Previously On X-Men: Farewell For Now —Hopefully — In ‘Magik’ #10

In this week’s X-books, more series stumble to their “Age of Revelation”-induced conclusions/protracted pauses as we reach the end of one of “Fall of the Ashes” bigger successes and one of its bigger failures.

Deadpool/Wolverine #9 by Benjamin Percy and Robert Gill

Stryfe-poclypse and Hulk-verine battle Director Talysn, Maverick and Deadpool.

• Josh Cassara is off again, with Gill filling in. Dual regular artists on a book is becoming more common, but having them toggle chapters of the same story is still visually jarring.
• It mostly comes in the form of Deadpool being pummeled by the Hulk-like Wolverine, but their fight does represent the most panel time the book’s two title characters have shared in a long time.
• We’ve still got one more issue to come out and finish the story before “Age of Revelation”, making this the rare ongoing series this week that isn’t ending/pausing.

More of the same as Percy continues to mash the various characters together.

Check out Scott Redmond’s full review here.

Magik #10 by Ashley Allen & Germán Peralta – Book of the Week

Illyana and Dani’s conflict with the Society of the Eternal Dawn Concludes

• The Exemplars turning on the Embodiment early in the issue smacks of “Age of Revelation”-induced speedy wrap-up; presumably Allen would have built up that betrayal over more time.
• The mechanics of the Embodiment’s power are a little unclear; she says she’s able to see three seconds into the future (making her a martial match for Illyana in a swordfight), but obviously, she must be able to see much further than that as well. And yet, she is surprised by the betrayals of her Exemplars.

• Illyana uses the second sword — the Wraithsword — she acquired in issue #6.
• Cal being the prison for Liminal then deciding to go back to school reads like a wrap on the character with this iteration of the series coming to a close (though it would be easy enough to bring both/either back).
• Similarly, Illyana declares that she’s ready to move on and rediscover herself, which has a “end of the volume” feel to it that mostly works given the first arc involved her coming to terms with the Darkchylde side of herself and then dealing with the fallout of Liminal’s attack in the second arc.
• X-Vengers is ostensibly the book’s “Age of Revelation” replacement and while this is considered the final issue of the series, the creative team has been announced as returning on some kind of Illyana-focused series after “AoR”. There was much speculation that meant Illyana would be the next Sorcerer Supreme, but writer Steve Orlando has been announced on that book, heavily suggesting it’ll star Scarlet Witch.

Consistent with its status as one of the better “From the Ashes” books, this series’ “rushing to a conclusion before a big event and linewide relaunch” entry is comparatively strong.

Phoenix #15 by Stephanie Phillips & Roi Mercado

The final fate of Sara Grey — and Phoenix — is determined.

• The majority of the previous Phoenix hosts which showed up at the end of the previous do or say very little in this issue, which is…a choice.
• In “this is essentially the final issue of the series so let’s give it some sense of tying all the previous issues together” moves, Jean’s recent past victories are recounted, including reigniting stars and stabilizing black holes (in issue #1), fighting a god-killer (Gorr, in issue #5), and battling the Dark Gods (issue #10).
• In terms of this feeling like a rushed conclusion, the pantheon of cosmic beings agrees with Sara’s argument that the gods need human compassion/perspective to guide them ridiculously fast.
• Mercado’s art continues to feel woefully out of place; I wouldn’t mind seeing their work elsewhere, but they simply don’t capture the necessary sense of cosmic grandeur.
• The climax to the whole “Sara threatens existence/Jean doesn’t want to lose her sister” basically boils down to Jean arguing that no one life, ever, is worth sacrificing because all life is sacred — which seems more or less the opposite of Phoenix’ whole deal? Or, at least pretty rich considered Jean’s whole connection to the Phoenix started with her willingly sacrificing herself to save her teammates at the end of X-Men #100.

• In the face of Jean’s refusal to sacrifice Sara, the gods agree to make her “Beacon”, a conscience of sorts for the cosmic beings.
• Which…what? First of all, it was made clear earlier in this issue that Sara’s continued existence threatened reality. Yet nothing is said (or suggested) about what has changed to make that not true now that she has a cosmic job. And even if it did, it’s not like Jean’s argument in this issue is notably different than what she’s been arguing since Cable (who has completely disappeared) showed up. What was the point of any of this?

