Ambiguously Forging The Future: Wolverine and the X-men #37

The following is my review of Wolverine and the X-men #37, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Fixing anything that breaks is hard enough. Fixing it without the right tools is even harder. Now imagine that in order to get those tools, it’s necessary to run a marathon and fight a pack of hungry wolves. It’s an extreme sort of repair that no reality show or tech support is equipped to handle, but when it’s the space time continuum that needs to be fixed, obtaining those tools becomes all the more important. And if they can’t be obtained, then it’s necessary to improvise in ways that would impress and horrify MacGyver himself.

This is the challenge facing the past, present, and future X-men in X-men Battle of the Atom. And Wolverine and the X-men #37, the penultimate issue of this 10-part series, each era of X-men has to take part in what may be the single most important act of tech support in order to fix the timeline. However, at this point it is no longer possible to completely repair the space time continuum. Like a computer with permanently corrupt files, they can only work around it to minimize the damage.

This began as X-men Battle of the Atom’s greatest strength, but recently it also became its greatest flaw. So much of the story was built around the fight to send the Original Five back to the past. It was a compelling, emotional struggle that impacted each era of X-men. Then when it seemed the Original Five had lost and were poised to go back, something unexplained and horribly contrived stopped. For reasons that are only slightly addressed in this issue, the Original Five can’t go back to the past. In addition to creating all sorts of complicated consequences for the future of the X-men comics, it rendered much of that early struggle pointless. It’s like a rat traversing a complex maze only to find out at the end that it doesn’t like cheese.

So now the struggle in Battle of the Atom has to take on an entirely different form. It also has to find an entirely different way to have an impact doesn’t feel quite as pointless. At this point in the story, the battle lines are clearly drawn. There’s no more ambiguity over who are the heroes and who are the villains. The fraudulent X-men that showed up earlier in the series have been exposed and identified as the future Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. And since their plan to send the Original Five X-men back to the past failed, they’re left to improvise in a way that promises to do even more damage to the timeline. They can’t surgically repair time with a scalpel anymore. So now they’re prepared to use a machete.

In doing so, the stage is set for one last battle. And that battle takes place in an area that has a special resonance for the history of the X-men. The future Brotherhood call it Plan B, but it might as well be Plan Z because they take a page right from the earliest X-men comics, using elements from the X-men’s first ever clash with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. It is by far the most fitting setting for the X-men’s 50th anniversary. Even for those unfamiliar with the history of the X-men, the Brotherhood’s plan highlights all the right elements that make for an epic X-men battle.

That battle comes together in this issue through a convergence that has been building for the past few issues. The real future X-men have since entered the story and are prepared to aid the wounded and obviously confused X-men of the present. Having already been burned by trusting a bunch of time travelers claiming to be the X-men, it takes a moment for the team to come together. But when they do, they unite in a way that carries them into a clash with the future Brotherhood that has the fate of the timeline at stake. They essentially become the necessary tools to fix what the Brotherhood is about to break. However, what’s still lacking is a clear of just how broken the timeline is.

While this epic showdown is effectively set up, it still isn’t clear what made this showdown necessary. It isn’t necessarily glossed over either. There are some details offered to explain why the Original Five can’t go back to their own time and what caused the future Brotherhood to become the Brotherhood in the first place. However, these details are very vague. In fact, that’s even pointed out at one point. The explanation does help make it seem less contrived than it did in previous issues.

However, there is still too much ambiguity and without a clear understanding of what is driving this final conflict, it’s difficult to appreciate why it matters. The setup itself is also vague. It’s clear that the Brotherhood want to change the future by whatever means necessary. It’s just not clear how they expect “Plan B” as they call it to accomplish it. There are some hints, but like many other parts of this story, those hints are exceedingly vague. It’s like trying to bake a cake without knowing the temperature of the oven.

At the very least, Wolverine and the X-men #37 makes clear that there are other forces at work that haven’t been revealed yet. It seems to begin the process of tying up loose ends, but doesn’t have all the knots in place. What makes this issue feel less disappointing than previous issues is the sheer breadth of the conflict that unfolds and the classic X-men elements that are used to set it up. This is a story that has all the right ingredients to celebrate five decades of X-men and this issue added the icing. Now it’s just a matter of effectively mixing everything to make the final product fittingly delicious.

Final Score: 7 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: Wolverine and the X-men #37

I admit I've used my share of cheat codes over the years. There's something inherently awesome about playing every mission in Goldeneye with infinite ammo and a grenade launcher. But like masturbation, there's a time and a place for cheat codes. Sometimes they can be fun and sometimes they can just be a dick move. Marvel has used their share of cheat codes over the years to fix shit they didn't like. The Spider-Man/Mary Jane cheat code that was done with Mephisto is the kind of shit that would get Nintendo to hire a hit man, but Marvel seems to think it's okay so long as they can regress the story to circumstances of their choosing. X-men Battle of the Atom is dangerously close to that kind of regression, but with two issues left there's a lot of room to make it less shitty. What follows is my review of Wolverine and the X-men #37, the penultimate issue of this 50th anniversary event. If at any point it sounds as fucked up as the Windows Vista beta version, then that's a sign that the cheat codes Marvel is using have fucked up the whole game.

