Charts – 8 November 2024
Another desperately quiet week, and at this point it’s unlikely that anything else is going to break through before the Christmas flood starts. So: pretty much all you need to know about 2024 in popular music is that Chappell Roan, Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter had a breakthrough year. And maybe, on a lesser scale…
1. Gracie Abrams – “That’s So True”
This is the single from the deluxe edition of her album “The Secret of Us”. It entered at 19 two weeks ago, vaulted to number 3 last week, and now reaches number 1. By the way, it is an unquestioned number one, as it would have beaten Sabrina Carpenter even if she wasn’t subject to the downweighting rule. I’m surprised that ‘That’s So True” has jumped to number 1 this quickly, given that her previous single “I Love You I’m Sorry” – her first major hit – is still at its peak of number 4, and took nine weeks to get there. It’s a decent enough track, if very much school-of-Taylor-Swift, and I guess it’s nice to see something finally making speedy progress to the top in a chart that’s been extremely slow this year.
The X-Axis – w/c 4 November 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #22. By Tim Seeley, Eric Koda, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Hey, that’s not the usual creative team for this book! I’m assuming this is the first half of a Thanksgiving two-parter, since it’s a slice-of-life story about Beak and Salvadore taking their kids to Alaska to visit the family, with Beak making up stories to entertain them, and a grumpy racist woman being in the next seat on the plane. The art gets across nicely the idea of these guys as low-level but extremely visible mutants who are just living in the ordinary world, and Beak trying (mostly successfully) to shield the kids from the bad stuff. Now, for obvious reasons, this might not be the best week to do a “normal America where minorities can just get on with life albeit with a certain degree of aggravation” story. It does feel a little bit… quaint, at the very least. Although come to think of it, unless we’re going back to the Orchis well very soon, Trump’s America will inevitably be better for mutants than Biden’s, which, um… okay. Anyway, I’m not going to hold all that against the story itself, which is really quite sweet.
X-MEN #7. (Annotations here.) Continuing to bring the plot threads together, as we find out what the “Iron Night” actually was – basically, Cyclops and Magneto saved the town from a Wild Sentinel. And we get some movement towards explaining why Magneto is in a wheelchair. But are we really going with the idea that Krakoan resurrection could be the cause of his problems? We’re apparently meant to take it seriously, but I figure it’s almost certainly misdirection. It would affect way too many mutants, and it would screw up the idea of the Krakoans heading off into the White Hot Room to live in post-human paradise. But it makes sense for the characters to suspect it, so I’m fine with teasing it. If I was taking it more at face value, I’d have more of an issue with it. We also have the local girl testing as a non-mutant when she apparently is, and 3K messing around with mutant powers as part of the plot, and I don’t for a moment believe that the Sentinel really just shows up randomly… No, this all feels like Jed MacKay is still patiently getting his elements into place and delivering some solid character work in the meantime, which has tended to be his style on other ongoings. Guest artist Netho Diaz remains a good fit with Ryan Stegman, and seems like a smart choice.
X-Factor #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 5 #4
“The Nematode”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
X-FACTOR
Havok actually seems fairly competent in this issue, if you overlook his willingness to be on this weird team in the first place.
Cecilia Reyes is being pressurised to adopt a codename for marketing purposes. She says that she joined X-Factor to get over her relationship with Oskar / Wintergeist (of whom more below) – she also mentioned this in passing in issue #2, and we saw them texting last issue. Once she gets his explanation for his disappearance, she does take him back.
Pyro has either been talked or pressurised into having his facial tattoo removed – it’s not clear how he was persuaded to do this, since he’s clearly not happy about it, or why X-Factor’s superiors waited until after his public debut. He claims that he joined X-Factor in order to promote his romance novels.
Frenzy joins the mission but doesn’t do much of importance.
X-Force #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
Oh, and this week’s last set of annotations – X-Factor #4 – should be up on Saturday.
X-FORCE vol 7 #5
“One Second Later”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Marcus To
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramanga
Editor: Mark Basso
X-FORCE:
Surge heroically sacrifices herself to stop Nuklo, and we see a body.
