Scanned Thoughts: All New X-men #14

When new comics come out, that's just another excuse for me to get fucked up and write fucked up shit about what I read. Every now and then, I'm able to write something insightful. Most of the time, it comes off as the ravings of a drunken madman. Either way, people seem to enjoy reading that shit so that's what I do on this blog. What follows is a drunken madman's interpretation of All New X-men #14. Read on if you dare!

The first page may make drunks like me start dry heaving because it’ll bring back unpleasant memories of Avengers vs. X-men. The last time Marvel fucked with the Phoenix, the collective assholes of the entire Marvel universe were torn in ways that would make a gay porn star cringe. Well they seem to be at it again, this time having Lady Mastermind mind-fuck O5 Jean into going Dark Phoenix on everyone. And she’s not even wearing her sexy Phoenix costume. That’s like being served a bacon burger you know has been spit in, but without the bacon. It’s doubly infuriating and for raging alcoholics reading this, you might want to nail down any furniture that can be easily thrown.

What happens at first is predictable. Wolverine, who I imagine is equally burned out on the Phoenix, decides to stroke Brett Ratner’s cock again and be that guy who has to kill Jean Grey. O5 Cyclops stops him, but it’s still painful at how unsurprising this is. Especially considering the fact that stabbing the Phoenix is akin to trying to piss on a forest fire. It doesn’t do shit.

But before you get too drunk with rage, Brian Michael Bendis shows an act of mercy that couldn’t have been more appropriate without packing this comic with a coupon for a free blowjob by a Tijuana hooker. It turns out that Lady Mastermind actually wasn’t the one mind-fucking Jean Grey. It was the other way around. O5 Jean was actually the one putting on the Phoenix show. But as she already demonstrated in the previous issue, she’s as experienced a telepath as I am a brain surgeon. So the others picked up on it, which they didn’t enjoy. But she apologized. All was forgiven and they went ahead and started beating the shit out of Mystique’s team and Hydra. I don’t know if this qualifies as a twist, but it’s more satisfying than a lap dance from Jessica Alba so I’ll take it.

But Lady Mastermind isn’t about to be upstaged by a novice, even if it is Jean Grey. She mind-fucks people in the same way a 13-year-old with a stash of Playboys jerks off. So rather than fuck with the O5 X-men by using the Phoenix, she uses the image of Professor Xavier. It’s not quite as terrifying as the Phoenix, but it definitely resonates with the X-men…for about five seconds. The O5 may be a bunch of inexperienced teenagers, but they’re not fucking stupid. They figure out really quickly that this is Lady Mastermind’s work. It still allows Mystique to shoot Wolverine in the gut (which is only half as satisfying as seeing him get shot by Cyclops), but it doesn’t slow the O5 down. They still shrug it off and proceed to kick ass.

At this point Lady Mastermind has done plenty to piss off O5 Jean Grey. And anyone who ever survived high school knows that pissed off teenage girls are a force not to be fucked with. Give said teenage girls telepathic powers and it’s safe to assume that everyone is fucked. Yet that doesn’t stop Lady Mastermind from trying to piss her off more, parading images of Emma Frost and Cyclops smooching in front of O5 Jean Grey. She might as well have smothered herself in the blood of baby seals and jumped into a den of hungry polar bears.

O5 Jean Grey, who only a few issues ago was crying and hugging Kitty Pryde, finally flexes her inner badass and mind-fucks Lady Mastermind in a way that I’m sure made her panties wet. It frees the rest of the team from further mind-fucking so they can focus on more important things, like roughing up Sabretooth or beating up Hydra. It’s as basic as you can get in a Marvel comics, but in a series that has been so heavy on teen drama, it’s immensely satisfying.

But like my ex-girlfriend, they don’t go down easily. The O5, who in a recent issue botched a simple Danger Room scenario, effectively coordinate to take down Mystique and Sabretooth. And they do it in a way that actually makes them look like a competent team. Now maybe Cyclops’s visit to the Jean Grey Institute added motivation for them to shape the fuck up and stop being whiney teenagers. Bendis is usually pretty good at pointing out what either motivates characters or pisses them off. But in this instance it’s somewhat glossed over. It’s still satisfying though. Seeing O5 Jean Grey make Sabretooth whine like a little bitch put a smile on my face and a boner in my pants.

One issue that Bendis didn’t gloss over, however, is that unpleasant little detail of Mystique having used the O5’s image to commit a long list of crimes. And as we saw a few issues ago, the Avengers were about as thrilled with that as Eagles fans were thrilled with their team’s record last year. So when they apparently swoop in and tell the O5 they’re still in deep shit, it’s an awkward moment. But it’s one of those awkward moments that turns out to be another bad dream, like showing up to work without your pants on or finding out you accidentally hit on your best friend’s mother while drunk.

Lady Mastermind tried to get away with one more mind-fuck, using the Avengers to leave the O5 deadpanned at the very least so she could get away. This time Kitty Pryde put a stop to that with her fist. So first she gets humiliated by a teenage Jean Grey. Then she gets decked by Kitty Pryde when she’s trying to escape. I think it’s safe to say that this bitch is right up there with Amanda Bynes in terms of being fucked up and burned out. At least she didn’t tempt anyone to murder her vagina.

And wouldn’t you know it? Right after the O5 X-men were mind-fucked into believing the Avengers were coming, they actually show up. It leads to a gloriously awkward moment between O5 Iceman and Thor. It also leads to a beautifully sincere moment between O5 Cyclops and Havok. While Havok may still be a total douche, it’s nice that he’s trying to get along with at least one incarnation of his brother. And while Captain America is still pissed at the situation Mystique created, he doesn’t give America any worse a name because O5 did manage to subdue Mystique and kick the asses of Hydra. I think that short of taking a piss on Hitler’s corpse, this will earn them some brownie points with Cap and the Avengers.

The only disappointing aspect with this scene is that we never get another scene with O5 Cyclops and Mystique. Back in All New X-men #7, they had some nice moments. Granted, Mystique was just fucking with him, but O5 Cyclops seemed reluctant to want to fight Mystique in the previous issue. There wasn’t even a second of hesitation in this issue. It’s one of those other details that Bendis glossed over, at least for this issue. It could definitely come up in another issue.

In fact, Bendis practically set it up in the very next scene. Once again, SHIELD proves that they can’t build a prison for shit. Maria Hill, who Mystique impersonated a while back, wanted to personally see to it that Mystique was sufficiently fucked over for her shit. Well, she’ll have to get back in line because once again, Mystique escaped. She even managed to steal a SHIELD helicopter. I’ll say it again. SHIELD can’t build a prison for shit. I wouldn’t trust them to watch my dog for the weekend, let alone imprison someone like Mystique. But beyond that, it means that Mystique is free and will probably find new ways of fucking with the O5 X-men, especially Cyclops. I’m still convinced that O5 Cyclops was checking out Mystique’s ass in All New X-men #7. Then again, who doesn’t?

O5 Jean Grey was undeniably badass in this issue, more so than she has been in any issue of All New X-men to date. But the comic ends with a firm reminder that she’s not quite on the same level as her adult self was under Grant Morrison. She’s not ready to tell Emma Frost to piss off, take control of the school, or look damn sexy in skin-tight black pants. She’s still a vulnerable teenage girl and she’ll keep being that way until she can prove she’s worthy of those skin-tight black pants.

All New X-men has been heavy on drama and teen angst. It’s like a CW show without vampires and slutty cheerleaders. Bendis has made it awesome thus far, but this time he threw in some good old fashioned fun. I mean who doesn’t love seeing the Original Five beat the shit out of Hydra, Mystique, Sabretooth, and Silver Samurai? And for once, Jean Grey wasn’t helplessly overwhelmed. That should make the feminazis out there bitch just a little bit less, but not nearly as much as we would all like. All semi-normal folk need to know is this is another awesome issue of All New X-men so says my drunken decrees. Nuff said!

