The X-Axis – 6 May 2026
X-MEN #29. (Annotations here.) Part 4 of “Danger Room”, and naturally it’s the turning point where the X-Men start fighting back. On the whole, I prefer this book when it’s doing shorter stories – this arc has most in common with the 3K attack on the Factory in issues #14-18, which also felt like it dragged on a bit. Five issues for what in plot terms is an extended fight seems a bit much. But there’s still plenty to like in here – Jed MacKay picks up the Psylocke/Greycrow relationship well, and Netho Diaz does a lovely splash page of the laser being bent around the Marauder. Quentin and Idie screwing up the X-Men’s relationship with the town because they can’t resist walking into a trap even when it’s been pointed out to them is a nice bit too. But I’m not sure Beyond themselves are interesting enough to merit five issues of this.
STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #4. (Annotations here.) Well, this is as berserk as ever. But for the life of me I don’t see how this is going to get to any sort of satisfying resolution with one issue to go. The actual invasion of Earth hasn’t happened yet, and much of the issue is devoted to Bogey negotiating with Hela to even try to be in a position to make the invasion happen. I’m also completely lost about who she’s supposed to be working for – wasn’t the plot that she was trying to free Susanoo? Isn’t he a thunder god? So why is she now saying that her people are older than the gods? Meanwhile, Storm seems to have been dragged away from the main storyline entirely by a weird meta subplot – or to be fair, perhaps that’s the point, and the whole idea is to find a solution that bodyswerves the apparent plot even happening. But… is that interesting? Is it a Storm story, really? Ostensibly the big event in this issue is meant to be the appearance of Storm’s daughter, but as it turns out to be just another alternate reality character who barely interacts with Storm before sending her home, I’m genuinely baffled as to why Ayodele thinks this is a big deal – at least in the story as published, as opposed to however many issues this was meant to take in his original pitch. It does have some very good art, and it would be no bad thing if more Marvel books swung for the fences like this, but it’s ultimately a bit of a mess.
Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #4 annotations
STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANTS #4
“Mama”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
STORM:
We’re still “two days before Akujin’s invasion of Earth”, as in the previous issue. Storm is still outside the Marvel Universe proper at “the Wall” (the edge of the DC Universe), though in this issue it seems more like an area of metafictional swirl, complete with fan mail floating around. Storm seems to disregard all of the explicitly meta elements.
The alt-N’Daré’s basic pitch to Storm is that she should let Death destroy the Multiverse and then they can go back and restart it. Not surprisingly, Storm isn’t on board with this idea, not least because she’s working from an in-universe perspective and isn’t remotely convinced superhero universes work this way. However, we also get a flashback to the Krakoan era to remind us that, when she was infected by a techno-organic virus, she chose to fight it rather than just take the easy option of resurrection. This was Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex and Giant-Size X-Men: Storm. The latter issue does indeed have a speech from Storm implying that she thought Krakoan resurrection undermined the value of life.
X-Men #29 annotations
X-MEN vol 7 #29
“Danger Room, part 4”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: A collective gravestone for the X-Men, with a gloating Frank Bohannan and Maxine Danger reflected in a puddle. Neither of them actually appears in the issue. Shouldn’t it be “Here Lie The X-Men”?
THE X-MEN:
Psylocke. The opening flashback explains how she and Xorn survived the attack from Beyond’s men at the start of last issue: Xorn used his gravity powers to bend Beyond’s laser away from the Marauder, and then Psylocke blasted the Beyond vehicle with the Marauder’s missiles. This fits well enough with the previous issue, though issue #27 had the Marauder dodging hails of attacks as opposed to the single major assault shown here.
Daredevil Villains #79: Bushwacker
DAREDEVIL #248-249 (November/December 1987)
“A Cage in Search of a Bird” / “Kiss and Kill”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: Rick Leonardi
Inker: Al Williamson
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Colourists: Petra Scotese (#248) and Max Scheele (#249)
Editor: Ralph Macchio.
