Wolverine #10 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
WOLVERINE vol 7 #10
“Mercenaries”
by Benjamin Percy, Adam Kubert & Frank Martin
COVER / PAGE 1: Logan and Maverick in action.
PAGE 2: Recap and credits.
PAGES 3-5: Logan takes the lead with Maverick.
The basic point here is that their relationship is so ingrained that Maverick is willing to take Logan’s lead just on a vague sense of who he is. The Merchant’s comment that the two of them “don’t put much value in history” is somewhat ironic – they can’t put much value in their history, because they can’t remember it, or can’t trust what they do remember. The Merchant, in contrast, seems to value Marvel Universe trinkets largely on the basis of their supposed historical significance – or at least he serves customers who do. Even though Maverick was being sold as a useful weapon, most of the Merchant’s stock appears to be mere cast-offs and collectibles from famous heroes and villains. In a sense, he’s obsessed with history without actually seeming to grasp why it matters.
X-Men #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 5 #18
“Inside the Vault”
by Jonathan Hickman, Mahmud Asrar & Sunny Gho
COVER / PAGE 1: Darwin, Wolverine (Laura) and Synch enter the Vault.
PAGE 2. The exterior of the Vault.
This is recapping issue #5. In that issue, the X-Men decided to infiltrate the Vault, home of the post-human Children of the Vault. Technologically-enhanced post-humans are supposed to be the biggest threat to mutantkind, according to everything we discovered in Power of X; and besides, the Children of the Vault really are planning to take over the world once they’re ready. The Vault is a sealed chamber where time moves at a different rate, the idea being that eventually they will emerge in a hyper-advanced state, ready to take over the world. From time to time the Children come out to have a look around and decide that they need a bit more time in the oven.
Charts – 19 February 2021
It’s the busiest week on the singles chart for ages. Serenely undisturbed by it all is…
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
…which remains number 1 for a sixth week. But it’s close this time.
2. Lil Tjay & 6LACK – “Calling My Phone”
This is the strongest challenge that “Drivers Licence” has had yet – it holds on, but by a margin equivalent to 1,700 sales. That’s beatable. It’s not an obvious challenger, either. Lil Tjay’s only previous appearance in the top 40 was as a guest on Pop Smoke’s “Mood Swings” (number 5 last year) – until now, his own singles have always missed the chart. 6LACK – it’s pronounced “black”, which would be more obvious if it was written in lower case – hasn’t had a hit single in the UK either, though he’s got an album into the top 20. It’s a surprising chart record (or lack thereof) considering that he’s been around for years and has several Grammy nominations under his belt.
Cable #8 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
CABLE vol 4 #8
“My Dinner with Domino”
by Gerry Duggan & Phil Noto
COVER / PAGE 1: Just Cable with Domino’s face in the background – and her black spot framing his head.
PAGE 2. Straightforward quote from Cable. Of course, Stryfe doesn’t just look like Cable; genetically, they’re identical, so the differences between them should be down to their different experiences.
PAGE 3. A meteorite changes course.
We’ll see it again at the end of the issue. Generally, Duggan writes Domino’s luck powers at a ridiculously high level in this story, more akin to the way Longshot has sometimes been written; traditionally Domino’s powers have been played at a subtler level than that. In voice over, Domino kind of shrugs her shoulders and acknowledges that she can’t really explain how her powers work. Explanations offered over the years have involved things like probability manipulation and subconscious telekinesis, none of which would really account for a bad guy just happening to stand in the right position to get flattened by a meteorite… but whatever. You can only really write Domino this way as a guest star; as a regular character, this sort of thing would break the book rather quickly, or at least wear thin. As a one-off, it’s fine.
Marauders #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
MARAUDERS #18
“Saving Face”
by Gerry Duggan, Stefano Caselli, Matteo Lolli & Edgar Delgado
COVER / PAGE 1: Just an action shot of Iceman and Pyro. I think it might be going for a yin-yang thing, but if so, it’s pretty loose.
PAGE 2. Quote from an anonymous UN ambassador about Madripoor. Could well be Madripoor’s own ambassador, Donald Pierce. In terms of the way Madripoor has been presented in Wolverine stories over the years, the comment isn’t unreasonable.
PAGE 3. Professor X and Magneto arrive for Emma’s ceremony.
“I know you have been helping Emma with her gala…” The Hellfire Gala, first mentioned in issue #7. It’s finally going to happen in upcoming issues of X-Men, where the new team line-up is going to be held. Magneto helped Emma by acquiring the location in Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto #1.