The Ashes of the Past, the Phoenix of Idealism: "All New X-Men #13"

The following is my review of  All New X-men #13, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

All New X-men as a concept sounds like it shouldn’t work as a series. Having the Original Five X-men come from the past to see what they’ve become sounds more like a gimmick that would blow some minds, get some humorous reactions, and generally ignore every lesson the Back to the Future movies have taught us. Yet somehow Brian Michael Bendis has taken that concept and turned it into one of the best X-men titles in Marvel’s catalog. It’s a book where readers can reconnect with a group of X-men that represent the purest incarnation of Charles Xavier’s dream.

It’s easy to be jaded about the real world in this day and age. It has definitely shown in comics. For over a decade, the X-men comics have been less about Charles Xavier’s dream and more about fitting the X-men into the greater Marvel universe. That has had some share of benefits, but it has also created a whole generation of comic book fans that don’t know what the X-men are supposed to represent. And the return of the Original Five X-men has provided a solid reminder of what X-men is all about. It may sound more corny than Superman telling kids to eat their vegetables, but All New X-Men nicely captures what the X-men are at their core while exposing the X-men to a world where idealism is uncool and hope is exceedingly fragile.

After so many revelations have undermined those ideals, it’s easy to forget that the Original Five still have to be X-men. That means going after mutants like Mystique, who decide to use their powers to go on a crime spree. All New X-men #13 marks the first real mission the Original Five have gone on with the X-men of the present. And if working with Wolverine isn’t difficult enough, they also have to keep processing a long list of distressing revelations that have been bombarding them at every turn. It’s like getting a flood of emails with no spam filter.

But part of what makes All New X-men such a quality book is how Brian Michael Bendis deals with these reactions. He doesn’t gloss over them so he can get right to the part where the X-men fight giant robots. He takes the time to provide clear transitional details that link one issue to the next. In the previous issue, Cyclops encountered a brother he never thought he would see again while dealing with Angel leaving the team. In this issue both he and his team react to that revelation and they carry it as a burden into this mission. And Bendis writes in a way that you can’t help but feel for these burgeoning X-men because the teenage brain isn’t meant to process so much in such a short period. Most teenagers struggle to process algebra what the Original Five are dealing with isn’t graded on a curve.

This is once again demonstrated through Jean Grey, who has had to process a lot more than the others throughout this series and not just because she found out she died on multiple occasions. In order to carry out their mission, she has to learn basic telepathic tricks like preventing the authorities from picking up on their location while they track Mystique’s location. Those sorts of skills are so common with other telepaths that it’s easy to forget that such skills have to be learned. And once again, Jean’s inexperience shows when she slips up and puts the team in danger yet again. It’s downright clumsy and a recurring theme in this series. And while there is an element of humor, the recurring nature of such scenes is not done just for laughs. Even though Jean Grey has been dead in the X-men comics for nearly a decade, Brian Michael Bendis has done enough with this series to make readers care about her again. And this issue gives readers yet another reason.

The drama between the characters are so paramount in this issue that the mission to find Mystique is almost secondary. Bendis doesn’t just explore the events that have taken place in this series. He also addresses issues that have arisen in other Marvel titles, namely Uncanny Avengers #5. This issue apparently takes place shortly after Havok gave his now-infamous speech about the so-called “M-Word”. It leads to a very poignant moment in the book where Kitty Pryde relates using such labels to being Jewish. It comes off as very personal and perhaps that’s because Bendis himself is Jewish. In addition, it marks a clear difference between how this group of X-men are trying to deal with these issues and how the Uncanny Avengers are trying to deal with it. This divide, which has also manifested in more recent issues of Uncanny Avengers as well, vastly complicates the ideals that the Original Five X-men embody. Now Charles Xavier’s dream has become a debate on semantics and no Danger Room training could ever prepare them for that.

So many complicated issues end up making the battle against Mystique and her team an afterthought. At least in this issue it is revealed that she had bigger plans than just stealing lots of money and those plans involved making a deal with Hydra. It’s still a shallow plan, but one that puts Jean Grey and Lady Mastermind in the same room. That sets the stage for a somewhat predictable confrontation that fans of the Chris Claremont’s Dark Phoenix Saga should remember well. Those same fans are probably giddy about the next issue already, but some fans may groan at the prospect of more stories involving the Phoenix Force.

The lack of action and suspense may dissuade some, but that is not the kind of story All New X-men has set up. This series offers a unique perspective on the entire concept of mutants. Through the eyes of the Original Five, the idealism embodied in Charles Xavier’s dream clashes head on with harsh real-world circumstances. And that clash is what makes All New X-men #13 and the entire concept of the series one of the most compelling comics in recent memory.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: All New X-men #13

Every week I soak my brain in illicit chemicals, read a comic book, and write about the twisted thoughts that emerge. All New X-men has created a wide array of thoughts, most of them positive in a way I don't usually find outside a strip club. All New X-men #13 promises more thoughts, minus paying a hundred bucks for a few lap dances. Here are my twisted thoughts on this issue.

The mission to get back at Mystique for using their images to scare the shit out of people is still on, although I think they might be more effective using a lawyer rather than brute force. It works for Goldman Sachs. However, they are still dealing with many uncomfortable revelations. For one, Angel ditched them like a stripper that gives only half a lap dance and steals your wallet. Then they found out that Cyclops has a little brother that they never told them about. For a team that’s supposed to take on giant robots and evil mutant brotherhoods, you would think that shit is worth knowing. The O5 are all learning unpleasant things about one another…well, except Iceman. So far the only thing he has learned about himself is that he’s had bad luck with women and his older self is currently dating his teacher, Kitty Pryde. But this is All New X-men. That shit is only the fifth most awkward revelation this series has revealed.

But all that awkward shit will have to be worked out some other time, most likely in the presence of several licensed therapists. They need to find Mystique and her team of bank robbing, reputation destroying douchebags. And since the O5 are currently on law enforcement’s shit list, O5 Jean Grey has to tap yet another power she’s woefully ill-equipped to manage. She has to use her telepathy to fool the minds of law enforcement officers to thinking they’re not there and just looking for stoners to bust to fill their quota (I wish that was a joke, but that’s a real thing sadly).

It’s yet another instance of Jean Grey pushing her burgeoning powers, which has been explored since this series began. But you have to wonder if at some point the X-men will realize that it may not be a good idea to push the powers of a teenage girl who grows up to become Dark Phoenix and maims 5 billion aliens on a whim. It’s compelling, but like the hot big-titted slut in a slasher movie. You know it’s not going to end well for her.

The team arrives at the site of one of Mystique’s robberies, which looks like a hotel room after a party by Led Zepplin so there are still plenty of armed men sifting through the rubble. O5 Jean puts her new skill to use while Wolverine does what he does best (aside from being pissed at Cyclops and lusting after married women) and tracks their scents. It’s actually a nice moment where the O5 get to learn a bit more about how Wolverine and the team do business. It’s easy to forget that even though All New X-men is on its 13th issue, not a whole lot of time has transpired in comic time. I get that time flows in comics at a rate that seem to imply that Father Time is stoned on some pretty awesome shit, but these kinds of details at least add some depth.

