Deadpool / Wolverine #5 annotations
DEADPOOL / WOLVERINE #5
“Soldiers of Misfortune”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Mark Basso
So… I skipped the last two issues of this book because there wasn’t much to say about it, and also because it’s a Wolverine team-up book with a character who’s at best on the fringes of the X-books. I’m certainly not doing the Wolverine & Spider-Man team-up book. But this issue looks like the story might have some wider importance to the X-books after all, and it is an ongoing, so…
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Wolverine. By way of recap, then: Stryfe is putting into plan a scheme to cause mass destruction, which involves controlling Wolverine and Deadpool via nanites that they were infected with years ago. Wolverine was initially immune to this, presumably because his Krakoan resurrections gave him a new body without the nanites, but he’s been infected now.
Magik #5 annotations
MAGIK vol 3 #5
“Fate Unbound”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
MAGIK
She’s upset and passive-aggressive about Mirage going behind her back last issue and asking Cal to keep an eye on her. She privately accepts that Mirage is right to be concerned about the threat from Darkchild, but she’s still hurt by their distrust and by not being told about this “back-up plan”.
The three weeks that Liminal gave her in issue #3 to endure the Darkchild without her mental blocks have elapsed – this must have happened between issues #4-5.
When Liminal escapes into Earth, the wards that Magik placed as holding measures in issues #1, #2 and #4 are broken, causing her pain. (These are the locations at the bottom of page 6.) She claims the pain is normal when a magical spell breaks, particularly a complex one. This allows Darkchild to briefly take control, until Magik uses literal self-harm to focus on the pain and suppress her.
Uncanny X-Men #15 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #15
“The Dark Artery, part 3: As Close to Evil”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Rogue. She’s “more embarrassed than injured” by her defeat by Sadurang last issue. And she’s s understandably annoyed that Gambit has brought her to Haven without being honest with her about what it actually is.
Gambit. He already knew that Haven guarded the Artery, and for whatever reason, he chose not to tell the X-Men about it. Given its historical status as a mutant burial site and the fact that, well, they’re the X-Men, it’s not really clear why he was keeping it secret – especially as Marcus seems to think that mutants have the right to know about it. The only explanation Gambit offers is that it’s “not an easy conversation to have”, suggesting that he thought the Artery was essentially inexplicable – perhaps he views it as too weird and magical for the other X-Men’s frame of reference. (There’s no Magik on this roster, after all.)
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 25
An odd little selection of issues this time round, as Paul and I look at Thunderbolts issues 63 and 64, and Thunderbolts: From The Marvel Vault. Want to know what Zemo’s sulky face looks like? Want to know what Nomad sings to himself to when he’s wandering the highways? Want to know how many gratuitous instances of nudity one issue can contain? Well then this might just be the episode for you!
The episode is here, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Bluesky, or via email, and don’t let us stop you from buying one of our lovely t-shirts, you know we would never want to hold you back from making the greatest sartorial choice of your or anyone’s life!
Daredevil Villains #53: Eric Slaughter
DAREDEVIL #159 and #161 (July & November 1979)
“Marked for Murder!” / “To Dare the Devil”
Writer: Roger McKenzie
Penciller: Frank Miller
Inker: Klaus Janson
Colourist: Glynis Wein
Letterer: Jim Novak (#159) and Diana Albers (#161)
Editors: Mary Jo Duffy & Al Milgrom
As I explained last time, Roger McKenzie’s run largely rested on existing villains. There are only two candidates for inclusion in this feature, and even they both debut playing second fiddle to more established bad guys. The new Ani-Men were henchmen of Death-Stalker, and Eric Slaughter is hired by Bullseye.
But their stories are also the earliest issues to be drawn by Frank Miller. And Slaughter has a better claim to inclusion than the Ani-Men, since he makes several repeat appearances over the next few years. Most notably, he’s the villain in issue #168, the debut of Elektra. He’s not exactly the focal point of that story either, mind you, but he does enough to justify us looking at him.
Slaughter’s debut story is simple. Bullseye hires him to kill Daredevil. The story is rather vague about Slaughter’s actual role in the underworld. He’s an elderly man who has a gang of thugs working for him, and who it seems are expected to do the actual killing. Daredevil has heard of Slaughter, but “thought he’d retired years ago”. Still, there’s no suggestion here that Slaughter has to round up some men in order to take on this contract. So apparently he’s some sort of gang leader who’s managed to avoid Matt’s notice. Frank Miller isn’t much clearer on this point, to be honest. Issue #181 describes Slaughter as running a “freelance assassination operation”, but in issue #168 he’s providing bodyguards. Either way, the operation can’t be particularly elite, because Turk holds down a job there, and he’s a comic relief moron.
Charts – 23 May 2025
He’s going to be here forever, isn’t he?
That’s ten weeks. In itself, ten weeks isn’t so unusual for a major hit We had a 9-week number 1 from Sabrina Carpenter last year, and 2023 saw two tracks spend ten weeks at number 1 – “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus and “Sprinter” by Dave and Central Cee. In 2022, Harry Styles did it with “As It Was”. But “Ordinary” is still nearly 70% ahead of Ravyn Lenae at number 2. If it makes eleven weeks – which seems likely – then to match that, you have to go back to “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran in 2021.
