The X-Axis – 1 July 2026
X-MEN UNITED #5. (Annotations here.) I have no idea how much weight you can really put on Amazon listing this as issue #5 of 10, but I can’t say it would surprise me, because the book isn’t working at all. The art’s decent enough in this issue – probably as good as we’ve had it so far – but the fundamental concept of Graymatter Lane just doesn’t work, and I’m not entirely convinced that even the people making the comic understand it. It’s taken five issues to clarify that this is in fact just a mental projection and that everyone’s body is meant to be asleep at home – but if that’s the case, how does any of this stuff about Rift teleporting people direct to places on Earth work? This isn’t nitpicking, this is really basic, rudimentary stuff that feels like nobody has thought it through properly. And now we’re doing a psychic projection inside a psychic projection? I can live with things like the new characters being given inexplicable seniority over the long-time students – it doesn’t make any logical sense but that’s just the nature of rotating casts, and at least there’s some sort of gesture towards a reason for Axo to have a role here. And sure, we’ve defined Ransom and Melée as potential alpha figures, so let them take control. Fine.
But the premise of this book requires us to either buy into Graymatter Lane as a cool idea, or accept its USP as the team-up book where characters from different parts of the franchise get to interact. Graymatter Lane is a confusing mess, so that leads the interaction angle. That could work, in an era where the X-books are individually siloed, but they aren’t really interacting in a convincing way. The likes of Cyclops feel off, and the whole thing feels very inconsequential. If the basic format of this book really boils down to “a bunch of random characters go on a mission that doesn’t matter” then that’s Secret Defenders and the X-books doesn’t need one of those.
MOONSTAR #4. By Ashley Allen, Edoardo Audino, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Just the one X-book this week, but fortunately I completely missed Moonstar #4 when it came out last week. This is the penultimate chapter – and the Moonstar mini has thus slightly outlived Allen’s parent Magik series, even counting Magik & Colossus as a continuation of that. On a plot level it’s all fairly standard stuff: the villain wants Dani to choose between rescuing her parents and saving the world, and she decides to go for saving the world. Where Ashley Allen adds something to that is with the idea that Dani may be justifying this choice to herself by rationalising that it’s all going to be fine. And there’s the whole odd couple romance angle too. It’s a great looking book – Audino does some lovely zombie animals, and the flashback to Dani as a child makes her look wonderfully uptight. All good stuff, and I’m glad to see Allen is going to be doing more work for the X-books after this.
How unusual. Only the one X-book came out this week, yet by sheer happenstance, almost every comic I planned on buying in July came out this first week.
“If the basic format of this book really boils down to “a bunch of random characters go on a mission that doesn’t matter” then that’s Secret Defenders and the X-books doesn’t need one of those.”
Actually, now I totally want an X-Force volume that’s just someone (Forge?) pulling together random pairings/teamups of mutants for 1-2 issue missions tailored to their powers (or circuits), skills, or backgrounds!
“Actually, now I totally want an X-Force volume that’s just someone (Forge?) pulling together random pairings/teamups of mutants for 1-2 issue missions tailored to their powers (or circuits), skills, or backgrounds!”
And yet… we were SO CLOSE with Geoffrey Thorne’s approach. So very close.
Cable or Bishop would also be good for recruiting random mutants for specific missions. Especially if you added in the time travel aspect to either a) recruit from different time periods or b) fix broken moments in the timestream and…
I miss classic Exiles.
In non-X-books this week, I was really impressed with the twist in this week’s Mortal Thor. I have to give Ewing credit- nobody guessed the twist as to Sigurd’s and “Blake”‘s true identities, yet if you read the previous issues all the clues were there. Even the Thor-Shazam infinity Comic foreshadowed the twist.
“Secret Mutant Defenders” sounds _exactly_ what X-Force ought to have been at some point, most of all the current time.
X-Men 97 is killing it so far this season. The remit seems to be “Let’s take all these 90s stories and make them make sense and be good.” It’s really the main thing scratching my X-Men itch at the moment.
