Wolverine #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #6
“X of Swords, part 3”
by Benjamin Percy, Viktor Bogdanovic & Matthew Wilson
COVER / PAGE 1: Speaks for itself, really.
Unlike the other tie-in books so far, Wolverine gets to keep its logo. If you do an image search, you’ll find some versions of the covers for other chapters that include the regular logo – I think what’s happened here the covers had to be redesigned in order to make room for the Chadwick Boseman tribute banners, and they chose to push the crossover. But in Wolverine‘s case, the logo is incorporated into the artwork and couldn’t easily be removed.
PAGE 2. Wolverine starts to emerge from the fires of Hell.
“I know from firsthand experience, this place is the best there is at punishment.” Wolverine went to hell in, er, “Wolverine Goes To Hell”, a Jason Aaron storyline from 2010-11’s Wolverine vol 4 #1-5.
(more…)Giant-Size X-Men: Tribute to Wein & Cockrum
GIANT-SIZE X-MEN: TRIBUTE TO WEIN & COCKRUM
“Second Genesis”
by Len Wein and… well, about 60 names would be listed here.
This is certainly unusual. It’s a remake of Giant-Size X-Men #1, using the original script, but with modern artists doing a page each. I’ll be honest – the main reason I bought this was just in case they sneaked in something significant in the art. They don’t. It’s exactly what it’s promoted as: a straight cover version of “Second Genesis”.
It goes without saying that Giant-Size X-Men #1, now 45 years old, is one of the most significant single issues in X-Men history. Most people with a vague interest in the franchise have read it (and needless to say, it’s available on Marvel Unlimited). It’s the issue that relaunched the series after several years in reprint, and it’s the introduction of Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Thunderbird, as well as the point where Wolverine and Banshee join the team. Len Wein didn’t stick around beyond this point, which Chris Claremont swiftly taking over – but Dave Cockrum hung around for quite some time, which gives it more sense of unity with the run that follows.
(more…)Charts – 2 October 2020
After a string of relatively quiet weeks, this one is crammed with new entries, particularly on the album chart. Let’s get going.
1. 24KGoldn featuring Iann Dior – “Mood”
That’s two weeks at number one, and no obvious challengers in sight. It has a lead of roughly 20% over “WAP” at number 2, and that song’s on its way down. The whole top 4 is static. By the way, if you want a sense of how little sales matter these days, the sales number 1 this week is “Spirit of the Blues” by Everton FC, which doesn’t even make the official top 40.
“Lemonade” by Internet Money featuring Don Toliver, Gunna & NAV climbs 8-5, and “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus climbs 11-7. It’s (deservedly) her biggest hit as the lead artist since “Wrecking Ball” in 2013, though she’s had top ten hits as a collaborator since then. “You Broke Me First” by Tate McRae climbs 15-9 to enter the top 10, and “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit & Mabel featuring 24KGoldn climbs 13-11. “What You Know About Love” by Pop Smoke climbs 27-14 – it’s still not officially a single, so I suppose it must be getting traction virally. “Giants” by Dermot Kennedy climbs 18-16.
20. Da Beatfreakz featuring Dutchavelli, DigDat & B Young – “808”
35. Dutchavelli – “Bando Diaries”
X-Factor #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 4 #4
“X of Swords, part 2”
by Leah Williams, Carlos Gomez & Israel Silva
COVER / PAGE 1. The Five recoil in horror from a newly resurrected mutant… which is not really what happens in the issue, but it’s close enough, I guess.
“X of Swords” seems to be an old-school 90s crossover where the secondary titles get overrun by somebody else’s plot. This is an issue of X-Factor by virtue of the writer and the prominent role for Polaris, but that’s about it. The book doesn’t even keep its logo.
PAGE 2. Chadwick Boseman tribute page.
PAGE 3. Siryn and co arrive back on Krakoa.
If you’re not familiar with the characters, then from left-to-right in the bottom panel, this is Archangel, Apocalypse, Siryn, Rictor and Beast.They’re retreating from the battle we saw in X of Swords: Creation #1. Rictor and Apocalypse have evidently been infected by the Horseman Pestilence.
(more…)House to Astonish Episode 185
Hello! Yes, we do have a podcast! And it’s here! And we’re talking about DC Universe Infinite, Brian Michael Bendis leaving the Super-books, the return of Batman: Black and White, Marvel’s new S.W.O.R.D. series, IDW’s place as Marvel’s kids’ books custodian and Archie going day-and-date on ComiXology Unlimited. We’ve also got reviews of Juggernaut and The Autumnal, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe has a fire in its heart for you. All this plus Batbanter, some experimental shorts and an unfortunate mix-up with a weeping Nazi.
