X-23 #19 - Heart Shattering Awesome

Teenagers are complicated, irrational creatures. One day they're so frail that the mere thought of taking a quiz in algebra class sends them into crying fits. The next they're so cold that they'll casually tell their parents that they choke small animals in their spare time. As a former teenager with more than his share of poor impulse control, comics like X-23 resonate with me. They don't just remind me that being a teenager sucks ass. They remind me that while it helps to have a healing factor and adamantium claws, you learn how to make tough decisions and live with them before you're too old make up for it.

X-23 under Marjorie Liu has been more a teenager than she has been a mutant or a Wolverine clone. It's been a boon for her character, so much so that it should be a federal crime that this series is getting cancelled. But I'd rather not go on that rant again. I'm still hung over from too much eggnog. Under Liu, X-23 has gone through some tough phases. She left Utopia, crossed paths with Sinister, took on Daken, and went through a self-mutilation phase. She even dabbled a bit in cosmic threats with the FF. Now she's taken a slightly less outrageous mission in the form of babysitting the children of Reed and Sue Richards. Wait...did I say that was less outrageous. Man, I am hung over!

Not surprisingly, this babysitting endeavor goes horribly wrong. The Richards children accidentally open a portal that takes them across the universe where a crazed fanboy with advanced technology and too much free time, abducts Franklin and Valeria. All the while, X-23 is dealing with her on-again/off-again boy toy Hellion. He was a bit of a jerk to her, but in his defense X-23 didn't say shit to him. She just visited him and left. He tried to catch up with her. A dragon and a time warp got in the way. That's pretty much par for the course in comics. However, I would argue it's no more serious than meeting your high school girlfriend's father and finding out he's a rabid NRA supporter whose eye twitches at you every time you stare at him for too long.

But I'd rather not relive memories of my ex. I'd rather focus on how this story continues with X-23 #19. In the last issue, X-23 met up with the Collector in his fancy ship only to find out that the Richards kids are now floating helplessly in space in a couple of bubble-like orbs. They're low on oxygen and time. The Collector, who seems intent on adding a Wolverine clone to his collection, decides to screw with her a bit by giving her a chance to rescue them. He gives her this fancy space suit and dares her to go after them. Hellion certainly doesn't like it, but X-23 is the babysitter if I recall. She's gotta get those kids or she doesn't get paid.

It's X-23 vs. the vacuum of space in an effort to get two pesky kids who got her into this shit by playing with dimensional portals. It seems more fair than it should be, but Hellion doesn't see it that way. He's still inclined to kick the Collector's ass for putting the girl he seriously wants to bone in this kind of danger. He continues to give him even more reasons because while he has him by the neck, he tells him that the fancy suit he so generously lent X-23 had a 'batteries not included' label. So like my ex-girlfriend's vibrator, it doesn't have the juice to get the job done and X-23 is that much more vulnerable.

What happens next is a test in physics. Pop quiz all you wonderful readers. What happens when you put someone in a vacuum? Answer, they suffer and choke in agonizing pain. For anyone else, that's death. But keep in mind that X-23 has lived a good deal of her life in agonizing pain. Hell, she was brought up in a lab where some guys probably jerked off to her suffering. So much to the Collector's chagrin, X-23 doesn't let a little something like a lack of oxygen stop her. Even with her healing, the vacuum of space is going to win that battle and even she knows it.

This is where it pays to be stuck with a guy who is seriously trying to bone you. When X-23 manages to break the air lock and send them both flying out into the vacuum of space, Hellion channels his inner Green Lantern and uses his telekinesis to save X-23. He's even nice enough to get Franklin and Valeria back to safety. Now I'm not sure if that's just nice or if that's his way of inching closer to getting inside X-23's panties, but it's probably the first real honest act of heroism that he's done in quite a while. I think there's a hidden message here. When teenagers are assholes, they're assholes to an amazing degree. But when given the potential for pussy, they'll be as heroic as Superman. Take note, parents! That's definitely something useful.

