WOLVERINE vol 7 #18
“Clash of the Champions”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: That’ll be a picture of Wolverine.

WOLVERINE. 

He’s been protecting the New Morlocks’ encampment for “the past few weeks” by this point (though if you’re that bothered about fitting this into continuity, he doesn’t actually say he’s been there the whole time).

He still describes his relationship with Silver Sable as casual, but when she gets hurt in battle he flies into a rage which is uncharacteristic for him these days.

He spends most of the issue simply fighting a possessed Hercules.

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UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #26
“Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed, part 1: Careful What You Wish For”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: The X-Men and Outliers react to someone in a classic X-Men uniform. From the interior, it’s specifically a New Mutants uniform and the character wearing it is Mutina.

THE X-MEN:

Rogue. She’s reluctant to see herself as a mother to the Outliers, claiming that “bad parents are worse than no parents at all”. She could be referring there either to her birth parents or to Mystique and Destiny, but either way it’s a surprising lack of confidence in her own parenting abilities. She’s obviously more comfortable seeing herself as a teacher or mentor.

Gambit. He seems to want to adopt the Outliers as a family, and has started referring to them as “our kids”.

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UNCANNY X-MEN ANNUAL vol 6 #1
“The Rise of the Regulators”
Writers: Gail Simone & Mikki Kendall
Artists: Francesco Mortarino with Elisabetta D’Amico (inks)
Colour artist: Mattia Iacono
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER. It’s a homage to the cover of issue #1 of the current series, with the hands of the Regulators instead of the X-Men.

THE X-MEN:

Wolverine. In the present day section of the story, he shows up at a club to protect one of the bar staff, Mala, from her stalking Emery. For some reason he shows up in a full tuxedo to a nightclub (he surely can’t be this out of touch with modern nightlife, and it’s not like a tuxedo would be his first choice of clothes outside Madripoor). Mala is apparently the great-great-granddaughter of Slaughter Freedman, hence Logan’s interest.

In the 1920s portion of the story, he’s been poisoned by someone and then ambushed and buried alive by the robbers who go on to attack Slaughter Freedman. The poisoners are never identified and for the purposes of this story their main function is to explain how he managed to lose a fight to these robbers in the first place – as well as giving him a mission to justify leaving Haven House at the end.

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X-MEN vol 7 #28
“Danger Room, part 3”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: John Dell & Sean Parsons
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER. Psylocke and Greycrow in action, which isn’t a scene from the issue. There may have been a change of plans, or at least of pacing – this issue was always solicited as part three of “Danger Room”, but the solicitation also mentions that “help comes from an unexpected direction”, which doesn’t happen either.

THE X-MEN. 

Psylocke. She only appears right at the start and end of the issue – the Danger Room soldiers believe that they’ve shot down the Marauder and killed everyone on board, but presumably she uses her telepathy to trick them. You’d have thought that they’d be prepared for that.

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GENERATION X-23 #2
“A Numbers Game”
Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Jacopo Camagni
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: Wolverine (Laura) fights X-73, while the rest of the Generated watch.

WOLVERINE:

Laura can sense that it was used in the past for similar training sessions to the ones that she was put through. Having expected to find prisoners similar to herself, she’s puzzled by how relatively normal the Generated are, and struggles to understand why they haven’t simply left. She’s keen to recruit them into the mutant community.

SUPPORTING CAST:

Scout. She’s happy to play along with the Generated calling her a super hero, in a rather tongue in cheek way. Generally, she seems happy to meet these new Facility creations, and particularly keen to chat with X-99 (the girl near her age).

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INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #3
“Field of Booms”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramanga
Editor: Mark Basso

COVER: Boom-Boom posing with Cable and Archangel behind her.

X-FORCE:

Boom-Boom. This is her spotlight issue, and it involves the Beyond Corporation, which brings back memories of her time in Nextwave. The continuity status of Nextwave is, shall we say, vexed. Originally it was meant to be an out-of-continuity comedy book, but then references to it started cropping up in mainstream Marvel Universe titles. The official line, per Captain America and the Mighty Avengers #6-7, is supposed to be that the Beyond Corporation was originally controlled by rogue cosmic entities who abducted the Nextwave characters to an alternate reality, altered their memories and personalities, and made them run around in comedy stories for a year just for the hell of it. This isn’t always strictly adhered to, and this story seems to treat it as having happened on the mainstream world. (The Beyond Corporation as it now exists is what was left behind once the rogue Beyonders themselves had been driven away.)

