Beyond the Credits: Independence Day #2

The following is my review of Independence Day #2, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Sci-fi movies love to give us an overly simplistic view of how alien invasions play out. The sequence of events is so standard it might as well have its own checklist. The aliens invade, things start blowing up, people scream in terror, all hope is lost, and the human race miraculously rallies to defeat the evil invaders. After that, the credits roll and the audience is left to assume that the world becomes one big utopian paradise in the mold of an old Coca Cola commercial.

It might leave a movie audience feeling satisfied, but overly simplistic resolutions rarely make for greater intrigue. Few movies embody this spirit more than 1996's Independence Day. In terms of alien invasion movies, it is the gold standard by which others are measured. It doesn't just perfect the formula for sci-fi movies. It pours time and money to create a sense of scope and scale that just can't be achieved without a generous CGI budget.

This movie is complete antithesis of the B-rate sci-fi movies of yesteryear that were made on budgets that only Roger Corman could use. In the colorful history of the sci-fi genre, Independence Day remains a defining movie of its time, but it also falls into the same trap of simplifying the aftermath of an alien invasion, leaving the audience to fill in the blanks.

Enter Victor Gischler and Steve Scott, who pick up where the end credits of the movie left off in Independence Day #2. This series, which initially comes off as another shameless promotion tool for an upcoming summer blockbuster, crafts an entirely new narrative around the aftermath of this iconic movie.

This narrative doesn't include familiar names like President Whitmoore, Captain Steven Hillard, or David Levinson. It introduces a new set of characters in the first issue and sends them on a mission to search a crashed alien ship at the bottom of the ocean. Independence Day #2 gives these characters a chance to show their worth and while it might not be the same worth of Will Smith, they prove they have plenty to offer.

These characters begin as generic military types, but given the overall narrative of Independence Day, it's perfectly appropriate. Captain Joshua Adams and Dr. Jessica Morgan are the architects of this post-credits adventure. They decide, with the blessing of President Whitmoore, to investigate one of the crashed alien ships at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It goes about as smoothly nearly every other venture in the Independence Day world. That means aliens attack and humanity is at a woeful disadvantage.

The action and spirit of the movie is definitely there. It certainly becomes heightened in Independence Day #2 and since the first issue took the time to establish the characters, the plot has a level of dramatic weight. That weight, however, becomes a bit too familiar when this action-packed investigation fails to deliver the same level of drama as its big screen predecessor.

While it's unreasonable to expect a comic to have the same impact as a movie with production budget bigger than some countries, it's reasonable to hope that the foundation left by the movie gives the narrative plenty of room for refinement. That refinement is lacking in Independence Day #2. There are times when the plot has the depth of a generic video game. If Independence Day had been a video game, this might have been appropriate. Instead, it just feels too generic and it has no dazzling CGI to make it memorable.

This is also where the overly simplistic assumptions about the aftermath of an alien invasion catch up to this story. The end of the movie gives the impression that shooting down these big, city-sized space ships effectively ends the alien threat. It doesn't broach the possibility that some aliens survive, some ships manage to fight back, or these highly intelligent aliens realize that they just got hacked by a '90s era Apple laptop. Well that possibility is more than just a passing concern and there's no time for President Whitmoore to give another inspiring speech to address it.

The aliens, apparently, are just that determined to destroy Earth and every living thing on it. If they can't do it with their fleet of city-sized space ships, they'll do it with a more subtle fleet of underwater ships. In the context of the movie and the themes it conveyed, it makes these highly advanced aliens seem somewhat inept, giving the species they're trying to destroy huge targets when they just as easily could've tried a more covert approach. Then again, being so advanced, their concept of ineptitude might be alien as well.

Whatever their tactics, the story maintains a strong, concise plot that carries the characters through an alien ambience that feels perfectly in line with what the movie established. It doesn't have quite the same visual impact as the big budget CGI, but Steve Scott manages to convey the same themes and at only a fraction of the cost. That might be good news for the accountants working for 20th Century Fox, but it's not going to have the same bedazzling impact that make blockbusters like Independence Day so iconic.

