Previously On X-Men: The Shadows of Tomorrow Loom In ‘X-Men’ #23

The “Age of Revelation” is over, but it’s shadow looms large in the first week of the “Shadows of Tomorrow” era.

Wolverine #14

By Saladin Ahmed & Martín Cóccolo

• The green shading on the cover and the fact that she has more history with Wolverine makes me think it’s Viper, not Silver Sable, on this cover every time I see it.
• I bump against the idea that Wolverine — who admonished Storm in X-Men #109 for assuming he’d kill a deer for sport — would kill a deer just to leave it out to rot as an offering to the ghosts of the wolfpack with which he ran earlier in the series.
• While the details are a little different, in its way this issue is a reprise of the first issue of this volume, with Wolverine back in the Canadian woods and getting drawn into a conflict with Department H.
• Silver Sable working security for a small group of people hiding in the woods seems really small stakes for her (when her missions are the economic backbone of her home country), no matter how good a friend the old friend she mentions is.
• Wolverine and Silver Sable’s meeting here is presented like its the first two crossed paths; I can’t think of a specific notable story in which they met, but I find it hard to believe they didn’t cross paths during one of the Infinity events or something like that. Still, I can’t ding Ahmed.
• The original Morlocks lived in tunnels under Manhattan, and were largely wiped out by the Marauders and/or Mikhail Rasputin, which makes them an odd choice to emulate.
• Both Chowdown and Deepfake, the two of the new Morlocks who appear here, are new characters.
• One thing Ahmed has done consistently in this book which I really like is show that, at least within Department H, Wolverine’s reputation precedes him.
• Agent Mehta seems uncharacteristically aggressive towards Wolverine given she’d previously been depicted as the cooler head amongst Department H and almost friendly towards Wolverine, and he did go out of his way not to kill anyone here.
• The Alpha Flight lineup that appears on the closing page is comprised of Snowbird, Puck, Marrina and Vindicator (the Agent Arsenault version); this particular iteration of the team debuted in X-Men #11.

The return of Wolverine’s perfectly-cromulent series is … perfectly cromulent. Chowdown and Deepfake are mildly intriguing, as is the idea of a new group of Morlocks. Less engaging are weird details like Silver Sable protecting this group and the way Wolverine just happens to stumble into this plot because he zoned out and ran out of gas. But maybe future issues will tighten up some of those looser plot threads.

X-Men #23 – Book of the Week

By Jed MacKay and Tony Daniel

The future Cyclops’ mind arrives from the “Age of Revelation” future, and immediately tries to kill Doug.

• This picks up exactly where the last issue pre-“Age of Revelation” left off (literally: it repeats the final two pages of X-Men #22, including all the dialogue word for word) with Future Cyclops’ mind arriving Present Cyclops body, and then continuing from there.
• Tony Daniel takes over as the new co-regular penciller of the book, replacing Ryan Stegman, who has said he’s left/leaving the book (Netho Diaz will continue as the other regular artist). Daniel has said he’s working on this initial three issue arc and then another five issue arc.
• Future Cyclops seems to think Illyana’s Soulsword is key to killing Doug; not sure why, as unless you’re magical in some way, it’s just a sword.
• Cyclops taking on the entire team is reminiscent of Uncanny X-Men #175, when he did something similar.
• Bei and Doug communicating via sign language stems from the fact that Bei is the one person whose speech Doug can’t understand; they were also seen using it in issue #19.
• Daniel draws Doug less like the post-Apocalypse beefcake he’s been of late and more like regular old Doug but with lightning bolts on his face.
• Doug’s role in the carceral system of Krakoa is referenced by Idie, who was indeed placed in the Pit on Krakoa and crossed paths with Doug in the Sabretooth and Sabretooth and the Exiles miniseries.
• Harlan Ryker, whom Doug references here in a capacity similar to how we might reference John Conner from the Terminator films, is character connected to Deathlok who first appeared in Marvel Comics Presents #62. In Avengers Arena, it’s established he suffered multiple attacks from time travelers trying to stop the development of Deathlok tech.
• His daughter, also referenced, is Death Locket, who appeared in Avengers Arena as well as “War of the Realms.”
• The fact that a point is made that Future Cyclops doesn’t know about Magneto’s condition suggests the throwaway mention of RLDS in “Age of Revelation” wasn’t meant to just handwave away the plotline, but is clearly meant to be some indication of some alternate reality shenanigans going on.
• Similarly, while Doug, Bei and Warlock leave the X-Men this issue in the wake of Future Cyclops’ information/attack, which is a deviation from the “Age of Revelation” timeline, it’s also suggested that Cyclops suddenly talking about all the evil stuff Doug does in his future may be creating a Bootstrap Paradox where Doug is getting ideas for what he does to Cyclops in the future because Cyclops is telling him those things in the past.

There was a sense — early on but certainly by the time we learned that the real plan of the future X-Men was to kill Doug in the past and Cyclops & Beast were in the future mostly cuz their minds needed somewhere to hang out while their future selves were in their bodies — that the real story of “Age of Revelation” was happening in the past, not the future. So finally getting back to that story here feels refreshing, even if, in practice, it’s mostly just a big fight scene.

X-Men Infinity Comic #1

By Steve Orlando and Alan Robinson

The X-Men awaken from a biological attack to discover Professor X is missing — and Omega Red his kidnapper.

• This is a relaunch of the X-Men’s Infinity Comic, which previously ran in tandem with the main line of X-books. This appears to be either a ’90s era continuity-insert book, or something set in the animated universe.
• The problem is there are enough discrepancies relative to either (Nightcrawler was never a member of either the ’90s team or the animated team at the same time as Professor X, Bishop joined the animated team after Xavier left, etc.) to suggest it’s taking place in neither continuity.
• A representative page showing Wolverine and Omega Red fighting seems like an homage to the cover of X-Men (vol. 2) #5.
• S.I.C.K.L.E. is mentioned as being the Russian version of S.H.I.E.L.D.; it debuted in the late 2010s Weapon X title, and its director is Omega Red’s brother, which fits the use of Omega Red here.

I have no idea what the hell this is. If I had to guess, it’s meant to be an animated series tie-in, but if so, it’s a really sloppy one, continuity-wise — and continuity minutiae is kinda Orlando’s whole deal. And if so, why not call that out on the title page or somewhere? At any rate, part of the reason it feels like its meant to be set in the animated universe is because, all due respect to the animated series, it’s a rather simplistic and not very good story, with a barebones plot and everyone’s dialogue being very straightforward and one-note.