{"id":11857,"date":"2026-03-13T23:34:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11857"},"modified":"2026-03-13T23:34:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T23:34:39","slug":"the-x-axis-11-march-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=11857","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – 11 March 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

X-MEN UNITED #1.<\/strong> (Annotations here.)<\/a> Well. I liked\u00a0Exceptional X-Men<\/em>, even if it did have a languid approach to pacing, and even if it did have a rather handwavy approach to the plot making sense. This is obviously the successor to that book, and continues to give prominence to the Exceptional\u00a0<\/em>cast, but it’s an odd series. The premise is to set up a school and (perhaps more significantly in the grand scheme of things) a meeting place where the disparate parts of the X-books can interact. But it’s not exactly a school because it’s training grown adults too. And because it has to be the successor to\u00a0Exceptional<\/em>, those characters can’t just fade into the background and instead have to be given a senior role… which might make sense if everyone else was a rookie, but seems downright weird when you’re using long running background characters like Dryad and Wolf Cub.\u00a0Exceptional<\/em> ran for thirteen issues! Wolf Cub’s a nonentity, but he’s still been around for over twenty years!<\/p>\n

The concept of Graymatter Lane doesn’t come across either. It shouldn’t be that hard just to explain directly whether people are physically travelling to this space or whether it’s some sort of psychic conference call. It shouldn’t take me multiple readings to figure out something that basic about the core premise. It seems <\/em>to be a physical space, but other dialogue doesn’t really fit with that answer, so… how hard would it have been to spend a few panels just explaining the premise directly? It’s needlessly confusing. And the art doesn’t really take advantage of the visual showcase opportunities either. It’s fine<\/em> but it’s nothing exceptional. If this is some sort of psychic dreamscape then it ought to be possible to go nuts, and this doesn’t.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then there’s the fact that the plot hinges on Cyclops being inexplicably a massive asshole for no discernible reason, which doesn’t convince in the slightest.\u00a0The best parts are the bits with the\u00a0Exceptional\u00a0<\/em>cast that get to play to Eve Ewing’s character-driven strengths, but there’s no getting away from the fact that as a first issue, this misfires badly. It’s a dilution of what\u00a0Exceptional<\/em> did well, not a development, unfortunately.<\/p>\n

STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #2.<\/strong> (Annotations here.)<\/a> Surprisingly linear, by the standards of this book. It’s still awfully choppy, though. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the story that Ayodele is doing here, though. Storm has imprisoned Akujin’s master because he was threatening the Earth and she refuses to kill him. Akujin threatens chaos and destruction unless her master is released. Scarlet Witch, as Sorcerer Supreme, argues for just giving in, but Storm won’t have it. Meanwhile, Death is planning to invade Earth with her own forces, presumably because Oblivion’s destruction at the end of the last volume has driven her mad. It’s not obviously a Storm story, but at least there’s a dilemma in here for Storm about whether to stick to her principles if it risks the deaths of others. But… that’s almost brushed aside, and Storm never really seems to regard it as a dilemma at all. I’m kind of left to agree with the Scarlet Witch: why is any of this worth it? The story never explains, but if that’s not the character hook for this story, what is? I like the art, I kind of admire the sprawling ambition of the whole thing, I even kind of like Akujin and her sisters with their mundane meeting room. There are good things in here, but they’re not cohering.<\/p>\n

MAGIK & COLOSSUS #2.<\/strong> By Ashley Allen, Germ\u00e1n Peralta, Arthur Hesli & Ariana Maher. This is the best X-book of the week, which admittedly isn’t a particularly high bar- but it would have cleared it in plenty of tougher weeks. Magik and Colossus’ sibling relationship is remarkably underexplored, all things considered, but Allen finds an angle to make it work. Sure, we’re doing a tour of Russia with monsters from Russian mythology, but more to the point, we have Peter being simultaneously overprotective and self-loathing. He blames himself for failing to protect Illyana from Belasco in the past, but he also sees her as someone who’s overcome far greater trials than the ones he failed at. But all that is relatively underplayed, with Peter doing his best to keep the show on the road. The lack of real connection between the two becomes the point, instead of pretending that there’s been a strong off-panel relationship all along, and the stilted conversation scene on the train is beautifully done. And from the look of it, part of the point of this story is to give Peter some opportunity to feel that he’s succeeded in protecting Illyana. There’s a nice little character story going on in here.<\/p>\n

LOGAN:BLACK, WHITE & BLOOD #3.<\/strong> This anthology isn’t exactly making the greatest case for the flexibility of Wolverine as a character. What do you do in a Wolverine short? Might it by any chance be for him to cross paths with some assholes, possibly threatening a friend, and for him to then brutally despatch said assholes by the end of the story? Because that’s basically this issue’s Karla Pacheco \/ Pere P\u00e9rez story, and it’s basically the Marc Bernardin \/ Jan Bazaldua story too. And it was basically the prohibition-era story from the previous issue, come to think of it. Individually, if they were rounding out an annual or an anniversary issue, they’d be fine – they’re well drawn, they’re decently paced – but they aren’t really about anything. Phil Noto’s “Clinical Trial” story is better, if only because the set-up of a supposed medical trial that’s actually trying to brainwash people into becoming assassins is something different, but for the most part it’s a story that you could plug any hero into. You can make the case that Logan has a particular interest in mind-controlled weapons, and there’s kind of a gesture in that direction, but it doesn’t feel that important. Still, the story as a whole has some commitment to it. The rest is by the numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

X-MEN UNITED #1. (Annotations here.) Well. I liked\u00a0Exceptional X-Men, even if it did have a languid approach to pacing, and even if it did have a rather handwavy approach to the plot making sense. This is obviously the successor to that book, and continues to give prominence to the Exceptional\u00a0cast, but it’s an odd series. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-x-axis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11857"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11858,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11857\/revisions\/11858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}