Previously On X-Men: Jubilee Shines In the Spotlight of ‘Jubilee: Deadly Reunion’ #1

It’s another week of mostly solo books, including the penultimate issue of Cyclops and a surprisingly entertaining Jubilee one-shot. This week also saw the release of the Free Comic Book Day Comic Giveaway Day Armageddon/X-Men oneshot. The X-Men portion of that issue didn’t have much to annotate, but I did write about it here.

Cyclops #4

By Alex Paknadel & Rogê Antônio

Cyclops cuts his way through more Reavers on his way to Pierce.

• Cyclops calling Tearjerker’s humor “bigoted-uncle jokes” makes me wonder if he’s a fan of SNL’s Drunk Uncle.
• There’s something about the offhand way Cyclops mentions Jean’s thoughts on the Reavers that I really enjoy; both the way he simply refers to her as “my wife” the way a normal person would, without shoehorning in any expository dialogue, and the way it makes their relationship feel lived-in, like of course these two married co-workers would have discussed the various whackos they’ve encountered in their downtime.
• “Metal of the gods” is a term sometimes used to describe Adamantine (which, of course, is currently starring in Wolverine); I’m not sure if that’s actually meant to be what Pierce has been mining for, or if he’s just being dramatic, but I suppose we’ll find out next issue.

This is the issue which feels the most like filler intended to pad out the story to the now-standard miniseries length of five issues. But it’s still a lot of fun, mostly cuz it’s all about Cyclops effing with the Reavers.

Jubilee: Deadly Reunion #1 – Book of the Week

By Gene Luen Yang & Michael YG

Jubilee helps her cousin rescue her aunt from the Phalanx.

• This is a Marvel Voices one-shot celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
• As the story opens, the X-Men are said to be returning from a mission fighting Skrulls in space, which isn’t really something the current Uncanny team would be doing. Also, while the narration says they’re at Haven House, it sure looks like the old pre-prison X-Mansion; I’m pretty sure there’s a picture of Xavier on the wall heading up the grand stairway. Seems like reference wires may have gotten crossed.
• Aunt Hope was introduced in a 2004 Jubilee miniseries written by Robert Kirkman.
• Eason aka Agent Decibel, Hope’s son, is a new character. I like how his power is basically doing sound stuff with his hands in contrast to Jubilee, who does light stuff with her hands.
• While very clearly aping Pepe Larraz‘s style, the art in this is quite nice; much stronger than what we might expect from a typical one-shot.
• The techno-organic Phalanx played a key role in Jubilee’s character arc, with her on the ad hoc team that battled them during 1994’s “Phalanx Covenant” in Uncanny X-Men and X-Men (vol. 2), which led to the creation of Generation X and Jubilee leaving the X-Men to co-star in that series.
• For all the talk in this issue of Jubilee’s loneliness and the importance of family, Shogo — her son, currently living as a dragon in Otherworld — never comes up, which is disappointing.

I was dubious about this when it was first announced, particularly the idea of shoehorning a cousin into Jubilee’s backstory. But the end result is actually pretty good. Eason strikes the right balance between getting the spotlight because he’s new, but using his presence to push the established title character and keep the focus on her, while Jubilee gets to struggle with her Chinese identity while still operating as an accomplished, veteran superhero, giving her an arc without diminishing her expertise and history, and even though Jubilee is a character who doesn’t really have a Rogues Gallery of her own, the Phalanx come pretty close. Toss in the strong art, and you’ve got a surprising winner.

Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #4

By Murewa Ayodele & Federica Mancin

Storm is sent on a tour of the omniverse while Bogey negotiates with Hera.

• Storm’s parents moving from New York to Cairo when she was a baby was revealed all the way back in X-Men #102. That it was spurred in part by racism comes from the first issue of the 2006 Storm miniseries (the one by Eric Jerome Dickey).
• There are letters of comment (the kind of stuff that gets printed in comics letter columns) in the space around the Source Wall where Storm and N’Dare are at the start of the issue.
• The whole “Storm was infected with a techno-organic virus” thing is from Giant-Size X-Men: Fantomex and Giant-Size X-Men: Storm, which did involve Storm’s thoughts on Krakoan resurrection devaluing life.
• Storm also rejected a similar pitch as what N’Dare is making here (wipe everything out and start over fresh) in Uncanny X-Men #203, in which Rachel Summers wanted to use the power of Phoenix to destroy the universe and recreate it sans the Beyonder.
• The Omniverse is an existing Marvel term for all realities (real and fictional) outside the “main” Marvel multiverse of the realities featured in their comics.
• I admittedly don’t know all of the realities Storm passes, but at least one of them is a Lovecraft reality (“blind idiot god” is a reference to Azathoth), and one looks like a world of Rob Liefeld-designed 90s characters.
• Despite the tease last issue and the cover, we don’t really learn much about Furaha, Storm’s daughter, other than the fact that she’s presumably the daughter of an alternate reality Storm, not “our” Storm (she hails from the same reality as the setting of Ayodele’s I Am Iron Man miniseries, which is also where Tami, the girl with the guitar, debuted).

In the grand scheme of things, this is one of the more straightforward issues of the series, and I enjoyed it more than most. At the same time, I have no idea how in the hell Ayodele is going to wrap this all up in the next, final, issue.

Wade Wilson: Deadpool #4

By Benjamin Percy and Geoff Shaw

Hammerhead tries to kill Blind Al.

• I’m still not entirely sold on Shaw’s art in this series, but last issue’s cover was pretty great, and this is another solid one.
• Deadpool and Al have a Christmas Story leg lamp in their apartment.
• The baby mercenary who is actually an adult who looks like baby just makes me think of Baby Herman from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
• Ellie getting sucked into a black hole is conveniently/thankfully the kind of thing that is pretty easy to come back from, at least in comics.
• It feels a little weird to see Hammerhead doing boots-on-the-ground retrieval of a drug shipment at the end of the issue. Like, it should be below his paygrade as a major mob boss.

The Law of Economy of Characters means the reveal of the source of the notes from the future isn’t exactly surprising, but it comes at a smart time — even if this is an ongoing, it’s best not to let that mystery linger, especially when it immediately prompts the question of “how?”

X-Men #29

By Jed MacKay & Netho Diaz

The X-Men regroup in their battle against the Danger Room.

• Grammatically speaking, the tombstone on the cover should read “Here lie the X-Men” as “X-Men” are a plural subject, but it’s possible they’re going with “lies” as it’s the more common usage on a tombstone (which is usually marking the grave of only one person, making “lies” correct).
• I appreciate that Deputy Smith is perfectly reasonable when confronted with the news that Glob was shot, and Kid Omega and Temper just assuming the shooter must be someone in town is an expression of their own prejudice.
• I also appreciate that of all the Danger Room plots against the X-Men, it’s the “goad the idiot kids into making mutants look bad” plot that is working out the best – even/especially after Magneto called it out as an obvious trap. I’m assuming it’s going to be used as a “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” moment in that the X-Men will survive but the Danger Room will have won this battle, at least.
• It’s not often that Greycrow’s power is used for something other than him making a gun out of pieces of his body/costume, but the way its used here is entirely consistent with how its meant to work.

With three separate threads to follow under the broader umbrella of the Danger Room attack, MacKay manages to make a story that probably isn’t big enough to warrant five issues not feel too dragged out. Diaz also seems to be leveling up a bit as the story goes on. His use of splash pages here – for big action moments like the Marauder attack, but also big emotional moments (like Greycrow pledging to help Psylocke), dramatic moments (Quentin’s telepathic assault on the town) and narrative surprises (the Monster Cyclops reveal) — is particularly strong.