{"id":9238,"date":"2023-06-30T22:27:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T21:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9238"},"modified":"2023-06-30T22:27:10","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T21:27:10","slug":"the-x-axis-w-c-26-june-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9238","title":{"rendered":"The X-Axis – w\/c 26 June 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, then – let\u2019s take a quick run through this week\u2019s X-books. As previously mentioned, no annotations this week or next, while I\u2019m on holiday. But the next Incomplete Wolverine<\/em> post will be up on Saturday.<\/p>\n

X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #93.<\/strong> By Jason Loo & Antonio Fabela. This is a sequel to the last \u201cX-Friends\u201d arc, in which a bunch of Madrox dupes went off and became space pirates. This time, they\u2019re back and allied with, um, Blastaar – for no particularly obvious reason beyond the fact that the FF are guesting in this arc. Like the previous Jason Loo arcs, this one falls very much in the category of \u201cOkay, I Guess?\u201d There\u2019s nothing especially wrong with it, the art is decent, there\u2019s a theoretically decent hook (the pirate leader dupe still views Madrox\u2019s daughter as his own child)\u2026 yet I can\u2019t honestly say I find it very engaging. Lightweight is fine – the X-books could do with some of that, and this title is a good place for it. But this raises a gentle smile rather than being a fun romp, which doesn\u2019t really feel enough.<\/p>\n

X-MEN: BEFORE THE FALL – THE HERALDS OF APOCALYPSE #1.<\/strong> By Al Ewing, Luca Pizzari, Stefano Landini, Raphael Pimento & Ceci De La Cruz. To all intents and purposes this is an extra issue of\u00a0X-Men Red<\/em>, though the branding gives it added justification for ignoring the regular cast entirely in favour of filling in some of the back story of Genesis. What it isn\u2019t <\/em>is a story about the Heralds of Apocalypse, despite the Horsemen\u2019s prominence of the cover – but the actual story content matches the solicitation, so presumably plans didn\u2019t change that much.<\/p>\n

Al Ewing\u2019s approach to Apocalypse and Genesis builds on some passing dialogue from \u201cX of Swords\u201d flashbacks where she treats him as the weaker partner who was left behind while she went off to fight an eternal war with the population of Arakkii. The flashbacks here try to square off the idea that Apocalypse and Genesis had already had four kids named Famine, Pestilence, War and Death\u00a0before<\/em> the war with Amenth that led to the proto-Krakoan paradise of Amenth being divided into two. Basically, Genesis starts off already convinced that war is the future, and Apocalypse is politely smitten with her – but appalled to ultimately learn that she actually chose to prolong the war. This essentially turns Genesis into the mouthpiece of the one-dimensional version of Arakko that Ewing rehabbed in\u00a0X-Men Red<\/em>, and indeed the one-dimensional version of Apocalypse from his survival of the fittest days; Apocalypse here\u00a0does<\/em> believe in the survival of the fittest stuff, but only as a means to an end, while for Genesis, it\u2019s the end in itself.<\/p>\n

So the big retcon is that Genesis was never really corrupted by Annihilation, but was completely on board with Annihilation\u2019s agenda all along. I can see how that gives her a hook, but ultimately Apocalypse comes out of this issue looking more interesting than Genesis does. How big a problem that is depends on how this storyline is intending to use Genesis – if the focus is on how everyone else reacts to her then okay – but I can\u2019t say I\u2019m sold yet on reading stories centred on her. After all,\u00a0X-Men Red\u00a0<\/em>got me on board with Arakko largely by moving away from the interpretation that she represents.<\/p>\n

DEADPOOL #8.<\/strong> By Alyssa Wong, Luigi Zagaria & Matt Milla. Okay, this series does have some pacing issues. We\u2019re eight issues in and we\u2019re still basically in a cycle of Deadpool and Valentine fighting people from the Atelier each issue. This one at least has its own angle – the good old \u201cillusory perfect life\u201d trope, where Deadpool isn\u2019t scarred and gets to hang out with his daughter again – which adds a bit more weight to this one, but it\u2019s still something of a stock plot. As usual, there are good moments and the general tone of the book feels right, but something\u2019s lacking in the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

STORM #2.<\/strong> By Ann Nocenti, Sid Kotian & Andrew Dalhouse. As with issue #1, it\u2019s kind-of-sort-of the 1980, sliding timeline notwithstanding – which I suppose it kind of has to be in order for Storm\u2019s mohawk look to make any sense. So people are talking as if Madonna and Prince are topical references, and Kitty is hacking on a computer with a cathode ray tube screen and a mouse on a cable. Combine that with the abstract distance of a lot of Nocenti\u2019s dialogue and it\u2019s an odd but quite intriguing read. It\u2019s really more of an X-Men story focussed on Storm than a true solo series, with Rogue and Kitty getting a fair amount of prominence too, but it avoids being a straight nostalgia book despite anchoring itself at a particular point in time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, then – let\u2019s take a quick run through this week\u2019s X-books. As previously mentioned, no annotations this week or next, while I\u2019m on holiday. But the next Incomplete Wolverine post will be up on Saturday. X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #93. By Jason Loo & Antonio Fabela. This is a sequel to the last \u201cX-Friends\u201d […]<\/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-9238","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\/9238","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=9238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9240,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9238\/revisions\/9240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}