The X-Axis – w/c 31 March 2025
ASTONISHING X-MEN INFINITY COMIC #16. By Alex Paknadel, Phillip Sevy, Michael Bartolo & Clayton Cowles. Well, we’ve got to the point of bringing Sean, Paige and Angelo together for the partial Generation X reunion, but I can’t say this arc is doing much for me. It still feels too similar to the first arc. I’m not keen either on having random street level characters getting injections that turn them into the Hulk – diluting the big names for no real reason feels like it’s standing in for a lack of ideas that actually fit in this story. There’s something in the subplot about Paige’s depression, but otherwise this is an underwhelming arc.
X-MEN #14. (Annotations here.) Gosh, there’s a lot going on in this issue – and since X-Men has generally stuck to doing self-contained one or two-part stories when it isn’t involved in crossovers, that alone makes it feel like the book is kicking up a gear. It feels like we’re moving into the phase where things are starting to draw together Ryan Stegman is back on art, and I love the cover of this issue, with the broken glasses in the foreground. I’m not sure about that 3K table at all – how big is that thing? Do they have to yell to be heard on the other side? But the scene with Ben and Magneto is nicely done to continue the slow burn of Ben wanting to be an active character (even if I don’t remember any of this stuff about Magneto trying to mentor him), and the redesign of Wyre is a big improvement.
PSYLOCKE #6. (Annotations here.) In which Magik helps Psylocke to investigate her hallucinations. Having the other X-Men show up too prominently in a solo book can be a problem – it begs awkward questions about why every story doesn’t just involve calling in the team – but I think Alyssa Wong makes it work here because I can buy that Psylocke doesn’t like sharing her personal problems with the rest of the group. To be honest, there’s a slight tension between her take and Jed MacKay’s, since X-Men Psylocke is a bit more emotionally intelligent than Psylocke Psylocke, but I can square it off in terms of whether she’s talking about her own issues or other people’s. Deathdream gets his first major role outside Uncanny, and the issue nails the voice that Gail Simone gave him. The art is a little rough at the start – how do you do a whole scene with Orifice, who has literally nothing going for him aside from his weird face, and contrive to obscure his face in virtually every panel? But it picks up a lot once we get to Magik eating cinnamon rolls and Psylocke having nightmare visions of herself. This book is working out far better than I predicted before it launched.
HELLVERINE #5. (Annotations here.) This is about as close as you’re going to get to decompression from a Marvel comic in 2025 – it spends three pages just on “Akihiro drowns and goes to hell”, and there are several pages of virtually dialogue-free fight scene later on. I’m not convinced that Raffaele Ienco is the sort of artist who can make the most of that opportunity, though. On the plus side, the drowning page is rather good, and the sequence of Akihiro being cut into pieces is creepily bizarre. Bagra-Ghul’s design has the merit of being off-kilter but becomes awkward when he actually has to do anything. On the down side, the action sequences are nothing special, and a splash page which is meant to sell Mephisto’s vision of a demonically corrupted X-Men is terribly weak. Aren’t there better ways of selling demonic possession than spiky costumes? Mind you, I do like his Mephisto, who has a nice calm arrogance to him. In terms of the actual story, there’s not a huge amount going on here – Akihiro gets control of the demon that’s possessing him, goes back to Earth. It’s a book has that has a distinct voice within the line, but whether it’s actually saying anything very interesting is another matter.
CONCERT OF CHAMPIONS #1. By Jason Loo, Rafael Loureiro, Ruairi Coleman, Yen Nitro, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Ariana Maher. This is basically a coda one-shot to Loo’s Dazzler miniseries, although officially it gives co-star billing to Lila Cheney and Luna Snow (the K-pop superhero, if you haven’t come across her before), and Ghost-Spider shows up as a guest star too. For some reason Dazzler is losing her hair – it’s played as if it’s just stress but the art is more like chemotherapy and the overall effect is just a bit weird. Anyway, they team up to stop a band of supervillains from summoning a demon thing. If you’ve read Dazzler, it’s basically more of that, though a little less heavy-handed. I’m not sure why it’s setting up a storyline about Dazzler’s health when there’s nowhere to follow up, though.
