All New X-men #1 Preview: More Promise and More Bullshit

A while back, I did a post on some previews for All New X-men #1 that had been recently released by Marvel. Not content to merely offer fans a whiff of the shit they have planned, a few more panels have been released. I meant to post them sooner, but I wasn't sure how much more Marvel was going to post. That and I may have gotten drunk again. Okay, so maybe one was more a factor than the other. But the fine folks at Newsarma have compiled all the images released thus far and the scripts. I'll leave it to my wonderful readers how much it soaks their panties.

Page 16-17:

4- Iceman is next to Hank, who leans on the blackbird.  Trying to disguise [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]... And says it.

ICEMAN
The thing is Ororo, I've known Scott longer than ANYONE.

Me AND Hank.

We've known him forever.  We were the ORIGINAL X-Men.

The Scott we grew up with - he would HATE this.

Page 15:

5- Ororo is angry and the sky behind her is dark purple wind and lightening.  The wind is insane.

ORORO

I KNOW!!

I know, Kitty.

But a fight like this will end in half the mutants dead and half the world hating us.

All we’ve been doing here will have been for nothing.

X-men Legacy #274 - Past Relationships and Future Awesome

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't review another issue of X-men Legacy that involved the dongs of cat people. I'm sorry. I may be an X-men fan with a drinking problem, but I have my limits. I simply cannot bring myself to review a comic whose premise is too ridiculous no matter how much weed I smoke. It sure didn't help that X-men Legacy did such a great job of tying in with Avengers vs. X-men at first, only to piss it all away for fucking cat people dongs. I've been on the business end of some pretty shitty trades, namely one where I unknowingly gave a couple hundred bucks to a guy who sold me Flintstone vitamins and claimed they were ecstasy. But there's no fair trade for cat people dongs.

Thankfully, that story was over and t ended as predictably as it should with Rogue getting back to her world just in time for the shit storm in Avengers vs. X-men #11. That comic may have sucked, but at least it didn't involve cat people dongs. Sorry if I seem like I'm beating a dead horse here, but some shit is just too hard to forget no matter how many brain cells you kill. And as bad as that story was, I'm not inclined to just ditch X-men Legacy. The series is one of the numerous titles that will be relaunching as part of the Marvel NOW! non-reboot that Marvel is hyping. That means there are only a few issues left with which to tie up loose ends and I might as well check them out before the non-reboot brings in a different kind of dong.

As much as I've enjoyed X-men Legacy, there is one aspect aside from dongs that makes my asshole clench like a Rabbi in Iran. That's the Rogue/Magneto relationship. Now Marvel has a long list of shitty, downright toxic relationships in their comics. Hell, they've had Hank Pym beat the shit out of his wife for making a joke about how many Pym particles it took to make his dick big. But this relationship was like a two hungry cannibals drenched in steak sauce going down on each other. It was bound to go horribly bad at some point. So when Rogue left for the Jean Grey Institute and Magneto stayed on Genosha, my stomach rejoiced. Now it could save the vomiting for alcohol and cocaine benders in Cancun. However, they never officially wrapped up this abomination of a relationship. And that's what X-men Legacy #274 is expected to do.

Now in reading this comic, we do get exposed to a few spoilers for Avengers vs. X-men. But they're about as surprising as Ricky Martin's sexuality. The X-men lost. The utopian world the Phoenix Five created was blown to shit. And now everybody hates mutants again and not the assholes (the Avengers) who picked a fight with them. It means people are in danger, buildings have collapsed, and wi-fi signals are weak. So despite humans having more reasons to piss themselves around mutants, Rogue tries to help in Washington DC with rescue efforts. She gets a gun pointed at her, but it still beats cat people dongs. Okay, I promise that'll be the last dong reference.

