X-men #6 - Lifting the Curse

A new year is upon us! Fuck 2010! Fuck that extra zero! 2011 is a new year full of new hope. At least that's what everybody likes to think after that oversized bowling ball with Snooki curled up inside would like to think. The shift in one digit only changes so much. Your dick doesn't get bigger. Your shit still stinks. And the comics that sucked in 2010 still suck in 2011. That's where the latest incarnation of the adjectiveless X-men series comes in.

2010 spawned many X-books, but it was the one with the least imaginative title that drew some of the harshest scrutiny. This is the book that's supposed to tie the X-men into the greater Marvel universe. It emerged from the ashes of Second Coming. The X-men are no longer the morticians sharpening their tools for the final autopsy of the mutant race. They're part of a race that's actually got a chance to survive thanks to some cute redhead with the Phoenix Force who looks suspiciously like Jean Grey. The new X-men series started in the midst of the vampire craze where every other gay joke was coupled with a Twilight reference. Curse of the Mutants took Marvel's vampires, who must have been trying to wait out the whole Twilight craze, and brought them back into the fold. It was billed as an old school monster movie, mutants vs. vampires. It even got Blade involved, who has had less screen time Jackie Chan's stunt double in recent years. What could go wrong?

It started off so strong. Curse of the Mutants brought Jubilee back into the picture, turning her into a vampire and making her more badass than she's ever been (and more doable now that she's okay with wearing skin-tight leather). It also brought Xarus, the son of Dracula, into the fold. He's very much a derivation of Dracula, but he has a level of charisma that sets him apart. He pitted himself against the X-men and the potential for awesome was vast. However, that awesome was never realized. In X-men #5 the two armies clashed and it was about as epic as watching a caterpillar wrestle a meal-worm. It ended up being horribly contrived. One minute the vampires were winning. Then the next Cyclops cures Wolverine from his vampire-ism. Then the mutants start winning. It's about as interesting as it sounds. There's no depth or detail. It's the equivalent of copying and pasting one glob of shit to another. It doesn't make it stink any less.

All that build-up really fizzled and now there's not much to improve on for X-men #6. Never-the-less, the story needs completing in the same way you can't leave a wad of shit hanging from your ass. Xarus is still left pondering the collapse of his scrotum. Then Dracula enters the scene (who, mind you, pretty much vanished as a plot point after issue 2) and confronts his son. He must have been waiting for his son to get his ass handed to him because when Xarus orders his vampire minions to kill his father they look at him the same way deers look at an oncoming minivan.

On top of this the X-men are on their way so Xarus is cornered worse than Mark Foley in an elementary school shower. Since none of his vampire cronies are going to risk taking sides, they let Xarus do his own dirty work. He certainly takes a stab at it. He has daddy issues, remember? Anyone who ever tried to go up against their old man before they had any hair on their balls knows what dumb move that can be. To make matters worse the X-men arrive in full force and tear through the vampires as if they were manikins in a Jackass movie. It's a fairly bland fight with no intricate details to set it apart. You won't see too much that catches your eye. The scene with Xarus and Dracula is drawn out much better which may be the same as saying it's the less smellier wad of shit.

Eventually, dear old dad gives his little boy a spanking of a kind that Catholic Nuns can only dream of. Despite Xarus lashing out like a toddler in the cereal isle of a supermarket, he gets beaten hard by Dracula. How hard you may ask? Dracula sends the right fatherly message by ripping his son's head off. That bears repeating. Dracula rips his son's head off. That's the kind of extreme parenting that even MTV wouldn't show for it's Teen Mom series (yet).

Extreme or not, it does put an end to the vampire attack. Dracula makes it clear that he's the boss again. Ripping your son's head off is gruesome, but it does make clear that you're not dicking around. So now he's the top dog of the vampires again and just in time too. The X-men arrive, coming in without a scratch from their battle with the vampire hoards. Again, it's lacking on details and such. It's like a Michael Bay movie without the explosions.

Dracula is actually welcoming. He hasn't forgotten that the X-men brought him back to life. So he doesn't fight them. However, Blade being Blade can't resist a shot at taking out the Lord of the Vampires and the one that inspired the creation of Edward Cullen. While Cyclops tries to be diplomatic, Blade goes in for the kill. Then in a dick move that won't win Cyclops any new members to his fanclub, he shoots Blade in the back to knock him out. There are people out there who since Messiah Complex have jumped at the chance to hate Cyclops in the same way Hugh Hefner jumps at the chance to marry another blond with big tits. Even if the rest of the book sucks, they'll love this.

What the Cyclops-hating crowd won't like is the way he negotiates a cease-fire with Dracula. Remember, they're kind of at war with vampires and the X-men are war with enough people at the moment. Dracula can't seem to resist taking advantage of the situation. Even though he beheaded his son, he pretty much steals his idea like a Nigerian hacker and offers the same partnership between mutants and vampires. It does make sense and Darcula would be an idiot not to see it, but Cyclops isn't buying it.

This is where the Cyclops does show that if he ever made it onto celebrity poker, he would kick everyone's asses. He implies to Dracula that when they brought him back, they made sure there was a contingency plan as he put it in case he screwed them over. He was purposefully vague. It could be anything from his head exploding to him having to wipe Stephine Meyers' ass for all eternity. Now Dracula could have called his bluff, but he doesn't. Either he's smarter than his son or he lacks the balls. Either way, it's an unceremonious yet fitting way to end the conflict between mutants and vampires.

So that's it. The vampires leave San Francisco in the care of mutants and radical left-wing hippie liberals while the mutants go back to Utopia (so who actually won?). Dracula is even nice enough to let them take Jubilee, who got pimp slapped when she tried to defend Xarus. Since she's still a vampire, she's confined to a cell. She's not weak and puny anymore, but she's not her perky self again either. She's potentially dangerous, much more so than she was as a mutant. That opens the door to all sorts of other conflicts.