But as we’ve seen before in this series, O5 Jean Grey isn’t exactly the accomplished psychic she grows up to be. She manages to fuck up once again, allowing some of the guards to see them. And like any law enforcement person that sees a minority with a joint, they shoot first and don’t ask questions. This seriously bothers O5 Cyclops, hinting that he might have actually agreed with his older self more than he let on. But it once again shows that these O5 X-men aren’t exactly the lean mean mutant team we’ve come to expect. They’re teenagers in costumes. They’re only slightly more experienced than your typical cos-player. This still allows O5 Iceman to finally do more than just juggle snowballs. So his older self is dating the teacher and he’s saving the day? Suddenly, Iceman’s balls are descending a little and it only took 13 issues.

But what about Mystique? What the fuck is she planning to do with all that money? Bathe in it while using it to put her name on every building in the world Donald Trump style? Lady Mastermind doesn’t buy it. She believes Mystique has other plans that she isn’t divulging. She’s a shape-shifting mutant with a history of lying, cheating, and enjoying it every step of the way as if it were akin to multiple orgasms. And you know what? She’s right, but not about the orgasms.

Mystique did have another plan in mind and this plan involved the Silver Samurai and our old friends, Hydra. This isn’t the first time they have shown up in All New X-men. But now they’re doing more than just providing random fodder like Nazis in a Wolfenstein game. Mystique doesn’t have too many friends or allies in the Marvel universe anymore, having either killed them, pissed them off, or slept with them. And I guess Hydra is one of those select few, although I can’t help but wonder if she’s thinking about roughing up some drapes with Madam Hydra.

Back in the jet, O5 Jean is once again demoralized and bummed. She continues to do a disservice to the legendary reputation of her older self. Yet you still can’t help but feel sorry for her. Bendis has done a great job of showing her as a wide-eyed teenage girl who is trying hard to make sense of the world. It makes for a nice scene between her and Cyclops where she basically puts a huge burden on herself. She needs to be perfect, lest she fuck up her future even more. But seeing as how she’s already dead in the future, it’s not clear how much worse it can get.

But a much more detailed debate emerges when Havok’s speech about the so-called M-word is broadcasted. As I said earlier, time is really fucked up in comics and apparently his speech happened very recently. Mystique heard it with her team earlier in the book. Now the rest of the X-men are hearing it and despite being inexperienced teenagers that still probably think communism is a good idea on paper, they have a problem with it. Now this speech took place in Uncanny Avengers a while ago. It’s odd that Bendis is finally referencing it now, but it helps add a sense of synergy to this book that you usually don’t hear outside of bullshit corporate events.

And the one who provides the best insight into the whole M-word debate is Kitty Pryde. Because not only is she a mutant. She’s also Jewish and as we see on a daily basis from Iran, there are still some pretty anti-sematic assholes out there. She gives this awesome speech about this time when she heard some asshole she had a crush on say something that would bring tears of joy to Hitler’s eyes. Then rather than suck it up and go back to fantasizing about boy bands, she flat out proclaims that she is Jewish. And now she’s a mutant. Her point is simple. She wants people to know who and what she is so she knows if she’s going to have to bust any balls.

Her speech isn’t just another “fuck you” to Havok’s bullshit M-word speech. It effectively draws a line between what the All New X-men are doing and what the Uncanny Avengers are doing. It shows that the Avengers and the X-men still don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to addressing mutant issues. It took a fucking cosmic force for them to finally sit down and confront the bullshit surrounding mutants. And so far, they seem to be doing a very shitty job of it. While they may be incompetent as fuck, it still makes for a very compelling and very thought-provoking debate.

Mystique, however, takes a more basic approach when it comes to dealing with the hardships of being a mutant. She adopts the same approach the government uses whenever a big bank fails. She just throws money at it and hopes that will fix things. But she actually does have more of a clear plan than anything Congress has ever proposed. She offers Madam Hydra (who I’m still convinced she wants to fuck) an actual mountain of money to buy Madripoor. She wants to basically take it over and run it herself. Because running a small country worked out so well for Cyclops until a cosmic force fucked everything up, she wants to give it a shot. I’m not sure how viable this sort of plan is, but at least it makes more sense than what she said in previous issues about just making enough money to ditch the mutant issue altogether.

The negotiations between Mystique and Madam Hydra could have been very heated and made an awesome porno. But the O5 manage to arrive just in time to fuck everything up. I want to be upset, but I already have plenty of lesbo porn to jerk off to so I’m not too mad. The battle that unfolds is short, but to the point. Wolverine leads the O5 into battle against Mystique and Hydra. Wolverine also gets another chance to wound Sabreooth, which like a cold beer he never passes up. I’m guessing this is a deal-breaker between Hydra and Mystique. She’ll have to find something else to buy with her big pile of money. Maybe Texas is for sale. She can’t be any worse than Rick Perry.

But in the course of this overly basic fight, Lady Mastermind noticed O5 Jean’s presence. And given Mastermind’s history with Jean, it’s just too good a chance to pass up fucking with her. She was the one that humiliated her father. And while Jason Wynegarde was a total dick and probably a shitty parent, Lady Mastermind goes to work making shit even harder for O5 Jean Grey. And she does it using the fucking Phoenix Force.

I may be a drunk, but I haven’t killed enough brain cells yet to forget the shit the Phoenix caused in Avengers vs. X-men. Even if this is just an illusion and the Phoenix Force isn’t actually there, seeing again gives me that same feeling I get when I go to the dentist knowing that I haven’t flossed. It’s too soon and I’m not drunk enough to see another Phoenix plot. But seeing O5 Jean Grey tap the fucking Phoenix again is still an awesome sight and one that ends this comic on a high note.

Once again, All New X-men demonstrates why it’s one of the best X-books and also the most well-thought out. There’s actually some compelling words and arguments to be made in this book about labeling people. And if you’re not busy jerking off to images of Mystique going at it with Madam Hydra, you would do well to think about them. These are just my fucked up thoughts on All New X-men #13. And no, I won’t apologize for them. Nuff said!

All New X-men #11 - Harsh Lessons In Awesome

There are few things more painful than a breakup. For some, a breakup is right up there with getting a prostate exam from Freddy Kruger or being forced to watch every Twilight movie sober in terms of sheer agony. And it’s not just romantic relationships either. Yeah, it sucks that your heart may be in pieces and your dick/pussy now hates your guts, but it can be just as bad as when friends, teams, or bands break up. I’m sure if the internet existed back in the 60s and 70s, it would have exploded over when the Beatles broke up. Ironically, Iceman once compared the Original Five X-men to the Beatles in Uncanny X-men #544. Yet in the pages of All New X-men they’re breaking up and there’s no Yoko Ono to blame.

Now to be fair, team unity only goes so far. When the Original Five X-men came to the future, they were basically lied to by Beast. He told them that a mutant genocide was imminent. Well not only was that total bullshit, but there’s a mutant school that’s still intact. There are mutants and humans who both stand up to those who bully young mutants. And the internet still hasn’t been cut off and reality TV shows still haven’t been canceled. In other words, the world is still as fucked up as it always was. The only difference is that Cyclops killed Charles Xavier. Unfortunately, he left out that one minor detail of Cyclops being overwhelmed by a cosmic force and not being able to control himself. For anyone who doesn’t like to be lied to by someone who isn’t a priest or holy man, that’ just a dick move.

In addition, not everyone agreed that it was a good idea to stay in the future. While O5 Jean Grey convinced three of her fellow teammates that they should stay in the future to make it somewhat less nauseating, O5 Angel voted to forget about it and live blissfully in ignorance. And once he found out that his future self is a mind-fucked, creepy, Mr. Rogers persona he decided to give the middle finger to the future and go back home. The solution? O5 Jean Grey mind-fucked him. That’s like treating cocaine addiction with heroin. It sort of defeats the purpose.

