The X-Axis – 19 December 2024
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #3. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Ah, the Infinity Comics, where you can get away with doing a spotlight issue on Lewis Guthrie. Which one is Lewis Guthrie? Well, that’s kind of the point. It’s basically a flashback issue explaining how Lewis has become a radicalised anti-mutant type during the Krakoan era, in which he sees his side of the family being ignored and left behind, while taking the flak from everyone else for the mutants doing unhelpful things like making telepathic announcements to the whole world. There is actually a story back in the 2000s where Lewis tries to get his hoped-for mutant powers to activate, which is about the only thing he’s ever done to stand out; it winds up with him almost getting killed by Dark Beast, so I can see why we’re downplaying that in favour of a more mundane (in the best sense) back story. It’s a straightforward story but quite convincingly handled. I suspect it might be read in some quarters as another sign of the current editorial office having an aversion to Krakoa. But for me, Hickman was always setting up the idea that there was a degree of hubris that wouldn’t turn out well, so I have no issue with this sort of thing.
PSYLOCKE #2. (Annotations here.) So after I spent last week’s X-Axis going through variations on “this isn’t really working”, here’s one that’s growing on me. When issue #1 came out, I wasn’t convinced that they had a hook for Kwannon as a solo lead, beyond recycling ideas about being raised as a living weapon that had already been done with Wolverine, X-23 and Elektra. And yes, that’s kind of what this book is doing too, but maybe with a lighter touch and a bit less brooding. Sure, Psylocke’s got strong feelings about rescuing kids from abuse, but Shinobi Shaw works nicely as a foil for her, and she’s given a deadpan sense of humour at the same time as not quite understanding the more normal characters (which is still a relative concept in this book, but the idea’s on the table). There’s some decent action sequences too, and while I’ve never been sold on the “underground gladiatoral arena for the rich” trope, I’m kind of coming round to the idea that maybe there’s enough unexplored territory in Kwannon that this can work?
HELLVERINE #1. (Annotations here.) Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be Johnny Blaze. Now I quite liked the Hellverine miniseries, but I also left it thinking that it was going to do something with the Project Hellfire characters it set up. From the look of this issue, though, we’re doing a wandering demon-possessed biker who keeps meeting random evil people and killing them in demon form. And if you’re going to do this book, surely the key is that it’s a Ghost Rider / Wolverine mash-up. This feels like it’s basically Benjamin Percy’s Ghost Rider with the lead actor recast. And there are worse things to be – Percy’s Ghost Rider was a good comic if that’s your thing, with a really strong tone and a clear identity. There’s some really nice art on some of the ghost/horror sequences, too. It’s not a bad book at all – it’s just hard to figure out why it exists as a Daken book rather than another year of Ghost Rider, and what Daken is actually bringing to this series beyond gimmickry.
SENTINELS #3. By Alex Paknadel, Justin Mason, Federico Blee & Travis Lanham. Or, as Amazon have it, “Sentinels (2024-2025) #3 (of 5) (Sentinels (2024-))”. Wonderful service. Anyhow, Sentinels is turning out quite well. One of my reservations about the book was that the Sentinel designs didn’t really work for human characters, and made everyone look quite similar. But it feels as if that’s almost the point – we’re only really invited to keep track of Lockstep and Drumfire, and Corina Ellis can’t remember which is which even when she’s talking to them. And if I wasn’t convinced about the use of Sebastian Shaw last issue, I’m rather more intrigued by Fabian Cortez’ sudden turn to charitable work and the appearance of a second Magneto. I mean, it’s presumably Joseph, but it works as a mystery for the characters. Mason’s art is rough at times, but in a way that gives a bit more personality to the Sentinel designs. Sentinels is an easy book to overlook but it’s one of the stronger entries in the line right now.
I’d say the Infinity Comic is very believable. While Krakoa was buying off the governments of the world, there was always going to be an increased amount of anti-mutant ideology at a certain level in the “new world order”. It was unbelievable to expect that some creepy drugs were going to pacify every human into accepting mutants, especially when someone like Magneto was going around telling humanity they had “new gods now”.
We saw in Life 10A (from Hickman’s Inferno) that even after Krakoa helps save humanity from the Children of the Vault, that the humans were still planning to create Nimrod. The only possibility open to Krakoa was the eventual conquest and policing of human society, which is exactly where events lead in Life 10A.
While the story of Lewis being radicalised does make sense, I still find the whole storyline annoying because it’s been done before, directly with one of the Guthrie girls, and earlier the same theme was done with Josh, before he grew wings. And of course it used the other Guthrie storyline, the feud with the Cabots. That’s those backwards country folk for you, it’s all feuds and racialisation.
Also, Cannonball seems to be kept out of the story because the plot would fall apart the minute he walked in the door. I imagine Shiar imperial guards get paid quite well, and if that’s not enough to get the Guthries out of financial strife, then his best friend is a billionaire.
Astonishing – it’s funny the digital exclusive got the ‘Astonishing’ monicker, at one point reserved for the supposed flagship of the line. Still, I liked Paknadel’s take on it before the name change and I might be liking it even more now that it’s setting up something longer.
Psylocke is fine. Better than LK Wolverine, which seems to be a very similar comic, though it’s two issues to one at this point, Laura might still catch up.
Hellverine is… I’m not sure I’m going to bother with it. I was never sold on Percy’s Wolverine, but at least I was interested. Percy’s Daken’s impression of Ghost Rider is somewhat removed from what I found interesting there.
Sentinels is very good. And the art is perfect for what it is. That hallucinated Onslaught sitting on a tiny chair was hilarious.
