The X-Axis – w/c 4 August 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #31. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. This is the final part of “The Cuckoo Song”, the story about the Scottish islanders becoming a weird anti-mutant cult after the Krakoan drug supply was cut off. It really doesn’t work. It doesn’t convincingly sell the idea that they blame the fall of Krakoa on the mutants themselves; the religious angle, which is fine in theory, doesn’t really go anywhere; and the symbiote thing is just another “they got it from the X-Cutioner” subplot, which is the norm for this series. And did I miss the bit where the Scottish islander that Husk impersonates has an English accent? Anyway, it there are plenty of promising elements in here, but it winds up as just a half-formed thing.
UNCANNY X-MEN #19. (Annotations here.) So this one is less than the sum of its parts, but the parts are very good. It’s a David Marquez issue, for a start, and they’re always a pleasure. I particularly like the X-Men’s confusion at how to deal with people’s overly enthusiastic embrace of mutants – they’re not quite used to this, and not entirely sure how to respond to horribly clumsy marketing proposals that seem to have the right idea at heart. Deadpool and Outlaw seem to be here mainly so that Gail Simone gets a chance to write them again – they really don’t do anything that they couldn’t have achieved by picking up the phone – so the A-plot is really the sequel to the Free Comic Book Day issue from last year, with the rich thug from that issue coming back to the diner for revenge.
The basic idea of him chucking money at the “problem” and having enough of it to real harm is a perfectly good hook. And the opening sequence with Ellis and Ezra stumbling upon the hostage situation and doing nothing about it is a great little bit, simply from the fact of Ellis brushing it off as not their problem. I rather like Ezra as someone who sees himself as a professional and expects that he should be stepping in here, but doesn’t seem especially bothered about being told not to. Jubilee, who hasn’t had a huge amount to do in this book so far, gets a bit of a spotlight, even if the story has to bend over a bit to justify getting her there (and I’m a little sceptical at pushing it as a grown-up moment for her, considering that she’s been around since the 1980s and had an extended motherhood storyline). But plenty of good stuff in here regardless.
STORM #11. (Annotations here.) Part two of “Thunder War”, and it’s much as we’ve come to expect from this book. The art is still decent, you can sort of see what the plot is going for. Powering up Storm to cosmic level isn’t really a direction that does anything for me, but I can see it appealing to her hardcore fanbase, so sure, why not. But the execution is very choppy, and there’s a sort of fanfic quality to the whole thing – normally, when a character proclaims themselves a goddess, that’s played as a moment of hubris, but we’re apparently meant to cheer for it here. Still, you know what you’re getting with this book and it’s undeniably different. It’s a title that I find an unholy mess, but you could never accuse it of being phoned in.
HELLVERINE #9. By Benjamin Percy, Raffaele Ienco, Bryan Valenza and Travis Lanham. This is cancelled with issue #10 – which, to be fair, is actually #14 if you count the preceding mini. So it’s rushing a little bit to Project Hellfire imploding rather earlier than you suspect Percy might have wished, but not outrageously so. Bringing Aurora back out of the blue to serve as hostage for the finale is a bit more obviously skip-to-the-end, though, particularly as there isn’t really much opportunity to set her up for the role within the pages of this book. Still, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with any of this – there’s a baseline of competence with Hellverine, and it’s better than the gimmicky concept might suggest, even if it’s visually on the bland side. It’s not really a book I’m going to miss, though.
WOLVERINES & DEADPOOLS #2. By Cody Ziglar, Rogê Antônio, Guru-eFX & Travis Lanham. As I mentioned last time, this 3-issue miniseries is a continuation of the last Deadpool ongoing series, which has both Wade and his daughter Ellie as Deadpool already – so it’s really just a case of Logan and Laura guest starring in Deadpool’s book. Mind you, they haven’t solicited an issue of Deadpool for October… but that’s the month when they’re doing Deadpool/Batman, so I guess it wouldn’t be a good place to launch a new title.
This issue is… fine? It looks pretty slick, and the team-up dynamic works well enough, but it doesn’t feel like we’ve added much here to what we saw in issue #1. Other than the team-up, the actual plot is the Shadow King looking for a host body, with Agent X and Lady Bullseye feeling like rather arbitrary inclusions – it’s a plot for the sake of giving the title characters something to do, it feels like, rather than anything memorable beyond that. But it’s fine, and maybe the last issue will tie it together effectively.
