Scanned Thoughts: X-men #7

When women ban together for anything that doesn't involve an orgy in a porno movie, they're every bit as deadly as any gang of men. I don't just say that to ward off angry feminists who send me hate mail on a regular basis. I say that from experience. It's hard enough dealing with one angry woman, but a whole team of them? That's enough to make any man's penis shrivel in fear. Yet that's exactly what the all-female team of the X-men are facing in the post-Battle of the Atom world. It makes sense, doesn't it? A new team of female X-men form. Therefore, a new team of female villains should form. Just because it makes sense doesn't make the concept any less painful for anyone with functioning testicles. So as I review X-men #7, I will keep them tucked away for their own protection.

It’s a common misconception that only old rich men who can’t get an erection without a bottle of Viagra are inherently evil. Young, attractive rich women can be every bit as inherently evil. Ana Cortes certainly doesn’t look that evil when she is first introduced. She looks basically like a Latina Paris Hilton who hasn’t put out a sex tape or had her own reality show yet. And like Paris Hilton, she didn’t earn her money. She inherited it from her father. And after he died, she now has all kinds of money and a lot of free time, which are two of the most important ingredients to evil. And like Charlie Sheen, she needs drugs to unlock that evil, which she gets courtesy of her strangely familiar female assistant looks like an extra on the set of lesbian porn.

But this woman apparently has access to drugs that are much more potent than anything Charlie Sheen has ever taken, as hard as that may be to believe. Through some creative and engaging inner monologue, we find out that these drugs have unlocked Lady Deathstrike from within Ana’s persona. That’s surprising considering Lady Deathstrike is supposed to be dead, but then again death is no worse than the common cold in the Marvel universe, provided the character in question isn’t named Jean Grey or Gwen Stacy. She apparently convinced some rich Latina bimbo to share her body so that Lady Deathstrike could have access to her funds. It’s ingenious and pragmatic, but how anyone could convince some upper class bimbo to share her body like that without the promise of undeserved fame and powerful drugs is beyond me.

As Lady Deathstrike is enjoying a new body and new access to resources, Jubilee is enjoying some welcome news from Storm at the Jean Grey Institute. It’s official now. She’s a single, vampire, adoptive mother. Storm, who I imagine threatened a new ice age to the Hungarian government, made it official. They’re not going to press charges against a teenage vampire who wants to adopt one of their infant citizens. They probably don’t know that this baby is going to be living in a school that gets blown up every few years with a teenage girl who also happens to be a vampire, but I doubt they care. They probably have bigger problems to worry about, like how to attract more rich American tourists to their red light district.

And that’s not the only good news either, although it’s not clear whether it qualifies as good. After Jubilee finds out she’s now a single mom, Monet shows up and reveals that Storm is letting her stay at the institute while she “rests and recuperates.” I’m pretty sure that’s code for “she’s dry humped karma and now it’s screwing her over.” It tapers Jubilee’s enthusiasm because of their history. And it’s not clear which part of that history has screwed her over, making her appearance a bit contrived. But it’s another beautiful, tough woman on a team of all-female X-men. And like an orgy with Playboy playmates, more is better.

Monet quickly makes herself at home, meeting up with Omega Sentinel and Beast in his lab. Omega Sentinel, who is fresh of her unexpected awakening from her coma at the hands of Arkea, is still recovering and for some reason, running on a treadmill while Beast takes in data is supposed to help with that. That sounds like treating a recovering alcoholic with cocaine. But it effectively continues the plot with Omega Sentinel that began in the first arc while throwing Monet into the mix.

That mix isn’t all that compelling at first. Monet makes it clear that she didn’t come to the Jean Grey Institute to put on a spandex uniform and beat up Sentinels. If she wanted that kind of stress, she would work for the mayor of Toronto. She’s at the institute to unwind, which is like going to Afghanistan for a vacation. But for whatever reason, she connects with Omega Sentinel in a way that isn’t easy to masturbate to. They talk about coming back from the dead, which has already been established as a major theme of this issue. So I guess it’s fitting in some respects.

Since Beast’s lab is about as relaxing as Jerry Sandusky’s basement, Monet invites Omega Sentinel to do some more traditional running by going on a jog in the countryside. It’s not a bad idea. Some people do relax by jogging in the same way I relax with beer and porn. I would still argue that my method is more effective, but who am I to judge? But at the very least it should give them some additional bonding time without Beast being a douche to mess it up.

