Overdue Lessons: Uncanny X-men #14

The following is my review of Uncanny X-men #14, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Every compelling character ever conjured has multiple talents and multiple personality traits. The ones with only a few select skills are like janitors and fast food cashiers in that they're usually forgettable and easily replaceable. Yet at times, the various talents or traits of some characters often goes underutilized or are even forgotten. For any character with decades of backstory, that's to be expected. However, when certain traits are revisited, it can be both compelling and overdue.

For nearly a decade now, Emma Frost has been the tough, crass, overtly sexy vixen of the X-men. She could easily be a lead woman in a James Bond movie. She could just as easily be a feminist icon that highlights the power of an ambiguous woman not afraid to use her mind and body to get what she wants. But in recent years, so much of her story in recent years has revolved around her essentially replacing the role once held by Jean Grey as the X-men's top telepath and as Cyclops's lover. While this has led to some significant development, and at times softening, of her character, it has detracted from some of her other talents that don't involve her attitude or her bawdy dress sense.

But in Uncanny X-men #14, it's Emma Frost's skills as a teacher and educator of young mutants that is most prominently on display. It's easy for people not obsessed with her attitude and choice of attire to forget that Emma Frost has a passion for teaching. Granted, some of her teaching methods would probably get her blacklisted by nearly every PTA in the world, but there's no denying her dedication to her students and her passion for doing so. It's a passion she can do with her clothes on and one she can do effectively. And for once, the romantic sub-plots with Cyclops and her bitter attitude towards Jean Grey are set aside as she delivers a much needed lesson to a new and underdeveloped character in Uncanny X-men, Benjamin Deeds.

It seems every time a new mutant is introduced, they only get as much attention as necessary to support more established characters. Some of them might as well be glorified secretaries for these characters. And Benjamin Deeds is one of those characters who got slightly less than that. He was among the characters that Cyclops recruited when he began his New Xavier School in the early issues of All New X-men. But since then, he has basically been a whiny underachiever who would probably never get higher than a C-minus if he was going to a regular school. Emma Frost is looking to change that and unlike every other teacher Ben has had, she teaches him in a way where underachieving is not an option. It also is clear that him being a teenage boy and Emma being a sexy vixen makes this lesson one he can't afford to overlook.

The issue began with Benjamin Deeds whining like a kid trying to get out of gym class. Part of the training that Cyclops is giving at the New Xavier School involves learning how to fight with and without mutant powers. But since Ben's powers have been only loosely defined that of a mutant chameleon, he's as overmatched as baseball player trying to bat blindfolded. So Emma Frost takes it upon herself to help him develop his mutant powers and use them in various settings that take him from the glitzy casinos of Atlantic City to the hustle and bustle of New York's financial district. And in the same way an aspiring chef is going to cook a few meals that would get him yelled at by Gordon Ramsey, Ben Deeds struggles with Emma Frost's lesson.

This struggle and the traits it reveals for both Emma and Ben makes this story personal in a way that has been missing from recent issues of Uncanny X-men. Whereas stories such as X-men Battle of the Atom were very much about the big picture for the X-men, this issue centers around the little picture. It may not be that exciting, seeing Emma Frost teach a confused and whiny young mutant how to be a competent X-man. But it is still an engaging story that resonates on a more personal level. Who hasn't struggled to learn new skills or dealt with an unusually harsh teacher in the process? While that teacher may not have had the attitude or style as Emma Frost, it offered the kinds of lessons that go beyond the skills and lead to real character development. The only difference in this issue is that Emma Frost still finds a way to look good doing it.

In the end Ben does get to put his skills to good use. However, along the way the extent of those skills are poorly defined. The whole concept of him being a mutant chameleon is not really expanded upon or shown in a way that sets him apart from other shape-shifting characters like Mystique. He does demonstrate one new skill that distinguishes him, but it's also poorly defined and much harder to show than Emma Frost's diamond skin or Cyclops's optic blasts.

In addition, some of the training Emma Frost gives him feels rushed, like a pop quiz on a subject Ben never studied for. But to his credit, he does get a passing grade. He even helps contribute to the bigger picture of Uncanny X-men by contributing to some of the other unresolved stories in the series. It still puts him in some uncomfortable positions where he still comes off as an annoying slacker, but it's hard not to cheer for him when he succeeds.

