The X-Axis – 22 July 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #32. (Annotations here.) This is a weird story, or rather, a weird issue. The basic premise of the arc seems to be: B-movie aliens that we can’t communicate with come to Earth to wipe out the Brood, but may be even more of a menace than the Brood are. Nothing wrong with that as a concept, but the wrap-up feels really abrupt. The alien invasion winds up as a backdrop to the Outliers sort of proving themselves, and doesn’t really get an ending beyond the aliens being driven off. The fact that there’s a Brood nest under the school feels like something that people ought to be a bit more agitated about, even if they don’t seem to have been killing anyone lately – at the very least, shouldn’t people be looking into it further? Why did the Brood have the same guns as the aliens?
But it’s the ending with the Outliers being anointed as the new New Mutants that reads oddly to me. Partly, it doesn’t quite work to have people graduating into being the New Mutants, who were the trainee team to start with. But mostly, the Outliers’ reaction to Rogue and Gambit going off on a solo mission to get help with Gambit’s demonic possession problem feels way over the top – they’re reacting as if they’re leaving for good, which doesn’t make sense in the context of what the characters know. It’s an issue that honestly left me wondering if Gail Simone was shifting gear to start wrapping up storylines before the inevitable post-DNX line relaunch, and if the scene is going to wind up being more final than it currently appears. Kind of odd.
WOLVERINE #24. (Annotations here.) Business as usual for this book, really. At this point, it’s hard to keep finding things to say about it. It’s perfectly competent, it’s got the character’s voice down, it’s entirely serviceable, but there isn’t much to get your teeth into. We seem to be introducing a new Post, which is a really odd decision. Not only does the character have nothing much to do with Wolverine, there was never much to him in the first place beyond a vaguely memorable character design and a degree of initial heat that came from being a herald of Onslaught before everyone had figured out that the X-office were making up that storyline as they went along. So I’m puzzled about what it was about the original Post that Saladin Ahmed finds interesting enough to revisit – he didn’t inspire much more than dutiful hench-use from writers even at the time. It’s an adequate issue, but the sort of story idea you could have run in an annual.
X-MEN: THE HELLFIRE MURDER. (Annotations here.) The post-Krakoa X-books have kept the annual Hellfire Gala one-shot going, but they haven’t really managed to get it to work. Part of the problem, I think, is that the original Hellfire Gala stories felt like a big deal because they served as turning points for the line, or at least for mutantkind. But the post-Krakoa line is made up of disparate books doing disparate things. I have no problem with that – it’s a perfectly sensible thing to do in order to create distance from Krakoa, quite aside from the fact that it fits better with Tom Brevoort’s approach to other lines he’s edited in the past. But it means there isn’t really a sense of the line having an overall direction in the first place, and that in turn means that it can’t really have turning points. Look at last year’s Hellfire Vigil – what actually came of that? A bunch of characters met up and got together, and 3K went public as a sort of rival leaders for the mutant community at the end… but that hasn’t really come to anything, has it? It’s a theme that’s sort of come up with the Frank Bohannon stuff but that’s about it.
This issue also winds up feeling a bit inconsequential, and also as if some heavy straining is being done to shoehorn a Hellfire Gala into the post-Krakoan era at all. The big events here are the death of Sebastian Shaw, which is a bit of a waste of a character who worked well on the Quiet Council, but not something I can get too worked up about; and the debut of Mystique’s new Hellfire Brotherhood, which I guess might come to something. To be fair, part of the point of the story is that it doesn’t actually matter who killed Shaw because pretty much everyone is glad to see the back of him, and as a story in its own right, that works quite well. Wolverine investigating Shaw’s murder and concluding that he doesn’t really care is a nice angle. But it compounds the book’s problems in terms of feeling like it matters.
It does have some nice character designs, and the masquerade ball is a clever way of justifying a different take on the gala costumes than just another bunch of experimental ballgowns. Cyclops and Psylocke’s scene is interesting. The art is pretty strong for the most part, and there are some decent character beats. It just doesn’t feel terribly important.
