Scanned Thoughts: Wolverine and the X-men #8

There are a number of things on my bucket list that I know I probably won't have a chance to fulfill before my liver shuts down. I'm not saying it's impossible that I'll get to go on a date with Jennifer Lawrence and Megan Fox that ends with us naked in a tub full of whiskey. I'm just saying I'm keeping my expectations realistic. We all know we're going to die. It's one of those disconcerting things we like to forget about with religion, drinking, or a mixture of both. Wolverine has been lucky in that he hasn't really had to worry about that shit, but he still drinks anyways. That all changed when he lost his healing factor. Now he drinks for an entirely different reason, but he also has more urgency to complete his bucket list. There is at least one thing he knows he can cross over. He can die knowing that he got to love an actual goddess of a woman in Storm. And in Wolverine and the X-men #8, he gets to go on what might be his last date with her. I don't care how he dies. He could die a terrible death and have Sabretooth shit out his remains. He'll still be able to say he died happy on some levels because he got to date Storm.

To make sure this doesn't end up as one of those dates that gets interrupted by a Sentinel attack or an invasion from the future, Wolverine and Storm set their date up in a place where they can work around the constant threat of the institute being blown up. They decide to share a little romance within The World, the cozy little pocket dimension that Fantomex keeps in his back pocket next to naked pictures of Psylocke. In this place, time flows differently. A few minutes to us is a lifetime in the World. That means they could go on multiple dates, complete with heavy petting and foreplay, in the time it takes to heat up a hot pocket. Part of me wants to call it another bullshit time travel gimmick, but I prefer to call it a time exploit. It's not bullshit if it's the equivalent to a cheat code in in a video game.

And Storm and Wolverine take full advantage of it, treating it the same way any adults would treat a date night. Except for them, a date in the World means a romantic dinner atop some giant rock tower with flying dinosaur-like creatures flying around overhead. It's not as fucked up as it sounds. In fact, Storm finds it romantic. She might even be turned on by it. Plus, it's probably way cheaper than getting reservations at some overpriced restaurant on Yelp.

While time is flowing differently for them, life at the Jean Grey Institute continues as normal. It's still the same place where young mutants learn to deal with their new powers while living under the constant threat of the school getting blown up every other week. And after the recent battle with Faithful John and the Phoenix Corporation, the mood is still somewhat tense. It's like the day after a drug raid from the cops and nobody has any weed. Some, like Armor, are still struggling to cope without the aid of weed. There's not much to be gained from this, other than acting as a reminder that Storm and Wolverine are very much the heart of the Jean Grey Institute and these students still need them. And as much as they care for their students, they need a break from their teenage angsty bullshit and they'll hide in a pocket dimension to get it.

Storm and Wolverine spend the equivalent of seven days in the World, which amounts to multiple dates and plenty of make-up sex. There's no ambiguity or teasing here. Storm is shown topless and quite cozy with a shirtless Wolverine. Were this a show on HBO, there would definitely be some tits, bush, beans, and franks being served. My penis is already at full throttle, contemplating all the ways Storm and Wolverine spent seven days alone together. It's the kind of romantic getaway that few heroes ever get, even when they try to cheat time. It's a beautiful thing that'll bring tears and boners for everyone.

Unfortunately, even pocket dimensions are prone to cock-blocking. Seven days of peace, quiet, and lovemaking were just too much for Storm and Wolverine to enjoy. Something had to come along to ruin it all. A bunch of Skrull-lite aliens attack them in this private moment, effectively killing any chance at another romp. But they don't let it completely kill the romance. There's only so much excitement they can get on a date without something trying to kill them.

It still becomes an annoyance because Wolverine gets knocked out at one point, as he often does. When he wakes up, he and Storm are now somehow leaders of a resistance army to overthrow some upstart tyrant named War King who's trying to take over The World. It couldn't be more generic if it were a side-quest in an Elder Scrolls game. They even have a new friend, Azuth the Elder, who has incredibly poor English skills and way too much enthusiasm for when it comes to fighting oppressive tyrants. But Storm is already fully into it, treating this the same way most couples would treat a romantic walk in the park. Wolverine is frustrated, having had enough people try to kill him since he lost his healing factor. But Storm is already wearing a sexy resistance uniform so he's not in a position to argue.

