The List #18 part 2

X-Force #22
Writers: Chis Yost and Craig Kyle
Artist: Clayton Crain
This issue begins with a glimpse of Emma's beloved deceased student, Negasonic Teenage Warhead and an explanation that many of the resurrected 16 million mutants were affected by the Decimation. This is pretty interesting information that I actually have wondered about before; if it's been gone over in Endangered Species then forgive me but I tuned out that crap side story almost entirely. Seriously, Beast exploring the overdiscussed Decimation is not an interesting read.

Shifting to the X-Men, we find Crain has gifted us with a beautiful two page fight scene which can be seen in the preview here. This includes bit of Gen. X reunion, which is nice to see that the team is not entirely forgotten. But in that panel I think there is our second caption glitch in this week's batch of comics:

That or Husk is possessing Skin.
Again, the possibilities are endless.

Inside the X-Landfill, we find out Rahne is pregnant and it's killing her! Hooray! I'm sorry to all her fans, but I've almost never liked the character for her naivete and overly religious crap. Considering how much she's in Limbo in X-Force right now, it'd be a good idea to either let her die (and make me happy) or put her on the revived New Mutants team. Anyway, Wolf Prince guy goes to go howl at the moon and Hela appears to interfere with my wish fulfillment.

Back on Planet Selene, she's plotting to kill her resurrected mutants to complete her spell that requires souls and other ideas that I hate. Probably their metaphorical 'hearts' too because the ability to love and be passionte is totally stored in our blood pumper. I find it odd that Selene can use the resurrected for her spell because I'd be inclined to think they're 'impure' or 'have no souls anymore'. Possibly something that will be covered later? Anyway, there's the big discovery of the blade required for the spell is missing, so Selene's elite go to attack the X-Men.

Speaking of the elite, you may have noticed the absence of X-Necrosha: The Gathering one-shot last week. That would be because all it was was Selene being evil and recruiting the characters with the same idea like five times. I have already had enough of that crap with Dark X-Men: The Beginning with Osborn forcing characters into recruitment for three issues. Now onto a set of panels worth noting:

First off, nice to see Dazzler being seriously used in combat. Second, who the hell is the redhead? My guess is that Morlock who's meant to resemble Jean with the weird tongue. But I find it off that anyone would let her on the island in the first place considering she's always up in the X-Men's grill. Third, holy shit, did Sooraya really just say 'What the hell'? Seriously, what she said overall seems totally out of character from her normally respectful-even-under-intense-cirumstances demeanor.

To conclude, buy this issue if you are following X-Necrosha, but otherwise be warned that it's a mediocre issue.

X-Men Legacy #230
Writer: Mike Carey
Artists: Daniel Acuna with Mirco Pierfederici
So as can be seen on the cover, Rogue begins the issue by using Emplate's powers right back on him. A bit surprising that her powers carried over to her astral form, but whatever works.

We also get a dialogue-less two-panel cameo of my favorite unconfirmed tranny, Ariel! Just so everyone knows, I totally picked up two issues of the only other series she's ever really appeared in, Fallen Angels, out of a $.25 bin during a fabulous sale at Coast City Comics. Seriously, if you're in the area and are a whore for sales like I am, then stop to pick up an issue or twelve.
Thanks to them, I now can know the magic of the 80's through Ariel.

Back to the plot, the drag net set to pull Emplate's astral lighthouse reels it in and Emplate ends up trying to suck Bling!'s energy to kill her, and some of the X-Men appear to save her. My favorite being:

My X-Boyfriend Warpath, of course. What a man, what a man, what a mighty delicious piece of man. Except Acuna could have done the face a little better and made it less aged looking. But at least he remembered to forget Warpath's shirt.

Anyway, Emplate gets sent to some uncertain fate of doom in the end. Later on, Bling! is getting interviewed by students and it turns out being saved is definitely something she's into. Yay for the X-Lesbians!

But boo on Hope Abbott. F'real honey, admitting you find someone is attractive isn't that big of a deal. Unless you're a total 'phobe. Seriously Hope, your enjoyment of tests and dislike of lesbians is absolutely backwards.

Anyway, the epilogue also includes Rogue and Cyke discussing her job offer and Cyclops mentions something that sounds very off to me:

Five years? Seriously? Didn't that thing come crashing down 15 years ago? 15 and 5 are huge differences. I was 15 five years ago, but I was 5 fifteen years ago. See the difference? I just dislike the sliding timescale in general since I think Storm was totally in her cougar 40's during X-Treme X-Men and that most of the senior X-Men should be aged to around that area.

That or numbers should never be mentioned in a sliding timescale. Anyway, last page of the issue is Gambit being gorgeous and talking to an evil goth card with black lips. Oh and don't read A Girl Named Hope, I loathe the artist. And Cable. So just ignore that in this issue and X-Force since I forgot to mention that it was in X-Force and am too lazy to go fix it.

In conclusion, pick up this issue if you've been collecting the other issues of this arc, but ignore it unless you've got lots of extra cash. I know I said I'd promote it if it had Ariel, but one-panel does not feed my need. And also, this arc in general was sort of good, but not great, yet again like Carey since Legacy began.