All that bullshit is now catching up to Beast, the X-men, and the Original Five. In All New X-men #10, Cyclops showed up at the Jean Grey Institute to make a pitch and recruit new mutants to his team and piss Wolverine off again. It really came as no surprise to anyone that the Stepford Cuckoos joined his team because for some reason hot blonds can no longer resist Cyclops’s allure. But it actually was a surprise when another attractive blond decided to join, but this one didn’t have breasts. As we learned in Uncanny X-men #4, O5 Angel decided to join Cyclops. I figure after O5 Jean Grey mind-fucked him and he found out that Beast was bullshitting them, that was a deal-breaker. So while it was surprising to the team, it was probably the least surprising choice for the readers. Yet Bendis still found a way to make it compelling and dramatic.

The drama continues as the reactions unfold in All New X-men #11. Even though Bendis takes a whole page to show everyone in the O5 reacting as though someone just took a shit in their cereal, the revelation that O5 Angel is ditching the team still has impact. Granted, it probably would have made more assholes clench if it hadn’t been spoiled, but that doesn’t stop O5 Angel from essentially telling his teammates and the rest of the X-men to piss off. I imagine for him it’s like walking into your boss’s office, standing up on his desk, and do the Harlem Shake while screaming “I quit!” While it may be more bittersweet for him, I imagine it’s still pretty satisfying.

Even if it is satisfying, the reactions from the rest of the team continue to escalate like a bar fight after a Raiders game. Everybody from Wolverine to Cyclops bickers about the merits of letting a time-displaced X-men quit the team, which creates a rather hostile string of thoughts amongst the team. And for an inexperienced and often unethical telepath like O5 Jean Grey, that’s a bad combination. She reacts to this fighting the same way a bull reacts to someone accidentally kicking it in the balls. She starts throwing around her telekinesis like a blindfolded drunk wielding a baseball bat. It’s destructive and shocking, yet perfectly in line with reactions from overly emotional teenagers. Hell, it’s not even the most damaging. If O5 Jean Grey had been at my junior prom, then a case could be made. But I digress.

There’s some angry bitch-slapping in the midst of this chaos, but the blow that hits hardest doesn’t happen when Magneto fucks with Wolverine’s metal bones (again). The biggest moment comes when O5 Jean Grey once again unleashes her powers, this time in a completely intentional way, by trying to mind-fuck O5 Angel. This isn’t the first time she has done this either. A few issues ago, she mind-fucked O5 Angel when he wanted to go back to the past. Now she’s desperate to keep the team together and while her intentions may not be entirely bad, her methods of mind-fucking someone who is supposed to be her friend goes way too fucking far.

As a result, Emma Frost instructs the Stepford Cuckoos to give Jean Grey a harsh lesson in the responsible use of telepathy. By that I mean they mind-fuck her as well. We already found out in Uncanny X-men #5 that the Stepford Cuckoos had been rummaging around in Jean Grey’s mind like a crack head gathering loose change from a fountain. That makes easy for them to dig right in and give her the psychic equivalent of a Catholic School education run by defrocked priests. It’s a brutal battle and you don’t want to root against Jean Grey, but you don’t want to root against three hot blonds in school girl uniforms either. It’s a true conflict between the heart and the penis, but it’s a conflict that is well overdue.

I say this conflict is overdue because to this point, O5 Jean Grey has been about as responsible with her powers as Amanda Bynes with her Twitter feed. She’s mind-fucked her friends. She’s knocked Wolverine out cold so that he ends up in a pose best left to gay porn stars. And she’s generally scared the shit out of everyone around her. My point is she’s due for a lesson in humility and since there’s no Charles Xavier, she has to get it from Emma Frost’s daughters. That’s like getting a prostate exam from Mike Tyson. It can’t end well.

But it makes for a powerful moment in that Emma Frost rightly points out how this behavior deeply conflicts with the legend that is Jean Grey. She’s supposed to be the upstanding, loving telepath that embodies all things Xavier and who men have the insatiable urge to bone. She’s not supposed to be pwned by three blond teens in school girl uniforms or using her powers to mind-fuck her best friends. She ends up getting knocked out and humiliated in front of the entire student body of a school named after her. That’s like waking up naked with a giant dick drawn on your face on the 50-yard line during the kickoff at the Superbowl. It’s not just a lesson in humility. It utterly sodomized her ego in ways that would be taboo even at a gay bar in Amsterdam.

With O5 Jean Grey knocked out, humiliated, and demoralized the decision is sealed. O5 Angel leaves and the rest of the X-men are left to ponder the collapse of their collective scrotums and/or tits. He even rubs a little salt in the wound by saying he actually likes what Cyclops has become. Considering how so many other characters treat him like he strangled a puppy, that’s a welcome shift. He leaves a team that is definitely wounded and a little disturbed. It couldn’t have been more humiliating if Cyclops forced Wolverine to re-watch video from his wedding with Jean Grey and the pornos they probably made on their honeymoon. Not only that, the O5 is now split up. Beast already fucked up the time stream just by bringing them to the future. How is this going to fuck things up? That’s not yet clear, but Father Time’s asshole is probably already bleeding profusely.

There is a lot of pwnage and space-time ramifications to process, but that’s not the only thing attempting to screw over the X-men. As we’ve seen in the past few issues, Mystique has been operating behind the scenes while the X-men bicker. She’s been stealing a fuckton of money, using Lady Mastermind to make it look as though the O5 X-men are responsible, and probably pleasuring herself in the process. She continues to utilize that tactic in the same way any teenage boy would continue to utilize new and more masturbation techniques.

This time she grows bolder, shifting into the form of Pepper Potts and stealing from Tony Stark. Now that’s both ballsy and foolish, considering Tony Stark is a fucking Avenger who isn’t afraid to shoot cosmic forces with a giant gun. But Mystique, like the honey badger, simply gives too few fucks. And once she tricks some hapless guy into opening Stark’s accounts, she uses yet another illusion of the O5 X-men to fuck with his mind. She even encourages him to call the Avengers. Now this could be a mistake or it could buy her more time if she thinks the X-men are onto her. It’s a high risk/high reward scenario and when you’ve got a rack like Mystique, you can get away with it.

After so much pwnage, this issue is overdue for something a little more uplifting. Later on after Jean Grey recovers from her harsh lesson in responsible telepathy usage, she meets up with Kitty Pryde. She’s in an emotional state while Kitty is just pissed. And why shouldn’t she be? She’s supposed to be teaching the O5 and Jean Grey refuses to listen when she warns her against mind-fucking people. But this time Jean feels genuine sorrow for what she did. She’s both sad and angry with herself that the O5, which in her memories has always stuck together, is now broken up. It’s a wide range of emotions that Bendis captured perfectly. It actually killed my buzz from a bong hit, but for once I didn’t mind. This was one instance where the emotions really resonated because this was a lesson Jean Grey needed to learn. Yet now it’s finally sinking in and it feels so good.

O5 Jean and Kitty have a heart-to-heart. Kitty makes it clear to her that she’s frustrated and that shit is not going to be the same now. This is the kind of shit they have to deal with if they’re going to stay in the future. And Jean, despite her wounded ego, offers her sincere apology. Kitty accepts it and makes it clear that she has to apologize to the rest of the team as well. It’s a punishment that most teenage girls would whine about, but Jean finally shows some of the maturity that she’s known for showing and agrees. She even gives Kitty a nice hug. It couldn’t have been more emotional if there were surrounded by baby kittens.

I may come off as overly crass on this comic, but anyone who has ever gone drinking with me knows that I can be an emotional drunk at times. Even in the era of big blockbuster movies, some people refuse to believe that comic books can be anything more than big muscular men and big-breasted women dressing in spandex and fighting evil aliens/robots. But there is a place for stories that play on emotions and this is definitely one of the best moments in All New X-men to date. If you read this scene and don’t feel even a little bit emotional, go back to torturing puppies and preparing for your future parole hearing because this is one of those moments that will make us all channel our inner PMS.