It only takes them 11 days to stage a final showdown with War King. There's not much detail given on how Wolverine and Storm set up this showdown or how they led some massive resistance effort. There's no epic build-up to the battle. There's no elaborate backstory. It just cuts straight to Wolverine taking on War King and annoys him long enough for Storm to finish him off. It's no Lord of the Rings trilogy. And for once, I'm okay with there being few details.

The main point here isn't to make Storm and Wolverine the head of some rebellion. Hell, that in and of itself could be it's own series if Marvel were inclined to do something so awesome. The point of this issue is for Wolverine and Storm to go on a date. For them, a successful date sometimes involves overthrowing a repressive tyrant. It's like an extreme form of role playing, minus the goofy costumes and bad acting.

Three months later and Storm is already being worshiped as a goddess and a noble ruler, as she should be. They've already got statues of her likeness and they probably pamper her and Wolverine the same way a spa pampers one of the Kardashian sisters. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, being ruler of their own little world while the world outside them is always intent on blowing them up. But it's still not why they came to The World in the first place. Sure, overthrowing a tyrannical leader is nice and all, but they get that shit as X-men. Because of that, they start having doubts that they can ever get a little peace and quiet where they can just be two people in love enjoying each other's company. It's like living in a world where people take the Catholic Church seriously. They never have a moment to just enjoy themselves.

This leads them to get away from the chaos yet again. More months pass within the World while the rest of the world is basically in the middle of a commercial break in a baseball game. The events start to drag here. First, Wolverine has a chat with Azuth on why he's not the one running things. There's some insight into how he ended up on the wrong side of a tyrannical clusterfuck, but it's still poorly detailed and basically a distraction from more important shit, like Wolverine and Storm making better use of all this time.

Somehow that leads to Wolverine playing survivor in some fucked up version of the Amazon. He's now got a full beard, no doubt a desire to turn his manliness up to 11 for Storm. He still ends up having to be rescued by her when he gets chased by a T-rex sized mammoth, but he doesn't seem to mind. More time passes and now they're building something together for reasons that aren't explained. I get that the passage of time in the World is different, but it gets pretty fucking confusing at times. It's hard to tell whether this still counts as a date. But nobody has tried to skip out on the check so I'm assuming it's still on.

It finally starts making sense again after a year in the World, which I guess is as long as a re-run of Robot Chicken in the real world. In that year, Storm and Wolverine have spent enough time to appreciate their romance. It leads to a very honest, very heartfelt conversation that should give Oprah fans a pussy boner. Wolverine basically tells Storm how much she means to him. She's not this unattainable piece of ass he could never tap like Jean Grey. She's not decadent one night stand like Domino. He makes it clear to her that she has a special place in his heart. And for once, there are no conflicting emotions. There's no shitty love triangle. There's just an honest, sincere showing of emotion from a man whose emotions are usually limited to being pissed off and drunk.

For Storm/Wolverine fans, this is the kind of scene that usually only exists in wet dreams and poorly written fan fiction. Ever since Storm and Wolverine got together, I've been frustrated by the utter lack of development they've gotten. After putting so much effort into failed relationships like Cyclops/Emma and Storm/Black Panther, it felt like gross negligence to not give Storm/Wolverine that kind of treatment. But waiting in line to get a kiss from Jennifer Lawrence, some things are worth the wait. And this powerful moment was definitely worth the wait, no matter what pocket dimension it was in.

Eventually, Storm and Wolverine return to the regular world where they go back to helping young mutants like Armor and preparing for the next attempt to blow up the institute. But the don't leave the World completely unaffected. Before they left, they reveal that they actually built a version of the Jean Grey Institute in the world for Azuth to run. It's a fitting way for them to leave their mark. They overthrow a tyrant, start a school, and squeeze in a little sweet loving along the way. Overall, it makes for the perfect date. It's just sad that it'll probably the be last one Wolverine ever goes on. Even so, the fact he went on it with Storm means he can still die happy.