Once they're back in the ship and in the presence of sweet, wonderful oxygen, X-23 turns her attention back to the Collector. It's one thing to abduct Valeria and Franklin on her first babysitting run. It's another to trick her into flying out into space and then cutting off her air supply. Then he decides to go for the trifecta by attempting to kill Hellion for screwing his plan up. That's a no-no for X-23. Even if this kid is a jerk, he did save her life. While that may not get him into her panties, that will get him a vengeance kill. So even with a body that's still clearly fucked up from getting dangerously close to going down on the grim reaper, she takes on the Collector. At first he boasts how he's superhuman and immortal. She decides to test that claim by chopping off the guy's fucking head. Given all the crap he's put her through, a drawn out battle just wouldn't seem appropriate. When you piss a teenage girl off that much, decapitation is probably the most merciful fate one can hope for. Again, another lesson for would-be parents.

The Collector is dead. They're all still alive and in one piece, despite an unpleasant trip into space. So using the Collector's own gear, Valeria and Franklin program a portal that not only sends them back to New York it also sends the dragon back where it came from. See? Kids aren't completely psychopathic. They make it back to the lab only to see that it's royally fucked up. But these are the Richards kids. They're smarter than the average per-pubecant horrors and can clean up a lab in under 10 minutes. So since X-23 and Hellion were nice enough to save their lives and all, they do just that. So by the time Reed and Sue get home, they're both sleeping peacefully on the couch and you would never guess that they just got back from an adventure in space with a psychotic collector. But given their experience, they probably just assume it and shrug it off as another normal day.

X-23's first stint into babysitting is done. She leaves the FF understandably exhausted and probably jaded about a career in babysitting. But there's one other immature tyke she has to deal with and that's Hellion. He's waiting for her outside and he's intent on talking to her in the way she's been avoiding since this shit began. Now remember, she's the one that visited him at the institute when this arc began and she didn't do shit. She just showed up and left. So it's actually understandable that Hellion would want to talk to her to get some answers. But she still doesn't budge. Then he tries kissing her. It's not a very subtle kiss either. It's not the kind that X-23 is repulsed by. But then when it's over and he tries to get emotional, she just flat out says she doesn't want him. She doesn't care about him. She staying in the city, but not for him. It's probably the coldest, most dickish thing she's done in this comic and that includes the decapitation scene. So Hellion is understandably upset. He calls her out for being a machine that can't feel. It's harsh, but in this case X-23 deserved it.

This scene effectively ends the X-23/Hellion relationship, but in a way that's hardly clean. Marjorie Liu is great at writing teen drama and she does a great job of showing just how conflicted Hellion is. However, X-23 is so utterly stoic that I have a hard time making sense of this. She shows up, drags him along, and then breaks his heart? I know teenage girls can be cruel, but WTF? It's not that X-23 dumped Hellion in the middle of a street that bothers me. It's that she says so little and there's nothing in her expression that says anymore. She doesn't offer an explanation. She doesn't explain or even imply her motivations. She just flat out says "I don't want you. Now leave." It actually makes her seem like more of a douche than Hellion and that's saying a lot.

Now Hellion has even more reason to be emo, but X-23 doesn't seem to give too much of a damn. She just goes out for pizza where she meets up with Gambit. As he's done for much of this series, he offers X-23 some insight into what she's going through. It's not the most insightful bit of advice. To her credit X-23 does admit that Hellion meant something to her before, but it had changed. Gambit says that's normal and it is. Sometimes feelings get stronger and sometimes they don't and you have to move on. It sounds like the kind of message you get from a John Huges movie, but it's kind of hard to believe that coming from Gambit because he's been hung up on Rogue since the fucking Clinton administration. He says it's easier said than done, but that's like saying you can fix a nuclear reactor with a fucking wrench. The man has no credibility in this department and maybe that's the point.

Gambit takes X-23 home where she can do whatever teenage girls do after they break the heart of a teenage boy. I always imagined that they summon demons and swap blood with them so they can enjoy the suffering they inflict. Or maybe that's just my ex or that bitch that said I had too many pimples to go the prom with her. Whatever she had planned, those plans change when she arrives to find that she already has a guest. A few arcs ago, X-23 made her first real BFF in the form of Vampire Jubilee. She's the kind of girl that is such a stark contrast to X-23 that I'm pretty sure that Chuck Lorre is working on a sitcom based around this presence. So even with this series nearing it's end, Marjorie Liu sets us up for one last arc that involves trained killers and vampires. Sounds like fun to me!

