Half-Fantastic and Full Heart: Marvel Two-In-One #1

The following is my review of Marvel Two-In-One #1, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Like most ordinary people, every superhero has bad days. Some of those bad days are worse than others. Some of those bad days make for iconic stories, as well. Events like The Phoenix Saga, Secret Wars, Civil War, and House of M often start with a particularly bad day that spirals out of control, sometimes leading to retcons, wars, and clone armies. Short of being trapped in a cage with Deadpool and an unlimited supply of tacos, a bad day for a superhero often becomes the cornerstone for a major upheaval in Marvel's over-arching mythos.

While every major superhero and their assorted teams have bad days, few have had more or worse days than the members of the Fantastic Four. No matter how much Peter Parker complains about not catching a break or how much the X-men complain about people hating mutants, they can't deny that the Fantastic Four have it much worse.

It's not just that they've been victimized by horrible movies, so much so that Pixar's The Incredibles is often cited as the best Fantastic Four movie. Despite being Marvel's first family and one of the most pivotal creations of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the influence and prestige of the Fantastic Four has never been lower.

The events of Secret Wars effectively shoved a wedge the size of an entire multiverse between the team. Reed, Sue, and their children are no longer playing an active role in the Marvel universe. Ben and Johnny, conversely, find themselves relegated to weak supporting roles in books like Inhumans and Guardians of the Galaxy. Their struggles are often a punchline within Marvel, but Chip Zdarsky and Jim Cheung look to get serious with what remains of the Fantastic Four in Marvel Two-In-One #1. While Marvel's first family may still be split, Ben and Johnny keep the spirit alive in a story that's as compelling as it is heart-felt.

This is one of those stories that reflects a particular sentiment at a particular time in the history of a franchise. It's not unreasonable to say that, in wake of the failure of Josh Trank's Fantastic Four movie and the subsequent cancellation of the Fantastic Four comics in 2015, these are the darkest of times for Marvel's first family. Reed, Sue, and their children are gone. The Baxter Building is gone. On top of all that, Dr. Doom isn't even acting like Dr. Doom anymore. It's as though everything that makes the Fantastic Four endearing has been lost.

Marvel Two-In-One #1 acts as the first beacon of light within the darkness that has shrouded Fantastic Four for years. The first family is still not whole, but Zdarsky and Cheung make it a point to show that the heart and soul of the Fantastic Four is still there. Not only that, they make the case that there's still a place for them in the Marvel universe and by nearly every measure, they make that case well.

The foundation of the story is basically the remnants of the first family being at rock bottom. Neither is in a particularly good place with Johnny being especially broken. Ben, true to his rocky nature, acts as the last remaining anchor of the team. He carries himself as the only one with the strength and fortitude to carry on the legacy that the Richards family left behind. He doesn't have much to begin with, but he gains a lot over the course of the story.

What he gains and how he gains it doesn't feel cheap or contrived. In fact, it makes for one of the most heart-felt moments the Fantastic Four have had since the events of Secret Wars. Zdarsky and Cheung don't discount the events that tore the first family apart, nor do they make light of just how much those events hurt Johnny and Ben.

Part of what makes the Fantastic Four so compelling is that they're not just heroes. They're family. When one of them is lost or gone, it hurts. That pain in Marvel Two-In-One #1 is undeniable. By the end, though, there's a sense that the time for healing has arrived. Even though the memories of bad movie adaptations still linger, the darkest hours of the Fantastic Four are behind them. Now, they're ready to move forward.

Moving forward, however, still means confronting the less-than-ideal situation in the present. That involves Johnny revealing a distressing secret about his powers and Ben having a productive, but messy conversation with Dr. Doom. It's dramatic and overdue, but the fact they're finally confronting the situation is probably the biggest sign of progress that Marvel Two-In-One #1 can have. Overdue or not, it's still refreshing.

More than anything else, Marvel Two-In-One #1 is a clear, yet poignant reminder of what the Fantastic Four stand for. They're not just a family with superpowers. They're not just heroes either. They look beyond the horizon and dare to go farther. They seek to explore, learn, and grow together. That's how they often end up encountering beings who ride cosmic surf boards, giant world-eating beings, and shape-shifting aliens. The heroics are often secondary, but still just as important.

There's a lot to be said about the current state of the Fantastic Four, how they got there, and why they've struggled to remain relevant at a time when every superhero seems to reinvent/reboot themselves every other week. There are still plenty of ongoing issues with that state that can't be easily resolved over the course of a single issue, let alone several. However, Zdarsky and Cheung take the biggest, and arguably most important, step in that process.

