Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3) Issue #9 – “Dangerous (Part 3)”! In the previous installment, it is revealed that Wing died in a place called the Danger Room, a location in the school that’s intended to be a panic room for the students when something large and mean threatens the school!

Speaking of which, something large and mean threatened the school! Sentinel, a big giant robot, was dug up from the ground by a couple of hicks and it made its way to Professor Xavier’s 100% Natural Good-Time Family School Solution. The X-Mens beat it up, but when Kitty Pryde took the students to the Danger Room, the door disappeared! And to add insult to injury, Dead Wing became Zombie Wing and now he’s gonna murder the whole student body while they’re trapped in there.

Something funny’s going on! The X-Mens are being set up! But by who? And what? And how? And where? And why? And when??

These are the questions that need answering!

Astonishing X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #9 [March, 2005]
Written by: Joss Whedon
“Dangerous (Part 3)”

Look at all dem skulls on dat dere cover. Seems ominous?

“The Danger Room is angry?” asks Scott The Cyclops. As you may remember, the last thing that was said in the last issue was “The Danger Room is angry.” That’s what we in the business call “continuity”.

Frost is like “yeah that sounds kinda stupid, sorry”, but she asks what everyone knows about the room’s higher functioning systems. Cyclops and Beast confirm that the room is way far-out, man; even above Beast’s understanding. And Beast is a smart cookie! Stuff like “replicate any matter, any color, distort spatial awareness, create worlds”, sounds pretty complicated! Definitely way over the head of the average, say, comic book reader.

Cyclops asks if it has become sentient, but Frost says that it’s always been sentient. Something about being outfitted with Shi’ar technology, and all of that stuff is sentient. Duh. However, this is different. “It mutated.” she says, using words that will resonate with everyone in the room!

Whoa whoa whoa, we’re just throwing the M-word around casually these days?

Finally, the group collectively goes “oh shit, there’s a bunch of kids stuck in there. Also Kitty Pryde.” Frost uses her Frosty telepathy to determine that no kid has been killed yet. She also uses her Frosty telepathy to understand that the Danger Room has unfathomable power, and violence is all it knows.

So that’s a kick in the clackers.

Back inside the Danger Room, the place looks like a literal vision of Hell. And that’s with a capital H, my friend. Fire, demons, bottomless pits, it’s pretty scary. Kitty Pryde is pretty scared. But she’s trying to maintain composure.

Yeah, that looks fun. Weeeeeeee….

Zombie Wing is hovering in the air, and Pryde punches him right in his zombie face. “Thought you weren’t a fighter, Kitten. You were right here when you said that.” says Zombie Wing, obviously possessed by the consciousness of someone else maybe perhaps I think? Pryde demands that the entity lets the rest of the kids go, but the entity speaking through Zombie Wing says that HE makes the fucking rules around here BITCH! BITCH! AAAHHHH!H!!!HH!H! BITCH BITCH! Sorry, I had another stroke.

The large metal Colossus guy is trying to battering ram his way into the room, but no such luck. They decide to try to find where the Danger Room’s…uh, server room…is located so they can shut it down. Peter Colossus volunteers to look, and that means he crashes through the ceiling immediately and tears through every single electric wire that he can find. The X-Men stare in awe at his determination, and even Wolverine has to take a step back and admit to himself that Peter Colossus is really back with them! The Kitty Pryde lady, something tells me that she means a lot to him! That’s what we in the business call “intuition”.

He meant, like, killing bugs probably. Are you sure he didn’t program you to be pest control?

Zombie Wing is torturing and electrocuting students for fun. Kitty Pryde asks if he’s supposed to be God. Zombie Wing says “Do you doubt it?”

The Danger Room scenery changes to an expansive desert, mirroring the whole Moses thing. “Playing with the Danger Room controls doesn’t make you a God. It makes you a gamer.” Pryde says, which is a pretty sick burn actually. She asks the entity what he did with Wing, and the entity responds that Wing died so he could live.

