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

MARAUDERS vol 2 #8
“Here Comes Yesterday, part 2”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. A rather nice pin-up of Fang, Psylocke and Aurora by Peach Momoko. Nothing specifically to do with the story, but very pretty.

PAGE 2. Obituary for Tom Palmer.

PAGE 3. Flashback: The Threshold Three are sent into the future.

The unnamed character speaking here is Grove, who was named in the previous issue and identified as the leader of the uninfected Thresholders. The three characters that they’re sending into the future are Theia, Amass and Crave, the three Thresholders who were revived in the present day in the previous issue.

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

WOLVERINE vol 7 #27
“The Beast Agenda: Skulls”
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 with Beast’s control collar around his next.

PAGES 2-4. Wolverine is resurrected.

We left off last issue with Wolverine imprisoned by Legacy House and the Beast bidding for the opportunity to kill him. We pick up that scene later on in a flashback, but for now, this is Logan being resurrected on Krakoa. It’s a routine enough event that only Hope and Tempus show up. When the Krakoa era started, resurrections were a huge deal with a quasi-religious ceremony (admittedly, mostly for the first return from the dead). Mind you, if they made a song and dance about every resurrection of X-Force, then it’d probably look a bit bleak to the mutant in the street.

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

X-MEN RED #8
“Mission to the Unknown”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Madibek Musibekov
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Cable fighting Orbis Stellaris (or rather, Orbis serving as the head of the giant body).

PAGES 2-4. Cable and Khora recruit Weaponless Zsen.

Gosnell’s Bar is a bar which appeared in several issues of Al Ewing’s Guardians of the Galaxy run.

Weaponless Zsen was last seen in Legion of X #5, where she left Nightcrawler a letter and signed up to work as an interstellar mercenary. As she says, she managed to leave the planet just before a massive war broke out – Legion #5 ended with Uranos showing up to attack Arakko.

This scene confirms that she’s the daughter of the Fisher King and sister of Khora, as very strongly implied by a data page in issue #6. Fisher King “returned from his shadows” in issues #6-7 when the Night Seats members of the Great Ring resurfaced in the wake of Uranos’s attack. We don’t know yet why she and Fisher King aren’t talking.

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

NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #31
“The Sublime Saga, part one: Fate & Consequences”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Artists: Alberto Alburquerque with Ro Stein & Ted Brandt
Colourists: Carlos Lopez with Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1: Escapade as all of the New Mutants, while Emma Frost rolls her eyes.

PAGE 2. Obituary for Tom Palmer

PAGES 3-5. The New Mutants try to teach creative writing, and Emma comes to talk about Escapade.

This is continuing with the main theme of Vita Ayala’s run, with the New Mutants taking on the role of mentors for the younger generations of teen mutants. The depiction of an actual classroom is new for Krakoa; at the start of the Krakoan era, we were told that the place was running on some sort of experimental-progressive education model where everyone taught one another. That apparently didn’t go so well, leading to the New Mutants moving in to give the place a bit more structure – and now it seems we’re back to regular classrooms and English literature classes.

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

WOLVERINE vol 7 #26
“The Beast Agenda: The Off Days”
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, with Beast in the background, and Jeff Bannister and the Merchant in the foreground.

PAGE 2. Obituary for Tom Palmer

PAGES 3-5. Montage: Wolverine has glimpses of normalcy in the middle of fights.

The action sequences are generic and don’t represent any particular story. Page 3 is the late 1970s X-Men fighting robots; page 4 is Wolverine and Spider-Man fighting symbiotes; and page 5 is Wolverine and family (Daken, Laura and Scout) taking on Donald Pierce, Lady Deathstrike and the Reavers.

PAGE 6. Recap and credits.

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

A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #6
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Valerio Schiti with Ivan Fiorelli
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER / PAGE 1: Members of the X-Men, Avengers and Eternals giving the thumbs down sign (presumably their verdict on the Progenitor).

PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.

PAGES 3-4. Recap and credits.

PAGES 5-6. Captain America brings Jada to the Eternals’ city.

