The List #25 Part 2

X-Men Legacy #234
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Yanick Paquette
This may sound a bit ridiculous, but I always get excited when I see Yanick Paquette as artist. It's weird because he's not even close to my favorite artist, but something about his pencils thrills me.

This issue opens with Rogue trying to help Indra with his situation. Apparently he can no longer revert to armored form and it hurts for him to even try. What's worse is he thinks it's a punishment from his gods for killing that guy during Utopia or a blessing to stop fighting or whatever. Yeah, you'll hate him by the end of this issue too.

Meanwhile, the Cuckoos (who are featured quite a bit this post) lost their Phoenix fragments, and Cyclops has ordered them to search for where it went. Since the Phoenix can bend psi-probes, they believe if Rogue takes a bit of their power they'll be able to sense it as more passive telepaths. They tell Rogue that taking their power will mean she'll see things triangulating from three directions as one or however they put it. Not that it matters because during the time Rogue's telepathic she just seems to be the common kind. OH and Cuckoos are still finishing each other's sentences, meaning talking one at a time, rather than in unison. Like they used to. Which was a lot cooler. But I suppose, they must be normal! Even though the entire point of X-Men is pretty much a metaphor for social outcasts. Except the first five were all WASPs. Whatever.

Rogue has a bit of trouble dealing with all the thoughts of Utopia filling up her head. Throughout the issue we find her listening in on the thoughts of people nearby while in between character interactions. One thought struck me as snobby, bitchy, and divine. Obviously this could only be the thought of one diva: my favorite tranny ARIEL!!! Yes, my dear Ariel cameo queened it up with thoughts of prussian blue underwear. Don't forget to tuck, my dear! Anyway, she goes on to pick up on someone thinking in French:

Obviously, it's the ever-sexy Gambit's.

Google Translate tells me that this translates to, "I would not disturb, she will have me finally." The gist of the sentence is clear enough, but feel free to submit a better translation. Rogue goes to see Gambit and immediately recognizes there's something lurking inside his mind. Which is good because men dealing with their personal demons in a solo way usually just is super fucking angsty. She goes on to explain that she still avoids him because she fears her control over her power will slip. What's worse is to her he represents a loss of control, so that explains the avoiding. Except she's still telepathic, so she's broadcasting her ideas of her and Gambit losing self control to all of Utopia (see it here). It's followed by an island-long walk of shame.

Meanwhile, Surge is concerned Magneto's tampering with her powers by giving her more juice. And she's right! Apparently Magneto is doing this behind her back to train her. Which makes no fucking sense because she's not even aware that she should be trying to work with this change. Rogue is like, "Dude, wtf? Does that make sense on any planet?" Then Magneto asks Rogue how he should go about it, Rogue says get Surge's permission and he responds:

I love it when the Sassy Rogue of the Old Days meets Tough-As-Nails Rogue.
Seriously, Rogue could do with more sass, especially since a lot of the current readers grew up on her being that way on the 90's X-Men cartoon.

Oh and Magneto and Rogue kiss because of her feeling his attraction through empathy. It was awkward. Moving on, she also picks up on a stray thought of someone who apparently is in love with her. Bling! is in the panel shown for possible candidates and I'd be willing to bet it's her. Which would be cool except you just know that bitch Trance is going to just pipe up so she can shame the lesbian whore.

Finally, Rogue returns the Cuckoo's powers, apparently there's no trace of the Phoenix anywhere. She then returns to working with the ever-irritating Indra who keeps going on and on about his pacifist religion. K, sweetheart, if you're going to live with the X-Men, you've made yourself a target. You do what you do to survive, meaning your religion is the equivalent of a handbag, it's an accessory with survival taking first place. And if you disagree, might as well hop off the Utopia train. Anyway, Indra fears he's being possessed by something else and then his power finally work but goes to some sort of knight armor thing. Did we not just do a f#@%ing possession story?

In the end, Rogue gets comforted by Gambit, there's sexual tension as there always is, and the fans reading are getting pissed because we desire vicarious sexy time with Gambit. Don't judge, heterosexual males, he's a delicious piece of fictional male and you know it. Conclusion: Buy this issue because Legacy's probably the best X-Book going right now and probably the one I most consistantly have fun talking about.

