All New X-men #19 Preview - Thy Will Be Awesome

Talk is supposed to be cheap, but if that were the case, then my phone bill with AT&T wouldn’t be so fucking expensive. When an unlettered preview of a comic book comes out, it tends to leave a lot to the imagination. And for guys like me whose imagination is more unhinged than Gary Busey on a crack binge, that can be dangerous. But it can also be dangerous when the lettered preview finally comes out and an unhinged imagination proves to be more interesting. That or some previews just shouldn’t be read sober.

Not long ago, I posted the unlettered preview for All New X-men #19. It was the first preview that showed the O5 in their brand spakin’ new uniforms. It didn’t reveal much other than they popped in to help out a mutant that the Purifiers decided to target. It’s basic, it had no words, but it conveyed the necessary levels of awesome. Now Newsarama has released a fully lettered preview for All New X-men #19, which is set to come out next week.

While I’ve already got a semi-boner in anticipation for this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect from a lettered preview. Sometimes they’re presented in a way that’s akin to walking into the middle of a conversation and pretending to know what the fuck everyone is talking about. That may work for some politicians, but it doesn’t work for comics quite as well. It can still convey plenty of awesome though.

Newsarama: All New X-men #19 Lettered Preview

The post-Battle of the Atom X-verse continues to take shape as the original mutants battle a militia group who believe mutants are the work of the devil in this Newsarama-exclusive preview of next week's All-New X-Men #19.

It really doesn’t say much. We have no idea who that poor mutant girl is. We only know who the George Zimmerman wannabes are. They’re the Purifiers. They’re basically the people who vote for Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz with a straight face. And for some reason, they feel like they have to always talk like Billy Graham. I know it’s for dramatic effect, but at a time when too many religious zealots have too much power, it’s uncomfortably real.

And while the O5 approach the battle with the same indifference as Elton John at a Victoria’s Secret, it does present an interesting and potentially difficult concept for them to process. In the early days of Uncanny X-men, they never encountered people like this. They never dealt with an anti-mutant version of the KKK. They’re still hopelessly optimistic on some levels, thinking that the government isn’t inept and that there aren’t too many assholes in this world. But these are the kinds of people that do exist and in a world where new mutants are manifesting again, they’re not going to listen to Charles Xavier’s message of peace and understanding.

The O5 have already had their innocence shattered quicker than a five-year-old girl who just walked in on her mother banging the mail man. Now they’re going to have to deal with genuinely hateful motherfuckers who hate mutants just because they breathe. Like arguing with creationists, there’s no reasoning with that kind of stupid. And on Cyclops’s team, their mission is to confront assholes like this and expose them for the assholes they are. It could very well add to the kind of emotional upheaval that has O5 Jean kissing every boy she crosses paths with or O5 Cyclops hooking up with Wolverine’s clone daughter. And that could only make All New X-men more awesome.

All New X-men #19 Unlettered Preview - Uniformed Awesome

Back in elementary school, I had a nasty habit of wearing the same faded pants with a small hole around my right butt cheek. I loved those pants and even when I got new ones, I would still wear them. They smelled, they made me look like a hobo, and there was this one greenish brown stain around the knee that I couldn’t for the life of me get out or identify. And when I outgrew those pants, it was a very sad day. I bring up this story to make a very clear point. When it comes to fashion, I’m no Elton John. I’m about as keen as fashion as I am lizard biology.

But deep within my drunken mind, I do have a strong appreciation for good fashion. And that extends to comics as well. Halloween was only yesterday. I think everybody shares that appreciation, if only for the slutty costumes that beautiful women wear at parties. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of those costumes are based on superhero comics. There’s a slutty Supergirl costume, a slutty Batman costume, a slutty Hulk costume, and a slutty Thanos costume. They may sound ridiculous, but my penis can attest to their power.

If only all side-kicks and villains were this sexy.

And when it comes to fashion in comics, I think an awesome uniform helps contribute to an awesome comics. It was already announced long ago that the O5 X-men would be getting new costumes in the pages of All New X-men. It was supposed to happen sooner, but then Marvel claimed that they wanted to wait until after Battle of the Atom. I think that’s just code for some artists got drunk and forgot. But now that Battle of the Atom has concluded, the O5 X-men have left the Jean Grey Institute to give Cyclops’s revolutionary methods a try. But they can’t be revolutionaries and still wear costumes that went out of style back when Richard Nixon was President. Those costumes were already revealed at the New York Comic Con this past year. Now as we’re all still doped up on leftover Halloween candy, CBR posted a preview of All New X-men #19 that shows these uniforms in action.

CBR: All New X-men #19 PREVIEW

Unfortunately, the preview is unlettered. But it’s one of those previews where I don’t think too many people will give a shit about what they’re saying and not because it has boobs for once.

If there is a major drawback to this preview, it would have to be that this is for a comic that we won’t be reading until fucking November 27^th and that’s assuming nobody at Marvel or Comixology will get drunk and delay it. And that’s always a much bigger if around the holidays. But beyond the agonizing wait, the prospects for these new uniforms and the All New X-men are pretty fucking awesome.

But beyond the new uniforms, this preview also fully confirms that the O5 X-men and Kitty Pryde are now full-fledged members of Team Cyclops. They gave Team Wolverine a chance and Wolverine just ended up getting stabbed by another one of his bastard kids. So nobody can blame them for giving the other guy a try. Sure, he killed Charles Xavier when he was drunk on the Phoenix Force (and being attacked mercilessly), but he has at least shown that he’s competent and openly talks to people who want to stab him and/or throw him in jail.

This is where I feel like the tone of All New X-men has undergone the biggest change. One of the pivotal moments in X-men Battle of the Atom was when Cyclops decided to help the O5 when everyone else around him and common sense told him that they should go back to the past. And just like Avengers vs. X-men, he was right minus the clusterfuck. Everyone in the Jean Grey Institute staff supported sending the O5 back, but Cyclops was willing to help them. That or the idea of having a teenage Jean Grey around overwhelmed his penis. Now he gets to show the O5 X-men his approach and how he does things differently from Wolverine or the Jean Grey Institute. The O5 may think he’s still a fucked up fugitive who belongs in jail, but at the very least they’re seeing the other side of the argument, which is something nobody from Fox News can say.

It’s a bold new era for All New X-men. The O5 X-men have joined Cyclops’s revolution, the Purifiers are back, and a mystery girl that may or may not be X-23 is on the loose. It feels like Christmas has come early and I’m not even drunk on eggnog yet. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but there’s just too much awesome potential here. And even if it ends up being terrible, I can at least say that those uniforms look pretty fucking awesome. So that’s a partial win at the very least. Nuff said!