Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #2 (of 5) Review

Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #2 (of 5)
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Kaare Andrews
This month's issue opens with a full page shot of Cyclops saying this:

Who exactly is speaking here, Cyclops or Ellis? Because as we can see here in the [preview] what follows is an uncessary two-page look at the enemy, then we have a two-page spread of the team going into the fight, and lastly, a full page of the actual fight. Add this to the first full-page shot of Cyclops and in that makes for 6 pages that were more or less wasted. Seriously, Ellis? You can't just get creative with the fight scene?

It seems this issue, possibly this mini-series, is about Emma Frost and restoring her to her former glory of snarky, morally grey, and just doing her own thing. It seems Ellis finally has a solid grasp on what kind of character she is, and this series is him taking it out for a test drive. Example: During the fight scene where Storm was badass filling the page with lightning and going, "Idiot boys," Emma did nothing. Here's her response when Cyclops asks her about it:

That's the Emma Frost I idolize.

Even though she didn't participate in the fight scene don't take that as Ellis underestimating her and considering her only value to be her character. Following this more soldiers show up to stop the team, and Emma reacts by telepathically commanding them to pull down their pants and hop off with her waving and smiling mischievously as they leave. Again, I love her response to Cyclops questioning her about it. Plus this scene reminds me of the time she pushed a crowd of people's "Bliss buttons," and Jean got pissed over it. It's wonderful to see the return of Emma's true nature.

Oh, side note, something to note in the panel on the right here is the height difference between Emma and Scott. It's completely off: Emma's height is 5'10" and she's wearing 4" platforms while Scott's height is 6'3". She should pretty much be staring him in the face rather than in the chest.

The team shows up at the place functioning as a hospital since the other one's blown up, and it turns out there's a problem with communication as the doctors do not speak the local languages and it's all just ending up like a game of telephone. Beast decides to take over the situation considering it's pretty extreme. These "mutant" babies are far from your average, still-attractive-with-a-concealable-power mutant. No, they're more like this:

I feel sorry for the nurse who has to try to figure out where the diaper goes.

Emma's ordered to download all the necessary languages into all of the medical workers so at least all the knowledge known can be pooled together. She does this in a weird way considering she pulls the medical people in as if to kiss them when she's doing the downloading. She also shocks Cyclops when she shows up in one of the scenes holding one of the babies. Never before have we seen Emma so absolutely maternal, she's practically the Virgin Mary:

That is if your version of the Virgin Mary comes with a perpetual sneer of disgust.

Meanwhile, Cyclops and Storm have a mild tiff over Cyclops' treating the situation like just another mission while he's explaining that things just need to get done. With Beast, he's testing out some theories as he does not believe the babies to be mutants considering they're "mutations" are present at birth as opposed to waiting until they hit puberty. Beast's first theory ends up being that the Ghost Boxes are involved considering the babies have radiation that's on a similar level. And my response was, "Fuck no, we just clawed ourselves out of that crap!"

This is all resolved with the appearance of a man with half a face and his team holding up the medical people. He states that the babies are not mutants, but warpies and he orders them to be killed. And after looking them up, it seems that the Warpies were things from the Excalibur days which just spells trouble to me considering it's Excalibur.

Conclusion: Despite its flaws, this Xenogenesis mini-series is one of the most fun X-Books to happen in awhile.

The List #8 part 2

Dark Avengers #8
Writer: Matt Fraction
Artist: Luke Ross

Once again, Bianchi's cover proves to be the superior one. Moving on, is there a specific reason why Matt Fraction writes the entire crossover? Isn't the point of a crossover to put together different talents? I seriously am so frustrated that Bendis was taken of the title for two months to let f#@#ing Fraction dominate. Seriously. What. The. Frack.

The issue begins with another page filler of showing the Dark X-Men at work. It's pointless. The issue itself is loads of mundane again, yet again I find myself with little to say. I have to say that X-Force's involvement with this crossover is annoying because THEY HAVE THEIR OWN BOOK. That and there are TONS of beloved characters in limbo. I know I'm repeating myself, but Fraction is repetitive.

Anyway, Emma finally reveals that she was never evil and just going along with things and all this pointless "OMG IF SCOTT FINDS OUT!" crap was just such a snore. But Emma does do something I wholeheartedly love:

Torture and abuse are her meat and potatoes.

So now we'll be returning to crappy, snarky Emma rather than absolutely void of personality Emma. Polishing the turd I suppose, but good news everyone LAND RETURNS NEXT ISSUE!!! I know I've claimed my hate for Land multiple times, but he makes Fraction's work campy. And since Fraction's staying on the title is an inconvenient truth, at least I get campy factor to work with now instead of mundane-ness. Expect my witty and bitchy factors to come back in full force soon! This issue definitely ends on a bad note though:

Why because that's what they think with?
Fraction, go fuck yourself, you sexist.

