Scanned Thoughts: X-men #17

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Uncharted and Off-Track: X-men #16

The following is my review of X-men #16, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Even in the era of GPS and Google Maps, it’s easy to get lost. Even if the destination is clear and there have been successful trips before, there’s always a chance of getting off-track and those chances are worse than anyone cares to admit. It usually isn’t the first wrong turn that gets things going in the wrong direction. It’s the fifth, sixth, and tenth turns that changes the situation from merely being off-course to being in another time zone. For the situation surrounding the all-female X-men, it’s hard to know what time zone they’re in, but their watches are clearly not synchronized.

When this new, female-centric X-men series began, the destination for the story was fairly clear. And for the most part, it reached that destination safely on numerous occasions. This series wasn’t just about an all-female team of X-men. It created a unique team dynamic that gave the story a unique context. However, that dynamic has faltered in recent issues and X-men #16 is a culmination of one too many wrong turns and a few too many missed turns. If this story were on a road trip, it would be in the wrong state by now.

Initially, this story was built around one fairly simple conflict. The biological father of Shogo, Jubilee’s adopted son, has returned to claim him. It was a conflict that fit nicely into the overall narrative of the series because it began with Jubilee rescuing Shogo. That conflict might provide a simple foundation, but everything built on top of it lacks structure and refinement, like a gingerbread house that doesn’t have enough frosting. There’s a clear attempt to turn this conflict into something that explores other side-plots going on throughout the all-female team, such as the presence of Storm’s future daughter, Kymera, and the training of younger mutants like Hellion into a more capable team of X-men. While these are plots worth exploring, they end up detracting from the main conflict. At times, it feels like they’re in the wrong X-men comics.

Some of these plots, like Kymera, are appropriate to explore in some respect. There’s just only so much that can be explored while the main focus is supposed to be on rescuing Jubilee and protecting Shogo. Kymera’s foresight into the future should give her and Storm so many things to discuss. Who is her father? Who lives and who dies? Do Cyclops and Wolverine ever mend the Schism? Will Deadpool ever shut up? None of this comes up. Everything is centered around the conflict with Shogo and Jubilee. While this keeps the story focused, it essentially hijacks this unresolved story. It would be like someone having the power to see into the future, but the only thing they use it for is to check the weather for the next football game.

It also doesn’t help that Shogo’s father, who calls himself The Future, doesn’t come off as a character worth hijacking these other plots. He operates under the principle of shoot-random-people-and-wing-it-from-there. He’s supposed to be this extremely dangerous crime lord with access to weapons and personnel that would impress even the Kingpin, but he decides to go about retrieving his son in the most inefficient and messy way possible. There doesn’t appear to be any underlying motivation to his actions or his desire to get Shogo. He gives the impression that he just doesn’t like anyone taking things that belong to him, be it his Sunday newspaper or infant son that he did nothing to protect. He doesn’t even show the slightest affection for his son. He just wants him back because Shogo is his, not because he wants to know the joys of fatherhood.

This further limits the emotional impact of the conflict. The Future is painfully generic as a character and a threat. In addition, the all-female X-men don’t even go about attacking him in a very efficient way. They think they’ve done enough preparation, but when they encounter an exotic defense system that involves turning the vegetation against them. It’s nowhere near as epic as the walking trees in Lord of the Rings and only serves to slow the narrative down even further.

But it isn’t just the slow pace of the story that makes it feel lost and disorganized. Many conversations and actions are just too predictable. Jubilee’s argument with The Future could have been cut and pasted from an old Superfriends cartoon. The Future plays into every villainous stereotype, making no effort whatsoever to create any sense of depth. All Jubilee can do is give a typical Braveheart style speech, minus the painted face and mooning. It doesn’t create any strong emotions. It doesn’t create any tension either. It’s might as well be an excuse to get the X-men out of the Jean Grey Institute and fight something besides killer robots and resurrected enemies.

That’s not to say the conflict is without merit. While the plot might be slow and the dialog might be forgettable, the story never loses sight of the main theme of the story. The focus is still on the X-men fighting to retain custody of Shogo. It’s a conflict that offered plenty of reasons for excitement in the beginning. But as this story drags, the excitement wanes. That doesn’t make the conflict any less meaningful. Jubilee has undergone numerous conflicts in adopting Shogo as her son. Many of those conflicts have made for some of the most compelling stories in this series, but this one is just poorly developed and poorly organized.

The details might be lacking, but nobody gets mischaracterized and nobody does anything that completely undermines their established personality. X-men #16 certainly feels like an X-men comic, albeit a very disorganized and underwhelming X-men comics, but it doesn’t feel like the same X-men comic that had been built around this powerful, all-female cast. Like hippie protesters, it tries to do too much and only ends up next to nothing.

Final Score: 4 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: X-men #14

The best of intentions have a way of pissing off some unexpected people. I’m sure that Barack Obama thought he would be making a positive mark on history when he decided he was going to run for President. I doubt he had any idea how many crazy racists religious nuts would come out from the shadows and attack him like he just took a shit on George Washington’s grave. And those are just the people who listen to Glenn Beck. Who could possibly be pissed off by a young woman choosing to adopt an infant child after her parents were presumed dead? Hell, this is the kind of shit that makes pro-lifer’s horny. That’s exactly what Jubilee did with Shogo, yet in being so responsible and loving she pissed off someone really nasty, namely Shogo’s biological father. Apparently, this is a guy who probably wasn’t going to pay child support or alimony. He’s the kind of guy who goes on a murder spree to break out of prison just to get to a kid he didn’t seem to give a damn about until after Jubilee adopted him. But this guy is no Jerry Springer reject. He’s powerful enough to attack the Jean Grey Institute and wound two students. I can see some fathers doing that if they think their daughter or son is alone in a room with Chris Brown, but this guy has no excuses. That’s what makes him so dangerous and that’s why X-men #14 should be a lesson to anyone who thinks their good intentions won’t piss someone off. Even adopting an orphan baby is going to make a few nasty enemies. That’s just how fucked up the world is sometimes.