Nation X #4
Writer #1: Peter Milligan
Artist #1: Mike Allred
This story we get the reunion of the X-Statix creative team as well as the return of the team's cameraman, Doop. The story consists of Doop investigating for someone who will commit a crime on Utopia. To find out who it is he uses some usual forms of testing including:

Bahah, dance, Magneto, dancceeeee! The suspects Cannonball and Gambit end up trying to kill Doop and it turns out everyone's confessing to having violent feelings. Then Wolverine tries to kill Doop and Doop wakes up. Yeah, it was all a dream, and Doop apparently has a sexy girlfriend who speaks Doopean. It's a very X-Statix-y story for those of you who miss the series and that brand fo humor (and I do).

Writer #2: Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Artist: #2: Harvey Tolibao
This story focuses in on Emma and the Cuckoos, and of course, yet again it seems impossible for any current writing team to do either correctly. It opens with Emma and Namor off in a shared fantasy fighting the Kraken, a reference to Clash of the Titans. I have to scold Miss Frost because these little fantasies were how she got into trouble last time. Seriously, Emma, do you want to put yourself in another frustrating relationship with a man child? Iron Man, Namor the first time, Sebastian Shaw, and Cyclops? Still haven't learned?

Apparently Emma's bored and she gives Scott lip about it. In response, he smacks her and tells her to go fix dinner. What? Is ANYONE else starting feel that this is where the relationship is going? I find her current submissive position in their relationship so infuriating that I'm praying for a violent decapitation of Cyclops scene in Second Coming. Who's with me? We could get a peutition going. Moving forward, the Cuckoos are bored too, and have been forcing Loa, Match, and Paras into psychic illusions recreating horror movies about evil children for cheap thrills.

Oh and for some fucked up reason, the writer seems to insist on giving a push to Fraction's edit of saying Mindee was meant to be called Irma and proceeds to call her that for the rest of the issue. Dear Roberto, do you know what kind of people grow into the name Irma? Middle-aged women who smoke a pack a day and work as secretaries, that's who. What's worse is the writer also has the Cuckoos speak in unison and has Frost dismiss it as a "thing" they do rather than the default way they should be speaking. Ugh, he's seriously worse than Fraction.

The reason for the Cuckoos being so mischevious is that they're restless without the Phoenix now, and feel like any "run of the mill telepath." Then they go no offense to Miss Frost. Except Emma Frost isn't some common telepath nor is she Omega level. She's a level below all the super-powered Greys and Xaviers of the land (with only Nate and Jean being Omega), but remarkable for her skill with her powers. Then Emma goes onto this:

And indeed he was quite tasty in that movie, have a look.

One thing done right here is Emma is back to advising the girls in that snobby, elitist way that she did in the old days with the girls no longer resisting her. Because heaven knows that grudge that they had against her was the world's most tired material. In the end, the girls are given some responsibilities which include teaching, much like Emma did on Genosha. Except their in the classroom panel is the a severely lame showing of them just being dumb. But at least they were being slightly weird again. In the end the story was all right.

Writer #3: Ivan Brandon
Artist #3: Rael Lyra
This story revolves around Loa, Match, and Rockslide sneaking to the refrigerator for a snack because food is rationed on Utopia and they're damned sick of it. Except my boyfriend Warpath is standing guard of said refrigerator. Which makes sense for the X-Men to put their delicious things together. The story has a large part of Warpath snoozing on the job and the students getting there. AND for the second time ever, we get to see Loa use her beautiful powers. Seriously, were she my friend, I'd always be using her as a paper shredder. Also, this is the first time we see Loa have a personality, and I have to say I adore it. It's very rebellious without all the anger and angst of that Surge has with it. She's also got a smart mouth, and I'm just hoping this sticks. Another new thing we have brought into the picture is apparently Santos can absorb debris and shit while already formed.

Warpath ends up catching the group and tells them to get away. And Loa ends up bringing in a good point about how the X-Students are treated:

See the lovable factor of this newfound personality?