Since it has been a while since Magneto used a tragedy to try and snake his way into Rogue's panties, he shows up and offers to help. He also gets a few guns pointed at him (and by a few I mean a shit ton along with automatic weapons) and more deservedly so. This is a guy who talks about wiping out the human race as casually as most people talk about ordering Chinese food. Yet for some reason that still got Rogue's panties wet. I'll never understand that in the same way I'll never understand why supermodels marry butt-ugly rock stars, but for the sake of this comic I'll hold back my nausea. Rogue also manages to hold back the guys with the guns, as if she really needed to against a guy who could have easily turned them on everyone and danced to the sound of their blood hitting the pavement. But he didn't. He's here for Rogue's pussy and not for killing humans. As such, he agrees to help her free the people trapped in the subway. Plus, it means being in an enclosed space with her and anyone who has been in a closet with a drunk chick knows how all sorts of crazy shit can happen in that environment.

But there's crazy and there's just plain fucked up. As they're sifting their way through the wreckage, Magneto gets down on one knee and not in a way that would lead you to believe he's trying out for gay porn. My stomach almost declared war on me on the spot, but thankfully Gage isn't quite that cruel. Magneto wasn't proposing. It just looked like he was, so much so that even Rogue got a little sickened. Magneto quickly tucks it back in his pants before explaining that since the world nearly came to an end (again and not by his hands for once), it's led him to reevaluate his priorities. And her pussy is now at the top of the list. He tells her this after he casually justifies what he did during Avengers vs. X-men as always doing what's best for mutants. And if humans get in the way, fuck them. Considering the casual way in which he talks about both subjects, I can't see how any sober woman that hasn't dated Charlie Sheen could take him seriously.

And this is a microcosm of why the Rogue/Magneto relationship is so utterly fucked. How can you take Magento's affections seriously when the only thing he takes seriously involve mutants dominating humans? I'm not saying he's incapable of feeling love. I'm just saying that love is only as deep as Michael Vick's love for dogs. That's why their relationship was like nitro and glycerine. Alone, they're okay. But together, shit is just bound to blow up and not in the way that makes for a good porno.

Thankfully, Rogue doesn't get a chance to respond to Magento's affections. Unlike him, she still gives a damn about innocent people. That includes the people whose blood Magneto would gladly use as anal lube if he was so inclined. So despite her panties remaining locked, he helps her free some innocent people who were trapped in the rubble of a subway car. Magneto even offers her some of his power to help, but she's extremely reluctant to touch him. I'm pretty sure she knows she's just going to get images of his fantasies of her in stiletto heels covered in Nazi blood and she doesn't need that when she's trying to rescue people.

But not everyone is lucky enough to just be trapped. Rogue comes across a guy named Richard who was unlucky enough to be impaled in the wreckage. Surprisingly, he has a good sense of humor about it. At this point the rubble is starting to give way and he's wounded to the point where even Dr. House wouldn't be able to save him. He seems to know this and while Rogue is trying to free him, he tells her about his own love story and unless you're a conservative Christian or Muslim it's a billion times more touching than Rogue and Magneto's relationship will ever be.

This guy, Richard, is a closet gay who works on Capitol Hill and presumably wasn't tweeted a picture of Anthony Weiner's penis. But he has a stud lover named Dale with whom he's been hiding his relationship. Now that he's dying, he's kicking himself for not giving the finger to the Christian Right and choosing to be with him. He also talks about heeding the decisions of those around him who think the asshole is only for shitting. Now he's realized how fucked that is and it's a beautiful thing. Again, if the whole homosexuality thing isn't for you, then you're probably not comfortable reading comics about minorities in the first place so go back to sucking Pat Robertson's dick.

Rogue manages to free him, but the tunnel finally collapses. It forces Magneto to give a damn about this dying man because Rogue is intent on saving him. He's able to use his powers to get them out, but it's too late for Richard. He's declared dead on the spot. It's tragic. A gay man dies while an old man with a history of supporting mass genocide against humanity lives and has the chance to bone a pretty girl. I'm pretty sure GLADD will send hate mail to Marvel for shit like this, but they already got a gay wedding in Astonishing X-men so I think Marvel can brush it off. It also clearly affects Rogue because Richard's situation was similar to hers, minus the sodomy. It only reinforces the notion that she needs to lock her panties from Magneto forever, but in the nicest way possible.

