A.X.E.: Judgment Day #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #6
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artists: Valerio Schiti with Ivan Fiorelli
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER / PAGE 1: Members of the X-Men, Avengers and Eternals giving the thumbs down sign (presumably their verdict on the Progenitor).
PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.
PAGES 3-4. Recap and credits.
PAGES 5-6. Captain America brings Jada to the Eternals’ city.
Jada is still sitting in the place where she was talking to Captain America last issue (and still has the Starbucks coffee that she shared with him). Seems awfully quiet for New York, but obviously the scene works better when she’s not just a face in the crowd.
PAGE 7. The civilians react.
Everyone has some degree of turning point or realisation by the end of this, with the possible exception of Komali, who is just resigned to death. Tom finally and decisively realises that he’s got it wrong, albeit too late to do anything about it. Katrina actually does something instead of just talking about it. Daniela had already turned her focus to her family, even if she remains somewhat distracted by practicalities. Jada gets to reconnect with someone (which is another reason why she couldn’t be in a crowd in the last scene) and Kenta is forced to take the situation seriously.
New Mutants #25-30
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #25-30
Writers: Vita Ayala (#25-28 and #30), Danny Lore (#29) & Alyssa Wong (#30, Deadpool story)
Artists: Rod Reis & Jan Duursema (#25-28), Guillermo Sanna (#29), Alex Lins, Justin Mason, Jason Loo, Emma Kubert, Roberto Poggi & Geoff Shaw (#30)
Colourists: Rod Reis & Ruth Redmond (#25-28), Dan Brown (#29), Bryan Valenza, Jason Loo, Antonio Fabela & Nolan Woodard (#30)
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
It’s past time I started making inroads on the reviews, and what better place to start than the closing stretch of Vita Ayala’s New Mutants? To be honest, I was initially going to do the “Labors of Magik” arc separately, but the queue is building up, so let’s just bring the whole series up to date. We’ve got Ayala’s final arc, a fill-in issue, and a farewell anniversary anthology.
Taking them together does bring out one point: viewed as an ongoing series, there’s not much sense of direction here. Which is odd, since the earlier parts of Ayala’s run seemed to know well enough where they were going. There’s a built-in challenge in finding a role for the New Mutants, since they were the original trainee team. Promoting them all to the X-Men kind of misses the point, but at the same time, the characters are 40 years old and they haven’t been written as rookies since 1990 or so. Ayala’s approach was to make them into the mentors for the next batch of kids, which isn’t novel – it was basically the approach taken by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir in their New Mutants series from the early 2000s, where the original team had become the teachers at Xavier’s School. But it makes sense as a way to give them a foot in both camps.
Charts – 21 October 2022
Gosh, an actually busy week.
1. Sam Smith & Kim Petras – “Unholy”
Four weeks. The whole top 5 is static, so we’re waiting for something to break through as a challenger. In the meantime, Todd in the Shadows’ review of this track is worth a watch.
7. Stormzy – “Hide & Seek”
This, apparently, is the lead single from his next album. Not to be confused with “Mel Made Me Do It”, which reached number 12 just three weeks ago – but isn’t on the album. “Hide & Seek” is one of his gentler tracks, with an obvious Afrobeat influence that seems to be the trend this year; the uncredited singers include Oxlade.
X-Force #33 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #33
“The Hunt for X, part 4: Memento Mori”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: Guru-eFX
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine squares off against Kraven and his Shadow Room dinosaurs.
PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciulloo.
PAGES 3-5. Kraven hunts the Beast in the Shadow Room.
All fairly straightforward. It’s the good old “a villain has trapped us in the Danger Room and switched off the safety protocols” story, an X-Men standard for decades.
PAGE 6. Recap and credits.
PAGES 7-9. Wolverine in the Shadow Room.
Wolverine spells out here what this story is supposed to have to do with Judgment Day: Kraven thinks it’s the end of days and he wants to go out by proving himself against Wolverine. Honestly, that’s a pretty token link to the main story, and though it’s more-or-less claimed on the recap pages of this issue and last, I wouldn’t be in the slightest surprised to learn that this was an already planned storyline that had a few Judgment Day elements worked into the background so as to justify the crossover tag. It is a crossover to the wider storyline, but nothing actually seems to turn on that fact.
X-Men #16 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #16
“The Mutant We Left Behind”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Forge, wearing his Caliban-based harness.
PAGE 2. Obituary for Mike Pasciullo.
PAGE 3. Data page. Quote from Mr Sinister, which I can imagine he might have said somewhere. Obviously, in this context it’s a reference to the living suit that he’s produced for Forge.
PAGES 4-6. Flashback: Forge and Mr Sinister.
