UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #16
“The Dark Artery, conclusion: The Voice of Darkness”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: David Marquez & Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN

This is mostly an Outliers story, but Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Jubilee are there to fight alongside them. Gambit’s Eye of Agamotto teleportation doesn’t work in the Penumbra.

Wolverine has met Henrietta before, and she knows him as “James”. He seems to like her. It’s not clear whether they only met before she arrived at Haven (which could be shoehorned into his continuity without too much trouble) or whether the idea is that he’s also been aware of Haven for ages (there’s nothing in this or the previous issue to directly contradict that)

Deathdream. He tries to put a stop to the fight in Penumbra by declaring himself Shuvahrak’s successor and apparently offering to take over the role. He’s much more authoritative than usual in this form; presumably Shuvahrak has some influence on him once he starts to accept the role. He also glows with power – maybe because he’s in a location that powers him up, or maybe just because he’s accepting the role. Jubilee takes him to be trying to save his friends by claiming the throne of Penumbra.

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PSYLOCKE vol 2 #8
“Into the Snow”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Moisés Hidalgo
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

PSYLOCKE

She’s returned to the bamboo forest where she and Mitsuki used to train as children. Her apparent aim is to hunt down and kill Master Hayashi in order to free the ghost of Mitsuki. However, when she reaches the compound, she finds a likely hallucination of an adult Mitsuki who greets her as an old friend.

More training flashbacks include Kwannon and Mitsuki being despatched to kill a Hand traitor (more of him below). This seems to be a different mission from the one in the previous issue, as they look a little older and Mitsuki’s relationship with yokai is more clearly established between them. Kwannon doesn’t know at this stage about her psychic powers, but they seem to emerge briefly during the fight with theoni.

She used to regard her scars from her training as a reminder of her childhood (apparently in a positive way), but they’ve been lost through resurrection. That might have been a deliberate choice, since Krakoan resurrection generally preserved such things. Perhaps she simply didn’t want to volunteer their significance to her and allowed the Five to assume that they were merely injuries.

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WOLVERINE vol 8 #10
“All Happy Families”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Javier Pina
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE

Okay, so I’m busy today, and this issue is a real blessing, because at least in terms of annotations, there’s not that much to say about it.

Just to recap, issue #8 ended with Logan getting a letter supposedly from his mother, asking for his help. Issue #9 then saw him crossing paths with a yokel in a bar, then running into Department H before driving back to the ruins of the Howlett Estate. On arriving, he defeated Harpoon and Vertigo, and the issue ended with him claiming to pick up Sabretooth’s scent in the building.

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X-MEN vol 7 #18
“Invitation”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Emilio Laiso
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN

Cyclops. His prediction last issue that the 3K X-Men would fall apart once their leader was taken out proves to be correct. He claims to recognise this sort of internal tension from his years leading Wolverine (presumably referring mainly to the 70s and early 80s stories, which is really when Wolverine was troublesome as a team member).

Magik, Juggernaut, Psylocke and Temper help wrap up the 3K X-Men but don’t get much more to do.

SUPPORTING CAST

The Beast. Wyre has come to offer him membership in 3K. This Beast, of course, is a copy of the Krakoan Beast who was restored from a much earlier back-up, and therefore doesn’t remember any of the previous Beast’s activities in X-Force and Wolverine during Krakoa. But a key part of his character is now the fear of ending up like that again. Wyre’s pitch to the Beast is that he clearly is a monster and should embrace it and join 3K. Presumably this is at least in part mind games, since if they’re even vaguely aware of the Beast’s status quo – and Wyre’s dialogue suggests that he is – then they must know that he’s unlikely to buy into this idea right away. However, he doesn’t throw away their business card just yet…

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MAGIK vol 3 #6
“The Road Back Home”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Jesús Hervás
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

And let’s welcome new cover artist Pablo Villalobos, who actually thinks Illyana’s most noteworthy features are from the neck up.

MAGIK.

She still  feels guilty about letting down Cal last issue, and is upset that Dani hasn’t contacted her since they last met. X-Men work has been keeping her mind off it.

We get a brief recap of her giving up the rulership of Limbo to Madelyne, in order to give them both a chance at a fresh start, in New Mutants #25-28. Magik also reminds us of the parallels between Belasco using her as a weapon, and Mr Sinister using Madelyne – she claims to see Madelyne as a kindred spirit.

