X-men #27 - Awesome Lost In The Fodder

My Uncle Longrod Ironcock once told me this profound nugget of wisdom: "You could be fucking the hottest girl in the world next to a guy fucking a horse and everyone will still pay more attention to the horse." Now it's worth noting that my Uncle is senile from years of prescription drug abuse, but I like to think there's a small bit of wisdom in that drugged up musing. I think the point he was trying to get across is you could have the best damn comic in the world, but if it's being released during a series of big ass comic events it's going to be no different than being the guy with six fingers trying to draw attention at a freak show with two midgets gangbanging a goat. You're not going to make enough noise to make people forget about the much bigger event going on. How does this relate to comics or the latest issue of Victor Gischler's adjectiveless? Or is this just me writing reviews while still hopped up on pain killers from my surgery? Well if you're willing to accept that it's a little of both, please bear with me.

It seems so long ago, but Victor Gischler had renewed my faith in his adjectiveless X-men run. After X-men Regenesis took over the X-books, his book benefited in more ways than any other X-book. Finally, the series had developed a sense of coherence and feel. Jubilee was coming into her own. Storm's new security team was kicking ten different kinds of ass. It was a beautiful thing. Then the events surrounding Avengers vs. X-men came along and fans forgot about this series faster than the city of Denver forgot about Tim Tebow after the Broncos signed Peyton Manning. It doesn't help that X-men was in the middle of an arc before it started getting delayed. I honestly had to stop smoking weed for a few days to remember that Gischler had been telling an awesome story about the X-men coming to rescue Jubilee from the Forgiven, but ending up in a brawl with an army of mercenaries that were strapped for cash and looking to deliver Razio's (the Forgiven's leader) head for quick payday. It hasn't been a bad arc, but fuck if this series has a shitty sense of timing.

Now I want to be fair here. Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men really hasn't played a role in Avengers vs. X-men or anything leading up to it. None of the events in this series involve characters that are key players in the main event. Marvel hasn't gone out of their way to hype this series up like they have with other books so of course fanboys with nanosecond attentions are going to forget that...ooh, look at the kitty. Even if the suspense of this series has been lost, the arc is still unfinished and an unfinished comic arc like only half a boob-job. It's as incomplete as it is tragic.

Now once you jar your memory enough to remember what was going on in this series, you'll know that Jubilee was caught in the middle of a battle between an army of masked assassins that were bearing down on the Unforgiven's lair. Warpath, Domino, and some of the Unforgiven's heavy hitters went outside to fight back the onslaught. Storm and Razio stayed inside to take on the rest while trying to protect Jubilee. This worked about as well as OJ's defense team after he thought pulling off a robbery in Las Vegas was as easy as pulling off a murder in LA. Storm and Razio were hurt, leaving Jubilee to defend herself. While she's facing down a still unknown enemy, the rest of the team is turning the tide against the onslaught. that's easy when you're Deadpool, you're nutty as a sack of squirrel turds, and you hijack a tank. If only one part of that was a euphemism. Even when you're outnumbered, insanity plus a tank always gives your side the edge! I think Sun Tzu said that or maybe it was my Uncle Ironcock again.

We then go from sanity to a messed up teenage girl overcome with bloodlust. Okay, so maybe it's not that big a stretch. But in the previous issue way back when, a nicely dressed figure with a sword that also happened to be wearing a John Wayne Gayce style mask was able to take down Storm and Razio. Now that's not to be taken lightly. That's akin to knocking out Mike Tyson and Oscar de la Hoya in two quick punches. It left Jubilee as the only one to take on this strange yet crafty villain that is smart enough to get an army of mercs to do the dirty work. It seems like a mismatch until you remember that despite being a walking Twilight cliche, Jubilee is a trained X-man that learned to fight under Wolverine. That means she's okay with wielding a sword and using it to perform adult circumcisions. Even though she gets roughed up a bit, she shows plenty of skill that makes her worthy of that yellow coat and trademark pink glasses.