There are alien environments, armed clashes, and intense action sequences. There is even an intriguing plot that builds on the ending of the movie. It just doesn't build enough to make it the kind of spectacle that'll make people feel better about overpaying for a movie ticket. Independence Day #2 has the basics, but lacks the refinements. It does enough to generate intrigue, but not enough to inspire awe and that's often the difference between a successful blockbuster and an egregious waste of popcorn.

Final Score: 6 out of 10

X-men #29 - Alien Clusterfuck (of Awesome)

In a world where Lou Dobbs is still given credibility, stories involving alien agenda still sends shivers up our spines. That or some people just have a shitty coke dealer. There has always been a place for these stories in comics, especially in the X-books. They aren't always as well done as they are with the Avengers, but we can always count on an equal amount of human/alien sex (see Miss Marvel or Xavier shacking up with Lilandra). But not every alien story involves writers finding ways to have humans fuck exotic aliens sadly. Some involve deception, trechery, and teenage girls whose frontal lobes are clearly not fully wired yet. This is the story that Victor Gischler has decided to tell for his final arc in adjectiveless X-men. It doesn't involve any alien nookie, but I suppose we'll have to stick with late not softcore porn on Cinemax for our xenophillic fix.

A story involving aliens and teenage girls with poor judgment is a somewhat fitting way for such a run to end. Gischler began his adjectiveless series with a teenage girl turning into a vampire and proceeding fuck it up every step of the way. Now he's ending it with another teenage girl fucking up an alien plot involving the Skrulls to a level that involves both poor judgment and killer robots. You can't get more basic in an X-book without doing an entire arc on the merits of spandex uniforms. Now I know I've had mixed reviews of Gischler's work, sometimes depending on how much I've had to drink before reading it. It hasn't been as top notch or influential as the work done by Kieron Gillen or Jason Aaron, but it has established an important theme of this series. It ties the X-men to conflicts involving the rest of the Marvel universe without having to do a shitty crossover mini. It's both simple and pragmatic, not unlike Paris Hilton minus the lousy sex tape. If this is truly the end of Gischler's run, then I think we can say that he's ending it with some of his best material because X-men Regenesis has provided a massive enema of awesome to this series. Here's hoping that he doesn't pull a Brett Favre and start flip-flopping on his return.

X-men #27 put Pixie in the middle of a Skrull conspiracy to steal a piece of tech from the FF. At first it seemed as though they were thwarted, but in true Skrull fashion they pulled a fast one that kept Pixie in the middle of the conflict and put her in a position to fuck it up even more. There may be few constents in this universe, but like the law of conservation you can usually rely on the law of bone-headed teenagers. When she found out the Skrulls were AWOL soldiers from Secret Invasion, she showed a bit of sympathy and tried to help them. This only ended up leading to a killer alien robot being awakened. The sad part is that's not even the worst damage that a teenager with poor judgment can incur. In X-men #28, the Skrull that screwed over both Pixie and his Skrull fellow cowards, Nazum, isn't content with being a cosmic level douche-bag. He has to take it a step further by taking a little boy hostage while he sicks the risen alien killer robots on his fellow Skrull, boasting how he'll be hailed as a hero and given all the sweet Skrull pussy he could want for returning home after having killed deserters. Even if it is a dick move, it is a pretty slick plan.

Pixie, who to this point has done nothing more than a glorified enabler for the Skrulls, claims to have a plan and needs Spider-Man's help to do it. Because who better to help than a guy who solves big problems by making deals with the devil? She teleports herself and Spider-Man into the risen ship while the X-men and the FF are left to take on the killer robots rampaging through downtown New York. It may seem like a lopsided plan, but given how Pixie has screwed up at this point it's probably best that the killer robot part of the plan be handled by adults not prone to the poor wiring of a teenager's brain. The only victims here are the innocent motorists of New York City traffic. But given that New Yorkers should be used to this shit by now, they should probably just treat it as an impromtu parade.

