Scanned Thoughts: X-men #12

Some days it really feels like the world is conspiring against me and it’s not just the days I wake up in my ex-girlfriend’s basement handcuffed to a radiator with a strange burn mark on my ass. Sometimes it just feels like I’ve got a shitty luck streak going. I hit every red light, my internet connection slows down, or the liquor store is out of my favorite brand of whiskey. It’s like karma is a fucking Bond villain and I’m a much less coordinated James Bond. I imagine the X-men get that same feeling much more often. But I also imagine that their sentiment is based more on actual fact and less on just drunken brooding. In Brian Wood’s all female X-men, they’ve been dealing with an enemy that has been conspiring against them in Arkea and she has been doing a damn good job of it. She has reconvened the Sisterhood and she makes staying ahead of the X-women look way too damn easy. She now has Selene on her side and Goblin Queen is about to join her. In many ways that makes her better than a Bond villain because it skips the part where some creepy old guy has a woman way too beautiful at his side. Since there are enough creepy old guys, I’m willing to give X-men #12 some extra points from the get-go. But given the lukewarm results of the previous few issues, I won’t be giving much.

The less-than-shocking end with Ana Cortes saying “fuck this” and stabbing herself didn’t make too many waves. And maybe that’s a good thing because it didn’t need to be more chaotic or fucked up than it already was. She stabs herself, Arkea shrugs it off, and then she brings her back to life. Yes, it is a dick move even by her standards. But I guess it really is just that hard to find good henchmen these days, especially ones that look so damn good in skin-tight outfits. The problem is that she has basically revealed that there are cracks in Arkea’s control. If one spoiled Paris Hilton wannabe can break her hold, then what hope does Akrea have of maintaining that hold? She really doesn’t do shit other than bring Lady Deathstrike back into the fold and if Lady Deathstrike turns on Akrea, she’s definitely going to put up more of a fight than a fucking Paris Hilton wannabe.

In the end she may not have to because bringing Ana Cortes/Lady Deathstrike back from the dead is basically just a warm-up. While it was only a cruel cock-tease in the previous issue, the boners can finally rise freely this time. It’s official now. Madelyne Pryor is back. Her resurrection isn’t shown. Hell, the only thing we see is her walking around in a towel and putting on a sexy new outfit that looks like a cross between a stripper and Hillary Clinton. Honestly, I’ll gladly take that over any fancy resurrection scene.

Just like Selene, Madelyne Pryor shows her appreciation for being brought back to the world of the living. It doesn’t look like she’ll pull the same stunt as Ana. Having been a disembodied spirit previously who probably got sick of watching Cyclops hump Emma Frost, I imagine she’ll gladly kiss Akrea for bringing her back. My penis badly wants this to happen, but it doesn’t sadly. Even so, this issue is already worth its price to see Madelyne Pryor alive in the flesh again and not as some bullshit disembodied spirit. Now every penis not attached to Cyclops can rejoice. The Goblin Queen is back and she’s got some pretty dangerous bitches as her allies.

Her resurrection comes at a critical time as well. For the past few issues, Arkea and the Sisterhood have stayed a step ahead of the all-female X-men. They even managed to rough them up on a few occasions. If Arkea was a Bond villain, this would usually be the part where James Bond waits for her to fuck up and/or seduce her sister/daughter/wife/confidante/etc. Sadly, there’s no need for seduction this time. The all-female X-men don’t need the cunning of James Bond. They just need the vast resources of the Jean Grey Institute and help from Arkea’s brother, John Sublime, who has many reasons to screw her over. I said they didn’t need the same cunning. I never said it would be that impressive.

It’s a somewhat bland method of putting the team in a position to confront the Sisterhood. They just track Akrea to a single location, revealing that Ana Cortes tipped them off at some point that isn’t made all that clear. It allows them to finally catch up to the Sisterhood before they can slip away again and launch their attack. Now this isn’t one of those occasions where the details are sorely lacking. They’re there, but they’re just undeveloped. Had I read this comic sober, I might have had a problem with that. But my penis is too excited about the prospect of an all-female battle and I usually defer to my penis in these instances.

The all-female X-men lead with their big gun, namely Monet. She actually has a lot of incentive to be the first one to throw a punch and not just because she has the strength a million teenage girls with bad PMS. In an earlier issue, the Enchantress really fucked her up and not in a way I could masturbate to either (although I tried). She actually almost killed Monet. Well Monet made sure she regretted not finishing the job because when she lands, she knocks the Enchantress into a fucking crater. It’s an effective strategy, taking out the Asgardian who could really fuck up the battle with her magic. But that’s only secondary for Monet. She doesn’t just badly injure the Enchantress. She adds a few generous taunts that would probably get her ejected from a football game unless she was named Terrell Owens. Now I’m not much of a Monet fan, but this scene made me love her and fear her. And that’s a win-win for any beautiful woman, hero or villain.

