WOLVERINE vol 8 #9
“The Long Road Home”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Javier Pina
Colour artist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE

The previous issue ended with Logan in a motel room receiving a mysterious letter supposedly from his mother, apologising for rejecting him (in Origin) and asking for his help. According to Logan, that was “[a] couple of days ago”. He also claims that he’s rejoined the X-Men and that “I left the wilderness weeks ago”.

Unfortunately, if we take everything in the series so far at face value, there is no time for that to have happened. The series began with him hiding out in the wilderness and Nightcrawler trying to persuade him to come back. Also, footnotes explicitly had it taking place before X-Men #1. The only gaps in the action since then have involved Logan hiding out in remote cabins trying to train Leonard the Wendigo, and also take place at a time when Nightcrawler still somehow has access to the Blackbird, which isn’t around in Uncanny X-Men.

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PHOENIX #11
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Roi Mercado
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa

PHOENIX

The previous issue ended with Jean receiving a psychic message from someone claiming to be her sister Sara. Since then, Jean hasn’t had any further psychic contact with Sara, but she has had recurring nightmares about Sara being taken away by villains. The one we see features demons.

Jean is certain that the woman she sensed was the real Sara, and somewhat irritated by Scott’s scepticism. She places particular importance on this not simply because it’s her sister, but because the rest of her family are all dead (having been slaughtered by the Shi’ar in Uncanny X-Men #467).

When Jean meets Sara, she’s equally certain that it’s her real sister. But she acknowledges in narration towards the end that she very much wanted to believe this, and didn’t ask awkward questions.

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X-FACTOR vol 5 #10
“Survivors Guild”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan

This is the final issue of X-Factor, which has been cancelled. So as you’d expect, it’s a cut-to-the-chase wrap-up issue.

Although the solicitations always had the cover art showing Havok laying flowers on X-Factor’s grave, the solicitation text bears little resemblance to the story as published: “General Mills gives X-Factor one final test of loyalty! How will Angel, Pyro and the others complete their mission without selling out their people? Can Havok still make a difference? And what final secret is X-Factor hiding?”

X-FACTOR

Angel. The subplot about his out-of-character behaviour is completely dropped, assuming that it actually was a subplot (after all, Darkstar’s been wildly out of character for the whole series). But since Angel’s behaviour is basically back to normal in this issue, it looks like someone just made a call that there wasn’t time to resolve the plot and it was best to brush it under the carpet.

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UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #14
“The Dark Artery, part 2: An Infectious Mind”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN

Gambit. He repeats his story from the previous issue about people panicking at the sight of his eyes when he was a child. He rejects Sadurang’s offer to return the Left Eye of Agamotto, a decision which Sadurang accepts without protest – but he makes sure to draw the prophecy of madness to the attention of the rest of the team.

Rogue. She vigorously defends her husband against Sadurang, to little avail. Gambit claims that you have to tread carefully with her when she’s in a bad mood (and makes a time-of-the-month reference).

Jubilee. Sadurang reminds her of Shogo, her adoptive son who turned into a dragon and remained in Otherworld after Knights of X. Sadurang claims that Shogo misses her, and advises her to visit.

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LAURA KINNEY: WOLVERINE #6
“My So-Called Perfect Life”
Writer: Erica Schultz
Artist: Giada Belviso
Colour artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE

This won’t take us long, by the nature of the story.

The previous issue ended with Laura returning home and getting shot by a mysterious hooded figure with a hi-tech gun. We don’t find out who that was, though, because… well, you know the story where the lead character is in a version of the real world, or a psychiatric hospital or something, and everyone tells them that the events of the regular story are a hallucination that they’re being treated for? It’s that one, though with the slightly different approach that Laura is living a happy suburban life with her father and sister and doesn’t even remember her “hallucinations” until she’s reminded about them. The “real” world setting continues for the whole issue, so I’m just going to assume for present purposes that nobody appearing here is real other than Laura herself. It’s possible that some of them might be other characters also trapped in this world, but we have no way of knowing at this stage.

Her “father” is Logan, her biological father, though acting like a normal middle class father. Her “sister” is Gabby, her clone. We haven’t seen the real Gabby since Blood Hunt, when she was still hanging around with Laura – she vanished off panel somewhere before NYX. Although everyone in this world is entirely depowered, Gabby still has the two vertical scars on her face.

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PSYLOCKE vol 2 #7
“Loved and Lost”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artists: Vincenzo Carratù & Moisés Hidalgo
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

PSYLOCKE

The creature possessing Deathdream (of whom more later) tells her that “You love to hurt people. That’s what you do.” It then gives three examples:

• “Matsu’o – the lover you killed”. This is a little puzzling. Matsu’o died in Psylocke vol 1 #4 (2010), but that story featured Betsy Braddock as Psylocke. Kwannon did try to kill Matsu’o at one point before her body swap, but she didn’t succeed (in fact, she lost the fight, which led to the body swap with Betsy).
• “Himeko – the daughter you abandoned.” Covered extensively in Fallen Angels vol 2 flashbacks, and only in the sense that she allowed the Hand to take the baby away at a time when she was heavily under their thumb.
• “Mitsuki – the friend who trusted you.” Seen in flashbacks throughout this run. Her death was shown in issue #5 and wasn’t really Kwannon’s fault at all – she was killed by Master Hayashi in order to teach Kwannon a lesson, and Kwannon does seem to impotently resist. However, the flashback in this issue has her promising not to let Hayashi hurt her, and Mitsuki replies “I’ll hold you to it.” More of Mitsuki in a bit.

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STORM vol 5 #8
“Sinister Schemes of the Stars and Stripes, part one”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artists: Lucas Werneck & Mario Santoro
Colour artist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

STORM

The issue opens with Storm, in some sort of armour, addressing some sort of … glowing red cloud thing. Judging from the dialogue (“ever since I was a child, you have spoken to me like a mother…”) and the mention that it’s been hurt by the storm gods, this is apparently a manifestation of nature, though not one resembling Gaea’s normal appearance in Marvel. This seems to be Storm somehow sorting out the weather crisis from Brazil from the previous issue.

According to the narrator, Storm is more bothered by having to deal with the FBI than the cosmic threats of Oblivion or the “Thunder War” – presumably because it’s on a scale that she’s more invested in.

The Storm Sanctuary turns out to have been built for her by Iron Man, Moon Girl and Shuri. It emits solar rays so that it doesn’t cast a shadow, which is nice. Storm sees this as evidence of how well she treats the masses, though “not building a giant floating castle over their heads” might have been even nicer. She claims to have “the certifications issued by SHIELD” for its environmental credentials, though quite why they’re doing emissions testing is beyond me. Maybe they have some sort of role for highly sensitive superhero-type stuff.

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X-MEN vol 7 #16
“X-Men”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons, JP Mayer & Livesay
Colourist: Fer Sifuents-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN

Cyclops. He immediately recognises the “X-Men” as the Santo Marco Six from issue #1, presumably going by their powers and the fact that there’s six of them.

Magik. On learning that these are the group she fought in issue #10, she attacks without instructions and declares that she’s going to cut off Schwarzchild’s other arm. In issue #1, she somehow managed to lop it off with the Soulsword (which isn’t really meant to affect non-magical things). Schwartzchild was trying to pin her down using his gravity powers, and she teleported behind him. It was still a surprisingly violent move, and to be honest, you can see why Schwartzchild isn’t happy about it. It also plays into 3K’s efforts to tell the Santo Marco Six that the X-Men have turned on their fellow mutants.

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