X-Sanction #1 - A Time for New Awesome

A Marvel comic book penned by Jeph Loeb is like going to a whore house blindfolded and randomly picking someone to fuck. Sometimes you'll get a supermodel style babe with an ass so nice you could paint the Mona Lisa on it. Sometimes you'll get butt-ugly transvestite with a botched boob job, a botched face-lift, and breath that stinks of gasoline and herpes. Loeb is one of those writers who is great at telling certain stories and cock-smashingly awful at others. When he's in his element like with Hulk, he's one of Marvel's top talents. When he's allowed to do too much like with Ultimate, he ruins everything he touches. So it is with a certain mix of excitement and trepidation that I give his X-Sanction mini a chance.

Some are too young or too stoned to remember that Jeph Loeb once wrote Cable. This was back before he teamed up with Deadpool and was neutered by becoming Hope Jean rip-off Summers's adopted father. He was basically a lone soldier who occasionally kicked ass for the X-men or just for the hell of it. It was a different kind of Cable that most readers today probably don't identify with, but damn it if Loeb's take on him didn't work. Now he has a chance to make Cable awesome again and the premise is as volatile as it is fucked up.

The last time we saw Cable he "died." I say "died" with quotations because in the Marvel universe death is no worse than a bad case of the runs. You may be incapacitated for a while, having to lock yourself in the bathroom and declare the surrounding area a toxic waste dump, but you eventually come up with only a slightly burned asshole. But Cable didn't exactly die from a shotgun blast to the head or anything. He was caught in a time portal between the future and the present. He disappeared with Hope crying like the whiny bitch she would eventually become. There was no body to bury. And as everyone knows, if there's no body the guy isn't dead. He's just MIA. Now with the recent announcement of Avengers vs. X-men where Hope Summers is destined to be a big part of it, Cable can't let a little something like death stop him. He still has to protect her. That's where X-Sanction comes in and that's the story Jeph Loeb has to tell.

X-Sanction doesn't begin with Cable. It begins with his targets, the Avengers. All the heavy hitters are present including Spider-Man, Wolverine, Iron Man, Red Hulk, Falcon, and Captain America. It's your typical Thursday night for the Avengers. Some underpaid prison transport fell asleep on the job and let a couple of superpowered villains loose. I know people say a lot of bad things about the American prison system. We lock stoners up with murderers, but you would think that even in a world of fiction they would have the good sense to be careful with superpowered criminals. Guess the economy is just that bad. That or effective transport wasn't in the budget. Still want to cut government spending Tea Party people?

The battle is nothing spectacular and why should it be? These are the Avengers against escaped prisoners like Tornado. They have about as much chance at toppling the Avengers as the St. Louis Rams have of beating the Green Bay Packers with their scout team. But this little skirmish is just a backdrop. It's a little glossed over, but for good reason. After Captain America lays out Tornado in typical Cap fashion, Falcon goes missing. In horror movies, when the token black character goes missing it usually means trouble and a firmly worded letter from Al Sharpton. In this case, Captain America leaves his Avenger buddies behind to go after his pal. This is the last you see of the other Avengers. Again, it's glossed over to a point, but it's the first fucking issue. You can't expect every molecule to be given a life story.

The revelation isn't too startling unless someone had enough brain damage to not look at the cover of the book before reading it. If in fact someone has that much brain damage, I probably shouldn't be making jokes about it because shit starts to get serious here. Cable is back. He's alive, he's pissed off, and he just took out an Avenger and dragged him through a sewer with the full knowledge that his super-powered buddies would come after him. But he's not doing it just for kicks. He soldier. He has a mission. And it's made clear in a very powerful image that the last thing he saw before he "died" was Hope. It's a nice way of connecting this story to the events of X-men Second Coming. It shows that while some loose ends are easier to forget than others, others haven't been forgotten.

Now this is an important moment for anyone who has been following the events of X-men since Second Coming. It's also important to those who criticize Jeph Loeb for essentially rejecting continuity and forcibly imposing his own, ignoring how many are pissed off as a result. In this he actually connects Cable's mission to what happened at the end of that event way back in the dark days of 2010. He could have ignored those details and pulled any number of things out of his ass, but he didn't. He saw what that story did with Cable and he ran with it. For that, he deserves more due credit than most will ever give him.

