All New X-men #8 - Awesome On Wings

I’ve always been a fan of painfully unpleasant truths. It may sound strange, especially when some of those unpleasant truths involve your girlfriend telling you about a strange rash her gynecologist found during her last appointment. But the way I see it, I already give the finger to reality by reading awesome comic books and getting drunk. I don’t need to stick my head in a deep fryer and scream at the top of my lungs like a creationist at the Smithsonian whenever I’m confronted with an unpleasant truth. If it really is bad in the sense that my days of having an intact asshole are numbered, then I just consider that a great excuse to go out and get drunk. And you know we can never have too many of those!

In that sense I almost envy the Original Five X-men in the pages of All New X-men because they’ve encountered so many unpleasant truths since they showed up that the President of the United States should temporarily nullify the legal drinking age so they can go out and get pissed-faced drunk Led Zepplin style. Jean Grey found out she’s dead and her family was slaughtered. Beast found out that he grew up into a winey little bitch that looks like a rejected mascot for the Chicago Bears. Cyclops found out he’s asshole fugitive who killed Charles Xavier. And Iceman found out that he still hasn’t done jack shit to become any more than a walking beer cooler. So while the future may not be apocalyptic in that killer robots that look like Arnold Schwarzenegger aren’t hunting mutants, they still end up fucked.

But one unpleasant truth that has been tactfully avoided in All New X-men thus far is the fate of Angel. O5 Angel himself pointed out that nobody seems keen on telling him what the hell happened to his older self. Any X-men fan who has been following the X-books closely for the past year knows why everyone is being so polite about it. They don’t want to be the ones to tell O5 Angel, “Sorry kid, but you had your wings cut off and you joined an ancient mutant tyrant named Apocalypse, who you ended up becoming. Not only that, you had your entire mind completely wiped clean so that the guy you were is practically dead. Also, you once had a hot Asian chick for a girlfriend and now you’ve lost both her and the memory of what she looked like naked.” That’s pretty damn harsh, especially for a teenager who is rich and used to being able to buy his way out of shitty situations.

The previous issue of All New X-men focused primarily on O5 Cyclops getting a pep talk from Mystique while the others began their training with Kitty Pryde. It made for many powerful moments where O5 Cyclops confronted the unpleasant truth about the asshole he had become. Brian Michael Bendis captured all the drama and emotions of that realization perfectly. But in between the pages of this drama, he had O5 Angel meet up with his future self. They didn’t confront any painful truths. All Angel did was give his past self a hug in what may be the most uncomfortable moment a teenage boy could face that doesn’t involve a Catholic priest. O5 Angel is still anxiously curious, but the truth still hasn’t come out. And since this book is making a habit out of revealing uncomfortable truths, I think O5 Angel and O5 Cyclops are going to need several metric tons of Jack Daniels when they learn all the horrible details. I would pick up the tab if I could, but I’m content to see Bendis squeeze more drama from it.

All New X-men #8 is ripe with plenty of discomfort from the get go. O5 Angel isn’t exactly enjoying the flight with his future self. He tagged along in the previous issue in hopes of finding out why he’s more goofed up than a bleach blond cheerleader high on laughing gas. His future counterpart tries to explain, but does a piss poor job or doesn’t try very hard. It’s difficult to tell. But O5 Angel knows some crazy shit happened to him because his future self has metal wings and keeps referring to himself in the third person and not in the typical douchy David Hasselhoff way. But maybe I’m being too harsh. Does Angel even fully understand how much he was fucked up by the events of the Dark Angel Saga? He seems to know that his whole live was erased, but gives surprisingly few fucks about it.

O5 Angel keeps pressing for more information from his air-headed future self, but their otherwise horribly awkward flight is interrupted by a commotion at the Avengers tower. For reasons that I suspect involve alcohol and a bad batch of blow, Hydra decided to attack the Avengers Tower. I’m sure there are easier ways to spend a lazy afternoon, but I guess Hydra doesn’t have an X-box or internet porn. Any other questions O5 Angel had for his future self are put on hold so they can play hero.

Now I was initially tempted to rant a bit on how random the Hydra attack is. Because on the surface it really is one of the most bland threats the Marvel universe can slap into a comic without using killer robots. And it is contrived in that this attack takes place just as Angel and his O5 counterpart are flying over New York and having one of the most awkward conversations in history. And maybe it’s the watered down whiskey I bought on sale, but I don’t have too big a problem with it because it does serve a purpose. In some ways, that has to be somewhat reassuring. Even if he is a brain-dead blond who belongs on a reality show, Angel is still a hero and Hydra are your standard punching bags.

The action that follows is fairly standard, yet nicely detailed. O5 Angel’s inexperience shows in how he’s not exactly John McClane in taking on Hydra. Hell, the most badass thing he does is point out how retarded it is to just attack the front door of your hated enemy in broad daylight. But he’s still a teenager with very limited hero experience whereas his future self may be brain damaged, but he’s got metal wings. And metal wings are both useful and badass in fighting Hydra.

