The List #36 + News

X-Men #2
Writer: Victor Gischler
Artist: Paco Medina
This issue opens with Colossus and Wolverine duking it out with a vamp with the two of them having battle chit-chat. Colossus definitely says something interest-->

Not a statement I'd agree with considering almost all my male friends drink beer and maybe less 1/4 of my female friends do. I mean, I do appreciate his enthusiasm for hard liquor, it's got a soft spot in my heart too, but let's lay off the whole "Ugh, that's girly and girly's bad" crap.

The guy manage to get the vampire out into daylight to unexpected results. It seems the vampire has a gem on him that can take care of the effects of daylight. Wolverine and Colossus chase it until it leads them to a den of other ubervamps, but have no fear, Blade shows up to save the day.

Meanwhile, it turns out the vampires have focused in on turning Jubilee so that they can lure 'him' and turn him, who'll be the one to turn the rest. I'm assuming they mean Wolverine considering Jubes is his ex-sidekick, and my response is this: For Christ's sake, does everything have to revolve around him? Ugh, I hope I'm wrong.

The X-Men review the situation which is that all the vampires are now united, Dracula's dead, and there's a fuck-ton of them about [This many]. The X-Men are thinking they're fucked until a very special someone brings this up:

Cyclops understands what Emma's suggesting and tells everyone of the plan: Resurrect Dracula.

Considering he's dead thanks to the currently ruling assholes, it'd throw a massive monkey wrench in their Vamp U.N. to have the Vamp King Dracula return. It's a great plan and the only thing that I didn't 100% expect this issue. And let me add that it's EMMA'S plan because I know reviewers are going to fuck it up and be like, "Cyclops proves he's a tactical leader this issue by coming up with the controversial 'Resurrect Dracula' plan." Uh, no assholes, that was Emma. Cyclops just interpreted what she was suggesting.

[Edit] Apparently everyone hates the plan, but I'm not sure why (explanations haven't been provided just yet). While Dracula is not going to come back and side with the X-Men (which so far is what people seem to think is the intention and possibly why they hate the plan), I doubt Dracula can completely push aside his anger over being killed by the Vamp U.N. and would probably create conflict in the ranks especially with those loyal to him. He would basically ruin the main problem (they're organized now) by being there. At least that's what I think so far. Agree or disagree? Feel free to explain why in the comments (be sure to be civil though).

OH and the issue ends with Jubilee lured out to the vampire lair and her getting bitten [Here]. You'll note that two out of three of the 'surprise' moments this issue also have a matching link to a teaser promoting it. That's actually my biggest complaint: Like last issue, these teasers being released are giving away the majority of the interesting things happening during the issue. They're not teasers at this point; they're spoilers, and they're damn hard to avoid because everyone reblogs these teasers.

Conclusion: This issue is an improvement over the last one, but Marvel needs to chill out on the 'teasers' so something in this series can be genuinely unexpected.

Morning Glories #1
Writer: Nick Spencer
Artist: Joe Eisma
Definitely the book I was most excited for this week especially considering it's written by Nick Spencer who did the amazing Forgetless (if you haven't read it yet, do it now).

We are introduced to the Academy with the opening consisting of an attempted breakout by two of the students who go to extreme measures to get out (by using science!). So we follow the guy as he kicks ass out of his way until he's ultimately stopped by the mandatory creepy villain a guy who looks like Nitro with a lesser version of Tildie Soames' powers. By the way, here's how Morning Glory Academy deals with students who attempt to make a run for it:

How very soft serve of them, no wonder why the students are so disobedient.
The faculties reaction to this is mostly indifferent considering this guy's not 'one of them'.

And as a side note, if you've read the interviews on this series then you know Jun, a character who also can kick ass, knows more about what's going in the academy than the others. My guess, considering the resemblance between the two (which is more apparent when he's not doing his Bloody Mary impression), is that the guy above was Jun's brother.

From there we get two-pages intros of each of the characters and the over-quoted comparison Spencer gave of this series to a cross between Lost and Runaways is now given evidence. How? Well, truth be told these intros are a bit weak, having to do with the character and shallow interactions with their parents, and I remember that's how Runaways also opened (its first arc was honestly somewhat weak).

