As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #2
“Out of Space”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: RB Silva
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Rasputin IV in battle.

PAGE 2. Moira just before her powers emerged.

Not exactly a flashback, because this is narrated by Enigma, who is outside normal time. This is Moira MacTaggert in her tenth life, reliving childhood as she always has to, while waiting to be old enough to try her newest idea. Enigma is apparently going to offer her another option that she hasn’t thought of – possibly another way out of being stuck in a time loop. (Though note that Moira apparently never tries to end the loop by committing suicide before her powers emerge.) More of that later.

We don’t get a clear shot of Moira’s mother, but this is Lady Kinross. She has been seen on panel before – she can be seen from behind in some of Moira’s earlier lives in House of X #2 – but she’s never done anything significant.

PAGES 3-4. Enigma’s montage.

The panels shown here are:

• Page 3 panel 1: The MacTaggert family home, as seen in House of X #2.
• Page 3 panel 2: Jean Grey making contact with Phoenix at the climax of X-Men #100. Enigma reminds us again that Phoenix can defeat Dominions, something that was also mentioned last issue.
• Page 3 panel 3: This is apparently meant to be young Scott Summers being thrown to safety by his parents when the Shi’ar attack, as seen in flashback in Uncanny X-Men #156. However, he really ought to be clutching his younger brother Alex. Enigma says that Scott’s parents are “gone forever, in every meaningful way” because he doesn’t reunite with his father Corsair until well into adulthood, and Corsair never returns to Earth. The “new parents” are presumably Mr Sinister (who secretly ran the orphanage where Scott grew up) and Professor X; Enigma doesn’t seem terribly impressed by either of them.
• Page 3 panel 4: Cyclops awaits his trial in Fall of the House of X #1. Scott has been dreaming in that series that Jean will save him.
• Page 3 panel 5: This seems to be M/Penance fighting Sentinels, presumably part of the fightback against Orchis in Fall of the House of X, and having little to do with Enigma’s narration. Jean is “dying along with the Phoenix” thanks to Mother Righteous’ botched attempt to use the Phoenix to ascend to Dominionhood, as seen in the Jean Grey miniseries and recent issues of Immortal X-Men.
• Page 4 panel 1: The abortive timeline that we saw in the previous issue.
• Page 4 panel 2: Young Charles Xavier squabbles with his stepbrother Cain Marko. The man in the background ignoring the whole thing is Cain’s father, Kurt Marko.
• The remainder of the page sees Professor X escaping Enigma’s view by slipping into the No-Place where we saw him last issue.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, andpage numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 6 #49
“We Need to Talk About Beast”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramanga
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Beast and Wonder Man burst forth, with X-Force in the background. It’s a homage to the cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1.

PAGES 2-4. The Beast raids the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.

This is the Krakoa-era Beast. He’s wearing the suit of Krakoan armour that he stole from the Greenhouse last issue. According to page 10, the component he steals here is a “nuclear reactor”; we see him on page 11 welding it into his “black hole gun”. The US military has experimented with portable nuclear reactors, but not that portable. Still, this is the Marvel Universe.

Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station is a real place. According to its website, it’s “America’s premier weapons station family [sic], and winner of the 2021 Commander, Navy Region Southwest Installation Excellence Award for Small Installations.” Basically, it provides weapons storage and support to the US Pacific fleet.

PAGE 5. Recap and credits.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 7 #43
“Sabretooth War, part 3”
Writers: Victor LaValle & Benjamin Percy
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colour artist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Sabretooth and Wolverine in their Team X days.

PAGES 2-3. Flashback: Team X on a mission in Nicaragua.

Specifically, Sabretooth, Wolverine and Maverick (the other Team X member who shows up regularly in this book). So far as we can tell at this stage, this is just Sabretooth nostalgically recalling a random mission – with somewhat meta comments about nostalgia, this being a strand of continuity that dates back to the 1990s. The main point is really that Sabretooth looks back on these days fondly, which ties to the idea later that he wants to bring Wolverine back to this sort of persona too. In the next scene, Sabretooth seems to suggest that his team of alt-Creeds is also an attempt to recapture his sense of belonging from these days.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #2
“Long Games End”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Polaris in front of Knowhere.

PAGES 2-6. Polaris and the Brood storm the Bloom.

“Feilong has abandoned ship just to go kill one man – Tony Stark, who built some fancy new suit for himself right under his nose…” This is footnoted to Invincible Iron Man #15, which won’t be out for another two weeks. As of issue #14, Feilong was increasingly preoccupied with defeating Iron Man, and the AI contingent of Orchis were losing patience with him.

“Make it so, M.O.D.O.K.!” Dr Stasis is referencing Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the bridge layout is indeed rather similar.

Polaris and Knowhere. Issue #1 ended with Polaris travelling to Knowhere and enlisting Broo’s contingent of the Brood – who have been living there since X-Men #21 – to help. Apparently she wanted the whole head. Knowhere is the severed head of a dead Celestial, as M.O.D.O.K. alludes to.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 6 #31
“The Passenger”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fight Nimrod.

PAGE 2. Synch and Talon talk.