Captain America, still ignoring the rest of his Avenger buddies while they take care of the prison break, tracks Falcon down to an anchored cargo ship. It's the city equivalent of an old house built on Indian burial grounds, satanic rituals, and abortion clinics. Loeb doesn't waste too much time with finer details, as is his style. He just gets Cap into the same room as Cable as quickly as possible and that's not a bad thing by any stretch. It just means they have more pages with which to kick ass. Not only that, Cable has Falcon suspended in a bio tank rigged with C4. So if Cap tries to rescue his buddy, he blows them all to hell. That means the only way he's saving his friend is if he goes through Cable. It's only slightly more daunting than being Snooki's gynecologist.

What follows next isn't too deep, but it's not glossed over either. When you put two hardened soldiers in a confined area and give them reasons to be pissed at one another, it damn well ought to be a kick ass fight! And that's exactly what Loeb does here with help from artist Ed McGuinness. You've got two soldiers from two different eras that have to beat the shit out of each other in order to fulfill their mission. And it's painfully clear early on that Cable is not 100 percent. Remember, he still has the techno-organic virus eating his ass alive. The worse Captain America ever had to worry about was a bad case of the clap in World War II. He can barely fire his gun competently so Cap has the early advantage.

But that advantage doesn't last. Cable has dealt with the techno-organic virus before and after several glorious pages of hero on hero action that could make an awesome porno if two hot women were involved, Cable gets the upper hand. He actually uses Captain America's own shield against him, both to protect himself and to keep Cap on his toes. It works because Cable is more willing to fight dirty. He'll throw in a few low blows and maybe even bite a few ears Mike Tyson style if that's what the mission requires. He's able to knock Cap out, showing that while Captain America may be all red, white, and blue he's still as vulnerable to a blow to the head as anyone else.

Now Cable had the edge because he was much more determined and had way more to lose. And it wasn't just because of the techno-organic virus that's killing him either. Why is he so determined? Well that's another detail that Jeph Loeb didn't gloss over. During the battle we get a few flashbacks (or flashforwards since time is so fucked up in the Marvel universe) that show what happened to Cable after the end of Second Coming. Apparently, he didn't die. He was just transported to a future. There, he met up with mysterious man with a racially charged name, Blaquesmith. Now before Al Sharpton gets involved, Blaquesmith gives Cable some very bad news. His mission to protect Hope didn't exactly stop the future from going to hell. In fact, it made everything worse. This is where Jeph Loeb makes yet another connection. In a recent giant sized issue called Point One, Marvel revealed that the Phoenix Force was on a rampage again. It was able to essentially purge an entire world and look awesome doing it. Well in the future Cable travels to, that happens to Earth. And the reason it happens is because Hope wasn't there to stop it. Why? Well apparently the Avengers are the main reason. They took her so she couldn't be the messiah she needed to be. For Cable, that's all the reason he needs to end their shit. And you know what? It's a damn good reason.

I'll take a moment to compliment Jeph Loeb again. I know it's becoming an ugly habit, but he deserves such praise with this for all the right reasons. Not only did he make a connection to the past with this scene. He also set the stage for the future. X-Sanction was announced before Avengers vs. X-men. Not much was revealed about the plot and now we know why. This story in one issue shows what's at stake. With both Point One and Second Coming, the threat of the Phoenix is beating into the reader's head like a Catholic nun to a kid who hides Playboys in his desk. It's a message worth reinforcing because the Phoenix Force is one of Marvel's threats that's near the top of the not-to-be-fucked-with list.

Back in the present, Captain America in a very special chair that old school Uncanny X-men fans may recognize. It's not enough to just kill Captain America when he's unconscious. Keep in mind, Cable has to have bait for the rest of the Avengers. Cable makes it clear to Cap that he didn't just wake up one morning and think it would be fun to kill the Avengers. He's doing it because they're going to royally fuck up the future for what they do to Hope. As an adopted father and a guy who is mighty sick of dystopian futures, he just can't let that shit slide and the issue ends with an ominous hint of just how serious Cable is. It's implied that he shot Captain America in the head, but there's no blood splattered visual so it may be a different shot. What does it mean? Well unfortunately we'll have to wait until 2012 to see. Is it so wrong to want Christmas to be over already?