Inside the ship, Pixie and the AWOL Skrulls attempt to regain control. At one point the ship is on a crash course with the Statue of Liberty, but narrowly misses it before Glenn Beck can die from uncontrolled sobbing. The Skrulls discover that the main controls of the ship are locked and being guided from another area of the ship. Care to guess which part? In comics, it's usually safe to assume it's the same part of the ship that controls all the gizmos that go boom.Again, Nazum shows that despite being a complete douche-bag, he does have a pretty slick plan. He hopes to use the remaining missiles of the ship to deliver a royal fuck you to the planet Earth before returning home. This way he can improve his status as a deserter and possibly earn a trip to whatever the Skrull equivalent of Hawaii may be.

Nazum is in many ways the perfect example of the kind of villains that Gischler has employed in this series. Rather than use more famous baddies like Apocalypse or Sinister, he favors the kind of villains that are not established and more pragmatic. Going back to the vampire arc, Xarus wasn't just trying to crush the X-men because he was bored on a Saturday night with no weed. He thought he could unite mutants and vampires in a powerful partnership. Nazum is similar in that he's not just trying to get home. He wants to get home with some street cred rather than being identified as the deserter he truly is. It's still a dick move, but it's an overly pragmatic dick move given how Secret Invasion panned out.

Nazum has plenty going for him as well. With an alien weapons system at his fingertips, he also makes sure that the X-men and FF stay occupied. He's smart enough to know that killer robots are just a synonym for scrap in the Marvel universe. So it's no surprise when they successfully take down said robots and do it without breaking too much sweat to stain their ridiculously tight-fitting uniforms. So to keep them occupied, Nazum has them release an army of robot ants to swarm both teams. They're not as flashy as giant robot humanoids, but for anyone who has ever been bitten by an army of fire ants that your drunken buddies poured on you when you were passed out it's has the potential to sting like a bitch.

However, Nazum did make a critical mistake in this carefully thought out dick move of his. Aside from forgetting that the girl he tricked could teleport, he also took a hostage in the form of a little boy who probably spends his time either playing Angry Birds on his iphone or corrupting his innocence with Call of Duty co-op missions. So when Spider-Man shows up to rough him up, the boy ends up getting a hold of the fancy gizmo that the Skrulls went to such lengths to steal in the previous issue. Like any boy that sees a fancy gizmo with lots of buttons, he starts pressing them. He could be setting the ship to self destruct or he could be flushing the toilets. The point is that kids can fuck up your plans and any woman who has experienced a broken condom knows this all too well.

Pixie, still in need of making up for her faux pas thus far, steps in and tears the gizmo from the kid like any teenage girl would tear her vibrator out of the hands of a kid that found it while rummaging through her purse. Once Spider-Man webs up Nazum, she teleports both him and the kid back to the bridge where she hands the gizmo over to the Skrulls who didn't plan this elaborate dick move. She tells them to guide the main ship to the river while using the escape pods to get home. Unlike Nazum, they're not assholes so they do as their told and crash the ship into the river. Let's face it, it's probably not the weirdest thing to be dumped into a New York City river. If anything, it'll help cover up the dead bodies, used condoms, and crack pipes that are probably floating around.

The Skrull deserters successfully leave with Nazum tied up and ready to be fed to the Skrull equivalent of Guantanamo Bay, minus the free health care. It leaves at least some hope for alien/human relations in that some aliens are not total douche-bags that will screw humanity over the first chance they get. More importantly, Pixie's attempt to help the Skrulls actually paid off. That's right, in the end her bone-headed teenage judgment served her well and she was able to mitigate a fucked up situation that she herself fucked. It could definitely have gone a lot smoother and it's incurred a healthy bit of damage that New York City taxpayers will have to handle, but fuck the taxpayers. She beat a Skrull! That's all Storm needs to offer her a job with the X-men's security team. Since Jubilee left to shack up with her vampire buddies, they need a new teenage member with poor judgment to lead the team into new adventures. Because when you don't have someone who will fuck up several times before they succeed, shit just gets too boring.

