The X-Axis – 30 October 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #41. By Alex Paknadel, Tim Seeley, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Cancelled, although it does at least get to use its final arc to wrap up the overarching story. Marvel seem to be winding down the in-continuity spin Infinity Comics generally, although Astonishing Miles Morales: Spider-Man Infinity Comic is still around (as well as Marvel Rivals and Jeff, which I guess might be canon, though it doesn’t really matter one way or the other). I’ve always had my doubts about how far these books were actually helping to bring readers in to Marvel Unlimited, which is principally a back catalogue subscription service, and perhaps Marvel is taking the same view – especially as their current strategy for digital comics seems to be to give up on Amazon and sign up for rival platforms like GlobalComix and Neon Ichiban. The Infinity Comics would have made a lot more sense in a world where Marvel was selling its new digital comics directly on Marvel Unlimited, but that’s evidently not the direction.
Anyway, X-Cutioner shakes off Cassandra Nova’s control but doesn’t seem that different for it; I still don’t think anyone in recent years has actually understood the character. Vague mutterings about wanting to start a war don’t really fit with what Cassandra’s doing in 3K, and a random one-panel cameo by other Generation X characters who never got around to joining the regular cast feels a bit forced. Ultimately, I don’t think this worked; the better stories in this series have played off the idea of Cassandra exploiting, if not legitimate concerns, at least understandable anxieties. So if X-Cutioner is just as mad and only objects to Cassandra’s version of the plan because she’s a mutant, that falls a bit flat. Still, I did quite enjoy this book’s curiously cut-down version of Generation X, and Sean’s uncomfortable role as the outgrown mentor. There’s something in that I’d like to see more of.
EXPATRIATE X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) This is the last week of the cycle, so we’ve now got all the “Age of Revelation” titles. And on the whole it’s turned out better than I expected. This week isn’t the strongest, though, with three books that kind of do feel like they’re making up the numbers. The other one is Expatriate X-Men, a book that has little in common with Exceptional X-Men beyond its writer Eve Ewing and about half of the cast. The Flotilla are kind-of-sort-of a version of the X-Men, though even they don’t seem entirely sure whether they’re heroes, or a bunch of dropouts, or people who are trying to carve out an independent nation for mutants outside Revelation’s control. One thing I genuinely like about AoR is that it steers clear of being a conventional post-apocalyptic dystopia, with the Revelation Territories inhabited mostly by people who seem pretty happy there, and most of the rest of the world seeming pretty normal for now. It’s a dystopia-on-the-way story, without the usual levels of grimdark you expect in these things. So these are more hardened and morally compromised versions of the characters, but more in a way that suggests they grew out of idealism, or at least that that’s how they see themselves. Francesco Mortarino sells the ramshackle look of the Flotilla nicely, and the costume designs fit the vibe. It’s tighter than Exceptional, too – that book did go slowly, but the three-issue format seems to be prompting something more focussed.
UNDEADPOOL #1. By Tim Seeley, Carlos Magno, GURU-eFX & Joe Sabino. This is basically a tie-in arc for Deadpool, which is between volumes at the moment. Even though it comes out of the X-office at the moment, I regard Deadpool as a free-standing spin-off like Alpha Flight, rather than an X-book proper, so it serves here as one of three guest titles from the wider Marvel Universe rounding out the final week of the month. All of them run with versions of the idea that the non-mutants who survived exposure to the X-virus got altered in some way. So the idea with Deadpool seems to be that he’s become a shambling monster in the woods, whose normal personality is locked inside until he’s eaten enough flesh to power himself up, at which point he becomes Deadpool again for a bit. There’s a certain appeal to the idea, with Deadpool mostly reduced to the narrator of his own book. And Carlos Magno’s art strikes the right tone for what seems to be pitching itself as a kind of horror book, with a bunch of wannabe heroes trying to make their way to the Flotilla and stumbling into Deadpool instead. But I don’t think it really works: Deadpool’s narration is wordy enough to undercut the atmosphere, but never actually sounds like Deadpool.
