So, What comics did you buy this week?

[Tom Foolery]

New Mutants was the other book Hickman was writing, and he was sharing writing duties with Ed Brisson where they were flip-flopping two onging storylines. Hickman also left after basically one arc.

1-2. The OG New Mutants are living the good life on Krakoa, but Bobby is sad Sam isn’t there, so the original team(mostly) plus Chamber and Mondo hitch a ride to the Shi’Ar throneworld with the Starjammers. But they get kicked off the Starjammer and wind up in space jail. Sam and his wife, Smasher bail them out and head to Chandilar, but get sidetracked on a mission to retrieve Deathbird from Exile to be the new Empress Xanda’s regent. Bobby is immediately smitten. Bobby Dacosta’s narration is fucking hilarious. Hickman made Sam and Bobby Avengers during his run on that book and I think he just wanted to write them again.

3-4. Brisson’s arc had Armor looking for mutants who hadn’t made the journey to Krakoa yet. She takes Glob Herman, and the annoying twins Manon and Maxime to Nebraska to find Beak and Angel raising their kids on a farm and taking care of Barnell’s sick father. Armor finds a Krakoan drug to cure the father, but then drug dealers from Central America take everyone hostage demanding access to Krakoan pharmaceuticals. Boom Boom shows up looking for the team.

5. Back to the outer space team. Shi’ar Death Commandos secretly commisioned by Oracle come to assassinate Deathbird while she is being escorted back to Chandrila. Pretty bad ass fight between the NMs and the Shi’Ar ensues.

6. The conclusion of the Nebraska arc. It gets pretty dark. The hostages manage to escape and they turn the drug dealers on each other, but not before both of Barnell’s parents are killed and the final drug dealer off himself. Then Maxime alters Beak and Angel’s memories so they think their parents died years ago. Armor and the others wrestle with the morality of this choice and decide to let it stand. Oof. Bleak.

7. Hickman’s last issue. Fucking brilliant and hilarious. Bobby is recapping the previous issue, when he is interrupted by Dani who explains the alternating arcs in the book. They get back to Chandrila where Deathbird accuses Oracle of plotting her assassination and this leads to a brawl between the New Mutants and the Shi’Ar Imperial Guard, which is “shown” with a page of a role playing game where both sides are rolling d6 dice to determine the outcome of the fight(because there wasn’t an extra 17 pages in the book to show it). Everything gets resolved and Bobby decides to stay on Chandrila because he’s got the hots for Deathbird and his best friend Sam is staying to raise his kid with Smasher there. Great great issue.

8. Brisson is the writer from here forward. Amara is called back to Nova Roma in the Amazon. Something is hunting mutants trying to access the Krakoan gate in Brazil, so she, Boom Boom and Armor head down there and take out some red warwolve looking beasts. But the beasts’ master is unpleased her babies got killed…

9-11. A small eastern bloc nation which doesn’t recognize Krakoa has a teenage mutant manifest her powers and create a sort of “nightmare black hole” that keeps sucking more and more of the town into it. The New Mutants have to try and rescue the girl while staving off an international incident with the country’s military forces and their anti-mutant President.

12. A website that is tracking the comings and goings of Mutants thru the Krakoan Gates and doxxing mutants, gets visited by Magik, Glob, and Dani. Thier message is simple. Keep doing what you’re doing and there will be consequences. The website shuts down.

Leading into X of Swords…

[Tom Foolery]

Gerry Duggan writes the pirate adventures of Captain Kate”Don’t call me Kitty” Pryde and her crew sailing the high seas. Good stuff here. Behind Hickman’s X-Men, I’d say this was the best of the new ongoing X-Books.

Marauders 1-3. The Hellfire Club is reborn as the Hellfire Trading Company; Krakoa’s major corporation for the distribution of their pharmaceuticals to friendly nations, and also the relocation of mutants from unfriendly ones. Kate Pryde is unable to use the Krakoan gates for some reason, so White Queen Emma Frost offers her the job of Captain on their new HTC flagship. Joining her is her crew of Storm, Bishop, Iceman, and Pyro. Black King Sebastian Shaw has designs on the Red Throne to have control over Hellfire and plans to put his resurrected son Shinobi as the Red King, but Emma and Kate outmaneuver him, and make Kate the new Red Queen. Badass.