Rogue and Magneto finally have their overdue conversation in a park in the classic Hugh Grant moment. It gets to be sickening in some ways. They do share a kiss that should sit about as well as a stomach full of sulfuric acid, but Rogue makes it clear that she wants to take a lesson from Richard and not let other assholes decide her life for her. A part of her also understands that a guy willing to justify any atrocity for the good of his people is not someone she should be boning. In the end she makes clear that her decisions don't involve her and Magneto swapping body fluids. He seems to understand, but he doesn't give the impression that he's taken her pussy out of his list of priorities. It's a solid resolution, but not one that's absolute. So the potential for more of this stomach churning bullshit is still there, but far more tolerable and nothing a few shots of tequila and NyQuil can't fix.

Since Mike Carey's glory days on this series, X-men Legacy has been Rogue's journey. She's gone through her share of growth, drama, and tampons. She's one of the X-men's heavy hitters and this series has been a constant reminder why. But the Magneto relationship is like finding gay porn under Chuck Norris's bed. It's a rather disturbing aspect of an otherwise badass journey. Never-the-less, Christos Gage went out of his way to lay this shit to rest in this issue. And for that, my stomach and I thank him.

But this issue did more than just assure readers that they wouldn't have to endure any more thoughts of Magneto's wrinkly ball sack slapping against Rogue's chin. It showed how Rogue's journey had evolved. She's now in a very different place compared to where she was after Schism. She's at a crossroads in her life and ready to make her own decisions instead of letting others decide for her with some trying to snake their way into her panties. It also reminds readers that Magneto is still a tool who will justify all his bullshit under the guise of doing what's best for his people. He's not the kind of guy you want to bone sober and Rogue seems to finally understand that even if it took her way too fucking long. Even if these revelations were painfully obvious and long overdue, at least they've finally been addressed.

This alone makes the issue satisfying, but what definitely helps is the added drama of the gay couple that never got to say goodbye. If you're a registered Republican, it'll probably disgust you. But if you don't have that kind of evil in your heart, it'll add some extra emotion to the mix. Is it contrived? Fuck yes. But does it matter? Fuck no. The premise of this comic wasn't built around an epic struggle. It was a personal journey and each element linked up nicely in the end. For that I give X-men Legacy #274 a 3.5 out of 5.

So it's almost over. Just one issue left of X-men Legacy before the big non-reboot! Rogue is on her way to joining Uncanny Avengers while Magneto is on his way to justifying his next great atrocity. It's an exciting time for the X-books. Fuck Avengers vs. X-men and bring in Marvel NOW! Just leave out the cat people dongs. Nuff said!

X-men Supreme Issue 63: The Phoenix Saga Part 1 is LIVE and New Jean Grey Commission

It's coming! I've been saying that for weeks as the X-men Supreme fanfiction series has neared its biggest event to date. It began back in X-men Supreme Volume 2: War Powers. It's been building all throughout X-men Supreme Volume 3: Ashes of Hope. Now it's no longer coming. It's here! The Phoenix Force is set to arrive in the pages of the X-men Supreme fanfiction series in a tale that will forever change the landscape of X-men Supreme.

The waiting is over. The moment has come. Jean Grey, the X-men, and the entire world I've created are now poised to cross paths with a cosmic entity. But as anyone who has followed Marvel's big Avengers vs. X-men event has seen or anyone who has ever followed a story involving the Phoenix Force knows all too well, the Phoenix is a very complex story. Over the years, it has changed both in nature and in scope. In some ways it has grown and in others it has become convoluted. Like many other classic X-men elements, I plan on making the nature and history of the Phoenix Force unique to the X-men Supreme fanfiction series. You'll notice elements from the comics, the cartoons, the movies, and even some that are entirely new. All I can promise is that it will feel like a true Phoenix story. And it begins today!