I have to say I’m far more interested in reading an oral history of what happened behind the scenes during Brevoort’s tenure at the X-office than I am in any of the books they’re putting out, but your recaps are always appreciated, Paul.
I didn’t realise the new season of X-Men ’97 was even out. Seeing X-Force* vs X-Factor made my inner teenager very happy.
*not the X-Force team that was actually around in the 90s, but stll.
As long as it’s a light week and we’re talking about other stuff:
Hayden Sherman on the new Legion of Super-Heroes!
I know the book will never last, but it’s going to look so good while it does.
NEW LEGION DRAWN BY HAYDEN SHERMAN!!!! Best news I’ve heard today!
Written by Joshua Williamson… ok? I like his current run on Iron Man. He just seems like the safest choice possible. There are a few writers who would get more of a reaction out of me, but I’ll take it.
I’m just happy we’re getting new Legion at all, I was beginning to think they’d be confined to guest appearances from now on and maybe the occasional mini-series.
Not that I expect the new book to be a huge hit. I think DC might be releasing too many comics soon, and readers committed to some titles won’t shell out for new ones. I’m definitely buying the new Legion book, but it might be at the cost of something else…
In other news, Absolute Martian Manhunter 12 wrapped the series up, and I thought Camp & Rodriguez nailed the ending. I’ll miss that book, it was one of the best comics out there.
I have been looking forward to the new Legion of Super-Heroes title since it was announced last year.
I am hoping the title lasts at least 20 issues (3 to 4 trades worth of stories. DC appears to be supporting the title by putting it in the hands of two of its biggest creators currently, Williamson and Sherman.
DC Editorial has traditionally been one of the LoSH’s biggest enemies going back to post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. Some Legion fans have never forgiven DC for the chaos that was unleashed when Byrne relaunched Superman, and removed Clark’s escapades as Superboy from continuity. The Pocket Universe Superboy was a short-term continuity patch that resulted on further continuity “fixes” like Valor being the Legion’s inspiration.
Back to Williamson and Sherman’s version of LoSH. Hopefully Williamson learned from the mistakes of Bendis’ era. One of the things Williamson has discussed in podcast interviews and social media posts is that he grew up loving the Reboot/Post-Zero Hour version. I believe this is significant because that era produced a lot of new characters (Kid Quantum II, Kinetix, and Gear) that have never returned in recent iterations. Gates and XS were the only Reboot characters that transitioned to the Retroboot era, and that was due to Geoff Johns.
Definitely purchasing the book even if I need to cut something. Who needs to purchase multiple Batman titles anyway.
Bleeding Cool’s Weekly Bestseller List is out. X-Men United 5came in 6th. beating Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Absolute Green Lantern. Wow! That’s pretty impressive. Maybe it won’t be cancelled at 10.
Deadpool didn’t make the top 10.
@Mo Walker: getting new readers to Legion is one of the franchise’s biggest challenges. Starting with a writer whose work is liked, if not terribly ambitious or unique, makes sense. Sherman is one of the best artists DC could put on the book. I hope fans that discovered their work on Absolute Wonder Woman follow them to Legion (Sherman uses they/them pronouns, incidentally).
The old barriers to entry- too many characters, dumb names, retro feel, tangled continuity, future settings- may still make it hard for any Legion series to gain traction. Williamson & Sherman may start out with a limited roster, but it’s hard not to make any new Legion number 1 avoid being a super-busy info dump. Hopefully, they can make it an entertaining info dump.
@Mo Walker- Supposedly it wasn’t only Byrne who favored getting rid of Superboy. Wolfma, Miller, Gerber and the editors all suggested at various points getting rid of Superboy, Supergirl and the Phantom Zone villains. Of course, Byrne didn’t do himself any favors when he claimed that he suggested that the problems with the Legion’s continuity could be fixed by saying that Superboy and Supergirl were myths in the Legion’s time. Mon-El’s backstory involves being named by Superboy and accidentally poisoned by Superboy- obviously there’s no way he could be named and accidentally poisoned by a myth.
