Charts – 29 July 2022
Hey, activity!
1. LF System – “Afraid to Feel”
Not here, admittedly. That’s four weeks. It’s way past its peak so in theory it’s vulnerable to challengers. Speaking of which…
2. Central Cee – “Doja”
Mmm. Well, that’s… not for me. More of a fragment than an actual song (it’s 1:37), it’s still Central Cee’s highest placed single to date. His previous peak was number 4, with last year’s “Obsessed With You”. The sample is from “Let Me Blow Your Mind” by Eve featuring Gwen Stefani, which is now over 20 years old (it got to number 4 in 2001). It’s (presumably) the first single from his next album, even though the previous one only came out in February.
X-Men vol 6 #6-12
X-MEN vol 6 #6-12
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Pepe Larraz (#6-7 & #11-12), Javier Pina (#8 & #10), C F Villa (#9)
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
There’s something about this book that doesn’t click for me. It’s certainly not the art, which is excellent. Pepe Larraz, the book’s primary artist, is just excellent. He makes Cyclops look like Superman while doing completely banal cat-rescuing; that Captain Krakoa costume is just ludicrous enough for the idea to work. The Martian landscapes are great; the detail in Dr Stasis’s lair is perfect.
True, he only draws four of these seven issues, but the other artists keep the book looking consistent; holding on to the same colourist obviously helps. Javier Pina delivers a joyfully ludicrous MODOK; CF Villa does a solid job on a relatively non-visual issue of meetings. It’s a good-looking book with a classic superhero feel that mirrors what Duggan’s X-Men are apparently trying to do – re-establish the X-Men as proper superheroes, in order to be cultural ambassadors from the isolationist nation of Krakoa to the outside world.
Housekeeping
No annotations this week, because… um, well, because there isn’t anything to annotate. The only X-books out this week are two flashback minis, Wolverine: Patch #4 and Gambit #1. I’ll probably do some reviews over the next few days.
Charts – 21 July 2022
If we keep doing this then something’s going to happen eventually, right?
1. LF System – “Afraid to Feel”
That’s three weeks. The top three is static, with “As It Was” by Harry Styles – the number one before last, mind you – still hanging around at 2. Number 3 is George Ezra’s “Green Green Grass”, which is at least on the way up.
25. Steve Lacy – “Bad Habit”
This week’s highest new entry comes with one of the cheapest videos I’ve seen in quite a while, and it takes some effort these days to make a conspicuously cheap video. It’s the first UK hit for Steve Lacy, though he’s the guitarist in the Internet, who got their last album to the dizzy heights of number 39. There’s a parent solo album out this week, but it misses the top 40. Quite good, this.
A.X.E.: Judgment Day #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
A.X.E.: JUDGMENT DAY #1
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Valerio Schiti
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER / PAGE 1: Well, that’s the X-Men on the left, the Avengers in the middle and the Eternals on the right. In the background, the looming Celestial that forms Avengers Mountain.
PAGE 2. An ordinary day in New York.
This is the voice of the Machine, originally presented as the Eternals’ artificial intelligence, but which presents itself in the current Eternals series as “the Great Machine that is Earth”. It serves as the narrator of Eternals.
The woman with green hair on the bottom left might be Polaris, not that it really matters.
Knights of X #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
KNIGHTS OF X #4
“The Seat of the Self”
Writer: Tini Howard
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colourist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. Betsy walks towards an (empty) Siege Perilous, surrounded by shards with images of the rest of the cast.
PAGE 2. Arthur’s forces continue their attack.
PAGES 3-4. Recap and credits.
PAGES 5-6. Jim Jaspers makes a portal to Mercator for the remaining Knights of X.
The sacrifice. We established last issue that Apocalypse’s grimoire predicted that a sacrifice would be required in order to get into Mercator; Rictor spent most of last issue thinking it could be him, until Gambit got killed in action instead. As Meggan reminds us, we established during “X of Swords” that mutants who die in Otherworld can’t be resurrected, except as rebooted blank slates.
