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

WOLVERINE vol 7 #23
“Old Haunts”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Adam Kubert
Colourist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. Danger impales Wolverine and Deadpool on swords. It’s a callback to Adam Kubert’s own cover for Wolverine #88 (1994), which has Deadpool impaling Wolverine in the same pose.

PAGES 2-5. Deadpool and Wolverine fight their way into the X-Men Mansion.

The page layouts echo the opening pages of every issue in this arc (though I’d struggle to tell you quite what the point of that is). Apparently Danger has mocked up a Sentinel for our heroes to get past.

This is interspersed with Wolverine reminiscing about the days when the Mansion was home, with images of the X-Men teaching pupils on the lawn, and having one of their signature baseball games. Wolverine, having been around for over a century, tells us that he has an all-things-pass attitude to the Institute, remembering it fondly enough, but recognising that attempts to recapture the past are bound to fail. Wolverine claims later in the issue that Danger and Deadpool are both making this sort of doomed attempt. It’s fairly obvious why that’s the case for Danger, who’s returned home to her place of awakening, and more of a stretch for Deadpool.

(more…)

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

NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #27
“The Labors of Magik, Book Three: Begin at the Beginning…”
Writer: Vita Ayala
Artists: Rod Reis (main story) & Jan Duursema (flashbacks)
Colourists: Rod Reis (main story) & Ruth Redmond (flashbacks)
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1: A rather unpleasant looking hare leads the New Mutants down a rabbit hole. I guess by a process of elimination that’s either Maddie or young Illyana in the background.

PAGES 2-3. Flashback: little Illyana reads a story to dead Colossus.

Colossus. In Uncanny X-Men #160 (1982), the story where Illyana is abducted to Limbo, the X-Men visit Limbo and, thanks to its wonky rules of time, encounter versions of themselves from an alternate future in which they have tried and failed to rescue Illyana. For the numbering enthusiasts among you, this timeline is apparently Earth-8280. Colossus appears in that story as a skeletal corpse, with serious damage to his chest, and said to have been killed by S’ym. However, since the second flashback scene tells us that Illyana “rais[ed] a shade of [him]”, this is presumably not the same Colossus corpse (and indeed, in Uncanny #160, Wolverine tells us that Colossus seems to have died as an old man). Belasco suggests on page 15 that he has met many alternate Piotrs, so it might be a completely different one, or just a slightly botched illusion.

(more…)

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

MARAUDERS vol 2 #4
“Extinction Agenda, part 4”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1: Tempo checks her phone while a battle rages around her (at a different speed).

PAGE 2. Neal Adams obituary.

PAGE 3. Deathbird fights the Kin Crimson.

We’ve seen brief subplots of Deathbird fighting the Kin Crimson’s allies in previous issues. According to Delphos in the previous issue, Deathbird was “cast … halfway across the universe”. But the opening caption here indicates that she’s fought her way back to the Shi’ar capital on Chandilar.

The Crystal Claws are a group led by Erik the Red from the 1995-6 Captain Marvel series, presumably being retconned here into allies of the Kin Crimson. In the original story, they were trying to install a brainwashed Adam X as the Shi’ar Emperor.

(more…)

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

IMMORTAL X-MEN #4
“Part Four: Diamonds Are Forever”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Michele Bandini
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Emma in silk sheets, with one arm in the process of turning to diamond.

PAGE 2. Neal Adams obituary.

PAGES 3-5. Emma Frost at night.

Immortal X-Men is structured with a focus on a different Quiet Council member in each issue, and this is Emma’s issue.

Emma’s planned excuse for sleeping in her diamond form is that she is less vulnerable to psychic intrusion in that form. Originally, Emma’s diamond form was presented as removing (or at least reducing) her emotions and empathy and cutting off her access to her telepathic powers, but it’s been shown over the years as protecting her from telepathic attack as well. Her actual reasoning is that she doesn’t age in diamond form. This is setting up the motif that Emma won’t drop her persona in public but will admit her actual feelings to herself, and that there’s a degree of self-aware doublethink going on in her self-image.

(more…)

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

X-MEN: HELLFIRE GALA #1
“Time Flies When You’re a Mutant.”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artists: Kris Anka, Russell Dauterman, Matteo Lolli & CF Villa
Colourists: Rain Beredo, Frank Martin, Matt Milla & Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Associate editor: Lauren Amaro
Senior editor: Jordan D White

Although it’s billed as a one-shot, this is basically an extra issue of X-Men, with the new team roster being announced. It’s roughly equivalent to last year’s Planet-Size X-Men #1 but without the planet.

COVER / PAGE 1. Various X-Men in their Gala costumes for this year, with the picture burning up. Unusually, Scott is shown with Emma rather than Jean. Emma is holding what seems to be a dying Krakoan flower.

PAGE 2. Memorial page for Dijjo Lima (1988-2022).

(more…)

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

SABRETOOTH vol 4 #5
“The Magnificent Eight”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Penciller: Leonard Kirk
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1: Sabretooth looms over Krakoa. Symbolically. There are no Pym particles in this story.