Marvel Two-In-One #1 is one of those books that will give a certain segment of fans a genuine emotional uplift. It's as though someone finally comes to their front door, gives them a reassuring hug, and lets them know they haven't forgotten about the Fantastic Four and everything they stand for. It may have taken a while. It may not undo all the damage that the first family have suffered over the past several years. It's still a first step, but one that feels like a giant leap in the right direction.


Final Score: 9 out of 10

X-men #24 - Blood Sucking Awesome

Whenever a comic company tries to reinvent a character, it falls into one of two categories. It's either the grim and gritty version, the kind that makes a character look like they need therapy more than plot. Then there's the being-so-fucking-different-that-it's-hardly-the-same-fucking-character variety that's not just demeaning, but insulting to any readers who actually gave a damn about the character. Some characters need a reinvention. Some don't. Some are handled well. Most are horribly fucked up. Vampire Jubilee in Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men is the one glowing example where Marvel has reinvented a character in all the right ways.

Don't get me wrong. I loved Jubilee before she was a blood-sucking True Blood wannabe. But her character hadn't been interesting since she lost her powers in House of M. She was like David Hasselhoff of the X-books. She wasn't doing anything. She wasn't contributing anything. She was just there. If she just got her powers back, then she wouldn't have changed much. Becoming a vampire has opened the door to all sorts of new stories that have helped make her character more compelling than ever. Some of those stories have played out in the pages of Marjorie Liu's X-23 series. Others have played out in recent arcs of Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men.

The previous arc, the first of the post-Schism regenesis era, had her play a role that wasn't all that vital. She fought alongside Psylocke, Storm, and Utopia's official security team as they teamed up with War Machine to stop an international incident involving sentinels. While that conflict was resolved, Jubilee was abducted in the battle and completely disappeared. She was taken by another vampire named Raizo Kodo, a character that was introduced in an earlier issue when Xavier was telling Jubilee of his travels back before he was the discredited mentor he is now. Now usually when a creepy guy with a Japanese name abducts a teenage girl, it turns into the kind of story they make into anime porn. This isn't like that (sorry hentai fans). X-men #24 takes that story and continues it.

It begins in your typical vampire dungeon (again, not in the anime porn tradition so all you hentai fans really need to leave). Jubilee is prisoner in Raizo Kodo's fancy digs. He comes to her cell not claiming that her escape lies in his penis. He comes offering her animal blood, which for a vampire is like offering tofu to Ted Nugent. She's a vampire. She craves human blood and to this point she kept that under control because Wolverine gave her his blood to fight the effects. Well Wolverine isn't around and she's now in full vamp mode, meaning she's not going to settle for the Edward Cullen diet. She wants blood and Raizo can't do shit about it.

The man won't give Jubilee what she wants. She reacts in the way you would expect any teenage girl to react. She lashes out and tries to brutally murder Raizo. It's not quite as violent as a 16-year-old attacking her mother for taking away her iphone after she was caught sending pictures of her boobs to the guy with the neck tattoo that works at Costco, but it's close. Unlike said mother, Raizo is a veteran vamp and is able to fight back. He's as gentle as you would expect a vampire of his caliber. He takes her down, but makes clear that he's not trying to torment her or turn her into a Bella Swan fantasy. He's actively opposing her killer vampire instinct, which makes him more Twilight than True Blood minus the gayness.

That still begs the question. What the hell is this guy after? What's his motivation? Well he's not alone in his endeavor to turn Jubilee in a vampire vegetarian. He has his own crew of vampires that apparently went through the same process, learning to resist the urge to drink humans like a Slurpee. They call themselves the forgiven. They come off as born again Christians minus the homophobia and televangelism. They're the vampires who repent from their evil ways and for whatever reason, they want Jubilee to be one of them. Okay, I'm sure the fact that she's a hot teenage girl plays a part, but it may not be the entire reason. Just 80 percent of it. He and his crew aren't big on indoctrinating her either. They want her to choose this path, which once again makes them way more tolerant than Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. But they're still trying to wean a teenage girl off her natural instincts. They might as well try to teach a fish not to swim.

Razio tries again to talk some sense into Jubilee. He tries to play the role of a vampire Freud, explaining to her that her desire to feed on humans is part of a deeper longing to recapture what is left of her humanity. It's less creepy than the Oedipal complex or Freud's theory on penis envy, but Jubilee takes it about as seriously as most people take Ron Paul. So when he won't give her the blood she wants, she tries a different method besides wining. She tries kissing him and when that doesn't work, she tries to use the power of her vagina. Because what man can't resist the allure of teenage pussy? Well apparently Razio can. He does his dick a disservice and turns her down, leaving her to struggle with her hunger.

