X-Men #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #6
“Whatever Happened to Captain Krakoa?”
by Gerry Duggan, Pepe Larraz & Marte Garcia
COVER / PAGE 1. A crowd of people photograph Captain Krakoa on their phones. We’ll find out during the issue who this guy is.
PAGES 2-4. Flash forward: Captain Krakoa debuts in New York.
He’s doing very conventionally heroic things indeed, and generally trying to be a welcome member of the New York community – precisely in line with the X-Men’s general approach to New York since they set up here at the start of the current volume. Obviously, rescuing a cat from a tree is an absurdly stereotypical piece of heroism.
“I’m kind of the greeter in these parts.” Particularly back in the 1980s, Spider-Man tended to show up at the start of a new series to cement it as being in the Marvel Universe.
PAGE 5. Recap and credits. The layout is modified to show the title in larger print, for some reason. The previous five issues were titles as chapters of “Fearless”, but this one isn’t. The solicitations say this issue is part of the first trade paperback, but you have to wonder.
Hellions #13-18
HELLIONS #13-18
by Zeb Wells, Rogé Antonio, Steven Segovia & Rain Beredo
We’re entering another season break, making it the perfect time to catch up on reviews. And we start with the X-book that probably had the strongest last six months in terms of what it actually delivered on the page – but it isn’t coming back for another run.
And I’m pretty much fine with that, because this feels like a good ending point for Hellions. Not necessarily an ending point for all the characters, some of whom will doubtless go on to other things. But certainly an ending point for the series, since Hellions has a bunch of inherent tensions in the whole premise. Sinister is a blatant lunatic who the team (or the Quiet Council) are only going to tolerate for so long. Psylocke’s only tolerating all this because she’s being blackmailed to get the back-up copy of her daughter back. None of this can go on for ever. At some point it all has to explode – which is pretty much what happens. Whatever the next logical step is for some of these characters, it isn’t Hellions. So fair enough. Eighteen issues seems the right lifespan for the book.
The early issues of Hellions have some grimdark tendencies which don’t do the series any favours. By this point, though, Wells has got the balance right. There’s a lot of black comedy here, but it’s mostly psychological rather than graphic.
House to Astonish Episode 196
It’s time for our annual look-back at the comics and creators of 2021, as they give out the gongs in the Homies awards. Will your favourites go home with a glittering prize? Only one way to find out!
Then it’s time for a trip back to Harrogate in November 2021, for the recording of the SILENCE! To Astonish panel from Thought Bubble, featuring Rachael Stott, Becky Cloonan, Al Ewing and Hannah Berry. What larks!
Thanks again for sticking with us for another year, and we hope you’ll join us this year as we keep bringing you the news, reviewing comics, making over low-level loser characters, rereading Thunderbolts, and so on, and so forth.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And look, what better way is there to prepare for the year to come than by buying a t-shirt that shows your support for this podcast? Other than buying in tinned food and bottled water? Exactly.
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1996
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995
When we left off, Wolverine was reverting to a primal state of mind after losing his adamantium. But we’re building to issue #100, so… that’ll be the end of the story, right? Right?
X-MEN & SPIDER-MAN #3
“Clone Sagas”
by Christos Gage & Mario Alberti
March 2009
But first, time to check in again on this miniseries, where every issue took place at a different point in X-Men history. This time, the X-Men team up with Spider-Man (Ben Reilly, the clone of the original) to stop Mr Sinister getting hold of a DNA sample from Carnage (Cletus Kasady). Spider-Man asks Wolverine if his enhanced senses can tell whether he’s the original or the clone; Wolverine can’t, but says that Spider-Man’s performance in the fight showed that he’s the real thing in every way that matters. You know the routine.
Unfortunately, this issue creates a continuity error with Uncanny X-Men #339, where Ben meets the X-Men for the first time again. (Wolverine met him previously in Marvel vs DC.)
Charts – 31 December 2021
The final chart of 2021 covers the chart week 24-30 December – which means it includes both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Although the streams of Christmas songs generally fall off a cliff after Christmas itself, they do so well on the big day that this is another Christmas-dominated top 40. Next week, almost all of these Christmas records will vanish, and we’ll have a massive influx of new singles.
1. Ed Sheeran & Elton John – “Merry Christmas”
Well, of course people weren’t going to keep buying the LadBaby version. That track exists to be bought as part of a charity campaign or just as part of a narrative – it doesn’t exist to be listened to, and so it places this week at number 29. To be fair to him, that’s better than he managed in the previous two years, when he dropped from number 1 straight out of the top 40.
The proper version of the song returns to number 1 for a third week, but given the festive angle (and the fact it’s been out a month already) I doubt it’ll manage a fourth.
28. Fireboy DML & Ed Sheeran – “Peru”
This is an actual, regular new entry – it’s a new mix of a track that topped the specialist Afrobeat charts in November, but which hadn’t previously made the top 40.
