The X-Axis – w/c 8 April 2024
X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #134. By Steve Foxe & Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. Well, at least this issue has a fun bit which uses the vertical scrolling quite effectively for a leap across the room during an action sequence. Other than that, I don’t know what I can say that I haven’t said before. We’re apparently building to a fight between Sunspot and Gideon, and… um, that doesn’t feel to me like much of a hook in 2024. God, we must have another month of this to go. (Sighs deeply.)
RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO #4. (Annotations here.) At first glance, it seems like an odd choice to do three rather abstract issues venturing into the afterlife and then end on a final issue of Magneto joining the fight against Orchis – even if the crossover context might make that unavoidable. But it fits better than you’d expect, since this issue isn’t really concerned with the crossover at all; it’s about what Magneto has learned from the last few issues and how he chooses to put that into practice when fighting the Orchis footsoldiers. It’s an issue of Magneto trying to be responsible, though he gets boxed into a corner where he winds up killing the Orchis guys anyway. I’m not convinced that the colour coding thing works – red doesn’t really work as symbolising a middle path for Magneto when it’s the colour most associated with his Silver Age persona as a one-dimensional villain, while the black and white versions of his costume come from much later stories that are much more nuanced – but the basic positioning of Magneto coming out the story works, and the way that the art makes Magneto look traditionally heroic plays nicely against all that.
I’m not sure that this miniseries leaves Magneto in a dramatically different position from where he’s been before – he’s been a mostly equivocal figure since the 1980s, after all. But there are shifts of emphasis here, as well as Magneto trying to come to terms more directly with the conflicting ways he’s been interpreted in the past. Besides, Magneto was obviously never going to stay dead, and I’d rather see Al Ewing complete that arc himself. The mini is something of a coda to X-Men Red, but a satisfying one.
WOLVERINE #47. (Annotations here.) After the first couple of issues of “Sabretooth War” I was absolutely dreading having to slog through the rest of it, but things have turned around dramatically. It’s still not exactly the way I’d have wanted to wrap up Victor LaValle’s Sabretooth stories, but it does feel like a proper continuation of them at this point. Wolverine himself is almost a marginal figure in the book – he’s an object of Sabretooth’s obsession, but Sabretooth is the real protagonist here. Wolverine doesn’t even get to narrate, which is unusual in a Wolverine solo story, but clearly the right choice. And the Exiles finally get to use that seed Cypher gave them ages ago. Granted, we’ve done “Wolverine has his powers removed before a final showdown with Sabretooth before” in the Paul Cornell run, which was very good; this is more in the realms of “solidly decent”, but that’s still a big step up from where we started.
MS MARVEL: MUTANT MENACE #2. By Iman Vellani, Sabir Pirzada, Scott Goslewski, Arciniega & Joe Caramagna. What an odd book to be coming out during “Fall of X”. It’s not just that this has nothing to do with the crossover, and takes place earlier on – it’s a Mojo story, with Ms Marvel helping Lila Cheney to rescue her fans from the big blob guy. I guess he’s just back running Mojoworld again, but… well, that’s what always happens whenever someone tries to change the status quo of Mojoworld, so whatever. It seems a bit odd that Lila doesn’t know to steer clear of Mojo, but then again she doesn’t seem the type to be poring over the X-Men’s files. Despite the use of peripheral X-characters, this doesn’t really turn on Ms Marvel actually being in the X-Men at all, nor does it seem to be part of a wider storyline running through the miniseries – this book feels more like it’s just an extra four issues of Ms Marvel that were commissioned too late in the day to be billed as Ms Marvel #5-8. Still, rather that than shoehorning Ms Marvel even further into a grimdark event, and the line could do with a bit of lightweight fluff to balance things out. Okay, it’s the usual Mojo stuff, and there’s nothing very new here, but it’s a fine version of that story.
WEAPON X-MEN #2. By Christos Gage, Yildiray Çinar, Nolan Woodard, Clayton Cowles & Sarah Brunstad. It’s a spotlight issue for the Earth-X version of Wolverine – the version who retired in order to try and live a normal life with Jean Grey and became middle aged and out of shape. There’s actually a bit of legitimate pathos in this diminished version of the character trying to rise to the occasion anyway, to be fair. It’s pretty obvious at this point that there’s some sort of twist coming, because this collection of alternate Wolverines makes absolutely no sense as the team who are supposed to save the world from cosmic forces, and some fairly heavy hints are being dropped that Phoenix is lying to the group. It’s all extremely gimmicky, but there’s nothing wrong with it as a bit of throwaway counter-programming to round out the line.
INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #17. By Gerry Duggan, Patch Zircher, Bryan Valenza & Joe Caramanga. Still tying in to “Fall of X”, but this one isn’t particularly essential reading on that count – most of it consists of Iron Man hallucinating about his life after being injured in battle last issue. Naturally enough, most of that material is largely of interest to regular Iron Man readers, though a hallucinatory Magneto does show up to harangue Tony for creating the technology used in the Stark Sentinels. The real Magneto shows up at the end (as promised over in Resurrection #4), so that bit will become important next issue. Meanwhile, Feilong has belatedly figured out that Orchis is really run by an AI conspiracy. In some ways I’m relieved that this doesn’t prompt him to do a full blown face turn, and that his first instinct is to try and club Tony to death before moving on to deal with the robots himself. In the grand scheme of things it was a mistake to make Orchis quite so one-dimensional, but having gone down this route, it wouldn’t really work for them to suddenly develop nuance now. And besides, this book needs Iron Man to get his win over Feilong somewhere along the line.
I know you don’t normally cover spin-off materials but may I be an additional vote for some sort of coverage for the X-Men 97 cartoons. The way they’re doing them, I they’d really lend themselves well to the annotations format as they’re more remixing stories together than doing straight adaptations. And it would be great to hear your views on them Paul.
I think the “please cover the spin-offs” appeals are all tiresome and should be deleted
Weapon xmen sounds like one of those unapologetic stupid fan service comics I’m occasionally in the mood for. Might give it a look.
Lila has met Mojo before in X-Men 5-11 in 1992. so she definitely knows what a monster he is. I think the idea is that she took Mojo’s money without thinking about how dangerous that is. In X-Factor 111. by John Francis Moore and Todd DeZago,Lila almost gets Guido killed by stealing something from an alien race, with Guido complaining that Lila needs help- the implication was that Lila has a tendency to do reckless things that endanger herself and others when Guido isn’t around to call her on it. Vellani and Pirzada seem to share that interpretation.
How does Kamala not know what Blightswill is? Kamala was at the Hellfire Gala when Moira stabbed Jean with a knife coated with Blightswil and then Moira threatened to use it on the other heroes present, which included Kamala. You’d think someone would have explained to her what Blightswill is. Besides, Orchis has been repeatedly using Blightswill through Fall of X. It’s like fighting the Shroud repeatedly and not knowing what Darkforce is.
I guess Lila getting dosed with Blightswill is a way to take her out of action for Fall of the House of X.
Invincible iron Man 17 is a homage to Invincible Iron Man 232.
Duggan has a weirdly inconsistent view of heroes doing horrible things to villains. In most of his books the heroes torture and kill villains without remorse but in Iron Man 17 Tony feels guilty about what happened to people like Obadiah State and Justin Hammer. even though in both cases their fates were of their own making. It would have worked better if Duggan had instead focused on some of Tony’s other friends who died because he was Iron Man.
The solicits for Iron Man 20 are out- it’s coming out on July 17th and will feature Tony’s and Emma’s breakup. Which is interesting, since McKay’s X-Men run will start on July 10th. Tony’s and Emma’s breakup coming AFTER the new X-Books start seems to be more evidence that Duggan wasn’t prepared to end things quickly and that’s one of the reason Duggan’s section of Fall of the House of X seems rushed.
The leaks about McKay’s X-Men 1 make it clear that Scott’s X-Men will face a new anti-mutant organization formed out of the human remnants of Orchis. I wonder if 3-D Man will be a member.
Apologies @Chris if you find them tiresome, and of course Paul is free to cover whatever he wants, and I do understand he’s about the comics not the spin-offs. And having been reading Paul for twenty years I’ve never suggeested he cover spin-offs…but what they’re doing with the cartoon really would benefit from his type of analysis.
@Will Cooling: Why are you apologizing? It’s up to Paul to decide if he wants to take your request into consideration or even acknowledge it. Chris is just being a dick, and their salty reaction reflects more poorly on them.
Speaking of off-topic content, I realized Paul did not do any Wrestlemania posts and don’t remember how long ago now he stopped doing them.
I knew it wouldn’t last, but part of me is still a little sad to see Tony and Emma won’t last as a couple. I’d like to see Tony actually get a long term romantic partner who matches his qualities and isn’t a) a damsel in distress or b) nuts.
The Emma relationship felt forced to me (which isn’t really far from the reality).
I have always found Bethany Cabe to be the best match for Tony. At the same time, one of Stark’s characteristics is to be something of a playboy, so I don’t think Stark is ever a character who will stay married. Considering that most of Marvel’s characters are only allowed to change so much.
I guess Tony Stark will have to make some sort of deal with Mephisto. That does seem to be the only way to accomplish ending a marriage in the Marvel Universe.