8. Skye Newman – “Family Matters”
Oh, this is quite good, isn’t it? Skye Newman’s first hit “Hairdresser” entered at number 30 two weeks ago, and it seems to get some spillover attention from this hit – it climbs 29-16 this week, giving her two tracks in the top 20.
The X-Axis – w/c 19 May 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #22. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. We’re still in the influencer storyline, although it tacks in a strange direction with this issue. At first we’re still doing stuff about Mondo’s attempts to be a pacifist influencer – and Audino really does make the guy look likeable – but then we tack into what seems to be some sort of origin story for Zero, as a rickety 1950s proto-AI. That’s certainly not what I was expecting here. Seeley also develops his attempt to take Wildside from merely a memorable Liefeld design into a viable lead villain, with some success. His revived extremism is based on claiming that he’s been to the far future with Zero and seen a world where mutants had wiped out humans – therefore, it’s fine for mutants to get rid of humanity because it’s happening anyway and they might as well get it over with. In other words, he’s seen the future and it validates giving up on coexistence. But his revived MLF is now the “Mutant Salvation Front” and he seems to have got a bit messianic. Does any of this tie to the influencer theme? Um… tenuously? I suppose in terms of the radicalisation and propaganda theme, maybe, but the link between Wildside’s schemes and the influencers isn’t terribly clear. Still, there’s a lot of neat details in here.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #9. (Annotations here.) Well, it’s taken us nine issues, but we actually have a fight with a villain. And instead of throwing the kids into the fire, the teachers deal with him while the kids try not to mess it all up. It’s more realistic but… after this long a wait, you kind of want the kids to take the reins more? Then again, their frustration at being left to pointlessly train while the plot goes on somewhere else is nicely conveyed in a montage sequence, and since Emma collapses at the end of the isuse, maybe this is heading towards the kids having to step up and deal with it themselves.
Exceptional X-Men #9 annotations
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #9
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE CORE CAST
Axo. His “affective core”, as visited by Emma, consists of him sharing a meal with his family and friends – despite the fact that we’ve repeatedly seen him blowing off his father’s attempts to have these sorts of moments with him. Emma seems surprisingly touched by it, and describes it as “lovely”.
He’s a powerful enough telepath for it to be worth Emma’s while borrowing his power in order to defeat Sinister.
Bronze and Melée. They bluff their way out of Axo’s clone collapsing with a ludicrous tale about a school science project, which people are apparently willing to accept. Well, it is the Marvel Universe.
They accept the instruction to remain at the dojo while the grown-ups deal with Mr Sinister, but they’re understandably bored and frustrated. Whether because of that or because they’re taken by surprise and railroaded, they fall for Sinister’s fake Iceman. Rather than making a positive contribution to defeating Sinister, their main role is to stay calm and get themselves out of trouble without having to divert the attention of the established X-Men.
Charts – 16 May 2025
Huh, I nearly forgot about this one.
Nine weeks, and still no sign of anything getting close to him. What’s more, streams ticked up slightly this week, so he’s out of danger from the downweighting rule for another few weeks. Nine weeks matches Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” from last year. His next target is Dave and Central Cee’s “Sprinter”, which had a ten week run in 2023. Barring a miracle, he will make that. The top 4 are all non-movers.
8. Calvin Harris & Clementine Douglas – “Blessings”
This is the second single from Calvin Harris’s next album (presumably), and his highest position since 2023 when “Desire” reached number 6 with Sam Smith on vocals. It’s a fairly run-of-the-mill dance record, to be honest. But then the first single from the album went for country-pop and had Harris himself singing, and it missed the top 40 entirely. It’s quite a good vocal, too. Maybe airplay still matters more for artists like Calvin Harris than you might think, and releasing a single called “Smoke the Pain Away” was ill-advised in terms of daytime radio.
The X-Axis – w/c 12 May 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #21. By Tim Seeley, Edoardo Audino, KJ Díaz & Clayton Cowles. The Generation X reunion continues with Mondo, who feels like getting him into this storyline involved some awkward shoehorning. Of course, the Mondo who was in Generation X was later revealed to be an impostor; this is the real Mondo, who doesn’t really know the characters he’s being reunited with, and in fact has only a scattering of previous appearances. In itself, that’s quite a fun inversion of the reunion angle. Getting him into a story about influencers by making him a pacifist podcaster feels forced, though – even if the story then acknowledges that he’s not a particularly successful pacifist podcaster, he still has to be doing well enough to show up at this event at all. Mind you, I do like Banshee’s dad-like bafflement at the online world, which seems like a solid use of his weary father-figure role in this group – if he’s not the headmaster then his role in the cast ought to be a bit awkward.
UNCANNY X-MEN #14. (Annotations here.) So we’ve got three threads here: Henrietta’s flashbacks in the 1920s (or so?), the Outliers in the Dark Artery in the present day, and Gambit’s encounter with Sadurang. Thus far, the third of those threads doesn’t seem to have much to do with the other two, beyond perhaps keeping the regular X-Men occupied while the Outliers do their thing. It’s neat enough in its own right, but I’m not quite sure what it’s doing in this arc yet. The other two threads are coming together nicely, though – we’re getting some advancement about who the Outliers are and how they actually wound up coming together in the first place, and at the same time Gail Simone continues to try and flesh out a historical mutant underground community. David Marquez’s art is naturally beautiful, especially on the historical flashbacks.
