X-Men United #7
X-MEN UNITED #7
“Shadow Play, part 3”
Writers: Eve L Ewing & Evan Narcisse
Penciller: Ruairí Coleman
Inkers: Ruairí Coleman & Victor Olazaba
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
COVER: Wolverine fighting Blade.
It’s been seven weeks since the last issue came out, but that is indeed how it was solicited. For what it’s worth, the original solicitation for this issue had Eve Ewing as the sole writer, and Tiago Palma (who drew issue #6) as the artist, but describe the same plot.
PAGES 1-3. Wolverine and Blade squabble.
Wither. He and Blade showed up at the end of the previous issue, with Wither asking for help and claiming that it was an emergency. This story is his first significant appearance in the X-books since he died in X-Force #25 in 2010, although it was established that he had been resurrected on Krakoa. He was last seen in Love Unlimited Infinity Comic #43-44, a Gwenpool story, where he seemed to have gained control of his powers. The story is a bit hazy about where that stands – he claims at one point that he was unwilling to go to the Storm Sanctuary because his powers were so dangerous, but later on he tells Bloodline that what’s happened to him has “messed with his control”, which implies that he was in control.
Psylocke claims that his mind is “different” and “darker”, though it’s not obvious how she’d know, given that this is the Kwannon version of Psylocke. She might have run into him on Krakoa somewhere, but this feels more like a point that Emma should be making. Prodigy, the character who probably knows Wither best, says that he “look[s] off”. We’ll find out why in the next scene.
Blade. Wolverine is wildly suspicious of Blade, though in fairness that’s prompted partly by being told that something has changed about Wither’s mind. More generally, Wolverine remembers Blade serving as the main villain of the 2024 event Blood Hunt, when he was indeed possessed by Varnae. Wolverine never crossed paths with Blade during that event (his tie-in mini was off on the fringes of the storyline), but presumably he’s heard about it on the superhero grapevine.
Graymatter Lane. The basic nature of Graymatter Lane remains confused – Blade seems fairly clear that they have “psychic constructs” rather than “physical bodies” while in the school, but that still doesn’t explain how characters are able to physically exit the school in different locations from where they came in.
Emma says that “[a]s a matter of policy, Graymatter Lane is open to all mutants”, although she expects advance notice. In issue #1, she described it as “a mind palace accessible from anywhere across the globe to those mutants who possess the telepathic key”, but she may simply mean that any mutant will be issued with the key on request. Presumably Wither received some form of invitation, even if he hasn’t taken it up before, as otherwise he wouldn’t know that Graymatter Lane was there in the first place.
PAGES 4-6. Flashback: Wither is bitten by vampires.
Wither. He’s returned to his home town of Atlanta (which was established in his first appearance, New Mutants vol 2 #3). He’s become an artist; there’s a basis for this in the early issues of New X-Men vol 2 in 2004, when he was making sculptures out of scrap.
Despite having a gallery show lined up, he’s living on the street – the gallery owner clearly isn’t aware of this. There’s an obvious problem here, which is that Atlanta has also been Storm’s main base for most of the post-Krakoan era. The dialogue acknowledges that he “heard Storm had some kind of sanctuary” – as a massive floating thing over the city, it would be hard to miss – but he says that he felt his powers were too dangerous to risk going there. Realistically, there must have been other X-related people he could have made contact with – he’s able to contact Emma in this story, after all – so more likely we’re looking at him rationalising his reasons for not doing so.
Atlanta is also the home base for Bloodline, the daughter of Blade, a character who’s mostly appeared in the Avengers Academy Infinity Comic. Naturally, this means that there are plenty of vampires around in Atlanta for her to fight. Some of them attack Wither and turn him. His powers apparently do work on vampires at least to some extent (as we see in two scenes time), so presumably the idea is that he’s understandably reluctant to go straight to lethal force and gets bitten before he realises what’s going on.
Mattie, the gallery owner, and Keith, the security guard, are new characters.
PAGES 7-10. Flashback: Wither meets Bloodline.
As a vampire, Wither attempts to survive off roadkill and on any bodies he finds that have already been killed. He says that his powers tend to destroy the bodies before he can feed fully anyway. On the plus side, he can’t be staked because his body destroys the stake. He still has enough control to bring trees down as a distraction, and somehow he’s able to open a pit for Bloodline to fall into. Organic soil, is it?
PAGES 11-12. Flashback: Bloodline is abducted by vampires.
The vampires here seem to heal from his powers, at least if the effect stops before they actually turn to dust.