One of those nasty new enemies was brazen enough to shoot Teon from afar in the previous issue. Naturally, the staff at the Jean Grey Institute takes that shit pretty seriously. Rachel and Monet get on the case, searching New York City during fucking rush hour no less for the shooter. How they managed to find him in a city of millions and track him to a specific subway without triggering shit storm parade down Time Square is not explained. But Rachel Grey is the daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey. She is a capable telepath. She’s able to navigate the crowds while probably making everyone think they’re a couple of teenage girls chasing after a boy they sent nude pictures of themselves to by mistake. It shows her skill, but doesn’t make for a very exciting chase.

They eventually do catch up with him in a subway. Again, it’s not nearly as tense as it could be and not just because Rachel is making sure the rush hour traffic doesn’t start shitting themselves. The shooter himself doesn’t look all that devious. He looks like Liam Neesan fucked Miley Cyrus. He threatens to kill the innocent people Rachel is psychically deceiving. Then he threatens to blow his own brains out before they can get any information out of him. He keeps talking about how the future is unstoppable. Someone should tell him that only taxes and bad hangovers are unstoppable. Monet is able to stop him before he pulls the trigger, but I’m still confused about this guy and not just because he looks like this priest I knew who got caught streaking through Sorority House. If this was meant to be tense, it failed and now I have that disturbing image of that old priest in my head.

There’s still plenty of legitimate tension back at the Jean Grey Institute. Two students are still wounded and some of the other students, many of whom don’t have X-men training that help them deal with the constant threat of being shot, are worried. Psylocke, while monitoring the holding cell for their new guest, has to reassure a young mutant that they’re not going to let anyone hurt him. I remember my mother telling me the same thing every time I went to the dentist. It didn’t take me long to figure out that it was bullshit.

With the prospect of some crazy douche shooting students still hanging over everyone’s head, Storm hopes to get a little proactive and asks her time-displaced daughter, Kymera, for information. Now this is actually the first time Storm and Kymera have gotten a chance to talk. They’ve never brought up the fucked up circumstances under which she came from the future who her father is, information I’m sure both Storm and Wolverine would want to know. But Storm is only focused on what she knows about the shooter, not exactly a good way of breaking the ice with a future daughter. Given how many time-displaced X-men there are, I would think there’s at least an online support group. Maybe Storm should have gotten advice from Rachel, but she would probably have told her the same thing. Trying to get a little foresight from the future is a dick move and Kymera doesn’t provide it. That’s also a dick move so I guess this is a good case of like mother/like daughter.

Having not gotten any advice from Kymera, the rest of the X-women opt to go directly to the source. That means a very hostile intimidation that involves Psylocke, Monet, and Rachel Grey. That’s like being locked in a cage with the Rock, Mike Tyson, and John Cena after they’ve been fed a bucket of crystal meth. They’re both debating whether or not they should treat this in a way consistent with the provisions of the Geneva Convention or adopt the North Korean approach. Since two of their students were shot, they make it pretty clear that they’re ready to channel their inner Kim Jong Un. Then Storm shows up and stops them from doing anything that might get them on Amnesty International’s shit list. She tells them they’re going to have a meeting. But I think that’s code for, “Get the fuck out of this room before your rip the guy’s liver out through his scrotum.” And while the X-women get the message, the prisoner continues to show that he gives far fewer fucks than anyone in his position should.

When the X-women meet in the Danger Room, Storm does something unexpected of anyone who was once worshipped as a goddess. She humbles herself. She acknowledges that she has basically been leading a team without actually asking anyone whether or not they want to be part of a team. It is part of why Rachel has been criticizing her at every turn. Granted, I find some of that criticism more contrived than a speech by Glenn Beck. But it wasn’t completely without merit and Storm makes it clear that they are now going to operate as a team. She even says they’ll vote on a leader, but I think she also implied that one of the voters can reign an unholy hell of lightning down on their asses whenever she feels like it.

Now for the past few issues, a lot of this conflict felt really contrived. This is the first time it actually feels legitimate. It’s still very shaky and underdeveloped. I get the sense that this is just a way for Rachel Grey to stay relevant since nobody seems to want her to interact with the O5, the Uncanny roster, or any other team that might be in need of a powerful psychic from an apocalyptic future. I may be wrong or doing too much blow, but the whole internal struggles with the all-female team feel more manufactured than lousy boob job. And having spent my share of time in Las Vegas, I know lousy boob jobs.

There are still plenty of issues to discuss before they vote. They haven’t even had a chance to pander to lobbyists or anything. They don’t get that chance because their prisoner finds a way to fuck their day up even more by causing some random explosion within his cell. It’s at this point I realize how fucking stupid it is to take a guy who already shot two students and try to imprison him in the same school he already showed he could outwit. That’s like putting Charlie Sheen in charge of a Mexican pharmacy. It’s a dumb move of George W. Bush proportions.

The action that follows isn’t very detailed. There’s just a lot of fire and shit with the X-women trying to navigate it. For all they know, their students are being cooked like baby back ribs. We have no way of knowing because it unfolds so chaotically. That’s probably the point. That doesn’t make it any less confusing. The shooter keeps taunting them while still having the personality of an old iPod that turned evil. It’s not as interesting as it sounds.

This time the X-women get an assist. Kymera actually decides to make herself useful in the past and attacks the shooter while saving Shogo. In the process, however, the shooter reveals that he’s not just an awesome shot with a shitty vocabulary. He’s also a walking bomb with a timer built right into his forehead. That sounds fucked up when I say it out loud, but when I think about it for more than five seconds it’s actually pretty brilliant. It explains why the guy didn’t put up much of a fight when the X-women captured him. He wanted to be in their domain when he exploded. That sounded incredibly dirty, but it gets the job done. It’s not entirely clear that they came out unscathed. It’s only clear that the Jean Grey Institute is going to need yet another round of heavy repairs. Other than proving that insurance companies must hate them, he also proves that whoever is after Shogo is pretty fucking cunning and pretty fucking devious.

Their fate is left uncertain. It’s a pretty safe bet they’ll be shell shocked and feeling like a couple of Twinkies that just got deep fried at a County Fair. Some might even be wounded. Or they might just walk away unscathed since X-men seem to survive explosions every other day. We don’t know because we don’t get a fucking clue. We just get a quick glimpse of the mastermind who is probably jerking off as to how well he’s outwitting the X-women. We still don’t know much about him other than he’s more obsessed with the future than Doc Brown and way more competent. The lack of details here makes it pretty hard to get too worked up, but it shows that they’re going to have to fight hard if they want to keep Shogo.

