X-Force #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #17
“Omega, Reconsidered”
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1. Kid Omega and Phoebe of the Stepford Cuckoos, blissfully together wile X-Force do X-Force stuff behind. The comic in the bottom left shows the cover of issue #15.
PAGES 2-4. A montage of Kid Omega’s deaths.
I don’t think any of these are meant to be specific scenes that we’ve seen before; we might or might not be intended to take them literally, and it doesn’t really matter.
The Commander Islands are a group of sparsely populated islands in the Bering Straits – they belong to Russia, but they’re pretty close to the outlying islands of Alaska. No bears live there, cyborg or otherwise, but they do have a lot of seals and guillemots.
Another of Quentin’s deaths comes from a poisoned bunch of flowers from the Church of Humanity, the Chuck Austen-era religious extremists.
Excalibur #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #18
“Mad Women”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Rogue, Jubilee, Gambit and Rictor look mournful, while members of the Quiet Council (plus Cypher and Krakoa) are seen in the background. This doesn’t have much to do with the content of the issue, and feels like it was meant to cover an issue set before Betsy’s apparent return. The solicitation for this issue read “As the Council makes moves to protect mutants in the Otherworld, Excalibur must determine the fate of Betsy Braddock”.
PAGE 2. Saturnyne receives a petition from Krakoa.
Saturnyne has three empty wine glasses at her feet and apparently hasn’t been eating, given Ryl’s comments. She’s clearly still annoyed that her scheme to get Brian back as Captain Britain didn’t work, and that she’s now stuck with an entire corps of Betsies, as seen in “X of Swords”. It’s not immediately clear what’s littering the floor around her – it might be the shards of the mosaic she constructed in “X of Swords”, and which she used to reconstitute the new Captain Britain Corps, if she smashed it again after its work was done.
Charts – 7 February 2021
Apparently nobody is up for releasing singles in the same week as the Fredo album.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers License”
Four weeks, and it’s still not even close. “Drivers License” has double the points of its nearest competition, and is still getting over 8 million streams a week. “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans featuring 220Kid & Billen Ted climbs 3-2, but it’s not likely to get any further against this sort of competition.
3. Fredo featuring Dave – “Money Talks”
18. Fredo featuring Pop Smoke & Young Adz – “Burner on Deck”
21. Fredo featuring Summer Walker – “Ready”
Three tracks from Fredo’s album “Money Can’t Buy Happiness”, which enters the album chart at number 2. That’s his highest position to date, but only just – his 2018 and 2019 releases both got to number 5. Fredo’s biggest hit single remains his appearance on Dave’s “Freaky Friday”, a number 1 in 2018; his previous best as a lead artist was number 13. It obviously helps “Money Talks” that Dave appears as a credited guest, and he’s an executive producer on the entire album to boot. Still, this seems like a step up in Fredo’s personal drawing power.
King in Black: Marauders #1
KING IN BLACK: MARAUDERS #1
“Queen in Red”
by Gerry Duggan, Luke Ross & Carlos Lopez
So this is a thing. Why is this a thing?
I will grant you, I am not the most receptive audience for a “King in Black” tie-in. To say I couldn’t care less about Knull is a considerable overstatement of my level of interest in Knull. He doesn’t even interest me as a Venom concept – Venom doesn’t cry out for a mythology involving alien space demons. But hey, Venom isn’t my concern.
What’s the thinking behind line-wide crossovers like this? There used to be a fairly obvious strategy for event comics. You had a central storyline in a core miniseries, and maybe one or two central books. And then you ran a bunch of tie-ins in assorted ongoing titles – maybe side quests, maybe just things happening in the margins of the main story. And why did you do all those tie-ins? Mainly, to sell more copies of the tie-in books.
X-Factor #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 4 #7
“Suite No. 7: Scientia Vincere Tenebras”
by Leah Williams, David Baldeon & Israel Silva
COVER / PAGE 1: A rampaging Polaris with Eye-Boy in the background. It doesn’t have that much to do with the story.
PAGES 2-3. Speed visits Prodigy.
This continues the subplot of exactly how Prodigy died and how he came to be resurrected. While it’s been suggested that Sofia might have engineered her own death so that she could be resurrected with her powers restored, this issue suggests that Prodigy genuinely believes that he died in circumstances he doesn’t remember, and was legitimately resurrected.