So X-23's first venture into babysitting isn't a booming success or an epic failure. She does manage to keep Valeria and Franklin safe, but only after they make it exceedingly difficult for her by getting them caught up with an asshole like the Collector. While that turned out well, her pep talk with Hellion did not. I know there are some rabid Hellion/X-23 shippers out there and this issue is probably a dagger to the heart. X-23 makes it clear. She doesn't care about Hellion anymore. She's not all that conflicted about it either. She said so little to Hellion early on and gave so little indication as to what she felt for most of the story. It's still not clear if there was something else at work or if she was just being cold as teenagers tend to be. Either way, that romance is pretty much dead and given how much of an asshat Hellion has been since he lost his hands it may be for the better.

This was a great issue in terms of action and drama, but the lack of substance to X-23's interactions with Hellion is what really brought it down. Hellion was the emotional one here. All X-23 did was show up, stare blankly, and say she didn't want him in the end. I get that teenage girls have fucked up emotions, but the lack of insight here has me scratching my head. I honestly don't know what to make of X-23's actions here, but it looks like she has other drama in her life with Jubilee entering the picture again. In a way it sounds like she would get along a lot better with someone like Jubilee, a blood-sucking vampire that has to control her urge to kill just like X-23. Whether or not they talk about boys is basically moot at this point because the lack of detail here just makes it seem meaningless.

Everything else in this issue was solid. Marjorie Liu's writing is as good as we've come to expect. The art is beautiful. The action and the pacing all work nicely. It's just that emotional flatness on X-23 that brings this issue down. It ends the arc on a solid note, but it still feels like it's lacking. So with that minor detail, I give X-23 #19 a 4.5 out of 5. If you're an X-23/Hellion fan, you're probably going to hate this with the fire of a billion suns. But if you're just a fan of teen drama mixed with aliens and dragons, you'll have plenty to enjoy. Nuff said!

X-23 #18 - Cosmic Babysitting Mayhem

The 80s taught us many valuable life lessons that include but are not restricted to the following: promiscuous teenagers get hacked to death by masked serial killers, crazy hair somehow has the magical power to make you awesome, and cocaine is a hell of a drug. It also taught us that babysitting is almost as hazardous as Charlie Sheen's girlfriend. It used to be a whole genre of shitty movies, following teenage girls that filled out bras way sooner than they should be biologically capable of as they watch over children that are as devious and cunning as crack heads armed with a tank. Those movies aren't made anymore for a reason. They're shitty, boring, and overly censored by the humorless pussies of the MPAA. But that doesn't mean the concept is without merit

That's where Marjorie Liu's X-23 comes in. For much of her run, Liu has played up the notion that X-23 is still a teenage girl despite being a clone of Wolverine that was trained to kill from the moment she could walk. She kindly reminds the readers that being a killer kind of has a way of fucking up someone and when you're a teenage girl with weapons grade hormones assaulting your every whim, that's a bad combination. For much of the series, Liu has taken X-23 down many roads of self-discovery and has done such a great job that I can't find it in me to make a lesbian porno joke. Her latest arc has X-23 taking on a babysitter role, something that many teenage girls partake in at some point in their lives. Sure, it may be some cruel conspiracy by society to prepare them for baby making, but it's a valuable life lesson.

Unfortunately, the kids she ends up babysitting belong to Reed and Sue Richards. In the previous arc, she made friends with them by helping them beat back a cosmic force that was looking to date rape their dimension. In their mind, that qualifies her for babysitting their kids. Personally, I think X-23 was better off taking her chances with an inter-dimensional tyrant intent on enslaving the world. Two genius kids with access to technology 100 years ahead of it's time is like putting a kid in a room with a pile of sugar with a table of sharp objects. Needless to say, X-23's foray into babysitting didn't go very well. First, Hellion won't stop bugging her after he was a massive dick cheese to her when she paid a visit to the new Jean Grey Institute. Then Valerie and Franklyn ended up creating another dimensional gateway that caused a dragon to appear. That would sound random in most comics, but since this is dealing with the FF it makes as much sense as a kid finding their parents' stash of weed.

