X-Men #19 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #19
”Revelation”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
REVELATION
The X-Men don’t appear in this issue at all. Instead, the de facto star of the book is Doug Ramsey in his new guise as Revelation.
We last saw Doug in X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse, where he won Apocalypse’s tournament, accepted the hazily-defined role of “heir” (with Apocalypse himself retreating to Arakko), and was transformed by Apocalypse. The actual transformation took place off panel in that story; here, the first two pages show it in flashback, with Doug’s body being eaten away and rebuilt. He has nightmares about this every night, but still talks positively about the experience.
Apocalypse also gave Doug pale skin, lightning bolt designs on his face and upper arms, a gold robe, and weird marking on his bald head. Doug has backtracked heavily on this: while he’s kept the name “Revelation”, he’s grown his hair back, which “makes me feel more like me”. He wears a “Krakoa was for lovers” T-shirt. His personality appears basically unchanged from the Krakoan era.
Daredevil Villains #54: Mr Hyle
DAREDEVIL #162 (January 1980)
“Requiem for a Pug”
Writer: Michael Fleisher
Artist: Steve Ditko
Colourist: Petra Goldberg
Letterer: Jim Novak
Editor: Allen Milgrom
So here’s where we are. Frank Miller is already established as Daredevil‘s artist. In just a few issues time, he’ll take over as writer and bring the book back to commercial success and critical acclaim. Daredevil will go into the 1980s as the book of the moment.
But we’ll get back to that. In the meantime, here’s a fill-in issue by Michael Fleisher and Steve Ditko. “Requiem for a Pug” is a melodramatic throwback which re-enacts Daredevil’s origin story and dares to ask: what if the Fixer had been a black guy with a leopard?
The story opens with Daredevil helping to shut down a “meson-reactor” which is about to explode. In the process, he’s exposed to vast amounts of radiation. Radiation, as we all know, is magic stuff that makes the plot happen. So as Matt makes his way home that night, he collapses in an alley. Then he wakes up the next morning as an amnesiac. Because that’s what radiation poisoning does.
Charts – 27 June 2025
Right, for real this time.
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Manchild”
At long last, the chart rules deem Alex Warren’s “Ordinary” to be far enough past its peak to boot it down the charts. The downweighting rule – “accelerated chart ratio”, if you prefer the official name – is a singularly blunt instrument, and “Ordinary” lands at this week’s number 9. It would otherwise still be number 1 by a healthy margin.
More by default than anything else, “Manchild” returns to number 1 for a second week, but it’s less than 10% ahead of the number 2 single and falling, so it may not be there long. That number 2 single is “Dior” by MK featuring Chrystal, which… nope, still hate it. It’s MK’s biggest hit, though – his previous peak was 7. We used to have to asterisk that with the fact that his real biggest hit was his remix of “Push the Feeling On” by the Nightcrawlers in 1994, but that peaked at 3.
4. Fred Again, Skepta & PlaqueBoyMax – “Victory Lap”
That’s a Fred again.. track? Really? I would not have guessed that. It’s his biggest hit since “Adore U” reached number 4 in 2023. Astonishingly, it’s only Skepta’s second top 10 hit – the other was a guest verse on Wiley’s “Can You Hear Me”, which reached number 3 in 2012.
The X-Axis – w/c 23 June 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #26. By Alex Pakandel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo and Clayton Cowles. The island of Mursay, which has proclaimed itself a mutant home despite a suspiciously small number of actual mutants, is indeed trying to lure people into a trap. But not, it seems, because they’re an anti-mutant front – instead, they’re a pro-mutant cult who look to be worshipping a symbiote or something, and won’t let anyone leave. So it looks like it’s The Wicker Man. Fair enough, it’s a solid concept, and more interesting than the straightforward honey trap plot. Two chapters in, it’s not obvious whether there’s anything much else going on. But it’s perfectly fine, so we’ll see where it goes.
UNCANNY X-MEN #16. (Annotations here.) This is the final part of the “Dark Artery” arc, which looks like it was intended more to set up the Artery and the Penumbra for future stories – everyone now knows that Henrietta is at the bottom of the garden, after all – than to resolve very much about them. What it does resolve is the question of what drew the four Outliers to Haven, which is Shuvahrak trying to force one of them to relieve her of the burden of looking after the Penumbra – evidently as much of a prison for her as it is for the people she imprisoned there by way of punishment. It seems like we’re meant to take the place as a vicious cycle that needs to be broken at some point, though nobody in the cast actually seems terribly bothered about that issue, whether in terms of freeing the prisoners or relieving Shuvahrak of her burden.
Uncanny X-Men #16 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #16
“The Dark Artery, conclusion: The Voice of Darkness”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artists: David Marquez & Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
This is mostly an Outliers story, but Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Jubilee are there to fight alongside them. Gambit’s Eye of Agamotto teleportation doesn’t work in the Penumbra.