New Mutants #4
Writer: Zeb Wells
Artist: Diogenes Neves

I have to say that New Mutants is quickly becoming the rising star of the X-Books in my opinion especially considering the improvement I find happening in each new issue. X-Force and New Mutants' improvement is actually causing me to feel excited for Necrosha which is surprising.

Anyway, really quick comments on the issue: I can't believe Cannonball is legit this dick-ish in the book, but the friction and tension he creates is love UNLIKE that created by Cyclops. Magik is legit badass and I SO hope her commanding force continues. And this totally creeped the hell out of me:

That and we get a glimpse of the REAL Emma Frost!!

I miss her in white!
Closing statements: Buy ALL the issues thus far!!

Runaways #13
Writer: Kathryn Immomen
Artist: Sara Pichelli

So few words are going to be said on this issue, it will be like a haiku. This issue is subpar, the dialogue is absolutely fucking awkward at times, the Nico/Chase kiss scene is total fanfiction crap, but I did like this spell:

Uncanny X-Men #513 Review

Writer: Matt Fraction

Artist: Terry Dodson

To start, I would like to say that the variant cover of this issue is infinitely more exciting than the default one. Two characters I love in a fight done by Bianchi? Truly wonderful. I was hoping that this was a preview of a battle to come within this issue, but sadly, not so much. No, this issue was pretty battle-free for the most part because we had to make way for copious amounts of speeches.

This issue begins with Norman and Ravier (shock of all predictable shocks, the Xavier of the Dark X-Men is Mystique) talking about solving this solution, stoppinggg the....violenceee......zzzz. With the addition of recapping the action of last issue. Which we already saw. Which is a repetitive page filler. Oh and Cyclops got away and Colossus gets saved by Iceman from Venom. That's 6 pages that could've been done in 1 or 2. Seriously, save the recap for the recap page if it's really needed. Which by the way, features Emma Frost's box as the shitty facelift one I was mentioning last review.

The Beast and Xavier are talking in their cells. And Dark Beast appears. It's not all that interesting.

We return to Osborn and apparently he's the one who picked out all of Emma's Dark X-Men. all besides Namor that is (we get a full page of him showering in Dark X-Men: The Beginning #1, I fucking love it). The team is made of Mimic, Namor, Emma, Ravier as PR, Daken, Cloak, D-List Dazzler: Dagger, and Weapon Omega who's hopefully disposable. Here's some Fraption I do enjoy:

Drug addicts! I fucking love that that's included.

This is just annoying. Mimic, accept your has-been status like David Hasseloff and so many others, and get a reality show or competition show. I'm seriously hoping with such a big cast in Dark Reign that we can get a little death-heavy on the characters who are truly pathetic.

Upgrade much?

And now all the Emma-haters are going to have a big fit since this is now canon. Even though, Emma was introduced as a rival to Xavier as a telepath. I still don't like the omega idea, but she should be close to him in power. This is fan fiction in my opinion, so forget it ever happened once it ends.

Next is Emma's speech. Which is boring. And takes up space. And introduces three needed details: A. Emma's speaking out against Cyclops publicly B. The curfew C. There's a holding place for unruly mutants. Could've been done in one page, reactions and all, but we got 3 pages plus Trask's thing. The thing with speeches here is that we all know that they're BS. So why not cut them down to relevant details rather than boring people? During the speech, we get cameo queen time:

All we see of them besides a backside shot later.

Apparently Hellion's got a group to support his QQ-ripoff riot. Take a look:

Who the fuck is Meld? Whatever, I'm thrilled to see Lorelai again even though she's basically D-list Medusa. Who's a "dancer". Meaning stripper. Not shaming her though, get your money how you want.

Adam X. Surfer bro. 90's revivalist.
Seriously Adam, now that you're not the 3rd Summer brother you could not be any more obsolete. And fuck his stupid bros thing. I cannot stand "bros" bullshit.

Moving on, Hellion moves his group to protest in the streets. And he apparently is teaming up with Moonstone to steal Emma's personality while also continuing to ripoff Morrison's New X-Men:

He's just missing a sentence.

Oh how I miss the old Frost.

Personality-flat Emma is irking me since she missed a golden opportunity to say, "Quickly now everyone, plunge yourselves in Cloak's chest!" The Dark X-Men show to stop the riot and I noticed that Dagger is a needle and thread away from wearing Emma's Gen X costume. Seriously, her slits are the only difference.

