INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #1
“A Force to be Expected”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr.
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: The core four members of the new X-Force. There’s a fifth character too, but we’ll get to her.

This is the first issue of a new series, which gets the “Shadows of Tomorrow” banner. The previous volume of X-Force only ran for ten issues in 2024-2025, and has nothing to do with this iteration whatsoever. It is, however, very keen to position itself as a successor to the original X-Force from the early 1990s. The cover doesn’t have a legacy number, but it would be issue #301.

The story title might be referencing the story title of X-Force #1 back in 1991 (“A Force to be Reckoned With”).

X-FORCE:

Cable. This version is looking a bit battered. He favours skulking around in a cloak, even when turning up in someone’s office, and seems to be using “synthetic flesh” to patch up the appearance of his face (presumably covering up the techno-organic virus). He still presents himself to everyone as an all-knowing authority figure with the perspective of a time traveller from the future, but there’s a definite impression here that this is partly an act and that he doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.

(more…)

X-MEN vol 7  #24
“Three Thousand”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: The core members of 3K, with the Chairman still in his previous  body, to avoid spoilers in the solicitations.

As with the previous issue, this is billed both as a “Shadows of Revelation” issue and as an “Age of Revelation: Epilogue”.

The X-Men themselves don’t appear in this issue, which covers what was happening with 3K while the Chairman was absent in the future, and what happens upon his return.

3K:

The Chairman refers to the ruling group as the “Great Table”, a name which previously came up in issue #14, and feels like it has echoes of the Krakoan Quiet Council.

As we saw in X-Men: Age of Revelation – Finale, the Chairman’s body went into lockdown when the future Beast from the Age of Revelation timeline attempted to swap places with him. As a result, he’s missing for a week. In this time, 3K is already falling apart, with Cassandra Nova and Astra fighting one another for control; evidently this organisation depends on the Chairman to hold it together. In fact, the others seem to have remarkable deference to him.

(more…)

UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #22
“No Clean Hands”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Mutina cuts through the cover of issue #1. The issue has the “Shadows of Tomorrow” branding, though this story doesn’t really have much to do with anything from “Age of Revelation”.

THE X-MEN:

Nightcrawler. He goes on what seems to be his first date with Mackenzie DeNeer, and shows up for it in a tuxedo. In the near-future “Age of Revelation” timeline, we saw them as a married couple in Last Wolverine #1. While attempting to talk Mutina down, Kurt sings Mackenzie’s praises as having “the kindest heart I’ve ever known”, so he seems serious.

It’s his birthday, and the X-Men and Outliers throw him a surprise party when he gets home (still referring to him as “fuzzy elf”, as Kitty used to back in the 1980s). Naturally, everyone’s very nice about him – Rogue claims that there’s no X-Men team without him, and Ransom claims that he’s everyone’s favourite X-Man.

(more…)

WOLVERINE vol 8 #14
“Silver and Snow”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: Wolverine in a snowbound forest, with an image of Silver Sable in the background.

WOLVERINE:

For some reason he’s only just got around to returning to Canada to mourn the wolf pack from issue #1. He suggests that the need to mourn them only really became clear to him over time, and in particular that it may have been prompted by his reaction to the illusions of his mother in issues #9-11. The whole thing prompts him to reflect that his very need to mourn the animals demonstrates that he was never really like them.

He winds up in a ghost town looking for fuel, and naturally decides to stick around to defend the local mutants from Department H interference – especially once he’s escalated the situation by fighting them off once.

(more…)

X-MEN vol 7 #23
“Assassin”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Cyclops attempts to kill Revelation with the Soulsword, while everyone else looks horrified.

This issue is bannered both as an “Age of Revelation” epilogue and as part of “Shadows of Tomorrow”, the tag line being used for the post-AoR books. The “Shadows of Tomorrow” branding doesn’t appear to require any particular impact from AoR, though – it also appears on this week’s issue of Wolverine, which has nothing to do with AoR at all.

It’s a new year and I think we’ll go back to the character-by-character format for these posts, rather than the page-by-page one – which was often rather confusing with double page spreads, and given Amazon’s persistent misnumbering of the pages in the digital editions.

THE X-MEN:

Cyclops. Aside from the recap at the very start of the issue, he spends the whole story possessed by his future self from the Age of Revelation (of whom more below). This story takes place before X-Men: Age of Revelation – Finale, where present day Cyclops returns to his body and wakes up in his cell.

(more…)

X-MEN: AGE OF REVELATION FINALE #1
Writer: Jed MacKay
Pencillers: Ryan Stegman with Netho Diaz
Inker: JP Mayer
Colourist: Marcio Menyz
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Revelation stands over Wolverine, Cyclops, Kid Omega and Psylocke as the last survivor.

This one-shot ends the Age of Revelation event, and since it’s the only X-book out this week (aside from the Infinity Comic), we’ll talk about how it went in this week’s X-Axis post. First, though…

PAGE 1. Professor X and Apocalypse lead the Arakko army through the portal.

This is the same scene that we saw at the end of Amazing X-Men #3 and X-Men: Book of Revelation #3, although the dialogue is new. Professor X tells us that he’s been in “exile” from Earth for years, though we never did get an explanation of what he was doing on Arakko in the first place. The obvious reading would be that he’s been in space since “X-Manhunt” – he’s meant to be appearing in an Exiles book in 2026, after all – but why he returns to Arakko rather than Earth is unclear. Perhaps he was always trying to raise forces to help deal with Revelation.

