Previously On X-Men: Entering July With A Whimper

Maybe all the X-books were just trying to get out of the way of X-Men ’97 Season 2, cuz there’s only two books this week (it’s actually because this is a five Wednesday month, so there’s an extra week to spread the titles into).

Wade Wilson Deadpool #5

By Benjamin Percy, Alex Lins, Alex Sinclair & Joe Sabino

Deadpool is attacked by homunculi who resemble him.

• Deadpool & Blind Al’s discussion about the ways they’re both unreliable narrators made me chuckle.
• DragonCon is a pop culture convention held every year in Atlanta.

Not a ton of notes to this one, but I rather enjoyed it. Lins’ style suits the over-the-top grotesquerie (even for Deadpool) well. This is honestly my favorite issue of the series yet, art-wise.

X-Men United #5

By Eve L Ewing, Eduardo Pansica, Brian Reber & Joe Sabino

As the Shadow King menaces Iceman’s D&D game, all the adults at Graymatter Lane go missing.

• The cover to this issue is weird, in that neither Beast nor Wolverine appear in the issue in any way.
• The insides are also different from what was solicited, with nothing about Lourdes Chantel or Justina LaGuardia in it.
• It’s confirmed here that when people go to Graymatter Lane, their bodies stay wherever they are physically. But Rift is still teleporting people from the school physically to somewhere their bodies are not, and I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work.
• Shadow King last appeared in the Wolverines and Deadpools miniseries, trying to possess Deadpool’s daughter Ellie.
• He calls Deathdream Hashimoto Hotoru, which I think is the first time we’ve been given his full name.
• That’s Marigold, Mister Sinister’s clone of Lockheed, on Bronze’s shoulder.
• The three students who take charge in the wake of the missing adults are Melee from Exceptional X-Men, Ransom from Uncanny (who is basically the leader of the Outliers), and Scout from Generation X-23 (who probably has the most experience of anyone in the room).
• Ms. Marvel suggests calling in the Avengers to help, rather than X-Force, her…current team.
• The girl hanging out with Bronze is Mariama LaChance, the French girl who joined up in issue #1.
• Of the various students who appear in this issue, notable inclusions are Match, Trance, Loa, and Icarus (Cannonball and Husk’s brother), all of whom are making their first post-Krakoa appearances.

Another issue, another mess. Even when trying to make the logistics of the school clear, things just get even muddier, and it’s all distracting to the point of crowding out the story being told.