MOONSTAR #5. By Ashley Allen, Edoardo Audino, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. The final issue of the miniseries, and in effect the final issue of Allen’s Magik run, from which this spun out. It’s pretty much the plot that you’d expect – Dani is faced with a seemingly impossible decision about how to save all the souls trapped within the magic sword, and comes up with a way around it that saves the day. But Allen makes it work as a vehicle for Dani to give us a pep talk about life and hope, and she did actually have me thinking that the obviously sacrificial romantic interest was going to bite the dust. Once again, there’s a bit of nuance in the characters that adds something to a story that, in purely mechanical terms, seems straightforward. Audino has done some nice cartooning on this series, and the burst of rainbow colour at the finale is really well carried off to stand out from the rest of the story. I’m not sure this mini has been quite up there with the best Magik issues, but it’s still good.
GAMBIT: WANTED #1. By Chris Claremont, Robert Gill, Bryan Valenza & Ariana Maher. It’s another Claremont continuity implant mini, this time following up on his 2022 Gambit miniseries. In a story set in 1990 continuity, it’s a slightly irksome start to open with references to O*N*E, who didn’t debut until after M-Day in 2004 – but that’s a background detail, so I won’t hold it against the story. So let’s set that aside… And in fact, the actual hook here seems pretty reasonable for a continuity implant. We’re at the point where Gambit has just followed Storm to New York. In his absence, someone else tries to fill the void and screws up. What does Gambit do when he finds out? Fair enough, his decision to basically start a new life with the X-Men is something you can argue that the original stories gloss over, and you can make a case for building an untold story around that. The story hangs together nicely enough, and Robert Gill does some great work on art – there’s a lot of scene-setting detail in here, some good design on the minor characters, and he does a lovely manic Bullseye. Chris Claremont’s continuity implant minis can be very erratic, but this is pretty good.
Re: Gambit: Wanted 1- One other minor continuity problem. The note on the recap page says that this takes place before X-Men 270, the start of the X-Tinction Agenda. And Storm appears to be still a child after being captured by Nanny- she regained her adulthood during the X-Ticntion Agenda. But Wolverine shows up for two panels with Storm’s group of X-Men- he didn’t meet up with them until the X-Tinction Agenda.
Bleeding Cool’s Bestseller List is out, Gambit Wanted 1 came in 5th. Uncanny X-Men 32 came in 7th. The Hellfire Murder came in 10th. Wolverine 24 and Moonstar 5 didn’t make the top 10.
Gambit Wanted did pretty well for a continuity implant mini- it even beat Amazing Spdier-Man. These kinds of minis tend to drop after the first issue, though.
The October X-Solicitations are out.
The biggest surprise is that there’s no issues of Wolverine solicited for October. However, the Wolverine:Paradise limited series by Dan Panosian is solicited. My guess is that Ahmed’s Wolverine series was cancelled with issue 28 and Wolverine: Paradise is meant to fill the gap until Marvel can find a new regular writer for Wolverine.
One thing to note- there are two issues of Adjectiveless and only one issue of Uncanny. It looks like Marvel is abandoning its “both Uncanny and Adjectiveless ship twice a month” policy and returning to its previous “Uncanny and Adjecitvelss alternate shipping twice a month” policy.
Wither will be one of the villains in X-Men United 8.
My sneaking suspicion on the Outliers-New Mutants thing is that there’s a book with these goobers in the title role planned for 2027, and “Outliers” was deemed not marketable enough, didn’t clear a TM search or something. So Simone was tasked with giving them a reused name they can slap on the book
Brood still reproduce by laying eggs in people, right? Even if they’re nice brood, that would be a problem for me as a local home-owner.
I can see a new mutants run like the 2000 new mutants but with the gen x kids as the trainers M and Jubilee are already there and gen x does not sound as young as new mutants I say some turning 50 soon.
Simone has set up the outsiders to succeed better the ewing or McKay have their new comers though at the expense of the main team.
The biggest news from San Diego Comic-Com is that a new X-Men book, will be launching in December called Maximum X-Men. It will be written by Christopher Yost. The idea is that as the Avengers are no longer capable of defending the Earth after the events of Avengers Armageddon, Storm assembles a team of X-Men to fill the void.
The team will consist of Storm, Wolverine, Colossus, Bishop, Iceman, Betsy, Firestar and Justice.
So apparently Wolverine will be appearing in both Avengers and Maximum X-Men. Wolverine being on multiple teams at once is what ruined his popularity after 2004 and he’s far less popular today than he was in 2004. In fairness, Wolverine has a reason to try his utmost to make up for the harm Colton has done to the Avengers- all that Colton has done and will do is Wolverine’s fault. But still… I wonder if Wolverine will still be in Uncanny or he’s leaving that book.
