Previously on X-Men: ‘Rogue Storm’ #2 Is The Best Of A Weak Batch of X-Books

It’s a week of middling “Age of Revelation” tie-ins in the latest Previously on X-Men, with the strongest of the bunch having the least to do with the event, along with a pleasantly-strong start to a new Spider-Man & Wolverine arc as Kaare Andrews returns!

Iron & Frost #2

By Cavan Scott & Ruairi Coleman

Emma is caught between the Iron King and War Machine after an attack by Revelation’s force.

• Eris/Landslide is the young woman whom Emma rescued in the previous issue’s flashback (leading to her current condition). She refers to Jim Rhodes/War Machine as her dad, something which surprises Emma; it’s not clear if Rhodey was always her father (he is there in the flashback when her mother dies) or if he became a surrogate father in the years between the flashback and now.
• Phaser was one of the Seraphim whom the Avengers fought last issue as well; while it’s clearly meant to be a case of re-using a villain to make it that much easier to follow, it does create the impression that Phaser has been hanging around the big hole the ground all this time.
• Tony’s stopgap cure for the X-virus involves Extremis, the biotech super-solider serum that Iron Man once used to enhance his armor (and plays a key role in the MCU Iron Man stories), which debuted back in 2004.

This is kind of a mess. Rhodey is dying, then he’s not, then he is. Iron King is Tony, then he’s a robot, then he’s Tony again. There’s just a lot crammed into it, yet at the same time, not very much actually happens (it’s essentially one long scene); more than any other book this week, it seems like a victim of the three issue approach.

Rogue Storm #2 – Book of the Week

By Murewa Ayodele & Roland Boschi

• Daniel Drumm is the original Doctor Voodoo, evil twin brother of Brother Voodoo (who confusingly took the name Doctor Voodoo when he became Sorcerer Supreme). He is a ghost who at one point was controlled by his brother.
• The “sound effects as words describing the action” technique has now been extended to actions as innocuous as “listening.”
• Only hinted at briefly, Gambit & Storm have a long history together that dates back to Gambit’s very first appearance, when he entered the world of the X-Men by befriending a de-aged Storm (it’s a long story…) who was operating as a thief.
• Prince Rupert’s drops are glass beads formed by putting drops of molten glass into water, which result in tadpole-like forms in which the fat end is incredibly strong and the tail end incredibly fragile.

• Shockingly, Akujin, the one new character on the Uncanny X-Force team, betrays the rest.
• Storm mentioning the other Rogue is a reference to Unbreakable X-Men (where OG Rogue or Green Rogue became a stone Galactus); Storm either doesn’t know what happened — or is playing dumb.
• Eegon having killed all the big name magic users presumably explains why we haven’t seen many of them in the “Age of Revelation”, particularly when Darkchild is able to magically hold the X-Virus at bay to some extent.

The plotting is still a little dicey — Akujin’s betrayal come more or less out of nowhere — but this remains remarkably straightforward compared to the regular Storm book, which makes it one of the few “Age of Revelation” series benefiting from the three issue structure rather than being tripped up by it (see above re: Iron & Frost). This issue also still has nothing to do with the larger “Age of Revelation” story, but that’s more or less become a feature, not a bug,

Sinister’s Six #2

By David Marquez & Rafael Loureiro

Sinister sends his team out in search of an X-Virus cure and straight into the sights of a waiting Revelation.

• Between this and Iron & Frost, it’s kinda odd that 2/3 of the week’s “Age of Revelation” books are ostensibly about curing the X-Virus. Like, it’s fine to approach the problem from two different angles, but maybe spread the series doing that out into different weeks?
• It turns out Havok’s Baby Mama is Polaris, because of course it’s Polaris.
• Havok’s crystal tattoo thing that the X-Virus gave him is vaguely reminiscent of the “star” symbol Madelyne Pryor designed to serve as the Outback X-Men’s calling card.

• Presumably the two Fantomex’s Lady Fantomex is conversing with are hallucinations and not manifestations of the other selves, since one of them is appearing in Rogue Storm (though that portion of the story is set a few years in the past, so maybe this is that Fantomex’s ghost).
• The non-Death/Wolverine Seraphim who show up are more 90s Glup Shittos: Chrome (from Magneto’s original group of Acolytes), Strobe and Dragoness (both members of the Mutant Liberation Front).
• Elbecca, the young girl who joined Revelation’s Choristers in Book of Revelation #1, is amongst her fellow Choristers when Revelation shows up on the last page. We’ll have to see how the cliffhanger ending of that issue plays out in issue #2, but having her here seems, at the moment, odd, given in the course of that issue she was shown being inducted into the group and then thrown off a roof by Fabian Cortez. She gets saved by Kitty Pryde, but the idea that she’d go back and join Cortez on a mission seems, for the moment, nonsensical.

Once again, this is the most traditional “tie-in to an alternate reality storyline” series of the group, and while it lacks the bigger swings of Rogue Storm, it’s probably the most straightforwardly-enjoyable issue of the week.

Spider-Man & Wolverine #7

By Marc Guggenheim & Kaare Andrews

Spider-Man and Wolverine end up on an alternate Earth where they fight the murderous Arachnix – who seems to be both the Spider-Man and Wolverine of his world.

• This issue opens with the return of Bill Branscome, the old spy acquittance of Wolverine’s who kicked off the series’ first storyline, and whose name makes me think of the old Bill Brasky sketches on Saturday Night Live (“Bill Brasky!”)
• Mariko Yashida was Wolverine’s long-time love interest, who first appeared in X-Men #118. She died in Wolverine (vol. 2) #57 (a mercy killing at Wolverine’s hands after being poisoned by Matsu’o of the Hand). She was resurrected by Gorgon in the late 2010s Old Man Logan series, but no one has really done much with her since (and this doesn’t really count since the Mariko in question is an alt version).
• Amiko is Wolverine’s foster daughter, whom he assumed responsibility for in Uncanny X-Men #181 after her mother died in a dragon attack after the X-Men returned from the first Secret Wars. She recently popped up (alongside Mariko) in the retro Wolverine and Kitty Pryde miniseries.
• Spider-Man assuming he’s either landed in an parallel universe or alternate timeline and deciding on the latter, only to say, “lost that bet” to himself after Alternate Mister Fantastic reveals the truth, genuinely made me laugh.
• We are on Earth-4587, if you care/are keeping tracking.
• Continuing his “90s Image Homage” style, Andrews uses that tried-and-true technique for injecting energy into exposition scenes by adding speed lines in the background of a talking head panel.

This story is off to a much better start than the book’s first one, even if it is still principally a showcase for Andrews’ art. Guggenheim is continuing the overarching theme of contrasting the two characters through their approaches to heroism, and the still-very-90s Arachnix makes for a less eye-rolling villain in that context than Dreadshadow, helped in part by the whole thing taking place on an alternate Earth.

X-Men: Age of Revelation #2

By Tim Seeley & Phillip Sevy

Cable battles adherents of the One World Church.

• Cable fights one of the One World Church followers who calls herself Kid Quetzala. It’s not quite clear if “12 year old girl” is her true form or if the Facade virus is masking something else.

• Cable’s AI Belle says her strength level puts her on par with Drax (of Guardians of Galaxy fame) and Blastaar (of Negative Zone fame).
• The resulting fight leads to Cable sporting a half-flesh, half-metal Terminator face like in many of his earliest appearances.

Basically an issue-long fight, in which Cable is trying not to fight a pink kid too hard. The most intriguing think about it is Doug entering the fray on the last page, making this one of those issues multi-part stories have to sort of get through in order to reach the more interesting stuff.