X-men Supreme Issue 34: Sinister Intent Part 3 is LIVE! (With a Bonus!)

It's finally here! I've been hyping it up. I've been preaching to X-men fans everywhere. Now it's here! The final issue of Sinister Intent has arrived for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series. I can't describe how great it feels to finish this story. It is the culmination of a number of elements started in X-men Supreme Volume 1: Mutant Revolution. It also sets the stage for a major shift in X-men Supreme Volume 2: War Powers. Whether you like fanfiction or are just an overall X-men fan, I think this story has something for everyone. It's a great moment for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Issue 34: Sinister Intent Part 3

Now I wouldn't make such a big deal of this if I didn't have a little something extra to go along with the update. Now usually when I commission art for the pics section, I do it for issues that have already transpired. Well I knew this issue was going to be special for X-men Supreme so ahead of time I commissioned a piece that I would release only once this issue was ready. It comes courtesy of an artist from DeviantArt named Blumoonx06x. She does wonderful work, especially on pieces based on X-men. So she was generous enough to commission a piece for the X-men Supreme fanfiction series. To see it, check out the issue! It's placed in a very special moment that I think is a perfect moment for this issue.

Thanks a bunch, Blumoonx06x! I really appreciate it. I would also really appreciate it if everyone took some time to review or post comments on this issue. The X-men Supreme fanfiction series has some big moments coming up! It's important that I get feedback so I can make these stories as awesome as possible. Please contact me or post them on each issue. Thanks again to all those who have supported this fanfiction series! I deeply appreciate it. Until next time, take care and best wishes.

Jack

X-23 #6 - Mind Melding Awesome

There's a lot you can do with a story that involves a teenage girl, boobs, a Cajun deviant, and clones. Some of it involves pornos that aren't legal in at least two dozen states. Another example is Marjorie Liu's X-23 series. It's awesome without getting slapped with an NC-17 rating if you can believe that. X-23 has been a compelling character in her own right since she showed up in X-men Evolution in the dark days of 2003, a time when when George W. Bush was president and you could get a home loan if you could walk and chew gum at the same time. Oh how the times have changed, but X-23's impact keeps getting stronger. She is in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and she does kick ass and sound awesome doing it.

Marjorie Liu has done something that hasn't really been done with Laura Kinney yet. She's set her out on the open road rather than have her recklessly seek other people for answers. She's been doing that since Craig Kyle and Chris Yost wrote her intro story. She's always been following others rather than taking responsibility. This plays heavily into her being a teenager, who are about as known for responsibility as they are modesty. Liu's first arc had Laura walking away from the X-men to make sense of her life. The next arc involves her doing what so many teenage girls end up doing that doesn't involve wearing mini-skirts to college parties. She gets caught up with the wrong people, doesn't listen to reason, and finds herself in a boat-load of trouble.

That trouble in this arc has boobs. Those boobs belong to Miss Sinister, or Claudine to those who don't keep up with the comics or are too lazy to use Wikipedia. Despite Gambit's attempts to sway those irrational teenage inclinations for Laura, she follows Miss Sinister into a secret underground laboratory that the Sinister with a penis set up. This lab contained a hoard of clones that Sinister created back in the day. While some collect stamps or watch internet porn. Sinister made clones. Every guy needs a hobby. Claudine acts as though she's just caring for the children. Then Laura and Gambit get suspicious and attack her. This ends up bringing out the Mr. in Miss Sinister. The boobs are gone, but it's still pretty bad ass.

It's been a while since boobless Sinister showed up, but he hasn't lost his touch. Even when Gambit instinctively attacks, Sinister takes him down and smiles while he does it. It's not unlike those charming episodes of Dexter when he looks so happy maiming people in a way that even Showtime has to censor. Since this comic isn't on Showtime, it's a bit more tame while still being awesome.

