The X-Axis – w/c 11 December 2023
Gosh, are we winding down for Christmas? Well, maybe not – there are five books out next week, plus Unlimited. But this is another light week.
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #117. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Travis Lanham. This is the end of the Firestar arc, and it goes pretty much how you’d expect. Firestar has successfully screwed up Judas Traveller’s PR event to the point where he’s outlived his usefulness to Orchis, which is a problem when he’s a mutant. He’s lost control of the story he was telling, and nobody else in Orchis realises that it’s because Firestar was messing it up for him. That’s a nice angle for Firestar, and I rather like Sanna’s low-key art on it, which gives Firestar a nicely impassive look. Do I buy Orchis putting her in Traveller’s place? It doesn’t really fit with Gerry Duggan writing scenes in X-Men about the Orchis higher-ups viewing her as expendable. I suppose she’s meant to win the doubters round by throwing Judas under the bus, but it still seems a stretch. I’ll put that one down as a case of dubious inter-title continuity, though, rather than being a problem with this arc in itself.
X-MEN RED #18. (Annotations here.) The final issue, although part of the plot feeds into Resurrection of Magneto. Still, this is the wrap-up of the main series, and … well, it runs up against the fact that it’s an Arakko story. Al Ewing sold me on Martian Arakko as an interesting location, but only by reinventing it as something subtler and more nuanced than the one-dimensional original concept. The war storyline is presumably meant to contrast Arakko as it developed under Storm and co with the original version of Arakko, and that runs up hard against the problem that the original concept of Arakko was very dull, and the nature of the plot makes it difficult for this story to try and convince me otherwise – the comparative flaws of Arakko Classic are a large part of the point, after all.
Dark X-Men #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
DARK X-MEN vol 2 #5
“The Mercy Seat”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artist: Jonas Scharf
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1: The two Madelyne Pryors fight.
PAGES 2-5. The Goblin Queen tries to persuade Madelyne Pryor to join forces.
“Carmen Cruz wanted nothing more than to be part of the X-Men.” Referring back to her origins in the cast of Children of the Atom, basically about a group of human fans cosplaying as mutants. Carmen, the one actual mutant in the group, made it to Krakoa with her heroes but has only come to the foreground in the context of this very questionable iteration of the X-Men.
“You let them neuter your mutant abilities?” We were told in issue #2 that Orchis had used Blightswill to remove the Goblin Queen’s mutant powers, and that she didn’t care, claiming to have long since outgrown them. She claims here that she was also lulling Orchis into a false sense of security.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 18
It’s anniversary time, as we mark the 15th turn round the sun of House to Astonish by briefly mourning the original episode we recorded for the occasion and lost in a computer disaster, before moving on to another anniversary in the form of issue 50 (and 48 and 49) of Thunderbolts, from 2001. It’s the end of the Scourge story, the return of Jolt, and time to bid a fond farewell to Mark Bagley. It’s all go! Come and join us, why don’t you?
The episode is here. or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, via email or on our Facebook fan page, and don’t forget – it’s likely nobody has bought you a House to Astonish t-shirt for Christmas, so you have all the more reason to buy one for yourself. And don’t forget to let us know what the best comic you read all year was in the 2023 Homies awards, just one post below this one!
The Homies Awards 2023
It’s December, and that can only mean one thing – it’s time for endless Hallmark Christmas movies!
But if it could mean two things, and we’re not saying it could, but just imagine… it would also mean it was time for the 2023 Homies awards!
As always, we want to hear from you about what floated your boat this year. But this time round, there’s a twist – 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.
Annnnnd… GO!
X-Men Red #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED vol 2 #18
“The Mended Land”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Yildiray Çinar
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. A group shot of the cast, for the final issue.
PAGES 2-3. Genesis raises Arakko Prime from the sea to fight Kaorak.
“Autumn Island.” In other words, what’s left of the Autumn Lands now that most of it has got up and walked across the planet. The rebels shown in page 2 panel 2 include Kobak, Khora, Zsen and Sunspot, as well as a bunch of background characters.
“Nine left, eight, seven.” When we left Jon Ironfire last issue, he was singlehandedly fighting his way through the White Sword’s champions – already reduced from 100 to 99 by his own departure. Evidently he’s been doing well.
Genesis is carrying both the Annihilation Staff and Purity (the sword); she still has Sobunar by her side, even though we’ve repeatedly been told that he wasn’t entirely thrilled with some of her choices. Storm challenged Genesis to “raise your island and fight” at the end of the last issue, and she takes up the challenge.
Arakko Prime is the part of Arakko that was the original counterpart of Krakoa on Earth – in other words, Arakko the island, rather than Arakko the planet. The narrator calls it “the living island”, mirroring how Krakoa was billed back in Giant-Size X-Men #1.
