All New X-men #22 Preview - Cosmic Trial

I admit I don’t know much about laws that don’t pertain to public intoxication, public urination, and various drug laws. And several district judges and state troopers will back me up on that. But even I know that no rational court of law can convict someone for a crime they were going to commit. That would be like a state trooper arresting me on my way to the bar and giving me a DUI while I was completely sober. That’s not just patently wrong. It gives the state police in my area a terrible idea.

But that’s exactly what is about to happen with O5 Jean Grey. Marvel has been teasing it for months now. As part of their ongoing effort to let Brian Michael Bendis mix and match every one of his ongoing title while hyping up another movie, All New X-men is going to crossover with Guardians of the Galaxy. So not only will the O5 have to stop the Shi’ar for convicting Jean Grey of a crime she hasn’t even committed yet. They’ll have to do it with a hot green woman, a living tree that only knows three words, and a raccoon with a machine gun. I’m not saying that’s going to be a detriment. I just feel the need to say it out loud because it sounds like something I would only see in a bad LSD trip.

And before we can even get to the trial, the Shi’ar have to do the same thing the DEA does to pot dispensaries. They have to bust in and actually arrest O5 Jean Grey for crimes not yet committed. They also have to do this at a time when the team just got a new member in X-23 and there is still a lot of unresolved melodrama from recent events. It’s like CSI meets Jerry Springer. It may not have any strippers or crack whores, but it will have pissed off aliens and teenagers. I’m pretty sure that’s just as entertaining. And thanks to Newsarama, we have our first lettered preview to offer insight into that ongoing melodrama.

Newsarama: All New X-men #22 Lettered Preview

ALL-NEW X-MEN #22.NOW
BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS (W)
STUART IMMONEN (A/C)

“The Trial of Jean Grey”
The arrival of the original X-Men in the present sent shockwaves through the Marvel Universe, but we’ve only seen the effects on Earth. When alien races learn that Jean Grey, host of the destructive Phoenix Force, is back on earth, they do something about it. Now it’s up to the rest of the All-New X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to save Jean Grey from twisted intergalactic justice! Don’t miss two of Marvel’s biggest franchises crossing over for the first time!

So despite O5 Cyclops “fancying” X-23 and O5 Jean fancying pretty much every other member of the O5 X-men at this point, they still can’t stay away from each other. They’re still concerned about who they end up becoming and what they end up doing. It’s hard to believe, but it’s not something they’ve actively discussed since this series began. They’ve actually been avoiding it, which is part of why it seems so frustrating. And I can’t help but feel sorry for O5 Angel because he’s stuck in the middle of it.

I try to avoid making predictions at this point because my track record at this point is worse than the drafting of the Cleveland Browns. But this crossover event looks like it’s going to shove O5 Jean’s future right into her face to the point where she won’t be able to avoid it. And part of that future is what will happen between her and Cyclops. I’m not sure if she still has a copy of that wedding invitation he gave her earlier in the series, but that may take on the same meaning of that picture of the tombstone in Back to the Future III. It leads me to believe that Marvel will use this to retcon something in the past. I’m just too drunk to contemplate what it might be.

They could effectively One More Day the relationship between Cyclops and Jean Grey, which would be a dick move of cosmic proportions. Or they could change the way the Shi’ar handled the Phoenix Force, which would only fuck up the timeline even more. It’s impossible to say, but I predict that something is going to get retconned by the end of this crossover. Some part of Marvel’s history is going to be tweaked. It may end up tearing another asshole in the fabric of space and time, but at this point I think everyone at Marvel has stopped giving a shit about that. Nuff said!

All New X-men #22 Preview - Colors And Not Much More

I try to make every post in this blog as substantive as it is vulgar. I get that people these days have attention spans only as long as Lindsey Lohan’s latest arrest so I have to make them count. But every now and then, I can’t be too groundbreaking. I’m usually more than happy to smoke a couple joints and overlook a few details that probably won’t set anyone’s panties on fire. But with things heating up in All New X-men, namely the sexual tension between X-23 and O5 Cyclops, and the Trial of Jean Grey set to begin, I can’t be as lazy as usual. That’s painful for any stoner, but I like to think I’m more motivated than the stoners that fall asleep on Friday night and wake up Sunday because they played a Grateful Dead album on a loop.