And so this most basic of stories ends with the most basic of noises, that noise being a gunshot. It's not clear if the shot is from Cable's gun or someone else who thinks it's not cool to shoot Captain freakin' America in the head. But that's the beauty of it. That final scene is all you need to want to see the next issue. It's not like an episode of Lost where you want to see the next episode just to make sense of the convoluted plot from the past six. You want to see it because you want to see what happens next. It's simple. It's clean. The retard who eats paste in 1st grade can understand it just as much as the Korean valedictorian that spent all of high school functioning on two hours of sleep. Nothing is blown up. Nothing is overly destroyed. It's just a simple plot of Cable having the balls to take on the Avengers and having a damn good reason to do so.

Now I'll go on record as saying that I had no faith in Jeph Loeb after his Ultimate work. I was prepared to blow a federal judge or twenty to get a restraining order that would prevent him from ever writing another Marvel comic again. Luckily, it never came to that. I may be a drunk, but I'm not an unreasonable drunk. I'm willing to give a writer a chance if the story and the premise are good. Jeph Loeb walked into a major story here. This is the prelude to Avengers vs. X-men, Marvel's equivalent of a heavyweight title fight that Don King would have injected crack into his eye socket in order to promote. And Loeb pulls it off and does a damn good job of it. So with both relief and elation, I praise him for making this first issue awesome. The dialog may be flat and the finer details may be overlooked at times. But in the end it's a worthy first issue and that's really the best you can hope for with a story like this.

Jeph Loeb still has an uphill battle ahead of him. His propensity for cheesy dialog have brought down promising stories before. So has his inability to deal with the little things in a story. After Captain America and Cable clashed, the rest of the characters were pretty much forgotten. Some scenes were glossed overs while others were overly drawn out, but it wasn't terribly egregious. It's the first damn issue. I'm willing to give Loeb the benefit of the doubt for once because he's been so good at making Cable a likable badass. So with more than just a sliver of hope, I give X-Sanction #1 a 4.5 out of 5. Loeb has everything he needs to make this series awesome and he has three issues to show he can do it. And for once, I don't need six bottles of tequila to be optimistic. Nuff said!

X-men Supreme Special: Revelation X - Announcement and PREVIEW

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Uncanny X-Force #18 - A Saga of True Awesome

What can I say about Uncanny X-Force and the Dark Angel Saga that I haven't already equated to a weekend in Las Vegas with a pound of cocaine, six tabs of ecstasy, and Warren Buffet's credit card? Well I've had to smoke more weed than usual to sufficiently expand my mind in order to articulate just how ball-bustingly awesome this series has been. Rick Remender has taken the concept of a covert kill squad composed of X-men and made it one of the most compelling X-books in a long time. I know the cynical assholes out there may scoff and argue "How could it not? X-men? Kill Squads? Deadpool making wise-cracks? How could it NOT be awesome?" This is a legitimate point, but as the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles have proven, it's not enough to just have the players. You need to have a vision to put it all together. That and a coach that doesn't choke int he NFC championship or the Superbowl.

Every issue of Uncanny X-Force has been building to this one issue and it has me so excited that going into crack withdraw would actually qualify as relaxation. From the beginning of this series, the story about the heir to Apocalypse and Angel's growing descent into his asshole Arcangel persona was a major story. Then the Dark Angel Saga arrived and all that psychic coddling and make-up sex from Psylocke had finally reached it's limit. He became the new Apocalypse. X-Force did their best to save him, venturing into the Age of Apocalypse where they got to meet a non-dead Jean Grey and ended up getting screwed over by Dark Beast. Then they began an epic struggle against Arcangel and his forces at his base at the North Pole. Arcangel used the Life Seed, a tiny bit of Celestial technology so advanced that Apple would hire an army of assassins to obtain it if only to keep Google from using it, to essentially begin a new line of evolution. The X-men and creationists were horrified by the extent of his madness and sought to stop him.

The last few issues have been a non-stop brawl complete with drama, death, and a scene with Arcangel in bed with an old woman. Somehow I'm sure that's some kind of genre porn in Japan, but that's besides the point. After being freed from his control, Psylocke and Fantomex now stand alone against Arcangel. With the life seed still in hand, he's prepared to hit the control alt delete on the entire planet in favor of his new brand of evolution. It's the kind of mission that forces X-Force to employ all their assets because let's face it. It's just not possible to play good, upstanding heroes at a time like this. They need a badass kill squad to end this shit.

