The X-Axis – 3 March 2025
No Infinite Comic this week, so we’re left with…
UNCANNY X-MEN #11. (Annotations here.) We have the first three parts of “X-Manhunt” this week, which is the sort of thing that happens these days if you want to do a line wide crossover and don’t want it to last months on end. I was slightly surprised to see Tom Brevoort’s comment in today’s newsletter that “as you’d expect, reactions so far have been mixed”, considering that it’s a product he’s still in the course of promoting. He went on to say that everyone seemed to have liked at least one of the three chapters, mind you, and that may well be a fair summary of where we are after the first week.
The storyline is basically that Professor X breaks out of jail in order to save Xandra, the daughter he barely knows, and then goes on a little tour of the X-books in order to pick up the resources he needs in order to actually get to the Shi’ar Empire. The resulting three books are rather better as standalone issues than they are as a coherent whole, because… well, they’re an incoherent whole. The big set piece of part 1 is to establish that Xavier is hallucinating in a big way, that he doesn’t recognise Rogue’s team, and that he sees them as the original X-Men – who he brushes aside without much difficulty. But in the other two parts this entire plot thread is totally missing. It’s at best confusing and makes it hard for the overall storyline to generate much momentum.
In isolation, though, Uncanny #11 is perfectly good. It does the set-up for the Xandra plotline; it has an old style training sequence with the Outliers, with some beautiful art from Garrón. There’s a nice idea of Rogue being a discomfited with everyone else treating these familiar tropes as cosy when she wants it to be taken more seriously, although I’m not sure that fits too well with the feud that the book has been trying to build between her and Cyclops. The subplot with the hallucinating guard seeing his family as Sentinels is satisfyingly off-kilter and the closing sequence of Professor X taking the X-Men apart singlehandedly gets some mileage from his hallucinations. It’s just that it doesn’t play into the rest of the crossover at all…
NYX #9. (Annotations here.) Pity writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, who find themselves writing a penultimate issue that doubles as a tie-in not just to “X-Manhunt” but also to One World Under Doom. That sounds like an absolute train wreck. Amazingly, though, they pull it off.
How? Well, the real story is that Mojo wants to get hold of the last Krakoan seed – the one that Dr Doom got hold of in X-Men #35 – so that he can use it for his big plan in next month’s final issue. That’s your One World tie-in right there: it’s a story that doesn’t need the crossover at all, but since you have to get the seed from Doom to Mojo, you might as well stick up a few flags and call it a One World tie-in. As for “X-Manhunt”, Professor X really just wants to get hold of a surviving Cerebro unit, but he needs a distraction – so he tries to enlist the NYX cast to go after the seed, on the pretext that he’s concerned about it too. And so the issue is mostly a distraction from the point of view of “X-Manhunt”, but that distraction is the ongoing story of NYX, so all is well. It’s a neat little bit of problem solving.
Francesco Mortarnio does a nicely sinister take on Mojo, and has some neat montage sequences to boot – there are a couple of pages which are a little busy, but Raúl Angulo’s colours take the edge off that with some strong lighting work. The blunt refusal of most of the cast to have anything to do with Xavier, leaving Ms Marvel and Anole as the only regulars willing to participate in the plot, helps declutter the issue and makes for some nice misdirection. Genuinely a good issue, which is remarkable in the circumstances.
STORM #6. (Annotations here.) “X-Manhunt” may be unable to keep its hallucination plot straight, but Storm overshadows all such issues with its own signature brand of choppy incoherence. Storm is just back to normal after being cosmically powered up last issue, and she doesn’t even mention it until it’s time to go cosmic two thirds of the way through the issue. But this is a crossover, and the whole point of crossovers is to bring in new readers. You might have thought, then, that it would be worth explaining what the hell is going on with all this beyond a handful of vague words on the recap page (“avatar”… “cosmic powers”) – but nope. It does have some lovely art, and Vecchio does a really nice shot of the X-Men arriving, but Storm continues to be riddled with absolutely mystifying writing choices. Either I’m fundamentally not understanding what this book is trying to do, or it’s really really bad.
WOLVERINE #7. (Annotations here.) Meanwhile, in the book that can’t do an “X-Manhunt” crossover because it hasn’t caught up to X-Men #1 yet, it’s basically an issue long fight scene while Romulus explains the plot to us. A very nice looking fight scene, to be sure, and I’ll grant that Saladin Ahmed does a reasonable job of finding a workable core in Romulus: he’s a mythical precursor of Wolverine who sees the hero as a disappointment, and pretty much everything else can be dismissed as mind games, lies and such like. Even so, it feels very much like a chapter designed to kill time for a month so that the finale can come in issue #8, which is legacy #400.
