Excalibur #21 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #21
“Don’t Feel Like Dancin'”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1: Rictor storms out of the Hellfire Gala, leaving earthquake-related chaos behind him. It doesn’t happen quite so literally in the issue itself.
PAGE 2. Excalibur prepare to head to the party.
As we’ll see later, Rictor’s basic objection to the Hellfire Gala is that he sees it as another example of how everyone has moved on and forgotten about Apocalypse. When, clearly, everyone should be spending their days brooding about Apocalypse like Rictor does. He does have a point that nobody else appears to be especially bothered about Apocalypse’s departure, and you can see that by this point he might well be reading that as a personal insult too – not only has Apocalypse’s interest in mutant magic been sidelined by everyone else, but what must they think of Rictor’s attempt to keep it alive?
The butterflies hovering around Betsy’s dress reflect the butterfly image that appears over her face when she uses her telepathy.
PAGE 3. Recap and credits. As with all “Hellfire Gala” tie-in issues, the layout has been altered to vaguely resemble an invitation. And there’s a big red circle, for reasons that will become apparent in this week’s X-Men.
The Incomplete Wolverine – 1989
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
We’re deep in the Australia period, and we left off on the eve of…
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #239-243 & X-FACTOR vol 1 #37-39
“Inferno”
Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont, Marc Silvestri, Hilary Barta & Glynis Oliver
X-Factor by Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, Al Milgrom & various colourists
December 1988 to April 1989
Wolverine isn’t particularly central to “Inferno”, which mainly focusses on Madelyne Pryor, the Summers family, and Magik (over in New Mutants). The X-Men return to New York in pursuit of the Marauders, only to get caught up in an invasion of demons from Limbo. This force is led by N’Astirh and S’ym, who have deposed Magik and formed an alliance with Madelyne Pryor, who now calls herself the Goblin Queen. Manhattan is demonically warped by the invasion, and the X-Men themselves become distorted, demonic and aggressive. They team up with X-Factor, after the usual misunderstandings, and defeat the invasion – specifically, Jean reclaims the part of her soul that animates Madelyne, Madelyne dies, and New York returns to normal. The X-Men’s costumes remain weirdly transformed.
The final two issues are a coda – still billed as “Inferno” – in which the X-Men and X-Factor team up to battle Madelyne’s creator Mister Sinister. This is the first time the X-Men actually encounter Sinister, who is seemingly destroyed by Cyclops’ optic beam. Of course, it eventually turns out that he was faking.
Hellions #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #12
“Gatecrashing”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1: The Hellions cause chaos at the Hellfire Gala.
PAGES 2-4. Mr Sinister, Havok and Kwannon prepare to go to the Gala.
We’re not told directly why the rest of the Hellions didn’t get invited, but it’s pretty obvious. This is a diplomatic mission, it’s meant to build bridges with the humans, and you really don’t want Orphan-Maker and Wild Child running around. Ideally you wouldn’t have Mister Sinister either, of course, but he’s on the Quiet Council. Kwannon’s not a villain; she’s on the team as a supervisor. And Havok… well, aside from the fact that there’s a suggestion that he’s been put there for reasons he isn’t aware of, Havok’s a member of the Summers family and his absence would be notable.
X-Force #20 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #20
“The Secret Garden”
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
PAGE 1 / COVER. X-Force work security at the Hellfire Gala, which apparently means skintight tuxedos. Quentin has a psionic velvet rope. The invitation in the foreground is the same as the one shown as a data page in Marauders #21.
PAGES 2-4. Kid Omega greets guests.
This is an expanded version of a scene from Marauders #21. In this version, Iron Man gets a bit more space in which to explain why he isn’t wearing the Krakoan flower or using their portal – basically, he knows a tracking device when he sees one, and he quite understandably doesn’t trust the Krakoans an inch. This being X-Force, the book will go on to confirm that he’s absolutely right.
Marauders #21 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #21
“You are Cordially Invited to the Hellfire Gala”
by Gerry Duggan, Matteo Lolli & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1. Emma Frost welcomes you to the Gala. Though really, by the time you’ve got this close, it’s a bit late to be offering you an invitation.
PAGE 2. Data page: the invitation to the Gala, which also appears on the cover of this week’s X-Force #20.
“On the evening of the summer solstice.” That would be 21 June. Apparently in the Marvel Universe you can see a starry sky on Mykines “a few minutes after midnight”, and enjoy a fireworks display, all on the summer solstice. But the Faroe Islands are so far north that it doesn’t actually get dark in midsummer. Let’s politely ignore that and move on.
