East of West, Issue #20 – “The Nation Rises”

* Part 5 of 14 of the The Apocalypse: Year Two storyline *

Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #20 – “The Nation Rises”! Maybe this one is actually the Viagra commercial issue. Oh me oh my. In the previous installment, Babylon spends quite a bit of time murdering warthogs and pigs in the woods under Balloon Orb’s direction.

He is being told now to murder his enemies before he even knows that they’re enemies! Sounds like it’s really going to be Balloon’s enemies. I wonder if he has a list like Richard Nixon.

East of West, Issue #20 [August, 2015]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“The Nation Rises”

East of West, Issue #20

Hey, we haven’t seen many of the goings-on at the White Tower lately. Madame LeVay and her trusty BDSM lackey Doma Lux are discussing their frustrating misfortunes with respect to sending their diplomatic messengers to the Endless Nation. Three envoys sent, three heads in boxes sent back.

Actually, Lux tells LeVay that it’s not all heads. One of them might contain a torso and/or a butt! It’s so mutilated it’s hard to tell for sure. At any rate, one of these days the Endless Nation is going to have to talk to the Union. Keep sending the lambs to the slaughter, Lux. Keep going down the list! Maybe the 865th time will be the charm, but we’ll never know unless we keep pushing it! Chop chop, now.

Nah, they’ve already sent a slew of people already. They’re running out of the peskier individuals: political enemies, minor donors, and Donald Trump Jr. Jr. Jr.

“I need to think outside the box,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“What I need is someone I can trust,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“It would also have to be someone higher up,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“Someone whose very presence brings a certain amount of gravity,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.
“Someone extremely close to me,” LeVay says. Lux agrees.

East of West, Issue #20

WHOOPS! You just over-agreed yourself into a suicide mission. Next time try slinking away quietly.

Hey, Lux! Look what an endless cycle of yes-manning and lickspittling has gone for you! Get your jacket, it’s time to visit the Endless Nation!

“Pay close attention. Your enemies are everywhere.”

“What are you really, Child?”

House of Mao flashback. I know this because Daddy Mao has not yet been decapitated. Not that I can see. I can’t tell. He is walking and talking.

“If I told you that your were nothing, some of you – most of you, perhaps – would believe me… As to be something, one must have value.”

Mao is addressing his army, except they’re sitting in rows cross-legged and wearing Dalai Lama robes. He chides them all, calling them useless and wasteful and broken and weak. It’s for no other reason but they have failed to lift themselves up. By their bootstraps! Let’s git ‘er done!

Perhaps they’re all failures because their homelands are failures. They’re just no good. Does Mao’s army comprise recruits from other areas of the Divided States of America? Are these people that defected, or are refugees, or are defected refugees??

Mao is looking to right the wrongs. He’s their savior! “Among you, the observant will have noticed that all of you are a certain age. This is intentional, as with the passing of time the lies you have lived become unwavering truths. The cornerstones of a personal religion based on doubt, fear and defeat. But you, you can still be SAVED.”

Yap yap yap yap yap. Yada yada, from this day forward they are all Widowmakers. While Mao flaps his gums, we see a large jet barrelling its way through the sky. Over the desert lands, into Endless Nation territory. Between two guards standing on top of pedestals. Weaving around the sparsely distributed, creepy futuristic high-rises. Heading toward a terrifying urban landscape at the bottom of the canyon, complete with this awful head in the middle of it all.

East of West, Issue #20

Hey, I wanted to visit Toronto. But NOOOOOOOO…

It’s the Machine City, and the large jet contains the diplomatic representatives of the Endless Nation who tried to strike up an alliance deal with Xiaolian. “It’s done. The PRA has agreed to support us.”

However, Chief, there are terms. Certainly there are terms. Xiaolian demands all the Lucky Charms that we have in our reserves, AND a couple of tickets to see “Donald Trump Jr. Jr. on Ice” live in November. He’s going on the “my son was murdered by the Endless Nation” tour.

