X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #26
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #26
Writer: Declan Shalvey
Artist: Nick Roche
Colourist: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Lauren Amaro
It’s a Banshee story for St Patrick’s Day! Marvel have done quite a few holiday tie-ins with the Infinity Comics, and I wonder if this started out as one of those.
We’ve not just got an actual Irish character here, we’ve got an actual Irish creative team. Declan Shalvey’s already done two arcs on this book; Nick Roche is probably best known for his work on IDW’s Transformers books, but he’s a really good artist who brings a nicely sturdy, cartoony quality to Banshee.
The New York St Patrick’s Day celebrations inspire Banshee to actually return home to Cassidy Keep, that wonderful bastion of Oirishness where actual leprechauns live. He finds Black Tom there, and the usual fight breaks out, with Sean accusing Tom of always trying to take things from him. Of course, that’s ultimately about Tom raising Sean’s daughter Theresa.
Charts – 8 April 2022
It’s another week with very few new entries, but at least this time it’s because nobody wants to go up against…
1. Harry Styles – “As It Was”
I see you’re the Weeknd now, Harry. Fair enough. This is the lead single from his third album, and his second solo number one. The first was his solo debut “Sign of the Times”, which was number one in its first week of release in 2017 – it dropped to 4 the following week, but to be fair, it hung around the top 10 for seven weeks total.
X-Force Annual #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE ANNUAL vol 3 #1
“Lab Work”
Writer: Nadia Shammas
Artist: Rafael Pimentel
Colourist: Carlos Lopez
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
X-FORCE ANNUAL. This is the third X-Force Annual #1. The others were in 1992 and 2010. There was also an unnumbered annual in 1999.
This issue seems to take place between X-Force #26-27.
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine, Domino and Kid Omega versus Orchis’s Sentinels.
PAGE 2. Sage has doubts about the Beast, and calls Emma Frost.
As we’ll find out later, the Beast has sent the X-Force field team (Wolverine, Domino and Kid Omega) on a mission to retrieve a shipment stolen by Orchis from Hellfire Trading. For reasons which will become apparent as the story goes on, Sage is rightly sceptical about this whole thing, and suspects a trap, but the Beast is insistent. This story doubtless contributes to the breakdown in Sage and Beast’s relationship seen in X-Force #27.
Erta Ale is a volcano in Ethiopia. It’s a rare example of a volcano which actually has a lake of lava; not only that, it’s had one since 1906.
X-Force #27 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #26
“From Cradle to Grave”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: X-Force battle the possessed Forge.
PAGES 2-3. Wolverine reflects on recent events.
As the footnote says, Wolverine is referring to the X Lives of Wolverine miniseries, in which Professor X and Jean Grey used Cerebro to transport Wolverine’s consciousness back in time so that he could battle Omega Red at various points in history, and prevent him from altering history by either murdering Professor X or preventing him from being born.
Wolverine claims that “I risked everything for Krakoa. Not just my life, but the timeline.” That’s a bit of a stretch, since Wolverine’s life is at risk in almost every story (to the extent that he’s killable at all), and the whole plot was that if he didn’t go back, the timeline was going to be irreparably altered anyway. Perhaps what he means is that the events of X Lives risked his life in the sense of destabilising his own history, but if so, that’s not something that really came across on the page as being at stake.
Marauders #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #1
“Extinction Agenda”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: The new Marauders team pose dramatically. For anyone just joining us, this team was assembled in Marauders Annual #1, which is effectively the real first issue of Steve Orlando’s run.
PAGES 2-4. The new Marauders rescue Fever Pitch.
“Gyrich’s little gift”. Henry Peter Gyrich was a senior figure in the anti-mutant organisation Orchis, until Abigail Brand killed him and replaced him in S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #11.
X-Men Red #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED vol 2 #1
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Jordan D White
X-MEN RED. This is the successor title to S.W.O.R.D., also written by Al Ewing. It’s the second series to go by this name; the first was the series written by Tom Taylor which ran from 2018-19. In that context, the colour was simply indicating another X-Men team to go with Blue and Gold. Here, it refers to the planet Mars, where the series is set.
If you want to be really nitpicky, this is actually X-Men Red vol 1, because the Tom Taylor series was officially called X-Men: Red, but that’s too much even for me.
COVER / PAGE 1. Magneto, Storm and Sunspot on Mars, with the face of Abigail Brand visible behind them.
PAGES 2-5. Flashback: Storm defeats “Nameless” to become ruler of Arakko.