X-VENGERS #1. By Jason Loo, Sergio Dávila, Aure Jimenez, Rain Beredo & Joe Sabino. It’s the Age of Revelation version of the Avengers – and no, they’re not actually called the X-Vengers. It’s basically a bunch of established Avengers types mutated by the X-virus (or by the Technarch, in Vision’s case), plus Dani Moonstar and Cannonball, still trying their best to be the Avengers. And apparently doing a good enough job of it – they’re still fighting off the alien invaders, they’re still on reasonably good terms with their Seraphim counterparts in the Revelation Territories. I do like the idea that Dani is only here because a dying Steve Rogers asked her, even though she’s well aware that she was probably just the only person around. And it fits with her version of the Avengers regarding themselves as the heroes of the world, rather than wanting to get into a fight with the Revelation Territories. It’s fine, and it looks pretty solid, but it doesn’t really feel like any of the more interesting ideas have a great deal to do with the plot, at least at this point.
CLOAK OR DAGGER #1. By Justina Ireland, Lorenzo Tammetta, Andrew Dalhouse, Joe Caramagna. Yes, that’s the title. In some ways Cloak and Dagger have done okay out of Age of Revelation: they’re married, they have a kid, they’re acting as heroes just outside the Revelation Zone and helping out as the zone keeps spreading. The hook, and the reason for the title, is that they’re mentally linked but can’t be in the same place, so instead they swap places with one another, Captain Marvel style. The story is kind of vague about where the other one goes – at some points it’s implied that it’s just elsewhere, at other points it’s talked about as if it were a pocket dimension. I can’t help feeling a bit more clarity on that wouldn’t have gone amiss, but the book looks great and I really did like Cloak just getting to read bedtime stories to his kid while Dagger is in the field. Despite the plot being based on the virus, it feels less like an “Age of Revelation” title and more like an opportunity to do something non-canon with Cloak and Dagger, but there are worse ideas.
EMMA FROST, THE WHITE QUEEN #5. By Amy Chu, Andrea Di Vito, Antonio Fabela & Ariana Maher. End of the miniseries, and it feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity. The problem with doing a story about Emma Frost as a villain is that it’s hard to square with her modern role in the X-Men, but surely that’s also where the interest lies. By focussing the whole story on Emma defending herself against Hellfire Club internal politics, you duck all that. Of course, Emma outwits everyone and comes out on top, and it does pull off a reveal with Emma being even more in control than you’d think. There’s a really nice psychic battle sequence done in black and white on the astral plane, too. But it feels like the safe version of a story with Emma in the Hellfire Club.
I haven’t read the rest of the titles this week, but I enjoyed Undead Deadpool a lot more than I should have. Tim Seely should have an ongoing Deadpool series.
Re: Astonishing X-Men- So I was wrong- Cassandra’s plan had nothing to do with reformed villains. This is just bad- like Paul said, the X-Cutioner is just a boring generic bigot and whatever Cassandra is doing seems to have nothing to do with her schemes in MacKay’s book.
Undeadpool clearly exists just because someone had an idea based around the title (like with Weapon X-Men…) and came up with a story to fit. I’m surprised how many of the cast… well, won’t be appearing in the next issue. They seemed poised as a new generation of characters.
X-Vengers has some interesting ideas as well, but it’s a damned shame how many Named Characters were killed off in the backstory. The current team is viable in a messed-up way, though I’ve always felt like giving Black Widow (symbiote) or Shang-Chi (multiple bodies) extra powers was excessive, so seeing them as “mutants” does little for me. Poor Scott. But Dani as a Captain America works for me: a female mutant Indigenous Cap plays well off the foundation of ones like Sam, Aaron, Danielle Cage (in the future), Peggy, and the Captains Network. (Sam Wilson as President is a nice twist.)
Cloak or Dagger… well, every so often someone tries to make those two happen. It was time again.
This entire event really is a very thin main plot and a ton of side stories which doesn’t seem to play into the main thing. Even the original Age of Apocalypse had more focus since most of the side minis revolved around fetch quests or whatever and fed back into the main storyline. But nothing is truly terrible, at least.
