The List #32

X-Men Legacy #237
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Greg Land
Yeah, that cover looks my fantasies illustrated by Adi Granov. Anyway, this issue opens with X-Force distracting Master Mold while Cable and Cypher get into the processing core so Cypher can talk to it. From there it tries to assimilate him, and a struggle ensues.

Back on the bridge in the present, the battle heats up with Hope and Rogue showing up to save the day; which obviously overjoyed Cyclops. On Utopia, Magneto's young again! Fighting off the Nimrods like it's nothing until....oh wait, he's old again! And from there he's young again as he starts to use pieces of Utopia, made of iron, to attack the Nimrods. After this we get the ugliest collage courtesy of Land:

First off, this does nothing to progress the story. Second, what is with the no legs thing? Land, what is this supposed to do for us? This reminds me of that ugly cover he did for Uncanny X-Men #517 where he was yet again lazy and untalented.

Back with X-Force, Cypher predictably wins. This causes the destruction of Master Mold and all the Nimrods in the present to deactivate. From there we get another WTF Land panel:

Was extending Paige to the 2nd panel really necessary? Does her ass really contribute anything besides apparently disgusting Colossus?

Going back to X-Force, it turns out X-23 tried to go through the time membrane the Nimrods were going through, but nothing organic can go through there. Solution: Cable lets the T/O virus take him over and goes back to the present. Does this mean he's finally going to die? Can he? Please?

In the end we have Bastion with his two unremarkable lackeys at his side; telling them that now he's just got to do it himself. And from there we have to wait two weeks until the next issue. What the fuck are with these extra-week pauses? Is anyone really at the edge of their seats with this crossover? If they were, it's unlikely they are now. Frankly, I'm just excited for this thing to be over with.

Thunderbolts #145
Writer: Jeff Parker
Artist: Kev Walker
One way to summarize the events that followed after last issue's surprise ending with Baron Helmut Zemo coming take control of the Thunderbolts would be: Psych. It turns out it was just an exercise done to demonstrate that the team is under the thumb of their authority. Along the way we learn a few things:

1. Juggernaut's powers are weakened. Again. Because the transition from villain to hero, however reluctant, requires a massive power decrease.

2. When this exercise happened, all the supervisors faked being knocked out; Songbird being among them. Apparently she's done serving her time as ordinary Thunderbolt.

3. Extra nanites in Moonstone's head now make her unable to go intangible because, as Songbird said, having lasers, flying, and strength is enough. The real reason being that if she kept them she'd make Ghost redundant. It's ok though, this issue we discovered she's got a hidden power:

The ability to change footwear at will.
Which is a goddamned useful power, especially as a superhero, because she always needs to be thinking about function so she needs flats. The thing is that they can be ugly, so how useful is it that she can manifest heels as soon as she needs to class it up? (Even though Classy Moonstone is an oxymoron.)

At this point I should probably mention that I've been neglecting to mention the supporting cast of Fixer, Mach-IVWX, and whoever else. That's because I really have no interest in them and will only be mentioning them when it's plot-relevant. And the next bit because following the test run scene is one where we meet the new warden: US Agent. Who's lost an arm? Didn't know that. Anyway, I'm sure he'll do something interesting soon enough.

The rest of the issue consists of the team's "easy" first mission: Go fetch 3 Asguardian trolls using non-lethal measures. And from there the rest of the issue is an enjoyable battle scene with Moonstone starting her bag of bullshit right away:

Girl does not waste time!

And that would be it besides the issue ending with some girl named Troll attacking. Conclusion: Parker delivers another issue of good Thunderbolts fun.

And now for the polls results.
Storm won first place by one vote, thanks to an 11th hour push from her fans, and beat out Emma Frost, who ended up with 2nd place. 3rd place was Rogue; which surprised me a bit since I thought it'd actually be between her and Storm. Professor X, Magneto, and Jean Grey, who've been either former headmasters or groomed to take that position, each received 2 votes and tied for 4th place. And in last place, much to my amusement, Other and Wolverine with 0 votes.

Oh and just an aside for the hell of it, I didn't vote for Emma Frost. I actually voted for Jean of all characters because I think she'd be really interesting as someone who's been the almighty evil and the almighty good in the X-Universe in a role of power we can actually see in action.