I wonder if Bobby’s being a part of this book means that X-Men United will be cancelled. The market probably can’t handle FOUR books called X-Men at this point. I guess the Exceptional kids are headed for limbo.
It looks like Marvel has finally found the solution for its problem of not wanting Storm to appear on an X-team without being its leader. Arguably, Brevoort should have made Storm the leader of a third X-team from the beginning but I guess that Brevoort felt, probably accurately. that Exceptional X-Men would never sell if it was called New Mutants or Generation X. I assume Storm will be depicted as less powerful than she was in Ayodele’s run.
I wonder if Firestar and Justice will be getting back together or if Angelica will still be dating Blue Bolt.
This is the first time that Betsy, Colossus and Bishop have been on a core X-Men team in quite some time.
The biggest news related to Maximum X-Men is that Betsy will be Psylocke again. I assume that the Captain Britain identity will be going back to Brian, although Betsy is holding what looks like a magical sword on the cover of Maximum X-Men 1. I wonder what will happen to Kwannon- will she and Betsy share the Psylocke name, or will Kwannon be going back to Revanche or will Kwannon be written out. It should be noted Yoshida-san was Kwannon’s biggest backer, to distract from his own misdeeds, and now that he’s no longer Editor-In-Chief I wonder will happen to Kwannon.
I imagine that they are going to keep Kwannon as Psylocke, and Betsy will have to get a new codename. Will Betsy’s relationship with Rachel carry over from Thorne’s X-Force be a thing, or will they scrap that? I seriously doubt that many of Ayodele’s dangling plot lines will carry over into this new book.
I feel like it would be more appropriate for Betsy to revert to ‘Psylocke’, and for Kwannon to get the new code name, as part of her journey to reclaiming her own independent identity. Hell, she can just go by ‘Kwannon’.
Michael> The biggest surprise is that there’s no issues of Wolverine solicited for October. However, the Wolverine:Paradise limited series by Dan Panosian is solicited. My guess is that Ahmed’s Wolverine series was cancelled with issue 28 and Wolverine: Paradise is meant to fill the gap until Marvel can find a new regular writer for Wolverine.
Coming January 2027: Wolverine #1, by Saladin Ahmed and TBA!
Alastair> I can see a new mutants run like the 2000 new mutants but with the gen x kids as the trainers M and Jubilee are already there and gen x does not sound as young as new mutants I say some turning 50 soon.
They actually did a Gen X book “like the 2000 new mutants” a decade back, not long before Krakoa, with Jubilee and a couple of others as trainers.
Michael> It should be noted Yoshida-san was Kwannon’s biggest backer, to distract from his own misdeeds, and now that he’s no longer Editor-In-Chief I wonder will happen to Kwannon.
He’s still EiC for a bit – apparently, there’s a handover period where CBC and Wacker are co-EiCs. Plus, MXM will definitely have been developed before Wacker was appointed.
sagatwarrior> I imagine that they are going to keep Kwannon as Psylocke, and Betsy will have to get a new codename.
No, it’s apparently confirmed Betsy will be “Psylocke” in MXM, whatever happens to Kwannon.
@Micheal “One thing to note- there are two issues of Adjectiveless and only one issue of Uncanny. It looks like Marvel is abandoning its “both Uncanny and Adjectiveless ship twice a month” policy and returning to its previous “Uncanny and Adjecitvelss alternate shipping twice a month” policy.”
I recall that the switch to a biweekly schedule for Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, and Wolverine had been announced as a seasonal measure for the summer months (as in the 1990s), not as a permanent change.
Speaking of codenames, I’ve never been able to make sense of Post. Is it post as in “after”? Post as in position? Post as in “dumb as a”? Does he deliver mail? Or, in the true spirit of villainy, does he just post a lot on social media? We may never know for certain.
I seem to recall news of Captain Britain and a 50th anniversary special.
As a point of Gen X pride, I just want to clarify that my generation started in 1965, so some of us have already turned 60. In comparison, my brother is an “old Millennial,” and he’ll be 42 soon.
—
The Outliers are not the New Mutants in the same way that Spider-Man and Wolverine are not Avengers. Or more aptly, in the way that Wolverine and the Hulk aren’t members of the Fantastic Four. They might sub in occasionally, but we all know who the actual holders of that title really are.