So we've reached the end of another era of X-men. It may not be the most flashy or the most historic, but Victor Gischler definitely accomplished some quality shit with this series. He helped establish an X-books that really made it feel like the X-men were a part of the larger Marvel universe. It wasn't always the most epic and it didn't always play out as well as it could have. In some ways this book is a victim of the overall growth of the X-books. As the quality has improved, the bar has been raised and while this series did reach it a few times it didn't do so on a consistent basis. This book just had too many mediocre moments early on, but Gischler definitely pulled things together towards the end and arcs like this show just how great this series can be.

What makes this issue and this arc good is they Gischler keeps the story focused. It doesn't try to juggle too many different plot threads. This is a story about Pixie getting caught up in a Skrull affair and trying to right some of the bone-headed mistakes she made. For the most part she succeeded, more than any other teenager that I've seen in real life. Moreover, she does it while the X-men, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four all play a part as well. Granted, that part is not extremely deep. They're largely extras in this struggle, but given the nature of this book it works out nicely. Gischler's dialog is very easy to follow and the resolution feels satisfying. What it lacked was the major twist that the previous issue had, which I guess is hard to match in an issue dominated by killer robots and hostage situations. But in the end there is still a sense of progression. Now that Jubilee has left and Generation Hope has been canned, Pixie is in need of a new gig and why not the X-men's security team? She proved herself here and she deserves it. And unlike other cute teenage girls, she didn't have to suck any dicks to get it.

The end of this arc and the end of Gischler's run keeps me optimistic about the future of this series. That or maybe I had a few extra shots of tequila, but the logic is still valid. The adjectiveless X-men may not be the most hyped X-book, but it offers something unique and this issue as well as this arc epitomize what it can do. It wasn't the best arc Gischler's done, but it's definitely up to the standards that he managed to rise during the latter part of his run. For his last issue, I give X-men #29 a 4 out of 5. Thank you, Mr. Gischler! You gave us vampires, mutants, aliens, and killer robots. I think that counts as a success for any comic writer. Nuff said!

X-men #28 - Invading Awesome

I try not to trust my senses too much. When you've killed as many brain cells as I have with acid, weed, and bar fights you didn't win you learn not to trust the big-titted woman with the blue skin, green eyes, and three tits eying you on the other side of the bar. You just assume someone slipped something into your booze, shrug it off, and go back to hitting on the jukebox. In the Marvel universe, I would be a shape-shifter's worst nightmare. I'm not saying I would be able to bone Mystique (although that would be on my to-do list). I'm just saying I would be more suspicious than your average Joe.

In Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men, Utopia's official security team has to be suspicious. Hell, they have to be more paranoid than a coke-head in withdrawal that listens to Glenn Beck. They're just coming off a pretty nasty blow. They lost Jubilee to a group of handsome vampires that look nothing like Twilight fans. In that battle they got their asses kicked. Jubilee ended up saving herself and then decided she would do better hanging out with other vampires than protecting a mutant island that was just going to get attacked by the Avengers later on. So Storm, Warpath, Domino, and the rest of the security team have had their pride and their resolve damaged. It made for a somewhat solemn issue, but unlike a massage parlor in Bangkok not every issue is going to have a happy ending.

So without hesitation, I still give adjectiveless X-men a shot. X-men #28 comes out with a story that once again doesn't tie into Avengers vs. X-men or anything else that is going on with the other X-books for that matter. It's a story that actually does what we were told from the beginning this series would do which is have the X-men interact with other members of the Marvel universe. But this isn't the kind of interaction that makes for good hand-holding and circle jerks.

Pixie, one of the X-men's younger members who still has a nasty habit of getting herself into trouble (and occasionally losing her soul). For reasons not all that clear, she's in New York City being led by a creepy-looking guy at gunpoint. But he's not looking to lure her into a windowless van with the promise of candy and puppies. He wants her to teleport him into the Baxter Building, home of the Future Foundation. This naturally gets Reed Richard's attention, who quickly finds out that said creepy guy with a gun is actually a Skrull. Okay, so maybe Pixie is safer with a Skrull than she is the guy with the van, but you get the idea.

