Daredevil Villains #18: The Jester
DAREDEVIL #42 (July 1968)
“Nobody Laughs at the Jester!”
Writer, editor: Stan Lee
Penciller: Gene Colan
Inker: Dan Adkins
Letterer: Sam Rosen
Colourist: not known
It’s been a while since Daredevil introduced a new villain with a proper concept and some real fanfare, but the Jester certainly gets that treatment. He’s not just on the cover and in the title of the story. He gets the whole opening scene to establish his schtick. Then, after a brief check in with Matt and co (who are mourning the “death” of Mike Murdock last issue), we’re back to the Jester so that he can tell us again how great he is, and explain his back story. Of the first ten pages of issue #42, seven are pure Jester. Today he may be a D-lister, but in his debut he’s a major new villain.
The Jester is a man in a jester costume who robs a bank vault with sleep pellets and some gimmicked toys. Then he makes his getaway by flagging down a passing car, which he steals by knocking out the driver with a yo-yo. But as the Jester drives home, he wishes had had an audience to applaud him. It’s the one thing he regrets about turning to crime.
Even so, the Jester is delighted with his achievements. “With my superb skills, my titanic talents, I’ll reach the most dizzying heights of all! Never has a dedicated arch-criminal been endowed with the background, the training, the natural genius that I myself possess! Here, among my innocent-looking, specially-modified toys, I am ready to launch a crime campaign the like of which the world has never known!”
Charts – 22 March 2024
It’s a very quiet week for new entries, but we do have a new number one.
1. Benson Boone – “Beautiful Things”
Beyoncé’s run ends after five weeks, as “Texas Hold ‘Em” drops straight to number 3. Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends” climbs to 2, and Benson Boone climbs to the top. This record entered at number 18 at the end of January, climbed into the top 5 in week three, and has been hovering in the top three ever since. It makes number 1 in its ninth week on the top 40.
X-Men: Forever #1 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN: FOREVER #1
“A Ghost”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: Luca Maresca
Colour artist: Federico Blee
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller, Jay Bowen & Kat Gregorowicz
Editor: Jordan D White
X-MEN: FOREVER. There have been two previous series called X-Men Forever (plus a sequel X-Men Forever 2), neither of which have anything to do with this book. The official solicitations and the trailer page give the title for this book as X-Men: Forever, with a colon. The cover says X-Men Forever. The credits page has it both ways. I’ll go with the solicitations.
COVER / PAGE 1. An unconscious Jean Grey lying in a Phoenix-shaped pool of blood in what appears to be a snowbound forest. This doesn’t happen in the issue, though we do see Jean lying in a circle of blood on page 12.
PAGE 2. Flashback: Irene and Raven attend a concert.
This is the first performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, which took place at St James’ Hall on 19 June 1899. Irene and Nathaniel Essex both mentioned having been at this performance in the flashback that opens Immortal X-Men #1. We were told there that Irene had had a fit at the opening of the Nimrod variation; Sinister remembered someone having a fit but didn’t know Irene at the time. More of that scene shortly.
The establishing shot in panel 1 is pretty much a copy of a drawing of the Hall in 1858, artist unknown. (It happens to be the picture that illustrates the Hall’s Wikipedia entry but hell, it’s out of copyright.)
Resurrection of Magneto #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO #3
“Falls the Shadow”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artists: David Curiel & Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The Shadow King grips Magneto.
PAGES 2-4. Annihilation confronts Storm.
Issue #2 ended with Storm and Magneto arriving together in a black space and being confronted by what was strongly implied to be the Shadow King; that’s confirmed in this scene. Somehow, since the last issue Storm has been separated from Magneto and is now being confronted by Annihilation instead of the Shadow King. We’ll see later on that Storm can apparently unite with Magneto again through an effort of will, so either this is an illusion, or at least it’s the sort of magical weirdness that Storm is in a position to override once she understands it.
Dead X-Men #3 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
DEAD X-MEN #3
“An Echo, a Stain”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artists: Lynne Yoshii, Bernard Chang, Javier Pina & David Baldéon
Colour artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men confront an alternate Psylocke.
PAGES 2-3. The X-Men arrive in Moira’s 9th life.
The previous issue ended with the X-Men in Moira’s seventh life, where they learned that the cyborg Moira from issue #1 was visiting Moira’s earlier lives, and decided that they had to pursue her through those timelines in order to stop her from causing damage to the timeline. They’ve apparently come directly from that timeline, but although they tell us that Rachel sent them here, it’s not altogether clear why, since they spend much of the rest of the issue trying to persuade Rachel to keep sending them back through Moira’s past lives. Presumably Rachel just assumes that they’re still just randomly visiting past timelines to see if anything interesting turns up, which is pretty much how Prodigy pitched matters to her last issue.
X-Men #32 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
X-MEN vol 6 #32
“From Emma, With Love”
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Phil Noto
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Magik and Shadowkat fight Orchis.
PAGES 2-3. Orchis go after the Mykines Island Lighthouse Keeper.
“The site of the so-called ‘Mutant Massacre’.” X-Men: Hellfire Gala 2023, where Orchis forced most of the mutants off Earth, slaughtered the human guests in attendance, and blamed the mutants for it.
