Previously On X-Men: Magik Is Back And Better Than Ever

Two weeks ago, we had six X-books. Last week, zero (hence no Previously on X-Men). This week, five. Next: two.

I’m not saying Marvel should regulate its schedule based on giving me an even and consistent number of books to write about each week, but it sure feels like it would be in their best interest to even things at a bit, right?

Anyways, this is a pretty good batch of books, with two legitimately fun and entertaining issues, two “fine” issues, and the return of Storm’s perennial “WTF was that?!?” series.

Logan: Black White & Blood #2

By Benjamin Percy, Robert Gill, Mirka Andolfo, Frank Tieri, and Raffaele Ienco

A pre-Wolverine Logan discovers bourbon, battles ghosts on a trafficking ship, and fights Skrulls alongside Carol Danvers.

• Fellow Minnesotan Ben Percy sets the first story in Canada just north of the border with Minnesota.
• I kinda love the intentional inanity of telling the story of the first time Wolverine tasted bourbon.
• Wolverine’s secret agent past with with a pre-Ms. Marvel Carol Danvers is well-established, so the third story slots into that relationship pretty easily.
• I believe one of the two men interrogating Wolverine at the end is meant to be a pre-Vindicator James Hudson (he’s referred to as “Hudson”, at least).

A weaker batch of stories than the first issue, though not without their charms. The “first bourbon” novelty of the Percy story, the clever way Andolfo deploys the use of red in the second story (including a young woman’s hair, and sound effects), and I’m a sucker for “hints of the weirdness that will soon engulf the Marvel Universe” flashback stories (plus, it’s fun to see Wolverine resoundingly laughed at for saying he met an alien). None of this is required reading, though.

Magik And Colossus #1 – Book of the Week

By Ashley Allen & Germán Peralta

Illyana teams up with her brother to confront a magical attack on Russian farms.

• A five issue miniseries, this well could have been the next arc of Allen’s previous Magik series; I guess Marvel believes (or has the numbers to back it up) that a miniseries relaunch/co-headline w/Colossus will do better sales than an issue #11.
• Illyana says that no one has heard from Colossus since the Hellfire Vigil, which tracks; he hasn’t appeared anywhere since.
• Lady Midday is a character from Slavic myth, though I believe this is the first time this iteration of the character has appeared.
• We get a neat inverted Fastball Special where Colossus chucks Lady Midday at Illyana, who slices her with the Soulsword.
• In general, Peralta is continuing to kill it on art, creating a moody atmosphere without sacrificing clear, kinetic, action storytelling.
• The beat when Colossus has to apply a killing blow to Lady Midday after Illyana spends the issue trying to snap him out of his “Fall of X” malaise and believe in his capacity to be a hero again is so good (like, it’s tragic, but such a great beat to end the arc of this particular issue on).
• The Immortal is, as far as I can tell, another new mystical adversary introduced in this issue.

I hope the relaunch/rebrand works in terms of delivering the kind of sales Marvel wants to see, because I definitely want more from Allen, Peralta and Illyana, all of whom return in top form in this issue.

Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #1

By Murewa Ayodele & Federica Mancin

Storm deals with the fallout of refusing to assist the Japanese storm god with ritual suicide.

• We’re back from “Age of Revelation” with a five issue miniseries picking up where Ayodele’s previous Storm series left off which Ayodele has described online as an ongoing, which presumably bodes well for the pacing.
• Also returning, with gusto, is the “sound effect that describes what is happening” technique, and non-linear plotting for no apparent reason (we get a recap, then a flashback, a B-plot interlude, back to the flashback, and back to the present as the B-plot connects with the A-plot).
• Storm defeats Susanoo without killing him by exiling him to a pocket dimension, which is how she dealt with other thunder gods Sango and Chaac in Storm #9. 
• Rage the Rogue Planet, cousin of Ego, is new.
• Ditto Death Siren, the local hero of Biarritz (a city in France), who is introduced and killed in this issue.
• Akujin, described as Susanoo’s “war general,” appeared in Rogue Storm‘s alternate future as traitorous member of X-Force secretly serving Eēgūn.
• The spaceman on the TV screen of the couple who are killed by their devices is describing 2015’s Secret Wars (which did destroy the universe and replace it with a mostly identical one roughly ten years ago) specifically and the Marvel sliding timeline (which posits that Fantastic Four #1 perpetually happened “ten years ago”) more broadly.
• Back in the ’90s, Namor was billed as Marvel’s “mightiest mutant.”

