The X-Axis – 20 November 2023
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #114. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Travis Lanham. This is turning out to be a nice little arc. Firestar’s undercover role in Orchis is at best a B plot in X-Men, but in Unlimited it gets some room to breathe. Not only do we get some reaction from Firestar-adjacent characters who know what’s going on and those who don’t, but we’re also finally getting to the question of what on Earth Judas Traveller – also a mutant – has been doing in Orchis all this time. He’s basically there because he figured they were going to win, but he’s played quite nicely here as someone who’s hedging his bets at the same time, and starting to believe in Firestar as a potential ally in an organisation full of people who want to kill them both. And there’s something in the idea that Firestar is believable in this role precisely because Jean didn’t have time to do anything more than pick someone at random, meaning that she’s wound up assigning a mutant that nobody would regard as the first choice for the job. Guillermo Sanna pitches her acting quite well. I’m enjoying this.
IMMORTAL X-MEN #17. (Annotations here.) It may not quite match up neatly with Jean Grey‘s final issue in terms of Jean’s state of mind, but this picks up the general theme of Jean being stuck in confused versions of her past rather nicely, with the clever device of having her “narrate” the book entirely with fragments of dialogue from (mostly) iconic appearances – plus a couple that aren’t quite so well known but fit the narrative requirements so well that Gillen would have been mad to pass them up. The Mother Righteous storyline also seems to be building to some kind of climax, while Mr Sinister makes his pitch for an alliance of convenience with Xavier. Quite how we’ve ended up with two comics drawn by Juan José Ryp in a single week, I’m not sure – but his autumnal Krakoa is beautifully rendered, and other than a slightly odd sequence with Apocalypse crushing Exodus’s head, which feels a bit like wires got crossed somewhere, it’s a good issue.
UNCANNY SPIDER-MAN #4. (Annotations here.) Partly a lead-in to next week’s X-Men Blue: Origins one-shot, but this also moves the whole Silver Sable plot towards next issue’s conclusion. The hero ducking the big questions and being reluctant to get involved is a difficult story to pull off without making him seem unsympathetic or frustrating, but Spurrier’s done it quite effectively here, by having Nightcrawler take refuge in traditional New York superhero tropes while studiously ignoring “Fall of X”. So he’s still an active character, he’s still likeable, but he’s also avoiding the real issue. Lee Garbett’s art suits the brightly coloured Spider-Man vibe of the whole thing. There’s something a bit odd about the way Mystique just seems to wander around doing random stuff without getting caught by Orchis, but I’m willing to let that slide when the book works overall.
WOLVERINE #39. (Annotations here.) Wolverine isn’t exactly sitting out “Fall of X”, but it comes very close. “Last Mutant Standing” isn’t really a storyline at all, so much as a series of one-off team-up stories with assorted non-mutant heroes. But I’m fine with that; I’m not exactly in love with the “Fall of X” premise to start with, and there’s nothing wrong with just getting Wolverine out there to have traditional Wolverine adventures from time to time. I get the impression there are some crossed wires about what Black Panther‘s setting of Birnin T’Chaka is meant to look like – it’s still meant to be a Wakandan sci-fi city on the surface, and Ryp kind of draws it as a New York slum district – but Wolverine fits nicely into the setting, and this is a perfectly solid team-up story.
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #12. By Gerry Duggan, Ig Guara, Bryan Valenza & Joe Caramagna. I’ve generally enjoyed Duggan’s Iron Man issues more than his X-Men. This is… not one of the better issues, being built around a completely random fight between Emma Frost and Ironheart that only happens because there wouldn’t be a plot otherwise. Yes, it gives the Kingpin a chance to be creative, but it makes both women look like idiots, and that’s not good. It also feels a bit like time-marking, because Iron Man already got his mysterium over the last couple of issues, but in terms of the wider crossover, it’s too early for him to actually use it. It’s still kind of okay in parts, but the book’s done better.
In X-Men Unlimited 114, Tony seems to have told Carol that Firestar’s actions are part of some plan but Captain America seems to be completely in the dark.Why? Steve actually is fighting Orchis’s agents. He arguably has a need to know. Carol on the other hand is doing nothing against Orchis, so telling her does nothing but raise the risk that Firestar’s secret is exposed.
Why is Tony insisting that the ships to return the mutants home be made of Mysterium? I mean it would make sense if Tony knew that the mutants were in the White Hot Room, since Mysterium is from the White Hot Room, but Tony doesn’t know that.
The annoying thing is that this is a plot hole that could have easily been avoided. Xavier knows that Stasis is planning to become a Dominion and that once he does he will be omniscient. Now if Xavier had just told Emma this, then Tony making the ships out of Mysterium would make sense. We saw last issue that Mysterium is invisible to Peter’s Spider-Sense, so making the ships out of Mysterium would probably make them invisible to a Dominion as well. So making the ships out of Mysterium in case Stasis succeeded in becoming a Dominion before they rescued the mutants would make sense. But as we saw in Immortal X-Men, Xavier didn’t tell Emma this.
Similarly, Tony told Siri that the lives of everyone on Earth depend on her. How does Tony know this? We know that Omega Sentinel and Nimrod are planning on betraying humanity to the Phalanx and Stasis is planning on becoming to become a Dominion to stop them and whichever one wins, humanity is screwed. But how does Tony know that? As far as he knows Orchis is an anti-superhuman organization.
(And at this point, I’m wondering if Xavier did change his mind and telepathically warn Emma about Stasis and Stellaris plotting to become Dominions at some point.)