Now for some this may seem OOC for Jubilee and it is on many levels. Jubilee's vampirism hasn't been dealt with like this before and to this point, she's never shown this kind of struggle. It's only been mildly touched on how using Wolverine's blood has fought off her transformation. Now it hasn't just been brought to surface. It's been overplayed without any build-up. In the last issue she was just your normal blood-sucker. Now she's having all these issues with her new instincts. Both her fangs and her vagina are working against her. It's a twist on her character that's intriguing, but it happens really fast and without any development from the other X-men. They haven't even been mentioned yet and at this point in the comic, it's starting to feel like less an X-men comic and more Marvel's way of saying "Take this True Blood and Twilight fans!"

OOC or not, Jubilee is left in her dungeon with a glass of animal blood. She still looks like a girl who has been given time out for showing her boobs to a school bus of 3rd graders. All her efforts to beat/seduce Razio have been ineffective. Now normally this is the point where you start to suspect that a guy like Razio has an ulterior motive and it's only a matter of time before he goes from Edward Cullen to Eric Northman. But the more he talks, the more sincere he sounds. He's like the Professor Xavier of vampires, trying to get vampires off their murderous ways and on a more righteous path. Since Jubilee is an X-man, it would help if she's on that path. However, she's not going to make it easy on anybody.

Eventually, another one of Razio's Forgiven vampire buddies attempts to chat up Jubilee. He tries opening with a joke about sunshine and unicorns. It goes over about as well as a Britney Spears T-shirt at a Pantera concert. This guy ends up being as ineffective as Razio and twice as incompetent. He allows Jubilee to get the jump on him and she attacks, knocking him out and taking the fancy solar deflecting necklace that allows vampires to walk in broad daylight. With this she runs out of the dungeon and into the wild where she can prey on as many gullible humans as possible. Since she's a cute Asian chick, it's almost a given that they're going to be caught off guard.

While most would be pissed enough to cut off heads when a prisoner escapes, Razio doesn't show much concern. He doesn't even chew out his buddy who was dumb enough to get bested by a teenage girl. He claims that Jubilee will come back on her own and that being an X-men made her too good to start randomly eating strangers. It sounds like Iran saying "We don't have any nuclear bombs! We're just trying to make nuclear power!" But it's not long before Jubilee gets her chance. She finds some random male villager who like most young men are thanking the gods when a cute teenage girl randomly walks up to them. She attempts to seduce him and feed on him, but at the last moment she stops when she doesn't see her reflection in a mirror. This becomes the alcoholic equivalent of a moment of clarity for her. I've yet to have one, but I hear they're pretty fucked up.

Showing that she hasn't become a blood-sucking psychopath just yet, Jubilee leaves the boy undrained and runs back to Razio. So his suspicions about her were right. She is halfway decent enough to not go on a killing spree. He takes her back with open arms, not coming off as too creepy. She asks for his help. Usually, that's another chance for a captor to say to a teenage girl that all the help she needs resides within his penis. But he still hasn't resorted to that trick. Too bad because it works great on girls who have had a few too many drinks. He continues to claim that he wants to help her. Not a lot has happened to indicate that he has any other plans. It would be nice if there were because it makes him come off as too good and too boring at times. This is an X-man comic, or it's supposed to be. When a random stranger claims to help, that's usually a sign that he's going to screw you over in a way that would put Bernie Madoff to shame.

It isn't until the last fucking page that the X-men finally show up. They don't really do much and we haven't seen any hint of what they've been up to. We just see a few panels that show them beating up a bunch of vampires in their search for Jubilee. Really, that's about it. They don't come up with any clues as to where she is. They just restate their intent to find her. So nothing really happens. And the title of the book is X-men. Not Jubilee and her Blood-Sucking Buddies. While the story with Jubilee was nicely fleshed out, the near absence of the X-men and their utter lack of progress in this story just feels off. It leaves some hope for the next issue, but it ends this issue with a feeling of missed opportunities.

Now I appreciate what Victor Gischler is trying to do here. Hell, I don't blame him for it. Vampire Jubilee was his creation. He's the one who turned her into the source of so many Twilight jokes on this blog when he made her a blood-sucker in his inaugural Curse of the Mutants arc. Her transition from awkward mutant teen into awkward teen vampire/X-man has been one of the most compelling aspects of adjectiveless X-men. So telling a story that centers around her vampirism catching up with her makes sense. But the way it's told in this issue is done in a way that makes this feel like less an X-man comic and more an anomaly of sorts.