With their hot blond magic wilder down for the count, Arkea is in half-fuckton of trouble. She probably didn’t anticipate Ana screwing her over like this so now she has to get through the all-female X-men. And these are the same all-female X-men that beat her once before in an earlier arc. But during that arc, she didn’t have allies in Selene or Madelyne Pryor. So when Storm and Rachel Grey confront her while she’s trying to slip out, they generously help repay Arkea for bringing them back to life. This means Arkea fucks with Storm’s lightning while Madelyne Pryor mind-fucks Rachel. I’m sure it doesn’t soak her panties as much as it would if she were mind-fucking Cyclops, but that doesn’t stop her from enjoying it. The battle itself isn’t really that epic or that flashy. But it’s Madelyne Pryror’s first real battle since Reagan was still President. It can’t exactly be Wrestlemania.

The fight between Psylocke and Typhoid Mary is slightly more epic and by that I mean lopsided. The battle began with Psylocke taunting Typhoid Mary psychically. This made her look more vulnerable than a wounded bunny in a den of hungry wolves. Then when Psylocke actually attacks, Typhoid Mary might as well be an anorexic cheerleader in a sumo wrestling match. It’s still a more detailed battle, filled with the kind of action that could only be more awesome if they did it in their underwear covered in bacon grease. Typhoid Mary does put up somewhat of a fight, but Psylocke overmatches her in way too many ways. She even reminds her that as soon as they beat Arkea, then she goes back to being just another obscure redhead with multiple personalities. And now that Jean Grey is back in the X-books, she has no chance.

For a while, it looks like the battle with Arkea will be more balanced. She is packing a lot more firepower than Typhoid Mary. However, any advantage she might have had against Storm and Rachel quickly disappears the moment a pissed off Monet catches up with her. And since the body Arkea is inhabiting isn’t exactly the Hulk, she’s also overmatched. She tries pointing out that she’s a fucking plague who has infested most of the planet. Then the all-female X-men team point out that they still have John Sublime on their side, who may or may not have a boner for Rachel Grey, and he has been all too eager to help them screw her over. So they have already neutralized her little infestation. Psylocke and Omega Sentinel even catch up, making sure she has nowhere to fucking run.

But what about the Black Queen and the Goblin Queen? Why aren’t they coming to her aid? Well this is where it doesn’t really take much cunning. It only takes a little mild diplomacy, namely the kind that gives George W. Bush and Dick Cheney migraines. Storm basically makes a deal with them. They’ll allow them to walk away and won’t bother them if they just let them fuck up Arkea. Seeing as how Arkea was looking to control them and that already lead Ana Cortes to stab herself, it’s not an unreasonable move. Since they both just came back to the world of the living, I imagine they’ll want to visit a few spas before they risk getting killed by the X-men and/or ex-husbands again. So they ditch Arkea just as Ana did, minus the stabbing. Hell, they come out as the only winners in this battle because they got resurrected and didn’t have to do a damn thing to repay it. They basically skipped the part where they had to become mindless zombies and like hitting a jackpot in Las Vegas, it’s best to quit while they’re ahead before they blow too much of their winnings on booze and hookers.

With no more Sisterhood to back her up, Arkea is defeated in an exceedingly inglorious way. Monet uses a special gun that John Sublime helped them make. It destroys Arkea, but doesn’t kill the host. So everybody else wins while Arkea loses. There are no hard decisions to make like the first time and there’s not much drama. It makes for a somewhat muted end. The only thing that does add some sense of drama is Omega Sentinel’s announcement that she’s not going back to the Jean Grey Institute. She would rather run off with Gabriel and probably reenact scenes from 50 Shades of Grey on a beach in Tahiti. None of the other X-women blame her. At least one of them should end up with a handsome man who isn’t as creepy as John Sublime. It might as well be Omega Sentinel, the first girl that Arkea screwed over.

While her departure isn’t all that heartfelt, it is fitting. Omega Sentinel was a major player in Arkea’s first attack. She also hasn’t really done much to distinguish herself in this book or any of the other X-books. She’s basically a D-list character trying to find an opening where there is none. With Monet back in the fold and the X-books crowded with kick-ass women, she might as well take a vacation. I’m sure the others will envy her. At least she won’t have to be involved when Selene and Madelyne Pryror come back around to make them regret being so diplomatic. She doesn’t need to be Vladimir Putin to know how that shit is going to turn out.

The ending to the Arkea battle wasn’t too spectacular, but it was satisfying. The same can’t be said for the other plot that has been convoluting the story for the past few issues. For whatever reason, a story about a bunch of C-list X-men fighting a bunch of rusted Sentinels is seen as a story worth telling. I can see that being a side-plot to a single issue, but this shit has already lasted three issues and I smoke way too much weed to pay that kind of attention. There’s nothing all that interesting here. Jubilee survives a surprise attack. Kid Omega shows up to flaunt his shit like Ron Jeremy in a locker room. The Sentinels just crumble in the most predictable manner possible.

The only real substance here is some poorly developed lesbian side-plot and not of the sexy kind. Roxy has been trying to cop a feel from Mercury the past few issues. It resulted with Mercury punching Roxy in the face. I’m sure if Roxy had balls, those would have been kicked as well. But not much comes of that. They just agree to get along. They don’t even try to make out. It’s by far the worst lesbian love story since Rosanne’s stint on The View. There’s no suspense and really no connection with the Arkea plot. It’s so forgettable that after a few bong hits, it might as well have never happened.

