Scanned Thoughts: Wolverine and the X-men #12

Some people have multiple personalities that change as often as Lady Gaga’s dress sense. One day they’re loving and caring. The next they’re angry and hostile to the point of wanting to snap the neck of puppies. These people are usually not the kind of people who should be in positions of power where their authority is wielded on the whim of whatever meds they are or aren’t taking. That’s part of what makes someone like Storm such a perfect headmaster for the Jean Grey Institute. More than any other X-man, she has been the emotional and spiritual rock for generations of mutants. Her loving, compassionate grace is more consistent than Peyton Manning on game day.

But what happens when that rock of stability turns into a badly hung over Wolverine? That’s exactly what the inversion has done to Storm in the events of Avengers and X-men: AXIS. Thanks to yet another case of the Scarlet Witch’s bullshit, she and some of the other X-men have gone evil. Now she’s about as compassionate as a hungry grizzly that shits typhoons. And she is still the head of the Jean Grey Institute. May Odin and every other god in the Marvel universe have mercy on the poor souls of the students.

Almost as jarring as Storm going evil is Kid Omega suddenly not being the insufferable douche-bag he’s been for the last decade. He certainly went out of his way to exercise his douche-baggery in the events leading up to Wolverine’s death. He took over the Phoenix Corporation, quit the Jean Grey Institute, and generally shrugged off Wolverine’s death the same way Chuck Norris shrugs off a hangover. Now he’s partying it up at the Hellfire Club. It’s basically like an orgy at the Playboy mansion and cocaine bender with Charlie Sheen. An douche-bag teen should be in heaven, but that’s not how Kid Omega feels anymore.

He’s at this party, surrounded by the kind of rich assholes he would love to mind-fuck just to give himself a boner. Yet he doesn’t feel inclined to do any of that shit. His inner monologue details the extent of his inversion, something that has been explored in other tie-ins. It’s been explored better because all it really shows here is that Kid Omega is no longer exercising his douce-bag tendencies, but it’s still nice to see the nuts and bolts of the inversion.

What isn’t nearly as nice is seeing the Hellfire Brats again. Yes, the pre-pubescent asshats who turned the entire concept of the Hellfire Club into an exercise in absurdity/pedophilia are still alive and I’m still pissed off about it. And no, they haven’t changed at all. They’re still the same insufferable assholes. But they do at least remind Kid Omega that he tends to cause a lot more property damage at these parties. Hell, he did just that a few issues ago on his own birthday. But now he might as well be the bathroom attendant cleaning vomit off the floor from guys who can’t handle their blow. It does help reinforce the extent of Kid Omega’s inversion, but it doesn’t make seeing the Hellfire Brats again any less infuriating.

At this point, no more reinforcement is needed to show that Kid Omega is not his usual asshole self. But we get it anyways, even though most of us are starting to get sick of it and looking for more potent weed. After rubbing elbows with the Hellfire Brats, Kid Omega meets up with some old friends from the Jean Grey Institute, including Idie and Broo. For some reason, they actually accepted his invitation to a party at the Hellfire Club. That would be like Reed Richards agreeing to go to a strip club with Dr. Doom. It should raise more than a few red flags, but that’s besides the point.

Their reactions to Kid Omega’s invitation and attitude are funny. I’d be shocked too if I met my old algebra teacher and found out he became peaceful, non-violent hippie who didn’t hide a bottle of whiskey under his desk in between classes. It just falls too flat. Kid Omega attempts to paint it as something Wolverine would’ve wanted. But given how he’s gone out of his way to piss all over Wolverine’s grave in recent issues, it really has no impact. It’s not terrible. It’s not egregious, given the inverted circumstances. It’s just not all that interesting without the aid of LSD.

But guess what is more interesting? How about Storm doing whatever the fuck she wants to do, even if it means swapping spit with some guy she doesn’t know who happens to be at the party with another woman? That’s the sort of shit we would expect from Emma Frost or Mystique, but not Storm. Even if her lover did just die, this is now how she usually copes. Hell, if I recall, she was still at the stage where she was sleeping with Wolverine’s jacket and his empty bottles of whiskey. Now she’s already at that stage where she’s getting over a tragedy by getting under whoever moistens her panties. I’m shocked and incredibly turned on.