Warpath ends up taking care of Match by throwing him in a gas oven, and takes off Santo's head. Not that it stops him from bitching. In the end it comes to a standoff between Loa and Warpath with amazing amounts of Loa badassness and Warpath sexyness. I'll post the last page since I find it to awesome not to share after my summary.

After this there's a story between Namor and Storm with Storm playing her new role as of late which is the X-Oprah. She ends up challenging Namor and he gets a fish for the island. It's the weakest story of the bunch. Conclusion: Probably the best issue of the mini-series, definitely consider buying this. And now for sexy Warpath time!

The List #20

Psylocke #3
Writer: Chris Yost
Artist: Harvey Tolibao
This issue we come back to Rage man almost killing Betsy. Again. With no actual suspense because we know Psylocke is going to come out of it without a scratch because she's the star of this series. Also, according to her hair, Betsy's near death this issue is brought to you by the letter 'S'. Unfortunately, this issue focuses way too much on Rage man. Which is a waste of page time because he is a cliche of a character: Overly aggressive, illogical man going to kill the man who killed his lover. Truly groundbreaking. It's like I haven't seen at least 30 mainstream films with that same plot before. And books. and video games. At least in the fight that continues between him and Betsy we get a neat side by side panels thing.

Ok, here's the entire plot of the issue in a few sentences: Psylocke and Rage man fight because both are trying to get to Matsuo to kill him. They find him, Rage man is taken out, Matsuo's disfigured so he wants a mercy killing, and Logan comes to make sure no one kills him since he wants him to suffer.

Yeah, I was on the edge of my seat too. Anyway, here are some details of interest that happened in between all that, including this issue's Sash Watch. First off, Chris Yost appears to be under the impression that angst makes a hero more appealing. Like in the way, that packs it on to a ridiculous level. This beautiful wangst that we have on the side here is from Logan after he exits the bar. Except Logan has just been drinking or hitching a ride this series meaning we have no idea what the fuck his problem is all of a sudden. Seriously Logan, just because your mother wouldn't let you go to the My Chemical Romance concert doesn't mean you have to give up on life. I just love how Logan gets away with whining all the time and few people pick up on ridiculous he starts to sound after awhile. Yes, don't school me on his past, I know it's shit. But if he's really all Zen like he is these days you would think he'd understand to move on. Whatever, I suppose the translation of this would be: "I am a man. When I smile and seem happy, other men hate me. So I will conform to their values and seem sullen because people respect me when I'm mad."

Continuing on the same note, Psylocke has also been quite self loathing throughout this series. Again, I understand crap past and this series is about revisiting it. But the thing is is that this does not convincingly sound like a woman in her late 20's to me. To me, Betsy's angst lines up better to a 16 year old who's just been hit by the Overdramatic Hormones fairy. Of course, this just adds another reason to why I think Psylocke is the X-Men's Spider-Woman considering Jessica's series is littered with why she's broken, how hollow she is, and how one time her mom told her she couldn't use the mini-van.

Now onto Sash Watch! This issue Betsy's sashes displayed an ability that I think should be considered noted on her Wikipedia page. All right, so Betsy spends the page discussing how she loved Matsuo, he loved her, just basically mentioned love a few times. And then at the last panel we find her sashes have formed into a heart. How neato supermo is that? Betsy's got mood sashes. Is there any way to pay Tolibao to make her sashes form into a frowny face when she's pissed next issue?

Oh, just so you know the deal with Matsuo because I was definitely surprised when he appeared in all his Dawn of the Dead glory: Matsuo killed Mariko, Logan's Japanese lovely, so Logan decided to disfigure him horribly once every year, but make sure he wouldn't die so he could suffer. So at the end of the issue Logan and Betsy have a conflict over her wanting to kill Matsuo. What this means for us next issue is that we're punished for liking Psylocke by having mandatory Logan overexposure time. It's going to be. SO. THRILLING. I LOVE HIS INCLUSION IN EVERY CREVICE OF THE MARVEL UNVERSE!