Again, it may seem bland on the surface, but the battle is refreshing in another way. It is actually the first dose of action that this series has had in quite a while. All New X-men hasn’t exactly been a battle royale since it started. It wasn’t touted to be one either. The past few issues have focused primarily on the O5 trying to get over how fucked up they are in the future. And since Marvel doesn’t like going too many issues without attacks by killer robots and Nazi wannabes, it’s both refreshing and fitting.

However, O5 Angel’s inexperience and overall whiny bitchiness catches up to him. Hydra may be glorified target practice in the Marvel universe, but even the dumbest drunk occasionally lands a punch. One of Hydra’s killer robot mechs manages to wound O5 Angel and since his future self clearly saw Back to the Future, he knows the consequences of his younger self dying and of trying to fuck his own mother. So he manages to stop being a walking blond joke and help out his younger self. This, of course, makes them more vulnerable to Hydra’s onslaught, but like Nazis in real life you can usually expect Hydra to fuck up every opportunity that comes their way.

Even if they don’t fuck up their opportunity, luck and karma eventually do them in. Even Hydra should have realized that it was only a matter of time before the Avengers figured out that someone was attacking their home. Given how protective Tony Stark is about his booze or Hawkeye is about his porno stash, they eventually show up in full force and proceed to beat the everloving shit out of them until their next head takes its place. It’s all over pretty damn quickly, but an attack by Hydra is basically a typical Tuesday for the Avengers. I imagine seeing a time displaced Angel is something that probably only happens once every couple of months.

Since disruptions to the space-time continuum are kind of a big deal if you want to keep a universe intact, the Avengers pay a visit to the Jean Grey Institute where Captain America has a little chat with Beast. And by chat just assume that means “What the fuck were you thinking and/or smoking?!” We have to assume that because we don’t actually hear what they’re saying. It’s all happening in the background and instead we’re given the cliff notes by Iceman and Kitty Pryde. Granted, these cliff notes are probably less boring than Cap and Beast arguing the ethics of time travel. But they’re not all that memorable either. It’s a nice way for Bendis to maintain the tone of the series. However, it does somewhat distract from the real issue of the Avengers finding out that there time-displaced X-men among them.

But it isn’t the case that Beast convinces Captain America that he was right and/or sober when he brought the O5 to the present. After a few childish insights from Iceman and Kitty Pryde, O5 Cyclops actually enters the picture and addresses Captain America. And he does so with more maturity than a teenager is supposed to have. But this makes perfect sense in the context of the previous issue where Cyclops got a pep talk from Mystique and committed to making things right. And in order to do that in a future where the Avengers have a billion dollar movie, he needed the blessing of Captain America and that’s exactly what he got.

While this is perfectly fitting, it doesn’t really leave much impact. Once O5 Cyclops makes his plea, the Avengers just up and leave. Nothing else is said. No other concerns are stated. They’re just “You think you can handle this without fucking up the time stream beyond repair? Sounds okay to me! It can’t be any more dangerous than claiming a cosmic force is going to kick start the mutant race now can it?” Given how much more cohesive the Marvel universe has become since Avengers vs. X-men, it makes perfect sense that the Avengers would find out about the O5 at some point. But here it just seems like they shrug their shoulders and go back to hunting down Hydra. It seems like a missed opportunity and a relatively glossed over moment, but at least Bendis actually addressed it. There are too many writers who would probably take the “Let’s not and say we did" approach.

But one person who isn’t satisfied with being in the present of O5 Angel. Unlike his fellow X-men, he voted not to stay in the future a few issues ago. And after seeing how fucked up his future self is, he’s officially had enough. So in a wonderfully crafted outburst of teenage drama, he storms off and attempts to use the time machine that brought them to the future to take him back to the past. His teammates argue with him, informing him that Professor Xavier would probably just wipe his mind. And he’s perfectly okay with that too because like the handcuffs and anal beads you find in your mothers room, it’s probably better not knowing.

It’s another prime example of Brian Michael Bendis capturing emotion and drama in a story. This is the life-blood in All New X-men and O5 Angel displays it very nicely here. In the same way he captured the emotions of O5 Cyclops, he did the same here with O5 Angel. In addition, he showed a completely different perspective to the others. Angel was so upset by his future that he was inclined to ditch the X-men completely. That shows that while the team is committed to staying in the future, they are not united in the slightest. Hell, they might as well be the Oakland Raiders.

As emotional as Angel’s rant is, he’s cut short in a very strange and sudden way. One moment he’s intent on going back to the past. The next he wants to know what’s for lunch. It’s a huge WTF moment at first until you find out the source of it. It’s name is Jean Grey and even as a teenager she has a nice rack. In a very un-Jean like moment, she mind-fucks her friend and someone she had the hots for in the early days of Uncanny X-men. She basically “calmed him down” as she said it, but probably only because “mind fuck” hasn’t entered her vocabulary just yet. But if this is a sign, it’s a word she probably ought to learn.

It makes for a powerful and ominous ending. Jean Grey just mind-fucked one of her teammates and everyone is looking at her like she just bit the head off of a chicken and spit down its neck. She claims to be in control, but only in the same way Iran claims to be a peaceful, non-nuclear nation. It’s ominous because that’s the same mentality that Jean Grey had when she died during the latter portion of Grant Morrison’s New X-men run. Has gaining telepathy really changed Jean Grey that much from the lovable teenager we know so well? It’s hard to say, but until she starts dressing in skin-tight leather pants we can only speculate!