She doesn’t just kiss the guy either. She actually kisses the woman too. So yes, Storm has now basically become her own porno fantasy and my penis couldn’t be happier. There doesn’t need to be any monolog for this shit. Her actions are more than enough to reveal the extent of her inversion. This is not the same loving, compassionate Storm that so many people love and respect. This is a Storm who operates by the, “I’ll do and fuck whatever and whoever I want in that order.” It’s shocking, but sexy as fuck.

This surprises Kid Omega and probably gives him a hell of a boner. He doesn’t really do much. To be fair, he’s not in a position to do much either. This is Storm. This is one woman even Kid Omega doesn’t fuck with outside his darkest masturbatory fantasies. She makes it clear that she’s here to do whatever the fuck she wants to do and if he doesn’t like it, he can go suck a tornado’s dick. And when a couple of bouncers show up to try and kick her out, she kindly turns them away by kicking their asses.

Again, no monologue is needed for this shit. Storm’s actions do plenty to send the right message. This is an inverted Storm. She doesn’t give a flying fuck anymore. And anyone who dares fuck with her buzz can expect a concussion and a full-blown monsoon up their ass. It’s jarring, especially after all the grace and elegance she demonstrated in recent issues. And maybe this reveals some of the flaws within AXIS itself because it flips these characters so severely that it really doesn’t feel genuine anymore. This Storm might as well be an evil clone. But seeing as how there are enough Madelyne Pryors in the Marvel universe, I’m not going to say the concept is completely without merit.

Kid Omega is pretty shell shocked, but even in his inverted form, nobody really gives a shit about his opinion. It’s when the other students from the Jean Grey Institute that shit really gets serious. They calmly ask Storm if she’s okay. She responds by hitting them with a fucking hurricane. Now even for an inverted Storm, that’s pretty extreme. That’s like fighting an ant hill with napalm. There’s no discussion or debate either. She just tells them to fuck off and then helps herself to money in one of the cash registers. It’s another instance where the inversion becomes so extreme that it fails to have the same impact. We get it. She’s not herself. But there’s a fine line between being inverted and an evil clone. This story is basically dry-humping that line. It still gives me a boner, but only to an extent.

Finally, Kid Omega decided to do something. Unfortunately, doing something for him usually means doing something that ends up pissing everybody off. Even in his inverted form, Kid Omega finds a way. He uses a little telekinetic gun-slinging, along with some traditional mind-fuck to calm Storm the fuck down before she goes Hurricane Katrina on all of them. It works, but only to the extent that it pisses off the Hellfire Club’s insurance company. It doesn’t snap Storm out of her inversion. In fact, she decides to thank him for stopping her by punching him in the jaw. And even if it’s misguided in these circumstances, nobody would argue that Kid Omega hasn’t done plenty to earn 100 punches just like it.

It’s this moment that’s really the most telling. By having Storm and Kid Omega clash, it establishes a clear dichotomy with this inversion. Basically, an inverted Storm is way more powerful than an inverted Kid Omega. An inverted Storm is also way sexier and way easier to jerk off to. Anybody who denies that is lying through their teeth. And it’s this moment where Storm stands over an emasculated Kid Omega where we see just how strong these inversions truly are. It should make everybody a lot less inclined to piss Storm off, regardless of whether she’s inverted.

After Storm successfully shrinks Kid Omega’s balls the size of a peanut, she ditches him. This leaves Kid Omega behind with a very irritated group of Hellfire Brats. They told him to not fuck up another one of their parties. And even though this wasn’t his fault, he’s the one that gets the blame. It’s not fair, but nobody is going to feel too sorry for this kid. Let’s face it. Even if this party had gone as well as any traditional Hellfire orgy, he would have found a way to fuck up another one. As far as I’m concerned, Storm just saved them all and the insurance company a lot of frustration.

Even if nobody feels sorry for Kid Omega, it does put him in a position to better-understand what’s going on. He seems to know that something is very fucked up with him and Storm, but he still hasn’t connected the dots. And he’s supposed to be an omega level telepath, even though that label has become about as meaningless as an honorary degree from Arizona State. But even without the knowledge of Dr. Doom and the Scarlet Witch’s spell, he has a better idea of what’s going on here. He basically know knows what we all knew several issues ago. He’s way behind the curve and he’s really not in a position to do much else about it. So in that sense, not much gets accomplished other than ruining another perfectly good orgy.

