Announcement: Hiatus On Reviews

I've been waiting for the right time to announce this. There really is no easy or funny way to say it, regardless of how sober or not sober I am. I've been doing reviews on this blog for years now. I've been providing regular drunken rants on major events like Fear Itself, Brightest Day, Avengers vs. X-men, and Secret Wars. I've offered my colorful commentary on all sorts of developments, from DC's New 52 to Marvel NOW! During that time, I've tried to make this blog a source for entertainment, reviews, and insight. I've also tried to use it as a means of promoting X-men Supreme and my various publishing efforts.

Now, after a lot of time and some careful meditation, I've decided to take a break from reviewing comics on this blog. I know this will come as a disappointment to those who rely on my drunken rants to fill them in on the events of X-men, Marvel, and DC comics. For this, I apologize. I did not come to this decision easily, but in recent times, I feel as though the quality of my reviews has declined or stagnated. They just aren't on the same level as they used to be and that has everything to do with me and not the comics themselves.

In addition to the quality, I've also begun a new blogging project for my writing at Jack Fisher's Official Publishing Blog. With this blog, I'm hoping to make more of a push to become an established writer. As much as I enjoy writing X-men Supreme, I want to make a career out of writing and this blog just isn't helping me enough with that.

It's gotten to a point where writing these reviews every week has become a chore and in my experience, when something becomes a chore, it limits the ability to make it awesome. I don't want to pump more crap onto the internet because there's already enough of that to go around. I want to contribute quality awesome.

Now in an effort to provide some level of poetic closure, I will be reviewing Death of X. I think this will be a fitting way to shelve Nuff Said! After that series concludes, I'll continue posting my PopMatters reviews and my extended previews for X-men Supreme, however long that series goes. I'm also working on developing partnerships with other comic book websites like ComicsVerse. I may also try a few more things down the line, but I haven't decided yet. For now, Death of X will be the end of the road, at least for now.

Again, I'm sorry to all those who have come to enjoy my reviews, but between stagnant traffic and lower quality, I can't in good conscious continue. Now I am willing to post reviews and feedback from other writers. If you're at all interested, please let me know and I'll try to coordinate. If someone wants to contribute to this blog, I'm more than happy to work on that.

At the moment though, I feel like I need to direct my energy into other projects. This could change down the line, but for now, I feel like this is the right thing to do for me and for this blog. Thanks to everyone who has supported and commented on this blog at every turn. I hope that support continues with future projects. Nuff said!

Announcement: No More Scanned Thoughts

For the past several months, I've been contemplating the future of this blog. I've been working on it for the past five years now, providing weekly reviews and offering my own colorful insight into comics. And I've enjoyed it. It's been a fun ride, adding a humorous twist to reviewing comic books. But at the same time, I feel as though the quality of my work has stagnated. It shows in the declining traffic coming to this blog. Now some of that might be my fault in that I'm just not providing enough quality material. But it's gotten to the point where it feels like I'm putting a lot of work into these reviews and getting nothing out of them. So as of now, I will no longer be doing reviews in the mold of Scanned Thoughts.

I know this is disappointing to some. For that, I apologize. However, I get the sense now that most people read my reviews just for the scans and not the content. It makes for a lot of work and not a lot of reward. So for now, it makes sense to end these reviews until I can figure out a better way of using this blog.

I will continue to submit reviews to PopMatters.com and I'll be posting those reviews here. I'll also be providing extended previews of upcoming issues to X-men Supreme, at least for now. But until I figure out a better use of this blog, I will not be posting anymore Scanned Thoughts. To those who have supported this blog, I sincerely appreciate it. If anybody has any suggestions on how to best use this blog, I'd be happy to listen. But now, I think it's best that I stop for now and re-evaluate the best way to provide quality content to readers.

Jack

X-men Supreme + PopMatters.com = Major Announcement

Got some exciting news to announce! No, Marvel hasn’t offered me a job and no, Scarlett Johannsen still hasn’t responded to my marriage proposal. But hopefully, this will improve the future of X-men Supreme. I have received an offer from the fine folks at PopMatters.com and they were sufficiently intrigued by my passionate, and sometimes obscene, reviews that they have offered me a chance to write regular comic book reviews for them. So I won’t just be another faceless fanboy posting his comic book rants on some obscure blog. My work will actually be posted to a regular website! To say I’m excited about this would be like saying Power Girl’s tits are just average.

I rest my case.

So because of this opportunity and the maybe foolish hope that it will help both this blog and the official X-men Supreme website, the format for my reviews will change. I understand I spend a lot of time ranting and raving, sometimes going off on complete tangents that recount the horrors of high school or why ex-girlfriends are living incarnations of Satan. For these reviews, I’ll have to be more concise. So they’ll be shorter and edited by the fine folks at PopMatters.com for widespread public consumption. Hopefully, that means less spelling mistakes and punctuation errors. In other words, suck it, grammar Nazis!

I’ll also have to wait a while to post my reviews until they’re analyzed by people way smarter than me. I know I’ve been pretty good about posting my reviews regularly, but now I’m trying to make them more professional and hopefully more awesome. I started doing reviews just as something to help provide extra content for my blog and for my X-men Supreme website. I’ve come to enjoy it so much that it seems as though some people are genuinely fond of them. For that I thank those people and I hope they continue to enjoy my distinct critical style under PopMatters.com.

As for those of you who don’t give a damn about the hard work I put into my reviews and care only about the images I post, I want to say tough shit, but I have too much love for those people as well. Some don’t get a chance to read the books I review and rely on my reviews for insight and updates. With that in mind, here’s how I’m going to try working this blog from now on.

Every week, I’ll pick some comics to review and work with PopMatters.com to post it. And once PopMatters.com posts it, I’ll also post it on my blog, possibly with a few extra tweaks and rents. In addition, I’ll create separate posts that I’ll call “Scanned Thoughts.” It’ll basically post some of the images that I usually use in my reviews and add a few quick blurbs. Like if in a new issue of Uncanny X-men there’s a page where Emma Frost and Dazzler strip down to their underwear and have an oil wrestling match, I’ll post it and make a few quips about it. But I won’t be as thorough as I was with my previous reviews. I’ll save that for the actual insight that I’ll post in PopMatters.com.

Now if this shit doesn’t work, I’ll tweak it. If someone has a better idea, I’ll listen. But there are only so many hours in the day and I can’t write two reviews for the same damn comic. Maybe if I had Sage’s brain and the Flash’s speed, I could. But for now, I’ve got to work within my mortal constraints and I think this is the best way to do it.

Almost as excited as Cyclops. Almost.

So once again, I thank the wonderful people at PopMatters.com for giving me this opportunity! Hope this is a bold new phase for X-men Supreme. Excelsior!

Quick Message About Comments

You know what today is, my wonderful readers! It's new comic day! That means I'll be getting started on reviews soon enough. But before I get to that, I just wanted to make an announcement to the fine folks who take the time to post comments on my reviews.

In short, my bad guys! I usually try to respond to those comments. While I may be a drunk, I do want to show those who take the time to support this blog and the X-men Supreme fanfiction series that I give a damn and appreciate their efforts. But these last few weeks have sucked for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with the typical hangovers. I've been sick. I've been tired. I've just had more issues than usual. So while I may not have time to respond to all the comments posted here, I none-the-less deeply appreciate them all. Thanks guys! Please keep them coming and I'll keep getting drunk and reviewing comics!

To further placate your outrage, here is an overtly pornographic image of Emma Frost.

We good now? Nuff said!

X-men #35 - Brainwashing Awesome

At some point in our lives, we all join a cult of some kind. It may not be the kind of cult that requires you to shave your head, eat nothing but grass, and give your daughters and sisters to some charismatic leader that claims salvation flows through his penis. But it can be every bit as irrational. When I was a kid, I spent times in cults such as Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'm pretty sure there were fans that would have waged a second civil war on the merits of why Rapheal was cooler than Leonardo or why the Green Ranger could kick the ass of every Red Ranger that ever existed. Maybe we're just wired to take a nose dive into Lake Bullshit and savor the stench before it threatens to give us permanent brain damage. Unfortunately, there are cults out there like the aformentioned cult leader who tries to base an entire religion around his penis. And those peoples' brains are damaged beyond repair.