Mighty Marvel Holiday Special: Iceman’s New Year’s Resolutions Infinity Comic #1
MIGHTY MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL: ICEMAN’S NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS INFINITY COMIC #1
by Luciano Vecchio
Um, could we maybe have a think about coming up with more viable names for these things?
Anyway, with no regular X-books out this week, the X-Men round out the year with an Iceman Infinity Comic set on New Year’s Eve. Luciano Vecchio is best known as an artist; he’s worked on Ironheart and Champions. His previous writing credits for Marvel have been on short stories for the Voices anthologies, but this is closer to a full length story. And it’s absolutely fine, if squarely in the territory you’d expect from a holiday special comic.
It’s New Year’s Eve, and Iceman has decided to drop by Times Square to watch the ball drop. He’s on his own, so maybe the other mutants have stronger views on Covid. But the story was probably committed to this setting before Omicron took off, so fair enough.
Wastelanders: Wolverine #1
WASTELANDS: WOLVERINE #1
by Steven S DeKnight, Ibrahim Moustafa & Neeraj Menson
This came out on December 15, but I forgot about it.
I forgot about it because, well, it’s one of a series of Wastelanders one-shots that shipped in December. And the others star Hawkeye, Dr Doom, Black Widow and Star-Lord, so even though Wastelanders is set in the world of “Old Man Logan”, I don’t regard them as X-books.
Although, it’s the Wastelands, and with the best will in the world, I really couldn’t care less. I’ve never found the Wastelands interesting, and I have no interest in reading sequels there. The whole post-apocalyptic vibe does nothing for me and feels like it’s been run into the ground. And “…but with the Marvel Universe” isn’t the twist needed to bring it to life. Plus, Mark Millar’s original story was a one-last-mission number, which doesn’t lend itself to endless sequels anyway. Taking the character out of context for the Old Man Logan series kind of worked, but just doing more Wastelands stuff… I don’t get it.
Charts – 24 December 2021
If you liked the years of the X Factor winner’s single, you’ll love LadBaby!
1. LadBaby featuring Ed Sheeran & Elton John – “Sausage Rolls for Everyone”
Mark Hoyle has had the Christmas number one for the last three years, with essentially the same joke: do a cover version of a well known song but change the lyrics to be about sausage rolls. By having a fourth Christmas number one, Hoyle has matched the record set by the Beatles, although of course they did it organically, in the days before the Christmas Number One was a big part of British popular culture (for reasons now lost in the mists of time to younger generations). Hoyle is doing it as a campaign record.
X-Men: The Trial of Magneto #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: THE TRIAL OF MAGNETO #5
“To Catch a Toad”
by Leah Williams, Lucas Werneck & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1. Magneto and the Scarlet Witch dancing.
PAGE 2. The Scarlet Witch names her murderer.
This picks up directly from the end of the previous issue.
“No matter how your magic may or may not have affected Krakoa today…” Northstar is referring to the kaiju attack over the last couple of issues, triggered by Wanda’s traumatic identity crisis.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-8. The Toad is summarily tried and exiled.
The Quiet Council here consists of Professor X, Magneto, Mr Sinister, Exodus, Mystique, Kate Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, Nightcrawler and Storm. This is before Destiny and Colossus join the Quiet Council in Inferno (which is obvious from the timeline, as this story takes place in the days immediately following the Hellfire Gala).
Mighty Marvel Holiday Special – Happy Holidays, Mr Howlett Infinity Comic #1
MIGHTY MARVEL HOLIDAY SPECIAL – HAPPY HOLIDAYS, MR HOWLETT INFINITY COMIC #1
by Ryan North, Nathan Stockman & Chris O’Halloran
Yes, that’s the title. Don’t look at me.
Hey, it’s an X-book. And it’s probably meant to be canon, too. Not that anything’s ever likely to turn on whether this is canon or not, admittedly, but if it matters, it probably is.
So it’s a few years back – the costumes say early to mid 90s – and the X-Men are holding a party for the general public as some sort of public relations event. Which isn’t really the sort of thing they did back then, but sure, they probably should have. Professor X is there in his hover wheelchair, and he’s not openly associated with the X-Men at this point, but he is publicly known as a mutant rights activist so… again, sure. Okay. And Nightcrawler and Shadowcat are there too, but fine, they’re visiting. I mean, it doesn’t quite fit, but it’s not a big problem.
And the schtick is that everyone is having fun at this thing except for Wolverine, who doesn’t like joining in with fun things. Since this is a Ryan North comic, it’s not quite as basic as saying that Wolverine is a grinch. He just doesn’t particularly want to be part of this, he doesn’t really see what his unique skillset of razor sharp blades can contribute to the world of children’s entertainment, and he’d prefer not to be there. (“I’m not grumpy. I’m… I’m brusque. And content in solitude. There’s a difference.”)