PAGE 2. Data page. The quote from Paradise Lost continues “…these piercing fires as soft as now severe, our temper changed into their temper…” But the part quoted gets the point across.

PAGES 3-4. Sabretooth escapes, while everyone lies unconscious after the explosion.

“Kaiju. Genetically modified super-soldiers. Techno-Logan. This island has been through a lot.” The kaiju come most obviously from X-Men: Trial of Magneto. The genetically modified super-soldiers are the Russian Dolls from X-Force and Wolverine. “Techno-Logan” is the Phalanx-infested time-travelling future Wolverine from X Deaths of Wolverine.

“Krakoa reached out to every mutant near the eruption…” We’ve previously established that Krakoa drains small amounts of energy from the mutants on the island to survive, in amounts which are trivial from the perspective of individual mutants. The idea here is that when Krakoa takes significant damage, it needs to suddenly absorb a ton more energy, which knocks out all the mutants in the area. That feels like a vulnerability waiting for an outside attacker to exploit.

(more…)

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

LEGION OF X #3
“We’re All Mad Here”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Jan Bazaldua
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Mulller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad

COVER / PAGE 1. The Legionnaires flee weird stuff in the astral plane. Loosely based on page 17.

PAGES 2-4. Weaponless Zsen reports to Ora Serrata; Nightcrawler briefs the Legionnaires; and Pixie welcomes Dr Strange to the Altar.

“I have accessed Krakoan surveillance files.” Zsen broke into the Pointe last issue to access them (and was presumably allowed to do so after the altercation with X-Force that we saw, or managed to access some before she was stopped.).

Banshee has been missing since yesterday. The previous issue ended with Banshee entering the Altar to recover after his possession by Switch, and being approached by Mother Righteous, who offered him “Such clarity. Such power. You’d never be alone again.”

Counselor Birdy. The telepath who served as Sabretooth’s sidekick in the early 90s. She was killed by Graydon Creed in Sabretooth vol 1 #4, but this week’s Sabretooth #5 has her resurrection being proposed (thus confirming that she’s a mutant). We see her later on, in the background of page 9.

(more…)

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

X-FORCE vol 6 #29
“The Hungry Mind”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Designers: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER / PAGE 1. It’s a homage to the X-Men fighting Krakoa in Giant-Size X-Men #1, specifically the start of chapter 4 (“Krakoa – the island that Walks Like a Man!”)

PAGES 2-4. Kid Omega monologues while Black Tom gets attacked.

All pretty straightforward. The subtext is that Kid Omega seems to be reverting back to his more obnoxious persona following his break-up with Phoebe. Last issue he was more concerned about protecting Phoebe than anything else; getting rejected again appears to prompt him to go back to this arrogant “hero” persona. Consuming Black Tom gives Cerebrax access to his link with Krakoa.

PAGE 5. Recap and credits.

PAGE 6. Wolverine recaps the plot for Domino.

Apparently we really are going with the idea that magnetism can bend adamantium. Arguably there’s a precedent for that in the art in X-Men #25, where Magneto certainly doesn’t seem to be yanking solid lumps of bone-shaped adamantium out of Wolverine’s body, but I’d always taken that to be artistic license, since the whole premise of adamantium is that it’s indestructible. (The 1980s Official Handbook claims that even melting it doesn’t work, which seems…. questionable in the other direction.)

(more…)

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

SABRETOOTH vol 4 #4
“There and Back Again”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Penciller: Leonard Kirk
Inker: Craig Young
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Sabretooth in Krakoan form. We’ve seen him manifest briefly in this way during the series.

PAGE 2. Data page, with our opening quote. Ida Wells (1862-1933) was a civil rights leader and one of the founders of the NAACP. She was also an investigative journalist, which is the obvious reference point for the quote here, butLaValle most likely also has in mind the question of whether prisons achieve their stated functions.

PAGE 3-4. Third Eye saves everyone in the Pit.

Everything Third Eye tells us about his own background here is new. Third Eye mentions that he considered not saving Melter; in the previous issue, he assumed that Melter was drawn to Sabretooth as a possible father figure. In fact, Melter was apparently trying to kill Sabretooth, though he also recognised that he would potentially kill everyone else too. It’s ambiguous whether Third Eye still thinks Melter was just drawn to Sabretooth and something went wrong, or whether he recognises what Melter was trying to do but doesn’t approve of him putting everyone’s lives in danger. Either way, Third Eye decides that Melter deserves another chance.

(more…)

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

X-MEN RED vol 2 #4
”Three Short Stories About Death”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artists: Juann Cabal, Andrés Genolet & Michael Sta. Maria
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer & Production: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller withJay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Sunspot is resurrected at the feet of Rockslide.

PAGE 2. The Great Ring begin their discussion.

Magneto took the “Seat of Loss” – Tarn’s seat – by killing him last issue.

PAGE 3. Recap and credits. The “Meanwhile, elsewhere in the cosmos” paragraph relates to events from other books. The “recent assassination of the Shi’ar empress and Xavier’s daughter, Xandra”, is the as-yet-unresolved cliffhanger of Marauders #3. The “secret of mutant resurrection [was] revealed on Earth” in X-Men #12.

(more…)