Legion of X #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
LEGION OF X #9
“A Voice in the Wilderness”
Writer: Si Spurrier
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & Álvaro López
Colourist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
COVER / PAGE 1. A corrupted Nightcrawler, leading the techno-organic infection in the Narthex, with Legion and Professor X’s faces hovering behind.
PAGE 2. Data page – a string of alert events, presumably the one that Fabian is reading on the next page. The first one relates to the events of the previous issue. The others seem to be just generic examples of other mutants becoming corrupted by the same thing that’s afflicting Nightcrawler. Item five relates to the Akademos Habitat on Krakoa (the teens’ area), but I don’t think it relates to anything specific from this arc.
PAGE 3-4. Other mutants are corrupted; the Legion react.
Wolverine #29 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and the page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #29
“The Beast Agenda: The Mind Garden”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine surrounded by angry-looking people from his past – Omega Red, Mystique, Storm, Phoenix, Sabretooth, Jubilee and Silver Fox. Well, arguably Phoenix isn’t that angry. They’re linked to his mind by Krakoan tendrils.
PAGE 2. Wolverine hallucinates about his first encounter with the Hudsons.
Obviously, these opening pages are Wolverine hallucinating about key moments in his life, under the influence of the Pit. When we left off, the Beast had tried to more or less lobotomise Wolverine, but he’d escaped, and Krakoa had pulled him down into the Pit. Since his time in the Pit seems to contribute to his personality resetting, that might explain why he starts off at one of the most savage points in his life. (The period immediately after Origin would have worked too, but it isn’t so iconic in his history.)
Housekeeping
Just for anyone wondering, the rest of this week’s posts are probably going to wind up slipping a week or so. I’ll catch up in due course.
X-Men #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #18
“Wounded Wolves”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: CF Villa
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Designer: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Synch fights vampires while using Wolverine (Laura)’s powers. And yes, they are vampires, not just random nobodies. Some of them have fangs.
PAGE 2. Opening page – a quote from both Jean and Scott. I’m sure this has probably appeared in dialogue somewhere during the series, but I don’t have time to trawl through the back issues, I’m afraid.
PAGE 3. Beast recaps the plot.
Laura seemingly died covering Synch’s escape from the Vault, and was resurrected on Krakoa, in X-Men vol 5 #19. The original, older Laura was rescued from the Vault last issue and happily reunited with Synch, her partner from her time inside the Vault, who has been pining for her ever since he escaped. (The resurrected version had no memories of their time together).
Charts – 6 January 2023
The first chart of the post-Christmas period is always insane, as the Christmas records crash straight out of the top 100, and the records that would have been in the top 40 flood back in to take their place. I’m not going to bother documenting all the records leaving the top 40 this week – it’s everything aside from number 13, 31, 32, 37 and 38. One point that is worth mentioning, though, is that with the departure of his Christmas record from 2022, Ed Sheeran no longer has any singles in the top 40. The last Sheeranless top 40 was in June 2021, just before the release of “Bad Habits”.
So – who’s still standing in the rubble?
1. Raye featuring 070 Shake – “Escapism”
Yay! This entered the chart at the start of December, and it’s hung in there throughout the Christmas storm – it’s had four weeks in the top 10 so far, and it was still at 13 last week. It’s fantastic and plainly deserves to be a number one. If it wasn’t for the Christmas back catalogue, it would have been already.
Marauders #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #10
“Here Comes Yesterday, part 4”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colour artist: Matt Milla
Letterer & production: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller
COVER / PAGE 1: A Psylocke pin-up.
PAGES 2-4. Kate and Amass fight Stryfe.
When we left off, Amass had been captured by the Unbreathing. Kate disappeared earlier in the issue but (as pointed out in the comments last time) the implication was that Amass had used their powers to absorb her. That was also hinted at on page 22 of the previous issue, when Amass told himself to “stop talking to yourself – someone might think it’s strange”.
That implication is confirmed here, and also explains why “Amass” recognised Stryfe when he unmasked at the end of the previous issue – presumably that was Kate talking.