Issue 63: The Phoenix Saga Part 1

And since this story is so special to both me personally and X-men fans of every mold, I've made sure to include a special bonus with this issue that I haven't done with any issue beforehand. I've teamed up with my artist and friend, Brian Brinlee, to commission a special pin-up that shows Jean Grey in a distinct, X-men Supreme style Phoenix Force costume. It's something I've been hoping to include since I first planned out my Phoenix Saga. Now that it's here, I think it deserves something extra to convey the level of awesome. You can see the image both in the issue and in the X-men Supreme Official Panels section.

I'm very excited about the prospect for this story. I understand there are some very passionate X-men fans out there as well as some deeply devouted fans of Jean Grey. Rest assure, I intend to do those fans justice. That makes providing feedback all the more important. I know I say that a lot, but I mean it every time. One of the goals I set forth in establishing X-men Supreme was to acknowledge and account for feedback. If I'm doing something that readers think is wrong, I want to address it. I haven't received a whole lot of feedback through this website, but the little I have goes a long ways towards helping me make this fanfiction series better. I want to keep improving and the more feedback I get, the better it can be. So please be sure to post a review in each issue or contact me directly. Marvel may be done with their Phoenix story, but X-men Supreme is just getting warmed up! Until next time, take care and best wishes. Excelsior!

Jack

Xtreme X-men #4 - Old West Awesome

I've never been a fan of old westerns. There are only so many times I pay attention to a story that involves to cowboys standing in a dirt road, ready to shoot each other, and not realizing how utterly retarded it is to be standing directly in front of one another. All I know about old westerns is that there's a good cowboy meant to represent all the virtues that the Christian Right has been trying to shove down our throats for three decades and a bad cowboy meant to be Charlie Sheen's distant ancestor. It's fun the first time, but like jerking off to the same porno it eventually fails to get your dick hard again. So when Xtreme X-men is poised to go from a world of X-men demigods to a world of John Wayne ripoffs, I wasn't exactly thrilled.

That said, I'm usually willing to give cliched themes a shot just like I'm usually willing to give that old porno I mentioned a shot at getting my dick hard again. Sometimes it work. Sometimes it doesn't and I have to spend the next two hours on youporn finding something that will get me off when the blow still hasn't worn off. But given the recent success of Xtreme X-men, I think Greg Pak has earned the trust of both my dick and my tastes in X-men comics. He's done something that's not entirely novel by taking a B-list character in Dazzler and sending her on a universe-hopping adventure where she rubs elbows with all sorts of alternate reality X-men. However, he does it in a way that's just fun and enjoyable. It's not some radically stupid idea like trying to make an entire story about the Phoenix Force that doesn't involve Jean Grey. Okay, bad example.

Thankfully, Greg Pak is both able and willing to move a story forward in a coherent way without resorting to ADHD medications. The previous issue ended with Dazzler's X-men revealing that the Xavier in the world of X-gods was actually a divinely inspired douche-bag in that he cast an epic mind-fuck that made the X-men into holy assholes and the world into an unholy toilet. It's yet another instance of Charles Xavier being a universal douche-bag in a multi-verse of possibilities. Is it at all possible Dazzler and co. will EVER find a universe where Xavier doesn't make the reader want Cyclops to go Dark Phoenix and end his shit? Okay, another bad example. But you get the idea.

Xtreme X-men #4 introduces us to a world where the X-men live in a bad John Wayne movie. It's the old west complete with dusty roads, drinking, gambling, and presumably plenty of prostitutes. And like the old west, there's plenty of lawless shit going on. And wouldn't you know it? This world's version of Charles Xavier is the overbloated source of it all. He apparently still has telepathic powers in this world and rather than using them to get free blowjobs from the prostitutes, he uses them to cheat at cards. That in and of itself is pretty inane until he uses those same powers to make everybody's brain leak out of their ears when someone calls him out. Some men just aren't satisfied with blow jobs and in almost every instance, they tend to be evil.

