Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #14 – “Torn (Part 2)”! In the previous installment… look, let’s just say I don’t understand a fucking thing that’s happening and let’s move on. Maybe it will come together after this one.

Or maybe I’m going to have to give up reading comic books forever! Thanks, Joss Whedon.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #14 [June, 2006]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Torn (Part 2)”

Hairy-ass Wolverine kissing Emma Frost? Fucking gross, dude. Come on.

“Is it very different without them?” asks Jean Grey.

“Well, there’s the blue,” responds Scott Summers. “I see blue, but it’s tinged… everything’s tinged with red. But now… well now I know you really are a redhead.”

Is that a pube joke? Come on.

Jean asks Scott if she made him sad. Scott’s like “aw hell naw bae, it’s all good.” He just has to think about controlling his power just about all the time, day in day out, for the rest of his life is all! No biggie.

Flash forward to the present where Emma tries to seduce Scott by looking like Jean.

“Oh, Scott, don’t you want a little taste?” she asks.

“Don’t touch me,” he responds. Rightfully so. Gross, dude. Come on.

Emma says she doesn’t mind if he gets all up in her Jean Grey-lookin’ guts. Scott says he doesn’t play games. Emma says that Scott only likes homework and vegetables. He probably agrees with that. Scott Summers is such a white loser.

She reminds him about their emotional affair while Jean was still alive. Psychic trysts, as she calls them. Does he think his conscience is clear, huh, hmm, huh? And the answer is no, absolutely not, he thinks about it just about all the time, day in and day out, for the rest of his life is all!

Eww, you turned me into Hugh Jackman?? Fucking gross. Come on.

Emma-Jean continues seducing Scott because “no” apparently doesn’t mean “no”. She leans in close… he doesn’t resist… then suddenly it’s Wolverine and Emma kissing. Because she turned back into herself and turned Scott into Wolverine, you see. He’s mad! She tells him to stop hiding it, that he has always wished to be him, the one that everyone remembers, the cool mutant.

Scott tackles this woman to the floor with a “DDDNYAAAGH!” He spikes her right through the goddamn chest with his SNIKITY SNIKT claws!

She gets up, unharmed. “Poor puppy, don’t you remember? You don’t have any claws.”

Scott, as Scott, looks down at this manipulative little wench and frowns. Oh, does he frown. Frown of the Year.

Meanwhile, Peter fucks Kitty so hard that she phases through the floor nude and lands in the level below where a hairy goblin kid is watching TV. She wraps her self up in a blanket and runs back upstairs embarrassed as the dickens. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” she keeps saying. She smiles at Peter when she returns to their bedroom. Fucking gross. Come on.

And now Scott is sitting at the edge of his bed while Emma continues making him feel bad. Jean was Xavier’s favorite. Hank is a genius. Warren looked like a god. Then there’s stinky ol’ you, sir, and you’re the one whom Xavier picked to lead? What is he, some sort of dolt? No, here’s the reason: and she gets right up in Scott’s ear: and she says: quietly: “Because you had nothing else.”

You would think at this point that Scott would tackle her again, but no. He just stands up and starts to tell her how she has no idea what she’s talking about. And what is Emma trying to achieve anyway? Getting Scott to poop his pants in a fit of blind rage. Because, honey, those pants are already full of poop.

No, she’s trying to find Scott. Whatever that means. He’s never trusted her, even after all the fuckin’ they’ve been doing. And the professor really let him down now after the whole Robot Medusa lab rat thing.

Not quite good enough yet for the Special Olympics, ha ha, but we’ll get there.

After more armchair psychology, Emma determines that Xavier had indeed given Scott the leader position out of pity. “Because he thought you’d wash out if you didn’t get a little boost.”

And then she lifts his chin up and goes all sorts of “AND IT WORKED, YOU’RE A LEADER AND YOU EVEN GET TO BONE YOURS TRULY!”

When Jean died, though, that’s when Scott felt like he lost control. Emma then asks if Scott wants to go to the Bug Room. And it’s like, no bitch, he doesn’t want to go to the Bug Room. Then he follows her to the Bug Room.

Up in space in that lavish, inefficiently designed space station, Agent Brand asks her little team “how sure they are”. Here’s the conversation:

“And how sure are we about this?”

“Well, it’s precog stuff, so there’s always–”

“How sure?”

“Zero dissent.”

“Sydren, you catching any of this?”

“I don’t read the future, but I’ve sniffed out the precogs and I sssmell certainty. And terror.”

“Yeah, it’s going around. Why now? Why do they all see it now?”

“We gotta figure it’s temporal. That it’s imminent.”

“And if our guys picked it up, the breakworld–”

“The closed down communication sixteen hours ago.”

And then this keeps going. Basically, something is going to attack mutants again. And it’s gonna be ugly. Not the “something”, the situation will be ugly. Although I’m sure the “something” will be ugly too.

“Agent Brand,” says Agent Bald Black Guy, “meet the destroyer of worlds.” He holds up a file folder and shows her Frankie Muniz.

Emma shows Scott some creepy visions of bugs in the Bug Room where she also shows him other shit he’s afraid of. Like the time he leapt out of the burning airplane that killed his parents, brother holding onto him for dear life. And other such fun memories. Emma tells him he’s afraid of his powers, but he’s really afraid of the truth!

After more truth bombs about still being that scared boy, Scott starts crying. Emma tells him to let go.

Let’s lighten the mood! Wolverine is eating cereal!

WHO-O-O-O-OOOAAA!! WHAT WON’T THIS GUY DO?!

Peter and Kitty come downstairs to the kitchen. Wolverine stares at each of them then goes back to his bowl. “’Bout time,” he says.

Because they fucked.

We end with Hank-Beast in his Lab O’ Science. He’s checking out some blips and bloops on a screen. A shadowy figure walks into the room. Hank mistakes the figure for Emma, but it ain’t Emma. It’s some lady! Let’s keep adding to the list of things I’m supposed to know but I don’t! Hank goes “oh god no” in a small voice, so I’m guessing this lady is either his ex-wife or his probation officer.

Emma leaves Scott on the bed, telling him he’s now free. He’s a drooling, catatonic mess for some reason, but his visor is off. His visor is off, revealing dead-looking, brown eyes. It’s quite gross.

Come on.

Final Thoughts

I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON. Was I supposed to read 40 years of X-Men comics before getting to this one? Because let me tell you, this shit sucks! Grrr!