Once again, this issue was divided into two separate plots. One plot was awesome and the other was more forgettable than Dennis Rodman’s acting career. But this time, the plot that was awesome took up most of the issue while the plot that sucked was cleaned up like a crusted over scab. While I wouldn’t have minded if the whole rusted Sentinel battle was replaced by a single panel of Jubilee filing her nails and spitting on the wreckage, I do think there’s something to be said about a shitty plot actually being seen through to the end. A drunk like me would have just taken a “let’s not and say we did approach” before getting another case of whiskey. That way if I pass out drunk, I have an excuse. Well there were no excuses made for this issue. It bit the bullet and finished the story. And at least one of those endings was pretty damn satisfying and not just because it left the door open for Selene and Madelyne Pryor to run around in black lingerie. The story with Monet, Arkea, and Lady Deathstrike effectively ended. It wasn’t terribly epic, but it worked. I give X-men #12 a 7 out of 10. In the future, pitting Jubilee and a team of C-list X-men against an army of rusted Sentinels need not cut into an actual story. Just make it a Danger Room simulation or one of Wolverine’s hangover cures, and it works just as well. Nuff said!

Reminders and Resurrections: X-men #11

The following is my review of X-men #11, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

It’s no secret that death is a revolving door in comics. When most characters die or are killed off, it’s more like the superhero equivalent of taking a sick day. They step down in the most definitive possible way, allowing other characters to try and fill the void. More often than not, they fail miserably or the novelty wears off. Bucky Barnes didn’t stay Captain America for very long. And Dick Grayson couldn’t give the mantel of Batman back to Bruce Wayne fast enough. It would be annoying if it didn’t work so well at garnering attention. It’s like someone burning their house down to get the neighbors to help with some landscaping.

But not all death in comics carries the same weight. That sounds like a strange concept because in real life, death the third most definitive event there is after birth and taxes. In comics, however, the very concept of a character being dead is subject to more technicalities than modern banking regulations. Sometimes a character can be officially dead, yet in a state of limbo. Sometimes they can be technically alive, but they might as well be dead. Like quantum mechanics, it’s as baffling as it is convoluted. However, it does have some perks in that it makes it easier to bring certain characters back from the dead without burning any houses down. And X-men #11 takes advantage of that in a way that would make any lobbyist for the banking industry smile.

Death and resurrection has been a consistent theme since Lady Deathstrike returned to the X-books. She had been a disembodied ghost. Now she has taken over the body of young Columbian woman who happens to be the daughter of a rich crime lord. In many respects, Lady Deathstrike traded up because this body gave her the resources to start the Sisterhood of mutants. And as the story has unfolded, she has brought a number of deadly female villains into the mix. In the process, however, she ceded her control of the Sisterhood to Akrea, another disembodied menace that was supposedly killed. It’s a common thread that has made the Sisterhood a much more compelling threat than just another killer robot.

And the all-female X-men are still several steps behind the Sisterhood. In the past few issues, they’ve been outsmarted and outmaneuvered to a point where they would come off as inept of this were a typical buddy cop movie. But that’s not the underlying theme here. They’re dealing with an enemy that is very resourceful, very powerful, and very dedicated to hurting them in every possible way. It’s like giving a jaded ex-spouse a blank check and unlimited access to automatic weapons. That’s what makes the Sisterhood more interesting than the X-men at this point. They are master villains with an agenda that even competent heroes can’t keep up with.

While the X-men keep falling behind, the Sisterhood take full advantage of it by adding to their ranks. This involves spinning that revolving door of death a little faster. The first one to benefit is Selene Gallio, the Black Queen. She is one of those characters who was never killed off in some dramatic battle. Her fate was left ambiguous after Necrosha, which was the last event she appeared in. This ambiguity is only partially addressed when Emora and Lady Deathstrike bring her back to life. Necrosha is mentioned, offering some insight into her status. But not much is explained about how she ended up some disembodied spirit in a special containment room. It renders the impact of her return somewhat muted. However, it does succeed in adding to the ranks of the Sisterhood.

That muted impact goes back to death not carrying the same weight for some characters. Given Selene’s background with magic and death, her return doesn’t conjure the same emotions as the return of Captain America or Superman. And it’s not supposed to either. Even as a villain, Selene is not Captain America. She’s not even on the same level as Squirrel Girl. She’s a character who uses her power and dark persona to contribute to a story. She’s essentially the hotness that a habanero pepper leaves in that the hotness tends to be more noteworthy than the pepper itself.

The same can be said for the other female villain that the Sisterhood plans to bring back, Madelyne Pryor. But unlike Selene, Madelyne has more emotional weight following her. As the former wife of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, she has been part of some very powerful moments in the history of X-men. She actually was the one that established the first Sisterhood of Mutants back during Matt Fraction’s run on Uncanny X-men. Her status is much less ambiguous than Selene’s and the X-men figure this out. They figure out what the Sisterhood is doing, but they’re still too far behind to stop them.

