Scanned Thoughts: Uncanny X-men #20

In my experience, personal vendettas can be more intoxicating than any drug. Even the most hopelessly addicted crackhead has nothing on some pissed off ex-cop father who makes it his life mission to torment the guy who slept with his daughter and convinced her to get a tattoo of Eminem on her ass. It’s an addiction for which there is no overdose or hangover. Succeeding in exacting the desired revenge brings a high that all the blow in Colombia can’t match. And that’s exactly the high that Maria Hill has been seeking in Uncanny X-men. She has convinced herself that arresting Cyclops and throwing him back in jail will somehow give her unlimited orgasms and she has spent much of the relaunched Uncanny X-men chasing his ass, ignoring other global threats and a looming Sentinel conspiracy. I would say she’s obsessed, but I’m a drunk. I’m in no position to judge. But I won’t shy away from criticism as I review Uncanny X-men #20. She has already been wiping her ass with the constitution. The Ron Paul in me just can’t let that go.

And I think it’s safe to say that Ron Paul would be pretty pissed off at the way Maria Hill is flat out ignoring Hijack’s constitutional rights. To be fair, Hijack deserves to have his balls busted to some extent. This is a guy who clearly didn’t listen to Edward Snowden when he flat out told the world that the government listened to every fucking phone call that everyone made, from telemarketers to phone sex. So when he made a call to Cyclops begging to come back, he might as well have invited Maria Hill to storm his room and interrogate his ass. At least this time she didn’t detain him like she did Goldballs. She just barks orders and bitches at him in an effort to extract Cyclops’s location, which he clearly doesn’t know. It doesn’t work, but lucky for him that Sentinel attack from the previous issue gets SHIELD’s attention. So they leave Hijack in peace, alone in his room. It’s not much of an improvement from what they did to Goldballs, but for a government operation I’ll take it. If only Congress were this efficient at improvement.

Maria Hill returns to the Hellicarrier, practically foaming at the mouth over the possibility of arresting Cyclops. She’s probably even hoping that the Sentinel attack softened them up. If she’s expecting that, then clearly she’s being overly optimistic. Cyclops is capable of being destroyed by many things. A killer robot isn’t one of them. A pissed off psychic ex-girlfriend? Maybe. But certainly not a killer robot. She talks about how Cyclops is a brilliant strategist who thinks 10 steps ahead of everyone else. And she’s right. Cyclops is that good. He led the entire mutant race for a while, beat Norman Osborn, and found time to satisfy Emma Frost in between. He’s pretty damn formidable and Maria Hill knows it. She thinks she can get the jump on him this time. I also once thought I could get out of a speeding ticket by doing a striptease to a female cop. It sounds like a good idea on paper, but not so much in practice.

Maria Hill doesn’t even get a chance to get one step ahead of Cyclops. Hell, she doesn’t even get half a step. Cyclops hits her with a psychic attack, courtesy of the Stepford Cuckoos. They effectively cut her off from her rage boner and give them a chance to have a little chat where she’s not in a position to do some Dick Cheney style interrogations. Cyclops just wants to know if SHIELD is responsible for the Sentinel attacks. The Cuckoos reveal that Maria Hill isn’t the one pulling the trigger. But Cyclops still considers her responsible because this shit is happening on her watch. She has all of SHIELD’s resources at her disposal and she’s not doing jack shit to stop innocent mutants from being attacked. That makes her at least partially responsible in Cyclops’s book. Plus, there’s still that issue of all those Sentinels that SHIELD had been hiding during X-men Battle of the Atom. Kind of hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.

But that’s not the only thing that the Stepford Cuckoos revealed. It would have been enough to just confirm that Maria Hill wasn’t the one behind the Sentinel attacks and that she’s still not entirely sure what the fuck is going on in her bloated government organization. The Cuckoos also reveal that Maria Hill is actually attracted to Cyclops. I honestly thought I was too stoned when I read this. But it’s really there. Maria Hill actually gets all warm and tingly between her legs when she thinks of this outlaw fugitive revolutionary. I don’t know why, but something about that makes me smile and gives me a boner. I don’t think I should be too surprised though. Cyclops is a man who has successfully satisfied both Jean Grey and Emma Frost. The power of his penis is undeniable. Why shouldn’t Maria Hill be drawn to it? I’m not a woman so I can’t offer a valid reason. I can only hope that when she gets him alone in a room with handcuffs and no cameras, some wonderfully pornographic things happen.

Cyclops, to his credit, doesn’t immediately resort to the power of his penis to get what he wants. He’s not without manners I guess, which after dating Emma Frost is saying something. He remains only partially convinced that Maria Hill isn’t involved. He works under the assumption that SHIELD is sophisticated enough to equip sensitive minds with psychic shielding and false thoughts. It’s not as paranoid as it sounds. But he leaves Maria Hill another step or so behind them by having the Stepford Cuckoos make everyone on the deck take a quick psychic nap. It’s not a terrible dick move. There are way worse things he could have done. But it does work. And it’s probably for the better too. Her panties are probably soaked at this point.

As nice as it is seeing Cyclops pwn Maria Hill and make her horny at the same time, there are other forces involved in this conflict that have fallen to the wayside in recent issues. A while back, Magneto took a brief trip to Madripoor and learned that Mystique and Sabretooth had set up shop. They essentially turned this outpost of decadence and vice into an all-mutant community, even using MGH to turn the resident humans into mutants. Magneto didn’t buy into it. In fact, he nearly blew their asses up. But that incident, which helped launch Magneto’s solo series, also revealed what happened to Dazzler after Mystique took her place. It would have been effective enough to just put her in a coma and lock her in a cell. But unlike Cyclops, Mystique has to go the extra mile when it comes to dick moves.

