X-Men/Fantastic Four #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
PAGE 1 / COVER. Well, it’s some of the X-Men and some characters from the Fantastic Four, isn’t it?
PAGE 2. Recap.
PAGES 3-4. Cyclops tries to reassure the FF that the X-Men aren’t responsible for Franklin and Valeria’s disappearance.
Straightforward. Scott is trying to be as emollient as possible, short of departing from his mutant-nationalist line. His comment that Valeria doesn’t belong on Krakoa is meant to demonstrate that the X-Men wouldn’t have taken them both (and it’s a fair point in that context), but goes down predictably badly. This is the basic conflict set up in issue #1: the X-Men see their mutant separatism as a positive identity, the FF (Sue in particular) see it as divisive and supremacist. For her, the X-Men only care about what Franklin is, not who he is (and she has a point).
As in issue #1, Magneto doesn’t seem particularly disappointed by this. (Note that in his data page about mutants later on, Reed is actually much more sympathetic to the mutants’ desire for a homeland.)
(more…)Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey & Emma Frost annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
COVER / PAGE 1. Jean Grey and Emma Frost, as part of some sort of psychic imagery. Cyclops and Wolverine’s faces are visible in the background, each with an X in place of their mouths – presumably to do with the silence gimmick that takes up most of the issue. Logan’s hands and claws are clearer in the original art, but they’re partly obscure by the logo. There’s also a big evil face in the top left that’s harder to place, but resembles what we see in the snake within Storm’s mind later.
Jean is wearing her early 90s costume but in her late-60s colour scheme.
PAGES 2-3. Recap and credits. The recap page refers to Storm fighting Orchis (in X-Men #1) and the Children of the Vault (in X-Men #5). The story is “Into the Storm” by Jonathan Hickman, Russell Dauterman (who gets a co-writer credit) and Matthew Wilson. The small print on the credits page is the usual from X-Men.
PAGES 4-6. Two young mutants find Storm lying unconscious.
Not quite sure what the symbolic opening panel is adding, with everyone staring directly at the camera.
(more…)X-Men #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the collected edition. And since we’re running behind, I’m going to see if we can keep this week’s annotations posts a bit shorter. But there’s a lot to say about this issue.
COVER / PAGE 1. Apocalypse with his sword, smashing a stained glass window version of Nightcrawler.
PAGES 2-3. Melody Guthrie gets word that her Crucible ritual is today.
Krakoa. Note that in the establishing shot, there’s still smoke rising from the volcano on the atoll that appeared in issue #2.
The Akademos Habitat, the Sextant. The home of the characters from the X-books’ various teen teams.
Melody Guthrie. Melody Guthrie is one of the miscellaneous siblings of Cannonball who eventually turned out to be a mutant. It’s a large family – officially her first appearance is in New Mutants vol 1 #42, but that’s as one of a number of generic background children. She didn’t get a first name until Uncanny X-Men vol 1 #444, where she showed up as a flying student at the school. Not that long after, House of M hit and Melody – or Aero – was depowered. So basically she’s a minor background character who was very briefly promoted to slightly more prominent status before being relegated again. The name Aero is currently being used by an unrelated character who has her own series, so we’ll see if Melody is allowed (editorially speaking) to take it back again.
(more…)Charts – 21 February 2020
You’d have thought that by 2020 we’d have had a number one single by someone born this century. But as it turns out, this is the first one…
1. Billie Eilish – “No Time To Die”
This is the new Bond theme, which certainly helps to get mainstream attention. But that’s never been enough to get a number one hit in itself. In fact, this is only the second Bond theme to reach number one. (The other was Sam Smith’s “Writing on the Wall”.) Besides, in the streaming era, it’s not enough to get your record noticed; you need people to keep listening to it.
(more…)The Complete Moira, Part 8
Welcome to the final part of our Moira MacTaggert read-through. For the previous chapters see here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7.
When we left off, Excalibur had just been cancelled, leaving Moira without a regular title to appear in. But she’s still around, still hunting for the Legacy Virus, and still supposedly in declining health. The final years of Moira’s (original) published life turn out to be big on pointless cameos and appearances where she does little more than explain the plot.
X-Men Unlimited vol 1 #21 by Todd DeZago, Andy Smith & Andrew Hennessy (“Devil’s Haircut”, December 1998). Strong Guy phones Muir Isle to ask Wolfsbane and Madrox for help with a possible alien invasion. Moira is there, and she’s back to working on the Legacy Virus.
Gambit vol 3 #2 by Fabian Nicieza, Steve Skroce & Rob Hunter (“Stormbringers”, March 1999). Gambit visits Muir Isle so that Moira can run some tests on him. Excalibur have now left, and Moira is working full time on the cure (pretty much alone). Naturally, Gambit tries to steal some files, and sets off a ridiculously elaborate failsafe mechanism that he manages to stop before it wipes all her data.
