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 #3 - Rise of Vampires

When I started reading this new adjectiveless X-men series, I was skeptical and possibly a little uncomfortable. This book was taking on the title of a classic run with Chris Claremont and John Byrne. That's the equivalent of a religious nut-job naming himself Jesus Christ and claiming to be the same guy from the classic book that so many others have read. If some of you religious folk out there found that horribly blasphemous, then you'll have a inkling of how I felt about this series. But unlike the religious nuts of the world (you know who you are), I gave this series a chance. The first issue was underwhelming to say the least. But the next issue really surprised me. There's a genuinely good story here and it's played out on a scale much larger than something some guy at Marvel threw together in between beer runs with the Disney execs. Before this issue came out, there were some one-shots with Storm and Gambit as well as Blade that helped fill in the blanks of what's going on in this book. When these books came out, they set the stage for X-men #3 and the way it came together is the fanboy equivalent of a simultaneous orgasm with Scarlett Johanssen.

The mutants vs. vampires story has spawned some intriguing plots and some pretty awesome battles from the onset. The previous issue set the stage for the Gambit and Storm one-shot, the Namor one-shot, and Blade one-shot. The X-men saw a vampire invasion descending upon San Francisco led by Xarus, the second son of Dracula who doesn't have daddy issues as much as he has outdoing-his-daddy issues. He already got the X-men involved by getting Jubilee infected with a virus that was turning her into a vampire. The last issue ended with her answering that little voice in her head to go meet up with Xarus's crew. It's essentially the same as a banner ad that drives Twi-hards to a Team Edward or Team Jacob meeting.

As the one-shots come together, X-men #3 starts off by having a very pissed off Wolverine go out looking for Jubilee. Some who destroyed too many brain cells by sniffing magic markers may forget that at one point Jubilee was Wolverine's unofficial side-kick. Unlike Batman and Robin, Wolverine avoided the gay innuendo by making his side-kicks teenage girls. You could argue which is creepier, but the man still managed to develop a close bond with Jubilee so he's understandably driven to get her back.

While Wolverine goes off on his anti-Twilight campaign, the rest of the team converge from the events of the one-shots to put Dracula back together. Now it's easy to still question this move. This is fucking Dracula we're talking about and in the Marvel Universe he's no pussy. It also helps that he's not the overly sexy Bill Compton-like vampire from True Blood. So when he wakes up from an imposed slumber, he's noticeably pissed and confused. However, the X-men do take plenty of precautions. It remains to be seen if they'll amount to more than a soft pile of cow shit.

While Dracula is getting back into the swing of being undead rather than fully dead, Wolverine is going on a rampage in search of Jubilee. It's a little contrived in that his search is condensed into the contents of a single page. It just has him slicing through local bars and vampire hang-outs, not following clues or anything or uncovering potential secrets. He sounds kind of like Marv from Sin City at times, except he lacks Mickey Rourk's edge. It's not that it was too easy for him to get the answers he wanted. It was just too quick and feels like a miss opportunity.

The only problem with this mission of his is that it may be all for nothing. The very next scene shows a new and improved, fully vampire Jubilee. In the final pages of the previous issue, she gave into the urge to become a vampire the same way Tiger Woods gave into the urge to use his celebrity to gain endless pools of poon. Now she's a full-blooded badass vampire and looks pretty damn hot. Jubilee has never been defined as the super sexy type. Emma Frost, Psylocke, Jean Grey, and plenty of other X-women dominate that category. But after this transformation, she may officially enter the conversation. She's certainly no Bella Swan and when she boasts how good she looks, most male readers are inclined to agree.

Now granted, it may not be the most original look Jubilee has ever had. She comes off as a mix of Kate Beckinsale from Underworld and Selene from the Hellfire Club. It could be better and I don't recall her having hair that long in the previous issue. You could chalk that up to her transformation, but it's still one of those little things that may bug some fans.

While Jubilee is getting used to her new look, she is already a big part of Xarus's plot. However, it's not the standard vampires-rule-and-everyone-else-sucks ordeal. Xarus reveals that he came to San Francisco for a reason and not just because guys who dress like him can walk down Castro Street without turning any heads. He actually wants to unite mutants and vampires. He sees them as cut from the same cloth, hated and feared by the rest of humanity. Alone they're always going to be marginalized, but united they could be unstoppable. It's not an unreasonable plan even if it is still something Dr. Evil from Austin Powers would probably approve of. But unlike Dr. Evil, Xarus is competent to withstand more than a the antics of a sex-crazed British agent who isn't James Bond. He seems to have set a trap for Wolverine and he's prepared to spring it. This is where Jubilee comes in and will be able to prove she's more Sookie Stackhouse and less Bella Swan (yes, I'm aware I made a Bella Swan joke earlier, but I can't help that they work so damn well!).