The FF make quick work of the asshole Skrull that needs teenage girls to do his dirty work. Shortly after he's subdued, the X-men's security team arrive. They're understandably upset that one of Utopia's citizens was held at gunpoint by an alien. In Pixie's defense, the Skrull claimed he had a hostage in the form of a little boy that he would shoot if she didn't help him. This would have been a good defense if Pixie didn't stop to consider that maybe that hostage was a Skrull too. I get that some teenage girls can be pretty ditzy, but when you're dealing with alien shape-shifters you would think that would be reason to be a bit more cautious. Maybe Pixie should ditch the Twilight movies and start watching more slasher flicks.

The security team takes Pixie and the Skrull who used her away. They claim to be in a hurry and don't have time to sit around and listen to the Reed Richards make jokes about quantum physics. But after they leave, Gischler throws in a twist that probably shouldn't surprise anyone who has ever read a comic with the Skrulls. Just after the security team leaves, they arrive again. No, that's not just the peyote talking. That X-men security team that showed up earlier, that wasn't them. Those assholes were yet more Skrulls. Even if it's expected, it's still a pretty satisfying twist and one Gischler handles nicely. Unfortunately for Pixie, she's too ditzy to realize. It's only when they drag her to some special secure archives that she starts to notice. When she does, it's too late. A ditzy teenage girl against several angry Skrulls? It would be more fair to pit a Navy SEAL against a drunk New York Jets fan.

However, the Skrulls aren't just using Pixie because aliens are on a mission to probe pretty teenage girls (not unlike college frat boys). These Skrulls are leftovers from Marvel's big Secret Invasion event a few years ago, which makes for some nice continuity in a series that hasn't always fit into the larger Marvel landscape. They weren't marooned or anything that tragic. They're just a bunch of pussies. When they saw that their side was losing, they said "Fuck this, I'm going to go mutilate some cattle. Later bitches!" Now they want to go home. I guess they ran out of cattle to mutilate and to do that they need to find some confiscated Skrull tech that will allow them to access a hidden ship that can take them home. And they're relying on the lead Skrull to make it so they weren't cowards in the eyes of their species, which is every bit as questionable as it sounds mind you.

It may not seem like the kind of alien threat that the Marvel universe usually faces, but that's probably a good thing. Having a group of Skrulls that actually didn't stick around to get their asses kicked in Secret Invasion is a good concept, one that makes you wonder why a story like this wasn't told earlier. But seeing as how my memory is only as good as the brain cells I haven't killed yet, I'm okay with that. It adds an extra bit of drama that you wouldn't expect from a plot that revolves around aliens kidnapping a cute teenage girl.

While Pixie does express some kind level of sympathy for them, that doesn't stop them from tying her up and finding the gizmo they're looking for. Lucky for her, other more mature heroes are smart enough not to have sympathy for Skrulls. One of them is Spider-Man, who tends to notice when a bunch of shape-shifting aliens are trying to steal confiscated tech. He comes in and starts beating up the Skrulls in a way that only somewhat makes you forget that this is the same asshole that sold his marriage to the fucking devil. It's still pretty satisfying if you enjoy seeing ugly aliens getting punished for fucking with cute girls.

These cowardly Skrulls don't put up much of a fight, much like they did in Secret Invasion. They end up getting their asses knocked out a window, but for reasons Pixie still hasn't quite learned she goes out of her way to save them and still says she wants to help them. The Skrulls are understandably dubious of any girl they went out of their way to abduct and use as a hostage. They ignore her calls for understanding and Spider-Man's inclination to kick their asses even more. They still got what they wanted from the archive. Being the cowards they are, they need to take the easy way out.

For them, the easy way involves using that little gizmo of theirs. This quickly fucks up the situation like a Tijuana crack whore. The streets of New York start to rumble and people start shitting themselves. It's the perfect time for the FF and the X-men's security team to show up and remind Pixie that when dealing with Skrulls, sympathy is something you should leave at the door along with your trust. It quickly becomes chaotic and forces the X-men and FF to start protecting the civilians. The Skrulls, still playing the cowardice card, take a few hostages along the way in an effort to make their escape easier. They may not be the most cunning aliens in comics, but you have to admit they are determined to get the fuck off this planet.

