Uncanny X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #7
“Raid on Graymalkin, part 2: No Walls can Hold Us!”
Writer: Gail Simone
Pencillers: David Marquez & Edgar Salazar
Inkers: David Marquez & Victor Olazaba
Colourist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This is the second part of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover, which started in X-Men #8 and continues in X-Men #9. In fact, the action of this issue heavily overlaps with the previous chapter, with some scenes appearing in both issues.
Roughly speaking, the sequence of events goes like this.
- X-Men #8 pp2-3. Beast wakes up in Graymalkin Prison.
- Uncanny #7, pp3-6. Cyclops and Rogue have a phone call and he fails to convince her to stand down. The Louisiana X-Men use the Eye of Agamotto to teleport north.
- X-Men #8 pp5-6. Cyclops briefs the Alaskan X-Men and tells them to “gear up, we’re moving”.
- X-Men #8 pp7-17. Warden Ellis talks to Calico, Jubilee and Beast in the meal hall; Beast is beaten up by guards. In this version, the conversation is interrupted by the Marauder teleporting in and taking out the primary generators, and by a Limbo demon atacking.
- Uncanny #7, pp8-10. Warden Ellis and her men take Jubilee to the cells; Ellis instructs Ezra to release Calico, which he does; and Beast is dragged back to his cell. The Alaskan X-Men are shown on the Marauder. This version is written as if the attack is about to start, but if you squint a bit you you pretend that it’s already started and it’s just not being mentioned on the page.
- X-Men #8 p18 and Uncanny #7, p11-p12pn1. Cyclops, Temper and Psylocke teleport into Graymalkin; Cyclops calls Juggernaut to check he’s in place.
- X-Men #8 pp19-22: Cyclops, Temper and Psylocke fight their way through the building.
- Uncanny #7, p12-p15pn2: Meanwhile, Calico returns with Ember and breaks into the building; the rest of the Lousiana X-Men (who have been stuck outside) follow her in. Jubilee escapes. Kid Omega locates Beast.
- X-Men #8 pp23-25 and Uncanny #7 p15pn3-p16pn1. Psylocke declares that Graymalkin is a “place of horrors”. Blob attacks, but is immediately defeated by Rogue as the two X-Men teams meet.
- Uncanny #7 p16pn2 onwards then play out uninterrupted.
The X-Axis – w/c 2 December 2024
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #1-2. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Well, I’m late enough with this one that I might as well cover today’s issue #2. We’ve got a new title and a fresh number #1, but this is the same book as From the Ashes with the same creative team. But you can’t keep calling it From the Ashes forever, I guess.
This arc has two seemingly unrelated threads, though it’s fairly obvious how they’re likely to come together. On the one hand, we have Husk returning home to the Guthrie family for Thanksgiving. But the wheels are coming off the family group: Paige is the only mutant in the family to show up, since Sam’s apparently not been in touch since his resurrection, while the other mutant siblings decided to stay in the White Hot Room. There’s a plot about how they’re in danger of losing the farm, but it’s basically a story about the non-mutant relatives being treated as afterthoughts, with one of the background kids drifting into radicalism.
Charts – 6 December 2024
You know what to expect here: it’s the first chart of December and the annual back catalogue march is underway as Britain turns on its festive playlists.
1. Gracie Abrams – “That’s So True”
Five weeks. At this point, it is here on a technicality – if the Christmas back catalogue wasn’t subject to the downweighting rule, then “That’s So True” would be outside the top 5.
8. Band Aid – “Do They Know It’s Christmas”
There’s a new mix of this track available, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the original; it’s a new backing track using vocals taken from all the versions done over the years. That’s the version above, and physical sales of that version have made a big contribution to its position. But for chart purposes it’s being treated as simply another mix of the same track.
Wolverine #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 8 #4
“Lost and Found”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
WOLVERINE:
Wolverine is trying to teach the Wendigo to hold on to its humanity, with moderate success. For fairly obvious reasons, he sees parallels between his own situation in Weapon X and Leonard’s transformation into a monster. They’ve sneaked across the border into the US, and Logan has rented a cabin to live in. (Logan’s dialogue says they crossed the border “two days ago” and a “few days” ago within the space of a page, but you get the idea.)
He shows up in costume to investigate an explosion in the area, even though he doesn’t regard himself as a superhero that anyone would want to be rescued by.
He gets a bit animalistic while fighting the Constrictor, but doesn’t cross any lines and recovers his composure soon enough. He attributes this to the length of time that he was living in the wilds.
X-Force #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 7 #6
“The Devil is a Liar”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Jim Towe
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
X-FORCE:
It’s been nearly a month since issue #5. With Surge dead and Sage having quit, X-Force has continued as a team of Forge, Tank, Captain Britain and Askani, and have been continuing to deal with more seemingly random threats.
Forge is dwelling on the loss of Surge and Sage by retreating into a virtual reality environment where he’s being “advised” by avatars of Storm and Mystique, apparently representing the “angel and devil on the shoulder” trope. Essentially Forge is trusting to ChatGPT for guidance, which is bound to work out well. Ultimately, though, he claims to be reconciled to his relationship with Storm being in the past.
“Storm” makes Sage’s argument from last issue that Forge is paying insufficient attention to the members of X-Force as people, while Mystique makes the argument that Forge himself has been advancing throughout the series about the overriding importance of carrying out the “mission” and trusting to his powers to guide them as to what needs done.
