X-Men #30 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #30
“Danger Room, part 5”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Simply the X-Men charging into battle.
THE X-MEN:
The Beast. He gives Beyond’s techno-organic creature a pep talk about personhood, empathy, and rejecting the roles that have been imposed on them, all of which wins it round to their side. This fits with the broad theme of the story: the plans of the Danger Room psychopaths fail because the X-Men are more reasonable and empathic than they expect. Not all of them, admittedly, but enough of them.
His justification for codenames is that mutants “take on new names of our own choosing to better reflect our ongoing relationships with the genetic expression of our species”. Something broadly similar was put forward in the Krakoan era, with a suggestion that mutants who kept using their birth names, like Fabian Cortez, were seen as vaguely disreputable. (Ben Liu still hasn’t got a codename, which is all the more noticeable because Animalia has.)
Charts – 22 May 2026
Sorry, you want me to listen to how many Drake tracks?
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Twelve weeks. It needs one more to match Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”. If it gets past that marker, then the next target is Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” from 2017. As it happens, it’s not on course to be number 1 in the Sunday “first look” chart, but that’s because a new release by Olivia Rodrigo has a marginal lead over it; my guess is that “Rein Me In” will sustain itself better. It is dropping, but it still has a comfortable lead.
2. Drake – “Janice STFU”
3. Drake – “National Treasures”
6. Drake – “Make Them Cry”
These are the maximum three tracks from “Iceman”, which enters the album chart as his seventh number 1. Drake also released two surprise albums at the same time – “Maid of Honour”, which enters at 6, and “Habibti”, which is number 7. This seems rather like Drake’s try-hard way of proving he’s still a big deal, and to some extent he succeeds – he has three tracks in the top 10, and he would have placed another 34 tracks above the official number 75.
The X-Axis – 20 May 2026
X-MEN UNITED #3. (Annotations here.) Well, this isn’t working. There’s a whole load of problems here. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with retconning a mutant into Truth: Red, White and Blue – well, aside from the question of what mutants add to that story, I guess. I mean, it was about racism to start with, and making one of the victims randomly a mutant doesn’t actually add to that, and this doesn’t seem to be a story about intersectionality, and… actually, come to think of it, maybe it is just a dud idea even on that level. But it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the supposed premise of X-Men United, so at the very least, it’s a mystifying choice for issues #2-3. If this is meant to be a rotating-cast team-up book with guests from across the line, it doesn’t work on that level; this is a Captain America story with the mutants who accompany him playing a mostly generic role. The plot mechanics are mystifying, which is starting to feel like a recurring problem in Eve Ewing’s stories – the first chunk of the issue is taken up with the away team being split into different time periods. But Vernon Weaver seems to perceive it as all part of the same scene even though he sees them separately – why, if he’s in different time periods? – and in the end none of it seems to matter. It’s just something to spin the story out a bit before everyone sits down for a conversation. And that story seems to be trying to go for a resolution of Weaver forgiving himself for killing someone in self-defence during the Truth experiments, but for that story to work we need some idea of what he’s actually been doing for the last eighty years – he can’t have spend the whole time moping in the family home, can he? Weaver’s emotional swings are so rapid that it’s hard to get any grip on him as a character, and… yeah, sorry, it’s a train wreck.
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #5. (Annotations here.) There are a few odd calls in this book – I don’t know why Sinister is suddenly so worried about a villain who isn’t even on the planet and shows no signs of coming back, and a relationship between Warren and Tabitha seems a little questionable given that she started as one of the X-Factor students. But I quite like Tim Seeley’s attempt to redefine how the Archangel split personality thing works, presenting it as something akin to a possession, with Warren tending to take a back seat. There’s some thought here going into how the characters work. What’s more, it’s burning through its first storyline at a refreshing pace – the format of this book is that Cable thinks he’s identified the four mutants who’ll kill Kamala Khan in the future, and wants to rule them out in turn, but we’ve got through that entire exercise and it’s only issue #5. It is, admittedly, a rather vibes-based approach to detective work, but I’ll let that slide. I’m not sure how much this book is really about anything, and the art feels a bit rushed in the first half – Sinister’s headquarters is a very bland room – but it’s got energy and it has some interesting takes on its cast.