Don't get me wrong. It's a well-told story on Gischler's part. He just doesn't effectively mix it with the overall theme of this series. It's supposed to be X-men, namely the Utopia security team led by Storm and Psylocke. The last arc demonstrated this perfectly. This issue might as well be in another time zone. The X-men don't even show up until the final pages. We get no sense of what they're doing or how others are reacting to Jubilee's disappearance. Pretty much the whole issue is spent showing Jubilee struggling with her vampire while Raizo and his crew try to wean her off her sadistic tendencies. It's compelling and all, but part of what made the last arc so great was how Gischler fit it into the larger X-men universe. This doesn't seem to fit at all. It may fit with later issues, but this issue on it's own is really weak in terms of feeling like a full X-book.

There's still a lot to like about this issue. If you're a Jubilee fan, this issue should give you a fairly large boner. If you're an X-men fan in general, you probably won't find much to get excited about. It's still a decent story, one that mixes Marvel's world of vampires with the X-men. It just doesn't mix it very well. I like what Gischler is doing here and I think his work now is better than it's been at any point in this series. But for X-men #24, I can only give a 3 out of 5. It's a good story, but it's very narrow and doesn't feel like it belongs in an X-book. Vampire lovers will probably find this as a nice go-between until the next season of True Blood. X-men fans will just read this and continue thinking "When the fuck is Avengers vs. X-men going to get here?" It has potential, but it'll need more than Twilight jokes to realize it. Nuff said!

Astonishing X-men #45 - Multiple Universes of Awesome

I may sound like an overly opinionated drunk three quarters of the time, but I'm actually a fairly reasonable man. I'm more than willing to grant someone a second chance if they give me reason to believe that they won't fuck themselves any further. The same applies to comics. I understand that every now and then a comic will come along that will make me wonder what the fuck the writer was smoking and where the fuck I could get some. When I first saw the cover for Astonishing X-men #44 that depicted Storm and Cyclops kissing in a way that looked like it could lead to the kind of sex that Pfizer would market as a form of super Viagra I was genuinely excited. I thought this could be the kind of story that finally made Astonishing X-men an actual contributor to the other X-books. Turns out I was just more high than usual.

That cover was a ruse. Yes, Cyclops and Storm did kiss. However, it wasn't exactly a true kiss. That Storm wasn't the 616 Storm. It was revealed to be a Storm from another universe, as if Marvel doesn't have enough of those. This after other X-books like Age of Apocalypse did such a great job of establishing a decent alternate timeline. It ended with Cyclops waking up in some containment chamber in a universe where someone calling himself the Savior held more command over the world than Tim Tebow in the 4th quarter of a football game (the game against the Patriots not withstanding). It was random, contrived, and deceptive. All these are the kind of elements that make it worthy to a comparison of food poisoning and diarrhea.

However, the story was not without merit. It was only one issue and it actually did take some time to tie Astonishing into the events of the other X-books in a compelling way. In addition, Greg Pak's return to the X-books were marked with solid dialog and characterization. This was more than enough to make it worthy of praise on some levels. However, it was a long ways away from being awesome. That's why I'm willing to give Astonishing X-men #45 a chance to redeem on the deception of the Astonishing X-men #44 cover.

The issue starts by adding some back story to this other alternate universe. It's not radically different. In this world mutants skipped the whole "let's try and live in peace" bullshit and conquered humanity. It's basically like House of M, complete with Magneto striking his trademark I-now-dominate-your-ass pose. The difference here is this wasn't the result of the Scarlet Witch having a bad case of PMS. Instead, the X-men emerged under different circumstances. They actually rose up and overthrew their fellow mutants because they favored valuing the lives of humans and mutants equally. That's a pretty heroic fight by all measures. It bears an uncomfortable resemblance to PETA's mission statement, but the important part is that the X-men triumphed and the tyranny that made House of M such a shitty place to live was thwarted.

This elaborate documentary that only the History Channel would find interesting isn't just for show. It's actually part of a vision that this crazy Savior guy is projecting into Cyclops's head. He actually tries to convince Cyclops that he's some grand savior himself. He has him wake up in a palace of sorts where he gazes out over loyal subjects praising and begging to dress up as Dark Phoenix and play "rise from the ashes" (ashes being a metaphor for his penis). Cyclops is more than capable of surmising that it's bullshit. He's been burned before by enjoying the fantasies in his mind so he decides not to tempt fate again. It only ends up with him back in the same test tube he was at the end of the previous issue. He should have at least stayed inside fantasy land long enough to cop a feel from Storm, but that's just me.

Now back in much less comfortable surroundings, he's told by Emma Frost that trying to break out of these tubes is like trying to fight a forest fire with napalm. Each bio container is designed to absorb whatever specific energy a mutant radiates. That essentially makes them batteries of sorts, which certainly doesn't sit well with Cyclops. He also finds out that he's not the only one from another world. The Emma Frost telling him this isn't the Emma Frost he's currently boning. The Wolverine in the nearby tube also isn't the Wolverine that beat the shit out of him in Schism. In fact, he doesn't even call himself Wolverine. He calls himself James Howlett and he was the governor of Canada while Emma calls herself Emmelene. Okay, it's not very original or creative. But it shows these characters are different and they're in the same boat as Cyclops in terms of being thrown into a new alternate universe that's more fucked up than the one they came from.

