The X-Axis – w/c 2 December 2024
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #1-2. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Well, I’m late enough with this one that I might as well cover today’s issue #2. We’ve got a new title and a fresh number #1, but this is the same book as From the Ashes with the same creative team. But you can’t keep calling it From the Ashes forever, I guess.
This arc has two seemingly unrelated threads, though it’s fairly obvious how they’re likely to come together. On the one hand, we have Husk returning home to the Guthrie family for Thanksgiving. But the wheels are coming off the family group: Paige is the only mutant in the family to show up, since Sam’s apparently not been in touch since his resurrection, while the other mutant siblings decided to stay in the White Hot Room. There’s a plot about how they’re in danger of losing the farm, but it’s basically a story about the non-mutant relatives being treated as afterthoughts, with one of the background kids drifting into radicalism.
Meanwhile, Sean Cassidy is in New York looking for his daughter (who’s in Graymalkin, but he doesn’t know that) and gets roped into investigating the murder of a mutant. In a really weird piece of scheduling, this leads to him visiting the newly opened NYX community centre, which is apparently going to be a thing in NYX, but doesn’t exist yet. You’d think it’d come up first in its own book – this plays as more of a spoiler than a teaser. Anyway, accordingly to Prodigy, this is all part of a series of similar killings by radicals, which is presumably where we tie in to Husk’s storyline.
As usual with this title, it’s a perfectly solid little drama, though it feels like it’s paced to go longer than the three issue stories that were typical of the previous series. After all, two issues in, the A and B plots have barely converged.
X-MEN #8. (Annotations here.) Part 1 of the “Raid on Graymalkin” crossover with Uncanny X-Men, and while Warden Ellis was showing some signs of nuance in that book, we’re pretty much back to her being a one-dimensional villain here. The big problem with this whole storyline is that it’s far, far too close to the Orchis stuff which has only just finished – and because that arc was pitched at such an extreme level, it can’t help but feel like “Orchis, but less so”. At the same time, it feels too early for the X-Men to be converging to attack this place, which they’ve barely had any interactions with. Yes, it’s linked to Sarah Gaunt and she was the main villain from the first Uncanny arc, but the X-Men don’t know that. There are some good character moments in this issue for Beast and Calico, and Ryan Stegman does a good job on those bits. But I still don’t get what the hook is suposed to be that’s justifying going back to this well so soon. Hopefully the reason we’re going to the attack on the jail so quickly is to move the arc onto something else.
NYX #6. (Annotations here.) Over in the book which is apparently going to be about a community centre but isn’t yet, we have an informal tie-in with Dazzler #4 – which is to say, it’s just a case of two stories taking place at the same event. That seems like a better approach than tying these two series together more directly, since their tones are very different.
Now, I didn’t like issue #5 at all, partly because of the timing, but also because it was simplistic in a way that couldn’t fit in the same book as David’s lecture notes. That’s much less of a problem here: it’s still a fairly simple story, with Mojo sending Local to try and hijack Dazzler’s audience for himself, but there’s no theorising to pose a tone clash. My issue with the book on a first reading was that Local’s behaviour seemed too inconsistent across the series, but on reflection I’m willing to go with the idea that he behaves erratically when Mojo’s involved, because of Mojo’s influence – that’s basically what we’re told at the end of the issue, and it does provide a viable explanation. There’s some really nice art on the scenes with Mojo possessing Local, too; he’s being repositioned rather well as creepy rather than comedic.
I’m less sure about bringing back Kiden Nixon, even if it does help to justify the title. With the best will in the world, other than Laura, the cast of the original NYX weren’t very interesting, which is why they’ve barely appeared since. I don’t honestly care about Kiden, but I’m willing to buy that Laura does, so I guess we’ll see where it’s going.
X-FORCE #6. (Annotations here.) Okay, this is a step up. This book’s opening arc basically saw the team running around from random location to random location doing arbitrary things, which wasn’t especially satisfying to read. As I suspected, the angle seems to be that Forge and the team have indeed been putting too much trust into Forge’s powers and not asking themselves why they’re doing any of this – or at least, they’ve been kept too busy to do so. With Sage quitting the team, she’s been able to give it a bit of thought. To put the point another way: Forge always gets the correct answer, but has anyone stopped to wonder whether he’s asking the right question?