Now keep in mind that X-23 hasn't met Sinister, but since she's a clone she has all the reason she needs to cut Sinister so he'll never enjoy having boobs again. Sinister keeps on smiling when he grabs Laura by the throat and essentially snaps her neck. It's not much of a fight. Granted, Sinister is pretty tough. But Gambit and X-23 are no slouches. Hell, X-23 was in X-Force. She goes up against psycho-killers the same way regular teenagers take weekly quizzes in math class. As gritty a scene it may be, it's over way too quickly.

Once Sinister has had his fun, the plot thickens a bit. It would have been easy to spend the nest 18 pages with Gambit and X-23 trying to carve Sinister up like a Turducken in John Madden's house on Thanksgiving. That's not how Marjorie Liu writes it. In the last issue Miss Sinister tried to set herself apart from her testicular counterpart by coming off as the victim. Sinister took over her body and she was just dealing with the consequences. Well now it seems that the struggle for control over a body with boobs and a body with balls has been going on for quite some time. Sinister made his presence known, but it's still Claudine's body. So before Sinister can have any more fun, she wrestles control back from him. She also gets her boobs back, which is extremely important in the grand scheme of things.

When boob-heavy Sinister is back in control, she takes a page right out of her predecessor's playbook. She takes the unconscious X-23 and straps her to a terrifying dentist chair (as if going to the dentist wasn't terrifying enough). When she wakes up, she makes another emotional plea. Granted she has about as much empathy as a hungry lion, but she does make her case and it's not an unreasonable one. The body she's in isn't fully hers. Sinister (the one with the penis) has been trying to take control. Before she became boob-heavy Sinister, she was another one of non-boob Sinister's experiments. He strapped her to the same chair that X-23 is in and she went with it. Now she's regretting it and wants to use X-23 to avoid her mistake. This confuses me because that's something you would expect of a teenage girl, not a fully grown women. I guess Marjorie Liu is sending a message here. Even adults can be as pig-headed as irrational, uncontrolled, and unfeeling teenagers.

Her plan is as standard as you can get when dealing with comic book mad geneticists. She wants to transfer her mind to X-23's. So she goes from an adult woman with a personality disorder to a teenage girl. Again, not seeing much of an upgrade here. Why anyone would want to inhabit the body of a Wolverine clone with all the melodrama of a teenage girl is beyond me. Given her attire, I can only assume that Miss Sinister is deeply masochistic.

It's a sick if not standard plot. There seems to be some ambiguous lesbo innuendo as well when Claudine admires X-23's body. I'm pretty sure that's how many lesbian pornos start out. I'm not sure if that's Marjorie Liu's intent, but I can't imagine too many male readers complaining (assuming they have a free hand). There's talk about whether or not clones have souls, but I think the whole lesbian angle is more compelling. That's just my opinion.

While Sinister and X-23 are discussing souls and mad science, Allison takes action. Oh yeah, remember that girl? The one X-23 tried to save, but failed to do so? Then she found out that Allison was a clone? Still not ringing any bells? Or is it just too confusing? Well all the reader needs to know is that Allison is an ally to X-23 and she proves it by finding Gambit, who is lying unconscious in a cage. If Rogue were in this book she would be squealing "Jackpot!" Allison, despite showing loyalty to Claudine, decides to help the girl who actually went out of her way to save her life and frees Gambit.

I was expecting Gambit to make a pass at Allison, who is not too hard on the eyes, but that is never shown. It's a shame too because what's a story with Gambit if he doesn't hit on an underaged girl? But the action goes right back to boob-heavy Sinister's science experiment. As is so often the case with cloning efforts, something goes horribly wrong. Nobody's head explodes or anything. Nobody even gets turned into a half-fly sadly. Instead, the boobless Sinister pulls a fast one. Rather than Claudine going into X-23's body, it's Sinister who makes the trip. Claudine is still trapped in her, which again is like being trapped in the Playboy Mansion. But Claudine is still deeply pissed now that she can't relieve her teen years. Again, I'm not seeing the downside.