Uncanny X-Force #18 gets the ball rolling in a hurry. Sunfire and Age of Apocalypse Iceman do an oversized Fire vs. Ice experiment that would probably make Bill Nye jizz his pants. Meanwhile, Arcangel's horsemen are cleaning up the rest of X-Force. AOA Nightcrawler is down for the count. Deadpool is in pieces. Wolverine had a few too many beers. So that leaves only Deathlok, a guy who has been about as friendly to the X-men as Iran has been to American hikers. War tries to make him deliver the final blow, but then Deathlok uses a little inner philosophy to figure out that listening to these assholes isn't a good idea. There's some subtlety to this struggle, which is rare for Deathlok. But Rick Remender pulls it off as he so often does. He's like Tim Tebow without the incessant Jesus talk.

Then like Newt Gingrich's poll numbers, Dark Beast does an about face. He goes from loyal minion of Archangel to this-shit's-boring-I'm-outta-here. So leaving War behind to handle Deathlok, he takes off with Pestilence. This leaves Psylocke and Fantomex to take on Arcangel. It's a much fairer fight than it sounds. As he has shown in numerous issues already, Arcangel has no problem with wounding his teammate and former fuck buddy. Fantomex tries to get under his skin by boasting that Psylocke kissed him and he gets her panties wetter than he ever will. That earned him a stab in the eye. I'm not sure if that sort of punishment is in the Old Testament, but it damn well should be!

Shit's going bad for X-Force and Arcangel doesn't sound like he's getting off his evil tyrant pedestal anytime soon. He's intent on using the Celestial Life Seed, which is like giving a nuclear bomb to the Jackass crew. Something's gonna go horribly wrong and Dark Beast doesn't want to be there for it. So with the Horsemen and a very flabby Blob in tow, he flees in one of the Celestial's ship. He also reveals something startling that may have major implications for future stories. He says Arcangel already planted a seed in a very important place. And by seed I mean his dick. And by important place I mean Pestilence's pussy. You would think that having all that power would make a simple condom easy to utilize, but I guess even the power of Apocalypse doesn't understand the concept of wrapping your tool.

Now this is an important revelation because as Rick Remender has shown since the beginning of this series, he often plants the seeds of future plots within current stories and unlike so many other writers he doesn't fucking forget about them. So while this may be the last issue of the Dark Phoenix Saga, he's already set in motion another story that could continue down the line. I know it's hard to get excited when one story isn't even over, but I'm pretty sure that Pestilence's womb is now incubating the next important stage in Uncanny X-Force.

As for the current arc of Uncanny X-Force, it's getting bloodier. Seriously, what did you expect? A Mr. Clean commercial? Fantomex shows that he's not going to psyche Arcangel out by joking about Psylocke's ass. Psylocke is the kind of woman that can justify her own ass. So after some colorful theatrics that would give any wannabe French guy a boner, she's able to stun Arcangel into submission. Then she takes the life seed from him and prepares to stab him with it. That would be a very fitting way to end it. Of course Arcangel isn't going to let that shit fly.

Since it's apparent that Psylocke can't deliver the final blow and Fantomex is losing one too many eyes in this fights, he breaks out his secret weapon. And no, it's not his penis. Again, Rick Remender uses plots he developed beforehand as a factor in current plots. Back during X-Force's last visit to the World, Fantomex revealed that he had been growing a new Apocalypse baby with the help of the Ultimaton. This after he shot the last kid Apocalypse in the fucking head. Well by guilt trip or cunning, he's grown that kid and raised him by using a Matrix style dreamworld where he's basically the equivalent of Clark Kent with fucked up lips. Then when the time comes to go Jor-El on his ass, the Ultimaton pulls the teenage Apocalypse out of his dream world and says it's time to play hero. But unlike Superman, he can wear his underwear on the inside.

