The X-Axis – w/c 17 June 2024
Well, this is quiet…
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #2. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Don’t ask me what the schedule is for this book – the first two issues were released, um, twelve days apart. But it’s a nice solid story. It’s simple – something is possessing a bunch of people and making them march off through the snow. Scott is one of them, and he needs to find a way of getting Jean’s attention (because while she could easily keep track of him whenever he’s out of sight, she doesn’t). It’s basically a ghost story, and it’s got some relatively detailed character work, certainly for an Infinity Comic. Neves has always been a solid artist and he has some good uses of the vertical scrolling format here, with merging panels and the occasional interesting perspective trick. It’s pretty good!
WOLVERINE: BLOOD HUNT #2. By Tom Waltz, Juan José Ryp, Guru-eFX & Cory Petit. Um. Well, this is mostly extended fight scenes. There’s a little bit suggesting that Maverick has a more complicated agenda than the first issue implied but… no, mostly it’s just Wolverine and Nightguard fighting a zombie horde. Sorry, vampire horde. But it’s the same thing to all practical purposes. I see why we’re doing Blood Hunt tie-ins this month – it’s a very handy buffer between X-seasons. But this is the sort of issue that makes my heart sink at the thought of reading the rest of the crossover. Even the core titles participating in this event are only doing three issues each. The X-books are doing eight! And while Jubilee at least has a hook to do vampire stories with, there’s a real diminishing returns element to tie-ins taking place in the margins of a crossover like this. How many different stories can you really do about vampire hordes roaming wild? Because by my count there are 48 tie-in issues to Blood Hunt not counting the core series, and I’m willing to bet that the answer to my question isn’t “48”. In isolation, this is a competent action issue but… god, how much of this?
DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE: SLASH ‘EM UP INFINITY COMIC #1. By Christos Gage, Alan Robinson, Carlos Lopez & Joe Sabino. You know there’s already a Wolverine/Deadpool mini in progress, right, Marvel? Well, this is, if nothing else, accurately billed. There’s a token plot – Wolverine and Deadpool are both independently after a macguffin being developed by a dodgy medical company in Madripoor. It’s really just an excuse for Deadpool to fight a bunch of robot guards for the issue and Wolverine to show up at the end. But leaving aside the “not another one” factor, it’s perfectly decent. This is a Deadpool issue and he has some good lines. Robinson’s robot guards are rather neat, and his storytelling is very clear in this format. It’s hard to object to as a freebie for Marvel Unlimited subscribers, which is basically what Infinity Comics are. I’d just rather see the creators doing something a bit less route one, that’s all.
Paul, you left out one issue- Iron Man 19. In fact, Iron Man 19 is odd because it really is a Fall of the House of X crossover but it was published three weeks after Fall of the House of X ended. All but the last 3 pages take place during Fall of the House of X 5, Tony, Rhodey, Sandman and Living Laser spend the issue fighting Orchis, and Emma and Tony discuss Feilong’s fate at the end. So why wasn’t it published DURING Fall of the House of X? I guess this just shows how screwed up Duggar’s books got by the decision to end the Krakoan Era early, if the last Iron Man tie-in issue came out after the crossover was over.
Am I the only one that had a hard time believing that the crooks agreed to give back the weapons after Orchis was defeated?
What happened to the Kingpin? I know he’s possessed by Matt’s Greed in Daredevil’s book but he seemed to just disappear from the plot.
And what’s going on with the Hellfire Club? Tony asks Emma if she wants to grab anything “before the wrecking ball swings”? Has it been shut down?
Paul> How many different stories can you really do about vampire hordes roaming wild?
You miss the best part – almost immediately after Blood Hunt is done, Marvel heads into Venom War. Which is doing *exactly the same set of tropes*, but with “zombiotes” (zombie symbiotes) instead! There’s even a Wolverine tie-in mini!
[Just to make you aware that irony is dead, that part was even introduced in a Blood Hunt tie-in issue of Venom!]
Weird. The DP/W IC didn’t show up in the “new this week” section of the MU app like all the others. Had to search for it! Like a 90s kid!
“Don’t ask me what the schedule is for this book – the first two issues were released, um, twelve days apart.”
Evidently the first issue was brought forward to come out to coincide with the end of the Krakoan era and the prologue to From the Ashes in X-Men 35. Starting this week it regularly takes the place of X-Men Unlimited every Monday
I like the From the Ashes Infinity comic. The scenes of all those people marching through the ice, covered in frostbite, is nicely creepy. Even if you do have to wonder why everyone is in their undies. I suppose the hotel has excessive heating.
@Si
The hotel’s in Alaska, right? As a perpetual cold one, I HOPE it has excessive heating❄️
I think it’s Alaska, but the flirty barmaid speaks Norwegian, so I don’t know.
I’m skipping all the X-books until From the Ashes. I already spend too much money on comics, which is the reason I’m skipping Blood Hunt altogether (excepting crossover issues in series I’m already reading). That said, I’ve wanted to see Tom Walz on a Big 2 comic since his work on IDW’s TMNT. I almost picked up Wolverine Blood Hunt 1. It’s too bad to hear it’s a big fight scene, as I thought Walz’s strengths lay in long-term plotting and character work. Hopefully, he’ll get a shot at a different project geared to his writing.
I’ve quickly jumped out of most of ‘Blood Hunt’, I’m going to give the core titles another couple of weeks to impress me but I have never really cared about Blade or the Marvel Vampires or, oh yes, they appear to be trying to get the Midnight Sons title going again as well. It all reminds me of DCs ‘Blackest Night’, where it was just several months of all the heroes fighting someone whose death they felt guilty for and was just exactly the same story repeated ad nauseum.
I think the problem with Blood Hunt is that there’s relatively little focus on the two most interesting vilalins- Varnae and Victor Strange. Victor Strange is interesting because everything bad that happened to him really WAS Strange’s fault, while Varnae is the first vampire. Yet, Victor has almost no page space except for Doctor Strange 17, while Varnae spends the crossover claiming to be Blade while talking about Atlantis and having lived for thousands of years, with none of the heroes realizing this isn’t Blade. (One gets the impression Blade could be wearing a t-shirt saying “I’m possessed by Varnae and the heroes still would’t figure it out.)
Part of the problem is that the writers insisted on pretending that this was Blade and not Varnae, while most of the readers realized it was Varnae from the beginning. If Varnae had been revealed in Blood Hunt 2, for example, then the crossover could have proceeded much more smoothly. As it is, this week’s Blood Hunt:Black Panther 2 all but stated that this is Varnae controlling Blade and explains what Varnae’s goals are, and the preview for Blood Hunt 4 has T’Challa FINALLY realizing that this isn’t Blade. So hopefully Blade will be revealed as Varnae next week and we can get on with the plot.
The consensus is that Blood Hunt: Black Panther 2 was one of the strongest tie-ins since it actually advanced the plot.
@Mike: Not at all an unreasonable decision, especially considering that unlike Heir of Apocalypse, I seriously doubt Blood Hunt is going to be essential reading for anything launching in FtA (and even then, Heir can probably be covered in a recap page, it’s not exactly the world’s most complex plot)
In an interview with AIPT, Alek Paknadel revealed that the Madelyne Pryor story that starts in X-Men From the Ashes Infinity Comic 7 “is going to lead directly into one of the core X-titles”. I wonder if he means it’s going to lead into X-Factor and explain what’s going on with Alex. Does X-Factor count as a core title? Or is it going to lead into a story in one of the other books.