Writers really need to agree on a consistent characterization for Angar for the Screamer. in Spider-Woman’s last series, he was relatively well intentioned. In Concert of Champions, he’s helping Ruby Thursday summon a demon. Of course, writers have been unable to make up their mind whether or not Angar is a monster for decades.
Incidentally, Concert of Champions showed that another Krakoan had reverted to villainy- Forearm is one of the villains.
According to Bleeding Cool. Concert of Champions featured cameos by two new characters called Wolverpool and Deadverine.
Speaking of Deadpool and Wolverine, a new 3-issue limited series by Cody Ziglar called Wolverines and Deadpools is starting in July. It features Logan, Laura. Wade and Ellie and is a follow up to Ziglar’s Deadpool run, which ends in June.
I wonder if this means that Deapool/ Wolverine is ending early or if Deadpool/ Wolverine will run alongside Wolverines and Deadpools. There’s definitely been too much Deadpool and Wolverine material lately. (Joe Casey mentioned on his blog that he didn’t know about Deadpool/ Wolverine until after Weapon X-Men was approved. I have to wonder if Weapon X-Men would have survived if it wasn’t competing against Deadpool/ Wolverine- Breevort probably should have just gone with either Deadpool/ Wolverine or Weapon X-Men instead of trying to run them both concurrently.)
Storm appeared in West Coast Avengers 6 this week. Several fans thought it was odd that Storm called Blue Bolt “young one”- Blue Bolt is at least 21 and Storm is 30 going by her recent one-shot.
in non X-news, this was a big week for two reasons. First, Mary Jane was revealed as the new Venom. Apparently Marvel realized Jackpot wasn’t working. It’ll be interesting how Peter reacts.
Second, in the week’s Moon Knight issue, Hank Pym returned. He’s helping the Midnight Mission against Achilles Fairchild. So this is the first time Hank’s back helping a group of heroes since Rage of Ultron. It’s hard to believe Hank was sidelined for a decade. It’s nice to have Hank back ,even if he stills looks like Michael Douglas.
Wolverpool and Deadverine.
This really is what we’ve come to. Coming soon: Wolverdead and Poolverine? Wopoolverdead and Deadverwolvpool?
Also, Ruby Tuesday’s evil plan to summon an extradimensional thingie with the aid of Angar, Forearm, and um… a random Doombot (since I assume it’s not the Runaways Doombot, now busy in Runaways…) This is flat-out ridiculous. I’d have bought “we actually formed a band because we had nothing better to do, and turned out to be really good, and this is what we do now” as a much more satisfying explanation. This plan was so very … why???
(Almost as why??? and wtf??? as Dazzler losing her hair for reasons. Depression?)
I hate to say it, but I don’t think Jason Loo’s writing works for me.
I hate that the idea of bringing together Marvel’s various musically inclined heroes for a concert fell so flat. This coulda been great.
Ruby Thursday should definitely be heading a Rolling Stones cover band. I don’t know about Angar being in that band though, seeing him saying, “I’m having flashbacks to a bad trip (December ‘69), man.”
What I’m finding most appealing about the Paknadel/Seeley Infinity comics (both From the Ashes and now Astonishing X-Men) is that they’re essentially doing the kind of character-centric, low-stakes storylines that – in ages past – would’ve just been part of the ongoing core books, the “quiet” issues between big events.
At the end of the day, MacKay, Simone and Ewing aren’t going to be checking in on Beak and Angel, or the Guthries, or Angelo Espinosa. And when was the last time Banshee was a POV character anyway?
The thing with Ruby Tuesday is they can never leave the scene because if they go and someone says “Goodbye Ruby Tuesday” then the Rolling Stones copyright lawyer will be down on Marvel like a ton of bricks.
@The Other Michael- Now that I think about it, I think this was supposed to be the same Doombot Ruby used to kill Orka back in the Heroes for Hire series.
@Chris V: Ruby Thursday could have a Stones cover band, but can’t play the songs completely the same for fear of getting sued: “Paint It Dark,” “Satiation,” “Empathy for Beelzebub,” etc.
