Wolverine #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #8
“War Stories” by Benjamin Percy, Viktor Bogdanovic & Matthew Wilson
“The Past Ain’t Dead” by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert & Antonio Fabela
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine face to face with Maverick, which doesn’t actually happen in this issue.
PAGES 2-3. Wolverine arrives to visit Jeff Bannister.
We last saw Bannister (and his back garden) in issue #3, when the gate was planted. Evidently it’s become fully grown since then.
PAGES 4-5. Bannister tells his story.
Needless to say, there’s no established continuity involved here. Bannister is basically telling us that he became disillusioned as a CIA agent when he found that he’d been sent to kill other Americans in order to stop them from brokering a peace deal. It’s a fairly standard trope about the secret services having their own agenda. Bannister claims to be sticking around to do what he can from within.
(more…)X-Men #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #16
“Sworded Out”
by Jonathan Hickman & Phil Noto
COVER / PAGE 1: Cyclops in the Quiet Council chamber, in front of the face of Krakoa.
PAGES 2-6. Cyclops, Cable and Prestige watch the appearance of Arakko.
“So how’s this going to work?” There’s some very tongue in cheek technobabble here, for those who really care. Basically, Arakko is brought back to Earth via the External Gate (which doesn’t really make sense, because the External Gate connected Krakoa with Otherworld, not with Amenth – let’s assume Saturnyne is helping out somewhere). The mechanics don’t matter, of course. But this does explain why Krakoa was so keen for the External Gate to remain open, in “X of Swords”.
(more…)Excalibur #10-15
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #10-15
#10-12 by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
#13 by Tini Howard, RB Silva & Nolan Woodard
#14 by Tini Howard & Phil Noto
#15 by Tini Howard, Mahmud Asrar, Stefano Caselli, Sunny Gho & Rachelle Rosenberg
Excalibur may be the most divisive of the current X-books. It certainly has plenty of ambition, which buys it a lot of goodwill. There’s a lot going on in this series, and there are a couple of interesting ideas being raised. But there are a lot of issues with this series that frequently make it a bit of a slog.
Although I’m going to review “X of Swords” separately, I’m counting this book’s tie-in issues as part of its regular run. “X of Swords”, after all, is basically an Excalibur and X-Men story which spills over into the other participating titles. From Excalibur’s point of view, it’s an arc about Saturnyne refusing to accept Betsy as the new Captain Britain, attempting to restore an all-Brian Captain Britain Corps instead, and winding up with an apparently-destined Corps full of alternate Betsies – seemingly wiping out the original in the process.
(more…)Excalibur #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #16
“They Keep Killing Braddocks”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1: Rogue, Meggan, Rictor, Jubilee and Gambit in Otherworld.
PAGE 2. Breakfast with Rogue and Gambit.
Rogue is summarising the “X of Swords” crossover.
We’ve heard mention of the Marauder bringing in goods from outside Krakoa before. Why you can’t just go through a gate to get them is never entirely clear.
PAGE 3. Jubilee and Rictor.
Shogo is (or so Jubilee assumes) upset at no longer being a dragon, now that he’s outside Otherworld. It’s a very mild parallel to Rictor and Rogue.
(more…)The Incomplete Wolverine: 1978
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
If 1977 was something of a quiet year, 1978 is much busier. That’s not because Wolverine starts making more guest appearances – at this point, the X-Men still held little interest to writers who weren’t Chris Claremont. But this is the year when the X-Men shifted to a monthly schedule. And a lot of the continuity implant stories set in this era have to fit between the 1978 issues, simply because Claremont didn’t leave an awful lot of gaps – he tended to run one story into the next, and to keep the X-Men away from home for extended periods.
X-MEN vol 1 #109
“Home are the Heroes!”
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin
February 1978
The X-Men finally return home, having been shunted directly from one storyline to the next ever since issue #98. They’re joined by Phoenix, Moira, Lilandra, and Jean’s parents John Grey and Elaine Grey.
This is a Wolverine-centred issue. For one thing, it’s got the iconic scene where Logan goes hunting in the woods, Storm is appalled, but Logan reveals that he only stalks animals without killing them. Claremont is starting to develop the hidden depths angle by this point, but at the same time, the sullen Wolverine isn’t bothering to explain himself to his teammates because he takes offence at the way they see him – even though he often talks about himself in the same way.
