The Incomplete Wolverine – 1998
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
We left off with Wolverine between regular writers. Warren Ellis’s “Not Dead Yet” filler arc had already taken us through to March 1998, and so we pick up this instalment with…
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #353-354
“Blackbirds” / “Prehistory”
by Steve Seagle, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend & Steve Buccellato
March & April 1998
Rogue has a recurring nightmare in which she first absorbs Wolverine’s powers and memory without his consent, then begs him to kill her for her lack of control. Rogue and Storm won’t tell him why she’s so jumpy, and he’s also generally annoyed about losing his temper with Marrow in X-Men #72, so Logan is generally annoyed.
At this point, Board of Education inspector Margaret Stone shows up, demanding to carry out a surprise inspection, since apparently Professor X hasn’t filed the necessary paperwork for over two years. She’s predictably horrified and quickly leaves, announcing that a full inspection will follow. In a depressing sign of things to come, this plotline simply vanishes into the ether without any resolution, after getting one further passing mention in issue #355. At any rate, Logan is having a very bad day, which only gets worse when he gets knocked out from behind by Sauron. He spends most of issue #354 unconscious, and finally wakes up in time to defeat Sauron. (Sauron is just hunting down mutant energy in this arc, and has no particular plan.)
Charts – 4 March 2022
Well, at least nothing’s happening on the chart.
That’s seven weeks at number one. All three Encanto songs are still in the top 10, with “Surface Pressure” at 5 and “The Family Madrigal” at 10 – the other two do seem to have peaked, though. And our highest new entry is…
25. Central Cee – “Straight Back To It”
Ah, filming your video at Chelsea’s stadium. Good week for that. Anyway, this is the last in a veritable barrage of singles that Central Cee has released in support of his album “23”, which enters at number 1 – his debut last year, “Wild West”, was a number 2 album. Central Cee has really churned out the supporting singles for this album, which is an interesting technique – “Straight Back To It” is his fifth top 40 hit of the year. One was the “Daily Duppy” freestyle (number 35), but the four proper singles all landed between 21 and 25. No guest stars on any of them, either – Central Cee has appeared as a guest on the D-Block Europe song “Overseas” (currently at 9), but he’s unusually un-keen on having other people on his own records.
Inferno
INFERNO vol 2 #1-4
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artist: Valerio Schiti & Stefano Caselli
Colourist: David Curiel
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Jordan White
Inferno is a strange book with a strange role. With Jonathan Hickman departing the X-books, it completes his run, but without resolving what he set up. The X-office has decided to stick with the Krakoan set-up for a little while yet, instead of moving on to the next phase of the originally planned storyline. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen at some point, of course – the nature of comics is that everything tends to revert to its traditional status quo in the end. But for now, we’re sticking with Krakoa.
So, if that’s direction, how do you go for finality? Well, by paying off a few prominent storylines and moving those characters on to their next phases, which seems fair enough. Quite why any of this is called Inferno, mind you, is less than obvious. Yes, it’s a trademark, but they already did a series under that name in 2015. This has nothing to do with any previous Inferno story, and nothing to do with Madelyne Pryor, who was being set up for something over in Hellions. (Her story continues in New Mutants, to be fair.) It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that it’s called Inferno mainly because they’d already started foreshadowing something called Inferno.
X-Men #9 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #9
“The Rule of Three”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: C F Villa
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Orchis members sitting behind a bloodstained desk, after a bunch of shootings. That’s Killian Devo and Alia Gregor setting at the desk, with Dr Stasis, Nimrod and Omega Sentinel behind them, alongside a bunch of Orchis footsoldiers. The desk has obvious parallels to the Quiet Council desks, and this whole issue picks up the theme from Jonathan Hickman’s stories about clear parallels between the Krakoans and Orchis. I’m not sure who the guy lying on the floor is – it might be Feilong, but that doesn’t really make sense, and if it’s him his costume is miscoloured. On the other hand, Alia doesn’t actually appear in the story. Also lying on the floor in the foregrounds are a mixture of bullets and Orchis’s signature petals.
Charts – 25 February 2022
We talk about him incessantly, I think you’ll find.
That’s six weeks. As for the other Encanto songs, “Surface Pressure” returns to 3 this week – it’s spent six weeks now hovering between 3 and 5 – while “The Family Madrigal” is still at 8.
6. Mimi Webb – “House On Fire”
Presumably the first single from her next album. This becomes her highest placing single, beating last year’s “Good Without” (which got to number 8). The singles from the last album were mostly mid paced ballads, so this is a bit of a shift, positioning her more as an 80s pop act. It’s not subtle, but I like the hook.