X-23 #18 picks up on this babysitting gig gone horribly wrong. The creature has Franklin and Valerie in both claws and is flying over New York. X-23 is latched onto it's tail and clawing her way up it's back. I assume she wants Reed and Sue to pay her for all this trouble so she has a lot of intensive to make sure these kids aren't fried. That's not as easy as it sounds considering that this is a dragon and dragons like to spit fire. That makes their breath only slightly less offensive than Ann Coulter.

A fight with a killer purple dragon can go so many ways. Having slain many a dragons while on an acid trip, I can say from experience that X-23 needs to utilize unconventional methods. Even with adamantium claws and healing, she's horribly overmatched. She needs to find out just what kind of dragon she's dealing with while trying hard not to be a rooster in Colonel Sanders's coop. Well here's where Liu throws in a bit of a twist. While the dragon is flying X-23 and the Richards kids over the city, X-23 actually explains to the creature that she needs to protect these kids and it response. Now this wouldn't be the most fucked up thing I've seen happen to a dragon (I get really awesome acid), but apparently this creature isn't about kidnapping princesses of child bearing age and demanding that virile men rescue her. It just wants some manners. Seriously, should it take a fucking dragon to get that? I'm pretty sure Liu is sending a message to the teenagers of America.

As often happens with any positive lesson, an overly horny young man with poor impulse control fucks everything up. Remember Hellion? In the last issue he was right outside the FF building hoping to talk to X-23 (or have her touch his penis, whichever comes first). Seeing as how the woman he wants to bone is apparently in trouble, he goes after the dragon and hits it with telekinesis just as it's being nice enough to let X-23 and the kids down. As a former teenage boy myself who obeyed one too many impulses in my youth, I can sympathize with Hellion. But it's a fucking dragon, kid. Even the best imported acid from Angola has it's limits.

X-23 is understandably pissed. But unlike many other 80s babysitter movies, the dragon doesn't fucking explode after Hellion screws it up. He still subdues it and it nice enough to catch Franklyn and Valeria before they become street pizza. He gives her a look that says "you fucked up and you're never seeing me naked." She also tells him to get the dragon back to the Baxter Building while she tends to the kids. But before she can even begin to immaculate him, the dragon pulls a fast one. While he's holding it with his telekinesis, the whole damn creature just erupts in this typical comic band of light that engulfs Hellion, X-23, and the kids. It's sudden, but Angolan acid is still better.

Now there isn't much mystery here even if that's what this scene is supposed to convey. I get the premise. There's more to this dragon than meets the eye. But a bland light engulfing them? It's as boring as it sounds. It's like describing Natalie Portman's ass in less than four words. It just doesn't convey the sheer majesty of what's going on.

When the bland light fades, X-23 and Hellion find that they're not in New York anymore (or maybe they're in the Bronx because they're on a pile of garbage). So the whole babysitting plot was grounded enough, but then the dragon kind of spiced it up. Now they're on an entirely new world that's almost exclusively composed of garbage. It's quite a transition and it's a bit abrupt, but it doesn't change the central focus of the story. X-23 still needs to find the Richards kids, for whom she is responsible. Reed and Sue are still off for a night on the town, foolishly assuming that their kids are okay. In the Marvel universe, that's like assuming Jean Grey is dead for good. It's fucking stupid.

Helping X-23 with her search is Hellion, who was standing over her like a career stalker when she came to. Having already earned himself a restraining order from X-23's panties for no less than ten years, he has a lot to make up for. So as they start looking, they finally have the talk that every teenage would-be couple avoids like the first day of high school. Marjorie Liu actually uses this moment to clear a few things up. Keep in mind, this is the first X-23 arc since Schism so the events of regenesis are still settling in. X-23 takes some time to clarify where she stands in the Team Wolverine/Team Cyclops spat. She makes it clear to Hellion that she's on neither side. He also makes it clear to her that he really did miss her and despite being a complete dick, he still cares about her and it hurt him when she just up and left. It helps create a nice moment between the two when X-23 reveals that she stayed by his side while he was healing during the whole Hellverine shit. So as much as Hellion has ruined his chances of getting to know X-23's bra size, she still has feelings for him.

