As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

There are a ridiculous number of new titles out this week – eight ongoing titles in total, plus one miniseries – so I won’t be doing annotations for all of them.

X-FORCE vol 7 #8
“The Devil’s Lesson”
Writer: Geoffrey Thorne
Artist: Marcus To
Colour artist: Erick Arciniega
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Editor: Mark Basso

X-FORCE:

Forge. La Diabla spells out fairly directly the criticism that I figured the book was making of Forge: he has undue faith in his ability to create machines, and doesn’t pay proper attention to whether he’s building the right machine. In other words, he has such faith in his ability to come up with the answers that he doesn’t think carefully enough about whether he’s asking the right question.

Captain Britain. She can make magical protection wards using her sword.

Askani. The psychic regulators that Forge gave her last issue seem to work well.

Tank. He’s the first to attack “Colossus”, although the guy has threatened to kill everyone. Forge seems to think that Colossus should be of particular interest to him, though. He uses his weapon-creation powers to summon up knuckledusters to punch Colossus with; they seem to have some sort of energy attack. He remains mostly silent until directly challenged by Colossus to speak, at which point he expresses disdain for people who talk a lot, and insists quite confidently that this Colossus is an impostor. You could obviously read this as a hint that Colossus is inside the costume (though remember, we’ve also seen him playing long distance chess in X-Men).

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

There are a ridiculous number of new titles out this week – eight ongoing titles in total, plus one miniseries – so I won’t be doing annotations for all of them.

EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #6
Writer: Eve L Ewing
Artist: Carmen Carnero
Colour artist: Nolan Woodard
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE CORE CAST:

Axo. He’s the only cast member sympathetic to the stated goals of Sheldon Xenos’ Verate app. He identifies with Xenos as a fellow visible mutant and feels that his teammates don’t know what this is like. He’s receptive to Xenos’ attempts to befriend and mentor him, and inclined to trust him. He understands why people are sceptical about the data privacy issues, but makes an impassioned argument (no doubt informed by his connection with Xenos) that everyone else is being too insular and paranoid in dismissing the possibilities offered by a fellow mutant and his technology.

Axo uses his powers to save Xenos from two apparent muggers; they turn out to be stooges at the end of the issue, but Axo’s powers apparently don’t pick up on this. It’s possible that the whole thing is an act and that Axo doesn’t realise this, but the idea seems to be that their true emotional state is consistent with what they seem to be doing. It’s still a risky play by Xenos, since Axo uses his powers to make them talk about how much they hate what they’re doing. Luckily, their answers are consistent with both their cover story and the truth.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

DEADPOOL / WOLVERINE #2
“Badlands”
Writer: Benjamin Percy
Artist: Joshua Cassara
Colour artist: Guru-eFX
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Editor: Mark Basso

There isn’t much to say about this one, which isn’t a complaint. It’s just not that sort of book.

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE.

Deadpool. He remains mind controlled until page 20, when a blow to the head restores his normal personality, without any memory of how he got there.

Wolverine. Yet again, he tries to make an alliance with Maverick, though he’s openly sceptical that Maverick will actually stick to it.

Since the costume left for the mind-controlled Deadpool had another one next to it obviously designed for Wolverine, he and Maverick both make the reasonable assumption that Wolverine was supposed to be part of this plan as well. They have two theories as to why this hasn’t happened: that the buried trigger got removed in one of Wolverine’s Krakoan resurrections, or that Wolverine is being mind controlled, but in a much more subtle way. Either seems possible, though the Krakoan theory seems rather more likely.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

MAGIK vol 3 #2
“Descent”
Writer: Ashley Allen
Artist: Germán Peralta
Colour artist: Arthur Hesli
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

MAGIK:

She insists that stopping Liminal’s demons from attacking mutants (to fuel his escape) is her mission, and that Cal is only tagging along – even though he seems to be making a useful contribution in deciphering his grandmother’s notes. Most likely, she just wants to keep him out of trouble; as in the previous issue, she clearly sees parallels with the way she was thrust into adulthood too early.

She teleports herself, Cal and Haruhi to the concert, for no very clear reason. Nobody seems to react to them appearing in the middle of the room, which might indicate that the crowd are under magical influence… but then again, she doesn’t seem to expect a reaction either. Haruhi feels sick after the teleport, but that could be because of the glimpse of Limbo she received (according to last issue’s explanation of how Illyana’s powers work).

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

PSYLOCKE vol 2 #4
“A Deadly Display”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Moisés Hidalgo
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

PSYLOCKE:

Haniver’s hallucinogenic dust seems surprisingly effective on her; perhaps because it’s not a true psychic attack, she’s slow to realise what’s happening, and her insistence that “this isn’t real” seems more like denial than actual recognition. Her hallucinations include herself as Revanche, an apparently dead baby crying for its mother (obviously referencing the loss of her own child in Fallen Angels) and a Betsy Braddock wearing the 90s Psylocke costume.

This “Psylocke” accuses Kwannon of failing to trust anyone – it’s interesting that Greycrow doesn’t come up in this exchange – and also draws our attention to the fact that if Kwannon is driven by the loss of her identity when she was bodyswapped with Betsy, it’s at least odd that she’s chosen to deal with that by taking the name “Psylocke” and joining the X-Men. Effectively, after getting her body and identity back, she’s made a conscious choice to take Betsy’s role, perhaps because she doesn’t have any better ideas.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 7 #11
“Live Capture”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN:

Cyclops. He takes the X-Men to intercept an approaching spacecraft before it reaches Merle, not because he assumes it must be a threat but because he doesn’t want to unnecessarily aggravate the locals even more. When it turns out to be Corsair, he greets him warmly and hugs him, but immediately wants to know what Corsair’s current scheme is.

