The X-Axis – w/c 1 September 2025
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #35. By Tim Seeley, Eduardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. This is a weird arc, isn’t it? We’ve moved on to a rogue LMD that’s turned on humanity and is trying to get nuclear codes, which all feels a bit disconnected from the Changeling/Morph story that we started with. I guess there’s a vague impersonation theme going on, but other than that it feels like two separate stories. More to the point, there’s surprisingly little of Morph in it; he’s mainly a character being talked about by other people, which is a really odd choice. Given that it’s Tim Seeley, and he’s a perfectly solid writer, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that there’s a reason for doing it this way, and we’ll find out by the end how it’s supposed to connect up, but it’s all a bit confusing right now. Audino’s doing some lovely art on this series, though, and deserves a higher profile assignment than an Infinity book.
UNCANNY X-MEN #20. (Annotations here.) Uncanny X-Men has an awful lot of characters to juggle, and it’s rather striking to realise that we’ve only just got to a spotlight story for Ransom with issue #20. To be honest, in some ways I’m more intrigued by the opening scene which moves the Corina Ellis subplot along a bit, since dodgy anti-mutant cults aren’t particularly out of the ordinary for the X-books. But there’s something interesting about Wolverine and Ransom as a pairing – Logan has tended to be paired with the likes of Kitty Pryde and Jubilee who serve as a contrast to him, and it actually makes a change to let him mentor someone more like himself. All the more so given that Logan’s status as an elder has come to be one of his defining traits. So that dynamic is something that carries the issue more than the actual plot. Vecchio’s art is perfectly fine in terms of telling the story but feels like it’s lacking something in atmosphere much of the time. Still, the hall of Word of Strength members in hoodies is surprisingly effective and the costume design itself is an intriguing mixture of the everyday and the cult-like.
WOLVERINE #13. (Annotations here.) It’s not a great week for claws. There’s a slight sense of books filling time while they wait for “Age of Revelation” to start, to be honest. In the meantime, Wolverine gives us a story that was foreshadowed with a five-page back-up in Giant-Size House of M but reads pretty much like a fill-in. It’s possible that it’s introducing the Andiamo family for future use, but on the face of it, you could have combined the back-up strip and this story into a rather forgettable annual. As I explained in the annotations, it’s a story that suffers very badly from a contrived plot that only works if we’re willing to credit that everyone involved is honour-bound to play along. And when you ask me to believe that the Flanagan family will ignore their patriarch’s wish to sign a peace treaty (to the point of preventing the other side’s Don from reaching the meeting by force), but that they’ll still honour the treaty once it’s signed… no, that just feels completely arbitrary and stupid. There’s a somewhat cute idea in here about Logan having to deliberately not kill the cannon fodder, and Cóccolo’s art makes him look appropriately out of place in a suit, but it really doesn’t work.
LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #10. (Annotations here.) Well, it looks nice enough. The art is not the problem here. Giada Belviso makes the book look perfectly dynamic, and draws a quite a nice literal wolverine in Jonathan. Gabby’s energy comes across well. And then there’s the story, which is … there? I think there’s meant to be some sort of parallel going on here between Laura rebuilding her supporting cast and Strega pressganging people into being her own distorted family, but it’s hopelessly underdeveloped. And the epilogue literally amounts to Laura telling us that she’s finally figured out a direction for herself: she’s going to, um, help mutants. Really? Ten issues to figure out that the character who was already in the X-Men is going to help mutants? That’s the statement of intent for this book? Honestly, it’s depressing that Psylocke and Magik got cancelled while this book is limping on into “Age of Revelation”.
MAGIK #9. (Annotations here.) Speaking of which: this seems to be the penultimate issue of Magik, which is a real shame. It’s a book with a real sense of its own identity and it actually repays repeated reading (without being hard to follow on a first reading, which is so often the trade off there). Germán Peralta’s art keeps it grounded, and I really do like Embodiment’s back story – not only does it give her loose parallels with both Magik and Liminal, she’s drawn completely the wrong lesson from it. The tension between Illyana and Dani has maybe been a bit heavy handed at times, but I think it mostly works, and it’s good to see Illyana being written with a bit more depth than has been the norm in recent years.