It turns out that gizmo did exactly what they wanted it to do. It activated a ship that had been dormant under the streets of New York City. Wait, how the fuck did a ship go unnoticed in the underground of New York City? Wouldn't some homeless guy, mutant rat, or subway worker have noticed that shit? Well fuck me with the details, it's there. And when it rises to the surface, it also reveals another surprise. The ship had a few nasty looking weapons on board. For a bunch of Skrulls that have to rely on deception and hostage taking, they need something badass to save whatever it is they consider their balls. It's a dick move, but fuck if it isn't effective.

While I may not trust my senses as much as I should, I do trust a good comic when I see it. Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men has been somewhat inconsistent, but it does manage to deliver from time to time. It doesn't deliver enough to make you foam at the mouth every week a new issue is supposed to come out, but it delivers enough to keep you interested. While the last issue was somewhat disappointing, this issue hits all the right notes. It's a solid issue that gets back to the roots of this series, which was billed from the beginning as something that would get the X-men involved with other major players in the Marvel universe. This issue also took on some fresh angles, namely following the journey of a teenage girl who is still fucking up in her chosen career. Whether it's a superhero or an underpaid waitress at Hooters, a young girl should expect to be fucked up and tricked from time to time. Pixie is just lucky it didn't end with her panties being shown on the internet.

I enjoyed this issue. It was definitely an upgrade from the previous issue and did a good job of not only getting other Marvel heroes involved, but also playing with all the deceptive possibilities of using Skrulls. Now since I'm already as paranoid as any drunk, I wasn't too surprised when the Skrulls pulled a double take with Pixie. But I imagine fans out there who actually read comics sober would find it to be a pretty interesting twist. The only part that's lacking here is the poor setup. It just begins with Pixie in New York and offers no explanation. There's also no reaction among the X-men over Jubilee's departure. There's really no flow from the previous issue to this issue. It makes it feel somewhat abrupt, but perhaps that's for the better. If you didn't like seeing Jubilee leave, perhaps it's best not to have the issue dwell on it.

Victor Gischler continues to move this series along despite having to do so in the midst of a big motherfucking event in Avengers vs. X-men. It's like trying to win a farting contest on free bean burritos night at a bar. You're just not going to stand out. Yet if you're able to tear your ass away from Avengers vs. X-men long enough or just want a more basic story, this issue will deliver and deliver quite effectively. I give X-men #28 a 4 out of 5. Pixie has some harsh lessons to learn, chief among them are if aliens are big enough assholes to hold you at gunpoint so they can break into a high tech facility then maybe you shouldn't sympathize with them. Just be glad she didn't learn this lesson at her first college frat party by accepting a drink from the guy claiming to be pre-med and offering free breast exams. Nuff said!

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 #26 - Bloodbath of Awesome

I have a simple rule when it comes to vampires in comics. As long as they don't act like hippies and fucking sparkle, I'll give them a chance. I'll be the first to say I'm pretty sick of the vampire craze inspired by Twilight. I wouldn't make so many jokes about Robert Pattinson's penis if I wasn't annoyed by the world's annoying fascination with these pussy moistening blood suckers. However, vampires are a part of pop culture despite Stephanie Meyer's evil influence. Before she was getting her period, Marvel was telling stories about vampires and telling them quite well. It wasn't until the Curse of the Mutants story arc last year that vampires returned to the Marvel universe in a big way and the current arc of Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men almost makes you overlook how sick you are of vampires...almost.

While the first issue for this arc started off slow, disappointing, and full of Jubilee's whining, it has definitely picked up. The X-men's security team, led by Storm and all the reasons she has to be pissed for being married off to Black Panther is in search of Jubilee. In the last issue they found her and the vampires that abducted her. A fight broke out as is often the case with anyone who tries to pull a teenage girl away from a vampire's grasp. In that sense they're not unlike R. Kelly minus the urine. Jubilee made her position clear when she yelled at the X-men for fighting against the people who were trying to help her. It's easy to forget that she's new to being a vampire and hasn't quite mastered the whole urge-to-suck-peoples-blood-and-kill-them instinct. Razio promises to help her. Unfortunately, Razio has a long list of enemies and by long list I mean they all stormed his stronghold in the South China Sea D-Day style.