Unless you’re a sociopath, a Nazi, or a registered Republican it’s perfectly natural to have sympathy for whoever is the most screwed over in a story. In a series like All New X-men, there’s an abundance of screwing for multiple characters. Brian Michael Bendis has been taking his time to explore the screwing of every character. He nearly killed Beast. He showed Jean Grey reacting to her multiple deaths and that of her family. And he exposed teenage Cyclops to a world where he’s a wanted fugitive and magazines cost five bucks a pop. This issue felt like a natural progression in how the Original Five X-men are dealing with this fucked up future that doesn’t involve killer robots ruling the world. More importantly, it continued the emotional and dramatic tone that has helped make this book that is both entertaining and something you can give your girlfriend without her bitching about how all the women have big boobs. That’s not to say she won’t find something else to bitch about, but at least this comic doesn’t make it easy for her.

But it wasn’t just progression that made this comic awesome. One thing that this issue had that previous issues didn’t was significant action. It wasn’t just Cyclops shooting Wolverine again. As much fun as that is, a battle against Hydra is almost as classic. Yes, it was somewhat random. But it was a nice way to get the Avengers involved. They had to notice at some point that someone had been fucking with the space-time continuum and for once it wasn’t Dr. Doom. It’s probably best they find out after a battle with Hydra instead of seeing it on Youtube in between cat videos and the Harlem Shake. And it didn’t just provide some mindless brutality, which I would argue was badly needed for this series. It showed just how uncomfortable O5 Angel was in this future and how goofy future Angel really is.

It was O5 Angel that made this issue compelling in the same way O5 Cyclops made the previous issue so compelling. Unlike his teammates, he wants no part in this future and has no desire to change it. Like so many other rich people, he’s content to live in a fantasy world where lower taxes reduces the national debt and where his older self doesn’t have the mental capacity of a brain damaged Paris Hilton. He’s been musing over this for multiple issues, which helps add to the tight continuity that Bendis has managed so well since this series began. Now it has finally overwhelmed him and it took Jean Grey to unclench his asshole and not in the fun way either.

This lack of impact is the only real sticking point of All New X-men #8. Everything else from the artwork to the dialog to the action scenes continued to meet the already high standards that Bendis has established. If this series were a porn star, it would be a young Jenna Jameson just after she got her first boob job. In that same sense All New X-men has all the tools it needs to bring joy to the readers without as much lube or tissues. And so long as Brian Michael Bendis keeps meeting such high standards, there will be plenty of awesome (and boners) to go around. I give All New X-men #8 a 4.5 out of 5. If you’re an emotional person with a heart condition, you may want to stay away from this comic in the same way you want to stay away from boner pills. Otherwise, this is probably the best X-men comic if not the best Marvel comic on the racks right now. And like a young Jenna Jameson, you want to enjoy it before it becomes jaded and hooked on prescription pain killers. Nuff said!

Iron Man 3 Trailer (With Plenty of Backup)

We're getting close to that time of year again, my fellow fanboy! It's that time when the weather isn't trying to freeze your nuts off on a daily basis and the cocaine-fueled orgy that is Hollywood prepares to corrupt America's youth with more senseless entertainment. As one of those proud youths, I say corrupt away motherfucker!

It has become routine for the summer movie season to be ushered in by a big name comic book movie. Last year we had the Avengers and fuck, you can't get much bigger than that. This year we have the end of yet another comic book movie trilogy and hopefully it's less X3 and more Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

I'm talking about Iron Man 3, the first Marvel movie to take place after the events of the Avengers. We already know Tony Stark is more fucked up than his alcoholism can cope with. We've had plenty of time to digest the earlier previews that show shit blowing up and the Mandarin trying his best to make audiences forget that it's a white guy playing an Asian character. But today Marvel has released a more detailed trailer that offers some additional insight that can be best summed up in one word...backup!

Iron Man was the first Marvel movie to usher in the era of the Marvel movieverse. It set the tone for a long streak of awesome that would eventually culminate in Avengers. But Marvel says that shit was only Phase 1. This is Phase 2 bitches! And Phase II requires more than just one guy in an Iron Man suit for reasons that are too awesome for any trailer. While I'm not the most patient drunk in the world, I understand that awesome shit is worth waiting for. But still, May 3rd better hurry the fuck up and get here! Nuff said!

Xtreme X-men #11 - Counting Down Awesome

It’s no secret that comics and sci-fi regularly abuse the immutable laws of physics, biology, and common sense to tell a good story. It’s no secret that fanfiction writers will abuse those laws even further to tell even more elaborate stories, many of them ending up in homoerotic smut fics. Some stories are more guilty of this abuse than others and unlike the Vatican, they don’t have the luxury of hiding behind holy or diplomatic immunity. It is possible to be a total douche and nitpick these inconsistencies. I’ve been guilty of that in the past. But for a series like Xtreme X-men, I’m willing to take a few extra shots of whiskey and enjoy the twisted tales that ooze from Greg Pak’s imagination.