And in the ending moments, we see Emma arrest Julian, but not before getting in a good hit.

Because Emma's abusive personality must be fed regularly.

Overall, the issue is bland bland bland. Fraction's writing problems are already pointed out. And Dodson, as I've mentioned, is not my BFF when it comes to being an artist for Uncanny. Pick this issue up if you abolutely need your crossover complete. Otherwise, leave this highly forgettable issue.

Uncanny #511 Review

Writer: Matt Fraction

Artist: Greg Land, Terry Dodson

This issue opens with a scene of MANGST!!! OH the pain of being a man! Wolverine and Cyclops are mad at each other. Fraction seems to think Scott would actually be shocked by Wolverine taking a clip of her hair. Not likely! Then Northstar speaks up to break the tension and we get this Craption(People seem to love Fraction's captions and are calling them Fraptions. Craption's more appropriate though.)

I would like to rewrite this to say, "Doesn't care about whiny man dramas." Unfortunately this is the most Northstar speaks the entire issue since he only gets one more word this issue. Apparently, he's just a cameo queen like Dazzler and Karma, poor dear.

I find it fucking hilarious that Maddie yells out "HURRY!" and then the next panel is the Sisterhood runway strutting. Clearly they take the idea of their asses getting kicked seriously.

Maddie casts a tracking spell to find Jean's corpse and leaves the Mastermind sisters plus Chimaera to get crushed. Then Emma and gang arrives.

Goddamn, Land, these aren't the Cuckoos! But something Fraction/Land got right was having Emma kick down the door. I seriously get so excited when I see her heel smashing a door.

Thrilling, right?

The fight begins as Possessed Psylocke yells out, "Sisterhood--STRIKE!!" which I imagine to sound like Fran from Austin Powers. Also, apparently Emma has been taking lessons Ororo on how to be a queen since she appears to be mimicking her here:

Thanks Land!

Continuing on, Maddie and the twits are following the magic scarab from Aladdin when they meet Domino and engage in pointless Domino spotlight time. Seriously, Fraction, Domino is in X-FORCE. We have a ton of people in limbo right now STOP USING AND OVERUSING PEOPLE ALREADY IN THE SPOTLIGHT. Seriously, Wolverine has more than enough page time, he should never be in Uncanny besides a cameo, Cyclops and Emma I'd understand if they were written right and not wasting so much page time for so little progress.

We go back to Emma and gang vs. Masterminds, Chimaera, and Psylocke to see only Psylocke and Dazzler alone with NO EXPLANATION what happened to everyone else. So this is the part of the fabled 'awesome dazzler scene'. Dazzler is portrayed to be pathetic and helpless and Psylocke goes on about how "Betsy doesn't live here anymore!" Within her speech, she comments on how her mind was remade in Spiral and the Red Queen's obscene image. Was that a break of the fourth wall to dig at Land and his pornifying?

Then Psylocke slaps Dazzler with the totality of her psionic powers and Dazzler is done playing around. So she does this:

This scene looks awesome, but...

Afterwards, Psylocke comes to her senses and is like "stop me!" and Dazzler's like "Oh schizzle!" Seriously, Daz? You didn't think to set you lasers to 'Stun' rather than 'Marvel Zombies'?

We join Psylocke in her mindscape with her possessed zombie self, very much like the Rogue/Ms. Zombie Marvel fight. Psylocke is in her skanky Jim Lee ninja outfit which surprisingly covers her ass a lot more than usual, but Land decided to make her outfit backless. Seriously, skankifying an already skanky outift? True Land.

Returning to the battle of Maddie plus male X-Men, we have a page of one-word blurps from everybody. Apparently Fraction gets that he can't write these characters correctly, so he gives up. Also, I've been finding out the flying is a power just thrown around to anyone, including Sage, thanks to CBR forums. Well, apparently we have a new flier joining the bunch:

Let me put in the real word he wants to say but won't due to his manly repression of emotion:

Psylocke has her epic battle with the other personality and predictably wins. This is her victory image:

Look through the scene and you will find a lot of tentacles in the background of her mindscape. Betsy apparently has a thing for tentacle rape? Also, is it Land's inability to draw Asian women or does Betsy see herself in her English body but wearing ninja costume? It'd make sense since she lived in her old body, y'know, for a good 20-ish years at least.

The Maddie battle ends with Maddie getting in the wrong body and self destructing. My question is who's corpse did she ruin?
Whatever, Psylocke returns herself to her Asian body since Dazzler destroyed the restored English body. THANKS DAZZ, you've ruined the hopes and dreams of British Betsy lovers everywhere. The Sisterhood departs since Maddie isn't around anymore to fix nasty fatal wounds.