Despite knowing that these aren't the same X-men he trained, Cyclops decides to enlist them in an escape attempt. He shows that he's more resilient than someone with a visor and a full body condom for a costume would imply. It turns out that kiss with him and Storm wasn't just for show. It did more than just fuck with the perceptions of the readers. It revealed to Cyclops that he was dealing with a fucked up alternate version of Storm that wanted to jump his bone. It also allowed him to swipe some of the tools one would find with a former thief. That includes a tool that he can use to break the containment tubes. So with this simple tool, Cyclops breaks out. He then enlists Emma/Emmelene, James, and a kid Nightcrawler who looks only slightly less imposing than the kids in the Home Alone movies.

Now on the subject of the kiss, this scene actually does help the bullshit imposed by the last issue. It makes that kiss more than just some fucked up ruse. It actually had an impact on the story and is playing out in the events of this story. It helps make that kiss less of a ruse and more of a vital component to the plot. Is it still deceptive? Fuck yeah, but at least there's some substance behind it now.

An eventful ass-kicking ensues. This Savior guy that we still don't know shit about sends his neatly dressed goons after Cyclops and his makeshift X-men. They hold their own as one would expect a Cyclops-led team. Along the way they even pick up another familiar face in Kitty Pryde. Except this version of her looks older and has more of a Milla Jovavich feel, so fans should feel less shame when jerking off to her. She calls herself Shadow and quickly proves her worth by showing that in addition to phasing, she's pretty damn good with a knife. She's definitely not the kind of Kitty Pryde that would get stuck on a fucking bullet and be MIA for years on end.

Everything seems to be going well when this version of Wolverine starts getting a bit too violent for Cyclops's tastes. Gee, does anyone else smell the stench of irony or did someone just fart? I guess it's the irony because unneeded violence is just one of the reasons Cyclops and Wolverine ended up clashing in Schism and why Cyclops was so fucked up at the beginning of this arc. Well wouldn't you know it? Cyclops can't even get along with alternate version Wolverines with a background in politics. So he fires an optic blast at him only to have alternate Wolverine reveal that his bones are coated with something called Adamantine. Again, not a very creative sounding name. It's the metal of the gods and it resists Cyclops's blasts. But despite this impressive feat, Cyclops still threatens to blow his brains out through his eye sockets. And in a surprising yet not unreasonable reaction, this alternate Wolverine actually laughs and goes along with Cyclops. Somehow showing a willingness to blow his brains out earns this Wolverine respect.

Now I think this is an appropriate moment that can only happen with an alternate universe. Cyclops just got done with his falling out with Wolverine. Yet here he is facing another Wolverine and he manages to earn his respect. Considering how fucked up he was about losing it in the first issue, that means something. It's like a woman breaking your heart, but then sleeping with her twin sister. It doesn't cancel out the bullshit, but it's hard not to feel better.

Now with the support of Wolverine and his makeshift team of X-men alternates, they fight their way through the rest of the Savior's perverse world of S&M mutant terror. They end up making their way to what looks like a storage area. There the makeshift X-men are able to retrieve some of their personal items including knives, a trench coat, and presumably their porno stash. We can only assume that heroes in every universe never leave home without it. But while in this area they make a shocking and ass-clenchingly disturbing discovery that could only be equaled by Magneto going down on a Wendigo. Emmelene stumbles upon a whole stack of visors and it's not a collection either. They seem to be the visors of other Cyclops's who have gone through this same bullshit. Does WTF even begin to describe it?

Actually, there may be a reasonable explanation...reasonable being a relative term of course. It implies that this Savior figure has been gathering other versions of the X-men from all across the multiverse and so far none have managed to fuck up his plans. Cyclops is understandably disturbed and put off by the revelation that history is not on his side. But then the Savior makes another disturbing revelation. He didn't just do this with other versions of Cyclops. He did this with other versions of himself. That's right. This so-called savior that would make Michelle Bachmann burst into tears actually traversed the multiverse to fuck with both others and himself. It adds a new dimension to this arc the likes of which leave any unprepared minds in a state of blown not seen since the Kardashian sex tapes.