—
The roster for Maximum X-Men is so boring. It’s basically the Gold Team from 1991 plus some Avengers C-listers. Maybe that scratches a nostalgia itch for some people, but it’s giving “remix of a remix” for me.
Maybe some of the New Mutants besides Cannonball and Magik could show up on an X-Men team now that they need a new home.
> The roster for Maximum X-Men is so boring. It’s basically the Gold Team from 1991 plus some Avengers C-listers. Maybe that scratches a nostalgia itch for some people, but it’s giving “remix of a remix” for me.
Wolverine and Psylocke were on the BLUE team :p (Gold had Archangel & Jean)
Tim XP-Post was a confusing codename. He said he was the harbinger of Onslaught, but then his name was “Post”, which means to come after something. Seems pretty contradictory. The mail definition makes the most sense, as he was delivering a message from Onslaught.
Thomas Williams-There is a Captain Britain 50th Anniversary special scheduled, but it will feature both Brian and Betsy. There will be stories by Claremont, Alan Davis, and Dan Abnett.
There are multiple Wolverines, multiple Spider-Mans, multiple Hulks, et al … why not just have multiple Psylockes as well?
It seems like the Kwannon version has been more successful in the last few years, with the mini-series and a role on the Alaskan team. Are they really going to get rid of her to make Betsy the main Psylocke again? On the face it seems pretty regressive, but who knows.
Having Betsy take up the Captain Britain name was a great idea in theory, since she had previously held that title before joining the X-Men. I couldn’t get into Howard’s books (was she the only one who wrote Captain Britain Betsy?), but the concept at least was solid.
It seems like a real missed opportunity that they never had Kwannon and Betsy interact in a meaningful way after splitting them definitely into separate characters. I wonder if anyone ever pitched a ‘Psylocks’ miniseries that would have paired them up on some odd-couple adventure that would have helped to define them as separate characters and tidying up the horribly convoluted continuity that has plagued them.
To me, the MXM roster looks like half the outback team (Storm, Colossus, Wolverine, Psylocke), crossed with half the 1991 gold team (Storm, Colossus, Ice Man, Bishop).
I honestly still think it was a mistake to make Betsy Captain Britain. If she’s back in her original body, the last thing she needed was a story where she took someone else’s identity, even if it’s one she used in the past. Either she should have been Captain Avalon or Marvel should have gone in an entirely new direction. Lean into her past as a model and ninja and team her up with, say, the Wasp and, I don’t know, Jackpot or someone for a Marvel version of Charlie’s Angels.
Physically, the Kwannon version is who most of the fans recognize as Psylocke today. Psylocke is the ninja in the skimpy purple thong. She was the one that was famous when all those youngsters watching the ‘90s cartoon decided to buy the comics. Th fact that she’s not Betsy doesn’t matter.
Maybe Marvel put out the seemingly pointless Outback era retro mini to remind fans of Betsy’s original Psylocke form before Jim Lee redesigned her into her more popular appearance.
@taibak oh they could put her on the relaunch of Marvel Divas!
I always figured he was “Post” as in “on post,” acting as a low-level guard testing Onslaught’s enemies. He was the first marker on the Road to Onslaught.
Betsy is becoming like Monica Rambeau constantly losing code names to other people
@Tim XP: In a confronation with Cable, Post said that just as Cable choose his codename to signify his link to the past and future, Post said he choose his to be the post that Onslaught would build his new world on.
@Thom H- Colossus, Betsy and Bishop haven’t been on an X-Men team for ages, and their fans have been complaining.
@Chris V- I think that the X-Men Outback might be intended to tie in with one of Orlando’s Wanda series in the future. The third issue features a character from the Microverse who appeared earlier in Orlando’s issues.
The problem with turning Betsy into Captain Britain and Kwannon into Psylocke was the result was that in practice, Kwannon got a spot on one of the X-Men teams, while Betsy was shunted off to X-Force and then limbo.
“In a confrontation with Cable, Post said that just as Cable choose his codename to signify his link to the past and future, Post said he choose his to be the post that Onslaught would build his new world on.”
This demonstrates just how ridiculous so many comic book names are on the surface. I want someone to ask Cable if he’s upgraded to USB-C. Post is just…
I’ve been thinking I’d dearly love a New Mutants reunion that was a Charlie’s Angels riff. Roberto financially backing a team of Dani, Amara and Rahne as his field agents, with Xuan as logistics, support, and management. With Sam and Illyana as on-call specialists. If we could fix Doug, he and Warlock would also make excellent support assets. Warlock could double as transportation if Illyana wasn’t available for teleportation.
