The X-Axis – w/c 20 October 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #41. By Tim Seeley, Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Mmm. This isn’t really working for me. At this point it feels like we’re mainly just going through what needs to be done to wrap up the story, and while the beats make sense, and the art is perfectly decent, it’s all a bit routine. Morph hasn’t been developed to the point where I care about him – as I’ve pointed out before, he was kept on the fringes of storylines that were supposedly about him, and at this point that no longer looks like a longer-term storytelling choice but just a weird decision. There’s a vaguely interesting idea about the X-Cutioner being under the influence of Cassandra Nova, since he was always weirdly cast in this role. His motivation was never meant to be that he hated mutants as such, so much as that he objected to them placing themselves above the law. Now, there’s a trope in X-Men books of “the bigots are actually just being corrupted by evil psychics” which dates back to the Shadow King in the X-Men and has never worked, because bigotry is not just a feature of a world where evil psychics exist. I can see something in using it as a radicalisation metaphor with characters like X-Cutioner who really do start off motivated by, well, legitimate concerns, and then get toppled into something else by Cassandra. But I don’t think it’s really landed. Plus, it runs up against the problem that your main villain winds up being Cassandra herself – and in this interpretation, she’s… not very interesting?
THE LAST WOLVERINE #1. (Annotations here.) We’re three weeks into the “Age of Revelation” tie-ins and… you know, this is going pretty well. I still think it’s wildly ambitious to try and get this many tie-in books out of an X-event in 2025. But the actual stories are holding up well, even though only two of the minis genuinely seem to be relevant to the core plot. Sixteen books written in the margins of another story sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it’s serving a couple of functions. For one thing, we’re only about ten years into the future, so you can use these stories to do some actual foreshadowing for the regular stories and it doesn’t feel like the total detour you might expect. For another, it gives some space to flesh out the Age of Revelation world, which leaves the core books free to get on with the plot. And since the vast majority of that world is not occupied by Revelation, it isn’t just a string of post-apocalyptics stories. This, instead, is a story about Leonard the Wendigo attempting to take up Logan’s mantle as the beloved local superhero of a still-basically-normal Vancouver. It’s remarkably upbeat, even if that comes with an undertow of the value in clinging to optimism when everything is falling apart on the horizon. For regular Wolverine readers there are obvious questions about why Leonard is still a Wendigo, which is why it feels relevant to that series even (mostly) in the absence of the lead character. Good fun.
X-MEN: BOOK OF REVELATION #1. (Annotations here.) Until now, I’ve been able to say that Amazing X-Men was the only “Age of Revelation” book you really had to read. Well, now we have two – and this one is also written by Jed MacKay. Book of Revelation is the series about Revelation and his Choristers, a group of power-boosting mutants who range from the more-or-less true believers to the ambitious Fabian Cortez to a child who doesn’t get a choice in the matter. It’s also the book where we find out what Apocalypse made of Bei’s message in the Overture one-shot, which is why it’s definitely core to the plot. With Netho Diaz on art, this is basically a second fill-in book for X-Men, rather than a completely free-standing miniseries. He’s not exactly the focus of this book, but Revelation is working for me as an arch-villain, particularly since we’ve seen Doug start off in the present day in a much more recognisable form. This is the Doug who believes his own hype and thinks that the end justifies the means, at least on the surface; he wants to present himself even to his inner circle as a reasonable man focussed on the greater good. I can believe that you get to that point in ten years in a “power corrupts” kind of way, though we’re also being told that there’s a hidden plan he’s keeping secret from everyone. Then again, if it his hidden agenda was that bad, would Apocalypse really be this opposed to it? I’m intrigued.
OMEGA KIDS #1. By Tony Fleecs, Andrés Genlot, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Travis Lanham. We’ve heard about the Omega Kids before, as a spy network reporting to Quentin Quire. This book is specifically about the “honors class”, though, essentially a team of the four elite trainees. I was expecting a paranoia book, but that’s not what this is about at all. Instead, it’s a book about an adult Quentin Quire finding himself in the teacher role. And on that level it turns out to be a surprisingly good character piece for Quentin. He’s a true believer but still considers himself a hero – he genuinely does think he’s dealing with dangerous subversives and he honestly does care about making sure he only gets the right people. He’s sincerely trying to mentor young psychics with some alarmingly radical views. In other words, he’s found himself in the role of Professor X trying to handle a bunch of Kid Omegas. In his own way, this is Quentin being serious and responsible and trying to mentor the next generation and channel they’re enthusiastic radicalism. And as far as Quentin is concerned, it’s all going just fine. He’s not making the mistakes that his mentors did! He’s definitely getting through to these kids, who don’t see him as an out-of-touch loser at all! You get the idea. That’s not the book I was expecting – Andrés Genlot does a rather nice job of Quentin in his wannabe-edgy adult costume giving a starry-eyed talk about his kids while making sandwiches for three pages – but it’s a book I’m rather interested in reading. The kids themselves, admittedly, blur into one at this point. But the concept works.