X-Men #1-5
X-MEN vol 6 #1-5
“Fearless”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artists: Pepe Larraz (#1-3), Javier Pina (#4-5)
Colourists: Marte Gracia (#1-3), Erick Arciniega (#4-5)
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Jordan White
That’s kind of a guess, actually. The solicitations for the first trade paperback have it covering issues #1-6. But issue #6 isn’t labelled part of “Fearless” and seems to be the start of a new arc. So, I’m going to figure that the first TPB is actually meant to be issues #1-5, whatever the solicitations say. Because that would make some kind of sense.
Ish.
When I think about the first few issues of Gerry Duggan’s X-Men, two main things spring to mind. One is the art. I love the art. I enjoyed Pepe Larraz’s work on House of X, and he’s great here too. That low-angle establishing shot of the Treehouse in issue #1 is fabulous, but so is the body language in the exchange between Cyclops and Ben Urich that follows. It really gets the sense of both characters dancing around the topic. His action scenes are dynamic, but the parade of aliens in Gameworld is full of invention. Dr Stasis’s weird suburban home is suitably creepy (the pallid colouring helps there too). Issue #3 is mainly a big pointless fight, but at least he brings the crazy animal soldiers.
X Deaths of Wolverine #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X DEATHS OF WOLVERINE #3
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist Federico Vicentini
Colourist: Dijjo Lima
Letterer: Cory Petit
COVER / PAGE 1: Daken, Scout and Wolverine (Laura) pose for action in front of Omega Wolverine.
PAGES 2-4. Professor X asks Wolverine (Laura) to go after Omega Wolverine.
Wolverine and Scout. Laura, the other Wolverine, is a regular character in X-Men. She’s effectively Logan’s genetic daughter. Scout is basically a younger clone of Laura, who Laura treats as a kid sister.
“[T]his whole Children of the Vault thing.” This is an X-Men storyline from both the Hickman and Duggan runs. Laura was locked in the time-distorted vault belonging to the Children of the Vault, centuries passed from her perspective, but she died immediately after escaping and before she could be backed up, so she doesn’t remember any of it.
“[S]houldn’t you be … hanging out at the Wild Hunt?” The training area for younger mutants from New Mutants, where Scout is a regular character.
Charts – 18 February 2022
This really does seem to be unshiftable.
Five weeks. It has peaked, but it’s still comfortably in the lead. As for the other two Encanto songs, “Surface Pressure” drops to 4, and “The Family Madrigal” rebounds 9-8 (which is still below its peak of 7).
2. Ed Sheeran – “The Joker and the Queen”
Not an obvious choice of single, this is the track from last year’s “=” album that Ed Sheeran performed at the Brit Awards, and then followed up with a new version featuring Taylor Swift. Even though that’s the version with the video, and it accounts for the vast majority of streams, for some reason the label hasn’t nominated it as the lead version – and so the song appears on the chart credited simply to Ed Sheeran as per the original album version.
House to Astonish Episode 197
We’re back once again with a full slate of comics news, remembering Ian Kennedy and Tom Veitch, and discussing the Hero Initiative’s JLA/Avengers reprint, DC’s upcoming Black Label titles, Marvel’s Wild Cards and Thunderbolts revivals, IDW’s Last Bot Standing and the Amazon/ComiXology disaster. We’ve also got reviews of Iron Fist and Nightwing, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe has a burnin’ love. All this plus an underground car park, trading cards with staples and Carnage, the most well-adjusted man in comics.
The podcast is here, or here on Mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or through our Facebook fan page. And if you wanted to buy a t-shirt from our Redbubble store, then well, we wouldn’t say no.
X-Men #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #8
“The Buffet is Undefeated”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Javier Pina
Colourist: Marte Gracia
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
COVER / PAGE 1: M.O.D.O.K. holding Jean Grey’s mask.
PAGE 2. Data page. A quote from Nick Fury, telling us that we should take M.O.D.O.K. seriously despite his appearance.
M.O.D.O.K. – the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing – debuted in the Captain America story in Tales of Suspense #94, back in 1967. Basically, George Tarleton is an A.I.M. technician who was turned into a human supercomputer to help with their investigations into the Cosmic Cube, only for him to overthrow them and seize control of A.I.M. The original M.O.D.O.K. was turned back to human form in Incredible Hulk #610 – the M.O.D.O.K. in this issue (and most stories in the last decade or so) is a clone who debuted in Hulk vol 2 #29.
Originally presented as a grotesque but basically serious villain, over the years he’s become mostly a comedy figure. Even though he isn’t played entirely straight in this issue, it’s actually a pretty credible outing for him by modern standards.