To be really cheeky, they could “borrow” or lease the Heroes for Hire brand…
A world with character names like Bloodwraith, Khaos, and Annex ridiculous? I can’t believe that.
That era was full of weird names that made no sense except to vaguely sound cool. Phalanx. Cadre Alliance, Riders of the Dark.
@Omar: My hat’s off to you. I don’t think you’re right about the creator’s intention, but that’s the best explanation for Post’s name that I’ve ever heard.
MAXIMUM X-MEN is a pitch that I’ve always thought could be fun. The heroes are gone, so now the public needs the people it’s been giving grief for years. You could say it’s already well-explored territory due to Remender’s team and even the government version of X-Factor, but those were always treated as PR moves to curry favor with a skeptical or hostile public. The public didn’t have a sense of itself as in need of the mutants (as when the original Thunderbolts came on the scene). I don’t think I’ve seen that dynamic, unless I’m forgetting something.
“That era was full of weird names that made no sense except to vaguely sound cool. Phalanx. Cadre Alliance, Riders of the Dark.”
A phalanx is a solid formation of soldiers, so it was a reasonable enough name for a hive mind.
“@Thom H- Colossus, Betsy and Bishop haven’t been on an X-Men team for ages, and their fans have been complaining.”
In that case, I’m going to complain until MXM gets canceled. Shouldn’t take too long. 😉
Unless word of mouth is positive, I’ll probably skip MXM. I haven’t been impressed by Yost’s comic book writing, not that’s I’ve read a ton of it. The roster and premise aren’t terribly interesting, either. I usually like X-Men more than Avengers or JLA because they’re outsiders. I’m not interested in seeing them try to assimilate, unless the series is being written by a more interesting writer.
“The heroes are gone, so now the public needs the people it’s been giving grief for years“
So kind of Heroes Reborn 2.0?
@wwk5d: Not quite, because instead of running to flashy new heroes that remind them of the heroes they lost (the original Thunderbolts), they’ve only got the known folk they’ve been demonizing. As I’d like to see it, it would really emphasize the whole “Protecting A World That Hates and Fears Them” aspect from the X-Men’s POV, while also exploring how the public deals with the dissonance. But probably that’s not how it’ll be at all, so whatever.
Oh: I only realized today that Kirkman and Casey’s 90s X-Men pastiche TERMINAL came out this past week and grabbed the digital issue. It’s interesting to see creators try to recreate the feel of those comics decades later. I feel like maybe it’s more 90s in general than 90s-X-Men specifically, so far, but I’ve only read #1 (apparently issues #2, #7, and #10 are actually out there due to a weird blind bag gimmick). Anyway, I’ll give it a little rope.
@Adam: I read Terminal 1. It made almost no impression on me. Nice Kubert art, but the characters were either vague or annoying and the set-up wasn’t all that interesting.
Come to think of it, that’s exactly my experience reading ‘90s X-Men. Um, good job?
What an absolutely horrid name for an X-Men title. It’s th-the-the MAXMEN!!!
Mentions of a Brotherhood series in the Hellfire Rebought review had me thinking about how underexplored some combinations of characters or even specific thematic clusters still remain.
Give us a Brotherhood, with a predictably miserable collective demise! More Hellions! Give us Morlocks, for heaven’s sake.
Anything but Ma-ma-ma-MAXING OUT! in Blue and Gold spandex. I’m begging…
I am shocked, utterly shocked, that Kelsey Leigh hasn’t been included in the Captain Britain 50th anniversary special. Shocked.
[…] O’Brien hascapsule reviewsof Marvel Comics’Uncanny X-Men #32, Wolverine #24, X-Men: The Hellfire Murder, Moonstar […]
I actually am shocked that Cobweb is on the cover. As I understand it, Marvel doesn’t own the rights to her.
> MOONSTAR #5. By Ashley Allen, Edoardo Audino, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. The final issue of the miniseries, and in effect the final issue of Allen’s Magik run, from which this spun out.
But wait – there’s more! https://bleedingcool.com/comics/magik-teams-up-with-madelyne-pryor-juggernaut-in-x-orcists/