For the first time in a while, we’ve skipped a couple of issues. Issue #246 is a fill-in issue by Jim Owlsey and Tom Morgan, and the guest villain is Chance, on loan from Spider-Man. Issue #247 is the second Project Reptile story, and we’ve already covered them. That takes us to issues #248-249, which lead into the second phase of Ann Nocenti’s run. Up to this point, we’ve had a lot of one-off villains, but from here on we start hitting names that stick around.
Somehow, a year into her run, the book still doesn’t have a regular penciller. That will finally change in the next story when John Romita Jr comes aboard. In the meantime, the last of the guest artists is Rick Leonardi. He was fairly well established by this point. Although Marvel hadn’t yet given him a regular assignment on an ongoing title, he had drawn Vision & The Scarlet Witch and two Cloak & Dagger minis, and fill-ins on high profile books like Amazing Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men. Naturally, he brings a lot of grace to Daredevil, and his Hell’s Kitchen is brightly kinetic. Under Leonardi, Daredevil looks like an optimistic comic.
Charts – 1 May 2026
This is one of those singles charts that you would struggle to describe as “healthy”.
1. Sam Fender & Olivia Dean – “Rein Me In”
Returning to number one for a second time, and a ninth week in total. Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drop Dead” was heavily front loaded to its first week – it’s still at number 2, but “Rein Me In” has a huge lead over it and is, once again, growing in streams. It’s been on the top 40 for 45 weeks now. I wasn’t aware that this was even something that anyone bothered keeping track of, but apparently nine weeks equals the record for the most weeks at number one by a male-female duet, previously held by “You’re the One That I Want” by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. (That’s unless you think “Umbrella” by Rihanna featuring Jay-Z counts, which it doesn’t. But “Rein Me In” will match it next week anyway.)
12. Noah Kahan – “Doors”
17. Noah Kahan – “The Great Divide”
20. Noah Kahan -“Porch Light”
The maximum three tracks from Noah Kahan’s fourth album “The Great Divide”, which enters the album chart at number 1. Its predecessor “Stick Season” also reached number 1; his two previous albums were pre-breakthrough and didn’t chart.
The X-Axis – 29 April 2026
UNCANNY X-MEN #27. (Annotations here.) Well, this is a weird storyline. The Outliers are off in a version of early New Mutants, and a bunch of supposed New Mutants have shown up in their place. The first part had me a little worried that this story might be overestimating how much readers actually remember about the details of those early New Mutants stories, but this second part doesn’t really turn on any of that – which is for the best. It’s more of a loose parallel between the Outliers and the original rookie class, with increasingly surreal dream-like elements creeping in along the edges. The organic Sentinels are particularly nightmarish, and a great riff on the original design. Luciano Vecchio’s art really captures the feel of how the original New Mutants looked in their early issues, too. I’m not quite so sure what Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy robots are doing in here – the Rawhide Kid stuff didn’t really come to anything, after all – but for the moment I’m assuming that all of this is somehow to do with Inmate X trying to escape Graymalkin as the ailing Scurvy is no longer able to contain him. Presumably that’s why the story opens with Corina and Scurvy’s otherwise unrelated scene. I’m not a huge fan of the Graymalkin plot in general, but I do like their relationship as a low-key background development, and it’s nicely handled here to play into the general sense of Ellis trying to hold on to her persona with disaster looming for her on the horizon.
GENERATION X-23 #3. (Annotations here.) You can’t look past the fact that this is a book which opens with an obituary for its own artist, or at least the artist of the first third of the story. Jacopo Camagni does get to go out on a high, though, with his last pages including a striking sequence in X-80’s bedroom, minimally furnished, but covered in Post-it notes swirling to the ceiling. The framing of X-92 as they gently draw Laura’s attention to the things she’s missing is really nice, as if the character fades into the background so much that the panels don’t even keep them in shot. The rest of the issue is completed by Marco Renna, and the transition is actually pretty smooth – he does a rather good X-Infinite in particular, switching from passive-aggressive casualness to fighting back.