Oh and for conclusion: the only reason you should give money to anyone for this issue is if you are looking to collect the entire mini series.

Nation X #2
Writer #1: CB Cebulski and Jim McCann
Artist #1: Mike Choi
First story up is about Jubilee. Here's the idea: She meets up with the fan favorites of the New X-Men (it's nice to see them used somewhere), discusses the situation (no, not that Jersey Shore guy), has Surge be pointlessly pissy to her, and then she decides to finally send along some note to Logan that is really pointless. Get a cell and text him, honey.

Things to say about it? Dust pulls a pretty neat move.
Also, two things are concerning Surge: 1. What the hell was with her attacking Jubilee for not being a mutant anymore? To put it in other words, what was her motivation because her animosity seemed to come out of nowhere. Well. Her animosity towards depowered mutants at least considering she's generally an unpleasant character. 2. Why were her eyebrows and eyelashes blue? Her blue hair is dyed for anyone wondering, and I have to say that it's rare, or at least for me, to encounter someone with unnaturally colored hair who also did their eyebrows that color. As for eyelashes, I'll just assume she had blue mascara.

Unfortunately, this story is pretty damned dry, the dryest aspect being that crap note, which I find just weird because Jubilee is the spunky X-Man. But points to her for remembering this--> At least someone does. And I have to say I think Storm should be depowered again and yet again be put in charge of a team. It'd help remind the audience that the depowered mutants aren't totally useless. Although, I doubt any of them are trained like Storm, but you get my basic idea.

Writer #2: John Barber
Artist: David Lopez
I have done a little extra interview reading concerning this story and it seems this is Mr. Barber's first venture into X-Writing since he was an editor before. And I would like to say unto him: Read your fucking stories closely before you write on a character. You wrote about two characters with very few appearances: Quentin Quire and Martha Johansson. Some of this a matter of fact and some of it's a matter of my opinion.

First off, the narration is in second person point of view. I get it: Martha has only ever had one line and that was in HCT. Other times it's a Cousin It or the teacher from Peanuts thing, where people repeat what she said or give the idea in their response because we can't understand her (in this instance it's because she's communicating telepathically). Whatever, second person point of view didn't become interesting all of a sudden because of those reasons. Also, she was a teenage girl before her brain was cut out, she does have a personality.

Which is another weird moment: When she possesses Iceman she does talk, but seems to have no idea how to use her contractions. Um. Yeah. Something I saw on some annotations for Y The Last Man, and I'm inclined to agree with: Why do writers seem to think contractions are totally fucking beyond people who are not regular English speakers with normal lives? Like I said, Home Girl in a Jar was a teenage girl up until some point in New X-Men. Never showed on panel, but read the news captions somewhere in Imperial and you'll see her mentioned as kidnapped.

Also, how is her 'second ability' the ability to turn of powers? Yeah, I know it's probably part of the deluxe psychic package, but to state it as a separate ability? I'm sorry, but explanation and PROOF please? I do not remember her ever doing anything like that.

Now onto Quentin Quire. Let me explain first off: I love the character for his arc in Riot at Xavier's and should I ever write X-Comics I'd like to have him as my breakout star. First problem: Where did Morrison state Quire as becoming vapor? He didn't seems to me. He was in liquid when he died and Xavier said he went onto a different plane of existence, which I assumed was physically a vegetative state. And then Pak and Land interpreted this as meaning Quentin melted?

More importantly, why is he still a 'villain'? At the end of Riot at Xavier's he apologized for his actions and had seen the error in his way. Greg Pak chose to ignore this and had him rampage again in Phoenix Endsong and in the end he yet again apologized and peaced out. As someone who's an avatar of the Phoenix, you'd think he'd be portrayed more intelligently instead of a predictable story where he, of course, does not win and invites the person that ends up defeating him and to go ahead and try. Which, y'know, with his million brilliant thoughts a second would mean he's smarter than that since he's not on drugs this time. Seriously, stop keeping this character as some static know-it-all and evolve him to being a useful, strange, unconventional X-Character. Rather than pretty, normal-acting, and moral.