Despite having surrendered the throne, Magik remains linked to Limbo, and the bombing of the Limbo Embassy by demon rebels causes her pain. Even the demons who are loyal to Madelyne still regard Magik as having an equal claim to the throne. Faced with both Magik and Madelyne together, the demons try to look to Magik for instructions.

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PHOENIX #12
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Annalise Bissa

PHOENIX

Jean doesn’t appear much in this issue, which mostly consists of Sara giving her account of how she came to be in Greyhaven. She appears briefly at the end, to look overwhelmed by her sister’s return, and to react to Cable’s entrance.

Jean also appears briefly as a child in Sara’s flashback, when she challenges Sara on deliberately throwing a baseball match. From Jean’s point of view, the significance of the scene probably lies mainly in the fact that she can verify it as a real incident. Well, if she does – it’s minor enough that she might think it’s something she doesn’t remember, and she doesn’t actually tell us that she remembers it.

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EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #10
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artists: Carmen Carnero & Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

Quite a short one for annotations, to be honest.

THE CORE CAST

Emma Frost. The end of the previous issue apparently involved Emma sacrificing herself to free Axo from Sinister’s machine (not something that was terribly clear from the previous issue), and then Emma’s mind being sucked into Sinister’s mindscape. She believes that she made a heroic sacrifice for Axo, and is rather put out by him coming after her – she claims he’s overshadowing her, but obviously her sacrifice would be in vain if he got killed too. She does make a point of getting him to safety first, before following back to the real world.

She claims that a major event in her personal development was meeting Kitty Pryde as a teenager and being shaken by the level of confidence she had. (Emma’s own back story has her only becoming that assertive later on.) The flashback shows Emma with Kitty in a Hellions costume. This is not actually the first time that Emma met Kitty – which would be X-Men #129 – but rather a scene from New Mutants #16, when Kitty was briefly at the Massachusetts Academy. That’s the first story where they spend an extended amount of time together.

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STORM vol 5 #9
“Sinister Schemes of the Stars and Stripes, part 2”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

STORM

Her relationship with Eternity is sharply deteriorating. She tells Manifold that “something has taken possession of my body” – which was Eternity, in issue #5 – and that she feels she’s been made to watch helplessly as it commits atrocities in her body. More recently, she’s been experiencing blackouts, though she’s not clear whether this is Eternity taking even more control, or just a sign of mental collapse. She doesn’t seem to have done anything about it so far, and while she claims to be unable to resist Eternity when it takes control, she seems able to speak freely about it to Manifold the rest of the time.

She then goes on compare the experience to the time in her childhood when she killed a man who was trying to rape her (in a flashback in Uncanny X-Men #267), and declares that she wants to kill Eternity. The original scene carries a rather stronger implication that she kills the attacker in self-defence before he’s able to rape her; this one is played more as if she killed him in retaliation, given the analogy that she draws between him and Eternity.

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LAURA KINNEY, WOLVERINE #7
“My So-Called Perfect Life, part 2”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE

Last issue consisted entirely of Laura hallucinating about a world in which she lived a happy family life with Logan as her father and Gabby as her younger sister, with Julian Keller (Hellion) showing up at the end of the issue. As it turns out, all of this is the result of Beautiful Dreamer (see below) being used to sedate Laura while the Badoon try to experiment on her.

Laura’s dream life  includes Julian as her boyfriend, which fits with the way their relationship was written in NYX #8. For some reason, Julian’s arrival also seems to destabilise what was previously a fairly ingrained illusion: not only does he lead her to step outside the house (which she didn’t do at all in the previous issue), but he proposes marriage to her.

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X-MEN vol 7 #17
“Visitor”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Ryan Stegman
Inkers: JP Mayer, Ryan Stegman & Livesay
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN

Cyclops, Psylocke, Temper, Magik and Juggernaut are all still fighting the 3K X-Men throughout this issue, and their plot doesn’t advance that much.

Kid Omega. He survived the explosion in issue #14 thanks to a psychic “macro” that created a telekinetic shield around him while he was unconscious, only to be opened on the arrival of an “authorised ally”. We’ve seen him do something broadly similar when he used pre-prepared mental traps to beat the more experienced Professor X in issue #13, though that was reusing a trick he’d picked up from Cassandra Nova.

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