The X-Axis – 20 May 2026
X-MEN UNITED #3. (Annotations here.) Well, this isn’t working. There’s a whole load of problems here. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with retconning a mutant into Truth: Red, White and Blue – well, aside from the question of what mutants add to that story, I guess. I mean, it was about racism to start with, and making one of the victims randomly a mutant doesn’t actually add to that, and this doesn’t seem to be a story about intersectionality, and… actually, come to think of it, maybe it is just a dud idea even on that level. But it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the supposed premise of X-Men United, so at the very least, it’s a mystifying choice for issues #2-3. If this is meant to be a rotating-cast team-up book with guests from across the line, it doesn’t work on that level; this is a Captain America story with the mutants who accompany him playing a mostly generic role. The plot mechanics are mystifying, which is starting to feel like a recurring problem in Eve Ewing’s stories – the first chunk of the issue is taken up with the away team being split into different time periods. But Vernon Weaver seems to perceive it as all part of the same scene even though he sees them separately – why, if he’s in different time periods? – and in the end none of it seems to matter. It’s just something to spin the story out a bit before everyone sits down for a conversation. And that story seems to be trying to go for a resolution of Weaver forgiving himself for killing someone in self-defence during the Truth experiments, but for that story to work we need some idea of what he’s actually been doing for the last eighty years – he can’t have spend the whole time moping in the family home, can he? Weaver’s emotional swings are so rapid that it’s hard to get any grip on him as a character, and… yeah, sorry, it’s a train wreck.
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #5. (Annotations here.) There are a few odd calls in this book – I don’t know why Sinister is suddenly so worried about a villain who isn’t even on the planet and shows no signs of coming back, and a relationship between Warren and Tabitha seems a little questionable given that she started as one of the X-Factor students. But I quite like Tim Seeley’s attempt to redefine how the Archangel split personality thing works, presenting it as something akin to a possession, with Warren tending to take a back seat. There’s some thought here going into how the characters work. What’s more, it’s burning through its first storyline at a refreshing pace – the format of this book is that Cable thinks he’s identified the four mutants who’ll kill Kamala Khan in the future, and wants to rule them out in turn, but we’ve got through that entire exercise and it’s only issue #5. It is, admittedly, a rather vibes-based approach to detective work, but I’ll let that slide. I’m not sure how much this book is really about anything, and the art feels a bit rushed in the first half – Sinister’s headquarters is a very bland room – but it’s got energy and it has some interesting takes on its cast.
ROGUE #5. By Erica Schultz, Luigi Zagaria, Espen Grudetjern & Ariana Maher. Well, that’s a weird way to end a miniseries. This story is about Rogue regaining memories of having mutilated a man when she was in the Brotherhood (because she’d absorbed Sabretooth and lost control), finding out what happened, and then trying to apologise. Not surprisingly, he’s scared of her, tells her to get lost, and rejects any suggestion of help from the mutant community, despite being a mutant himself. And that’s it. It’s a story where the moral is that she doesn’t get to resolve the issue and she just has to live with it. That’s not a bad idea in theory, and Zagaria draws the exchange between the two quite well, but I don’t think we needed five issues to get to this point – evidently this is the current standard length for a Marvel miniseries, but strip out the busy work to pad it out, and this could almost have been an annual.
MOONSTAR #3. By Ashley Allen, Edoardo Audino, Arhtur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Certainly the best looking X-book of the week. Much of it is Dani trapped inside the magic sword from the previous issue and encountering Hildr through a series of different locations, but they do feel different, and Audino gives Hildr a nicely smug confidence. There’s a neat idea, too, of Dani’s instinct being to summon up a version of her team to fight with her, and getting a lecture about how she can’t stand alone. This is meant to be her solo book, after all, but she’s a perennial team player. It all seems to be building to a fairly standard “do I save my family or save the world” dilemma, but it’s very well done.