Oh and in the end Martha gets her brain jar shattered and shards fall into her brain. Does that mean dead? Because brain outside of fluids pretty much says dead to me in the first place, but fucking shards of glass? So yeah, I'd say No-Girl's fate is uncertain.

Writer and Artist #3: Tim Fish
Basically this story is Northstar having trouble with his boyfriend being long distance. It'd be a good story except the art and basic script make it seem superficial. Like it was either gay ditsy feeling or anime-ish annoyingly 'cute', both of which I'm not a fan of whatsoever. Especially since we should be working towards having gay characters being taken more seriously instead of RicStar getting a slap in the face every issue and now this. Seriously, here's a dialogue example:

It's basic like this throughout the entire issue. It reminds me of when you learn a new language, so your sentences have no variation. I will give Fish mega-points for doing something though:

Northstar did have off-panel sexytime.

And he did end up holding hands with his boyfriend at the end of the issue, but I'm still going to rag on Fish for not going for the gold and having Northstar kiss his boyfriend on-panel.
Seriously, how hard is it for two characters in a serious, homosexual relationship to have an on-panel kiss? Is it only ones between exes where the next issues will devalue the kiss?

Writer and Artist #4: Becky Cloonan
All it is is Gambit has self doubt and self loathing so he leaves. Then he helps people and comes back to the X-Men. Oh. My God. Like that hasn’t happened thirty five times in this year alone.

Conclusion: Fag edition of Nation X did not work out so hot. Or at all. Don't buy it, but toon in next issue because we've got ANOLLLLLLLEEEEE! (Imagine Oprah's celebrity-announcing voice for that).

The List #17

Nation X #1
Writer #1: Simon Spurrier
Artist #1: Leonard Kirk
To begin I have to mention my love for the cover especially the inclusion of No-Girl on it. Seriously go check it out if you can find an image of it that isn't blurry as shit (Thanks CBR, makes you look super professional to have blurry previews).

Anywhoodaloo, the first story centers around Magneto and the students. It's a blend of awkward and cheesy and it does nothing for Magneto but make him look more like a creeper and just a boring threat that the X-Men will have to take care of.....as they always do. Boredom. Kirk's art is a lot more bearable than it has previously been, but that's due to it being more colorful this time. To finish, this story is the weakest out of the bunch.

Writer #2: James Asmus
Artist #2: Mike Allred
Remember my constant bitching about how art and story need to come together to make a comic great? Well, sometimes one of them outshines the other in such a way that it doesn't matterhow mediocre one element is, you love the other element too much. This can be seen with Grant Morrison's run when crappy Igor Kordey kept subbing in for Quitely. Writing won over art. Well, this story is good, but the art by Allred totally outshines everything. As a new fan of Milligan's X-Force/X-Statix, I have to say I adore the man and I wish he was doing Uncanny. Why? Because in X-Statix he drew a satirical take on the super hero whereas Fraction right now is unknowingly serving up a campy take on the X-Men. The fact that he expects it to be taken seriously is absurd, it's like taking a B-Level horror movie seriously. Allred could definitely enhance that campy feel.

I adore this! Choose Brit Betsy!

Basically this story is a road trip between Kurt and Logan. Little goes on, but at the end Logan admits to being behind Scott as a leader...and much more.

Kurt's now in on the ongoing love affair!
Finally, I love Allred's take on Kurt and the man in general since this story would've been dull under any other artist.

Writer #3: Chris Yost
Artist #3: Michele Bertilorenzi

Yost writes a good Iceman for this story, I mean a bit of a horn dog, but mostly an Iceman that I would love to see more often. Funny enough it depicts him being rejected by Dazzler. She denies him because she knows his secret. He really wants Jean Paul, but he has a boyfriend now. Come out of the closet, Bobby, we have techno remixes of Celine Dion's greatest hits. Diva always recognizes one of her gays, don't try to pull the wool over her eyes.