Usually, marriage ends when one of the couple at least temporarily dies.
The other alternative, which I’d not recommend, is what happened with Hank and Jan.
It’s interesting that the movies chose to pair Tony and Pepper when the comics never had them consummate their flirtation (except in Fraction’s run that had Tony deleting his mind anyway).
“Them”
How fat do people think I am?
How many seats on an airplane does “Moonstar Dynasty” presuppose I purchase?
But Mark Coale has it wrong: the wrestling posts were never off-topic. And they were interesting.
Bethany Cabe was always supposed to be Tony’s “the one that got away”
OF COURSE she was his best match
Mark Coale said: Speaking of off-topic content, I realized Paul did not do any Wrestlemania posts and don’t remember how long ago now he stopped doing them.
IIRC, there was a point where Paul was covering CHIKARA instead of(?) WWE.
As to comments, Paul and Al generally seem to be OK with conversations that range around and with people posting requests or ideas.
I can’t think of anything much getting deleted other than persistent trolling of other users and similarly abusive conduct.
Nothing is stopping anyone from doing their own annotations and putting them in the weekly thread (unless there’s a policy about spoilers) or asking Paul and Al to consider putting up guest posts on the topic. I’m not sure how well annotations would actually fit, since referencing a timestamp on a video seems a lot more fiddly to me than referencing pages.
I am watching X-Men ’97 with a friend and while I’m enjoying it, I’ll be honest and say that I don’t think it’s worth subscribing to Disney+ if that’s the only thing on it that’s interesting to you. If Paul doesn’t already have the service, then I can’t think that it’s worth the 2 or 3 months of subscription for it. Maybe a binge of all 10 episodes when the season is complete.
Chris:
“ “Them”
How fat do people think I am?”
Given that Chris can be a male, female, or gender neutral name, using a gender-neutral pronoun to refer to you when unsure of your preference is a perfectly reasonable solution. I suspect you know that, however, and are just being a willfully ignorant jerk. Please don’t be that person.
@The Other Michael:
Please let’s not jump to conclusions. In all fairness, I respect and support the use of the plural pronoums… but to me at least it is a very recent finding. It is very reasonable to expect people to simply not be used to that particular innovation.
The singular “they/them” for use in cases of indefinite meaning is not recent to English, at all. It was used in Jane Eyre, as one example, and earlier examples in English can probably be found.
It was a common occurrence to use singular “they/them”. If your friend says, “I’m going to have my friend drop over later.” you may not realize if this friend is a male or a female, so you would say, “Oh. What time are they planning to stop by?”.
It’s certainly more concise than saying, “Oh. What time is he or she stopping by?”.
It’s only our overly politicized time when every aspect of our lives must be regimented as part of a political agenda that the use of singular “they/them” has become controversial rather than a word choice.
By the way, I think Chris (minus the V) was just making a joke. I don’t want to get involved in that aspect of the conversation. I was just pointing out the historical misconception.
I take no issue with people’s “off-topic” conversations and I couldn’t explain why I don’t care about that. If I did care about that then I’d be a hypocrite considering I helped steer into the topic of “what X-MEN comic do you consider a natural jumping-off point?”
But begging the blog owner to present an opinion on something he explicitly holds no interest quickly became tedious; thus I briefly but steadily became salty over the matter.
I remember the CHIKARA posts with fondness as well as those regarding WWE PPVs. I also remember the WWF.
In my day the use of the “they them” term was for a fat joke. Times are a changing, I suppose, but I hate that song and found the beginning of the WATCHMEN movie irritating.
“In my day the use of the “they them” term was for a fat joke.”
Well then, the last I’ll say on the topic is that making jokes about the use of they/them (or pronoun usage) these days can be construed as rude, insensitive, and/or insulting towards trans/nonbinary/genderqueer folks, and I usually see it done by the more disagreeable denizens of the Internet.
Back to the X-Men… this really is a four month period of spinning the wheels, isn’t it. So many stories either going nowhere, going slowly, or being absolutely tangential to the main story… which itself feels like it’s moving slowly. I’m ready for Fall of X to be done so we can get into From the Ashes and see how that plays out. Especially now that we know the creative teams for most of the titles.
Yes. It seems that Marvel has already moved on and is just publishing the remainder of the “Fall of X” lineup because it is necessary (stretched out for the appropriate number of months when it could have been ended by this point). Somehow, it feels both rushed and too slow at the same time. Gillen’s books are getting the most praise, and as far as writing quality I definitely can understand, but even that is moving in a very straight line to get from point A to the defeat of Enigma, lacking any surprises. The Krakoa status quo will be ending with a whimper rather than a bang, so I’d very much welcome any sort of surprise at this point but that is seeming unlikely. I’ve stopped caring about the X-titles again.