It has all the makings of a thrilling chase. It’s Jack Baur or Ethan Hunt trying to hunt down a team of highly skilled terrorists before they can strike. But this thrill is also heavily muted. They never even get around to bringing Madelyne Pryor back. It’s only set up for the next issue. The story loses focus when it diverts attention to another team of young X-men taking on an old army of Sentinels that Arkea resurrected. It also loses focus when the body that Lady Deathstrike has inhabited decides to turn against the Sisterhood. These developments don’t add much to the story. They’re more like distractions akin to the annoying pop-up ads that come up before a streaming video. So instead of taking advantage of this potential, the issue sacrifices it in favor of adding new plots. That’s like adding an extra racing stripe to a drag racer instead of a more powerful engine. It keeps the story from going as far as it could have.

Despite this unrealized potential, the death and resurrection theme remains a consistent and compelling feature of X-men #11. More than anything, it establishes the Sisterhood as a powerful threat that will test the all-female X-men in ways nothing else has to this point. It can do without the ongoing side-plots with Jubilee, John Sublime, and the other students at the Jean Grey Institute. These are characters that have no history of dying and coming back to life yet. Selene and Madelyne Pryor do have that history. This along with their choice of attire makes them a much more compelling story and one where too much material was wasted for no good reason.

Final Score: 5 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: X-men #11

There’s a great schism among comic book fans that sometimes turns into an all-out gang war. It happens whenever characters are killed and/or brought back to life. Some bitch and moan that it demeans a character’s death to just bring them back after a few years. Some bitch and moan that it demeans a character’s potential to keep them dead. Like the gay marriage debate, nobody is ever going to change anybody’s mind on these issues. But no matter how pissed off or outraged one side gets, these books just keep selling. And between the sales of Blackest Night and Civil War, major comic book publishers have no reason to stop. Now I don’t expect quite the same outrage in wake of the revelation in Brian Wood’s X-men that he’s bringing Madelyne Pryor and Selene back from the dead. But I’m sure there will be some people out there who will find a reason or a way to bitch and moan about it. So before I begin my review of X-men #11, let me just say fuck these people with an adamantium dildo.

The first lady to get the Jesus Christ treatment is Selene, the Black Queen. This probably isn’t going to surprise anyone. Her “death” wasn’t as final as Nightcrawler’s or Cable’s and neither one of those two stayed dead. She was last seen in the Necrosha event, which was built around reanimating the corpses of dead mutants. Her fate was somewhat ambiguous. And to bring her back, Emora and Lady Deathstrike break into a special vault hidden in a New York City bank that contains whatever invisible bits of the Black Queen that are still alive.

Now Necrosha is mentioned, which is a nice touch. But there’s no explanation whatsoever as to how she ended up in this vault, disembodied or otherwise. That may be too much to ask given the constraints of the story, but it’s telling that this vault is in fucking New York City and all it takes is a little black magic to bring her back. And I refuse to believe there isn’t some crazy psychopath in Marvel’s version of New York City that has too much free time and practices black magic.

I won’t say this method of brining the Black Queen back is entirely contrived. The mention of Necrosha and the mystical elements is basically par for the course with her. And since Emora the Enchantress is a fucking Asgardian goddess, she’s more than qualified to do something as simple as bring back the dead. I’m sure that’s something she did for shits and giggles as a teenager in Asgard. And it fucking works. The Black Queen re-appears to them in the flesh. She’s even naked, which is always a nice bonus. She doesn’t look all that trilled about being alive again. She’s the fucking Black Queen. I imagine being brought back from the dead is like that feeling drunks get after they recover from a hangover, which usually involves a desire to go out and get drunk all over again.

The resurrection of the Black Queen is a clear sign that the Sisterhood is several steps ahead of the all-female X-men. In the previous issue, they tried to chase them down in Dubai before they could do any more damage with Arkea. They didn’t necessarily fail, although Monet nearly got herself killed. However, they did get tricked into going in the wrong direction. Storm, Rachel, Psylocke, Monet, and Omega Sentinel end up storming some fancy yacht, which leads to somewhere between dick and jack shit. They don’t deny that they’ve been pwned, which is more than I can say for 85 percent of anyone on a message board. But they know they’re in trouble.

And it’s here where their mission gets a little more refined. It’s not as basic as a Power Rangers re-run where they just call upon zords and find the giant monster to destroy. It’s more like an episode of 24 or a Mission Impossible movie where the enemy is actually smarter than a bucket of horse piss. Monet, who happens to be an ex-cop, points this out and reasons that the Sisterhood isn’t just attacking them outright. They have a plan that is smarter than something that a Bond villain would come up with. That includes finding new recruits and ensuring they have enough firepower to take on the X-men. It’s mostly talk, but it’s meaningful talk that shows a level of refinement that is under-appreciated in comics. It’s no Downtown Abby, but it does make the plot a bit more engaging.

What isn’t as engaging is how the Black Queen adjusts to the world of the living again. And that’s to be expected to some extent. She’s the fucking Black Queen. She’s not the kind of person to be writing poems about roses and dancing in the fields naked celebrating the joys of life, although I wouldn’t mind seeing that. She just puts on her usual exceedingly sexy uniform, touches up her makeup, and catches up with what’s going on. She’s not all that impressed at first, but then Arkea shows up and lets her read her mind. And in an instant, she goes from superior alpha bitch to prison bitch. It may seem out of character for the Black Queen, but it’s not wholly unreasonable. Arkea already got a fucking Asgardian on her side. Getting the Black Queen to obey her really isn’t that much of a stretch. Plus, she’s tasked with killing the X-men. I don’t think she needs to be manipulated that much to help with that.