After the emotions have died down, the team reorganizes and focuses back on Mystique. A few issues ago, they found out she paid O5 Cyclops a visit. And were it not for the impromptu visit by his older, Xavier-killing counterpart, they would have gone after her. Well now they’ve finally caught up with it, showing that Bendis isn’t inclined to shrug off side-plots. However, they quickly hit a nasty snag. Apparently, that guy Mystique and Lady Mastermind mind-fucked earlier did call the Avengers. And now that they think the O5 attacked Tony Stark’s toys, they show up to beat some answers out of them. Somewhere out there Mystique is laughing her ass off and probably pleasuring herself.

Certain life lessons are like hangovers. They’re painful. They damage your mind, body, and soul. And they sometimes end with you throwing up chunks of meals from the past three weeks in a toilet that you can never use again. After reading this issue, I get the sense that Jean Grey experienced one of those life lessons. She may still have an intact liver, but she’s done a lot of damage to herself, her friends, her teammates, and her legend. At least she can say she hasn’t ruined a perfectly good toilet.

While the mystery over who joins Cyclops’s revolution was already spoiled by Uncanny X-men #5, this issue still had the impact fans were hoping for. And true to the themes that Brian Michael Bendis has established since the beginning of this book, he spends a fair amount of time exploring the drama and high emotions that come along with that impact. More than anything, this issue established what an angry Jean Grey with no Charles Xavier influence is capable of doing. She’s willing to forcibly manipulate the mind and free will of her friends. She did it once before with O5 Angel. She tried to do it again, but this time she got a harsh lesson in responsible use of powers. And it came courtesy of the Stepford Cuckoos rather than the benevolent Charles Xavier. Then again, there are worse ways to get a harsh lesson from three hot blonds. And Jean didn’t even have to pay extra.

In addition to the sheer emotional impact, this issue helped move the story forward both in a pragmatic and dramatic sort of way. Jean Grey learned her lesson, but that wasn’t the only looming crisis unfolding. Mystique has continued her rampage and for some reasons, it still gives me a boner. And by using illusions featuring the O5 X-men, she’s given the O5 even more distractions. The jury is still out as to whether this is smart or akin to waving your dick in the face of a hungry shark. But given the sheer lack of fucks Mystique has been shown to give in recent times, it’s perfectly in-character for her and sets the stage for a pretty awkward conversation that is sure to become violent.

Now I’ve praised Bendis numerous times on this series for taking his time with this story. His method of storytelling is very drawn out. He’s basically the anti-Jeph Loeb of comics. While that has done wonders with this series, at times it does leave the story feeling incomplete. We’re 11 issues into All New X-men now and there are a lot of issues that haven’t really been touched on. O5 Jean Grey hasn’t met up with Rachel. O5 Cyclops hasn’t met up with Cable. Cyclops hasn’t had a chance to sit down with his younger self to explain how he ended up on the Avengers’ shit list. Emma Frost hasn’t had a chance to gloat about how she kissed Cyclops over Jean Grey’s grave. So many juicy moments are just dangling like exposed breasts at a Las Vegas strip club and Bendis is only focusing on their feet. While some of those moments may not have worked in this issue, it is starting to get to a point where it feels as though these moments are being overlooked.

Even if I’m overly impatient while I’m sober, this doesn’t take away from the quality of this issue. A lot of things fit together nicely in All New X-men #11. O5 Angel left. O5 Jean Grey learned her lesson. And Mystique using the O5 in illusions has finally pissed enough people off that the Avengers have taken notice. It’s starting to converge. Nothing felt too out-of-place in this issue and with all the drama surrounding O5 Jean Grey, the prospect of an Avengers smack-down only adds to this issue’s appeal. For that, I give All New X-men #11 a 5 out of 5. It deserves the highest possible score in that it effectively moves the story forward while throwing in some awesome drama. It’s makes this comic one of those rare issues that you could read with a girl and you could both get emotional. And if the girl is the overly emotional type, it might even get you laid! And any comic capable of that deserves the highest possible praise. Nuff said!

All New X-men #9 - Setting The Stage For Awesome

Before I go into my typical drunken rant, let me say one thing for the record. Being a teenager sucks every kind of ass that has ever existed. Unless your rich, beautiful, and a complete sociopath, being a teenager is like having your asshole being operated on by a blind doctor wearing a boxing glove. I’ve made this point many times in many different reviews, but I think it’s worth reinforcing in the context of All New X-men.

Brian Michael Bendis made it clear from the beginning that the X-men he’s dealing with are teenagers. It doesn’t matter whether they’re time-displaced or pathetic rip-off characters meant to replace someone that was killed off (looking at you, Miles fucking Morales), being a teenager is central to the theme. It has already played a big part in the events of All New X-men. Cyclops is no longer the large and in charge leader who gets to bone Emma Frost every night. He’s an awkward teenager who isn’t sure of himself and isn’t sure of his future. Jean Grey isn’t the loving, compassionate woman that men can’t help but fall in love with and try to bone. She’s also an awkward teenager trying to figure out new powers while wrapping her head around the fact that she’s died multiple times and has been replaced by a shitty rip-off character in Hope Summers.

And then there’s Angel. Oh Lord have mercy, there’s Angel and he feels like he’s in hell. The entire previous issue was basically dedicated to Angel freaking out on a level usually reserved for teenagers that find out the girl they boned in a drunken stupor is pregnant and has a father with a licensed shotgun in his possession. The Avengers finding out about Beast’s time travel shenanigans was secondary. Angel’s freak-out was sort of a microcosm of how the Original Five X-men are dealing with being in the present. That is to say they’re dealing with it in a way you would expect of a bunch of hormonal, emotional, and utterly irrational teenagers.

Yet they’re intent on changing the future so that it doesn’t suck so damn much and they’ve enlisted help from Kitty Pryde to train them. I guess she can take some comfort in the knowledge that teenagers are easily bored and need shit to stimulate that underdeveloped mind of theirs. After freaking the fuck out in the last issue, they still have to get their shit together if they’re to have any impact on the future. I normally have sympathy for teenagers going through their own personal hell, but Bendis has made this so entertaining that it’s almost masochistic in a non-porno sort of way.

The masochism in All New X-men #9 continues in that it doesn’t just focus on the physical rigors. Kitty Pryde goes so far as to call out Jean Grey for the mind-fucking she did to Angel in the previous issue. Jean’s response is typical of any teenager who thinks they can solve all the world’s problems by legalizing pot and having hippies run the government. She claims it was the right thing to do and Kitty Pryde calls bullshit. However, not much else is made of it. Last I checked, teenagers don’t just change their mind when you call their actions bullshit. Tell someone not to do something and it usually has the opposite effect. Just ask the Catholic Church.

While it would have been nice to see Kitty Pryde or anyone for that matter give Jean Grey a crash course in the ethics of mind-fucking other people, instead the O5 X-men get a crash course in X-men basics. That means they need to start fighting giant robots and go about it the same way most people go about taking a shit. Kitty Pryde treats them like virgin schoolgirls in Japanese anime porn in that she throws them into a den of tentacle monsters by having them fight sentinels in the streets of New York City. It’s a classic scenario that anyone with a nostalgic fetish should be able to jerk off to. But it’s important to keep in mind that what seems so basic to X-men veterans is actually akin to having an intern with cerebral palsy perform open heart surgery on their first day.

The battle between the O5 X-men and the sentinels is a classic struggle, but one that once again reveals just how inexperienced these teenagers are compared to the X-men we know and love. They start off as you would expect a bunch of teenagers, just charging head first into the problem without giving much thought to teamwork and trying to conceal their boners. Cyclops attempts to be the leader that Mystique told him he should have been in previous issues, but it works about as well as a Mormon missionary at a crack house.

