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

NEW MUTANTS: LETHAL LEGION #5
“Vampire Heist II”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Penciller: Enid Balám
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1. Nefaria looms in the background while the regular cast are in the foreground. It’s a callback to the cover of issue #1, with the New Mutants looking a bit more battered and beleaguered. The title of the story, “Vampire Heist II”, also links back to issue #1’s title “Vampire Heist.”

PAGE 2. Escapade and Cerebella stake out the Chavetz Center.

According to the comments from last issue, the Chavetz Center is a conference centre in New York which is used for conventions. Karma learned last issue that Count Nefaria’s plan is “to trap a bunch of people in the Chavetz Center and use the Weird Engine [a cosmic artefact] to turn them into ionic batteries so he can restore himself.” As Karma mentions later, this is basically Nefaria’s last throw of the dice to try and restore his powers, and he’s privately aware that the more likely outcome is that he kills everyone within half a mile, including himself. The recap page clarifies that it’s serving here as the venue of the Future Expo.

With admirable efficiency, Escapade and Cerebella take a moment to talk about their character subplot, and how Escapade’s attempts to offer support to Cerebella in the only way she knows how haven’t really worked out that well for either of them. Cerebella has figured out by this point that Escapade is dangerously reckless.

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

X-MEN RED #13
“The Annihilation of Arakko”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Jacopo Camagni
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. A symbolically giant Genesis attacks the Great Ring with the Annihilation Staff.

PAGES 2-3. Lycaon makes his first appearance at the Great Ring.

Lycaon makes his first appearance here, but he was previously mentioned by Sunspot in issue #11: “They’re a little more imposing than poor Idyll was. Imagine an Omega Wolverine. And then double it.” Apparently, Sunspot meant the “double it” literally, since this guy is apparently a two-headed werewolf centaur.

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

X-FORCE vol 6 #42
“The Ghost Calendars, part 3”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Paul Davidson
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: The Nimrod Beast stands over the defeated X-Force.

PAGES 2-3. The Stonehenge Beast clone is transformed into the Nimrod Beast.

This is the same Beast clone that we saw as the Nimrod Beast in issue #40, and that we saw being buried in this location in issue #41. As seen in that issue, he’s got the original Cerebro Sword. In his narration, he seems to regard himself as the original Beast rather than a duplicate, but it’s not clear whether this is Beast in a series of new bodies (through Krakoan-style resurrection or through more conventional Marvel Universe means), or a series of copies that believe themselves to be the original.

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

IMMORTAL X-MEN #13
“Part 13: Deadlocked”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Cypher, with Krakoan flowers. We’ve been through all the official members of the Quiet Council (except for new member Selene), and so we reach the spotlight issue of Cypher and, through him, Krakoa itself. Cypher, of course, has been a non-voting observer and presence at the Quiet Council all along, and offers an example of how that can be a more significant role than it first appears.

PAGE 2. Opening quote. This is indeed a quote from the post and cleric John Donne (1571/2-1631), from one of his prose works. The passage is famous as the origin of the phrases “no man is an island’ and “Ask not for whom the bell tolls”, probably his best known coinages today. Donne’s original point is that because we are all part of society, every death is a loss to everyone; here, the island is Krakoa itself, suffering because the mutant society it sustains is suffering.

The version here is in modernised spelling. Donne actually wrote “as well as if a Manor of thy friends or of thine own were”, which makes rather more sense. (Different modernisations also disagree about whether “Manor” should be “manor” or “manner” – “manner” seems to be more common online, as in “as if all manner of your friends were [lost]”, but “manor” seems to fit better with the following words “or of thine own”.)

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

BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #5
“Thou Art More Near Thy Death”
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Vasco Georgiev
Colourist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1. Betsy and an assortment of other Captain Britains in action.

This is the final issue of the series, and this time round it doesn’t seem to be in line for a relaunch after the season break. While this book and Knights of X were more or less insta-cancelled, it’s only fair to note that between those two titles and Excalibur, Tini Howard’s run comes to 36 issues, which is a more than respectable total.

Taken together, this issue and the previous one show definite signs of racing to wrap up plots that were intended to play out over a much longer period, but that’s how these things tend to go.

PAGES 2-4. Captain Britain, S.T.R.I.K.E. and Excalibur make plans.

The pile of action figures and the doll’s house on the table belong to Maggie Braddock, who was using them to make plans for the attack on Morgan’s home at the end of the previous issue.

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

X-FORCE vol 6 #41
“The Ghost Calendars, part 2”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Paul Davidson
Colour artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: The makeshift X-Force on a mound of skulls – Colossus, Wolverine, Domino, Omega Red, elderly Kid Omega and alt-future Deadpool. (The real one was left behind last issue.)

PAGES 2-5. Beast buries clones of himself at world heritage sites.