Outside the base, the rest of the X-men are just finishing off the elaborate diversion. That means Warpath has a scene where he's excessively violent with a Hydra thug. In the same way an episode is South Park is not complete without Cartman making a wildly anti-Semitic remark, it's not a complete X-men comic for Warpath unless he does something needlessly violent. At the same time the rest of the Forgiven meet up with the X-men and determine that they're probably not doing themselves any favors by playing into the hands of whoever summoned this elaborate beach party minus the bikinis and booze. As if it already wasn't apparent by Deadpool's presence, this attack was clearly an elaborate ruse and they played right into it.

Now I have a problem with this scene and it's not that it wasn't sufficiently awesome. A few issues ago, the incoming attack by an army of money grubbing mercenaries looked pretty daunting. Yet over the past few issues this seemingly daunting force seemed to be no more threatening than Ron Paul's poll numbers. I get that the X-men and the Forgiven are the heroes and they're supposed to win, but unlike the previous arc there was little sense of a struggle or an elaborate fight. They just took the incoming threat down despite being outnumbered without any sense of strategy or plan. This in addition to it being a clear ruse only makes it seem too much like fodder and that's something Gischler had been good at avoiding since Regenesis.

But if Gischler faltered in some areas, he more than made up for it with others. I mentioned earlier how Jubilee fought the neatly dressed masked mastermind with admirable badassery. However, when it's clear she's overmatched by this foe, she takes it to the kind of extreme levels that would make Wolverine gush with pride and possibly give him a boner (he does like Asian women last I checked). Knowing she's a vampire and shit that kills humans don't really apply to her anymore, she takes her enemy's sword right through the fucking gut. Now I've seen teenage girls do much crazier shit than this, but I'm still impressed because it shows that she not only has the kind of pain tolerance only matched by fetish porn actors. It shows she can pull off some pretty badass shit as a vampire, more so than she ever could have as a mutant.

Despite having a fucking sword in her torso, Jubilee fights on. She headbutts her nemesis, probably implying that wearing something that gay to a fight doesn't help. She then decks his ass (the sword still in her gut mind you) and effectively lays this asshole out in a way Razio and Storm couldn't. But that's not enough for Jubilee. Badass or not, there's something else she has to contend with now. That's the insatiable appetite a vampire works up by beating someone to a bloody pulp. She goes from looking like a cute Twilight ripoff to looking like something Buffy would throw into a meat grinder. She's poised to not just beat this guy but drink his blood as well. After throwing all this shit at the Forgiven, he more than deserves it.

However, Jubilee isn't quite ready to join the Eric Northman ranks of vampires just yet. Both Razio and Storm talk her down before she gives into her urges the same way ditzy cheerleaders give into their urges in the back seats of cars. She's able to fight off the transformation into a more traditional bloodsucker and returns to her cute yet still jailbait style appearance. For whatever reason, the masked adversary is grateful and gives her a respectful bow. Then like all good villains armed with writers who prefer quick and easy escapes, he disappears without saying a word by running through a wall. I'm not sure if that's a mark of respect or just another way of giving someone the finger, but it effectively ends the conflict.

The rest of the X-men and the Forgiven catch up with their buddies, but as expected they're too late to make a difference. It's another one of those cliched instances of bad timing that Gischler was able to avoid in previous arcs. If he just mentioned they were busy staring at Domino's boobs, I would have found that to be acceptable. But alas, we're left with the same shitty excuses. Deadpool's quips help make up for it, but there's one last issue to deal with. The whole reason for being involved in this clusterfuck was because the X-men wanted Jubilee to come back with them. Well the Forgiven have since proven they can be trusted with a fucked up teenage girl going through a vampire transition. And since forcing a teenage girl to do something against her will is always asking for trouble, they allow her to choose where she goes.

Now if you paid any attention to the tone of the comic and this arc, her decision shouldn't be that surprising. Despite a nice reunion with her fellow X-men, Jubilee decides to stay with the Forgiven. Her decision is understandable. The X-men have their own shit going on and she's not a mutant anymore. She's a vampire. It makes sense that she would best learn to master her vampire abilities with other vampires. However, this doesn't change the slightly shitty stench surrounding this situation.

