The X-Axis – w/c 14 April 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #18. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. And so we reach the end of the second arc by this creative team, with the long term game seeming to be a very slow reunion of the cast of Generation X in order to take on the grass roots allies of 3K. This issue, Emma Frost wanders by as a guest star, and Skin heads off to hang around with Sean and Paige some more. At the same time, the story is trying to illustrate how basically sympathetic characters can be radicalised, which is basically what the first arc did too. All this sounds like it ought to work, but in practice it feels like we’re treading water – it’s basically the same as the first arc with added Skin, and it hasn’t really found a compelling angle on the characters. It’s okay but it needs to kick up a gear in the next arc.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #8. (Annotations here.) Even as someone who appreciates the languid pace of this book, I can’t help raising an eyebrow at devoting the first third of the book to a Mr Sinister monologue that doesn’t really advance the plot much, and then spending the rest of the issue on the rest of the cast figuring out that there’s a crisis they ought to be doing something about. You have to admire the book’s commitment to not letting itself be rushed. And yet it does work – certainly once it gets past Sinister’s monologue. Carmen Carnero’s art does a lovely job with the malfunctioning Axo clone as it ambles awkwardly through his life, while Trista and Thao trying to summon Emma by thinking really hard at her is a neat spot. Still, things have to come to some sort of head next issue… right?
WOLVERINE #8. (Annotations here.) This is legacy issue #400, and what a bizarre issue it is. It wraps up the Romulus/Adamantine plot in ten pages – or at least kicks it to the side for now – and then jumps to tying up the Wendigo B-plot with an Arcade story. It does work as a way of tying up the Wendigo’s arc, but it’s still such a strange call to go from several issues in the wilderness to Romulus ranting about mythical tradition to… Arcade? And the Adamantine material is so abrupt that it leaves me wondering what on earth happened behind the scenes. Is there a sudden rush to get to another plot point for some reason? It doesn’t feel like a transition, it feels like a storyline being aborted. It’s really weird. Even so, it does more or less stick the landing with the Wendigo storyline, and the cliffhanger with Logan’s mother (or so she claims) is an interesting direction. Martín Cóccolo does a rather old-school Arcade, in carnival barker mode, and gets away with it – and the warped Weapon X facility room is a neat effect. There’s good stuff in here, when it gets to its main story, but it’s still a strange read.
X-FACTOR #9. (Annotations here.) With the book set to be cancelled next month, Havok and Frenzy come back for one last mission with the nice members of the team, while Archangel gets sent after Polaris. This is mainly an issue about lining up the parts for the finale next month, but it does at least give most of the characters their time to shine and a resolution of sorts to Xyber’s subplot about fearing his powers will kill him. Granny Smite even gets to be useful and to drop the act for a bit of team bonding. It’s fine enough, as a story which exists mainly to get the book from A to B – although I don’t think it really works as a turning point to have Havok realise something which has obviously been the moral of the series all along. But it does the job.
CABLE: LOVE & CHROME #4. By David Pepose, Mike Henderson, Arif Prianto & Joe Sabino. Hmm. I love the art in this series, but this is a story which sets itself the tricky task of asking us to believe that the love interest introduced a few issues is so important to Cable as to lead him to the sort of timeline-mutilating antics he’s avoided in thirty odd years as a time traveller. Do I buy it? Um… maybe? It’s not like Cable’s great loves have been shown on panel in the past so that we’re competing with some star-crossed romance storyline here, but there’s still a challenge in selling the idea that such a well-established character is in a relationship that matters enough for him to cross such well-established lines in just four issues, and I think maybe it’s a storyline that needed a little bit more time to work? Not much more, though, and I kind of buy it for the purposes of this miniseries. So… I guess it just about gets away with it?
As mentioned earlier. Doug Ramsey, Warlock and Ben will be appearing in X-Men 19:
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/marvel-confirms-doug-ramsey-and-revelation-in-upcoming-x-men/
His look on the cover is a VAST improvement over his Revelation costume in Heir of Apocalypse.
“The issue serves as a prelude to a major X-Men storyline launching later this year.”
It looks like Doug will be the villain in the crossover coming around October that Ayodele alluded to.
The X on Doug’s shirt is interesting. Does he still consider himself an X-Man? I wonder if this is a clue that he’s the Chairman. The Great Table also has an X on it. And 3K has their own X-Men.
Eve L. Ewing seems to believe that an introduction of Sinister on his own words would be proper for this issue.
I can’t say I disagree. Sinister can be difficult to gauge, with those flamboyant fairy tale boogeyman visuals and such a ridiculous name.
Some more complete sales figures for March were posted:
Deadpool/Wolverine came in at 55. X-Factor 8 came in at 63. X-Force 9 came in at 65. Laura Kinney: Wolverine came in at 69. Phoenix 9 came in at 72. Hellverine came in at 97. And Weapon X-Men came in at 112.
This is just embarrassing. Phoenix is doing worse than any of the other solos except for Hellverine. (This is its lowest ranking so far.) And Laura and Akihito’s series are both selling less than cancelled titles (albeit ones that had the benefit of a crossover.) And Weapon X-Men was just a disaster- yes, part of the problem was that it was converted to a limited series but Rogue was a continuity implant limited series and it came in at 43.
In other reading this week, Spencer Ackerman’s Iron Man continues to be great. It’s wordy, but that’s to be expected from someone new to the genre. My biggest quibble is that Iron Man now has three different status quos and three different armors in his three books, and efforts to reconcile them (like this week’s issue) have been awkward.
Ultimate Wolverine seems to be the Ultimate X-Men book we didn’t get when the line launched. Peach Momoko does some terrific cover art, but her writing just isn’t for me. And while I felt this week’s issue dragged a bit, it’s pretty clear the creative team here was given license to use whatever mutants they wanted without needing to reserve them for other books in the line.
Adding to the embarassment- Bleeding Cool’s bestseller list for this week came out. Wolverine 8 came in at number 4. Exceptional X-Men and X-Factor didn’t make the list at all.
In other news, in Power Man: Timeless 3, this week, a new villain attacked Arakko. It’s not clear whether most of the Arakki were killed or just a lot of Arakki were killed.
Given I’m not even sure when, where, or even if Power Man is supposed to fall in continuity, it’s hard to worry about the fate of Arakko generics.
#The Other Michael- it takes place shortly after Iron Fist’s funeral (his most recent funeral, not the time he got replaced by a plant-person).
I’m surprised it took this long to turn the Arakkoans into the neo-Neo.
I was defending Arcade and his giant killer pinball machines in the Wolverine comments, but dark future Luke Cage who is also the Hulk, and also the Sentry, and also Iron Fist is just too silly even for me.
Just as silly as Immortal Phoenix Wolverine, Hulk Wolverine, or Ghost Rider Herald of Galactus Punisher. It seems they saw how fun Secret Warps was, but missed the fundamental key, the wacko randomness.
X-Men Mondays had an interview with Kelly and Lanzing about the Giant-Sized issues:
https://aiptcomics.com/2025/04/21/x-men-monday-kelly-lanzing-giant-size-2/
It was Tom Breevort’s idea for this event.
The conceit is that whenever Scott encounters Kamala. he can remember enough to treat her as a friend.
Apparently the White Hot Room and Krakoa are in danger in the climax.
The Giant Size issues will be Kelly and Lansing’s swan song on the X-titles.
Kelly and Lanzing will be writing the first five pages of Hellfire Vigil- apparently NYX was always building to the Vigil.