That's all, be sure to vote for the latest poll which is, "Which body part lost in Second Coming will you miss the most?"

The List #31 Part 1

Joker’s Asylum II: Harley Quinn #1
Writer: James Patrick
Artist: Joe Quinones
Here's the basic idea of the story: Harley breaks out of Arkham because it's Valentine's Day and she needs her puddin'. When she arrives at Joker's hideout, it turns out he's been taken by Falcone. From there it's her running from place to place to find Joker, and in the end it turns out Batman caught up to him and put him in Arkham. He says if Harley goes with him back to Arkham she can have dinner with him, so she happily accepts.

This appearance is yet another batch of Harley "cute-isms" without any of the clever quality that came with her animated appearances. What's worse is yet again we're lead to believe that the only reason is Harley's a nut is Joker and past that she's fine. Not only does this go against previously established flashbacks (or at least seems to me), but it holds no appeal. The thing about Harley Quinn is she's this bouncy blonde girl who looks and acts innocent and cheerful, but the violent acts she commits tell us that she's not. It's simply an act, and I like it better when it's just an act because I don't care about some victim of The Joker who runs around being cute all the time when he's not involved. Anyway, at the very least this issue we get to see Harley get her violence on in the name of finding Mistah J.

Now that's a Harley Quinn I want to read.

New Mutants #14
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artists: Ibraim Roberson, Lan Medina, and Nathan Fox
First thing I'd like to call attention to is that there's a couple of artists on board for this issue, one of them being assigned to the scenes taking place in Legion's head. I have to say Thank Frost because Roberson's blandness is irritating me. I don't know what it is with him, but there's just something very mundane about how it all looks.

This issue opens with Cyclops telling the non-X-Men Utopia mutants to join in the fight and that today they are all X-Men. Geez, handing out that status out to anyone these days aintcha, Cyke? Next we have Sunspot, Boom Boom, Avalanche, and Husk fighting Nimrods with Husk running around like a helpless idiot. Yeah, being able to shred her skin to basically be a Colossus of whatever substance is such an unfortunate power.... Anyway, during this time Sunspot has a moment of self awareness:

If you've read the first run of New Mutants, then you know that someone is ALWAYS saying that fucking line. Seriously, it's right next to, "Ah'm only invulnerable when Ah'm blastin'!"

A late development we see here with the Nimrods is that they're adapting to the mutant combatants' powers, which is demonstrated by Colossus' arm getting serious fucked up. Luckily, the X-Men have a solution to this, but first....

This arrogant asshole.

In the future X-Force is all RAWR BATTLE TIME! and Cypher is off doing the whole deus ex machina thing by speaking binary to a machine with a guy in it so that the machine boots him out. Soon enough it'll be established that Cypher can cure the Legacy virus by "speaking its language". Seriously, this character sucks at "dark" and "badass", let's see him go back to something he's actually good at doing. I'll give you a hint: it involves a casket. Anyway, X-Force discovers it has to take down two Master Molds in the end of their side story.

Moving back to the present, Xavier recruits Legion, and he's sent into the fight. His multiple personalities, all armed with different powers, are useful against the Nimrods as whenever one gets adapted to he just switches out to another one. Also notice what the Nimrods say when they detect Legion and Xavier coming:

Notice a plural on that?

No! Because it is A-OK for powerful mutants like Xavier and Emma Frost to be powerful without being OMEGA. Especially since, as it's been explained to me, Omega level means A. You're pretty near-immortal B. Your powers can do about anything C. You're so powerful that it makes it impossible to believe that any fights are a real struggle, nixing the man vs. man conflict and screwing up the story. Over-powered character aren't fun, they're annoying because it turns into The Sentry or Exodus where they're always taken out first to make the rest of the fight believeable. Even though no one should be able to take them out in the first place. Omega level should basically be a Jean-only category because she is essentially the mutant God.

Back on Utopia, that Cockroach Morlock, Scalphunter, Sack, and Random group together to go join the big battle when Toad interrupts them and tells them to back out of it. Sack gets pissy with Toad, and they're interrupted by a Nimrod zapping off Toad's index finger and Sack's head. Which would shock me more except...I totally thought he was dead already. Like I thought he died in X-Men The 198 or during the Leper Queen arc in X-Force but that was Fever Pitch, but whatever, there's too many characters with visible skeletons to keep track of. And to make things more intense, the approaching Nimrod crushes Sack's disembodied head.