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UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #25
“Where Monsters Dwell, part 3”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: David Marquez & Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Wolverine fights Werewolf By Night.

This issue has legacy number #725, which is presumably why it gets a five-page back-up strip on top of the usual story.

THE X-MEN:

Gambit. Sadurang shows up in the middle of the fight to declare that a year has passed since they made their deal over the Left Eye of Agamotto, and to reclaim the Eye as bargained. Gambit acknowledges feeling addicted to the Eye (as shown in the intervention sequence in issue #23), and having an addictive personality generally, but rejects the Eye  on the grounds that he has other reasons to live for. Unfortunately, the Eye refuses to be returned. The art is ambiguous about this, but Gambit’s closing dialogue seems to make it clear that he’s still stuck with the Eye, although newly determined to resist its temptations.

Rogue, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Wolverine (along with Gambit) free the Legion of Monsters and then show up at Haven House to finish off Lady Darkhold. Wolverine’s transformation into a werewolf is simply cured by his healing factor between scenes. Curiously, Rogue changes costume from yellow-and-green to red-and-black in the final scene – I think this is supposed to be a side effect of her using her power to absorb Lady Darkhold, though it’s unusual for her costume to be affected.

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X-MEN vol 7 #27
“Danger Room, part 2”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Ben Liu, Animalia, Kid Omega and Temper react with shock as something with bloody hands approaches the Factory – it’s possibly meant to be Glob Herman staggering home, since nobody actually attacks the Factory in this issue.

THE X-MEN: 

This is mostly an introducing-the-villains issue, so the X-Men themselves don’t actually do or say that much.

Cyclops, Juggernaut, Magik and the Beast are shown defiantly fighting Beyond’s techno-organic monsters.

Psylocke. We only see her in the Marauder as it comes under missile fire while she’s on her way to Greycrow. (Come to think of it, why didn’t she just get Magik to teleport her there before the mission?) According to Charlene Jackson (see below), the Danger Room’s “stated objective” in going after Psylocke was to separate her from the X-Men in order to weaken the team, by depriving them of her psychic abilities and her second-in-command role. Jackson and Maxine Danger both seem strongly inclined to see her dead anyway, which begs the question of why the stated objective was anything else – is it simply for plausible deniability, or does Frank Bohannon not actually want the X-Men dead? He didn’t spell out last issue what the Danger Room were meant to achieve, after all. See also the position with Glob Herman.

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STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #2
“All Your Favorite Sorcerers are Tricksters”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: The FBI super-agents surround a containment tank with Storm inside. This has pretty much nothing to do with the story.

Interestingly, the story then opens with an actual recap page explaining the plot with actual cross-references to individual issues (and the book doesn’t have its usual symbolic splash page duplicating the credits).

STORM:

The Scarlet Witch believes that although she has some affinity for magic, her level of actual knowledge is so low as to be practically useless – worse, Storm thinks she knows more than she does because she has magical allies. Storm is not dissuaded by the Scarlet Witch’s lecture about her magical limitations, and basically dismisses the idea that Akujin could be relied upon to honour the bargain. She seems to believe that fighting Akujin alone and without allies will somehow save everyone – conceivably, her logic is that if she dies in battle then Akujin will give up on attacking Earth because it will no longer provide leverage.

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X-MEN UNITED #1
“Welcome to Graymatter Lane”
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Tiago Palma
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Well, that’s assorted X-Men standing around. This book is loosely the successor to the previous series Exceptional X-Men. Despite what British readers might reasonably expect, it is not about a football team.

GRAYMATTER LANE:

The name is obviously a play on “Graymalkin Lane”, the address of the original X-Men Mansion.

The X-Men’s new school is, shall we say, not very clearly explained. Emma describes it as a “mind palace”, which doesn’t really take us very far because a mind palace is a memorisation technique. There seems to be a co-ordinated time when invited mutants are telepathically contacted by Emma and invited in. (However, Juggernaut can get in, so evidently non-mutants can also be invited.)  We’re told that “a doorway attuned to your individual psyche will appear before you”, but it’s unclear whether this is a literal doorway or some sort of mental projection technique. Later in the issue, Mariama seems to get there simply by thinking, without any doors involved. Beast says that an “altered mental state” is required to get in, though everyone seems normal once they’re inside.

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