There are many lessons to be learned from Uncanny X-men #14. The most important lesson to the underlying theme of the series is that Cyclops and Emma Frost know how to get the most out of their students. In addition, Emma Frost is still a hell of a teacher and one who finds a way to look good in doing everything she does. She may not be the best role model for someone like Benjamin Deeds, but she imparted on him the kinds of skills that will make him a successful X-man. And for a teenage boy with major self-esteem issues, it's the kind of lesson that he won't forget.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: Uncanny X-men #14

I know I’m pretty harsh on my old high school teachers on this blog. Perhaps I am too harsh. But for any of my old teachers who may be reading this blog, I can only say to most of them…fuck you. I’m sorry, but I just can’t be kind to the people who made school feel like getting circumcised by a great white shark on daily basis. Some people just aren’t meant to be teachers and some students just aren’t meant to be taught. There are a lot of teachers in the X-men comics. The X-men were founded as a school initially. And despite the constant threat of being blown up or hunted by giant robot sentinels, I would gladly take the New Xavier School over my old high school any day. And the events of Uncanny X-men #14 only reinforce that notion.

I don’t think the current students at the New Xavier school would agree with my sentiment. They’re still young and inexperienced and Cyclops is intent on training them. However, training for him means climbing a muddy hill in the middle of the rain while Emma Frost and Illyana watch it like a re-run of Breaking Bad. It’s tough going for most of the students, even for those who had shitty gym teachers like I did. Is it a dick move? Yes, but considering they’ll be fighting killer sentinels, it’s not unreasonable for them to have this kind of harsh training.

Most of the students make it up, yet still do plenty of bitching and moaning. However, Ben Deeds, the so-called mutant chameleon, does more than most. He struggles to reach the top. He gives the impression that the most strenuous activity he ever did was wake up before nine in the morning to attend a class. And Cyclops doesn’t tolerate that slackers like that so he gives him an extra hash lesson, shoving him back down the hill and forcing him to climb back up. Yes, it’s another dick move. But at least he’s nice enough to let Ben hit him back. However, he fucks that up too, further proving that he’s behind the curve.

Now this isn’t the first time Ben Deeds has proven himself to be whiney and inept. Since he was introduced in the pages of All New X-men, he hasn’t done much other than bitch and moan. Everyone in the team has complained, but he does it on a professional level. It’s left him with very little development and because of that, it’s hard to sympathize with him. He’s like spoiled rich kid who whines every time he has to use a public toilet. There’s just no sympathy for assholes like that.

He’s badly in need of some extra tutoring and as it just so happens, Emma Frost is bored seeing him fail and takes it upon herself to give him some extra lessons. She’s even waiting for him the moment he returns to his room wearing only a towel. Granted, there are far worse things a teenage boy could face than Emma Frost in a sexy Punisher-style dress while in a towel, but Ben gives the impression that his penis can’t hide that he’s ill-prepared for such tutoring. Well too bad, because he’s getting it anyway. Emma fucking Frost is teaching him and now that she doesn’t have to waste time being Cyclops’s arm candy, she can dedicate more time to students like him.

It’s awkward as hell at first, which I’m sure was Emma’s intent. But when she confronts him, she discovers something about his powers that make him less like a glorified Mystique rip-off. Since he was introduced, he has been billed as just a mutant chameleon. That’s about as useful as a bucket of piss in the middle of a desert. But that’s not all he can do. Emma senses that he also has a strange ability to instill a sense of trust and good feeling in those around him. When he takes the shape of someone near him, that’s sort of a signal that his power is working. It’s pretty poorly defined, especially to anyone who reads comics while high. But it is unique, even to a drunk and something that needs to be explored.

So in order to explore it, Emma and Magik take Ben to Atlantic City, which is basically Las Vegas-lite for those who can’t handle seeing fully exposed breasts. To test his abilities, Emma has Ben try to hook up with some random girl at a bar. It’s a pretty simple test. Hell, it seems like one of those skills that should have been an elective in high school. That class would have had a waiting list. But even if Ben Deeds managed to get into that class, he would have flunked miserably because he fails to impress the girl. He might have even taken a shit in her purse for all we know because she calls security on him, leaving Emma Frost to be patient and like making the Hulk angry, nobody likes Emma Frost when she’s impatient.