Charts – 14 July 2022
Once again, if it wasn’t for Stranger Things, there’d be basically nothing to say about this week’s singles chart.
1. LF System – “Afraid To Feel”
That’s a second week at number one, and it’s still growing. It’s not exactly bedevilled with challengers, either. So for our highest new entry, we have to go all the way down to…
22. Metallica – “Master of Puppets”
This is here because it was used in Stranger Things, and while it doesn’t exactly have the commercial crossover appeal of Kate Bush, it’s still an unexpected presence in the top 40. As with “Running Up That Hill”, it’s being treated as equivalent to a new release for chart purposes. It’s the title track from their 1986 album, and while it was released as a single at the time, it didn’t chart in the UK. They didn’t have their first hit single until the following year, and the parent album only got to number 41. Its successor, 1988’s “And Justice For All”, got to 4.
Wolverine #23 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #23
“Old Haunts”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Adam Kubert
Colourist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Danger impales Wolverine and Deadpool on swords. It’s a callback to Adam Kubert’s own cover for Wolverine #88 (1994), which has Deadpool impaling Wolverine in the same pose.
PAGES 2-5. Deadpool and Wolverine fight their way into the X-Men Mansion.
The page layouts echo the opening pages of every issue in this arc (though I’d struggle to tell you quite what the point of that is). Apparently Danger has mocked up a Sentinel for our heroes to get past.
This is interspersed with Wolverine reminiscing about the days when the Mansion was home, with images of the X-Men teaching pupils on the lawn, and having one of their signature baseball games. Wolverine, having been around for over a century, tells us that he has an all-things-pass attitude to the Institute, remembering it fondly enough, but recognising that attempts to recapture the past are bound to fail. Wolverine claims later in the issue that Danger and Deadpool are both making this sort of doomed attempt. It’s fairly obvious why that’s the case for Danger, who’s returned home to her place of awakening, and more of a stretch for Deadpool.
New Mutants #27 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #27
“The Labors of Magik, Book Three: Begin at the Beginning…”
Writer: Vita Ayala
Artists: Rod Reis (main story) & Jan Duursema (flashbacks)
Colourists: Rod Reis (main story) & Ruth Redmond (flashbacks)
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1: A rather unpleasant looking hare leads the New Mutants down a rabbit hole. I guess by a process of elimination that’s either Maddie or young Illyana in the background.
PAGES 2-3. Flashback: little Illyana reads a story to dead Colossus.
Colossus. In Uncanny X-Men #160 (1982), the story where Illyana is abducted to Limbo, the X-Men visit Limbo and, thanks to its wonky rules of time, encounter versions of themselves from an alternate future in which they have tried and failed to rescue Illyana. For the numbering enthusiasts among you, this timeline is apparently Earth-8280. Colossus appears in that story as a skeletal corpse, with serious damage to his chest, and said to have been killed by S’ym. However, since the second flashback scene tells us that Illyana “rais[ed] a shade of [him]”, this is presumably not the same Colossus corpse (and indeed, in Uncanny #160, Wolverine tells us that Colossus seems to have died as an old man). Belasco suggests on page 15 that he has met many alternate Piotrs, so it might be a completely different one, or just a slightly botched illusion.
Marauders #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #4
“Extinction Agenda, part 4”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: Tempo checks her phone while a battle rages around her (at a different speed).
PAGE 2. Neal Adams obituary.
PAGE 3. Deathbird fights the Kin Crimson.
We’ve seen brief subplots of Deathbird fighting the Kin Crimson’s allies in previous issues. According to Delphos in the previous issue, Deathbird was “cast … halfway across the universe”. But the opening caption here indicates that she’s fought her way back to the Shi’ar capital on Chandilar.
The Crystal Claws are a group led by Erik the Red from the 1995-6 Captain Marvel series, presumably being retconned here into allies of the Kin Crimson. In the original story, they were trying to install a brainwashed Adam X as the Shi’ar Emperor.