Forge is asking Sinister to create a suit for him based on the powers of three mutants: Mystique, Caliban and apparently a third yet to be identified. The obvious candidate would be Tempo, given the time distortion involved in the Vault.
Port Genosha whiskey is a recurring background feature from Duggan’s Marauders run. Tempo’s powers are responsible for its 50 year maturation.
Charts – 14 October 2022
Another fairly quiet week at the top end of the chart, but it picks up when we get further down.
1. Sam Smith & Kim Petras – “Unholy”
Three weeks. It’s peaked but it doesn’t have much in the way of competition – the top three remains static for a second week. The midweeks have the whole top 4 staying static next week too. Anyway, for our first new entry, we have to go out of the top 20 and meet…
23. Mimi Webb – “Ghost of You”
This is the follow-up to “House on Fire”, which reached number 6 in the spring. I’m not wild about it; there’s something very limp about that chorus production. Mimi Webb singles tend not to be slow climbers, though her debut “Good Without” was an exception. The midweeks have it at 27.
X-Force #32 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #32
“The Hunt for X, part 3: Kraven Kills”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourists: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Kraven fights Omega Red.
PAGES 2-4. Kraven enters Arbor Magna.
Kraven’s narration recaps his origin story from Amazing Spider-Man vol 5 #16 (2019) and subsequent issues. Basically, he’s one of a number of clones that Kraven created in a last ditch attempt to give himself a son. For most purposes this Kraven is just a reset version of the original, but he does have the added wrinkle of being a nature obsessive who is in some sense unnatural).
Arbor Magna is remarkably undefended considering its importance. Granted, there’s a major crossover on at the moment, but shouldn’t the Five at least be there, taking shelter because of their vital role? (Honestly, this arc feels like it would have worked better without taking place in the margins of the crossover.)
Wolverine #25 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #25
“Hell to Pay, part 2”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Federico Vicentini
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: Wolverine, with claws extended and the Muramasa Blade over his shoulder.
PAGE 2. Wolverine reflects on religion.
I’m not altogether sure that drawing a parallel between religion and a crossover that was already called “Judgment Day” takes us very far, but okay. The tone of this suggests that Percy’s Wolverine isn’t a member of any religion himself, or at least a practising one – he sounds like he’s talking about other people – which would be the traditional take.
PAGES 3-4. Wolverine and Solem approach the Progenitor.
When we left off, Wolverine had persuaded Salem to help him kill the Progenitor in exchange for Wolverine helping Salem against the Hellbride and the Beast.
“No other place will make you realise how weak and small you are than the brutal elemental forces at work here [sic].” This is very similar to Wolverine’s narration about the primal nature of the sea in issue #19.
Legion of X #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
LEGION OF X #6
“Holding the Line”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Artist: Rafael Pimentel
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. An arrangement of hexagons with three showing Uranos and the rest showing the regular cast – Legion, Mother Righteous, Zsen, Nightcrawler, Pixie, Juggernaut and Banshee (in his “Ghost Rider” form). The significance of the hexagons isn’t obvious, since the Hex have nothing to do with this story – for that matter, Mother Righteous, Zsen, Pixie and Juggernaut aren’t in this issue either.
PAGE 2. The Progenitor confronts Legion.
Since the Progenitor is still in its day of judging people, we’re during A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4.
“Universe destroyer. Universe creator.” It’s not immediately obvious what the Progenitor is referring to here; he might mean Legion’s role in the events that created the “Age of Apocalypse” timeline, or the “Age of X” arc from Mike Carey’s X-Men run.
Immortal X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #7
“Part 7: Red in Blue”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kieron Gillen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Nightcrawler teleporting around.
PAGE 2. Obituary for Tom Palmer (1942-2022).
PAGES 3-5. Nightcrawler is optimistic.
This scene takes place at the end of A.X.E.: Judgment Day #4, ending at the point where the Progenitor (as seen in that issue) renders his judgment and starts trying to destroy the world. Nightcrawler is characteristically optimistic about everything – he has faith, after all. More to the point, Nightcrawler always wants to see the best in people, and fundamentally believes (or maybe needs to believe) that people are decent. Therefore, he expects the Progenitor to be satisfied with humans as a whole.
“Erik is dead, and we cannot return him without disrespecting his legacy.” Magneto died fighting Uranos in Judgment Day #4 and X-Men Red #7. He and Storm deleted their backups in X-Men Red #4 out of deference to Arakkii sensibilities on the subject of resurrection, to make themselves mortal. Magneto reiterated in X-Men Red #7 that he didn’t want to be brought back. Professor X implies here that Magneto could in fact be brought back even without the backups that were deleted, as did Storm in X-Men Red #7.