Colossus is still chopping through electric wires. You probably shouldn’t send the guy made of metal to do that job, but hey, I think he might be ok anyw- nope, it looks like he gets electrocuted. Or some lasers shoot him. Either way, he comes crashing back down to where the other X-Men are standing.

Beast wants a turn! He goes through the hole in the ceiling that Colossus made during his crash-through. Meanwhile, Wolverine surmises that, if the Danger Room sent Sentinel to destroy the school, then it’s likely that the room may be in communication with someone–or something–else.

Immediately, we see a three-panel montage of an airplane in a hangar whose engines turn on by themselves…

Zombie Wing yammers while the desert sand turns into a pile of skulls…like the cover art…of a Slayer album. Shortly after, these crazy, misshapen, dystopian towers begin to rise from the ground, throwing kids and skulls every which way!

Pryde gets snotty with Zombie Wing and insists, yet again, to leave the kids alone. Zombie Wing acquiesces, sort of, and the kids are no longer visibly present in the room.

Good thing I’m not People! Ha!

“It might do to remember that people is not what I am. I am environment. Hostile.” Zombie Wing tells Pryde with words that don’t do a grammar good. Pryde is trying to understand what’s going on, but aren’t we fucking all, huh? Zombie Wing starts to become more and more incomprehensible, spouting off proverbs and metaphors. Then he says “I was a beast trained to kill and then caged forever.”

It’s about this time that we see Beast hanging around the computer brain, which probably explains Zombie Wings sudden shift in focus of thought. Or at least, at that moment, we see the parallels.

I could help him ONLY by helping him harm himself! So…a win in my book.

Anyway, Zombie Wing’s insane in the mainframe. He goes on to say that he had one purpose and he would never live to see it come into fruition, until the “change”.

“Miss Frost would call it mutation. I dislike that word. That’s Father’s word. I transcended.”

At this time the airplane, which appears to have been underground, bursts through a house and coasts skyward.

Next, the Danger Room shows the image of Regular Wing balancing on the precipice. “With his death, I finally overcame my programming.” says Zombie Danger Room Computer Brain Wing.

The airplane crashes through the school and starts opening fire on the X-Men! Just as Beast was about to destroy the computer brain! “Next time guys, we should just rebuild this place outta Lego.” says Wolverine, always the cut-up! Always the comic fucking relief! They run for cover.

Pryde is still trying to reason with Cuckoo Bananas over here. “If you’ve really transcended your programming, then stop all this. If you still need to kill, you’re still a slave.”

But Zombie Computer Wing is a step ahead. He knows the X-Men are trying to shut him down. It’s survival mode, baby! We see Colossus running full speed ahead, acting as a bullet shield. We see Wolverine run up to the computer brain. He’s about to swipe at it with his claws.

“What do you think your teammates are about to do to me?” Zombie Wing asks.
“Exactly what you want them to.” Pryde answers.

And then Zombie Wing, looking more like Regular Wing, just shrugs coyly.

Ain’t I a stinker?

Brain go boom.
Zombie Wing disappears.
The room goes back to normal.
All the kids are still there, confused.

Pryde sees Wolverine and yells at him to stop. “He’s trying to get you to free its command core.” she tries to tell him. But it’s too late.

The command core done been freed.

The X-Men, in a stupor, lay their eyes upon who emerges.

And it’s some big goddamn robot Medusa lady.

“Shall we begin?” it says.

Final Thoughts

Of all nine issues I’ve read of Astonishing X-Men so far, this was the most overtly Whedon-y one yet. I’ve seen glimpses of the Whedon trademark before, but this one was full-on Buffy storyline material. Enormous diabolical entities turning on schoolchildren, villains playing real mind games with the victims, religious undertones, stakes that seem larger than life. Whedon’s a master at that kind of storytelling. I’m glad he’s flexing more on this arc.

This is way better than the Gifted arc. Hopefully I didn’t speak too soon just now.