But in some instances, playing by the rules just isn’t viable. Like being outnumbered in a bar fight, sometimes it’s necessary to sneak some pepper spray and brass knuckles past the bouncer. When Cyclops and his team of present and future X-men confronted the phony X-men, they had just bitch slapped most of their allies. It left only goat Beast and Xorna to oppose them and since the space time continuum just gave them the finger, they’re pretty much outgunned. So Xorna decided to fight dirty. I wouldn’t say she uses cheat codes, but she does the next best thing.

In a moment that was both a great act of pwnage and downright sexy, Xorna/Jean confronted Cyclops in his mind. While he was determined to stop her, she made sure his penis was equally determined to slow him down. She tempted him, playing on the same emotions that have been highlighted throughout Battle of the Atom. It’s still a dick move on her part, but in the best possible way. She also proves once again that bad girls are awesome kissers and when she uses this to escape, Cyclops is probably as pissed off as he is turned on.

The phony X-men’s escape (or Brotherhood as they’re now calling them) leaves in its wake another awkward moment and not just because Cyclops probably has a boner. He and his team of revolutionaries are still inside the Jean Grey Institute and facing down a bunch of other X-men who were all too eager to throw him in jail for such horrible crimes as creating a global utopia with the Phoenix Force and killing a man who kept attacking him. The hostility between the two teams is not glossed over and that’s refreshing in a story that fucked a lot of things up with time paradoxes. But it still has to take a back seat to this future Brotherhood escaping and taking the O5 X-men with them.

Speaking of that paradox, there is at least some attempt to explain it. And by attempt I mean an effort similar to that given by a grounded 4^th grader on overdue homework. The only thing that is explained is how Wolverine managed to heal so fast and why he trusts these new X-men claiming to be the real X-men. One of them, Wiccan, used his Sorcerer Supreme powers to heal Wolverine. And while he’s trying hard not to vomit out his internal organs at the thought of having a kid with Mystique, he says that’s enough to earn his trust. But beyond that, the future X-men don’t offer much explanation. The future Kid Omega seems to know something. He says that they can’t go back because something is preventing them. So that gives some hope that it’s not just some time paradox that turned the O5 into glorified clones. There is an actual force preventing them from going back and it’s implied that what happens to the O5 could still affect the timeline. But it’s still pretty fucking vague and I can only do so many bong hits to wrap my head around it.

The future Brotherhood seems just as confused as me. They still don’t have a fucking clue about why they couldn’t send the O5 X-men back. However, they do have a backup plan. After Xorna and Beast escaped, they gathered the rest of their team, except Deadpool who is dead. It seems like a teenage boy on his prom night, I jumped the gun in assuming they were killed in the previous issue. Even Xavier, who got fucking impaled by the soul sword, survived. Granted, he’s in a wheelchair now that makes him even more like his grandfather. But they’re only one man short now and armed with an X-jet. And since they can’t send them back, they’re doing what they call “Plan B.” But I’m sure that’s code for, “We’re frustrated as hell so we’re just going to wing it.”

In addition to the ambiguity about the so-called paradox, it still isn’t clear what the fuck the Brotherhood hoped to accomplish by sending the O5 X-men back in the first place. They say that sending them back was the plan all along. Yet there’s still no clue as to why, leaving only the same WTFs to fill the void. But it is clear that they’re trying to change the timeline. Sending the O5 back was supposed to accomplish this, but now they can’t do that so they need to try something else. Since they’re already in the past, they’re in a great position to do so. I won’t say it makes perfect sense. Their reasons are still fucked up, but at least their motivation is clearer.

The only ones more confused than me at this point are the O5 X-men and they have the luxury of being sober. They’re still strapped with power dampeners and handcuffs, not knowing what the fuck the future Brotherhood is going to do to them. They only know they can’t go back in time. This is also an area where there’s an effort to reduce the amount of WTFs. O5 Cyclops asked O5 Jean what she saw when she looked into Xorna’s mind that was so terrifying that she changed her mind about staying in the future. All she said was that one of them would do something terrible. But that could mean way too many things. Something terrible could mean blowing up Mount Rushmore or stealing Wolverine’s whiskey. Even O5 Iceman points out that shit is incredibly vague. It offers a tantalizing clue, but only tantalizing in the sense that cold pizza is tantalizing when stoned.

Since the future Brotherhood is still intent on fucking up time, the present and future X-men have to make a concerted effort to unfuck it. That means putting aside the hostility between the Jean Grey Institute and Cyclops’s revolutionary team until they find themselves in a more appropriate time to needlessly bitch over who deserves to get thrown in jail. It also leads to a nice little aside between Kid Omega and his Phoenix-wielding future counterpart. With future X-men in the present, it would be a capital offense not to squeeze in an awkward moment with time displaced counterparts. But the main concern here is working together to stop the future Brotherhood before they make yet another apocalyptic future. Even they probably understand they have way too much of those.