Jada is still sitting in the place where she was talking to Captain America last issue (and still has the Starbucks coffee that she shared with him). Seems awfully quiet for New York, but obviously the scene works better when she’s not just a face in the crowd.

PAGE 7. The civilians react.

Everyone has some degree of turning point or realisation by the end of this, with the possible exception of Komali, who is just resigned to death. Tom finally and decisively realises that he’s got it wrong, albeit too late to do anything about it. Katrina actually does something instead of just talking about it. Daniela had already turned her focus to her family, even if she remains somewhat distracted by practicalities. Jada gets to reconnect with someone (which is another reason why she couldn’t be in a crowd in the last scene) and Kenta is forced to take the situation seriously.

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

X-FORCE vol 6 #33
“The Hunt for X, part 4: Memento Mori”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: Guru-eFX
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine squares off against Kraven and his Shadow Room dinosaurs.

PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciulloo.

PAGES 3-5. Kraven hunts the Beast in the Shadow Room.

All fairly straightforward. It’s the good old “a villain has trapped us in the Danger Room and switched off the safety protocols” story, an X-Men standard for decades.

PAGE 6. Recap and credits.

PAGES 7-9. Wolverine in the Shadow Room.

Wolverine spells out here what this story is supposed to have to do with Judgment Day: Kraven thinks it’s the end of days and he wants to go out by proving himself against Wolverine. Honestly, that’s a pretty token link to the main story, and though it’s more-or-less claimed on the recap pages of this issue and last, I wouldn’t be in the slightest surprised to learn that this was an already planned storyline that had a few Judgment Day elements worked into the background so as to justify the crossover tag. It is a crossover to the wider storyline, but nothing actually seems to turn on that fact.

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

X-MEN vol 6 #16
“The Mutant We Left Behind”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Forge, wearing his Caliban-based harness.

PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.

PAGE 3. Data page. Quote from Mr Sinister, which I can imagine he might have said somewhere. Obviously, in this context it’s a reference to the living suit that he’s produced for Forge.

PAGES 4-6. Flashback: Forge and Mr Sinister.

Forge is asking Sinister to create a suit for him based on the powers of three mutants: Mystique, Caliban and apparently a third yet to be identified. The obvious candidate would be Tempo, given the time distortion involved in the Vault.

Port Genosha whiskey is a recurring background feature from Duggan’s Marauders run. Tempo’s powers are responsible for its 50 year maturation.

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

X-FORCE vol 6 #32
“The Hunt for X, part 3: Kraven Kills”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourists: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Kraven fights Omega Red.

PAGES 2-4. Kraven enters Arbor Magna.

Kraven’s narration recaps his origin story from Amazing Spider-Man vol 5 #16 (2019) and subsequent issues. Basically, he’s one of a number of clones that Kraven created in a last ditch attempt to give himself a son. For most purposes this Kraven is just a reset version of the original, but he does have the added wrinkle of being a nature obsessive who is in some sense unnatural).

Arbor Magna is remarkably undefended considering its importance. Granted, there’s a major crossover on at the moment, but shouldn’t the Five at least be there, taking shelter because of their vital role? (Honestly, this arc feels like it would have worked better without taking place in the margins of the crossover.)

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

WOLVERINE vol 7 #25
“Hell to Pay, part 2”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine, with claws extended and the Muramasa Blade over his shoulder.

PAGE 2. Wolverine reflects on religion.

I’m not altogether sure that drawing a parallel between religion and a crossover that was already called “Judgment Day” takes us very far, but okay. The tone of this suggests that Percy’s Wolverine isn’t a member of any religion himself, or at least a practising one – he sounds like he’s talking about other people – which would be the traditional take.

PAGES 3-4. Wolverine and Solem approach the Progenitor.

When we left off, Wolverine had persuaded Salem to help him kill the Progenitor in exchange for Wolverine helping Salem against the Hellbride and the Beast.

“No other place will make you realise how weak and small you are than the brutal elemental forces at work here [sic].” This is very similar to Wolverine’s narration about the primal nature of the sea in issue #19.

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