Apocalypse, now bearing a dashing new look, embraces his new role. He straps on his Apocalypse suit and unloads several different kinds of whoop-ass on Arcangel. Only now he doesn't even call himself Apocalypse anymore. He calls himself Genesis. He's basically Apocalypse if he hadn't had such a fucked up childhood. It's not nearly as intimidating or imposing as Apocalypse. So even though he's able to demonstrate some pretty impressive displays of power, it's really not too surprising when he gets his ass kicked in the end. But hey. He's technically a teenager. Every teenager needs to get their ass kicked at some point. Those that don't are usually the bullies that turn out to be douche-bags.

But Apocalypse/Genesis did do something that helped finish this battle. He roughed Arcangel enough for him to let his guard down so that he doesn't notice that Psylocke sneaked up on him and still has the life seed. Now how did Psylocke just happen to be in the right place at the right time? That's never shown. In fact, it's a little random, which is something Rick Remender usually avoids. But then again, Psylocke is still a ninja. I guess we can assume that being a ninja allows her to get to where she needs to be to stab her lover in the back with the life seed. It's a lot more dramatic than it sounds. This is still the man she loves and she finally works up the nerve to stab him. It's not quite as romantic as what my ex-girlfriends have tried to do for me, but Rick Remender gives it meaning here.

What isn't quite as dramatic is the little matter of Arcangel's world about to go up in flames thanks to Sunfire's battle with AOA Iceman. Remember that little affair? Well apparently Sunfire thought overkill was the only proper way to dispose of an evil Iceman. So in a fashion that pretty much exemplifies everything Uncanny X-Force stands for, Sunfire is about to go nuclear. But rather than let him burn out, Fantomex makes a conscious effort to not be a douche-bag and goes to help him out. He knows this is a problem. So with help from the Ultimaton, he rescues a rather burned out Sunfire. I guess that makes him a walking metaphor for Brett Favre's final year with the Vikings.

But who the fuck cares about a massive explosion that consumes an entire perverse world created by a madman? What about the stabbing? Well it doesn't end like an overplayed scene on CSI. After being stabbed by the life seed, the Arcangel is essentially bled out of Warren Worthington III. In the process and presumably with a little help from Psylocke, he essentially lives a charmed life in a dreamworld. In that world he and Psylocke are together, they get married, they have children, they see those children get married, and they grow old together. They eventually die together in a moment that unless you strangle puppies on a daily basis will grab you by the heart strings and choke you with them.

It plays up the tragic element of Psylocke and Angel's relationship in a very powerful way. It shows the depths of what these characters feel for each other. It's greater than what you would see with other comic couples, who have the emotional depth of a porno plot. This walk down dreamland shows the kind of potential that Psylocke and Angel have. They are a couple that can and sincerely want to grow old together. You won't get that kind of depth with most comic couples. At least not with anyone that won't be retconned because of a deal with Mephisto.

Once the dream is over, Psylocke is left with a lifeless body of Arcangel and a crumbling world. She could stay and die with him, but that would just be stupid. So after having picked up Sunfire, Fantomex drops by and picks up Psylocke. Despite her kicking and screaming in a way you can't jerk off to every step of the way, Fantomex does manage to get her out in time before the whole world that Arcangel created crumbles. While Psylocke is left to process it all, they meet up with the rest of X-Force. Yes, most of them didn't play a role, but they're still there. Jean Grey actually survived this time. Wolverine is beat to a pulp. Deathlok even managed to collect Deadpool's dismembered body. It's kind of glossing over them, but at least they weren't completely ignored.

Then in a dramatic final scene, Rick Remender throws in one last twist. Rather than simply make this a tragic moment where the team reflects on the friend they lost, it turns out that Warren Worthington III is alive. He emerges from the snow, naked as the day he was born and presumably dealing with a serious case of shrinkage. Psylocke is understandably elated, but when she goes to kiss him and tell him to put on some pants before his junk falls off he reveals something startling. He doesn't remember her. He doesn't remember anything. He's Warren Worthington III, but he has no memory. It's an ending that opens the door to a great many possibilities. It also offers a plausible explanation for why he's not featured in the X-men Regenesis books. It fits so perfectly and it leaves just the right impact. It's not too tragic and it's not too cliched. Like Steve Jobs's motto, may he rest in peace, it just works.