PAGES 13-16. Blade explains the mission.
Blade has been called in by Wither after his daughter’s abduction. He’s learned that Bloodline is in England and being held by a mutant with the ability to copy vampire powers. (In fact, we’ll see later that it’s someone with the general power to copy people in her vicinity – we’ll come back to her.) Wither seems to have persuaded him to contact the X-Men on the basis that a mutant is involved, but he doesn’t really care whether they want to help or not. Hence, when some of them seem more interested in the previous issue’s storyline, his immediate reaction is to turn and leave.
“It happens.” Jubilee is referencing the time she spent as a vampire between the opening arc of X-Men vol 3 (2010) and Generation X #86 (2018). Wow, that lasted a long time.
“An all-out assault on Graymatter Lane…” The storyline from issues #5-6 which Blade is interrupting. Prodigy is about to explain that the Shadow King is the suspect, and Emma steps in to shut him down, much as she did in the previous issue.
Prodigy rather bizarrely concludes that the physical abduction of Bloodline from Atlanta must be connected with the disappearance of multiple people from the psychic world of Graymatter Lane. This is the sort of link that only really makes sense if you also know that this is part 3 of the same storyline. He and Dani are both willing to go off on the side quest; Iceman evidently sees this as a distraction from the real plot.
PAGES 17-18. Nightcrawler and Magik teach a class.
The students in this class are:
- The first girl speaking, with the pointy ears, is Dryad.
- The girl in front of her with what look like dreadlocks is probably Loolo, given who was shown to be in the school in the previous issue.
- The guy with pointy ears sitting next to her is Wolf Cub.
- The unnamed girl with glasses speaking to Dryad is Flourish.
- The guy with short black hair in the front row of the class is probably Ben Liu.
- The girl with brown hair next to him could be anyone.
- In the bottom panel on page 17, the guy with black hair falling over his face is probably meant to be Deathdream.
- The guy next to him with visible red triangles on his face, I can’t place.
- The girl with large black wings next to him is Galura.
- In the first panel of page 18, Mal Chance and Scout are talking in the foreground.
- Behind them is Loa.
For some reason, Scout and Loa are the only two characters wearing their regular costumes instead of a school uniform.
Mal Chance is asking about the Shadow King after her encounter with him in issue #5, though she doesn’t make that clear.
Scout objects to being called “Gabrielle”, though it’s a little out of character for her to insist on being called by her codename, rather than just “Gabby’. She again references her storyline with the Shadow King in the Krakoa-era New Mutants book.
PAGES 19-20. Bloodline is held prisoner.
Justina. This is Justina LaGuardia, whose only previous appearance was in a back-up strip in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (2025) by Al Ewing and Sara Pichelli. She’s a mutant with the power to copy the abilities of those around her and be instantly better than them (not wholly dissimilar to Isca, another Al Ewing character). The earlier story is a flashback in which Professor X attempts to recruit her as one of the new X-Men for Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975). She rejects him, tells him that the X-Men are an indoctrinated terrorist cell, and calls him “another criminal creating chaos for decent people” – all of which is broadly consistent with the way she speaks about mutants here. Since her powers made her a better telepath than him, she also erased his memory of the encounter.
We don’t know at this stage what the range of her powers is, though it’d be a bit underwhelming if it turned out that Cyclops could safely zap her from across the road. Obviously, characters like this have been around since Mimic in the Silver Age, and the traditional ending is “ah, but there is only one of you and our teamwork makes the difference”.
Blade’s father. This is Lucas Cross, whose only previous appearances were in the 2006-7 Blade series by Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin. In the 1920s, he was a freedom fighter in pre-Doom Latveria. When he was arrested, his wife and unborn son, the future Blade, escape to London. While in jail, Cross agrees to be turned into a vampire in the hopes of surviving his terminal cancer and seeing his wife and son again. The main story of the Blade series involves Cross as an ends-justify-the-means villain who allies with Dracula to fulfil a prophecy which Cross believes will restore the souls to vampires, but which actually just reanimates lots of destroyed vampires. The story ends with Blade choosing not to destroy Cross so that he can live with the guilt of being responsible for this.
The X-office really has completely given up trying at this point, haven’t they? One of the main titles is spending an extended story-arc about exorcism. Another title that is supposed to be a main title currently has a story-arc revolving around Blade, and still doesn’t know how its supposed central conceit (Greymatter Lane) is supposed to function. A character who is set to star in six different comics soon has a solo book that no one cares about, yet it just plows on doing more of the same. It seems that a certain editor can only bother to care about one X-title (McKay’s), and that’s not exactly an excellent comic, more like an averagely decent one.