4-6. Emma makes her brother, Christian the White Bishop, and Kate asks Bishop to be her, well, her Bishop. The upstart kids who briefly became the new Hellfire Club(Kade Kilgore, et al) return with a new pro human cabal called Homines Verendi, start stirring up trouble in Madripoor with the help of Donald Pierce and some Russian mutant-dampening tech pirated from Forge’s old designs. Their two agents, Hate-Monger and the X-cutioner attack the Marauder(Kitty named the boat and her team after the most traumatic event from when she was a young X-Man…like ya do) and a third agent, Yellowjacket slips into Pyro to spy on Krakoa from within. After the battle, Sebastian Shaw confronts Kate and confesses he was manipulating the fight because he wants control of Hellfire, then wraps her in some Krakoan vegetation she can’t phase thru and DROWNS HER.

7-9. Emma makes Callisto her White Knight. Shaw has made Shinobi his Bishop and the Fenris Twins his Knight(s). Kate goes from being missing to them recovering the body. There is grieving and such. Since Kate hadn’t/couldn’t pass thru the Krakoan gates, they aren’t able to resurrect her. The Five keep trying and failing. Emma Frost figures out Yellowjacket is hiding in Pyro and they set a telepathic trap for him, get all the info he has on Homines Virendi then wipe his memories and send him back to Madripoor. Then she telepathically confronts Kade Kilgore and the other brats and lets them know what’ll happen if they keep this shit up.

10-12. Forge and the Marauders go on a mission to rescue his former assistant who has been forced to help build the mutant power dampening equipment in Russia. After several failed attempts to resurrect Kate, Xavier decides they should have her funeral and move on. Emma asks him to try the protocols one last time on a hunch. Since Kate’s state is to be naturally phased, her new bodies were drowning in the incubation eggs. Where everybody else breaks out of their eggs on being reborn, Emma guides the reborn Kate as she phases thru the egg. They have Kate’s ceremony and afterwards she and Emma realize it was Sebastian Shaw who killed her and start making plans accordingly.

Leading into X of Swords….

[Tom Foolery]

The second wave of X-books barely got started before the cross over. Here they are.

Cable 1-4. Kid Cable is dating all five Stepford Cukoos. He finds an ancient Galadorian spacesword on Krakoa, which sends a beacon that activates a bunch of dormant SpaceKnights. He’s also asked to investigate a baby mutant kidnapping.

Hellions 1-4. There are some mutants who aren’t adjusting well to paradise on Krakoa, so Mr Sinister suggests a therapy team under his supervision(obvi he’s got nefarious plans) and since his brother Alex is part of the crew, Cyclops asks Psylocke to supervise/keep an eye on Sinister. So Nanny, Orphan-Maker, WildChild, Empath, and John Greycrow(using his real name, since ‘Scalphunter’ is problematic and non-PC for a Native American) are sent to Nebraska to dismantle Sinister’s long abandoned Clone lab under the orphanage where Scott and Alex used to live. There they find degraded clones of clones of clones of the original Marauders under the control of Madelyn Pryor. They defeat the zombified clones and bring their DNA back to the island for rebirth, but the Council vetoes resurrecting Pryor because she’s a clone of Jean. Which makes Alex sad.

Wolverine 1-5. The boring cliche mutant posterboy teams up with an FBI agent to find out who’s using Krakoan pollen to make a new illegal designer drug. And then he fights Dracula and his new vampire nation when they use Logan’s blood to be able to daywalk.

X-Factor 1-3. When Aurora goes missing, Northstar has to convince the Council and the Five that she’s dead so they can resurrect her. This leads to a new team consisting of Lorna Dane, Rachel Summers, Daken, Prodigy, EyeBoy, and Northstar whose job it is to track down missing/dead mutants and investigate how they died. After solving Aurora’s death, they head to the Mojoverse to find the deceased WindDancer.

And now I can read the X of Swords event (which the internet is telling me is pronounced the ‘Ten of Swords’ and I think that’s stupid and misleading, because we haven’t been calling them the ‘Ten-Men’ for the last six+ decades. I’ve half a mind to start referring to ALL the mutant books with a 10…TenCalibur, Ten-Force, Ten-Factor., etc)

[jjreason]

Cable 1-4. Kid Cable is dating all five Stepford Cukoos.

There was a time I had that much energy. These days fucking for 8 minutes feels like 8 hours.

[Tom Foolery]

The “Ten of Swords”(its a tarot card thing) crossover event.

