The X-Axis – w/c 2 September 2024
X-MEN: FROM THE ASHES INFINITY COMIC #13. By Alex Paknadel, Diógenes Neves, Arthur Hesli & Clayton Cowles. So, yeah, I just went on Marvel Unlimited to re-read this and they’ve added the entire run of CrossGen’s Mystic. Didn’t see that coming. Apparently they’ve just put out an omnibus, but I think it’s the first time they’ve added any CrossGen material.
Anyway, this is part 1 of a Magneto story set in Merle. That’s an interesting call in itself, because X-Men has mostly had Magneto hang around on the fringes in his floating chair trying to look ominous. But From the Ashes winds up being the first book to expand on that. The fact that he can’t walk was so strongly implied that it doesn’t really count as a reveal (and isn’t treated as one), but apparently he’s also outright depowered. The story leaves it to X-Men to cover how all that happened, so there really isn’t any new information that X-Men won’t cover in due course. But it’s still a bit of a surprise to see it show up here first.
The actual story is about Magneto’s first meeting with the local rabbi – Alaska’s Jewish demographic may be less than 1%, but Merle can apparently support a small synagogue. The story does acknowledge that this is a bit of a fluke. Her basic angle on him is that he sees himself as the mutant Moses but lacks the modesty that the role requires. He doesn’t like that at all, but the fact that he’s so keen to keep up the image of being Magneto rather points the other way. It doesn’t feel like an organic progression from Resurrection of Magneto, but aside from that, on its own terms, it’s solidly done. From the Ashes is doing a lot of rather morose character pieces and might benefit from changing that up a bit, but maybe that sort of post-Krakoa comedown is precisely what it’s going for.
SAVAGE WOLVERINE INFINITY COMIC #6. By Tom Bloom, Guillermo Sanna, Java Tartaglia & Joe Sabino. We’re still in the first arc and I’m not sure what more I can say about it at this point. This is Wolverine fighting his way to the bad guy for what’s presumably the climax next week. The art is the selling point here – for want of a more appropriate phrase for Infinity Comics – with simple but distorted enemies, Logan as the one normal thing on the page, and some striking red-tinted colouring in the opening parts. The new X-office has had pretty good quality control on the Infinity Comics so far.
EXCEPTIONAL X-MEN #1. (Annotations here.) Exceptional X-Men launches as more of a Kitty Pryde solo book than a team book – only one of the new characters even appears, and Emma’s only in a couple of pages. Or maybe we’re doing the routine where each issue focusses on a different character. Either way, the angle is that Kate/Kitty is trying to drop out of the mutant life and just be normal in Chicago. And, yes, we’ve done this before when she was working in the Belles of Hell under Claremont, but I can see why we’re ignoring that. It’s not a particularly well remembered arc and bringing it up doesn’t help the story. The point of this is Kitty trying to go back to her pre-X-Men life, not Kitty going back to late Claremont.
Having her try to drop out but feel compelled to mentor the local teen mutants anyway seems a reasonable angle. We’ve had plenty of school teams before but I don’t think we’ve done them being mentored in the real world before. If that’s the direction then I can see it working. Trista seems a fun character who can play an updated version of Kitty’s original role as the extremely enthusiastic teen, and that contrasts well with Kitty herself. Carnero’s art gets across the generation gap between the two, and gets the setting over. There are some storytelling issues here – it’s not at all clear why Trista doesn’t get into the club. And the supporting cast are all variations on extremely nice and supportive, at least so far.
But the book gets away with Kate returning to the “Kitty” name, by making it into a more complex relationship with her back story than a simple return to a previous status quo. And while you could argue that this doesn’t flow very plausibly from the Shadowkat stuff in Gerry Duggan’s run, I’m more than happy just to rip the sticking plaster off that one and get it over with. A good start.
I mean, as someone observing from afar who only read a little Krokoa stuff, I’d rather have light hearted Kirty than Grim Dark murdering Kate. But I’m also a middle aged guy, although not in the demo who thinks she is a Mary Sue. Of all the versions, I may have like Excalibur/Pride and Wisdom kitty the best.