Once again, Jubilee leaves the X-men. She came back for just a few glorious arcs and now she's gone again. Can this girl ever get a fucking break? Yeah, it makes sense that she should stick around with other vampires. Problem is, it makes too much fucking sense in this instance. Victor Gischler did something great with Jubilee's character when he made her a vampire. In this issue alone, she made her more badass than she's ever been in her history. Now she's leaving again and pretty much brushed to the wayside like she always is. There was so much potential for her as a vampire working with the X-men. She could have offered something different to the mix, but now the best part of Gischler's adjectiveless X-men series has been tossed aside and it's just plain disappointing.

At the very least, the final scene does attempt to tie together the events in this arc with events from the first arc. We find out there are more nefarious vampire plots that may or may not suing Stephanie Meyer. They were the ones behind the attack and they have connections to Xarus, the vampire with serious daddy issues that made Jubilee a vampire in the first place. It doesn't clear up all the loose ends, but it's a nice scene to connect the major events in this series. It's just unfortunate that the vampire angle and the mutant angle is pretty much shot to shit now that Jubilee left. Guess we can write off the next big X-men event where they team up with vampires and storm the stage of True Blood demanding that Anna Paquin get naked more frequently.

In terms of endings, this arc was solid. It's not the kind of ending that will have your jaw on your floor and your dick touching the ceiling, but it won't leave you disappointed either. Now it's impossible to ignore the timing of this issue unless you can selectively kill the right brain cells to make you forget about Avengers vs. X-men (if you succeed in this, please tell me who your pot dealer is). So it's impossible to assess this issue on a curve. If you're able to go back and read all the issues that led up to this one, you'll see that the story flows quite nicely. The end of this arc fits well with how the events have played out. It makes sense that Jubilee would stick with the Forgiven while the X-men leave her to her choice. It makes sense that there are still other vampire forces out there from Curse of the Mutants that want to fuck Jubilee's shit up. Yet just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's satisfying.

My biggest problem with this issue if you can call it that is how it effectively isolates itself from the other X-books. Part of what made X-men Regenesis such a great boon for this series was that it finally felt like it had a role with the other X-books. Since Avengers vs. X-men got going, that role has fallen to the wayside. And while having Jubilee join the Forgiven makes sense, it essentially writes her out of the X-men yet again after Gischler did such a great job of writing her back in. While Jubilee did look like a badass in the end, it's still not clear what she proved or what the other Vampire Illuminati think they proved by just throwing random crap at Razio. It would make for interesting future arc, but with Avengers vs. X-men going on it really doesn't seem like it's relevant anymore.

That's not to say that Avengers vs. X-men renders this comic poor. But the ending just seemed to clash with everything Gischler did to make Jubilee a more interesting facet to the X-men once more. I had really come to enjoy Vampire Jubilee and her role with the team. She had a lot of potential to be an interesting change of pace. Now that she's with the Forgiven, the X-men's security team isn't all that interesting aside from Domino's cleavage. It just seems like this book sacrificed too much in the end. It would have been more of a twist if Jubilee chose to stay with the X-men. I'm still glad that Gischler went out of his way to make Jubilee look badass, but the predictability makes it difficult to give this comic the same score that I've been giving other quality X-books lately. I give X-men #27 a 3.5 out of 5. It's clear that Marvel isn't done milking the vampire angle yet and they'll probably do so until Stephanie Mayer starts pulling her hair out. I guess until the new season of True Blood begins and we have Anna Paquin's breasts to look forward to, it's the best we can hope for. Nuff said.

X-men #25 - Double Bloody Awesome

When you mix teenagers and vampires, you usually start a blood war between Twilight fans and True Blood fans. It causes such an uproar that every possible medium can't resist to urge to suckle every last dime of exploration from the vampire craze teat. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't sick of it, even thought I do still enjoy making Twilight jokes on this blog. However, it doesn't matter how sick you are of vampires and how much you want to gouge your eyes out every time you see an image of Edward Cullen. If a vampire story is done well, it's still worth enjoying. You wouldn't expect X-men comics to be host to such stories, but under Victor Gischler in his adjectiveless X-men run there have been some of the best vampire stories you can find without having to exploit the imagery of Anna Paquin's tits.