This is an expanded version of a scene previously shown in flashback in S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #8. All we saw in that issue was the first two panels, though the surrounding dialogue made clear that Storm had issued a challenge to her predecessor as regent and defeated her in combat. That issue also established the basic idea that anyone on Arakko can challenge for a seat on the Great Ring (the ruling council) and win it by defeating the incumbent in combat.
X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #22-25
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #22-25
Writer & artist: Declan Shalvey
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Jordan D White
If you’re not reading this book, you may wonder why we’ve skipped issue #21. Well, it’s the first part of a storyline which is being serialised between the other story arcs, for reasons that aren’t exactly obvious. So we’ll come back to it when it’s finished.
In the meantime, this is the sequel to the first Unlimited arc, where AIM kidnapped three mutants and got away with one of them. Jonathan Hickman is no longer around, but Declan Shalvey, who drew that arc, returns as writer/artist to tie up the plot.
The unlikely team of Wolverine, Warlock and Strong Guy finally track the remaining stasis tube to an AIM base in New Zealand. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a case of an artist picking two characters he thought would be fun to draw, but heck, why not? They’re both gloriously ridiculous Bill Sienkiewicz designs, and it’s always fun to see someone take a crack at Warlock who’s willing to lean into the idea.
X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic #13-20
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #13-20
“Paradise Lost”
Writer: Fabian Nicieza
Artist: Matt Horak
Colourists: Matt Horak (#13-18) and Rachelle Rosenberg (#19-20)
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Jordan White
If you’re not subscribed to Marvel Unlimited, you might expect that the vertically-scrolling, digital only Infinity Comics would be complete throwaways. You’d be largely right; there are a lot of cutesy comedy stories there, plus some regular stories that would have made fairly uninspired fill-in issues. There are exceptions, though. The Kushala Infinity Comic was, if nothing else, a proper origin miniseries for a new character. Spine-Chilling Spider-Man isn’t important to the wider plot, but it’s written Saladin Ahmed and it’s worth your time if you have a subscription.
X-Men Unlimited, uniquely, is an actual ongoing series where stuff happens that actually matters to the regular books. Not stuff that’s hugely important, admittedly, but it’s a place where the status quo of minor characters can be genuinely change. Which might explain why it’s going to get print editions, though I can’t for the life of me understand how the Hickman / Shalvey arc, which is pretty much built around vertical-scrolling storytelling gags, would ever work in that form. Buy it if you must have a physical archive version, but read it online.
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1999
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
Last year was mostly random fill-ins and abortive stories. But as we go into 1999, Wolverine finally has a regular creative team again. Will this bring us direction? Will it heck.
WOLVERINE vol 2 #133-138
“The Great Escape”
by Erik Larsen, Jeff Matsuda, Jonothan Sibal & Jason Wright
January to June 1999
No, we’re not in the trade paperback era just yet. This arc is just very long. Take a deep breath…
Wolverine is out drinking with Carol Danvers – she’s going by Warbird at this point, she’s drinking heavily, and she’s just been kicked out of the Avengers. They wind up fighting Powerhouse (a rabidly anti-human mutant from Larsen’s Amazing Spider-Man), who Wolverine defeats despite Warbird’s drunkenly inept “assistance”. None of this has anything to do with the rest of the arc, in which Wolverine’s body is possessed by alien Aria. She spends an issue testing her new body by fighting assorted minor superheroes who have come to investigate – Wolverine ticks Solo (James Bourne) and Cardiac (Elias Wirtham) off his list here, and also meets Vance Astro as Justice. Eventually Aria explains that she’s escaped from “Prison World”, which supposedly holds thousands of innocent people. She wants help from the legendary X-Men, and Wolverine in particular.
Despite there being no evidence for anything Aria has said, and despite her having just wasted an issue making him fight other superheroes, Wolverine agrees to go. Remarkably, Aria is actually telling the truth, but as soon as they arrive on Prison World, she bounces off to possess someone else, leaving Wolverine with no clue what the plan is meant to be.
Charts – 1 April 2022
Are we just not releasing new singles, then?
Four weeks, heading up a static top five. Apparently it was pretty close over Aitch at number 2, but on paper it’s another dull chart. For our highest new entry, we have to go down to…
23. Potter Payper featuring Tiggs Da Author – “Gangsteritus”
Could somebody not have told him that it’s spelt “-itis”? Oh well. This has been out for months, but it finally charts after showing up in Netflix’s Top Boy. It’s a track from Potter Payper’s 2021 album “Thanks for Waiting”, which reached the top 10. His 2020 album “Training Day 3” made the top 5, too. But this is the first time he’s appeared in the top 40 singles; his previous best was a freestyle that got to number 41 in 2020.
