X-MEN #29. (Annotations here.) Part 4 of “Danger Room”, and naturally it’s the turning point where the X-Men start fighting back. On the whole, I prefer this book when it’s doing shorter stories – this arc has most in common with the 3K attack on the Factory in issues #14-18, which also felt like it dragged on a bit. Five issues for what in plot terms is an extended fight seems a bit much. But there’s still plenty to like in here – Jed MacKay picks up the Psylocke/Greycrow relationship well, and Netho Diaz does a lovely splash page of the laser being bent around the Marauder. Quentin and Idie screwing up the X-Men’s relationship with the town because they can’t resist walking into a trap even when it’s been pointed out to them is a nice bit too. But I’m not sure Beyond themselves are interesting enough to merit five issues of this.

STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #4. (Annotations here.) Well, this is as berserk as ever. But for the life of me I don’t see how this is going to get to any sort of satisfying resolution with one issue to go. The actual invasion of Earth hasn’t happened yet, and much of the issue is devoted to Bogey negotiating with Hela to even try to be in a position to make the invasion happen. I’m also completely lost about who she’s supposed to be working for – wasn’t the plot that she was trying to free Susanoo? Isn’t he a thunder god? So why is she now saying that her people are older than the gods? Meanwhile, Storm seems to have been dragged away from the main storyline entirely by a weird meta subplot – or to be fair, perhaps that’s the point, and the whole idea is to find a solution that bodyswerves the apparent plot even happening. But… is that interesting? Is it a Storm story, really? Ostensibly the big event in this issue is meant to be the appearance of Storm’s daughter, but as it turns out to be just another alternate reality character who barely interacts with Storm before sending her home, I’m genuinely baffled as to why Ayodele thinks this is a big deal – at least in the story as published, as opposed to however many issues this was meant to take in his original pitch. It does have some very good art, and it would be no bad thing if more Marvel books swung for the fences like this, but it’s ultimately a bit of a mess.

CYCLOPS #4. By Alex Paknadel, Rogê Antônio, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Joe Caramagna. Well, it’s the issue where Cyclops gets to take out the Reavers with his eyes shut, in preparation for fighting Pierce himself next issue. If I’m being honest, this is also a bit longer than it needs to be – five issues seems to be Marvel’s current standard for a miniseries, and it feels like four issues would have done the job perfectly well. But no matter, because you buy this book to see Cyclops do his hyper-competent thing, and that’s absolutely what you get. By modern standards, it’s using the space to decompress a bit. There is a nice idea in here that Cyclops is maybe a little bit more like Wolverine than he likes to let on, and that he takes as much pleasure in decimating the bad guys in his own ways, even if he rationalises it to himself as professional pride in a necessary job. The Reavers get a bit of personality as bozos who are regretting their life choices, and Pierce treating them as the latest in an endless stream of cannon fodder works for me – sure, he wasn’t so cavalier about most of the Australian Reavers, but they were basically competent professionals in a way that these freaks certainly aren’t. And there was a hint of this sort of thing even there. Five issues still feels a bit long to me, but it’ll read well as a collection.

JUBILEE: DEADLY REUNION #1. By Gene Luen Yang, Michael YG, Yen Nitro & Joe Caramagna. This is a Marvel Voices one-shot, but it’s Jubilee, so it counts as an X-book for our purposes. Still, it’s also meant to be commemorating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, so naturally it has to lean into that. That means we get a story about Jubilee’s family. Her immediate family were killed off before she even debuted, but there’s always the cyborg aunt that Robert Kirkman created for her solo series. I never much liked that character – I don’t think it helps Jubilee’s character to make her part of a wider family of oddballs and for most purposes it was a wise choice to sweep Aunt Hope under the carpet. But given the remit it makes sense to use her here, and besides, Yang’s main focus is on a rather more measured character, Jubilee’s cousin Eason, who’s an agent of the Hong Kong authorities. Hope is missing, so we get a pretty solid odd-couple story of Jubilee being dragged into helping this guy, and feeling uncomfortable about the trail leading her into Chinese places that she no longer feels connected to, even though she feels she should. Michael YG’s art is rather pretty – his Jubilee seems a bit tall to me, but he draws good kids, which a lot of artists seem to struggle with. One of the better Marvel Voices books I’ve seen in a while – it would have made a perfectly respectable Uncanny annual.