And the setting for this potential apocalypse couldn’t be more appropriate. Newer X-men fans may not be able to appreciate it, but anyone who takes the time to Google the history of the X-men in between bong hits knows that the X-men’s first battle was what set the stage for their 50-year history. Back in the days when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were using their legendary comic book alchemy to create a generation of superheroes, they pitted the Uncanny X-men against the Brotherhood in their first battle at the Cape Citadel military base. The plot was pretty basic, even for the 60s. Magneto was going to launch a missile attack to proclaim that mutants were awesome and humans needed to fuck off. Now at that same base, which is still in operation for reasons that could only be blamed on aggressive bribes and lobbying, the future Brotherhood invite the X-men to join them in the ultimate battle between eras.

It’s a battle that actually feels meaningful, which is a step up considering all the shit they did to send the O5 back in previous clashes were for nothing. They don’t just attract the X-men. They attract SHIELD and every law enforcement branch that George W. Bush pretended that he created. The future Brotherhood acts like the cruelest cock-tease, tempting them with the opportunity to kick their ass by just blindly attacking the base and letting the shit storm come to them. As soon as the X-men arrive, they free the O5 X-men and they start fighting in a battle that can only be described as an orgy of X-men level awesome from multiple eras. It couldn’t be more appealing if they stripped down to their underwear, covered themselves in chocolate, and fought on top of a mountain of fresh bacon.

The battle is intense and emotional. Some have to fight future foes they don’t even know in the present like Molly. Others, like Beast, actually have to fight their future selves, taking the concept of self-immolation to a disturbing new level. If only they would use this as motivation to stop being such a total douchebag, but I guess that would be asking too much. The biggest target by far is still Xorna/Jean. She seems to be the one leading this attack now. And as the team around her starts to fall, she’s looking increasingly fucked and not in the way Cyclops was probably fantasizing about earlier. Yet even with that creepy mask on, she looks as confident as a woman who just convinced Donald Trump to not sign a pre-nup.

Despite getting their asses kicked, everything seems to be playing into the future Brotherhood’s hands. SHIELD arrives, late as usual. And Maria Hill is also as pissed off as usual. Since they showed up several issues ago, it’s easy to forget that they were even part of this story at any point. And while their presence finally gives a valid reason for them being mentioned in the first place, their arrival only promises to fuck things up even more. In a moment that will surely give anti-government Libertarians a boner, their presence only gives Xorna some extra firepower. So through means that are either horribly contrived or a testament to just how powerful she is, she launches a massive missile attack against the X-men. Yes, it’s incredibly basic for any superhero comic. But it’s the most appropriate attack possible.

Now the X-men of each era are staring down the same threat the O5 did during their first battle with the Brotherhood. A shower of missiles is coming right at them and they’re the main targets. But as fitting as this attack is, it still isn’t clear what the future Brotherhood hopes to accomplish with this. Xorna says that this is their future. They also mention that SHIELD doesn’t even exist in their future, indicating that they either got blown the fuck up or had their funding cut when Sarah Palin was elected President. It’s not like SHIELD has been very friendly with mutants lately. This could only speed up what ended up happening in the future, which is the authorities turning on mutants and making them the equivalent of deer on Ted Nugant’s front lawn. That’s still assuming way too fucking much and for those who don’t read comics sober, it leaves the door open to too many other confusing or disturbing conclusions. And with one issue left, it still feels like there are way too many details to addess.

This issue improved on the previous issue simply by not using any more cheat codes. It at least attempted to explain some of the WTF moments that occurred in the previous issue and the ones before it. It was just painfully vague at doing so. None-the-less, it set the stage for the final battle and used the same stage that was used all those years ago when I was just a glint in my father’s eyes, comics still cost a nickel, and weed wasn’t nearly as potent. And it did so in a way that was pretty damn awesome. If ever there was going to be a big battle for the X-men’s 50^th anniversary, this is how it’s fucking done. I give Wolverine and the X-men #37 a 7 out of 10. I’m okay with there being loose ends in the penultimate issue. I just hope that in the end it doesn’t leave fans hanging like a twisted sex act gone horribly wrong. And until this “vagueness” is addressed, I’ll be keeping my pants around my ankles just in case. Nuff said!

Wolverine and the X-men #37 PREVIEW - Bad Girls Kiss Better

I’m convinced that evolution was just fucking with every man in history when it made bad girls, the kind are as likely to fuck a man as they are to mutilate his rotting corpse, so damn sexy. I don’t deny that I have a dangerous attraction to women of certain moral shortcomings. Men look at these bad girls the way kids look at sugary candy. It looks so good, but in certain quantities it can be very unhealthy. Robin Williams once said that divorce was Latin for “to rip a man’s wallet through his genitals” and I think bad girls understand this on some levels.