While Miss Sinister throws her own sinister version of a hissy fit, X-23 is busy doing what Claudine could not. She fights off Sinister's influence. Now this may seem a bit unbelievable, but then I remember X-23 is a teenage girl and a Wolverine clone. Even Sinister has his limits, brilliant and sadistic he may be. It still happens a bit easily though. It feels as though there could have been more details to this struggle. It's over pretty quickly and when X-23 fights off Sinister, the whole underground lab does what every set in Mythbusters seems to do. It blows up.

Miss Sinister (in a completely non-sexual way) is screwed. This is when Alice shows up as well, once again choosing X-23 over the ridiculously dressed Claudine. Not sure what sort of logic goes into that, but I guess it's easier to trust a stranger that saves the life of your clone rather than some crazy bitch who likes to dress like a hooker. Claudine doesn't take kindly to betrayal and hits Alice upside the head to knock her out. This pisses off X-23 and understandably so. NOW do we get the big fight between Miss Sinister and X-23? Well if by big you mean it's over in one page with a simple stab to the gut then yes. If your standards are a bit higher, then no. Again, it's over really quickly. Much like premature ejaculation, it's underwhelming and for a story that has been so deep the past few issues that's a bit of a downgrade.

Once boob-heavy Sinister is down for the count, X-23 meets up with Gambit. He finally caught up, albeit unfashionably late. It turns out he's been busy off-panel. He's the one who initiated the self-destruct sequence to the lab. Seriously, why do so many guys in comics set their places to self-destruct? Isn't that setting yourself up for failure? Either way, X-23 is reluctant to go. She wants to get Alice, the girl who got her into this mess in the first place. However, Claudine slips away with her. Even while wounded she finds a way to screw people over and not in a sexual way (presumably). X-23 wants to go after her, but Gambit convinces her to let go. She didn't listen to him for the past two issues. Well this time she does listen and right in time for a self-destruct scene. I suppose that's the only way to motivate some teenage girls. Put them in a building that's about to explode and they finally do the right thing.

They escape form the lab just in time for it to blow up. Gambit also reveals he got the other kids out off panel. Again, it's one of those details that's been glossed over. It could have been a nice scene, but it was over too quickly. I'm not sure if it's because of space considerations, but it does make the book feel a bit more incomplete than the previous two.

In the end Laura learns a harsh lesson. She can't save everybody. It's another example of teenage arrogance. Teenagers haven't developed the parts of their brains that kick them in the ass when they need to. They're not invincible. The whole "you can do anything if you believe it hard enough" amounts to jar of raccoon shit in the real world. X-23 tried to save a girl and she couldn't. Gambit may be an immature douche, but he's an adult douche and even he understands that. Laura has to understand that as well or else she'll end up every bit as messed up as Wolverine and who wants that?

At the very least, her failed attempt to save Alice yielded some clues to the next story. In the last issue Miss Sinister revealed the name Malcom Colcord, which may or may not be the adult version of Malcom in the Middle since he's the one looking to resurrect Weapon X. X-23 isn't going to have that. 23 failed attempts is bad enough. So Marjorie Liu already has her next story set up. But before the comic ends, there's one last scene with boob-heavy Sinister. As expected, she survived the explosion. Alice survived as well. But the real shocker comes in the form of a distinct red diamond on her forehead. Even though only two women survived, the Sinister with a penis survived as well. Add to that Alice is naked (how that happened isn't revealed) and you've got a damn good ending.

Since the X-23 series began, Marjorie Liu established a unique style for the book. This series is character driven. X-23 stands front and center. This series isn't about her adventures or the asses she kicks. It's about her life. Getting her away from the X-men was a bold way to give her an identity. This arc has shown that this identity is a work-in-progress and like many girls her age, Laura will stumble along the way and make some bone-headed mistakes. It's not as action heavy as X-Force, but there's still plenty of depth. It's the kind of depth that makes a series awesome in it's own right and the end of this arc really locks in a foundation for this book's style.