I heard a rumor that Levitz proposed fixing the Superboy problem by suggesting that it’s a 30th century custom that everyone under 30 is called boy. No idea if it’s true. That would have been a bit goofy but preferable to the Pocket Universe.
One of the reasons why Byrne wanted to do away with Superboy was because he wanted to write Superman just as he was learning to be a hero. But the editors decided at a late stage that Superman had to be around for years, so there were massive time skips in Man of Steel. This was probably because of other post-Crisis books. Post-Crisis, the Flash book wanted Wally West as the new Flash, the New Teen Titans wanted Dick as Nighthawk and Green Lantern wanted Hal as one of ssveral Green Lanterns stationed on Earth, including John Stewart, Guy and Hal’s friend and Guy’s lover Katma-Tui. All this suggested Bruce, Barry and Hal had been superheroes for years and the Superman editors probably didn’t want Superman to have debuted years after Batman, Flash and Green Lantern, (Perez went ahead with depicting Diana as a newcomer to man’s world when he wrote Wonder Woman, and aside from the continuity problems with Donna, this also raised the question of “Why is Diana considered the premier female hero is she debuted after Raven, Starfire and Gypsy?”)
But the result is that Byrne’s Superman looks weird, because plenty of “firsts” are happening years after Superman debuted. Superman is learning he’s an alien for the first time and having it revealed to the world. Superman is encountering Kryptonite for the first time. After his fight with Bloodsport, Superman says this is the first time he has experienced significant blood loss. Lana and Lois are meeting for the first time. Superman is encountering most of his rogues gallery for the first time- aside from one encounter with Bizarro, the only one of his rogues he’s been fighting for years is Luthor. It makes you wonder what Superman was doing all those years.
That should be “Dick as Nightwing”. Sorry.
And “John’s lover Katma-Tui”. Again,sorry.
Slavishly synching LoSH continuity to the main DC universe is a mistake, IMO, especially in the ’80s when the Legion was functionally its own franchise. Thankfully, DC is a little more forgiving about that kind of thing these days.
The biggest mistake Bendis made was beginning his run with a 30+-member team — gorgeously redesigned by Ryan Sook, no less — and then entirely ignoring 80% of them. It seems like Williamson and Sherman are avoiding that issue by starting with a smaller core team.
I do hope they expand the roster over time because I love a big Legion (it’s right there in the name), but you’ve got to ease people into the concept after all these false starts and gaps in publishing.
The pocket universe fix, while not perfect, was decent enough to keep the Legion going, imo. Yeah, it didn’t address certain things, like Supergirl’s membership, or the times the Legion met other DC character and teams (like their team-up with the JLA and JSA), etc, but things were ok.
It was once Vol 4/5 Years Later when things really go wrong, once the Superman office at the time insisted/decreed that the LSH could not use ANYTHING related to Superman, which included Superboy and the pocket universe. Which is why they had to scramble and substitute Mon-El for Superboy as the Legion’s inspiration. Which is what really screwed over the Legion.
“the New Teen Titans wanted Dick as Nightwing”
He had already adopted the Nightwing identity before Crisis and the Superman reboot.
@wwk5d- Sorry, I should have worded that more clearly. What I meant was that the Titans wanted to keep Dick as Nightwing, not revert him back to Robin. If Dick was Nightwing, then that meant that Bruce had presumably been Batman for years. since Dick didn’t graduate from Robin to Neighing in a week. Similar, if Wally was Flash and not Kid Flash, Barry had to have been the Flash for years. The Titans, Flash and Green Lantern’s post-Crisis status quo all required that Bruce, Barry and Hal had been heroes for years.
@Thom H- The problem with large rosters most books is that writers have trouble with a large roster without ignoring some of them.