WOLVERINE: WEAPONS OF ARMAGEDDON #4. By Chip Zdarsky, Luca Maresca, Bryan Valenza & Joe Sabino. Final issue of the miniseries, which turns out to be a relatively normal Wolverine story that doubles as a lead-in to Armageddon. But for the most part you could take the story without those elements; it’s another story where Wolverine encounters a private super soldier programme, and helps someone escape from it, basically. Where it connects to Armageddon is in having an Origin Box running around as a macguffin, and in having David Colton from Zdarsky’s Captain America run as a major character. That sets him up for a role in the crossover, but his back story as a rejected super soldier means that he fits perfectly happily in a Wolverine story anyway. The use of Nuke is maybe the most interesting thing about this series; that character is normally presented as a one-note lunatic, but in this version he’s more of a big lug who comes across as almost sympathetic, unappreciated by his employers, who seem to want to replace him with cyborg clones. I’m not entirely convinced by that direction for him – his one-dimensionality is kind of the point of him, but maybe there’s a story to be done about what happens if he figures out he’s being used. Maresca’s art certainly sells him as a real character, and delivers on the action scenes. A pretty good miniseries, and surprisingly viable as a standalone book.
Re: Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon 4:
I’m not sure if Wolverine’s decision to save Colton’s life by exposing him to the Origin Box even though Colton didn’t want him to was out of character. There’s been several stories in the past where Wolverine expressed the belief that honoring someone’s choice is more important than saving their life. But I guess that the empowered Colton will be appearing in Armageddon and we’ll see if he gives Wolverine reason to regret his decision.
Despite everything Nuke’s done, I kind of like the way the story ended with him free of the government and seemingly at peace.
Re: Moonstar 3- I guess that the use of the Tablet of Death and Entropy here is fair. The Kingpin wanted to use it to resurrect Richard and Vanessa but he was told it could only be used once. Allen seems to be interpreting that as it could only be used once to resurrect someone but Kyron could still use it after that for his world-destroying ritual. All that the Kingpin cared about was that he had to choose between resurrecting Richard or Vanessa since he had no clue Kyron existed.
Re: Rogue 5:
It’s ridiculous that Rogue asked Remy to use the Left Eye of Agomotto to find John Stelton. He is/was the head of the Thieves’ Guild- he should have ways of finding someone without using a dangerous magical object. And to make matters worse the same week in X-Men United, the X-Men felt the need to use time travel to locate Verno. Have none of the X-Men heard of Google?
I have mixed feelings about the ending of this issue. Usually when a villain reforms or a hero atones for his sins, they wind up Easily Forgiven. Or there’s some way to undo the harm they caused. It was a nice twist that that didn’t happen this time. Rogue just has to live with the harm she caused. I also like the point that no one HAS to forgive anyone for a grievous wrong like losing a limb. Too often in comics people are expected to forgive anyone who is truly sorry. So that we have a situation where, for example, everyone who knew Sharon Friedlander is required to forgive Frenzy for killing her.
What made Rogue interesting originally was that she WASN’T forgiven by Carol and Ali and the harm she did Carol could not be undone. But slowly that was done away with. Ali forgave Rogue when they rescued Maddie from the Marauders. As for Carol, any trauma she suffered from Rogue’s attack seems to have faded- she’s not getting drunk and knocking planes out of the sky any more. And she seems to have forgiven Rogue. So in a sense this is an attempt to get Rogue back to her roots.
This isn’t the first time an X-character has crippled someone and the person involved has refused help. Cable crippled Hammer and in issue 4 of Cable’s first series, by Fabian Nicieza, Hammer refused to accept a cybernetic chip that would help him walk again because he felt that being a mixture of man and machine is what contributed to Cable’s violent tendencies. What happened after this was that the writers stopped mentioning Hammer. Nicieza used him in Cable and Deadppol but no one else did. I expect the same thing will happen with John Stelton.
The Steltons are bitter but at least Schultz didn’t try to turn them into villains so we don’t care about Rogue did. Writers seem to think that turning a character into a villain is a good way to make readers forget about wrongs the hero did to them. The most obvious examples are Madelyne Pryor and Victor Strange. But Bendis turned that innocent woman Carol arrested in Civil War II into a terrorist. And Jeph Loeb did this to a lesser extent to GW Bridge, portraying his obsession with Cable is irrational. (Bridge was friends with Cable until Cable’s obsession with revenge on Stryfe got his friend Hammer crippled.)
