That’s the situation in Uncanny X-men. As we’ve seen in both Extraordinary X-men and All-New X-men, the entire mutant race is more fucked than a Bangkok whore running low on meth. People are taking turns spitting on Charles Xavier’s grave and using his ashes as lube to jerk off. Some X-men will continue to rely on the peaceful, hippie crap that has served the X-men so well in the past. Others, like Magneto, opt for a more direct approach that burns through the bullshit. That’s the approach we see in Uncanny X-men #1. I can’t say how effective it is, but I will say I’m taking notes for my next lesson to traffic court.
We quickly find out that Magneto would be the most sadistic yet effective traffic cop on the planet. A couple of armored convoys driving down downtown Detroit? Nothing suspicious about that. That sounds like how most reasonable people would get groceries in downtown Detroit. But if they have expired tags and Magneto is feeling petty, they’re fucked. He crashes their convoy and not to give them a petty traffic ticket either. He’s Magneto. He’s not THAT evil.
The drivers in the car don’t come off as meth-addicted NASCAR fans, but they don’t come off as Disney princesses either. To be fair, Magneto does give them a fair warning to turn over their cargo. Their reaction is to shoot him. Right, because that always works out so well against the Master of fucking Magnetism.
As a result, you feel slightly less sympathy for these guys when Sabretooth joins the fight. He’s still inverted. He still has that goofy ass short hair. But Wolverine would not want to stab him immediately for his methods. He just makes sure the drivers are terrified enough to shit themselves and tries hard not to laugh his ass off. Even for an inverted Sabretooth, that’s the best we can hope for in a situation that involves crashing armored convoys.
Nobody is going to get a boner watching Sabretooth try to be Wolverine. The same can’t be said for Monet showing up. She’s now decided to run with a rougher crowd and look damn sexy doing it. Not judging. Not complaining in the slightest. She doesn’t do anything quite as brutal as Sabretooth or as flashy as Magneto, but she does contribute. She just does it in a way that heterosexual men can easily jerk off to. Greg Land’s art certainly helps with that. I understand that might bother some people. I kindly request that those people go fuck themselves. Monet baby, welcome to Uncanny X-men!
Monet is probably having the most fun here. The same can’t be said for Psylocke, even if she does deliver just as much sex appeal. She’s a sexy ninja telepath. Like Megan Fox in a bikini, it’s just one of those things that’s inherently sexy. Those same people I told to go fuck themselves will probably still complain. I’m done thinking about those assholes. I just want to admire the way Cullen Bunn captures Psylocke, Monet, and Sabretooth’s badassery. My brain and my penis both approve.
All this badassery is well and good, but it’s still not enough to complete the mission. Parts of the convoy manage to escape. I’ll bet none of them have any bullshit traffic tickets. Magneto is still in a position to make them shit themselves. At this point, I don’t even have sympathy for the pants these guys are wearing. For reasons not entirely clear, and are likely a result of bullshit that happened off-panel, Magneto is somewhat drained. This means these assholes are going to try to finish him off by running him over with the truck. Like throwing hot coffee on a state trooper, it’s one of those dick moves that can’t possibly end well.
Enter the next member of the Uncanny X-men crew. This time, it’s Arcangel. Again, some crazy shit happened off-panel. He’s no longer the goofy, amnesiac that doesn’t get to see Psylocke naked any more due to the events of the Dark Angel Saga. He’s back to being Arcangel again. With help from Psylocke, he flies in, finishes off the assholes who weren’t smart enough to drive away, and effectively ends the mission.
But it’s here where we get our first taste of drama within this series. Like Extraordinary X-men and All-New X-men, so much shit happens off-panel that we’re left to make a lot of fucked up assumptions. Those assumptions somehow transformed Angel back into Arcangel in a way that made his mind more blank than the typical MTV audience. And somehow, Psylocke was responsible and it wears heavily on her. It’s a sad moment, but one that helps make this battle more than a glorified traffic stop.