This issue accomplished one thing more than anything else. It made sure that when Wolverine dies, it it'll have a devastating impact on Storm. This is issue is a case study in what Marvel should've done if they wanted to make Storm and Black Panther a romance that people would actually give a shit about. Thanks to a different kind of time travel that I didn't find infuriating for once, Storm and Wolverine got to spend a year together learning to love, cherish, and relate to one another. There are celebrity engagements that don't last that long. And while their date got side-tracked along the way, they still found a way to make it feel meaningful and deep. This issue highlighted all the ways in which Storm and Wolverine are so good for one another. Fuck retcons, royalty, and contrived marriages. This is how to make a romantic story awesome. And with Wolverine's death coming soon, this is just going to give it way more impact. Wolverine and the X-men #8 gets an 8 out of 10. But for fans of the Storm/Wolverine relationship, this issue should be encased in adamantium and preserved until the end times. Nuff said!

Wolverine and the X-men #8 - Beastile Awesome

I tend to be harsh on certain characters, but I try to make sure my drunken anger is reserved only for those who deserve it. Characters like Dr. Doom, Sinister, and Rick Santorum deserve it because they're inherently evil. But for the characters that are supposedly heroes, like say Hank McCoy, the standards are a little higher and the drunken anger is that much more drunk. And as I've pointed out on many previous reviews, Beast is more than deserving of the kind of drunken rage reserved for underpaid Irish dock workers. He's been a supreme douche-bag going all the way back to the Utopia arc. He pissed and moaned about Cyclops crossing too many lines. Never mind that doing so yielded mutants their own country and helped them beat Bastion. Never mind that Beast offered no fucking alternatives aside from "I don't approve and I'm just going to be mad at you because I can!" He claims to be smart, but he's not smart enough to do anything but whine. And all he's done since joining Wolverine's side at the Jean Grey Institute is play the role of a glorified handy man.

Now some of my drunken rage may or may not be warranted, but I'm always willing to give a character like Beast a chance to redeem himself. In fact, I welcome it. He's one of the Original Five. He's got more brains in his pinkie finger than I have in ten different heads. I'd love it if somehow he could get a story where he's at least somewhat redeemed. Well he finally has a chance in the pages of Wolverine and the X-men. This series has been a top notch provider of awesome so pure that if you injected it into your arm you would die of an overdoes, but die with a raging hard-on and a big fucking smile. It has told the story of the Jean Grey Institute and how it is trying to survive in a post-Schism world where a bunch of homicidal kids are intent on killing them. So far, they've had to contend with phony pregnancies, alien infections, financial problems, killer islands, and alien casinos. If ever there was a more appropriate, albeit fucked up, medium for Beast to redeem himself it's this.

At the end of the first arc for Wolverine and the X-men, there was a brief shot of the Hellfire Kids after they were unceremoniously beaten after trying to throw an army of monsters at the institute. Since kids like to whine and moan when they don't get their way, they decided to do what's logical in the mind of a pre-teen. They make friends with a homicidal killer in Sabretooth. That's right! The guy who got fucking decapitated in the pages of Wolverine came back before Jean Grey came back and without the fucking Phoenix Force no less. There isn't a universe big enough to list all the ways that shit is fucked up. However, he has been making trouble in the Wolverine comics lately and shacking up with Mystique (who can blame him?). Now he's back in the pages of Wolverine and the X-men, giving the Hellfire Kids a quick lesson on how to ruthlessly torment their enemies. Now I'm inclined to believe that kids don't need to be told how to be monsters these days, but Sabretooth is one of those guys who can add a personal touch to being a villain. He encourages them to go for the heart and not just throw monsters at the problem. And you know what? He's right! It's refreshing to see a man like Sabretooth assist the youth of the world in becoming accomplished sociopaths.

Sabretooth's desire to maim Wolverine and his school couldn't have come at a better time. The dust from the previous arc has yet to settle. part of said dust involved Wolverine getting his fucking legs broken for trying to cheat an alien casino. That doesn't sound like much until you remember that Wolverine has adamantium bones. Joe Pesci on a meth high armed with a light sabre couldn't have broken his bones, but somehow these aliens did. Beast is understandably perplexed/curious. He says he needs some sort of matter transmutator to help heal his bones. But until then, Wolverine will have to do his best Charles Xavier impression and wheel around in a wheelchair with legs that look like pretzels. Fuck, what is it with the headmasters of mutant institutes that has them end up in wheelchairs? What happened to the good old days when being an administrator only meant the occasional piss in your coffee?