Chief is neutral about the news and suspects that arrangements were made beyond his instructions. It ends up being true. Shaman backpedals. I mean, things were tough. Xiaolian drove a hard bargain! Lots of tense deliberation and nineteen-dimensional chess here. And she really wanted those tickets and–

The Chief grips his head in exasperation, but he takes his Chief helmet off. Shaman has with him a couple of PRA mofos with the hand tattoos on their faces. “I’m sure the sanctity of our city is something our guests naturally recognize, Shaman,” Chief withholds any wrist-slappings (this time), “As the PRA are… relocated people just as we are. They do not need the importance of borders explained to them,” he says as the two PRA mofos make themselves at home.

East of West, Issue #20

We have so much in common! We even finish each other’s sandwiches.

“Welcome friends,” Chief says, welcoming the friends, “I suppose you have a message for me.”

Yes, they certainly do have a message. Ahem! Ahem hem hem! Cough! Basically it’s this: you should consider yourselves lucky that Xiaolian’s “sphere” of goals and expectations align nicely with the Endless Nation’s “sphere” at the moment. This alignment won’t last forever, be warned. BUT, it might, with some… er… uh… cooperation. Yes, yes. Until the end of time, please.

Aha, well, that’s bold of you. But he respects that! Too many leaders of this splintered Former United States just beat around the bush and lie and cheat and steal and commit blatant murders right in front of everyone’s eyes.

“It’s good to know where one stands, isn’t it Shaman?” Chief puffs his cigarette.
“It is a gift… The knowledge of who is on your side…” Shaman agrees blankly, “And who is your enemy.”
“Yes it is. And we should celebrate that contrast. Come with me… and I’ll show you the difference.”

This is the part where Doma Lux’s ugly ship lands in the Endless Nation’s Machine City. She is flanked by two of her armed guards while she holds a box, hunched over like Quasimodo.

Two alarming Endless Nation spheres appear in front of them. “Okay. Easy boys…” Lux hazards a few phrases of timid reassurance, “We’re going to get through this just fine.”

Or not.

East of West, Issue #20

Come on, men. This is not the time to lose your heads here!

Freshly decapitated armed guards notwithstanding, Lux continues forward. Terrified. For the first time in 20 issues, she legitimately looks in over her head.

“Ah. Such generosity… The Great Union offers of yet another ambassador,” Chief comments wryly from his Chief Throne, surrounded by his people, “We keep sending them back… but the message implied seems to get muddled on the journey home.”

I speak quite freely and often about comic book characters pooping their pants, but no one has pooped their pants in any instance quite like Lux has right now. She starts gibbering, frightened as all get-out. “Seriously? President LeVay believes that if she keeps sending envoys, eventually you’ll open a dialogue.”

“And there are gifts,” she adds meekly.

Pffft, go to hell with your gifts! Go to hell and say hi to the devil and stay there.

Please, sir. LeVay comes in peace! No foolin’! She doesn’t want war! Only peace! And she wants you there, Chief! She has other pressing matters, not bombs and tanks and warships and DEFCON 1s!

East of West, Issue #20

Bombs and tanks and warships and DEFCON 1s… I like the sound of that. Give me one of each with extra mayo.

Listen, lady. Your president may not want war, but the Endless Nation wants war. They’re savoring this. They have no interest in cooperating with the stinky Union. Off with you! You get to live today, Lux, because you’ll continue to be a necessary plot vehicle. BUT, relay this message to your president: go to hell and say hi to the devil and etc.

Lux drops the box. It contains blood and guts? That’s not a cool gift. Chief is going to be an Indian giver! Yuck, I’m really sorry about that one. Anyway, she won’t get off that easily. Quadraplegic time! Lux owes the Endless Nation her arms and legs. It’s only fair. “Do you require an anesthetic?” one of the giant, android-esque guards asks the quivering woman politely.

“Go to hell,” she says, beefing up her gumption once again. The throws a punch at the android. It goes “DONK”. She hurts her hand something terrible!

Android returns the favor with an unrelenting punch right in the kisser.

She coughs and falls to the floor and she’s bleeding everywhere and her face is all banged up and she smiles and grunts out a “that’s all you got?”