Sage is very unhappy that Forge hasn’t come up with a way to avoid this, but both Forge and Surge seem to accept that this isn’t within his control. The basic idea seems to be that Forge’s power comes up with a solution to the problem that he’s identified, but he doesn’t consciously understand why that solution will work (unless, presumably, he can work it out using regular human intelligence). So, although he knew that Surge’s involvement would solve the problem, he didn’t know that she’d die in the process. That in turn means that he couldn’t use his powers to avoid that outcome, because he didn’t know that it was a relevant question to be asking himself. Sage is not prepared to accept this line of reasoning, and quits.
Captain Britain, Askani and Tank are also here, but don’t do a great deal.
X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #7
“The Iron Night”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & Livesay
Colourists: Marte Gracia & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Cyclops. We get a flashback to the “Iron Night”, which explains the giant Sentinel that’s been hovering over the town since issue #1. After Krakoa fell and Phoenix departed for space, Cyclops returned to his family lodge near Merle to drown his sorrows. He resents the expectation that he’ll always be the one to lead the X-Men, but doesn’t take much persuasion from Magneto on the point – he’s already wearing his Morrison/Quitely-era X-Men jacket. It’s apparently just a coincidence that a Sentinel factory had been built in direct view of the Summers family lodge. According to issue #3, Cyclops got the building as a settlement with the US government following his torture at the hands of Orchis; evidently that comes after the flashback.
Temper. She continues to support Piper Cobb, even after a DNA test shows that she isn’t a mutant. She finds the Wild Sentinel attack on Merle reminiscent of her own encounter with a similar Sentinel, footnoted to Generation Hope #11. That’s the Schism tie-in issue with the Sentinel walking through San Francisco Bay to reach Utopia. The flashback specifically shows the opening scene of GH #11; the character sitting next to Temper is Velocidad.
Charts – 1 November 2024
This is a week where the impact of the downweighting rule is awkwardly obvious, as Sabrina Carpenter’s “Taste” reaches its tenth week on the chart, and (since it’s several weeks past its peak) the downweighting rule kicks in. And that results in it dropping from number 1 straight to number 11. Without that rule, it would still be number 1. I have some sympathy with the need to find a way of clearing out the dead wood, given how long major hits continue to pick up zombie play before people finally clear them off their playlists. But there has to be a subtler way of doing it.
Anyway, with that asterisk duly applied…
1. Gigi Perez – “Sailor Song”
Gigi Perez joins the one-hit wonders list, climbing to number 1 in her eleventh week on the top 40 (and her fourth in the top 10). It’s a perfectly nice record, but I’m honestly surprised that it’s had enough broad and sustained appeal to get here. That said, it is the lowest-scoring number one of the last year, with the equivalent of just over 39,000 sales.
The X-Axis – w/c 28 October 2024
Well, at least I chose a quiet week to be away.
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #21. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Okay, I see what we’re going for here, but I’m not completely sold. The big idea here is that Lifeguard’s powers have started treating all of humanity as a threat and responding accordingly, leaving her unable to live among humans at all; the upshot is that her powers turn her into a literal island. It was fairly clear that that was where we were heading, though, so it doesn’t really work as a final issue reveal. And it feels a bit of a stretch from Lifeguard’s powers, which I don’t think ever turned on how she perceived things. The island thing feels a bit too literal, as well. Still, I like the way Steve is used as a more ordinary mutant who’s doing a little better at fitting back into normalcy.
NYX #4. (Annotations here.) This is David’s spotlight issue, and the basic idea is fine: he recognises that mutant history has been stuck in a lot of binary choices that he wants to escape from, but he has no terribly clear idea of how to do that. And of course, he ultimately does come out of retirement to save Kamala. Enid Balám makes him look good as a street artist, even if some of what he’s doing here stretches the boundaries of how his powers work. And I do appreciate the fact that Kamala sees straight through Sophie’s attempt to set her up. Kamala ought to be naive as regards some things – aspects of life as a visible mutant, say – but she’s not stupid, and it makes sense for the mutant-centric Cuckoos to underestimate her. (Or maybe Sophie is actually trying to be obvious.)