Daredevil Villains #9: The Organization
DAREDEVIL #10 (October 1965)
“While the City Sleeps, part 1: The Organization”
Writer, finishing penciller, inker: Wally Wood
Layout penciller: Bob Powell
Letterer: Artie Simek
Editor: Stan Lee
DAREDEVIL #11 (December 1965)
“A Time to Unmask!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: Bobby Powell
Inker: Wally Wood
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Even the most casual glance at those credits might suggest a troubled production, and that’s exactly what this is. According to Brian Cronin’s “Comic Book Legends Revealed”, it goes something like this: Wally Wood didn’t care for the Marvel method and felt that he was writing the book without being paid for it. So he asked to write a story and Stan Lee agreed. But when Wood’s story came in, Lee hated it.
Accounts vary as to how heavily Lee edited issue #10. Wood claims that relatively little was changed. Lee, in a spectacularly ungracious bitching session on the letters page of issue #12, said that “about the only thing left that Wally himself had written was his name”. The surviving original art suggests the truth is somewhere in the middle and that the published story is basically what Wood wrote. Either way, Lee refused to let Wood finish the story, wrote the concluding half himself, and fired Wood after reducing him to working as inker on part 2.
Charts – 8 December 2023
Merry Christmas.
1. Wham! – “Last Christmas”
Well, yes, here we go again. It’s the first full week of December and here comes Wham! again. “Last Christmas” only reached number 2 on release in 1984, thanks to Band Aid, but it had a week at number 1 just after Christmas 2020, and two non-consecutive weeks at number 1 last year. It now gets a fourth week at number 1. I believe this is the first time that the same song has been number 1 on four separate occasions, unless you count the multiple versions of “Three Lions” as the same song. It’s a safe bet that this record is going to be sewn up by Christmas records for the future.
Right, then, bring on the tinsel parade.
The X-Axis – w/c 4 December 2023
A short one this week, because there’s not actually much out!
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #116. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Travis Lanham. The penultimate chapter of the Firestar arc, and naturally it’s the turning point where Firestar gets the upper hand, still without anyone noticing. Judas Traveller tries to have a press event to depower the captive Justice, Firestar surreptitiously lets him escape, and it all goes horribly wrong. What doesn’t quite work is that in order for the plot to hang together, Judas has to go out and do a public press conference himself for no apparent reason, when until now that sort of thing has always been left to Dr Stasis (for some reason). The story even tells us that Judas doesn’t do this himself normally, which feels like a misstep. Still, the arc is dealing with the twin themes of media manipulation and Firestar’s undercover role better than anything else in “Fall of X”.
X-MEN #29. (Annotations here.) The X-Men go to Latveria to try and recruit Dr Doom’s mutants, and wind up having a fight with them. That’s pretty much the issue. The strength of it lies in the fact that Doom’s team actually seem like a fairly interesting bunch with some potential for future stories, even if it seems weird to be bringing them into “Fall of X” at this point. And Joshua Cassara has some lovely art in this issue, complete with a subtle change of art style for the flashbacks that feels like a direction worth exploring for him. On the other hand, the plot is real Silver Age level stuff – we’re the X-Men, you’re mutants, what do you mean you refuse to drop everything and come with us, let’s fight. The X-Men come across as pretty dim and arrogant, which surely wasn’t the intention.
X-Men #29 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #29
“House of Doom”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men fight the Daggers of Latveria.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: Dr Doom intervenes as Professor X is about to announce Krakoa to the human race.
This is an insertion into the flashback that opens House of X #6. The opening dialogue and Xavier’s Magneto’s speech about ending all the disagreements between them is from the original, as the opening line that Professor X delivers before Doom answers him back. The rest of the scene is original material that takes place between pages 4 and 5 of House of X #6, boldly shoehorned into the middle of Professor X’s speech.
It doesn’t entirely make sense that Doom has a V-for-Victor style Cerebro helmet of his own, before Professor X has even publicly debuted with this design, though he does suggest later in the issue that he is relying on some sort of actual foreknowledge of events, rather than simply correctly predicting that Krakoa’s collapse. And the design is wonderful.
Daredevil Villains #8: Klaus Kruger
DAREDEVIL #9 (August 1965)
“That He May See!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Layout penciller: Wally Wood
Finisher: Bobby Powell
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: Not credited
You can tell that a 1960s Stan Lee character is a real dud when they never appear again. These are the early, foundational issues of long-running books, and later creative teams frequently mine them for ideas. A certain generation of creators idolised the Silver Age and loved to draw on its forgotten corners. So when even they don’t touch a character, well, there’s probably a reason.
All the Daredevil villains we’ve met until now have returned in later stories – except for the Fixer, but he’s a special case, because he dies in Daredevil’s origin story. Even the Matador gets a few further appearances. But no one has gone back to Klaus Kruger.
Duke Klaus Kruger is the “hereditary ruler of the tiny principality of Lichtenbad”. He’s visiting New York for undisclosed reasons, which somehow is front page news. By a remarkable coincidence, Klaus knew Matt and Foggy at law school as a foreign exchange student – the art for this flashback shows him in a lab coat with test tubes, which suggests someone wasn’t quite thinking this through. By a further remarkable coincidence, the world’s top eye surgeon, Dr Van Eyck, has recently emigrated to Lichtenbad. So Karen Page phones up the Duke, which apparently is a thing you can just do, and asks if he can help Matt get his sight back.