” and the appearance of a second Magneto. I mean, it’s presumably Joseph, ”
I’m not sure the Magneto is Joseph. First, Beast told Magneto in X-Men 6 that Cortez’s powers could be the key to curing Magneto’s R-LDS, so it could be the real Magneto. Second, the story continues in next week’s Mystique. “Magneto” could be Mystique. Cortez is a power amplifier, and Dr. Nemesis speculated that Mystique might be able to duplicate powers in theory. it’s possible that Mystique was able to duplicate Magneto’s powers as well as his from once Cortez booster her powers. But I guess we’ll find out on Wednesday.
So where do we think Trask got the nanotech from? At first I thought he might have gotten it from the Phalanx/ Technarchy or maybe from the Limbo demons, since Limbo had a techno-organic infection a while back. But this seems to be nanotech, not techno-organic stuff. Cassandra Nova has used nano-Sentinels before- it could be her.
“It’s not a bad book at all – it’s just hard to figure out why it exists as a Daken book rather than another year of Ghost Rider, and what Daken is actually bringing to this series beyond gimmickry.”
I think the difference lies in Daken’s and Johnny’s personalities. Johnny was very much a family man- in fact. he only became a Ghost Rider in the first place because he was trying to save someone he cared about. Daken, on the other hand, murdered both his adopted and biological siblings for selfish and petty reasons. (Although he has been trying to be a good brother to Gabby and Laura lately, perhaps out of a desire to atone.) Plus, Johnny has a lot of experience with the supernatural at this point while Daken is a relative novice
In other news. Deadpool returned from the dead this week. 3 months- not quite as quick as Kamala, who came back in two months. but close.
In other news. the villain of the first Weapon X-Men arc will not be Doom but Baron Strucker. Strucker does have a history with Wolverine. I wonder if the Fenris twins will appear.
Spider-Man will be relaunched this April and it will be written by Joe Kelly. There will be several villains, and in X-related news, one of them will be Itsy-Bitsy, the Spider-Man/ Deadpool combo from Kelly’s Spider- Man/ Deadpool issues.
(Two of the other villains will be Chasm and Queen Goblin. You’d think Marvel would finally realize they’re not working as villains. But…)
Ah yes, Lewis Guthrie. I’d say he was the worst Guthrie but it’s more like he’s the most forgettable. Half are mutants, half of -those- are obscure, and the rest of the Guthries are interchangeably forgettable humans.
The Sentinels are interesting but I’m clearly not getting attached to any of them. I don’t expect many to make it out alive at this rate.
I’m nervous regarding the upcoming Joe Kelly run on Spider-Man and I hope at least some of the villains pictured in the promo are there unwillingly and we’re not undoing any progress made on them recently. Rhino and Scorpion especially were showing signs of growth after appearing in Miles’ title for instance… and I still dream of Otto being more than a villain of the week again.
Ayodele has explained that one of the major problems the From the Ashes writers had is that they had to write their initial issues without knowing how Fall of X ended. In his case, he had to write the first five issues of Storm before reading the first issue of Resurrection of Magneto. That’s why the Arakko characters and Craig don’t appear in the first five issues of Storm- Ayodele had no clue what was going to happen with them.
Ayodele has said that when Jed MacKay first read Wolverine 41, he was like “they killed Quentin? But he’s on my team!” And then MacKay was reassured that all the dead X-Men will be brought back in X-Men 700. Ayodele thinks this is how we wound up with the Magneto-in-the-wheelchair plot- MacKay thought that Magneto was resurrected through the Five and didn’t find out that Magneto was resurrected by a magic key until he had already written the scenes with Magneto in a wheelchair. So they had to come up with the “Well, Magneto was resurrected before by the Five” excuse.
Ayodele also was surprised by developments in NYX. He was surprised to find Loolo in the Morlocks, so now he’s going to have to explain that. He also already planned to have Maggot in the Storm book but the NYX artist likes Maggot and drew him as part of the Morlocks. So that will have to be explained when Maggot shows up in Storm.
Ayodele also explained that he’s letting Jed MacKay, who writes Avengers, decide what to do with Storm’s and Black Panther’s relationship. So since he had no idea what was going on with Craig or T’Challa, he decided to have Storm and Logan sleep together. as a way of bringing closure to their relationship.
I don’t buy that MacKay would have thought Magneto was simply going to be resurrected by The Five, unless either MacKay wasn’t reading the titles at all or an editor wasn’t doing their job.
The entire premise behind The Resurrection of Magneto was that Magneto made it so that he could not simply be resurrected if he died. Why would MacKay assume the resolution of Magneto’s death would be, “Surprise! Magneto could be resurrected like everyone else.”?
The only way that makes sense is if MacKay directly asked Jordan White or Tom Brevoort, “So, is Magneto going to be resurrected by The Five or what?” and was told, “Uh, yeah. Sure.”
@Chris V- I could easily see a situation where a miscommunication between MacKay and White happened:
Jed: So Quentin just died. Is he going to be resurrected by the Five? And what about Warren? He died in Dark X-Men.
Jordan: For the last time Jed, everyone who’s dead now will be resurrected by the Five by the time your run starts.
Joe Kelly is currently writing ASM, and it has been dumb. Spider-Man fighting Cyttorak’s children with some magic upgrades from Doom to help him. Last issue (63) was better though, it used the obligatory fight as a vehicle for some character stuff and had more interactions with the supporting cast. But that one was written by Justina Ireland, so Joe Kelly being the main writer doesn’t inspire confidence.
In the new TWA series they had some mutants, a Wolverine (the second Wolverine of the first Ultimate universe I think). And a Gambit (that seems to be new) from a universe where Rogue is dead.