IMPERIAL WAR: EXILES #1. By Steve Foxe, Jonathan Hickman, Francesco Manna, Davide Tinto & Erick Arciniega. This one-shot is an Imperial tie-in, but to all intents and purposes it’s a set-up issue for the upcoming Exiles book. To be honest, I haven’t read Imperial past issue #1 – it feels like something I should be able to catch up with just fine on Unlimited. Fortunately, all you really need to know about Imperial is that it’s happening: there’s a revolution going on, Xandra and Deathbird are on the run, and that’s what the distress call in “X-Manhunt” was about. This is the issue where Professor X and Lilandra actually show up, but not in order to restore Xandra to the throne. From the look of it, what we’re getting with the Shi’ar Empire coming out of Imperial is a self-proclaimed grass-roots revolution led by Electron, of all people. And honestly, the Marvel Universe is overburdened with space opera monarchies and could use a bit of range. So this is a surprisingly decent story devoted to grouping Xavier, Lilandra and Xandra together as counter-revolutionaries, with Xavier and Lilandra awkwardly trying to offer parental input to Xandra. It’s a basically straightforward plot jazzed up with some non-linear storytelling, which leaves room for those characters to get established. Better than I was expecting.
“To be honest, I haven’t read Imperial past issue #1 – it feels like something I should be able to catch up with just fine on Unlimited. Fortunately, all you really need to know about Imperial is that it’s happening: there’s a revolution going on,”
Basically, Black Bolt and Maximus bet the Grandmaster he could start an intergalactic war so they could seize an empire. (I believe that the next time Hickman writes Black Bolt, he will be eating babies.)
interesting that Xavier is usually against killing but he had no problem brainwashing the Hobgoblin into thinking he was Xandra. Did he suspect that Deathbird would kill him when he realized the ruse?
” what we’re getting with the Shi’ar Empire coming out of Imperial is a self-proclaimed grass-roots revolution led by Electron, of all people.”
AN Electron. The idea is that there have been many Electrons over the years and the latest one thinks he’s D’Ken’s son.
I wonder when this takes place later to the current arc in Amazing Spider-Man. Because both stories explicitly take place during Imperial and both feature Rocket.
(As an aside, am I the only person who thinks it’s weird that Rocket appears in two issues with characters named Hobgoblin in the same month?)
Xavier claims that Lilandra “reached out her mind and found” the members of the Exiles. This is odd. I know that the Official Handbook suggested Lilandra was a telepath but since when is she a long-range telepath that can sense people light-years away? That’s usually Xavier’s schtick. And why couldn’t he do it? It’s especially bizarre because Xavier is wearing a telepathy-amplifying Cerebra helmet earlier in the issue and Lilandra isn’t.
The X-Men appear in Avengers 30- the Avengers ask the X-Men to fill in for them while they’re away. It’s odd that the Avengers would ask the X-Men instead of the West Coast Avengers or that Avengers team that’s appearing in the Infinity Comics. Especially since the X-Men don’t really do anything.
And Myrddin turns out to be exactly who everyone thought he would be. One of MacKay’s flaws as a writer is that he makes the answers to his mysteries too obvious- the murderer in his Strange run turned out to be a Dr. Strange from the War of the Seven Spheres, Blade turned out to be Varnae during Blood Hunt, the new Moon Knight turned out to be the Shroud. Which makes the Chairman mystery so weird…
There you go, Paul. Thanks to Michael you don’t need to read Imperial any longer.
While Imperial is far from Hickman’s best work, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless the final issue really turns everything around, you did give away a pretty important mystery that was only revealed in Imperial #3, which was just released this past Wednesday, Michael.
Maybe the nuclear codes in the Changeling story was because the X-Men story featuring the Changeling was about him siding with the Mutant Master when his plan was to start a nuclear war.
“Speaking of which: this seems to be the penultimate issue of Magik, which is a real shame.”
I wonder. in Doctor Strange 450, there was a story by Allen of Strange teaching Magik, just as the Ancient One taught him. And Illyana’s past trauma becomes a monster before being transformed into butterflies. I think the last panel is supposed to be one of the butterflies landing on Strange’s amulet. I wonder if this is foreshadowing Magik taking over the role of Sorcerer Supreme. (And getting a new series of course.)
@Chris V- My apologies. Next time I’ll use spoilers.