Blade certainly sees the danger. He goes back with the X-men, but he's not looking to pick up a uniform along the way. He still is of the mind that the only good vampire is a dead vampire. He's basically one of the radical anti-Twilight fans. He believes she's gotta be staked to end it. Wolverine won't have it though. He makes it clear that Blade has worn out his welcome and needs to go back to raising money to paying Wesley Snipes's back taxes.

It ends the whole Blade/X-men team-up on a sour note. It shows that not all the Marvel heroes are not the Superfriends. They don't always get along or like each other. But Blade's departure pretty much ends the series where it began. However, the Mutants vs. Vampires story does end with a major change to the world of X. Jubilation Lee is no longer just another teenage girl who hangs out with strange people (who doesn't become a groupie for a traveling punk band). She has powers again and she's dangerous. She tricked Wolverine earlier. That's enough to earn respect in any corner of the Marvel universe. So her story takes a radical turn and opens the door for new possibilities. It's a shitty path to get to where she is now, but for Jubilee fans it certainly is satisfying to see her being relevant again.

The final issue of Curse of the Mutants comes as a relief. This series started strong, but it stumbled hard. It was like one of those ideas where a writer comes in drunk to a meeting and blurts out the first thing on his mind. Mutants vs. Vampires...it practically writes itself! Well if it were that easy everybody would be qualified to write for Marvel. The problem is depth. To Victor Gischler's credit, he tried to add interesting details to the story. They just didn't pan out in the end. The way the fight between mutants and vampires was put together was glossed over. It was like someone just said to throw some pretty pictures on the page and that would be enough. It wasn't. For a comic to be awesome, it needs more than something a trained monkey can pull off. It needs the little things to make a big difference. Curse of the Mutants lacked those little things in too many ways.

Now maybe I am being overly harsh out of bitterness over the last issue. I'll grant that this issue was an improvement, but after the last issue that improvement only goes so far. It didn't overwrite the flaws in the previous issue. It even borrowed a few. Never-the-less, it effectively tied up the loose ends. The vampires are gone. The X-men are victories. All is well, but not completely. Jubilee's current state definitely changes things. It opens the door to new stories and actually does something that could affect the other X-books. For that, the book deserves a pat on the back in addition to a kick in the balls.

When scoring this issue it's hard to ignore the inherent flaws in the overall arc. It can't make up for how lousy some other parts of the story were, but since it does make for a fairly clean ending I can't give it the same low score I gave the previous issue. So in the end I give X-men #6 a 2.5 out of 5. It's not much of an improvement, but it doesn't completely destroy the premise of the book. It's still a good idea, having a book dedicated to working the X-men into the greater Marvel Universe. The name is still horribly unoriginal, but it still has potential. It's the little things that Marvel needs to take care of if this book is to live up to it's title. 2011 has just begun. There's plenty of time to make it awesome. Nuff said!

X-men #5 - Sucking Out The Awesome

I admit I've flip-flopped on the new X-men series more times than Rudolph Juliani's record on abortion. It started out underwhelming. Being overly harsh due to the high standards of calling a book X-men #1 I thumbed my nose at it the same way George W. Bush thumbs his nose at the UN. I ended up recanting some of that thumbing and I purposely deformed my own nose because subsequent issues of the new X-men series improved. The whole Mutants vs. Vampires story was not complex literary masterpiece with all sorts of deeper social implications, but it was entertaining and bloody. The setup was great. The arcs in this series were set up as mini-events with spin-offs that proved every bit as enjoyable as the series. Now that the first arc is almost over, it's possible to make a clearer judgment on the whole concept of this series. With only a few issues left, the Curse of the Mutants has to wrap up the lingering plots. Unlike comics such as Brightest Day though, there are only so many plots that need to be resolved.

The last issue was pretty basic. Xarus, the son of Dracula and leader of the vampires, asked Cyclops and the mutants to join him in overthrowing humans. Cyclops, in so many words, told him to suck it and not in a way vampires appreciate (minus the Twilight crowd). Xarus tried to throw more shit on the pile by showing a new vampire Wolverine, who was enjoying his recent transformation all too well. He loved the drinking, the women, and the bloodlust. Essentially, he wasn't that different than he was before except as a vampire he's more of a douche. And since Cyclops was so blunt in his rejection of Xarus's proposal, Xarus ordered an all out vampire attack on Utopia and Wolverine was to lead the charge.

This issue picks up with the vampires closing in and the X-men preparing for battle. Cyclops has a pretty basic strategy. On the front lines are the mutants who have tough skin or can easily resist being bitten. That means Colossus, Rockslide, and Emma in her diamond form are going to do much of the fighting. Xarus is throwing everything he can at Utopia. Cypher relays 600 air units and 150 hovercraft with 40 troops each, which adds up to 600 vampires. Now why did I make that quick calculation when math is the last thing anyone gives a shit about in comics? Well there's a reason for that and it's important information to remember later on. So for once, not coming to math class drunk should pay off.

It seems like an Alamo-style stand. Cyclops isn't showing a whole lot of strategy here. He's just placing the mutants on the island in a front line and trying to hold it. He's got the Atlanteans covering underwater and only Arcangel covering the sky. They even resort to more extreme (and slightly ridiculous) tactics like having a priest bless Iceman so that his ice is frozen holy water. It seems like a desperate bid and one that has him horribly outmatched. Keep in mind these vampires are not normal fleshy humans who go down with a quick optic blast. These are creatures of the night. Even with Blade helping them out, they're on a fucking island for crying out loud. From a reader's perspective, Cyclops is being a pretty lousy tactician and for him that's just not in character. That's like James Bond not being able to get laid at the Playboy Mansion.

