spell she put on him (as mentioned in issue #3). Dani says that this is because the base’s defences are interfering with her tracking spell.
Before realising that Cal is possessed, she uncharacteristically hugs him and apologises for “involv[ing] you with Liminal”. That’s not quite what happened – he rather insisted on coming along with her – but she did decide to accept him on the view that she would be best placed to keep him safe. Protecting him is her top priority, and she doesn’t trust the Society of the Eternal Dawn to take care of him. Since they seem to be focussing entirely on Liminal and ignoring Cal himself, and their treatment of him seems at least harsh, her scepticism is understandable.
Laura Kinney: Wolverine #8 annotations
LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #8
“Honor Bound”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
WOLVERINE.
She mentions checking the Treehouse for “new leads” – that refers back to the message drop that she found in issue #1.
When going after MGH dealers, she chooses to wear her black and grey X-Force uniform from the Utopia period. She observes that “being on X-Force taught me that you can do things that no one has to know about”. In practice, she seems to be using it for added stealth.
She refers to Bucky telling her in issue #5 that “if there’s one thing a Wolverine has, it’s time”. His point was that she had plenty of time to figure things out and come to terms with pars of her life.
Seeing Polly and Haymaker as a couple reminds her of her illusory life in issues #6-7 where she was in a couple with Julian Keller, and makes her wonder whether that’s what she always wanted. NYX was clearly setting the two of them up as a couple before it was cancelled.
Uncanny X-Men #17 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #17
”Murder Me, Mutina”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN.
Rogue. She seems genuinely surprised at the existence and success of a slasher movie where the killer is a mutant (see below). She assumes that it’s likely to lead to attacks on mutants, and worries about the Outliers.
Gambit. He’s entirely unbothered about Calico and Jitter being suspended from school – he seems to be taking it as read that they were defending themselves against a bully (which isn’t quite what happened).
Nightcrawler. Well, he’s there, but there’s not much to say about him this issue.
Jubilee. She argues that mutants need a PR firm. They did in fact hire a woman called Kate Kildare during the San Francisco / Utopia era.
The X-Axis – w/c 30 June 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #27. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. This is a Hellfire Vigil tie-in, awkwardly interrupting an unrelated storyline featuring two of the same characters. It basically exists to explain Banshee grudgingly agreeing to attend the Vigil at the last minute, having started off with no desire whatsoever to commemorate the place where his beloved Moira turned out to be going through the motions, and then killed him. Cassidy Keep’s last remaining leprechaun reminding him of the story of Tir Na Nog, and the upshot is for Sean to accept that Krakoa was a time of lost innocence for the generation below him. I’m not sure you can really pull that line with characters like Husk and Skin who have been around since the 1990s, but the basic idea works well enough.