And finally, as Utopia itself is getting attacked, Magneto gets up out of bed and decides to switch between his two modes that he's had since his return: Going from old and frail all of a sudden mode to youthful and powerful mode. And with that, expect to see him vigorously fight off the Nimrods in an "epic" battle next issue and in the middle of it, suddenly revert to completely useless. Such is the existence of Magneto post-Uncanny X-Men #500.

Conclusion: This issue was pretty decent despite Roberson's bland art. But I'm ready for this crossover to be done, it has been drawn out way too long. That's it for this issue; I leave you with Sack's disembodied head as a souvenir for all the good times we've had this chapter.

X-Force #27 Review

X-Force #27
Writers: Chris Yost and Craig Kyle
Artist: Mike Choi
The first 12 pages of this issue are all about the fight scene between the X-Men and the Nimrods. There's no word bubbles, it's all up on Mike Choi and his ability to convey the intensity of a battle; which he does exceedingly well.

The important moments of the battle scene are this: Psylocke rips a Nimrod in half with her telekinesis (You go, girl!), Hellion gets his hands and part of a forearm shot off (seen in the preview pages [Here]), and Hisako gets her ass beat. One thing that bothered me is Rogue gets one of her absorbed wings ripped out again, and I get the effect of her losing something is good for contributing to the seriousness of the fight, but why the hell doesn't she just fly with Betsy's telekinesis rather than make herself vulnerable by making more of herself that could get hurt?
What bothered me loads more was apparently Iceman got third degree burns. Except it's been established so many times that Bobby's able to come back from just about anything nowadays, so I have trouble he can even be scratched these days.

Anyway, in the end we get a bleak page of the X-Men picking up their wounded, and then we turn to Bastion's force which now is Bastion, Graydon Creed, Trask, and whatever Nimrods they can pull from the future. So that's the villain head count right now.

Back at X-Central, the injured are being reviewed, and everyone's in a frightened mood. Which I can say that thanks to the resurrect-a-thons of the past 5 years that it doesn't mean shit to me. Because I know Nightcrawler will probably be back in two years. And there's a chance Karma's leg will be fixed sometime in the future. When dead doesn't mean dead, it's hard to tell a convincingly serious war story.

Anyway, the facts about the white sphere are in and apparently it links to the future. And the supply of Nimrods available to come through is over 170,000. Everyone's confidence starts to shake worse, and then Emma turns to Cyclops--->

Except Cyclops is Jim Jones here. He brought a bunch of vulnerable people to one place which is surrounded by ocean. Or more like Fraction attempted to convince us that an experienced leader like Cyclops would actually pull a suicidal stunt like this. Utopia's real name is Masada. Except at least Masada wasn't in the middle of the ocean.

Cyclops does come up with a plan though. He wants to send X-Force into the future with Cable's one last jump. And he wants Cypher to "speak the language" of the Nimrods to re-wire them. Remember when I said Cypher was going to become an Ink? Yeah, right about now. BTW, his tag is now "Cypher is Deus Ex Machina".

Oh by the way, Storm finally finds out about X-Force:

Um, no no no. Let's review what formerly marked the difference between Cyclops and Storm's leaderships.

Storm was all right with killing first, k?

I don't care that this was 20 years ago and she was under the influence of Inferno. This is just one of the examples I can pull out that shows Storm as the harder leader. Which was true up until we decided Scott needed to be "badass" like Wolverine because otherwise he's a lame character (which started post-Apocalypse possession).

Moving on, Cyclops hands out assignments like telling Rogue to get all the noncombatants into the Atlantean column underwater. And Betsy gets the most badass job of all:

Speed-telepathy while riding motorcycle? Ohhhh Betsy, it's no wonder why we love you.

Anyway, just as more Nimrods are coming out, the modified X-Force leaves to the future. Cyclops turns to Emma and whines about how he's killed X-Force because they have no way to get back. Really? Why say it like that, Yost and Kyle? Does anyone for a second think that Wolverine, X-23, and other well-liked or recently brought back to the X-Circle characters are really going to die? No. So just say they're screwed, and leave it at a place where we can be convinced. Conclusion: For all my complaints this issue, in the end it was a pretty decent issue considering my complains are more over consistent problems in the X-Universe rather than just this issue. This issue is actually probably one of the better issues of Second Coming.