I’m not sure I buy that Rogue didn’t find out about this until now. The flashback takes place after the Brotherhood was captured in Uncanny X-Men 142 but before Mystique and Rogue try to free them in Avengers Annual 10. This was when Quasar was in charge of security at Project Pegasus. The staff at Project Pegasus seemed to be aware that Rogue did this to Stelton. I realize that Roge and Quasar have never had a meaningful scene together- they were among dozens of heroes in Infinity War but they didn’t really meet one-on-one.Still, it’s odd Wendell never mentioned this.
Rogue suggested that Steltoon see Elixir to get healed. Elixir is in the White Hot Room now. I guess that Rogue isn’t thinking straight.
One negative consequence of Krakoa- if a writer wants to do a story about a mutant who’s been crippled for years, like this one, they have to establish that the mutant refused to be healed on Krakoa.
The August solicits are out. In X-Men Outback 3, a sorcerer from the Quantum Realm arrives to stamp out the Rasputin bloodline. I’m not like that this miniseries is being used to retcon the Quantum Realm into the X-Men’s past in the name of synergy with the MCU. Also, the new love interest that Orlando has created for Wanda in the Sorcerer Supreme series is the Sorcerer Supreme of the Quantum Realm. I’m wondering if Orlando is going to use this issue to retcon him into Marvel history. Maybe he’s even going to use this issue to set up developments in his own book- Maddie meets the Sorcerer Supreme of the Quantum Realm and later on she has to work with him and Wanda in Sorcerer Supreme.
The most interesting X-Men news for me this week is oddly enough about an indie comic. Apparently Robert Kirkman and Joe Casey are co-writing a new Skybound comic called TERMINAL that they have explicitly said is meant to emulate the style of the X-franchise in the Nineties. They even have Andy Kubert kicking things off. Paul and Al should review the first issue on House to Astonish when it comes out in September.
On the downside, the announcement has forced me to face the fact that I’m now old enough for creators to be doing pastiche of the comics I grew up reading. So I think I will be spending this weekend in existential crisis.
Very strange to me that Rogue #5 and X-Men United #3 both have pretty much the same plot. Hero wants to find mutant victim from past.Hero wants to make amends. Hero locates victim via arcane means that don’t particularly make sense but whatever. Mutant victim pointedly told by female character that he doesn’t have to forgive hero. The End.
Rogue #5 sets up Gambit’s dragon wings. Perhaps it was meant to come out before UXM#28?
Wolverine was good. I’m not sure about giving Colton the power up – he was interesting as a super-grunt – but we’ll see. At this point I’m giving Zdarsky a lot of credit. His Daredevil was easily one of the best books Marvel was publishing at the time (though I didn’t enjoy the mystic ninja stuff in the second half) and even his lesser books are at least good.
…the worst thing he’s written might be his Batman run? And even that wasn’t disastrous, just uninteresting.
Adam: On the downside, the announcement has forced me to face the fact that I’m now old enough for creators to be doing pastiche of the comics I grew up reading. So I think I will be spending this weekend in existential crisis.
First time?
Bleeding Cool’s Weekly Bestseller List is out. No X-Books made the top 11. (Um…11?)
It looks like X-Men United’s sales are fading. It was outsold by books like Punisher and Fantastic Four. It’s no surprise considering how badly X-Men United has been written. I wonder if it will be canceled by issue 10 or continue on as a “third flagship” that everyone knows isn’t a flagship.
(As an aside, Venom 258, the much-hyped conversation between Peter and MJ by Al Ewing, didn’t make the list.I think that’s more evidence that Ewing isn’t a “hot” writer any more- any non-Absolute book he’s on has relatively poor sales unless it’s a crossover or something similar.)
The ending of the Rogue mini just made me feel bad. Going through all that, retconning a truly horrific incident into Rogue’s past, and leaving it on a “you can never be forgiven for this” note.
Introducing a mutant whose entire power is the plot-convenient “I make you experience the worst thing you ever did, which by the way is what you did to me” just to kickstart this story, while never explaining where they were for all of that time after manifesting… (especially post-Decimation. Was he yet another uncatalogued one of the 198? Did his powers come much later, during one of the other reimpowering incidents? Obviously, he wasn’t a Krakoa resident…)
The whole Constrictor thing. It still bugs me.
