Previously On X-Men: An Offer Beast Can’t (?) Refuse in ‘X-Men’ #18 And More New X-Books

A pair of Jed MacKay-penned series bookend this week’s X-books, as Avengers joins the “Previously On X-Men” chat! Plus another new nostalgia series launches, Psylocke reunites with an old friend, and Wolverine misses his mommy.

Avengers #27 by Jed MacKay and Andrea Broccardo

Captain America and Black Panther battle Mister Hyde and Oubliette Midas as the Masters of Evil’s siege of the Impossible City continues.

• It seems weird to cover an Avengers book in an X-Men-focused column, but Marvel includes this title in their X-Mentions checklist of X-Men books on sale each month (I guess because of Jed MacKay and/or Storm’s role on the team), so I figured, what the heck?
• Black Panther returned from his adventure inside the Meridian Diadem (which started in Avengers #20) at the end of the previous issue.
• Sam’s suit of Iron Man-esque armor is the reformed body of a Man-Slayer (one of Mad Thinker’s robot helpers, basically) with the consciousness of the Impossible City downloaded into it; he first donned it in Avengers #25 to help him battle the Masters of Evil despite his recent injuries suffered fighting Doctor Doom.
• Oubliette Midas is the daughter of Doctor Midas, villains from the original Marvel Knights Marvel Boy limited series. Her role in the “Original Sin” crossover is cited by Sam, but she has made appearances since then.
• The Super-Adaptoid was created by AIM back in the Silver Age, capable of mimicing the powers of people around it (and often being depicted in possession/the look of the Cap’s Kooky Quartet Avengers whom it first encountered). The Mad Thinker is seemingly appropriating that technology to make himself a one-man Masters of Evil (though usually the Mad Thinker’s super-robot of choice is the Awesome Android).

Stories where an overmatched hero holds his own and overcomes a more powerful foe are always fun, and Andrea Broccardo draws the hell out of this issue, but given most of its pages are devoted to two different extended fight scenes, it sure is a breezy read.

Emma Frost: The White Queen #1 by Amy Chu and Andrea Di Vito

Emma’s schemes at the Buenos Aires’ Hellfire Club are interrupted by the X-Men.

• Even though this story takes place inside a Hellfire Club and Emma is wearing her “traditional” corset/cape/thigh-high boots attire, everyone else at the club is wearing “normal” clothes, including Tessa, Sebastian Shaw’s aide who is acting as his proxy and usually wears the traditional “lingerie as clothes” attire (so it’s not a case of Emma being the only Inner Circle member present).
• Because this is a story being written today but set in the past, we know Tessa is actually a super secret double agent working for Xavier; anytime she shows up in one of these stories, I like to keep my eye out for anything that might hint at that.
• Emma has a Tessa-like assistant/protege of her own in this story, Noor, whom I believe is a new character. It would be hilarious if she turns out to be a double agent for someone, too.
• Emma orders the mutant rebel who breaks into the club to be put into an inhibitor cage; those were the devices in which she held the captive Wolverine, Storm and Colossus in X-Men #131, the last chapter of her introductory story at the start of “The Dark Phoenix Saga.”
• Emma calls out three attendees of the Hellfire Club party via her monologue: Victor DaCosta, a Brazilian magnate with designs on joining the Inner Circle (this is presumably Sunspot’s father, even though his name is Emmanuel; Emmanuel Da Costa is rich Brazilian industrialist and does end up joining the Inner Circle), Liu Wo-Han from Hong Kong (a character with one prior appearance to their name, in X-Men (vol. 2) #104) and the European Ismail Ayari, who is, as far as I can tell, a new character.
• There’s another minor continuity error, as Emma says they need a new Black Rook as a result of the death of Von Roehm, but Von Roehm doesn’t die until Uncanny X-Men #209, after he introduces Selene to the club to serve as the new Black Queen, presumably well after this story is taking place.
• Andrea Di Vito previously worked with Emma Frost semi-regularly as the artist on Invincible Iron Man, when she was married to Tony Stark; his work here is pretty great, almost Russell Dauterman-esque in places. It’s not necessarily a good thing when a book’s title character doesn’t get the big visual moment, but Di Vito’s full-page splash of a Fastball Special is outstanding.

• The credits on the final page establish this story is set after X-Men #138 (the epilogue to “Dark Phoenix Saga”) which is an oddly-specific issue to cite for this character. Emma appears in X-Men #129-131, but then disappears from the rest of “Dark Phoenix Saga” after being defeated by Phoenix, and doesn’t appear again until Uncanny X-Men #151-152. Maybe the intent is to set it before Kitty Pryde joins the X-Men, since they appear in this issue but Kitty isn’t with them, except she arrives at the school at the end of X-Men #138.

Much like the Rogue: Savage Land miniseries whose places on the schedule this miniseries is ostensibly taking, I have no idea who this is for: it’s not cheesecake-y enough for anyone just looking for T&A comics, while Emma is being played entirely straight, so anyone looking for her acerbic brand of female empowerment will come away disappointed. I guess if you want to see some well-drawn retro X-Men vs. Hellfire Club action, it’s got that, but then, why build it around Emma Frost?

Psylocke #8 by Alyssa Wong and Moisés Hidalgo

Psylocke draws closer to the specter haunting her while Greycrow and Devon go after Psylocke.