Brian Wood introduced us to a cult with more than their share of brain damage in his last issue. Fresh off the mediocre yet enjoyable proto-mutants arc, he has Storm and her security team investigating this freaky cult that's being run by this guy who looks uncomfortably similar to Jesus Christ. I'm sure Brian Wood has gotten his share of death threats from devout Christians with too much free time on their hands, but probably no more than I get on a weekly basis for the religion jokes I tell on this blog. This cult is basically a mix of Heaven's Gate, Mormonism, and Rastafarianism. They believe in seeking perfection with a capital P. And for some reason that Wood hasn't explored just yet, Domino has a history with them. Both she and Psylocke infiltrated a cruise ship full of followers in hopes of tracking down the leader and the exotic substances he's seeking to exploit thanks to guys you probably don't find on Craigslist. Now they have to channel their inner blasphemy to end this shit so these people can go back to slightly less crazy cults that only demand you worship books written by Bronze Age goat herders with epilepsy.

X-men #35 depicts a volatile situation involving a volatile guy with gullible followers and a shit ton of guys with guns. It's essentially David Koresh and the Branch Davidians all over again, minus any apparent polygamy. And in the post 9/11 world, the United States government is a little wary when it comes to crazy religious cults that don't fund the Family Research Council or support Rick Santorum. Storm tells Psylocke, who managed to tap the cult leader's Asian fetish in the last issue, that cruise missiles are on their way. And the cult leader doesn't seem to give a shit. He claims he'll become immortal by using the samples from the proto-mutants that Wood introduced in the previous issue as an energy drink. It's not unlike Pat Robertson's energy drink, but in this case it actually works without having to send him money. It sounds pretty fucked up, but it actually fits nicely because it ties this arc into Wood's first arc. And like having pot dealers that know good hookers, those connections go a long ways.

Whoever this cult leader is, he must have really done something to piss off the American government. Apparently, politicians and military folk are a bunch of pussies in the sense that a crazy cult leader with a bio-weapon derived from proto-mutants gives them a tummy ache. Rather than chug some Pepto Bismal like most normal people, they decide to fire a cruise missile at the cruise ship with all those innocent people who were just too gullible to stick to traditional Bronze Age mythology. Because if there's one thing George W. Bush taught us, it's that no problem can't be solved with the proper application of cruise missiles and children's do learn.

This forces Pixie to once again upstage every teenage girl who ever lived by flying out of the comforts of the plane and getting to the missile before it reaches the ship. Meanwhile, Domino managed to work her way up to the deck and look damn sexy while doing it. She's quite eager to shoot the cult leader, but Storm reminds them that they need that proto-mutant sample. And since the son-of-a-bitch drank it, they can't go blowing his brains out. I'm pretty sure Domino is thinking Storm is the biggest killjoy since Mitt Romney.

As you would expect, chugging a bunch of proto-mutant DNA like jello shots tends to fuck a guy up. The cult leader pulls a gun on Psylocke and points it right at her while boasting how creepy glowing eyes are his idea of perfection. Makes me wonder what he considers to be a the perfect size for a pair of breasts. But the man is clearly undergoing a fucked up transformation and Domino's plan to blow his brains out becomes increasingly more appealing. However, Storm reminds them that they need that sample of proto-mutant DNA. She talks about how this shit could do more than just give cult leaders boners after they're tired of marrying underaged girls. It could actually help mutants in the same way stem cells help the people who don't give money to radical anti-abortion nutjobs. So they have to be gentle with this deranged zealot and get a sample of his blood.

It turns out not to be quite as difficult as it sounds. Domino is probably disappointed that she didn't get to use her gun. I'm sure that dries her pussy up faster than a picture of Rick Santorum's anus. But with Psylocke, this battle is over with a quick psionic blade to the head. The cult leader demonstrates no crazy powers. He doesn't shoot fire from his nose or fart energy blasts. He just boasts for a while how this proto-mutant stuff has made his dick bigger, but then Psylocke takes him out. But while the fight itself may not be very exciting, something intriguing does happen along the way. It's not as fun as watching two beautiful women beat the shit out a Jesus wannabe, but it's still compelling.

While they're attempting to get a blood sample, Domino suggests they just throw the sample in the ocean and let sharks shit all over it. Now why would they want to do that after going through all this trouble and dressing like New Age nuns? Well Domino points out that Storm hasn't exactly been too honest lately. She's been lying to Cyclops and the rest of the team has gone along with her because she's fucking Storm. She's also a competent leader and can shoot a lightning bolt up your ass if you don't get with the program. But Domino points out that by continuing this lie, they'll only doom themselves to more missions like this. So it may be best to just nip it in ass right now and ditch the sample, despite all the help it could do. It may sound extreme, but it actually shows signs that Storm's lies and deception are having an effect. It's a different kind of drama that goes beyond which character is trying to bone the other. It hints at a larger internal conflict with Storm's team and one I hope Brian Wood pursues, if for no other reason than to see Domino, Psylocke, and Storm fighting each other, preferably while naked and covered in oil. What? Don't tell me that thought hasn't crossed your mind.

Eventually, Psylocke decides to risk taking the sample. That pretty much guarantees that Domino will get to say "I told you so, bitch" in a later issue. But once this little debate is done, we do get some more classic action in the form of Pixie stopping the cruise missile. It's not as visually appealing as seeing two beautiful women beat the shit out of crazy cults, but it helps fill the action void. Brian Wood may favor more subtle means of action, but there will never be a substitute for seeing a teenage girl teleport a cruise missile to the arctic circle and watching it blow up. It's like stoners with aluminum foil, minus the lower sperm count.

When all is said and done, Storm's team returns and they give a quick report to Cyclops. Storm continues to follow the same theme established since Wood took over in that she doesn't give Cyclops the full story or even hint at what her intentions will be from here on out. She only tells him they have the sample and aren't returning to utopia. But she does it in a coy, playful manner that any man with a functioning dick would find hard to ignore. It still confirms what Domino pointed out earlier. They're now pretty much stuck in Storm's little personal vendetta here and that's bound to get them neck deep in more shit. She already seems to have the next round planned as she contacts Sabra, who has been helping her since the previous arc. Now she wants to invite more shit into this conflict. Apparently, being neck deep just isn't enough for her.

The comic could have easily ended there, but Wood throws in a few juicy extras. It's not a coupon for a free lap dance at a strip club, but it's right up there. He shows that while Storm may have succeeded in her mission, she's starting to lose the loyalty of her team. Domino, who has never been one to just let shit slide be it a mission or a chance to get laid, is shown confronting Colossus who also hasn't been too fond of Storm keeping Cyclops out of the loop. Storm believes she's missing a piece of the puzzle and Domino knows they're going to be the ones that have to find it. So whatever this piece may be, someone is going to try and screw someone over and the money shot is bound to be extra messy.

For most new writers on a series, they try to start things out with a bang. They're like that guy that yells, "Sex! Now that I have your attention..." to open a speech.  Wood didn't use those tactics. At times, I think he should have. In reviewing his issues, I've often been underwhelmed. His proto-mutant arc wasn't bad, but it wasn't going to give anyone a boner they couldn't get from watching reruns of Nip Tuck. It never crashed and burned, but Wood clearly had a plan and he stuck to that plan. I think I can finally say it has paid off with this issue.

The story surrounding the proto-mutants linked up nicely in this short two-issue arc. It wasn't apparent in the previous issue, but Wood did a good job of tying up the loose ends in this issue. He didn't go light on the action either like he's done in previous issues. This issue had Domino fighting her way through a cruise ship, Pixie diverting cruise missiles, and Psylocke showing cult leaders that they'll need to find some other creative way to get gullible people to give them money and pussy. It all makes for a very satisfying conclusion that also continued Storm's growing theme of keeping Cyclops out of the loop. Since this shit happens before Avengers vs. X-men, it's clearly a prelude of sorts that Storm is prepared to turn on Cyclops, her husband, and pretty much anyone she damn well pleases.