I expect this story is setting up whatshisname to come back someday, though probably not as a vengeance-obsessed villain. His power would be really useful in some sort of therapeutic/corrective behaviorial capacity, if he could force offenders to confront their past behavior though.
@The Other Michael- Between John Stelton and Oscar Ellis (who supposedly tormented his sister every day of her life with his powers until she met Scurvy) I think we’re going to have to assume that the 198 list was VERY incomplete and there were far more than 198 mutants left with their powers.
I am not surprised that Venom 258 did not sell particularly well.
I am surprised that of all places for an important and much expected conversation between Peter and MJ to happen they chose freaking Venom. Most people will assume that this is an Eddie Brock book, after all.
Yes, Peter and MJ are talking on the cover, but there is only so much that people will be willing to assume before trying their luck, and we just came from a very unnecessary crossover with Amazing Spider-Man.
If people are surprised that a conversation between Peter and Mary Jane takes place in the book where she is the title
character, Marvel is in even bigger trouble than I thought.
@Michael
@TheOtherMichael
According to Henry Peter Gyrich in Avengers: The Inititiave issue 5 , the actual number of powered X-gene mutants still remaining on Earth(616) was actually 300 , 198 was just the number officially catalogued by SHIELD (and thus the US Federal Government)
I suppose, to be fair, Scurvy *did* establish that the Avian telepaths (or Birdbrains, as I call them) successfully hid themselves from Xavier and Cerebro, it stands to reason that Oscar wouldn’t have been on any official lists.
The Rogue mini absolutely baffled me: I was already prepared for there to be no deeper revelation about the “central mystery” (it was clear what happened the moment Sabretooth appeared on the page), but I would’ve thought Schultz could at least provide some closure between Rogue and her mothers, or give us a more detailed POV on her position as a leader, *something* to warrant this mini in the first place. Instead we get a weak, pale imitation of Uncanny #171 stretched out across five isuses for no damn reason at all. Whatever.
The main problem with the Moonstar cliffhanger is that there’s no dilemma, because her parents are dead either way. Even if Dani stops them from being killed specifically, they die when everyone gets killed.
(The other problem is inherent with solo “team player” stories – if it’s this serious, Dani should be calling everyone she knows for help, including the sorceress/teleporter on an A-list team, and getting their help. But she can’t ’cause Solo Book. At least the Cyclops mini, for all its various plot problems, made sure to make him unable to call the X-Men. [Well, notwithstanding the wife who can hear his psychic calls at galactic distances away… Man, Phoenux is such a bad idea as a status quo, but I digress…])
@SanityOrMadness- I think that Dani wants to find some way to make sure her parents are alive when the world is saved.
And, yeah- I’ve heard some people wonder why there’s never been an adult Cyclops ongoing series. The answer is that most of Scott’s memorable solo stories require some way to keep him separate from the team. In Uncanny 144, he goes with Lee Forester to visit her father and they’re attacked by D’Spayre. In Uncanny 176, the plane he and Maddie are flying in crashes. in X-Facotr 13-14, Scott’s wife and child disappear in Alaska while Warren is injured in New York, forcing him to go looking for them alone. These contrivances work for an arc but not for an ongoing series.
@Diana- At least in Uncanny 171, Rogue CHOSE to attack Carol, so the other characters’ hated of her is earned. In this case, Rogue was just trying to find a way to break Destiny out of jail without anyone getting hurt, Sabretooth showed up and went on a rampage, Rogue absorbed Sabretooth and Sabretooth’s personality overwhelmed her and she badly injured someone. You could say that this would never have happened if she hadn’t broken into Project Pegasus but all that would have probably changed is that Sabretooth would have injured Stetson instead of Rogue.
Michael> I think that Dani wants to find some way to make sure her parents are alive when the world is saved.
I mean, yeah, but the framing of the cliffhanger is that she doesn’t have that option. That if she saves her parents, the world ends. But since her parents are part of the “everyone dies” either way, they’re Kobayashi Maru’d.
Now. yes, it’s entirely possible she’ll cheat code a way to save them AND the world. But presenting the cliffhanger as “A or B” when A is a subset of B doesn’t work. At least scale the potential immediate mass murder down to a city while her parents are being kept elsewhere or something.