Ben manages to get away from the angry woman and try again with another girl. This time, he finds a girl who happens to be a fan of Stanly Kubrick, proving once again that awesome movies can bring people together almost as good as blow and weed. It’s still not clear how the fuck his powers are working or even if they’re working. But when he takes the appearance of the girl, which she doesn’t fucking notice for some reason, she becomes more attached to him than a horny dog and Megan Fox’s leg. It’s his first real success, which is quite a leap from the ineptitude he showed earlier. From getting shoved down a hill to confronted by Emma Frost while wearing just a towel, he was overdue for a win.

And that first win triggers a winning streak of sorts. He begins exercising his skills with a diverse array of people ranging from a punk rock girl to some hipster douche in a coffee shop to a guy that looks strikingly like Brian Michael Bendis for some reason. They all seem to have the same reaction. Ben manages to endear themselves to him to such an extent that they would tattoo his name on their eyelids if he asked them to. He’s like the world’s best car salesman and would probably make an awesome telemarketer if he was so inclined.

However, the nature of his powers still aren’t defined. Emma Frost said it didn’t involve pheromones or mind control. There’s something else at work and when Marvel doesn’t have details, they tend to take the let’s-not-and-way-we-did approach. That may have worked for George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and health care policy, but it doesn’t work well in comics. At the very least, it shows Ben doing something unique and more novel than just shooting gold balls out of his body. But that’s beside the point.

After so many successes, Emma Frost feels he’s ready for an exam of sorts. This time he’ll have to do more than impress some girl who has a thing for Stanley Kubrick movies. He’ll have to deliver a letter to some guy named Timothy Dugan in a building in the financial district. For all he knows, he’s delivering a picture of Wolverine’s dick to Donald Trump’s office. But he does it anyways. And through his ambiguous powers, he’s able to make it through the building and even play nice with the secretary. He has pretty much no trouble getting to Dugan and delivering the letter. It’s so mundane that it could be a Dilbert comic strip.

It only starts to get fucked up when Dugan opens the letter and finds out it’s basically trolling by Cyclops. He says in the most polite way possible that he knows SHIELD is using Sentinels and if they don’t want to have any problems, they’ll cut that shit out. Naturally, SHIELD responds in the most logical way possible. They break out assault weapons and surround Ben Deeds like he just pissed on Captain America’s boot. He’s probably the only one who doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. All he knows is that he just delivered a “fuck you” message to SHIELD.

It would have been a major dick move on Emma’s part, but she makes sure that Magik is there to get him out before SHIELD starts pissing on Ben’s 5th Amendment rights. But beyond this fucked up test of his powers, this also effectively ties into the end of X-men Battle of the Atom. It was revealed that SHIELD had been dealing in Sentinels and that’s not the kind of shit Cyclops wants to see in a world where mutants are no longer going extinct. This plot was developing even before Battle of the Atom and while this doesn’t move that plot forward by much, it does nicely link it up with the larger narrative.

Ben is understandably shaken and a little pissed off probably. But Emma and Cyclops make it clear that he passed the test and finally did more than just bitch and moan. His powers, as ambiguous as they are, have real use and he could definitely be an asset to the X-men. While Ben is still an underdeveloped character who is still not much more likable than Kanye West at this point. He finally has some personality depth. In addition, it also shows that Emma Frost can do way more than just look great in a thong. She can still teach mutants to life up to their potential and that makes her both awesome and sexy as hell.

This issue wasn’t epic and the action wasn’t much more intense than a game of dodge ball. However, the story itself was still awesome because it explored some important elements that had been somewhat negated in Uncanny X-men. Ben Deeds became more than a whiney little bitch and Emma Frost got to teach and look damn sexy doing it. I couldn’t help but hum the song, “Hot For Teacher” by Van Halen at times. And not only was the lesson effectively taught, but it still tied into the ongoing plots in the post-Battle of the Atom world of Uncanny X-men. Some areas were still somewhat negated and underdeveloped, but it didn’t make the issue any less satisfying. I give Uncanny X-men #14 an 8 out of 10. And for the first time since I snuck a Playboy into my history class, both my penis and my mind were stimulated. Nuff said!

Uncanny X-men #14 PREVIEW - Hard Lessons

I know I make a lot of jokes about how much I hated high school. Some people may laugh at them. The thing is…they’re not jokes. High school was every bit as horrific as I described. I would rather get a prostate exam from a horny gorilla than relive high school. I suspect that one of the reasons that X-men comics resonate so much with me is that it’s based around a fucked up school for mutants that gets blown up on a regular basis. I saw so many fucked up things throughout my high school career that the idea of a school of outcasts with superpowers just works for me. That says a lot about me and the state of public education in this country.

