X-Men United #6 annotations
X-MEN UNITED #6
“Shadow Play, part 2”
Writers: Eve L Ewing & Evan Narcisse
Pencillers: Tiago Palma & Eduardo Pansica
Inkers: Tiago Palma & Oren Junior
Colourist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
COVER: A generic image of Beast, Nightcrawler and Axo in action, with Axo’s colour-changing matching the other two. Nothing along these lines happens in the issue.
Curiously, this story is billed as “Shadow Play, part 2”. The previous issue was indeed entitled “Shadow Play”, but it was the second part of a storyline that had begun in the previous issue. Still, if Marvel say it’s part 2, then part 2 it is.
By way of recap, then: In issue #4, Iceman ropes Cyclops, Emma Frost, Rogue, Deathdream and Ben Liu into a team-building exercise that involves an RPG in a fantasy landscape created using Ben’s powers. An outside entity hijacks the scenario and Deathdream gets dragged away into a portal. In issue #5, Deathdream emerges back in Graymatter Lane, and alerts the other students. It turns out that “all of the adults” are also missing. One of the students, Mal Chance, is privately approached by the Shadow King, who is apparently responsible for all this. A psychic attack on the students as a whole is fended off by Sophie Cuckoo.
X-Men #35 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #35
“A Gift”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Mirrored images of the Beast with the X-Men, and the Chairman with 3K. Aside from Magneto/Joseph, the other individual members don’t match up one for one in the two group shots.
THE X-MEN:
Beast. At the end of issue #25, the Beast figured out that 3K’s Chairman was the original Beast, and made contact with him (with Animalia present). For anyone really coming to this new, the original Beast became a villain during the Krakoan era. The Beast currently with the X-Men is a clone who was restored from a back-up made long before that happened.
We didn’t get to see the conversation at the time. It turns out that Beast has only shared the information about the Chairman’s identity with Animalia and Cyclops. Scott permitted him to keep it to himself for the moment given the emotional sensitivity, but made clear that this could only be a breathing space. Animalia has evidently honoured this as well.
Daredevil Villains #83: Typhoid
DAREDEVIL #254-256 (May to July 1988)
“Typhoid” / “Temptation” / “Blindspots”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Colourist: Max Scheele
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Up to this point, Ann Nocenti has given us a lot of one-off villains, and a few who showed more staying power. But Typhoid really is a major addition to the rogues gallery, and someone who goes on to be used across the Marvel Universe.
She’s also the first Nocenti creation to get an extended storyline. Previous new characters appeared in one or two issues, but Typhoid is around for nearly a year. While I’ve given the credits for issues #254-256 above, she appears in some form in every issue from #254 to #263, except for a fill-in story in issue #258.
Issue #254 opens with a splash page of Typhoid, complete with her swords, her one-armed jacket, her weird metal shoulder plates, her fishnets, her braids, and the white make-up on the right half of her face. She has a serious expression. Meanwhile, the narrator tells us that poisonous people live among without knowing what they are, doing what they have to do to survive. “Touch her, she’s the best,” the narrator adds. The opening scene has her breaking up a mugging, only to enlist the mugger as her sidekick – she “brands” the guy by clawing his face with her fingernails, offers him excitement, kisses him, and declares that “Typhoid’s on top, she calls the shots”. It’s mostly played as if the mugger, Rip, is receiving some sort of infection.
Charts – 7 August 2026
Oh god, it’s going to be here forever.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Twenty weeks. Last week, it set an all time record for the longest run at number one; the publicity from that has resulted in a sales boost, and so once again it’s off the hook for potential downweighting for another few weeks. It continues to have 20% lead over the number 2 single, and it simply can’t be stopped.
It’s maybe worth mentioning that while this sort of rein is unheard of on the singles chart, it’s not so exceptional where the album chart is concerned. Adele’s “21” had 23 weeks as the album number 1, and the South Pacific soundtrack was number 1 for the entirety of 1959.
4. Ariana Grande – “Petal”
15. Ariana Grande – “Kiss Me”
The X-Axis – 5 August 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #33. (Annotations here.) Well, this is certainly a quiet week. To be fair, I think Midnight X-Men #1 may have originally been scheduled for this week before they decided to launch the whole line in October. But as it is, we have just the two books.
First up, we have Rogue and Gambit looking for an exorcist. And Gail Simone continues to dust off unlikely genre characters for the purpose, with an improbable guest-starring role for Devil-Hunter. It doesn’t really matter whether you recognise him or not (you almost certainly don’t, he had a vanishingly short run in a horror anthology in the mid-seventies), since he’s basically serving here as an all-purpose grumpy exorcist. There’s a nagging question about why they’re going to this guy at all. Isn’t Magik the obvious first port of call? I know there’s a limit to how far you can take the consequences of a shared universe, because that way lies “why doesn’t everyone just call the Avengers”, to which the answer is “because it would be boring”. But Magik’s in the other X-Men book.
Uncanny X-Men #33 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #33
“Wild Ride, part 1: A Different Kind of Prison”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Rogue and Gambit alongside guest star Gabriel the Devil-Hunter. Yes, he’s a pre-existing character. We’ll get to him.
THE X-MEN:
Rogue and Gambit seek Gabriel’s help in dealing with Gambit’s possession. Gambit is co-operative, but still feels an urge to eat human flesh, and bites Gabriel without apology when he comes near. Gabriel is able to get a lesser demon out of him – Thenassil – but this seems to be only part of Gambit’s problem, with the real issue being to do with his Eye of Agamotto itself. He turns into Wyvern again, to fight off Thenassil.