Dick being Nightwing had nothing to do with how long Bruce was a hero. The issue with that was Dick took inspiration and based the Nightwing name and costume on an identity Superman used for adventures in the bottle city of Kandor. Those adventures were wiped out from history post-Crisis.
It does have to do with how long Bruce was Batman. If Superman’s career was only starting immediately after Crisis, and we accepted that roughly corresponded with the start of the age of superheroes in the DCU, then Batman: Year One must be almost contemporary with Byrne’s Man of Steel. Yet, we have Dick going around as Nightwing while Batman has a new Robin. So, yeah, unless Bruce trained Dick for a week, he decided to go off as his own superhero named Nightwing, and Bruce quickly picked up a replacement Robin, there has to be a lapse of time (a few years) where Batman was an active superhero while there was no Superman.
Michael conjectures (which seems accurate) that DC editorial ended up not liking the idea that there were multiple DCU superheroes operating for years before Superman even made his debut.
The origin of Dick’s Nightwing identity isn’t a major deal. Nightwing sounds like a name that a former partner of The Batman would create for himself, and he could have just designed the costume himself. There’s no reason to overthink all the continuity lapses.
Some of the issues were more problematic. Superman goes from almost the original DC superhero to one of the newest DC superheroes. That’s a bit more problematic.
@Michael: Of course, but there are ways around that. The Levitz model of writing LoSH, for example, was to spotlight a small group while other characters showed up for subplots, meetings, big fights, etc., then switch to a new small group for a while.
He had the benefit of years of backstory and established characters, though. Bendis and Sook redesigned the entire team (making many of the established characters unrecognizable), added a bunch of new members with absolutely no fanfare, and then focused on a small group or two.
I’m a fan of big casts generally, the Legion specifically, *and* in media res storytelling, but Bendis’ take was too much even for me. I had no idea who half the characters were, what their powers were, and honestly why they were even there. Did we need a Monster Boy when we already had a Chameleon Boy? How do White Witch and Dr. Fate not overlap powersets? Do any of these characters have individual personalities? Who’s that purple woman with the hula hoop? Who knows? Who cares? It was just chaos.
What I’m hoping will happen with the Williamson/Sherman reboot is that they’ll lean on some established knowledge — the founding members and basic premise don’t need a lot of explaining — and then grow the cast organically over time. If the book lasts long enough then they can back-burner Lightning Lad, for example, and highlight the new Dawnstar or whoever.
I guess my point is that there’s a balance you can achieve between characters with established personalities and team size. Levitz expertly juggled his giant cast for years, Bendis has never been good at ensembles, and I don’t know enough about Williamson’s writing to say, but I’ve got my fingers crossed.
Honestly, this is a good conversation to be having here since Eve Ewing seems to be trying to maintain the same balance in X-Men United. Too bad the setting doesn’t make sense and she started with a Captain America story for some reason.
Others have already covered why the Bendis version of Legion simply did not work, and I agree. I’ll also add, it was too connected to the 20th Century–stories about Aquaman’s trident, bringing in legacy versions of 20th Century heroes when for the most part the Legion created original characters, involving Damien Wayne, whatever was going on with Rose/Thorn…
I liked how the Reboot Legion (the Wait/McCraw/Immomen version) handled the growth of the team gradually over the first year or so, and gave us time to (re)meet the characters. After the way the previous Legion, FYL and Zero Hour and all ended, it was refreshing to get back to young and energetic.
I also enjoyed Waid’s next version, the Threeboot.
I just hope that this next iteration manages to hit the sweet spot of recognizable without slavish dedication, reinvention without radical deviation, an sizable cast without being unwieldy, and a future that doesn’t feel bleak. Oh, and something which stands on its own without being weighed down by whatever DC does in the modern period.
I can dream.
@Chris V
DC was very inconsistent with it’s post-Crisis plans and reboots. Keeping many characters as having pre-existed before the Crisis while others only debuted after Crisis (like Wonder Woman, to say nothing of the new Hawkman while there was an already pre-existing Hawkman) led to a lot of continuity headaches.
