Previously On X-Men: A Big Reveal in ‘Wolverine #11’ And More

Either by sheer coincidence brought on by a bunch of stories reaching a similar point at the same time — or an indication of creative malaise, take your pick — a bunch of issues this week are all built around big reveals and/or exposition dumps, as we learn the truth about Sara Grey, the truth about Mitsuki, and the truth about Wolverine’s mother. That’s half the X-books in a particularly robust week in terms of number of issues all essentially doing the same thing. Which seems like…a lot.

Emma Frost: The White Queen #2 by Amy Chu & Andrea Di Vito

Emma investigates the mole inside the Hellfire Club — who may be closer than she realizes.

• There’s honestly not a whole lot to this issue. Emma makes her case that the X-Men’s involvement in the previous issue was the result of a mole, and gets subsequently tasked with rooting it out. The mole turns out to be the person you’d expect it to be (and is seemingly working with Shaw/Tessa against Emma).

• To Chu’s credit, while the mole being the new character we’ve never heard of before this series is hardly jaw-dropping, revealing it here, at the end of the second issue, instead of in the penultimate issue, is appreciated. Clearly, there is more to the story than the mole hunt.

That said, it remains unclear what the point of this series is — a question I find myself asking all-too-often when it comes to this recent stream of retro miniseries — and this issue does nothing to make it any more clear. That said, it continues to look pretty good.

Phoenix #13 by Stephanie Phillips & Roi Mercado

Cable shows Jean the truth about her recently-resurrected sister, Sara.

• The issue opens with a brief and nondescript flashback to the time Cyclops and Jean Grey had their consciousnesses thrown into the far future while on their honeymoon in order to help raise Cable shortly after he arrived in the future after being sent there a few years earlier (real world time) to save his life in X-Factor #68. They ended up living there for roughly ten years before returning to their bodies back on their honeymoon moments before they left, but the whole thing was meant (amongst other things) to establish a maternal bond between Cable and Jean given his biological mother is Jean’s clone, Madelyne Pryor (comics!). “Redd” is the name Jean used in the future, which is how Cable refers to her throughout this issue.

• “The twins” referred to a few times in the issue are Vex and Rho, the two people who were with Kel in Sara’s flashback last issue. Vex is a tracker and Rho can teleport.
• Cable reveals that Sara is a creation of Jean informed by her memories of her sister, unleashed during Jean’s battle with the Dark Gods in the series’ first story arc, thanks in part to the power-up she received at the end of the Krakoa Era that accounts for her status as a cosmic being here.
• This is basically what Nate Grey (Cable from the “Age of Apocalypse” alternate timeline) did when he subconsciously recreated Madelyne Pryor shortly after arriving on the “main” timeline after the end of “Age of Apocalypse.”
• Cable also says that Sara’s continued existence will lead to a future in which all existence is dominated by zombie-like creatures. Jean counters that this could just be an alternate future, which is broadly how time travel tends to work in Marvel comics, but Cable insists that no matter what, Sara’s exists will eventually bring all possible timelines to this end, which also isn’t wildly inconsistent with Marvel time travel rules.
• Cable insisting he can set aside sentimentality and do what needs to be done regardless of his feelings is pretty rich considering the recently-concluded Cable: Love & Chrome miniseries was all about Cable traveling through time to try to and save a woman he loved and all the problems that caused. I guess you could argue he learned his lesson from that story and is applying that lesson now.
• At the very end of the issue the In-Betweener pops up, one of Marvel’s various “personification of big philosophical concepts” beings, like Eternity or Death (In-Betweener’s deal is all about balance). They’re sporting their recent redesign from Jonathan Hickman’s GODS miniseries.

Once upon a time, the “mystery of Sara Grey” would have dragged out for months on end; I don’t mind it getting answered — or at least developed further — this soon (I guess this one of the few benefits of the modern “no series lasts for long” publishing environment).

Psylocke #9 by Alyssa Wong & Vincenzo Carratú

The truth about Mitsuki is revealed!