This is where the story picks up. Among those seeking a big fat paycheck from Razio's head is Deadpool. Even though he's part of X-Force, he's still a mercenary and he's gotta make a living. If for no other reason than to buy tacos and bullets. Thankfully, Domino has a history with him and she also has killer boobs. So she manages to confront Domino before he barges into the base and starts shooting. At first, he's hesitant to pass up a big payday. Then Domino offers to go on a date with him and he agrees to help. I'll admit it. For a date with Domino and a chance to tap that ass, I would brave an incoming army of supervillains. 

But it'll take more than just Deadpool's insanity or Domino's boobs to protect them from this onslaught. Both the X-men and the Forgiven have dispatched their heavy hitters into the fray, looking to hold off the assault. It's definitely the kind of shit that will ruin your Sunday, but this timing is pretty fucked up. Both Razio and Storm notice it. Whenever an army of villains looking for a fat payday show up at your doorstep foaming at the mouth, someone usually has their dick in your business. So like competent leaders in a book that is clearly trying to avoid being another mutant/vampire mash up, they proceed cautiously. Storm, not ready to leave Jubilee behind with Razio, stays in the base with Psylocke. She must think his hold on teenage girls is more unhealthy than Robert Pattinson's hair gel. They all watch the fireworks unfold and without popcorn no less.

The action here is pretty heavy, much more so than the previous issue. This isn't a scuffle built on some misunderstanding. These are the X-men and the vampires they were looking to slaughter having to fight off an invasion of money, grubbing mercenaries. It's almost like lobbyists descending on Congress, but without quite as much bloodshed and substantially less hookers. Like said lobbyists, these guys came packing heavy hardware. But that shit is a fucking coke can compared to Colossus. He didn't get to strut his stuff in Uncanny X-men #8, so he gets to make up for it here by snapping a tank in half. And on panel no less! Sure, he gets an unfortunate surprise when someone phases through him like a ghost and makes him feel like that girl from the Exorcist, but it's still pretty badass on new fewer than a hundred different levels.

The Forgiven show that they can kick plenty of ass as well and without sparkling or showing off their fangs. The same vampires that gave the X-men a run for their money in the previous issue show they can more than measure up against an army of money grubbing bounty hunters not named Dog. One of them, Black Axe, not only shows that he has a kick-ass nickname, but he's also smarter than the average bounty hunter. The Forgiven seem to rely not just on being hippie vampires, but outsmarting those who think they can become Buffy with just a crucifix and a stake. When one of the talkative targets decides to wield his ball and chain (not a dick metaphor I'm sure), he ends up making himself look like an idiot by causing an entire cliff to collapse. It's a more creative way to beat an enemy and that much more satisfying.

Despite the overwhelming odds, things seem to be going well for both the X-men and the Forgiven. You get the sense that Storm should get some Doritoes and Razio should get one of Ted Nugant's pets and enjoy the show. But they still don't feel like taking it easy just yet. There's still a significant debate to have regarding Jubilee. She's still adamant about trusting Razio. Storm has trusted vampires before and nearly had her head bitten off as a result. Guys like Dracula leave a bad impression so Storm is not too enthused about Jubilee's decision, but she makes clear that she's not going to let her use it as an excuse to be a complete brat (which she has been for several issues now).

This tension is somewhat secondary to the more pressing concerns that Razio has. The mere fact that their counterattack against the onslaught of bounty hunters is going so well is cause for concern. He and Storm seem to understand that when shit is going this smoothly, some much bigger shit is about to hit the fan. And wouldn't you know it? They turn out to be right. It's another law of physics in comics. If shit goes smoothly, shit is about to get heavy.