Give me a moment while I take a hit from my bong and contemplate what I've just witnessed. The Dark Angel Saga is over. Everything that Rick Remender set up eventually came together. And the results were sweater than chocolate sauce licked off of Jessica Alba's ass. It was a very different kind of saga in that it was incredibly epic, yet unlike other certain sagas that shall go unnamed it didn't require that the lead character die in the end. It only required that there be a great change. And isn't that what the concept of Apocalypse is all about? Change on a massive scale? Well I don't know how massive the change will be as a result of this story, but the ride along the way has been so incredible that I'll gladly stop for a moment to puke in a trash can before getting on another ride.

Pretty much everything worked in this issue. I say pretty much because there were a few omissions that I can't quite call flaws. For one, the AOA crew that joined the fight was pretty much MIA. Jean Grey did show up at the end, but Nightcrawler, Sabretooth, and pretty much everyone else besides Iceman and Sunfire didn't play much of a role. But it's not like they were ignored. They were still clearly part of the struggle. But this issue focused primarily on Arcangel, Psylocke, and Fantomex. And why shouldn't it? They are the ones that played the biggest role. And in the end, they beat the odds. Aside from Psylocke showing up at just the right time to stab her boy toy with the life seed, it all flowed perfectly. If you're too much of a douche to overlook these minor points, then you have no business reading comics and are probably in need of in need of therapy. That or you're Donald Trump.

Unlike other recent Marvel events (looking at YOU Fear Itself), the Dark Angel Saga was compelling from start to finish. It didn't just tell an awesome story that had a satisfying end. It told an awesome story, had a satisfying ending, and set the stage for a wealth of new stories both in 616 and Age of Apocalypse. And wouldn't you know it? Marvel is proving once again that they will greedily exploit every single event by creating a new Age of Apocalypse series that spins right out of this story. So long as it brings us stories as awesome as the Dark Angel Saga, Marvel can exploit me like a Cambodian garment factory for all I care. I give Uncanny X-Force #18 and the Dark Angel Saga as a whole a gleefully drunk 5 out of 5. If you only read one X-men arc in all of 2011, make it this! It's the best Christmas, Hanukkah, Tet, Qwanza, and Ramadan gift you could ask for? Happy fucking holidays people. Nuff said!

X-men #22 - Robot Politics Should Be This Awesome

The most I know about politics comes from when I watch Fox News while high. I can't watch it sober without vomiting uncontrollably so that means my understanding is going to be skewed. Since I read comics sober from time to time, some of that knowledge has to seep through so I can follow just what the hell is going on. Thankfully, Marvel doesn't get too convoluted whenever they do politically driven stories. It all comes down to what George Carlin described as a dick-measuring contest. One country or society questions the size of another country or society's dick. An argument ensues. Sometimes they have to whip out their gear to prove their point except in most instances that gear includes bombs and bullets. In Marvel comics, that often involves giant robots.

Robots are the proverbial dick metaphor in the latest arc of Victor Gischler's adjectiveless X-men. This series has been in need of an awesome enema for quite some time and it finally fells as though that vacant rectal cavity has been successfully filled. As part of the Regenesis relaunch, the X-men now have a new security team that consists of Storm, Warpath, Domino, Colossus, and vampire Jubilee. This new team's first mission involves rescuing Domino, who was in the process of spying on a black market sentinel deal for the fictional country of Puternicstan as it is in the midst of a dick measuring contest with Symkaria. Seeing as how Vladimir Putin is still rigging elections in Russia, that may be a prophecy of sorts.

Since this story is politically charged, War Machine has been involved. He spent much of the last issue warning Storm's team to get the fuck out of this conflict so that the competent governments of the world can handle this. I assume they needed superhuman powers to prevent themselves from laughing at that remark. By the end of the issue, War Machine found himself in the grip of a sentinel that had been reprogrammed to see anyone the governor of Puternicstan deemed an enemy. Well diplomacy pretty much goes out the window when you're facing the business end of a killer robot. X-men #22 begins by having the X-men save his ungrateful ass. And like the handsome douche-bag in every slasher movie, the sentinel gets shredded easily and War Machine stays in one piece.

War Machine does manage to salvage some dignity and helps the X-men finish off the sentinel. Meanwhile, Psylocke, Warpath, and Jubilee are still inside the main sentinel facility beating up some random masked guards, which would make them the slutty blond in slasher movies who usually gets killed second. They report to Storm that they have an army of killer robots ready to start fucking with them. They're dormant at the moment, but the X-men have slain enough sentinels to know that it's just a matter of time before they turn on and start shooting. Like Jason Vorhees and Michael Meyers, they can't be stopped and they only have a slightly less creepy face.