As much as I enjoy the whole character element, this issue lacked something the previous issues had and that was pacing. Every scene in this issue just ends too quickly. Nothing is drawn out. The little things are glossed over. It felt as though Liu was trying to do more in this issue than she had space for. Perhaps this is something that should have been stretched out over two issues. Overall, the end does feel a bit rushed. It doesn't take too much away from the quality of the book. It's still awesome, but compared to the issues that came before it there are more shortcomings than strengths.

I've given every issue of the X-23 series high marks. Marjorie Liu has earned every one of them and thus made this series one of my favorites. I can't give this issue the perfect score I gave other issues, but I can't give it too low a score either because it did finish the arc and tell a pretty compelling story in the process. So overall I give this story a 4 out of 5. It was rushed, but that was the only issue it really had. The rest is awesome and gives no reasons for fans to not pick up the next issue. Nuff said!

X-23 #5 - Sinister Caliber Awesome

This past week has been for X-men comics what a trip to Thailand is for a pedophile, a rare and wonderful wealth of material that puts a smile on your face and gets you off (albeit in a less messy sort of way). I know I usually only make two reviews a week. I sort of have to because God was too lazy to make the days longer than 24 hours and too cheap to devote one day exclusively to comics. So I've had to work within the limits imposed on me. I've already gotten a hand-written thank-you note from the CEO of Starbucks after keeping myself wired and alert longer than my body allows. Several organ systems are on the verge of failing, but it's all for a good cause! So many great books came out this past week and I just can't leave some of them unreviewed.

One of the issues that came out this week is X-23 #5. Now anyone who has been following this blog or sneaking peaks when their boss isn't looking at work knows I have a lot of love for the new X-23 series. I would put it right up there with Uncanny X-Force as one of the best series to spin out of the events of Second Coming. Marjorie Liu has done more than just picked up with X-23 where Craig Kyle and Chris Yost began. She's added a level of depth to Laura Kinney's character that hasn't been seen before. Not only that, in the last issue she put Gambit in a role that made him seem like less a douche-bag. That's an accomplishment worthy of presidential medal right there.

The last issue began a new arc with Laura on the road, basically wandering aimlessly like Jules said he would at the end of Pulp Fiction. It wasn't exactly productive in any sense. She met a young girl named Alice, who ended up getting killed. She then met up with Gambit who tried to offer her some direction. Then they had an encounter with the local police, which led them to an old west style town where they confronted Miss Sinister who was dressed in a way you won't see outside a Nevada brothel. She claims to know about Laura's mother and that's where this issue picks up.

Now the meeting is more than awkward. X-23 hasn't crossed paths with Sinister before. Gambit has and he knows that anyone with the Sinister surname is trouble in the same way getting in debt to a Russian loan shark is trouble. The boob-clad Sinister still carries herself as though she's a different person who happens to have Sinister's memories. It's hard to really tell how much bullshit or lack thereof is in that statement and that's what makes the scene so compelling. Laura wants answers and of course the only way she's getting them is if she follows Miss Sinister. That's like following a creepy 40-year-old into a windowless van because he says there's a puppy that shits candy inside. Gambit pulls her one way. Laura doesn't listen like the arrogant teenager she is at heart, which may have been Marjorie Liu's point. Whatever it is, it works well even if it is trouble.

Miss Sinister and her boobs leads them into the proverbial windowless van, which in this case is an elevator to a vast subterranean facility that would make Kobra Commander proud. It may sound a little cliched, but it's Sinister. If it wasn't this elaborate than I would be bitching about how out of character it is. Miss Sinister explains that after she was on the receiving end of Daken's claws in what can only be described as an act of extreme foreplay, her memory was jarred and she recalled this place. When she returned she found a lab full of children locked in suspended animation. It's not the sort of thing you would expect from a guy like Sinister unless he was planning to dissect them for a meal with Dr. Doom. This being a guy who is known for fucking around with clones, it actually makes a fair amount of sense.