Part 1. The Creation oneshot. The mutants of Arrako are returning to Earth after thousands of years of war. They breach into Otherworld and Saturnyne consults her tarot deck. An ambushed Banshee and Summoner return thru the External Gate. Apocalypse convenes the Quiet Council to explain Arrako’s history and they vote to close the External Gate, but are vetoed by Krakoa him(it?)self. Apocalypse takes a volunteer team of Havok, Lorna, Rictor, Rockslide, M, Angel, and Summoner thru the Gate to reconnoiter and rescue Unus, who was captured. Apocalypse meets with his children of Arrako and realizes too late Summoner has betrayed them when they run their blades through him. Summoner kills Rockslide and Rictor is mortally wounded. As the X-Men beat a hasty retreat, Saturnyne leaves a psychic message to prevent Otherworld from being decimated, she suggests a contest of the best warriors from each side. Each side gets ten warriors…and ten swords. Also, Cyclops, Jean, and KidCable power up the dormant Peak Space station.

Part 2 X-Factor 4. They bring back Rictor, Apoc, and Rockslide’s body. Rictor succumbs to his wounds. When they ressurect Rictor and Rickslide, Ric is fine, but since Rockslide died on Otherworld, his resurrection protocols were overwritten as an amalgamation of the entire multiverse’s Rockslides. He’s alive, but it’s an entirely different ‘Slide. Santo is permanently gone. Since they don’t know how it happened, the Five destroy all the incubation eggs which throws everyone into a panic. But one thing is now clear; dying in Otherworld is permanent death. Lorna received a psychic burst from Saturnyne explaining the rules of the contest and the cryptic clues choosing the ten competitors and the blades they will use. Using Rockslide’s body, she creates a Casting Circle that serves as Santo’s memorial. When each of the ten retrieve their sword, they’ll gather at the circle for the contest. They have three days. Magik steps onto the circle with her soulsword. One down, nine to go.
Part 3. Wolverine 6. Logan has to retrieve the Muramasa Blade from hell. The Muramasa blade is the only one in the contest that is required by both sides.
Part 4. X-Force 13. Logan for some reason needs two issues to tell the story of him getting his sword. Two down.
Part 5. Marauders 13. Storm must retrieve a sacred Wakandan sword. When diplomacy fails, she must resort to stealing, ruining her reputation in Wakanda even more. Three down.
Part 6. Hellions 5. Sinister floats an idea to the Council that maybe the Hellions could breach Otherworld and steal the enemies swords. No swords, no contests.
Part 7. New Mutants 13. Nobody thinks Doug is going to survive the coming battle. Krakoa wants him to find a proxy because he is the only one who can translate and “speak” for the island. But Doug and his ‘sword’ Warlock believe in each other. They step into the circle. Four down.
Part 8. Cable 5. Cable, Cyclops, and Jean find out why the Peak station went dark, when an interdimensional incursion of aliens called the Vescora breached and wiped out everyone in ten minutes. They push the invaders back thru the breach, then Kid Cable and his new Galadorian space blade return to Krakoa to step into the circle. Five down.
Part 9. Excalibur 13. Otherworld political machinations as King Jamie, and his siblings Betsy and Brian visit Saturnyne. Saturnyne is trying to manipulate Brian into wielding the Sword of Might, but the siblings outfox her as Brian Becomes Captain Avalon and Betsy continues as Captain Britain wielding the Starlight Sword. They step into the Circle. Six and Seven down.
Part 10. X-Men 13. We get more of Apocalypse’s back story as his wife and the original horsemen sacrificed themselves by entering into Arrako. After healing from the initial ambush, Apoc travels to Egypt to unearth a long buried scimitar and reassembles it. He enters the circle.
Part 11. Stasis oneshot. The halfway point of the event. Gorgon is the final warrior, wielding both the 9th and 10th blades, Grasscutter, and Godkiller. The warriors are sent to Otherworld. Then we get to see the ten Arrako warriors as they collect their swords and enter their own version of the circle. When everyone arrives, Saturnyne gives each contestant a cryptic tarot card. Apocalypse’s card angers him and he confronts Saturnyne only to come face to face with his long lost wife….

Good stuff so far.

[Tom Foolery]

The second half of ‘Ten of Swords’

Part 12. X-Men 14. All the contestants have arrived in Otherworld. Apocalypse is reunited with his wife, Genesis, who now wears the Annihilation helm. She tells him the story of the Arrako mutants thousands year long battle against the Amenth and the tolls it took.