The issue isn't without its faults. The ending was left a bit overly ambiguous. Wood is clearly not done with the proto-mutant story, but he doesn't really set anything up here. And overall, the mystery surrounding the proto-mutants really hasn't been explored any further other than showing that cult leaders love to take short cuts to becoming more crazy. Moreover, the cult leader was pretty damn inept. You never got the sense that he was a real threat that the X-men were going to struggle with. So while there was plenty of insight, there wasn't a whole lot of suspense. Your bladder and your colon are pretty much intact with every page.

None-the-less, this is by far the best issue of X-men that Brian Wood has written to date. He continues to show that while he may start slow, he's capable of catching up for those who have patience. In this day and age where peoples' attention span is only as long as their last Twitter post, that may not be a good long-term strategy. But for this issue, it works. I give X-men #35 a 4 out of 5. Let this be a lesson to all you folks out there looking to join a new shady religious group. If he demands complete devotion, walks around with body guards, and talks about perfecting the human spirit or some shit like that, he's either crazy or just wants to fuck you and is too cheap to get a hooker. Nuff said!

X-men #34 - The Bad Side of Awesome

Sometimes when you risk getting on someone's bad side, they hold that shit against you as if they want it tattooed on your forehead. Now I know superheroes are supposed to be upstanding and moral and shit, but they are capable of holding grudges. The big problem is that sometimes those grudges are warranted. Guys like Dr. Doom who hate Reed Richards just because he may be smarter or his dick may be longer are petty. But when one hero essentially thumbs their nose at another that considers them a trusted friend, then that hero damn well ought to be on someone's bad side. Unless their trusted friend is Jesus Christ, they're going to get on someone's bad side.

This is essentially what happened with Storm in Brian Wood's first arc of adjectiveless X-men. In addition to exploring the evolutionary history with mutants by introducing the concept of proto-mutants, he dedicated a good chunk of ink to having Storm resist calling in Cyclops for help at every possible turn. Even though her own teammates constantly badgered her about it like my ex-girlfriend constantly badgered me about my drinking, she didn't relent until the very end. Now Wood didn't have her do this just so Storm had an excuse to give Cyclops the finger that didn't involve him banging Emma Frost. She did this because she stated outright that Cyclops's whim is not the same as the X-men's whim. The X-men are bigger than Cyclops, which is a pretty ball-busting statement when you consider how much authority he's wielded in recent years. However, even if Storm's logic was valid, the end result amounted to a half-eaten cheeseburger and a promise from Bernie Madoff. She eventually did call Cyclops, but it was several issues too late.

Even though the arc itself was somewhat underwhelming, it had plenty of potential to be awesome. So it came as a relief of sort to see Wood continue this story in a new arc beginning in X-men #34. He plays up the mystery aspects of his story just as he did in his last arc. This time instead of using monsters and mad scientists with too much free time and too little porn, he shows a guy who looks a lot like a young Charles Manson getting his hands on an odd looking vial of goo. And in comics, odd looking vials of goo are usually either the seeds of a monster or the kind of shit people inject into their asses to make them monsters. It's kind of like meth, but without the bad teeth in that sense.

For Storm and her team, the mission with the proto-mutants in the previous arc is not finished. She finally did call Cyclops and he basically told her if she wants to keep him out of the loop, then she has to solve her own damn problems. He comes off as somewhat of an asshole, but then again Storm was the one that decided to keep him out of the loop. He's just giving her what she wants. Are we going to start condemning a man for giving a woman what she wants? The day that happens is the day every man's testicles turn to liquid helium.

Storm meets up with her team again and gets in touch with Sabra, the sexy female scientist who assisted Storm in the previous arc. She may not be an X-man, but what she lacks in the ability to shoot lasers or pop claws she makes up for with brains. And for some guys, that's almost as sexy as Emma Frost's boob job...well, maybe not almost. But she does tell Storm that one of the genetic samples from the proto-mutants was stolen and picked up by a group called Heavenly Path. Now unless that's the name of a female vibrator, you know that can only be trouble.

For whatever reason, Domino knows all about these guys. She explains that they're not into your usual cult shit like shaving their heads, ingesting hallucinogens, polygamy, or child slavery. They leave that shit to the Mormons and the Taliban. These guys are all about a religious pursuit of perfection. They eat, pray, and live with the sole intent of gaining perfection. Seeing as how perfection is pretty damn tough even in comics, they might as well be a cult intent on never taking a shit. Storm and Colossus speculate on how crazy a guy must be to form a cult like this. But is it really so crazy to want a legion of followers who will do whatever the fuck you want? Hell, that's not crazy. That's just your typical desire to be a complete douche.

Armed with this knowledge, Storm's security team tracks down Heavenly Path to a ship where they're holding one of their cruises. It's kind of like going on a church retreat, but with less beatings and exorcisms. Pixie flies Domino and Psylocke in, who they assume will fit right in since they're attractive women and we all know how cult leaders love attractive women. Well, it's more so they love what they can do with them. Just ask Warren Jeffs. But thanks to Psylocke's telepathy, they stay under the radar. They blend in with the spaced out hippie crowd, who all look like they've had one too many helpings from Jim Jones's punch bowl. They still look less crazy than your typical Mormon though.

After pretending to meditate for a while, the Jesus-looking cult leader we met earlier shows up and gives his little speech about how the world is corrupt and how they're all tainted. He claims the only way they can obtain perfection is through him. Usually when a cult leader says that, he's usually referring to his penis. He claims that the point of this little cruise is for them to be clean. Again, that sounds an awful lot like a cult leader referring to his penis. After he asks for volunteers, one of the cult leader's posse picks Psylocke out of the crowd, saying that the leader noticed her. Again, this guy really does seem to be thinking with his penis. Is it really too surprising that he picked out an attractive Asian woman?

Now I'm not trying to denigrate all cults here. I know most of them are just into harmless shit like tree hugging, yoga, and crystal worship. But I almost get the sense that Wood is trying to make a statement about these cults here. They remind me of Mr. Clean commercials. They make you feel like you're living in a dirty world and it's your god-given obligation to clean it. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I don't think there are enough people in this world who are content being a little dirty from time to time. There's a time to get dirty and a time to get clean. Too much of either will kill you.

Psylocke, taking full advantage of the cult leader's Asian fetish, goes with them to meet the leader. Domino, never one to be too content with sitting around without a gun, decides to get a little dirty. She leaves the group, beats up one of the guards, and takes his gun. That's really all a woman like her needs to fuck shit up and she's off to a good start. She takes out some of the guards and stays in touch with Psylocke, who is learning from the leader what they're all about. Nothing seems too outlandish at first. He explains that they want to build a better human race through meditating, diet, population control (codeword for letting him impregnate all the pretty young women), and what not. He also says they're into gene therapy and this is where that scene at the beginning as well as the events of the last arc come into play.

The leader, who to this point has been wearing Kim Jong Ill style sunglasses, shows that he's been putting that proto-mutant sample to good use. By good use, I mean he injected it. Now I'm all for injecting exotic substances into one's veins provided the effects are desirable, but this guy injected something into his body that gave him freaky glowing eyes and what looks like various veins on his face. I'm not sure what his definition of perfection is, but I'm pretty sure his is more fucked up than your typical cult leader who just sees perfection in gullible young women. It's creepy as hell, yet very intriguing. It's probably the most intriguing ending Brian Wood has conjured to date and one that'll either make you excited or give you nightmares.