However, this pleasant little fun run is rudely interrupted when Lady Deathstrike, now the dominant force in her new body and sporting some badass new body paint, drive by with some well-paid thugs. She probably thinks she’s luckier than a rat in a cheese factory because she apparently didn’t know that Omega Sentinel woke up from her coma recently. She hired these thugs to break into the Jean Grey Institute and bust her out. She must have been having multiple orgasms when she found Omega Sentinel just running out in the open. They attack the two ill-prepared women and effectively ruin any further efforts at relaxing.

Like any prank involving horse shit and crazy glue, having the element of surprise goes a long ways towards making it work. Lady Deathstrike’s thugs successfully wound Omega Sentinel, leaving her more vulnerable than a chocolate cake at John Goodman’s house. But Monet has a pretty extensive array of powers and since Omega Sentinel took a bullet, she takes it upon herself to make these assholes pay for ruining her relaxing getaway. She takes out Lady Deathstrike’s thugs, which makes me wonder how long they would have lasted if they had to actually break into the Jean Grey Institute. I have to think that Storm would have shoved fifty bolts of lightning up their asses and Wolverine would have peeled their skin off like a banana, but Lady Deathstrike is not dissuaded. How can she be when she looks like a professional wrestler?

When Monet and Omega Sentinel return to the Jean Grey Institute, Storm and the other all-female X-men team are understandably skeptical and disturbed to hear that Lady Deathstrike is back. But none of them seem too surprised. I figure they’ve long since accepted that their hated enemies never stay dead. It warrants a quick and thorough investigation, knowing that Lady Deathstrike can never go too long without eviscerating someone. She’s like a coffee addict with no Starbucks to feed her addiction. And Monet offers to be part of the fight. Even though she’s supposed to be lying low, she feels obligated to help Omega Sentinel since she took a bullet for her. It’s a somewhat weak explanation since it hasn’t really been explained why she needs to lie low in the first place. It doesn’t help that the dialog is somewhat weak as well. But it gets the point across that the all-female X-men are going to fight back against Lady Deathstrike.

This isn’t the only instance of weak dialog. Jubilee, whose role on the team is still unclear since she has a baby now, meets up with Roxy, who she was supposed to meet up with earlier. She talks about how she tried to ask Mercury out on a date and ended up getting punched. Most straight people who get hit on by gays tend to be flattered so I can’t imagine why Mercury would want to punch her. But Roxy makes it clear that she’s already over Mercury and now she has a crush on someone else. Then she proceeds to look at Jubilee the same way a teenage boy looks at his first pair of boobs.

The innuendo in an all-female X-men comic is sure to piss of feminists, but they may take comfort in seeing that Lady Deathstrike has teamed up with another woman in a completely non-lesbian sort of way. That assistant from earlier who looked way too hot to be an assistant for someone not named Donald Trump reveals that she isn’t just some overpaid pretty face. She’s fucking Typhoid Mary, the second most devious redheaded mutant after Hope fucking Summers. She was the one that helped Lady Deathstrike set up shop in a new body and now she’s going to help Deathstrike fuck with the X-men. It’s a beautiful thing and both my brain and my penis agree for once.

After reading this comic, I'm honestly not sure how angry feminists will bitch about it. I can see how they would piss and moan at the first arc, which involved an all-female X-men team relying on a man in John Sublime (granted, he's not a man as much as he is a sentient grouping of sludge) to help them defeat Arkea. I really don't know how anyone who wants to bust the balls of every man within a five-mile radius can be upset about this book. It brings in yet another female character to join the all-female X-men. It also introduces two dangerous female villains. It might as well be entitled X-men: No Dicks Allowed. And it still worked in a way that still made it feel like a regular X-men book and not one that focused only on showing Psylocke's ass or Monet's cleavage. It's enough to stimulate both the mind and genitals. For that, feminists should find plenty to enjoy in this issue and so should men with functioning penises. I give X-men #7 a 7 out of 10. It has single mothers, non-lesbian friendships, and disembodied souls from pissed off enemies. It's like Desperate Housewives with mutants, minus the overly sexual undertones. But that's okay. Perverted men can still make good use of their imagination while angry feminists will always find a reason to be pissed off. Nuff said!