Previously On X-Men: The Exceptional X-Men Get In a Fight

A light week of X-books with just three titles, including a fight with Mister Sinister in Exceptional X-Men #9, a Spider-Man/Wolverine trip to the past in Spider-Man and Wolverine #1, and a big robot fight in Weapon X-Men #4.

Exceptional X-Men #9 by Eve L. Ewing and Carmen Carnero

The Exceptional X-Men team fights Mister Sinister.

• It’s established here that Melee can turn someone else she’s touching invisible and intangible.
• Iceman suggests the Axo clone may be suffering from Resurrection-Linked Degenerative Sickness, the thing afflicting Magneto over in X-Men (Emma rightly points out it’s a nonsense theory since Axo was never on Krakao to be resurrected).
• The fact that Kate makes the “Sheldon Xenos – S.X – Essex – Sinister” connection is fun.
• Kate was indeed something of a hacker/computer science whiz back in the 80s (that interest is what first brought her and Doug Ramsey together).
• While it’s appeared on some covers, this marks the first in-story appearance of Kate’s new blue and black uniform (presumably created by Emma).
• The Bronze/Melee “left behind” montage is also fun.

• While Sinister having some measure of telepathic abilities dates back to his earliest appearances, his strength level relative to Emma fluctuates wildly through this issue; Emma is able to freeze him in place, but then needs Axo’s help to defeat him, only to succumb to his telepathy at the end to setup the cliffhanger.
• The clone Iceman and subsequent footnote points to the fourth volume of Iceman, the limited series by Sina Grace from 2018-19 in which Iceman was indeed targeted by Sinister.

Its languid pace brings us to the first proper bit of superhero action nine issues in, but the consistency of this book remains impressive. Even here, the action is as much a showcase for characterization (Kate worrying about the kids, the kids being largely ineffective) as action for its own sake, and it largely works.

Spider-Man & Wolverine #1 by Marc Guggenheim and Kaare Andrews

The title characters are drawn together to try and retrieve the Janus Directory.

• The big draw of this series is the Kaare Andrews art, who delivers a very early 90s Todd MacFarlane/Erik Larsen look.
• As MacGuffins go, the Janus Directory — a database of all the world’s double agents — is both very dumb and very MacGuffin-y.
• Bill Branscome, Wolverine’s contact, is the latest in a long tradition of “old friends of Wolverine we’ve never heard of before appearing for the first time.” (Ed. Note: Also, his design is identical to the last old friend that Logan had.)
• Wolverine notes doing undercover work for the Red Skull in his past; this would have to be the Communist Red Skull of the 1950s, not the original (and more well-known) Nazi Red Skull. This would also coincide with the time Wolverine was working for Romulus.
• Shay Marken is a nurse at the Ravencroft Institute (sort of like Spider-Man’s Arkham Asylum) introduced in Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 6) #45; as shown here, her relationship with Spider-Man is relatively new.
• Spider-Man’s parents being secret agents is a well-established bit of lore established by Stan Lee, dating back to Amazing Spider-Man Annual #5 in 1968.
• Omega Red was last seen in Sentinels #1, as a prisoner inside Graymalkin (aka the old X-Mansion). I guess he escaped at some point.
• The highlight of this issue is the extended sequence in which Wolverine and Spider-Man find themselves living out key moments from the other’s history, including “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, “Weapon X”, the death of Gwen Stacy, X-Men (vol. 2) #25 (Wolverine loses his adamantium), Amazing Spider-Man #33 (Spider-Man lifts heavy stuff), Uncanny X-Men #251 (Wolverine is crucified), battling Venom in Amazing Spider-Man #316 and “The Death of Wolverine” (not that it makes much sense, as Mysterio’s illusions don’t really have a telepathic element to them so it’s not clear how each would know the other’s specific memories).

• Mysterio trying to clean up his act is a reference to the Amazing Mary Jane limited series.
• The fact that Wolverine, in his secret agent days, encountered the Parkers was established in Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1.

I’ve never loved the idea of Spider-Man’s parents being secret agents and making Wolverine responsible for their deaths (if that is indeed the direction this is going) is beyond dumb, but this sure does look nice.

For more on this issue, check out Tony Thornley’s review of the issue.

Weapon X-Men #4 by Joe Casey and Chriscross

The newly-minted Weapon X-Men battle Red Ronin.

• Perhaps nothing says, “this is a comic book” quite like a cover featuring one character clawing at a giant robot’s arm while another wields an impossibly-large gun against it.
• Perhaps nothing says, “started as an ongoing, converted to a mini” quite like a penultimate issue that is mostly about setting up a new status quo and plotlines, with a done-in-one A-plot.
• Casey seems to be positioning the team to take advantage of Cable’s old Hell’s Kitchen setting from when Casey wrote his series back in the late 90s.
• Red Ronin is a big mech designed to fight Godzilla from back when Marvel had the license to do Godzilla comics and launched a series set in the Marvel Universe. Because Red Ronin was an original creation, it stuck around even after Marvel later lost the Godzilla license.
• The Avengers story being referenced here is Avengers #199, the kind of continuity deep-cut I can appreciate.
• Agent Lundvqist, the poster boy for O.N.E, shows up at the end.
• I still have no idea what Chamber is doing here.

It’s hardly deep stuff, but I’m going to miss this series. Casey is doing more of the work to actually setup the framework of an ongoing series than most books do these days, and it’s a shame it’ll never come to fruition.