@Diana: It also seems that the current X-books do best when they stick to smaller, character-focused stories with their own casts. Th stories that go high-concept, do a linewide crossover, or explore some kind of extended plotline have generally been disappointing.
@Michael: Along the same lines as your comment on Angar the Screamer, I wish writers would bring back Ruby Thursday’s original motivation: She thinks her plastic, computerized head is so great that everyone on Earth should have one.
Admittedly, Ruby’s the definition of Z-list, and her character design was destined to turn her into a comedy villain. Maybe she should fight a Marvel Universe version of Benjamin Braddock from The Graduate?
Regarding MJ as Jackpot, that’s always felt like Marvel trying to effectively undo the tangled, lame fakeout angle with the BND-era Jackpot(s).
Also, will we ever get a story in which Barbarus of the Savage Land Mutates challenges Forearm to an arm-wrestling match?
Omar-They could have at least brought back Ruby Thursday’s original motivation if Loo wanted to go with this raising a demon trip. Have her perform subliminal lyrics from Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, “Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money!”. She wants to invoke Moloch to make a pact so that everyone’s mind will be pure machinery.
In fact, she should have put the subliminal lyrics in her copyright-safe cover “Empathy for Moloch”.
FYI, Luna Snow was originally created for a Marvel mobile game (Marvel Future Fights), and her backstory as a K-Pop star led the marketing people to produce and release several ‘Luna Snow’ singles. It was only after all that that she actually appeared in an actual comic.
I think she’s probably more popular for her roles in several video games (Marvel Rivals, Marvel Snap) than she is for any comic appearances.
I forget which comic it was that had the Answer pay Bullseye to kill Ruby Thursday’s body (with that Rolling Stones album) so she was just a head that could never leave him.
Given the times, she should just run for President again.
@Steven Kaye- It was I Heart Marvel: Outlaw Love. And it was a bit more complicated than that- Bullseye was hired by AIM to kill Ruby because she embezzled from them, and then Bullseye tried to coerce the Answer into leading him to her.
Have Ruby and the Orb ever been a team or couple?
Ruby was in the Headmen, a team of villains with weird heads, but the Orb wasn’t in that sadly.
What I want to see is Ruby Thursday in a comic with Rocket Raccoon and Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
@Si: They can get entangled with the characters from that old Defenders story by David Kraft full of characters he named after Blue Oyster Cult songs.
OK, then we’re going to need Kulan Gath to team up with Vera Gemini in that story. Why? Because Michael Moorcock was the co-creator of Gath, and Moorcock wrote lyrics to some of Blue Oyster Cult’s songs.
Now I want to see Ruby Tuesday, both Orbs, and the current version of 8-Ball team up with Globie the Globetrotter mascot.
In other news, Bleeding Cool’s bestseller list is out. Psylocke came in 10th and Hellverine didn’t make the list, as usual.
Preview images for Spider-Man and Wolverine show Kraven and Omega Red as villains. So it looks like Omega Red as back to being a true villain again. (As opposed to the Infinity Comic and the Sentinels limited series. where he only attacked people who killed his friend or attacked him first.)
One interesting tidbit from Breevort’s blog- when Breevort decided to put Magneto on Scott’s team, his idea was that the team would be operating out of Magneto’s base in Antarctica. But MacKay convinced Breevort to instead place the team in Alaska. I get why MacKay did this- the Piper story required that the team be relatively close to an inhabited region. But that seems to have had the effect of minimizing Magneto’s presence in the book. Maybe he’ll get more panel-time when the team confronts Doug.
Michael> In other news, Bleeding Cool’s bestseller list is out. Psylocke came in 10th and Hellverine didn’t make the list, as usual.
The curious thing is that Psylocke apparently outsold Thor, since that didn’t place on the list…
Cable will be appearing in the Phoenix series starting in issue 11. I guess Breevort finally listened to the complaints about Jean not interacting with X-characters.
@SanityorMadness- that’s not curious. Psylocke outsold immortal Thor last month.The Immortal Thor often fails to make the top 50.
I largely lost interest in Immortal Thor when they removed the good artist.