X-Men Red #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED vol 2 #10
“The New Age”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artists: Stefano Caselli & Jacopo Camagni
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The cast pose. Of some interest, Nova is positioned as equal to the rest of the cast.
PAGE 2. Text page – a poem by Lodus Logos about the battle between Storm and Vulcan that we’re about to read. If you need to be told that the Storm is Storm, the Summer is Vulcan (Gabriel Summers), the Earth is Wrongslide, and the Sea is Sobunar… well, this issue may not be the ideal jumping on point for you.
Lodus Logos’ verses are written in a 6-4-5 syllable pattern (and the final verse is a modified version of the first). It’s obviously reminiscent of haiku, but as far as I can see it’s not a specific real-world verse form. His dialogue is also written in this style, but this is more obviously verse.
He also repeat the “I was there” mantra which has come up throughout Ewing’s Arakko stories, with the Arakkii continually claiming authority from personal experience.
X-Force #36 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #36
“The Methuselah Complex”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Production: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. The Man With the Peacock Tattoo poses with a scalpel; the faces of the cast appear in the “eyes” of the peacock behind them. Well, them and a few random X-characters to make up the numbers – that’s Gentle in the bottom right, Professor X and Forge just under the logo, and Rogue, Magik and Havok running along the top. You can’t see her clearly on the published version, but that’s Storm obscured by the cover box.
PAGE 2. Omega Red and Deadpool prep Domino for her mission.
Presumably Domino knows perfectly well how to apply make-up to herself, so I can only assume she’s indulging Deadpool. Quite why Omega Red is playing along with this, when he literally decapitated Deadpool on a whim in issue #30, is harder to fathom. Maybe Deadpool’s joking about him having chosen the clothes himself.
Gambit
GAMBIT vol 6 #1-5
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Sid Kotian
Colourist: Espen Grundetjern
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Mark Basso
What do you do with Chris Claremont, if you’re Marvel? On the one hand, he’s the defining writer of the X-Men, the man whose run made it the biggest comic around. On the other… well, that was over thirty years ago now, and there have been a couple of abortive comebacks since then, with decidedly mixed results. Plus, the Krakoa era is the least Claremont thing imaginable.
So… the nostalgia circuit, then. We’ve got this Gambit miniseries, set at around the time of his debut, when he was hanging out in Cairo, Illinois with a pre-teen Storm. And there’s also an X-Treme X-Men revival mini to follow. X-Men Legends but on a larger scale.
Fair enough, I guess. If there’s one thing you can say about Claremont’s run, there’s a lot of gaps and dangling plot threads that he can actually go in and clear up. The specifics of Gambit and Storm’s time together isn’t all that important… but it’s a gap, for all that, and they had the sort of relationship where other stories were always kind of implied. Come to think of it, why is this billed simply as a Gambit mini? Why not Gambit and Storm, except maybe that Storm fans might be a bit disappointed by getting a kid?
The Incomplete Wolverine – 2008
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 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007
For once, the start of this year makes a nice break point for Wolverine. Last time we went up to the January 2008 issue of his solo book, which completes the Marc Guggenheim run. His new regular writer is going to stick with him for several years and several books.
At this point, Wolverine is a regular character in Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins, Uncanny X-Men, Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers. So clearly something’s going to give… right?
NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #38
“The Breakup”
by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos & Jose Villarrubia
February 2008
Danny Rand gives the New Avengers one of his apartments as a new base. Wolverine shows up for that bit, in what’s otherwise a Luke and Jessica story.
NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #39
“Echo”
by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack & Jose Villarrubia
March 2008
This is an Echo spotlight story, but Wolverine is in it prominently. She thinks the Skrull conspiracy theory is just a way for the New Avengers to justify to themselves the disastrous state of their lives, but Logan points out that this theory doesn’t explain why he’s there, as “my life’s about the same level of disaster it always was”. Later, he saves her from a Skrull who tries to replace her, proving the conspiracy theory right. There’s a suggestion in here that Logan and Echo have slept together at some point, which is probably best forgotten about.
Charts – 30 December 2022
By convention, the Christmas Number One is whatever happens to be number one on Christmas Day, which in practice means whatever was the most popular track in the seven days ending on the Thursday before Christmas. That’s the chart that people try and launch campaigns for. But this week’s chart is the one that covers Christmas itself, running from December 23 to 29. That means half a week of the heaviest Christmas listening, followed by… well, a few days of Not That, but it turns out that the Christmas side absolutely predominates. And so…
1. Wham! – “Last Christmas”
The Christmas number 2 of 1984 returns to number 1 after a week of being interrupted by LadBaby’s charity single. We’ll come back to him. For now, let’s just note that “Last Christmas” has now spent a total of three weeks at number 1 – two this year, one in 2020.
The disappearance of the novelty singles means there are gaps at the bottom end of the chart, and so we do have some tracks entering the top 40 – all of them back Christmas records, naturally.
