{"id":11795,"date":"2026-02-18T21:59:47","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11795"},"modified":"2026-02-18T21:59:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:59:47","slug":"x-men-vol-7-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11795","title":{"rendered":"X-Men vol 7 #25"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>X-MEN vol 7 #25<\/strong>
\n“Involved Again”<\/strong>
\nWriter: Jed MacKay<\/strong>
\nPenciller: Tony Daniel<\/strong>
\nInker: Mark Morales<\/strong>
\nColourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo<\/strong>
\nLetterer: Clayton Cowles<\/strong>
\nEditor: Tom Brevoort<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVER:<\/strong> The new leader of O*N*E in silhouette, with the X-Men viewed through sniper scopes behind him.<\/p>\n

This is an anniversary issue (aside from the current numbering, it also has legacy number #325), which means we get a normal length story plus a five-page back-up strip.<\/p>\n

THE X-MEN:<\/strong><\/p>\n

As usual, our field team is Cyclops, Kid Omega, Juggernaut, Psylocke, Temper<\/strong> and\u00a0Magik<\/strong>. Cyclops’ top priority is for them to find Revelation and make sure that the “Age of Revelation” timeline is averted. (Beast points out that driving Revelation away from the X-Men may have made this more difficult, but on the other hand, it also creates a deviation from the history of the “Age of Revelation” timeline.)<\/p>\n

In practice, they don’t get very far with their mission this time – on their way to Rio Verde, they run into Fenris and their white supremacist followers and have a fight with them instead. As you might expect, the X-Men take particular pleasure in defeating and humiliating these guys.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bohannan declares the X-Men to be “citizen auxiliaries” of O*N*E, for the sole purpose of undermining their credibility with other mutants.<\/p>\n

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Magneto.\u00a0<\/strong>Cyclops shares with everyone the fact that his “resurrection-linked degenerative syndrome” didn’t happen in the “Age of Revelation” timeline. The Beast’s first theory is that Magneto’s condition might instead be something to do with the timeline being altered. (Basically, the idea of resurrection being a potential health risk seems to be being kicked into touch.)<\/p>\n

Beast.\u00a0<\/strong>Aside from chipping in the insights already noted, he doesn’t go on the mission in this story, which is usual. We see what he gets up to in the meantime in the back-up strip.<\/p>\n

The Morlocks.\u00a0<\/strong>They’re still living in Rio Verde, as they were during the Krakoan era. The X-Men are planning to visit them, but don’t get as far as actually meeting them in this issue. There is, of course, a splinter “New Morlocks” group in Canada in current issues of\u00a0Wolverine<\/em>, but nobody mentions them, and as far as we know they only include two members of the original Morlocks.<\/p>\n

Magneto suspects that Revelation might try to make contact with the Morlocks, but doesn’t explain why – perhaps it’s just that they’re the largest easily located community of mutants remaining.<\/p>\n

VILLAINS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fenris.\u00a0<\/strong>This is the first time we’ve seen Andrea and Andreas von Strucker since the “Fall of X” period, when they were in the version of the Mutant Liberation Front led by the Nazi version of Steve Rogers. They’re now leading a white supremacist militia group which seems to be mainly made up of humans; more attention than usual is given to the Norse mythology element of their name, and the group is clearly meant to be in that vein. The group incoherently believes that the distinction between humans and mutants is unimportant, but also that white mutants are the pinnacle of the white race.<\/p>\n

In terms of how far the twins believe in any of this and how much of it is grift, they were always supposed to be white supremacists; the only bit that’s probably for the consumption of the rubes is the assurance that it doesn’t matter that they’re only humans.\u00a0Fenris seem to have no particularly concrete plan here beyond attacking the Morlocks for the hell of it (though to be fair, they don’t get far enough for us to see whether there was anything more to the plan). Their followers are simply typical rural thugs, heavily armed, but not with anything beyond the conventional. They seem to have a couple of rocket launchers, but beyond that it’s pick-up trucks and regular firearms.<\/p>\n

Andreas carries a sword, referencing his time as the Swordsman in\u00a0Thunderbolts<\/em>. When Psylocke seems to be about to kill Andreas, Andrea’s concern for her brother seems sincere.<\/p>\n

Frank Bohannan.<\/strong> The new Director of O*N*E, as previously mentioned by Agent Lundqvist, is the former Crimson Commando. He debuted in\u00a0Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #215 (1986) as a retconned-in Golden Age hero who had taken to hunting down criminals as a vigilante; he went on to have a stint in Freedom Force and became a cyborg after getting injured in battle. He’s barely appeared this century, and he was killed by Wolverine in Uncanny X-Men<\/em> #539 after kidnapping Hope Summers to try and force her to restore his mutant powers.<\/p>\n

We’re told that he was resurrected off panel during the Krakoan era but promptly left to return to the USA. Obviously, his mutant powers will have been restored as part of that. His powers were essentially the same as Captain America’s, combined with long life – on a day to day level, he’s superhuman, but not by much.<\/p>\n

This version of Bohannan seems considerably more jingoistic than he was in the past, though resistance to social change is in character for him and might reasonably account for him rejecting Krakoa. He regards other American mutants as having rejected their nation and come crawling back. Publicly, he claims to detest Nazis (probably true, since he was a World War II hero, though a dangerously liberal opinion for anyone appointed by the current American administration). In every other respect, this is basically a MAGA interpretation of the character (“the only part of the world I care about is this country”), though he stops short of actually wanting to expel mutants, and to some extent he seems to be reacting to the X-Men’s more hubristic claims of being above the law. His stated policy is to deputise mutants to control other mutants, which seems to be at least in part an exercise in trolling, and he publicly claims to be a “proud mutant”, though he seems openly disdainful of them otherwise.<\/p>\n

O*N*E.<\/strong> The usual armed and masked goons accompany Bohannan.<\/p>\n

CONTINUITY REFERENCES:<\/strong><\/p>\n