Previously On X-Men: Wolverine Takes A Vacation And The Series Is Better For It

It’s a much lighter — and stronger — week of X-books; while none of the three print titles are necessarily outstanding, all of them are reasonably well done and entertaining.

Bishop #1

By Saladin Ahmed, Mario Santoro, Federico Blee & Travis Lanham

Bishop is attacked by someone from the future.

• The logo of this series is taken from Bishop’s first solo miniseries from 1994.
• Bishop previously tried to make a life for himself in New York City as a cop in Mutant Town in the 2000s era District X series.
• Back in the 1990s, it was heavily hinted that Storm was Bishop’s grandmother. That ultimately was never established, but Santoro sure seems to draw them similarly in this issue.
• The flashback to Shard’s death is consistent with XSE #3, in which it was first established how she was attacked by and transformed into one of the Emplates (vampiric beings who feast on the marrow of mutants, descendants of Generation X villain Emplate), before having her consciousness downloaded into a holoprojector.
• The scene with Storm and Bishop is nice, but it does feel a bit like a comedown for Storm that her first appearance after the end of her solo series, in which she traveled realities fighting storm gods and cosmic beings, is a brief interlude to shore up another character.
• Flamequake has the powers of both Pyro and Avalanche; she talks about them being her forebears, but it remains to be seen whether she is a descendant of their (presumed) children in some capacity, or some kind of Chimera-esque genetic creation.

The churn of X-miniseries goes ever onward. Not a bad start to Bishop’s highest profile outing post-Krakoa. Pretty standard setup issue plot-wise, but Santoro’s art elevates things nicely.

Wolverine #21 – Book of the Week

By Saladin Ahmed, Julius Ohta, Cory Petit & Jesus Aburtov

Nightcrawler forces Wolverine to take a vacation, where they run into Titania & Absorbing Man.

• Wolverine is at Haven House, the headquarters of the Louisiana X-Men; this is the first time the fact that an old country home in New Orleans is Wolverine’s current homebase has been acknowledged in this volume of the series.
• One of the pictures Nightcrawler takes while in Hawaii is of Wolverine floating in the ocean; Wolverine’s buoyancy is one of those things that has been inconsistently depicted through the years. Technically, he should probably sink like a stone, given every bone in his body is coated in metal, but while I can’t think of a specific example of Wolverine doing a Dead Man Float like in this picture before, he’s certainly been shown engaging with bodies of water in typical ways before.
• Absorbing Man and Titania are long-standing blue collar married super-villains (though they’ve had some character work done recently pushing them further out of the realm of super-villainy).
• Wolverine cut off Absorbing Man’s arm in Secret Wars #7, though contrary to what he says here, Absorbing Man sought him out for revenge over it in Wolverine (vol. 2) #164.
• The effects of Wolverine’s healing factor being busted is another thing that’s been portrayed inconsistently through the years. Sometimes, it leads to him quickly feeling the effects of blood poisoning due to the metal in his bodies, sometimes it’s less extreme than that. Typically, it results in his hands bleeding after he’s popped and retracted his claws (since the healing factor can’t quickly close the wounds created when the claws emerge), something we don’t see here.

This might be my favorite issue of this volume of the series? Certainly nothing groundbreaking, but it’s just such a charmingly old-school setup (following a big storyline, hero tries to get some downtime and ends up crossing paths with a mostly unrelated villain, light shenanigans ensue) that we don’t see enough of any more, that I found myself charmed by it in a way no other issue of this series has yet managed.

X-Men #31

By Jed MacKay, Tony S. Daniel, Mark Morales, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Clayton Cowles

Beast leads a group of X-Men in an investigation of a gravimetric anomaly.

• This is billed as an adventure of the X-Men’s Science Team, but with the exception of Beast (who is a scientist), it’s more like an adventure of the book’s supporting cast (plus Kid Omega) — though Beast does direct everyone in using their powers in scientific ways.
• The idea of the X-Men having a designated science team dates to the Utopia Era.
• Magneto says he prefers the name “Magneto” in all situations, which is a change from not too long ago when he was using “Max” pretty regularly in casual settings.
• Though Cassandra Nova was defeated in New X-Men #126 and Kid Omega didn’t officially debut until New X-Men #134, there’s nothing to suggest he wasn’t part of the student body during Cassandra’s attack.
• He’s also correct that neither the Beast or Magneto with him in this issue were present for those events — this Beast dates to the character’s New Defenders tenure, so he skipped over all that stuff (3K’s Chairman is the Beast who experienced all of New X-Men) and the Magneto present in New X-Men (who masqueraded as Xorn for most of that run) was actually Xorn pretending to be Magneto. Kudos to MacKay for recognizing that.
• Of course, that means it’s also worth pointing out that the Xorn in this story (Shen Xorn) is also not the Xorn who pretended to be Magneto pretending to be Xorn in New X-Men (comics!); that was Kuan-Yin Xorn (Shen’s brother), who has a star for a brain (as opposed to Shen’s blackhole).
• Schwartzchild was last seen in issue #24, when the Chairman booted him off the 3K X-Men for his alternate future self joining the X-Men. I guess he’s been unconscious in a hole in the ground since then?

One of this book’s biggest issues is the way it’s large cast leads to many characters getting sidelined, so it’s nice to see an assortment of those characters moved into the A-plot (and a return to the 3K story). Solid stuff.

X-Men Infinite Comic #20

By Steve Orlando, Minkyu Jung, Yen Nitro & Clayton Cowles.

Young Cable solves the riddle of the Durisphinx.

• I’m not entirely sure how “ecological succession” is materially all that different from “natural selection” or “the evolutionary ladder,” but I guess that’s the answer.
• I’m also not sure Orlando sold the idea that young Cable has a specific mindset which allows him to piece this together.
• Cable saying he meant his team to be a “six pack” with himself as the sixth member is presumably a reference to his later mercenary group (which adopted the name “Six Pack” after having to give up the name “Wild Pack” in the face of legal action from Silver Sable, who ran a group of the same name).
• The fact that older Cable, who encountered the Durisphinx in the temporal and narrative past, knew the answer to the riddle but had to let things play out to get the Durisphinx to this moment is probably the best part of the entire story. I love shit like that.

Well, it’s not exactly the mind-blowing answer I was looking for, but at least it’s over.