New Mutants #13Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Ibraim Roberson with Lan Medina
This issue Domino gets informed of the teleportericide that's going on, but Vanisher happens to overhear this information and before she can stop him he pops off to that brothel he likes so much. Except Bastion knows about it and he gets shot up, but manages to escape to elsewhere. Probs going to live.
With the New Mutants, Warlock is upset over having had to kill someone, and Sunspot, Dani, and Magma are going over what's happened to their beatup team. Meanwhile, Beast is staying at Utopia for the conflict, but he's pissed. And the Science team was sent to figure out the situation with a control tower which apparently is set to blow up. You can read about it in their upcoming one-shot even though I'm not because I know none of them are going to die, and that's the only happy ending I can think of for that irritating team.
Later on Dani gets up in Cable's face, Hope defends him and they get into a big ol' fight. Cyclops tries to break them up, but Cable stops him telling him he's keeping Hope in a bubble. Then Pierce blows up all the Blackbirds, so no way to fly out via jet anymore. Then he speechifies. Even though we've had enough of Pierce since Young X-Men. Cyclops kills him which gets my whole-hearted support. Lastly, Hope's all, "I lied when I said I wanted to come back." Oh Noes! Who cares?!
Conclusion: Another wasted, bland chapter doing next-to-nothing. Pick this up if you're collecting all the rest. Now onto the more exciting review.
Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #1 (of 5)Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Kaare Andrews
Let me start off by saying this mini-series is a breath of fresh air to a stagnating series, but it's also total playing to the fans. I'll explain why in a bit.
The setting is Africa and this opens to a guy running from some guys in gear with guns. And apparently this guy's worth shooting Aye-Aye's in the head for. So they catch up to him and he's like, "Don't make me do this..." Sorry, but just because you changed the setting doesn't mean this gets any less old.
Elsewhere, a baby is born and ends up blowing up part of the hospital. Moving to the X-Men's base San Fransisco, which I'm assuming is a post-Second Coming spoiler, Storm is receiving information on the situation from her husband, Black Panther. But not just any Storm. No. This is the Storm I've wished upon many stars for: MOHAWK STORM! This is playing to the fans part one, and I accept happily. So that's rad, and also in this scene she's seen doing something X-Men seem to rarely do: Eat. Except it's all sexualized because you'll quickly find out that Andrews just needs to keep it in our face every second. And if you look at the waists Andrews draws, then you have to figure that this is the first time she's eaten this week.
Storm informs the X-Men of the mutant births, Cyclops decides they go in. Him and Storm also have a private word about her being his consultant for when they're in Africa. Also, I enjoy how he
refers to the team.Except I believe Hisako is Chinese. And Hank McCoy, while originally white, is now Blue, so him, Mystique, and that family out in Kentucky make up that race. Also, thank you Ellis for remembering that Emma's faux-British considering everyone else seems to think she just speaks with a snob accent. Storm then asks Cyclops if that accent of Emma's bothers him and yet again, it's a sensual, she's-all-up-in-his-face situation.
Then the team suits up with Emma being the only one not wearing the standard uniform. Wolverine complains about it, and Emma responds that he can wear whatever he wants to when he sleeps with the team leader. First off, I hate that she uses a man to justify her individual costume. In New X-Men she was running around in a diaper and pasties because SHE felt like it, not because she was sleeping with then-Headmaster Professor X.
Next playing to the fans was this stupid costume where we can constantly see her underwear or her boobs are always too visible in-panel. Basically degrading her to a trashy slut.
Her new look is an attempt to going back to the New X-Men look with the long hair and platforms that I missed. Except the problem is New X-Men's Emma was weird and this look takes a wrong turn and ends up at trashy. New X-Men's Emma was Lady Gaga-ish in dress and behavior. Despite looking like a normal rich bitch, she tended to be pretty weird because she was always doing her own thing.
Anyway, everyone gets on the X-Jet and most of the of this issue happens on there. Cyclops does something nice for Storm by passing by the Serengeti so she can see her old home again. And Wolverine ends up turning xenophobic and bitches about everything African for awhile. Which has caused a stir with everyone it seems. Doesn't bother me because I never thought much of him in the first place.