In some ways I envy the mutants that attend the various schools the X-men have run over the years, even if they do get blown up. The lessons they learn are much more useful. I may not ever encounter a killer robot Sentinel, but I’m pretty sure the skills involved in fighting that shit is way more useful than memorizing Calculus equations. I also sympathize with these young mutants because adjusting to a new school while also adjusting to rapidly changing biology is akin to performing brain surgery while standing on hot coals. So I imagine that if the mutants at the New Xavier School or the Jean Grey Institute ever applied for a job, they would laugh their asses off when asked if they’re good at functioning under pressure.

The nuts and bolts of those lessons have been touched on in Wolverine and the X-men a few times. Wolverine’s mid-term consisted of a survival test in the Savage Land. Still beats the hell out of a history exam. But the lessons for the students at the New Xavier School, run by fugitive and professional Wolverine humiliator, Cyclops, have not been explored. With the dust settling with X-men Battle of the Atom and an influx of new students in the Original Five X-men, it’s not a bad time to explore some of those lessons and that’s just what we see in a preview of Uncanny X-men #14, courtesy of the fine folks at Comic Book Resources.

CBR: Uncanny X-men #14 Preview

I don’t claim to have gone to the worst high school in the world. And without making light of how hard these new mutants have had it lately, I’ll still say that I would switch places with them in an instant and not just because I want to get a closer look at Emma Frost’s cleavage.

It’s a tough lesson for everyone, but one that definitely has some merit if they’re going to be fighting more killer robots and demons from Limbo. It also touches on something that All New X-men #18 glossed over, namely how the O5 X-men were going to function at the New Xavier School. The timing is still a little fucked up. O5 Angel doesn’t have his new uniform on so perhaps this took place during that 41 hour transition period mentioned in All New X-men #18. I don’t like to make assumptions, but given how many details Battle of the Atom glossed over, I’m not going to shit bricks over this.

But Bendis has made it clear from the onset that the O5 aren’t going to be the focus of Uncanny X-men. They have their own fucking book for that. Uncanny X-men focuses on different characters and some of those characters have had about as much face time as Mitt Romney in this series. One of those characters is Benjamin Deeds, who they call a mutant chameleon, but his mutant power might as well be whining and bitching. That’s really all he has done since he showed up. He’s badly in need of a little depth. Since the Stepford Cuckoos are stuck on who hates Jean Grey more and Emma Frost has made busting Cyclops’s balls her new hobby, I think it’s time for some new sub-plots. As much as I would love to see a comic that consists solely of Cyclops pwning Wolverine, I understand that there are other ways of making an X-men comic awesome. It might not be as satisfying, but I’m always open to new characters learning how to kick ass. Nuff said!

Uncanny X-men #14 - Sinister Connections (of Awesome)

There's a certain charm to comic book villains who know they're assholes, but don't apologize for it. Guys like Lex Luthor are just assholes by design. They're mean, they're spiteful, and they have no sense of subtlety. They're just guys you want to punch in the face, kick in the balls, and shit on their grave. Then there are villains like Mr. Sinister. Throughout the X-men's history, he's been among the most twisted yet intriguing villains that Marvel has conjured. You still want to punch him in the face and all that shit, but his charisma is enough to make you stop and admire his twisted persona. He's the kind of guy who would fuck over the world with a cosmic dick and recite Shakespeare while he's at it. You just don't get that kind of charm now that House is off the air.

When Uncanny X-men relaunched, the first villain Kieron Gillen used was Mr. Sinister. He was MIA for a while after Messiah Complex. Hell, for a while he had big boobs and went by the name Miss Sinister. Why he gave those boobs up is beyond me, but he came back none-the-less and gave the X-men's new Extinction Team their first major test by hot-wiring a Celestial. He then proceeded to fuck with the X-men by creating an army of Sinister clones, each sharing his same love of devious wit and cloned redheads. During that conflict, he was also the first one to drop a hint to Hope Summers that she was about to get a visit from a fiery cosmic parrot and it wasn't a metaphor to let her know she was going to have her first period. Now Avengers vs. X-men has taken hold and the Phoenix Force has arrived. Does anyone really expect Sinister to just sit back on a beach in Brazil while doing jello shots off topless sunbathers? Okay, that's what I would do, but Sinister has a different approach.

