Wolverine #12 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #12
“Mother and Master”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colourist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine defends his mother. Despite what it says on the cover, Elizabeth Howlett isn’t really in this issue.
PAGES 1-2. Logan gets his “mother” to the car.
We established last issue that the whole scenario of Wolverine’s mother asking him for help had been contrived by Mastermind. That still left open the question of whether any part of it was true, but it looks from this issue as if the answer is basically “no”.
In Wolverine’s mind, he’s just rescued his mother from Sabretooth, and wants to get away before Sabretooth recovers. The whole thing is a little dreamlike, with Sabretooth simply vanishing, and no terribly clear explanation of how Elizabeth supposedly got a chance to write the letter asking Wolverine for help in the first place.
Exceptional X-Men #12 annotations
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #12
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER. Kitty and the kids get sucked through a wormhole; this doesn’t exactly happen in the issue, but close enough.
PAGE 1. Reggie panics about Kitty’s disappearance.
This picks up directly from last issue’s cliffhanger, when Kitty vanished into one of the portals in the park. The passers-by were also in the final panel of the last issue, where at least some of them seemed to be reacting with surprise, but here Reggie seems to be the only one who’s noticed (or at least the only one who cared).
Last issue, Reggie was preoccupied thinking about how to text Trista, and it seemed to be just coincidence that he was around when the portals opened. This issue explains that he’s a mutant too and that they’re created by his mutant power. Ironheart’s AI, NATALIE, told us last issue that the portal has “a precise set of emotional signatures bound up with its temporal emissions” and “will draw in people who are temporally sensitive or people with a connection to it”. Kitty was presumably drawn to it simply because of her experience of such weirdness as a member of the X-Men.
House to Astonish Episode 214
A small but perfectly formed episode for you this time round, with news about Die: Loaded, the new Infernal Hulk and Doctor Strange, DC’s upcoming Batman/Static: Beyond and the announcements of the murderers’ row of creators working on Batman/Deadpool. We’ve also got reviews of Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum and Uncle Scrooge: Earth’s Mightiest Duck and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is a bit of both. All this plus the Thing’s ’92 Subaru, Green Lantern’s trick or treating habits and the Wuzzels revival.
The episode is here, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, via email, and if you want something from our Redbubble store I would get in there quick because it’s going away soon, to be replaced by something hopefully better.
Charts – 15 August 2025
Ah, well that didn’t last long.
1. HUNTR/X, EJAE, Audrey Nuna, Rei Ami & the KPop Demon Hunter Cast – “Golden”
Second week, after being interrupted by Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” last week. That track drops to number 2, but it really isn’t a close race – “Golden” has a 35% lead, mostly due to “The Subway” dropping off. “Golden” also has more than double the points of “Ordinary”, which means it would have been number one even without that track being downweighted.
The X-Axis – w/c 11 August 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #32. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Diaz & Clayton Cowles. This is the start of a new arc, and I’ll warn you now that I’m going to spoil the ending, because that’s the real hook for the arc. Up to then, we have a framing sequence of Sean telling the story to Black Tom (nothing wrong with bringing those two together, and this is the natural book for Tom to be used in), and the story itself involving the return of… the Changeling. That’s the Silver Age Changeling, the one who was in a handful of issues from the Factor Three storyline and then got retconned into having replaced Professor X when they wanted to bring him back from the dead at the dawn of the 1970s.
The Changeling is… not a character anyone has really been crying out to see again, which is why he didn’t even get used in the Krakoan era. But presumably he was resurrected off panel – he was an X-Man for one issue (retroactive), after all – and now he’s gone back to mutant radicalism. Tim Seeley does a good job of setting up why Sean would care about this character, reminding us that he debuted as a pawn of Factor Three back in the sixties – and Audino actually makes that wonky costume look pretty fun, giving the guy some presence, even though we really have to stretch to believe that the Tesco Value Mystique is going to get anywhere in a straight fight with Banshee. I mean, Banshee has range attacks that he doesn’t even need to aim with, right?
Magik #8 annotations
MAGIK vol 3 #8
“Frayed Not Broken”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Matt Horak
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
COVER: Symbolic image of Magik in Liminal’s hand, which would been a better fit for the previous arc.
PAGES 1-4. Magik, Mirage and Liminal track down the Scarlet Eye.