(more…)

EXPATRIATE X-MEN #3
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Francesco Mortarino
Colourist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: The Darkchild holds the X-Men in her hand.

This is the final issue of Expatriate X-Men. The parent title Exceptional X-Men isn’t returning in 2026, but X-Men United appears to be its spiritual successor.

PAGES 1-4. The Providence city wall attacks the X-Men.

This picks up directly from the end of issue #2, which ended with Ms Marvel discovering that there was 3K technology underneath the Flotilla – on re-reading, the idea seems to be that it’s on the hull of the boats, and the storytelling problem is that issue #2 jumps from Ms Marvel reaching underwater to retrieve Lyrebird to being underwater with him, with no apparent moment where she actually goes underwater. Anyway, as soon as this secret is exposed, Melée and Rift teleport the ship to the edges of the Limbo Lands, where they immediately come under attack. The opening caption here establishes that the attacker is the city wall itself, which is “semi-sentient”.

(more…)

LAST WOLVERINE #3
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Edgar Salazar
Colour artist: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: Leonard fights the original Wolverine.

This is the final issue of the miniseries, with Wolverine resuming next month.

PAGES 1-3. Nightcrawler rescues Leonard from Wolverine.

The previous issue ended with Leonard waking at night to find that Vindicator’s plan to free Wolverine from mind control was simply to kill him with the Muramasa Blade. Leonard and Kurt’s role was simply to get her close enough.

Incidentally, the recap pages on issues #2-3 of this series give Leonard’s full name as Leonard Two Bears, which I don’t think has ever appeared in the body of a story. (Issue #1’s recap page just calls him “Leonard”.)

For the purposes of this story, we seem to be workings on the original, Wolverine: Origins concept of the Muramasa Blade, where its magical powers can cut through adamantium and leave wounds that won’t heal.

(more…)

ROGUE STORM #3
“The Gallows and the Executioner”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Roland Boschi
Colourists: Neeraj Menon, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Rogue Red with a bunch of arrows through her at the top, and a defiant-looking Storm on her knees in the bottom half of the page.

This is the final issue of Rogue Storm, with Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #1 solicited for February. Despite Murewa Ayodele insisting that he’s been told it’s an ongoing, the recent solicitation for issue #2 still has it as a five-issue miniseries.

PAGES 1-3. Storm fights her way through Eēgūn’s soldiers.

While Rogue Storm is much easier to follow than the regular Storm series, it would still probably be useful to stick the plot in chronological order before we go any further. It runs like this:

• Flashback in issue #1: Two years into the Age of Revelation timeline, Storm takes in Rogue Red and gives her vibranium knuckledusters. (The timing is confirmed by Gambit in issue #3.)
• Per dialogue in issue #3, the demon Eēgūn escapes “the imprisonment imposed on him by the universe” (presumably his consumption by Maggott in Storm #6).
• Flashback in issue #3: Eēgūn attacks and destroys the Storm Sanctuary. Storm fights him for ten days straight and imprisons him in her body (presumably using magic). Unable to control him, she secludes herself in the Sahara Desert, guarded by the Storm Engines. She loses control of her powers and involuntarily causes worldwide devastation.
• Flashbacks in issues #1-3: Five years into the Age of Revelation, X-Force (Rogue Red, Warpath, Iceman, Gateway, Fantomex and Akujin) fight their way to Storm, and Rogue uses her powers to absorb Storm’s abilities, thinking that she’s going to stop the devastation. As a result, Eēgūn escapes. Akujin turns on the rest of X-Force and kills most of them; she’s an agent of Eēgūn who enlisted X-Force to help get past the Storm Engines in order to free Eēgūn. Storm and Rogue Red are rescued by Dr Voodoo and the ghost of his twin brother Daniel Drumm. Voodoo is killed while holding Eēgūn at bay. Rogue Red dies from her injuries, and discorporates on death.
• Dialogue in issues #2-3: Over the next five years, Storm searches the world for Eēgūn and practices magic. Daniel’s ghost continues to hang around with Storm in deference to his brother’s final wishes.
• Flashback in issue #3 and main story in issues #1-3: Storm gathers various magical weapons with a view to fighting the demon as “Primal Storm”. Gambit turns up looking for Rogue Red. Eēgūn attacks before the conversation can get anywhere. Storm defeats his henchmen and uses magic to trap herself and Eēgūn, apparently forever, resurrecting Rogue Red as a side effect.

(more…)

X-MEN: BOOK OF REVELATION #3
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & JP Mayer
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Revelation squares off against Elbecca and, oddly, Kitty Pryde, who doesn’t appear in this issue – making this a conflation of scenes from issues #2 and #3. This is the final issue of the series, with the story continuing in the X-Men: Age of Revelation – Finale one-shot.

PAGES 1-2. Flashback: Apocalypse despatches Elbecca to Earth.

We established last issue that Elbecca was not actually a little girl from the Revelation Territories, but an Arakkii spy with a “cover personality” who had been sent to infiltrate the Choristers and weaken Revelation. This flashback shows her being sent on that mission in the first place. Revelation points out later in the issue that this scheme must have been planned long before Arakko received word from Bei of his plans (in X-Men: Age of Revelation – Overture and the World of Revelation one-shot), and thus can’t be a reaction to Bei’s message. This seems likely to be right, and raises the question of why Apocalypse was already scheming to bring Revelation down even before then. Revelation’s explanation of his motives later in the issue probably provides the answer to that.

(more…)