The fight is still pretty fucking epic though. When the vampires arrive, the clash is like a Michael Bay movie in that it inundates the senses with flashy action. For a comic like this, it works. This comic was never billed as being something much deeper so if someone complains about it in that sense, they're either not paying attention to the advertising or they're just being assholes. I say this because I don't want readers to think any criticism I have stems from this. I go into this comic with certain expectations the same way I go into a Jackass movie and expect to be disgusted.

There are few surprises at first even if the battle depictions are pretty damn awesome. The battle doesn't last for too many pages. Xarus's forces have a lot of numbers on their side so they are able to overwhelm the X-men, at least initially. Cyclops orders the mutants to fall back. For a moment they're cornered. Then instead of landing the killing blow, the vampires stop. It's like only getting halfway through a line of cocaine and leaving the other half to be potentially snorted up by someone else. It isn't through sheer incompetence though. Xarus stops for a reason. It isn't enough for him to just win this battle. He wants to shoot for style points so he deploys Wolverine to the scene to finish the X-men off.

Now this certainly shouldn't qualify Xarus as a master tactician, but like all evil baddies he has to strut his stuff before he delivers the killing blow. For a while it looks like it may work for once. Wolverine makes quick work of the other X-men including Armor, Colossus, and Husk. As he's doing this, he's taunting Cyclops about him leading mutants to oblivion. He calls Cyclops a tyrant who just plays with mutants like they're pieces of a chess board and he gets off on it the same way he gets off tit-fucking Emma Frost. Now Victor Gischler may have been reading message boards when he wrote this because a lot of message boards have echoed this sentiment. Cyclops is seen as the dictator for all mutant kind. Never mind the fact that he doesn't force people to join him, he doesn't publicly execute people, he doesn't rule through fear, he thinks before he acts (which 99 percent of politicians fail to do), and he doesn't ask for tribute or even taxes. When was the last time a tyrant didn't tax the hell out of his people? It's entirely debatable (although fucking retarded) as to Cyclops's role on Utopia, but for people who just don't like Cyclops they should find plenty to masterbate to with this scene.

It's all for nothing though. Wolverine's rant might as well have been a lecture on atomic physics because it ends up doing nothing. The reason is because Cyclops apparently did have a plan here. Getting Xarus pissed enough to throw Wolverine at him was part of it. There had been clues dropped before, but now they've been confirmed. Cyclops prepared for Wolverine being turned into a vampire. So he had Dr. Nemesis inject Wolverine with nanobots to suppress his healing factor so that he could become one. Then thanks to a remote control, he turned that healing factor back on so that now he becomes the same Wolverine again. He's still a ruthless, mean, bloodlusting beast, but he has a heart now and one that Edward Cullen would swoon over. So now Wolverine is back on their side again and Xarus ends up looking like a total fucking idiot. It does nothing to make that huge fucking army of his disappear. All it does is get Wolverine back from the vampires. Again, I point this out because it's important to remember, almost as much as not mixing paint thinner with vodka for an extra kick.

So now Wolverine is fighting for the X-men again. He shows some annoyance for Cyclops, but his memory must suck because he pretty much forgets it on the next page and turns on the vampires. He doesn't change the fact that they're still obscenely out-numbered or the fact that vampires don't go down as easily as humans. He's just one more body to throw at the invading force. Why do I bring this up? Because what happens next pushes a fine line towards storytelling and bullshit.

Cyclops declares that this is where they turn the tide (ignoring the whole being outnumbered by vampires detail) and by whatever random, off-panel magical force it happens. Suddenly, those hundreds of vampires start falling like flies. Iceman uses his blessed ice form to essentially go nuclear on the vampires. Somehow Arcangel is able to destroy those hundreds of aircraft coming towards them. I know Arcangel is pretty badass, but he's not a whole fucking air force! Once more, they don't even show him blowing any shit up! He's just flying around as if somehow that's enough to make vampires cower in fear and dive into the nearest tub of holy water. All the while Xarus is shitting himself.

It is by far the most poorly thought out, contrived way to move a story forward. Even for a book that's labeled as a flashy, style-over-substance series this is pushing it. Even Michael Bay would say it lacks depth. Wolverine is a badass mutant killing machine, but even that's not enough to just flat out turn the tide on a whole vampire army. If that was Cyclops's only strategy it was a bad one. He could have had something else waiting in the wings. Maybe Dr. Nemesis had some sort of cure for the disease that turned Jubilee into a vampire that would have turned the tide. Maybe they had a superweapon they needed to deploy with all the vampires in one area. That didn't happen. Just tricking Wolverine back into the fight and curing his vampirism is somehow all it takes. Even Forest Gump would be smart enough to say "That there don't seem right. Now where's my box of chocolates?"

In just a few panels the X-men stand triumphant over the massive vampire army that I detailed earlier. There are no major details or intricacies to the triumph. The readers just have to assume it all went the X-men's way on faith. It's a little like the Heaven's Gate cult except instead of mass suicide, this story just tries to kill you with underwhelming lameness.

So now Xarus has been emasculated or defanged as it were for vampires. He's been humiliated by Cyclops and demands a second wave, but he rushed into battle so quickly that there is no second wave. Apparently, his vampire army wasn't nearly as vast as was implied. And somehow it was so shitty that only a few dozen mutants could take it out. At this point anyone with a quarter of a brain should figure out they're a shitty leader and need to hang it up. But Xarus is too big a douche-bag to do that. He wants everything to go his way and he wants it to happen now. He's like Kanye West mixed with David Lee Roth, so full of himself he doesn't understand when he's being an asshole.