The details of the story sound like something a politician would pull out of his ass after someone finds him with a dead hooker in the trunk of his car. Miss Sinister explains that her penis-wielding counterpart experimented on these kids during World War II. She claims not to know what he did with them, which is sort of like someone claiming that Elvis never did drugs. Whatever he did, he kept the children alive so when Miss Sinister found them she let them out and just let them live. She didn't do any experiments herself. She didn't invite MODOK and Magneto to join him in a game of real-life operation. She just became their caregiver, creating a little nursery for the kids to live their lives. It's like a world with Mr. Rogers if he had been a schizophrenic. She's still claiming she had no choice in this and that it was all Sinister, but most readers will find this about as convincing as Mel Gibson's apology to the Jews.

X-23 seems to ignore the finer details like a kid sleeping through first period algebra class. She questions Sinister about Alice, the girl who she thought was killed. She was told that she was sold or cast out somehow. Miss Sinister claims she was taken. Again, it's like OJ Simpson claiming he wasn't in LA when his wife was killed. She also questions her about her mother. On this subject it seems to be somewhat glossed over. She claims to know of a man named Malcome Colcord, who is trying to resurrect Weapon X. Granted, someone tries to do that in the X-comics ever third Tuesday, but she claimed Sinister worked with that man at one point and kept journals on the facilities that were the basis for the one that made her. So essentially, Miss Sinister has nothing on Laura's mother. She has information on the information the people Laura's mother worked for that made her. If that doesn't sound confusing then lay off the LSD.

Now this comes off as a little contrived because at the end of the last issue, Laura's mother was offered as a major hint to lure X-23 into Sinister's clutches. It was also a lure for the reader, offering promise of more insight into Laura's history. Now we get to this issue and the link Sinister claimed is indirect at best and esoteric at worst. It seems like it's been glossed over, something Marjorie Liu hasn't done with major details to this point. You could overlook it as just a way for Sinister to get Laura into her grasp, but it still comes off as a bit contrived. Maybe more will be revealed later, but there isn't even a hint that there's a deeper link here and that's disappointing.

So Laura gets her explanation and learns more about Alice. A normal person's reaction to getting all the answer in a nice package with a bow presented by a woman with a great rack would be content. Keep in mind Laura isn't just an abnormal person with an abnormal life of violence and mind-control. She's a teenage girl. Thinking straight is very low on her list of talents, listed just below using a credit card responsibly. That mean she decides to stay and find out if Miss Sinister is bullshitting her. Gambit stays too, knowing as well as any sane person that Laura is ill-equipped to handle this on her own. Already they get some clues. Apparently Miss Sinister isn't as healthy as she lets on and not in the sort of way you would expect a woman dressed like a hooker to be. They find that she left a trail of blood in her wake and it isn't because of a paper cut. For someone who was trained to shed blood from anyone who got in her way, that's a red flag.

Laura follows the trail of blood and it leads her back to Alice, the girl who led her into this mess in the first place. She finds out that Alice is a little unbalanced in a way you might find in a Tim Burton movie. She's actually reading books to a row of clones hovering in bio tanks. It's not like having tea time with stuffed animals. These are clones. X-23 is a clone and even she isn't that unhinged. She talks to Alice and she goes on about how she has memories of her past clones. That means she has memories of dying, which in and of itself would incur the kind of therapy that Charlie Sheen would find excessive. But she does offer one useful tidbit to X-23. She says she has memories of a man who liked to inject her with stuff and not in the kind of way you would find at a gay club in Amsterdam. She says the guy looked similar to Miss Sinister, which would be another red flag. It's usually at this point that the retarded heroes in the story start piecing it together.