The story could have ended there on just a confusing and mediocre note. But once again, we get this side-story that takes away from the story that’s actually somewhat interesting to see some of the young X-men partake in a Danger Room scenario that probably takes place at least twice a week. Young D-listers like Hellion, Anole, and Rockslide meet up with Psylocke to basically reenact every Dynasty Warriors game ever made. At least Dynasty Warriors allowed users to press buttons. Nothing much happens here. They just screw around, showing their inexperience and making guys like me wonder what the fuck this has to do with Shogo’s father. I don’t mind comics that try to tell extra side-stories. I would just rather they have a fucking point.

This issue may have had the most tense moments in an all-female story that didn’t turn into a lesbian porn or a Julia Roberts movie. They’re all very overmatched by this enemy, but the nature of that enemy is confusing. He’s packing more heat than Rambo on crystal meth. We get that. But as he frustrates the X-women in this issue, it’s not as clear what he’s after. Is he still after Shogo? Or is pissing off X-women the only thing that gives him a boner? Confusing it may be, his impact is not obscured in the slightest. He’s forcing the X-women to either stop their bitching and become a team or let this asshole continue to make them look like headless chickens in a staring contest. They’ve clearly done something to piss this guy off and he’s very good at being pissed off, but we just don’t get a reason to be pissed off with him. Instead, we get Kymera finally doing something, which isn’t much, but it’s still an upgrade. And we get another meaningless story tacked on at the end that’s more forgettable than Adam Sandler’s last three movies. This series still has a lot going for it, but it needs more to be awesome. Even beautiful women can only do so much to compensate for its shortcomings. I give X-men #14 a 5 out of 10. Let’s have less shitty Danger Room sub-plots and more ovary-busting mash-ups with Storm and Rachel. That’s the kind of shit that will fascinate and titillate, a winning combination if ever there was one. Nuff said!

Scanned Thoughts: X-men #13

In all my experience with comic books, alcohol, and life in general, I've learned time and again that the best intentions are the easiest to fuck up. Think about the guy who invented ski masks. I'm sure he was just a nice guy who wanted to find a better way for people to keep their heads warm in the winter. Did he honestly believe that thieves and muggers wouldn't use it to commit crimes and become the bad guys in every cop movie ever made? I doubt it, but that wasn't his intention. The X-men, and every superhero team for that matter, usually has noble intentions. Even the anti-heroes aren't complete assholes with their intentions. But I wouldn't put Jubilee in the category of an anti-hero. She's too lovable and fun. But earlier in the latest adjectiveless X-men series, she willingly adopted an infant baby who Arkea used to try and wipe out all life on the planet. It's an act that should make her a hero among the pro-life crowd. Sure, she's a vampire and a fun-loving teenager, two things that I'm sure piss off that same crowd. But there's no denying her noble intentions. They haven't screwed her over yet, but that's what's supposed to happen in X-men #13. I almost dread seeing how something so noble can become so shitty. But like major accident involving a Hummer and a truck full of dildos, I can't look away.
Also like accidents involving Hummers, this comic sets the tone by introducing the kind of asshole who would willingly crash into a truck full of cancer medicine. He has no name and he looks like he belongs on a sex offender's list. But he's not just some random guy. He's a random guy who happens to be one of those prisoners that's so dangerous that he has to be transferred from undisclosed locations by armed soldiers and drugged. They must have shitty drug dealers because this same random guy shows that he can beat the shit out of trained soldiers and make it look easy. So he's also the dangerous kind of random guy who probably drives multiple Hummers. But what makes him relevant to this story is that he's Shogo's father. And for reasons I can only assume have to do with not paying child support, he wants to get his kid back.

This random guy is choosing a shitty time to attack the Jean Grey Institute. They just got done beating Arkea and the Sisterhood of Mutants. That makes them considerably more tough than a bunch of soldiers. On top of that, they're all badass women. So they can kill most random guys and look damn sexy while doing it.

Monet is no exception. She recently joined the team and showed that she can kick a fair amount of ass. Yet being the obsessive perfectionist usually reserved for an honor student at a Korean Prep School, she keeps on training and she uses Rockslide as a punching bag. That's right, she considers rocks punching bags. She has to use something tough because the Sisterhood of Mutants are still out there. Arkea may be dead, but Selene and the Goblin Queen are still out there. That means she needs to be prepared to hit hard and break shit. I want to feel sorry for Rockslide, but getting beat up by a beautiful woman isn't the worst thing in the world. Hell, it's one of the ways I hope to die.

There's no question that the X-women are going to be well-trained for any asshole that thinks they can bust into the Jean Grey Institute and take Jubilee's adopted kid. However, the Arkea battle also revealed a bit of a schism in the leadership of the X-women. It's nowhere near as hostile as the schism with Wolverine and Cyclops, but it is a concern.

The divide comes from Rachel and Storm. In order to beat Arkea, they had to let Selene and the Goblin Queen go. Rachel had a problem with that and it's not unreasonable. Sure, they beat Arkea. But that's like killing Hitler, but letting Mussolini go. It was a tough decision and it has the team questioning Storm's leadership. And Storm doesn't like that. She's not hardheaded and stubborn like Cyclops, willing to just suck it up and move forward. Then again, she doesn't have Cyclops's Galactus-sized balls. Psylocke encourages her to take charge and stop being so reserved about her leadership style. It's not bad advice. And if Storm is lucky, maybe she can also make Maria Hill want to bone her.

But it's not all bitterness and division with the X-women. With Arkea gone, Jubilee is basically out of danger and free to rebuild her life as a teen vampire mother of an infant. I sure hope Stephanie Meyer isn't reading this because that might give her some ideas. In previous issues, she already went through the process of officially adopting Shogo. Beast is even nice enough to take a break from being a massive furry douche who fucks up the timeline and gives him a checkup. Shogo is declared perfectly healthy. Jubilee still isn't sure about her role with the X-men at this point. But she's getting free health care, a free room, and all the food Doop can cook. Most single mothers would agree that's a pretty sweet deal.