Part 13 and 14. Marauders 14, 15. The night before the contest begins, both sides come together for a feast. They chat and dance and make merry with each other, while sizing each other up. Wolverine attempts to assassinate Saturnyne, but she’s ready for it and puts a vision of the future in his head. Then someone tries to poison Logan, but accidentally poisons Doug instead. White Sword heals him. The frivolities continue until Saturnyne pulls the first two cards for the first battle in the morning. Betsy must fight Isca, the Unbeaten…

Part 15. Excalibur 14. The first match begins, Betsy is holding her own, but then her Starlight Sword cracks, and Isca’s blade goes thru Betsy shattering her like a stained glass window. Arrako is up 1-0 and Captain Britain is gone forever. The second match turns out to be a wedding between Bei of the Blood Moon and Doug Ramsey. Both sides earn a point.

Part 16. Wolverine 7. It becomes clear the contests are more varied than straight up sword duels. There are arm wrestling contests, drinking contests, duels to the death where the “winner” is the one who dies(Wolverine kills Summoner, but Arrako gets the point). Saturnyne seems to be manipulating the matchups to favor Arrako.

Part 17. X-Force 14. More contests; eating contests, jigsaw puzzles, fashion shows, dance offs, etc give Arrako an increasing lead. The final battle of the issue is a depowered and drunk Storm fighting Death for first blood. Death underestimates Storm’s resilience and she impales him and leaves him for the vampires in Sevalith.

Part 18. Hellions 6. Sinister and his Hellions finally make it to Amenth to steal the swords, only to find that the contestants are already in Otherworld and the contest is well underway. But Sinister’s real plan was to get some Arrako mutant DNA samples for his archives. His team gets decimated by the mutants in Amenth and the survivors that make it back to Krakoa, Sinister kills to keep his agenda secret. Then he goes to the Quiet Council and “warns” them of the impending attack. Sinister is kind of a dick.

Part 19. Cable 6. Cable fights Bei of the Bloodmoon and when he has the upperhand, he hesitates to make the killing blow. The fight quickly turns and Doug has to step in and plead for his new wife to spare Cable. A distraught Cable phychically calls his parents to tell them the Krakoans are losing the contest badly, before Saturnyne cuts him off. Gorgon faces off against the White Sword, who sends his 100 Warriors against him. Gorgon makes it thru 13 of them before he is too spent to continue. White Sword offers to heal him if Gorgon serves him. Gorgon tells him to fuck off and White Sword mercy kills Gorgon. But Gorgon got a point for each warrior he felled, so the contest is all tied up. The final contest comes down to Apocalypse and his wife…

Part 20. X-Men 15. Cyclops and Jean Grey, fearing the worst from what Cable told them, form a plan to go into Otherworld with an army to rescue their team. Apocalypse fights Genesis and defeats her, but refuses to strike the killing blow. The Annihilation helm takes over Genesis and the final invasion from Arrako begins.

Part 21. Excalibur 15. The hordes of Amenth descend on the handful of Krakoans left. Jubilee and the Green Priestesses show up for a last minute save. Saturnyne holes up in the Starlight Citadel and reassembles the shattered parts of Captain Britain. She wanted Brian to resume the mantle, but the multiverse has other plans. The Captain Britain Corps is restored with Betsy as the new template…

Part 22. The Destruction oneshot. The finale. The New CB Corps arrives to help the surrounded Krakoans. The X-Men arrive with the Peak space station thru a limbo portal via Magik. Cable uses the Galadorian sword to power up the station and they unleash the Vescora on the Amenth Hordes. Apocalypse defeats Annihilation and takes the helm for himself. Then, resisting its temptation, he surrenders to Saturnyne; the Krakoans have won the contest. Saturnyne decrees that each side must send a mutant to live with the others as a sign of peace. Apocalypse chooses to go with the Arrakos to reconnect with his wife and children. He then chooses the mutant island of Arrako itself as the one who will come to Earth.

The second half of the series wasn’t as engaging as the buildup of the first half, but it was still a pretty satisfying event.

I should probably just finish all the X-books now that I’m halfway thru all of them.