Then as he's yelling at all his vampire buddies, he gets a special visitor. Remember how a few issues ago the X-men went to all the trouble to bring back Dracula and how that was completely forgotten? Well it seems Gischler's memory is a little better than a retarded chihuahua because he finally enters the fold again. He storms in to essentially give his son some much needed discipline. It's not clear if this is going to spell doom for the mutants or just deliver the finishing blow to Xarus's ego, but it ends the comic with some need for another issue. After how contrived this book was, you may be best waiting for the spoilers because at this point adding any meaning to this story would be like using crazy glue to rebuild a crashed airplane.

This series in it's first arc has gone back and forth in terms of quality like an obsessive compulsive germophobe waiting in a pacing ward. Yet despite this random mix of awesome and shit, this series always had the potential to be something special. An issue like this, however, takes that potential and shits on it like an elephant suffering from explosive diarrhea. It's all flash and no heart. And even the flash is nothing too spectacular. These fight scenes won't wow anybody. They're certainly no battle scene in Lord of the Rings or a fight between Rocky and Victor Drago. Everything seems to happen off-panel and Gischler seems to dumb down the strategy of both sides to the point where they're...well, dumb.

That's not to say this book doesn't have any redeeming value. Some of the fight scenes are pretty awesome. The Wolverine rant about Cyclops was pretty cool if you don't like Cyclops. Also, Dracula was not completely forgotten and he finally gets to make his presence felt. There's nothing here that would make a reader want to throw away the other issues and use them as lining for a bird cage. Dracula's appearance at the end even offers some reasons to see the last issue. But after the way the mutants vs vampires battle unfolded, the ship has pretty much sailed for this arc. That same ship hit an ice burg, caught fire, and blew up. There's really not much else that can be done with it.

Even with only one issue left, I find it hard to really recommend this comic. That's why I give X-men #5 a 2.5 out of 5. It's not Ultimate style terrible, but compared to the potential it carried it's a huge downgrade. Victor Gischler is better than this and unless he lines the last issue with C4, this first arc of this new series will end with a fizzle and not a bang. Nuff said.

X-men #4 - Style Over Awesome

The latest adjectiveless X-men series has been quite a ride in it's brief history. It started out with the bar so low that Gary Coleman could have vaulted over it were he still among the living. But in the issues that followed, the series grew and became something that was truly and believably awesome. It's not just that this series is another series where the writers are too lazy to give it a distinguishing name like Uncanny, Astonishing, or Supreme (I know that's mine, but I'm just saying).  This series is something very unique. It tells bigger stories of the X-men being involved in the greater Marvel universe. It has led to some nice spin-offs and taken some interesting twists. Now whether or not you can tolerate endless Twilight and True Blood jokes is irrelevant. There's little denying that this series has been pretty awesome so far and Marvel is sticking their balls out into the prevailing wind in pushing this series.

The last two issues have been all about the bloodsuckers and showing how the pussy vampires of Twilight and True Blood wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell with a flame-thrower wielding Mike Tyson with the Marvel vampires. The son of Dracula, Xarus, has set up shop in San Francisco and made himself right at home. He turned Wolverine and Jubilee into vampires and has a much larger plan to unite mutants and vampires together so they can stand against the rest of humanity. It's not completely evil, but it's still pretty badass and it's gotten the X-men in a pretty nasty mood.

X-men #4 begins with a grim assessment. The vampires are basically overwhelming the city, using the night as the vampire equivalent of happy hour at TGIF. They're terrorizing the people and having a damn good time from the looks of it. Needless to say, this doesn't sit well with Cyclops who has been trying to manage the whole thing from afar George W. Bush style since it began. So it shouldn't come as too big a surprise that he's failing miserably so far.

The strategy he employs isn't much better than old Dubya either. He basically sends teams of the X-men out into the city to stop isolated vampire incidents. This is basically like like shoveling the shit away from a pack of elephants suffering from explosive diarrhea. Not much detail is given, but it's still pretty clear that they're up shits creek without a paddle, a boat, or an air freshener.

The only strategy that seems to have some semblance of competence is sending Blade, their visiting vampire expert, to the front lines in search of answers. The front lines in this place is some underground rock concert, which when you think about it is the perfect place for vampires to hide. If they really don't want to stand out, they just need to hang out amongst people who dress like freaks anyways. It's even easier for Blade to pull off some of his classic bloody stunts because an audience full of people whose parents and mothers didn't hug them enough just write it off as special effects. There's a statement about how shitty public schools are in some of this, but it's lost in all the violence and blood (as redundant that may be).

Blade ends up chasing a runner away from the angsty teens and meets up with Angel. Now to this point it still isn't clear why this qualifies as being on the front lines. Chasing a new vampire in a school girls outfit is only the front lines for a Japanese hentai anime, but in this case there's no tentacle rape or butt-ugly guys jerking off behind the scenes. Then it becomes a bit more clear why this would qualify because when Blade and Angel follow the girl they sort of run into a part of Xarus's vampire army. And sort of running into an army is like sort of shooting yourself in the head. There's nothing minor about it.

This goes terrible in a very short period of time. There isn't as much vampire killing this time. Blade and Angel basically run the same way Christine O'Donnell runs from pressers about her history with witchcraft. While not many can say they would stick around and fight an army of vampires. Even Blade's balls aren't that close to his knees. The fact they run so quickly and there's so little struggle makes for a pretty weak scene.

It only picks up when Wolverine finally shows up. Now usually at this point in any X-book Wolverine would have been mentioned no fewer than five times. So for those who feel he's overexposed, start exercising your bitching muscles because he takes center stage here. He's a vampire now and loving every minute of it, already enjoying all the blood and boobs he can handle. It's not really that big a change for him so it doesn't come as too surprising. If he weren't a vampire, his presence wouldn't turn any heads and that's somewhat of a shortcoming. At least with Jubilee, she went through a clear transition. This Wolverine just has fangs and that's about it.