When you think of an X-men comic, you usually don't think of stories that involve going undercover unless it has Mystique as a main character. Those are also the comics you expect someone to get screwed over in both the best and worse ways, but Mystique isn't in this comic. And in the X-books, it's hard to go undercover when the X-men are about as known for their subtlety as Emma Frost is known for her modesty. Yet somehow, Brian Wood finds a way to make it work. Not only does he take the story he began in the previous arc and continue it, but he adds upon it a new twist that puts Storm and her security team in a very different and very compelling struggle. Granted, it took until the last page for that struggle to get really interesting, but it definitely ensures that readers will want to see what happens next if for no other reason than to see if this crazy Jesus wannabe uses his new eyes to seduce some X-women. Who among us wouldn't if given the opportunity?

While I've been waiting and hoping to see this series get as awesome as it deserves to be under Brian Wood's pen, this issue doesn't completely succeed in the way I hoped. However, it does take a much greater step than any of the previous issues. The problem with this issue and the problem with many of the previous issues is that it's a bit too subtle for the sake of being subtle. I love that Wood is trying to build a mystery here, but the comic just drags too much at times. This issue was too much setup and not enough crazy religious cult leader making the X-men exceedingly uncomfortable in ways their skin tight uniforms could never hope to match. Wood still made sure all the other elements were solid, including the ongoing drama between Storm and Cyclops. While there was room for more, it's nice to see this series finally getting interesting again.

X-men #34 is not a spectacular issue, but it's definitely a step up from the last four issues. As I've said before, I've come dangerously close to dropping this title. I spend a shit ton of money on comics that I could be using for booze and blow so if a comic starts sucking, I don't have much patience. But Brian Wood has kept me hooked on this title because of all the potential it shows and now I'm finally getting the sense that it's starting to manifest. Since this only the first issue of this two-part arc, I hope the next issue brings everything together and kicks the asses of numerous religious zealots. That alone will make this arc awesome, but for now this issue gets a 3.5 out of 5. In these dangerous times where religious zealots are actually taken seriously on issues like women's health and minority relations, I think it's all the more vital for comics to use them in compelling stories. And by use them I mean use them for target practice. Nuff said!

X-men #32 - Secrets, Lies, and Awesome

When I was in middle school, there was this gym teacher that everyone agreed was a complete douche-bag. For the sake of argument, let's call him Coach Babydick. Every day at gym class, Coach Babydick would find new ways to torment us. He made us do push-ups over piles of dog shit. He made us run laps while he blared Barny songs from a boom box. He made us throw eggs at the car of the cute history teacher that wouldn't go out with him. I'm pretty sure there was no information whatsoever regarding the value of physical fitness, but I also know that every now and then a student wouldn't take his shit. That student often got punished, sent to the principal's office, or humiliated by having to sing "We Built This City" while wearing a dress. But our class always looked up to that student because we knew they were doing what was right and just. I'm not sure if Coach Babydick is still teaching, but I would be shocked if nobody planted weed in his office yet.

Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that Cyclops is worse than Coach Babydick in the X-men comics. However, I think it's more than reasonable to say that he's let his leadership role and the constant influx of Emma Frost's pussy that he enjoys has gone to his head. Sometimes, it's not a bad idea to go behind his back and do what you think is right. Sometimes that's a piss poor idea as well because as I said, this guy is boning Emma Frost so he has the balls and the resources to royally fuck your shit up. Someone has to have a damn good reason and Olympian sized balls to do that. That's exactly what Storm has in abundance in Brian Wood's ongoing adjectiveless X-men run.

Wood's first arc has taken this series into a different direction. No longer the series that Marvel uses to shamelessly milk withering teat of vampires. Instead, Wood has been telling a story using a unique cast of X-men led by Storm. They're supposed to make up Utopia's security team. However, they're also Utopia's de-facto CIA, minus the illegal torture facilities. For the past few issues, they've been investigating an unusual uptick in mutant activity in the form of monsters that crumble faster than Mitt Romney's support with the NAACP. That activity yielded the discovery of an entire new race of proto-mutants that for some reason are pissed off at natural selection for not picking them. Now they seek to take it out on the X-men and anything that gets in their way.

X-men #32 has Psylocke chasing down a suspected proto-mutant that looks like a guy who lost a battle with a blow torch and wants to take it out on the nearest den of baby rabbits. He also happens to be 80-feet tall, but since the X-men regularly battle giant robots his name might as well be John Smith. Storm uses her powers to create a little cover from nearby populated areas, hoping that these people don't get their power from Pepco. Then Psylocke tries to attack the creature and to her surprise, it actually shrinks to that of a normal-sized man who just looks like his ex-girlfriend threw him out and burned all his shit. But unlike the other proto-mutants they've encountered, this one doesn't turn into mush. He actually remains intact long enough to meet up with the rest of the X-men for a little chat.

Now when monsters start threatening to stomp over major cities, that is usually a good time to contact your fellow X-men buddies and let them know they should have their spandex cleaned and pressed for action. But just as she did in the previous issue, Storm makes it clear that Cyclops is not to know. She makes this clear even as Colossus, who has the power of the fucking Juggernaut mind you, tells her that it's a bad idea. It's another great scene that shows Storm asserting herself in a way that reminds readers that she was once and probably still is considered a top level leader with the X-men on the same level as Cyclops. But she does make a compelling argument in that she's not trying to serve Cyclops with this team. She's trying to serve the cause. And Cyclops is NOT the cause even if he is boning Emma Frost.

This is a great moment for Storm fans of all stripes and for all the Cyclops haters out there that would French kiss a goat if that goat somehow undermined Cyclops. However, at this point in the story it still doesn't quite explain why the hell Storm has it out for Cyclops. I get that she's trying to lead her own team, but at this point in the arc just fighting for the cause doesn't exactly explain why she's doing this. Is it just because she wants to prove she can lead as well as he can? Fine, I can get behind that. But at least make that shit clear. Don't make us just assume that she's doing this because Black Panther isn't buying her enough Wakandan brand panties.

This rather extreme aversion to enlisting help from Cyclops is made even more apparent when she gets a call from her human buddy, Dr. Hunter. In the last issue, she was enlisted by Storm to study some of the gunk they gathered from the dissolved monsters they faced. She was the one that helped them uncover that these creatures were actually proto-mutants. Well now it turns out that someone doesn't like her helping Storm. She tells her that her lab was trashed like a frat house on St. Patrick's Day. It sounds like another good reason to call Cyclops and Colossus points that out yet again, but Storm continues to refuse his assistance. She goes so far as to tell Dr. Hunter to keep working, lay low, and put herself in even more danger with no guarantee that they'll be able to protect her. There's undermining Cyclops and then there's just being reckless and Storm is dry humping it.

When she's not undermining Cyclops, however, Storm is still investigating these proto-mutants. At first she thought Pixie would be able to talk to the creature because let's face it. No matter what type of humanoid you are, the presence of a teenage girl helps you relax in a way directly proportional to the size of the thong she's wearing. But it turns out this creature speaks Russian so Colossus takes a stab at it, eventually getting Magik involved as well. As in, the same Magik that has to be locked up in a cell when she's not helping the Extinction Team. I would ask whether Storm was willing to call Cyclops now, but I'm pretty sure she would use a bolt of lightning to give me a circumcision.

With Magik's help, they find out that this proto-mutant has a name and it's called Ister. It sounds like the name of an 80s metal band, but he's actually a mutant that's over 600 years old that lived in the equivalent of a hippie commune back during a time when people thought that thunder was actually God farting. But like any commune of minorities back then, they were blamed for a plague that swept through a nearby village and probably for bad weather as well. So they were slaughtered, which is basically akin to complaining about it on the internet in medieval times. And Ister's own sister was taken from him so the humans could kill her, drink her blood, and hopefully cure themselves. It's basically akin to pre-modern homeopathy.

While tragic, this whole story was rather cliched. So he's a mutant that was the victim of pre-modern people who didn't know shit about shit. You could say that about every Jewish community in Europe at that time so it's really not all that compelling on the surface. At least it offers some insight on where these creatures came from. In the first issue of this arc, we saw that this shit began in a lab with a scientist of questionable ethics as so many X-men arcs often do. They don't know why someone sees fit to just resurrect these beings and sent them out to die. It may just be for shits and giggles, not unlike the CEOs of major banks when they buy vintage cars they know they'll never drive or marry women they know they'll never willingly fuck. Storm makes it clear their mission is to find that lab. Again, she says no Cyclops and no fucking time travel as Magik suggested. Storm is old school like that. If you can't kick it's ass in the here and now, you might as well put on a dress and sell yourself at the nearest club in Bangkok.

