X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #131. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. I think we’re far enough into this arc now to be pretty confident that it’s not going to miraculously come together into something coherent. Which isn’t to say that it’s outright nonsensical or anything, but it’s weirdly diffuse and unfocussed, meandering from character to character and  relying on a rather dull plot about Selene and the Externals to hold it all together. This issue, X-Corp decide that it might be a good idea to send a Madrox dupe into Selene’s clutches to die, and use nanotech to spy on her. Which… I mean, I just don’t buy that any of the Madrox dupes are fine with that just because they’re dupes, rather than because they’re heroic. Which is certainly how this story seems to be playing it.

X-MEN: FOREVER #1. (Annotations here.) Apparently this started life as Immortal X-Men #19, which would have been out a couple of months ago, before getting reworked into a miniseries for scheduling reasons. It’s a curious choice on Marvel’s part, but on the whole I think it works out reasonably well. The jump forward in time to Rise of the Powers of X #1 allows for a few surprises and reveals to be set up, and then this book gets to go back and fill in the connective tissue, so you get the best of both worlds. That said, it doesn’t feel at all like the first issue of a miniseries, not least because it doesn’t really set up any story that’s independent of Rise of the Powers of X; as a tie-in issue of Immortal X-Men, it would have made much more sense. Still, Marvel do love their #1s. The best parts of this naturally relate to the expansion of earlier Immortal plots, and it works very nicely as a part of that larger jigsaw. As an issue #1, it’s a little weird.

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X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #130. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. In which Gambit and Feint go to New Orleans to see if Candra knows what Selene is up to with the Externals. On the one hand, this does actually do something useful: it follows up on Feint becoming a proper X-Man, of sorts, in Dark X-Men, and on Gambit taking her with him at the end of the issue. Basically Candra explains that Selene is planning to sacrifice a bunch of mutants so that she and her allies can become invulnerable as well as immortal. Well, at least we’re advancing the plot, but bringing in yet more characters to do so only compounds this arc’s lack of focus, and the book still has the basic problem that – with the exception of a couple of characters created independently and retconned into the group – the Externals simply aren’t interesting. If you’re going to bring back a concept that’s been largely ignored or used simply as a plot device for a quarter century, you need a compelling case about what it is that everyone else has missed, and this arc doesn’t have one.

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #3. (Annotations here.) Well. I mean, I’ve read worse. But it’s not good, and as an anchor series paying off a whole era of the X-Men it’s really not good. I’m inclined to give the creators the benefit of the doubt that some sort of backstage chaos has been going on, given oddities like entire trailed storylines going missing, cliffhangers not connecting with the next issue and such like. Or Alia Gregor turning out to be important to the plot of this series when basically nobody has done anything with her in a year or more, even though X-Men‘s “Fall of X” issues seem to have been marking time with Latverian filler. Or… you get the idea.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

DEAD X-MEN #3
“An Echo, a Stain”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artists: Lynne Yoshii, Bernard Chang, Javier Pina & David Baldéon
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men confront an alternate Psylocke.

PAGES 2-3. The X-Men arrive in Moira’s 9th life.

The previous issue ended with the X-Men in Moira’s seventh life, where they learned that the cyborg Moira from issue #1 was visiting Moira’s earlier lives, and decided that they had to pursue her through those timelines in order to stop her from causing damage to the timeline. They’ve apparently come directly from that timeline, but although they tell us that Rachel sent them here, it’s not altogether clear why, since they spend much of the rest of the issue trying to persuade Rachel to keep sending them back through Moira’s past lives. Presumably Rachel just assumes that they’re still just randomly visiting past timelines to see if anything interesting turns up, which is pretty much how Prodigy pitched matters to her last issue.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X #3
“The X Deaths of Dr Stasis”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artists: Lucas Werneck & Jethro Morales
Colourist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White

COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine pins down a terrified Dr Stasis. Wolverine doesn’t actually appear in this issue.

PAGES 2-4. Orchis attack the Juggernaut.

Last issue, the Juggernaut rescued Krakoa from Orchis. God knows how he ended up in the middle of a desert.

“It’s said that ‘nothing’ can stop the Juggernaut, but that’s not true.” Even at full power, the Juggernaut was in practice stopped on a fairly regular basis, but following his most recent re-powering (in Juggernaut vol 3 #4) he seems to be just very big and strong, as opposed to literally unstoppable. In X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023, he did survive what seemed to be a devastatingly lethal attack.

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