Exceptional X-Men #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #3
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN:
Kate Pryde demands that Emma let the three teenagers go, and complains about Emma’s controlling nature, for several pages before giving in and fighting her. Kate is either immune to, or able to resist, Emma’s telepathy. There’s a precedent for this, with a handful of late Claremont stories claiming that Kate is resistant to telepathy while phased (we’re talking about the likes of X-Men: True Friends #2 here, mind you). Or, alternatively, she just has plenty of psychic training.
After Priti calms the situation, Kate grudgingly concedes that Emma is basically trustworthy and would be a very good teacher for the youngsters. However, she draws the line at taking the kids to a hidden base, and insists on training them in their community, in line with her general agenda in this series of wanting to return to the human world. Even then, she resists calling this project a “mutant dojo”. She tries to talk the kids out of aspiring to be heroes, though she accepts that they need enough training to defend themselves. She also disapproves of giving the kids codenames and costumes when they’re completely untrained and unqualified; it’s precisely what Professor X did with her, but she now thinks that was wrong. She’s hugely unimpressed with Emma ambushing the kids with a psychic illusion to see how they react.
The X-Axis – w/c 11 November 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #23. By Tim Seeley, Eric Koda, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. So this is the Thanksgiving issue, as Beak and his family show up at the X-Men’s headquarters in Merle, to the utter bewilderment of the team, who weren’t actually expecting them. It turns out that this is actually heading somewhere, since there’s a story continuing into the next issue that explains why Beak wanted to visit. But this issue is simply the improvised Thanksgiving dinner, a nice little scene in which the X-Men – even Quentin – tell Beak’s kids how great he is. And given her back story, it’s a nice touch to have Psylocke going out of her way to spend time with the kids. A perfectly nice little holiday issue.
UNCANNY X-MEN #5. (Annotations here.) This is billed as the concluding part of “Red Wave”. But you might be better off putting that out of your mind, since it suggests you should be expecting a bit more resolution than the story actually gives you. It’s the end of the current fight with Sarah Gaunt and her followers, to be sure, and it’s not simply the break point for the first trade paperback, which runs up to issue #6. It gives some clarification on Sarah’s delusions. But it doesn’t really resolve the questions of what she actually is, whether she’s a mutant or something else. And the Outliers don’t really play into the ending at all All of which is fine if you think of it as just issue #5 in an ongoing series, and that’s probably the better way of approaching it.
Psylocke #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PSYLOCKE vol 2 #1
“Masks”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Vincenzo Carratù
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan
Volume 1, if you’re wondering, was a four-issue miniseries published in 2010, featuring the original Psylocke.
PSYLOCKE.
She’s been taking mercenary work on the side, which she isn’t telling the X-Men about. Specifically, in this issue’s opening, she’s hired by politician Mr Acker (he doesn’t get a first name) to rescue his daughter Mila Acker from kidnappers. Mr Acker is apparently very anti-mutant, but Psylocke has no apparent qualms about taking this mission, since it really is just a genuine hostage rescue. She also wipes everyone’s memories of her involvement. This seems to be Psylocke quietly doing more-or-less heroic things in her own time, or just finding ways to keep herself permanently occupied. Her private missions aren’t solely mercenary, though, since she goes to investigate an AIM MGH event with no client. (It’s possible she would have told the X-Men about this if she hadn’t been benched at the time.)
Cyclops insists on Psylocke taking a week or two off because she never stops working. Notably, he sticks to this line even though he knows she’s just come back from Palmdale, California – presumably, he assumes that she’s been on some sort of private mission that she won’t talk about. Psylocke responds by yelling about how the X-Men need all hands on deck because of the ongoing threat to mutants, but of course the mission she just went on had nothing to do with all that. Cyclops implies that he thinks Psylocke still hasn’t got out of the habit of viewing herself as a living weapon (as she was raised to by the Hand), and that he’s trying to steer her away from that.