Watching this whole brawl unfold is the Hillary Clinton-esque governor of Puternicstan that was revealed to be the mastermind behind this whole plot in the last issue. While I would still say Clinton has bigger balls (and I'm still talking about Hillary here), she's proven to be as devious as any politician that Glenn Beck complains about. But she shows the same arrogance and pig-headedness as any world leader, comics or real life. She expected that one sentinel to fail. Even a bureaucrat isn't stupid enough to think a killer robot can stop a team of X-men that has been slaying killer robots since Herman Cain was just beginning to have affairs. Her focus is on Symkaria, the country that still claims a larger dick than theirs. She reasons that launching a full scale attack rather than politely telling them not to fuck with them anymore is a better move. It would also lure the X-men away. It's not without merit, but even watching Fox News while high makes you smart enough to understand why that's a shitty tactic.

Now at this point the story is starting to get predictable. We've seen sentinel plots before. They usually follow a formula that may or may not have been copied by Michael Bay. Crazy people get a hold of sentinels. Crazy people think sentinels are more powerful than they really are. Crazy people get their asses served to them on a platter at the end of the story. At the moment, the fine leaders of Puternicstan are falling right into that trap. There's still time to throw in a twist, but as it stands most experienced X-men readers can probably figure out where this is going.

There are already signs of a shift. Remember how Domino was about to become an extra in an alien autopsy porn parody? Well she woke up and decided that she doesn't like men in lab coats who think it's fun to dissect mutants. So armed with a scalpel at first and then again, she takes one of them hostage and in a few polite words asks him to show her just what the fuck is going on with a small country that thinks having an army of sentinels is a good idea. The man in the lab coat proceeds to wet himself. No, that's not a metaphor. He actually says that on panel. It's a nice bonus to show that just like in real life, arrogant rulers can still employ total pussies.

Once the X-men and War Machine are done beating up on the hapless sentinel that the Puternicstan governor threw to the wolves, they get a quick lesson on the effect that giant robots can have on geopolitics. On top of having an army of sentinels to deal with, War Machine reveals that this little skirmish has made other regional powers question the size of their own crotch bulge. Some of them also have nuclear weapons and they don't much appreciate some upstart tiny country showing that their bulge is as big as everyone else's. That means they may attempt the Dick Cheney solution and nuke this problem away, which in both comics and real life is just overkill.

Inside the sentinel army factory, Domino meets up with Warpath, Psylocke, and Jubilee. She brings with her the hapless scientist who pissed himself earlier. The plan is simple. Get this guy to relieve his bladder again while he tells them who is controlling the army of giant robots that are about to incur a nuclear nightmare. It's slightly unsimplified when said hapless scientist is bleeding and one of the X-men happens to be a vampire. This is the first time Jubilee's vampire status is highlighted and that's a nice touch in many ways. Gischler was the one who made Jubilee a vampire. She also happens to be a teenager so she's not going to be completely mature about it at times. Show me a teenage girl that can handle her biology and I'll show you a complete misunderstanding of every Stephanie Meyer novel ever written.

Jubilee doesn't get much chance to succumb to her vampire urges. The Hillary Clinton wannabe governor orders that every sentinel be activated and the attack on Symkaria begin. So now that poor scientist that Domino was holding at gunpoint probably lost control of both his bowels and his bladder. Jubilee and the others try to take out a few sentinels, but the stubborn laws of mathematics are working against them. This is exactly why I skipped algebra class in high school. Now the X-men don't even get a chance to confront the one pulling the strings. They're pretty much left on damage control yet again. It's another instance of the issue getting predictable, but given how nicely it's played out it's really hard to give too many damns about it.

Now an army of sentinels is on the loose. War Machine and the X-men were on their way to meet up with the others with the sole intent of stopping shit like this. Needless to day, that plan is deader than John Huntsman's presidential campaign. Now these sentinels are in the air, giving surrounding countries with nuclear warheads all the more reason to push the fancy red button. It puts the X-men and War Machine in a pretty tough position, but not as tough as you might think.