“My father hit harder than that,” Lux tells the robot boldly.

Another punch to the face causes a PRA guy to demand a halt to this brutality. He unsheaths and unfolds his cute compact sword.

“Look at me, girl. You know who I am, don’t you?”
“Yuh-yes… you are a Maoist… from the House of Mao.”
“Yes, and you have been disposed of, abandoned here to your fate. But I look at you and wonder… do you still have value?”

East of West, Issue #20

Yeah, she sure looks useful. She looks like a million bucks.

“What is the meaning of this?” growls Sir-Chiefs-a-Lot. Why, it’s simple. The meaning of this is that Lux, too, has been relocated. Just like the Maoists. Just like the Endless nation. Diaspora and all that jazz.

Welcome, Widowmaker! You will make widows now. Flashback to Mr. Mao teaching his people what it actually means to be a Widowmaker. “Some of you – the very best – will stay here with me as my personal guard. An illusion that this is all that your are, but the rest…”

“…I send you back out into the world. I send you back from where you came.”

“You will return to the ones who abandoned you, and to the nations who cast you out.”

“And there you will work in secret for our great state.”

We see this particular Maoist, sitting among the several thousand other Maoists, grasp the pale hand of the short-haired, dark-haired, dark-eyed person behind him.

“My Widowmaker… lying in wait.”

Final Thoughts

What the FUCK is going on? Are they implying that Lux is a Maoist who has been maintaining the illusion of loyalty and spying on the Union? To what end? The Union is barely even a key player in all this business! The Union is barely even a state! The Union looks worse than Detroit! Well, almost worse.


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Make Your Existential Crisis Work for You!

I don’t believe in God. It would be nice if I did, but I don’t. It’s just not in my blood, yo. It’s just not my style, Jack. I don’t rule out the idea altogether, though! If I had clear evidence of a God or an afterlife, I would consider it. As it stands now, if push came to shove and I needed to stop straddling the agnosticism fence because Mike Pence has a gun to my head and needs to me to choose a second before he kills me righteously, then I would stand by my gut conviction that, no, God doesn’t exist. However, it’s more complicated than that. Here’s what I’ve settled on and accepted for myself with respect to this philosophy:

1) God may or may not exist and we’ll never know, even after we die.
2) The existence of God is inconsequential.

THEREFORE, I firmly believe that if God does exist (and it may be in some way or form that has nothing to do with the manner in which every religion in the universe has decided), then worshipping such a God is a waste of time anyway! Like, what are you doing? If you had an ant farm in your bedroom, and the ants all collectively, as a little ant society, decided to worship your ugly, pimply face as their God, what the fuck are you going to do to ensure their eternal afterlife accommodations? How could you possibly be in charge of that? The most you can do is smite them if they piss you off. Like, if they barely make a dent in your ant farm dirt and all their tunnels are lackluster, then you can settle their earthly fates with a toilet or a magnifying glass. It’s not like you have any control over them afterward, though. Then it begs the question as to why some petty, immature adult child should be worshipped at all in the first place. Right? Yes. Thank you.

You’re not fooling anyone, lady. Those wings are fake. You’ll be dead and extinguished from the universe with the rest of us.

Where does that leave me? For starters, the petrifying concept of eternal oblivion! Exciting!

Let’s flesh that one out, shall we?

– Hey, Tom! Forget about oblivion for a moment! Let’s say an afterlife does exist! Heaven or Hell! Wouldn’t it be better to just assume that Heaven and Hell are real and definite? Then you can live your life with the knowledge that either reward or torture awaits based on the decisions you make during life!

Yes, ok, that’s not a very good point at all, but I’ll indulge. The ideas of “reward” and “punishment” mean nothing to an unconscious brain. If you believe in a soul, then you also believe in some sort of consciousness associated with that soul. As in, your “self” as a dead person, whatever that might be, would be able to actually experience this reward or this punishment. That doesn’t fly with me.