While Wolverine's behavior is about as surprising as a family friendly republican senator giving a blow job to a gay prostitute, Xarus continues to revel in his success. He's still a bitchy little brat whining about how his daddy never gave him a chance to be great, but compared to Cyclops at the moment he's a far more competent leader. In other words, he's the vampire equivalent to Karl Rove. He's got everything going for him. His people are ready to strike at Utopia directly. Moreover, he doesn't want to kill them. He wants casualties to a minimum so they have plenty of fresh mutant vampires to aid them. Again, that makes him the kind of guy George W. Bush only fantasized about when he was still drinking.

But here's where it gets a little contrived. While Xarus is planning this shit out, Cyclops gives him a phone call. I shit you not, Cyclops fucking calls Xarus as if he were calling to order a pizza. Now how he got the number of the means isn't even touched on. It's not even hinted at. This may be one of those little things that a lot of comics tend to overlook that aren't written by Geoff Johns, but this is not little. Did Cyclops have Xarus's number the whole time and simply not use it? It's a plot hole so big it makes Pamela Anderson's vagina look as tight as a snake's anus.

As for the call itself, it's nothing new. Xarus actually comes off as less the asshole here and makes his pitch to Cyclops, calling vampires and mutants brothers. It makes a sick amount of sense too. Both mutants and vampires have been persecuted, hunted, and hated for their entire existence. They've tried to fight back on their own and they've made next to no headway. United, they could finally get the powers that be to lick their balls and smile while doing it.

Of course, Cyclops doesn't see this. His answer is the diplomatic equivalent to "suck it" and threatens a huge slaughter of vampires the likes of which Xarus has never known. So one guy wants to minimize casualties and the other wants to use the Joseph Stalin method and latter is supposed to be the hero. It's a confusing and lame dilemma. I know the whole trend now is for heroes to not be heroic and shit, but that doesn't mean heroes have to be douche-bags. Right now, Cyclops is coming off as the douche-bag while Xarus is coming off as the visionary. If this was meant to set up an interesting contrast, it fails miserably and just makes everyone involved seem out-of-character.

It's not just Xarus who spits out this sort of twisted rhetoric. Wolverine gets involved as well and basically chews Cyclops out. Again, that's nothing new. Wolverine has been chewing out Cyclops so much that his teeth are laced with ruby quartz. There's not much new here. Wolverine just goes on about how becoming a vampire is awesome and how he's responsible for making him like this. And he'll repay the favor by leading the charge to fuck him up. It would be so compelling if Wolverine hadn't made that same threat to Cyclops on no fewer than fifteen occasions.

Now the X-men have to brace themselves for a battle that Cyclops himself provoked (yet for some reason they're still following him). There's some talk about Dracula, who is completely out of the picture since the previous issue. There's Emma acting all sweet and supportive as if Matt Fraction is somehow mind-controlling Victor Gischler. Then there's Xarus making the move, basically calling Cyclops's bluff and assembling every one of his forces for an all out assault. And wouldn't you know it? He promotes Wolverine to lead the charge. It sets the stage for a pretty major battle, but not in the way that makes anyone want to root for either side. Both the X-men and Vampires come off as douche-bags in this issue so when they start assembling their forces, it's like watching a pile of shit and a vat of vomit prepare to mix. It'll be a spectacle, but one that may make you more sick than excited.

Now as an X-men fan, this is the sort of issue that brings me back down to reality. I was so high on this new X-men series that I was close to trading variant issues for weed. Now this issue comes along and it's like a bad hit from some dirt weed a guy mixed with paint thinner to add flavor, but only ended up ruining the buzz. The gaping plot holes and the horribly underdeveloped battle scenes were a huge blow to a series that had more momentum going for it than Apple stock. Now it's turning into Enron and spoiling what should be an awesome clash between mutants and vampires.

That's not to say this issue is terrible. It's still readable, but it stumbled and fell from the high level it ascended to with the previous two issues. It doesn't completely destroy the series. It's not enough to make the average reader want to just rip it up, toss it into a bon fire, and piss it out the way books like Ultimatum did for the Ultimate series. This book just takes this new X-men series back into mediocre territory. Now it could very well redeem itself in the next issue, but at this point it's getting too predictable. There's nothing here that the average X-fan hasn't dreamed up himself either in the middle of an economics lecture or through mixing DMT with cocaine. It still hasn't established itself as the X-men comic that deserves it's name and that's a tragedy because it was so close to doing so.

Since the book isn't completely irreparable, I can't give it too low a score. I didn't flat out hate the book and it doesn't give me enough reasons to completely pan it. So for X-men #4 I give it a final score of 2.5 out of 5. It's a downgrade, but there are two issues left. If this series wants to be the series the editors are boasting it can be, it needs to pull it's dick out of the toaster and start stroking the golden shaft of awesome. Nuff said.

X-men Curse of the Mutants: Blade - Blood and Awesome

Previously, I had more free time on my hand than usual and found myself checking out X-men Curse of the Mutants: Storm and Gambit only to find out that it was awesome and thus giving my wallet more reasons to hate me. The book was surprisingly good, filling in some details and doing a damn good job of it for the ongoing mutants vs. vampires story in the new X-men series. Not only does this fit into the events of the main comics at large, it gave a couple characters who had been relegated to wiping the asses of bigger name characters some time to shine. Storm and Gambit fans should be very happy about what they got from it. However, they weren't the only ones to get a comic that shows their role in this event.

For the past few years the vampire killing Blade have been about as prominent as Kathy Griffin's acting career. He's been about as active as George W. Bush in the sense he always seems to be on vacation. He didn't play much a part in House of M, Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, or Second Coming. Maybe it was because his movies sucked or maybe it was because Wesley Snipes got busted for not giving Uncle Sam the proper number of blow jobs (ie taxes). Either way, Blade has been a pariah.