Okay, recap: Last issue, Magik showed up at the headquarters of the Society of the Eternal Dawn looking for Cal Isaacs. Cal turned out to be completely possessed by Liminal, although currently with little or no power; Liminal claimed that he would be “limitless” once his new body adjusted to him. The Society’s leader, the Embodiment, sent Magik and Mirage to Las Vegas where (she claimed) a magical artefact that could be used to separate Cal and Liminal was being used by local drug dealers to enhance their drugs. Magik insisted on Liminal coming with them because she didn’t trust the Society to take care of him; Embodiment agreed to this after using magic to symbolically remove Liminal’s heart, apparently as some sort of tether.
The High Roller. It’s a real Ferris wheel in Las Vegas.
Laura Kinney: Wolverine #9 annotations
LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #9
“Blood Ties, part 1”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colourist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Well, that’s Gabby leaping towards the camera. (Her codename “Scout” is never used in this story.)
PAGES 1-6. Flashback: Gabby and Xarus fight Strega.
“The Ossuary.” An ossuary is a place for storing bones. This one isn’t a Marvel Universe location, but the one in the actual Paris Catacombs.
Gabby Kinney. Gabby showed up at the cliffhanger of the previous issue waiting on Laura’s doorstep with their pet wolverine Jonathan, and with half her face deformed. The recap page describes it as “skin sliding off her face”, though it looks more like she’s growing lots of excess skin. This flashback establishes that it’s something done to Gabby by Strega. Gabby theorises later on that her healing factor is overreacting to it, though Clea will identify it as a curse.
Gabby showed up in Laura’s “perfect life” dream sequences in issues #6-7, but otherwise hasn’t been a presence in this series or in NYX, without any real explanation. Gabby explains here that with Laura “doing her whole ‘independent woman livin’ in the city thing”, she decided to go off and do some superheroing with Xarus, whom she met and befriended in the one-shot X-Men: Blood Hunt – Laura Kinney The Wolverine. Dialogue later in the issue implies that Gabby has been living in New York but not with Laura.
X-Men #20 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #20
“A Civilized Discussion”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Cyclops and Agent Lundqvist in jail.
PAGE 1. Cyclops arrives for his meeting with Lundqvist and is immediately punched in the face.
This is the third issue to feature an extended conversation between Cyclops and Agent Lundqvist – the first was in issue #3, and also took place in McDade’s Diner, and the second was in issue #10. Cyclops came off comfortably better in each of those arguments, which is at least one reason why Lundqvist doesn’t want to argue with him again.
Note that Lundqvist sets his gun aside at the start of the fight – evidently this is about asserting status rather than actually trying to hurt Scott. Scott seems to take the situation accordingly, and doesn’t use his optic beams – he claims towards the end of the issue that he believes Lundqvist is trying to provoke him into using his powers, though Lundqvist denies this.
Daredevil Villains #57: The Kingpin
DAREDEVIL #170-172 (May to July 1981)
“The Kingpin Must Die!” / “In the Kingpin’s Clutches”
Writer, penciller: Frank Miller
Finisher: Klaus Janson
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Denny O’Neill
We’ve skipped issue #169 (which is a Bullseye story), and so we go straight from Elektra to Frank Miller’s other major addition to the series.
The Kingpin had been around since 1967 as a Spider-Man villain. I don’t normally cover guest villains in this feature. But the Kingpin is an outright import into Daredevil’s rogue’s gallery, even if he’ll continue to be shared with Spider-Man.
On one level, there’s nothing new in Miller’s Kingpin. He’s built entirely out of elements taken from earlier Kingpin stories. But the Kingpin had never really worked before in the way that he does under Miller. So we should take a look at the Kingpin stories that came before this.
The Kingpin debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #50-52 (1965), by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr. It’s the “Spider-Man no more!” story, the one where Spider-Man dumps his costume in a trash can. The Kingpin installs himself as head of the New York mobs, and of course Spider-Man comes out of retirement to defeat him. At this stage, the Kingpin has some Silver Age gimmickry such as an “obliterator beam” in his cane – which will keep showing up for years to come. But the main premise is that the Kingpin plans to run the underworld like business. He seems to think he’s respectable, and takes offence at the idea that killing his opponents counts as murder.
Charts – 8 August 2025
Gosh, we’re really shuffling through the number ones now.
1. Chappell Roan – “The Subway”
A new entry at number 1, which isn’t that common these days. Lewis Capaldi did it with “Survive” a month ago, but that was mostly thanks to physical sales in the first week. “The Subway” is here on digital sales and its streaming alone would have made it number 1 – even if “Ordinary” wasn’t on downweighting.
