X-MEN UNLIMITED INFINITY COMIC #127. By Steve Foxe, Steve Orlando, Phillip Sevy, Yen Nitro & Travis Lanham. They fight. The arc does seem to be getting more focussed on its core plot, but it’s no closer to making any of this seem interesting. Captain Britain, Rictor and Shatterstar versus Absalom and Nicodemus? Even by the standards of Unlimited exclusives, who cares? The story does try to punch up Absalom by dusting off his despair gimmick, but I remain genuinely puzzled about what the hook for this story is supposed to be. What is any of this about and why am I supposed to care? It’s coherent on the surface, but if I’m still asking that question by part 7, something’s gone very wrong.

X-FORCE #49. (Annotations here.) The resurrected Classic Beast enlists the help of his best friend Wonder Man to take on the Krakoa Beast – although since it’s not the early 1980s any more, Wonder Man is rather confused to see him. Meanwhile, the modern Beast’s plans get increasingly demented, and X-Force blunder around misreading the whole situation in their normal fashion. This isn’t remotely subtle, but it is quite good fun. And I do enjoy the retro Beast’s reaction to his dystopian future, which is to remain doggedly upbeat. Robert Gill’s art makes his sequences with Wonder Man rather likeable. Benjamin Percy doesn’t quite seem to grasp just how pacifist Wonder Man has been for the last decade, which is unfortunate, not least because it would actually play quite nicely into a path-not-taken angle. But overall, this is perfectly enjoyable.

RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #2. (Annotations here.) While Fall of the House of X has felt as if it’s spinning off the rails, Rise of the Powers of X is far more coherent. That might simply be because it has less to tie in to – it only really has to worry about Dead X-Men, and gesture vaguely in the direction of some sort of anti-Orchis uprising going on, and then it can get on with its time travel story. That story is admittedly convoluted, but that’s time travel for you. Gillen gets the idea across, and RB Silva makes it all suitably epic. The Cypher reveal is particularly well played, casting all his dialogue up to that point in a different light that makes more sense, even though it didn’t seem that off the first time round. I’m still not entirely sure whether this story is actually about anything in particular, beyond finding a way of drawing key themes of the Krakoan era to a climax – but it’s certainly achieving that, which is enough at this point.