Let’s not kid ourselves. A series that has Dazzler as team leader, a gay Wolverine, and a black Cyclops in a story that involves traversing alternate universes with an Xavier-in-a-Jar is going to abuse a lot of logic. Hell, it’s the kind of abuse that would make Spock’s head explode. But that doesn’t matter because Greg Pak has found a way to make it incredibly awesome. He doesn’t just rely on the sheer ridiculousness of the series to be the appeal. He actually does maintain a common story that involves hunting down evil Charles Xaviers, being tested on a physical and emotional level, and even a little romance. And even though the story and the series is poised to end while Greg Pak jumps the Marvel ship to write Batman/Superman, it has been an awesome ride that can only be matched by riding a go-kart on an acid trip.

Keeping with the tradition of utterly obscene incarnations of these characters that usually aren’t found outside of fanfiction, Greg Pak took a page out of the Uncanny Avengers playbook and got Nazis involved in the previous issue. Dazzler and her team of X-men have faced some pretty fucked up Charles Xaviers in their quest, including an evil wizard Xavier and a My Little Pony Xavier. I could not make that shit up with all the weed in Amsterdam. But now they’re facing a Nazi Charles Xavier, who happens to be in a spat with a Japanese version of Namor. However, it isn’t as clear cut as your typical Call of Duty mission. Nazi Xavier claims to be the victim of Namor’s aggression and is trying to protect what is left of his people, which happen to reside near a sunken version of London. And as Uncanny Avengers #4 showed us, even Nazis can make valid points for being assholes.

Dazzler and her team are now stuck in between two very powerful forces that have absolutely no problems horribly maiming people and masturbating with their entrails. In Xtreme X-men #11, they end up having to rescue the innocent civilians that Nazi Xavier wasn’t lying about. I know, a Nazi telling the truth is a fucked up concept, but in Xtreme X-men you probably won’t bat an eye. On the same week when the Red Skull correctly points out all the disturbing ways America sucks, it’s pretty distressing to see Nazi’s telling the truth. They’re still assholes so Dazzler doesn’t stop attacking Nazi Xavier, leaving the safety of the civilians to her team. And you know you’ve become a strong leader when you’re willing to take on a Nazi single-handedly. But does anyone else see the irony that the characters that fight Nazi’s the most, Captain America and the unapologetically blond Dazzler, are basically the Aryans that Nazi’s love? Anyone? Or am I still drunk?

Irony aside, Nazi Xavier actually does something the Red Skull didn’t do and reminded readers of why Nazi’s suck in the first place. While Dazzler is attacking him, he gives her a brief synopsis of what happens to a world when Charles Xavier is a Nazi. This time you don’t find anything you can’t find in a Call of Duty game or a History Channel WWII documentary. A charismatic leader, who has the luxury of actually controlling minds, comes to power to save his country from corruption, invasion, and economic collapse. Basically, he’s the kind of guy the Tea Party would fucking love…except, you know, he’s a Nazi. And unlike the Red Skull, he was actually able to beat all his enemies, including Captain America. For a while, he succeeded where Hitler failed miserably. He claimed he was beloved by the free world, although he did mention that he purged his own party of people he thought were threats or just didn’t like. I’m sure it’s the kind of shit that right-wing Republicans only wish they could do so you can easily assume he was still an asshole dictator.

For a brief moment, everything is all peace, love, and Disney cartoons for everyone that isn’t a minority. Everybody had peace and order. Anything that threatened it was either dead or waiting to die in concentration camps. Then Atlantis thought this would be the perfect time to launch an attack and flood the world. Because when better to attack the surface than a time when Nazis are in charge and always looking for an excuse to blow shit up? Maybe they should have waited until hippies ruled the world. It was too late though. Xavier and his Nazi buddies blew the shit out of Atlantis in ways only asshole Nazis would. For some reason, Namor had a problem with that. And that, my friends, is why Namor wants to murder his ass. You don’t usually need an excuse to want to kill a Nazi, but it helps when you’ve got a pretty damn good one, as Namor certainly does.

Dazzler still offers no sympathy to Nazi Xavier. But she is forced to stop trying to kill him when Namor launches another attack that puts the civilians in mortal danger. For most people, saving lives and killing Nazis is a tough choice. But being the leader she’s become, Dazzler chooses to help these petrified civilians, even if they were likely brainwashed by Nazi propaganda for most of their lives. However, it doesn’t take long for them to have yet another reason to want to maim Nazi Xavier. Not surprisingly, he was pro-slavery and had a cell full of African slaves. It may have been more accurate to use Jews or gays, but I guess in this universe Nazis and the KKK have rubbed elbows (and other body parts) to favor a more racist approach. For any number of reasons, black Cyclops had a problem with this and now the race is on to see who channel their inner Captain America the fastest.

Unfortunately, Nazi hunting season is delayed by that pesky Japanese Namor who is still trying to sink the island and drown their asses. He could care less that he’s drowning innocent people as long as he kills himself a Nazi. Given what Nazi Xavier did to Atlantis, this is understandable even if it is a dick move. But Dazzler and her team aren’t in an understanding mood. So as the island is starting to crumble, they converge on Namor. Hercules adds the muscle that probably gives Wolverine a raging boner while Dazzler and Black Cyclops supply the firepower, which helps gives the readers a boner. So even if you’re not into the gay thing or voted for Rick Santorum, your dick and/or clit has no reason to not be happy.