Uncanny X-Men #523 Review

Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Terry Dodson
This issue was exactly what I thought it would be. An issue devoted to featuring the uninteresting hegemonic male character who all seem to be the same guy, just with different appearances and on different sides. Plus boring pencils from Dodson and Fraction doing the bare minimum to progress anything.

This issue starts with Cable and Hope on the run, robbing a store to get supplies. While this is going on, something catches Hope's eye, and it turns out to be a hairbrush set for little girls. Later on it turns out Cable got it for her, and she's touched by the gesture. I found this to be one of the effective moments in this issue because it reminds us that despite Hope being forced to act like an adult from such a young age, it's not like she's actually matured underneath it all.

Then again, I found this touching because I've dealt with her and her lost childhood for two minutes. But for other Marvel reader we've had the Cable SERIES, Messiah War, A Girl Called Hope or whatever backstory, AND a one-shot. And I'd be willing to bet this character doesn't even have a real personality yet?

Back with Alpha Team, Kurt's freaking out because he needs to have a character moment in the spotlight like he hasn't had in ages. Because it wouldn't be a proper sendoff if he didn't get some extra spotlight. Kurt even considers quitting, asks Scott is X-Force is sanctioned by him, and Scott owns up. So now that two year long bellyaching over "What if the other X-Men find out?" finally is over and done with, not like I didn't see this reaction coming the MINUTE X-Force was back.

Remember what I said about him becoming like Ink?

And how his power would be used in ridiculous ways with flimsy explanations just to say he's cool now and has some real power? Legit, just because he can read languages shouldn't make him able to split his attention between a million streams of data at once.

Back in some villain place, Bastion addresses Stryker, Hodge, and some other boring villains. OF course it was some cliched speech that I didn't even pay any attention to, but whatever, here's my take on what was said: "Bahaha, hello fellow uninteresting hegemonic male villains! Our goal here is to repel readers from the X-Books with our insane levels of mediocrity and with no one ever believing us to be any real threat to the X-Men! For we are white, heterosexual male characters, the easiest to be written as completely fucking bland! Go now, BORE THE MASSES!!"

So Stryker attacks Cable and Hope's motel, they fight, yet again it's Cable's series, and X-Force arrives and that's the end. Yes, so in the end this issue was exactly as predictably mind-numbingly mundane as I thought. And Dodson was not helping. Conclusion, do not buy this issue unless you absolutely have to have all the issues of Second Coming.

And on a side note, something I forgot about one of my candidates in my poll:

This released today and it pretty much guarantees Beast living past Second Coming [CBR].

Oh and if anyone was wondering about the general opinion of the Internet on who's going to die, all signs I've seen point to Kurt. Something new I've heard recently (and you'll see it if you click the link) is that apparently there will be seven deaths? I'm not sure whether to believe that or not, but sounds better than just the one. And that's all for my blog this week, see you all next week with Chapter 3 of Second Coming.

New Mutants #9 Review

Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Paul Davidson
To begin, a new artist joins us this issue, Paul Davidson, who I find much better suited to the series' tone as opposed to Diogenes Neves. Davidson appears to be fairly new to comic book pencilling considering there's only two results for work he's done when I search him and that's a cover for Nova and I think he helped on the Utopia one-shot. Anyway, solid guy, I'm glad he's going to be back next issue.

The first four pages open with the new villain I assume, Crimson or something, who I've never heard of. Anyone wants to volunteer info, I'd welcome it. Then we continue to the science team analyzing Warlock and Cypher for lingering bad T/O virus things. Wells makes a pretty good funny moment here between Danger and Warlock. I never imagined Danger as the forward type or even just one who wants a companion, but then again she just had a marriage to Ultron in an alternate universe so she must be feeling some pressure to measure up.