The sales figures for February are in:
Magik 2 came in at number 13. X-Men was the only X-book that came in in front of it (not counting Ultimate Wolverine). That’s impressive. We’ll see if it holds up this month.
Weapon X-Men 1 came in at 28- not good for a premiere issue.
Exception X-Men 6 came in at 29 and Phoenix 8 came in at 38- they seem to have rebounded out of the danger zone for now.
Rogue came in at 44- not bad for a continuity implant limited series.
Luara Kinney: Wolverine came in at 46- the second worst of the solos after Hellverine.
X-Factor 7, X-Force 8 and NYX 8 came in at 58, 66 and 75 respectively. I guess people stopped buying them after the news broke that they were cancelled.
Hellverine came in at 118. Even though it came out the last week, that’s just embarrassing. Between this and Laura’s lackluster performance, it’s clear that trying to do a Logan book, a Laura book and an Akihiro book all at the same time was a mistake.
Emma Frost: the White Queen is coming out in June. It’s a five issue miniseries by Amy Chu taking place in the past when Emma was still a villainous member of the Hellfire Club.
Breevort had a few interesting things to say on his blog today:
ALISON CABOT:will Emma wear the uniform she wears on the covers of Exceptional X-Men, or is it just for promotional purposes?
TOM: I feel like I’m missing something here, Alison, has Emma not been wearing that costume in EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN? As far as I can recall, she has
MONGHO: I don’t think the X-Office is doing enough to rehabilitate Beast’s reputation. All over the internet, you can’t talk about Beast without someone going ‘WARCRIMES’ or ‘how could you like that sack of ****?’
TOM: I’m sorry that you’re hearing whatever stuff that you’re hearing about a favorite character, Mongho. But I don’t really see it as an imperative to rehabilitate Beast’s reputation. We’re not going to be ignoring his past, as hopefully anybody who’s been reading X-MEN can see, but those earlier stories will continue to influence the stories we’re telling going forward. In coming onto the X-titles, as much as possible my philosophy was to “play the ball where it lays” in terms of the characters. There have been a lot of strange and confusing and even destructive stories about many of the X-characters over the years, but all of them also help to define what readers love about those characters. I’m interested in charting a course forward, not in trying to go back and erase some storytelling choices that I may not have liked.
Breevort also had an interesting discussion about a non X-character Nova. He explained that when Nova (Richard Rider) lost his powers in the second Nova series, which Breevort was editing, it was Breevort’s mandate because he was trying to save the title, which was suffering from low sales. So Breevort thought replacing Nova with Garthan Saal might work. Evan Skolnick, who was writing New Warriors at the time, didn’t like the idea because he wanted to make Nova the center of the New Warriors team.
I was surprised when I heard this. Rich lost his powers in the second-to-last issue of Nova and he didn’t get them back in New Warriors for 15 months after his title was cancelled. I always assumed that Rich losing his powers was the setup for a storyline in New Warriors. Otherwise, why wouldn’t Skolnick give him back his powers immediately after his series was canceled? Breevort hinted that there’s more to this story and it will be interesting to find out what happened.
So…
Cyclops becomes a policeman (even as he hovers above a small Alaskan town with a small paramilitary team of superpowered mutants),
Xavier doesn’t need a psychology (except for the fierce love for a child he does not care for, nor live with), and the utter nonsense that is “a mutant tumor” (to go with “mutant taste buds, I suppose),
Rogue thinks hurting young mutants is now a matter of necessity (although she underwent no similar training or treatment herself, and the kids just suffered a brutal and potentially fatal attack because lol malls),
Juggernaut will maim in the name of Cyclops, within minutes, with no confirmation of his actual state, and no comment from any of the characters surrounding,
and the two most prominent female characters in the X-Men are now cosmic beings who, despite being best friends in their earthly lives, don’t even connect at that level at all.
I just…
I don’t care. I can’t care. And hope this is all over soon.
On the matter of clarity – I *have* noticed that a lot of Paul’s language for recent reviews across the line have included a lot of “seems to be”, “apparently”, “possibly”, etc. I daresay FtA is suffering from some linewide storytelling problems, and have been for a while now
It’s not reassuring that Breevort hasn’t noticed that Emma hasn’t worn the costume she’s been wearing on the covers yet in the actual stories. But judging from X-Manhunt ha hasn’t been paying close attention to the books he’s supposedly editing.