Then, there’s the very human concept of justice. Do good stuff and you deserve good things. Do bad stuff and you deserve bad things. Every religion has its own distribution of morals and ethics into respective “right” and “wrong” categories. Murder? Bad! Helping? Good! Abortion? Bad! Sustaining damage to parts of your brain that control emotion, cognition, empathy, and social behavior, resulting in shooting up a Dairy Queen? Gray area! Dying before baptism? Bad! Performing a reprehensible action with complete ignorance? Maybe ok! Maybe bad! There’s too much ambiguity to almost all human actions, thoughts, and behaviors! If I tell God to go fuck himself at age 14, is that it? No going back? Harumph!

In short, no, I don’t think it’s healthy to base all your morals and ethics upon the possibility of getting a reward at the end of the day. Then, arguably, you’re not really doing it because you want to. You’re doing it out of fear of the punishment.

♪♫ If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawn mower! ♫♪♫♫

– Hey, Tom! All that sounds kind of rude and callous, but to each his own! Let’s go back to oblivion now! Is the thought of eternal bliss way more appealing than eternal oblivion? Even if you don’t believe in God nor an afterlife, isn’t the idea of happiness that lasts forever appealing?

No. Here’s the most haunting quote I’ve ever read about this subject. It’s from Hendrik Willem van Loon’s book The Story of Mankind, a fucking book for children, from 1921.

“High in the North in a land called Svithjod there is a mountain. It is one hundred miles long and one hundred miles high, and once every thousand years a little bird comes to this mountain to sharpen its beak. When the mountain has thus been worn away a single day of eternity will have passed.”

Chilling. If one believes, in some way, that consciousness persists past death, then I believe that the very notion of anything lasting forever is panic-inducing. It sounds unfathomably torturous. I’d want to kill myself! And I wouldn’t be able to! I’d need a goddamn out, man. Even if I was completely chickenshit about afterlife suicide for seventeen quadrillion years, I’d still be more comfortable knowing that I could end it completely once and for all at some point.

Therefore, eternal nothingness sounds way more appealing once you realize that you wouldn’t be conscious. It sounds awful now because I certainly AM conscious at this point in time, and even the knowledge that I was unconscious for 1010,000,00010,000,000 years prior to being alive doesn’t really make me feel any better about what comes after. Psychologically, an eternity in the direction of the past is less terrifying than an eternity in the direction of the future. It’s not like I minded then. Why would I mind later? Because I think I would! For some reason.

Ohhhh shit. I needed to stop for gas but no fucking way, man.

– Hey, Tom! You sure are writing a lot of boring words that I’m barely paying attention to! I have one final question, though! HOW, exactly, are you making this existential crisis work for you? Huh? You see that post title up there? Try that one on for size, hotshot!

OK, you called my bluff! Nothing works for me. I’ve read dozens of articles and ideas and analogies and theories and philosophical musings in order to find something I find even somewhat agreeable. Every time I find an opinion about the aftermath of death that was slightly reassuring (you don’t care now about the eternity before you were born, and you won’t care about the eternity after you die), I’d find something else that was unspeakably horrifying (at the time of death, what’s left of your dwindling consciousness will initiate a near-infinite time dilation slowdown of your perception, causing a true eternity of conscious absolute nothingness).

So here’s the closest I’ve come to accepting theories that seems simultaneously plausible and comforting:

1)  The concept of “existing” is a construct that our brains invented to maintain our arrogant idea of self-importance. Not “existing” anymore is just the way things eventually have to be for anything, including the universe, and I’m not going to be around to give a shit when any of that happens.
Here’s some corny stuff coming up, but I have decided to fully agree with it: There’s an infinitesimal chance of you existing at this point in time in this part of the universe. But it happened. And if you’re reading this right now, chances are very good that you ended up in one of those prosperous first-world English-speaking countries. It’s a gift. So make the most of it.

Oh, that’s not that comforting? How about this: If you think about it, you become unconscious every night when you sleep. Not fully, but you know what I mean. And you don’t give a damn. You go to bed at 5am and you spend 14 hours not knowing 14 hours passed and then you wake up at 7pm. That’s everyone’s experience, right? Maybe you’re normal and sleep 18 hours a day! In either case, now imagine going to sleep and, instead of 18 hours passing by, you never wake up again! Not so bad, is it? Ha!