Emma is also in the room during this checkup, challenging Cyclops on even allowing the New Mutants to reform. What the heck? Did the staff at CBR give her a call or something? I think it's funny that people are against the team considering Astonishing is one of the most unbalanced teams when it comes to powers while New Mutants actually has a good variety. Plus, Wells is reviving their staleness. Anyway, she continues on from there challenging Scott on accepting Cypher back in so quickly (found here). Why does Scott always feel the need to shut Emma up when she brings up a valid point? I swear, I should make a tag for that considering how often it appears even in just what I review here, imagine counting in all the other times I wasn't reviewing for. Seriously, letting an emotional manchild run the entire X-Men was a horrible idea especially when Emma's logical questions are constantly shot down.

He challenges Emma back with saying that they've had members attack other X-Men before and let them back in, but still, at least then they lived at the mansion, not trapped on an island. From there, Warlock reveals that Illyana isn't even truly Illyana, but "Illyana 2.0" which is an interesting development and good on Wells considering he's finally answering the question of Illyana. The scene ends with Emma looking to talk to Illyana about her 2.0ness.

In other parts of Dystopia, Amara is busy healing up in a vat of liquid hot magma (little Austin Powers for your pleasure) and Sam is visiting her. Doug ends up make an unwanted special guest appearance and it ends up with these amazing two panels (for the humor and for the art):

Also, at this point I have to mention Doug's 'language' shit. It seems Wells is trying to empower this formerly useless character by making Doug 'read' everything. Except sometimes it sounds it's going in the direction of what happened with Ink, making him a fix-it-all, or in this case, a know-it-all. I can only imagine that now he's going to be treated like the team telepath.

In terms of Emma and Illyana, they meet up and Emma starts the meeting with hitting the nail on the head with her logic hammer.

Apparently Illyana is not Illyana, but Darkchilde, the soulless version of her, that as I take it is only her in appearance. She has no memories of being Illyana, only Darkchilde during Inferno and the New X-Men and X-Infernus bit. Also, apparently not much of the personality. Darkchilde goes on to say she's darkness and pain and, y'know, her mom didn't let her go to that Taking Back Sunday concert and other terrible things. Emma pretty much looks at her unphased and says, Anole lost an arm and Pixie lost part of her soul when they were around you, you get no sympathy from me. Which is good on her considering how overly sympathetic most of the X-Men can be. Imagine Kitty dealing with this, minus their past best friend status and just making her one of the X-Men dealing with someone she knows vaguely, it'd be a nightmare to try to get to the real bottom of things with her.

Just a short aside, half the reason I love this issue and this team so much would have to be credited to the accuracy of Emma Frost's portrayal. Wells characterization of her is dead-on from the snark (above is her interrupting Illyana's angst story) to her skeptical leaning and of course, perceptiveness. He definitely writes the REAL Miss Frost. Honestly, if New Mutants fails, Wells should kick Fraction out of Uncanny and send him to write New X-Men Forever considering his obsession with referencing it all the time. Also, Davidson does well by Emma by making her face look exactly as it should: strong but beautiful. Admittedly this ends up as sub drag queen, but that's ok. Full-on tranny on the other hand is absolutely ridiculous, as can be seen with Cassaday and Bianchi.

Illyana goes over the future of things, in the image she showed Emma it turned out with Emma being the only remaining X-Man fighting Legion. Which pleases me greatly considering she keeps getting ignored in battles in the other books which seems to imply her as useless to anything but dialogue and X-politics. It also adds on another alternate universe with few survivors that has Emma as managing to survive or at least survive longer than most (Young X-Men End of Days and Old Man Logan).

The book ends with the discussion of Illyana saying that the X-Men's futures are doomed if she can't change things. Except I thought X-Factor was already laying claim to doomed X-future of the year. Suppose the Phoenix really will be needed soon what with all the multiple forms of death the X-Men need to get through for all these doomed futures that apparently are meant to happen if no one changes things.

Oh and before I conclude, considering I skipped Cypher and Amara's reconciling since it was lame and included Doug's language crap again, can ANYONE tell me what Amara's personality is? I've basically got the idea for all the other members from reading this series and a couple issues of the old one, but concerning her I still have no idea what her personality is.

In the end, amazing issue, do go buy it. Even though I pretty much just rejected #8 last week, that's basically due to X-Necrosha being mediocre overall. This book is still good and buyable, and it's breathing new life to the New Mutants. Actually Rahne should come over for a drag of new life considering how suffocated she is in X-Force. Besides she needs to be present to make a big deal over the resurrection of Doug, just like last time and also she might actually be used if Wells has her.