This has stopped being upsetting, disappointing, or annoying, now it’s just sad.
The writing was on the wall for all of that the moment Brevoort was announced as the new editor for the X-books. When the line is run by a lazy, self-indulgent shock jock who has no creative vision, and no sense of any writer’s compatibility with any given book, we end up pretty much here. Nothing to do but ride it out.
When this series is inevitably cancelled and relaunched, I wonder if they’ll take the opportunity to jettison the convoluted Graymatter Lane concept and rebrand it “X-Men Team-Up Featuring [Guest Star of the Month]”.
I have the feeling Maximum X-Men is meant to replace this as the third core book, but we’ll know more when the January solicits come out
Which means that (outside of a Deadpool short story in a random anthology) a guy who hasn’t written for comics in eleven years, and whose biggest claim to fame in comics is writing X-Force: Sex and Violence, will be one of the head writers for a franchise which was (operative word) the Marvel flagship. I give Maximum ten issues.
I don’t usually comment on books I haven’t read (referring to both this and Giant-Size, here), but I just had to say that Justina idea sounds like trash.
I’m okay with an esoteric power here and there, when something interesting can be done with it. I quite liked Isca, for example. But someone who can just mind-wipe Xavier has been living in anonymity since before the formation of the All-New, All-Different team? I don’t care how the characters reckon that in Marvel Time, it’s still a ludicrous amount of time to accept someone’s been hiding THAT much light under a bushel.
@Chris V: That’s a bit uncharitable – one would think Yost’s biggest claim to fame would be the creation of X-23, and the two minis (Innocence Lost and Target X) that properly introduced her into the Marvel Universe. It’s probably not a coincidence that of the three attempts to import her into the comics, Kyle and Yost’s was the one that stuck.
@Sean Whitmore: Isca was a deeply irritating character, but I’ll concede that Ewing (UK) at least had *some* idea of how to use “I Never Lose!!!” as an efficient plot beat, even if it was the sort of thing that could only work once. I don’t get the sense at all that Justina is going to lend herself to that kind of thought experiment, especially in Ewing (US)’s hands
Full confession: I forgot Yost and Kyle created X-23. I was thinking that Marjorie Liu created her. I never read any of the Yost/Kyle X-23 work, but I read the Liu series. My memories of Yost and Kyle are “grimdark” X-Force and New X-Men (which, honestly, I didn’t hate for what they were).
How the heck is this title such a MESS? The core premise is incoherent and inconsistent and no one has an idea of how exactly it works. The storylines have been all over the place, and half the time rely on bringing in non-X guest-stars. This many issues in, and I don’t think this even has an identity of which to speak.
The assignment should have been simple: a school-based title which is set in the astral plan, thus allowing for characters from all over the world to participate without being in the same physical location.
Instead we get psychic time travel with Captain America, RPG/LARPing, and vampires with Blade.
Wither as a vampire? Ugh.
I still miss the Avengers Academy digital title. It was weird, silly, earnest, queer and very very horny but that’s okay, it was fun. You know who should have been worried about Bloodline gone missing? Her (on-again, off-again?) Shela Sexton, totally a mutant.
I keep forgetting that Justina Laguardia exists.
Yes, it’s a mess. And Wither as a vampire is goofy. But using him to push Mirage and Prodigy to the front of the book is nice.
It’s not ‘NYX is an Academy X reunion book’ nice, but I’ll take what I can get.
Isca is Hickman’s character, or at least her creator.
“I keep forgetting that Justina Laguardia exists.”
She’s really into those mindwipes.
Life’s been hectic, so this is the only comic from this week’s stack I’ve gotten to. While it wasn’t awful, it wasn’t all that great. I wish I’d picked a different comic to start with.
Why are Nightcrawler & Magik teaching a class while the Shadow King has abducted so many adult mutants? Shouldn’t the school be in some sort of psychic lockdown? Why aren’t two of the most skilled telepaths on the staff (another version of one of whom used to keep the Shadow King contained) looking into this? Why aren’t they pulling Jean, Quentin, Betsy, and Rachel in to help?
I didn’t recognize Blade’s “father” because I haven’t kept up on Blade continuity. His literal father or the vampire who turned him? Unclear. It shouldn’t be that hard to write a caption that says his name and his role in Blade’s life.