Because of the threat posed by Namor, Dazzler and her team are essentially fighting a two-front battle. This helps add an additional element of complexity to the action, which could have easily been your typical heroes vs. Nazis gimmick. But by forcing Dazzler’s team to fight both foes instead of just one, it adds to the overall epicness of the story. It’s one thing to just fight a superpowered Nazi. It’s quite another to fight him while he’s fighting a pissed off Namor. It essentially rescinds anyone’s right to ever make a blond joke about Dazzler ever again.

But by beating Namor, they’ve effectively committed the ultimate sin in the eyes of America, short of marrying Michael Moore and becoming a spy for Iran. They helped a Nazi. While beating Namor did help keep the island from falling apart, it allowed Nazi Xavier to move in for the kill. He’s not just content with Dazzler’s team beating Namor up. He wants to kill his Japanese ass. He begins to do just that with the help of his telepathy once he’s down. Then Dazzler once again gives the finger to blond stereotypes by using her powers to guard her mind, a power which she hadn’t demonstrated before, and killing Nazi Xavier by stabbing him right in the back. I imagine there are few ways more satisfying to kill a Nazi without choking them with Hitler’s colon.

While helping him may have been necessary for their survival, the mission was still to kill another evil Xavier and Dazzler once again proved to be the antithesis of Paris Hilton by getting the job done. Hell, even Nazi Xavier is impressed, saying she would have been a great asset to an Aryan breeding program. I guess coming from a Nazi, that’s the highest compliment a woman can receive.

While Xavier is dead, Namor is still pretty roughed up. And he clearly hasn’t forgotten that it was Dazzler’s team that roughed him up. But Dazzler takes a careful and diplomatic approach in dealing with the guy who tried to sink the island. She reminds him that it was Nazi Xavier that blew up his country and it was Nazi Xavier that he wanted to kill. While he has a knack for holding a grudge (sinking entire islands definitely qualifies as an overreaction), he opts to take a rain check this time. She even offers to celebrate and/or mourn with them. He declines, indicating that this Japanese Namor may not have the same fetish for blonds that we’re used to. He leaves Dazzler’s team and the survivors. It would have been nice if he at least faked an apology to these people for nearly getting them killed, but this is Namor. Even in alternate universes, he’s not going to humble himself unless it involves a woman he wants to bone.

Later on, the adrenaline wears off and the team finally has a chance to settle with the survivors. Xavier-in-a-Jar tells the team that their mission is finally complete. They were tasked with traversing the multi-verse and killing 10 evil Xaviers and they succeeded. If it sounds anti-climatic, it is. If you think that’s really the end of it, then you must be one of those fans who sends money to Nigerian princes in hopes of recouping a lost lotto prize so this must be a sad moment for you.

Even if it isn’t, Dazzler takes some time to reflect on how far she’s come. When this series started, she was just another pretty blond who occasionally showed up in the X-books to give Emma Frost a breather. Greg Pak has turned her into a kick-ass leader and the thought of just going back to her world and back to being some Lady Gaga wannabe doesn’t sit right. This leads her to having a nice moment with black Cyclops and by nice moment I mean they decide to swap a little spit. It’s an image that would make the KKK or Tony Perkins recoil with disgust, a pretty blond kissing a black man who isn’t a star athlete or rapper. And while I’m all for hot blonds bringing the races closer together, this moment felt a little random and a bit hallow. Granted, Dazzler did admire black Cyclops in the previous issue. But the kiss still feels a bit rushed. There’s no sense of high drama or anything. It could have been much more powerful for the both of them, but it ends up falling a little flat. But still, it’s Dazzler getting a little action and yet more proof that the power of Cyclops’s penis span’s universes.

While the Cyclops/Dazzler kiss was rushed, things get even more contrived at the end. Remember that anti-climatic moment where Xavier-in-a-Jar just says they’ve succeeded and can go home? Well, there’s a reason you shouldn’t have been too shocked, namely because it was total bullshit. For some reason it takes Sage’s supercomputer mind way too fucking long to figure out they’ve killed only 9 evil Xaviers. That leaves one more. Then in a very sudden and very random twist, Xavier-in-a-Jar reveals that Evil Wizard Xavier isn’t dead and Nazi Xavier comes back to live to make a super triple-powered evil Xavier. Even if you read that previous sentence over completely, it’ll still make no sense. Greg Pak has shown a tendency to throw in major twists during his Xtreme X-men run. Hell, this is the guy who made an evil My Little Pony Charles Xavier. Yet he’s usually succeeded in having those twists not feel too forced. This is one that is just thrown out there as if it were a blindfolded baseball pitcher. While it does hint at a very eventful finale for this series, it just doesn’t have the impact of previous twists.

Going back to my point about this series regularly abusing certain laws, I threw common sense in the mix for a reason. Lately, I’ve been trying to place a greater emphasis on comics making at least half a fuck worth of sense. It’s that utter lack of coherence that both ruins stories like Avengers vs. X-men and earns you a DUI if you try driving home from a bar at three in the morning. Greg Pak has had to work harder than most writers to ensure his stories make some level of sense. How else can you get around My Little Pony version of Charles Xavier? For the most part, he has succeeded, but the ending of this issue leaves plenty to be desired.