This a wonderful moment of teen drama, for which Marjorie Liu deserves plenty of praise. However, not a whole lot is really said to work out the meat and bones of their relationship. X-23 and Hellion have had a very unspoken connection since their New Mutant days. There's something there, but they've never put it into words. It was cute at first, but now it's just annoying. This seemed like a great opportunity to clear it up, but not much comes of it.

In their defense, they finally locate Franklyn and Valeria. They're trapped in a couple of containment orbs and being guarded by a killer robot that looks like a sentinel that has been snorting whatever shit Barry Bonds was injecting into his ass. The killer robot demands that they let him hang onto these two kids for whatever sick shit that robots do to kids in junkyards, which can't be any worse than what happens to them in Baltimore public schools mind you. X-23 and Hellion, having clashed with many a killer robots, give it the proverbial finger and start kicking it's ass.

As you would expect, a robot in a junkyard doesn't put up much of a fight even if it does look all big and bad. X-23 makes quick work of it while Hellion tries (and fails) to free Franklyn and Valeria. Upon slicing open the robot like a kid cutting up the naked women in your nudie magazines, X-23 discovers that the giant robot actually has a pilot. He looks like a cross between Magneto, Gandalf, and Elton John only slightly more gay. He calls himself the collector and claims to be an elder of the universe. So he's basically a god if god was a reclusive fanboy that spent most of his time trying to outbid people on ebay for anything William Shatner sat on. It's only slightly less pathetic than being the god who cleans Galactus's toilet.

But this Collector asshole shows he's serious about his obsession. Before Hellion can free Valeria and Franklyn, he pulls a little cosmic trick and causes their containment orbs to rocket into space. Why does he do this? Is it just to be an asshole? Not necessarily, although I'm sure that's part of it. After X-23 tells the Collector that she's Wolverine's clone, he suddenly becomes intrigued. That means Wolverine may have either killed someone he knows or fucked an ex-girlfriend (or both). But he makes it clear that he wants X-23 in a way far less creepy than Hellion and if she doesn't cooperate than the Richards kids are going to run out of air and be lost in space forever. It's basically what would happen if you gave those Ebay douche-bags the power of a god.

In my last review I praised the premise for this arc because it was more grounded than the previous arc which dealt in cosmic forces. This issue took that once grounded arc, strapped to a rocket, and shot it into a wormhole. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's actually a hell of a task, beginning a story one way and then adding extreme elements like a garbage planet and obsessive alien collectors. Yet Marjorie Liu finds a way to make this work and not just because her characterization and willingness to tackle teen drama like Hellion and X-23 is so well done. Look at it another way. If this arc was as down to Earth as most of those lame babysitter movies from the 80s I mentioned earlier, it would have been a hell of a shift from arc to arc. To go from a cosmic arc to a babysitting arc is a bigger shift than Newt Gingrich's presidential platform. By mixing in a few cosmic elements, this arc actually doesn't feel as dramatic a change from the previous arc. It actually flows with the series, which shows an attention to detail that most writers are too lazy or impatient to utilize.

While I love the sense of cohesion that this issue brings along with the previous issue, the transition from New York City to this garbage world still felt a bit too abrupt. I know it's a hard transition to make, but visually and organizationally speaking it was pretty bland. Also, the conversation between X-23 and Hellion, while dramatic, lacked substance. They did a lot of talking without saying much. And no that's not stoner talk. Not entirely anyways. But it basically amounted to Hellion missing X-23. Then they come close to kissing? It just doesn't seem to fit. I'm assuming that the drama between them doesn't end here. The arc isn't over and Hellion and X-23 are pretty much stuck having to rescue Valeria and Franklyn together. But it still feels like not enough was done.

X-23 is still a top notch X-men book that shouldn't be canceled. Alas, we're left to cherish these issues while we can because the end is near for them. Marjorie Liu's knack for mixing teen drama with cosmic forces is akin to vodka and whiskey. It just works. There are still some drama gaps just begging to be filled, not unlike my shot glass. But while I pour a few rounds in anticipation for the next issue, I give X-23 #18 a 4 out of 5. I still don't miss the 80s too much. I sure would love puffy hair and lenient cocaine policies to come back, but X-23 serves as a fond reminder that when you mix cute teenage girls with babysitting there are so many awesome stories you can tell. Nuff said!