I just noticed something weird about Xorn. Beast introduced him as the team’s healer. But every time someone’s needed healing he’s been unable to do anything. There’s Scott’s panic attacks, but okay maybe they’re psychosomatic in nature and beyond his power. Then there’s Ben Liu’s coma- again, maybe it’s psychosomatic. Then there’s the kid who died of cancer in Uncanny X-Men 1- maybe his power doesn’t affect cancer. But now we find that he can’t heal Magneto, who’s in a wheelchair. Something odd is going on. In Morrison’s New X-Men, the fact that Xorn claimed to be a healer but never healed anyone but Xavier was supposed to be a clue that Xorn was Magneto. I’m wondering if it’s not Xorn under the mask but someone else. (I considered Colossus but I can’t see why Colossus would need to hide under Xorn’s mask.)
That being said, another possibility is that Xorn’s powers aren’t working for the same reason Magneto’s powers aren’t working.
I know that the two books don’t have all that similar missions, but I can’t help but want to see a crossover of “Nyx” with “Exceptional X-Men”.
Behind the surface they have a lot of potential for interesting dynamics and fairly compatible perspectives.
So there’s mutants with powers that don’t work properly, and adults suddenly manifesting mutant powers late. Are they connected?
“it’s not at all clear why Trista doesn’t get into the club.”
It’s not, but I kind of assumed it was racial discrimination. (I would say it’s because she’s too young, but much of the crowd seems under 21). Except for her boss, all the characters Kitty interacts with up to that point have been non-white, Bridgeport is on the south side, but she goes up to Wicker Park / Bucktown area on the northside for her date (note the “Bucktown Lounge”).
@Joseph
“It’s not, but I kind of assumed it was racial discrimination.”
But one of her two friends who were let in is black like her. In my opinion there is no real reason, it’s really the bouncer who is an asshole.
Maybe because she has yellow eyes?
I don’t think she does have yellow eyes. On page 14 her irises are clearly brown. The whites of her eyes are coloured yellow-ish but that seems to be intended as a lighting effect. Kitty’s eyes are similarly coloured in page 12 panel 1, where it’s rather more obvious that she’s standing under a yellow light.
The whites of Trista’s eyes are clearly the same colour as Kitty’s on page 20 panel 2, for example, and they look normal on page 23, which is the clearest shot of her eyes in the whole book.
I don’t have the issue, but I found that scene online. I think Midnighter’s right. It’s just an asshole doorman on a power trip delighting in separating a group of friends.
Breevort said on his blog today that there are more solos and more limited series featuring solo characters in the pipeline.
Finally, everything’s coming up Maggott!
On a more serious note, Nightcrawler’s had solos before (all… two of them iirc), and Gambit had even more. They’re both in adjectiveless, but that didn’t stop them giving both Wolverines solos.
Then again, they’re Wolverines.
Yeah, but I’m not sure if Logan, Laura and Daken can all sustain series at the same time. Especially since they seem to have been relying on Laura to draw readers to NYX and sales for the second issue were disappointing.
@Krzysiek- funnily enough, Ayodele announced today that Maggott will be appearing in the new Storm series. It’s not a solo series but it’s a start. 🙂
Like John Byrne and maybe Jim Lee, John Cassaday will likely be THE X-Men artist to a generation of comics readers.
RIP
Damn. Can’t believe it. Guy was born the same year as me (and looked much better and younger than I do).
I began losing interest in Whedon’s run at about the halfway mark, but I kept buying it anyway because the art was so gorgeous to look at.
RIP
In other news, Bishop and Cable will be the stars of this year’s Timeless special, called Timeslide:
https://bleedingcool.com/comics/marvels-plans-for-2025-2026-to-be-revealed-on-christmas-day/
So they’ll probably be back in the books after Timeslide hits the shelves. It looks ike Breevort’s “no time travelers or clones at the beginning” rule is expiring in December and writers will be able to use any time travelers or clones after Christmas.