Now I’m not going to say it was overly shocking to find out that their mission wasn’t over. I knew as soon as Dazzler’s team started relaxing and hooking up for a little post-victory sex, shit was about to go very badly. But aside from Sage's supercomputer of a brain taking so long to surmise that they had only killed 9 Charles Xaviers, the sudden emergence of two more evil Charles Xaviers crosses that incredibly blurred line this series has crafted in the logic department. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I need to read this comic sober a few times. But the ending with Xavier-in-a-Jar just felt too random and even in comics where crazy shit is the only law of the land, that’s just a bit too crazy.

As crazy as it was, it didn’t detract from the well-organized battle between Nazi Xavier and Namor. Pak utilized a solid balance of action and conflict where Dazzler’s team struggled to figure out who they would help. He didn’t have them pick a side so-to-speak, but he didn’t have them twiddling their thumbs like dipshits either. Dazzler once again showed that she’s become a competent leader and led her team in a way that resulted in a successful mission, at least temporarily. They killed the evil Charles Xavier and saved a lot of innocent people in the process. That aspect of this comic was well-done.

Pak even did a good job playing up some of the dramatic elements. He’s taken Dazzler through a lot of character development since this story began. I’m glad that he had her actually step back and reflect on that. It certainly sets the stage for Dazzler to take on a very different role once she returns to 616 (assuming the writers don’t just forget about her like they did with Tessa). But throwing in that kiss with black Cyclops was a bit underdone. Granted, she did check him out in the previous issue. It just felt as though not enough was done to build towards the kiss. You don’t need to build that shit up when you’re doing a porno and since nobody showed their tits in this issue, I think that build-up was necessary.

Overall, this issue was still solid in that it moved the story forward and set the stage for the home stretch for this series. Dazzler’s mission is almost over and even if it didn’t make a lot of sense, Greg Pak made it clear that killing the last Charles Xavier is going to be her greatest challenge yet. In addition, any time a Nazi loses in a story, it’s a great “America! Fuck Yeah!” moment in a week where Uncanny Avengers already gave us our fair share. It was an issue that still left much to be desired and with Xtreme X-men crossing over in to the upcoming X-Terminator event, it has plenty of room to make up for it. So I give Xtreme X-men #11 a 3 out of 5. Another Nazi has fallen, but now we’re back to evil wizards and magic. Which would you rather face? At least with a Nazi, you can shoot them and they won’t turn the bullets into a giant dildo. Nuff said!

Uncanny X-Force #2 - Randomly Disorganized Awesome

I get accused of a lot of sexism. It doesn't always hold up in court, but it happens often enough that I get a hand-written thank-you note from Todd Akin every Christmas. However, I don't consider myself as misogynistic as my drunken rants make me out to be. I firmly believe that women can match men in a great many feats that don't involve standing while taking a piss. Women often claim men are exceedingly cruel and sadistic. They certainly can be, as evidenced by anyone who has looked up what Ivan the Terrible did in his spare time. But I believe women can be just as cruel. When I was in grade school, there were these group of girls who got a kick out of leaving used tampons and condom wrappers in the desks of other girls they didn't like. A part of me hopes that some of those girls became herpes laden sluts later in life, but for all I know they may be the wives of Congressmen (which could be worse when you think about it). However they turned out, those women showed me the kind of cruelty they were capable of. So the thought of a nearly all-female team of X-Force makes me both fearful and horny at the same time.

Uncanny X-Force was largely a sausage party under Rick Remender. Aside from Psylocke, each major character had a penis and that penis afforded them a special rank that didn't involve them lamenting over a lover who had his mind wiped. Granted, it was still awesome, but it gave feminists numerous reasons to want to attack Marvel with weapons grade PMS. Well under Stan Humphries, the sausage party has turned into a clam feast. Psylocke and Storm are now the alpha females of this new team. Storm has her new Mohawk and Psylocke has her new fuck-the-world attitude after being in X-Force gave her too many reasons to be pissed off. So they're a forced to be reckoned with and Odin help you if you have unbusted testicles when you face them.

Their first mission got underway in Uncanny X-Force #1. Storm and Psylocke were investigating a new drug operation that involved mutants. It led them to cross paths with Puck, the vertically challenged member of Alpha Flight whose balls may get a pass because he helped point them in the right direction. Unfortunately, that direction led to an encounter with Spiral, one of the only Marvel women whose boobs are only the second thing you notice when you see her. And somewhere along the way, Bishop came back from the future. We didn't get an explanation and the whole sequence of events was sloppy as hell, but fuck if it didn't have plenty of appeal.

That appeal continues to unfold in Uncanny X-Force #2 in the sense that we get to see Psylocke kicking all kinds of ass. The previous issue made it painfully clear that she’s still dealing with a long list of issues after the end of Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force run. And at the moment her best way of dealing with them is beating the shit out of a bunch of drugged party freaks. I suppose there are unhealthier ways to deal with psychological issues, but they don’t look nearly as awesome. The battle isn’t that much different from the battle we saw in the previous issue. But this time it’s just Psylocke opts to do more than just beat the shit out of these people. She decides since they’re already being mind-fucked, it’s okay to throw a little telepathy into the mix. Considering the kind of drugs that get passed out at certain parties, I doubt this is the worst damage that can be done to their brain.