Uncanny X-men #14 deals with this latest twisted approach to fucking over the world that Sinister has conjured. Not content with just creating an army of look-alikes, Sinister has set up shop in a subterranean world in a cavern once occupied by Moloids. Apparently, he's had so much free time on his hands and so much extra manpower that he used it to create an entire recreation of London. I know some people are nostalgic and really get into Renaissance Fairs, but there is such a thing as overkill. Some people just need to be content with a beer and a porno. Now you would think an entire city of Sinisters would get alone nicely, but as devious as Sinister may be he's not without his flaws. This comic is told from the perspective of a flawed clone. He has Sinister's dashing looks that would strip the paint off a Buick, but he's apparently not comfortable in a hidden world buried deep underground composed of nothing by clones. Some folks are weird like that, although with Sinister weird really doesn't apply.

This Sinister beta if you will narrates a good portion of the comic. He's not a terribly interesting guy. He lacks Sinister's twisted charisma with his whole whining about how something about this world seems off. He sees himself and everyone else as just pieces in a game. Seriously, you expected something different from Sinister? If the clone factories, the various waves of Sinister as boys and old men, and Victorian style ambiance that looks like it was pulled from an over-budgeted Shakespeare play wasn't telling enough then I don't know what this Sinister beta is smoking, but I want some.

Because this world is so fucked up, this beta Sinister seeks to have a chat with Sinister Prime if you will. Together, they have a nice stroll through the elaborate psuedo-London that Sinister has created. He explains how he pushed out (by that he means slaughtered) the Moloid's living in the caverns to make this city. One even shows up, which Sinister promptly takes care of (again, through slaughter). His reason for doing this is simple. He's biding his time in a place where the X-men would rather not pursue him. Because who wants to confront an army of Sinister's in a deep underground cave? That's like challenging Mike Tyson to a Yo' Mama's So Fat contest in a windowless basement.

Through these narrations, the beta Sinister continues to muse over how this so-called civilization is affecting them. While Sinister Prime argues it's making man less an asshole, beta Sinister believes it's only making man's shit smell even worse. There's a very twisted unabomber-like feel to him, seeing all the wonders of civilization and believing them to be evil. It may be cliched, but Kieron Gillen once again flaunts his talent for twisted inner narration. As they continue to tour this psuedo-London, the beta Sinister makes it increasingly apparent that he despises this world Sinister has created. He believes it has to end. So also like the unabomber, he plots an attack on this wondrously twisted world that Sinister has created. It might have just been easier to ask him for an internet connection and no porn filters.

The beta Sinister continues to follow Sinister Prime on their little tour. He acts as though he's a scholar looking to appropriately catalog the wonders of this world Sinister created and the intent behind it. That kind of fluff should raise red flags for anyone with a history of narcissism and sociopathic tendencies. Seeing as how Sinister was smart enough to make an entire army of himself and recreate his old hometown to an exceedingly creepy degree, it's really not too surprising to find out that he's smart enough to detect this beta Sinister's bullshit. Beta Sinister manages to get Sinister in a position where he can shoot him and hopefully destroy the prime Sinister of this twisted world. In probably the least surprising turn of events since Lindsey Lohan's last traffic accident, it backfires horribly.

As expected, Sinister Prime doesn't take kindly to flawed clones that try to fuck with him. Also as expected, he's smart enough to keep tabs on his clones when they don't cooperate. So he's not stupid enough to send his prime self into an enclosed room with the guy. That Sinister the beta blasted was just another clone. That clone tricked the beta Sinister and was in turn transported into a Victorian style dungeon basement. It's only slightly less appealing than being transported inside George W. Bush's asshole. Moreover, the prime Sinister reveals that the so-called beta Sinister that thought he was flawed was actually working perfectly fine. Sinister made this clone specifically to rebel. Why? To test the system he created and presumably for shits and giggles.

This kind of devious plotting is one of Sinister's finer qualities. It's a quality that Gillen writes extremely well. It helped make the first arc after the Uncanny relaunch so memorable. However, as skillful as Gillen is at handling Sinister's character, it's a bit overly predictable here. The whole notion of making a clone specifically to rebel is novel, but rather bland because it implies that Sinister neither makes mistakes and just enjoys fucking around. While admirable qualities in any successful comic villain, making it predictable just makes it difficult to enjoy.