All this is happening while the all-female X-men are trying to catch up. Right now, they’re more behind the curve than Forest Gump in a nuclear physics class. But they’re not stumbling around in the dark like a drunk looking for their cell phone. They continue to show real detective skills that prove once again that having a penis or being Batman isn’t necessary to solve crimes. They find out through their sources that someone with a fuckton of money bought some remaining genetic material from Madelyne Pryor and it happens to be the same person that bought access to the Black Queen’s vault. Since they already figured out that Lady Deathstrike is now inhabiting the body of an exceedingly rich woman whose family has strong criminal ties. It doesn’t take any real detective skills to figure out just how fucked they are.

And if it sounds strange that somebody would actually buy the remains of dead mutants, that’s actually addressed. Apparently, there’s actually a market in the Marvel universe for mutant memorability. But they don’t just stop at napkins, clothes, or used tampons. They go so far as to sell genetic material to collectors, fanboys, and people who just like to hoard weird shit. It sounds fucked up. But after watching just one episode of Pawn Stars, I find it painfully believable. And because of this fucked up human tendency to hoard weird shit, it’s going to bring the Goblin Queen back to life. It makes me wonder how the fuck the human race isn’t extinct yet.

It’s a very exciting prospect. The all-female X-men now know what the Sisterhood is up to and it’s a race against time to stop them. This is an enemy that’s smart, resourceful, and cunning. It should be an epic struggle. That’s exactly why the story goes downhill way too fucking fast when that plot is just flat out abandoned. And instead, we catch up with fucking John Sublime. He’s still at the Jean Grey Institute and under constant watch. He has a little chat with Kid Omega that really contributes absolutely nothing to the story other than reminding readers that he was once a villain. I’ve killed a lot of fucking brain cells in my life and even I still remember that. And if I don’t need a reminder, then this scene is a fucking waste.

Things get slightly back on track with the Sisterhood, but only for the length of a single bong hit. As Typhoid Mary is sparring with Lady Deathstrike and pondering the kind of shit she has gotten herself into, the body that Lady Deathstrike inhabited suddenly takes over. The woman, Ana Cortes, suddenly breaks free and is able to overcome Lady Deathstrike’s control. And the first thing she does is ask Typhoid Mary to kill her. She’s even more overwhelmed by this shit than Typhoid Mary and would rather just die than deal with someone like Akrea and the Black Queen.

While I can’t say I blame her, this sudden shift only fucks up the flow of the plot even more. There is some decent action when Ana attacks Typhoid Mary, but it’s all very underwhelming. And when Arkea shows up, her first response is to gut herself. Again, it’s underwhelming because it’s so sudden and has had no build-up whatsoever. For all the promise of a clash between the Sisterhood and the X-men, it’s like a bad LSD trip. It goes from riding a unicorn with naked bikini models to chasing giant raccoons while wearing a speedo. It makes no sense and kills the momentum of the story.

It’s a disappointing turn of events and it isn’t helped by attempting to squeeze even more sub-plots into the mix. A few issues ago, Arkea resurrected a bunch of rusted Sentinels from the ocean floor and had them attack a beach. For the X-men, fighting a bunch of rusted Sentinels is like playing Resident Evil with cheat codes. It kills any sense of thrill. There is some action. Jubilee leads a team that includes Mercury, Hellion, Roxy, Pixie, and Cipher against these rusting pieces of junk. It’s colorful and flashy. But like seeing the same horror movie in broad daylight, it really doesn’t have much impact.

The only major twist it can manage is Jubilee disappearing in the end. The explanation for it is pretty piss poor. They manage to rough up the Sentinels, Bling saves Mercury, and everything else is basically a typical Tuesday for the X-men. But Jubilee just disappears and there’s not much hint as to why. Now it could end up tying into other parts of the story. But as it stands, it’s more disconnected and disjointed than the beta version of Windows Vista. It offers none of the impact shown by the Sisterhood arc and generally feels as though it takes away completely from the actual story. Anyone reading this comic while drunk or high will probably have already lost interest by now.

I admit I was very excited for this issue. The prospect of seeing the Black Queen and the Goblin Queen share the same comic was just too awesome for my brain and my penis to process. And while this issue did deliver the Black Queen and set up the Goblin Queen’s return, it threw a lot of unnecessary crap in the mix that was more forgettable than Brittney Spears’ first marriage. Was it really necessary to see John Sublime taking a walk with Kid Omega? Was it really necessary to make a big deal about the young X-men fighting off a bunch of rusted old Sentinels? I say fuck no and even if it was warranted, it didn’t have to completely disrupt the momentum of the story. That’s what makes X-men #11 so disappointing. It had so many great elements going for it. But like a guy trying to do his taxes while giving his girlfriend oral sex, it’s just too much. While I’m still excited for the next issue, I can only give X-men #11 a 5 out of 10. The Black Queen was naked in this issue and that’s worth something. But there was way too much trivial shit that got in the way of the actual story. It essentially cock-blocked readers like me and I get enough of that shit at college frat parties. Nuff said!