While Psylocke is working out her issues with her own brand of extreme therapy, Storm and Puck take on Spiral in a battle for the source of this army drug-induced psychosis. To make things more complicated, that source appears to be a scared little girl who seems more clueless than Paris Hilton in a quantum physics lecture. The girl is scared of Storm and Puck for some reason. I guess mohawks aren’t as terrifying as a six-armed woman because Spiral tries to keep them from getting her. It leads to a battle that involves flashy, random, and disorganized action. First they’re in the club. Then they teleport on top of a roof. The fighting itself isn’t all that epic. It just ends up with Puck getting thrown off the roof.

Even if the fighting isn’t epic, it still is painfully unclear just why the fuck they’re fighting in the first place. Spiral continues to protect the girl, Ginny, who continues to come off as more ignorant and vulnerable than a dog that keeps trying to hump his reflection in a mirror. We don’t know what forces are at work here and aren’t even given a clue either. Is Spiral being mind-controlled? Is the girl herself an illusion? Or is there another source of this psychic bullshit? It’s completely unclear and Humprhies does little to offer any clues.

The only thing he does offer is a very pissed off Storm and Puck coming in for another attack. This time Storm isn’t content to just let Puck get himself thrown off the roof again. She throws in some high winds while Puck does what he does best and becomes…well, a flying human puck. In terms of superpowers its right up there with shitting fire crackers, but it’s a solid combination with Storm’s powers so it makes for a more epic-feeling battle.

However, the battle never gets a chance to unfold. Spiral manages to teleport herself and Ginny away from the club. It doesn’t just waste a perfectly good combo with Storm and Puck. It effectively ends Psylocke’s rampage against spaced out party-goers. I get the sense that she wasn’t ready for it to end. I think her beating up on random, drugged out strangers was actually good for her. She’s still clearly a very bitter and very pissed off woman. But now that the party-goers are free from psychic control, beating the shit out of them just isn’t going to have the same effect. So she’s stuck going along with Storm’s plan to hunt for Spiral and the girl, hoping that she’ll find more people to beat up in a therapeutic manner along the way.

The plot with Storm, Psylocke, and Puck has been fairly entertaining to this point even if the action isn’t always up to par. I would have been more than content if the first issue and this issue focused only on this plot. But in the first issue, the story got a little schizophrenic and started diverging into other random plots. One of those plots involved Fantomex, who is now three different individuals, exhibiting the kind of distressing sexual fetishes you don’t find outside of 50 Shades of Grey. Now that Fantomex has a female version of himself, he doesn’t need to try and worm his way into Psylocke’s panties. He can just literally fuck himself any time he wants and it isn’t an insult.

While I was hoping this would not find its way into this issue, Humphries essentially did the same damn thing. We see Fantomex and Cluster (his female half) sharing a romantic moment aboard a blimp-like ship over Budapest. And by romantic I mean swooning over each other after Fantomex presents her with stolen tooth brushes from famous people. I’ll say that again just to make clear that that I’m (mostly) sober when I say this. He got his other female self stolen toothbrushes from famous people. And this somehow counts as romance between this insanely creepy, exceedingly incestuous relationship. I’ve come across women with many twisted sexual proclivities and have the scars to prove it. I’ve never known of any woman whose panties are moistened by fucking tooth brushes. If that weren’t fucked up enough, this scene really doesn’t contribute to the story in any meaningful way. Fantomex just muses over Psylocke and how their dark counterpart may be after her. That’s it. There’s absolutely no mention of how this relates to the ongoing plot with Ginny and Spiral. Random shit in one issue can be overlooked if it fits into the story later on. But as we saw with Cable and X-Force, when that shit doesn’t link up and basically follows the same irrational path it’s a waste of ink and paper so horrendous that it would make Al Gore cry.

This horrendous waste forces the plot with Spiral and Ginny to move faster. Psylocke, Storm, and Puck start searching for Spiral. It’s not a very interesting search. Psylocke just does a search and picks up on the unique signature left by Ginny, which happens to be a tinkerbell-like fairy. There’s not much attempt at drama between the team or any effort to explore Psylocke’s serious personal issues, which Storm clearly noticed in the previous issue. It just skips right ahead to finding Spiral. It’s not just a missed opportunity. It’s essentially glossing over details in a way that Rick Remender went out of his way to avoid during his run. So while Humphries may still utilize numerous elements for an Uncanny X-Force book, namely a disturbed child, it certainly doesn’t have the refinement.

They manage to find Spiral fairly quickly. She and the deadpanned girl are holding up in your typical abandoned building. She’s still just protecting the girl with no effort to give a reason why. Then Storm, Puck, and Psylocke show up and try to talk some sense into her. Now I know Spiral doesn’t have a good history with the X-men. She’s never liked them and would probably show up at one of their funerals just to take a shit on their grave. But she’s never opposed the X-men without having a reason to do so. And she really doesn’t give much of a reason outside this creepy girl that we know nothing about. On the surface, it should be a scene of high drama. But the way it plays out ends up being more bland than an economic lecture by Ben Stein.