The most notable of the introductions are: Hunter is awesome because he reads Morrison, specifically The Invisibles (oh how I miss Fanny!). However, good luck to the kid in understanding it considering I read it this summer and had trouble grasping the entire concept (I'm 20). The other ones were either meh or strange like apparently 'the emo girl' has a crush on one of her teachers [Here]. The one with the rebel kid, Ike, was just flat-out ridiculous and I had to un-suspend my disbelief for that one [Here].

Anyway, the next scene is of them all getting driven to the Academy by the a driver from the Academy, and to remind us that this is a sketchy place, they all get gassed to sleep (so they can't figure out how to get out). They wake up when they arrive at the school and figure it was a normal nap. They're all brought together for the first time with an opening presentation of Morning Glory Academy with a speech the involves mentioning that they need to discard their previous lives and a slideshow that involves a goat with it's throat getting slit. By now it's hard to believe the kids wouldn't be like, "What the fuck, seriously?" especially since Academy seems to be barely concerned with concealing the fact that they're up to something.

Following this they all go to their dorms, with the 3 boys rooming all together and the 3 girls rooming all together as well. An interesting exchange occurs in the boys room:

Ike follows this comment by saying "It's brokeback bunkbeds!"

And I have to say one can only hope because every teen series needs some homosexuality even though they're probs all straight. Meanwhile with the girls, Zoe's doing her best Cordelia of BtVS impression and Jade is having a meltdown. Why? She called her father and he's claiming he doesn't know her and that he's never had a daughter. Also, this is on her birthday, May 4th,....and it turns out it's all five of the other new students' birthday. Casey, the blonde braniac who takes charge, decides to approach her ever-annoying RA about both of these issues. In between her baby talk way of saying Casey's name (Casey-Spacey and worse), Pamela reveals it's 'encouraged' for the parents to do this and that the birthdays thing was all part of how they were chosen (it's also Pamela's birthday). Not catching on to the creepy spiral staircase their on, Casey follows Pamela downward claiming her parents would never participate in the forget tactic. Pam says she knows and reveals behind a door at the bottom of the stairs, Casey's parents chained, bloodied, and unconscious hanging on the wall. End issue.

So apparently this series isn't leaving any time for suspenseful buildup as revealed by the issue's end, so I guess we're just jumping in to the action then. I wish Spencer would have been a bit more subtle about revealing the sketchy factor of this school because really these is no break from being overtly reminded that this school is one fucked up place. In the end, I thought the issue was good, but could have been better especially with how the characters are introduced because so far only Hunter and Casey are remotely likable. However, one thing that stops me from giving any real judgement over this issue is the comparison to Runaways as that series also started out iffy, but quickly became one of the greatest comic book series I've ever read. Conclusion: you should definitely pick this issue up, I think great things will come out of this series.

And now for the news:

• Poll results are in and it seems people are most looking forward to Uncanny X-Force with it receiving 17 votes which is basically half of the votes. X-Men Legacy followed with 6, then came X-Men with 4, New Mutants with 3, Uncanny X-Men with 2, and X-23 with 1. Fortunately no one voted for Wolverine, so that's good for me because I also had this poll to see which books I should be paying attention to for this blog. And that's it for the poll, be sure to vote on the new one.

• This month's Batgirl was one of the lamest things I've read in awhile which would be why it's not being reviewed here. [Preview]

• There's going to be a Thunderbolts/Avengers crossover soon. The only thing I'm really excited for is the battle between Moonstone and Spider-Woman in the token female vs. token female faceoff. [Source]

• Another week, another Psylocke costume change request. Here's the latest one:
  

"There were honestly too many folks asking after Psylocke's costume, so I went with psycwave's specific wording with "Hey Axel, are the covers for Uncanny X-Force temporary as most seem to be just recolored outfits, namely Psylocke's? It just seems like the character is cursed to wear the thong outfit for all eternity never to be updated or the like, especially when many of the X-men go through costume revamps on a regular basis."

Alonso: They are not temporary. Pyslocke is sporting her regulation X-Force silver-and-black tho - I mean, uniform. With it's streamlined aerodynamic design, and splatterproof material, it's the perfect outfit for bringing the fight to the doorstep of anyone who'd mess with mutants."

• They also pretty much said Rachel Grey isn't going to be around for awhile which is good news to me considering I can't stand her and her constant angst-ridden "Mom!" crap. [Source]