Inglorious X-Force #5 annotations
INGLORIOUS X-FORCE #5
“Death War – part 2”
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artists: Roi Mercado & Michael Sta. Maria
Colour artist: Romulo Fajardo Jr
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Archangel, with the Death mask he wore as one of Apocalypse’s Horseman, perches on his teammates’ gravestones.
X-FORCE:
Archangel. According to Mr Sinister (who’s probably telling the truth about this), he experimented on Archangel at the tail end of the Krakoan era, surreptitiously giving him the life-giving powers that he demonstrated in issue #4. He calls Warren’s new persona “Blood Angel” and claims that when fully activated, he’ll be able to bring about “true, everlasting resurrection”. For some reason, to activate this power, Warren needs to take Sinister’s hand. We’re not told directly why Sinister needed to involve Warren in this, but it’s probably reasonable to assume that Sinister is tapping the power of Apocalypse’s Death Seed in some way.
The Blood Angel persona seems to be something of a puritan – he calls Hellverine a “demon” and “unclean”, then shoots him out of the sky with some sort of eye beam. The beams actually extinguish Hellverine’s flame and knock him out for a while. Sinister claims that Blood Angel could cure Cable of the techno-organic virus.
X-Men United #3 annotations
X-MEN UNITED #3
“The Loneliest Ghost”
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Tiago Palma
Colour artist: Brian Reber
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Emma Frost intervenes in an argument between Beast and Magneto. Charitably, something approaching this does happen in a subplot.
THE X-MEN:
Emma Frost. She’s unhappy with Beast’s time-travel glitches. At the end of the issue, she has a missed call from Lourdes Chantel; we haven’t seen Lourdes since she was killed by Orchis in the 2023 Hellfire Gala one-shot, though she was presumably among the many mutants resurrected in X-Men Forever #2 at the tail end of the Krakoan era.
Magneto. He grumbles that the mission was doomed from the start – although the actual problem that’s emerged is a technical time travel issue that has nothing to do with his argument in the previous issue that Captain America is only trying to assuage his own guilt. That said, his views from that scene are essentially echoed by Vernon Weaver in this story (see below).
Charts – 15 May 2026
Right, this is late, and it’s a busy week, so we’re going to dash through it.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Eleven weeks at number 1. It still needs another two weeks to match Alex Warren’s “Ordinary”. Drake is currently ahead in the midweeks, but not by a wide enough margin that I’d be confident of him hanging on until Friday. By this point “Rein Me In” has clearly peaked, but it’s still an absolute mile ahead of the competition, with a ridiculous 46% lead over Tame Impala at number 2.
6. Michael Jackson – “Human Nature”
In most countries, this was released as the fifth single from “Thriller” in 1983. In the UK, it wasn’t, and so this qualifies as a new entry and Michael Jackson’s 45th top 10 hit. It might actually be more familiar to British audiences as the sample in SWV’s “Right Here”. It has, however, been given a music video to promote the movie, which seems to have pushed it into the top three tracks being streamed on the back of the movie. “Billie Jean” and “Beat It” continue to climb, while “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” gets disqualified under the three song rule. (It would have placed at number 9.) “I Want You Back”, technically a Jackson 5 track, is also climbing.
The X-Axis – 13 May 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #28. (Annotations here.) Well, I was correct in my assumption that all the weird New Mutants stuff was something to do with Inmate X. I’ve seen some people who were underwhelmed with the real of who Inmate X is, but it works well enough for me. Quite aside from the fact that this storyline looks suspiciously like it was derailed in order to free up Professor X for that Exiles book that seemingly isn’t going to happen, I’d rather have a new character created for this role than try to shoehorn someone like Proteus or Jamie Braddock in. And there’s been at least some set up for the idea that Corinna’s brother was going to be significant down the line. So sure, I can go with that. And it also means that the Greymalkin plot is coming to a head, which is a relief, because it’s tended to be a distraction from the book’s other features. I like the relatively understated nature of the weirdness in the scenarios, as well, which seems more effective than just reaching for the sledgehammer. Vecchio sticks to a relatively clean look with oddity creeping in on the edges, and that works. On the other hand, it’s not at all clear at this point what the two New Mutants scenarios have to do with the Greymalkin plot, so the big question for this arc is whether it all comes together and becomes more than just strangeness.
