Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 4), Issue #4

* Part 4 of 5 of the Survival of the Fittest storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 4), Issue #4! In the previous installment, the Dark Riders continue trying to kill healers while this F-list X-Men team tries to save all the healers they can and drop them off in Genosha where they will be “safe”. How? I have no idea. I don’t particularly give a shit, either.

I looked up a picture of Cullen Bunn and he looks like the kind of “nice guy” who thinks he’s owed sex after every platonic encounter with a woman, even if she’s a waitress at T.G.I. Friday’s. He also looks like a less albino version of Brother Ali, which is not a compliment.

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

The New York branch of the Hellfire Club are enjoying a festive masquerade, replete with alcohol, dancing, and orgy rooms. And while 99% of the patrons are wearing traditional eye-masks and ornate, flowery hats, one guy is standing there suspiciously with a fucking ninja hood. One woman points out that this man looks more… interesting… than the rest of the crowd. She then asks the guy to ask her to dance, which he obliges.

The charade is over. These two know each other. One is Fantomex. The other is Mystique. They’re about 15 kinds of coy with each other. Fantomex wishes Mystique was dead, lol. Mystique wishes Fantomex would just fuck her and get it over with, lol lol. Fantomex doesn’t have much time for any games. “I’ve discovered something new in regards to our friends at the Someday Corporation. The mutants under their ‘protection’ have become little more than lab rats… experimented upon… augmented with technology I know all too–”

Mystique shushes Fantomex and tells him the Inner Council doesn’t have time for his discovery. The Inner Council wants the two of them to work together now to send Someday a message. And it’s this: “There’s a bomb in the lasagna.” Ha! Do you get the reference? If so, you’re as sad as I am.

Fantomex groans about this new arrangement while the laugh track roars. WHAT WACKY HIJINKS WILL THESE TWO ASSUREDLY GET INTO???

Let’s see what’s going on in Genosha right now. Triage is talking to Magneto. Magneto plans to send his scrappy team of literal misfits to fight the Dark Riders. “They’re Inhumans… at least some of them are… chosen by Apocalypse to cull the weak from the Earth,” Triage confirms. Magneto agrees. “What I’m saying is…” Triage continues. “There’s a good chance some of your crew is going to get jacked up.”

Yeah, no shit. Jacked up is the least of what will happen. That’s why Magneto has a healer next to him in Genosha. So he can be uninvolved in helping. Make sense? No? Well, allow Grandpa Magneto to explain himself:

“The Dark Riders view the current state of the world – the Terrigen mists that are killing our people – as a kind of weaponized natural selection. They are targeting mutant healers in some bid to speed our race on its way to extinction. Taking you on a mission that brings us into direct conflict with our enemies–”

Triage gets it. That’s some not-smarty stuff. “You must realize you can’t protect us all,” Triage tells Magneto. Magneto is silent at this smarty response. We’ll see how this will pan out (everyone but Triage will be killed, and Triage will rule the mutants and rename himself “Mr. Healer” is my guess).

Meanwhile, the Dark Riders are in Tibet with Xorn who doesn’t seem to be afraid that the one called Barrage is pointing a ginormous gun at the back of his head.

What he’s saying is that Xorn can’t stop masturbating in front of them. It’s enough to make a grown man blush.

“It’s strange…” Xorn says, gun in his face. “You talk about the death of the mutant race, but you have mutants among you.”

They argue about mutants for a few panels. Xorn posits that even if they kill every mutant healer on Earth, there is of course the possibility that healing can show up as a secondary mutation in the existing population. Then what, jive turkey?

Xorn then scares the Dark Riders by killing Barrage with brain electricity, and then the Dark Riders teleport out of there to Egypt.

“This isn’t right! Whines Deadbolt, the glowing blue skeleton man. “We’re strong! Barrage was strong! He wasn’t meant to fall… not to some pacifist monk!”

One of the Dark Riders shuts up Deadbolt by erasing his fear and doubt and replacing it with the True Gospel, which sounds sketchy as hell and not something I’d sign up for personally.

Meanwhile, Psylocke and M and the Third-Rate Wolverine are flying around Egypt looking for the Dark Riders’ hideout. Psylocke knows they’re here somewhere because she scanned their minds! You know, because any other way would be silly.

Archangel flies out nowhere and crashes into an ancient pyramid, obliterating it. Now that they’ve opened up an entrance, it’s time to infiltrate their filthy pyramid lair. They all jump out of the aircraft without a parachute – they even mention how jumping out of an aircraft without a parachute is batshit crazy – and then land softly and safely.

Smells like grandma’s catheter bag.

After trying to sneak around clandestinely and unnecessarily arguing amongst themselves, the X-Men get ambushed by the Dark Riders. The fight is long, rife with one-liners and other forms of talking that only serve to waste time.

Harddrive, a Dark Rider who is plugged into many computers, keeps an eye on the fight and on Triage/Magneto hanging around Genosha. Tabs, you know. Gotta keep ‘em on people.

In a brilliant flash of purple light, probably because they were losing like dogs, the Dark Riders teleport out of the fray. “I think this fight was pointless for them,” Psylocke says grumpily. “We aren’t their targets.”

It’s about this moment that the stones collapse over the X-Men, trapping them in the ruins of the pyramid. Psylocke realizes that this is a diversion while they go after Triage and Magneto in Genosha.