X-men Supreme Issue 74: Dark Messenger is LIVE!

The X-men Supreme fanfiction series is ready to continue with a fresh new one-shot arc. For a while now, I've been focusing on larger multi-issue stories. I understand those can be hard to follow at times so I'm hoping to be more concise with this new issue. I always make an effort to create a fanfiction series that offers a wide range of stories, characters, and arcs. WIth the recent election of Robert Kelly as President of the United States, a lot of those arcs have been somewhat political. There's definitely a place for that in the world of X-men, but as I said previously part of the appeal of X-men is the diversity of stories offered. That diversity includes stories that involve forces that are more nefarious than politics, if you can believe that.

Throughout the history of Marvel comics, the X-men have been no strangers to magic. I knew when I began the X-men Supreme fanfiction series that I wanted a few major arcs centered around magic. That's what led me to craft the ongoing story surrounding Nightcrawler and his girlfriend, Amanda Sefton, and the secrets that she and her mother guard. From the beginning, I've linked Nightcrawler's history with certain mystical elements. His mysterious father, Azazel, took magic very seriously. He made it clear to his son that there are threats in the world that he must be ready to confront. Unfortunately, he died before he could reveal the nature of these threats. Now one of them has found its way to his girlfriend, Amanda. And that threat has a name and she's already shown up recently in the pages of X-men Supreme. Her name is Selene Gallio.

She has already made her presence felt in the X-men Supreme fanfiction series as the Black Queen of the Inner Circle. She was the one that lured the Phoenix Force into Jean Grey during the Phoenix Saga and she held her own against the Phoenix Force in the final battle. But her story goes beyond the Inner Circle and the Phoenix. She is now ready to reveal some of her dark agenda to the X-men and it begins with a daring clash in this latest issue and Nightcrawler's girlfriend is at the center of it all.

X-men Supreme Issue 74: Dark Messenger

The X-men Supreme fanfiction series is a large and diverse universe with many powerful forces causing conflict for the X-men. There are many stories for me to tell in this series. I have big plans for all of them, but for them to be as awesome as they need to be it is important that fans and readers take the time to provide feedback. If I don't know I'm doing something wrong, then I won't be able to fix it. So please take the time to post comments in this and every other issue of X-men Supreme. Or you can always contact me directly if you wish. As always, I deeply appreciate those who do take the time to provide feedback. Please know that I make an effort to respond to it in kind. I hope everyone continues to enjoy the X-men Supreme fanfiction series! Until next time, take care and best wishes. Excelsior!

Jack

New Mutants Forever #4 - Ancient and Modern Awesome

When it comes to any media, there are certain traditions and patterns that are older and more cliched than jokes about Tom Cruise's chances of ever winning an Oscar. Whether it's comics, movies, or TV there are some formulas that just work. Usually the key ingredients to those formulas involve but aren't restricted to Nazis, hot blondes, and old world pagan cultures that weren't as uptight about the occasional orgy. They won't craft these elaborate literary masterpieces that would cause Shakespeare to rise from the grave and challenge the writer to a duel, but they are entertaining and they do tell a decent story. Chris Claremont is known for using certain cliches from time to time. His Forever series has been somewhat of a celebration of these cliches. New Mutants Forever is one such celebration that involves the equivalent of a solid DJ, better drinks, and more uncut cocaine.

Since this mini began is has told a rather condensed tale about the New Mutant series that picked up from the work Claremont did with this series in 1987, a time when many readers were still a glob of mindless sperm cells swimming around in their father's hairy sack. Like his other Forever series, this one continues like he never left. At his age he's getting paid to pretend his living in the past. For many people in that age bracket, it's a pretty sweet deal. And Claremont has taken full advantage of it, showing that he's kicking senility's ass and still churning out plenty of awesome. The first three issues of New Mutants Forever set up a strong plot involving the Red Skull, Amara Aquilla's homeland of Nova Roma, and Doug Ramsey being turned into one of the Red Skull's minions. He hasn't been able to involve the full range of New Mutant characters like Wolfsbane, Magneto, or the rest of the Hellfire Club. But it's still been a damn good story. It involves Nazis, Ancient Rome, mind control, and beautiful women. It's that same formula I mentioned earlier and so far Claremont has made it work.

New Mutants Forever #4 tries to milk that formula the same way video game makers incessantly suckle at the teat of World War II. In the last issue Selene was leading the New Mutants in an effort to investigate what was happening on Nova Roma. They walked straight into a mix of orgies and shit storms, basically a weekend at Rick James's house. They met the mind-controlled Dough Ramsey and Amara. Doug had gotten the Barry Bonds treatment from the Red Skull and seemingly killed Warlock, forcing Selene and the others to retreat. While Doug should have been feeling good about himself for doing his master's bidding, he felt like shit and started having regrets. Then Warlock showed up and made it clear that he didn't take kindly to being beat up. So now Doug has to fight off mind-control and a pissed off friend. It blurs the line between multi-tasking and schizophrenia.

Cypher fights Warlock with the full assumption that the Red Skull is watching his every move. And he's right. The Red Skull is watching and fantasizing about making Amara his love slave. He's essentially a Nazi version of Kanye West and creepy it may be, who can blame him for wanting a hot blonde as a queen? It doesn't help that Amara's starting to fight old Red's control as well. For any Nazi, losing control over a beautiful women like tantamount to calling Hitler a sissy.