The Eye’s unnamed true owner is apparently Thenassil’s master, and Thenassil suggests that he is so awful as to explain why the Vishanti “refus[e] to touch this particular Agamotto’s Eye”. As we’ve mentioned before, there are multiple Eyes of Agamotto; the other main one is normally associated with the Sorcerer Supreme and is currently in the possession of the Scarlet Witch. The Vishanti view it as belonging to their chosen sorcerer, although how far they can dictate that is a storyline over in Sorcerer Supreme.
Daredevil Villains #82: The Wildboys
DAREDEVIL #253 (April 1988)
“Merry Christmas, Kingpin”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: John Romita Jr
Inker: Al Williamson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourist: Max Scheele
Editor: Ralph Macchio
You might have picked up from the cover and the title that this story isn’t really about the Wildboys. It’s a Christmas story, and the main plot is basically that the Kingpin is Scrooge without the epiphany. He doesn’t see any ghosts, but he does refuse to give his staff the day off for Christmas (“a useless waste of a business day”), and he fails to intimidate a property owner because he doesn’t understand the power of the festive season. It’s that sort of issue.
The Wildboys – Jet and Spit – are a B-plot, and they only actually appear on six pages of this issue. But they do come back. They’ve made nine appearances in total, eight of which were in Daredevil. In particular, they’ll be included among the returning villains in issues #259-260. So they merit an entry, even if they don’t really have a spotlight story to debut in. (The Official Handbook claims that they were also among Ammo’s gang in the previous issue, but so far as I can see, there’s nothing on the page to support that.)
The issue opens on Christmas Eve, with the Wildboys driving through Hell’s Kitchen and making a general nuisance of themselves. They’re harassing women, driving onto the pavement so that pedestrians have to dive out of their way, and robbing charity collectors. Basically, they’re just a couple of assholes. Everyone hates them – one person even says that he hopes they get shot.
Charts – 31 July 2026
Well, here we are.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
That’s 19 weeks, and that is an all-time record, breaking last week’s tie with Frankie Laine’s “I Believe” from 1953. It should be noted that both of them did it with interrupted runs, and the record for the longest single run at number 1 is still 16 weeks, held by Bryan Adams. I’ve written before about whether this is really comparable with earlier years, since in theory you should expect a streaming chart (which picks up continued listening) to result in major hits sticking around for longer than a pure sales chart (which picks the point when people started listening).
Nineteen weeks is exceptional even in the modern era. It’s tempting to say that it’s unlikely to be broken any time soon, even under current chart rules. But then again, “Last Christmas” has been racking up weeks at number 1 in five out of the last six years. It currently has a total of 12 weeks, and sustaining that performance for another three or four years might be a stretch even if the chart rules aren’t changed in some way in the interim – and the continued dominance of zombie records must surely be causing some industry concern.
The X-Axis – 29 July 2026
X-MEN #34. (Annotations here.) This is a Juggernaut spotlight issue, before we get into the DNX event with the next issue. It’s a simple enough idea. A statue of Bolivar Trask has mysteriously appeared in a small town that he was once associated with. It’s controversial. Juggernaut shows up to destroy it. Somehow, it’s protected by a force field (for reasons that I assume we’ll get back to in a future issue). And the rest of the issue is Juggernaut trying to batter his way through the force field while having conversations with assorted characters – Agent Lundqvist, a couple of pro and anti protestors, and eventually the statue itself. Which is to say that it’s basically a character driven conversation issue. Unfortunately, it’s a character driven conversation issue drawn by guest artist Greg Land, the man who’s mastered both the human emotions – Vacant Grin and None Of The Above.
Oh, alright, that’s not entirely fair. His Juggernaut’s actually pretty good. His Agent Lundqvist’s not bad either, for the most part. But those two local campaigners don’t look remotely consistent through the issue, and the woman feels the need to give herself a random hug and squirm in the middle of a conversation. Wonder where Greg traced that from. And when the script calls unambiguously for someone to look surprised or shocked… well, at best, he’s lapsing into a sort of cartooning that looks absurd next to the over-polished hyperrealism of the rest of the issue. I honestly don’t know how the guy gets work. There’s some interesting ideas in the script, but the art smothers it all.
Generation X-23 #6 annotations
GENERATION X-23 #6
“Mutant Generation”
Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Emilio Laiso
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editors: Mark Basso & Alanna Smith
COVER: Wolverine and Scout leading the Generated into action. Presumably to avoid spoilers, the cover shows not only X-74, X-92 and X-99, who are in this issue, but also X-66, who isn’t. (She’s the bird-like one.) Following the end of the previous issue, she’s with X-Infinite.
WOLVERINE (Laura):
After defeating the Facility last issue, Laura and Gabby have brought the three remaining Generated back to the Turtle Bay safehouse that Laura was living in during the previous run, Laura Kinney: Wolverine. Somehow, she’s rustled up costumes for the Generated – or at least for X-99 and X-74. X-99’s is a modified X-Men uniform mostly in black and yellow, though with elements in red; X-74 wears a version in black and green. She tries to encourage a sense of mutant identity in the Generated by taking them to see the burned-out Treehouse in Central Park, still serving as a memorial and a target of anti-mutant graffiti. She’s also still checking it for messages left by mutants in need of aid, as she was doing in the previous run
When X-99 and X-74 turn out to be completely useless in a real world fight (and they were indeed sidelined in the climax of the previous arc), Laura gives them a pep talk recapping her origin and explaining how she escaped her creation at the hands of the Facility. She accepts that she’s also a Generated, but argues that she only felt safe for the first time once she was among mutants. X-99 seems to come round to this way of looking at it, but there are obvious differences between Laura and the other Generated: they clearly haven’t undergone anything like the level of psychological abuse that she did, and they form a mutually supportive group united by their Generated identities and experiences.