NYX #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
NYX vol 2 #5
Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Penciler: Francesco Mortarino
Inker: Elisabetta D’Amico
Colourist: Raúl Angulo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Annalise Bissa
THE CORE CAST:
Prodigy becomes a public figure after his fight with the Krakoan last issue, with the Truthseekers gathering outside his apartment, and anti-mutant laws being proposed by the City Council as part of Empath’s plan to foment racial hatred (of which more in a bit).
Sophie seems to have been convinced, at least to start with. But as the vote draws near, she turns on Empath’s group and decides to side with Kamala, David and co after all. She telepathically sends all the protestors home, apologises, and is immediately accepted by Kamala, though Anole and Laura are a lot less forgiving. To be fair, Kamala is mainly trying to get the group to focus on the real problem. Sophie claims that the Cuckoos voted on whether to join Empath’s plan, but doesn’t actually say how she voted. However, her dialogue with the Cuckoos towards the end of the issue strongly implies that the “vote” was unanimous.
Uncanny X-Men #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 6 #5
“Red Wave, conclusion: Thunder in our Hearts”
Writer: Gail Simone
Artist: David Marquez
Colour artist: Matthew Wilson
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Rogue has been taking diction lessons, presumably out of insecurity about her accent. The opening flashback shows one of those lessons, “six months ago”; the part at the end is presumably her coming to her senses after being knocked out during her fight with Sarah Gaunt last issue, rather than something that actually happened.
We learn here that she absorbed some of Harvey X’s powers when she touched him in issue #1, which is why she was having psychic flashes over the last couple of issues.
Since her team don’t have any facilities to contain supervillains, she reluctantly hands the defeated Sarah Gaunt over to Corina Ellis, with a warning that they’ll be taking the Mansion back soon.
The X-Axis – w/c 4 November 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #22. By Tim Seeley, Eric Koda, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Hey, that’s not the usual creative team for this book! I’m assuming this is the first half of a Thanksgiving two-parter, since it’s a slice-of-life story about Beak and Salvadore taking their kids to Alaska to visit the family, with Beak making up stories to entertain them, and a grumpy racist woman being in the next seat on the plane. The art gets across nicely the idea of these guys as low-level but extremely visible mutants who are just living in the ordinary world, and Beak trying (mostly successfully) to shield the kids from the bad stuff. Now, for obvious reasons, this might not be the best week to do a “normal America where minorities can just get on with life albeit with a certain degree of aggravation” story. It does feel a little bit… quaint, at the very least. Although come to think of it, unless we’re going back to the Orchis well very soon, Trump’s America will inevitably be better for mutants than Biden’s, which, um… okay. Anyway, I’m not going to hold all that against the story itself, which is really quite sweet.
X-MEN #7. (Annotations here.) Continuing to bring the plot threads together, as we find out what the “Iron Night” actually was – basically, Cyclops and Magneto saved the town from a Wild Sentinel. And we get some movement towards explaining why Magneto is in a wheelchair. But are we really going with the idea that Krakoan resurrection could be the cause of his problems? We’re apparently meant to take it seriously, but I figure it’s almost certainly misdirection. It would affect way too many mutants, and it would screw up the idea of the Krakoans heading off into the White Hot Room to live in post-human paradise. But it makes sense for the characters to suspect it, so I’m fine with teasing it. If I was taking it more at face value, I’d have more of an issue with it. We also have the local girl testing as a non-mutant when she apparently is, and 3K messing around with mutant powers as part of the plot, and I don’t for a moment believe that the Sentinel really just shows up randomly… No, this all feels like Jed MacKay is still patiently getting his elements into place and delivering some solid character work in the meantime, which has tended to be his style on other ongoings. Guest artist Netho Diaz remains a good fit with Ryan Stegman, and seems like a smart choice.
X-Factor #4 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FACTOR vol 5 #4
“The Nematode”
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Bob Quinn
Colour artist: Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Darren Shan
X-FACTOR
Havok actually seems fairly competent in this issue, if you overlook his willingness to be on this weird team in the first place.
Cecilia Reyes is being pressurised to adopt a codename for marketing purposes. She says that she joined X-Factor to get over her relationship with Oskar / Wintergeist (of whom more below) – she also mentioned this in passing in issue #2, and we saw them texting last issue. Once she gets his explanation for his disappearance, she does take him back.