I can see why that storyline leads itself to some opening issues that feel arbitrary, though I can’t help thinking there must have been ways to lash it together more effectively. But hey, we’re getting to the point now and… um, it’s a female version of Diablo, the alchemist villain from the Fantastic Four. That’s not as random as it sounds, since the whole point of alchemy is that it’s the grey area between science and magic, which is precisely the area that Forge could operate in, but doesn’t. I’m still not sold on the book, but this does enough to start drawing the threads together to hold my interest, which was very much waning.
WOLVERINE #4. (Annotations here.) It turns out the Wendigo thing wasn’t a detour so much as the introduction of a supporting character in the form of Leonard The Wendigo. And now the Adamantine storyline that was teased at the end of issue #1 makes its first contact with Wolverine itself. The hunt for adamantium-themed villains in the Official Handbook leads Saladin Ahmed to the Constrictor, who isn’t a bad choice – he’s visual, he’s moderately well known, he fits the plot, and his role in the story would be a waste of a character who had actual history with Wolverine. Aside from the mind-controlling metal angle, this book is very much Trad Wolverine so far, but executed with some flair. The question is whether the Adamantine angle can raise it above that now that it’s really getting going.
Paul> ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #1-2. …but this is the same book as From the Ashes with the same creative team. But you can’t keep calling it From the Ashes forever, I guess.
Also, part of a general relaunch of the ongoing Infinity Comics. So there’s also an Astonishing Spider-Man, and there’ll be an Astonishing Avengers soon with the cast of the Avengers Assemble mini once that’s over.
There was another story featuring one of the Guthrie kids joining an anti-mutant hate group, years ago. It was silly then and it’s silly now. But at least they’re not feuding with some other family.
Was I the only one who thought it was odd that Alison Blaire – of all people – wouldn’t be more directly involved in a Mojo story?
The thing about the adamantine angle is that so far it seems like it’s just playing on the fact that Adamantium is named for the mythical adamantine, both in and out of universe.
It’s not as if Adamantium is part of Wolverine’s personality, exactly. To the extent that it’s signifciant for the character, and not just his powerset, it’s tied to his being used as a guinea pig for experiments and to his “manipulated, brainwashed super-soldier” backstory. That element is rather muddled at this point, but it’s never totally gone away.
The Adamantine is an original idea for something that would target Wolverine, but the story hasn’t yet shown why that conflict matters for the characters. (Deathstrike is in tune with it, but she’s arguably just a fanatic looking for a cause to justify her actions.)
It might work better if it were objecting to who uses Adamantium, since that would pull up Logan’s self-hatred and guilt.
The X-Men appear in Avengers 21 this week.
It’s weird how Kwannon came to dinner in front of the Avengers, who she hardly knows, having showered and wearing just a robe. Of course, part of the problem with Kwannon has always been that Betsy claimed that the reason she hit on Scott during the ’90s was because Kwannon was more “sensuous” than Betsy but when Kwannon actually got her own body back, she was never written that way.
It’s nice to see Wanda and Magneto talking but you’d think Storm would have brought up Toad.
It’s nice to see MacKay actually addressing the issue of the X-Men’s prejudice against AIs. It never made sense that the X-Men would think of Ais as enemies when they’ve been friends with AIs like Professor/Ship and Elsie Dee in the past. It was especially ridiculous when they were accepting Apocalypse as an ally, when every previous story made clear that they resented him for enslaving Ship. Rise of the Powers of X tried to walk that back by having Xavier point out that the problem wasn’t AIs but basing an AI on the mind of a supervillain. But it’s nice to see that the X-Men have moved past it. Except for Quentin, who has become a better man since his introduction but is still an annoying jerk.
Holiday Tales to Astonish is out and features a story circa X-Men 143. And as usual. there are continuity glitches- a Doombot tried to marry Storm even though Storm and Doom hadn’t met yet. Emma encounters Storm and Kitty even though they thought she was dead at this point and Garokk shows up looking normal but calling himself Garokk the Frozen Man (he was a half-crystal giant at this point.)
It wasn’t Xavier walking back House/Powers with AIs, but Xavier lampshading the point Hickman was making. Mutants had been hated and feared by humanity because mutants were the future. Then, mutants were in the ascendancy, and they found someone to hate and fear in AIs because suddenly AIs were the future instead of mutants.
You can say it was writing the X-Men out of character, but that was the Krakoa era.
If we’re talking adamantine in the mythological context, Hercules has long wielded a golden adamantine mace. Though I doubt we’re going to see him brought into this.
