All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #8

* Part 3 of 5 of the Here to Stay storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New X-Men (Vol. 1) Issue #8! In the previous installment, Cyclops runs away to Manhattan and takes a bunch of items out of his – Old Cyclops’ – safety deposit box. Among the hundreds of dollars and some nifty ‘80s red sunglasses, he finds an invitation to his and Jean Grey’s wedding. Everyone makes sad faces.

A lot of the issue involved Raven Jennifer Lawrence showing up to manipulate the fuck out of Scott Summers because, as she later puts it so eloquently about the X-Men, “screw them”.

With Cyclops appropriately neutered and the rest of the Young X-Men slowly getting adjusted, it’s hard to say exactly where this is all going right now! My guess is the toilet.

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #8 [May, 2013]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

“Isn’t this the best?” Angel asks Young Angel, flap flap flapping his metal wings. “Remember all the time we spent with our wings tucked in our blazers?! We used to do that, right?”

“Could you slow down?” Young Angel puffs, flap flap flapping his feathery wings. “Why won’t you tell me what has happened to you?”

Angel grabs Young Angel by the arm. “Man, was Warren always like this? You’re like a coiled spring.”

Huh? Buh? But, but but but, but but, but you’re Warren too! Hubba what? “Well, huh, see, this is going to be hard for you. Warren was – I mean, we were born Warren but we are… Angel. I’m Angel. We – we’re Angel.”

THAT CLEARS IT UP! Not suspicious at all, really, if you squint and plug your ears. But hey, kid, Angel is just geeked to be seeing the “old model”, as if Young Angel was eventually destroyed and rebuilt by nanobots and replicants.

Before Young Angel has a chance to freak out even more, they both spot a raging inferno in the distance right at the location of Avengers Tower. Maybe Iron Man was cooking bacon naked next to a pile of oily rags?

“Your orders are clear. Let the world know that we are back!! HAIL HYDRA!” A really hot lady wearing a metal green Hydra suit rallies a team of similarly clad Hydra clan members. “Let them know that we are here to burn down this disgusting police state!” Fuck yeah, lady. I’m hella on board! I don’t know who wouldn’t be!

We should call the Coast Guard! We should call the Ghostbusters! We should call Sly and the Family Stone!

Oh, I guess Angel wouldn’t be. He tackles this lady to the ground. Just because she and her team are burning down Avengers Tower doesn’t mean she’s bad. I can see an upside to it, honestly! “Whoops, sorry to interrupt your villainous rant! You were really building to something there.” And then he starts beating up other Hydra grunts.

Fuck you, Angel. You didn’t save shit. You got in the way, big time. No wonder no one else is showing up. “Uh, um, Avengers assemble?” Angel says as he continues getting swarmed by Hydra soldiers. “That’s a thing, right?” Are these Hydra fools serious? The Avengers aren’t even home! “Are you beating up an empty building?”

Meanwhile, Young Angel is getting chased around like a little punk. Angel helps him with confidence, because Young Angel can’t die! If Young Angel dies, then Older Angel wouldn’t exist! So no matter how little he actually helps, he’s in the clear.

Unless Older Angel is the one who dies… but we’ll worry about that part later.

Angel continues taunting Hydra, poorly I might add. Stuff like “Tony Stark’s gonna call his lawyer!” and “Nice green color, idiots.”

Young Angel really wants backup here. “Can we call the rest of the X-Men now?” he begs. “Sure,” Older Angel replies, “do you have a phone?”

Har har. Hot Hydra Lady is like “no no no no this can’t be” while the Hydra shits tries to fill Young Angel full of fiery ballistics! One of his wings gets singed, and now it’s personal…

…but he gets thrown to the ground and flanked by five Hydra robots. “Target surrounded. He’s a kid,” one says. “He’s a mutant! Execute him!” says another. Sounds like a coin toss here. Kid or mutant? Call it now or forever hold your peace.

They try to blow Young Angel up, but it doesn’t work. This kind of shit never works. The guns on the Hydra ships go like “SCABAMSCABAMSCABAM”, which is terrible gun onomatopoeia. Try this next time: BLAM BAM BOOM POW HONK SQUEAK

Heaven sucks anyway. It’s all just clouds and religious people.