• Devon revealing his blackmail material on Shinobi Shaw is the fact that Shinobi secretly donates to orphanages is cute, but it doesn’t really jibe with Shinobi’s general, “rich shit-heel” schtick.
• It turns out Mitsuki’s mutant power is the ability to commune with and draw power from Yokai, Japanese spirits and demons (though presumably her ability isn’t culturally-specific), which explains why they keep popping up in the flashbacks to Kwannon and Mitsuki’s childhood training sessions.

• Interestingly, Mitsuki’s power manifested well ahead of Kwannon’s telepathy.
• In the flashback, the two girls are sent to retrieve the Equinox Blade, a sword which consumes the souls of its victims. It first appeared in Legend of Shang-Chi #1 (also by Alyssa Wong); this is its second appearance.
• Shinobi tells Greycrow about Kwannon’s past relationship with Matsu’o Tsurayaba, as established back in X-Men (vol. 2) #31-32. He was killed by Psylocke (Betsy Braddock in Kwannon’s body) in the 2010 Psylocke miniseries.

There’s no issue of this series in Marvel’s September solicits, leading to speculation it’s been cancelled. Hopefully, it’s just a skip month, or a pause for a relaunch, as this continues to quietly be one of the more solid X-books.

Wolverine #10 by Saladin Ahmed and Javier Pina

Wolverine is haunted by the ghosts of his past as he searches his childhood home for his mother.

• The issue opens by reminding us that Sabretooth died in the 50th and final issue of the previous volume of Wolverine, which seems important.
• Wolverine delivers a surprisingly poetic inner monologue about his mom.

• The anti-mutant local who harassed Wolverine last issue attacks him again, saying his sister has been captured and her captor forced him to go after Wolverine. He never says who has his sister, but Wolverine assumes Sabretooth — and using hostages to get at Wolverine is something he’s done before.
• Wolverine is also attacked by apparent ghosts of his father — both his biological father and the man he grew up thinking was his father.
• Wolverine’s mother has four cuts on her face she didn’t have before.
• When Sabretooth appears on the final page, he is wearing his old, pre-Jim Lee 90s era, costume (though he also wore that in Wolverine #50). He’s also massive in size relative to Wolverine, though that may be artistic license at play.

The certainty with which Wolverine is convinced Sabretooth is behind all this has me convinced it’s not actually Sabretooth (even in spite of his appearance on the final page). If that’s the case, I hope the real culprit is better than Romulus from the previous arc.

X-Men #18 by Jed MacKay and Emilio Laiso

Wyre makes Beast an offer as the fight with 3K and their X-Men winds down.

• Art this issue comes from Emilio Laiso, whose work is fine, but three different artists across three consecutive issues in the same story is not great for visual consistency.
• The plot point in which Cyclops stands back and lets the hotheads on the 3K X-Men destroy their team from within because of his experience leading teams with Wolverine on it (and then his enjoyment of being on the outside looking in of one of those situations) is a particular fun moment and good use of the character’s history.
• While it was earlier said that the 3K X-Men were former SHIELD agents, here it turns out they were culled from Orchis (which was comprised in part of different factions within both SHIELD and AIM), and that tension is largely what undercuts their effectiveness, as without Schwarzchild to hold them together, the factional rivalries bubble up. Given how their deal is supposed to be that the X-Men aren’t pro-mutant enough, it seems weird to establish this group as coming out of the virulently-anti-mutant Orchis.
• Constellation was a member of STRIKE, basically the British version of SHIELD whom Betsy Braddock worked with once upon a time.
• Wyre cites Alpha Flight #114 (his first appearance) as being the result of a crisis of faith; presumably he means is plotline in that series in which he regretted working with the Secret Empire and became a reluctant ally of Alpha Flight, thereby suggesting all his appearances prior to this story were the anomalous ones and not his actions here.
• It’s unclear why exactly Beast is so rattled by Wyre’s offer to join 3K — to the point of being seemingly frozen in action until Jennifer is threatened. I get the idea that he’s perpetually afraid of following in the Krakoa Era footsteps of his older self, but you’d think Wyre’s offer to basically join up and unleash that Beast would prompt a different reaction.

• Ben deploys a tough love approach to both Rose and Robin (the name her mother says she intended to give Piper’s twin whom she thought died) Cobb, which is a refreshing break from the often mealy-mouthed Centrism of this era of books. That it and her mother’s emotional outburst works (at least partially) to get Robin to stand down is made all the more effective by having Cassandra Nova on hand to lampshade how they’re defeating her with tough love and by saying all the things she wants to say.
• Ben tells Robin that if she kills her mother, it’ll be a gift to the Sapiens League (one of the minor anti-mutant organizations, but one whom MacKay has written in the past) and Gene Nation (which is an odd reference, as that’s Marrow’s pro-mutant terrorist group from the mid 90s).
• In the end, Robin assumes a less giant, less monstrous form, and leaves everyone in peace, but thanks in part to the urging of Nova, she can’t bring herself to forgive Piper for usurping her, and leaves with Nova/3K. It’s a nice touch, given much of Cassandra Nova’s motivation is driven by her hatred for her own one-time wombmate, Professor X, presumably lending her appeals to Robin in that area a bit more of emotional truth.

Solicitations for this issue suggested we’d learn the Chairman’s identity; that clearly didn’t happen. Instead, we get a perfectly cromulent conclusion to the story, in which its relatively quiet climax feels more like a feature than a bug (Wyre breaking into X-Men headquarters to make a job offer vs attacking them is fun).