Flash forward in time a bit so that evil Xavier has plenty of time to mind-fuck an entire town and time period. It's nowhere nearly as impressive as mind fucking a bunch of demigods, but I guess we can't expect every version of Xavier to be that badass. Dazzler, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and their pet Xavier in a jar arrive just long enough to channel their inner Clint Eastwood. They also have time to steal some clothes that just happen to fit perfectly because apparently the old west offered a better selection than your average modern Wal-Mart. And after rolling into town doing their best to not look like inter-dimensional time travelers, they begin their mission to hunt down this world's evil Xavier. But wouldn't you know it? The old west tends to attract a lot of assholes and the X-men just aren't inclined to ignore assholes.

This time it comes in the form of a familiar looking kid named Jamie with a familiar set of claws. He and his mother get harassed by an old west style version of the Brotherhood, complete with a version of Toad that easily gets his ass kicked. They don't give much reason for harassing the kid and his mother. But the mere fact he has claws and a bad temper is enough to rouse Wolverine's inner Hamlet and attack these old west knock-offs.

It's a battle that's a fuckton more exciting than your typical shootout. Dazzler makes dueling look sexy for the first time since John Wayne's death by turning her light-show into a mini-gun. It gives Wolverine plenty of time to beat the shit out of this world's version of Sabretooth, which never gets old no matter what universe he's in. They also pick up on a few ominous quips about there being big bad boss of sorts. And since they've yet to come across a universe where Xavier isn't a douche, it's a pretty safe assumption who it may be. But since this version of Wolverine also happens to have childhood issues, he insists on taking on the whole damn down while Dazzler and Nightcrawler get the boy and his mother to safety. It's badass, but pretty damn stupid.

After Dazzler and Nightcrawler get away, Wolverine ends up in the pokey for stirring up so much shit. While he's presumably waiting for a cake with a nail file, he finds out he's got a cell mate that doesn't look inclined to make him his bitch. His mate is actually Jamie's father. This in and of itself isn't too jarring until it gives Wolverine some frat party style flashbacks of his own father. It sounds cheesy, but it actually adds a bit of heart to the scene and the overall plot because to this point there hasn't been much room for melodrama in Xtreme X-men. It's just travel the multi-verse, beat up evil Xavier's, and find reasons to put Dazzler in a sexy costume. That's all well and good, but a story about a kid whose father got wrongfully locked up that also makes Wolverine seem like less of an unfeeling douche-bag also helps.

We learn that this guy made only one mistake that landed him in a prison cell with a festering wound for over a year. He had the balls to tell the big boss in town to go fuck himself. In the old west, that's like a woman going on an ice fishing trip with Scott Peterson. It's not going to end well. But unlike this desperate father, Wolverine is more inclined to bust out. And since he's got a special skeleton that makes him immune to telepaths, he's in a much better position to tell the boss to go fuck himself.

That's actually a problem because in the same way that the Xavier of every world they visit is an asshole, he also happens to be pretty cunning. While the man is pleading with Wolverine to send his son one final message, we finally get to meet this big boss and this time there's no big twist. It is Xavier and he's not looking to pretend he's a nice guy. He just gets his kicks by mind-fucking people. And since Wolverine's skeleton is preventing him from doing that, he needs to employ all the sick shit from every Human Centipede movie to get it out of him, presumably without having to ingest as much shit.

While shit is getting bloody at the big house, Dazzler and Nightcrawler are working on finding Wolverine and Jamie's father. Dazzler employs some fancy tricks that involve her dressing up as a hooker, which is only slightly less revealing than her being in that Slave Leia costume she wore in the previous arc. If the next world they visit doesn't have her in a thong, then it would just be inconsistent at this point. But however slutty her clothes, she manages to find Wolverine using some creative sound tricks. Unfortunately, Xavier and his buddies already had their fun. They're still able to find Jamie's father though, who was more than happy to get paroled. It leads to a nice, emotional reunion with his family. However, they still haven't had a chance to tell this world's Xavier to go fuck himself and they just can't have that.