Pyro has either been talked or pressurised into having his facial tattoo removed – it’s not clear how he was persuaded to do this, since he’s clearly not happy about it, or why X-Factor’s superiors waited until after his public debut. He claims that he joined X-Factor in order to promote his romance novels.
Frenzy joins the mission but doesn’t do much of importance.
X-Force #5 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
Oh, and this week’s last set of annotations – X-Factor #4 – should be up on Saturday.
X-FORCE vol 7 #5
“One Second Later”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Marcus To
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramanga
Editor: Mark Basso
X-FORCE:
Surge heroically sacrifices herself to stop Nuklo, and we see a body.
Sage is very unhappy that Forge hasn’t come up with a way to avoid this, but both Forge and Surge seem to accept that this isn’t within his control. The basic idea seems to be that Forge’s power comes up with a solution to the problem that he’s identified, but he doesn’t consciously understand why that solution will work (unless, presumably, he can work it out using regular human intelligence). So, although he knew that Surge’s involvement would solve the problem, he didn’t know that she’d die in the process. That in turn means that he couldn’t use his powers to avoid that outcome, because he didn’t know that it was a relevant question to be asking himself. Sage is not prepared to accept this line of reasoning, and quits.
Captain Britain, Askani and Tank are also here, but don’t do a great deal.
X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 7 #7
“The Iron Night”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inkers: Sean Parsons & Livesay
Colourists: Marte Gracia & Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort
THE X-MEN
Cyclops. We get a flashback to the “Iron Night”, which explains the giant Sentinel that’s been hovering over the town since issue #1. After Krakoa fell and Phoenix departed for space, Cyclops returned to his family lodge near Merle to drown his sorrows. He resents the expectation that he’ll always be the one to lead the X-Men, but doesn’t take much persuasion from Magneto on the point – he’s already wearing his Morrison/Quitely-era X-Men jacket. It’s apparently just a coincidence that a Sentinel factory had been built in direct view of the Summers family lodge. According to issue #3, Cyclops got the building as a settlement with the US government following his torture at the hands of Orchis; evidently that comes after the flashback.
Temper. She continues to support Piper Cobb, even after a DNA test shows that she isn’t a mutant. She finds the Wild Sentinel attack on Merle reminiscent of her own encounter with a similar Sentinel, footnoted to Generation Hope #11. That’s the Schism tie-in issue with the Sentinel walking through San Francisco Bay to reach Utopia. The flashback specifically shows the opening scene of GH #11; the character sitting next to Temper is Velocidad.
The X-Axis – w/c 28 October 2024
Well, at least I chose a quiet week to be away.
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #21. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. Okay, I see what we’re going for here, but I’m not completely sold. The big idea here is that Lifeguard’s powers have started treating all of humanity as a threat and responding accordingly, leaving her unable to live among humans at all; the upshot is that her powers turn her into a literal island. It was fairly clear that that was where we were heading, though, so it doesn’t really work as a final issue reveal. And it feels a bit of a stretch from Lifeguard’s powers, which I don’t think ever turned on how she perceived things. The island thing feels a bit too literal, as well. Still, I like the way Steve is used as a more ordinary mutant who’s doing a little better at fitting back into normalcy.
NYX #4. (Annotations here.) This is David’s spotlight issue, and the basic idea is fine: he recognises that mutant history has been stuck in a lot of binary choices that he wants to escape from, but he has no terribly clear idea of how to do that. And of course, he ultimately does come out of retirement to save Kamala. Enid Balám makes him look good as a street artist, even if some of what he’s doing here stretches the boundaries of how his powers work. And I do appreciate the fact that Kamala sees straight through Sophie’s attempt to set her up. Kamala ought to be naive as regards some things – aspects of life as a visible mutant, say – but she’s not stupid, and it makes sense for the mutant-centric Cuckoos to underestimate her. (Or maybe Sophie is actually trying to be obvious.)