If only Rachel Grey could share Jubilee's upbeat mood. I honestly wish Rachel Grey could share something because she has basically been an afterthought since she came back from space with Havok and Polaris. She didn't really do dick in Avengers vs. X-men. She has had only a few awkward moments with the O5 X-men. And for some fucked up reason, there was this romantic sub-plot between her and John Sublime that was so subtle that it might as well have been a ninja. For someone of her history and heritage, that's just fucking wrong. But I digress.

Rachel is still a recluse, basically hanging out in the darkest hole of the Jean Grey Institute that isn't related to Beast's ass. She doesn't do much other than add a little closure to the Arkea story, showing how John Sublime left. And this time, there was no romantic subplot. John Sublime just left on a bitter note, becoming an asshole again and Rachel Grey gave him the proverbial finger. If only she could do that more often. The X-men can never have enough badass redheads.

The X-women all have their share of issues. They're all still recovering from the Arkea battle. However, they have no fucking clue that someone is coming for Shogo. And given how Arkea only partially succeeded in attacking the Jean Grey Institute, what are the odds that this new asshole will do any better?

Well he does get their attention in the most graphic way possible. During a seemingly innocent game of mutant baseball, Primal is shot. There's no sound of a gunshot. There's no warning. And none of the omega level telepaths pick it up. Primal just hits the ground wounded. Either the shooter is really fucking good or they're on the kinds of drugs that Barry Bonds would kill for. While I have a soft spot for Primal and I consider this a dick move, it does send the necessary message.

Naturally, Primal gets rushed to the infirmary and the Jean Grey Institute goes into lock down, which seems to happen at least twice a week. Makes me wonder if they ever even bother with fire drills. But Beast and the institute staff are able to save him. They even find out that the shot wasn't meant to kill Primal at all. It was just supposed to wound him. Like I said, it sent the right message. I guess sending a horse head just wasn't enough.

But Primal isn't the only target. Late at night with the Jean Grey Institute still presumably on lockdown, Roxy comes out for a little stroll. I don't know why a teenage girl is out walking the halls late at night. I gave up trying to understand teenage girls in high school when I found out that one had a picture of Mark Whalberg lodged in her vagina. But Roxy is just out walking until she gets a quick drink. Then she collapses faster than an ex-Mormon doing their first bong hit. It's not as bloody as what happened to Primal, but it sends another powerful message. It's really not clear what that message is or how this shit is happening, but it clearly shows that this is one resourceful motherfucker.

The only one who gets a clear message in the end is Jubilee. She comes in her room, rocking out to her iPod like any teenage mother would, minus the regret and self-esteem issues. Then she gets a scary message on her phone from Shogo's father. This time the message is pretty fucking clear. He wants Shogo back or he'll kill everyone in the Jean Grey Institute. And after what he has shown with Primal and Roxy, he's already proven he's capable of doing just that. The nature of this guy's power isn't clear. It's a bit overly subtle, sort of like some of the other details in recent issues of X-(Wo)men. But it's not terribly ambiguous this time. Nobody needs to use their imagination to know what the threat is. To me, that means I don't have to be sober to enjoy it and that's a big win for me.

It would have been fine to end the comic here, even if it was short. But for reasons that I can only attribute to excessive cocaine use, recent issues of X-men have been truncated to make room for these other side-stories that don't do jack shit for the main plot. In the previous issues, it involved a battle against a bunch of rusted Sentinels. It was essentially like watching a fight between Optimus Prime and a Roomba. It wasn't all that compelling. All it did was give a few C and D-list characters some face time.

Well that must have not been enough because now we're getting another side-plot with a bunch of D-listers that include Hellion, Rockslide, Broo, and Anole. They haven't contributed shit to this story and they give the impression that one of their classmates getting shot is no big deal. That shows they have shitty school pride and they're shitty friends as well. So instead of fighting a Sentinel, they choose to do the second most generic thing that X-men do and that's play around in the Danger room. It's as exciting as it sounds.

They just load some random program they found. It happened to be a program that involves fighting a medieval army, most likely ripped from a Sid Meier game. They try to fight the incoming army. The action is predicable and standard. Then Psylocke shows up. She might not actually be there. She might be part of the simulation or a failsafe. It really doesn't matter because it generates about as much intrigue as cat shitting in the desert. So once again, more material that could be used to make the awesome main plot even more awesome is pissed away.

I honestly don't understand the format of this book. This series was billed as a book about at team of female X-men kicking ass and not constantly bitching about men. Isn't that appealing enough? Were the feminazis out there really that hostile? Like the previous issue, this issue had two stories. One was awesome and compelling while the other was unnecessary and shitty. Do we really need to see some of the dipshit students at the Jean Grey Institute fool around in the Danger Room? If someone at Marvel wants to tell a story about these C-list characters, then make another New Mutants or Young X-men series. Don't have it cut into an issue that had such an awesome setup. I want to see what happens with Shogo's deadbeat dad, damn it. But instead, I see some dumb ass teenagers looking for ways to get in trouble. If I want that, I'll go to a frat party. X-men #13 gets a 7 out of 10. I would love to give it a much higher score, but I don't like great stories being cut off almost as much as I don't like having my beer cut off. I can go out and buy more beer. But I can't buy the next part of the story for a fucking month. Nuff said!

Scanned Thoughts: X-men #12

Some days it really feels like the world is conspiring against me and it’s not just the days I wake up in my ex-girlfriend’s basement handcuffed to a radiator with a strange burn mark on my ass. Sometimes it just feels like I’ve got a shitty luck streak going. I hit every red light, my internet connection slows down, or the liquor store is out of my favorite brand of whiskey. It’s like karma is a fucking Bond villain and I’m a much less coordinated James Bond. I imagine the X-men get that same feeling much more often. But I also imagine that their sentiment is based more on actual fact and less on just drunken brooding. In Brian Wood’s all female X-men, they’ve been dealing with an enemy that has been conspiring against them in Arkea and she has been doing a damn good job of it. She has reconvened the Sisterhood and she makes staying ahead of the X-women look way too damn easy. She now has Selene on her side and Goblin Queen is about to join her. In many ways that makes her better than a Bond villain because it skips the part where some creepy old guy has a woman way too beautiful at his side. Since there are enough creepy old guys, I’m willing to give X-men #12 some extra points from the get-go. But given the lukewarm results of the previous few issues, I won’t be giving much.