But what’s almost as alluring as a sexy bad girl is a good girl who just became bad. For many years, Jean Grey was one of Marvel’s good girls who only occasionally entertained doing some incredibly immoral things with Wolverine. Sure, she may go batshit crazy when she gets drunk on the Phoenix Force, but even the nicest, sweetest girls can go batshit with the proper application of alcohol, hormones, and peer pressure. My old high school proved that on a daily basis. Jean Grey seemed to beat the odds and managed to stay relatively sweet despite the best efforts of the Phoenix Force. Then Xorna came along.

Recent issues of Battle of the Atom have revealed the phony future X-men to be just like those good girls who go bad, but in a much less sexy sort of way. And Xorna, who happens to be O5 Jean Grey who never went back to the past, somehow managed to go from that overwhelmed yet lovable teenage girl to a misguided, manipulative bitch. Yet even though she has to wear that butt-ugly Xorn costume to control her powers, she’s still sexy and now she has the bad girl thing going for her. My heart and my penis are officially in conflict, but both seem to agree that it’s still pretty damn awesome.

So far, Xorna has dropped only a few minor hints as to what turned her from the X-men’s golden girl into a manipulative bitch. Whatever it was, it was so horrific that when O5 Jean Grey read her mind she immediately decided to stop running and agreed to go back to the past. It was never shown what she saw. For all we know, she could have seen Juggernaut getting a sex change. It’s all so fucking ambiguous and that is part of why Battle of the Atom has been so infuriating at times. But with only two issues left, the blanks have to be filled at some point. And a very telling preview from Comic Book Resources offers some hope that my penis and my heart will somehow make peace.

CBR: Wolverine and the X-men #37 PREVIEW
In addition, it finally allows Cyclops and Jean Grey to have a conversation that lasts longer than a few panels for once. I know that may seem petty on my part, but it’s the X-men’s 50^th anniversary for fuck’s sake. Shouldn’t two of the oldest and most iconic X-men have a conversation that involves more than awkward teenage moments like in X-men #5?

I agree with Cyclops. Bad girls are better kissers. That’s how they lure men in. They understand that the penis has authority over the brain in some instances. But beyond the effects on my penis, this preview offers a few clues as to what fucked O5 Jean Grey enough to make her into Xorna.

It seems to tie into some of O5 Jean’s recent efforts to avoid being with Cyclops. She claims she’s not in love with him, yet her panties get wet when she watches him take his shirt off. Again, see X-men #5. By pushing him away, this may have caused something very bad to happen to Cyclops in the future. This whole shit storm started with him nearly dying at the hands of a Sentinel. If in the future he dies by some other means, it could not only fuck Jean up on an emotional level. It could fuck up her powers to the point where she has to use that creepy yet oddly sexy Xorna suit. She’s had a lot of “Oh Scott,” moments in Battle of the Atom thus far. In the same way not having Jean Grey around makes Cyclops more prone to being a douche-bag, not having Cyclops around may make Jean Grey more prone to being a bitch.

This still doesn’t address the larger issue about the so-called paradox that was revealed in Uncanny X-men #13. Whatever Jean’s reasons were for becoming Xorna, they won’t mean dick if all it does is fuck the space time continuum in a way that allows Marvel to fuck with the O5 even more. In the same way offering free beer at a race track is a bad combination, detaching the O5 from the past completely would allow Marvel to write them the same way a drunk drives a dump truck. Very little good can come of it. I’m still holding out hope that Marvel won’t make the time displaced X-men into glorified clones. But in the same way hope doesn’t prevent a hangover after a weekend in Las Vegas, it won’t prevent Marvel from giving the finger to the 50 years of continuity that they’re supposed to be celebrating. Nuff said!

Overly Deceptive Deception: Wolverine and the X-men #36

The following is my review of Wolverine and the X-men #36, which was posted on PopMatters.com.

Every great magic trick requires deception. In the same way it can pull a rabbit out of a hat or saw a woman in half, it can also make major twists in a story resonate. M. Night Shyamalan made a career out of it and movies like the Sixth Sense made people appreciate it. But in the same way too much deception makes a magic trick look like excessive CGI in a movie, it can also make a twist in the story feel incomplete or downright confusing.

Ever since X-men: Battle of the Atom began, there have been plenty of hints that someone is being deceptive and some are too willing to be deceived. It never seemed clear cut that the future X-men who are trying to convince the Original Five X-men to go back to the past were being truthful. If it were, then a teenage Jean Grey and Cyclops wouldn’t have been convinced that there was something very wrong. While teenagers aren’t known for their ability to uncover deception, they are pretty adept at stubbornly avoiding what doesn’t feel right. Usually they try to avoid something like chores or homework, but few teenagers go to the lengths that Jean and Cyclops have gone through to avoid being sent back to the past. But in Wolverine and the X-men #36, they’re out of places to run and now have to fight their way out. At the same time, however, the deception becomes less subtle.