It's a classic tactic that would be so cliched if it didn't work so well. The rest of the X-men and the Forgiven our stuck outside taking on the onslaught of bounty hunters. Domino, still obligated to let Deadpool see her naked for his help, coordinates with the others to bring the battle to a stalemate. But in doing so, they pretty much keep themselves occupied from whatever real threat is going on inside. I'm pretty sure there's a whole section about this tactic in the Art of War, but I'll leave that book to generals and investment bankers. All we as comic book readers need to know is that it worked. The X-men and the Forgiven are divided and distracted. That means we can find out who's really behind this shit.

Who could it be? A monster? A well known Dr. Doom style villain? A hot chick with a Buffy hard-on? Well, it's not as groundbreaking as that I'm afraid. Inside the base, a psychic bomb goes off that neutralizes Psylocke and Storm ends up getting gassed in a way you would only experience by being stuck in a cab with an angry New York Jets fans after leaving a wing eating contest. It's all courtesy of neatly dressed enemy with a very gay looking mask that looks like it was a rejected design for V for Vendetta. It may not look very intimidating, but the asshole behind it managed to neutralize the X-men and seriously wound Razio. That shit has to count for something.

The mystery villain doesn't say much. He/she/it seems content to let actions speak louder than words. Those actions have a clear message, "You're fucked and I outsmarted you. Now watch me jack off." That last part was implied. However, not everyone is down for the count. Jubilee, the fucked up teen who Razio couldn't convince to drink sheep's blood a few issues ago, is still on her feet. She's the only one left to take on this creature that just took down the X-men and the Forgiven. It doesn't seem like a fair fight until you realize that this is a fucked up teenager who has been pissed off by her friends and her captors and still has the added aid of renegade teenage hormones. If I were the mystery villain, I would rather kidnap Lois Lane and wave my dick in the face of Superman than take on Jubilee at the moment. That and you have to admit she looks pretty badass with a katana.

Going back to what I said about being sick of vampires earlier, I'll add to that sentiment one simple truth. Awesome stories trumps all cliches. Victor Gischler has been on his longest winning streak since this series began and I couldn't be more happy about it. This was a series that started strong, but was mired in mediocrity while other X-books like Uncanny X-Force outshined it. I can't overstate how impressed I've been with Gischler since he took over after X-men Regenesis. This issue highlights so many aspects of what makes this series great. We've got an onslaught from the Assassins Guild, a guest appearance from Deadpool, a mysterious new foe in the Claw, and Jubilee stepping up to show that she can kick more as as a vampire than she ever could as a mutant. It feels like a book that captures other elements of the Marvel universe and makes this series truly awesome.

Just a few issues ago, I criticized this arc for being too detached. An entire issue was dedicated only to Jubilee and Razio's crew of hippie vampires. While that issue was still a bump in the road, it certainly helped in setting the stage for what Razio is up against. He and his vampire crew show that they've got some bite in them that doesn't just involve blood sucking. His history is pretty extensive and his motivations have been built up nicely over the past few issues. The tension with Storm is certainly an added bonus and one that plays up her history with vampires (namely as Dracula's squeeze). It culminates in a conflict that is predictable in some ways, but plays out in a way that's still very entertaining. Even if you hate vampires and have nightmares of Stephenie Meyer trying to rip out your soul, you'll find something to love about this issue.

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite arcs that Gischler has put together since his run began. It still has a ways to go. It left a lot of room for mystery surrounding who is attacking Razio. One could argue it's too much room and too ambiguous, but if it isn't enough to excite you about the next issue then you're just being a douche. X-men #26 is full of action, suspense, mystery, and Deadpool cracking jokes. It's everything you want in a comic of this nature. For that, I give it a 4.5 out of 5. I'm leaving half a point off so that there's room for improvement with the big conclusion. This is a big moment for this series and for Jubilee. She hasn't been this awesome since the 90s or this bonerific for all your fetish types. The world may be sick of vampires, but seeing as how they're not going away anytime soon we might as well enjoy the ones that are least likely to remind us of Twilight. 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 #24 - Blood Sucking Awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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