X-Force #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 7 #7
“The Devil in Heaven”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Jim Towe
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
X-FORCE
In the previous issue, La Diabla attacked Forge in his VR environment, and got driven out. The issue ended with Forge and Tank finding Captain Britain and Askani hovering in the air in a trance, with little symbols in front of their faces, and surrounded by some sort of energy effect.
This issue starts by jumping back a few minutes to show what was happening with Betsy and Rachel during the previous issue. Specifically, on page 1, Forge is muttering the same dialogue that he was delivering in the VR world on page 18 of the previous issue, while Rachel and Betsy are off some sort of communal mental projection as they appeared on page 13 of that issue. The end of issue #6 falls somewhere just before page 14 of this issue.
Captain Britain has created a private mindscape for her and Rachel to rest in between missions; it’s supposed to be the area around the Braddock Lighthouse, and this story follows Krakoan-era Excalibur in placing it in Cornwall. Betsy appears in this landscape wearing her purple costume from when she first joined the X-Men. When she returns to the mindscape at the end of the issue to fight La Diabla, instead of appearing as Captain Britain, she appears as Outback-era Psylocke in the armoured costume. (She also says that the Outback would have been her candidate for a happy place.)
X-Factor #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 5 #6
“Traitors”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
The previous issue ended with Polaris showing up to rescue the team from Darkstar’s getaway helicopter; apparently, Polaris was willing to hand Darkstar and her X-Term men over to the authorities, or at least didn’t put up any resistance to X-Factor arresting them. So the story picks up with X-Factor back at the Nevermor military base, and X-Term as prisoners.
X-FACTOR.
Havok breaks off from the group to try and speak to Polaris and Bruin before they leave, and thank them for helping. He also wants to know how they “survive[d]” after the end of issue #2, when the X-Factor rescued him from the Mutant Underground and Polaris chose to stay – granted that she was being restrained by armed gunmen at the time, it’s not obvious that she was in any immediate danger of being killed, and Havok’s brooding in issue #3 seemed to assume that she was alive. His conversation with Polaris in this issue seems to have him wanting to break X-Factor away from the government, although matters seem to be left with X-Factor refusing an order to go hunting for McCloud and returning home.
Daredevil Villains #43: The Crusher
DAREDEVIL #119 (March 1975)
“They’re Tearing Down Fogwell’s Gym!”
Writer: Tony Isabella
Artist: Bob Brown
Inker: Don Heck
Letterer: Dave Hunt
Colourist: Stan Goldberg
Editor: Len Wein
We’ve skipped issues #116-117, an Owl story which ends Steve Gerber’s run with a final trip back to San Francisco, in order that the west coast supporting cast can be formally written out. The Black Widow decides to stay there, but the book finds it remarkably difficult to give her the boot, and we’ll see her one more time before she officially departs. We’ve also skipped issue #118, which is a Gerry Conway fill-in issue featuring the Circus of Crime. It also introduces Blackwing as a new member of the Circus, but he gets a solo story shortly, so we’ll come back to him for that.
With that, we’ve arrived at the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Tony Isabella run, which lasted a whole five issues before he was removed from the book. Most of it is a HYDRA story, but Isabella kicks off by taking Daredevil back to his roots.
Charts – 27 December 2024
The final chart of the year covers the streaming period from 20 to 26 December, which means it covers the heaviest days of Christmas streaming. The one post-Christmas day makes no difference to that, and what we get is a chart in which the Christmas records surge even further, shouldering everything else aside. On top of that, the two biggest non-Christmas records both get hit by the downweighting rule this week, and drop straight out of the top 20 as a result. It’s a weird chart.
This is reassuringly normal, though. “Last Christmas” spends its third week at number 1 this year, and its tenth in total. It will be gone next week. So will all of the new entries listed below – and there are new entries, courtesy of the festive playlists.
30. Darlene Love – “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
This charted for the first time in 2018, when it reached an all-time peak of 22. It’s been back most years since (2020 was the exception), usually landing in the 29-31 range. Love’s only other solo hit in the UK was “All Alone on Christmas” from the soundtrack of Home Alone 2, which reached number 31 at Christmas 1992. She was also the lead singer on “He’s a Rebel” by the Crystals (number 19 in 1962). I say “by the Crystals”, but “credited to the Crystals” would be more accurate – that particular track was recorded by Love’s group the Blossoms under their name because the real Crystals were off on tour at the time.
The X-Axis – w/c 23 December 2024
You’d think Christmas Day might be a quiet one for new releases, but here we are…
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #4. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Maichael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. And yes, this came out on Monday, I know. Anyway, the link between the two plot threads is someone who’s been giving shonky cyborg upgrades to low-rent Purifer types, which makes sense. Still, the main interest in this arc lies more in the material about radicalisation than the actual plot, and this issue (unavoidably, for plot reasons) tacks away from that to some interrogation cliches with Sean and some more sentimental stuff with Paige’s brother. All fine as far as it goes, but it’s more on the mechanical side of this story.
X-MEN #9. (Annotations here.) Part 3 of “Raid on Graymalkin”, and I’m kind of fascinatined that both books have wound up doing partial fill-in art on what you’d think would be a priority storyline. Then again, I still see this arc as something of a distraction from the more interesting things going on in both books because – repeat after me – I’m still not sold on the Graymalkin prison as bringing anything new to the table. I guess I’m mildly interested in why Scurvy is on their side, and I’m cerainly interested in Scott’s rejection of Professor X – though I really don’t buy him being willing to leave Xavier in this particular jail. There are a few moments with the two casts meeting, but there are also a lot of characters running around and, aside from the Outliers, seeing them interact with one another isn’t really that much of a novelty.