The mention of the lab finally sheds some light on something that was overlooked in the last issue. We even get a brief glimpse into what's going on while the X-men are uncovering more secrets. Apparently, Ister's sister was next in line to rejoin the world of the living and offer more shits and giggles to the nameless lab jockey. We still don't know much about him. He's no Sinister. He looks only mildly more insane than the guy that invented crazy glue and the snuggie. Again, the revelations about why he's doing this isn't as ground-breaking as you wish. He reveals that those first monsters were basically his method of trial and error. I'm sure there are more efficient ways to test your army of monsters, but I guess that's just not as much fun.

At this point he seems to be minimizing the errors because he also reveals that he has control over when the creatures turn into mush. So before Ister's sister can awaken and have a tearful reunion, he uses what looks like an app on his cell phone that's far more devious than the Shake a Baby app that causes Ister to start dissolving. This surprises and frustrates the X-men, who are still trying to get answers form Ister. But before he can return to that cozy little pasture we call death, Psylocke is able to get the necessary answers in a way that's not even as exciting as it sounds. She reveals that the name of the Sinister wannabe is David Michael Gray. She also reveals she knows where his lab is and he's a pretty sick bastard that's in need of therapy that includes a few severe concussions. It's a rather contrived way to get the X-men to source of the conflict and it wasn't all that exciting either. But it offers the promise of more monster battles so I guess we have that to look forward to.

Usually when an issue is more dialog than action, I find plenty to rant about. I tend to have a short attention span, depending on how much weed I have on hand. However, I am capable of enjoying a story that doesn't rely on blowing shit up every third panel. If the dialog is awesome and the story is compelling, I can do without the explosions and bad one-liners. Brian Wood is clearly setting up a very different style for his first arc. He's not relying on big, flashy battles like Gischler did with Curse of the Mutants. He's telling the story that revolves around a mystery and a dramatic struggle with Storm. At times Wood came close to overblowing Storm's intent on keeping Cyclops out of this comic at all costs. However, he was able to walk a fine line here and make this issue extra dramatic by having the proto-mutants do more than just dissolve into mush.

While I like what Wood did with Ister and Storm's leadership dramas, there were still a few areas that left me scratching my head as to why this is part of the story. I get what Storm is trying to do by keeping Cyclops out of the loop. I just don't get why the hell she's doing it. I know this shit takes place before Avengers vs. X-men. I can't recall too many instances where Storm and Cyclops were really at each others' throats and I can't recall when Cyclops really gave Storm a reason for wanting to go behind his back like this. In addition, the whole story with Ister just seems a little cliched. So he was a monster back at a time when even Jews were considered monsters. That's really not much different from every minority the Spanish Inquisition ever assaulted. It could have been more exotic, but Wood still found a way to make Ister lovable even if he's not someone you would want to invite to a baseball game.

Brian Wood's run hasn't been spectacular, but it's been interesting enough to keep me reading. He definitely has demonstrated the ability to tell compelling stories. He's set up plenty of interesting elements here. He just hasn't made them resonate on a sufficient level of awesome. This issue didn't have a lot of action, but it had plenty of melodrama and did fill in a few blanks that had been lingering from the previous issue. It's still a bit too subtle for the sake of being subtle though. I give X-men #32 a 3 out of 5. Now that the enemy is known, this arc has the chance to do more than just fight monsters that dissolve into dust. It also has the potential for Storm to make Cyclops's oversized balls shrivel somewhat and that's always makes for a fun story on some levels. Nuff said!

X-men #31 - Monsters, Evolution, and Awesome

There are a handful of people for which I have absolutely no respect for and would laugh my ass off if I saw them passed out in the middle of the road with dicks painted on their face in permanent marker. Hypocrites are one of them. Whether it's in comics or real life, hypocrisy tends to make the biggest assholes that spew the smelliest shit. But coming in at a close second are creationists. Now I know I tend to make jokes about religion here every now and then, but for the most part I try to respect religious beliefs even if they are pretty ridiculous. But I can't respect creationists. There's having a sincerely held belief and then there's just being willfully retarded. If you have to work that hard to ignore reality, then you don't deserve a brain.

One of the appeals that I often find with the X-men comics is that they take evolution and shove it in the face of people for whom evolution might as well be synonymous with Naziism. Granted, comics get evolution wrong in the same way they get pretty much all of physics wrong, but at least comics don't claim to be science textbooks and people don't cite them the same way creationists cite Bronze Age mythology as if it were a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Marvel has never claimed to be scientifically accurate in the stories it tells. However, it does try to bring some elements of facts into the mix. They seem to understand that the education system in America is fucked and kids need to get their information somewhere. Better they get it from a comic than from a priest that tells them Jesus wants altarboys to pose naked in a windowless room.

The adjectiveless X-men series, which was recently taken over by Brian Wood, has become a series that focuses mostly on the basics of X-men comics. You've got a team of mutants that have a certain amount of sex appeal going up against threats that involve monsters that would make Darwin shit himself. In X-men #30, the X-men's security team began investigating a series of monster attacks. In the process they uncovered something that prompted Storm to go behind Cyclops's back. She understands that unlike the bullshit creation stories that Michelle Bachmann probably reads to her kids while her husband is seeing a gay prostitute, monsters don't just come out of nowhere.

X-men #31 has the security team taking on another monster, this time one that looks like Cthulhu on a bad hair day. It's a lot more imposing than the monster they faced in the last issue. This one requires more than jut a few kicks in the ass. In fact, it requires a special little surprise that Madison Jefferies built into their plane. It's probably something similar to what Sean Penn has built into his car (or wishes he did). It delivers a nice shock to the creature while Colossus flexes those Juggernat powers of his.

The battle doesn't last much longer than the one in the previous issue, which basically mean the monster falls apart like Tony Romo in the playoffs. For reasons that were only slightly explored in the previous issue this creature isn't exactly built to harass superheroes or even rip-off Godzilla. Psylocke tries to get in touch with the creature's mind to see if maybe it would consider taking a job as the new mascot for Fox News. It's probably more appealing than Rupert Murdoch anyhow. But in doing so, Psylocke uncovers a rather disturbing secret and orders the X-men to pull back. They do so just in time to see the creature self-destruct. It's as much of a WTF moment as it sounds, but at least Wood tries to infuse some mystery by making this a lot more flashy than the one in the previous issue.

After they finish adjusting to the notion of monsters blowing themselves up before they have a chance to attack them, the security team returns to a base where they meet up with one of Storm's contacts. Her name is Sabra and she looks and awful lot like this female cop that beat me over the head with her night-stick when I asked if she was a stripper (I can't be the only one who has made that mistake). She gives Storm's team sanctuary in a private facility (ie away from Cyclops's prying eyes) that is run by Mossad (basically a more competent version of the CIA). Where Storm meets these women is beyond me. I guess when you marry a king, you have all the excuses you need to crash in someone's secret base. That shit probably comes in real handy when trying to attend one of Puff Daddy's parties.

While the rest of the team is enjoying their time on Mossad's payroll, Storm meets up with the geeky yet oddly doable researcher that she met in the last issue. In that issue, Storm gave her a sample of the gunk left over from the first monster they faced. She could have given her the remnants of the creature's colon for all she knew, but it was enough for her to uncover some pretty interesting revelations that would have made science class way less boring in college. Turns out these creatures are actually a new breed of mutant. Or more accurately, they're a kind of proto-mutant. They're not as advanced or as sexy as modern mutants, but they're still the kind of animal that would give creationists seizures.