RADIOACTIVE SPIDER-MAN #1. By Joe Kelly, Kev Walker, Chris Sotomayor & Joe Caramagna. Well, hello to our guests from the Spider-Man office. Obviously, this really is on the fringes of “Age of Revelation”, but they’ve certainly put a strong creative team on it. There’s nothing wildly unexpected here: New York is part of the Revelation Territories, and Spider-Man isn’t a mutant, but he’s mutated enough that with some regular doses of radiation he can continue to hang around and do Spider-Man things. This book has a bit of a genetic caste system going on which isn’t really in evidence in other “Age of Revelation” books, but mainly the point is just to have Spider-Man still be Spider-Man, and New York still be kind of sort of New York, despite all the changed circumstances. It’s a “look, here’s the core that can’t be shifted” story. Walker’s always been a great artist and Kelly plays a pretty straight bat on it, taking the chance to dust off Cecilia Reyes (a character he used back in his run as X-Men writer), and chucking in a neat closing twist to explain that Peter hasn’t stuck around simply because he loves Central Park so much. All that being said, as the umpteenth tie-in to an event where it isn’t especially important, it’s unavoidably one for the completists, but at least it’s giving us something decent.
The books being more standalone in a crossover event, and they are working, is a great irony to the disaster that was “From the Ashes.”
I think what Krakoa demonstrated (to me at least) is that the X-Men work with a sort of ‘Red Sky’ status quo. There absolutely needs to be some overarching thing that unites all the books, and every book can pitch in a little bit here or there to advance the overall story or flesh out the world as necessary. But they can do this while still telling their own stories.
‘Age of Revelation’ is reminding me of Krakoa in that respect, and Brevoort [cue ominous rumble of thunder or witch’s cackle] would do well to get back to that when AoR finally wraps up.
Man, those Cuckoos just can’t stay as a five, can they?
Always been a fan of Kev Walker, shame that Radioactive Spider-Man reveal really soured me on the book’s plot. Ten years in the future and STILL…?
I think I see what’s going on with Cassandra. All the villains she’s using are villains that tried to redeem themselves. Changeling agreed to take Xavier’s place during the Z’nox mess. Black Tom helped X-Force and the X-Cutioner tried to redeem himself during the Gambit series. Even the MLF were offered redemption on Krakoa. Kitty and Emma promised Cassandra redemption but stranded her in the past. So Cassandra took her revenge by causing the villains that the X-Men had some success in redeeming to revert to type. If that’s what’s going on, it’s not a bad idea but we could have used some foreshadowing earlier in the arc.
I guess if Cassandra was subverting reformed villains, Juggernaut, Magneto, Greycrow, Blob and Pyro were all too hard to get ahold of…
Regarding Radioactive Spider-Man, agreed that the caste system, which doesn’t appear in any other books is a bad idea. The entire point of Doug’s characterization in Age of Revelation is that what drove him mad is that he was tasked with making sure that only the “strong” survived but he remembered what it felt like to be “weak” so he developed a means (the X-Virus) to make sure that all mutants survived. A caste system really doesn’t fit with that.
But it’s nice to see Pipeline again.
In other X-news this week, Rouge showed up in Spider-Girl 5 and offered Make a chance to join the X-Men. When you add that to Unbreakable X-Men 1 featuring Spider-Girl as a member in the future, it seems pretty clear that Spider-Girl is joining the X-Men after her series is cancelled. I wonder if she’ll be in Uncanny X-Men or if she’ll be in Eve Ewing’s untitled book.
Gail seemed pretty sure that Spider-Girl wasn’t joining Uncanny, but that may not rule out her joining the school book. Maybe if the current Spider-Girl series wraps up soon… (which wouldn’t surprise me)
Astonishing – not much to add.
Omega Kids – the ‘the victim might notice if even one detail is wrong’ was heavy foreshadowing, the interiors when kids are with Quentin are rundown, nothing at all like the kitchen scene with the Cuckoo, and still the reveal caught me by surprise. And I liked the characterization of Quentin.
The kids are interchangeable other then the creepiest 8yo, but as long as the focus is on Quentin, I won’t mind.
Radioactive S-M – let’s file this under ‘the mutant mayor of New York has their own supremacist policy independent of Doug’ as an explanation for the caste system. Other than that – I liked it. Peter and Cecilia are a wildly random pairing, the stuff fanfics are made of, but why not? And I always have time for Kev Walker’s art, his mutated Peter is suitably creepy. And I like the altered costume.
He draws Cecilia as way too young, though. Even if this was present day Cecilia it wouldn’t be quite right, but ten years in the future? She was a fully trained doctor back when she debuted (so late 20s at the least, right?), ten years in the future she should be forty something, maybe pushing fifty?
SPIDER-GIRL was absent from the January solicits, which suggests it may have been cancelled after only 7 issues.
@JD- Yeah, there were reports that Spider-Girl was cancelled after the 2nd issue. It actually fell out of the top 100 with just the 2nd issue.
