Thursday, February 20, 2014

Wolverine and the X-men #2 Unlettered Preview - Underdeveloped Tension

Any self-respecting stoner will admit that sometimes shit slips their mind. I once got so stoned that I didn’t realize I had a dildo duct taped to the back of my head until someone at a Wal-Mart pointed it out. That only got me a dirty look from a Wal-Mart greeter. But when certain details and plots get overlooked in comics, a dirty look just doesn’t cut it. I don’t pay four bucks for a story that skips over important details. That’s like paying four bucks for an espresso at Starbucks that the barista spits in.

The spit in question has to do with the status of Wolverine and Storm. In the pages of Wolverine and the X-men, as well as Amazing X-men and Wolverine’s solo series, they have been shown to be in a pretty intimate relationship. They have bumped uglies and they already have rules about not skipping foreplay. And it’s not like this relationship is new. These two have a pretty long history, much longer than bullshit relationships like Storm and Black Panther or the short-lived relationship with Wolverine and Melita Garner. Both those relationships ended in a pretty ugly way, but at least they had some depth. The same can’t be said for Wolverine and Storm.

After Storm let Wolverine cut her hair into a Mohawk, which would make an awesome pubic hair joke if it weren’t accurate, they kissed. But after that, there hasn’t been much of anything said or shown. We haven’t seen them grow together. We haven’t seen them talk that much. It’s like Marvel is just throwing a bunch of blanks into the story and leaving the readers to fill in all the details. And for stoners who have fucked up imaginations about boobs and mohawks, that’s pretty dangerous.

Yet now Storm and Wolverine are supposed to take center stage as Wolverine and the X-men is re-launched. This time the focus is going to be less on the staff of the Jean Grey Institute and more on the students, which sounds great on paper. Then again, communism sounds great on paper and anyone who has been to a prison camp in North Korea can attest to how worthless that shit is. Not only that, they’ll have to content with Fantomex joining the cast. This guy already made himself more unlikable than a plate of bacon at a PETA convention. Hell, he shot a fucking kid in the head. Yet he’s allowed to join the Jean Grey Institute staff while everyone continues to condemn Cyclops? But I digress.

Now Newsarama has released a preview of Wolverine and the X-men #2 and as promised, Storm and Wolverine are a big part of it. But are hard-drinking professional stoners like myself still supposed to fill in the blanks about their relationship? If so, that’s going to be a big problem for the story and for anybody that has a fucked up imagination. These are some of the most iconic characters in X-men. Glossing over details might be okay with Toad and Marrow, but not Storm and Wolverine.

The teachers and students of the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning are prepping for their summer break, but tell that to their adversaries! On March 5, Marvel will release Wolverine & The X-Men #2 featuring more in the story of the premier school for mutants as it enters a new chapter where it's founder, Wolverine, has been ravaged without his healing factor to protect him. It's up to Storm, Fantomex and others to step up, but with students like Quentin Quire and the son of Apocalypse -- they've got their hands full.

Here are three pages from Wolverine & The X-Men #2 provided exclusively by Marvel, to give you a hint at what's in store.



Well Storm looks more pissed than a lion that just saw a zebra taking a shit on one of its cubs. She’s so pissed that she risked a perfectly good bottle of whiskey. This would be such a powerful moment if we didn’t have so many fucking blanks about her relationship with Wolverine. Are they really a serious couple? Or are they just fuck buddies? It’s impossible to tell and that pisses away any possible drama that might actually emerge from this preview.

I’m still intrigued though. First, there’s a distinctive outline of a certain cosmic bird that seems to piss everybody off whenever it shows up, especially if they have red hair and green eyes. Second, Kid Omega has pissed someone off to the point where he’s being choked to death. I’m not saying that’s surprising. I’m shocked more people don’t try to choke Kid Omega to death. But he usually does something special to deserve it. And if nothing else, I would like to see who he fucks with next.

It still would be better if we got at least some new development on the Wolverine/Storm front. At a time when fans have shown their sentimental side with romances like Superman/Wonder Woman, this is a golden opportunity to develop more chemistry between two iconic characters and piss off racists in the process. It’s win-win, but I guess some shit just makes too much sense. Nuff said!

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