Naturally, Storm doesn't see how nature or a god drunk on power could be behind these creatures. She and her brainy gal pal begin to speculate that someone with straight As in biology and too much free time is behind this. It's a far more likely possibility than simply assuming these creatures had just been overlooked by the mutants after all these years. Together they surmise that someone has been gathering all this ancient proto-mutant DNA and using it in the same way North Korea uses cheap labor. It may just be because playing god is the only thing that gets them a boner anymore. Or it may be because a new breed of mutant may be a valuable resource that could make them enough money to buy an army of supermodels. I tend to lean more towards the latter.

Now no one is ever going to mistake an X-men comic for a biology textbooks, but this is definitely one of Brian Wood's strengths thus far. He's able to tell a somewhat more grounded story aside from the usual giant robots or ancient Egyptian mutant tyrants. He likens these creatures to what neanderthals were to modern humans. It may not be much to those who slept through biology class or refuse to believe in evolution in favor of Bronze Age mythology. But it offers a certain level of refinement to a story that definitely goes a long ways towards being awesome.

While these answers are intriguing, there's a big problem that pisses Storm off. Now that it involves mutants, it means she has to tell Cyclops. And as we saw in the last issue, she's not exactly feeling good about Cyclops's recent trend of being a douche in between boning Emma Frost. She still claims she trusts him, but she says there's a side to Cyclops that she trusts implicitly and one she wouldn't want to be in a windowless room with. Right now she's dealing with the Cyclops that she wouldn't even ask to watch her goldfish, let alone trust. Domino and Pixie protest, but once again Storm makes clear that this is her team and she has a strict no-squealing-to-Cyclops policy. For the anti-Cyclops crowd out there, they should be jerking off happily to this scene.

Storm still insists on hunting down these creatures and finding the source on their own. So once they find another creature taking a stroll in Canada, they head straight for it with no intention of giving Cyclops the satisfaction of getting pissed off. They don't have to go too far to find the creature. Psylocke, the team psychic, picks up on a creature that looks like he spent way too much time in a tanning booth. She says his thoughts are fucked up, but it's really no different than what was implied earlier when she tried to make psychic contact with the Cthullu knock-off. She also claims she knows where he came from. That fantasy of an army of supermodels is definitely set to come crashing down now.

Unfortunately, we don't get any additional details. Just like the previous issue, this one ends with a new giant monster looking to fuck shit up in a major populated center and the X-men's security team are the only ones in a position to do something about it. In fact, it's so similar to the previous issue that you probably could have skipped the last issue and read this one without missing a beat. While I'm glad Brian Wood took some time to explore the secrets behind these new proto-mutants, he didn't do much to move the plot forward. There was a lot of potential here, but none of it was realized. We just have another big monster battle to look forward to in the next issue. Not that I mind big monster battles, but when they become too generic I start to miss the giant killer robots.

I admit I didn't enjoy reading mysteries growing up. If it required too much thinking or didn't have enough boobs or at least description of boobs to compensate, I didn't bother. I like to think my tastes have evolved in accord with my alcohol consumption. As such, I've come to appreciate stories with a well-crafted mystery and Brian Wood has set one up here in the pages of adjectiveless X-men. It's not on the same epic scale as Avengers vs. X-men or Messiah Complex, but it definitely offers a unique feel for the X-men's security team. They may technically be on Team Cyclops, but Storm is definitely making a case to call this series "Storm's Merry Band of Badass Mutant Motherfuckers." I'm sure it's a title that was only rejected because it was too generic.

This issue was loaded with explanations and intrigue, but it didn't have a whole lot to be excited about. The battle in the beginning was flashy and all. However, it really didn't do much more than the battle in the first issue did. A lot of time was spent providing an explanation on this new proto-mutant species. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, but like any good mystery story there need to be some clues dropped along the way and Wood didn't drop nearly enough. We didn't get to learn more about that scientist with a distinct "I Heart Sinister" look in his eyes that was introduced in the last issue. Some additional characters were brought in, but not really explored. The biggest strength of this issue was the setup, but that's been the theme for two issues now and the attention span of most comic fans is at least one issue less than that.

I like what Brian Wood is trying to do with this series. I think it has potential, but potential awesome isn't the same as actual awesome. It's like covered tits. It doesn't matter how nice they are, if they're covered they might as well not exist. I can't be too harsh because he's making Storm look more badass than she's been in ages. She's not just going behind Cyclops's back here. She's taking matters into her own hands in a way she hasn't since Marvel decided to marry her off to Black Panther. She's making this group of X-men her X-men. However, this conflict their a part of doesn't really approach what the Extinction Team or the Jean Grey Institute deal with in their books. Perhaps that will change in the next issue. For this issue, though, it's still just too much filler. That's why I give X-men #31 a 3 out of 5. Wood definitely has the skills here. But like those beautiful breasts I mentioned earlier, he needs to pull the covers off and shove the readers face in them. If it works for boobs it works for comics. Nuff said!

X-men #30 - Awesome Gives Us Wood

Every new writer that comes onto an X-book is like an amateur boxer that suddenly gets thrust into the ring with a 20-year-old Mike Tyson fresh off snorting blow from the tail of his pet tiger. As crazy as it may seem, there are a shit ton of other comic books out there. Most don't get even a fraction of the press your typical X-book gets. So writers damn well better know that before coming in because if they take this shit lightly, they will be the subject of endless hate mail and voodoo hexes. Just ask Chuck Austin and Brett Ratner if you don't believe me. However, I try to be more optimistic with new writers. They can just as easily bring some awesome ideas to the table as they can the ability to shit all over such ideas. Brian Wood is someone who has some light experience with the X-books, namely in the mini-series Alpha and Omega. It wasn't a series that got a lot of buzz. Minis that center around Quentin Quere mind-fucking people have their limits. But now Wood has a chance to do something bigger with adjectiveless X-men, a very open series from which Victor Gischler just capped off his run.

Wood is entering a series that has been on the uptick lately. After being more forgettable than Paris Hilton's music career for a while, the series has really grown since X-men Regensis. The book still has the theme of linking the X-men up with the larger Marvel Universe. It also covers a group of X-men tasked with addressing security threats to Utopia. It has some pretty heavy hitters with Storm, Warpath, Domino, and Psylocke. At the end of Gischler's run, they added another in Pixie. Wait...Pixie? That's not the name of a heavy hitter! That's a codeword you use with your dealer when you're trying to score some fresh blow! Pixie is a pink-haired, happy-go-lucky teenage Welsh girl who looks like someone who should be whining about Gucci purses, sexting, and Justin Bieber. Hopefully not in that order though. Yet over the past few years, she's become the Susan Boyle of the X-men. No one expected her to be great, yet she's taken on many prominent roles with the team and managed them quite well. If you can call helping contain a volatile situation with the Skrulls that she fucked up five times before she fixed managing that is.

This is what Brian Wood has to work with as he begins his run with X-men #30. Like every new X-men arc, there has to be a new crisis. This one comes in the form of a man named David Michael Gray. Notice how his last name is carefully spelled G-R-A-Y to avoid unnecessary connotations with that other character with a similar last name. At least this one doesn't have red hair and green eyes. He's just the kind of guy you would share blow with in the bathroom of a pub during halftime on a football game. He's also the kind of guy that breaks into a secure Russian bio-weapons lab, shoots a co-worker, and steals some shit will probably earn most terrorist the prison bitch suite at Guantanamo Bay.

For the heroes in this story, Wood picks up right where Victor Gischler left off in showing Pixie flex her pixie wings as the new token teenage girl that's still tripping over her own hormones. She doesn't have Jubilee's bloodlust, but she's flashy in her own right. Wood has her show off her flight and teleportation skills, which definitely hope to be more useful than Jubilee's fangs. She's still a bit clumsy, but she manages to make it back to Storm and the security team as they're flying along in one of the X-men's many jets. Where they get these jets is beyond me. They must be offered in bulk at Costco in the Marvel universe or something. Whatever their source, Pixie's arrival gets the story going and helps set up the overall premise that Pixie is still a teenager and might as well be a cow looking at an oncoming train.

