All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #7

* Part 2 of 5 of the Here to Stay storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New X-Men (Vol. 1) Issue #7! In the previous installment, the youngins are having some trouble adjusting to their time travel situation. Jean Grey needs to learn how to control the dozens of thoughts that constantly invade her head. Cyclops needs to learn how to not steal Wolverine’s motorcycle and cruise around town. Angel needs to learn about why his future self is so happy and/or has metal wings. Young Beast and Young Iceman weren’t in the picture yet, but rest assured that each is having their own struggles involving mutant-related trauma or constant furious masturbation.

There’s also this chick named Raven who caught wind of 12-year-old Cyclops blasting the hell out of Wolverine while downtown. She wants to see this for herself, I guess. That doesn’t seem too interesting to me! I’d rather see Wolverine launch Young Cyclops into the sun.

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #7 [April, 2013]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

Ooooh, how very seductive! This Raven chick really knows how to melt Cyclops’ butter, it seems! Maybe she’ll be thrown in jail for statutory rape and the threat will be effectively eliminated and we can all go home to our “loved ones”.

Young Cyclops attempts to meander around Manhattan incognito, and by that I mean he puts on a hat. People are staring at him anyway because he has his stupid red visor on. He enters a bank where he spots a People magazine on a table in the lobby: “The Avengers Mutant Cover Up?” Scandalous!

Everyone eyeballs this kid. He’s not very inconspicuous. “Can I help you?” asks the rather attractive young secretary. “I need help with one of the safety deposit boxes,” Cyclops mumbles. He doesn’t have keys. He doesn’t have two forms of identification. He still wears day-of-the-week underwear, for the love of Hell.

He has ONE form, though! *takes off hat* Check it out, toots! I’mmmm Cyclops!

“Oh my God. You look a lot older on TV.”

“I am older on TV.”

A real cut-up! I like (read: dislike) this kid! The secretary asks him to follow her. She has a little X-Men insignia pinned to her lapel.

“Are you a mutant?”

“Oh my God, I wish.”

“You wish?”

“You know what I did yesterday?”

“No.”

“Same thing I did the day before. And the day before that. And the day before that.”

Life is boring, we get it. Cool story. Safety deposit box, pls. She shows him what he’s looking for. “I’ll leave you to it,” and she walks out of there.

Panel presented without comment. Also, lol.

Scotland Summer finds a nifty pair of blocky red glasses in the box, along with stacks upon stacks of $100 bills and a passport… and an invitation. In fancy lettering, “The honor of your presence is requested.” Maybe it’s Professor Xavier’s funeral! Wouldn’t that be something?!

Meanwhile, the secretary is gossiping to a coworker about the little pisspants that’s in the safety deposit box room. The genocidal maniac! The guy with the red eyeballs. James Marsden in the flesh! The coworker is all like “that guy is wanted by the police” and the secretary is like “no don’t” and then the coworker calls over security. Some Sam Elliott guy named Jerry. What’s he going to do to the kid? Wiggle his mustache at him?

Cyclops scoops out everything from the box and heads his way out…

…and then he’s confronted…

…by…

…BY…

“Are you done wasting my day?” Wolverine sneers, arms hell of akimbo. He all but grabs the 12-year-old by the ear and “escorts” him off the premises. The guards have their guns aimed at them, but Wolverine flashes his X-Men Diners Club Card and tells the guards to stuff it. “This means whatever security guard school you graduated from doesn’t mean a damn because because Capt. America told me that this means you do what I say.”

Badass motherfucker. No wonder he’s 1000x better than Cyclops. The guards don’t back down entirely, but they do have worried faces. INCLUDING unflappable Jerry! Wolverine continues hollering at these guys and playing the mutant card. “You can’t pull a gun on someone for walking into a bank. He didn’t rob the bank.”

Then he turns to Cyclops to confirm this. It is confirmed. Sorta.

“If you shoot me, it won’t hurt me and I will cut off your hands. I’ll go back to wherever I came from and you won’t have hands.”

The guards take this threat seriously. The worried faces get amped up. Then they let them go, because what else are they gonna do? You can’t jerk off without hands. That would nullfiy their entire existences.

How about a knuckle sandwich from Fist City, you brat.

Wolverine drags the petulant Cyclops to the alley to give him a one-on-one heart-to-heart. It is revealed, indirectly, that someone is taking the form of Wolverine. “I needed someone you would believe and someone they would be afraid of… he was my only choice, really…”

Cyclops makes an O face. Now for a commercial break!

*dancing hot dogs tell you to buy mustard*

And we’re back!

“My name is Raven,” says Raven. “I am a mutant. A shape-shifter. A friend of Charles Xavier.”

LET ME DO SOME QUICK RESEARCH ON RAVEN HERE… Ah yes, Jennifer Lawrence. I don’t think this lady is a good guy.

Cyclops continues his unrelenting O face. He’s all like “WUH” and “BUH” and she continues calmly explaining who she is, why she’s here, and all the adversity she has faced. “A lot has happened since you first joined the X-Men but sadly the days of me walking around as my beautiful blue self without causing a riot are still a little far away. I think we should talk.”

