X-MEN #35. (Annotations here.) Billed as a prelude to DNX, this is mostly a character-based issue with the Beast and Magik, though it does end by leading into the story proper. The heart of it is to show us the conversation between the Beast and the Chairman that took place after the end of issue #25, which apparently still qualifies as recent. I guess logically it does, since “Danger Room” takes about a day, but it doesn’t feel like it, which is another reason I’m not so wild about the four-parters in this series. But this sort of issue leans into the book’s strengths. The broad idea that the Beast sees the Chairman as his dark side is hardly surprising – it’s the entire concept of having a rebooted version of the Beast in the first place – but it’s elevated by giving Illyana’s perspective on the idea, and by the hints of the Chairman himself having a slightly ambivalent attitude towards his “good” self. I’m not especially interested in the X-virus itself, but I am keen on seeing how this character arc plays out.

X-MEN UNITED #6. (Annotations here.) This seems to be cancelled with issue #10, and it’s now acquired a co-writer. To some extent, that does seem to have punched up its superhero aspects, which feel a bit tighter than they did before. There’s at least an attempt here to draw out an idea that the Shadow King is taking advantage of doubts and mutual distrust, so the X-Men need to beat him by drawing together (though that would have worked better as a justification for setting up the school in the first place, not as something that happens after the fact). It’s still a book with a lot of problems, though. Shuhvahrak is miles out of character from the way she was written in Uncanny X-Men, to the point where I was on my third reading of the book before it even occurred to me that she wasn’t meant to be an obvious illusion. The whole idea of all mutants having versions of their dark sides in the Penumbra is just bizarre, and falls apart if you think about it too hard – it’s there to justify a fight against dark doppelgangers, but makes no sense as an actual feature of the Penumbra. The book still can’t figure out the basic ground rules about whether people travel physically to Graymatter Lane or not. Nobody really feels in character, and the Exceptional X-Men cast have almost all been lost in the shuffle. I liked that book a lot. I’m just looking forward to this one being over with, I’m afraid.

WOLVERINE #25. (Annotations here.) The final part of the Mor storyline results in Wolverine getting his healing factor back, so he’s now a guy with one set of adamantium claws and one set of bone claws. Um… okay? Is this interesting? Why? At this point I’m just very underwhelmed by Saladin Ahmed’s Wolverine run. It’s not outright bad, it’s fine on a page by page level, he has the character’s voice down, the art is fine, but it doesn’t seem to add up to anything or to be going anywhere. It’s simply there. “What if he had one set of metal claws and one set of bone claws” doesn’t feel like it’s symbolising something or going anywhere, it just has a sense of “Well, I guess we haven’t done exactly this yet.” Competent and serviceable is fine when there are some stronger ideas in the mix, and this series has been hit and miss in that regard. The Adamantine didn’t work. The New Morlocks and the Wendigo mostly did. This storyline has a fairly generic scientist making a fairly generic sacrifice after turning himself into a revival of justly forgotten 90s villain Post; it’s not a particularly strong idea and Ahmed doesn’t sell me on it.

GENERATION X-23 #7. (Annotations here.) This is more like it, though. It does feel a little early to be going back to Facility-23, but then something tells me that this book isn’t making it past issue #10, and in that case we might as well get on with it and at least complete the arc. Logan seems to have been thrown into this issue as a random guest star, though I’m not sure how much he really helps any book these days. It’s not the nineties any more. But at least he fits in the story, and the three remaining Generated are starting to grow into themselves as characters. Surprise!’s inability to read the room is  a nice touch in a bubbly extrovert, and having Gabby serve both as comic relief and as her mentor figure works surprisingly well. Post-Krakoa, Nanny and the Orphan-Maker are a welcome return, though I have a degree of nervousness that everyone involved has missed the fact that there was a whole miniseries about how they got out of the Pit and what happened afterwards. But Jody Houser and Marco Renna are really selling me on the new characters, and I do hope a home can be found for them in whatever’s coming up next year.