NYX #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NYX vol 2 #6
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Penciller: Michael Shelfer
Inkers: Michael Shelfer & Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Raúl Angulo
Editor: Annalise Bissa
This issue is an informal crossover with Dazzler #4, which takes place on Wednesday. However, the link seems to be just that both stories take place at Dazzler’s New York concert, so you don’t need to know anything about the plot of Dazzler for this book.
THE CORE CAST:
Kiden Nixon is the narrator for this issue, though that isn’t made clear until the end. Presumably, she joins the regular cast here. So far as I can see, she hasn’t appeared outside flasbacks since X-23 #1 (2010), but Laura did talk about her in issue #2 in order to set up her return here. Laura is delighted to be reunited with Kiden, her “first” and “best” friend.
Kiden’s narration indicates that she’s been living on the streets and using her time-stop powers to hide away from the world. She was living in a camp of homeless mutants until everyone else got lured away by Mojo; she’s come to the Dazzler concert because she’s investigating him.
The weird colouring effects on pages 3 and 10 are meant to be a version of the rainbow aura effect that appeared in the original NYX when she used her time-stop powers; the rainbow image in page 6 panel 4 is Kiden stopping time in order to walk past security.
X-Men #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #8
“Raid on Graymalkin, part 1”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Ryan Stegman
Inkers: JP Mayer, Livesay & Ryan Stegman
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This is officially the first part of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover which runs between X-Men #8-9 and Uncanny X-Men #7-8. In practice, though, the story really began with Beast being abducted in the previous issue; this issue confirms that he was taken to Graymalkin. Jubilee and Calico were abducted in last week’s Uncanny X-Men #6.
THE X-MEN (ALASKA)
The Beast hasn’t been treated as a team member thus far, but Cyclops calls him an X-Man here, and he introduces himself to Calico as an X-Man. So let’s go with that.
He’s been abducted to Graymalkin so that he can be extradited to Terra Verde. This refers back to the Krakoan-era X-Force series, where Beast took over the minds of the entire country; this was supposed to be part of the Beast’s corruption. In X-Force vol 6 #20 and Wolverine vol 7 #13, Terra Verde was freed and X-Force did a deal to keep the whole thing quiet for a fairly paltry one billion dollars. The whole story is and always was ridiculous, because it expects us to believe that the entire population of the country – who were aware that they were under mind control – decided to keep quiet about it for no good reason. But taken at face value, it was a crime against humanity, making the Beast a rare case where the Graymalkin authorities actually have a point.
Housekeeping
Annotations will be at the weekend this week, for anyone checking in.
Daredevil Villains #41: Black Spectre
DAREDEVIL #108-112 (March to August 1974)
“Cry… Beetle!” / “Dying for Dollar$!” / “Birthright!” / “Sword of the Samurai!” / “Death of a Nation?”
Writer: Steve Gerber
Penciller: Bob Brown (#108-109, 111), Gene Colan (#110, 112)
Inker: Paul Gulacy (#108), Don Heck (#109), Frank Chiaramonte (#110), Jim Mooney (#111), Frank Giacoia (#112)
Letterer: John Costanza (#108), Artie Simek (#109-110), Tom Orzechowski (#111), Annette Kawecki (#112)
Colourist: Petra Goldberg (#108-109, 112), Linda Lessmann (#110-111)
Editor: Roy Thomas
There are several noteworthy things about the Black Spectre arc. On the most basic level, it takes the book back to New York. Foggy Nelson, who we haven’t seen since issue #87, has been shot by a sniper, and Matt Murdock returns to Manhattan to help out. At first, the story presents this as a brief visit. But Matt won’t go back to San Francisco until issue #116, and even then it’s just to tie up loose ends. The reality is that from issue #108 onwards, this is a New York book again.
As for Moondragon, who was introduced with great fanfare in the last story, she’s instantly written out.
But that’s not the most striking thing about the storyline. Until now, Steve Gerber’s Daredevil has been a fairly normal comic, at least by the standards of Steve Gerber. Sure, there’s Angar the Screamer and his LSD powers. But the book has mostly stayed within normal Marvel parameters. Even when it’s ventured into stranger territory, it’s drawn on Jim Starlin concepts.
Charts – 29 November 2024
It’s been a long time since we had a genuinely busy week. Now we’ve got one, and surprisingly, it’s not just the Christmas records that are responsible.
1. Gracie Abrams – “That’s So True”
Four weeks. She must have a good chance of hanging on until whatever Christmas record dethrones her, since she heads up a static top 3. Bear in mind that almost all the Christmas records are at the disadvantage of being permanently downweighted, because they’re back catalogue tracks – Abrams would have been number one this week anyway, but not by much.
4. Kendrick Lamar – “Squabble Up”
5. Kendrick Lamar & SZA – “Luther”
6. Kendrick Lamar featuring Lefty Gunplay – “TV Off”
The maximum three tracks from his sixth album “GNX”, which got a surprise release and enters at number 1 on the album chart. His only previous UK number 1 album was “To Pimp a Butterfly” in 2015; the two albums since then both got stuck at number 2. “Damn” (2017) landed behind Ed Sheeran’s “Divide” in its seventh week, but “Mr Morale & The Big Steppers” (2022) was beaten by the first week sales of a Florence & The Machine album that had far less staying power.
