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…)X-Men #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #12
“Amenth”
by Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1. Summoner with (presumably) some of the monsters that he’s summoned up. He seems to be crying black tears. Curiously, this issue doesn’t carry a “Path to X of Swords” logo.
PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits. The recap is describing the events of X-Men #2. The title, “Amenth”, isn’t a word, and doesn’t seem to refer to anything pre-established. We’ll see later that it’s the name of the wasteland dimension in which Arakko was banished.
(more…)Giant-Size X-Men: Storm #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
GIANT-SIZE X-MEN: STORM #1
“Disintegration”
by Jonathan Hickman, Russell Dauterman & Matthew Wilson
COVER / PAGE 1: Just a picture of Storm.
PAGES 2-4. Jean and Emma talk to Storm about her condition.
This flashback is picking up from Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost #1, which came out way back in February (although that gap would have been shorter without the pandemic). That issue established that Storm had been infected with a techno-organic virus by the Children of the Vault, which was going to kill her. This obviously ties in to the recurring theme in Hickman’s early issues about the dangers (to mutants) of technology and the accompanying need for Krakoa to be free of conventional technology.
(more…)Charts – 18 September 2020
Very, very quiet…
1. Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion – “WAP”
Three weeks, though it was fairly close this time around. The top four is static, and there’s not much going on at the top end of the chart aside from a bunch of minor climbers. “Looking for Me” by Paul Woolford & Diplo featuring Kareen Lomax climbs 8-5. “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo climbs 11-9, giving him consecutive top ten hits for the first time since 2016. “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit & Mabel featuring 24KGolden climbs 14-12.
14. S1mba featuring KSI – “Loose”
(more…)Excalibur #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #12
“Verse XII: The Beginning”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Saturnyne plays chess with Excalibur as the pieces (a common motif with Otherworld rulers); she doesn’t realise she’s a piece in Apocalypse’s game in her turn. If you really want to nitpick, the chess board ought to have a white square in the bottom right corner.
PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits.
PAGES 4-6. Apocalypse addresses the High Lords.
“The Eternal Caldera, Krakoa.” A caldera is a cauldron-like cavity on an extinct volcano. The location, then, is presumably the extinct volcano on the Arak Coral from X-Men #2, which contained a closed portal to Krakoa’s sister island of Arakko.
(more…)Hellions #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
HELLIONS #4
“Love Bleeds”
by Zeb Wells, Stephen Segovia & David Curiel
COVER / PAGE 1. Havok lashes out, with the Hellions lying defeated around him. Not exactly a scene which takes place during the issue. It seems to be a homage to the cover of Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #270 (the first part of the X-Tinction Agenda crossover), in which Havok was a brainwashed Genoshan magistrate.
PAGE 2. Once again, an epigraph from Nightcrawler. He seems to be addressing somebody (most likely the Quiet Council) and making an argument for the need to come to terms with past trauma.
(more…)The Incomplete Wolverine, Part 7
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
This time, we’re covering a somewhat random collection of stories that bridge the gap from Team X through to Weapon X. As we saw last time, Team X seems to be locked to the 1960s, but Weapon X leads into the Department H material and the modern era. So, with sliding time, there’s an ever increasing gap between the two, to be occupied with stories that expressly follow Team X, or obviously aim to lead in to Weapon X, or which predate Department H while being too tied to modern timeframes or continuity to take place before Team X. Oddly, it’s a period that Wolverine: Origins entirely ignores, though we have to assume Romulus is hanging around in the background somewhere in all this.
During this period, Logan first meets Carol Danvers (later Ms Marvel, Binary and Captain Marvel). She’ll show up in Logan: Shadow Society, which we’ll come to later on, by which time they’ve known each other for “years. That creates a continuity problem during the Department H period, when they meet again, but we’ll come back to that.
We kick off with a couple of flashbacks that exist to set up minor present-day stories. Wolverine Annual vol 2 #1 has a brief flashback where Logan is randomly in the “far east”, battling criminal mastermind Chen Yu and his Dragon Warriors. Logan is helped out by immortal adventurer Adam Destine (from Alan Davis’s ClanDestine), who will call in the favour in the main story.
Charts – 11 September 2020
It’s quiet week on both charts, but let’s see what we’ve got.
1. Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion – “WAP”
Two weeks at number one, with a very comfortable lead. It’s going to be here a while. Below, a long list of mostly-small climbers…
Number 2 is “Mood” by 24KGoldn featuring Iann Dior, climbing from 4 – 24KGoldn’s other current single, guesting on “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit & Mabel, climbs 20-14, thus beating the peak of Clean Bandit’s last single (by one place). “Ain’t It Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey & Stormzy climbs 5-3. “Mood Swings” by Pop Smoke featuring Lil Tjay, which has been hovering in the top 10 for several weeks now, reaches a new peak of 5. “Looking for Me” by Paul Woolford & Diplo featuring Kareen Lomax climbs 12-8.
“Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus, which entered at 15 three weeks ago and has been hovering since then, suddenly bounces up to 10. She’s appeared on several top ten collaborations since then, but this is her first top ten solo hit since “Wrecking Ball” back in 2013 (and deservedly so). “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo climbs 15-11. “You Broke Me First” by Tate McRae continues to march up the chart, jumping 22-13. “Holiday” by Little Mix, which entered at 17 six week ago, finally makes it to… 15. “Heather” by Conan Gray climbs 23-17. “Fake Friends” by PS1 featuring Alex Hosking climbs to 19 and finally reaches the top 20 in its ninth week on chart.
20. DJ Khaled featuring Drake – “Popstar”
(more…)X-Force #12 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #12
“The Cerebro Sword”
by Benjamin Percy & Bazaldua
COVER / PAGE 1: X-Force face off against Russian forces led by the “Russian doll” supersoldiers from previous issues. This is symbolic – nothing like it happens in the issue.
PAGES 2-3. Mikhail Rasputin talks to the dying Kid Omega.
As we’ll see later, Mikhail is going to hand Omega’s body over to XENO to exploit in the same way as Domino’s. He seems aware that Kid Omega can be resurrected, but presumably thinks there’s something useful to be done with the body – even though Domino’s resurrection seemed to cut off XENO’s clones from using her powers.
(more…)X-Factor #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 4 #3
“Suite No. 3: Mojoverse Sonata the 2nd, a Celestial Rondo”
by Leah Williams & David Baldeon
The title of the previous issue was “Suite No. 2: Mojoverse Sonata Xf. 3 Op. 45, Danse Macabre”, so we’re continuing a theme here.
COVER / PAGE 1. Mojo (who doesn’t actually appear in the story) watches various police shows starring the X-Factor cast. Though surely X-Factor aren’t actually the Krakoan police…?
PAGES 2-3. X-Factor make short work of Durkitt’s crew, and Spiral welcomes them to her show.
This sort of playing to the crowd is out of character for Spiral, but we’ll see later that people in her position need to keep up the act. She describes Mojo with a bizarre pile-up of titles – benefactor, executive producer, democratically-elected ruler, king, supreme leader, and “most holy”. Clearly Mojo remains firmly in charge despite the supposed democratisation of the new Mojoverse. The logical end point of this direction for the Mojoverse is Mojo as Mark Zuckerberg.
(more…)