New Mutants #33 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #33
“The Sublime Saga, part 3: Let It Burn”
Writer: Charlie Jane Anders
Artists: Alberto Alburquerque with Ro Stein & Ted Brandt
Colourists: Carlos Lopez with Tamra Bonvillain
Letterer & production: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Head shots of four characters who are in this issue plus three regulars who aren’t. Given the glowing eyes on the three regulars, you do have to wonder whether this cover was actually designed with a different story in mind.
This is the final issue of the current run of New Mutants. The trailer page advertises New Mutants: Lethal Legion, which is a five-issue miniseries by Charlie Jane Anders and Enid Balám, beginning in March.
PAGE 2. Stan Lee tribute page.
PAGES 3-4. Morgan and Escapade react to finding themselves in the location of Destiny’s vision.
I’ve covered this in previous issues, but in Marvel’s Voices: Pride (2022), Emma Frost and Destiny showed Escapade a vision of a future in which she uses her powers to swap places with Morgan and gets them killed. Issue #32 ended with them running onto this rooftop as they try to escape the U-Men, and finding themselves in that very recognisable location.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 12
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me… twelve lightnings striking!
It’s time for the latest episode of our reread podcast covering Marvel’s most wanted, the Thunderbolts, and we’re looking at issues 31-33 of the original run of the book. This is the end of series cocreator Kurt Busiek’s run as writer, so we’ve got a little tear in our eye as we revisit Arnim Zola From Work, the Marvel Universe’s most deadly drug and Citizen V’s emoji mask.
The podcast is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And don’t forget to go one post down to cast your votes for the 2022 Homies!
The Homies 2022
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except this one mouse who was rereading issues of Saga to see if it wanted to nominate the book for Best Continuing Series. That’s right, it’s time to put forward your nominations for the Homies, our annual awards!
As always, Paul and I will individually be choosing a winner for each category, but there’s the usual proviso – we want YOU to help, so you all name your picks in the comments, and Paul and I each choose our own, and we talk a bit about each of the three on our awards show.
We’re likely to be recording mid-January, so we’re giving you until midnight UK time (7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific) on January 14 2023 to make your choice. When you list your picks, don’t just name names either, because we’ll be reading out the best comments on the show, so let us know your thinking!
BEST NEW SERIES
This one’s pretty self-explanatory – any comic whose first issue was published between 1 January and 31 December 2022 is eligible. What new series got your attention the most this year?
BEST ACTUALLY NEW SERIES
This one’s a little less self-explanatory – what series, again first published during 2022, did you think was best, with the proviso that it has to be something where the property wasn’t in existence prior to the start of 2022. We’re counting re-use of titles as well as concepts, so Strange or Rogues wouldn’t be eligible, but (for example) Earthdivers or Know Your Station would.
BEST CONTINUING SERIES
The counterpart to the categories above, which covers books whose first issue was published in 2020 or before. They’ve been around the block, but they’ve still got what it takes.
BEST MINI, ONE-SHOT OR OGN
These are explaining themselves by this point, right? We’re looking for OGNs, one-shots and minis published in 2022 (or partially in 2022, in the case of minis).
FAVOURITE WRITER
FAVOURITE ARTIST
FAVOURITE COLOURIST
Each of these three is pretty self-explanatory – whose name on the cover or credits box of a book makes you want to pick it up? Whose work do you most look forward to seeing?
MOST WANTED
This is for the comic, series or graphic novel that saw print this year which you’d want to see more of, whether that be a book that was cancelled before its time, a one-shot or mini that just begs for a follow-up, or an OGN that you’d love to see a sequel to.
MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE
It may have seemed unappealing when you read about it online, and those preview pages may have looked unremarkable, but when you finally got the winner of this category in your hands you were ready to eat your words. What comic, series or graphic novel did you find yourself enjoying much more than you thought you would?
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT
This is exactly what it says – which creator, creative team, publisher or other contributor to the world of comics really knocked it out of the park this year?
Let us have your picks in the comments thread below, along with your thinking on each one – we’ll read out a range of the responses on our big end-of-year show. Happy nominating!
Charts – 23 December 2022
Christmas comes but once a year, and when it comes it brings deep sighing.
1. LadBaby – “Food Aid”
And you thought it was tiresome when Simon Cowell got the Christmas number one every year. Mark Hoyle has now had the Christmas number 1 five years running, which, yes, means he’s beaten the record that he previous set with the Beatles. This had a certain fluke charm in the first year, but it’s now starting to feel like someone trying to establish himself as a national institution even though you probably never hear of him the rest of the year.
Sabretooth & The Exiles #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SABRETOOTH & THE EXILES #2
“Chimera Protocols”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Colour artist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Sabretooth, Nekra, Toad and Oya, with Sabretooth striking a leaderly pose, all in a rather rickety dinghy compared to the vessel in the story itself.
PAGE 2. Stan Lee tribute page.
PAGES 3-5. Nekra and Sabretooth fight.
When we left off, Barrington and the Creation had just abducted Orphan-Maker, and Sabretooth had shown up to offer the team a ride. It’s not directly explained why Nekra has attacked Sabretooth, but the recap page indicates that she’s mainly just taking her revenge for him abandoning the group at the end of the Sabretooth miniseries. At any rate, her attention quickly shifts to the fact that Sabretooth isn’t healing in the way that he ought to.