Unlike the past few issues of Battle of the Atom, Wolverine and the X-men #36 is heavy on action. The characters abandon their efforts to persuade each other through convincing rhetoric and opt to battle one another in hopes that this will somehow get the message across. It’s an approach that would not sit well Charles Xavier, but when emotions are running so high, it’s the only approach that makes sense. However, the emotions aren’t quite as compelling this time around.

The biggest battle of the issue took the form of a psychic battle between Xorna, Emma Frost, the Stepford Cuckoos, and a teenage Jean Grey. On paper, this sounds like the kind of battle people would gladly overpay to see on pay-per-view. It’s Emma Frost battling someone she has many reasons to despise and Jean Grey fighting with her inexperienced psychic abilities for the right to forge her own future. In practice, however, it was only about as epic as a spat in a Jerry Springer re-run.

Now this is to be expected to some extent. Emma Frost’s powers are broken and even with the Stepford Cuckoos, she’s clearly overmatched. However, the way she lashes out against Jean and Xorna lacks the punch of her previous psychic battle with Jean during Grant Morrison’s run in New X-men. She doesn’t make it personal. She just basically whines about Jean Grey’s inability to stay dead. Given the breadth of her hatred of Jean Grey, it came off as shallow and downright childish.

In a similar manner, the battle between Cyclops and the future X-men also fell flat. Even though he committed to helping his younger self, the motivations and emotions fueling the battle were basically cut and pasted from the arguments that Cyclops and Wolverine had during Schism. And the only argument that Cyclops’s teenage self brought to the table was a desire to not be treated like a kid. There’s very little difference between the arguments made in the heat of this battle and the arguments a child makes when he or she whines about not getting their favorite brand of cereal.

This doesn’t make these battles any less meaningful to the story. While each battle lacks depth, they do effectively move the story forward in a way that culminates in a significant realization for Jean Grey. Even without depth, the way in which she comes to this realization is fitting and it’s only reinforced by the way the other future X-men, most notably Deadpool, approach the battle. It’s like a bad hangover after being drunk on emotions. It keeps the battle from becoming too excessive. It also drops some more overt clues about the deceptive undertones in the story.

Outside the battle, similar undertones are revealed when the story catches up with a teenage Iceman and Beast. Having not been heavily involved in the story for the past few issues, it’s fitting to see them follow a different part of the plot. What they discover promises to expose more deception, but the problem is that it isn’t very clear. When Wolverine and the X-men #36 was first solicited, it promised a major twist. And the end does certainly hint at one, but it leaves way too much for the imagination. Unlike M. Night Shyamalan, this issue will evoke more confusion than awe.

The revelations and hints in this issue will mostly likely be explained in future installments. When Battle of the Atom is finally over, these deceptive details may eventually fit into a cohesive narrative. But on its own, Wolverine and the X-men #36 is akin to a magician that uses so much slight-of-hand that it isn’t clear what the trick is. The only obvious implications that can be drawn from this issue is that the future X-men have been lying and those lies are about to be exposed. It would only be more compelling if there were more hints as to what those lies entailed because deception for the sake of deception is no different than confusion.

The underlying plot of X-Men: Battle of the Atom is still strong. The emotions portrayed in this issue and every other issue to date are still meaningful and genuine. But by throwing in a twist without including enough details to reveal why it matters, the plot just stalls. It’s like a chapter of a book that ends in mid-sentence. It may not dissuade anyone from continuing to follow the story, but it does make doing so more difficult.

Final Score: 6 out of 10

Scanned Thoughts: Wolverine and the X-men #36

I don’t pretend to be completely objective in my reviews. I’m sure if I was sober when I wrote them they might be a little more balanced, but who gives a shit about being balanced in the era of Facebook, Twitter, and Fox News? My reviews are meant to appeal to those seeking the assessment of someone whose thoughts are more twisted than bulimic Russian gymnast. I also don’t pretend that the thought of two beautiful women engaging in the psychic equivalent of a street fight doesn’t give me a boner. So please try to keep that in mind as I review Wolverine and the X-men #36. I fully expect my penis to share a good portion of the criticism over the course of this review and while my brain may not always agree, I’ve only got enough blood to use one at a time as I assess the midway point of X-men Battle of the Atom.

I suppose a penis works the same way as a psychic mind in the sense that multi-tasking is damn near impossible. O5 Jean, Xorna, and Emma Frost can’t do battle and keep the rest of the X-men paralyzed at the same time. That’s probably akin to doing a crossword puzzle while trying to stop a hungry wolf with a taste for testicles. It makes for a somewhat awkward moment between O5 Cyclops and his older self where they now have to watch this psychic battle, but to them it just looks like these women are having a contest to see who can look the most constipated. At least the older Cyclops is smart enough to uncover that Xorna is actually Jean, but not the Jean Grey he married. He reveals that she’s just O5 Jean if she never went back to the past. How he figured that out while even Rachel, her own daughter, and Wolverine, the guy obsessed with boning her, couldn’t is downright fucked up. But it’s a fitting kind of fucked up.