In order to get the necessary tech he needs, Beast decides to pay a visit to SWORD. They deal with aliens all the time and it's a given that they probably confiscate some kick-ass alien tech the same way cops confiscate some blow from drug dealers and share it with some hookers they arrested. Since Beast is currently boning the head of SWORD, Abigail Brand, he gets in the institute's handy space shuttle and takes off while Wolverine is stuck in a wheelchair. All the while Sabretooth is plotting to take advantage of this. During this interval, it's revealed that the conversation with Sabretooth and the Hellfire Kids took place in the recent past. Now it's easy to miss and a little confusing if you're not paying attention or just high (or both). But it is there. It's just way more choppy than it needs to be.

But a plot about Beast making a booty call to his space-faring girlfriend would be too boring for Wolverine and the X-men. The heart of the book is still the students. And like any young students in a school, they find ways to get into trouble. Most settle for just riding around with paintball guns and knocking over mail-boxes. For this round of trouble, Angel decides to start some shit. Why Angel? Who by all accounts has been utterly mind-fucked by the events of the Dark Angel Saga? Well he's going through a bit of a Rick Santorum phase where he thinks he's a real angel meant to carry out the will of god. He's been randomly healing people and acting like every character in a romantic comedy played by Matthew McConaughey. Then when he couldn't heal Wolverine he took it personally and decides to play the role of Angel of Vengeance by traveling to the alien casino planet. It's a very fucked up method of thinking, but then again reason rarely follows religiously motivated vengeance. He doesn't have to go it alone either. Kid Omega and a group of others that include Idie, Broo, Genesis, Kid Gladiator, and Warbird demand to go with him. Kid Gladiator is especially insistent. He's just not happy if he doesn't beat the shit out of someone every day. He's almost like a young Mike Tyson, minus the pigeon obsession.

The kids go off in their twisted space adventure. Meanwhile, Beast prepares to make what should be a simple space booty call to his girlfriend. But when he arrives, he finds out that Sabretooth made himself right at home at SWORD. He started by slaughtering a few hapless SWORD agents and turning them into smears on his spacecraft. He also shows that he has Abigail Brand in a headlock and outside in the vacuum of space no less. He basically dares Beast to take him on in the most hostile environment imaginable. Usually, a man of Hank's IQ would be able to conclude that fighting a sociopath in space that can heal is not a good idea. But the man has his girl. IQ quotients mean dick. So like a good pussy-whipped boyfriend, Beast ventures out into space to take on Sabretooth.

This is the kind of action that Beast hasn't been a part of in nearly a decade. He's been either imprisoned, side-lined, or just fodder in other battles. He's rarely had a personal stake like this, making him seem as relevant as Kathy Griffin in the annuls of X-men. Here, he gets to channel the kind of heroism that made him a member of the Original Five. Now it's still choppy as to how Sabretooth got up into space and overpowered Abigail Brand, but Beast still looks pretty badass for once. So for the first time in my brain damaged memory, I can't come up with a justifiable way to call him a douche-bag.

But even with his girlfriend under threat, he doesn't fare all that well against Sabretooth. He may have the body of a half-man, half-oversized cat but Sabretooth has Weapon X training and routinely practiced kicking ass with Wolverine. Being more brains than balls just doesn't cut it here. Their fight goes from space and crashes through into the SWORD space station, allowing for some gravity assisted ass-kicking. However, Sabretooth has the advantage here and makes good use of it. He not only roughs up Beast. He destroys any nearby space helmets so he can't go after Sabretooth when he leaves him behind to go torture his girl. It's cruel, it's mean, and it's brazen. But it's Sabretooth. Fuck, I didn't realize how much I missed his ugly ass until just now.