Whatever bullshit that disgruntled bio-terrorist pulled, it appears to be manifesting itself in the cozy little neighborhood of Grozy in Russia. Did I say cozy? It's Vladamir Putin's Russia. Cozy by Russian standards is simply not having frost bite on your balls. It's a pretty standard crisis. The locals are reporting some mutant monster on the loose, which in Russia could be the same as saying Lady Gaga's tour bus is driving through. But the X-men plan to investigate anyways. If they can't beat up a monster, they can at least catch an awesome concert full of Gaga's fellow monster. It would be the one place where they would blend in like a hooker at Charlie Sheen's house.

Sadly, it never turns out to be a concert. It always turns out to be a monster. A real monster that is. Taking full advantage of having at teleporter on their team, the security team shows up in Grozy and takes on your standard monster that looks like a cross between a werewolf, Bigfoot, and pile of cow shit. It's nothing too crazy and the X-men handle it pretty quickly. And by quickly I mean Colossus delivers one punch and the thing pretty much disintegrates. Now I know Colossus can hit hard with his Juggernaut powers, but that makes for a rather dull fight. We don't even get to see the look on the creature's face when it's brain is turned to mush. While I'm tempted to take a few shots of tequila and start ranting, Wood does offer a touch of mystery behind this overly dull battle. The creature appeared to disintegrate by design. It might as well have been a trick to just wake the X-men up early on their day to sleep in. But in the same way it's never a Lady Gaga concert, it's never just an evil biologist with too much free time and no porn subscription.

The team gathers a sample and mulls over their next move. The most logical course of action is to inform Cyclops so he can get the X-men's team of personal scientists on the case. They're probably in need of a break from their latest efforts to put a camera in Emma Frost's panties anyways. However, Storm shows a little bravado that she hasn't shown since Marvel forcibly married her off to Black Panther. She decides to not inform Cyclops and investigate this on her own. All I can say is, fuck yeah sister! You don't have to go along with a guy just because he's fucking Emma Frost.

I had to pull back and wipe some tears from my eyes when I read this because it's been a while since I've seen that look in Storm's eye where she could neuter a man with just her gaze. There was actually a time when Storm was a tough, hard-nosed co-leader of the X-men that would stare down both Cyclops and Wolverine and win. That hasn't happened much since Marvel married her to Black Panther. She's just been the queen that's too good to get her hands dirty or break a nail. It's really fucked up her iconic character and I couldn't be happier that Wood is fucking back. If your a Storm fan, that alone makes this issue worth it's weight in Vibranium.

Following that gut instinct that probably led to her impromtu marriage, Storm enlists Pixie to take her to a remote are where Cyclops can't eavesdrop. That or she just waits until his face is buried in Emma Frost's snatch. Once again, Pixie looks like a deer in the headlights. She's basically just the designated driver as Storm gives the sample she found to nameless researcher from a group called Mutants Sans Frontiers. She looks like the nerdy science girl that never got to date the star quarterback, but may have dry humped his brother at one point. She claims she just wants to help and even treats Pixie like a celebrity hero. In Marvel comics, that's usually a sign that someone will later point a death ray between your eyes. But who knows? Maybe this girl is sincere. It wouldn't be the first time a woman that looked like a science nerd who specialized in prostate massages surprised me.

After parting with the sample, Storm has a quick video chat with Cyclops. If you're a Cyclops-hater, you'll probably jerk off to this because Storm flat out lies to him about what the security team has found. She also gets into an argument with him about having leeway with her team. By leeway that's basically code for, "Stay the fuck out of my way and to back to fucking your blonde bimbo girlfriend." She's not wrong to want some flexibility. She probably isn't getting that shit from her king husband. It makes for a tense situation, but Cyclops being the understanding ass that he is allows her to work. That or Emma is naked in the background. It's hard to tell.

Before the test results come in, however, another monster has already emerged in the North Sea. This one is nowhere near as bland as the first monster. In fact, this one is many times bigger and looks like it could be an extra in an anime porn. Thankfully, the X-men don't wear school girl uniforms (the Stepford Cuckoos notwithstanding) so their assholes are probably safe. Colossus goes in for another quick strike, but unlike the previous monster this one doesn't just dissolve like Senator Larry Craig's credibility on gay issues. It promises to require a far more valiant effort from the X-men. Suddenly, a Lady Gaga concert sounds that much more appealing. It doesn't offer further insight into the mysteries that Wood has established, but it does set the next issue up nicely for a good monster mash. And if that's not a solid way to end your first issue of X-men, then I'll actually attend an AA meeting.

I imagine that writing your first issue for a major comic book series is like hiring your first high class hooker. You put so many resources into it and you're going to be your own harshest critic if you fuck it up. I'm not sure how much experience Brian Wood has with hookers, but if he handles them the same way he handles his first issue of X-men I imagine he gets either a discount or a free blowjob. With his first issue, he sets up a rather sensitive situation for the X-men's security team. Since X-men Regenesis, such a situation hasn't been explored. Why should readers assume that Storm is just going to go along with Cyclops's agenda? She's fucking queen of Wakanda for crying out loud. She doesn't have to blindly obey the guy sticking it to Emma Frost. This in addition to a rather unusual brand of monster threats offers plenty of intrigue even if it's not overly mind-blowing.

If there is an issue that shows in this comic, it's that you can tell it is the first issue of a new writer. It's a different style compared to Victor Gischler. It's not bad, but it is a bit cumbersome in some areas. The way that first monster dissolved was poorly explored as was the so-called enthusiast Storm hired to analyze the sample she gathered. There were definitely plenty of elements to work with here. They just weren't fleshed out as well as they could have been. At least Wood made the transition fairly smooth. He took the events of Gischler's run and carried it over into his, showing that Pixie is still adjusting to her new role and going through the awkward growing pains that remind us all of our first gym class only with less monsters.

The adjectiveless X-men series may be lagging behind the events of Avengers vs. X-men, but it still has it's place in the X-books. That place may change depending on how Avengers vs. X-men turns out, but for now there are still stories to be explored and Brian Wood sets up something interesting here with the X-men's security team. In this series you start to get the sense that this is a unique X-men team and they're going to follow their own agenda that's different from the other X-books. You don't get too many hints of what's to come, but it's well-organized and well-developed. It definitely has the potential to be awesome and doesn't underwhelm even if it does understate at times. For that, I give X-men #30 a 3.5 out of 5. Not bad for your first issue, Mr. Wood! Keep giving us awesome comics and fans will soon be chanting "We got Wood! We got Wood!" You may also hear that at a gay pride parade, but I think the message is still the same. Nuff said!

X-men #29 - Alien Clusterfuck (of Awesome)

In a world where Lou Dobbs is still given credibility, stories involving alien agenda still sends shivers up our spines. That or some people just have a shitty coke dealer. There has always been a place for these stories in comics, especially in the X-books. They aren't always as well done as they are with the Avengers, but we can always count on an equal amount of human/alien sex (see Miss Marvel or Xavier shacking up with Lilandra). But not every alien story involves writers finding ways to have humans fuck exotic aliens sadly. Some involve deception, trechery, and teenage girls whose frontal lobes are clearly not fully wired yet. This is the story that Victor Gischler has decided to tell for his final arc in adjectiveless X-men. It doesn't involve any alien nookie, but I suppose we'll have to stick with late not softcore porn on Cinemax for our xenophillic fix.

A story involving aliens and teenage girls with poor judgment is a somewhat fitting way for such a run to end. Gischler began his adjectiveless series with a teenage girl turning into a vampire and proceeding fuck it up every step of the way. Now he's ending it with another teenage girl fucking up an alien plot involving the Skrulls to a level that involves both poor judgment and killer robots. You can't get more basic in an X-book without doing an entire arc on the merits of spandex uniforms. Now I know I've had mixed reviews of Gischler's work, sometimes depending on how much I've had to drink before reading it. It hasn't been as top notch or influential as the work done by Kieron Gillen or Jason Aaron, but it has established an important theme of this series. It ties the X-men to conflicts involving the rest of the Marvel universe without having to do a shitty crossover mini. It's both simple and pragmatic, not unlike Paris Hilton minus the lousy sex tape. If this is truly the end of Gischler's run, then I think we can say that he's ending it with some of his best material because X-men Regenesis has provided a massive enema of awesome to this series. Here's hoping that he doesn't pull a Brett Favre and start flip-flopping on his return.