There’s some more news:
Breevort has said that there will be more X-titles that haven’t been announced and some of them will be solo titles.
Also, contrary to rumors, Greg Capullo will NOT be drawing Wolverine.
Geoffrey Thorne has said that Rachel will be upset over “the betrayal of Charles Xavier” in X-Force. That raises the question- why is shooting Rachel such a horrendous betrayal if Xavier knew that the Five were alive and Rachel could be brought back? Or does Xavier do something else?
I’m pretty sure that shooting Rachel is only the beginning of a plan. I still think Xavier is the Sinisterized version who cannot allow Krakoa to exist because of what it represents vis-a-vis his “dream”. Which I think also will lead to Sinister still being alive (as his death seemed too rushed and throwaway for one of Krakoa’s main villains).
I wonder who else is in line for a solo title, since right now we have Storm, Jean, and of course Logan.
Would it be one of the other usual suspects?
(Cable, Kurt, Bobby, Kate, Gambit…)
Or a real curveball with someone who hasn’t held down a solo before? (Piotr, Sunspot, Leech, Callisto, Maggott, Woofer)
Dazzler finally getting a new title? Bishop again?
I’m curious as to who has a shot at solo stardom.
@The Other Michael: With Tom Brevoort in charge and proudly declaring he knows nothing about X-Men after Adjectiveless #1? I wouldn’t get my hopes up for any outside-the-box thinking.
@Chris V- I don’t think that Xavier would have allowed Rasputin to kill Sinister if he didn’t know that there was a way for Sinister to survive somehow. Killing a villain who kept his end of the bargain is VERY out of character for Xavier. I don’t think Xavier is still Sinisterized though.
That raises the question, though- from all appearances, Xavier is Traitor X. Does that mean he’s Prisoner X? We’ve been assuming Traitor X and Prisoner X are the same person but they don’t have to be. It’s possible the reason Scott and Rogue don’t want Xavier near their teams is because they haven’t forgiven him.
@Diana- Breevort has since indicated that he’s been brushing up on his X-History post Adjectiveless 1. He mentioned Beak being a great lover and Stevie Hunter’s being a Congressman. And NYX is entirely composed of 21st century characters.
Re: solo books, whoever is victorious in the Heir to Apocalypse miniseries seems like an possibility. Laura, Forge and Emma are otherwise occupied so that leaves Armageddon Girl, Cable, Cypher, Exodus, Gorgon, Mirage, Mr. Sinister, Penance, and Rictor.
Cable’s the obvious pick since he’s had solo books before. I do think it’s “strike while the iron’s hot” time for Exodus and Armageddon Girl, though. Exodus in particular should be an emotional and spiritual wreck by the end of Fall of X.
Mystique doesn’t seem to be listed as a member of the X-Force team. If she isn’t a member of X-Factor, I expect she’ll get a solo book.
@Chris V- Keep in mind that there’s probably going to be at least one more team book that hasn’t been announced yet. None of the New Mutants except Illyana have been announced as a member of a team, so there’s probably going to be another New Mutants book, for example. I agree, though, that if Mystique isn’t a member of a team, she’ll get a solo book.
I’d be all for an Al Ewing Sunspot book.
@Michael: I would like a New Mutants comic, but that series hasn’t been a big seller. That said, I could see a Magic solo series catching some attention.
@Diana
Where’d Brevoort say that?
“How fat do people think I am?”
Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps she should try singing to bring this to a close.
This week’s X-Men infinity comic is actually starting to get to the point. If only the rest of the comic featured Sunspot directing the action, the rest might have worked.
@ylU: His Substack newsletter. The man blows a *lot* of smoke and hot air but every now and then he tells on himself
Karl Ngu confirmed that Duggan’s Iron Man series is coming to an end. I guess issues 19-20 will just wrap up loose ends- Tony & Emma, Rhodey In jail, Kingpin running the Hellfire Clue, Tony being broke, Tony owing the Kingpin a favor, etc.
@Diana
Okay, but let me ask, did you read his comment or are you going off a paraphrase by someone else of something he said? Comic book gossip tends to undergo a fish story effect where innocuous comments get blown up into something else entirely.
I haven’t by any means read all of Brevoort’s Substack but I’ve read a bunch and I know he’s talked about post-Jim Lee X-stuff in the past, particularly the Morrison run which he’s a big fan of.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Perhaps she should try singing to bring this to a close.”
Bah. I have a rant written somewhere about audience demand vs blogger disinterest