After a brief plunge into a politically charged plot, adjectiveless X-men has shifted gears and gone into full vampire mode. Jubilee, who was turned into a bloodsucker in the first arc of this series, had been updated by a vampire named Raizo Kodo. But he wasn't the kind of vampire that would torture newbies by making them listen to coded messages from Stephanie Meyer to help fuel their bloodlust. He was part of a group of vampires called the Unforgiven. They're basically like a Vampire AA minus the second hand smoke. And the entire last issue was spent showing Jubilee struggling with her bloodlust now that she didn't have Wolverine's blood to help taper her hunger. It didn't make for a very interesting issue. In fact, I thought it was one of Gischler's most disappointing issues in quite some time because it dragged out and was too narrow. However, it wasn't disappointing enough to make me any less intrigued by X-men #25 so I'm fully expecting something more. I'm hoping I won't be as disappointed as MC Hammer's accountant this time.

X-men #25 starts off by fixing one of the key problems with the previous issue. It actually got the other X-men involved on the first page rather than the last. While the overly bloated story with Jubilee was being dragged out, Storm and the rest of Utopia's security team were scouring the Earth in search of Jubilee. They knocked over every vampire den and Twilight fan club they could find, leaving a trail of dead vampires in their wake. It's so destructive you almost feel sorry for these bloodsuckers. Then you remember that they probably dine on the blood of missing hookers, thus causing the price of escorts to go up so in many ways the X-men are performing a valuable service here by thinning out the vampire crowd. While it may ensure that guys like me don't have to pay a couple hundred bucks for a dirty sanchez, they still are unable to find Jubilee.

That finally changes thanks to Madison Jefferies, who took his sweet time while Storm, Domino, Colossus, Warpath, and Psylocke were going on a vampire killing rampage. He finally managed to use Cerebra to track down Jubilee and without killing any vampires (as if there's any fun in that). He was able to pinpoint her movements to the South China Sea and since China is about as welcoming to foreign intruders as they are human rights advocates, they need to be very careful. Now this location isn't too big a deal, but based on what I read in the last issue it sure didn't look as though Jubilee was in China with her new vampire buddies. Then again, I may have just smoked too much weed before I read the book so I won't dwell on it.

The team arrives in a remote, semi-tropical coastal area. It looks like the kind of place where you can either find rich tourists or feeding grounds for sharks. The team makes their way onto land where they find what looks like an old missile bunker, as if the Chinese government would ever lose track of places like those. They enter and start exploring, finding out quickly that the area looks like a hotel room that Guns n' Roses rented for the night. But they do end up finding what they were looking for at least in part. They meet up with Razio Kodo and his hippie vampire team, the Unforgiven. He does try to explain himself at first, but considering he abducted one of their friends it's entirely understandable that the X-men would be a little pissed.

Storm and her team are there for Jubilee and that's all there is to it. You take one of their teammates, they kick your ass. It's as simple an equation that you can understand it even while high. Storm makes this clear when she orders the X-men to attack. It leads to the kind of poise that should make feminists all warm and fuzzy inside. But it also has a nice butt-shot for Psylocke before she takes on Razio, so I guess it balances out. The Unforgiven may be vampire hippies at heart, but they can still fight. Granted, they got outsmarted by Jubilee in the last issue, but they have a chance here to retrieve at least part of their dignity.

The Unforgiven actually prove that they're much tougher and probably smell better than most hippies as well. The fight scenes that follow are pretty elaborate and well-documented, giving every X-man a share of the action. Warpath is aggressive as you would expect, but his balls are too big for his scrotum at some points because he does get his ass kicked a few times. Domino shows off her marksmanship in addition to how well she fills out skin-tight suits, but since vampires are pretty well endowed physically (and I'm assuming that extends to their dicks) she can't get in a winning shot either. Even Storm, the one who ordered that the X-men start randomly kicking vampire ass, gets a run for her money. But there's a reason why she's the leader. When someone gives her trouble, she either shoves a lightning bolt up their ass or punches them in the face. In this case it's the latter and it works just as well as lightning.

The action is great. The fight scenes are awesome. However, aside from the mutual ass-kicking, not much else happens. Sure, there's some witty banter and a few taunts. But it's more style than substance. I know some readers are okay with that. They don't give a damn if there's no greater purpose aside from the X-men beating the shit out of vampires. For me, however, I get enough mindless action watching my neighbor fight the police whenever they find him trying to deep fry a turkey with gunpowder. It would help if style and substance were more balanced in my comics.

