Charts – 12 June 2026
You know, I think we might finally be rid of “Rein Me In”.
1. Taylor Swift – “I Knew It, I Knew You”
This is from the soundtrack of Toy Story 5, and yes, this collection of clips from previous Toy Story films is the official video. It’s a song written specifically for the film, from Jessie’s perspective. Taylor Swift doing her best Randy Newman, basically.
It’s her seventh UK number one single. The others are “Look What You Made Me Do” (2017), “Anti-Hero” (2022), “Is It Over Now (Taylor’s Version” (2023), “Fortnight” (2024), “Opalite” (2025) and “The Fate of Ophelia” (2025). The list skews very heavily to the later part of her career, though there’s a degree of bad luck in there, since she had number 2 hits in 2009, 2012 and 2014.
The X-Axis – 10 June 2026
X-MEN #31. (Annotations here.) This is the first part of a new arc, as the X-Men’s Science Team – in other words, the supporting cast plus Kid Omega – investigate a weird gravitational anomaly in Canada, where chunks of mountain are floating around. In other words, we’re picking up on Schwartzchild, who was kicked off the 3K ship back in issue #24 and has apparently been lying unconscious in a ditch ever since. Given that Schwartzchild ends up as an X-Man in “Age of Revelation”, presumably we’re heading towards a face turn here, if the other 3K victims in the cast will tolerate having him around. While the floating chunks of rock make sure that there’s something to look at here, the bottom line is that this is a character issue for the supporting cast – the only villain is Schwartzchild, and he’s out cold. I like the idea of Beast trying to establish a non-combatant wing of the X-Men, particularly as he’s trying to set himself up in opposition to his counterpart from 3K, and it’s good to see the likes of Ben and Xorn get some development. A solid start to the new arc.
WOLVERINE #21. (Annotations here.) Sort of a downtime issue, with Nightcrawler dragging Wolverine to Waikiki for some relaxation. There’s a random fight with Titania and the Absorbing Man, who happen to be passing, and that’s pretty much it in terms of the issue’s plot. More broadly, it seems we’re doing a storyline where Wolverine’s healing factor isn’t working, and it’s hitting the broader theme of Wolverine bringing trouble with him which is sort of his own fault for rising to the bait. But all this feels quite familiar, and it’s a middling issue in terms of plot. Julius Ohta’s art is the strong spot here – he does give us a nice sense of Wolverine starting to relax, and then getting into self-pity at the end. And his fight scenes are pretty energetic. Overall, it’s fine.
Wolverine vol 8 #21
WOLVERINE vol 8 #21
“Broken”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Julius Ohta
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Wolverine and Nightcrawler. Wolverine still has all his claws, presumably to avoid spoilers for the previous issue in the solicitations.
WOLVERINE:
In issue #19, he lost the adamantium on his right-hand claws and broke the claws themselves while fighting the Adamantine. As the issue starts, he’s back at home – Haven House from Uncanny X-Men, which hasn’t been mentioned up to this point – and still recuperating. He’s having nightmares about events from the series to date: Mastermind posing as his mother in issues #11-12, and losing Silver Sable after being rejected by the New Morlocks last issue. He’s moping about how he breaks nice things by being around them, and misses Sable more than he expected.
X-Men #31 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #31
“Anomaly”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Tony S Daniel
Inker: Mark Morales
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: The X-Men’s Science Team in action. The cover gives the story title as “Anomaly, part 1”, but the credits page just has it as “Anomaly”.
THE X-MEN:
Aside from Kid Omega, the regular field team don’t appear in this issue – instead, it’s a story about the Science Team, comprising Beast, Magneto, Xorn, Animalia, Ben Liu and the aforementioned Kid Omega. For most purposes I class these guys as the supporting cast, but they’re clearly the stars of this issue.
The Beast. He describes himself as the team’s “provisional field leader”, so apparently they’re a new thing. We’re not told exactly what’s prompted that, but the previous arc saw Beast going on a rare field mission and saving the day by being the one person who tried to deal with Leviathan in a non-violent way. Possibly this has encouraged him to take a more active role generally in offering an alternative version of the X-Men. If so, he seems rather defensive about it, reminding his team of (mostly) non-combatants that they’re not a “paramilitary strike force”.
Housekeeping
Annotations will be up on Friday this week. In the meantime, why not listen to this week’s podcast?
Charts – 5 June 2026
Look, someone can beat “Rein Me In”!
1. Ariana Grande – “Hate That I Made You Love Me”
This is the lead single from her eighth album, and her eighth number 1. The others are “Problem” (2014), “Bang Bang” (2014), “Thank U, Next” (2018), “7 Rings” (2019), “Break Up With Your Girlfriend I’m Bored” (2019), “Rain On Me” (2020) and “Positions” (2020). She’s been unlucky not to add more since then – she’s reached number 2 twice.