Not being psychically paralyzed also has another important benefit. It frees them up to take on the present and future X-men, who arrive on Utopia in time to take yet another stab at convincing them to hand over O5 Cyclops and Jean. It’s like trying to teach evolution to Pat Robertson at this point. And it only ends up with Wolverine and Cyclops giving each other the same dirty look they gave during Schism. That’s not a bad thing since Schism was so fucking awesome, but like masturbation while standing in line at the DMV, it’s hardly the time or the place.

O5 Cyclops effectively cuts off the argument before it could erupt again by blasting Wolverine. And also like masturbation, that shit hasn’t gotten old yet. So after all the running and awkward moments that led to him and O5 Jean seeing each other get dressed, he’s finally pissed enough to fight back. I suppose seeing boobs will do that to any teenage boy. It’ll only make them more determined fight for an opportunity at preserving the memory of those boobs.

But this isn’t the battle my penis has been waiting all week for. The big draw of this issue is Jean Grey vs. Emma Frost Round 2, a battle between two sexy psychics who hate each other’s guts and need little reason to rip out each other’s eyes and frame them. It has all the makings of the most epic psychic battle in the history of the mind. Unfortunately, it’s not even as epic as the last Vin Diesel movie. Now maybe I had unreasonable expectations because unlike the first round, Emma’s powers are broken. She has the Stepford Cuckoos at her side, but they’re just three teenage girls in sexy school girls outfits. Unless Xorna/Jean is a perverted anime fan, that’s not going to be enough to pwn a woman capable of wielding the Phoenix Force.

Xorna really doesn’t seem to break a sweat in taking Emma Frost down in ways that will have hot blonds everywhere mourn like the closure of their favorite hair solon. That’s not to say the battle doesn’t have some revealing moments. While Emma looks more humiliated than a girl who had her first period in the middle of a dance recital, Xorna hints that her anger over being only Cyclops’s second greatest love is pointless. She also hints that if her younger self doesn’t go back, some really shitty things will happen to both her and Cyclops. Not many details are given, which is another part of what made this battle so underwhelming. I get that the future is fucked up, but without details there’s only so much my penis can do with it.

It’s part of a much bigger problem that becomes way too apparent in this issue, even for a drunk. The future X-men are just way too fucking vague on what why the future is so fucked. Even Kitty Pryde and Rachel Grey, who did a total 180 after being all for sending the O5 X-men back to the past, find that distressing as they’re basically barred from participating in the battle. That doesn’t stop Rachel from calling out Kate Pryde, who she knew in the Days of Futures Past timeline, about how their approach makes less sense than the Dark Knight Rises. She basically went from someone who fought in a world where all mutants were fucked to ganging up on a couple of teenage mutants. That’s like Ghandi going from a hunger strike to kicking dirt in the face of a kid on the beach. Yet still, we don’t get any details that make it less fucked up.

To their credit, the present and future X-men do their best to avoid coming off as every bully in every Karate Kid movie ever made. O5 Cyclops and his older self fight together against the present and future X-men. It makes for a pretty awkward moment between both teams, so much so that Beast actually laments on what a dick move it was to bring the O5 to the present in the first place. Since it’s a little late to wipe away the shit he’s done, he still comes off as a total douche. It still makes for a fitting moment where O5 Cyclops and his older self work together, but not before O5 Cyclops reminds him that he still hates what he has become and will do everything he can to not be him when he grows up. It’s fitting, yet awkward in a very appropriate way.

Conversely, O5 Jean is now all alone in her battle against Xorna/Jean. With Emma Frost now out of the picture, she’s the only one who can stop herself. Again, it’s awkward yet fitting. And since O5 Jean’s powers aren’t broken, she fares much better against Xorna. Even though Xorna is supposed to be a more experienced psychic, she’s going up against a version of herself that is being fueled by teenage melodrama and raging hormones. It’s like the Hulk battling She-Hulk when she’s on her period. It’s an ugly battle. It’s still not as epic as it could be, but that doesn’t make it any less satisfying.

With so many battles going on, it’s easy to forget that O5 Iceman and O5 Beast are still part of the story. They were basically left behind to watch TV and change Shogo’s diapers while the others went after O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean Grey. Yet even they seem suspicious of the future X-men. That or watching too much reality TV has destroyed their hope for the future anyways. They finally get in on the action when Magik, who went MIA abruptly in the previous issue, shows up to take them to the future. Magik had already visited the future in the very first scene of Battle of the Atom. She’s in a position to know how full of shit the future X-men may be. So rather than relying on a Google search, she offers to take the two of them to the future. O5 Iceman even makes a subtle Back to the Future 2 reference, which helps alleviate any sentiment some may have about there being way too much time travel in the X-men comics.