Michael-I’m pretty sure that the Chairman is Stryfe. I forget why I came to this conclusion, but I saw something in one of the X-books which pointed to it being Stryfe, and the clues seem to line up. The Chairman being in shadow with the helmet did look somewhat similar to Stryfe. He would know about cloning. Scott is the father of Nathan Summers.
Which is incredibly weird as Brevoort must know the identity, but he allowed Stryfe to be used in a B-list title while the 3K storyline is continuing. Maybe that’s why MacKay is drawing it out so long, to avoid the disappointment that it’s Stryfe (again).
I could be wrong.
The whole Shi’ar thing feels like such a retread of the Emperor Vulcan storyline – Electron may not be *quite* as much of a raving loon as Gabriel Summers has always been, but he’s hardly a compelling character either.
The sales figures for August 2025 are out. Uncanny X-Men 19 came in 9th, Magik 8 came in 23, X-Men 20 came in 25th, Spider-Man and Wolverine 4 came in 36th, Wolverine 12 came in 38th, X-Men 21 came in 42nd, Psylocke 10 came in 48th, Laura Kinney: Wolverine came in 53rd, Storm 11 came in 60th and Phoenix 10 came in 144th. A lot of X-Books improved this month.
@Michael: Lilandra was able to make telepathic contact with Charles while on the other side of the galaxy, before they even met. It’s fair to assume she’s always been at that level but never had frequent cause to use her powers that way.
Bleeding Cool’s Weekly Bestseller list is out. Uncanny X-Men 20 came in 6th, Wolverine 13 came in 8th, Magik 9 came in 9th and Imperial War: Exiles 1 came in 10th.
@Chris V: Stryfe was at the top of my suspect list for a while too, but the more we see of the Chairman, the less convinced I am. Stryfe is big, operatic, loud. The Chairman doesn’t even have a cape or nipple spikes.
I have a rather out-there theory to propose to my fellow Housemates to Astonish: the Chairman is Miles Warren, the Jackal.
Asking the X-Men to fill in for the Avengers is probably a direct consequence of MacKay being the writer in both books. I will bet that it is the Alaska team there as opposed to the Lousiana one for that same reason. With so many guest appearances going unmentioned, it is easier for the writer to flow with his own toys. And MacKay is very much a writer that brings back his previous toys, as we have seen most clearly with Black Cat.
Lilandra’s feat may well be explained by previously unmentioned specially nurtured skills. As a former empress she more likely than not was given every reasonable special access to members of the Imperial Guard, who may easily have been primed for receiving her call as part of basic training. It is an alien civilization, they will have unusual skills and customs, particularly when they are a monarchy with the accompanying need to give an appearance of being exotic and larger than life.
The butterfly final panel in Doctor Strange #450 sure feels like some sort of hint of plots to come.
I agree that it was long past time to actually pair Wolverine with someone who makes sense to pair Wolverine with…
@DIana- the problem with that is (a) the Chairman has been described as a mutant and Miles Warren is not a mutant and (b) the Jackal has appeared in Spectacular Spider-Men and New Avengers since the Chairman was introduced.
The Jackal also shouldn’t have any ties with Scott where he’d greet Cyclops as if they had a history. Unless the Jackal is a Cyclops groupie.
@Michael
If you want to call those sales figures improvements…
The Jackel is one of characters who comfortably can be in multiple stories at once, like your Sinisters or your Kangs. Though no, he’s not a mutant.
I’m putting my longshot money on The Chairman being a Cable variant who’s taken a turn for the radical.
I agree with Diana.
Without going back (X-men issue 97?) and rereading it, my memory is that Xavier with Cerebro was able to detect Lilandra’s galaxy spanning telepathic broadcast. My headcanon has always been that Xavier (before Phoenix) was the most powerful telepath on Earth and Lilandra without Cerebro was many orders of magnitude more powerful than Xavier with Cerebro. Her power as a long distance telepath was her schtick as introduced.
I am going to miss Magik. It is the best of the current line, and compares well even without the caveat of being the best of the FOA era.
Unlimited doesn’t have solicits like the direct sales and LCSs do. I wonder if Audino being there is because Unlimited is more experimental, and is being used as a way for artists to prove their quality — or if it is just that the artist isn’t quite as bound to the harsh deadlines of a monthly.