Emma could not be more pissed that she's being cheated out of a free opportunity to beat the shit out of someone. Oh, torture happy Emma!

Spot the Aussie-years X-Men! We've got Storm, Dazzler, Psylocke, Wolverine, and Colossus!!
Rogue is coming to San Fran soon, Longshot is around but in X-Factor, and Havok's business in space is wrapping up soon. Reunite the Aussie team, please!

Also, I did notice that the man team went to combat the real threat while the women were left to the distraction. And Domino does not count as helping make it better. I really disapprove of the sort of BS. In other WTF news:

How'd she get her telepathy back? I'm thrilled it's back, but um, she got her Kwannon's corpse didn't have any since I believe when she died Betsy got a boost by getting her power too. And her telepathy was then swapped for Jean's TK and Jean's dead. Seriously, explanation anyone?
And also, so now Betsy has Jean's old powerset? I smell trouble.

The issue ends with in Emma and Scott's bedroom AGAIN! Beast is in there this time saying, "Blah, it's obvious a pointless fight is about to begin about overdramatized shock over her Cabal and his X-Force which Emma pretty much already knows about. I'm leaving!" I so wish he wasn't part of the the crossover, him and his Science club need to die an unremarkable death. But this cover suggests he'll be around:

Also, was it on purpose that Emma's clothes be shredded (the only ones may I add) to make underwear and thigh highs? It's either skankifying or symbol of her Hellfire Club days, I'm hoping for the latter.

Overall, this arc was crappy for these reasons: Land, duh, but also the first two issues were too slow and spent on pointless crap. The fight issue wasn't a fight issue, it was a scene of the X-Men trapped and then getting un-trapped and Emma, Wolverine, the Cuckoos, and Pixie fighting. That's it! No real fight. And this conclusion feels completely rushed, especially for an arc so fiercely promoted, and it leaves me saying, "That's it?"

Sorry for image-heavy post, I unfortunately did not have many interesting things to say on this issue since it was mediocre. Not to worry, another Uncanny is out soon and the crossover is starting soon with the Utopia one-shot that has Silvestri as art!! Unfortunately, this marks the beginning of a Dodson arc and I'm sorry to all of you who like him but good heavens he's bland. Him and Land do have this in common though: they both have problems giving us repeated images. In Dodson's case though it's because all his characters look the same.

Uncanny X-Men #509 Review

Writer: Matt Fraction

Artist?: Greg Land

This issue begins with the opening scene of Claremont-esque reflection of who the X-Men are and basic ideas about their move to San Fran that've already been established. Meaning timewaster!! To compound on this offense is Greg Land and his perma-smile bullshit. The worst one being the blasted student (Hope Abbott?):

You are in fucking school taking a test, Hope. What could possibly be making you happy enough to smile?
What was almost as bad was the emotionless Cuckoos shown smiling. Aren't you bitches not supposed to feel anything? I mean, I would love that fact retconned, but even before their bullshit diamond hearts they were never ones to be all smiles unless they were being cruel.

Jean Paul's part was a massive disappointment this time around. His grasping for an answer is ridiculous, not only because if he's anything like Pietro then he must have accelerated thinking ability so he'd have some confident answer. Even if accelerated thinking is not in the power set, he'd just be like, "This place needs my fucking hot self." Which by the way, I know Greg Land traced him off some hot model, but damn Northstar is quite sexy.

The freakout among the X-Men over "Prop X" is annoying. Almost as annoying as taking directly from recent events (Prop 8) and pasting them into a comic book. To me it looks like someone's run out of ideas.

Pixie's "badass" Danger Room fight was such a horrible move. Seriously Pixie, you have received the shortest end of the stick in going from a background character who was extremely likeable to an attempt at a sex symbol who is unremarkable and Logans' new sidekick. And apparently is 18 now (more on that later)?

Beast's science club: A wasted page of pointless banter. Then finally an idea of what's going on.

And then Sisterhood time where this time the recap was needed. Psylocke's history actually is important to what's going on and she's been banished to obscurity for awhile. Then the Sisterhood spaz out because heaven forbid delayed gratification happen.

Again, attack of the perma-smiles. Why are you bitches smiling?! She's just laying down the scene, no smiles necessary! Not only that, it's a good thing Maddie's a ghost because that fucking waist is impossible. almost as impossible as those boobs. I think Greg Land should be cursed with a rack that size and see how impossible it is to do anything when your back always hurts. Seriously Greg, average-sized boobs are more than fine.