Generation X-23 #3 annotations
GENERATION X-23 #3
“A Numbers Game, part 3”
Writer: Jody Houser
Artists: Jacopo Camagni & Marco Renna
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Mark Basso
COVER: Laura lies seemingly dead on the floor, and Gabby is held back by two of the Generated. The one on the right is X-66; the one on the left is closest to X-92 but far too tall. This scene doesn’t happen in the issue.
The issue opens with an obituary for artist Jacopo Camagni, who died in March; he drew the first seven pages of this story.
WOLVERINE:
Laura is still bedridden at the start of the issue, so she must have taken a remarkable amount of damage when X-73 blew up last issue. That said, she doesn’t seem to have any significant injuries by the start of the issue – perhaps once she gets back to a certain level of recovery, her healing returns to normal speed.
Uncanny X-Men #27 annotations
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #27
“Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?, part 2”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: White silhouettes of the Outliers, with a montage in the background of the X-Men hunting for them.
THE X-MEN:
Gambit. Following on from last issue, when he attempted to persuade Rogue that they should adopt the Outliers, Gambit is desperate to find the missing group. He offers to restore his deal with the Vig if the Vig can find them – this might seem a bit random, but then Gambit has no real leads to go on and it’s not unreasonable for him to assume that they at least might have been taken by someone that the Vig knows. Gambit doesn’t seem to suspect that the Vig is actually responsible – he talks as if the Vig simply might be well connected enough to find out.
Rogue, Nightcrawler, Jubilee and Wolverine hunt for the missing Outliers, and instead find a version of the early New Mutants at Haven House.
Daredevil Villains #77: The Nameless One
DAREDEVIL #243-244 (June & July 1987)
“Don’t Touch Me” / “Touch Me”
Writer: Ann Nocenti
Penciller: Louis Williams
Inkers: Al Williamson, Danny Bulanadi & Tony DeZuinga
Colourists: Christie Scheele & Paul Becton
Letterer: Joe Rosen
Editor: Ralph Macchio
(Note: I skipped this post by mistake last time, so it’s appearing out of sequence. For #78, see here.)
After a string of one-off villains, most of whom are mentally ill serial killers, Ann Nocenti goes in a different direction: magic. Specifically, voodoo.
The last time Daredevil did voodoo was in issue #130, cover date February 1976. That’s a story by Marv Wolfman, Bob Brown and Klaus Janson, in which a voodoo priest called Brother Zed uses his illusion powers to convince his followers that he has real magical power, and then exploits their belief for his own gain. The basic concept isn’t too bad when taken in isolation, but the story came out at a time when black characters were largely absent from Daredevil, and if your sole representation of black America is to have them decapitating chickens in Central Park, then that’s a problem.
Eleven years have passed, since then, but in terms of the diversity of its cast, less has changed in Daredevil than you might think. The generic bystanders certainly have a lot more variation than they used to. But the book’s most prominent black character is still Turk, a comic relief character, and even he hasn’t appeared in Nocenti’s run. The Hell’s Kitchen supporting cast is small, and consists of Karen Page and a group of street kids called the Fatboys – they aren’t all white, but the ones with developed personalities are. Rotgut and his mother were black, to be fair, although Rotgut himself was an albino. So while things have changed in 11 years, this still stands out as a Story With A Lot Of Black People In It.
Charts – 24 April 2026
At last, a big new release to liberate us from Sam Fender and Olivia Dean.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drop Dead”
This is the lead single from the upcoming album “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So In Love”. It has a fairly substantial margin over “Rein Me In” at number 2, though that comes mostly from first-week physical sales. Without them, “Drop Dead” would still have been number 1 but it would have been a lot closer. It’s her fourth UK number 1 single after “Drivers Licence” (2021), “Good 4 U” (2021) and “Vampire” (2023).