The less-than-shocking end with Ana Cortes saying “fuck this” and stabbing herself didn’t make too many waves. And maybe that’s a good thing because it didn’t need to be more chaotic or fucked up than it already was. She stabs herself, Arkea shrugs it off, and then she brings her back to life. Yes, it is a dick move even by her standards. But I guess it really is just that hard to find good henchmen these days, especially ones that look so damn good in skin-tight outfits. The problem is that she has basically revealed that there are cracks in Arkea’s control. If one spoiled Paris Hilton wannabe can break her hold, then what hope does Akrea have of maintaining that hold? She really doesn’t do shit other than bring Lady Deathstrike back into the fold and if Lady Deathstrike turns on Akrea, she’s definitely going to put up more of a fight than a fucking Paris Hilton wannabe.

In the end she may not have to because bringing Ana Cortes/Lady Deathstrike back from the dead is basically just a warm-up. While it was only a cruel cock-tease in the previous issue, the boners can finally rise freely this time. It’s official now. Madelyne Pryor is back. Her resurrection isn’t shown. Hell, the only thing we see is her walking around in a towel and putting on a sexy new outfit that looks like a cross between a stripper and Hillary Clinton. Honestly, I’ll gladly take that over any fancy resurrection scene.

Just like Selene, Madelyne Pryor shows her appreciation for being brought back to the world of the living. It doesn’t look like she’ll pull the same stunt as Ana. Having been a disembodied spirit previously who probably got sick of watching Cyclops hump Emma Frost, I imagine she’ll gladly kiss Akrea for bringing her back. My penis badly wants this to happen, but it doesn’t sadly. Even so, this issue is already worth its price to see Madelyne Pryor alive in the flesh again and not as some bullshit disembodied spirit. Now every penis not attached to Cyclops can rejoice. The Goblin Queen is back and she’s got some pretty dangerous bitches as her allies.

Her resurrection comes at a critical time as well. For the past few issues, Arkea and the Sisterhood have stayed a step ahead of the all-female X-men. They even managed to rough them up on a few occasions. If Arkea was a Bond villain, this would usually be the part where James Bond waits for her to fuck up and/or seduce her sister/daughter/wife/confidante/etc. Sadly, there’s no need for seduction this time. The all-female X-men don’t need the cunning of James Bond. They just need the vast resources of the Jean Grey Institute and help from Arkea’s brother, John Sublime, who has many reasons to screw her over. I said they didn’t need the same cunning. I never said it would be that impressive.

It’s a somewhat bland method of putting the team in a position to confront the Sisterhood. They just track Akrea to a single location, revealing that Ana Cortes tipped them off at some point that isn’t made all that clear. It allows them to finally catch up to the Sisterhood before they can slip away again and launch their attack. Now this isn’t one of those occasions where the details are sorely lacking. They’re there, but they’re just undeveloped. Had I read this comic sober, I might have had a problem with that. But my penis is too excited about the prospect of an all-female battle and I usually defer to my penis in these instances.

The all-female X-men lead with their big gun, namely Monet. She actually has a lot of incentive to be the first one to throw a punch and not just because she has the strength a million teenage girls with bad PMS. In an earlier issue, the Enchantress really fucked her up and not in a way I could masturbate to either (although I tried). She actually almost killed Monet. Well Monet made sure she regretted not finishing the job because when she lands, she knocks the Enchantress into a fucking crater. It’s an effective strategy, taking out the Asgardian who could really fuck up the battle with her magic. But that’s only secondary for Monet. She doesn’t just badly injure the Enchantress. She adds a few generous taunts that would probably get her ejected from a football game unless she was named Terrell Owens. Now I’m not much of a Monet fan, but this scene made me love her and fear her. And that’s a win-win for any beautiful woman, hero or villain.

With their hot blond magic wilder down for the count, Arkea is in half-fuckton of trouble. She probably didn’t anticipate Ana screwing her over like this so now she has to get through the all-female X-men. And these are the same all-female X-men that beat her once before in an earlier arc. But during that arc, she didn’t have allies in Selene or Madelyne Pryor. So when Storm and Rachel Grey confront her while she’s trying to slip out, they generously help repay Arkea for bringing them back to life. This means Arkea fucks with Storm’s lightning while Madelyne Pryor mind-fucks Rachel. I’m sure it doesn’t soak her panties as much as it would if she were mind-fucking Cyclops, but that doesn’t stop her from enjoying it. The battle itself isn’t really that epic or that flashy. But it’s Madelyne Pryror’s first real battle since Reagan was still President. It can’t exactly be Wrestlemania.

The fight between Psylocke and Typhoid Mary is slightly more epic and by that I mean lopsided. The battle began with Psylocke taunting Typhoid Mary psychically. This made her look more vulnerable than a wounded bunny in a den of hungry wolves. Then when Psylocke actually attacks, Typhoid Mary might as well be an anorexic cheerleader in a sumo wrestling match. It’s still a more detailed battle, filled with the kind of action that could only be more awesome if they did it in their underwear covered in bacon grease. Typhoid Mary does put up somewhat of a fight, but Psylocke overmatches her in way too many ways. She even reminds her that as soon as they beat Arkea, then she goes back to being just another obscure redhead with multiple personalities. And now that Jean Grey is back in the X-books, she has no chance.

For a while, it looks like the battle with Arkea will be more balanced. She is packing a lot more firepower than Typhoid Mary. However, any advantage she might have had against Storm and Rachel quickly disappears the moment a pissed off Monet catches up with her. And since the body Arkea is inhabiting isn’t exactly the Hulk, she’s also overmatched. She tries pointing out that she’s a fucking plague who has infested most of the planet. Then the all-female X-men team point out that they still have John Sublime on their side, who may or may not have a boner for Rachel Grey, and he has been all too eager to help them screw her over. So they have already neutralized her little infestation. Psylocke and Omega Sentinel even catch up, making sure she has nowhere to fucking run.