Chairman is Sublime.
And a Sublime is a lime that doesn’t taste as good as most limes.
I mean, yeah, the Chairman’s body looks nicely toned. I’m going to hold off on saying he is sublime until I see his face though. This mysterious authoritarian persona he’s got going does make him seem dreamy, I don’t blame you.
I don’t know what U-Men by that.
The problem is that Sublime is not a mutant. Orlando retconned him into having been created by mutants but if Forge built a robot tomorrow. that robot would not be a mutant.
What if the Chairman is Chairface Chippendale from The Tick?
“if Forge built a robot tomorrow. that robot would not be a mutant.”
Ohhh!
*writes that down*
Hmmm. Sublime’s not a mutant, but his host could be.
Sublime would fit with MacKay’s overall affinity for the Morrison run, but wasn’t Sublime’s main motivation to wipe out mutantkind because they were a threat to whatever form of life he was?
(I’m also pretty sure the U-Men weren’t clones, the Chairman claims to have commanded clone armies…)
It’d be funny to me if the Chairman actually does turn out to be Sublime since I only threw his name out just so I could joke that “sublime” actually refers to inferior quality citrus fruit (along with sublemons and suboranges). I’m barely paying attention to this Chairman/Y2K stuff.
In the service of corporate synergy. the Chairman will turn out to be Emperor Palpatine.
We don’t know who the Chairman is because Marvel hasn’t decided yet. It will be either Romulus or it will be the Shadow King depending on which writer it is assigned to.
Although… if it is assigned to Jim Lee it will have to be Lex Luthor of course. If given to a reunited Lee & Claremont it will be the mind of Lex Luthor possessed by the Shadow King while trapped in the body of Romulus. This is obvious.
The Chairman will be. . . the new, true 3rd Summers brother! Vulcan turns out to be a clone of Cyclops full of falsified memories courtesy of Weapon X. Or Romulus. Or Judas Traveler.
(As Maddy Pryor was Sinister’s Jean substitute, Gabriel is his Scott substitute. Sinister was way too invested in having those bloodlines getting freaky not to have one.)
It should be the 616 equivalent of La Parka/LA PARK.
Actually, I hope he’s a completely new character, and the reason he calls himself the Chairman is because that’s his power: chairs. He can manipulate chairs and get them to do his bidding. Chairs and ottomans. He wants to build an ottoman empire. He struggles with loveseats, though, because they’re a chair/couch hybrid, and he can only manipulate chairs, not couches.
In addition to the “clone army” mention, he also calls Cyclops “Scott”. That would seem to rule out Stryfe and Sublime. If not for the physiogamy, I’d say it was the Krakoan Beast
What if the Chairman is Dark Beast’s head Fused with Judas Traveller. Then it’s revealed that Norman Osborn was secretly behind Factor Three?
Clone army and Cyclops fetish?
Sounds familiar.
Chairman = Emperor?
X-Men/Star Wars X-Over?
I don’t know if I’ve said it here before or not, but I’m leaning into the possibility that the Chairman is an evil Multiple Man. Because I don’t want it to be Stryfe.
If we’re getting a Star Wars crossover, I want the Chairman to be the guy responsible for Luuke. Someone should give him a hand for his hard work.
Calling it now: for maximum synergy, the Chairman is Bluey.
Gail Simone said on Twitter that the reason why Monet was able to break out of her collar was explained in the story. According to Simone “She said the system is breaking down. But also, she IS Monet.”
Monet’s exact words were “I think your operation is unraveling.” There is no way a reasonable reader could have leaped from that to “That’s why the collars are malfunctioning.”
Usually, when a writer starts talking about how the answer is clear in the text and it’s not clear at all, that’s a sign that the writer is declining. That happened to Byrne in his later years- for example, he insisted that the explanation for Kearson DeWitt’s identity was there on the page and didn’t understand why Len Kaminski felt the need to explain it. Not a good sign.
@Michael: It’s also become something of an unfortunate trend with Simone specifically – she’s spent a *lot* of time this past year explaining her stories and her choices on Twitter, which you’d think would clue her in to the fact that she must not be writing them particularly well. Probably the biggest disappointment of FtA, I’d say – I really thought she had this in the bag.