Charts – 3 May 2024
It’s mostly a quiet week on the singles chart, but hey, we’ve got a new number one!
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”
By a razor thin margin – the equivalent of 484 sales – but it’s still number one. I’m not hugely surprised that Taylor Swift only managed a single week, since “Fortnight” isn’t the most instant thing she’s ever released. I’m more surprised that it’s Sabrina Carpenter who replaces her, rather than Hozier returning to the top. The song itself is perfectly good; it’s the sort of thing you can see Dua Lipa having a big hit with. But Sabrina Carpenter has never got above number 19 before, and while she’s not a one-hit wonder, this is miles bigger than anything else she’s released. We’ll see if she can follow it up – her persona might be the sort of thing that only makes sense once she becomes a star.
The X-Axis – w/c 29 April 2024
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #137. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Nick Roche, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. When a story as slight as this makes it to part 17 and counting…
X-MEN #34. (Annotations here.) One of the problems with Marvel’s approach to crossover events is that they take a storyline from an ongoing title, but spin off a miniseries to carry the core plot for the event, which leaves the original title to hang around doing stuff on the margins of its own plot. That’s pretty much what we have in this issue of X-Men, which feels very much like the bonus material to fill time while the plot takes place in Fall of the House of X. Specifically, that means a further fight with MODOK, who already fled Orchis in defeat in Fall #2. Still… fair enough, he might as well be brought down for a bit more finality.
X-Men #34 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #34
“Love-Hate”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Assorted cast members in front of Krakoa. On the left, Cypher is in the branches, and below him we have Firestar, Forge, Synch, Talon, Magneto, Wolverine and Shadowkat. On the right are Sunfire, Polaris, Magik, Emma Frost, Apocalypse, and a reunited Scott and Jean.
PAGE 2. Paul Neary obituary.
PAGE 3. A montage of Professor X.
Panel 1 shows him with the original X-Men in the very early Silver Age. At least, Iceman’s appearance suggests the very early Silver Age; Scott and Jean are holding hands, but they didn’t become a couple until long after the X-Men dumped the black and yellow uniforms.
Charts – 26 April 2024
Well, this is not going to surprise anyone.
1. Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone – “Fortnight”
3. Taylor Swift – “The Tortured Poets Department”
4. Taylor Swift – “Down Bad”
That’s the maximum three tracks from “The Tortured Poets Department”, which enters the album chart at number 1. Taylor Swift hasn’t missed number 1 with a studio album since 2010 – and yes, that’s counting the “Taylor’s Version” releases. She doesn’t manage a clean sweep of the top 3, with Hozier hanging in at number 2.
“Fortnight” is both the official single and the opening track, and so gets the most streams. It’s only her fourth number one single – more a sign of bad luck than anything else, since she’s had five number 2s. Her other number 1s are “Look What You Made Me Do” (2017), “Anti-Hero” (2022) and “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version)” (2023). Post Malone gets a featured artist credit, even though he’s more noticeable in the video than on the record – finally giving him a second number 1 to follow “Rockstar” (2017).
The X-Axis – w/c 22 April 2024
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #136. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. I’m sorry, but this is part sixteen and I lost the will to live long ago. Go see previous instalments if you want a fuller explanation of why, because nothing is changing.
RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #4 (annotations here) and X-MEN: FOREVER #2 (annotations here). Over at the main event, the heavily intertwined Rise of the Powers of X #4 and X-Men Forever #2, both written by Kieron Gillen, come out at the same time. I know Marvel like a number #1, but it would probably have made more sense just to bill X-Men Forever as the last four issues of Immortal X-Men, in terms of cueing readers on what to expect from it.
Unavoidably, they cover a lot of the same plot ground. But for the most part Kieron Gillen manages to avoid it feeling repetitive by shifting the emphasis between the two books, or just by letting one book carry a fuller explanation of something that the other one can afford to skip over. Principally, though, Rise is the Professor X story, as Xavier seems to be burning all his bridges in an effort to occupy Orchis and thwart Enigma in what he apparently conceives to be the Krakoa-friendly manner of throwing the humans under the bus. Precisely what he’s trying to achieve remains somewhat mysterious, but it looks like he’s trying to get to Moira one way or another, and get her to redeem herself in some way.
Wolverine #48 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #48
“Sabretooth War, part 8: Alone Together”
Writers: Benjamin Percy & Victor LaValle
Penciller: Cory Smith
Inker: Oren Junior
Colourist: Alex Sinclair
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. A symbolic image of Wolverine being torn apart by two sets of hands – which the caption indicates are “two Creeds”. I haven’t got a clue what this has to do with the issue, or which two Creeds they had in mind. (Victor and Graydon would be the obvious ones in terms of their role in the story, but Graydon doesn’t have anything to do with Wolverine in this issue.) My best guess would be that this is a hangover from an abandoned early version of the story, although the solicitation copy for this issue does match the content well enough.
PAGES 2-6. Wolverine and Sabretooth separately reflect on their lives.