Arcangel doesn’t do or say anything. He’s basically the X-men equivalent of a drone strike. He just inspires more cosplayers. His attack effectively ends this little battle, which makes for a nice shot of this new team of X-men. For the unlucky asshole who survived, he’s probably both terrified and horny at the sight of this team. They’re not the kind of X-men who just hide out in Limbo, bitching and moaning about Cyclops every five minutes. They’re out in the streets actually doing something about the fucked up state of the mutant race. Slap a military logo on this and it could be a commercial to join the marines.
After Psylocke gives the unlucky asshole the psychic equivalent of 100 hangovers, they unlock the cargo to reveal another testament to just how fucked mutants are. This convoy wasn’t carrying Sentinels, dead mutant babies, or a million middle fingers from the Inhumans. It contained containment pods carrying mutants. Does that not sound too fucked up? Well, they actually paid to get contained in these things.
Confused? No need to smoke an extra joint. There’s a reason for it. These mutants are basically trying to do what any lazy fuck would do when shit gets rough. They want to sleep through it. So they paid someone to put them in a pod in hopes that they’ll wake up in a time when mutants are slightly less fucked. That might not be until Bryan Singer retires, but it’s entirely understandable. I almost sympathize with these mutants, but can’t get around the fact that they’re cowards on par with internet trolls. Magneto’s new team of X-men are kind enough to point that out to them in a way that even internet trolls wouldn’t argue with.
It makes for a dramatic and meaningful scene. One of the mutants, who happens to be a healer who looks like a crack-addict version of Chris Hemsworth, is a healer. And he laments at how shitty things are and how he just wants to sleep through this current nightmare, not knowing that Fox’s lawyers will make that all but impossible. It makes for a powerful moment where Magneto points out that mutants are fucked, but at least they’re doing something about it. Sleeping through the horror won’t make it go away. You actually have to get off your ass and do something. It’s the mutant coaching equivalent of Vince Lombardi and fuck if it didn’t make me want to punch this whiny guy in the dick.
They leave these mutants to contemplate the merits of being a fucking cowards. It’s a successful mission, but one that’s only part of a bigger picture. On the X-jet, Magneto and Psylocke discuss this new trend of mutants trying to sleep through the shit storm. There’s a chance that the company offering this service, Someday Enterprises, might have a more sinister agenda.
A greedy company doing something dickish to screw over a minority? It might as well have been ripped from the Huffington Post. But it hints at a larger enemy. After what these X-men just did to a simple armored convoy, I feel like I’ll need an extra bag of weed to get through the coming battles, but in a good way.
The X-men have their new mission. But what about that healer whose balls they so rightfully busted? Well to his credit, he tries to take their advice to heart. He uses his powers on a couple of poor civilians. It’s a noble gesture, but one that doesn’t make him less of a coward. However, he doesn’t get a chance to make up for it beyond that. The Dark Riders show up and end his cowardly ass on the spot. For some reason, they have a problem with someone healing sick and weak people. Magneto and his team can’t show up and kick their asses fast enough.
So...is it awesome?
If you’re expecting this comic to fix everything that sucks about the other post-Secret Wars X-men comics and give you a blow job at the same time, then no. If your expectations are more reasonable and involve less gagging, then yes. Uncanny X-men #1 is pretty awesome. I won’t say it’ll turn your asshole inside out while pouring a bucket of cocaine into your brain. But it doesn’t do anything that’ll make you want throw up and dump flaming bags of horse shit on Inhumans comics.
Let’s face it. Things suck elephant dick for the X-men right now. Some are willing to cash in their chips, buy a bottle of cheap wine, and black out until the nightmare is over. Magneto and his team of pound-you-in-the-ass X-men aren’t letting those people get off easy. Yeah, they’re assholes, but you still can’t help but root for them. They still come off as X-men and not Magneto’s bitches. And in an era where Marvel loves to shit on everything Fox owns off-panel like a constipated Brett Ratner, we need X-men like this.
Final
Score: 7 out of 10
So, the multiverse got a reset but we're stuck with depowered Magneto, but without his pretty decent series?
ReplyDeleteI don't like that.