Whatever horrific shit this world's Xavier did, it seemed to work. Because after Dazzler and Nightcrawler succeed in freeing Jamie's father, Xavier sends his mind-fucked goons after them. And this time that includes Wolverine. This marks the second time one of their universe-hopping buddies has turned on them. Emma Frost did it in the previous arc. Now Wolverine has done it here, albeit after some presumably extreme coercion. But it implies the beginning of a rather disturbing trend. Now Dazzler may have to look for the moment when Kid Nightcrawler turns on her. At least he doesn't have metal claws, daddy issues, and an evil Xavier pulling his strings.

Whereas the previous issue was awesome because of Greg Pak's ability to throw a shocking twist into the mix, this issue found an entirely different way to be awesome. Contrary to popular belief, people are still capable of getting teary-eyed when they read a touching tale about a man trying to save his son and a son trying to save his father. Those tears are all the more sweet when one of them has claws. Pak took a break from showing Dazzler's team fight against gods that like to wash their hands in the blood of the innocent to set up a story that's more grounded, but with mutants and old west prostitutes. There's a struggle here with a family in danger and it offers a compelling pull that gives this issue a solid impact.

That said, the impact is somewhat lessened by the lack of details. We get that the story of Jamie and his father tickles your warm and fuzzy side in a way that probably would require another bypass for Dick Cheney. What we don't get is what the rest of the team should do about it and how this fits into their larger mission. That seems to be a growing theme in this series. It's getting tough to recall or keep track of their mission. And when you smoke as much weed as I do, you're not going to forget or have the necessary motivation to go back and read the earlier issues. I get that it's hard to keep a series coherent in the same way it's hard to beat a drug test while stoned. But that's what separates the good from the awesome.

However, this issue is still sufficiently awesome to rekindle your love of John Wayne movies. There's action, drama, and prostitutes. That's a complete story in my book! However, the increasing lack of coherence in Xtreme X-men is a distressing trend. I certainly hope that Greg Pak is able to throw in a few more twists because as much fun as it is seeing a pretty blonde hop universes and make friends with alternate versions of her friends, it gets old. There are only so many times you can see an alternate Xavier mind-fuck people before it loses its impact. However, that impact is still there and that's why I give Xtreme X-men #4 a 4 out of 5. Now if you'll excuse me, this comic has given me a sudden craving for whiskey and a hooker. Nuff said!

X-men #36 - Half A Case of Awesome

How many times can you bullshit someone before they start smelling the stench? This is a question that has plagued 95 percent of businessmen and 100 perent of politicians since the dawn of time. In my own personal experience, some people are more prone to sniffing it out than others. That's why some guys will actually take you seriously when you claim the expired sugar you laid out for them is a fresh line of Columbian imported blow and why some girls will actually look intrigued when you claim to be Robert Pattinson's acting coach. Those gullible people may make for good customers and brain-dead bimbos at a club, but they make lousy leaders. If your job requires you to earn trust, you had best not be a dip-shit or an asshole with your own agenda because sooner or later the non-gullible people in your crew are going to sniff you out and look for ways to nip you in the ass.

This is the position Storm finds herself in with Brian Wood's adjectiveless X-men. Since Wood began his run, Storm has been flexing her leadership muscle in the same way Keith Richards tests his tolerance to morphine. She's been leading a team of X-men at the behest of Cyclops to act as a security team of sorts. They're like the X-men's version of the CIA minus the illegal torture, off-site prisons, and cover ups if alien rectal probing. However, like the CIA, they tend to secretly give the finger to their leader behind his back. Storm spent the entire first arc avoiding her teammates' pleas to get Cyclops involved as the plot with the proto-mutants started to get heavy. She told them to suck her taint in the nicest possible way and for the most part, the team listened to her albeit begrdugingly. Then in the previous arc, some were a bit less inclined to keep kissing her ass.

