Posted in: Comics | Tagged: dc, marvel, shazadam, The Week in Comics, x-men, X-ual Healing - The Weekly X-Men Recap Column

The Week in Comics – Sunday, February 28th, 2021

The Week in Comics returns for another week, looking at the top stories in comics from a beleaguered industry. Plus: recaps of all last week's X-Men comics. But don't get too attached… we could decide to discontinue this column at any moment.

The Week in Comics News

I'm Byrne-ing I'm Byrne-ing I'm Byrne-ing for You

Bleeding Cool Rumourmonger-in-Chief Rich Johnston started off the week by advocating for John Byrne to receive credit from WandaVision for essentially creating most of the show with his decades-old comic work on West Coast Avengers. Johnston, a strong advocate of obnoxiously demanding credit as evidenced by all the times he says things like "oi, you 'eard it 'ere first, you did, pip pip," would later get his way… but that's getting ahead of things, and if there's one thing we don't do here on Bleeding Cool, it's post spoilers.

What a Relief!

Congress may be dragging its feet when it comes to approving a Coronavirus stimulus, but Mother Nature stepped in this week, with severe weather conditions delaying shipments from Diamond Comics.

"I wasn't going to be able to pay my rent this month," said one local comic shop customer, a single mother with two children. "But since none of the King in Black tie-ins arrived at my comic shop on Wednesday, I had a lot of extra money to spend on less important necessities like rent, food, and medical care."

As a side benefit, the woman admitted that skipping comics Twitter for a week since she didn't want to get spoiled on the comics also improved mental health.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

In Future State Superman vs. Imperious Lex #2, Lois Lane revealed that Superman is a premature ejaculator who blows his load in under three minutes. "I can do it under two with prep time," said Batman, visibly engorged.

Release the Snyder Cut Variants!

DC Comics will overship copies of Justice League #59 with special variant covers celebrating the Snyder Cut of Justice League, proving that Snyder was right all along by demonstrating the cynical worldview of the DCEU is closer to reality than many suspected.

Biff! Bam! Pow! Comics Aren't Just for Liberals Anymore!

Comic book creator Phil Jimenez credited DC wanting him to make the book more appealing to Trump voters as one of the reasons he was "wiped out" while working on the Superwoman series, other reasons being "it's DC Comics" and "have you met Dan Didio?" MAGA Superwoman never came to pass, but that attitude does explain DC's upcoming revival of the series where Lauren Boehbert and Marjorie Taylor Greene replace Lana Lang and Lois Lane.

Shazadam Lives!

DC Infinite Frontier #0 is available to purchase in stores next week, but at some of those stores, it has already arrived, which means an emotionally needy Rich Johnston was able to obtain photos showing that DC did not, in fact, change the printing of the book to remove people calling Black Adam "Shazadam" just to disprove Rich's rumourmongering about DC renaming the character that.

To celebrate with one of his favourite attention-seeking pastimes, Johnston hopped on Twitter and squandered any goodwill he might have earned from being technically correct about this by arguing for six hours with various industry personalities about whether or not he's a "journalist" and what constitutes breaking an embargo.

"Hey, here's an idea," said the makers of Twitter. "What if we charged people for this delightful experience?"

Hunka Hunka Byrne-in' Love

During this week's WandaVision, John Byrne finally got that credit he deserved for, you know, basically creating the premise of the whole show and stuff. Rich Johnston immediately wrote a Bleeding Cool article taking credit not just for getting Byrne credit on WandaVision but also for getting all creators credit on all comic book projects ever made.

As a result, West Coast Avengers #45 sold for $1500 on eBay.

"Ooo's been scoopin' up everything," Johnston sang while dancing around the Bleeding Cool offices. "It was Rich Johnston all along, it was! Pip pip!"

X-ual Healing – The Week in X-Men Comics

Sworn to sell comics for Marvel executives who feared and hated the fact that Fox owned their movie rights, The Uncanny X-Men suffered great indignities. Still, thanks to a corporate merger, a line-wide relaunch, and Jonathan Hickman's giant ego, the X-Men can finally get back to doing what they do best: being objectively the best franchise in all of comics for lovers of soap opera drama.

X-Men #18

In X-Men #18, we finally catch up with the three mutants who entered the vault belonging to the Children of the Vault last year. They took an elevator and then killed a bunch of the Children of the Vault, prompting Serafina to explode. No, really, that's the whole issue. Cool issue, but this story is a victim of modern marvel decompression. Oh: also, Synch's powers have evolved, and he's not only better at copying mutant powers, but he can copy other powers too, including those of the CotV.

New Mutants #16

A few stories intertwine in an exceptionally wordy (near Claremont levels if it only had narration) comic. Three mutant kids sneak into Otherworld to take a selfie on Jamie Braddock's throne, but he catches them. Two of them run back home, but the third, a boy with horns named Josh, is given a steed by Braddock and allowed to explore Otherworld. All three of these mutants were characters in writer Vita Ayala's Age of X-Men comic, Prisoner X, which was my favorite of the crossover. Karma and Mirage head into Otherworld to find Josh. Unfortunately, they get captured by Merlin instead.

The Shadow King synergizes with No-Girl to allow his group of young mutant trainees to switch bodies with each other, experiencing each other's powers. This freaks out Scout, who leaves, but for the others, this appears to be the start of some mega-synergy stuff in the future.

A bunch of other kids who were characters in Prisoner X bullied some other mutant kids and wrecked their habitat, so Magik bullies them to teach them a lesson. She makes them rebuild the habitat they destroyed.

Wolfsbane meets with members of X-Factor in an attempt to get her son Tier resurrected, but in a shocker, they reveal he was last backed up three days ago. I know Marvel time is really messed up, but surely it was way longer than three days ago that Tier was killed.

Also, Warpath filled out a self-evaluation for a performance review.

Now that's how you pack a ton of story into a single comic!

Wolverine #10

Wolverine and his newly un-mind-wiped old friend Maverick attempt to escape the Legacy House auction that was selling mutant artifacts such as Wolverine's severed arm and Maverick himself. Agent Ramirez and the CIA's mutant desk bust up the auction looking to buy or otherwise obtain Maverick, but Maverick and Wolverine escape into the Madripoor night. As a consolation prize, Ramirez does get Wolverine's arm.

Wolverine goes with Maverick to meet his band of mercs. Maverick can't believe Wolverine is buying into the Krakoan Kool-Aid (he's not the only one) and invites him to join the Mercs. Wolverine isn't into it, but he does agree to do one job with them: burning all of the artifacts Maverick had previously stolen.

Afterward, Wolverine brings Maverick or a visit to Krakoa and offers to restore his powers, but Maverick isn't interested in joining a cult. Maverick and Wolverine part ways as friends with a standing offer for either one to change their mind and join the other. But later, Maverick meets with Ramirez. His loyalties are unclear.

Wolverine's Wiener X-Pick of the Week

I enjoyed all of the X-books in their own way this week, but New Mutants #16 is the Wolverine's Wiener X-Pick of the week this week for its sheer girth. Congratulations to the creative team on this honor.

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