PAGES 3-4. Kate, Sebastian and Emma await the arrival of the guests.
Mykines, which is a real place in the Faroe Islands, was acquired by Emma in Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto #1. The Faroes are actually an autonomous territory within Denmark.
Heroes Reborn: Magneto & The Mutant Force #1
HEROES REBORN: MAGNETO & THE MUTANT FORCE #1
“Beware! Psychic Rescue in Progress!”
by Steve Orlando, Bernard Chang & David Curiel
So.
This is a thing.
Why is this a thing?
I do not know.
I do not know why this is a thing.
Well. Maybe I know why this is a thing.
Heroes Reborn was name of the 1996/7 event where Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Captain America were relaunched by Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld. The 2021 Heroes Reborn has nothing to do with it whatsoever. I can only assume the name was chosen for trademark renewal.
That’s always a good impression to put front and centre, isn’t it? Trademark renewal.
It’s an Avengers arc which has sprawled into an event comic. History has been changed, the Avengers never existed, and now the biggest heroes of the Marvel Universe are the Squadron Supreme of America. Who are basically a hard-right JLA.
I couldn’t care less about Jason Aaron’s Avengers and I couldn’t care less about Heroes Reborn. I gather the gimmick of the main series is something to do with “the Marvel Universe, but if it was a bit more like the DCU”. Is that interesting? It’s an own-brand Amalgam, isn’t it?
Charts – 28 May 2021
Well, that didn’t take long.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Good 4 U”
4. Olivia Rodrigo – “Deja Vu”
7. Olivia Rodrigo – “Traitor”
Yes, it’s the release of Olivia Rodrigo’s album “Sour”, which enters at number 1 on the album chart, and promptly places the maximum three tracks in the single chart. Demonstrating her ability to write about her break-up in any musical genre, “Good 4 U” is the Paramore version, and climbs to number 1 on its second week out. It’s her second number 1 single and, if you care about such things, she’s the youngest artist to have had simultaneous number 1s on the single and album chart. To be honest, having simultaneous number 1s isn’t that unusual – it happened four times in 2020 – but while the list is lengthy, it’s also mainly made up of A-listers. And Olly Murs.
New Mutants #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NEW MUTANTS vol 4 #18
“Homecoming”
by Vita Ayala & Rod Reis
COVER / PAGE 1: Karma, apparently readying herself to fight in the Crucible. Behind her, a symbolic representation of her brother Tran, via the white rabbit that he manifested as in Otherworld via Mirage’s powers.
PAGES 2-4. Dani calls up Tran so that Xi’an can speak to her.
Basically, Karma explains the plot. The best telepaths on Krakoa can’t get Tran’s mind out of her body, so they’re going to have to kill her and resurrect her instead. Since Krakoa frowns on outright suicide, this means the Crucible. We’re seeing an increasing undercurrent of scepticism about Krakoan rituals in books like Way of X, but this story plays the Crucible pretty much straight – it’s a second chance, it’s liberation, it’s paying a symbolic price.
X-Men #20 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #20
“Lost Love”
by Jonathan Hickman, Francesco Mobili & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1: The face of a damaged Nimrod.
PAGE 2. “The Oracle”
This is Mystique’s underground home, which we last saw in issue #6. The floating mask with the energy effect, which we also saw in that issue, belongs to her late wife Destiny. As shown in that issue and Powers of X #6 (among others), Professor X and Magneto signed Mystique up for the Krakoan project on the promise that Destiny would be resurrected. But Destiny can’t be resurrected because of the rule against reviving precognitives: first, she would be able to detect Moira MacTaggert hiding on the island; and second, she would apparently see something pretty alarming about how things turned out. And so Professor X and Magneto have been stringing Mystique along.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 3
Lightning never strikes twice, but luckily for us it strikes three times, because we’re back with the third episode of our spinoff reread podcast covering Marvel’s most wanted, the Thunderbolts.
This time round, we’re covering Thunderbolts #5 and 6, and Thunderbolts ’97. The whole “these episodes should run 40-45 minutes” thing has completely gone by the wayside by this point. We’re pretty much resigned to these being an hour and twenty apiece at this stage.
As always, it should go without saying, but this episode contains spoilers for the issues under discussion (though we’ve tried to avoid flagging things that will be important in later issues too heavily).
The episode is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or on our Facebook fan page. And look, the weather isn’t going to get any less unpredictable, so you might as well cut your losses and wear one of our snazzy t-shirts.