Now I'll take a moment to sober up for a moment before offering my full assessment of this issue. First off, I won't say that this issue completely made up for the bullshit of the previous issue. The previous issue still sucked in the way it used that kiss to deceive the readers. But this issue didn't suck in the same way because that kiss was actually a key part of the story. The previous issue also sucked for bringing yet another alternate universe into the picture. This issue didn't suck because it actually made that universe pretty compelling in a number of ways. It's different enough to not be classified as a House of M rip-off and the final pages show that this involves more than just one universe. There's some pretty awesome shit here despite the flaws. Much more so than I expected. I'll say with as sober a mind as I can manage that this issue is definitely an upgrade compared to the previous issue.

However, there are still some overly contrived elements in this issue. The names of alternate Emma and Wolverine as well as the adamantium rip-off wasn't all that creative. The alternate versions of Shadowcat and Nightcrawler didn't get much depth either. Even Storm, who was at the center of this shit, barely showed up after playing such a huge role in the last issue. This in addition to that whole Storm/Cyclops kiss having no meaning for them or their respective relationships is pretty bogus. But Greg Pak does plenty to make up for it by ensuring that the story is solid and this new world is compelling.

I don't want to get too ahead of myself with this comic. I get in enough trouble with that shit when driving down the Jersey Turnpike at two in the morning. Astonishing X-men is still a pariah amongst the X-books, but it's slowly working it's way into the greater X-men mythos. This issue didn't take it as far as it probably could have, but it did succeed in making the last issue feel much less egregious. There is still room for improvement, but this arc and this series is that much closer to being awesome again. That's why I give Astonishing X-men #45 a 3.5 out of 5. Greg Pak has only one arc to work with before Marjorie Liu takes over. As such, he needs to make it count and he still has a chance with this arc. He'll just have to make the caliber of awesome worthy of creating a whole new universe. That should be fairly easy, right? Nuff said!

Ultimate X-men #1 - The Ultimate Letdown

I consider myself an equal opportunity drunk. By that I mean if I get fucked up on one exotic substance, I make it a point to get fucked up on another just to ensure the karma of the universe remains intact. Sure, it makes me sick to my stomach. I think I puked up half my small intestines after reading Ultimate Spider-Man #1. And I can objectively say that the reddish brown entrails on the gas station toilet had more creative merit than that piece of shit. Ultimate comics have sucked so bad that it's made me wish that kid who kicked my ass in school spiked my milk with rat poison rather than laxatives. That would be far less painful than this shit. But in the spirit of fucking myself up on a balanced level, I've decided to review Ultimate X-men #1. After reading Ultimate X #4 I now go into uncontrolled convulsions every time I read the worlds Ultimate and X-men in one sentence. It's hard to believe that this used to be my favorite book for the better part of a decade. Since then it's crashed harder than Tiger Woods's image.

Ultimate X-men is like a corpse that's already been butt-fucked by necrophiliacs, lit on fire, pissed out by incontinent monkeys, and then shit on again by a pack of constipated elephants. Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Moses, and Xenu couldn't fix this shit with all the magic from every holy book ever written. That's what happens when you have an event like Ultimatum that essentially butchers good characters in a way so tasteless that Marvel might as well have paid a bum four bucks to stab their fans with a rusty knife. Now the only fans who seem to enjoy Ultimate X-men are the fans that never gave a shit about X-men in the first place or hate the major characters that make up the X-men. But by that definition, they aren't really X-men fans! So what the fuck is the point of this book?

Apparently, Marvel is treating Ultimate like that sandbox every kid takes a shit in. It was once fun, but nobody wants to go near it anymore. It's like that slut in your senior year of high school that everybody fucks and will do anything you want. Those sluts usually disappear without a trace for a reason. But not Ultimate X-men. Marvel insists on telling an X-men story where Cyclops, Wolverine, Professor Xavier, Magneto, Gambit, and Angel are dead. Well if that's the story they want to tell, then why the fuck call it X-men? But I digress.

Ultimate X-men is basically a world where all X-men are screwed. Magneto inflicted mass genocide. Now all mutants are basically criminals by association. They're to be shot on sight or thrown into prison camps. It's not an issue of them being victims. Magneto fucked them all over and there's no going back from it. They might as well be Nazis trying to win the Jewish vote in Florida. There's just no coming back from genocide. You're either screwed over or slightly less screwed over. The new writer, Nick Spencer, has a proven track record with titles like Morning Glories (a book you should totally read if you haven't already). However, he seems to have drawn the short straw and has to tell stories in this shitty series about how shitty the lives of mutants are. I actually feel sorry for the guy because he might as well be trying to market used toilet paper. But enough shitting over this already wrecked stage. What exactly does this shell of an X-book have to offer? Well that's why I'm here, people! I review this shit so you don't have to.