Maybe we SHOULD have gotten an AoR Alpha Flight!
RE:X- Vengers 1:
This book started off as Sam, Roberto and Dani searching for Doug and trying to reason with him. I think that would have been a much better premise. Age of Revelation has shown very little so far of how Doug’s old friends are reacting to what he’s become- Magneto was killed off early on and Kitty’s been a ghost so far. If you’re not going to have Doug’s friends reacting to what he’s become, you might as well have Doop as the villain.
Note that the Techanrchy appear in both this issue and in Undeadpool. I have to wonder if the X-Virus is connected to the transmode virus somehow. Maybe Doug’s plan IS to infect everyone with the transmode virus to make them immortal or something like that.
Re: Emma Frost: the White Queen 5:
Xavier and Sage seemed to be trying to get Emma killed. Sage said “I was unable to take out the White Queen.” Xavier trying to kill Emma is out of character for him at this point. Yes, there are extenuating circumstances- Emma was responsible for Jean’s corruption and death. But it still doesn’t feel like Xavier.
It’s funny how Marvel is retconning Tessa into actually having DONE stuff while she was undercover in the Hellfire Club because Claremont’s retcon made no sense since Xavier clearly had no clue whenever the Hellfire Club was up to something.
I didn’t like that Emma was able to erase Noor from the memories of everyone at the Hellfire Club. I realize that Chu was homaging Emma erasing everyone’s memories of Kamala’s death but that didn’t make sense either. I have no problem with her being able to erase the memories of everyone in the immediate area who knew about Noor/ Kamala (or even someone talking to her on video like Shaw) but there’s no way she could track down everyone worldwide who knew about Noor/ Kamala and erase their memories.
In other news Marvel’s revealed the new Sorcerer Supreme is the Scarlet Witch. However, the Vishanti refuse to recognize her claim, so they appoint Agatha Harkness as their own Sorcerer Supreme. In issue 3 of the Sorcerer Supreme series. Wanda wakes up in Limbo after a battle with Agatha. And to escape. she must defeat Maddie.
“In other news Marvel’s revealed the new Sorcerer Supreme is the Scarlet Witch. However, the Vishanti refuse to recognize her claim, so they appoint Agatha Harkness as their own Sorcerer Supreme. In issue 3 of the Sorcerer Supreme series. Wanda wakes up in Limbo after a battle with Agatha. And to escape. she must defeat Maddie.”
Steve Orlando, everyone!
I really wish they’d just codify how the Sorcerer Supreme title/designation/mantle is granted, who has the final authority over it, and so on. Because it’s been passed around like a tray of greasy duck dumplings at a party for a while now and if Wanda can lay claim to it but the Vishanti disgree… (I thought they were the official Sorcerer Supreme oversight committee anyway).
I somehow don’t expect Orlando to be the one to clarify matters much.
I suppose that after Strange, Clea, Doom, Loki… it’s Wanda’s turn.
I must have missed Clear and Loki being SS. At least with Doom Marvel made a big deal out of it.
Who hasn’t been Sorcerer Supreme at this point in the MCU? Bendis gave it to Brother Voodoo at one point, right?
“Cloak or Dagger… well, every so often someone tries to make those two happen. It was time again.”
If it was called “Cloak and Dagger,” I’d assume it was a trademark-renewal mini. But I’m not sure “Cloak OR Dagger” accomplishes that. But then, maybe it does… I’m not an IP law expert by any means.
I took it that Cloak/Dagger get swapped out to the Darkforce dimension or something. There’s a black-dotty effect at the edge of the panels.
IIRC, Dr. Strange has lost the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme something like five or six times, going all the way back to the 1970s. And he’s been replaced by everyone from Doctor Doom and Loki to Clea and Brother/Doctor Voodoo to Salome. And there was also Jason Aaron’s run, where most magic was destroyed and Strange ran around with an axe for a while.
It seems to be a recurring cycle of writers deciding Strange is too powerful and needs to be the underdog again, followed by trying to put the toys back in the box because the series is ending or doing a “redemption” arc to resolve the conflict.