While it’s nice to see some dangling plots from the previous issue get addressed, the biggest moment in this issue comes from the psychic battle between O5 Jean and Xorna. It ends up being way bigger than the battle between Jean and Emma, which may or may not disappoint some. I know my penis is disappointed, but in terms of the story this battle leads to a major turning point. So far, O5 Jean has been pretty damn stubborn about not going back to the past. She’s not going to be convinced that she should go back unless she sees a damn good reason. Well in battling Xorna, she gets that reason and changes her mind faster than Mitt Romney during an election year.

In the course of the psychic battle, O5 Jean chides her older self in trying to determine what made her such a bitch. Xorna refuses to reveal the details, saying it’s not safe for a teenage girl. I could probably say the same thing about giving a teenage girl her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook password. But that doesn’t stop O5 Jean from forcibly prying the information out of her mind. And when she sees it, it’s so fucking terrifying that she can’t get to the past fast enough. Again, there are no details whatsoever. How bad could it have been? Did she have sex change at some point? Do all mutants become slaves on a reality show run by Donald Trump? There’s no fucking hint whatsoever at what it may be and it’s pretty fucking annoying.

Whatever she saw, it was enough for O5 Jean to end the battle and convince O5 Cyclops that it was time to go back to the past. And since he saw her tits, he’s going to do whatever she says. She even stops Deadpool when he’s in the middle of giving a speech about how fucked the future is. But once again, there’s another hint that the future X-men may be bullshitting their past selves. It’s still hard to get too excited when there are no details whatsoever on the extent of how fucked or unfucked this future is. For all we know, it’s just bad because Ted Cruz became President. There’s really nothing to go on.

When this comic was first solicited, it hinted that there would be a major twist at the end. Well, it has been a while since I saw the Sixth Sense, but I still remember what a big twist in a story feels like and I didn’t get that feeling here. All I saw was O5 Iceman and Beast follow Magik into the future where they meet yet another team of future X-men. And for some reason, they have a bunch of sentinels on their side and the Jean Grey Institute is still intact. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t constitute an apocalyptic future. I’m also pretty sure this is further proof that the future X-men are bullshitting their past selves. I’m just not sure if this qualifies as a twist I should get excited about. Maybe it’s just the disappointment my penis is still feeling, but I didn’t feel all that surprised by this ending. I just felt confused and that’s not a good feeling after multiple bong hits.

This issue offers a harsh reminder of why it’s not always a good idea to read comics while stoned. It’s easy enough to get confused by the smell of the ink and how it smells like Doritos. It’s much harder to understand where the bullshit ends and the lies begin. This issue was heavy on action, much more so than previous issues. That made my penis happy to some extent, albeit not as much as I had hoped. But the deceptive undertones made me interpret this comic the same way a dog interprets a fake hot dog. I get that someone is lying and someone is trying to screw the O5 X-men over. I’m just not sure why I should be as shocked as a kid that just discovered internet porn. Wolverine and the X-men #36 keeps the plot moving forward. For that, I give it a 6 out of 10. It just does so in a way that leaves way too much to the imagination and for an imagination like mine that turns my ex-girlfriend’s old sex toys into bongs, that’s downright dangerous. Nuff said!

Wolverine and the X-men #36 PREVIEW - Telling Hints and Epic Battles

It's a good sign when a comic book arc is so awesome that even the previews get the blood pumping and the panties soaked. That or it could be a bad batch of blow. I'm going to assume it's a little a both. X-men Battle of the Atom is nearing the halfway point and so far it has succeeded in telling an epic time travel story that doesn't suck and doesn't involve Michael J. Fox. The struggle between the past, present, and future X-men effectively encompasses all the right elements of what it means to be X-men. Going all the way back to the first issue 50 years ago, this story has embodied so much of what has made X-men awesome of the past few decades. However, I think even Jack Kirby himself would be a little anxious about fans looking forward to an issue that involves two beautiful women engaging in a psychic brawl. And the promise of that brawl is what should get everyone excited about Newsarama's preview for Wolverine and the X-men #36, which marks the fifth part in the event and the convergance of multiple clusterfucks.

Newsarama: Wolverine and the X-men #36 Preview

But it's not just the promise of "Emma Frost and Jean Grey: The Epic Rematch That Countless Male Fans and their Penises have been Waiting for" that gives the next issue its appeal. It's worth mentioning again to those who have good pot dealers that this is the halfway point. There's still a whole other half of comics to fill this event with awesome. So as important as the Jean/Emma rematch is, it is NOT the final showdown.

  

The preview doesn't reveal much about the battle between Emma and Jean Grey. But if Cyclops is right (and let's face it, this man is an expert in telepaths given the ones he's banged), then the battle between Xorna/Jean, Emma Frost, the Stepford Cuckoos, and O5 Jean Grey should be more epic than the final battle scene in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and the Chitari invasion in the Avengers movie combined. We don't get to see it, but I'm pretty sure that's just Marvel being a cocktease and like my dick at a strip club, I don't think anyone minds waiting for something that promises to be so awesome. But there's something else in this preview that's worth noting.