Ultimate X-men #1 starts off with Karen Grant. She's another brilliant fuck-up from the X-books. She was once Jean Grey, an outgoing and passionate character that was one of Ultimate's most lovable characters. Then after Ultimatum she changed her appearance, took on the role of Karen Grant, and become this emo porcelain doll with the personality depth of someone who had a botched frontal lobotomy. She even refers to Jean Grey in the past tense. She doesn't even consider herself Jean Grey anymore. And maybe that's for the better because she has the people skills of a crack head. It shows when she visits this woman who just found out her daughter is a mutant. She has red hair and telekinesis. Really? In a book where and I quote "Anything can happen" this is what they come up with? I'm sorry, but Generation Hope beat this book to the punch by over a fucking year. Since when did "anything" mean shit that was done less than a year ago?

So they're talking and Jean goes over how fucked all mutants are. They're basically under the thumb of the government and the only reason she's not in a prison camp is because Nick Fury says so. She didn't even say she could help. She says she's just visiting out of "concern." As if somehow that's enough to do much good. She has nothing to offer this woman. No hope for her daughter other than a life that sucks. So when there's a bang off panel and the girl's father comes down carrying a shotgun saying he just killed his daughter, there's really no impact. It's not all that shocking or all that hard hitting. It's meant to be an emotional scene, but since this is an Ultimate book it's just par for the course. So a man kills his daughter when she finds out she's a mutant. In Ultimate, that's like finding out that Lindsey Lohan got arrested again. Boring!

Then the book gets political because seriously, what's more exciting than politics in comic books? Isn't that why fans read books and not because of the characters that the title on the cover promises? Or maybe I'm just crazy. Anyways, Valerie Cooper basically holds a press conference telling the world what readers found out in Ultimate Origins (nearly four years ago). Mutants aren't a big step in evolution. They're just a failed science experiment. This as opposed to being the product of alien space gods like the Celestials in 616. That's like going from fucking Pamela Anderson to fucking Betty White.

Watching this news conference are the rag-tag team of non-X-men that were assembled in Ultimate X. They include Jimmy (Wolverine replacement), Derek Morgan (a Batman/Daredevil/Angel ripoff), and Liz Allen (whiny bitch that's just annoying). They're understandably frustrated by the royal screw-job that mutants are getting. But again, they got no choice and no hope. They're basically just hanging around Karen because she's on Nick Fury's good side and he's keeping them out of jail. This leaves Jimmy the Wolverine rip-off to basically copy his old man completely and strike out on his own. He wants to see this place where mutants were first made. For a moment it sounds like Wolverine isn't even dead. Ultimate X sucked ass, but at least Jimmy made an effort not to be too much like his old man. Seriously, if Marvel wants an X-men series where Wolverine is dead, why replace him with a kid that acts just like him?

So the news report continues because politics are just so exciting. Valerie Cooper continues answering questions, basically taking excuses right from the press in 1942 when everyone was justifying the internment of the Japanese. The difference here is that mutants are being prodded like cattle as a scene with Colossus so nicely illustrates. There are some places that claim to be nice such as the one Storm is at, but those are just for photo-ops. I'm not sure if the historical parallels are supposed to apply here, but they do to a point. The only difference is that if a guy like Magneto inflicts mass genocide then something as shitty as internment camps actually seems reasonable. That's how fucked up politics are in Ultimate. Michelle Bachmann would be right at home.

But it isn't just prison camps that are screwing mutants over. Some are still on the loose. Some still need to be hunted. How do they do that? Well here's a pop quiz for all you X-men fans out there. What other reality has mutants being hunted and thrown into prison camps? If you answered Days of Futures Past, you get a gold star and bonus points for being able to look up a story that is over 30 years old. Now Nick Spencer claimed that he's simply taking some inspiration from Days of Futures Past. He's not just ripping it off. I want to believe him. I really do. But when Rogue, who has been on the run since Ultimate X, is confronted by a Nimrod sentinel that might as well have been copied and pasted from the old Days of Futures Past storyline then I have to cry foul.

This is a huge problem for me among many. Ultimate has been pitched as this place where these new, novel stories can be told that can't be told in 616. But mutants being hunted and thrown into prison camps is not new. Days of Futures Past is an old story. It's one thing to take some elements from it. I know pretty much everything is a rip-off these days, but it's a matter of degree. When you throw the Nimrod sentinel into the mix and it looks almost exactly like it's 30-year-old counterpart then that's ten degrees too much. It's such an egregious level that Al Gore could make a documentary out of it.