But what about the Black Queen and the Goblin Queen? Why aren’t they coming to her aid? Well this is where it doesn’t really take much cunning. It only takes a little mild diplomacy, namely the kind that gives George W. Bush and Dick Cheney migraines. Storm basically makes a deal with them. They’ll allow them to walk away and won’t bother them if they just let them fuck up Arkea. Seeing as how Arkea was looking to control them and that already lead Ana Cortes to stab herself, it’s not an unreasonable move. Since they both just came back to the world of the living, I imagine they’ll want to visit a few spas before they risk getting killed by the X-men and/or ex-husbands again. So they ditch Arkea just as Ana did, minus the stabbing. Hell, they come out as the only winners in this battle because they got resurrected and didn’t have to do a damn thing to repay it. They basically skipped the part where they had to become mindless zombies and like hitting a jackpot in Las Vegas, it’s best to quit while they’re ahead before they blow too much of their winnings on booze and hookers.

With no more Sisterhood to back her up, Arkea is defeated in an exceedingly inglorious way. Monet uses a special gun that John Sublime helped them make. It destroys Arkea, but doesn’t kill the host. So everybody else wins while Arkea loses. There are no hard decisions to make like the first time and there’s not much drama. It makes for a somewhat muted end. The only thing that does add some sense of drama is Omega Sentinel’s announcement that she’s not going back to the Jean Grey Institute. She would rather run off with Gabriel and probably reenact scenes from 50 Shades of Grey on a beach in Tahiti. None of the other X-women blame her. At least one of them should end up with a handsome man who isn’t as creepy as John Sublime. It might as well be Omega Sentinel, the first girl that Arkea screwed over.

While her departure isn’t all that heartfelt, it is fitting. Omega Sentinel was a major player in Arkea’s first attack. She also hasn’t really done much to distinguish herself in this book or any of the other X-books. She’s basically a D-list character trying to find an opening where there is none. With Monet back in the fold and the X-books crowded with kick-ass women, she might as well take a vacation. I’m sure the others will envy her. At least she won’t have to be involved when Selene and Madelyne Pryror come back around to make them regret being so diplomatic. She doesn’t need to be Vladimir Putin to know how that shit is going to turn out.

The ending to the Arkea battle wasn’t too spectacular, but it was satisfying. The same can’t be said for the other plot that has been convoluting the story for the past few issues. For whatever reason, a story about a bunch of C-list X-men fighting a bunch of rusted Sentinels is seen as a story worth telling. I can see that being a side-plot to a single issue, but this shit has already lasted three issues and I smoke way too much weed to pay that kind of attention. There’s nothing all that interesting here. Jubilee survives a surprise attack. Kid Omega shows up to flaunt his shit like Ron Jeremy in a locker room. The Sentinels just crumble in the most predictable manner possible.

The only real substance here is some poorly developed lesbian side-plot and not of the sexy kind. Roxy has been trying to cop a feel from Mercury the past few issues. It resulted with Mercury punching Roxy in the face. I’m sure if Roxy had balls, those would have been kicked as well. But not much comes of that. They just agree to get along. They don’t even try to make out. It’s by far the worst lesbian love story since Rosanne’s stint on The View. There’s no suspense and really no connection with the Arkea plot. It’s so forgettable that after a few bong hits, it might as well have never happened.

Once again, this issue was divided into two separate plots. One plot was awesome and the other was more forgettable than Dennis Rodman’s acting career. But this time, the plot that was awesome took up most of the issue while the plot that sucked was cleaned up like a crusted over scab. While I wouldn’t have minded if the whole rusted Sentinel battle was replaced by a single panel of Jubilee filing her nails and spitting on the wreckage, I do think there’s something to be said about a shitty plot actually being seen through to the end. A drunk like me would have just taken a “let’s not and say we did approach” before getting another case of whiskey. That way if I pass out drunk, I have an excuse. Well there were no excuses made for this issue. It bit the bullet and finished the story. And at least one of those endings was pretty damn satisfying and not just because it left the door open for Selene and Madelyne Pryor to run around in black lingerie. The story with Monet, Arkea, and Lady Deathstrike effectively ended. It wasn’t terribly epic, but it worked. I give X-men #12 a 7 out of 10. In the future, pitting Jubilee and a team of C-list X-men against an army of rusted Sentinels need not cut into an actual story. Just make it a Danger Room simulation or one of Wolverine’s hangover cures, and it works just as well. Nuff said!

Reminders and Resurrections: X-men #11

The following is my review of X-men #11, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

It’s no secret that death is a revolving door in comics. When most characters die or are killed off, it’s more like the superhero equivalent of taking a sick day. They step down in the most definitive possible way, allowing other characters to try and fill the void. More often than not, they fail miserably or the novelty wears off. Bucky Barnes didn’t stay Captain America for very long. And Dick Grayson couldn’t give the mantel of Batman back to Bruce Wayne fast enough. It would be annoying if it didn’t work so well at garnering attention. It’s like someone burning their house down to get the neighbors to help with some landscaping.

But not all death in comics carries the same weight. That sounds like a strange concept because in real life, death the third most definitive event there is after birth and taxes. In comics, however, the very concept of a character being dead is subject to more technicalities than modern banking regulations. Sometimes a character can be officially dead, yet in a state of limbo. Sometimes they can be technically alive, but they might as well be dead. Like quantum mechanics, it’s as baffling as it is convoluted. However, it does have some perks in that it makes it easier to bring certain characters back from the dead without burning any houses down. And X-men #11 takes advantage of that in a way that would make any lobbyist for the banking industry smile.

Death and resurrection has been a consistent theme since Lady Deathstrike returned to the X-books. She had been a disembodied ghost. Now she has taken over the body of young Columbian woman who happens to be the daughter of a rich crime lord. In many respects, Lady Deathstrike traded up because this body gave her the resources to start the Sisterhood of mutants. And as the story has unfolded, she has brought a number of deadly female villains into the mix. In the process, however, she ceded her control of the Sisterhood to Akrea, another disembodied menace that was supposedly killed. It’s a common thread that has made the Sisterhood a much more compelling threat than just another killer robot.

And the all-female X-men are still several steps behind the Sisterhood. In the past few issues, they’ve been outsmarted and outmaneuvered to a point where they would come off as inept of this were a typical buddy cop movie. But that’s not the underlying theme here. They’re dealing with an enemy that is very resourceful, very powerful, and very dedicated to hurting them in every possible way. It’s like giving a jaded ex-spouse a blank check and unlimited access to automatic weapons. That’s what makes the Sisterhood more interesting than the X-men at this point. They are master villains with an agenda that even competent heroes can’t keep up with.