Obviously, these two monologues in first person narration are presented to emphasise the parallels between the two characters. The key theme for Wolverine is that while Sabretooth’s attack on the Greenhouse drove him into a rage, Kid Omega’s psychic attack on him last issue shifted his perspective and made him focus more on the positive reasons to fight – his loner tendencies are about the fear of getting other people hurt, but he does ultimately feel happier around others.
X-Men: Forever #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: FOREVER #2
“Quiet Council”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Luca Maresca
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kat Gregorowicz
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: Rachel, Cannonball, Jubilee, Exodus and Arakko fight a Stark Sentinel.
PAGE 2. Paul Neary obituary.
PAGES 3-5. Mother Righteous’ homunculus dissolves, and Professor X sends a message to the White Hot Room.
This scene takes place roughly alongside page 6 of Rise of the Powers of X #4. The two issues interweave, so you might want to look at the annotations for that issue.
“Sinister’s dead.” Fall of the House of X #3.
“Xavier murdered Rachel.” Rise of the Powers of X #3.
“Xavier freed me to @#$% over Rasputin, who’s also dead.” Rise of the Powers of X #4.
“Bring Rachel back. She’ll be furious, and rightly so.” Professor X makes clear that he killed Rachel in Rise #3, and Rasputin in Rise #4, so that they could be resurrected in the White Hot Room – the only way that they could readily travel there. That begs the question of why he didn’t just tell them that, but of course then Mother Righteous would have known what he was doing.
Rise of the Powers of X #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #4
“Sentinel X”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: R.B. Silva
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: A distraught Professor X, in his Cerebro helmet, in a field of flaming skulls. Presumably that’s Krakoa in the background.
PAGE 2. Paul Neary obituary.
PAGES 3-6. Professor X frees Mother Righteous and kills Rasputin.
This picks up directly from the end of issue #3, where Professor X was persuaded to switch tack and try Rachel’s plan of resurrecting the Phoenix as a means of defeating Enigma. As we establish later on, the reason why Professor X is killing Rachel and Rasputin is so that the Five can resurrect them in the White Hot Room – being the only available means of actually getting them there.
“You have the power to stop Rasputin, yes?” Mother Righteous’ magic gives her control over anyone who’s thanked her in the past, until she cashes that favour in. She used up most of her power in the White Hot Room by cashing in the general thanks that she was given by the whole population of Krakoa (in the closing issues of Immortal X-Men), but clearly she hasn’t cashed in her thanks for Rasputin yet. I’m not sure we ever saw Rasputin thank her on panel, but she regarded Mother Righteous as a saviour in Sins of Sinister: Dominion, so she’ll doubtless have thanked her somewhere along the line.
Daredevil Villains #21: Death’s-Head
DAREDEVIL #56-57 (September & October 1969)
“…And Death Came Riding!” / “In the Midst of Life…!”
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Syd Shores
Letterer: Artie Simek
Colourist: not credited
Editor: Stan Lee
With the Starr Saxon storyline that he inherited from Stan Lee out of the way, Roy Thomas moves on to his own stories. Thomas often liked to dust off forgotten characters from earlier issues, but apparently he didn’t find Daredevil’s rogue’s gallery all that inspiring. Instead, he bombards the book with new villains during his run. First up is Death’s-Head, not to be confused with the more popular Transformers-adjacent character.
In our previous instalment, Daredevil faked Matt Murdock’s death in order to thwart Starr Saxon’s blackmail scheme. Karen Page was distraught about that, and Daredevil made matters even worse by stealing his cane back from her. But never mind, because Starr Saxon is now dead, and Daredevil can break the good news to her that Matt is alive. So our story opens with Daredevil swinging merrily across town to see her, showing absolutely no signs of concern about the distress that he’s put her through. The man is a psychopath.
But when Matt arrives at Foggy’s office, Karen isn’t there. She’s decided to go home and see her family. We learn that Karen is the daughter of Dr Paxton Page – “the man who perfected the cobalt bomb.” A cobalt bomb was a type of nuclear bomb designed to make the target area especially uninhabitable, which seems like overkill in the event of World War III, but there you go. It was supposed to be a thought experiment to support the argument that nuclear weapons were too dangerous to exist. Roy Thomas was particularly keen on the threat of cobalt bombs; he had created the Cobalt Man for X-Men in 1967.
Charts – 19 April 2024
So before you ask: the chart week runs from Friday to Thursday, so that means Taylor Swift doesn’t show up until next week’s chart. In the meantime, we’ve got quite a busy week – and mostly decent new entries on the singles chart, too.
Two weeks. I don’t fancy his chances for a third, but you never know.
6. Sabrina Carpenter – “Espresso”
Well, that’s interesting. Sabrina Carpenter has three previous hit singles to her name – “Skin”, the questionable answer record to “Driver’s Licence”, which got to number 28 in 2021; “Nonsense”, which managed a week at number 32 in 2023; and “Feather”, which made it to number 19 at the start of the year. And, to be fair, it stuck around for a few weeks. Still, it’s not exactly a track record to suggest that the first single from her sixth album would be a top ten hit. This is a big step up in her singles chart performance.