Magneto may have bailed, but Madripoor is still thriving under Mystique’s “mutants only” rule. We also find out that Blob, who was one of the many mutants who lost his powers after House of M, only got his powers back through MGH. And when he goes to get more, he finds out that the source of MGH is coming directly from Dazzler. By Mystique’s logic, this bitch betrayed mutant kind by rubbing shoulders with SHIELD. Putting her in a coma and using her to make MGH is probably the most merciful thing she could do. But Blob doesn’t just seem interested in getting more MGH and his eyes look like Bob Marley’s after spending three days in Amsterdam. It’s hard to really make out what’s going on in this scene. Maybe it’s just because I’m not sober, but he doesn’t seem entirely okay with keeping a pretty blond in a coma. I’m pretty sure this is how some illegal German pornos begin. Not much is revealed or hinted at, which makes this scene even more confusing. It leaves perverse minds like mine to make some pretty fucked up conclusions. I want to say I know where this will lead. I’m just afraid my dick will hate me if I’m wrong.

Beyond catching up with the Madripoor story that’s unfolding, Mystique rejoins SHIELD as Dazzler. It’s the first time in a while that this plot and the Sentinel plot are coming together. Those connections help make Uncanny X-men feel cohesive again, which is refreshing since recent issues gave the impression that it was like a drunk stumbling through a dark room covered in Legos while barefoot. I get that there are a lot of different themes to cover, but bringing the Madripoor story and the Sentinel story into the same narrative is more overdue than Wesley Snipes’ back taxes.

That new cohesion doesn’t mean that SHIELD is gaining any credibility. While Maria Hill might not be the ones orchestrating the Sentinel attacks, she is hoarding Sentinel hardware the same way Hugh Hefner hoards hot blondes. That doesn’t really lend much to her credibility. It also doesn’t help that she looks at these attacks the same way Oliver Stone looks at the JFK assassination. She thinks it’s a conspiracy by Magneto to start a mutant war. It’s only slightly more reasonable than the theory that lizard people conspired to kill JFK. But at least she’s trying.

For Cyclops, he hasn’t resorted to seducing Maria Hill just yet, although I’m sure it’s one of his backup plans. Once back at the New Xavier School, he breaks down the Sentinel attacks and comes to a very important conclusion. They’re not just attacks. They’re reconnaissance, attempting to break them down and uncover their weaknesses. Why else would they send killer robots that the X-men have spent years destroying? It’s way too smart and competent for a government organization like SHIELD. He also suspects that they’re using something akin to Cerebro to attract them. It’s the only way they could stay a step ahead of them.

It’s perfectly logical. It also has the benefit of narrowing down the assholes involved considerably. The amount of people who know how to build, let alone utilize, a device like Cerebro is shorter than the list of those who’ve seen Queen Elizabeth naked. Charles Xavier and Magneto worked together to build it. Guys like Tony Stark have the hardware to put it together. But since he’s easily distracted by naked alien women (and who can blame him?) they cross him off the list. That leaves the big furry douche himself, Hank McCoy. After reviewing All New X-men #25, I did so much Beast bashing that I don’t think I have the energy to restate all the reasons why he’s a total fucking asshole. I’ll only say that I can definitely see him unleashing Sentinels and putting innocent mutants at risk just to piss off Cyclops.

Cyclops has no problem envisioning this too so he takes Magik and teleports to the Jean Grey Institute for a little chat. Again, Cyclops is about as welcome as a bed bug infestation. He doesn’t attack them or anything. He just demands to speak with Beast. It’s understandably tense, but this is shit we’ve seen on multiple occasions now. Cyclops shows up, everyone at the Jean Grey Institute gets pissed, and Cyclops leaves with his balls a little bigger. It’s starting to get old, but there is more than just pwnage to address this time. Both schools have an interest in finding out who the hell is throwing Sentinels at them like spam emails for cheap Viagra. And since Beast has shown he’s more than capable of fucking up the timeline, Cyclops just needs to make sure he’s not fucking up more than that.

That’s when another plot that has been abandoned for the past few issues comes into play. This time it’s Cyclops’s broken powers. Unlike the Dazzler plot, it hasn’t been explained or been made interesting for that matter. Readers only have so many fucks to give about plots that began 20 issues ago and this is one of them that’s running dangerously low. But it does have quite an impact when Cyclops’s powers flare up and start going off in a way I’m sure the Jean Grey Institute is used to by now. In addition, it also alerts Maria Hill and SHIELD that he’s out in the open again. So once again, he’s basically fucked himself over. He’ll need to find a way to make his balls even bigger to get himself out of this shit.

Whatever hole Edward Snowden is hiding, I hope he manages to slip out long enough to read this comic. I think it would put a smile on his face. On the day after tax day when the government conducts its annual fiscal sodomy on its citizens, I can’t think of a more appropriate comic to enjoy. I know that SHIELD is not the IRS, but I suspect SHIELD is what the IRS wishes it could be in their dirtiest of dreams that don’t involve a Kardashian. So when Cyclops still finds a way to piss off Maria Hill while making her wet in the panties, I just can’t help but love it. I don’t mean to sound too anti-government. I know I’m probably pissing off everyone in the NSA. But after dutifully paying my taxes, I think I’ve earned right to tell them to fuck off, at least for one day and Uncanny X-men #20 just makes it more satisfying. That’s why I give it a 9 out of 10. If only Cyclops’s randomly volatile optic blasts were pointed at IRS or the Federal Reserve. It might not undo his crimes, but it’ll probably make Maria Hill want to bone him even more. Nuff said!