This fight only ends when Jubilee steps in between Psylocke and Razio, who may or may not have been hitting on her. It's only now that they can finally clear shit up and Jubilee can let the X-men know that these vampires are trying to help her. However, it becomes much deeper than that. This actually is the most powerful scene in the whole issue because just her face alone reveals how much she's struggling with her vampirism. To this point she's been relying on transfusions with Wolverine's blood to keep her blood-sucking instincts at bay. Even she understands that she can't rely on that shit forever. She needs to learn how to deal with what she's become and you know what? She's completely right. Gischler does a great job of capturing the emotion of this scene. He's the one that made Jubilee a vampire. It's only appropriate that he be the one that develops this story.

It all looks like both sides are on the path towards understanding. With Jubilee's impassioned words, they can all stop fighting, hug it out, and watch a True Blood marathon. Well, that would be too easy. Part of what made Gischler's first Regenesis arc so compelling were the twists he threw in. The last issue had none of that, but here we get something that seems unexpected if not random. Colossus, who wasn't involved in the vampire brawl, shows up with a couple of Wrecking Crew thugs in his arms. These guys aren't typical X-men characters. They're the regulars who usually get their asses kicked by the Avengers. They went up against Colossus with his Juggernaut powers and wouldn't you know it? They got their ass kicked. Moreover, they reveal something that promises to fuck their mission up even more. The Wrecking Crew along with a long list of other Marvel villains are out to collect a reward on someone's head. That head belongs to Razio Kodo.

Now I'm not entirely sure why someone would want to hunt down a hippie vampire. Probably for the same reason Richard Nixon wanted to hunt down the hippies. This whole peace shit just doesn't work for them. I mean who wants peace when needless bloodshed is so much more entertaining? I'm not sure if that's a direct quote, but I'd be shocked if a handful of politicians hadn't said it at some point in their lives. Both the X-men and the Unforgiven have to set aside the fact that they just exhausted themselves kicking one another's ass and take note that the surrounding area is now swarming with super-powered Marvel villains out for a quick payday. So I guess the hugs and True Blood marathon will have to wait.

I freely admit I was disappointed with the last issue. Before X-men Regenesis, it probably would have meant that I wouldn't have given more than three quarters of a shit about the next issue. However, Victor Gischler has shown in recent times that he's capable of invigorating this series with the kind of awesome that makes readers hold onto their balls in anticipation. He earned my confidence with the last arc. With this issue, he has shown that he's capable of honoring that confidence. That earns him both brownie points and a free line of blow if we ever meet at a comic convention. He didn't just get the rest of the X-men's security team involved as he should have in the last issue. He actually threw in a twist that got more members of the Marvel universe involved, which is supposed to be the purpose of this series to begin with. Maybe that doesn't make it a twist as much as it does a course correction, but it still works.

This issue improves on pretty much every flaw I listed with regards to the previous issue. It wasn't too narrow. It had action, coherence, and a sense of progression. If it shared one flaw it was the sense of a narrow scope. Not a whole lot happened outside the battle between the X-men and the Unforgiven. They spent a lot of pages fighting and insulting one another. That's all well and good, but that doesn't move the story forward all that much. It's just mindless spectacle and if you want that I'm sure there's at least one person in your neighborhood that has a cache of illegal fireworks. It was fun to watch, but you really didn't have to read anything that the characters were saying until Jubilee stepped in. The dialog just felt hallow, but it was still fun like said firework display.

Overall, I'm really glad that Gischler picked up the pieces from the last issue and made this issue as awesome as it needed to be. The story of Jubilee and her new life as a vampire is one that has unfolded in many ways in multiple books. It's a compelling story that has become a gateway to other stories that may or may not involve the X-men kicking the shit out of more Marvel villains. And what's not to love about that? I give X-men #25 a 4.5 out of 5. Gischler is making a strong push to have his series in the same high quality league as Wolverine and the X-men and Uncanny X-men. He's not quite there yet, but he's close to being within drunk vomiting distance. Nuff said!

X-men #5 - Sucking Out The Awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-men #4 - Style Over Awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

X-men #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?