@Thom H.
Yeah Levit did a great job juggling the various Legion cast members for the most part. I also liked how he gave us the occasional “Spotlight on…” issue every once in a while as well.
Michael> I heard a rumor that Levitz proposed fixing the Superboy problem by suggesting that it’s a 30th century custom that everyone under 30 is called boy. No idea if it’s true. That would have been a bit goofy but preferable to the Pocket Universe.
I think that was actually because, by Levitz’s run, the Legion themselves were *well* out of teenagerhood, and yet were still using the Boy/Girl/Lad/Lass names; rather than anything Superboy-specific.
wwk5d> DC was very inconsistent with it’s post-Crisis plans and reboots. Keeping many characters as having pre-existed before the Crisis while others only debuted after Crisis (like Wonder Woman, to say nothing of the new Hawkman while there was an already pre-existing Hawkman) led to a lot of continuity headaches.
How the Hawkman mess specifically happened was quite simple – Hawkworld was originally just a new origin for the existing Katar Hol, like Batman: Year One or Emerald Dawn. The mess came about because it sold well enough they wanted to *directly* follow up on it, which is what caused the continuity snarls since it was never intended to remove Katar from JLA/etc history (and some of the worst snarls came because they patched in JSA Carter for most of it, but the JSA were sent into literal limbo shortly after Crisis, so stuff like the “pre-Crisis” Katar showing up in JLI #10, in late 1987, needed further explanation).
Remember, this mess was all *well* after Crisis. The Hawkworld miniseries was in late 1989, and the ongoing which actually caused the mess started in mid-1990!
“and some of the worst snarls came because they patched in JSA Carter for most of it, but the JSA were sent into literal limbo shortly after Crisis, so stuff like the “pre-Crisis” Katar showing up in JLI #10, in late 1987, needed further explanation”
Yeah, Ostrander explained that Katar away as a Thanagarian spy.
The other problem with subbing in the JSA Hawks in JLA history is that originally the JLA’s teleportation technology was Thanagarian technology they got from the Hawks. And the JLA used their teleportation technology on many occasions post-Crisis. So where did the JLA get their teleportation technology from? it couldn’t be Kryptonian technology because Byrne established that Clark had no idea he was Kryptonian until long after the Satellite Era ended. And it couldn’t be Martian technology because JM DeMatteis retconned that J’onn had no access to Martian technology after he arrived on Earth until the JLI period. So Ostrander wrote another story establishing that it WAS Martian technology.
Any writer can retcon anything in super-hero comics. Who named Mon-El? Some guy. Where did the JLA get transporter technology? Superman saved Planet Something and the grateful aliens gifted him a teleporter or two. Who was the Legion’s inspiration? The super-heroes of the 20th/21st Century as a whole, or the teen heroes like the Titans, or whatever else the writer thinks of.
Fans might not like or accept these changes, and they may or may not be well-executed. I don’t get too hung up on continuity snarls, mostly- the Fel Andar Hawkman retcon didn’t bother me much because I liked the Ostrander/ Truman/ Nolan Hawkworld series.
Also, I’ve never liked the idea that Clark Kent was Superboy before he became Superman. I’m more comfortable with the concept behind the first few seasons of the Smallville show, that Clark learned to use his powers in secret before donning a costume in Metropolis. The execution of the show was inconsistent at best, but the concept was solid. Clark-as-Superboy strains my suspension of disbelief too far.
Mike-That’s what I was thinking about Hawkworld as well. It was the best writing on that character. That’s what I enjoyed about post-Crisis DC, as someone who hadn’t followed the DCU pre-Crisis, it gave the reader great stories that didn’t worry about how slavish every story was to making each tidbit of continuity work. A lot of it didn’t need to be worried about, at all, for the reasons Mike has given.
