Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 4), Issue #2! In the previous installment, we are introduced to an X-Men team comprised of Magneto, Sabretooth, M, Psylocke, and the rest (Archangel). They free a bunch of “sleeping” mutants from stasis and tell them to go out and help themselves and others – mutants are hard to come by these days and we don’t want the existing ones just hiding out and/or getting killed.

One of the mutants out of stasis is a healer, but he doesn’t get to do much healing on account of getting shot in the head by the Dark Riders, a group of ne’er-do-well monstery-types whose singular goal is to rid the world of mutants! It’s natural selection, baby, and what better way to let natural selection takes its course than to interfere with it and kill people, I always say.

The Dark Riders are the Big Bad. Five more issues to go of this tripe.

Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 4), Issue #2 [March, 2016]
Written by: Cullen Bunn

A splash page gives me a little more background information. The Terrigen mists thinned out the mutant numbers. Magneto and his ragtag team of vicious X-Men are looking to stem the threat of extinction. Enter Dark Riders, who want to accelerate it. Who will win?

Probably the X-Men. Spoiler alert.

In San Francisco, a woman named Clarice Kenner sits in an office cubicle until security services drags her away for questioning, At first she’s like “oh dags, I was going on my lunch break” and then she turns hella blue and her eyes go yellow and she’s like “it was fun while it lasted”. Then she whups the asses of the two security services officers. Blood everywhere. “Someone point me to H.R.,” she says, posing for the comic book reader. “I need to report some workplace violence.”

The location is the office building of Someday Enterprises, and the woman is Mystique. She books it to a car waiting for her in the parking lot. She turns into a Tony Stark goatee-looking handsome, dashing drink of water. “I don’t know how they found me,” she says. “After two weeks… the whole operation is blown.”

Some masked muthafuckas are in the car. The one driving tells Mystique that digging up some useful intel on Someday makes it worth it anyway. Mystique tells him to shut the hell up; he’s so low on the totem pole that the clearance level on the intel is, like, a bajillion levels above his own level (Negative Bajillion).

A nice building in Detroit (which, let’s face it, doesn’t exist) called the County Medical Examiner holds a whole room of dead bodies under sheets on stretchers. Magneto is snooping around looking for the healer who ate a bullet. Psylocke telepathically tells Magneto to stop wasting time looking for the killed and spend that energy looking for the killer. In fact, they can pull it up on their fancy CSI database! Check this out: *picture of Kanye West*

“There is value in seeing something firsthand, Psylocke,” Magneto responds with coolness. Psylocke reminds Sir Ian McKellen that he’s the one who sent the healer away to die. Magneto disagrees, but doesn’t get mad like I would if someone accused me of killing some healer guy. Magneto blames the Terrigen mists, that’s what’s really fucking up mutantkind. Not Magneto and his words and his fists. “This man… was never meant to survive,” he says before finding the body.

This isn’t the only healer to get got. Other healer deaths happened in the last couple days, so a pattern emerges! For now, the X-Men mission is to find the other healers that will assuredly be targets and squirrel them away to safety. They already found two, so let’s spend the rest of the issue kidnapping them for their own good! Does that sound reasonable to you, Telepathy Lady?

We have to save all the bearded men!

Psylocke sees Archangel show up on the console for a split second, which audibly freaks her out. She regains composure and tells Magneto that she’ll track down Sabretooth and M before they search for the poor doomed healers “Triage” and “Elixir”. Stupid-ass names. I would’ve gone for Hans and Gunther.

On the other side of the country from San Francisco – podunk Cooper’s Mountain, Vermont – Sabretooth and M are cruising at 700mph down the mean streets.

“Slow down, Creed. You’re as dangerous behind the wheel as you are in a fight.”

“I’ve been driving since before you were born, girl.”

“Yes, please remind me about how old and out-of-touch you are. Just remember that we can’t help anyone… if you drive us off the road and into a fiery death.”

This droll conversation is brought to you by X-Men-brand underpants! If they’re good enough for Wolverine, they’re good enough for you!™

I think they drove to the Charles Xavier mutant school, but I’m not sure yet. “You know much about this kid? Elixir?” Sabretooth asks. And yes, M certainly does! He picks his nose and eats his boogers. Also, his healing powers are second to none! Top notch healing from this kid, that’s the guarantee.

A man who looks like he gives free mustache rides asks these two if they can be helped. They ask for Josh “Elixir” Foley, who is alive and well and playing a lot of video games about killing mutant bad guys. “He told us… he might have… unusual visitors from time to time.” The mustachioed man leads them inside where they immediately find the kid moving boxes to his dormitory (yes, this is the Xavier School of Hard Knocks after all). “Monet? And Sabretooth? Gotta admit, you’re the last people I expected to come looking for me.”

Sounds pretty dramatic. Hey, can I chip off a piece of your face? I need to pay back some student loans.

Elixir glows gold like a Trump Tower toilet. He tells the two of them that they’re wasting their time on him. M tells him that they’re here to help, not recruit. Someone’s killing healers like no one’s business, and you’re next! *slicing motion across throat*

This young man cannot believe that M and Sabretooth, of all people, want to protect him. Remember all those wedgies that they gave him? Fat chance that he’ll trust either of them now.

Never mind, he’s at a church. That’s, like, the exact opposite of a school. Unless you’re talking about church school. Is that a thing?

They try to make Elixir feel better with hugs and kisses, but somebody starts blasting big balls of green energy at both of them. Turns out it’s those dang Dark Riders! And they’re here to force some natural selection down everyone’s throats! Sabretooth and M start fighting them while urging Elixir to get the FUCK out of there.

Then the Dark Riders kill everyone in the church. Oopsie-daisy! And M’s next if she doesn’t watch her tone. M uppercuts a fiery blue skeleton, which is the most badass panel I’ve seen in ages. They scrambled to stay alive while making sure Elixir is ok, but Elixir doesn’t want to leave. “I… I can’t just leave them… I can’t leave my friends,” he mumbled, tears in his eyes like a Trump Tower toilet user. He walks slowly outside, as if in a trance. “I can help. I can heal them. I can heal them all.”

“Aw, kid. Don’t you recognize a trap when you see one?” Sabretooth asks as Elixir appear to raise a bunch people from the dead.

“THOOM!” That’s the sound of an alien bursting out of Elixir’s chest, but with the alien part. The Dark Riders celebrate another kill.

Time to go to Wendy’s to celebrate! Psynapse, you got cash on ya?

Elixir is dead and M is sad. Sabretooth urges her to get out while they still can, leave the boy to decompose and whatnot. But it is noticed that the Dark Riders are gone, that they did what they came to do, and everything is done.

Wendy’s it is.

Final Thoughts

Jesus, what a shit pick this series was. Am I supposed to be invested in any of these guys? I barely know these X-Men and I can’t even make fun of their personalities yet like I can with Wolverine (pussy) or Cyclops (ultra pussy). And is Magneto a good guy or a bad guy? Or is he both? I don’t fucking know, man. I’m getting some ice cream.