Then the need for a vampire hunter emerged. People started clamoring for someone who could actively hunt the Edward Cullen's of the world and spare them more bullshit sparkling vampires so we can get back to the blood and the violence that are supposed to make vampires sexy and awesome. He finally got his chance to shine when he appeared in X-men #2 during the unfolding vampire story. He seemed to come out of nowhere. It could have easily been called a contrived plot point. Then X-men Curse of the Mutants: Blade comes out and fills in the blanks the way the Storm and Gambit issue did. Does it measure up though? Don't rush me! I gotta throw in an appropriate amount of bullshit to make these reviews work.

This comic brings Blade into the fold through some more subtle means, taking place before the events of X-men #1 and setting the stage for his arrival. The initial conflict is structured like a murder mystery of sorts, except with more blood and more monsters. Someone or something is killing all the vampire killers and that doesn't sit well with Blade. Now it could be the overly hostile army of Twi-hards looking to exact a little Cullen justice, but since Tweens aren't usually that cruel Blade looks into it.

In a way that would only have approval by the Punisher, Blade does a few creative interrogating of his sources. That is to say he interrogates with his sword. The mystery quickly deepens because it turns out that the whole vampire slayer slaying (which may sound fucked up enough) was practically an afterthought. Every bloodsucker not getting their freak on True Blood style is more abuzz about someone taking down Dracula. Since Blade wasn't part of it, his ego has to be a little tainted. But he does get some information, one of them being a lead to Brazil. That or someone just needs to get a professional grade wax in a country where thongs and speedos are practically uniforms.

When Blade arrives, he meets up with another fellow vampire slayer who happens to be a hot chick (as is required in all vampire slaying stories). Claudia Belles has a history with Blade and by history I don't mean the kind that involved other types of sucking. I mean the kind that gives a few too many reasons to jam stakes into various body parts. The details aren't clear, but it makes for great tension even if it isn't the sexual kind True Blood has conditioned us to expect.

She fills him in on her own investigation. Turns out Blade is a little too late. The local vampire sect isn't going to talk because they're kinda dead now and by kinda I mean they've been reduced to ash on a rooftop. So Blade doesn't get to slay anymore bloodsuckers and he doesn't get any answers either. He's either losing his touch or falling behind. However, Claudia isn't so bitter that she doesn't share a little intel with him. She's got a lead of her own and that leads them to another exotic location that's far less sexy, which is Scotland.

They find the same ashy remains of more vampires who apparently weren't smart enough to get with the program. They also find another one of Blade's Facebook friends, an S&M style figure named Dolly. He/she (the gender is kind of unclear) has one of the vampires still alive and it already trying to interrogate him. He wasn't talking at first, but then Blade shoves a crossbow in his mouth which for once isn't a sexual innuendo and tells him to talk. Finally, he gets the answer he's been looking for. The asshole behind all this violence is none other than Xarus, the second son of Dracula. For those who read X-men #2 this should be about as surprising as Billy Idol's sex life. At least it points Blade and his buddies on the right track.

Once again they're forced to do more traveling. Having gone from Brazil to Scotland, they now have to go all the way across the ocean to Phoenix, Arizona. It's quite possibly the last place any vampire would go. It's 120 degrees in the shade and the sun just loves being an asshole in that city. But this is where their next clues reside and since they're now dealing with the seed of Dracula, he calls in for backup. However, his backup are a couple of guys named Tripp and Texter, which sound more like failed Microsoft projects than vampire killers.

So for the next day or so Blade and his crew stake out an old army base where the vampire activity is said to have been the strongest. They pass the time by playing cards, talking about Twilight fanfiction, and planting bombs. For Blade, it sounds like a pretty average Tuesday. When the time finally comes to confront their bloodsucking enemies, they're in for a bit of a surprise. Instead of forcing them to the surface in broad daylight where they would burn to a crisp faster than a deep fried turkey, the vampire hoards are now standing comfortably in the sunlight. It takes away a key advantage Blade has always enjoyed and makes the vampires that much more badass. Oh yeah, and they don't fucking sparkle!

The fight begins and it doesn't begin very well to say the least. Blade and his crew are outnumbered and overwhelmed. Now that the vampires can fight in the sunlight, they've got the advantage and make good use of it. Blade still makes it a point that these guys still bleed so he pulls his best Mel Gibson style speech and leads his team into battle. It looks pretty heroic, but when you look at what they're up against even William Wallace would have backed down and stuck to beating down on the English.

It gets bloody fast and Blade's crew don't fare very well. Tripp and Texter go down faster than Paris Hilton at a drug deal. Dolly, the S&M guy/girl, gets ripped up like a wishbone. Apparently being ambiguous about gender doesn't mean shit when you still end up screaming like a girl. Even Blade's old lady friend, Claudia Belles doesn't last. She gets taken down by a stake to the head and some fangs to the neck. Blade, for all his badassery, basically gets humbled in a way that would make anyone's nuts shrivel a bit. The vampires now have the same advantage he had and they make it clear he's up shits creek.

He still manages to forge his own paddle though. Blade, despite no longer having the luxury of a crew, keeps fighting. But he's smart enough and not quite ballsy enough to think he can take Xarus and his crew out by himself. Since killing vampire slayers is now just an afterthought, Blade is forced to regroup so he ends up doing something he almost never does. He runs. But at least he still finds a way to make it look badass. He hops one of the private jets (that wasn't blown up earlier) and flies it right off the base. Needless to say, he doesn't get very far. The damn thing crashes because the vampires aren't too keen on letting this guy get away because he is to vampires what David Hasselhoff is to music.