Earlier this week, I did a post on a preview for All New X-men #22, which is the first issue of the Trial of Jean Grey. It thought it was a pretty big fucking deal, even if it was unlettered and in black and white. It left me drooling like a pervert in a panty factory, but it didn’t reveal much. Well it didn’t take long for Marvel to evoke even more drooling. Newsarama released the exact same preview. But this time, it was colored. So I guess readers can stop feeling like they’re back in the 50s and enjoy the exact same shit in all its colorful glory. I’m sorry, but there aren’t any words that could make that less underwhelming.

Newsarama: All New X-men #22 Colored Preview

“The Trial of Jean Grey”

The arrival of the original X-Men in the present sent shockwaves through the Marvel Universe, but we’ve only seen the effects on Earth. When alien races learn that Jean Grey, host of the destructive Phoenix Force, is back on earth, they do something about it. Now it’s up to the rest of the All-New X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to save Jean Grey from twisted intergalactic justice! Don’t miss two of Marvel’s biggest franchises crossing over for the first time!

I really don’t have much else to add other than this is a preview where I don’t have to take LSD to make it more colorful. So I guess my brain is grateful, but that’s really all I can say. I would love it if there was a better clue as to what O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean are yelling at each other about. For all I know, they’re yelling at O5 Angel for putting mayonnaise and ketchup on a bacon burger. I guess we won’t know until we finally get a preview with some fucking letters. Then I’ll finally know if I should be excited or hungry. Nuff said!

All New X-men #22 Unlettered Preview - More Black and White Awesome

Unlettered previews are notorious for leaving way too much to the imagination. And that’s not a good idea for anyone with an imagination as perverse and fucked up as mine. It sounds so noble on paper, letting the readers form their own conclusions. But in practice a reader’s mind is prone to form some pretty fucked up connections to the point where most will say, “Fuck it, a wizard did it.” I try to be a little more creative with my fucked up connections, but I can only do so much with the brain cells I haven’t killed.

With X-men Battle of the Atom over, Marvel has already set the stage for the next big crossover event. The Trial of Jean Grey promises to be a blowjob to those obsessed with continuity flaws. O5 Jean Grey travels to the future. Future events like the murder of 5 billion aliens comes back to bite her. It’s the clearest possible continuity anyone could possibly get without asking that a comic come with a diagram. So far, Marvel hasn’t released much detail except for a black and white preview for Guardians of the Galaxy #11. It didn’t reveal much other than some pissed off aliens plotting to get revenge on a pretty redhead. I’m pretty sure that’s the premise for a handful of pornos. But since it is a crossover and crossovers tend to soak the panties of casual fans, another black and white preview was released for All New X-men #22. I’m sure its premise is consistent with a number of pornos as well, but not quite as much.

CBR: All New X-men #22 Unlettered and Uncolored Preview

The arrival of the original X-Men in the present sent shockwaves through the Marvel Universe, but we’ve only seen the effects on Earth. When alien races learn that Jean Grey, host of the destructive Phoenix Force, is back on earth, they do something about it. Now it’s up to the rest of the All-New X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy to save Jean Grey from twisted intergalactic justice! Don’t miss two of Marvel’s biggest franchises crossing over for the first time!

Again, it’s hard to glean much from an unlettered, uncolored preview when it’s hard to tell if anyone is shitting themselves. But this one does offer a few more tantalizing details compared to the previous preview. For one, the ongoing tension between O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean apparently gets worse after the next two issues. And poor O5 Angel looks like he got involved in three-way that turned into a bar fight. I’m sure both his heart and his penis hate his guts now.

It many mean that they didn’t address the revelations in All New X-men #18 in a very mature manner. And who would expect them to? They’re fucking teenagers. Maturity is still an alien concept to them. O5 Cyclops found out that O5 Jean is now looking elsewhere to soak her loins. As a result, he started looking elsewhere and already has been shown to fancy X-23. Yet in trying to push each other away, their hearts and their genitals won’t let them. Again, they’re teenagers. It’s rarely that simple. And it appears that neither of them approve of the romantic choices they’re making. That or they’re yelling at O5 Angel for farting when he eats. It’s hard to tell, but again those are the crazy conclusions a drunken mind like mine formulates.

Beyond chaotic teenage hormones, it seems O5 Beast hasn’t given up his fondness for confounding math problems. Perhaps he’s just as curious as I am as to what the fuck is keeping the O5 from going back to their own time. That’s still an unanswered question and I’ve yet to smoke enough week to make me forget about it. Considering that this whole story is based on making O5 Jean pay for crimes she commits later on in life, it might be a good idea to figure that shit out. If not, freaky alien types are going to come after O5 Jean and it’ll only end up resembling a lot more pornos. Nuff said!