Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #7 – “Dangerous (Part 1)”! In the previous storyline, spanning Issues #1 – #6, a place called Benetech Labs (overseen by Dr. Rao, an old colleague of Hank “Roast Beast” McCoy) is developing a “cure” that will render any mutant powerless. Some in the mutant community see this as systematic genocide, others see it as the answer to all their problems. The moral and sociopolitical implications are complicated! Anyway, Nick Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D. agents get involved and now it’s in the hands of the government, so who knows what could happen with it now.

Oh yeah, there was something about certain people being able to see the future, and the future ain’t lookin’ great. An apocalyptic event is caused by a single mutant, but it’s unknown who this mutant was or what the mutant did. The “cure” was developed in part to rid ALL mutants of their powers in order to stop this one specific, unknown mutant from causing the end times. So there’s that too.

Also, Colossus (aka Peter), who was supposed to be dead before the events of the story, is actually not dead at all! And now he’s walking around not dead, much to Kitty Pryde’s confusion and surprise.

That’s the gist. Instead of jumping to some other X-Men run, I decided to keep going with Joss Whedon’s to see if I can get a little more appreciation for his work if I kept going. If I’m left cold, I’m jumping to some other X-Men series for a bit. And that’s just the facts, ma’am.

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #7 [January, 2005]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Dangerous (Part 1)”

Check the cover. The gang’s all here and ready to boot some ass back to Assville! Hell yeah! And Assville is really far away, too! There’s no direct flight to Assville, you have to change planes and shit, like, in Denver or something. ANYWAY, let’s see what these fucked-up freaks are up to these days.

Remember that sad-sack Wing? The flying kid whose powers were STOLEN from him when Ord stabbed him in the back with some cure needles? He’s ambling around the school grounds looking like a sad little emo boy because he doesn’t get to fly anymore. Instead of kicking his useless butt to the curb, the school is being gracious and they’re letting him stay. Mostly because McCoy wants to run tests on him like a whimpering lab rat that he is. Everyone always stares at him with their pity-eyes.

He climbs to the top of a large hill and finds himself on the edge of a cliff. “I’m not a normal human.” Wing says with defiance.

“I can fly.”

OK there, R. Kelly. Do you think about it every night and day? And by that I mean your sex trafficking and child pornography crimes?

The X’ed-Men are all flying in a jetcraft thing, with Peter Colossus windsurfing on top for an unknown fool-ass reason. They arrive at some large city where some Godzilla-thing is doing some Godzilla-style terrorizing. They say the thing came out of the ground, so the X-Guys are gonna try to put the creature back where it came from. Cyclops does a leadership thing, which makes Emma Frost positively moist and, thus, successfully disgusts Kitty Pryde.

Peter Colossus starts fighting the creature while his inner monologue is concerned about how strange it is to be back with the X-Men and fighting again. Kitty Pryde is fighting while her inner monologue is concerned about how strange and tense the dynamic between her and Peter seems to be right now. Wolverine is fighting and has no inner monologue except for “I really like beer” because he’s big and brutish and dumb and just likes fighting!

While the action is happening outside, a room full of office workers are standing like zombies, each one with the same peculiar thought in their head:

Goes against my daily habit of leaving in a slow, yet disorderly, fashion.

So that’s weird.

The X-Mens continue attacking the giant Godzilla ripoff. When its back is turned, Beast fires concussive blasts from the jet. And then, out of nowhere, the Fantastic Four shows up in their own jet! Apparently, this is New York City! Ever heard of it? New York City is Fantastic Four territory! That’s embarrassing.

Back at Professor Xavier’s Starfleet Academy, Wing is still standing on the edge of that cliff. His friend Hisako tells him that his parents are asking for him. Specifically, they’re asking for “Eddie”, which is Wing’s real name. “You’re a normal human now. No reason to be at a school for the ‘gifted’ if you don’t have a gift.” she says to him. Eddie Wingman ain’t hearin’ it! Denial! “I can’t fly, I might as well just snuff it!” he growls at her. He asks her if she lost her armor, what would she do? And she responds coldly with “Well, if I had any real guts at all…I’d jump off a cliff.”

The Godzilla Battle Rages On. The X-Men and the Fantabulous Four are teaming up, and folks, you love to see it! The Thing, the big rock guy, he grabs a semi-truck and whacks the monster over the head with it, sending it straight down the hole he crawled up from! That’s the end of that!

Ha. That’s funny. Can’t wait for all the “Wolverine is from Canada” jokes that await me in the X-Men canon. That won’t get tired at all.

Now that the threat has been eliminated, Mr. Stretchy-Man asks the X-Dudes why, exactly, the fucking hell they’re here in the first place. Wolverine gets catty and tells them that they should be grateful that the X-Men showed up. Cyclops, always the level-headed boring guy, tells them that they feel like they should be out there more. Doing the work and all that. The Fantastic Four first thinks that, with them fighting by the X-Men’s side, it’ll be good publicity for the mutant community. “But what if it backfires?” Mr. Fantasmo-riffic asks out loud, “What if the press brands us a menace?” Whoops, good question! That’s what will probably happen!

So the Fantastic Four gets the fuck out of dodge.

SCENE CHANGE! Special Agent Brand, the green-haired S.W.O.R.D. lady who was working with Ord, she’s speaking during a court session in front of a BOARD OF ELDERS. She’s defending her case. She’s doing it quite well.

She defends her collusion with Ord in pursuit of the greater good. “There is a bullet pointed at this planet’s head. You all know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“An X-Man is destined to destroy the breakworld. And destiny isn’t thwarted by diplomats.” Brand says, putting on her Deal-With-It sunglasses!

Back at X-Men HQ, also known as One Of Their On-Campus Apartments, the team is mad at the TV because they’re showing more news coverage of Paris Hilton sucking a dick than they are of the NYC Godzilla battle! In fact, there’s no coverage of the battle whatsoever! Cyclops, always the cynical boring guy, mansplains to Kitty Pryde that the news was already written before the news even happened. “‘The Mutant Menace’ is the story. Always has been.” he says, turning the TV off. Frost backs him up: “He’s right. J. Jonah Jameson’ll be tongue-kissing Spider-Man before the X-Men catch a little public favor.” Oooooh, that’s quite the sexy image! J.K. Simmons entwined in a loving embrace with Tobey Maguire? Folks, you love to see it!

Hisako runs into the room desperate for help. Eddie Wingman is missing. Frost’s creepy Stepford Cuckoo’s walk in looking like the creepy twins from the Shining, except there’s three of them. Frost asks what they sensed, but they say they didn’t sense anything. Some other lady did. This lady has no eyeballs and she’s speaking nonsense talk! “He cannot leave, yes, thank you. I like him well. I ache. And worse. If he goes away, then, no thank you. Then the new one will come.” Really helpful, thanks lady.

Wing jumped from the cliff. There are about seven panels of him bleeding out on the ground.

Spread my wings and fly away… ♫ ♬

But the final page shows Wing bleeding out on the floor of a giant, empty, cylindrical lab room. And in this giant, empty, cylindrical lab room, there’s a giant computer with a screen that reads

“DANGER ROOM SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT: CAMPUS EXTERIOR”

“EXERCISE COMPLETE”

Final Thoughts

Markedly better already! Perhaps it helps that I’m not learning about an entire group of new people from scratch. The end is very intriguing. Suicide’s a bummer, though. There’s a hotline for that, though, these days.

That’s all I’ve got so far! See ya next time, you old Stepford Cuckoo you.