The part where Northstar, Dazzler, and Pixie walk in drunk needs a lot of addressing. First off, Pixie, get some better taste in men. Scott Summers is the most plain X-Man of all. And as much as I really don't want to talk about her any longer, there's the instance of this:

Last we checked in, a year ago I think, Pixie was 15. You can't tell me she just aged 3 years while the rest of her class is more or less the same age or maybe just one year older. I'm not sure drinking age in Wales, but Canada is 19 right now. And if Jean Paul is truly Quebecois, then he's probably going off Quebec's law and that would be 18. Did we really just see Pixie get aged 3 years just so Land's pornifying of her is less of a problem?? On to other topics...

You're kidding right? A relationship built on an affair between an intensely manipulative woman and a manchild? Fraction, if you haven't forgotten, Jean's DEAD. Emma's not a clone of Jean. And the relationship between Scott and Emma is likely intensely dysfunctional and I think odds are good that they would be broken up by now if writers didn't think Cyclops being single would be a sin.

Thanks heavens before the discussion can get any worse, the Sisterhood attacks with Chimera pissed over no one knowing who she is. Chimera, even I had to look you up when you were introduced in Uncanny, you are as obscure as they fucking come.

The end of the issue reveals Logan to be the one Maddy wants. More Wolverine spotlight time? Seriously? He's one of the most over exposed characters ever. His popularity is going to run out if things don't lessen especially since quantity is taking over quality in a big way right now.

In summary, I felt like I had very little to say because Fraction disappointed by slipping back to mediocre.

Astonishing X-men #29 Review

Writer: Warren Ellis

Artist: Simone Bianchi

First things first: Gorgeous cover!! Finally a cover without Wolverine and featuring this team's best members.

Now, I must criticize, Ellis does not seem to understand that Emma is not helpless without her powers. There is an issue of Generation X that is dedicated to this. She has self defense training; as any pole dancer, in her case ex, should have. I don't doubt Storm is superior to her in that arena since Storm led a team for a long time without powers, but Emma should not be saying she cannot protect herself.

Then it's onto Forge talk where we hear about the events of M-Day and the Messiah Complex. Again! Did you forget them? I'm sure we talked about them last issue and the issue before, but in case you forgot!

Hisako is the biggest WTF of the team. She joined because she got pulled into a mess, but she should've been off the team as soon as they returned to Earth. And now she's shot which I'd be happy about except she loves to whine and make "cutesy" remarks:

Cyclops: "Why the fuck is she still on the team?
Wolverine: "Y'know, I forget."
Just look at their poses and tell me that's not what they're thinking. Speaking of looking at their poses:

Every time I read Astonishing with Bianchi I wonder why I'm getting turned on and then I look at the near nudity of the men. Also, their posing is just so gay porn-y, seriously look through an Astonishing some time. Not that I'm complaining though! I fucking love it, Bianchi should make a porno comic after this stint.

Continuing, normally I hate extended fight scenes, but the two-page Storm-will-cut-a-bitch version was HEAVEN. If Storm were to be depowered again and put as head of a team it would be heavenlier because she knows how to kick some ass.

Also, the return of threats from Miss Frost was wonderful. Tacky bitchy humor out of Uncanny has left me questioning if this is my character, but Astonishing always reminds me that she is still the torture happy psycho I fell in love with.

Now the part I absolutely climaxed at was this entire page:

I would buy 30 of this fucking issue just for that page. Finally, the idiotic argument about Emma will feel about X-Force gets commentary because we who REALLY know Emma knows she would not give a fuck. She just did it now and even volunteered to cover for Cyclops. Then he PMSes over her lying thing. As if he did not know this about the ex-White Queen. He knows she'd lie to him if she thought it was right, but he should know that she will come to him when the time is right for her to tell him. To end the pointless argument on the planet of who will freak out over who's secret (Emma's Cabal and Scott's X-Force), Emma would be like, "...K, I have to go torture somebody. Oh by the way dear, I'm working with Osbourne to protect us from the government," and then Cyclops would have a man-child explosion as usual.

Now onto part 2 of my "Hisako, why are you here?" section:

You see the look again? They're wondering. And you know, there is one fucking fantastic line missing from here that would shut this endlessly annoying girl up (First line only:

Seriously Miss Frost, get on the ball.

To end my post, I want to comment on Bianchi's work since in my opinion it has significantly improved. The women no longer look like trannies and the men are sexual looking as ever. And this has to be one of my favorite panels of a gorgeous Miss Frost from this issue (though I question wearing hoops to any mission):