Later, I did realize that the post-Crisis timeline didn’t exactly work, and I found that more problematic than needing to work in certain ret-cons to make other continuity work. I thought that Batman:Year One, Man of Steel, and the Wonder Woman revamp were happening relatively simultaneously (I wasn’t sure about Green Lantern, as that book turned into GLC instead of a relaunch for Hal Jordan), but later figured out that it was impossible that Superman had been an active superhero as long as Batman in the new Crisis continuity.
What they really should have done with Superman in the post-Crisis relaunch after they decided he couldn’t debut in the present day (like they did with WW) is use one of his *three* ongoings (probably Adventures of…) as a flashback book filling out the years during the Man of Steel timejumps.
Michael> it couldn’t be Kryptonian technology because Byrne established that Clark had no idea he was Kryptonian until long after the Satellite Era ended.
Also, Superman wasn’t a member of the JL until the post-Giffen/DeMatteis JLA.
Mike Loughlin> Also, I’ve never liked the idea that Clark Kent was Superboy before he became Superman. I’m more comfortable with the concept behind the first few seasons of the Smallville show, that Clark learned to use his powers in secret before donning a costume in Metropolis. The execution of the show was inconsistent at best, but the concept was solid. Clark-as-Superboy strains my suspension of disbelief too far.
I think the only people who really like it are hardcore Silver Age fanboys like Mark Waid and Geoff Johns. Hence why Johns reestablished it (twice!) and Waid is currently writing Action Comics as a flashback Superboy book.
“I think the only people who really like it are hardcore Silver Age fanboys like Mark Waid and Geoff Johns.”
I’ve heard it argued that Superman works better without Clark-as-Superboy but the Legion works much worse without Clark-as-Superboy.
@Michael: “I’ve heard it argued that Superman works better without Clark-as-Superboy but the Legion works much worse without Clark-as-Superboy.”
From a continuity standpoint, that makes sense. At one point (post-Crisis), that was definitely the case for Legion. Still, Superboy wasn’t used extensively in the great Giffen/Levitz/et al run, wasn’t in 5YL, wasn’t in the reboot or Threeboot eras. Superboy comics set up the series, gave it a reason for existing, and set up some of the character dynamics. He could have disappeared from the book by the time of the Shooter/Swan run and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference, story wise.
Giffen and the Bierbaums came up with an elegant solution to the whole Superboy/Time Trapper/pocket universe headache. They gave us a fantastic couple of issues explaining how Mon-El became the new inspiration for the Legion, Glorith became the new time manipulating villain, and that we shouldn’t worry about it anymore.
I thought was a very effective (and moving) story. And given that the Legionnaires were all approaching Super*man*’s age at that time, there was no point in bringing any version of Superboy into Legion continuity ever again.
But that was what…5 different Legions ago now? And 3 different line-wide continuities? I think we finally have both a Legion and a Superman-adventuring-as-a-boy again, so maybe Williamson can glue the pieces back together.
Although, I can’t express how much I agree with comments above that the Legion should stay away from 21st century continuity as much as possible. But that might be a moot opinion because isn’t there already a Robin on the cover of the new LoSH #1?
Has nobody tried having the Legion be a bunch of teenagers inspired by Superman, then travelling back in time to meet the teenage Clark and bringing him to the future as Superboy?
Or is that a predestination paradox that nobody wants to deal with?
The Legion of Super Heroes cartoon had a young Superman as a member. But the second season mostly replaced him with Superman X, an edgy-looking clone from the 41st century.
I think this was during the period of time when Superboy was tangled up in legal cases.
The funniest thing imaginable would be if the Legion came back to current DC continuity to meet the Superboy who inspired them as per the fragmented and incomplete historical records and found…
Superboy-Prime
Jon Kent
Kon-El
“What do you MEAN there’s like three Superboys? Also Superman, Supergirl, Superwoman, Steel, two kids, Power Girl, a cat, a dog, a monkey…”
And somehow, they go home inspired by someone else instead. Like Jaime Reyes.