I look at this story the same way I look at a dog that accidentally ate a bag of weed. It’s a spectacle, but not in the same sense that clown car crashing into a bakery is a spectacle. The strength of this story is its ability to make the concept of an evil Storm and a non-douchey Kid Omega entertaining. It works, but only in the sense that a firecracker works. It has its moments. It’s fun from a very shallow standpoint. It’s just not much more than that.

There’s no real impact on the ongoing events of AXIS. There’s nothing profound revealed about Storm, Kid Omega, the Hellfire Club, or the recent death of Wolverine. It’s just highlighting the fucked up nature of an evil Storm and a non-douchy Kid Omega. In this, Wolverine and the X-men #12 succeeds. It doesn’t make that concept feel fucked up to the point that no amount of bong hits can make it entertaining. It’s not going to leave anybody’s jaw on the floor either. Those who fantasize about Storm being a dominatrix might have something to work with here, but I imagine those fantasies have no place outside seedy European clubs. I give this comic a 6 out of 10. It’s good. It neither induces vomiting nor inspires multiple nerdgasms. For those who don’t have access to a clown car or know a good bakery, this comic will do the job. Nuff said!

Wolverine and the X-men #12 - Rachel Grey's Overdue Awesome

Wolverine is often proclaimed as being one of the greatest comic book characters of all times. He's the kind of character guys wish they could be and the kind of guys girl's have the insatiable urge to bone. However, the appeal of Wolverine also reveals an inherent flaw in the mechanisms that make up the human condition. If Wolverine were a real guy, most men would hate his guts. He's hard drinking, impulsive, asshole with anger management issues that likes to lust after married women and get into bar fights for no good reason. Hell, if he were real most guys would probably fantasize about a tiger ripping his nuts. For women, he's about the worst guy you could bone. He'll try to fuck you when you're in a committed relationship and get you killed if you try to have one with him. It's one of those things about women that I think is destroying the human race. Stand the founders of Google and Facebook next to a guy with a neck tattoo, a motorcycle, and a long rap sheet and women are still conflicted about who makes a better life partner.

But regardless of how people would see Wolverine if he were a real person, he's still a compelling character in the comics. However, compelling doesn't make him any less of an asshole. He seemed to actually take the moral high ground for once in Schism, wanting to take kids away from the carnage that Utopia was attracting like herpes to a Mexican whore house. But then Avengers vs. X-men came along and he's had about as much moral high ground as Ted Haggard on snorting meth from a gay prostitute's ass. He favored actually killing the mutant messiah that the X-men fought so hard to save. He fought Captain freakin' America and got his ass thrown out of a jet, only to come crawling back later when he figured out that stabbing Hope Summers wasn't going to cut it. I know most people want to bitch about how Cyclops and the Phoenix Five have become these cosmic tyrants, but at least they're trying to make the world a better place. Wolverine is just being a douche.

The pages of Wolverine and the X-men have often shown Wolverine as his least douchy persona. Even during the AvX tie-ins, he's been ten times more likable than he has in other books. He's still the kind of guy that men would want to castrate if he came to take their daughter out on a date, but at least he was attempting to protect the school he founded from the conflict erupting around AvX. Well now that the Phoenix Five are on the loose and he was on the losing side, he's in a hell of a position. He might as well be Muslim in Rush Limbaugh's house because he's got powerful forces looking to screw him over.

Wolverine and the X-men #12 has Wolverine doing exactly what I would do if the world was after me, sitting in a bar getting shit-faced. And the Phoenix Five have tasked Rachel, who was among those that ditched the Jean Grey Institute and fought alongside the X-men before the cosmic parrot was on the business end of Tony Stark's latest gizmo (that could be a new dick joke). So after the events of Avengers vs. X-men #6 where Hope ran off with the Avengers, she's tasked with using those hound instincts honed in a future that's been butt-fucked by sentinels to track him down. She finds him trying to drink away his problems in a bar. That may work for a shitty day at the office or rear ending some douche-bag's Porsche, but not with the Phoenix Force. Rachel tries to reason with him and maintains that the Phoenix Force is doing good, but Wolverine isn't having it. He's an extra large, overly engorged, clear-the-room-I'm-ready-to-paint-the-walls dick about it and sparks the mother of all bar fights (outside of Spring Break in Tijuana that is).