If there was any chance for high drama, it was utterly ruined by yet another random twist that involves Bishop showing up and attempting to blow them up for no fucking reason. I mean he’s the guy who shot Charles Xavier in the fucking head. Now his only instinct is to shoot any X-man he sees? He reappeared rather randomly in the previous issue and his return was already confirmed before this book even came out so it’s hardly surprising. At the very least, Humphries does try to tie his return to the plot with Spiral because he demands to take Ginny. Again, he doesn’t give a reason so it’s a very loose connection at best. Storm and the others are understandably confused by his abrupt return, as am I. The last time they saw this guy he was trying to kill the mutant messiah that ended up saving their race. So there really are a lot of blanks here and little effort is made to fill them.

The only thing that is made clear is that Bishop is packing some serious new heat. He’s able to blast Storm, Puck, Psylocke, Spiral, and the girl with a blast that looks like a mix between the Phoenix Force and a forest fire. On the final page he demonstrates the extent of that power by engulfing himself in a fiery halo that looks like…a fucking bear. I could smoke any number of joints and still couldn’t come up with any ideas on what the fuck this Phoenix/Bear Force entails or how Bishop got it. I figure it will be addressed in future issues, but in this issue where shit has already been so random and disorganized it only succeeds in inducing migraines. That also makes this the last comic you want to read if you’re hung over.

I’ll say it again. Fuck, this book is chaotic. It couldn’t be any more disorganized if it were operated by FEMA. Shit was pretty random in the first issue as well, but this issue only served to link up some of that random shit in the least logical way possible. I’ll give Stan Humphries credit for making a smooth transition between issues, but that’s not necessarily a good thing when all these different plots fail to come together in even a semi-coherent way. The main taglines to this book is “Hot X-women fighting” and “Bishop is back motherfucker!” Those make great teasers, but it’s hard to get exciting about that shit when it fails to make sense to both a drunk and sober reader.

I try to give every comic a balanced perspective, even if that means reading books drunk and sober. I will say that this issue does succeed in creating the kind of gritty action that X-Force fans have come to know and love. The battles against Spiral and a crowd of drugged out ravers were well-done and fairly entertaining, but in the end not much was accomplished from this battle. And while Bishop’s return did eventually link up with Psylock and Storm’s mission, the obscenely creepy sub-plot with Fantomex did not. All it did was prove that narcissists would gladly fuck themselves if they could. And I don’t need my faith in the human race being tainted any more than it already is. If I want more examples of narcissistic assholes stroking their egos (among other things), I’ll watch Fox News.

Uncanny X-men #2 just did not make enough sense to be awesome beyond the most superficial of details. Yes, the art was great. Yes, the action was fun. And yes, it did technically move the plot forward. But beyond that, it didn’t do jack shit. Stan Humphries is essentially throwing too many plots into the bowl without taking the time to mix them. Anyone who has ever made pot brownies knows that this rarely results in something that will bring joy to more than just a handful of people. I certainly want to see what happens with this girl and what the fuck happened to Bishop in the future. However, is it really so much to ask that it make a lick of sense? I think not. I give Uncanny X-Force #2 a 2 out of 5. This book is why you don’t cook bacon without greasing the pan. In the end you’ll only ruin the pan and ruin most of your bacon. And lost bacon is every bit as tragic as lost awesome in a comic book. Nuff said!

X-men Supreme Reflections: President Robert Kelly is LIVE!

The world of the X-men Supreme fanfiction series is undergoing a huge shift. Robert Kelly has been elected President of the United States and human/mutant relations will never be the same. But who is this man who is now leader of the free world in X-men Supreme? Why has he taken it upon himself to make mutants his primary issue? Throughout history, many politicians have staked their careers on a single issue. Some do so because they genuinely believe it to be an important issue. Some do so just to get votes for the next election. In the world of comics and the X-men Supreme fanfiction series, this is no different. Robert Kelly is a man who believes in what he is doing and whether they like it or not, the X-men will have to deal with him.

Over the course of the X-men Supreme fanfiction series, I've introduced many characters. I don't always get to explore some of those characters as much as I want to. Robert Kelly is a character that has been part of X-men Supreme since X-men Supreme Volume 1: Mutant Revolution. But it wasn't until the end of X-men Supreme Volume 3: Ashes of Hope that I finally had a chance to explore some aspects of his life. It's not easy squeezing in all the relevant details. And this exactly why I take the time to do spin-off series like X-men Supreme Reflections. It gives me time to go over those details and review aspects of a character that are hard to do in the middle of a story. There's a lot motivating Robert Kelly now and I hope it gets readers excited for his new role in future stories of X-men Supreme!

X-men Supreme Reflections: President Robert Kelly

I say it every time I post an update and I'll keep saying it for as long as I continue this fanfiction series. Please take the time to provide feedback and support X-men Supreme! I work long and hard on creating this detailed world of X-men and I can only ensure it is sufficiently awesome through feedback from my readers. Please contact me with your comments or questions or place your remarks in the comments section for this or any other issue of X-men Supreme. I appreciate all those who take the time to provide feedback. X-men Supreme is more awesome because of it! Until next time, take care and best wishes! Excelsior!

Jack