Deacon Frost was the vampire that was supposed to have turned Blade into a dhampir. Cross is Blade’s blood father. It seems as if Blade’s back-story has been made complicated. That seems to be the legacy of continuously publishing these characters. Instead of making them more fully-rounded and interesting, creators just want to clutter up their back-story. Exhibit A: Wolverine.
So, now, not only does Blade have a back-story involving a vampire, which gives him his motivation (good), a later creator decided he should also have an actual father who was turned into a vampire. How many characters have a history involving any vampire? Yet, Blade has a vampire antagonist who was responsible for the death of his mother (Frost), and his actual father was also turned into a vampire.
@Chris V: thanks for the explanation. It would have been so easy to just put it on the page. If the last-page bad guy was a recognizable figure in the Marvel Universe, like Dr. Doom or Apocalypse, the audience probably doesn’t need the identification. Random Guy Who Has Been in, Like, 3 Comics is a different story.
Why give the kid who has death touch powers additional vampirism? Is the kid not cursed and/or lethal enough as it is? I didn’t like Exceptional X-Men, but it was way better than United on just about every level. I like giving titles a chance to grow and work out any kinks without the fear of cancellation, but this one needs a mercy bullet.
I’m on board for Yost and Maximum though. I really loved the Yost/Kyle New X-Men run and I thoroughly enjoyed their X-Force. Just this weekend I went back and read X-Men: World’s Apart by Yost, which was a pretty good Storm story during the Utopia era. He’s got a solid handle on the characters, and though some of his work was ‘meh’ (looking at his Amazing X-Men run), he’s certainly on par with Simone and MacKay.
There is a scene in Amazing X-Men that I love, maybe in the final arc? Juggernaut is fighting… The Living Pharaoh, maybe? Anyway, the X-Men just one after another decide ‘this is stupid, why are we getting involved’, sit on a hill, watch the fight and reminisce. It made me smile.
As Paul points out, the idea of “guy who can use your powers as well as/better than you” has been around since Silver Age Mimic. (It’s easy to forget since he’s been significantly nerfed and is just a pud now, but OG Mimic copied knowledge and physical traits as well as powers, so he instantly knew everything you did about how to properly use your powers.)
And yeah, sixty years on, it does feel like the solution to beating a villain like that has to be something other than “teamwork” to carry any weight, unless the title is shooting for an intentional throwback vibe.
Mimic, Super Skrull, Super Adaptoid, and I know there were others. It was a popular trope for Marvel in the 60s.
Right, but the Super Skrull and Super Adaptoid (and let’s throw in Amazo from DC) are big-time antagonists who’ve been used in healthy rotation ever since they were created.
I just don’t think it works to create a character that powerful and say they’ve been active since (Marvel Time equivalent of) the 70s. Not without a good explanation as to how/why they’ve gone unnoticed all that time.
@Sean Whitmore- I think the problem is that she met Professor X circa Giant Size X-Men 1, not that she’d been around since circa Giant Size X-Men 1. It would be one thing if she’d been in Zimbabwe, fighting Captain Zimbabwe, and she was only now going to test her skills against an American superhero. Those sorts of plots generally work. But we’re supposed to believe that she met Professor X, decided that he and his students were a danger… and did nothing for years? Why?
I still find it hard to believe that Ewing could produce something this sloppy without severe external influence. In entirely unrelated news, I was really disappointed that Brevoort chose to move with Marvel and not take the graceful exit while it’s still on the table. I don’t know how much more of this average at best X-Men comics I can take.
If issue #10 is the final issue, the book is going out with a Daredevil as guest-star story. Maybe Ewing did misunderstand her remit. Maybe Marvel completely messed up the marketing and solicitations. Maybe Marvel has no clue how to publish comics any longer (leaning towards this). Somewhere along the way, someone seems to have decided this was the X-Men Team-Up title. With something about a “school” somehow getting lost in the early stages of development before it became “the X-Men united with other heroes of the Marvel U”.
@rei: The sharp contrast between this book and Exceptional X-Men would lend credence to that notion, yes. (Not that Exceptional didn’t have its flaws, but certainly nothing like *this*).
I know the Midnight books are being run out of a different office, but surely Brevoort or someone could have looked at the release schedule and said now’s not the best time to do a completely unrelated plot about the X-Men and vampires.
@Tim XP- Even worse, Blade’s daughter will be appearing in the X-orcists miniseries in a few months. Did we really need two stories with her interacting with mutants within three months?