While most bar fights need no prelude and can be triggered by simply looking at the wrong person cross-eyed, this fight and Rachel's role in it does have some precedent. As the Avengers and Rachel's team of X-men make life for a poor bar owner miserable, we get a quick flashback to one of her psychic lessons at the Jean Grey Institute. She's giving some pointers on psychic shielding to her students, presumably so they can guard their thoughts while they're thinking of her naked in the shower. Quentin decides to use the lesson as yet another chance to be a massive douche by having her recall her time as a Hound in the shitty future she came from. Rachel responded to that with the psychic equivalent of a 2x4 to the face. It makes for a satisfying scene for Quentin and a nice reminder that despite her undersized appearance, Rachel Grey has a history as a badass.

Back int he present, Rachel makes that badassery known as she leads the charge against the Avengers. She goes so far as to tell Captain America not to call her Marvel Girl because let's face it, Marvel Girl just doesn't say "I can drive a telekinetic spike up your urethra and rip out your intestines." She definitely steals the show, but she's not the only one. Phoenix Namor is present and more than ready to give Thor a worthy ass-kicking. So is Kid Gladiator, who in the previous issue ditched the chance to go home and wait out this conflict in the cozy luxury of the Shi'ar Imperial palace. However, some are memorable for all the wrong reasons.

In Avengers vs. X-men #6, I praised Beast for the first time since George W. Bush still had credibility. He finally showed that he wasn't just a fury blue asshole that liked to shit all over Cyclops's agenda for petty reasons. He even walked away from the Avengers when they started making plans to attack the X-men. Now for reasons that are completely unexplained, he's back with the Avengers and fighting alongside them to keep the Phoenix Five from Hope. If that wasn't enough reason for him to renew his douche-bag frequent flier miles card, he attacks Iceman by shooting him in the fucking face. This is his oldest friend from the days of the Original Five and now he's just shooting him in the face for going along with Cyclops. I get that you don't like Cyclops, but shooting your friend in the face is still a dick move of cosmic proportions.

Every scene with Beast in this issue makes you grit your teeth and want to throw his ass in a vat of hungry tics. But whatever frustration Beast may bring, it's more than made up for with Rachel Grey flexing the psychic muscle Marvel hasn't let her flex since before we had a black president. She doesn't just take on the likes of Captain America and tell her to kiss her ass. She even goes up against Thor as he's trying to regain whatever portion of his balls he can salvage after getting laid out by Phoenix Namor. She takes a few shots, but she takes them like Rocky Balboa against a coked up Ivan Drago. Given how Rachel has been so marginalized and left taking on jobs akin to the guy who cleans up Charlie Sheen's hotel room, it's a welcome sight to see her take center stage in a book that has Wolverine in the fucking title.

While Rachel holds her own, Kid Gladiator finds ways to contribute as well. He demonstrates that bravado that doesn't even try to walk the line between being tough and being an asshole by punching Giant Man in the fucking eye. He also tries to act out the fantasy of every high school student that was singled out by the principal during a drug sweep. After failing to pick up Thor's hammer, Kid Gladiator takes his frustrations out on Wolverine. He's able to get in a few hits. I find that if you imagine your old principal's face on to of Wolverine's, it helps make the nightmares about high school go away for at least a few minutes. Wolverine still ends up schooling his ass because even though Wolverine's an asshole, he's not an egotistical asshole and Marvel just can't let arrogant kids like Kid Gladiator win.

The chaos surrounding this glorified bar fight helps mask underlying purpose, which revolves around another red-haired, green eyed mutant that's nowhere nearly as awesome as Rachel Grey. This is where another fucked up inconsistency shows. In Avengers vs. X-men #6, Hope Summers left with the Scarlet Witch. So what the fuck are the Avengers doing guarding her in fucking bar? Did they suddenly want to get her drunk before she got to know Wanda Maximoff too well? Did they hope doing so would make for awesome lesbian porn? Even if they had a good reason, it makes for shitty organization int he story. She's just standing out in the midst of this fight being guarded by Black Widow, who might as well be trying to protect her with a feather duster. Because when Rachel Grey catches up to her, she lays her out like Vladimir Putin lays out dissidents in an election year.