Brian Wood followed his initial proto-mutant arc with a solid story about a crazy cult run by a Jesus look-a-like who saw Dawn of the Dead six times too many. The security team's mission to infiltrate the cult and extract the samples of proto-mutant DNA was a success, but for some of the members going behind Cyclops's back got old. They're pertty much all just following Storm's agenda at this point and that shit only lasts so long before it starts to smell. Now as the proto-mutant arc continues to unfold, Storm has to deal with her own teammates looking to screw her over. And now that she's a single woman again, they don't have to be as poilte about it.

X-men #36 has Brian Wood's adjectiveless team working with one of Storm's lady friends again. This one is Sabra, who was mentioned in the previous issue. She's from Mossad, which is like the Israeli version of the CIA except they're actually good at their jobs. Storm must have won many pillow fights back with her in the sorority house because she managed to convince Sabra to help apprehend a rather mundane looking guy from an airport. Hell, this guy is so mundane he could practically walk into Congress and no one would bat an eye. Seeing as how they've recently dealt with glowing eyed Jesus look-a-likes and proto-mutant monsters, this qualifies as an upgrade.

Once Sabra has Mr. Boring and Bland in custody, she presumably endures a cavity search by the TSA before bringing him to Storm and her security team. They seem intent on extracting information from this man, but not in a way that gives Dick Cheney a boner. In fact, they talk to this guy almost with the same tone that I talk to my therapist and/or parole officer. It's all remarkably casual. Storm informs the man that they know he's a proto-mutant. His official name is Mr. Sheppard and for some reason he's never popped up on the radar for mutants. Yet they know he's 700-years-old. How a guy can live that long and not be subject to a witch-burning or an embarrassing youtube video shot with a camera phone seems pretty outrageous. They also bring up the name David Michael Gray, who was the mentally unbalanced asshole who first introduced Storm's team to proto-mutants. Yet still, the conversation is remarkably casual. The man is about as collected as Mitt Romney and just as boring.

Since they probably put him on the TSA's shit-list for the foreseeable future, the X-men offer to fly Mr. Sheppard to Chicago where he was planning on going, presumably to meet up with his overlords at Acorn to receive orders from Comrade Obama (or so says Rush Limbaugh). He remains painfully boring, so much so that Pixie brings it up to Domino. Being the curious teenager who hasn't yet been corrupted by Justin Bieber, she starts to speculate on who he is and what his powers might be. To this point all the proto-mutants they've faced have been as pleasant to be around as hungry wolf on LSD. So she's understandably curious. Domino encourages her to talk to him because since when has nothing bad ever come from a cute teenage girl talking to a mysterious old man? I'm pretty sure that's a porno genre in Japan.

And like Japan, shit gets weird pretty quickly when Pixie starts talking to the guy. The man calls himself Gabriel Sheppard and he claims to have a pretty fancy array of powers for a guy that dresses like a Mormon. He's strong. He can fly. It's pretty standard for someone who has a mutation that doesn't suck. But while he seems like a nice, boring guy on the surface, he reveals that he's pretty curious about the name David Michael Gray. And when hesitates to tell him, he turns from Norman Rockwell to Chris Brown. He also reveals his powers are more exotic than indicated because he gives Pixie a bad case of glowing pink-eye and does something that ensure Colossus and Psylocke sleep through this crazy shit like every guy dating a Twilight fan slept through the Twilight movies.

It's a pretty dramatic shift from a guy that seemed so boring. Granted, it's expected that boring shit tends not to last long in an X-men comics, but the subtle way in which Brian Wood built it up helped give it an extra impact. It's like pouring hot sauce on bacon. It gives something that's already awesome an extra kick.