Keep in mind, this is just a simple sentinel. The O5 opted to stay in the future so they could fix all the shit that’s wrong with it. And if they are struggling with one fucking sentinel, they might as well go back to the past and ask Charles Xavier to both wipe their minds and give them diapers. It shows just how inexperienced this team really is. Maybe it’s because I still get a kick out of any story of a teenager fucking up hilariously, but I took a special satisfaction in this scene.

In the end the team fails the mission and fails it badly. Kitty Pryde ends up stopping the simulation early and calmly explains to the O5 the extent to which they fucked up. Granted, she’s pretty generous about it. And O5 Iceman even goes so far as to say that this is way more fucked up than the Danger Room sessions they did in the past. While it’s still as satisfying as ever to see teenagers fail, it does make an important point. It identifies the gap in training between the O5 X-men and the modern X-men. They need to adjust to this fucked up future and they need to adjust fast. It's a message every other teenager would be wise heed, but we know they're not. So we might as well just sit back, grab a beer, and laugh our ass off as they continue to learn the hard way.

But in the same way it is in the nature of teenagers to fuck up and not heed good advice, it is also in their nature to challenge authority. Some, like the recently mind-fucked Angel, haven’t forgotten that they were roped into visiting the future because Beast told them Cyclops was going to commit mass mutant genocide. Well he’s been in the future long enough to be mind-fucked, but so far he hasn’t seen any genocide. And he’s not sure how this sort of training is going to help them prevent it, if it even is a threat. I usually don’t agree with any teenagers I’m not trying to bone, but O5 Angel makes a damn good point.

And he’s not the only one fucking with team dynamics. Jean Grey, who still can’t seem to understand why it’s wrong to poke around someone else’s mind without their permission, finds out that O5 Cyclops was hanging out with another redhead who may or may not have given him an erection. She asks him about Mystique. And naturally, he’s not too happy with her being in his mind again. Even if he does still want to bone her, a man has his limits. It offers both a nice connection to the recent comics and a nice segway into other issues that involve shit blowing up.

Mystique made it clear in All New X-men #7 that she had a good reason for fucking with the O5 and playing on O5 Cyclops’s hormones. She has a plan of her own and it doesn’t involve the X-men interfering. She encouraged O5 Cyclops to take more initiative than any teenager should and while it’s hard to tell how much influence she’s had, she’s carrying on as if the X-men are too occupied to stop her plans.

And these plans involve her disguising herself as Maria Hill, pretending that Sabretooth can be restrained outside her bedroom, and casually strolling into a high security prison. It’s pretty basic. It’s the kind of shit you would expect Mystique to do on her typical Thursday afternoon, but it adds an element of action that doesn’t involve fucking holograms. In a series like All New X-men where teen drama supersedes action, it adds some much needed balance. If an X-men comic goes too many issues without blowing shit up, I feel the same way the military probably does when they go a few too many days without an illegal drone strike.

Mystique’s plans quickly progress as she proceed to break out a prisoner that she believes can help her plan. That prisoner is our old friend, Lady Mastermind. Now maybe I killed one too many brain cells last weekend, but I can’t for the life of me remember how Lady Mastermind ended up in a prison cell. I know she was part of the Sisterhood of Evil Mutants and got her ass kicked by Emma Frost while she was in her underwear (you don’t forget shit like that). But after that, she ends up in prison? Well, whatever the reason, she’s a hot blond and we all know hot blonds never stay in prison for very long. Just ask Paris Hilton.

While I’m all for Mystique having a hot blond on her team, her plan is anything but ambitious. After reading All New X-men #7, you got the sense she was planning the kind of shit that would make sentinel manufacturers cum in their pants. But instead, her plan involves gathering a few powerful mutants, using their powers to make fucktons of money, and using that money to live in luxury while the rest of the world sorts out this shit. Granted, that’s probably the most logical plan any villain in any comic has ever come up with. However, for someone like Mystique, it’s pretty fucking underwhelming. Maybe I just miss a Mystique that had ambition, but it if this was reason enough to fuck with the O5 then it’s a pretty shitty reason.

From one shitty reason to another, O5 Angel shows that he’s not dropping this whole genocide bullshit that Beast pulled on them. He confronts Beast, who is now healthy and no longer looking like Thundercats cos-player, and calls him out. He basically demands he explain why he told them that Cyclops was going to commit mass genocide on mutants. He dances around the question for the most part. All he does is say Cyclops is going to provoke human fears and that’s going to cause some shit. But genocide? He claims that by just being here the O5 could prevent it, but he doesn’t admit he may have been pushing it when he used that excuse to draw the O5 to the future. That’s akin to telling Republicans that President Obama is amassing a secret Kenyan army to take over the White House. It’s obviously bullshit, but the Michelle Bachmann’s of the world will take it seriously and that’s just a dick move.

There’s plenty more dick moves to discuss, including O5 Cyclops’s encounter with Mystique. But before anyone can start pissing and moaning about it, a more pressing issue emerges and it takes the form of sweet, beautiful convergence. In Uncanny X-men #3, Brian Michael Bendis penned another issue that was light on action yet heavy on drama of the most awesome variety. It ended with Cyclops pwning the Avengers in a gloriously fitting way and taking a trip to the Jean Grey Institute for a recruitment run. Well that’s exactly how this issue ends as well. Rather than come off as repetitive, it comes off as two comics in perfect harmony in terms of events. In the world of Marvel comics where time is often more flexible and fucked up than a Russian gymnast on crack, this kind of convergence is a true thing of beauty.

After reading this issue, I’m compelled to say it again and say it with the certainty of the most annoying creationist. Being a teenager sucks. Now I’m not sure if Brian Michael Bendis is just belaboring a point or if there’s a larger message in this story, but at this point he’s hitting readers upside the head with this concept so hard that the NFL would give him a lifetime suspension for inducing concussions. It’s not enough for it to just suck. In All New X-men, it has to suck and involve getting your ass kicked by killer robots. It’s like high school, a prostate exam, and being arrested at the same time. While it may evoke some traumatic memories in some readers, it’s still a fucking awesome comic.

This issue took a break from the drama in some respects to explore the finer details about how the Original Five are being conditioned for this mission of theirs. For a series that has been so heavy on the drama and subtle with the action, this issue added some much needed balance. We didn’t just get to see the Original Five fuck up their first Danger Room session. We also got to see Mystique fuck up life for a group of unlucky SHIELD agents while gaining a new member to her plan. And yes, it helps that said member is a hot blond. And no, it doesn’t help that her plan is basically the same as every white collar criminal that ever gave the finger to the SEC. So in that sense it balances out in more than one way.

But as much as I enjoyed seeing Mystique blow shit up while giving me a boner, some dramatic elements seem to be getting lost in the mix. The impact of Jean mind-fucking Angel was only lightly touched on, but other elements like Cyclops giving Jean that wedding invitation a few issues ago seems to be completely lost. These are issues that have serious personal implications for these characters, but Bendis has basically cast them aside.

However, the seamless convergence at the end with the events of Uncanny X-men #3 provided the perfect excuse for such oversight. I mean how can you squeeze that sort of shit in when you know shit is going to be hitting the fan when Cyclops shows up with his revolutionary team? I understand that Bendis takes his sweet fucking time when it comes to developing certain sub-plots. For a guy like me who only has so much weed to pass the time, that can be frustrating. But he always finds a way to move shit forward and make it awesome. This issue is no exception.

