Charts – 3 March 2023
It’s another largely uneventful week. The top three is static, so…
…gets a seventh week. That overtakes Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero”, but it still needs another week to match LF System’s “Afraid To Feel” from last summer. Number 2 is PinkPantheress’s “Boy’s a Liar”, which has been in the top 3 for three weeks now, and number 3 is SZA’s “Kill Bill”, which has been at number 3 for seven of the last eight weeks.
4. The Weeknd – “Die For You”
Technically, this is not a new entry – it’s a climber from number 37. However, the reason why a track that’s been out for years has climbed 33 places is the release of new mix with Ariana Grande. So, you know, it’ll have to do.
If it’s actual new entries that you want, we have to go all the way down to…
The Incomplete Wolverine – 2010
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 | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979
1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983 | 1984 | 1985
1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991
1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997
1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003
2004 |2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
It’s 2010, we’re in the Utopian era, and Jason Aaron’s run is in full swing. The final Wolverine: Weapon X arc of 2009 already took us through to January 2010, so we pick up with…
WOLVERINE: WENDIGO!
One-shot
by Frank Tieri, Paul Gulacy & Thomas Mason
January 2010
Wolverine saves a low-rent TV crew from the Wendigo. Despite the title, this is really a story about the TV crew and the Wendigo myth; Wolverine himself only cameos.
WOLVERINE: CARNI-BRAWL
One-shot
by Tom Beland, Miguel Sepulveda & Jorge Maese
January 2010
After ducking the job for ages, Wolverine grudgingly allows Sunspot to tag along for a solo mission to the Brazilian jungle, where they stop Bloodscream from building an army of zombies. Ultimately, Sunspot impresses Wolverine.
This is a continuity trainwreck. It’s obviously meant to go during the original New Mutants run, but it also has Bloodscream as an established Wolverine villain, and he didn’t debut until years later. With a bit of squinting, it can be shoehorned in roughly in publication order, since Sunspot was back in the New Mutants at this point and wearing the same costume. Or you could just disqualify the whole thing as non-canon, which would be perfectly reasonable too.
X-Force #38 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #38
“Xeno”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Robert Gill
Colour artist: GURU-eFX
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. The Man with the Peacock Tattoo creates a Frankenstein’s Monster out of X-Force parts. Not what happens in the story, but it relates to the Omnimutant.
PAGES 2-5. X-Force arrive in Genosha.
X-Force here meaning just Domino, Deadpool and Omega Red. Black Tom, Beast and Sage don’t go on missions, and this story is set during the period when Beast is keeping Wolverine prisoner (i.e. probably between Wolverine #27-28).
Domino seems to be saying that despite her luck powers, she’s been rather depressed by the whole experience of being in X-Force – which isn’t that far out of line with her mercenary career, but admittedly doesn’t give much space for the recklessly cheerful side of her personality. At the end of the issue she ascribes this specifically to her torture at the hands of Xeno, but the logic of what she’s saying here is that she felt this way even during the period when her memories of her torture at the hands of Xeno were wiped.
Charts – 24 February 2023
The rest of the top 10 is starting to free up – mostly due to older records being cleared out under the downweighting rules – but there’s no shifting…
…just yet. It is comfortably past its peak, so the end is in sight, but in the meantime it gets a sixth week at number one. This matches the run of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” in November/December, but it’s not especially out of the ordinary yet – 2022 saw three other number 1s with longer runs than this (“We Don’t Talk About Bruno”, “As It Was” and “Afraid To Feel”).
There is movement in the top 10, but none of it involves new entries, so we move on to…
18. Niall Horan – “Heaven”
This is the lead single from his third album. By the standards of One Direction members who aren’t Harry Styles, Niall Horan’s solo career is entirely respectable. It’s been three years since his previous album, and so it’s been a while since we’ve had him on the singles chart (he also popped up on an Anne-Marie single in 2021).
Betsy Braddock: Captain Britain #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN #1
“Returns Home, Having Changed”
Writer: Tini Howard
Arist: Vasco Georgiev
Colourist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Sarah Brunstad
BETSY BRADDOCK: CAPTAIN BRITAIN. This series is the continuation of Excalibur and Knights of X, both also written by Tini Howard. It’s solicited as an ongoing, but Amazon has it listed as a five-issue miniseries. That may just be to do with the season break for Fall of X.
COVER / PAGE 1. Betsy, Rachel and Brian in (presumably) Avalon.
PAGE 2. Betsy appears on television.
Reginald Cross appears to be a new character, obviously representing the likes of GB News. The name of his show is obviously a play on “X of Swords”, though since “X of Swords” has no actual relevance, I’m not sure that invoking it is a particularly good idea.