Just like I doubt we’ll see Bullseye, even though he’s (presumably?) still got it in his system as well. I suppose that having collected Cyber, Constrictor, and Lady Deathstrike and now Logan, whatever force is behind this will likely be content, rather than move on to every random nutjob with minor amounts (like bullets or knives or whatever.)
Though you never know. Maybe The Russian survived the Punisher’s nuke and is still out there…
One more thing about Avengers 21- Magneto says that he’s grateful that Wanda’s not a mutant, since what happened to him can’t happen to her. That seems to confirm that the X-Men think R-LDS can’t occur in humans, so we don’t have to worry about the Scarlet Witch or Captain America getting R-LDS. it would be nice to get this information in an actual X-book instead of a guest appearance in Avengers, though.
In other news, the new Flag-Smasher will be appearing in West Coast Avengers. It looks like West Coast Avengers will be handling the plots Duggan wanted to do in X-Men after the Orchis plot concluded but didn’t get a chance to because Breevort took over- Angelica’s trauma, the New Flag-Smasher.
In other news, the three limited series, Mystique, Sentinels and Dazzler, all sold horribly during November. in some ways. that’s no surprise- the concept of Sentinels was always a hard sell, Dazzler hasn’t had a series since 1985, and Mystique’s last series two decades ago sold horribly before being cancelled at 24 issues. (Mystique, like Karla Sofen, arguably works better as either a villain or an ally of the heroes with Chronic Backstabbing Disorder than a solo protagonist.) But arguably the poor sales of the limited series is due to Breevort’s flooding the market with X-Books.
That’s hardly surprising – Ye Olde X-Axis Readeres will remember Paul making that exact same observation 20 years ago when ReLoad dumped all those solo X-books onto the market and they all died within a year.
I hope I wasn’t the only person who had to check to make sure Lewis was not a new Gutherie, though he did us to be Blonde. He may have reason to hate mutants more the most as he was kidnapped and experimented on by dark beast in endangered species. But is pattern for the Gutherie Boy’s Josh hide his wings and was scared of being called up to Xavier’s Army like Sam and Paige. And Sam started of as a Hellfire recruit so he skirted with the dark side as well.
Other then that the NYX reveal is a bit odd as it does not seem that there as been any slips in publication so it’s more poor timing or bad communications between teams.
Finally where is Skin why is he on the cover art if he is not in the 1st 2 issues. I assume he may be the next target (Lewis’ target) as since the end of Gen X being killed by hate groups is what he is best known for.
Also a Gutherie Sister Joelle flirted with a hate group in the New Mutants.
I’d bet that Skin is going to be the web-versed youth Banshee calls for help.
As I said under the housekeeping post, this was a good week for x-books. I’ve recently completed a readthrough of Claremont’s run (just Uncanny, New Mutants are still on the to-read pile) and I came out of it with a fondness for Banshee, a severely underused character even in Claremont’s run and basically ever after with the exception of Gen X. So while I’d rather he starred in comics coming out in print, I’m glad he’s at least featured in the digital exclusive.
Also he might want to compare notes with Temper. I like the angle of mutants sceptical or straight up traumatised by their experience of Krakoa – I wish it was explored rather than briefly mentioned, but I’ll take what I can get.
I loved the panel of Cain stretching in preparation for his attack run over in X-Men. Warden Ellis was comically evil, but she’s such a thin character that I’ll take comically evil over bland.
“Was I the only one who thought it was odd that Alison Blaire – of all people – wouldn’t be more directly involved in a Mojo story?”
Sort of, but then again Marvel seems to have gone out of their way in recent years to disassociate Dazzler from anything having to do with Longshot or the Mojoverse. Presumably that’s part of efforts to rehabilitate her character and return her to more of a status quo.
While Dazzler holds no appeal for me, she clearly does for some fans, and if we’re being honest, attaching her to Longshot served both characters poorly in the long run. She kind of needs to exist in something approximating the real world to work (to the extent she ever does…), and he needs to be able to jaunt through fantasy worlds and raise interesting philosophical questions that never get answered. Their stories just don’t really play well together.
Why did Claremont write Banshee out of the book the first time after the Moses Magnum storyline? Did he just need to get rid of him so Jean/Pheonix could take his place as team deus ex machina?
My impression is Banshee was supposed to be the older, experienced veteran and became redundant once Wolverine started developing a personality and backstory that filled the same niche.
The shift from Banshee to Wolverine makes total sense to me as an explanation. Claremont wanted to establish Scott as the competent team leader, too, which is harder to do with *two* older, experienced types on the team. Plus, Storm and Jean were also flying distance strikers with (arguably) more interesting visual powers.