“He went on to say that everyone seemed to have liked at least one of the three chapters, mind you,”
His exact words were “almost everybody who talks about it has one chapter out of the three that dropped this week that they really liked and wanted the others to be more like”. Which makes sense, since it felt like we were reading three different stories with three different Xaviers instead of different parts of the same crossover.
@Salloh: Xavier cared enough about Xandra to force Sinister to resurrect her immediately upon her death (certainly more concern than he ever showed David); and Rogue *was* trained and treated in a very rough-and-tumble way on Muir Island and later the Outback.
Rogue already had superhuman experience being raised by Mystique and Destiny then joining the Brotherhood (she fought the Avengers, Ms. Marvel, Rom, and Dazzler). That was outside of the X-Men’s hands. She was already combat trained before the X-Men started training her. These are some teen kids who were living normal lives until recently. Callico, especially, was pampered and sheltered. It’s true that they were placed in a very dangerous situation against their will due to who they are, and they need some training and toughening up, sure. Having Rogue tell Gambit to throw an explosive at them, which could have killed one of the children is incredulous behaviour and not something the X-Men would have condoned while training a new recruit, even one who was, at least partially, battle-hardened like Rogue.
So…Are we sure “X-Manhunt” isn’t going to end up being Xavier hallucinating these events while still locked away in Greymalkin? Uncanny is completely Xavier’s hallucination, while the other chapters are that he’s psychically projecting to each of the characters who are interpreting Xavier in a way they imagine him. That would explain why he’s written so completely different in each chapter. Considering how the last crossover ended, another crossover which doesn’t accomplish one thing isn’t outside the realm of possibilities.
In fact, they should do multiple crossover events built around Xavier being rescued or escaping, which end up with him still locked away in Greymalkin.
With Storm, I think the writer is trying to cram in a much as possible for fear of cancelation as well as them saying they want to mostly hide Storms internal thoughts. It explains the the wild leaps and cuts between events. It’s like they’re trying to cram 5 years of stories into one, all without conveying much emotional/mental insight into the character. It’s all plot and little character. And this is coming from someone who likes the plot despite its disjointed nature.
I would guess that there’s an effort uderway to make Rogue’s kids different to Shadowcat’s kids, as the writer of each maybe didn’t originally know the other was doing a similar thing, and the editor was too busy being snarky to fans or something.
If so, expect to see more battle hardening for the Outliers, and more dance classes for the other lot. Though both teams will probably face an unusual number of perils of course.
@Chris V- Gambit has used his charged cards against people he’s trying not to kill before. Although Jubilee does say “She coulda been hurt bad”.
That being said, we have seen something like this before- in X-Factor 4, under Jean’s direction. Iceman shoot ice-missiles at Rusty and then Rusty panics and would have incinerated Scott and Artie if Jean hadn’t intervened.
@Michael: Go Magik!!
@Diana: For a time, I noticed that Paul was quite often using the term “this doesn’t work” 🙂 .
@Chris V: In the solicitation for the next Storm issue, it says she’s getting legal trouble for helping Xavier, so it seems to have really happened.
@NS: Storm is selling surpisingly well at this point; the writer is probably having less to worry about cancellation than many of his colleagues.
In general, FtA seems to work on the principle “Let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”. This can be done with a line as a whole, if you don’t have any overarching plan; but to do it within a crossover is just … not working.
It’s funny, despite writing about Bill Jemas very negatively in his newsletter, Brevoort seems to share his affinity for playing heel and taunting the fandom. I’m sure that’s tempting given how vitriolic the fans can be in return, but I question how much it helps to move the product.
The current era reminds me most strongly of the post-Zero Tolerance/pre-Morrison X-Men line that produced such immortal tales as The Death of Skrullverine, Marvel Editorial’s Alan Davis’s The Twelve, and whatever was meant to be happening in the Steve Seagle run. They even had their own bizarre Hunt for Xavier crossover!
@Chris V, NS- Also, Mojo is viewing Xavier on a monitor in NYX 9, and at the end of the issue Mojo has the seed he needs to recreate New York City in his own image, so the events of that issue had to have happened.
@Claus: You’re right with regard to Storm. The writer specifically mentioned in interviews that Brevoort told them Storm runs don’t last long and that was an initial motivational with some of these stories. Maybe it’ll change given the good sales.