Keep in mind, Storm is part of this team. She's not just a competent leader who commands respect without having to bone Jean Grey or Emma Frost (although that would probably help). She's a badass weather witch that can sitck a typhoon up the collective asses of anyone stupid enough to launch an attack of killer robots. Robots are made of metal last I checked. Metal doesn't do well when it's hit by lightning and Storm is in a position to give the fine folk at Puternicstan a lesson in physics. It makes for a stunning moment that hints at the sheer level of ass-kicking that Storm is prepared to inflict in the next issue. If that doesn't provide enough incentive for X-men fans to follow along this arc, then Victor Gischler has a legal right to punch those fans in the stomach for being too demanding.

If you've been waiting a while to see Storm steal the show and hoard it like a hypochondriac hoards Lysol wipes, then this is your comic. After how nicely the previous issue turned out, I was a little nervous about reading this issue because this series has been so inconsistent since it began. It's had it's share of good issues, but those were usually followed by not-so-good issues that weren't terrible enough to make you drop the series yet not awesome enough to make you want to inject it into your vein along with your meth. Two usually doesn't qualify as a pattern, but in this case X-men #22 feels like the beginning of an overdue trend for this series. The issue and the overall arc is awesome and between the politics and the contribution of War Machine, there's a lot to love here.

The only shortcoming if you can call it that is the overly basic idea of using an army of sentinels. It's been done before, but not like this. It seems like it should have been done sooner, some rogue country taking some sentinels and reprogramming them to pay back the other countries that have made them their bitch. If these things were real, Poland would have an army of them in storage just in case. But the way in which the fine minds of Puternicstan go about formulating this plan seems a bit predictable. We know how this is going to end. An army of sentinels vs. a pissed off Storm? That's just not a fair fight. Not for any number of killer robots.

Even if it is predictable, it's still an enjoyable issue. It's not quite as flawless as the last issue since the arc is not finished yet, but Gischler is well on his way to making this issue the best arc he's done in this series to date. I certainly hope he builds on it. He kind of has to because there are so many other quality X-books on the racks at the moment. Since Marvel has become so liberal with it's cancellation policy lately, it's not a good idea to fall behind. So with the spirit of staying within spitting distance of other X-books, I give X-men #22 a 4.5 out of 5. Storm fans are probably foaming at the mouth as we speak. This is her moment to remind us why she's a force of nature not to be fucked with and I eagerly await the scars that painful reminder is sure to leave. Nuff said!

X-men Supreme Reflections: Bobby Drake is LIVE!

This is it! Another volume of X-men Supreme Reflections has officially ended. This has been a very fun little series to work on. It has allowed me to refine this fanfiction series in ways that help tie together all those special elements that make Marvel's famous X-men the awesome characters they are. I knew I wanted to give the Original Five the Supreme Reflections treatment at one point. Now that I've reached the end, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. The final entry of this round of Supreme Reflections is Iceman. I felt it was fitting to end with him because he went through so many emotional upheavals throughout X-men Supreme Volume 1 and 2 and it finally culminated in the final issue. Now I have a chance to reflect on all these issues. I hope you all enjoy it! I want it to be as cool as Iceman deserves.

Supreme Reflections: Bobby Drake

Now that X-men Supreme Reflections: Volume 2 is done, I can finally announce something that I've had planned for quite a while now. Before I get started on X-men Supreme Volume 3, I want to throw in a little something extra. Every now and then, Marvel will take some time to publish a giant sized one-shot that tells a largely self-contained X-men story. These usually come in the form of annuals or specials. Well since I'm treating X-men Supreme like a real comic book series, it's only fitting that I do one as well. So I'm proud to announce X-men Supreme Issue 0, a special one-shot that takes place before the beginning of this series and covers a special adventure with the Original Five X-men that we all know and love. It will come out in two weeks just in time for Christmas. Think of it as one last bonus before I begin Volume 3! I don't want to give too much away, but I promise to have more details within a week!

I have so many big plans for X-men Supreme. I hope you all are enjoying it thus far. As always, I urge everyone to take the time to read and review my work. There's a review function for every issue and you can always contact me if you wish to discuss this fanfiction series or X-men in general. I'm always open to feedback. Thanks again for all your support. Until next time, take care and best wishes! Excelsior!

Jack