What a mess. Hot on the heels of Exceptional X-Men and its whole “don’t change Kitty’s personal timeline/whoops, we changed Kitty’s personal timeline, oh well” plot issues, we get this issue and “Sara Grey is a threat to all existence/too bad, I love my sister/okay, it’s fine now” resolution. Obviously, like everything else, this story is rushing to an end due to “Age of Revelation”, but also, it did run a full five issues so even if Phillips planned to draw this out longer initially, it’s not like she didn’t have a little runway to land the plane better. And simply ignoring the stakes and internal logic of the story — reiterated in the issue itself — is inexcusable just from a basic story construction level.

Binary — by Phillips — replaces this during “AoR”, but she’s not coming back after that and most likely, this series isn’t, either. By all accounts, the series we got was vastly different than the series that was planned, with Hickman’s Imperial requiring some last minute zags that robbed the book’s chance to be a definitive chronicle of Marvel’s cosmic corner. Whatever the reason, the end result is unquestionably a miss, and unlike some of the other solo series, its absence won’t be missed.

Uncanny X-Men #21 by Gail Simone & Luciano Vecchio

Wolverine and Ransom’s mission to rescue Ransom’s brother from a cult takes them to a comic convention.

• The fact that Ransom was born without a heart was mentioned in issue #3 as well, though I’m still not sure what that means in practice or how literal we’re meant to take it (if it’s meant to be linked to his mutant abilities, it’s a bit of a random connection).
• It’s established here that Ransom is an illegitimate child, and that his brother Benicio is the favored son (and technically Ransom’s half-brother).
• Wolverine’s voice is a bit off at various places in this issue; specifically, I’m not sure he’s someone who would quote Kubrick and ask, “what’s your major malfunction.”
• The one brief non-Wolverine/Ransom scene in this issue involves the rest of the Outliers at school during lunch, during which Deathdream gets invited to the dance by a fellow student Marlys. It’s a delightful scene, but odd to cut into the issue given we’re heading into three months of alternate future stories after this.
• Deathdream mentions “cartoon otters”, a reference to the Otter Party film he wanted to see in issue #16 instead of the one starring Mutina.
• The comic convention Wolverine and Ransom end up at is called La Crack; a real convention with a similar name does indeed take place in Rosario, Argentina.

• There’s a ton of cosplay cameos sprinkled throughout this chunk of the issue, continuing the tradition from the New Orleans mutant day carnival of the characters in the Marvel Universe displaying a fourth wall-breaking level of knowledge about the X-Men, including an Iron Fist, an Angela, several Savage Land Rogues, Mutina, Daredevil, Ironheart, Deadpool, Luna Snow, Loki, Spider-Man, Black Cat, Squirrel Girl, Spider-Woman, Doctor Doom, Doctor Strange, Jay and Silent Bob, and Defensor (the Argentinian character from Contest of Champions).
• Wolverine is taken with a Phoenix cosplayer whose costume is amended to resemble the coloring of the Argentina flag.
• Benicio decides to turn on the Word of Strength cult into which he was indoctrinated last issue in all of six panel in the face of their violent attack on the convention.
• Their leader is someone named Proctor, a mutant with the ability to give other people powers briefly, We learn very little about his whole deal, and honestly the whole plot line with Benicio and the cult is a mess and seems like a flimsy, half-assed excuse to just get Ransom and Wolverine off on adventure (which it obviously is, but usually, they’re more subtle about how the sausage is being made).
• Simone is consistently at her best when writing the Outliers so I don’t mind it as much, but anyone upset about how this book is more or less “The Outliers guest starring the Uncanny X-Men” isn’t going to be happy with this one, in which all the Outliers appear alongside one (1) X-Man.
• This is the final issue of the series before “Age of Revelation” takes over, and while, back in the day, the final issues before “Age of Apocalypse” (the event “AoR” is deliberately aping) ending with cliffhangers of various sorts as reality was rewritten, that’s not happening here (or in any of the X-books thus far). Which I imagine would be quite jarring for anyone reading this book without being tapped into the various promotional feeds (do such readers exist in this day and age? Probably).
• This is also one of the few titles more or less guaranteed to come back after the vent, and that was confirmed this week (along with X-Men and Wolverine) in the aforementioned promotional releases, with the same creative team returning and current numbering continued.

Uncanny X-Men continues to largely be a vibes-based book, where the plots are often secondary to character interactions and a general hangout feel. That continues here, with an underdeveloped (at best) plot that plays second fiddle to the idea of Wolverine and Ransom hanging out at a comic convention. On those terms, it’s a success, but it’s hard not to want more from it.