NYX #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NYX vol 2 #4
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Artist: Enid Balám
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Colour artist: Raúl Angulo
Editor: Annalise Bissa
THE CORE CAST:
David Alleyne is the spotlight character in this issue. As strongly indicated in earlier issues, he’s responsible for the various mutant-themed street art that we’ve seen in the background throughout the series. He wears a costume when making his art, and shows up in the same costume to fight the Krakoan during the story.
At first, he refuses to help Kamala against the Krakoan, even though Kamala only wants him to come along and try to talk sense into Julian as an old friend (which would be a stretch, but she doesn’t know that). David claims that his “position requires a very careful balance” and that he can’t be seen in that sort of role. Kamala interprets this as David being unwilling to compromise his own comfort, and decides that Sophie’s sell-out accusations in issue #1 were correct. However, when Ms Marvel is clearly losing to Julian, and nobody else shows up to help, David does indeed intervene, and both of them wind up being arrested. David assumes that this will cost him his job with the university, but for the moment it’s just an assumption.
The narration in this issue consists largely of David’s “lecture notes” (which read more like brainstorming sessions). Very broadly speaking, his key points seem to be:
- Mutant culture is rooted in the superhero/supervillain paradigm, and by extension in violence.
- Mutant culture has been stuck in a binary choice of Professor X’s integration and Magneto’s domination, both of which have failed. Krakoa offered a third choice of separatism, which also failed (at least for people who didn’t want to emigrate to the White Hot Room).
- Mutants have been unable to live among other people and, in trying to do so, are left with only their inner lives as the remnants of mutant community.
- Another path needs to be found for mutants which breaks out of these binaries.
- Humans (or at least human authorities) are reasonably to be assumed to be hostile, if not outright genocidal.
Charts – 25 October 2024
I’m going to be busy this coming week, and that means the next annotations probably won’t be until the weekend. So if you’re looking for those, and this is still the top post, that’s why. In the meantime, let’s cover this week’s chart.
1. Sabrina Carpenter – “Taste”
I know, you’re amazed. That’s nine weeks. But it does get hit by the downweighting rule next week, so barring a miracle, this will be the last. “Bed Chem”, which entered last week due to a quirk of chart rules, falls to 11 and is not in contention to take over. Instead, Gigi Perez’s “Sailor Song” seems to be the number one in waiting, climbing to 2.
4. Rosé & Bruno Mars – “APT.”
Hey, this is great! Rosé is a member of Blackpink, but they’ve never placed a single above 17, so this is a big hit for her. Her bandmate Jennie just released a solo single too; it got to number 37. So clearly there’s more at work here than just the hardcore Blackpink fans.
The X-Axis – w/c 21 October 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #20. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Part 2 of the Lifeguard story, now featuring some other Australian mutants who are even more obscure than she is. (Ugly John is a one-off New X-Men character, and the guy who turns brittle is from a single Weapon X: The Draft one-shot in 2002.) It looks like we’re going with the premise that after her time on Krakoa, Lifeguard’s powers are attempting to defend her from all normal humans. I can see the angle in that, and it’s one of those cases where it helps to have a pre-established character with handy plot-device powers. Mind you, Lifeguard’s power is supposed to be that she develops whatever powers she needs to save human lives in the vicinity, so it’s not entirely clear how we get from there to here… but maybe we’re going with prolonged isolation from humans making her reorient around mutants or something? At any rate, it’s all presumably a metaphor for her trying to reassimilate into a society whose racism is more visible to her than it was in the past. I’m still not quite sold on it, but it’s the sort of thing I’m glad to see the Infinity Comics trying.
X-MEN #6. (Annotations here.) So we’re starting to draw together the threads from the various single issue stories to date – which means a scene where the cast literally compare notes and draw the threads together, but this feels like the time to be doing it. Meanwhile, Idie decides to go off on a frolic of her own and talk to a local mutant girl without involving Scott. This is the subtler side of the story, since it doesn’t spell out quite so directly why she’s looking to Magik rather than the rest of the team, but the dynamics between those two characters work nicely. Guest artist Netho Diaz seems a good fit for Ryan Stegman’s style, though I can’t help thinking some of these character designs need tweaking – Idie’s hair just looks odd. Beast gets some nice moments too, lamenting the fact that he’s trying to be the cutting edge scientist while missing any memory of the last few years. Quietly solid.