There is an asterisk here: it didn’t actually beat “Rein Me In” in streaming. It’s number 1 by a margin of under 5,000 copies thanks to first-week sales to fans in download and physical format. And that’s with “Rein Me In” dropping off quite heavily this week. There’s still a huge gap between “Rein Me In” and the rest of the chart, but it’s unlikely to return to number 1 next week, since Taylor Swift has a new single out.
House to Astonish Presents: The Lightning Round Episode 31
The launch of New Thunderbolts is just around the corner, but first Paul and I are polishing off the Avengers/Thunderbolts miniseries with issues 4-6, as one fight runs for three issues and we learn just how much of a petty dillweed Captain America can be. Along the way, we’ll be ruminating on the possibility of Magnesium Man, boggling at an advert for the concept of doing things, and learning about “an MTV film that extreme right-wing moralists can be proud of”.
The podcast is here, or available via the player below. Let us know what you think, in the comments, via email, or over on Bluesky.
The X-Axis – 3 June 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #29. (Annotations here.) The final part of “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed”, and unless we’re coming back to some of this, I’m mostly confused. The Greymalkin prison storyline has never really worked, and it’s been one of the weakest strands of the post-Krakoan X-books, so I’m at least glad to see the back of it. Nor do I have a problem with Inmate X being a new character with a link to Corina Ellis (the foreshadowing was there), or with Ellis attempting a last minute face turn and being rebuffed. No, the problem with this arc is that about half of it is devoted to the Outliers/New Mutants material which doesn’t seem to tie in to the main plot in any way at all. It advances Mutina’s storyline, to be sure, but what was any of it about? I just don’t get it. Though it pales in comparison to…
STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #5. (Annotations here.) Final issue of the run. It’s a blatant guillotine cancellation, despite having been solicited as a five-issue miniseries from the start, something which Ayodele only seems to have discovered when issue #1 was solicited. I don’t know what the lead-in times for this book are, but the series reads very much as if it reached for the emergency brake somewhere during issue #4, when the build-up to Storm’s “daughter” came to nothing and a scene set in her alternate timeline was compressed to a couple of pages. The final issue opts for attempting a thematic resolution and make a grand show of not resolving any of the actual plot on the grounds that we all know Storm wins somehow or other. To be fair, Ayodele does make an effort to tie his thematic resolution back to things that have happened over the course of the story. Still, the fact remains that it just stops, and with the best will in the world, this is the second time inside a year that I’ve read a guillotine cancellation issue from Marvel that played the meta card to get out of even going through the motions of resolving its storylines. (The other one was Astonishing Spider-Man Infinity Comic #36.) Sudden endings have always been a feature of superhero comics, and they’re never satisfying, but come on. More generally, the book’s ambition is laudable and always has been, and it’s a good thing that something so off kilter was able to exist in the current line, but it always felt like there were far too many ideas fighting for space at the best of times, coupled with frequently bemusing and confusing storytelling choices. But it swung for the fences, and you’ve got to at least respect that.
Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #5 annotations
STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #5
“Reunited”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: That’s Storm in a swamp going to commune with “the ageless one”, in the opening scene.
This is the final issue of Storm: Earth’s Mighiest Mutant, though the complete run is 17 issues, as it’s essentially the same series as Storm vol 5. If you count the “Age of Revelation” tie-in Rogue Storm, it’s a 20-issue run.
I’m not going to do conventional annotations for this, since it shows every signs of being a guillotine cancellation where writer Murewa Ayodele has chosen to focus on resolving one key theme and leaving it at that.
In the previous issue, an alternate version of N’Daré banished Ororo to Earth-61391. That issue ends with a very abbreviated scene of Storm being rescued from local Sentinels by Furana, her daughter from that timeline. By the start of this issue, Storm is off in a swamp somewhere, hoping to commune with “the ageless one” in the hope of finding a way back home. This is presumably the same swamp where Storm landed in the previous issue; perhaps it’s the local version of the Nexus of All Realities (which is in a Florida swamp in the main Marvel Universe).
Uncanny X-Men #29 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #29
“Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed, part four: A Prison and a Pyre”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Mattherw Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN:
Rogue. She seems remarkably unfazed to learn that Gambit has grown dragon wings, and even continues to accept his (correct) assurances that the “Cannonball” she’s fighting is a fake and can safely be killed. Nonetheless, once the crisis is over, her top priority is to focus on helping him, and she plans to take a leave of absence from the team to get help for him.
Her plan for dealing with Greymalkin was to send in M undercover as a prisoner to gather evidence, which would be more effective at bringing down the operation in the long run than simply smashing up the building. Quicksilver has been acting as a courier to relay M’s messages. That goes some way to explaining how M was in better health than she ought to have been given the prison food, though it’s not really made clear how Quicksilver was getting in and out.