X-Men Red #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN RED vol 2 #10
“The New Age”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artists: Stefano Caselli & Jacopo Camagni
Colourist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The cast pose. Of some interest, Nova is positioned as equal to the rest of the cast.
PAGE 2. Text page – a poem by Lodus Logos about the battle between Storm and Vulcan that we’re about to read. If you need to be told that the Storm is Storm, the Summer is Vulcan (Gabriel Summers), the Earth is Wrongslide, and the Sea is Sobunar… well, this issue may not be the ideal jumping on point for you.
Lodus Logos’ verses are written in a 6-4-5 syllable pattern (and the final verse is a modified version of the first). It’s obviously reminiscent of haiku, but as far as I can see it’s not a specific real-world verse form. His dialogue is also written in this style, but this is more obviously verse.
He also repeat the “I was there” mantra which has come up throughout Ewing’s Arakko stories, with the Arakkii continually claiming authority from personal experience.
X-Force #36 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #36
“The Methuselah Complex”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colourist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Production: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. The Man With the Peacock Tattoo poses with a scalpel; the faces of the cast appear in the “eyes” of the peacock behind them. Well, them and a few random X-characters to make up the numbers – that’s Gentle in the bottom right, Professor X and Forge just under the logo, and Rogue, Magik and Havok running along the top. You can’t see her clearly on the published version, but that’s Storm obscured by the cover box.
PAGE 2. Omega Red and Deadpool prep Domino for her mission.
Presumably Domino knows perfectly well how to apply make-up to herself, so I can only assume she’s indulging Deadpool. Quite why Omega Red is playing along with this, when he literally decapitated Deadpool on a whim in issue #30, is harder to fathom. Maybe Deadpool’s joking about him having chosen the clothes himself.
Gambit
GAMBIT vol 6 #1-5
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Sid Kotian
Colourist: Espen Grundetjern
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Mark Basso
What do you do with Chris Claremont, if you’re Marvel? On the one hand, he’s the defining writer of the X-Men, the man whose run made it the biggest comic around. On the other… well, that was over thirty years ago now, and there have been a couple of abortive comebacks since then, with decidedly mixed results. Plus, the Krakoa era is the least Claremont thing imaginable.
So… the nostalgia circuit, then. We’ve got this Gambit miniseries, set at around the time of his debut, when he was hanging out in Cairo, Illinois with a pre-teen Storm. And there’s also an X-Treme X-Men revival mini to follow. X-Men Legends but on a larger scale.
Fair enough, I guess. If there’s one thing you can say about Claremont’s run, there’s a lot of gaps and dangling plot threads that he can actually go in and clear up. The specifics of Gambit and Storm’s time together isn’t all that important… but it’s a gap, for all that, and they had the sort of relationship where other stories were always kind of implied. Come to think of it, why is this billed simply as a Gambit mini? Why not Gambit and Storm, except maybe that Storm fans might be a bit disappointed by getting a kid?
The Incomplete Wolverine – 2008
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007
For once, the start of this year makes a nice break point for Wolverine. Last time we went up to the January 2008 issue of his solo book, which completes the Marc Guggenheim run. His new regular writer is going to stick with him for several years and several books.
At this point, Wolverine is a regular character in Wolverine, Wolverine: Origins, Uncanny X-Men, Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers. So clearly something’s going to give… right?
NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #38
“The Breakup”
by Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos & Jose Villarrubia
February 2008
Danny Rand gives the New Avengers one of his apartments as a new base. Wolverine shows up for that bit, in what’s otherwise a Luke and Jessica story.
NEW AVENGERS vol 1 #39
“Echo”
by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack & Jose Villarrubia
March 2008
This is an Echo spotlight story, but Wolverine is in it prominently. She thinks the Skrull conspiracy theory is just a way for the New Avengers to justify to themselves the disastrous state of their lives, but Logan points out that this theory doesn’t explain why he’s there, as “my life’s about the same level of disaster it always was”. Later, he saves her from a Skrull who tries to replace her, proving the conspiracy theory right. There’s a suggestion in here that Logan and Echo have slept together at some point, which is probably best forgotten about.