[Tom Foolery]

Finishing up the X-books from the older boxes

Cable 7-9. After X of Swords, they have a memorial for Gorgon. Then Cable goes back to looking for kidnapped mutant children. He enlists the help of his ‘sister’ Rachel to find one missing kid, and a psi-scan of the kidnapper reveals Stryfe is alive and orchestrating the abductions. Cable asks Domino for help and then eventually realizes to deal with Stryfe they might need to bring back the original Cable that KidCable killed and replaced, but it’s against the new Krakoan protocols. The book only went to issue 12, but the last three are in the new boxes.

Excalibur 16-19. Betsy isn’t classified as officially dead per Krakoan Protocols due to the magical nature of her demise on Otherworld, and the return of the Captain Britain Corps. Rictor is mourning the loss of his mentor Apocalypse, who has left for Arrako. Excalibur learns that Betsy’s consciousness is ‘jumping’ from Betsy to Betsy in the multiverse and they need Kwannon to go into Betsy’s psyche and hunt/lure her back to her new body back in the 616. If you don’t know, Betsy and Kwannon have a complicated history. Betsy returns and Malice, who was inhabiting her body, escapes into Krakoa where she could be anyone…

Hellions 7-10. Sinister feigns sadness at the team he “lost”(he killed them) in Arrako. The three mutants who died on Arrako ; Wildchild, Nanny, and Orphan-Maker, return with a honed edge they didn’t have before. The team is sent to retrieve Nanny’s ship so she can build Peter a new containment suit, and they fight Cameron Hodge and the Right. Then Sinister enters a secret agreement with Jason Wyngarde, who then doublecrosses him and the Hellions to Arcade because Arcade wants Sinister to make him a supply of clones to use in his Murderworld(s).

[Tom Foolery]

Marauders 16-18. Emma and Kate confront Shaw about Kate’s murder. They exact their revenge on him, leaving him in poisoned, in a wheelchair, but most importantly, they’ve outmaneuvered his power within the HTC. Since Apocalypse left, anyone wanting to fight in the Crucible needs to bring their own opponent. Callisto asks Storm. Its a very powerful moment for both women. And the HTC starts buying up property in Madripoor’s lowtown to prevent Vivendi from doing the same. Vivendi starts a fight in a lowtown bar to make the mutants look bad.

New Mutants 14-16. Since their is a lot of free time on their new island nation, lots of the younger mutants are getting up to mischief. The New Mutants formally start a schooling program for all the kids on the island. Some of the kids are hanging out with the Shadow King. There’s a reception for Doug and his new bride. Cosmar asks Dani to fight her in the Crucible so she can get her human body back, but they explain that’s not what the Crucible is for. Rahne is upset because her son hasn’t been resurrected yet. Some of the kids keep sneaking into Otherworld, and Dani and Karma have to go after them.

X-Factor 5-8. When Siryn keeps mysteriously dying repeatedly, X-Factor tries to investigate and discover that she is under the control of the demon Morrigan again(I say again, because Siryn was possesed by Morrigan once before so she could stop Lorna from destroying the world. I am trying to remember which book that happened in. Might have to do some internet research) and she is trying to kill the team. The book only lasted two more issues after this.

[Tom Foolery]

The last of the X-books

X-Force 15-18. Beast publicly accuses Colossus of helping the Russians design mutant-canceling weaponry. Jean psychically questions him and he’s innocent, but both Jean and Logan begin to question Beast’s ethics. Some kind of cancerous abberation of Krakoa awakens deep in the ocean. Logan, Quentin, and Forge investigate and are saved by Namor, who warns them the oceans are his domain. Another threat begins attacking humans and mutants, and it turns out to be another XENO hybrid, this time created from Quentin’s DNA.

X-Men 16. Arrako arrives, but he(it?) and Krakoa refuse to bond with each other. The Council(well, Xavier and Magneto) meets with Isca on the intentions of the mutants living on Arrako acclimatizing to Earth. It doesn’t go splendid.

X-Men17. After Jean steps down from the council, she and Scott tell Xavier their plan to hold elections to from a new X-Men team. When the new Shi-Ar majestrix is kidnapped, Deathbird asks the Krakoans for help, and Storm, Jean and Scott go and rescue her.

X-Men 18-19. Wolverine, Darwin, and Synch succeeded in infiltrating the vault. They spent the next several decades gathering intel, getting captured, then escaping and telepathically warning Xavier before they were killed about the intentions of the post-human Children of the Vault preparing to assault the outer world.