While the battle against Sabretooth and Beast is rife with heart-wrenching anger, the battle at the alien casino isn't quite as spectacular. Angel and his fellow students arrive and start randomly picking fights. It's not nearly as well-thought out or well-depicted either. I may just be too drunk, but didn't Angel just want to come to this casino to pay back the guys who broke Wolverine's legs? Or is this just how they decided to skip class? That's not very clear. It would have been okay if the battles were nicely depicted, but they aren't. The only decent moment is when Genesis shows some of his apocalyptic potential and roughs up some of the alien casino thugs. It actually makes for a nice moment between him and Angel, who each reflect on the knowledge that they've had their lives erased and fucked up. Considering their connection, it's ridiculously ironic. It would just be more awesome if the action here was halfway fleshed out.

The battle for Beast's fuck buddy is much more defined. Despite being stuck on the SWORD base with no space helmet, he prepares to go after Sabretooth before he can do a little zero-gravity dissection on Agent Brand. Again, he shows that he has the scrotal strength to go along with his brains. With blatant disregard for his own safety or well-being, he leaps out into the vacuum of space with the understanding that his head may explode and knocks Sabretooth away from his girl. And being a grateful/vindictive woman she is, Brand retrieves Beast and her gun that she had dropped earlier to do a little target practice on Sabretooth. The furball is bloodied, wounded, and blown all the way to the moon. For anyone else, you would consider that excessive. Seeing as how this guy survived getting his head chopped off, it's more than appropriate.

It ends up being a very clean resolution for the X-men, relatively speaking of course. Beast has his girl back and plenty of reasons to guilt her into mountains of makeup sex. The students arrive back at the Jean Grey Institute where Angel reveals that he didn't just go to the casino to rough some people up. He went there to retrieve that transmutator that Beast said he needed to heal Wolverine. It adds some purpose to their little trip, but the poor organization of the fight still made it utterly forgettable. 

What's not as forgettable is the lesson Sabretooth taught the Hellfire kids. Even though he ended up getting his ass blown to the fucking moon, he still proved his point. He showed that the best way to attack an X-man is to hit him in the heart. Now the Hellfire kids are ready to prepare their next attack (after retrieving Sabretooth from orbit of course). With the events of Avengers vs. X-men looking to take hold in the pages of Wolverine and the X-men, they'll have plenty of opportunities and Jason Aaron has a twisted enough imagination to make it awesome!

I've been waiting for a story like this. No, I don't mean a story where Sabretooth gets horribly maimed in an excessively brutal way, although that is plenty appealing in it's own right. I mean a story where Beast actually comes off as someone you don't want to kick repeatedly in the balls with steel-toed boots. This story doesn't completely make up for him being such a massive tool in previous stories, but it does help make him more likable. He braved the icy vacuum of space to save his girlfriend from the clutches of a madman. There are guys in this world won't pick their girlfriends up from the airport if it conflicts with a baseball game. You have to respect that. You also have to respect any story that ends with Sabretooth getting his ass shot to the fucking moon.

It was a satisfying issue for anyone looking for Hank McCoy to finally shine in ways that don't involve him being a wise ass. It wasn't quite as satisfying in the way it dealt with the side-plot involving the impromtu field trip by the students. I get the intent. The plot on the alien casino was a lot of fun in the previous arc. Why not return to it and see what other kinds of awesome you can milk from it? It just could have been a bit less random. It still had some nice moments. Seeing Angel and Genesis reflect on the somewhat fucked up nature of their situation was pretty interesting. Since these two were so strongly linked during the Dark Angel Saga, it's makes sense that they would be linked now and there's definitely some potential for story there. That potential is just lost when there's so little purpose behind returning to the casino other than to pick a fight with the pit bosses that threw their asses out.

This issue wasn't terribly epic, but it made for a nice one-shot that offered some nice character moments for Beast, Genesis, and Angel. It also offered a nice opportunity to bloody up Sabretooth, which can make any comic entertaining. It wasn't a story that needed to be told in the form of an arc, but it still worked and worked well. The lack of rhythm in some areas keep it from being as awesome as it could be. However, it accomplished an important feat in making Beast more likable again. For that in conjunction with Jason Aaron's colorful brand of storytelling, I give Wolverine and the X-men #8 a 4 out of 5. Beast is still an asshole until he walks up to Cyclops and admits that it's bullshit to criticize him for making hard decisions without offering viable alternatives that would have turned out better. However, this arc makes him a little less douchy and worthy of not being the butt of every hairy pussy joke. Nuff said!