Somehow while this is going on, Gambit slips away to what appears to be the facilities cafeteria. It's a little creepy, but still is the Ritz compared to the cafeteria at my old high school. It really isn't clear when Gambit and X-23 got separated. It's another one of those ambiguous transitions that were in the last issue. It's a bit confusing because it seems like Gambit just stopped following X-23 for no apparent reason and went wandering around like brain dead hamster in a maze. He makes small talk with the children and the women who help care for them (which may imply he wants to bone them). Then X-23 shows up again and says she needs to talk to him. Again, it's very confusing pacing and does somewhat disrupt the flow of the story.

Confusion aside, this little talk Laura insists on having with Gambit isn't much of a talk. That's not to say Laura puts on a corset and tempts Gambit in a way that he usually gives into like a fat guy in a donut shop. She brings up his past dealings with Sinister again. She starts giving him that puppy dog eye that teenage girls tend to give their fathers when they ask if they can go to a rock concert with four tattoo laden football players who were just released from prison on sexual assault charges. This somehow keys Gambit in (maybe because he's slept with so many girls of that nature) and finds out that Laura isn't Laura. It's actually Miss Sinister, trying to deceive him with a little shape shifting that would make Mystique sue for trademark infringement.

Gambit tries to fight her off, but is subdued in a way that is opposite to what scantily clad women usually do with him. She's immediately in position to give Gambit the Lorena Bobbet treatment. She reminds him that she's as resilient as Sinister. Killing her is like trying to nail jello to a tree. That doesn't stop X-23 from coming in and taking a stab at it. Remember that hint Alice dropped? Well that gave X-23 all the reason she needed to come in and give Sinister the business end of her claws.

It's a pretty bloody spectacle and it knocks Miss Sinister down for the count. She's undaunted even if she's bloodier than Tom Hanks at the end of Saving Private Ryan. Then she throws in a twist that even she doesn't seem to expect. Out of nowhere, her body shifts again. This time it isn't to deceive. In a rather gruesome transformation, her body reforms and she grows a penis to become none other than Mr. Sinister himself. That's right, old pasty face is back and looking more bad ass than ever. And when he see's Laura, he smiles in a way that will ensure that anyone who reads this issue will not sleep soundly for the next month or so. It's a sadistic yet awesomely fitting way to end the issue.

So the last issue ended with Miss Sinister showing up in a surprising yet disturbingly sexy way. This issue ends with Mr. Sinister showing up in a way that's just plain disturbing. It's a fitting follow-up that continues a theme, using Sinister to taunt and disturb both the readers and the characters. Marjorie Liu times this one perfectly, offering more ominous hints at the mystery that still surrounds this issue. It may not have been an epic brawl the entire issue, but what may be lacking in spectacle was more than made up for with mystery. Marjorie Liu brings Sinister into the X-23 series in a way that's compelling and believable. It also gives enough clues while concealing others to makes readers want to dance naked on a leash for the next issue. If Liu's goal was to hook readers for more issues, she definitely succeeded.

While this ending is compelling and well-done, this issue still continued the pacing troubles that the last issue had. It was a bit more apparent this time. From the moment X-23 and Gambit separate to the moment they converge on Sinister, it's a bit choppy at times. Some may find it a bit confusing. I had to read over it again just to make sure I understood the timing in which these events were occurring. It wasn't like trying to understand an episode of Lost, but it was still confusing in a way that distracted from the overall awesome of the issue.

Everything else was spot on for X-23 #5. Marjorie Liu is still great, breaking new grounds with X-23 and telling a compelling story filled with mystery, character, and boobs. X-23's story continues to become one of the most compelling X-stories on the racks right now. For this issue, however, I'm unable to give a perfect score. The whole pacing issue was just too much to overlook this time. So I'm left to give X-23 #5 a still respectable 4.5 out of 5. There's a lot to love about this issue and if you're an X-23 fan, you need to get it or get that tattoo of X-23 on your ass surgically removed. There's a long list of reasons to pick up the next issue. It all boils down to this just being a purely awesome series. Nuff said!