While the X-men keep falling behind, the Sisterhood take full advantage of it by adding to their ranks. This involves spinning that revolving door of death a little faster. The first one to benefit is Selene Gallio, the Black Queen. She is one of those characters who was never killed off in some dramatic battle. Her fate was left ambiguous after Necrosha, which was the last event she appeared in. This ambiguity is only partially addressed when Emora and Lady Deathstrike bring her back to life. Necrosha is mentioned, offering some insight into her status. But not much is explained about how she ended up some disembodied spirit in a special containment room. It renders the impact of her return somewhat muted. However, it does succeed in adding to the ranks of the Sisterhood.

That muted impact goes back to death not carrying the same weight for some characters. Given Selene’s background with magic and death, her return doesn’t conjure the same emotions as the return of Captain America or Superman. And it’s not supposed to either. Even as a villain, Selene is not Captain America. She’s not even on the same level as Squirrel Girl. She’s a character who uses her power and dark persona to contribute to a story. She’s essentially the hotness that a habanero pepper leaves in that the hotness tends to be more noteworthy than the pepper itself.

The same can be said for the other female villain that the Sisterhood plans to bring back, Madelyne Pryor. But unlike Selene, Madelyne has more emotional weight following her. As the former wife of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, she has been part of some very powerful moments in the history of X-men. She actually was the one that established the first Sisterhood of Mutants back during Matt Fraction’s run on Uncanny X-men. Her status is much less ambiguous than Selene’s and the X-men figure this out. They figure out what the Sisterhood is doing, but they’re still too far behind to stop them.

It has all the makings of a thrilling chase. It’s Jack Baur or Ethan Hunt trying to hunt down a team of highly skilled terrorists before they can strike. But this thrill is also heavily muted. They never even get around to bringing Madelyne Pryor back. It’s only set up for the next issue. The story loses focus when it diverts attention to another team of young X-men taking on an old army of Sentinels that Arkea resurrected. It also loses focus when the body that Lady Deathstrike has inhabited decides to turn against the Sisterhood. These developments don’t add much to the story. They’re more like distractions akin to the annoying pop-up ads that come up before a streaming video. So instead of taking advantage of this potential, the issue sacrifices it in favor of adding new plots. That’s like adding an extra racing stripe to a drag racer instead of a more powerful engine. It keeps the story from going as far as it could have.

Despite this unrealized potential, the death and resurrection theme remains a consistent and compelling feature of X-men #11. More than anything, it establishes the Sisterhood as a powerful threat that will test the all-female X-men in ways nothing else has to this point. It can do without the ongoing side-plots with Jubilee, John Sublime, and the other students at the Jean Grey Institute. These are characters that have no history of dying and coming back to life yet. Selene and Madelyne Pryor do have that history. This along with their choice of attire makes them a much more compelling story and one where too much material was wasted for no good reason.

Final Score: 5 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: X-men #11

There’s a great schism among comic book fans that sometimes turns into an all-out gang war. It happens whenever characters are killed and/or brought back to life. Some bitch and moan that it demeans a character’s death to just bring them back after a few years. Some bitch and moan that it demeans a character’s potential to keep them dead. Like the gay marriage debate, nobody is ever going to change anybody’s mind on these issues. But no matter how pissed off or outraged one side gets, these books just keep selling. And between the sales of Blackest Night and Civil War, major comic book publishers have no reason to stop. Now I don’t expect quite the same outrage in wake of the revelation in Brian Wood’s X-men that he’s bringing Madelyne Pryor and Selene back from the dead. But I’m sure there will be some people out there who will find a reason or a way to bitch and moan about it. So before I begin my review of X-men #11, let me just say fuck these people with an adamantium dildo.

The first lady to get the Jesus Christ treatment is Selene, the Black Queen. This probably isn’t going to surprise anyone. Her “death” wasn’t as final as Nightcrawler’s or Cable’s and neither one of those two stayed dead. She was last seen in the Necrosha event, which was built around reanimating the corpses of dead mutants. Her fate was somewhat ambiguous. And to bring her back, Emora and Lady Deathstrike break into a special vault hidden in a New York City bank that contains whatever invisible bits of the Black Queen that are still alive.

Now Necrosha is mentioned, which is a nice touch. But there’s no explanation whatsoever as to how she ended up in this vault, disembodied or otherwise. That may be too much to ask given the constraints of the story, but it’s telling that this vault is in fucking New York City and all it takes is a little black magic to bring her back. And I refuse to believe there isn’t some crazy psychopath in Marvel’s version of New York City that has too much free time and practices black magic.

I won’t say this method of brining the Black Queen back is entirely contrived. The mention of Necrosha and the mystical elements is basically par for the course with her. And since Emora the Enchantress is a fucking Asgardian goddess, she’s more than qualified to do something as simple as bring back the dead. I’m sure that’s something she did for shits and giggles as a teenager in Asgard. And it fucking works. The Black Queen re-appears to them in the flesh. She’s even naked, which is always a nice bonus. She doesn’t look all that trilled about being alive again. She’s the fucking Black Queen. I imagine being brought back from the dead is like that feeling drunks get after they recover from a hangover, which usually involves a desire to go out and get drunk all over again.

The resurrection of the Black Queen is a clear sign that the Sisterhood is several steps ahead of the all-female X-men. In the previous issue, they tried to chase them down in Dubai before they could do any more damage with Arkea. They didn’t necessarily fail, although Monet nearly got herself killed. However, they did get tricked into going in the wrong direction. Storm, Rachel, Psylocke, Monet, and Omega Sentinel end up storming some fancy yacht, which leads to somewhere between dick and jack shit. They don’t deny that they’ve been pwned, which is more than I can say for 85 percent of anyone on a message board. But they know they’re in trouble.