This brings about a scene that's been more overdue than Sarah Palin's hysterectomy. Going all the way back to Messiah Complex and the events that brought Rachel back to Earth after Kingbreaker, she's never been in a panel with Hope Summers. This is a character that has a connection to the Phoenix Force just like she once did and who happens to look like her dead mother. You would think she would be fucked up about that, but Marvel hasn't had Rachel so much as mention Hope. So when they stand face-to-face, it's a big moment. Rachel narrates on how she prepares to attack her and reaches into her mind. Then in a scene that Jason Aaron left vague, but telling she lets her go. Rachel let's Hope escape.

This is a pretty big moment because it leaves the reader to wonder what she sensed in her mind. Does she have a clue as to what's coming? Does she now know something that even the Phoenix Five don't know? If she does, she keeps it to herself when she's later confronted by her Phoenix powered father. Cyclops is pretty pissed when Rachel reports (or flat out lies) that Hope was never even with the Avengers. It's probably the most bold-faced lie since the prom queen at my old high school claimed she was a virgin. You definitely get the sense that Cyclops isn't going to accept that kind of bullshit now that he has Phoenix powers. Any father that could find out every one of his daughter's secrets right down to the guys she blew for fancy new shoes would do the same.

Unfortunately, he never gets the chance. Just as Cyclops and his daughter are sharing a very tense moment, Kid Gladiator's old man shows up. He obviously noticed when his son ditched his transport and made his way back to Earth. He also probably noticed that the Phoenix Force has set up shop in a few juicy human targets. So while Kid Gladiator shits himself as to how much he'll be grounded, the big Gladiator descends towards Cyclops with every intention of purging the universe of a certain cosmic parrot. I've been on the bad side of many fathers of teenagers, but this is one that even I wouldn't want to fuck with.

This series may be called Wolverine and the X-men, but for this issue it was the Rachel Summers show. She started off by giving the finger to Wolverine and ended by giving the finger to a Phoenix-powered Cyclops. You don't do that unless you have planetary sized balls and the attitude to hold them. Rachel Grey has not been overly involved with major X-men affairs since she returned from space. She hasn't even been in the same panel as Hope Summers. It's been one of those massive glaring commissions akin to a 900-pound gorilla jerking off in the middle of an intersection during rush hour. Yet finally, we get a scene. It's not much. Jason Aaron left plenty to the imagination. However, there's definitely an impact here and one that has far-reaching ramifications for the Avengers vs. X-men saga.

Rachel may have shined most, but various other characters found time to kick ass as well. Iceman, Namor, Thor, and Kid Gladiator all provided an entertaining bar brawl that could only have been made more awesome by the offer of free shots to anyone with a concussion. The lone anal wart in the bunch was Beast. I can't tell you how frustrated I've been with this particular brand of dick-cheese. Avengers vs. X-men #6 showed him doing the first decent thing I've seen him do since he hit on Emma Frost back in the New X-men days. This comic has him back to his old, douche-bag self and offers no explanation. It may be explained in another tie-in, but if it there's no connection or explanation to not make you want to punch that furry faced asshole in the balls. The son-of-a-bitch bit into his best friend from the Original Five days. I've stooped to a lot of lows in my life, but that's right up there with stealing your grandfather's Viagra and replacing it with jelly beans.

Beast was really the only frustrating part of this comic. The end was only somewhat annoying because part of me wanted to see Cyclops grill Rachel for flat out lying to him about Hope. He has the Phoenix now. He should be able to call her out on her bullshit to the point where he knows when she's claiming period pains to get out of washing the dishes. But Gladiator just had to fly in at the end and tell the Phoenix he's pissed. I still think Beast is a bigger douche-bag, but the prospect of seeing him take on the Phoenix Five in the next issue still has plenty of appeal. No matter what he does, however, Rachel will still be more awesome than him after this issue.

Jason Aaron continues to be one of the most consistent writers when it comes to tie-ins with Avengers vs. X-men. Wolverine and the X-men is good enough to be ranked right up there with the main series, both in terms of how it links up with the events and the awesome with which the stories are told. This only had a few glaring issues, but overall this was a quality comic that X-men fans should love and Rachel Grey fans should be masturbating to for ages. I give Wolverine and the X-men #12 a 4.5 out of 5. In a series that has one redhead being a whiny little bitch, it's nice to know another is there to pick up the slack. Her mama would be so proud if Marvel didn't insist on shitting all over everything that made her awesome. Nuff said!