When alien mercenaries show up in pursuit of Corsair, Cyclops’ first reaction is to blame his dad for leading them to the X-Men’s doorstep and expecting the X-Men to bail him out. This is a more muted version of how their relationship was played in Phoenix (where Corsair was wildly out of character). In this version, however, Cyclops’ distrust of Corsair turns out to be a disastrous error, since the mercenaries are actually after Cyclops, and Corsair was just trying to get there first in order to warn him. To be fair to Scott, it also doesn’t seem to occur to him that aliens would have any interest in him, rather than Corsair.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

WOLVERINE vol 8 #6
“Lineage”
Writer: Saladin Ahmed
Artist: Martín Cóccolo
Colourist: Bryan Valenza
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Mark Basso

WOLVERINE.

This time, he experiences the Adamantine’s call as a vision of being buried alive. Nightcrawler snaps him out of it, but it’s not clear whether he would have broken the spell on his own. For Wolverine, the call seems to be coming from the Earth itself.

When Laura shows up, he says that he didn’t realise until now “how much I needed to breathe the familiar scent of kin” – a slightly odd comment given that he’s next to Nightcrawler, whom he’s known far longer than Laura, but evidently the point is that he appreciates his family once they’re around.

SUPPORTING CAST.

Nightcrawler. He’s the only character aside from Wolverine that can get Leonard the Wendigo to calm down, and so he winds up babysitting the poor guy while Wolverine pursues the main plot.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

PHOENIX #8
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Alessandro Miracolo
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Cory Petit
Editor: Annalise Bissa

PHOENIX.

Despite what it says on the recap page, Jean isn’t in the Blue Area of the Moon, but in a floating fire cocoon in space, which Nova and Rocket Racoon are keeping watch on – they were on a planet last issue, but let’s assume they saw it shoot up into the sky and followed. The Blue Area stuff is all just a hallucination as Jean converses with the Phoenix itself. The recap page says that this was caused by Adani on purpose, but the actual story seems to be saying that it’s some sort of side effect of the Phoenix being “fractured” when Adani resisted giving up the Phoenix power, and managed to hold on to fraction of it.

In keeping with Rise of the Powers of X, this story takes the line that Jean and the Phoenix are, if not literally identical, at least two sides of the same coin. The Phoenix presents itself as an embodiment of the cycle of life.

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

PSYLOCKE vol 2 #3
“Lady-Killer”
Writer: Alyssa Wong
Artist: Vincenzo Carratù
Colour artist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Ariana Maher
Editor: Darren Shan

PSYLOCKE:

Her first instinct is to call Devon to get an analysis of the weird cyborg robots, even though she’s actually in the Factory. Presumably most of the X-Men are off on a mission, but we know that the Beast’s in the building. Either she’s turning to Devon as a first port of call generally, or she wants to keep this separate from the X-Men because it involves Greycrow – but she has no apparent qualms about bringing him to the Factory for medical treatment, so it’s probably the former.

She recognises the butterflies left in the Factory from the display in Shinobi’s apartment, and naturally sees him as the next lead. In the circumstances, she’s surprisingly restrained in challenging him on it, although she doesn’t seem to attempt to read his mind once she’s in range – instead she confronts him and demands “to know what your game is”. (Maybe she figures that Shinobi has decent psychic defences and that she’s not the greatest stealth telepath in the world.)

She takes a bit of prompting to give Greycrow a hug after she finds him alive, but not much. He’s clearly much more in touch with his emotions than she is – which makes it a little odd that she takes the opportunity to lecture him and Shinobi later in the issue when they squabble over her. (This may just be a misjudged scene. Although they’re clearly rivals in some sense, the main reason they fight is that Greycrow grabbed Shinobi from behind and held a knife to his throat, which by all appearances is what Greycrow and Psylocke had planned. Did she not expect Shinobi to defend himself? For that matter, how was this ever a remotely sensible way to ambush a guy with phasing powers?)

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As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.

X-MEN vol 7 #10
“Brinkmanship”
Writer: Jed MacKay
Penciller: Netho Diaz
Inker: Sean Parsons
Colourist: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Editor: Tom Brevoort

THE X-MEN:

Cyclops. Naturally enough, he was expecting retaliation for the X-Men’s attack on Graymalkin over the last two issues. His solution to this problem is, as he says, brinksmanship: he hires the Hellions to wreck O*N*E’s resources, and openly threatens mutually assured destruction unless O*N*E back off. He literally says that if he’s killed then the X-Men will slaughter the US government, and that Phoenix will probably raze the Earth in revenge.

How far Cyclops is bluffing is open to debate – the message he wants Lundqvist to take from this is that he’s demonstrating the amount of damage that a fight between the two sides would cause, and that he’s giving Lundqvist the arguments he needs to back off. He’s certainly exaggerating the risk of his death driving Phoenix mad – when Quentin asks him about it, he simply says that “I can’t rule it out”, which is a lot less definitive than his threat to Lundqvist, and feels like a “well, I wasn’t completely making it up” justification. But does he have plans for a retaliatory strike on Washington? Possibly – he’s certainly selected a team of X-Men relatively likely to be on board with such a plan. Then again, when Quentin asks him “Is it true?”, Scott has to ask him to specify which bit, which implies that the whole speech was news to Quentin. (In contrast, Quentin clearly does know about the Hellions.)

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