“Two of them and a hundred of you!” Hydra Lady says, rallying the troops. She pulls out a gun the size of a boom box and revs it up, ready to blast these Angel bitches to kingdom come.

…and then the motherfucking Avengers show up to ruin my X-Men comic book. Hawkeye, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and some lady that isn’t Black Widow or Scarlet Witch. She shoots fire. Does Scarlet Witch shoot fire? Someone call Elizabeth Olsen.

The Angels let the Avengers do the fighting for a bit. Older Angel offers to heal Younger Angel, but Younger Angel is like “Healing powers?! Riddikulus!” Then Thor shows up to thank them for defending their home, which has likely already burned to the ground by now.

“You know there’s two of you, right?” Hawkeye observes observantly.

“Why are there two of you?” Cap asks with his trademark big dumb expression on his face.

Let’s return to the Jean Grey School for “Higher” Learning where the Avengers decide to cramp their style and land their awful, probably really loud, jet onto the front lawn. “Henry, may I speak to you for a moment?” Captain America says, barging into the school like he owns the place. The X-Men aren’t having it. They don’t give seven fucks, let alone two, let alone one fuck, what Captain America has to tell them, but they have a pretty good guess: “Don’t mess with the space-time continuum, guys. Come on, now.”

While Beast speaks with Cap, Iceman and Kitty Pryde mock Cap while Kitty Pryde tries to hide her laughter. “’Don’t talk to me with your double-talking space science jibber-jabber! I’m from 1940! I don’t understand how you people do it with your Model T Fords and your ladies that walk around with your arms uncovered!”

Young Scott decides to be diplomatic. He marchs right over to Captain America and gives him a piece of his mind!

…

“Hello, Captain. I’ve been studying up on recent events. I realize that you and I have found ourselves on different sides of the fence on a lot of issues. I wanted to let you know that I plan on doing everything I can to make it right. I hope you give me the chance.”

Well, that was unexpected! The Avengers just stand there boggling at him, most of all Cap with his resting boggled face. Wolverine gives him a rare smile. “Nicely done.”

OK, well, I specifically said “please” so let’s try this again.

All Beast can do is try to keep Cap in the loop, whatever the loop actually might be. The time loop? Because we’re all in the time loop, sonny.

The Avengers fuck off in their jet mere moments before a very screechy alarm goes off in Beast’s lab. They deduce that it’s Young Warren and he’s going to mess with the Time Cube! Is this the first mention of the Time Cube? What the hell is the Time Cube? I don’t remember the Time Cube!

Young Warren is scrambling to manually override the TIME CUBE and turn off the alarm, but a couple of meddling X-Men run into the lab.

“What are you doing?” asks Young Scott.

“I’m going home,” responds Young Warren. “I don’t like it here.”

No! You have to stay, we’re all in this together! Well, Scott says we’re all in this together. Some of us don’t want to be all in this together, clearly. “Have you seen me?” Warren cries. “Have you seen what I’ve become? Something really bad happened to me. I don’t want to be here.” Tears streaming down his cheeks, he yells that he doesn’t want to do any of this anymore. He wants to quit the school, get far, far away from “you people”.

Mid-rant, Young Warren suddenly stops. The others stare at him. Warren continues being still and silent. “Is he having a stroke?” Iceman asks. Then Young Warren perks up with a giant smile on his face. “What’s for lunch?” he asks. “Is anybody else starving? I’m starving?”

Jean Grey walks into the room, having just dug herself deep into Young Warren’s brain and messed with his neurons and dopamine levels or some such.

Nothing to see here. Do not adjust your TV set. Big brother isn’t watching. Keep calm and carry on. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Ten-four, good buddies.

“You’re not allowed to go digging into people’s minds and just change them for your own reason?” Young Hank says sternly.

“Henry, don’t you of all people start lecturing me on using your God-given things for selfish purposes.” That’s a fair point. Hank does use his God-given dick for selfish reasons constantly.

“I can read your minds,” Grey says, walking away. “Stop worrying. I’m in total control.”

Everyone looks very worried.