In addition to removing his title as Sorcerer Supreme, we get lots of stories about Strange’s magic costing him in the form of pain, his soul, and/or big future favors to various magical entities.
Some writers also lean into the idea that Strange is often selfish and arrogant, which bites him in the behind and makes him lose many of his magical powers and patrons. That always feels like a misstep to me, since Strange’s origin is about his overcoming his pride and becoming a more contemplative, enlightened figure.
The big problem is that Marvel magic has essentially no rules and limits, or at least none that stick. Pretty much every writer since Steve Ditko has struggled to create consistent limits or definitions of Strange’s powers, and even Ditko’s stories are uneven in this respect.
Ditko’s Strange was at its peak when he was an underdog in the lengthy Mordo-Dormammu serial. There, Strange is written relatively modestly in terms of power: He has his Eye of Agomatto that can probe minds and drive away evil magic within limits, his Cloak of Levitation, magical bolts and shields, and some mental powers of hypnosis and illusion-casting. He can also overcome minor-league sorcerers if he can catch them in a vulnerable position.
For anything else, he needs a specific spell, and half the time the spell just sends him to another dimension rather than giving him any more power. It’s a good use of Strange, emphasizing his wits rather than just having him pull out the incantation of the month or summon extra power to win. In act, the climax is explicitly about Strange being told by Eternity that he doesn’t need any extra power, just wisdom, to thwart Dormammu. And both Mordo and Dormammu, for all their power, are defeated and ultimately destroyed by their own hubris, not because Strange figures out how to zap them into oblivion.
The White Queen story was, sadly, predictable, and that’s the kiss of death for any intrigue-based story. It’s also really disappointing that the middle three issues were fillers where Emma goes to another Hellfire Club, meets people, gets betrayed, and then repeats the whole thing the next issue.
I’ll just say that Noor being Adrian Bloom would have made it better (and then Emma could have killed her without remorse).
As for Wanda being Sorceress Supreme, but the Vishanti give it to Agatha Harkness instead, I feel the subtext is “Weren’t those Disney+ series successful? Don’t you want to subscribe/renew your subscription?”
Most of the Revelation books continued to keep me entertained. I have to call X-vengers my least liked, the character voices and dialogue were just poor.
I loved Undeadpool despite the narration not sounding totally Deadpool as Paul said. I liked all the characters way more than any of the other From the Ashes noobies, I think it’s a combo of Tim Seely’s writing and Carlos Magno’s amazing art.
However the latter part of the crossover ends, at least I find it more interesting than the books we were getting.
The sales figures for October are out. Amazing X-Men 1 came in 20th, Unbreakable X-Men 1 came in 24th, Spider-Man & Wolverine 6 came in 30th, Laura Kinney: Sabretooth 1 came in 37th, Radioactive Spider-Man 1 came in 39th, Rogue Storm 1 came in 40th, the Last Wolverine 1 came in 43rd, World of Revelation 1 came in 44th, Sinister’s Six 1 came in 49th and X-Men : Book of Revelation 1 came in 50th.
On the one hand. this is more X-books in the top 50 than we’ve seen in a while. On the other hand, even Amazing X-Men 1 was outsold by Captain America 4 and Fantastic Four 4- not a good sign. And most of the crossover issues were outsold by Spider-Man & Wolverine, which wasn’t part of the crossover.
It’s weird that the Last Wolverine came in so low. It was outsold by Laura Kinney: Sabretooth and Rogue Storm. I guess nobody likes Leonard.
And Binary didn’t make the top 50. I’m shocked. 🙂
That battle sequence was amazing !
And more sales figures for October are out. Iron & Frost 1 came in 52nd, Binary 1 came in 57th, Cloak or Dagger 1 came in 65th, Undeadpool 1 came in 67th, Longshots 1 came in 68th, X-Vengers 1 came in 87th, Expatriate X-Men came in 103rd and Omega Kids came in 114th.
Longshots did horribly for a book with Hickman’s name on it. It deserved it, of course.