To be honest, the original All-New, All-Different line up was redundant in so many ways. Getting rid of Sunfire, Thunderbird, and Banshee cut it down to a manageable size without duplicating much. Having a lean team like that made the X-Men seem scrappier, always on the edge of losing.
I’m not saying that was all intentional on Claremont’s part, but it did make for a really effective team dynamic.
I think it was more a matter of Scott than Logan. Logan was older with fighting experience, but Claremont still treated him like the hothead who was arguing with Scott over decisions, rather than Logan suddenly becoming a veteran with leadership skills for the team.
It would seem it was Banshee that was redundant with Scott’s character. Claremont was moving the book in the direction of starring Cyclops for a number of years, until Scott and Maddie got married, which mostly wrapped up Claremont’s arc for Scott (not completely until #201, but Claremont moved on from Scott being a focus).
Scott was the older, veteran team leader put in charge of these younger X-Men (minus, eventually, Logan), but who also weren’t students like the X-Men with which Scott grew up as a team member. Banshee being older and more experienced than Scott would ruin Claremont’s usage of Scott, in a way that was different than how Claremont was using Logan’s character.
Banshee sticks around the team for a bit, as their non-powered ally, before getting his happy ending by sailing off into the sunset with Moira MacTaggert on Muir Isle. Things went bad for him after he got his powers back. And Moira thought so much of their relationship that she used his skin as a flesh suit to get through Krakoa gates.
Moira didn’t deserve her happy XIth life.
Getting rid of Banshee also left Scott and Jean as the only pre-Giant Size X-men #1 characters. Apparently, John Byrne didn’t care for the character (per this link: https://www.blackgate.com/2020/11/07/uncanny-x-men-part-22-1978-the-savage-land-japan-and-psionic-throwback-thursday/).
@Sam- The weird thing is that Byrne later claimed that Banshee’s departure wasn’t supposed to be permanent
https://m.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=39010
Claremont has said that Siryn was introduced as a way to restore Sean’s powers and make him more powerful than before. But for some reason that didn’t happen and Siryn remained a Z-lister until Nicieza and Liefeld snapped her up for X-Force.
Honestly, Sean has only had three periods where he’s been a major player- the early New X-Men years, the period from 1989-1991 shortly after he got his powers back (and the X-Men were scattered around the world for most of that period) and Generation X.
Regarding Moira- at least Sean’s trauma was erased by Legion. Kitty and Angelica are still hot messes as a result of Moira’s actions.
A couple of odds and ends:
Casey has said the opening arc of Weapon X will take place in Latveria during World Under Doom but probably won’t feature Doom. Which is odd, because Cable has gone to Latveria at least twice before without encountering Doom- X-Force 63-64 and the crossover with X-Man where he fought Stryfe.
Gail Simone claims that Warden Ellis is not a reference to Warren Ellis. Apparently she was originally supposed to be called Doctor Eliis.
I don’t think we can truly accept either story from John Byrne. Or Stan Lee or Kurt Busiek or anyone.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you with any certainty why I did thing A or thing B at work a few years ago, even if it’s a project I loved. The best I have is hindsight. I don’t know why people keep asking professional writers about stuff that happened decades ago and expect it to be the perfect truth. Add to that the fact that they make up stories for a living, and many have big egos, and the best you’re going to get is a general idea about what might have happened. Maybe they both planned to get rid of Banshee because he was redundant at the time, and also had a way to bring him back later. Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe it just kind of happened due to a hundred little unrelated things that aren’t important on their own.
I’m not having a go at anyone, digging into the history of stuff is fun. I’m just saying, take any of these recollections with a pinch of salt.
Speaking of unreliable sources, I can’t believe that “Warden Ellis” is a coincidence. How can that get past so many people and not have one person say “Hey, maybe the surname Smith might attract less lightning?”
@Si: I don’t know, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that Warren Ellis wouldn’t be at the forefront of anyone’s thoughts these days
I will be on guard in case Warden Ellis begins writing stories with cynical characters.
But ultimately, Ellis just isn’t all that rare a surname.
@Luis Dantas: Let’s hope they don’t introduce Warden Ellis’s kid, Harlan, a cantankerous, litigious science fiction writer.
The truth about Banshee is probably that Claremont fetishized Japan and Scotland much more than he fetishized Ireland. 🙂
Preview for the next arc: The team have an unsatisfactory face-off with Alvin Moore and his magical sodomy hat.