Exceptional X-Men #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #4
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Caranero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE MAIN CAST:
Bronze goes to Westinghouse College Prep, which is a real school. It’s not the same school as Senn College, where Melée was playing on the soccer team in issue #1. She wavers about whether to audition for the school musical (The Loveliest Sunday, which isn’t a real show), because on the one hand, she has a crush on a boy who’s going to be in it, but on the other hand, she’s afraid of turning into her metal form during the audition. Since it’s clear in this story that her powers are not generally known in the school, she evidently doesn’t have a general problem with controlling her powers; she must be worried about a stress reaction. Emma and Bobby both advise her to go ahead, and Emma encourages her to use the situation as a way of keeping her focus.
She’s distracted during training at the start of the issue, and panics. But in her first actual fight, she defeats a monster on her own, and she’s justifiably proud of this success. Still, she decide that she’s not cut out for a lead role, or maybe just that she ought to be devoting her spare time to training.
X-Men #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #9
“Raid on Graymalkin, part 3”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Pencillers: Federico Vicentini & Ryan Stegman
Inkers: Federico Vicentini & JP Mayer
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Colourists: Marte Gracia & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This is part 3 of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover, which takes place between Uncanny X-Men #7-8.
THE X-MEN (ALASKA)
Cyclops flatly refuses to co-operate in releasing Professor X, even after seeing the state of the prison. First he claims that Professor X manipulated all of mutantkind for the sake of his dream, which is a broadly standard depiction of him since X-Men: Deadly Genesis in 2006. A fair case can be made that his acceptance as a national leader in the Krakoan era was something of an anomaly given the state of his overall relations with the X-Men over that period – and even then, he had a secret plan with Magneto and Moira X. When pressed further, Cyclops points to Xavier’s murder of the crew of the Agnew in Fall of the House of X #4. That was retconned into a trick to deceive Orchis in X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #4-6, but Cyclops apparently doesn’t know that. For Cyclops, Professor X is a danger to mutantkind. It’s possible that he’s playing along with Professor X’s stated wish in X-Men vol 6 #35 to be a lightning rod for anti-mutant backlash, and figures that breaking such a controversial figure out of jail is not going to be for the good of mutantkind in the round – but that’s not how it’s played.
Psylocke postures to Nightcrawler as a killer, a pose that she doesn’t maintain quite so rigidly among the members of her own team. She tells him that he only plays with swords, which is somewhat true. She’s slower than him to pick up on Scurvy’s influence and falls victim to Professor X’s control, all broadly consistent with the idea that she’s a relatively low-power and somewhat inexperienced telepath who uses her powers to bolster the physical combat skills that she really depends on.
Daredevil Villains #42: Death-Stalker
DAREDEVIL vol 1 #113-115 (September to November 1974)
“When Strikes the Gladiator!” / “A Quiet Night in the Swamp!” / Death Stalks the City!”
Writer: Steve Gerber
Penciller: Bob Brown
Inker: Vince Colletta
Letterers: Artie Simek (#113), Charlotte Jetter (#114-115)
Coloursts: Linda Lessmann (#113), Stan Goldberg (#114), Petra Goldberg (#115)
Editor: Roy Thomas
For our purposes, this is the end of Steve Gerber’s run. It doesn’t actually end until issue #117, but the last two issues are an Owl story. Gerber’s contributions to the rogues’ gallery end here, with the Death-Stalker.
Technically I’ve covered the Death-Stalker already. In issue #158, he will be revealed to be the Exterminator, a villain who had appeared in a single storyline in 1968. I haven’t read that issue yet, but since it’s removed from Death-Stalker’s debut by four years and three writers, it seems like a safe bet that Gerber intended the Death-Stalker to be a new character. So that’s how we’ll treat him.
The story emerges from a subplot which has been building for a while now, involving Foggy Nelson’s younger sister Candace, the token liberal in her family. Candace is a journalism student and she’s stumbled upon some documents about an abandoned research project involving Ted Sallis. None of the Daredevil characters know what Sallis is up to now, but we know that he’s the Man-Thing, and that Steve Gerber is writing that book too. This storyline isn’t a crossover, but it is an excuse for the Man-Thing to guest star.
The Homies 2024
Snow is falling all around me, children playing, having fun. ‘Tis the season for end-of-year best-of lists – it’s the Homies, everyone!
As always, we want to hear from you about what you dug this year. As with last year, rather than give you a long list of categories, we’re concentrating on the comics we read that really did it for us. We simply want you to tell us:
What was the best comic you read all year, and why?
It could be a new release, it could be a relaunch, it could be another great year for a reliable ongoing. It could be a majestic miniseries or a great graphic novel, an incredible indie or a brilliant Big Two book. We’ll be reading them out on the show, so let us know what you dug and what about it made it so special for you.
This worked really well last year so we’re massively looking forward to finding out what you’ve enjoyed this year. Lay it on us!
Charts – 20 December 2024
In which the Christmas number one is quite uneventful, really.
1. Wham! – “Last Christmas”
Here we are again, with a back catalogue track as the Christmas number one, despite the disadvantage of being on permanent downweighting. “Last Christmas” is spending its second week at number 1 this year, its ninth in total. It was number 1 at Christmas 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Last year it was number 1 for four weeks, mind you. That won’t be happening this year. Next week’s chart will probably still be dominated by Christmas music, since Christmas Day is Wednesday and the chart period runs from Friday to Thursday. The week after that, it will all vanish, and George Michael won’t cross our mind against for another 11 months. (Seriously, when was the last time you heard anything else by him?)