• This issue reveals that Mitsuki survived her apparent death at the hands of Master Hayashi, the idea being that he left her for dead but that her bond with the Yokai led them to save her and she’s been alive — in some sense — ever since.
• The Lady in White — one of the Yokai with something of a maternal bond with Mitsuki — turns out to be the being that’s been haunting Psylocke over the last few issues. Having the figures attacking/manipulating Psylocke from afar be two different being in two different states of beings is a neat way to wrap up the previous contradictions that would exist if it was just one being.
• Similarly, the idea that Mitsuki and the Lady in the White weren’t necessarily trying to attack/harm Psylocke, just recruit her, yet nevertheless aren’t good beings and aren’t terribly concerned with Psylocke’s desires, is a smart bit of tension, with Psylocke being appalled by Mitsuki’s revenge on Hayashi (in which she is keeping him alive in a soulless state of torment) even before she gets forcibly possessed. Mitsuki not living up to Psylocke’s childhood memories of her grounds all this in a needed bit of humanity/relatability.

As with the Sara Grey mystery, it’s nice to get some answers about Mitsuki, but the end result is an issue that is pretty much just one big exposition dump.

Storm #10 by Murewa Ayodele & Lucas Werneck

The “Thunder War” begins just as the FBI escalates their attack on Storm and Infinity enters the fray.

• Bishop makes his first appearance of significance since the Timeslide one-shot.
• The mutant child whom Storm rescued in issue #1 is named Jaden this issue.
• I quickly bumped up against why the trio of Storm, Maggott and Manifold don’t have Manifold teleport the space-kaiju corpse away, but it becomes clear why later in the issue so, you win this round, Ayodele!
• Manifold having a crush on Black Panther’s sister Shuri is, I believe, a new development.
• Sango and Chaac, fellow storm gods, last appeared in issue #7.
• The narration at one point says that Storm lived decades of her life without her powers; that would be her childhood, before her powers manifested, and then the period from Uncanny X-Men #185-#225 when she lost her powers to Forge’s neutralizer. Which maaaybe could be accurately described as “decades” if you consider ~13 years plus a few months (in Marvel time) as being technically more than one decade.
• The bit where characters are fighting and their moves get catchy names that are called out like sound effects is back.
• Manifold and Gateway are said to be the only mutant teleporters who can reach outside the universe, which is just wrong — Illyana’s whole deal is teleportation via Limbo, which resides in another dimension, and Manifold was previously said to NOT be able to teleport outside the universe since his teleportation is tied to his ability to talk to the universe.
• It seems pretty clear that the deaths of Maggott and Manifold are going to be undone in the course of the story given how integral they are to the book’s supporting cast and how abrupt their deaths are.

More of the same, which is to say, very well drawn gibberish I can’t quite wrap my head around, but remain inexplicably transfixed by nonetheless.

Book of the Week – Uncanny X-Men #18 by Gail Simone & Luciano Vecchio

New Orleans throws a festival in honor of mutants in general and the X-Men specifically.

• The issue opens with Mutina seemingly threatening Calico in her bed, though it’s not 100% clear (intentionally) if she’s really there, if it’s a dream, or even whether Mutina is a manifestation created by Calico.
• Nightcrawler drops by Makenize Deneer’s house before the festival, as Simone continues to seed a romance between them. We learn her son’s name is Dylan (and he has a hamster he’s named “Nightcrawler”). Her daughter was named “Lena” previously, but is called Lindy here, which seems like the kind of thing editors are for.
• Rogue is excited by the prospect, suggested by the festival, of a generation of mutant kids not having to hide themselves away, which is an odd sentiment given that’s exactly what Krakoa did and, technically, there’s still a generation of kids living on Krakoa in the White Hot Room. Maybe she means “anywhere, and not just in our own island nation.”
• People do seem generally excited about/friendly towards mutants at the festival, with X-Men cosplayers and such. There’s tons of background images and whatnot (like a cutout where attendees can pose in a recreation of the cover of Uncanny X-Men #137) that blur the line between in-universe and real world.