Cypher fights the control off better and does get the upper hand on Warlock. And Warlock is smart enough to pick up that he's fighting his friend here. This puts him in a classic "does not compute" position that Windows Vista users should be very familiar with. He starts figuring out what Doug is doing and is on the verge of blurting it out like that guy at a wedding who blurts out the last four guys the bride went down on at her baccalaureate party. Then Amara shows up and torches Warlock. She takes some heat of her own in the process, but comic readers in this day and age should be desensitized to pretty blonds getting beat up. This is the post Jerry Springer era after all. Warlock ends up leaving the fight to most likely reboot so for the moment Cypher's cover isn't blown. Plus, he gets to carry an unconscious blond so that's a nice bonus.

Warlock flees and reappears with Magik and Cannonball to regroup. They're met by Selene, the usually sadistic Black Queen who so far has proven to be several levels below the Red Skull. In the last issue she was soundly humiliated by getting poisoned with the Red Skull's version of Michael Jackson's Jesus Juice. She bounced back and is out for revenge. So she leads Warlock, Magik, and Cannonball to an underground lair where the Nova Romans have formed their equivalent of the French Resistance. They also get a history lesson of how Selene used to rule Nova Roma and her influence carries as much weight as her bra (if she wore one). She helped fight off past invaders before, sending them all running back in a mix of horror and sexual arousal. There's something about having to surrender to a woman with a full boner that makes defeat all the more humiliating.

Once Selene rallies the troops, they strike back at the Red Skull. What comes next is a decent battle scene, but it's not quite as epic as it should be. It's no Saving Private Ryan, but it does leave a ton of Nazi storm troopers in a mangled mess so if you hate Nazis or just watch too much Fox News this should put a smile on your face. It also has the New Mutants showing some balls against the Red Skull, who has had the upper hand for pretty much this whole mini. Now that they have an army behind them, the New Mutants are understandably more confident.

This still doesn't do Cypher much good, who is trying to break free of the Red Skull's influence. It's only now starting to dawn on him that looking as red as Ricky Martins ass after a meth bender and as deformed as Joan Rivers's pre-Botox face has it's downside. It's bound to make family pictures and prom photos very awkward. The Red Skull is watching this struggle the whole time and he delights in it the same way Freddy Kruger delights in a vulnerable teenagers with parent issues and poor grades.

Cypher's outburst doesn't go unnoticed and not just with the Red Skull either. Warlock reveals that he's been keeping an eye on Cypher like a kid with binoculars outside a college sorority house. Now given that Cypher helped beat Warlock to a digital pulp earlier you would think a rematch would be in order. But the scene that unfolds here is a little bit of a mystery.

Warlock reaches out to Cypher and offers help, but he doesn't really say it. He just approaches Cypher, he starts talking, and then they talk about fighting back. It's a confusing scene and one of the first that Claremont seems to have underdeveloped. Warlock doesn't even say anything yet Cypher just laments how he's become a freak and wants to fight back. It feels like some of the conversation got cut out. It's like a momentary blackout when you're trying to talk to a hot girl at a club and you're so buzzed you forget the conversation and keep talking like it never stopped. Usually, that sort of thing turns a girl off quicker than a discussion of the latest treatments for herpes. In this issue it's just confusing.

However they magically conjured a plan, Cypher and Warlock put it into action. Warlock mysteriously vanishes from the panels and Cypher goes into his John Rambo mode. He fights his way into the Red Skull's throne room and unloads on him like a PETA supporter at a Ted Nugent concert. The fight scene that follows is pretty awesome. Cypher shows some cajones, but as he says himself this is a guy that went toe-to-toe with Captain America. He's a teenager who endured a botched makeover and a mind raping, not a super soldier and it shows.

The Red Skull goes for the haymaker by trying to inject Cypher with the same non-FDA approved drug that turned him into little miss red sunshine to begin with. That's when Cypher channels his inner Captain America and turns the tide. While the Red Skull may be a hell of a fighter, the man is old enough to be Eleanore Roosevelt's personal gigolo. Cypher has youth on his side and that seems to give him the edge.

Then something unexpected and twisted happens. Chris Claremont may be using a lot of old cliches here, but the man is a legendary X-men writer for a reason. He knows how to blow a reader's brains away in no fewer than twenty different ways. Just as Cypher has the Red Skull down for the count, Magma steps in and takes him out with a good old fashioned Benedict Arnold.

And to add insult to injury, a shadowy hand takes the needle the Red Skull was going to use against him and injects Cypher with another dose. Even with the Red Skull in the same room, that's over the top. And the man that shadowy hand belongs to isn't Amara or the Red Skull. It's the man who was supposed to be their ally and who helped Cypher get into the Red Skull's domain in the first place, Tiberius Rex. So now he has a hulked out version of Cypher on the Red Skull's steroids and a hot mind-controlled blond by his side. He is essentially living the American and Roman dream (minus the orgy), setting the stage for a very different battle in the final issue.