It’s not entirely clear whether this is something Beast is actually up to now, or simply part of the back story of the future timeline, but it doesn’t really matter. Beast’s basic idea here is audaciously silly: the best way to make sure his clones survive into the future is to hide them within world heritage sites, because nobody’s going to mess about with them. Which kind of begs the question of how he got in in the first place, and how he expects that shallow grave in Stonehenge to go unnoticed, but let’s assume he’s bribing or mind controlling people or whatever.

Over in Wolverine, Beast was paranoid about his clones undermining his control, but presumably he’s not so bothered about these guys, because he doesn’t expect to be around. Or perhaps these are more spare clone bodies in which he can be resurrected with his own mind, as happened (somehow) in the epilogue of Wolverine #30. But probably not, because Quentin’s explanation last issue was that Beast “has planted various versions of himself to influence the future.” He described them as “experimental hatchlings and mutations”.

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

WOLVERINE vol 7 #34
“Weapons of X, part 4”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine attacks Beast’s giant walking skull base thingy.

For the purposes of this post, there isn’t very much to say about this issue – it’s pretty much self-explanatory, much of it is an extended action sequence, and there aren’t many references to other issues. None of that is a criticism, by the way; it’s just the sort of issue this is.

PAGES 2-7. Wolverine and Maverick get Jeff Bannister to call off the army.

This picks up from the end of the previous issue, where Beast had just blown up an oil pipeline between Norway and the UK, drawing the attention of both Wolverine and Maverick on the one hand, and Jeff Bannister on the other – who, for some reason, has been put in charge of a military unit. They’re attacking Wolverine because they’ve mistaken him for one of the Beast’s Wolverine clones.

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

X-MEN: RED #12
“Storm Warning”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Jacopo Camagni
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer & production: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White.

COVER / PAGE 1. Jon Ironfire in the foreground, with Nova, Sunspot and Storm surrounding him, and an image of the White Sword in the background.

PAGES 2-6. Flashback: The White Sword frees Jon Ironfire and sends him to Arakko.

Essentially, the White Sword knows that Genesis’s forces are coming and that he’s going to wind up under her control. He sends Jon Ironfire away with his sword, partly to save Jon, partly to alert Arakko, and partly to keep the sword itself out of Genesis’s hands.

The White Sword and Genesis‘s back story was covered in “X of Swords”. Basically, the Sword and his personal army of 100 champions battled the enemy forces on Amenth for centuries, with the Sword using his omega healing powers to resurrect them all daily. On page 3, the White Sword refers to Genesis’s shifting alliances in the past. Originally, she led the forces of Arakko in their battle against the demons of Amenth – the Sword regards them as bringing up the rear. Later, she fell under the control of Annihilation, via its demonic helmet, and led the Amenth forces against the White Sword.

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

X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – MUTANT FIRST STRIKE #1
“Mutant First Strike”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Valentina Pinti
Colourist: Frank William
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1: The Krakoan rescue squad search underground.

This is the second of four Before the Fall one-shots, all written by regular X-book writers. The first one was effectively the final issue of Legion of X. This one is… not obviously connected to anything much, but maybe it’ll play into something down the line.

PAGES 2-3. Milford, New Hampshire gets hit by something mysterious.

It’s a real town, population circa 16,000. It used to be famous for its granite quarries, although they’re almost all closed now.

PAGE 4. Hostile news coverage of the Milford incident.

Basically, this is a false flag attack by Orchis and the media is blaming the mutants. It’s a story where the Krakoans show up and act heroically, they impress the locals, and it has no impact on the wider media narrative. In fairness, it appears that Judas Traveller has planted faked evidence of mutant DNA being present at the attack, so there is at least some legitimate reason for people to think it’s a mutant attacker (though no particular reason to associate them with Krakoa). The point, presumably, is to illustrate the effectiveness of Orchis’s control of the narrative (which isn’t even presented as being contested within the media) and perhaps to get Judas Traveller established as an Orchis character, since thus far he’s been seen in that role only in somewhat peripheral books.

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

IMMORTAL X-MEN #12
“Part 12: The Idiot”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1: Colossus fights Kate – not a scene which happens in the issue, though there is conflict between the two.

PAGE 2. Data page: the opening of Scrivener’s latest chapter.

This, of course, is Colossus’s spotlight issue, and so we come to the status quo that this book inherited from X-Force. Colossus is currently under the control of Scrivener, a Russian reality warper who can apparently control people by writing them into his stories. How this works has been somewhat inconsistent between different books, but we’ll come back to that shortly.

The author identifies himself simply as “a scrivener” and gives his name in Russian at the end of the issue (as he often did in X-Force data pages). There is a passing mention later on that Piotr is ultimately under the control of his brother Mikhail Rasputin, which again is the established set-up from X-Force. X-Force also clearly establishes that Scrivener is himself a prisoner of Mikhail, which is why he describes himself as “in a Russian cell”.

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