(more…)Wolverine #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE. This is volume 7 of Wolverine, and that’s just counting the titles that were simply called Wolverine. Volume 1 is the 1982 miniseries, volume 2 is the long-running ongoing title that started in 1988. The others are periodic reboots.
COVER / PAGE 1. Wolverine with his claws out, standing over some dead people, and with a butterfly on his hand. His X-Men belt buckle is lit up, for some reason. Like X-Force, this book carries the world’s smallest “parental advisory” warning.
PAGES 2-4. Alaska. A badly injured Wolverine wakes up surrounded by the corpses of X-Force. He sets off following a set of footprints.
Most of the issue is flashbacks leading up to this point. The implication is that the Pale Girl, leader of the Flower Cartel, makes Wolverine kill the rest of X-Force. (It really is fortunate that the X-Men came up with this resurrection thing in time for the Krakoa era, because ever since, they’ve become remarkably prone to getting killed…)
(more…)Marauders #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm and Emma Frost, in a very stylised version of their argument from later in the issue.
PAGES 2-6. Bishop reports Kate’s death to Emma Frost.
Mars. We’ve seen the Mars outpost mentioned a few times before, and I think this is the first clear confirmation that it’s being used as a farm for Krakoan flowers (or at least that’s a big part of it). This makes a degree of sense; Krakoa isn’t big enough for large-scale agriculture, and they need to grow the flowers somewhere that’s entirely inaccessible to hostile forces. (Wolverine this week suggests that they’re still struggling to keep up with demand, though, to the point where the transformative effect of Krakoan drugs remains somewhat theoretical as far as many humans are concerned.)
Forge’s automatons. These are new. Presumably they’re just organic tech robots… but, um, isn’t that essentially a person…?
(more…)New Mutants #7 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
COVER / PAGE 1: The New Mutants on a parade float in the Shi’ar capital. Look, there’s Murd Blurdock and someone who might be Yondu on the left.
PAGES 2-5. Roberto recaps the plot – or rather, explains how the New Mutants defeated the Shi’ar Death Commandos.
Issue #5 ended with a cliffhanger, in which the Shi’ar Death Commandos blew up the New Mutants’ ship, in an attempt to assassinate Deathbird. The meta joke is that Roberto is so self absorbed that he’s oblivious to the fact that issue #6 featured the earthbound cast, and cheerfully regales us with a “recap” of how the cliffhanger was resolved, a story we’ve never actually seen.
“The do-nothing Gen X-ers.” Chamber and Mondo. It’s always been a little unclear what these two are doing in the series, given that they aren’t part of the original New Mutants team and barely know any of the other characters. From what little we’ve seen of them, they seem to have been wondering the same thing. As for Sunspot, whose whole agenda here is to get the band back together, he seems somewhat baffled by their presence too – and he looks down on them as minor characters. (Probably fair in relation to Mondo, but Chamber’s a more prominent character than, say, Karma.) It doesn’t play out in the course of this issue, but presumably it’s heading somewhere.
(more…)Charts – 14 February 2020
Lots going on, but most of it is at the bottom end of the singles chart.
1. The Weeknd – “Blinding Lights”
Two weeks. The top 5 is static. Further down, “Roses” by Saint Jhn climbs 21-8, and “Physical” by Dua Lipa climbs 12-11 (though previous single “Don’t Start Now” is spending its 14th week in the top 5). “You Should Be Sad” by Halsey climbs 17-12.
14. Justin Bieber featuring Quavo – “Intentions”
The second single from his upcoming album lands just below previous single “Yummy”, which has somehow managed to spend four straight weeks at number 13. This track is better, although also a touch blander. The video is from the “rich celebrity makes charitable donations” genre, which doesn’t have very much to do with the song.
(more…)The Complete Moira, Part 7
For previous chapters, see Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
In our penultimate post, we’ll cover Moira’s time in Excalibur under Warren Ellis and Ben Raab.
Excalibur vol 1 #86 by Warren Ellis, Ken Lashley & Tom Wegrzyn (“Back to Life”, February 1995). This is the first issue of the Ellis run proper, although it’s almost immediately interrupted for four months by the Age of Apocalypse crossover. Moira fits quite nicely into Ellis’s style, and instantly starts to become stroppier and grumpier. Ellis also introduces a running joke about her awful coffee. Be advised, though, that Moira doesn’t actually do all that much in the Ellis run, aside from providing colour while the team are at home on Muir Isle. In this issue, Pete Wisdom joins the cast. Nightcrawler works out that Moira has the Legacy Virus, but she insists that they go on their important mission anyway.
X-Men Prime by various creators (“Racing the Night”, July 1995). This is the one-shot that sets up the resuming X-Men titles after the “Age of Apocalypse”. In the bit that’s relevant to Moira, Trish Tilby reveals to the public that the Legacy Virus has spread to the human race, with Moira as the first human victim; Moira and Rory watch on TV. This is meant to lead in to a storyline about who leaked the data, but as we’ll see it all peters out quite quickly. I’m not sure it was ever resolved, but it certainly doesn’t happen in any of Moira’s stories.
(more…)