Expatriate X-Men sold horribly. Yes, it came out the last week of the month but it is allegedly a flagship title and it sold worse than all the other Age of Revelation books that came out that week. The only Age of Revelation book that sold worse was Omega Kids. How did Ewing get to do another book in Shadows of Tomorrow? Did Stephanie Phillips and Ben Percy lend her their blackmail material?
And Omega Kids was the lowest selling book in Age of Revelation . I guess people DO hate Quentin.
I don’t think Expatriate necessarily did that much worse than the others.
We only see the rankings, who knows how much difference there is in unit sales between 87nd and 103rd? Probably not that much.
X-Vengers also had more variant covers than Expatriate.
The Undeadpool and Cloak or Dagger books that came out on the last day as well ranked much higher, but Deadpool still sells books and Cloak or Dagger is popular due to Rivals now.
Cloak or Dagger also got multiple so-called “gooner” variants to pull them in, seems to be effective, as Black Cat 3 and The Mortal Thor 3 also came out on the same day and Black Cat outranked Thor by a lot, due to the variants I’d assume.
Black Cat outranked Thor because this new Mortal Thor direction is proving to be unpopular. Which is a problem, because the new directions for Doctor Strange, Wanda (Sorcerer Supreme) and Hela (Queen in Black) alll depend on Asgard being cut off from Earth. So who knows what Marvel will do if they have to end that story early.
@Michael: I’d like to believe Ewing got another book, because Brevoort believes in giving another chance to a good book that doesn’t sell as well as it should.
I mean, it has to happen sometimes, right?
That’s too bad. I picked up Omega Kids after I read the review here, and I liked it. Maybe I dig a pink beard more than other people.
@Krzysiek Ceran
Didn’t it happen to *Al* Ewing?
His early book had a following, but did not sell well at all as I recall, but could remember wrong.
I remember reading that Brevoort did like Exceptional and didn’t want to cancel it. He said as an editor, he could make some changes to see if the book would sell better, which seemed to amount to revamping it for the AoR, then giving Eve L. Ewing another shot with a different X-book (which will probably play off of concepts from Exceptional). Still though, the fact that Expatriate continues to sell poorly (even if it is not that far off from X-Vengers, that’s still one of the lower selling titles) seems to augur badly.
I’m not sure how I feel about that as far as Breevort’s professionalism. I enjoy the idea that a corporation would give a book more leeway due to it receiving critical, rather than financial, acclaim. However, there are many comics which get fan acclaim that does not reflect sales figures, and those titles still get axed quickly. Meanwhile, the Magik series managed to outperform expectations, and Brevoort seems to be taking actions that seem to point towards an attempt at sabotaging that title: Ashley Allan doesn’t get anything for AoR, the series is being relaunched with Colossus. It looks as if Brevoort is letting his personal tastes dictate his decisions.
I can understand giving Immortal Thor another chance with a relaunch, as it was meant to be a major story for the Asgardian characters. If Mortal Thor still fails, I suppose Marvel could go ahead with their other plans, then do a mini-series to wrap up Ewing’s plots. Either that, or they could allow Mortal Thor to continue with poor sales (after all, Phoenix got to limp along with abysmal sales due to Brevoort thinking it could piggyback off of Imperial, until Marvel’s plans for that event changed so that Phoenix no longer fit), but wrap up everything earlier than originally planned.
Honestly, is it any surprise that a limited time event that involves over a dozen series is flopping? It lacked sufficient build up and what build up there was wasn’t clear or told rather than shown.
If you want to figure out what’s going on, read the initial book and the very last book (with maybe the inevitable wrap up book) and save $200. As it is, characters are changed far beyond what you recognize them as and you know it’s going to be 99% undone, so why not wait it out?
Yes, I realize that the $2 cover price for comics back in the Age of Apocalypse is probably more in today’s money terms than current issues, but it’s probably better to wait out the entire event and get the inevitable trades of whatever series you liked. Or, if you’re a glutton for punishment, buy the special omnibus edition when it comes out along with all the behind the series interviews that claim to give away what Tom Breevort was thinking but are really just edited extracts from his blog.
Apologies if this sounds bitter. My feelings towards the event are more boredom and apathy than anger.