It wasn't that long ago that Wolverine and Cyclops went beyond just scolding each other over who got to bang Jean Grey and beat the living shit out of one another. That battle was part of what made Schism such an epic battle and a major turning point for the X-men. It led to the beginning of the Jean Grey Institute and the beginning of the end for Utopia. And the main argument Wolverine made back then, which he repeats right here in this preview, is that kids shouldn't be thrust into battles like this. It's not an invalid point to make. It's like saying nobody should take a piss on a sleeping polar bear. It's not going to end well.

The problem is Wolverine is making this argument after he did the same fucking thing that Cyclops did. Just a few issues ago in All New X-men, he led the O5 into a battle against Hydra and Mystique. This isn't Toad or or some purse snatcher along Miami Beach. This is fucking Hydra and Mystique. He didn't have to drag them into that fight, but he did. And the O5 chose to be in that fight in the same way Cyclops's students chose to be part of his revolution. I know the Cyclops haters will cry bullshit, but I also feel compelled to point out that Cyclops let one of his students go home after he chose not to stay. That mutant was Fabio and he didn't try and stop him. Fabio only ended up coming back when he got screwed over by SHIELD in ways that would make the ACLU shit themselves. Yet Wolverine is still going to bust Cyclops's balls? I'm sorry, but he's losing his credibility faster than the Cleveland Browns lost their last game.

I like the effects Schism has had on the X-books, but those effects sort of lose their impact when one side of the schism is full of shit. I like Wolverine and I would prefer that he leave the hypocritical bullshit to the Dr. Dooms of the world. But part of the strength of Battle of the Atom has been a bitter struggle between the O5's desire to stay and fix the future and the X-men's desire to not fuck up the timeline. And this old argument isn't helping that. It's just making Wolverine look too much like a douche. I can only hope that the bonerific battle between Emma and Jean Grey makes up for it. Nuff said!

X-men #5 PREVIEW - More Details and a Kick-Ass Jet

If I haven't made it clear yet how hard my dick was after reading parts 1 and 2 of X-men Battle of the Atom, then I guess I'll never convince anyone and go back to drilling for oil with my foreskin. It's not unusual for Marvel to start an event really strong. I'm still sober enough to remember how awesome Fear Itself and Avengers vs. X-men were when they first began. They eventually fell so hard that Satan himself felt it in his anus. I sincerely hope that X-men Battle of the Atom does the same. Marvel doesn't need to take another shit on Jack Kirby's grave. But from here on out, the story will unfold weekly in various X-books and I have every intention of getting drunk and reviewing every one of them.

The next issue on the docket is X-men #5 by Brian Wood. This issue will have the present and future X-men chasing after O5 Cyclops and O5 Jean Grey in hopes that they won't fuck up the future too much by running away. I seem to remember a simpler time when teenagers running off just made people worry about them fucking in ways that make the Catholic Church angry, but the whole fucking timeline is at stake here. On top of that, All New X-men #16 revealed that the mysterious Xorna is actually Jean fucking Grey. This made both my brain and my penis very happy when I read it. Granted, there's always a possibility that it could be a ruse. I hate to keep showing this, but I think it gets the point across.

I shouldn't still be pissed off about it, and yet...

At the very least, there are multiple Jean Greys to work with in this event. And that's a statement I never thought I would say two years ago. Hell, back then it would have been more likely to hear me say, "No beer please, I don't drink anymore." But that shows just how quickly things can change in the X-books. Xorna's revelation posed some interesting questions and possibilities that promise to be explored in future issues. Thankfully, Newsarama released a preview earlier today and it offered a few details that should help maintain a healthy boner until next week.

So in addition to revealing out that Beast has way too much free fucking time on his hands and not nearly enough internet porn, this preview effectively explains why Jean was dressed as Xorn to begin with. It seemed like a pretty fucked up choice of attire, given that the Xorn was the asshole that killed her before getting overly retconned. She needs this suit in order to keep her powers in check. It's not an unreasonable concern. Jean does have a rather lengthy history of going a bit power mad and devouring planets when she has a bad case of cosmic PMS. O5 Jean said in the previous issue that her powers were growing and anyone who has tried to grow a beard knows that at some point, growing it any bigger just isn't going to work.

This still doesn't mean that this Xorna/Jean Grey figure is actually legitimate. If she was really this concerned about her powers, why not reveal that to O5 Jean Grey? She knows as well as anyone that her powers are destined to get fucked up. This might actually be a serious enough detail to get through to an overly emotional teenage girl. But she doesn't do that and she gives the impression that she has something to hide. And as someone who has made way too many mistakes with transvestite hookers, I can attest how bad it can get if certain details are not shared.

Battle of the Atom has just started and promises to escalate quickly. Like a vagina, it's awesome in its beauty yet mysterious in its function. There are so many ways this event could go. It could either induce multiple orgasms or multiple migraines. It's too early to tell, but I've got my booze and my blog handy for whatever outcome it may be. Nuff said!