Wolverine has met Henrietta before, and she knows him as “James”. He seems to like her. It’s not clear whether they only met before she arrived at Haven (which could be shoehorned into his continuity without too much trouble) or whether the idea is that he’s also been aware of Haven for ages (there’s nothing in this or the previous issue to directly contradict that)
Deathdream. He tries to put a stop to the fight in Penumbra by declaring himself Shuvahrak’s successor and apparently offering to take over the role. He’s much more authoritative than usual in this form; presumably Shuvahrak has some influence on him once he starts to accept the role. He also glows with power – maybe because he’s in a location that powers him up, or maybe just because he’s accepting the role. Jubilee takes him to be trying to save his friends by claiming the throne of Penumbra.
Charts – 20 June 2025
Oh, come on.
Alex Warren returns to number one for a thirteenth week, beating Sabrina Carpenter into second place by a comfortable 10% margin. There’s a big gap between those two and the number 3 single, but… no, more Alex Warren. Fortunately, next week he will finally get hit with the downweighting rule, and that will get rid of him for good. From the number 1 spot, anyway.
We have to go a long way down to find any new entries:
30. J-Hope featuring GloRilla – “Killin’ It Girl”
This is another BTS single, nicely timed to fit with the band returning from military service. J-Hope has been out for a few months already. It’s only his second solo top 40 appearance – the other was a single with J Cole that reached number 37 in 2023. God, the vocal processing on this is annoying.
The X-Axis – 16 June 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #25. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Start of a new arc, and this is still a Generation X reunion book. This time, Paige and Angelo investigate Mursay, an island in the Orkneys supposedly offering itself to mutants as a new home. Naturally the place is hugely suspicious. And hey, Mursay is actually a fairly reasonable name for a fictitious island in the Orkneys! Obviously it’s a lost opportunity to set a story on Muckle Skerry or Papa Westray, but sure, the smaller Orkney islands are a reasonable enough place to do this sort of story. The first chapter doesn’t really set up much beyond “obvious trap”, but it does that well enough, so no complaints.
X-MEN #18. (Annotations here.) End of the arc, and five issues feels like it was too long. Particularly as we still don’t get to find out that much about the individual 3K X-Men, despite them having such a big role. We have fill-in art from Emilio Laiso on the last chapter too, which is perfectly fine but lacking a little in distinctiveness. There are plenty of good ideas in here – the Beast being approached by 3K because everyone knows he’ll turn into a villain in the end, Ben Liu’s slightly-too-aggressive approach to doing the right thing, and the twin being talked down. The bit where she softens on being given a name is very effective, and the parallels with Cassandra’s own back story are left nicely understated. But… it’s still basically a five-issue action sequence which is more of a step in a larger story than a complete story of itself.
Psylocke #8 annotations
PSYLOCKE vol 2 #8
“Into the Snow”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Moisés Hidalgo
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
PSYLOCKE
She’s returned to the bamboo forest where she and Mitsuki used to train as children. Her apparent aim is to hunt down and kill Master Hayashi in order to free the ghost of Mitsuki. However, when she reaches the compound, she finds a likely hallucination of an adult Mitsuki who greets her as an old friend.
More training flashbacks include Kwannon and Mitsuki being despatched to kill a Hand traitor (more of him below). This seems to be a different mission from the one in the previous issue, as they look a little older and Mitsuki’s relationship with yokai is more clearly established between them. Kwannon doesn’t know at this stage about her psychic powers, but they seem to emerge briefly during the fight with theoni.
She used to regard her scars from her training as a reminder of her childhood (apparently in a positive way), but they’ve been lost through resurrection. That might have been a deliberate choice, since Krakoan resurrection generally preserved such things. Perhaps she simply didn’t want to volunteer their significance to her and allowed the Five to assume that they were merely injuries.
Wolverine #10 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #10
“All Happy Families”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Javier Pina
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
WOLVERINE
Okay, so I’m busy today, and this issue is a real blessing, because at least in terms of annotations, there’s not that much to say about it.
Just to recap, issue #8 ended with Logan getting a letter supposedly from his mother, asking for his help. Issue #9 then saw him crossing paths with a yokel in a bar, then running into Department H before driving back to the ruins of the Howlett Estate. On arriving, he defeated Harpoon and Vertigo, and the issue ended with him claiming to pick up Sabretooth’s scent in the building.
X-Men #18 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #18
“Invitation”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Emilio Laiso
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Cyclops. His prediction last issue that the 3K X-Men would fall apart once their leader was taken out proves to be correct. He claims to recognise this sort of internal tension from his years leading Wolverine (presumably referring mainly to the 70s and early 80s stories, which is really when Wolverine was troublesome as a team member).
Magik, Juggernaut, Psylocke and Temper help wrap up the 3K X-Men but don’t get much more to do.
SUPPORTING CAST
The Beast. Wyre has come to offer him membership in 3K. This Beast, of course, is a copy of the Krakoan Beast who was restored from a much earlier back-up, and therefore doesn’t remember any of the previous Beast’s activities in X-Force and Wolverine during Krakoa. But a key part of his character is now the fear of ending up like that again. Wyre’s pitch to the Beast is that he clearly is a monster and should embrace it and join 3K. Presumably this is at least in part mind games, since if they’re even vaguely aware of the Beast’s status quo – and Wyre’s dialogue suggests that he is – then they must know that he’s unlikely to buy into this idea right away. However, he doesn’t throw away their business card just yet…
