Typical idioms for handling the return value are::

    # using the variable ax for single a Axes
    fig, ax = plt.subplots()

    # using the variable axs for multiple Axes
    fig, axs = plt.subplots(2, 2)

    # using tuple unpacking for multiple Axes
    fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplot(1, 2)
    fig, ((ax1, ax2), (ax3, ax4)) = plt.subplot(2, 2)

The names ``ax`` and pluralized ``axs`` are preferred over ``axes``
because for the latter it's not clear if it refers to a single
`~.axes.Axes` instance or a collection of these.