If there is a flaw here, it’s that this issue is built mostly on potential. Lady Mastermind joining Mystique and Cyclops’s revolutionary team showing up didn’t really move the plot forward. For the most part, all it did was set things up for future issues. It’s frustrating in that it leaves readers like me foaming at the mouth to see more sexual tension between Mystique and Lady Mastermind and more Angel calling out Beast on his bullshit. Maybe I’m just getting greedy or I’m way too fucking sober while I’m writing this, but I give All New X-men #9 a 4 out of 5. This issue just left me wanting more and wanting it bad! I mean come on, Bendis! This throbbing erection I’ve got isn’t going to go away on its own! Nuff said.

All New X-men #7 - Manipulative Awesome

What do you when you discover that you’ll grow up to be an insufferable douche-bag revolutionary, a mentally unstable package of emotions that attracts cosmic forces, a hippie amnesiac that has no memory of what Psylocke’s breasts feel like, or just your typical registered Republican? Most of us would be pretty pissed off with ourselves, but Brian Michael Bendis has given the Original Five X-men a chance to actually do something about it and hopefully not fuck up the space time continuum in the process. The whole premise of All New X-men is based on using the past to fix the present without making the same mistakes as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. There’s an incest joke in there as well, but seeing as how Wolverine probably still has boners about Jean Grey I’ll skip that to avoid more disturbing images than are necessary.

I admit I was among those who was skeptical that All New X-men would be anything more than bad physics lesson and another excuse to avoid bringing adult Jean Grey back. I was prepared to stick my dick in a blender with expired anchovies and milk and make it part of a bullshit sandwich. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. Bendis has proven that this series can not only be awesome. It can bring Jean Grey back into the fold in a far more significant way than just putting her in that sexy Phoenix costume again (although I admit that would help). As her young, wide-eyed cocktail of teenage hormones, Jean Grey reminds readers that she’s awesome in ways that go beyond her red hair, green eyes, and awesome rack. She’s taken charge of the Original Five, convincing them that they need to stay in this future and fix this shit. She actually managed to motivate an entire group of teenage boys while keeping her top on. In other words, score one for the feminists, motherfuckers!

But if Jean Grey is now leading this mission to unfuck the future, where does this leave Cyclops? He was given the first class screw-job in Avengers vs. X-men and rendered Dr. Doom’s prison bitch by the Avengers, the X-men, and everyone else who didn’t scrutinize the details of the conflict. Nobody in the Jean Grey Institute trusts him, his own team hates him, the girl he loves is one used tampon away from putting a restraining order on him, and Wolverine is just itching for an excuse to kill him that doesn’t revolve around boning Jean Grey. In the previous issue, O5 Cyclops dealt with that in a way not at all dissimilar from his older counterpart. When Wolverine started acting like an asshole, he blasted his ass with an optic blast. Score one for the guys who the guys who aren’t obsessively creepy about a woman to the point of naming a school after her, motherfuckers!

While shooting Wolverine is always good for solving little problems, it still doesn’t solve the bigger problem that Cyclops and the Original Five face. They’re in a world where mutants are on the rise again and Cyclops has little reservation about rubbing elbows with Magneto and blowing shit up to protect them. It’s hard enough in a world where magazines cost five bucks a pop, but at some point they have to actually confront the sordid details of how this future got so fucked up. And there are going to be plenty of people along the way that will try and make sure that the future fucks them up before the unfucking can begin. Since this is still the early stages of this series, the actual details of the O5’s mission and the obstacles surrounding it are unclear. But Bendis is steadily bringing it into focus.

All New X-men #7 builds on the drama and awkward moments from the previous issue. O5 Cyclops took Jean Grey’s order to stay the fuck away from her pretty damn seriously and ran off from the Jean Grey Institute. After his failed attempt to get a map and shooting Wolverine for getting in his way (or for just being a douche), he finds himself at a bank where he hopes his older self kept his safe deposit box before drowning his sorrows in Emma Frost’s breasts. He tries to access it and to his luck, the cute girl working there is a huge X-men supporter and recognizes him.

She also must have read Avengers vs. X-men because she clearly doesn’t buy into the bullshit notion that the Avengers constantly pestering a cosmic force didn’t play a part in shit going horribly wrong. She goes onto say that she wishes she were a mutant because it beats the shit out of working a dead end job and having a life more boring than a speech by Henry Kissinger. This is actually the first time the population in the Marvel universe have shown some support for mutants in the post-Avengers vs. X-men world. It not only gets Cyclops access to his box and possibly a shot at some office-style pussy, but it shows that not everyone is overly eager to suck the dick of Avengers propaganda.

Once the kind bank associate who may or may not want to bone him shows him his box, Cyclops opens it to see that his future self did keep it stocked. It included some fairly pragmatic shit like money, passports, and a spare pair of ruby-quartz glasses. Since he’s only had his visor to this point, it makes for a far less conspicuous fashion sense. Because unless you’re a hipster douche in Seattle, you don’t get away with wearing glasses like that.

But while Cyclops is sifting through his safe box, another female bank clerk who probably doesn’t want to bone him confronts the clerk who let him in. She apparently doesn’t feel comfortable letting a wanted fugitive into a bank and giving him access to the vault. That’s like giving Michael Bay access to a shipping crate of plastic explosives. So she decides to call the police, blissfully unaware that this Cyclops isn’t the same Cyclops that got drunk on the Phoenix Force. Then again, working in a bank requires that you tell the difference between the guy looking to cash in his welfare check and the guy looking to steal a role of twenties for a strip club. I’ll forgive her for not being able to tell the difference between Cyclops and a time-displaced Cyclops, but it still counts as a dick move.

The cops show up, but not before Wolverine shows up first. Despite taking yet another optic blast in the previous issue, he just can’t resist harassing Cyclops no matter what era he’s from. He attempts to drag him out of the bank like a mother dragging her kid out of a candy store for trying to stuff his pockets with fudge. The cops threaten to shoot, but Wolverine threatens to chop their arms off while casually reminding him that he just took a fucking optic blast point blank. A bullet wound for him is only a mild rectal itch. With that in mind, the cops wisely let him drag O5 Cyclops out. As he leaves, the nice clerk who let him in looks worried, indicating that despite the spectacle she probably still wants to bone him.

Now this sounds like a perfect setting for Wolverine to get yet another optic blast from Cyclops. I know I make a big deal out of it, but like masturbation and fart jokes some things just never get old. However, as soon as they’re clear of the bank, Cyclops finds out the Wolverine who dragged him out of the bank isn’t the same Wolverine he blasted so gleefully in the last issue. Once away from public sight, he reveals that he’s actually got boobs and is named Mystique. I’ll take a moment to slam back some imported vodka and squeal like a school girl because Mystique has always had a special place in my heart and my penis. Unlike Wolverine, she doesn’t seek to kill him, piss him off, or bone his girlfriend. She just wants to talk. I know all her recent history is perfectly in line with an unapologetic sociopath, but she still comes off as more honest and trustworthy than Wolverine. What the fuck does that say about him?

Once the shock wears off of talking to a hot chick with blue skin, Mystique takes on the form of a younger, less jaded Rihanna so she can talk to O5 Cyclops in the open. The conversation here is very well-done, even if it tells the readers many things they already know. But the core of it revolves around Mystique actually admiring O5 Cyclops (or at least pretending to). She says his younger, more idealistic persona is a considerable upgrade compared to the more current version that used to bone Emma Frost in his spare time. She also doesn’t blame him for killing Charles Xavier, pointing out that he was under the influence of a fucking cosmic bird. To date, nobody has really explained to him just how fucked up the circumstances were in Avengers vs. X-men. While Mystique may not be the most trustworthy source, it’s pretty damn important to have someone point that shit out.