(more…)X-Force #15 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #15
“Trench Warfare”
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1: X-Force interrogate Omega Red.
PAGES 2-4: Beast and Wolverine talk while Marvel Girl interrogates Colossus.
We’re picking up here where we left off in issue #12, before “X of Swords” interrupted. X-Force were just about to start the psychic interrogation in that issue, and evidently they’ve finally got around to it.
Wolverine and Marvel Girl don’t trust Beast because of his increasingly authoritarian and manipulative behaviour of late, and you can hardly blame them. Despite his repeated miscalculations, Beast continues to believe that he is uniquely well placed to get the required answers, and that Marvel Girl will mess it up without him.
(more…)New Mutants #14 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #14
“Welcome to the Wild Hunt”
by Vita Ayala & Rob Reis
COVER / PAGE 1: Scout, Karma, Mirage, Wolfsbane, Warpath, Magik and Warlock, apparently just finishing off a session in the “Wild Hunt”. The Wild Hunt was shown in the map of Krakoa in House of X #1, but this is the first we’ve heard of it since then; evidently it’s some sort of woodland sparring area.
PAGES 2-4. The origin of Amahl Farouk.
Amahl Farouk first appeared in X-Men vol 1 #117, in an extended flashback to a young Professor X’s first encounter with an evil mutant. For years, that was all there was to know about him, but in the late 1980s he was retooled as the Shadow King, an all-purpose embodiment of psychic malevolence. The suggestion that the Shadow King is a possessing entity, and that Farouk used to exist independently of him, has come up before but has never really been explored.
(more…)X-Force #10-12
X-FORCE vol 6 #10-12
#10 by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
#11-12 by Benjamin Percy, Bazaldua & Guru-eFX
This is a slightly random batch of issues to cover. But the last time I reviewed X-Force I took it up to issue #9, and issues #13-14 are “X of Swords” tie-ins that aren’t really issues of X-Force at all. (I’ll review “X of Swords” separately in due course.)
With hindsight I’m not quite sure why I took it up to issue #9, which was halfway through a Terra Verde storyline. It’s the one about the telefloronics technology getting out of control, in a parallel of how things could go equally badly wrong on Krakoa. I like the general idea of other people having something in the same general vicinity to the X-Men’s plant-tech, and of Beast being paranoid about it no matter how marginal they are. I’m a little less sold on tying it to a whole history of Terra Verdan mythology, but I suppose it has the advantage of making the parallels look more, well, organic.
(more…)Juggernaut #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
JUGGERNAUT #4
“Scalpel to the Soul”
by Fabian Nicieza, Ron Garney & Matt Milla
PAGE 1 / COVER. The Juggernaut fighting Primus.
PAGE 2. The usual introductory text page. As it points out, there has always been a mismatch between the Juggernaut’s physical power and his role as either a directionless pawn or someone pursuing largely trivial goals like personal revenge.
PAGES 3-4. The Juggernaut breaks into Arnim Zola’s base.
D-Cel’s summary of the previous issue is basically accurate, except that in that issue, Quicksand’s isotopes were said to be traceable to a for-profit prison run by Absolution Solutions, under the control of Arnim Zola. Here, D-Cel describes it as “an abandoned Factor-3 base built into this mountain”. The private prison angle is largely dropped in this story, and there’s some fuzzy plotting going on. Damage Control identified the isotope as belonging to the prison, rather than tracking its location. But according to this issue, the location of the prison is secret. So why does Juggernaut come here? Is this the officially-listed location of the prison, while the real prison is somewhere else? (If so, Cain never really reacts accordingly.)
(more…)Marauders #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #16
“Consequences”
by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1: Emma and Kate together, standing over the defeated Sebastian. Incidentally, both on the cover and throughout the issue, Kate isn’t wearing the necklace that Kurt gave back to her in issue #12. Make of that what you will.
PAGE 2. The epigraph is Kate’s last words before drowning at the end of issue #6.
PAGE 3. The combined recap and credits page, now in the line-wide post-“X of Swords” design.
(more…)