Going back to those old formulas I mentioned, Chris Claremont topped this issue off with a good old fashioned twist. Put together in a story containing Nazis, hot blonds, exotic cultures with looser attitudes towards sex, and crazy genetic experiments and you've got all the necessary ingredients for pure awesome! And Claremont, like a skilled chef, put them together in all the right ways. The story is like the cake and the execution is like the frosting. If you have diabetes, reading this may send you into a coma although for awesome comics it's more than worth it.

Now I've given high marks to every issue of New Mutants Forever thus far and there's plenty here that warrants a similar high score. However, this issue did have a few major missteps. The scene with Cypher meeting up with Warlock again was jumbled and confusing. It didn't make sense especially with Warlock not even taking part in the fight against the Red Skull. It seemed too rushed. Another misstep were the inner monologues. While Chris Claremont is known for showing a lot of thought bubbles, this time he used them too much to just have the characters explain what they're doing. I don't mind thought bubbles describing the feelings and emotions of a character, but when someone starts narrating their actions that's usually a symptom of psychosis or a symptom someone is trying to act out Family Guy in real life.

These shortcomings are not easily brushed aside so I must taper the score. However, the twist at the end with Amara and Tiberius did keep it from going too low. There's still plenty of reason to pick up the final issue if for nothing else to enjoy one last dose of Al Rio's excellent artwork in this series. So for New Mutants Forever #4 I give it a 4 out of 5. There's no reason why Chris Claremont can't take all these cliched elements and bring them together in one last final show of awesome. With X-men Forever getting the axe soon and this being a mini, the old X-men legend this caliber of awesome will be fleeting. So like a good line of cocaine, enjoy it while it lasts! Nuff said.

Necrosha - Dead, Alive, and In Between

On the same week Blackest Night reached it's conclusion, the other major death-themed story in the comics world ended as well. Necrosha, the big X-men crossover involving X-Force, finally reached it's conclusion. While the awesome factor was still strong, in many ways it was overshadowed by the sheer magnitude of awesome cast by Blackest Night.

Never-the-less, Necrosha did end on a solid note. Over the past few months the event had been unfolding nicely throughout the X-books (except Uncanny). It gave X-Force it's biggest moment since Messiah War and they really stepped up to the plate. Writers Craig Kyle and Chris Yost did a nice job bringing a lesser used villain like Selene into the fold and writing her in a ways that would never leave a reader to suspect she was so underused. It would have been so much easier for them to use someone who had much bigger credentials as an X-villain. They could have used Mr. Sinister, the Hellfire Club, or Black Tom Cassidy. But they took a chance on using a lesser name like Selene and by the end she wasn't lesser anymore. That and she looks much better in a thong.

The final issue was the final showdown. X-Force which consisted of Wolverine, X-23, Domino, Vanisher, Warpath, and Angel made their way to Selene and attacked. It took some help from Warpath's deceased brother, John "Thunderbird" Proudstar, to get them close, but they were able to take her on and literally rip out her heart. It made for a moment of brutal awesome that is consistent with the quality that has always been X-Force.

Now some reviewers on sites like CBR have criticized X-Force for being too dark and too bland. This is being somewhat short-sighted because darkness is a major theme of X-Force. Kyle and Yost made that clear from the beginning. You don't have a team of mutant killers hunt down thong-wearing immortal with a goddess complex and have it be merely PG. This story merely continued the traditions established in X-Force since the beginning and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's not to say some criticisms weren't valid. It didn't feel as though the other books that crossed over with Necrosha, including X-men Legacy and New Mutants, had much of an impact on the final battle. Basically, some enemies like Proteus broke off from Selene's main force and just fought other teams of the X-men and that was it for the most part. It would have been more fitting of Magneto came over from X-men Legacy and took part in the battle on the very island he once ruled. It may be because he was a major player in Uncanny instead, but it feels like a missed opportunity. Also, the final blow against Selene felt as though it could have been made earlier. Unlike Blackest Night, the mutants of X-Force didn't really need to do anything special to take her down. They just needed to get close and stab her. It's very in line with X-Force's brutal nature, but it feels a bit underhanded that someone with that kind of power would be taken down with just a stab to the heart.

Criticisms aside, Necrosha still did a fine job of bringing the story to a close. It also opened the door for more stories. It was able to end on a positive note like Blackest Night. Not all the mutants Selene resurrected were accounted for in the end. That means some like Banshee, Pyro, Senyaka, and Blink could still be out there. There was also the touching moment between Warpath and his brother. All too often characters like Thunderbird get glossed over and this was a moment for him to shine. Even though X-Force as a series is such a dark book, it really ended on a positive note with Cyclops saying the dawn is coming. That dawn should emerge through Second Coming and Necrosha helps bleed in nicely to this much bigger event.

Necrosha as a whole deserves plenty of praise. If Blackest Night hadn't unfolded right along with it this series would deserve a 5 out of 5 or at least a 4.5 out of 5. But since Blackest Night bested Necrosha in so many ways, it is overshadowed in a sense can only be given a 4 out of 5. It's still a quality book with quality art and quality storytelling. It is merely a victim of timing, sandwiched between Blackest night and Second Coming. Once these events are over and the aftermath begins, the truth context of Necrosha will come into focus and there will be plenty more reasons to praise it's awesome.