So the White House press event went about as well as it does in real life. That is to say it triggered riots all over the country. So at least Ultimate still gets some things right. It falls on Nick Fury to do something about it. Yet he's the guy putting together a mutant team with a Karen Grant and Wolverine's kid. So how is he credible again? He's prepared to call in the National Guard, which in comics is like admitting your a pussy. That's when Quicksilver shows up. You know, the guy who basically manipulated Magneto into conducting mass genocide by making him believe his children were dead? He comes along and no one shoots on him the spot because only the readers know that. Now I know dramatic irony is supposed to heighten the moment here, but all it really does is make Fury and the President look like morons because they actually take him seriously. Pietro doesn't actually reveal what he has in mind. No, that's because this is a setup issue. That means shit isn't going to happen until the next issue. It's not a cliff-hanger. It's basically a hostage situation.

So most of this comic has essentially showed you how fucked mutants are and how fucked they're going to be with Quicksilver working out his daddy issues. Now we revisit some of the other X-men that weren't horribly butchered. Kitty Pryde, Bobby Drake, and Johnny Storm have all basically given up on the whole hero gig. It's hard to be a hero when everyone wants to kill you. So they just live the life of hobos, sleeping in old Morlock caverns. Yet they're aware of the crap that's going on and aren't inclined to thrust themselves into that shit storm. And who can blame them? This is one instance were being a hero is not just stupid. It's pretty much pointless.

But then Bobby points out on his nifty product placement ipad (I'm sure Marvel gets a shit ton of free itunes cards for this) that Rogue is involved in one of those riots. Well that seals it. When an old girlfriend is about to get lynched, that warrants coming out of the sewer and actually kicking some ass. It would be so heroic if at the end Kitty doesn't narrate it as saying this is how she became the world's most wanted terrorist. There's trying to twist the plot and then there's just trying too hard. So now they're going to become terrorists? Yet this book is called Ultimate X-men, isn't it? Four years ago I would have been confused and intrigued. Now I'm just bored. It's the end of the issue and all the elaborate setup, but I have no desire to see the action. I think it's safe to assume that the setup failed for me. Watching heroes become terrorists and mutants become increasingly screwed may make for a decent arc, but not a whole fucking comic series.

I know I come off as harsh, but in reality I'm saddened by how terrible this series has become. I can't find anything appealing about this book at all. A book where anything can happen except the return of the characters that most X-men fans actually give a shit about isn't a very good premise for a book. Not only is this book basically a setup issue, all it really sets up is that mutants are fucked. The only stories you can really look forward to is how fucked are they. The only way they can not be fucked is if the story becomes extremely contrived and just starts ignoring all the shit that led up to it. So in order for the stories to be good, it has to use bad storytelling. In a universe with working physics, that's just not possible. Nick Spencer is basically in a catch 22. There's really nothing he can do here other than roll with the punches and there's nothing to work with. Not in the slightest. Now like Brian Bendis, I like Nick Spencer. He's a great writer and if I met him and real life, I would buy him a beer and a hooker. But the circumstances of this book are beyond salvaging and he doesn't do anything to make it better. That's really the least I can say about this book.

I want to be excited for an Ultimate book again. I really do. But this series has just turned into a What If story that won't fucking end. What if Marvel was actually stupid enough to kill Peter Parker? What if Marvel was actually deluded enough to kill most of the X-men, try to replace some of the characters, and make a series out of it? What if Marvel made a series about the Avengers just being a bunch of assholes who only occasionally acted heroic? Part of the appeal of What If stories are that they're finite. They're not dragged out or used to destroy the potential of a series that actually was once a top tier series. But Ultimate X-men #1 epitomizes all that is wrong with Ultimate comics. It's boring. It's bland. The characterization sucks. The premise sucks. There's no sense of progression. No build-up or promise. No hope whatsoever. Now if this story happened without Ultimatum, then it may have some merit. But Ultimatum did such a thorough job of desensitizing the series from any shock or intrigue that there's nothing this book can do that will leave the readers' jaw on the floor. When a series has resorted to cannibalism, decapitation, and replacement characters shrouded in race gimmicks that's it. Game over. There's nothing left to surprise anyone.

At the very infinitesimal least, Nick Spencer makes sure his talent is apparent in the way the characters talk and interact. However, all the talent in the world couldn't make this shit ball shine. I hope Spencer gets a shot at another X-men book, but this just has nothing going for it. I can't find any reason to recommend it to anybody, even if they were just going to use it as toilet paper. No ass deserves the crap that's within these pages. If Ultimate were a dog, it would have been shot and buried by now. That's really the only thing that will make this series meaningful again. If Marvel decided to kill it like it should have after Ultimatum. Ultimate X-men #1 only gets a 0.5 out of 5. I didn't want to give the 0 I gave Ultimate X #4 because that book also had shitty art to go along. That book will make you spew diarrhea through your tear ducts. This one will just make you sick to your stomach and depress you that this is how low Ultimate has sunk. Nuff said.