X-Men 20. Mystique goes on a mission to destroy the Orchis station with a mini blackhole bomb before Nimrod comes online. The Nimrod sacrifices part of itself with the humanity protocols of its creators deceased husband to save the station, and kills Mystique as she returns thru the Gate. When she is ressurected, Xavier and Magneto tell her because she failed her mission, Destiny will not be ressurected. Setting up the Inferno miniseries.

X-Men 21. Hickman’s final issue. The Hellfire Gala commences. The new X-Men team are introduced; Cyclops, Jean, Wolverine(Laura), Synch, Polaris, Sunfire, and Rogue. At the end of the Gala(and the issue) Emma gives a speech about the future and they look towards space with Mars in focus. This led into the Planet Sized X-Men oneshot where they terraformed Mars.

The book got relaunched with Gerry Duggan writing the newly formed team. Hickman’s issues all rocked. So, that’s all the mutant books from the older boxes. Now I’ll start in on the ‘W’s from the beginning of the box.

[Tom Foolery]

The beginning of the last box…

White Fox oneshot. The last of the Marvel Future Fight oneshots. Ami Han is operative for the South Korean Intelligence Service, and is also a kumiho, a mythological fox demon. This story is an “origin” of sorts when she was in high school and helped a friend stand up to some bullies.

Widowmakers oneshot. Probably released around the time of the Black Widow was supposed to come out. Yelena is hired by a 1%er douchebro to infiltrate a former SHIELD prison in the antarctic and kill the doctor running it. But its a trap to give the genetically enhanced inmates some practice killing a Black Widow. While she’s in there, she comes across Alexei Shostakov in one of the cells(inexplicably wearing his Red Guardian uniform complete with mask…what??). She helps him escape and he helps her plant charges and blow up the prison. Then she tracks down the douchebro who hired her and kills him, vowing to track down ultra rich people who don’t follow the rules and take them out.

Winter Soldier 1-5. Bucky starts a new program where he helps criminals who want to leave their criminal lives start new lives. Like WITSEC, except nobody has to testify and help stop other criminals, I guess. A young boy dressed like the original Bucky uniform is an assassin working for Hydra shows up and kills one of Barnes’ victims. Bucky tries taking the kid under his wing to get him out of Hydra. Then the kid’s dad shows up and Bucky doesn’t trust him, so they get into a fight and the dad accidentally falls and breaks his neck. The kid leaves, goes and kills his Hydra handler and disappears. Bucky mopes about fucking things up. Shitty mini from Kyle Higgins.

Next up, Wolverine came back to life after being gone for a few years. He had a bunch of minis and oneshots before he got another ongoing.

[Tom Foolery]

Here’s all the Wolverine books from when he “returned”

Hunt For Wolverine oneshot. The Reavers descend on the cabin where Logan’s adamantium encased body has been enshrined. Their attempt to get some DNA from the body triggers a warning system and the X-Men(Storm, Kitty, Colossus, and Kurt) show up to stop them. Plot twist! Logan’s body wasn’t in the adamantium shell, as Kitty had phased him out of it shortly after he died, and they buried him in an even more super secret place than the cabin. After they defeat the Reavers, Kitty visits the grave and double plot twist..Logan’s body has been gone for some time! Since Marvel is not one to not milk an idea, this leads into FOUR Hunt for Wolverine minis where different teams search for what happened to the missing Logan.

Claws of a Killer. Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, and Daken descend on a small Arizona town looking for Logan so they can re-kill him for real. They come across zombies created by a mysterious corporation. Vic and Lady Deathstrike barely escape, but Daken is captured.

Weapon Lost. Daredevil, Misty Knight, Frank McGee, and Cypher follow clues that lead them to believe Logan is alive…and doing wetwork for a mysterious corporation called Sotiera.

Adamantium Agenda. Tony Stark reunites the New Avengers and gives Spidey, Luke, Jessica Jones and X-23 Armors as they attend an underworld auction to buy Logan’s DNA. But it’s really Laura’s DNA up for auction from the archives of Mr Sinister. The Avengers track down the database and destroy it, but not before Stark finds that one of the X-Men might be a genetic double agent.