I don’t remember Brevoort needing to “play heel” back in the day when he was Avengers/Tbolts in the early internet era.
As I’ve said before, having only seen a fraction of what he has to deal with, from the people that post on his weekly column, who could blame him for the occasional outburst, when you have people either calling for his head or asking obsessively creepy questions about certain characters
Re: earlier replies, apologies, I could have been clearer. I was referring to a sense that Rogue had no such previous experience (either cozy or life-endangering) of the Danger Room, in particular – which made the scene especially hard to make sense of emotionally.
I think it would have worked fine with Kitty, ironically. But it didn’t gel with my sense of Rogue’s personal history at all.
@Sailoh- but Rogue DOES have experience with Logan pulling similar stunts. For example, in Uncanny X-Men 223, Dazzler screws up a training exercise because she was grandstanding and while they’re discussing it Wolverine suddenly lashes out at Dazzler, Longshot and Rogue with his claws without warning.
Also, in X-Men 103, Wolverine attacked her without warning to test if she was ready for leadership responsibilities.
So basically Rogue was just following Logan’s example.
@Diana: it drives me up the wall that the FtA comics have so many unforced storytelling errors. X-Men has gotten better, but the early issues were hampered by mystery box nonsense that wasn’t interesting. Uncanny X-Men has a ton of jarring moments as well as powers doing or not doing whatever the plots require. Despite not hating the book, I dropped Storm because the storytelling choices didn’t make sense. If you want things to be a mystery, fine, but too many vague storytelling choices are hurting these books.
Also, if you’re the head of the X-Office, you should be able to say, “Xavier is having hallucinations, so include one of those in your script,” or “Xavier is only hallucinating in Graymalkin; have him mention the hallucinations have stopped in the next chapter.”
Honestly I’m just tuning into Storm for the pretty art
@Mike Loughlin: Well, yes, traditionally that would be the editor’s responsibility. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with Brevoort, who’s far too busy cherry-picking and gaslighting on Substack to do his job. I honestly don’t think things are going to get any better until he’s moved on.
@Tim XP: That’s a good parallel – personally I’m reminded more of the post-Morrison ReLoad era, when every other X-Man got a solo series that typically got cancelled inside of a year. It was that same unfocused, scattershot approach that ultimately produced a metric ton of utterly disposable stories.
Breevoort has been the way he is for a long times, like him or not, and he doesn’t seem to intend to change or leave. He’s had quite a successful career by many standards and must be getting on a bit now, so why would he, I guess.
I can’t recall his earliest tone or talking points, so unsure if he changed much, but I do remember quite vividly years ago when I first heard him say that intentionally upsetting readers is fine with him as it usually increases sales, and if readers didn’t like it, sorry, but you can always stop buying things that upset you.
He was quite right, so I stopped buying Marvel comics entirely for four years.
It took a further few years after that – until Krakoa – that I was back on board with multiple purchases a month.
And now I’m off again, funnily enough also due to Breevoort in some respects considering his oversight of this relaunch, but it’s really about the material just not being for me atm. These characters are mostly not enjoyable and the plots seem scattershot, I simply feel like I am not enjoying myself and so it is a waste of money.
I respect Tom for his longevity and choice to share stories from what is quite a rare perspective of a long term Guy-Who-Was-There during most of the time I’ve been reading comics, but he’s still doing the same schtick about how outrage equals money and if you don’t like it you can stop buying it (but you won’t) that he was doing over a decade ago, and of course, he is still 100% right.
Back to just keeping up with the X-comics through Paul and this site. Thank you for that.
I’m with Jack. I only keep up with the doings of the X-universe via this website. I haven’t followed the entire line since 1992, when X-Cutioner’s Song did me the great service of sucking enough to put me off X-titles.
There was a time when I occasionally picked things up that sounded interesting based on Paul’s reviews. But “the Krakoa era” happily destroyed even that level of interest. The whole premise looked and sounded awful, and I’ve not seen a single review anywhere that made it sound like it had anything that would appear to my tastes — including any satisfying sense of closure.
I’ll still buy the occasional nostalgia minis, though. DeMatteis’ Magneto mini was a delight — I’m surprised I didn’t hear more raves about it. I thought it was a 100% accurate evocation of the Magneto of the 1980s. And the Rogue one by Tim Seeley has been very enjoyable so far as well. And Nocenti’s Longshot two-parter in “Legends” a few year’s back … #ChefsKiss
Probably will pick up the White Queen one too. 🙂