They do take the plane down, but Blade is badass enough to survive. A plane crash for him is like a hang nail for the rest of us. It's about as challenging as the first fight in Mike Tyson's Punch Out. So he gets away, humbled and pissed off. At least now he has some answers. He knows what he's up against and he knows where they're heading. Apparently, Xarus wasn't too subtle in comparing vampires to mutants. Since San Francisco is within spitting distance of Arizona (relatively speaking) he puts the pieces together and heads in that direction. This is where the events of X-men #2 pick up and where the story stands now, making for a nice and neat little package to bring it all together in the end.

So everything is falling into place. X-men #2 set the stage while issues like Storm and Gambit along with Blade have shown how they got to this point. It seems a little disjointed that they would tell the story first and then show how it got to that point. Then again, there are other stories that use that tactic and most of them suck at it. This one works pretty well. It's not quite as well-done as the Storm and Gambit issue. Anyone who knows Blade or has seen the crappy movies won't be surprised. In a sense that's the biggest weakness to this issue. There's nothing that surprises the reader because a lot of the mystery was already revealed in X-men #2.

It is still a well-done comic though. There isn't a lot of memorable dialogue, but the art and the action is decent. There is a logical flow of story from start to finish and even those who don't know shit about Blade won't be entirely lost. If you weren't a Blade fan before, this comic isn't going to make you one. At the very least it does justify his involvement in the current X-men books. So for filling in the blanks and doing it in a way that makes sense, this tidy little one-shot gets a 3.5 out of 5. It's not going to blow your mind, but it will entertain you. It's a nice addition to the unfolding mutant vs. vampires story and continues to contribute in this surprisingly non-sucky story that so many who are burned out on vampires pan. For those who don't like it just because it involves vampires, I would say give it a rest and go back to reading your werewolf books.

X-men #2 - Silencing Detractors (Like Me)

I know I do my share of bitching in my reviews. All fanboys bitch about comics whether they admit it or not. They'll sing the praises of some books, but take to their graves how much another book sucks. Rarely will a title win a reader over if beforehand they're either on the fences or comparing it to weapons grade fecal matter. This is especially true when big name books come out like X-men #1 or X-men #2. These are the books that draw immediate comparisons to the Chris Claremont/Jim Lee versions (you know, the greatest selling comic book of all time). That comparison usually means death and the first issue of the new X-men series, by Victor Gischler, was underwhelming to say the least. So when X-men #2 comes out there's not a lot of expectation for it to be awesome.

Yet here I am, sitting awkwardly with a book in hand I said some nasty things about and feeling like a total douche-bag. As a lifelong X-men fan, my standards for the comics are pretty darn high. When you've followed something for so long it's pretty hard to keep getting amazed, especially when you've seen so damn much that it takes the equivalent of a jackhammer to the balls to get astonished. X-men #2 wasn't quite that rough with my balls, but damn it if it didn't shock me.

It started off with some kick-ass action. At the end of the previous issue, the X-men were investigating a sudden influx of vampires in San Francisco (get ready for the Twilight jokes because they're damn near everywhere now). The investigation brought Wolverine and Colossus face to face with a gargoyle/vampire monster who looks strung out on crystal meth. Oh yeah, and he doesn't fucking sparkle!

A solid mutant vs. vampire fight unfolds. Say what you will about the seemingly bland premise of something that sounds like a Don King sponsored fight, but the way the fight is choreographed is nothing short of euphoric. It's a classic comic smackdown. Wolverine and Colossus even employ their trademark fastball special. Seriously, how long has it been since we saw shit like that? Did that move go out with the Macarana? Fuck no! It still looks awesome and it still gets the job done...mostly anyways. In the end these two macho men couldn't take down the damn thing and it took a little lightning from Storm to take him down. You get the sense Wolverine and Colossus had to deal with a sudden collapse of their scrotum for a brief moment.

They get a chance to reclaim a small part of their masculinity. They go after the downed creature as it slipped into the sewer. Heavens knows they don't need Storm smelling like shit so as honorable men, they wade through the shit themselves. It earns them some bonus points for manliness. But those points become worth precisely dick when they find out the anti-Edward Cullen has a big family.

Balls or no balls, Wolverine and Colossus are overmatched here. These vampire beasts apparently don't like being woken up only to find out a couple of jerk offs in costumes are beating up their brother. So in a rare moment of family bonding, the creatures wake up and tear into the two X-men. Now I know some anti-awesome douche-bags in the world (mostly in the Religious Right) claim that comics and pretty much everything else that's fun in this world is bad for children and bad for families. But here you have a family (albeit a family of vampire monsters) coming together and overcoming adversity. That should bring a tear of joy to the eyes of any family-loving, warm-blooded American. Fuck you Focus on the Family and the Family Research Counsel. Comics can still make readers feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

At least until Blade shows up. Apparently, Wolverine and Colossus are not going to win their manliness back in this fight. They have to be rescued again by Marvel's own version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except this slayer has balls, a sword, and some damn fine sunglasses.

Not only does Blade save their asses, but he answers some much needed questions. First off, he shoots down the notion that Dracula is behind this shit. Turns out Dracula's dead. He's about as involved as Sarah Palin in governing affairs. He also reveals why these creatures seem to be so comfortable in sunlight. Now usually in the Marvel Universe when a vampire goes out in the sun, they catch fire and burn away like a firecracker (again, they don't fucking sparkle!). But now they've found a way around that shit. Now these creatures are sporting some fancy necklaces that divert solar radiation, protecting them from the sun and allowing them to keep on hunting even in broad daylight. It's some pretty fun and terrifying shit that won't help the X-men sleep at night or in the day for that matter.

