Uncanny X-men #13 PREVIEW - Flawed Tactics

When it comes to battle plans, drunks only have two tactics: beat the living shit out of the enemy or make the enemy want to shit themselves. They may not be tactics worthy of Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great, but they get the job done. This is why I would make a lousy superhero and a lousy leader. And this is why Cyclops is such an awesome and effective leader. Not is he capable of staying sober and utilizing tactics that get the job done, but he can do so and still find time to bang Emma Frost and Jean Grey when he's done. I think after every day, he lays in bed and says, "Suck it, Ghengis Khan! Suck it, Alexander the Great!"

At this stage in X-men Battle of the Atom, the X-men need more than just tactics. The phony X-men from the future have already bested the Jean Grey Institute and mortally wounded Wolverine. Their tactics were simple. They surprised the fuck out of the other X-men and took over their school so that they would be equipped to handle the real future X-men when they showed up. Now maybe that's a tactic that a drunk like me could come up with, but they executed it to perfection. They even threw in a little revelation about the son of Mystique and Wolverine, who had been masquerading as Kate Pryde. In terms of tactics, this would be the drunk equivalent of making their enemies shit themselves. That's why their best bet right now is to have someone like Cyclops, who they threw under the fucking bus after Avengers vs. X-men. I guess they're hoping he'll overlook that shit and take comfort in the fact that he can gloat about how he was right all along...again.

But Cyclops's battle plan is contingent on the real future X-men working with him. They're also contingent on some of them not fucking things up. Even the greatest battle plan can't overcome the unstoppable force of people being dip-shits. And in the preview for Uncanny X-men #13, Part 8 of Battle of the Atom, there's already a clear sign that someone fucked up.

CBR: Uncanny X-men #13 PREVIEW

Now I fully expect someone to fuck up along the way in every major story. Like a bar fight that doesn't end in anyone's nose being broken, it just wouldn't be that fun or memorable otherwise. It's all a matter of degree.

So it looks like O5 Iceman and O5 Beast are the ones that fucked up. They apparently get outsmarted by Raze, the Wolverine/Mystique demon seed that finally haze a name. I'm not sure why Raze is his name. I'm pretty sure Mystique didn't give him that name. But at least I can finally stop referring to him as the bastard kid of Wolverine and Mystique. I can also say definitively that he's a momma's boy because he apparently tricks O5 Beast and O5 Iceman into letting their guard down. Yes, they're still dip-shit teenagers, but even they should have been smarter than this. I mean why the fuck would Cyclops let them separate from the group when he knows the phony X-men need them? I guess it has been too long since he has seen Emma Frost naked because he must be losing his touch.

But even if some characters are fucking up, that only makes the coming battle all the more awesome. This issue also promises another bit twist and another huge change. It wouldn't be the first time in this event and the last time that shit was promised, it turned out to be confusing as hell. That or I just got a bag of bad weed. Since I trust my pot dealer more than I trust Marvel's handling of big events these days, I'm going to be cautious about another twist. Right now, my theory is that the phony X-men are doing to do much more than just send the O5 back. They're going to try and fuck them up in some other way that'll further fuck up the timeline. For whatever reason, they think their future is too shitty to allow and they need to wipe it out. I'm not sure how fucking with the O5 will accomplish this, but I guess some tactics don't have to make sense in the same way all bar fights don't have to make sense. Nuff said!