What does bother me is that throughout these scenes Emma is moving around the plane and EVERY panel of her is emphasizing her ass or her tits. EVERY PANEL. It's ridiculous, I pretty much had Hisako's look on my face the entire time. Seriously, there's seductive like she's been in the past, and then there's straight-up trailer park trashy, which this is. And I know this is pandering to the many that hate her. But seriously, it's an asshole thing to do to her fans since it's not really "her", it's just taking a shot at her.
Also, while we're on the subject, my action figure of her has better proportions than how she's drawn. Seriously, her and Storm's waists are appalling, and while Andrews' art is fun and fresh, it's insulting when you get to the women's proportions.
Anyway, after those two scenes happened, the team arrives and it turns out they were expected considering the guns being pointed at them. Conclusion: This issue exemplifies the good and bad's of pandering to the fans. I'd say buy it just because it's the freshest X-Thing that's happened in awhile, and also it's basically a Storm story, so if you miss her dearly then here's something for you.
Before I finish, I want to address the poll results. This time's question was "Which X-Man do you want to see in X-Force the most?" The total number of votes came to 21.The winning vote went to Psylocke, who got 15 votes (71%), which I'm glad to see considering she's a favorite of mine as well. Next two were tied between Cable and Magneto who both got 2 votes (9% for each). Gambit and Other were also tied with 1 vote each (4% for each). And lastly, Deadpool got 0 votes (0%), but that's probably because someone brought up that it's likely that it's Fantomex on the teaser and not Deadpool. My bad, heh, but anyway, considering Dark Reign ended this past week, the next question now is, "Who was your favorite Dark Avenger?"
Then the team suits up with Emma being the only one not wearing the standard uniform. Wolverine complains about it, and Emma responds that he can wear whatever he wants to when he sleeps with the team leader. First off, I hate that she uses a man to justify her individual costume. In New X-Men she was running around in a diaper and pasties because SHE felt like it, not because she was sleeping with then-Headmaster Professor X.Next playing to the fans was this stupid costume where we can constantly see her underwear or her boobs are always too visible in-panel. Basically degrading her to a trashy slut.
Her new look is an attempt to going back to the New X-Men look with the long hair and platforms that I missed. Except the problem is New X-Men's Emma was weird and this look takes a wrong turn and ends up at trashy. New X-Men's Emma was Lady Gaga-ish in dress and behavior. Despite looking like a normal rich bitch, she tended to be pretty weird because she was always doing her own thing.
Anyway, everyone gets on the X-Jet and most of the of this issue happens on there. Cyclops does something nice for Storm by passing by the Serengeti so she can see her old home again. And Wolverine ends up turning xenophobic and bitches about everything African for awhile. Which has caused a stir with everyone it seems. Doesn't bother me because I never thought much of him in the first place.
What does bother me is that throughout these scenes Emma is moving around the plane and EVERY panel of her is emphasizing her ass or her tits. EVERY PANEL. It's ridiculous, I pretty much had Hisako's look on my face the entire time. Seriously, there's seductive like she's been in the past, and then there's straight-up trailer park trashy, which this is. And I know this is pandering to the many that hate her. But seriously, it's an asshole thing to do to her fans since it's not really "her", it's just taking a shot at her.Also, while we're on the subject, my action figure of her has better proportions than how she's drawn. Seriously, her and Storm's waists are appalling, and while Andrews' art is fun and fresh, it's insulting when you get to the women's proportions.
Anyway, after those two scenes happened, the team arrives and it turns out they were expected considering the guns being pointed at them. Conclusion: This issue exemplifies the good and bad's of pandering to the fans. I'd say buy it just because it's the freshest X-Thing that's happened in awhile, and also it's basically a Storm story, so if you miss her dearly then here's something for you.
Before I finish, I want to address the poll results. This time's question was "Which X-Man do you want to see in X-Force the most?" The total number of votes came to 21.The winning vote went to Psylocke, who got 15 votes (71%), which I'm glad to see considering she's a favorite of mine as well. Next two were tied between Cable and Magneto who both got 2 votes (9% for each). Gambit and Other were also tied with 1 vote each (4% for each). And lastly, Deadpool got 0 votes (0%), but that's probably because someone brought up that it's likely that it's Fantomex on the teaser and not Deadpool. My bad, heh, but anyway, considering Dark Reign ended this past week, the next question now is, "Who was your favorite Dark Avenger?"
