That’s part of what has generated so much interest surrounding All New X-men #20. It isn’t just the promise of two teenage characters succumbing to their insatiable desires to hook up in ways that would make Bill O’Riley’s head explode. This is a very unique kind of hook-up and in a series that has had psychic affairs and incest, that’s saying something. I’ve already done multiple blog posts on this issue and the unlettered preview that came out a few weeks ago. Now this issue that has brought out a unique kind of bitching and moaning on message boards is only a week away.
And I don’t think anyone should be surprised that Marvel released an advanced preview. This time it’s lettered and that’s a good thing because what is said here answers some of the burning questions from All New X-men #19, which I articulated in my usual drunken manner. But it also raises a few new issues with some new implications. I’ll let Comic Book Resources take it from here since they can do their work sober.
• The fallout of X-MEN: BATTLE OF THE ATOM continues!
• X-23 is back and kissing… WHO IS THE MYSTERY MAN??!
Seeing this preview was a relief in same way taking a really good shit after gorging on buffalo wings the previous night is a relief. In All New X-men #19, X-23 apparently took a note from her father’s playbook and lost her damn memory. But it looks like in this issue, she got it back. It’s not clear how, which I pray to Odin isn’t glossed over like so many other details. But it saves this series the trouble of dealing with another amnesia Weapon X plot. That shit has been more done to death than the last three Adam Sandler movies.
But what is more intriguing is how O5 Jean picked up that O5 Cyclops’s already “fancies” X-23 as she calls it. Now it’s worth pointing out that earlier in this series, O5 Cyclops showed he had about as much fondness for Wolverine as his older counterpart. He optic blasted him the first time he gave him a reason to. So why the fuck would he suddenly fancy Wolverine’s clone daughter? There may actually be some twisted hormonal logic to that. He doesn’t like Wolverine. What could be a better way to pwn him even more than hooking up with his daughter? It’s not enough his older self got to bone Jean Grey. Now he’s going after his daughter. Come to think of it, this is probably the most logical thing Cyclops could do from a teenage hormone perspective.
What also is intriguing is how O5 Jean seems to pick up on this. She doesn’t try and stop him or really get upset, which is saying something considering how she pitched a psychic hissy fit when she sensed O5 Cyclops’s attraction to the Stepford Cuckoos. It could just be something she’s holding in. I don’t think she’s stopped caring who O5 Cyclops is involved with because that would be both OOC and further undermine the space time continuum. And that’s not just my own drunken sentiment. That’s what is hinted at in the issue after this one.
The intent is pretty clear here. X-23 is going to cock-block/pussy-block O5 Jean from O5 Cyclops. It seems fair enough given how she pushed O5 Cyclops away and is flirting with every other member of the team except O5 Iceman, although I’m sure that’s on her to-do list. But in the same way a vindictive ex-girlfriend get upset when she sees her ex hooking up with someone else, it’s going to bother her. And at the same time, it’s going to add more tension to the ongoing drama between O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean Grey.
It’s a plot that I hope Bendis is careful with because as I’ve said before, the Cyclops/Jean relationship by far the most important relationship in the history of the X-men. Tearing them apart isn’t the same as having a teenage Peter Parker break up with a teenage Mary Jane in Ultimate Spider-Man. By destroying the Cyclops/Jean relationship, a whole fuckton of damage happens to the space time continuum and in the post Age of Ultron Marvel universe, that shit just isn’t cool anymore.
For this reason, I don’t think that a hookup between X-23 and O5 Cyclops has a lot of long-term potential. And for another reason, it’s a teenage hookup. There’s a reason why teenage hookups become Shakespearean plays or best-selling books about sparkling vampires. They’re really fucking rare. And given the circumstances for both these characters, I don’t think they’ll be going all Twilight on each other. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be awesomely entertaining. Besides, if we didn’t have teenagers to make fools of themselves, the world would be way too fucking boring. Nuff said!
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