The Lighthouse Keeper, who’s never been named, was shown as either flirting with Jumbo Carnation or perhaps being in a relationship with him in that issue, and also in Marauders vol 1 #17. We’re told here that he “used to travel the world” with Jumbo, which really makes no sense if he’s meant to be a lighthouse keeper, but perhaps this is supposed to be shared history from before he came here.
Why have Orchis only just remembered this inconvenient witness sitting here with (as far as they know) no defence? Look, they just haven’t, alright.
Dead X-Men #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
DEAD X-MEN #2
“Army of Me”
Writer: Steve Foxe
Artists: Peter Nguyen, Bernard Chang & Guillermo Sanna
Colour artist: Frank Martiin
Letterer: Cory Petit
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. The X-Men surrounded by Ultron Sentinels.
Not only are three very different artists credited for this issue, but issue #1 also credited three artists, and only one (Bernard Chang) worked on both issues. Nonetheless, these are the originally solicited artists.
PAGES 2-4. The cyborg Moira arrives in her eighth life.
Last issue, the X-Men visited one of the abortive timelines created by Mr Sinister’s Moira Engine and met that world’s version of Moira MacTaggert, a cyborg who was building a weapon to “cut a path” back to her first life with a view to altering her entire history. The issue ended with her getting the last component that she needed (a shard of mysterium).
Resurrection of Magneto #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RESURRECTION OF MAGNETO #2
“The Weight of the World”
Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artists: David Curiel & Jesus Aburtov
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Storm confronts Magneto at his memorial – a straightforward scene from the comic.
PAGES 2-4. Flashback: Magneto acquires a magic key.
This is a flashback to Giant-Size X-Men: Magneto #1, a one-shot from 2020. It’s the issue where Magneto buys an island from Namor the Sub-Mariner, in order that Emma can use it as the location of the first Hellfire Gala. In return, Magneto helps Namor to open a large metal doorway in the Molloy Deep, bearing the seal of the Old Kings of Atlantis (“Uhari, I think”). Inside, after fighting a kraken for a few pages, they encounter three apparent witches – the green one seen in this flashback, and two others who are just out of shot. The green witch challenges them to choose correctly between a “spiral” (a shell) and a stone in order to return to the surface. Namor chooses the shell and is immediately attacked by the thing which is on his face in the flashback. The witch then challenges Magneto to make the same choice; Magneto notices that there is a third plinth, apparently vacant, and chooses it. The witch then gets very angry but hands over the key seen here.
The X-Axis – w/c 19 February 2024
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.
Rise of the Powers of X #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
RISE OF THE POWERS OF X #2
“Out of Space”
Writer: Kieron Gillen
Artist: RB Silva
Colour artist: David Curiel
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Design: Tom Muller & Jay Bowen
Editor: Jordan D White
COVER / PAGE 1. Rasputin IV in battle.
PAGE 2. Moira just before her powers emerged.
Not exactly a flashback, because this is narrated by Enigma, who is outside normal time. This is Moira MacTaggert in her tenth life, reliving childhood as she always has to, while waiting to be old enough to try her newest idea. Enigma is apparently going to offer her another option that she hasn’t thought of – possibly another way out of being stuck in a time loop. (Though note that Moira apparently never tries to end the loop by committing suicide before her powers emerge.) More of that later.
We don’t get a clear shot of Moira’s mother, but this is Lady Kinross. She has been seen on panel before – she can be seen from behind in some of Moira’s earlier lives in House of X #2 – but she’s never done anything significant.
PAGES 3-4. Enigma’s montage.
The panels shown here are:
- Page 3 panel 1: The MacTaggert family home, as seen in House of X #2.
- Page 3 panel 2: Jean Grey making contact with Phoenix at the climax of X-Men #100. Enigma reminds us again that Phoenix can defeat Dominions, something that was also mentioned last issue.
- Page 3 panel 3: This is apparently meant to be young Scott Summers being thrown to safety by his parents when the Shi’ar attack, as seen in flashback in Uncanny X-Men #156. However, he really ought to be clutching his younger brother Alex. Enigma says that Scott’s parents are “gone forever, in every meaningful way” because he doesn’t reunite with his father Corsair until well into adulthood, and Corsair never returns to Earth. The “new parents” are presumably Mr Sinister (who secretly ran the orphanage where Scott grew up) and Professor X; Enigma doesn’t seem terribly impressed by either of them.
- Page 3 panel 4: Cyclops awaits his trial in Fall of the House of X #1. Scott has been dreaming in that series that Jean will save him.
- Page 3 panel 5: This seems to be M/Penance fighting Sentinels, presumably part of the fightback against Orchis in Fall of the House of X, and having little to do with Enigma’s narration. Jean is “dying along with the Phoenix” thanks to Mother Righteous’ botched attempt to use the Phoenix to ascend to Dominionhood, as seen in the Jean Grey miniseries and recent issues of Immortal X-Men.
- Page 4 panel 1: The abortive timeline that we saw in the previous issue.
- Page 4 panel 2: Young Charles Xavier squabbles with his stepbrother Cain Marko. The man in the background ignoring the whole thing is Cain’s father, Kurt Marko.
- The remainder of the page sees Professor X escaping Enigma’s view by slipping into the No-Place where we saw him last issue.
