Excalibur #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #17
“QEIII”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
The title is short for “Queen Elizabeth III”, presumably referencing the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II, often known as the QE2. (The normal abbreviation for the Queen is ER II, standing for Elizabeth Regina.)
COVER / PAGE 1. Betsy – or perhaps her counterpart – as queen of an alternate England, complete with the orb, sceptre and crown from the Crown Jewels.
Wolverine #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #9
“Bidding War”
by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert & Frank Martin
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine’s hand is auctioned off. Which rather spoils the reveal in the issue itself, but okay – it’s not the main reveal, after all. Some other superhero memorabilia can be seen on the other tables.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: a Team X mission.
These flashbacks follow the same visual pattern as other flashback pages in the issue – a 16-panel grid with the key information picked up in a diagonal row of panels shown in different colours. It’s quite effective.
(more…)New Mutants #15 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #15
“The Kids Ain’t Alright”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1. The New Mutants are pursued by… well, Cosmar from the look of it. Nothing like this happens in the issue. Interesting that Scout is shown alongside the team, though.
PAGES 2-3. Magik asks about the destruction of the Fort.
The Akademos Habitat is the area where the younger mutants are meant to live; this is the first time we’ve heard about the Fort, which has evidently been set on fire by other teenage mutants. This is the kind of vandalism that the New Mutants were referring in their memo to Professor X in the previous issue, the one that landed them with their mentor role.
(more…)X-Men #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #17
“Empty Nest”
by Jonathan Hickman, Brett Booth, Adelso Corona & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1: Just a generic action shot of Storm (by the regular artist Leinil Francis Yu, who doesn’t draw this issue).
PAGES 2-4: Deathbird calls for help after Xandra is kidnapped.
“[A]nnihilation events and celestial disruptions.” The lettering has both in lower case, but this is at least alluding to the various Annihilation storylines in the cosmic books, and to the periodic appearances of Kirby space gods the Celestials.
(more…)X-Force #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #16
“Into the Deep”
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine, Kid Omega and Forge fighting a giant sea monster.
PAGE 2. Memorial page for Mike Hobson.
PAGE 3. The Beast and Cecilia Reyes examine one of the zombies.
This is one of the zombified sailors that attacked the island last issue. Evidently they didn’t put up much of a fight.
“[Krakoa] is at once our protector and our destroyer.” It’s not immediately clear what the Beast has in mind by the latter point. Perhaps he’s referring to the fact that Krakoa still ultimately feeds on mutant energies. It’s unlikely he’s referring to any deep secret, given that he’s talking about it openly in front of Cecilia.
(more…)Cable #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CABLE vol 4 #7
“Gritty Days in the City of Brotherly Love”
by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto
COVER / PAGE 1. Cable holding a baby. Unusually for this series, Cable is holding his more traditional Big Gun rather than his shiny new Big Sword. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the 2008 Cable series, in which Cable was on the run through time with baby Hope in tow – though it doesn’t seem to be a homage to any specific cover.
PAGE 2. Epigraph. The “past that comes back to haunt” Cable is presumably the villain who gets identified at the end of the issue.
PAGE 3. Gorgon is remembered.
Gorgon died in “X of Swords” (specifically, in the previous issue). Grasscutter and Godkiller were the swords he was using in the tournament, arranged in an X design. They’re “wait[ing]” for Gorgon because he’s presumably going to be resurrected. But because he died in Otherworld, he can’t be resurrected as normal; instead, he’ll return as some sort of alternative incarnation of himself. Hence, everyone else is treating him as dead.
(more…)Marauders #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #17
“The Winds of Change”
by Gerry Duggan, Matteo Lolli & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm and Callisto fighting. We’ll get to that in the story.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: Emma and Callisto investigate Shinobi Shaw.
This flashback takes place during issue #11, after Emma returns home from Kate’s funeral to find Lockheed waiting, and reads his mind to find out how she died. (Hence the black outfit.) It doesn’t exactly match the original scene, where Emma said “show me” to Lockheed, saw what happened, and then turned to diamond and started punching the walls and vowing revenge.
(more…)S.W.O.R.D. #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #2
“In the Dark”
by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGE 1: Cable, Frenzy & Abigail Brand, alongside an image of the S.W.O.R.D. space station impaled into a Venomised Earth. This is a King in Black tie-in, though unusually there’s nothing else on the cover to indicate that fact.
PAGE 2. A mystery figure in New York.
As part of King in Black, New York is overrun by Knull’s symbiotes, and there’s a symbiote shield surrounding the planet. The shadow figure is a Venomized Cable, as we’ll see later on.
(more…)Juggernaut #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
JUGGERNAUT #5
by Fabian Nicieza, Ron Garney & Matt Milla
COVER / PAGE 1: Juggernaut and D-Cel fight the Warden’s bees.
PAGE 2: In memoriam page.
PAGE 3: The recap page, ending the series with a white colour scheme.
PAGE 4. Flashback: Juggernaut discusses D-Cel with Professor X.
Throughout this series, D-Cel has insisted that she isn’t a mutant, despite other characters repeatedly claiming that she is. Juggernaut wants to get her to Krakoa, but everyone seems to agree that she has to make the decision to call on Krakoa first. This isn’t exactly the approach that we’ve seen the Krakoans take with more powerful mutants, but… well, it’s D-Cel. The Krakoans probably have better things to do than hunt down minor mutants who don’t want to come anyway.
(more…)Hellions #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #8
“The Grinning Neonate”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Wild Child and Nanny fight their way past the Right, to the surprise of Havok and Psylocke. As we established in the previous issue, their resurrection has made both Wild Child and Nanny much more focussed and aggressive.
PAGE 2. Epigraph from (as usual) Nightcrawler. He insists that hate is not part of the soul of man, but something generated by circumstances.
(more…)