This revelation also makes it difficult to feel disappointed when this so-called beta Sinister gets fed to a pack of angry Sabretooth-like wolves. The whole revelation about him just being designed to rebel made it difficult to really connect with this character. Granted, it's difficult to connect with any character associated with Sinister, but it would have been nice to actually feel something for this character when his true purpose is revealed. Gillen has been good about doing that in the past. Here, it just makes the whole first part of the comic feel unneeded. It's like watching the IT guy test your PC after he's purged it of your porn. There's nothing exciting to look forward to.

However, the successful test so to speak helps set the stage for a much more engaging event. With the beta Sinister now in the process of becoming wolf shit, Sinister prepares for the next little test of his. Along the way, more plot holes from the first arc are filled in. He reveals that he used the Dreaming Celestial as merely a way to kick start his little Sinister world. He intends to use the Phoenix to sustain it. He sees the Phoenix as a force of nature and the point of civilization is to contain nature. It's not a completely fucked up premise and it shows that Gillen is capable of giving a sort of refinement to a character. He rightly predicted that the Avengers wouldn't let Hope gain the Phoenix and that it would seek other hosts. Having had experience with the Phoenix before, it's not too much of a stretch to believe that he anticipated the events of Avengers vs. X-men as they unfolded. Now he's poised to do what he does best and exploit the fuck out of it.

That leads to revelation that is far less predictable. In his throne room, he reveals that he has with him an army of other hosts for the Phoenix in the form of more Madelyne Pryor clones. Because that's just what the Marvel universe needs, more Jean Grey replacement characters. At least Madelyne can say she was the first and wasn't intended to be the bullshit rip-off character that Hope Summers turned out to be. That and she looks much hotter in a corset. Sinister muses about how he's preparing to take on the Phoenix Five and take the Phoenix Force for his own use. It's the kind of devious plan that would bring a tear to the eyes of Kim Jong Ill himself, may he rest in torment.

This issue of Uncanny X-men was a charming departure from previous tie-ins that only really touched on the perspectives of others actively involved in the events of Avengers vs. X-men. It also had the added benefit of tying in the events of first arc that transpired after the relaunch where Sinister hot-wired a Celestial. While this issue does a nice job of filling in the blanks as to what Sinister has been up to since that first arc, it still feels like only half an issue. The whole plot with the renegade clone really seemed unnecessary. So Sinister doesn't like it when one of this clones is defiant and prefers to feed his ass to wolves. That's understandable, but there's really no need to make a major story out of it. While it was well told as Kieron Gillen's solo perspectives often are, it really didn't contribute much to this story. It wasn't until the end where the promise of a Sinister influence in Avengers vs. X-men really heated up. It was good enough to make the issue worth buying, but not enough to pay full price. And unless you're willing to suck the dick of the guy at the comic shop for a discount, you're shit out of luck.

Kieron Gillen has done a great job of giving Sinister a devious and engaging new persona. This is by far the most interesting Sinister has been in a decade. No longer content to just fuck with the Summers/Grey bloodline on his own, he has enlisted an army and a new sense of charm to further enhance his ability to frustrate the X-men. This twisted plan of his that began in the final issue of Uncanny X-men flowed nicely into this issue. Even though half of it was unnecessary, it succeeded in filling in the blanks between Sinister's last ploy and how he's been preparing for his next ploy. The promise of Sinister taking on the Phoenix Five with an army of Madelyne Pryors is very enticing and knowing Sinister, he'll find a way to be deviously charming in a way that even Charlie Sheen would envy.

When a comic starts strong, but fizzles at the end I tend to be a bit harsher than I would if it started slow and got stronger in the end. I'm a firm believer in making up for slow starts. I have much more respect for the stripper that falls flat on her face and breaks her nose in the middle of a lap dance yet still earns an extra $50 tip than I do the stripper that really gets into it only to pass out drunk on your shoulder when she's fondling your balls. Uncanny X-men may not have strippers, but it contains women like Madelyne Pryor who dress like them. For that with the forgettable first part in mind, I give Uncanny X-men #14 a 3 out of 5. If you're okay with half a sandwich and half a chocolate bar, you'll probably enjoy this issue. If you can't be satisfied without stuffing your face, then get some exercise before picking up this book. Your cardiologist will thank me. Nuff said!