And it’s here where their mission gets a little more refined. It’s not as basic as a Power Rangers re-run where they just call upon zords and find the giant monster to destroy. It’s more like an episode of 24 or a Mission Impossible movie where the enemy is actually smarter than a bucket of horse piss. Monet, who happens to be an ex-cop, points this out and reasons that the Sisterhood isn’t just attacking them outright. They have a plan that is smarter than something that a Bond villain would come up with. That includes finding new recruits and ensuring they have enough firepower to take on the X-men. It’s mostly talk, but it’s meaningful talk that shows a level of refinement that is under-appreciated in comics. It’s no Downtown Abby, but it does make the plot a bit more engaging.

What isn’t as engaging is how the Black Queen adjusts to the world of the living again. And that’s to be expected to some extent. She’s the fucking Black Queen. She’s not the kind of person to be writing poems about roses and dancing in the fields naked celebrating the joys of life, although I wouldn’t mind seeing that. She just puts on her usual exceedingly sexy uniform, touches up her makeup, and catches up with what’s going on. She’s not all that impressed at first, but then Arkea shows up and lets her read her mind. And in an instant, she goes from superior alpha bitch to prison bitch. It may seem out of character for the Black Queen, but it’s not wholly unreasonable. Arkea already got a fucking Asgardian on her side. Getting the Black Queen to obey her really isn’t that much of a stretch. Plus, she’s tasked with killing the X-men. I don’t think she needs to be manipulated that much to help with that.

All this is happening while the all-female X-men are trying to catch up. Right now, they’re more behind the curve than Forest Gump in a nuclear physics class. But they’re not stumbling around in the dark like a drunk looking for their cell phone. They continue to show real detective skills that prove once again that having a penis or being Batman isn’t necessary to solve crimes. They find out through their sources that someone with a fuckton of money bought some remaining genetic material from Madelyne Pryor and it happens to be the same person that bought access to the Black Queen’s vault. Since they already figured out that Lady Deathstrike is now inhabiting the body of an exceedingly rich woman whose family has strong criminal ties. It doesn’t take any real detective skills to figure out just how fucked they are.

And if it sounds strange that somebody would actually buy the remains of dead mutants, that’s actually addressed. Apparently, there’s actually a market in the Marvel universe for mutant memorability. But they don’t just stop at napkins, clothes, or used tampons. They go so far as to sell genetic material to collectors, fanboys, and people who just like to hoard weird shit. It sounds fucked up. But after watching just one episode of Pawn Stars, I find it painfully believable. And because of this fucked up human tendency to hoard weird shit, it’s going to bring the Goblin Queen back to life. It makes me wonder how the fuck the human race isn’t extinct yet.

It’s a very exciting prospect. The all-female X-men now know what the Sisterhood is up to and it’s a race against time to stop them. This is an enemy that’s smart, resourceful, and cunning. It should be an epic struggle. That’s exactly why the story goes downhill way too fucking fast when that plot is just flat out abandoned. And instead, we catch up with fucking John Sublime. He’s still at the Jean Grey Institute and under constant watch. He has a little chat with Kid Omega that really contributes absolutely nothing to the story other than reminding readers that he was once a villain. I’ve killed a lot of fucking brain cells in my life and even I still remember that. And if I don’t need a reminder, then this scene is a fucking waste.

Things get slightly back on track with the Sisterhood, but only for the length of a single bong hit. As Typhoid Mary is sparring with Lady Deathstrike and pondering the kind of shit she has gotten herself into, the body that Lady Deathstrike inhabited suddenly takes over. The woman, Ana Cortes, suddenly breaks free and is able to overcome Lady Deathstrike’s control. And the first thing she does is ask Typhoid Mary to kill her. She’s even more overwhelmed by this shit than Typhoid Mary and would rather just die than deal with someone like Akrea and the Black Queen.

While I can’t say I blame her, this sudden shift only fucks up the flow of the plot even more. There is some decent action when Ana attacks Typhoid Mary, but it’s all very underwhelming. And when Arkea shows up, her first response is to gut herself. Again, it’s underwhelming because it’s so sudden and has had no build-up whatsoever. For all the promise of a clash between the Sisterhood and the X-men, it’s like a bad LSD trip. It goes from riding a unicorn with naked bikini models to chasing giant raccoons while wearing a speedo. It makes no sense and kills the momentum of the story.

It’s a disappointing turn of events and it isn’t helped by attempting to squeeze even more sub-plots into the mix. A few issues ago, Arkea resurrected a bunch of rusted Sentinels from the ocean floor and had them attack a beach. For the X-men, fighting a bunch of rusted Sentinels is like playing Resident Evil with cheat codes. It kills any sense of thrill. There is some action. Jubilee leads a team that includes Mercury, Hellion, Roxy, Pixie, and Cipher against these rusting pieces of junk. It’s colorful and flashy. But like seeing the same horror movie in broad daylight, it really doesn’t have much impact.

The only major twist it can manage is Jubilee disappearing in the end. The explanation for it is pretty piss poor. They manage to rough up the Sentinels, Bling saves Mercury, and everything else is basically a typical Tuesday for the X-men. But Jubilee just disappears and there’s not much hint as to why. Now it could end up tying into other parts of the story. But as it stands, it’s more disconnected and disjointed than the beta version of Windows Vista. It offers none of the impact shown by the Sisterhood arc and generally feels as though it takes away completely from the actual story. Anyone reading this comic while drunk or high will probably have already lost interest by now.

I admit I was very excited for this issue. The prospect of seeing the Black Queen and the Goblin Queen share the same comic was just too awesome for my brain and my penis to process. And while this issue did deliver the Black Queen and set up the Goblin Queen’s return, it threw a lot of unnecessary crap in the mix that was more forgettable than Brittney Spears’ first marriage. Was it really necessary to see John Sublime taking a walk with Kid Omega? Was it really necessary to make a big deal about the young X-men fighting off a bunch of rusted old Sentinels? I say fuck no and even if it was warranted, it didn’t have to completely disrupt the momentum of the story. That’s what makes X-men #11 so disappointing. It had so many great elements going for it. But like a guy trying to do his taxes while giving his girlfriend oral sex, it’s just too much. While I’m still excited for the next issue, I can only give X-men #11 a 5 out of 10. The Black Queen was naked in this issue and that’s worth something. But there was way too much trivial shit that got in the way of the actual story. It essentially cock-blocked readers like me and I get enough of that shit at college frat parties. Nuff said!