Moreover, Mystique actually encourages O5 Cyclops to re-inflate the balls that Beast and Wolverine busted and fight back against his future self. Not only that, she encourages him to fight back against Wolverine’s approach to training X-men. Because let’s face it, she’ll never pass up a chance to fuck with Wolverine. She doesn’t need to convince him more than anyone else already has that this isn’t the future he fought for. But she does convince him that he should be the one that fixes this. Despite there being so many other mutants to deal with this shit, he’s still fucking Cyclops. It doesn’t matter how few hairs are on his balls right now. He should be the one that makes shit right and damn it she has a point! And I’m not just saying that because I find her blue skin and her rack so damn sexy.

Eventually, they have to cut their conversation short before Mystique can get to the part where she seduces him. Wolverine may not have gotten to him first, but he did eventually track him down. Mystique knows this and leaves O5 Cyclops with an indelible impression. He puts that impression to good use when he flat out asks Wolverine why he doesn’t just kill him, solve all their problems, and help himself to all the sweet Jean Grey pussy he could ever want. He finally stops acting like a fucking asshat for once and admits that killing someone is easy and saving someone is hard. And unfortunately, Charles Xavier taught him the value of not being lazy. It’s one of the few times Wolverine actually comes off as somewhat redeemable. But it’s still clear that he would be a lot happier if Cyclops just dropped dead.

Oddly enough, Mystique came off as unusually decent and not just because of what she is or isn’t wearing for once. But she’s still Mystique. Marvel has gone to great lengths to make her a complete and utter sociopath in recent years and while I vehemently disagree with that path, they’re not about to go back on it now. Once clear, Mystique rejoins whatever mysterious associate she has pussy-whipped at the moment and lets him know that she’s succeeded. Beast brought the O5 to the present and she just inspired one of them to stir up some shit between Cyclops and the Jean Grey Institute. It doesn’t just make for better comics. It makes her job, whatever it may be, that much easier. And for some reason, that kind of cunning from Mystique still gives me a boner.

After all this drama with O5 Cyclops, it’s easy to forget the rest of the Original Five X-men are still cleaning the shit out of their pants and trying to adjust to their new lives in the future. This includes getting started on their training with Kitty Pryde, who volunteered to be their de-facto guide during their stay in the era of Apple and hipsters. Out in the basketball court, she starts the day with Beast, Iceman, and Jean Grey by ordering they do push-ups. Because somehow that is supposed to prepare them for fixing the fucking future. It leads to Iceman being the rebellious teenager he is at heart and questioning her authority. This promptly earns him an ass-kicking from a woman that isn’t much bigger than he is and boning his older self. I’m pretty sure that’s almost akin to having your balls thrown into a black hole.

It’s a much more light-hearted scene compared to the O5/Mystique confrontation, but it feels both out-of-place and out-of-context. In the previous issue, Kitty Pryde was consoling Jean Grey when she was having nightmares and couldn’t control her powers. Now they’re all in uniform and ready to train? Now maybe this is because I’m not a morning person, but this scene is like waking up with a dead donkey and a hooker in your bed and shrugging your shoulders while you get dressed and go to work. I get that the O5 are going to train under Kitty Pryde, but this scene just didn’t feel like it flowed well from the previous issue even if it did serve a valid purpose.

While O5 Iceman is left to ponder the collapse of his scrotum, O5 Cyclops returns with Wolverine. Not much is said other than Wolverine demonstrating that he’s capable of surviving a 2-hour drive with Cyclops and not killing him. But O5 Cyclops does confront Jean Grey, who told him a couple issues ago to stay the fuck away from him in the kind of tone only an emotional teenage girl can manage. Rather than argue with her as every overconfident teenage boy is inclined to do when his ego is shaken, he just gives her one of the other little relics he found in his safe deposit box. It happens to be an invitation to his and Jean’s future wedding, which he apparently kept. I’m not sure what sort of symbolism Bendis is trying to convey here, but fuck if it isn’t powerful. The emotions surrounding the Cyclops/Jean relationship have been more fucked up than the Korean instructions for supercomputer. Yet this scene seems to remind both Jean and the readers that it was a big fucking deal. In a comic that already has Mystique stirring up emotions while being deceptively seductive, this is like a bonus icing of additional emotion. It’s like a good kind of PMS and it makes for an awesomely fitting conclusion to the issue.

What can you say about a comic that centers mostly around certain characters just casually chit-chatting and whose only real action involves an undersized woman kicking the ass of a teenage boy? On paper, that sounds like something Ann Coulter might write if she overdosed on Ritalin. It shouldn’t work or even feel remotely exciting. But damn it, Brian Michael Bendis couldn’t have made this shit more compelling without having Morgan Freeman narrate it while Johnny Depp acted each part.

All New X-men has not been heavy on action and Brian Bendis has not billed it as something Michael Bay would turn into a movie. This is a series that draws its awesome from drama. Whereas a typical Avengers/Wolverine/X-Force comic is expected to have a certain number of broken bones, concussions, and lacerations, this series has built a reputation on putting emotions into a blender and throwing in some nitroglycerine before hitting frappe. It may not have the same spectacle as watching Cyclops shoot Wolverine with his optic blasts and granted, Bendis has found a way to give us that on more than one occasion. But that emotional upheaval resonates on so many levels. Hell, anyone who ever went through their teenage years thinking their future was fucked and they didn’t have any control over it (spoiler alert: it’s not and you do) should get something from this issue and this series as a whole.

Given all the praise I’ve heaped on All New X-men, I’ve been accused of bias at times. I admit that this issue did tickle my fancy in ways that only well-paid Russian strippers could match and part of that may stem from my adolescent longing to bone Mystique. But I’m not so blinded by Mystique’s tits or O5 Cyclops’s self-loathing that I’m willing to overlook every possible flaw. While Bendis dedicated plenty of energy towards the Cyclops/Mystique conversation, the whole training scene with Kitty and O5 seemed a little off. After Kitty and Storm had a heart-to-heart with Jean Grey in the previous issue, this scene carried on as if that shit didn’t even happen or had no effect. They say Jean needs to lead the team, but now Kitty Pryde is channeling her inner “Full Metal Jacket” and barking orders? As I’ve pointed out in many Uncanny X-Force reviews, the ability for a series to remain cohesive from issue to issue sets the awesome comics apart from the shit you use when you’re low on toilet paper. The scene was fun, but it was more of an SNL skit than an actual part of the story.

There’s also the issue of the Angel/O5 Angel story only being briefly mentioned by Kitty, but we’ve already learned from future previews that we’ll catch up with this story soon enough so I’m not going to waste precious alcohol and dwell on it. The awesome Bendis has brought forth in this issue far exceeds any petty flaws. More than anything, he motivated (through the deception of a devious yet sexy woman no less) the Original Five X-men to clash with Cyclops and the Jean Grey Institute. For Cyclops, Jean Grey, and the rest of the Original Five, every issue to this point has made one thing clear. This is NOT the future they fought for and if they’re going to fix the future, they need to wade through multiple pools of shit. Moreover, the emotions surrounding Cyclops and Jean Grey’s relationship was further explored and NOT glossed over for once, which can only help this issue and the future of this series.

I know I shouldn’t like Mystique or admire women like her. It’s not healthy and it has already led me to hook up with women who would prefer to exercise their inner psycho-bitch, but I wouldn’t risk the additional restraining orders if a part of me didn’t enjoy it. Mystique has once again made the X-men comics a better place for X-men fans and my penis. Her role in this issue and the emotional focus on Cyclops made it as compelling an issue of All New X-men as you could hope for. I give All New X-men #7 a 4.5 out of 5. This is Brian Michael Bendis exercising his greatest strength like Ron Jeremy at a dick-measuring contest. To that, I say whip that shit out and measure away! Nuff said!