Talon was killed last issue while fighting the High Evolutionary, and Synch is acting as a host for her mind. As the issue goes on to spell out, Synch can only do this by using her powers to copy the absent Jean Grey – and, apparently, he has to keep doing it. As we’ve established in earlier issues, Synch ages when he uses his powers to copy absent mutants. We’re told later on that he was getting round this problem by copying Talon’s healing factor, but now that she’s dead, he can’t do that any more – so the effort of keeping her alive in his mind is going to kill him unless she can be decanted to somewhere else rather quickly. All of this was actually set up quite well in earlier issues of the series, making it all the stranger that Talon’s death was covered in such a rushed way.

“We’re about to launch an invasion of Earth…” In Fall of the House of X.

PAGE 3. Nightcrawler and Shadowkat tend to Synch.

When we left him last issue, Synch was in reasonably good shape, aside from having Talon in his head. Presumably it’s the stress of continually mimicking Jean’s powers that are the main issue here. Shadowkat seems to suggest that he copied Talon’s powers in his sleep, and got infected when he popped her claws, though if that’s the idea the art doesn’t really sell it – not only is there no blood, but his gloves are completely undamaged.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

DEAD X-MEN #1
“Earth Intruders”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artists: Jonas Scharf, Bernard Chang & Vincenzo Carratù
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Prodigy, Dazzler, Cannonball and Jubilee emerge from their graves. Not what actually happens in the story, but the whole billing of this series as Dead X-Men turns out to be a bit of a red herring so far as the actual plot is concerned. Poor old Frenzy doesn’t make the cover.

Dead X-Men is a four-issue miniseries, but it seems to be actually relevant to the line-wide storylines, which is why it’s getting annotations here.

PAGES 2-4. The X-Men make an abortive visit to a demonic timeline.

Okay, so.

The Treehouse is the X-Men’s former New York base. It’s not looking very healthy, but then nor is the rest of the city in this timeline.

The X-Men for the purposes of this series are Prodigy, Frenzy, Jubilee, Dazzler and Cannonball – in other words, the five who were voted onto the team in X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023 and lasted a grand total of one panel before being killed by Nimrod. The other members of the Gala line-up are Synch, Talon and Juggernaut, all of whom survived and are currently appearing over in X-Men. But this is the majority of the rightful X-Men team.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 7 #42
“Sabretooth War, part 2”
Writers: Benjamin Percy & Victor LaValle
Penciller: Cory Smith
Inker: Oren Junior
Colourist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Sabretooth, with Wolverine’s head on a platter. Don’t worry, kids, it’s symbolic.

This one won’t take long.

PAGES 2-5. The Sabretooths capture Wolverine, and Sabretooth Prime has him strung up.

This continues directly from the end of the previous issue.

“I made a promise. Before you all tossed me in that Pit.” In House of X #6, Sabretooth’s last line before being dragged into the Pit was: “You think I’m just going to take this? I’m making a list and now you’re on it, along with your kids. And then their kids. I will make your line extinct.” He makes fairly generic threats to the Council throughout the scene, but nothing in this scene relates specifically to what he said in House of X #6.

Omega Red‘s tentacles are normally carbonadium, not adamantium. For most practical purposes, nothing turns on this.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO #1
“The Lightning Path”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO is a four-issue miniseries, which effectively replaces X-Men Red. It’s not exactly a renamed X-Men Red arc – as we’ll see, it’s a rather different book – but it does feature Storm and it continues the plot thread of Magneto’s death.

COVER / PAGE 1. Storm, with Magneto in the background.

PAGE 2. Storm’s dream about Magneto.

Storm confirms on page 19 that this is what she sees in her dream, and tells us fairly directly what she singles out as important: “He was standing on a strange shore, readying himself to enter a ruined  city – his face turned away but in torment. It was more than a dream. It was a distress call.” She also notes the five helmets at his feet. We see a version of this same page with Storm on page 29.

The city, river and bridge are the same in both images, as are the positions of the helmets (which are replaced in Storm’s version by five versions of her headdress). Magneto has three identical versions of his traditional helmet, together with the less common black and white versions. As in Storm’s picture, the three helmets on the left appear to have pools of blood next to them, although in Magneto’s case, one of the pools is green. All of Storm’s are red.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-FORCE vol 6 #48
“Game Recognizes Game”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: Beast in a forest, leaping towards someone who’s looking at him through the scope of a sniper rifle. Quite a loose interpretation of the actual story.

The first half of this issue is pretty much self explanatory, by the way.

PAGES 2-4. The Beast breaks into the Greenhouse.

X-Force set up their new Greenhouse base last issue, and Beast showed up at the end of the issue with his gun. From the look of it, whatever it is that he fires at Omega Red is meant to incapacitate.

That’s Aurora and Northstar on page 4, who also arrived here last issue.

PAGE 5. Recap and credits. We’re expressly told that this comes before the current Wolverine storyline, and also before Fall of the House of X and Rise of the Powers of X – all of which was clear from the last issue of Wolverine anyway, but there’s no harm in making it clear in this book too.

(more…)

As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 6 #30
“Who Says Romance is Dead?”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Synch and Talon fight the High Evolutionary and his creations.

PAGES 2-4. Scott dreams about Jean.

This somewhat mirrors the dream scene that opens Fall of the House of X #1, in which Scott dreams about being hanged in the American west, and is apparently saved by Jean. Jean, of course, is still off in the White Hot Room, where we left her in Immortal X-Men. But the clear implication is that she’s regained contact with him in some way.

The fire imagery suggests Jean’s renewed connection with the Phoenix Force.

(more…)