“Mind you, they haven’t solicited an issue of Deadpool for October… but that’s the month when they’re doing Deadpool/Batman, so I guess it wouldn’t be a good place to launch a new title.”
Well, there is Undeadpool in Age of Revelation. A bit like Iron & Frost, it seems that they are using the saga as an opportunity to “buy time” while waiting for the launch of a new regular series.
What ever happened to the idea that there were cults springing up in the wake of Krakoa made up of humans worshipping mutants as the new gods? There were hints that it was the result of some people receiving brain damage from Xavier’s telepathic intrusion into the minds of every human, although I don’t believe it was ever proven to be the case. Was that ever touched on again after the fall of Krakoa?
This Infinity comic would have been a good place to follow up on that concept. Maybe after witnessing the fall of Krakoa, they feel betrayed and realize that mutants aren’t gods. It could fit with the plot Pakhadel seemed to want to tell and work better than how this story sounds.
Agent X showing up in Wolverdeadpools makes sense because he’s a knock-off Deadpool of sorts with a perfectly reasonable grudge against him. And Lady Bullseye is a knockoff Bullseye so she fits the theme.
The artist on Astonishing X-Men is Philip Sexy?
Ha! I missed that. I think it’s autocorrect. There is a Philip Sevy. It’s up to each of us to decide if we find him sexy.
Must be!
There was no need to change it. “Sexy” was the correct spelling. The first name is also misspelled. It’s not “Phillip”. It’s “Feelin'”
Re: Wolverines and Deadpools 2- I think that the point of this story is that the Carmelita that’s been appearing to Ellie since Wade was resurrected was really the Shadow King and that the Shadow King had something to do with Wade’s resurrection. The Shadow King says that after taking a portion of her power. Ellie is still strong- Ellie lost a portion of power when she resurrected Wade.
Magik will be appearing in Dr. Strange 450 in a story that depicts Dr. Strange training her. I wonder if this makes it more likely she’ll be the Sorcerer Supreme.
In non X-news. do we think that the “Peter” appearing in Amazing Spider-Man 9 is really Ben Reilly? He has a mystery girlfriend who isn’t Shay- that could be Janine. He’s going out of his way to avoid Peter’s friends- that could be because he lacks Peter’s memories of the last few years. He recoiled when Norman touched him- Ben was killed by Norman.
Philip Sexy. Sounds like I just found the perfect name for my glam rock persona.
I hope Magik doesn’t become Sorcerer Supreme. She has her own thing going. Give it to someone who has magic as their only deal, like Dr Voodoo or Wong. Or someone weird like The Hood.
Plus, I don’t care to read X-Men vs Mordo.
It’a a bit embarrassing to admit this, but I
ate a lot of Taco Bell growing up, and I used to think the difference between a sorcerer and a sorcerer supreme was sour cream and diced tomatoes.
Bleeding Cool’s Weekly Bestseller list is out. Uncanny X-Men 19 came in at number 6. Storm 11 didn’t make the list- not even the hippo cover helped.
Imagining what kind of outfits they can give Illlyana if she gets to wear the magic cape.
You won’t be able to differentiate her from 1970s Jennifer Kale.
There is a good Leah Williams’s oneshot called (misleadingly) What If Magik Became Sorcerer Supreme. She doesn’t in the issue, but she is Stephen’s apprentice.
Also she wears the cloak on the cover.
We saw a version of Illyana who was the Sorceress Supreme during the Claremont/Davis Excalibur run, where she wore an outfit very similar to Dr. Stange’s.
Paul, are you going to cover “Wolverine by Chris Claremont?” It’s that reprint of the story he did with Tom Reilly for some expensive collection. I thought it was a good looking continuity implant that maybe breaks continuity by having the X-Men circa Uncanny #172 fight Sabertooth.
I covered that story back in the Incomplete Wolverine.
@Paul- which year did you cover it in? I can’t seem to find it.
Ah, hold on, I was thinking of the story from the Best of Marvel Comics collection.
Honestly, I think this is one I can wait to read on Unlimited.