• The Vig shows up, and Wolverine knows him (whether secondhand from Gambit or from a past encounter is unclear). I like his use here, stopping some Friends of Humanity goons from messing up the festival. A guy who is bad but not necessarily a Bad Guy is vastly more interesting than just a straight up goon.
• A bunch of mutants show up to help the X-Men put out a suspicious hospital fire, including Cyclops, Strong Guy (last seen regularly in the Dazzler mini), Angel Salvatore, Outlaw (a creation of Simone’s from when she wrote Deadpool), and Haymaker, from Laura Kinney: Wolverine.
• Rogue’s feelings towards Cyclops have normalized quite a bit since earlier in the series, as she invited him to the festival and is happy when he shows up to help fight the fire, and willingly demurs to his leadership. This is pretty random, but given their earlier schism never really made much sense, I’m happy to see it go.
• Rogue is also written way underpowered throughout the fire, worried about being crushed by the collapsing building and getting burned by the fire, when she has Wonder Man-level strength and invulnerability which make it no big deal for her to shrug off a building collapsing on her.

A really fun — and gorgeous-looking — issue. I didn’t love the previous one, but between this and the “Dark Artery” storyline, it seems like Simone is finding her groove on the book.

Wolverine #11 by Saladin Ahmed & Martin Cóccolo

Wolverine battles Sabretooth. OR DOES HE?!?

• Sabretooth has indeed died and come back from the dead (as Wolverine asserts) before: he was most recently killed via beheading in Wolverine (vol. 7) #50, he was beheaded earlier in Wolverine (vol. 3) #55, but that turned out to be a clone, and was was also killed in War of the Realms: Uncanny X-Men #3 but was presumably resurrected as part of the establishment of Krakoa (WotR was just before House of X/Powers of X, and he turned up alive without much explanation there).
• Cóccolo’s art seems a bit wonky throughout this issue; his panel layouts are fine, but the actual figures seem rushed, scratchier and looser than in earlier issues (Ed. Note: Just like the VERY weird and not at all up to his usual standards cover).
• Wolverine notes that despite Sabretooth not being a telepath, he’s somehow getting inside his head, a note which takes on particular significance given the last-page reveal.
• The Jacob Wrestling with the Angel painting Wolverine saw was presumably the one done by Gustav Doré, as it matches the layout of the subsequent page. The Biblical story is the source of the name “Israel”, given to Jacob after his night-long wrestling match with God/an angel (depending on the interpretation) as well as the Jewish law forbidding the eating of the sciatic nerve (because Jacob hurts his hip during the match), requiring it to be removed when processing meat. It remains to be seen if Ahmed is bringing to mind all of that for any particular reason.

• Wolverine’s mother tells him that she can sense that any bad things he’s done, he did to help others, which is just objectively false (there’s his time as an agent of Romulus, his spy/Team X days, heck the plot, such as it is, of Spider-Man and Wolverine being published right now involves bad things he did in the past for questionable reasons. But none of that really matters, because…
• The final page reveals that Wolverine’s mother is actually Mastermind in disguise. A villain which dates back to the Silver Age and the first Brotherhood of Evil of Mutants (he debuted alongside that team in the fourth issue of X-Men), Mastermind’s biggest claim to fame is his ultimately-botched effort to join the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club by enthralling Phoenix and unlocking her dark side, which backfired spectacularly when Phoenix came to her senses, broke Mastermind’s mind and then became Dark Phoenix.
• Mastermind did get better, and does have specific history with Wolverine, having orchestrated Wolverine being left at the altar by Mariko in Uncanny X-Men #172-173 for reasons Chris Claremont never quite got around to fully fleshing out beyond a general “get revenge on the X-Men.”
• Notably, Mastermind is NOT a telepath; his powers are meant to work a little bit differently than when a telepath makes people see illusions, being more all-encompassing and involving the manipulation of senses, which Ahmed has played up in this story, repeatedly emphasizing the way Wolverine falls back on his senses to confirm his reality (such as accepting his mother is alive because she “smells” right).
• It’s less clear how Mastermind would know enough about Wolverine’s past (like say, for example, anything about his mother up to and including her name) to execute these illusions (or why he’s going after Wolverine again now), but it’s entirely possible we’ll find out he’s working with someone (in the lead-up to the “Dark Phoenix Saga” he had to use a device created by Emma Frost to get inside Phoenix’ mind, which enabled him to make his illusions more effective). At any rate, there’s clearly more to this story to be told.

An issue-long fight punctuated by the Mastermind reveal, the fighting is undercut by some dodgy art. But the actual reveal is a promising one.