But not all the talking in this comic has been completely bland. As I mentioned earlier, Storm has put herself in a dangerous position with her team and the X-men as a whole by undermining Cyclops. You just don't undermine a guy who's boning Emma Frost and not suffer consequences. During another Skype conversation, Cyclops reveals that he bugged her plane and has been tracking her. It sounds like a paranoid thing to do until you recall the many reasons Storm gave him in the first proto-mutant arc. Storm claims she's withholding information for the sake of the mission, but that's like telling your parole officer that you were just holding that bag of weed for a friend. That shit just doesn't fly.

Cyclops also reveals that he knows the old sorority girls Storm has been working with. He tells her he actually found one snooping around. Yet Storm still has the audacity to urge him to trust her. But Cyclops says outright that he can only take being given the cold shoulder for so long. Unlike Emma Frost, Storm doesn't have the recent history or the big tits to earn her that kind of trust. It's a nice culmination of the ongoing tension between them and it shows that Wood can make general chit chat interesting as well. That only ensures he'll never get a job at Fox News.

Unfortunately, the conversation with Cyclops is cut short when the commotion from Sheppard's hissy fit starts rocking he plane. Storm joins the others just in time to see this normal-looking guy exhibit a similar brand of crazy eyes as the Jesus wannabe in the last arc. He seems to know now that David Michael Gray took a big steaming shit on the graves of his fellow proto-mutants and he's not too happy about it. And when Colossus tries to restrain him, he shows that he was being overly modest when he described his powers to Pixie. That strength he mentioned is apparently potent enough to allow him to throw Colossus (who is still armed with Juggernaut power mind you) out the side of the fucking plane. He also jumps right out with him, presumably because there are no flight attendants to yell at. Storm and Pixie go after him while Domino and Psylocke stay behind to land the plane. But the mere fact they have to only shows that this guy went from 0 to fucked up in record time, even for a comic.

There's a fine line in storytelling that has been a lot harder to walk in this day and age where peoples' attention spans are only as long as their latest tweet. Brian Wood seems to be making a greater effort than anyone at Marvel to walk that line. He fell flat on his ass a few times in the beginning, but recent issues have him working with much better balance. I admit the initial concept of the proto-mutant story seemed about as interesting as an economics lecture. However, Brian Wood has made it seem almost as engaging as a peep show in Amsterdam. The encounter with Gabriel Sheppard might have been as bland as buying a pack of cigarettes from a gas station, minus having to work around an accent. But in the end, the man definitely had a few surprises that made the issue feel more exciting than it probably deserves credit for.

Wood almost fell off that fine line at first. The abduction and interrogation of Gabriel Sheppard was more uneventful than a church sermon delivered by Ben Stein. There was no struggle. Hell, we don't even know if anyone's flight was delayed more than usual when Sabra abducted the guy. There was a lot of talking and not much else. It wasn't even the very interesting talking. It's not a debate with Dr. House and Neil Patrick Harris. It reminded me somewhat of my last DUI, except I didn't throw up on a state troopers boots. There's no way around it. The first half of this comic was pretty freakin' dull and you would have passed out without the aid of powerful amphetamines had Wood not picked up the pace in the end.

The end is what saved this book. The discussion with Cyclops and Storm showed just how big the rift between them has grown. And Gabriel Sheppard's ability to throw Colossus out of a plane in mid-air was just shocking enough to remind you of the time your ex girlfriend poured a pack of dry ice down your pants. The man went from dull to a Quentin Tarantino character in a very short span and like Marcelas Wallace, you just can't leave that sort of shit unfinished. Overall, the issue is only half-awesome. However, that awesome half is awesome enough to tip the balance in the same way the state of Florida rigs elections. Therefore, I give X-men #36 a 3 out of 5. Hopefully, in the next issue Wood will stop walking that fine line. He should know by now that Alfred Hitchcock is dead Michael Bay is filthily fucking rich for a reason. He would be wise to follow his example, minus the killer robots. Nuff said!