Mystery in Madripoor. Storm, Psylocke, Kitty, Rogue, Domino, and Jubilee head to Madripoor and get caught in a scheme by Viper to blow up a rocket or launch it or something. Soteira is involved. Also, Betsy and Kwannon get properly separated finally. All these minis lead back into…

Hunt For Wolverine:Dead Ends oneshot. The three teams exchange info and come to the conclusion this Soteira company is bombad. It’s leader Persephone shows up and leaves a bunch of dead kids on the X-Men’s front lawn and warns them to stop looking for Logan or she’ll keep killing x-gene positive kids before their mutations activate. This leads into…

Return of Wolverine 1-5. Logan is working as an assassin for Persephone, until he gets some of his memories back and decides to take her down by destroying her space station before she can bathe Earth with a death ray that would kill everyone. It was a stupid series and Wolverine is stupid. It ends up with Logan knocking on the front door of the School, and leads into…

Wolverine:Infinity Watch 1-5. Loki answers the door of the School, and fills Logan in on everything that’s happened since he died, mostly about the events of the Infinity Wars and the Guardians. Loki tasks Logan with helping him track down the Time Gem being held by a guy named Hector on death row in Texas. Pretty soon, others show up looking for the gem including a Chitauri warlord, and Talonar, leader of the Raptors. Eventually Hector figures out how to use his new time powers. Marginally less dumb series by Gerry Duggan.

Wolverine: The Long Night 1-5. An adaptation of a podcast. When some fishermen end up dead in an Alaskan town, a couple federal agents show and discover some unrelated murders in town might not be unrelated after all. And the signs point towards a recluse fisherman who lives on the outskirts of town named Logan…a really good mystery that works because Logan is a tangential character. The ending whiffed a little, but it was mostly a solid story and easily the best of all the Wolverine books I read.

Wolverine:Exit Wounds oneshot. Part of the 80th Annivesary where creatirs come back to work on new stories. Larry Hama worked on a Weapon X story starring Hines, Cornelius, and the Professor. And Claremont wrote a story set close after the Kitty Pryde/Wolverine mini where some thugs are trying to roust a noodle shop owner who is probably Logan’s great-granddaughter. The cover had Sabretoothe fighting Wolverine, but Victor is nowhere to be found in the book. Lies!

Wolverine Annual. One of the Acts of Evil annuals. Logan goes and sees a 100 year old woman that he had a relationship with 80 years ago. She became a movie actress and then was possessed by Morgan LeFay to fight Logan who interrupted some ritual. The twist is the ex-gf was in on the ritual to make her immortal and since it got interrupted, she’s living forever but aging. She asks Logan to kill her, and he’s like nah and leaves.

Wolverine vs Blade oneshot. Wolverine and Blade are fighting a splinter group of vampires who have been biting mutants in order to fulfill some prophecy of a mutant vampire messiah. Logan and Blade both think the other is the messiah, but it turns out to be a clone of Wolverine the vampires made and Blade and Logan kill the clone. Meh.

Next up, theres a few issues of the ongoing post-X of Swords Wolverine, and then I can stop reading about Wolverine for awhile because he's a stupid boring cliche.

[Tom Foolery]

Wolverine 8-10. Logan is having beers with his new CIA friend who tells him there’s a taskforce in the CIA specifically tasked to keep tabs on Krakoa called the X-desk. And they’re keeping tabs on the CIA guy’s backyard. Okay. Sure. Then Logan has to go undercover as Patch(how does that identity still work?) at a black market arms auction where a mindwiped Maverick is up for bidding. Logan breaks cover to help Mav escape. Mav is then approached by the X-desk to work for them and he accepts.

Wolverine:Black White & Blood 1-4. Anthology series with three stories in each issue. The gimmick is they only used b/w with red highlites for each issue. They did this with several other characters after this series did well; Elektra, Carnage, Deadpool, Moon Knight etc. As with all anthologies YMMV on the quality of the stories, but honestly there weren’t any real turds this time around.

Wonder Twins 1-12. Part of Bendis’ Wonder Comics imprint for DC. This was a slightly hilarious semi satirical series by Mark Russell. Mostly forgettable, but enjoyable book. There was one storyline where a villain is going to swap every person on Earth into a random body somewhere else. So CEOs could wind up working in third world sweatshops, politicians could be homeless, etc. The powers of the world rush to enact a bunch of laws to protect everyone after it happens, but the Justice League stop the guy with minutes left, thus saving the ‘status quo’. It was satirical, but also kind of depressing when you think about it.

and as a bonus, some of the books I recently found need to be boxed so,

Supergirl 27. Supergirl and the Omega Men are fighting some aliens or something and then one of them reveals an army of disfigured Supergirl clones.