Once again, the non-linear storytelling gets in its own way (I have no issue having to work to piece together a story, but I prefer there to be a point in doing so) and while Mancin’s art isn’t bad, the previous volume had Luciano Vecchio to help smooth over the storytelling problems, and Mancin is no Vecchio. That said, the presence of Scarlet Witch and the whole “tech exploding heads” B-plot has me hopeful this volume might steer a little more down-to-earth compared to the high level cosmic shenanigans of the last volume, in which Storm kind of got lost in the shuffle.

Uncanny X-Men #23

By Gail Simone & David Marquez

• The “Where Monster’s Dwell” title on the cover is taken from the logo of the series with the same name, an early ’70s comic that reprinted older pre-Fantastic Four #1 monster stories.
• Similarly, Rawhide Kid is one of Marvel’s pre-FF #1 Western heroes who occasionally gets trotted out in modern stories and/or dragged into the present day somehow. This version specifically is Johnny Bart, the Silver Age version of the character, whose series launched in the comic Marcus is reading from in this issue, Rawhide Kid #17 (continuing the numbering from the original 16 issue series from the late 50s).
• Jubilee was transformed into a vampire by Xarus (son of Dracula) in X-Men (vol. 3) #1 in 2010, and got stuck as a vampire for a ridiculously long time (until 2018), part of Marvel not knowing what to do with the character after depowering her in House of M.
• Rogue having bite marks from Gambit is a bit odd, as she’s largely invulnerable thanks to her absorption of Wonder Man’s powers.
• She also claims she was “just coming into my own as an X-Man” when Gambit showed up, which isn’t quite accurate; she joined in Uncanny X-Men #171 and didn’t really bump into Gambit at the earliest until Uncanny X-Men #280, at which point she was well-established as one of the more senior members of the team.
• Gambit appears ready to eat his cat Oliver (Lucifer is an orange tabby and Figaro is white; Oliver is the gray one). Unless we’re meant to assume this is a stray.
• The Legion of Monsters are all rough Marvel-specific analogs to “classic” horror monsters left over from the ’70s horror comics heyday who occasionally work together in a loose team (like in the ’80s cult classic film Monster Squad); most recently in Venom War: Deadpool.
• The group consists of N’Kantu the Living Mummy (from the short-lived Supernatural Thrillers series), a werewolf that is presumably Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night (who headlined a series of the same name in the ’70s), Morbius, Marvel’s science vampire who vacillates between friend and foe of Spider-Man, Frankenstein’s Monster (who also had his own book in the ’70s) and Manphibian, an alien stand-in for the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
• They are being led by Elsa Bloodstone, probably best known from Nextwave. She is typically a monster hunter and though she has teamed up with this group before, she is talking about them all in terms of “us”, so presumably is not in her right mind.
• Elsa’s comment about the X-Men getting a mini mall is a reference to the mayor’s proposed “Uncanny Village” in issue #19.

I like Westerns and I like classic movie monsters. The turn to Gambit suddenly being so far gone he’s eating cats and biting Rogue feels a bit abrupt, but otherwise, this is a fun start to the story. Marquez is continuing to kill it.

Wolverine #15

By Saladin Ahmed & Mike Henderson

Department H attacks as Wolverine & Silver Sable train the new Morlocks.

• The cover is an homage to John Byrne‘s Alpha Flight #12.
• No Martin Coccolo on this issue, which, given he took three months off for “Age of Revelation” and this is the second issue of the new storyline, seems…odd.
• Two of the original Morlocks show up in this issue, Ape and Erg, both of whom first appeared in Power Pack #12 and survived “Mutant Massacre.” Erg popped up in Way of X, but Ape died in the early 2000s Weapon X series (presumably he was resurrected on Krakoa).
• Vindicator hangs a lampshade on the ridiculousness of someone in the ramshackle new Morlocks being able to afford Silver Sable, so hopefully there is more to that plot point.
• The Adamantine is back. The retired boxer it kills is a new character.

The training sequences are fine, I’m glad there seems to be more to Silver Sable’s involvement, and I appreciate that Wolverine is pretty full-throated in calling out the threats facing the Morlocks. But the portrayal of Agent Mehta isn’t great – she’s swung too far into raving villain material relative to her earlier appearances — and the continued use of Alpha Flight’s “Fall of X” status quo (they’re prisoners working reluctantly for a fascist government) isn’t great given [gestures around].