Bobby also mentions something that I've thought about recently, here's the update on the fab five:

Writer #4: Scott Snyder
Artist #4: David Lopez
This issue spotlights Colossus, which can be a dangerous thing considering the character's meant to be background. He's like my grandfather, he is content to be out of the spotlight and when you pull these sort of people out of the background they tend to seem awkward. Fraction proved this when he spotlighted Colossus awhile ago and the focus very clearly screwed his character up. Not only that, but Fraction can't write characters in the first place so... ya know. Anyway, the focus of this issue is Colossus' frustration with his little sister Illyana not returning his joy that they're reunited. Which is sad because as an introverted character, Colossus finally opening up for someone he loves so much makes for very raw emotion, and you almost feel the raw pain as Illyana ignores him. Anyway, this story is pretty good, bit of a downer, but a better take on Colossus than we've seen in awhile.

Summary about the entire book is that it is a lot better than the anthology books we've seen lately, infinitely better than that crap Dark X-Men book. I would say if you like X-Men you should definitely considering buying it.

And prep for next issue since it's totally fag edition: Gambit, Northstar, Jubilee, and No-Girl. It's going to be goddamned delicious and you can imagine how excited I am for it to come out.

New Avengers Annual #3

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Mike Mayhew
First off, you may recognize the artist, Mike Mayhew, from such books as X-Men Origins: Jean Grey and covers for Women of Marvel and Phoenix Warsong. Basically, this artist has generally "soft", "feminine" pencils, so he's called in more often for female-centered stories. Don't get me wrong, beautiful work, but I dislike that women stories get their own "feminine" art despite the fact that gory X-Force gets Mike Choi, the king of pretty pencils. While this doesn't always happen, I'm ticked that it happened this time.

Anyway, this issue centers around the fact that Clint Barton has been taken hostage. Luckily for all of us, Mayhew appeases the female and gay audiences by having Hawkeye in nothing but boxers the entire issue and sometimes it appears to be less. Oh and Mayhew draws a pretty fucking sexy naked man, so naked Hawkeye is definitely a good day. Oh and look at this contextless image:

Just ponderin' about what he's got.

Also, Normy Norm and the Dark Avengers are all up in Barton's grill, asking him where the Avenger's headquarters is and threatening to sic Venom on him. Which gives birth to another fabulous panel --->

Then the focus goes from this to the other stars of this issue, Jessica Jones, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, and Mockingbird, who are definitely the reasons why I reviewed this issue in the first place. The unfortunate part of this issue though is that despite the ladies being on the cover and being toted around as the stars of the issue, it's really more about Hawkeye. Which is fucking lame because some of us here would like to read other characters besides the fucking hegemonic males. Like Spider-Woman I love, Ms. Marvel I like, Mockingbird I don't know and don't know if I want to, and Jessica Jones I'm probs going to start to discover since I've read some pages of Alias and am totally interested. So I'd like to see them more in the spotlight.

Anyway, Mockingbird discovers Clint left to kill Osborn and she freaks and runs outside to cry. Randomly, Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel are just chillin' outside, flying around. They decide to go find Clint since he probably got caught and Jessica decides to return to superheroing. If this is a permanent thing, she should definitely consider a new costume or at least changing her hair to fit the costume better. Oh and this is a pretty panel of Ms. Marvel flying --->

Most of the issue is Clint getting interrogated by some psychic guy and he thinks of the Avengers headquarters and it shows them in the kitchen. Ok, question, are the scenes with Avengers in the kitchen sort of like an overused setting similar to Emma and Scott's constant bedroom scenes?

OH and for those of my readers who watch ANTM like I do, doesn't this panel of Ms. Marvel:

Look like Lauren Brie from Cycle 12?
If you say Lauren Brie's too pretty, then realize this girl looked a lot more attractive in pictures then in real life and should you watch the episodes with her in it I think you'll see the resemblance.

Oh and I have to say I adore Mockingbird's costume, it's absolutely gorgeous. Not only that, but she totally wears the same kind of boots that I do. So definitely am considering liking her just based on the fact that we probably both shop at the same place.

The issue ends with Clint getting rescued, the Avenger's changing their headquarters place, and Captain America is back. I'd say it'd be a good idea to consider this issue, but it's definitely not a must-have.