Prodigy claims that he died “during the same O.N.E. attack on Xavier’s Institute that wiped out a bunch of other kids”. In the previous issue, he was vaguer in talking to Sofia – he told her simply that he had “died around the same time as Loa and Rahne”. Taken together, this account is decidedly confused. Rahne died in Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #16; Loa was reported dead in Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #11 (both part of the Rosenberg run). There was no O.N.E. attack on the Institute at around that period. The Institute had been destroyed by the Horsemen of Salvation in Uncanny X-Men vol 5 #3. A group of O.N.E. Sentinels commandeered by the Reavers did attack the Institute in Astonishing X-Men vol 4 #16-17, but it didn’t seem to kill any of the kids.
Hellions #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #9
“Funny Games: Level 1”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1: Mastermind holds up a “missing” poster of Mister Sinister, who is holding up a “missing” post of Mastermind, who is holding… you get the picture. This layers-within-layers stuff doesn’t really appear in the issue, but maybe it’ll feature into the bigger picture.
PAGES 2-4. Mastermind drugs Mr Sinister.
Mastermind. Psychic illusionist Jason Wyngarde was a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants back in the Silver Age. He also had a major role in the Dark Phoenix Saga, when his manipulations of Jean/Phoenix set her on the path to becoming Dark Phoenix. He drifted off the radar over the course of the 1980s, and he was finally killed off via the Legacy Virus in Uncanny X-Men Annual #17 (1993). We already knew that he had been resurrected on Krakoa, since he showed up as one of the army of mutant psychics in Empyre: X-Men, but this is the first thing he’s done of any significance.
Charts – 29 January 2021
We’re getting back to a normal number of new entries on the singles chart, as the post-Christmas promotional cycle gets back into the swing of things. Whether the records themselves are normal… well, that’s a separate matter.
1 Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
Three weeks, and it’s not even close – she beats the number 2 single by three to one. That number 2 track is “Without You” by The Kid Laroi, climbing from 5. And then…
3. Nathan Evans featuring 220Kid & Billen Ted – “Wellerman”
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 1
It’s here! As trailed on our last episode, Paul and I are pleased to present the first episode of The Lightning Round, an in-depth re-read show all about Marvel’s Most Wanted, the Thunderbolts! Each episode we’ll be looking at a few (usually 3-6) issues of the series, plus key tie-ins and guest appearances, checking off a few of the things to watch out for and chatting through all the twists and turns in this twistiest and turniest of series.
In episode 1, we’re covering Incredible Hulk #449, Tales of the Marvel Universe, and Thunderbolts #s 1 and 2. If you haven’t read the series before, be aware that this episode does contain spoilers for the first year of the book, though the intention is that there should be less need for this in future episodes. This episode is also a little longer than future instalments are likely to be (we’re aiming for around 40-45 minutes in future), but that’s largely because there’s an understandable amount of set-up and background to get through.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available through the embedded player below. We hope you enjoy it, but please let us know what you think, in the comments below, on Twitter, via email or through our Facebook fan page. And, as always, you can pick yourself up one of our very snazzy shirts at our Redbubble store if the mood takes you.
The Incomplete Wolverine: 1981
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
The focus is very much off Wolverine in this year’s X-Men stories. But 1981 is also where most of Wolverine: First Class fits, so…
X-MEN vol 1 #141 and UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #142
“Days of Future Past”
by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Terry Austin & Glynis Wein
January & February 1981
Kate Pryde, the middle-aged Sprite from the distant future of 2013, swaps minds with her past self in order to warn the X-Men that the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants – Mystique (Raven Darkhölme), Destiny (Irene Adler), Avalanche (Dominic Petros), Pyro (St John Allerdyce) and the Blob – are going to assassinate Senator Robert Kelly. In Kate’s timeline, this set off a chain of events resulting in an apocalyptic Sentinel-dominated America, and likely nuclear annihilation. The X-Men, now with Storm as field leader, duly defeat the new Brotherhood and save Kelly; Kitty and Kate swap back.
“Days of Future Past” is a classic X-Men story, but it’s not particularly central for Wolverine. He does get to use his senses to verify that Kate is the real thing, and to identify Mystique in disguise. And he has a brief argument with Storm, now that she’s the new authority figure in town. She orders him not to use his claws against opponents unless the circumstances are exceptional, and he grudgingly accepts the ruling. Interestingly, her argument is that he doesn’t need his claws because he has “speed [and] strength” as well as his adamantium skeleton, which reads as if they still hadn’t quite figured out exactly what his powers were at this point.
Excalibur #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #17
“QEIII”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
The title is short for “Queen Elizabeth III”, presumably referencing the cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II, often known as the QE2. (The normal abbreviation for the Queen is ER II, standing for Elizabeth Regina.)
COVER / PAGE 1. Betsy – or perhaps her counterpart – as queen of an alternate England, complete with the orb, sceptre and crown from the Crown Jewels.