The podcast 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 at our Facebook fan page. And hey! It’s never too late to buy yourself one of our lovely t-shirts! It’s genuinely not!
The Incomplete Wolverine, Part 8
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
Well, we’ve reached the big one. It’s just one story… but a lot has been nailed on to it.
When Barry Windsor-Smith’s “Weapon X” first came out, I found it vaguely annoying. It’s thirteen parts long, and it doesn’t really answer any of the mysteries about how Logan got his adamantium skeleton. It just depicts what had always been fairly obvious – that he was given it against his will by villains. What it doesn’t do is identify those villains. It personifies the organisation through the characters of the Professor, Cornelius and Hines, but it makes very clear that the Professor answers to somebody else, and never explains who that is. So the big mystery about Wolverine’s adamantium remained unresolved – and on top of that, the main character spends most of the story either comatose or zoned out.
But read with the knowledge that it doesn’t actually explain anything, it’s much more enjoyable. For our purposes it’s worth bearing in mind that there’s some heavy unreliable-narrator material, especially towards the end of the story. Even so, the general thrust of “Weapon X” has been confirmed in plenty of other stories, so it seems that most of it happened more or less as depicted.
MARVEL COMICS PRESENTS vol 1 #72
“Weapon X, part 1” by Barry Windsor-Smith
Early March 1991
Logan’s performance as an agent has been deteriorating due to alcohol abuse and an increasing obsession with the mutant issue (something that broadly tallies with the First X-Men miniseries and the Shadow Society one-shot, both covered in the previous chapter). Fired from his job, he’s living at the Prophecy, a home for “fallen Christians” – he’s an atheist, but he says he lied about his religion in order to get in. Logan is planning to catch a train to the Yukon, as he said he would at the end of Logan: Shadow Society. In the meantime, he’s plagued by dreams of his claws, which at this point in time he doesn’t know about.
(more…)Charts – 25 September 2020
Time for a new number one!
1 24KGoldn featuring Iann Dior – “Mood”
This has climbed 11-5-2-2-1 to get to the top, and it’s the first number one for either artist. 24KGolden has other hits to his name, including a guest appearance on the current Clean Bandit single, but Iann Dior goes on the one-hit wonder list (for now). It’s basically a pop crossover take on 2020 rap, but it pulls it off. “Mood” is an international hit – top 10 in the US, number 1 in several other UK countries, including Germany and Sweden. It has a comfortable lead over the number 2 record, “WAP”, which is in decline now anyway.
(more…)Juggernaut #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
JUGGERNAUT #1
“Picking Up the Pieces”
by Fabian Nicieza, Ron Garney & Matt Milla
Juggernaut. The Juggernaut is Cain Marko, Professor X’s evil stepbrother, who became “unstoppable” after getting powers from a magical crystal. “Unstoppable”, in practice, tends to mean “gets zapped by a telepath” or “gets buried under concrete”, or “falls down a well” or some such thing – but he does always come back in the end. He debuted in X-Men vol 1 #12 way back in 1965, and this is his first miniseries, though he has had some one-shots over the years.
Although the book was included on the X-books’ reading list and it does come from the X-office, it doesn’t have the normal Krakoa-era branding.
(more…)X of Swords: Creation #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X OF SWORDS: CREATION
“X of Swords, Chapter 01”
by Jonathan Hickman, Tini Howard, Pepe Larraz & Marte Gracia
X OF SWORDS. Welcome to the big crossover event of 2020. It runs through every X-book for the next couple of months (aside from the Juggernaut miniseries), and this is one of several one-shots dotted along the way – the next one will be X of Swords: Stasis, due out at the end of October.
As with Powers of X, the title is a Roman numeral, and you’re meant to call it “Ten of Swords”. It’s a tarot reference, but we’ll get to that.
(more…)X-Men: Marvels Snapshots #1
“And the Rest Will Follow”
by Jay Edidin, Tom Reilly & Chris O’Halloran
The Kurt Busiek-curated Marvels line is difficult to keep track of, not least because so many of the books have such similar titles. As you might expect, much of it consists of well-handled character pieces written in the margins of past history; the original Marvels series was largely about revisiting the history of the Marvel Universe from a different perspective, after all.
This book – the cover says Marvel’s Snapshots X-Men, the digital copy says X-Men: Marvels Snapshots, and does this stuff really have to be so confusing? – takes a rather different approach. It’s an origin story for Cyclops.
Hold on a minute, you may be saying. Cyclops has got an origin story already. He’s had one since the sixties. And of course Jay Edidin knows that very well – he’s been podcasting on X-Men history for years. The thing about Cyclops’ back story, though, is that it’s not so much an origin story as a big pile of baggage that Scott is expected to lug around with him.
(more…)