The Incomplete Wolverine: 1982
Part 1: Origin to Origin II | Part 2: 1907 to 1914
Part 3: 1914 to 1939 | Part 4: World War II
Part 5: The postwar era | Part 6: Team X
Part 7: Post Team X | Part 8: Weapon X
Part 9: Department H | Part 10: The Silver Age
1974-1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 |
1981
1982 is the year when Wolverine comes to the foreground as a lead character. I’m taking Uncanny X-Men as the cut-off points, and so we won’t reach the first Wolverine miniseries until 1983 (which is when it fits into continuity, despite having cover dates from the end of 1982). But he gets his moment in the sun in the main title, and he gets to tour some more of the Marvel Universe in guest appearances.
UNCANNY X-MEN vol 1 #153
“Kitty’s Fairy Tale”
by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Josef Rubinstein & Glynis Wein
January 1982
Kitty tells Illyana a bedtime story in which all the characters are obvious stand-ins for the X-Men. Wolverine, in Claremont’s self-parody, is an animalistic “fiend with no name”, who says “I’m mean” and eats cans of beer – all of which pretty much nails the tropes of the mysterious antihero role that he’s now drifted into. But now Logan finds all this just as charming as the rest of the team do – a few years ago, he would have gone ballistic about somebody making fun of him. (Oddly, the plot of Kitty’s story involves Logan and Scott’s rivalry over Jean, which happened before she joined the team.)
Charts – 12 February 2021
It’s 90s Eurodance chorus recycling week.
1. Olivia Rodrigo – “Drivers Licence”
Five weeks, without much difficulty.
5. Digga D & AJ Tracey – “Bringing It Back”
Easily the biggest hit to date for Digga D, who’s never previously got above 18. Of course, he’s working with AJ Tracey here, who had four straight top ten hits last year alone.
S.W.O.R.D. #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
S.W.O.R.D. vol 2 #3
“Everywhere Man”
by Al Ewing, Valerio Schiti, Ray-Anthony Height, Bernard Chang, Nico Leon & Marte Gracia
COVER / PAGE 1. Manifold doing his thing, with the outback on one side and the Alpha Flight station (with Henry Gyrich) on the other. Unlike last issue, this does have a King in Black tie-in banner, though it’s largely obscured.
PAGE 2. Manifold leaves Lila in charge.
Although it’s notionally a King in Black tie-in, this issue is largely a spotlight for Manifold, perhaps in part to introduce him to the X-books’ audience – although he’s a mutant, his previous appearances have mostly been in Secret Warriors, Avengers and Black Panther. And fair warning, I’m not hugely familiar with any of those runs.
X-Force #17 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-FORCE vol 6 #17
“Omega, Reconsidered”
by Benjamin Percy, Joshua Cassara & Guru-eFX
COVER / PAGE 1. Kid Omega and Phoebe of the Stepford Cuckoos, blissfully together wile X-Force do X-Force stuff behind. The comic in the bottom left shows the cover of issue #15.
PAGES 2-4. A montage of Kid Omega’s deaths.
I don’t think any of these are meant to be specific scenes that we’ve seen before; we might or might not be intended to take them literally, and it doesn’t really matter.
The Commander Islands are a group of sparsely populated islands in the Bering Straits – they belong to Russia, but they’re pretty close to the outlying islands of Alaska. No bears live there, cyborg or otherwise, but they do have a lot of seals and guillemots.
Another of Quentin’s deaths comes from a poisoned bunch of flowers from the Church of Humanity, the Chuck Austen-era religious extremists.
Excalibur #18 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
EXCALIBUR vol 4 #18
“Mad Women”
by Tini Howard, Marcus To & Erick Arciniega
COVER / PAGE 1. Rogue, Jubilee, Gambit and Rictor look mournful, while members of the Quiet Council (plus Cypher and Krakoa) are seen in the background. This doesn’t have much to do with the content of the issue, and feels like it was meant to cover an issue set before Betsy’s apparent return. The solicitation for this issue read “As the Council makes moves to protect mutants in the Otherworld, Excalibur must determine the fate of Betsy Braddock”.
PAGE 2. Saturnyne receives a petition from Krakoa.
Saturnyne has three empty wine glasses at her feet and apparently hasn’t been eating, given Ryl’s comments. She’s clearly still annoyed that her scheme to get Brian back as Captain Britain didn’t work, and that she’s now stuck with an entire corps of Betsies, as seen in “X of Swords”. It’s not immediately clear what’s littering the floor around her – it might be the shards of the mosaic she constructed in “X of Swords”, and which she used to reconstitute the new Captain Britain Corps, if she smashed it again after its work was done.