Bleeding Cool’s Bestseller List is out. Radioactive Spider-Man 1 came in 7th, the Last Wolverine came in 8th and X-Men Book of Revelation came in 10th. Omega Kids didn’t make the list at all. On the one hand, the sales are decent. On the other hand, it’s not a good sign that (a) all of the crossover tie-ins were beaten by Fantastic Four 4 and (b) the best selling crossover tie-in was a Spider-Man book.
Reading Cecilia Reyes as written by Joe Kelly made me happy. Kelly’s run on X-Men is one of my favorites, and Dr. Reyes sounded “right” in Radioactive Spider-Man. I agree that she was drawn as looking too young, however.
Only having to follow McKay’s books to get the main story works for me. Age of Revelation was a good read, and I admit that I didn’t see the ghost reveal coming. Netho Diaz has been doing good work on the main X-Men title, and his art looked great here.
@Michael: assuming Bleeding Cool’s report is representative of overall sales, I like the idea that FF is beating the X-books. FF is consistently great, and it’s nice to see a title selling well simply because it’s good.
It’s not even wasting time with the OWUD nonsense anymore. Issue #4 was back to the done-in-one science fiction stories, which is what North was doing best on FF.
Had this discussion with a friend today, and we differed, so I’ll ask here: how old is Quentin Quire supposed to be? Is he still a teenager in the prime timeline and now a mid/late 20-year old in AoR, or in his 20s now and therefore in his 30s in AoR?
Comicbook time is always nebulous, but he debuted as a teenager, spent some time dead/discorporated, so it’s further smudged over. I’m guessing he’d be the same age as the Cuckoos, but some of them have been dead too, though I think Krakoa just aged them all to the same point so it wouldn’t be any less awkward in portraying them.
@Sam: Officially, I don’t know. He was being written as someone in their late-teens during Krakoa, so I assume Quentin is still 17-20 years old in the current timeline.
I was surprised they even launched a Spider-Girl series. She was introduced near the end of the fun but canceled Spider-Boy series, and in that she mostly came across as a unlikable brat. Odd pick for a spinoff.
I wonder how hard it would be with the Krakoa resurrections to eliminate senescence. Maybe every mutant is going to look 20 until the day they die. Why not?
Sam> Had this discussion with a friend today, and we differed, so I’ll ask here: how old is Quentin Quire supposed to be? Is he still a teenager in the prime timeline and now a mid/late 20-year old in AoR, or in his 20s now and therefore in his 30s in AoR?
He’s about 80 or 90 in the present day, and so pushing a century in AoR.
And no, that’s not a joke. He spent a LONG time trapped in the future in Percy’s X-Force, then switched back to a young body when he got back to Krakoa.
Nobody writes Cyclops as being in his mid-40s due to raising Cable for a decade, the aging of Quentin might as well have not happened.
@Krzysiek
And Reyes wasn’t just a trained doctor — she’s specifically mentioned as a trauma surgeon, which requires another level of training. After med school, would-be trauma surgeons start out in general surgery residents for ~5 years, THEN need another year or two of a fellowship before they’re ready. Your typical starting trauma surgeon is already in their early 30s.
How old was Quentin under Morrison? 15? If I take that as a starting point, and ignore his mental ageing, then I make him 20/21 in the present.
Omega Kids very strongly implies that, ten years in the future, Quentin has turned 30. Given that he debuted in 2003 – which at this point is about two thirds of the way through the sliding timeline – I think that just about works.
@Mark- it’s possible that Cecilia died on Krakoa and was resurrected a few years younger, since it was shown that some people on Krakoa were resurrected younger.
Let’s not forget Doogie Howser, MD, who graduated medical school at the age of 14. Considering “Mr. Average” Alex Summers was able to graduate university at the age of 19, and that everyone of importance in the Marvel Universe seems to be a genius, it’s conceivable that Cecilia was able to become a trauma surgeon by the age of 24. Waiting until she was in her early-30s would make Cecilia positively ancient for a surgeon who also happens to have superpowers in the Marvel Universe.
Thanks to Krakoan resurrection, the true ages of just about every mutant of any note are up to writerly whim at this point. Younger? Older? Whatever!
Heck, Quentin’s been impossible to pin down for a very long time, thanks to his stint as a essence in a jar, his many, many resurrections in Krakoa, and as noted, his aging and resetting. Mentally, he’s *shrug* and physically he’s *who knows*.
And no one thinks about Scott and Jean spending time in the future and past while raising Cable, especially since they’ve both died and been reborn multiple times since– Scott’s death and rebirth around Death of X, etc, really complicated matters, and then of course Krakoa…
Frankly, I approve of this. Worried about characters aging? Just confuse the issue so thoroughly that no one knows or cares anymore.
I was specifically asking about Quentin because I think he debuted somewhere in the 14-16 range, and if he was still there, he’d be the 24-26 year old teacher who might have a genuine claim on being cool to the students (and the subject of inappropriate crushes). Reading the book, that is not the case.
I guess that when Quentin’s powers changed from having thousands of brilliant ideas a second (and not listening to any of them) to just being a telepath, he also manifested the pink hair mutation?
Long story short: Quire asked the Five to make it his natural haircolor on resurrection.