X-men #27 put Pixie in the middle of a Skrull conspiracy to steal a piece of tech from the FF. At first it seemed as though they were thwarted, but in true Skrull fashion they pulled a fast one that kept Pixie in the middle of the conflict and put her in a position to fuck it up even more. There may be few constents in this universe, but like the law of conservation you can usually rely on the law of bone-headed teenagers. When she found out the Skrulls were AWOL soldiers from Secret Invasion, she showed a bit of sympathy and tried to help them. This only ended up leading to a killer alien robot being awakened. The sad part is that's not even the worst damage that a teenager with poor judgment can incur. In X-men #28, the Skrull that screwed over both Pixie and his Skrull fellow cowards, Nazum, isn't content with being a cosmic level douche-bag. He has to take it a step further by taking a little boy hostage while he sicks the risen alien killer robots on his fellow Skrull, boasting how he'll be hailed as a hero and given all the sweet Skrull pussy he could want for returning home after having killed deserters. Even if it is a dick move, it is a pretty slick plan.

Pixie, who to this point has done nothing more than a glorified enabler for the Skrulls, claims to have a plan and needs Spider-Man's help to do it. Because who better to help than a guy who solves big problems by making deals with the devil? She teleports herself and Spider-Man into the risen ship while the X-men and the FF are left to take on the killer robots rampaging through downtown New York. It may seem like a lopsided plan, but given how Pixie has screwed up at this point it's probably best that the killer robot part of the plan be handled by adults not prone to the poor wiring of a teenager's brain. The only victims here are the innocent motorists of New York City traffic. But given that New Yorkers should be used to this shit by now, they should probably just treat it as an impromtu parade.

Inside the ship, Pixie and the AWOL Skrulls attempt to regain control. At one point the ship is on a crash course with the Statue of Liberty, but narrowly misses it before Glenn Beck can die from uncontrolled sobbing. The Skrulls discover that the main controls of the ship are locked and being guided from another area of the ship. Care to guess which part? In comics, it's usually safe to assume it's the same part of the ship that controls all the gizmos that go boom.Again, Nazum shows that despite being a complete douche-bag, he does have a pretty slick plan. He hopes to use the remaining missiles of the ship to deliver a royal fuck you to the planet Earth before returning home. This way he can improve his status as a deserter and possibly earn a trip to whatever the Skrull equivalent of Hawaii may be.

Nazum is in many ways the perfect example of the kind of villains that Gischler has employed in this series. Rather than use more famous baddies like Apocalypse or Sinister, he favors the kind of villains that are not established and more pragmatic. Going back to the vampire arc, Xarus wasn't just trying to crush the X-men because he was bored on a Saturday night with no weed. He thought he could unite mutants and vampires in a powerful partnership. Nazum is similar in that he's not just trying to get home. He wants to get home with some street cred rather than being identified as the deserter he truly is. It's still a dick move, but it's an overly pragmatic dick move given how Secret Invasion panned out.

Nazum has plenty going for him as well. With an alien weapons system at his fingertips, he also makes sure that the X-men and FF stay occupied. He's smart enough to know that killer robots are just a synonym for scrap in the Marvel universe. So it's no surprise when they successfully take down said robots and do it without breaking too much sweat to stain their ridiculously tight-fitting uniforms. So to keep them occupied, Nazum has them release an army of robot ants to swarm both teams. They're not as flashy as giant robot humanoids, but for anyone who has ever been bitten by an army of fire ants that your drunken buddies poured on you when you were passed out it's has the potential to sting like a bitch.

However, Nazum did make a critical mistake in this carefully thought out dick move of his. Aside from forgetting that the girl he tricked could teleport, he also took a hostage in the form of a little boy who probably spends his time either playing Angry Birds on his iphone or corrupting his innocence with Call of Duty co-op missions. So when Spider-Man shows up to rough him up, the boy ends up getting a hold of the fancy gizmo that the Skrulls went to such lengths to steal in the previous issue. Like any boy that sees a fancy gizmo with lots of buttons, he starts pressing them. He could be setting the ship to self destruct or he could be flushing the toilets. The point is that kids can fuck up your plans and any woman who has experienced a broken condom knows this all too well.

Pixie, still in need of making up for her faux pas thus far, steps in and tears the gizmo from the kid like any teenage girl would tear her vibrator out of the hands of a kid that found it while rummaging through her purse. Once Spider-Man webs up Nazum, she teleports both him and the kid back to the bridge where she hands the gizmo over to the Skrulls who didn't plan this elaborate dick move. She tells them to guide the main ship to the river while using the escape pods to get home. Unlike Nazum, they're not assholes so they do as their told and crash the ship into the river. Let's face it, it's probably not the weirdest thing to be dumped into a New York City river. If anything, it'll help cover up the dead bodies, used condoms, and crack pipes that are probably floating around.

The Skrull deserters successfully leave with Nazum tied up and ready to be fed to the Skrull equivalent of Guantanamo Bay, minus the free health care. It leaves at least some hope for alien/human relations in that some aliens are not total douche-bags that will screw humanity over the first chance they get. More importantly, Pixie's attempt to help the Skrulls actually paid off. That's right, in the end her bone-headed teenage judgment served her well and she was able to mitigate a fucked up situation that she herself fucked. It could definitely have gone a lot smoother and it's incurred a healthy bit of damage that New York City taxpayers will have to handle, but fuck the taxpayers. She beat a Skrull! That's all Storm needs to offer her a job with the X-men's security team. Since Jubilee left to shack up with her vampire buddies, they need a new teenage member with poor judgment to lead the team into new adventures. Because when you don't have someone who will fuck up several times before they succeed, shit just gets too boring.

So we've reached the end of another era of X-men. It may not be the most flashy or the most historic, but Victor Gischler definitely accomplished some quality shit with this series. He helped establish an X-books that really made it feel like the X-men were a part of the larger Marvel universe. It wasn't always the most epic and it didn't always play out as well as it could have. In some ways this book is a victim of the overall growth of the X-books. As the quality has improved, the bar has been raised and while this series did reach it a few times it didn't do so on a consistent basis. This book just had too many mediocre moments early on, but Gischler definitely pulled things together towards the end and arcs like this show just how great this series can be.

What makes this issue and this arc good is they Gischler keeps the story focused. It doesn't try to juggle too many different plot threads. This is a story about Pixie getting caught up in a Skrull affair and trying to right some of the bone-headed mistakes she made. For the most part she succeeded, more than any other teenager that I've seen in real life. Moreover, she does it while the X-men, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four all play a part as well. Granted, that part is not extremely deep. They're largely extras in this struggle, but given the nature of this book it works out nicely. Gischler's dialog is very easy to follow and the resolution feels satisfying. What it lacked was the major twist that the previous issue had, which I guess is hard to match in an issue dominated by killer robots and hostage situations. But in the end there is still a sense of progression. Now that Jubilee has left and Generation Hope has been canned, Pixie is in need of a new gig and why not the X-men's security team? She proved herself here and she deserves it. And unlike other cute teenage girls, she didn't have to suck any dicks to get it.

The end of this arc and the end of Gischler's run keeps me optimistic about the future of this series. That or maybe I had a few extra shots of tequila, but the logic is still valid. The adjectiveless X-men may not be the most hyped X-book, but it offers something unique and this issue as well as this arc epitomize what it can do. It wasn't the best arc Gischler's done, but it's definitely up to the standards that he managed to rise during the latter part of his run. For his last issue, I give X-men #29 a 4 out of 5. Thank you, Mr. Gischler! You gave us vampires, mutants, aliens, and killer robots. I think that counts as a success for any comic writer. Nuff said!