While Wolverine is foolishly walking into yet another trap laid by a pretty girl (pussy is his kryptonite after all), the X-men are still entertaining a guest in Lord Dracula. Even while restrained he shows some uncanny old world class. He hits on Storm, which shouldn't surprise anybody because he did try to bone her at some point. However, he seems to take a much better liking to Emma Frost, commenting on how well she pulls off her obscenely sexual outfit. In this it doesn't matter if Dracula is a vampire. Pretty much any guy would say the same. That may prompt Dracula to try and bone someone else besides Storm and since Emma has so nicely tamed by Cyclops over the past few years, it could very well be an upgrade. The really remarkable thing is that despite getting all Bill Compton with Emma, Cyclops still addresses the guy and without much convincing he agrees to release him from his restraints. Either Second Coming had him use up all his competence or Emma is psychically manipulating him so she can have Vlad flirt with her more.

Enter the sewers now. It's a place where a guy like Wolverine should be right at home. And as expected, he encounters some guests that share his tastes. By guests I mean hoards of monstrous vampires looking to tear him apart. This time it lasts longer than one fucking page. Basically there are two full spreads of Wolverine clawing his way through the sewers in search of Jubilee. It's the most action of the whole book and it's pretty damn awesome. There's blood, there's sewage, there's vampires, and a homicidal Canadian. In essence, it's almost as exciting as a Canadian hockey game.

When he emerges through the sewer, he ends up in a lair right out of a bad anime porno and sees Jubilee strung up on the ceiling like she's about to endure a standard tentacle rape. Yeah, it's disturbing, but also kind of sexy. If you're into bondage and S&M, have some lube and tissues handy. The dark art and macabre scene should get your perverse juices flowing like a trip to the nails section at Home Depot.

Based on the earlier scene, nobody should be too surprised when Jubilee surprises Logan with a little trick. Yeah, he gets her down to complete this whole rescue operation of his. However, it's painfully clear that Jubilee is just tapping her inner Robert Pattinson to pull of an acting job that won't win her any Oscars, but still makes her overqualified for a role in Michael Bay's next movie. It has to be because she's able to trick Wolverine with those puppy dog eyes of hers the same way Brad Pitt tricks women out of their panties with his sexy gaze. When she does, she goes in for the bite and Wolverine is essentially one-upped by a teenage girl. For a guy who is supposed to be the best at what he does, it's probably the most emasculating moment he's endured since Chris Claremont wrote him in X-men Forever.

So Wolverine is screwed. What about the rest of the X-men and their plan with Dracula? Well that isn't doing much better. Despite letting Dracula out and filling him in on the situation, he really doesn't do jack shit. Even though his son is upstaging him, he seems to care about as much as Donald Trump cares about any non-blond woman over the age of 30. This is another one of those one-page scenes that tries to condense so much into one page. Except this time nothing is condensed. It's just a scene with Cyclops showing Dracula the situation and then Dracula just walks the fuck out. That's it. There's no witty exchange or anything. He just walks out and that's it. By far, this is the weakest scene in this young series. Is the price of ink really that high to not allow for another page? Seriously!

As lame as this page is, it doesn't bring down the whole issue. The final scene definitely picks up the slack, showing Jubilee returning Wolverine to Xarus and his crew. As expected, Wolverine puts up a major struggle. The bite from Jubilee didn't turn him into a vampire instantly. The guy has a healing factor. It takes a bit longer, but eventually even Wolverine can't resist. It reveals some of the keen strategy Xarus has employed and it should make his father feel usurped Hamlet style. He now has one of the most powerful and deadly mutants on his side, even if his healing fought the transformation. Lucky for him, Wolverine's streak of being emasculated continues and he surrenders to his inner Edward Cullen. He becomes a vampire and that's how the comic ends.

Even though Wolverine being a vampire is like giving meth to Billy Mays (may he rest in peace), it's not as striking as it should be. This isn't the first time the Wolverine-being-a-vampire plot was used. It was once the theme of a What If issue decades ago so while it looks pretty awesome, it's not as novel as Jubilee becoming a vampire. Even so, it's a nice way to move the story along. The plot becomes clearer with vampires looking to unite with mutants against the human world, even if it means vampires turning mutants into more vampires. It hardly seems fair, but then again this is Dracula's son we're talking about. Fair to him is the equivalent of saying fuck, shit, and cunt 30 times to his mother. It's a nice way to make the plot more salient other than just having a reason for mutants and vampires to duke it out.

That being said, this issue only met the expectations set by the previous issue. It didn't exceed them. A lot of focus was given to Wolverine's search for Jubilee while the discussion with the X-men and Dracula was horribly half-hearted. It was like the mandate for the issue was show Wolverine tearing through vampires and give the janitor some weed and have him write the other scenes. It was painfully underhanded. While Dracula's flirtation with Emma was fun and all, there wasn't much substance to his return. It was like all that trouble the X-men went through was for nothing. Even if that story is being saved for the next issue, it still couldn't hurt to at least drop some fucking hints. This is the era of Lost and viral videos! How could they resist the urge to tease the readers?

The book is still good though. The added help of the one-shots help give this series a scale that sets it apart from the other X-men titles. Even if it doesn't measure up to the Claremont/Byrne run, it has some quality storytelling and offers plenty of reasons for readers to keep on reading. It's not as well-crafted as the last issue, but it's not worth shitting all over. So for a final score, X-men #3 gets a 3 out of 5. It's as good an X-men series as you'll find. While not spectacular, it has mutants fighting vampires and Jubilee looking hot as hell. What more do you need?