Morbius 3-5. Morbius fights Spidey for a bit, then Spidey helps him try to reverse the latest mutation of his vampire disease. Then the sister of his first victim/childhood friend shows up and they all fight. Then Spidey, Elizabeth, and Morbius have to team up to stop The Melter who has stolen Morbius’ formula and mutated his henchmen. A sixth issue was solicited in the back of the book, but the series was covid-cancelled. Meh.

Next up, Wonder Woman!(insert theme music here)

[Tom Foolery]

Some more recent finds I read before getting boxed.

Batman/Superman 16-22. A Batman from a universe where Superman’s rocket crashed with a dead infant inside, and a Superman from a world where only Thomas Wayne died, so Bruce never became Batman cross paths when an alien god who makes fake pocket universes as “film” projects and have to team up with the Batman and Superman from the “real” world to stop him. Clever premise. Decent story.
The final issue 22 has Mr Mxylptlk resurrect Calendar Man who died in the A-Day massacre at Arkham and gives him powers that let him “see” the panels of the comic they are in and use those powers to fight Batman and Superman. A fun, clever one-off issue to end the series.

Killmonger 2. Eric joins a team of assassins that work for the Kingpin. After killing some of his enemies, he sends them to kill Bullseye as a test. Bullseye takes exception.

Marvel 2. Part of an anthology series that came out a couple years ago. Nothing memorable.

Marvel Tales:Captain Britain. $8 reprint issue that has CB’s first two issues from his UK comic, his first US appearances in Marvel Team-Up with Spidey, and the first issue of Excalibur.

Red Hood 43, 44. Red Hood and his fellow outlaws, Artemis and Bizarro, team up with General Glory to fight some ancient order of monsters in Quarac.

Weapon H 11. Weapon H is in Weirdworld. He frees Morgan LeFay from Roxxon’s power siphoning plant, then Dario Aggar tries double crossing everyone with a bomb, so H grabs him and brings him to Weirdworld to disarm the bomb or die with everyone else.

[jjreason]

Well we have Logan in common. I have been re-reading some seminal Wolverine stories the past couple of days. X-Men 139-143, 120 & 121, now heading back to 108 & 109 to get the first chapter of Byrne's X work featuring Canada. Grabbing a Epic collection trade off the shelf is super convenient.

[Tom Foolery]

I missed my self imposed deadline of having everything read by New Year’s. Who knows when I will actually finish. I started buying Wonder Woman regularly around issue 75, so here are the sporadic back issues I had found leading up to that, starting with issue 50.

50. James Robinson’s final issue. He had created a long lost brother for Diana, named Jason, and in this last issue of his run, he kills him off. Because James Robinson is a shitty writer.

51. Diana keeps visiting a supervillain in prison she vanquished several issues ago. Each visit, she slowly converts the woman into trying to be a good person.

52-53. Diana and the new Aztek(who’s a chick now. I didn’t know the original Aztek died) enlist the help of Artemis to fight some ancient Mexican god or something.

56. There was a crossover between WW and Justice League Dark where they fight some ancient Witch Goddess. This is part 2 of 5 and I have none of the other parts.

60, 62. G Willow Wilson started writing the series. Parts of a Story Arc where some insurgents want to break away from their oppressive govt and Diana and Ares get into a fight helping either side, but in the end neither of them is very helpful and just muddle the situation.

67, 68. For some reason, Giganta is helping Diana deal with some giant rock monsters in the Pacific Northwest, and a woman named Maggie finds the sword of Antiope and it kind of bonds with her.

70-72. Diana and Maggie, along with Aphrodite, find Aph’s daughter/son Atlantiades, who is neither/both male and female and is apparently fucking hot because everyone around her/him gets soggy panties and she’s turned an entire small town into lust central. Diana has to convince him/her that there are consequences to the actions (s)he’s inflicted on the town. Then Maggie fights a Minotaur and they all get sent to another dimension….

73. The dimension is a world Hippolyta created from her subconscious where she rejected being a mother to Diana and embraced being a warrior. In a flashback, This alt-Hippolyta and her Amazons capture the real Hippolyta and a young Diana. Then some other dudes attack and young Diana has to prove she wasn’t a mistake to the alt-Hippolyta and save the realm.

I am not super impressed with Wilson’s writing. Seeing as how there’s about 40-50 issues left to slog thru, I might be reading WW for awhile.