WOLVERINE #20. (Annotations here.) So this is the end of the Adamantine arc that started back in issue #1. It also parks the New Morlocks / Silver Sable arc, but that one is left sufficiently unresolved that I assume the plan is to come back to it down the line. As for the Adamantine, though… Well, it looks good. Martín Cóccolo gives the Adamantine a nicely mythic feel, and his designs for the alternate Wolverines are quite fun. He’s certainly elevating the book. As for the story, though, the Adamantine arc just doesn’t work. In theory, you’d think there’d be something interesting in the idea of the “real” mythical metal taking offence at its Marvel Universe imitation, but ultimately the Adamantine just turns out to be a raving warrior spirit that wants to fight stuff. Much of the final issue depends on you being willing to accept that things have to play out in a particular way in order for the Adamantine to be defeated, and that the creature who could shatter Wolverine’s claws last issue becomes vulnerable to them once Wolverine’s shown sufficient fighting spirit. But this isn’t interesting. I just don’t see any wider resonance to any of this, and it winds up as a story in which things happen because the plot demands that they happen – both in the normal sense and in-universe. It’s clearly aiming for some sort of grand, epic scale, but doesn’t achieve it, and I have no real idea of what it was even going for beyond the surface level. A bit of a disaster for such a long-running storyline.
Wolverine #20 annotations
WOLVERINE vol 8 #20
“The Savage Champions”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine in action, with an image of the Adamantine behind him.
WOLVERINE:
Apparently, Wolverine’s role as “Savage Champion” involves enacting a routine narrative repeated in multiple timelines, in which he has to heroically stand alone against the Adamantine to save the world in a seemingly hopeless battle, thereby earning the right to be aided by other “Savage Champions” who have defeated the Adamantine in a previous timeline. (How did the first one beat the Adamantine? To be fair, they seem to come from different time periods, so maybe there wasn’t a “first one” in that sense.)
The other Savage Champions all appear to be vaguely alternate Wolverines, and address him as a “brother”. Wolverine reacts to them with a degree of confusion before saying that it feels like speaking to his reflection; he comes across here as unfamiliar with the idea of Wolverines from other timelines, though to be fair, these guys are not particularly close counterparts. Although the Savage Champions can assist him after this point, the narrative still requires Wolverine to deliver the “killing blow” to the Adamantine, which he does with his remaining adamantium claws. (However, Athena tells us that the Adamantine isn’t permanently dead, but merely returned to dormancy.)
Uncanny X-Men #28 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #28
“Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, part three: And It Shall Come To Pass”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Gambit, holding the Left Eye of Agamotto, and with dragon wings growing from him.
THE X-MEN
Gambit‘s own search for the Outliers goes nowhere, though he seems genuinely grateful to the Vig for making the effort. When the fake “Cannonball” flies off with Rogue, he suddenly reveals that he can use the Left Eye of Agamotto to grow dragon wings, and gives chase.
Rogue, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Jubilee deal with the weird fake “New Mutants”, but otherwise don’t do a great deal. The X-Men themselves are only in about four pages of the issue.
SUPPORTING CAST
Jitter. She’s the first to clearly point out that the Outliers are in a fake world, since although she can’t remember her history with any of her teammates, she still feels an emotional connection to them – specifically, that she reacts to Ransom as a leader and that she’s in love with Calico. She doesn’t say anything in particular about Deathdream. Deathdream also pointed out last issue that he still had emotional connections with the others, but nobody really paid attention to him.
Housekeeping
Annotations will probably be on Friday this week, for anyone wondering.