It’s surprising that there aren’t more team-ups between Wolverine and Black Panther. They’re similar but contrasting. But I suppose Wolverine doesn’t come off well in the contrast.
Tony wants to use Mysterium devices because they are so advantageous in so many different ways, and Orchis has access to a wide variety of agents and powers, starting with the Stark Sentinels.
Do Sentinels still have the ability to learn and develop perfect counter-measures of the powers they are exposed to? That was a big part of their deal in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it seems to have been quietly let go of.
Mysterium has been presented in recent issues as such a rules-breaker that I expect that Sentinels, too, can’t detect it.
But not a Dominion. Dominions seem to operate entirely outside of that scope, and ought to detect Mysterium effortlessly – if only because they are probably telepathic as well as having access to the whole timeline at once, meaning that they can’t be surprised and will know of basically everything that anyone sees.
We don’t know what Stasis’ agenda would be after becoming a Dominion. He inherited Nathaniel Essex’ mission to subvert machine supremacy. He’s on the side of post-humanity though. Stasis may actually be humanity’s only hope for survival and “immortality”, based on Moira’s Life Six with post-humanity.
I mean, this is going on the assumption that without stagnating progress, baseline humanity is going to eventually go extinct, as per Hickman. The choice is either Homo Sapiens Sapiens taking evolution into its own hands and evolving the elect into post-humanity or allowing nature to take its course and replacing Homo Sapiens Sapiens with Homo Superior.
Is it fair to say Logan and BP were on different tiers until either the MCU or maybe the MK/Priest era? Logan was a main event Dr from 80s onward and BP was a mid carder until either time listed above?
I mean, would Shooter or Harris have published a Logan/BP team-up mini or one shot in the late 80s or 90s?
I think one could argue that Wolverine became established as an A tier Marvel character not long after his ongoing series began – popular guest star to goose sales, periods of multiple solo titles, major events made of his death and return. Black Panther got to the B tier – more or less continuous ongoing series but with the occasional break, like Dr. Strange or Moon Knight – with the success of the Priest run, and then A as a result of the MCU. But conventions about guest stars and team-ups are different now than they were 30-40 years ago, so we get them portrayed as being very familiar with one another even though they have few if any stories in which they together are the main protagonists.
Just a note that may be a bit hokey, but since it was Thanksgiving here in the States this week, just a note that I’m thankful for this site and for all of you.
As someone who just recently got back into reading the X-comics for the first time in like 30 years (and was painfully oblivious back then), I truly do appreciate all the work put in to explain things, and all the conversations and thoughts. They truly make the experience a much more fulfilling one for me.
My crazy thought from this week: is Mother Righteous trying to harness/obtain/siphon off/whatever the Phoenix? Is this something she could even conceivably do? (perhaps with the power of a thanks from Jean?) Or is she looking to just use Jean herself, that would be enough?
I don’t know all the particulars, but Righteous sent them all to the White Hot Room and she has Jean, so it’s just something that popped into my head. I just didn’t know if this was feasible based on existing lore. I just keep thinking back to Sins of Sinister, where she had that egg that looked like a Phoenix Egg, correct?
Apologies if I’m way off base, but it’s just something that popped into my head!
@Brandon: That’s a fair assumption – Dominions are, as far as we know, only vulnerable to Galactus and Phoenix, so either Righteous is planning to use the Phoenix for her own purposes or to destroy the Sinister Dominion that already exists
Ugh, Dominion stuff: if the Dominion exists and it has always existed and will always exist, then how can it not see what any being in the universe is doing and maneuver out of danger? Galactus has been defeated before, and the Phoenix is often a complete mess. Maybe Phoenix or Galactus replace a Dominion? I could see Mother Righteous using the Phoenix to become a Dominion by tricking a Phoenix-powered Jean into thanking her and plugging into the fundamental forces of the Universe.
@Mike Loughlin- the excuse is that the White Hot Room exists outside of a Dominion’s sight.
Waiting for the Phoenix: Complete Mess mini-series. With art by Greg Land!
Isn’t there a wielder of the Phoenix Force right now? Could Jean become Phoenix-powered while Echo has it?
@Michael: thanks, I can’t keep all the cosmic stuff straight.
@Thom H: “Everything you know about the Phoenix is WRONG!!! … But also, kind of right? Maybe?”
I don’t think Echo is Phoenix any more. And isn’t Galactic (still) dead, with his helmet as an ornament in Asgard?
Echo’s not Phoenix anymore – it’s explicitly stated in Daredevil&Echo#1, which I’ve read, though I had to google why not.
Turns out she already burned those powers out in the finale of Aaron’s Avengers?
Also I’ve just learned that after becoming the host for the Phoenix she changed her codename to be the new Thunderbird, and it’s only at this point that this plot made any kind of sense to me. The end goal was to have a Native American superhero codenamed Thunderbird that is actually in any way bird-related.
Ok.
And then Marvel dropped that immediately to resurrect John Proudstar.
So it is now possible to burn out of Phoenix powers? I don’t think that agrees with what has been established in the past.
If ever there was a concept they need to let lay fallow for a few years, it’s the Phoenix Force.
@Dave
“And isn’t Galactic (still) dead, with his helmet as an ornament in Asgard?”
No, he came back to “life” at the end of Reckoning War in the pages of Fantastic Four, and he headed with Silver Surfer to explore the vast part of universe “disclosed” after that event.