While Wolverine and Colossus continue to salvage their balls with Blade, Jubilee is still in deep shit back on Utopia. In the last issue she was caught in a suicide attack that infected her with some virus that was turning her into a vampire. Now that has to rank near the top in terms of shit that will ruin your day/life and it's starting to get to her here. She's already starting to feel woozy from the sun, which is normal for a vampire. She's also getting this strange sensation that something is calling out to her, which isn't so normal.

So what could be calling out to this vulnerable teenage girl? You know, besides hormones, cosmetic companies, and Stephanie Meyer? Well the mastermind behind this shit does show his face and he looks pretty badass. He's not Dracula. He's a guy named Xarus, which admittedly isn't a very badass sounding name. It sounds like some pussy compact car from Toyota. But he's still pretty badass, far less Twilight and far more True Blood. His plan seems simple enough. He wants to lure Jubilee to him so the X-men will come and rescue her. When they do, he'll infect them as well so he'll have the most powerful mutants in the world on his side. In terms of plans that's pretty basic and it's grossly underestimating the capabilities of the X-men, which works out about as well as BP's PR department. So even though Xarus is badass, nobody is expecting him to succeed all that much. But he brings in a chick in a hot chick in her underwear, so that earns him some bonus points.

Already, the first and easy part of the plan is going into effect. Jubilee starts listening to that voice that's calling out to her (really, when is it ever a good idea to listen to the voices in your head when you're not on LSD?). She decks Dr. Rao and steals a jet ski so she can find whatever it is that's reaching out to her. It's probably the most badass Jubilee has been since M-Day so fans of her should be somewhat satisfied, although some may still cringe at the idea of her being a vamp.

While she's getting away, the X-men are getting a crash course in vampire politics from Blade. He goes into lecture mode, explaining how Xarus pulled off something that even Dracula could never manage. He united all the waring sects of vampires Genghis Khan style. So instead of a bunch of asshole vampires bitching and fighting with humans and each other, you have a bunch of asshole vampires just bitching and fighting humans on a single front. It's somewhat akin to how mutants were united on Utopia so the X-men should have some idea of how fucked they are.

But just in case there were some skeptics out there who thought that maybe they can clean this shit up and be back in time to watch Monday Night Football, Blade reveals another disturbing detail. This entire united vampire front is converging on San Francisco. Xarus is using that pull of his to get all his blood-sucking brethren in the same zip code. The X-men's science team are even nice enough to construct a map to visually depict how fucked they are. It's not a very fancy shot, but it does get the point across. They are pretty fucked.

So what do they do about it? What plan could they possibly put together that doesn't involve them charging head first into the fucking Great Wall of Vampires? Surprisingly, it's Emma Frost who comes up with a plan this time and true to her style it's of the devious variety. She follows the old saying "the enemy of your enemy is your friend." Add to that if that friend has a bloated ego, that's all the more incentive for their side. But what sort of friend are they talking about? How about fucking Dracula? The fucking lord of the vampires!

The logic is as simple as simple as it is fucked up. Dracula never succeeded in uniting vampires so when some upstart douche comes along and succeeds where he fails, it's safe to assume he's going to be fucking pissed. So pissed that he may be inclined to help the X-men. That or maybe Emma could throw in some topless pictures of herself to sweeten the deal. But either way it seems like a much better plan than just mindlessly attacking an entire nation of hungry vampires. Cyclops, seeing as how he has the extra motivation of more sweet pussy from Emma by listening, decides to rally around this plan and give it a try. Wolverine calls it a hail mary pass. Others might call it cleaning up a war zone by blowing it the fuck up. Either way, it has all sorts of potential for awesome.

And they'll have plenty of extra motivation as well because just as they're putting together this fucked up plan, Xarus is fucking up Jubilee. She followed the voices and was led straight into Xarus's arms. So the first part of his plan succeeds because she essentially begs him to take away her pain (as if becoming a vampire is akin to a woman having her first period). His way of taking it away is embracing her and not in the Edward Cullen way. He fucking bites her, essentially sealing her fate and setting the stage for both crazy plans to take shape in the next issue.

So what can you say about X-men #2? Does it still fail to measure up to the Claremont/Lee version? Well forget that shit for a moment and focus on the book itself. This issue essentially took the mediocrity of the last issue and injected a fresh dose of awesome in it's ass. The fight scene with Wolverine, Colossus, Blade, Storm, and the gargoyle vampires was beautifully crafted. The sinister plots of Xarus and Emma Frost were well done too. Jubilee's story is a bit more iffy, mainly because she comes off about as gullible as Homer Simpson with these new vampire instincts of hers. This girl may be a teenager, but she's a former X-man for crying out loud. She's too much Bella Swan and not enough Sookie Stackhouse. Fans of hers would probably be pretty damn mixed about this.

If there's anything cynical about these stories it's that they're pretty simplistic. A seven-year-old could probably read this and follow along. That may be good for the young crowd now being raised by shows like the Super Hero Squad. For the more advanced reader, it may seem pretty unimaginative. This isn't the kind of twisting, refined stories that writers like Joss Whedon or Chris Claremont would tell. This is mutants vs. vampires in it's most basic form.

Even if it is simple. It's still done pretty damn well and sets the stage for some kick-ass action in the next issue. It's definitely an improvement, one that shows this new X-men series can measure up to the hype. Will it ever match the title of Claremont/Lee? Probably not, but it's still a damn fine X-men comic. For anybody who is just getting into X-men or just wants to see some old school action, this is shaping up to be the comic that will get the job done. The final score here is a 4 out of 5. Gischler is definitely working his way towards the summit of Mount Awesome. He still has a ways to go, but at least the peak is in sight. Nuff said.

PS: What the fuck is wrong with the comments part of Blogger? Is anybody having problems commenting? If so let me know so I can fix it!