She appears sad, but I know she’s working on manipulating the little prick. She drags him back to the school grounds, where she takes the form of a student and lets him spill his guts. Hank McCoy brought them all here to the future to help stop the mutant civil war. “He’s a liar,” Cyclops says of McCoy. “He brought us here to punish me. He’s mad about Xavier.”

Probably! He’s going to take all his aggression out on you, kid. He’s going to twist your nipples with pliers.

Cyclops calls McCoy a son of a bitch, but Raven tells him that McCoy is right. Things have been chaotic and Old Cyclops is a lot of the reason why lately. Young Cyclops rubs the back of his head. “I have to be doing all of this for a reason. I have to truly believe that this is for the best interest of our people.”

Nah. He’s gone bananas, is all. Raven puts a hand on his shoulder. Listen, kid, Old Cyclops was allegedly under some kind of voodoo spell! YOU would never kill Charles Xavier on purpose, right? Well, neither would he! MAYBE!

Young Cyclops wants to talk to his older self, but Raven advises him to first confront Hank McCoy and tell him to STFU. Cyclops doesn’t want to do it. There are literally billions of other kids in the school. Why should the burden be on him?

Because you’re fuckin’ Scott Summers. That’s why.

So what’s Raven’s investment in all this? Huh? Huh? Well? It’s because Charles Xavier was the only one who respected her as a person and a mutant. In return, she respected him, and she wants to do what she can to help Cyclops figure this out for himself. How touching! Again, manipulation. It’s all about manipulation, and this kid seems very pliable. It must be all the torturous nipple twisting that made him so subservient.

Leap off a bridge.

When asked what Raven would do if she were him, she transforms into Old Cyclops as if he were butting in like he owns the conversation. “I would go back to the school and lead my team.”

EEK! GENOCIDAL MANIAC! RUN!

Old Cyclops would want Young Cyclops to realize that the mutant school has become a bastardized version of itself and shut it down. Then Old Cyclops would want Young Cyclops to shut him down. Preferably with a baseball bat right to the temple. Then he wants himself to know everything he knows now. “That would be amazing.”

No way. This kid is 12. He wants to play Animal Crossing right now. “Why don’t you do it?” he asks Raven. It’s because she’s not him! Pay attention! HE’S Scott Summers! NOT her, goddamnit!

“Have you been to the school?” she asks him.

“Yes.”

“Did you like what you saw?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!” she gets angry now and starts ranting about how Wolverine took over the school to train the youngsters to become “feral killing machines”. She then walks away. “Wolverine has tracked you. He’s on his way here.”

EEK! FERAL KILLING MACHINE! RUN!

Raven’s last tip is for Young Cyclops to keep a notebook and jot down all the mutants’ behaviors and actions. “For strategy, yeah?” Yeah, sounds great. Have the kid keep tabs, then steal the notebook. This moron will probably do it, too. No wonder he grows up to be an awful loser.

“Did you try to rob a bank?” Wolverine snarls as he pulls up in his jeep.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Cyclops asks.

“I just met you.”

“No. I mean me – the adult me.”

I know where this is going! Wolverine’s going to say that he has fantasized about the idea of squishing Cyclop’s head like a grape for the better part of 60 years! “Maybe I’ve lived long enough to know that killing is the easiest thing. Saving someone is a lot damn harder. Maybe it was Charles Xavier who taught me that.”

Poignant. This Xavier guy was infallible, wasn’t he? Do I have to make a joke about how he can’t even walk for the trillionth time?

Raven walks downtown incognito, and a car containing a shadowed stranger asks her why she’s helping Cyclops. And, of course, she’s not. It’s all a ploy. No shit.

Cool, I approve of this plan! However, you don’t light a fuse on a dropped bomb, but I’ll let that one slide.

Back at the School of Hard Knocks, Kitty Pryde is treating her new charges like she’s a drill instructor, asking them to do 50 push-ups like they ain’t squishy and weak. “Bobby Drake…” she says, “you want to live here in the present, you want to train here… I’m training you.”

“I can make ice with my body,” he whines.

“Your flabby baby-boy body.”

“Now you listen here, lady, I’ve been an X-Man for–”

“For what? About three weeks?”

“I fought Magneto!”

“Yes, I saw the footage. You threw snowballs at him.”

This is going well. Pryde offers Iceman to come over there and punch her. No powers. Just a slug right in the face. She’ll never bug him with training again! Let’s go, punk.

“I’m not hitting a girl.” He looks forlorn. Pryde calls him dumb. “Drop and give me fifty or show me you can fight like a man, Iceboy.”

He goes “WAAAGGH!” and takes his swing. She flips him over on his back. That’s that! Training continues!

At this time, Wolverine has dragged Scott Summer’s petulant ass back to the school grounds. He says nothing. All he does is hand Jean Grey the invitation that he found in the safety deposit box.

It’s for Scott Summers and Jean Grey’s wedding. Grey gasps. Summers walks away sullen.