Sabretooth and the Exiles #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
SABRETOOTH & THE EXILES #4
“Station Four”
Writer: Victor LaValle
Artist: Leonard Kirk
Colourist: Rain Beredo
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1. A whole bunch of Sabretooths claw their way out of their respective graves. This doesn’t happen in the issue, but it’s symbolically linked to the reveal at the end.
PAGE 2. Orchis Station Four calls for help.
These guys were identified in issue #1 as “Nobodies”.
Point Nemo is indeed a name for the location on Earth which is furthest from land (the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, if you prefer the more formal name). The caption says it’s “1,000 miles from any landmass in all directions”, but that’s actually understating it – it’s 1,670. It’s in the South Pacific, roughly equidistant from the Pitcairn Islands, Easter island and Antarctica.
This may or may not matter, but it’s also the location of the city of R’lyeh in H P Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” – which Magneto’s Bermuda Triangle island base was loosely based on. On the other hand, in modern times, its main significance is that it’s seen as a nice safe place for spacecraft to crash.
Immoral X-Men #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
IMMORAL X-MEN #1
“Sins of Sinister, part 4: The Bond Age”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Penciller: Paco Medina
Inkers: Walden Wong & Victor Olazaba
Colour artists: Jay David Ramos & Chris Sotomayor
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
IMMORAL X-MEN is the temporary Sins of Sinister re-branding of Immortal X-Men, obviously. The previous chapter of the story was in Nightcrawlers #1.
COVER / PAGE 1. Sinister-ised Emma Frost subdues the original Mr Sinister.
PAGES 2-3. Professor X wipes out a rebel cell before they can actually achieve anything.
He’s not actually named, but that’s the current Nick Fury leading the group.
New Essex is obviously a re-named New York (Essex also being an English location, just in case any American readers didn’t know that). We saw it in Sins of Sinister #1, but it wasn’t named there.
Charts – 17 February 2023
This is the week after the Brit Awards, which has… to be honest, almost no impact on the chart. With one exception, which we’ll come to. But it’s a quiet week otherwise.
Five weeks. The number 2 single is still “Escapism” by Raye, which has been there for five weeks too.
7. Harry Styles – “As It Was”
This is the one obvious impact of the Brits: last year’s Harry Styles number 1 rebounds into the top 10. It was still hanging around the fringes of the top 40 anyway – it’s actually a climber from 34 – but there’s no apparent reason for it to be here beyond the Brit Awards. Particularly since a lot of its chart points are coming from views of the video above. I’m not sure why, since I don’t think it’s an especially great live performance… but there you go.
Marauders #11 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS vol 2 #11
“Pre-Genesis, part 1”
Writer: Steve Orlando
Artist: Eleonora Carlini
Colourist: Matt Milla
Letterer & production: Travis Lanham
Design: Tom Muller
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Fang and Lockheed fight Brimstone Love.
PAGE 2. Data page. This is a reprint of page 8 of Legion of X #1, with Kate’s post-it note added. Here, it’s serving mainly to establish Kurt as Krakoa’s ethical philosopher.
PAGE 3. Kate contemplates the map.
Dead Mutant Cove is the surfing bay from X-Force #25-26. In this book, it was previously seen in issue #8, when Tempo and Theia went to watch the sunset there.
The map was in the mysterium puzzle box that Kate received in Marauders Annual #1, effectively the first issue of Orlando’s run.
“It seems the first blood spilled between us is yours.” This is what Cassandra said last issue when Kate defeated her and stranded her in the past – the immediately preceding line was “Good work, Sprite… proud of you.” Kate’s logic in that issue was that she was taking revenge for the death of her father (as one of the many slaughtered on Genosha at Cassandra Nova’s instance in New X-Men #115), in which case the first blood was obviously spilled by Cassandra. Kate is apparently dwelling on what Cassandra meant by her comment. Perhaps Cassandra was simply alluding to the time travel angle, which meant that Kate was objectively taking revenge for something that hadn’t happened yet, though the fact that our attention is being drawn to the comment suggests there’s more to it.
Wolverine #30 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #30
“The Beast Agenda: Beast Must Die”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Juan José Ryp
Colourist: Frank D’Armata
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller with Jay Bowen
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER / PAGE 1: The Beast holding Wolverine’s adamantium skull (the one from the Wolverine he killed in issue #26).
PAGE 2. Wolverine washes in the sea.
I’m tempted to ask where all these seagulls came from, but Benjamin Percy’s stories have always been unique in showing Krakoa with actual wildlife.
“I haven’t trusted this island in a long time.” In Percy’s stories, Wolverine has been sceptical of Krakoa from the outset, at least in the sense of not buying into it as a utopia. On the other hand, he was actively accusing Krakoa of consuming Kid Omega in X-Force #30, and that was last August.
The flashback panels show Beast killing Wolverine at the Legacy House auction in issue #26.