Oh hey there, sailor. You come around here often?…

2) Never, ever waking up again isn’t as scary as I initially had multiple lung-destroying panic attacks about.
I spent a lot of time rationalizing my way through this one and I don’t think I’ve fully wrapped my head around this idea, but endless oblivion can be tackled with this thought exercise:

Let’s say you get hit in the head by a flying Christmas fruitcake and you’re knocked into a coma. You have no absolutely no idea. You’re blissfully unaware that you’re only alive because of a fucking tube, and you’re getting hellishly nasty bedsores that you can’t even feel anyway. We’re going to completely take out the emotional factor with respect to losing loved ones, feeling like your life was wasted, everything in society being completely different, global warming, etc. etc. This is purely “I’m alive” stuff.

OK, nix that. Pretend you were cryogenically frozen and preserved! That way you won’t make decomposing flesh arguments!

-Let’s say you wake up unfrozen in 60 days. Two months. Not so bad, right? You suddenly jumped ahead two months, and you’re none the wiser. You might feel disoriented that you missed out on time, but you didn’t even know that this missing out was even happening.

-Let’s say, instead, you wake up unfrozen after 60 months. That’s five years. Very disorienting, but it was a blink of an eye. You’re alive, and that’s what matters now.

-Let’s say, instead, you wake up in 60 years. A blink of an eye from your perspective, right? We’re still ok.

-6,000 years! 1.5x the age of Earth! In the blink of an eye! For all intents and purposes, you did not exist that entire time, but here you are, fresh out of your stinky cryogenic state, completely unaffected mentally by this lapse of time. Still doesn’t seem that daunting, right?

-6,000,000,000,000,000,000 years! That’s 18 zeroes! Six quintillion years have gone by! You didn’t even notice. It almost feels refreshing. The universe is only 13.7 billion years old, and this is literally 437,956,204 times longer! 438 MILLION TIMES LONGER! All that time did not matter one fucking bit. You could go another six quintillion!

– Are you headed for a point here anytime soon?

Yes! No more finite numbers. Here we go…

-Infinity? Holy shit, dude. No. No thanks. That’s absolutely terrifying.

But why? Why is that scary when a 1 with nine million zeroes on the end isn’t? It’s because the mere thought of waking up again makes the impossible-to-fathom stretch of time bearable. No matter how long it is, it’s fine. No matter what, we want to just exist. Not existing is against everything everyone ever strives for!

Fine, you win. I’ll believe whatever you want me to, just keep those skeletons away from me. They give me the willies.

As far as I’m concerned, infinity is the last roadblock, and it’s the last construct to tear down. Infinity isn’t really a “time”. It’s a state. Once you remove the time aspect and think of it as a state of being (er, not-being), it becomes a little…less scary? Maybe not entirely. But we’re getting there!

– You don’t actually have any ideas on how to make your existential crisis actually work for you, do you?

Not as such, no. But banging out this post has certainly helped me put some of my thoughts out of my head! That helps. Sorry you read it, though. You should go back to a state of being where you didn’t click the link to get here.


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All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

* Part 4 of 5 of the Yesterday’s X-Men storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New X-Men (Vol. 1) Issue #4! In the previous installment, the new mutant team of Cyclops, Magneto, and sort-of-Emma Frost learn the hard way that their powers are acting up. Uncontrollable and/or not working correctly. Cyclops is a blubbering mess, having spent much of his life trying to control them and now he’s back at square one. Magneto and Emma are pissed at Scott for causing this shit to happen in the first place. Magik Illyana seems to actually have gained some powers, so she’s happy as a mutant clam.

A college kid accidentally displays his freakish powers during a school protest. When the new mutant team pops in to introduce themselves, the Young X-Men clan of sweating 12-year-olds also show up to stop them!

These children are gonna get so many noogies.

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4 [February, 2013]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Old, tired, beat-up, raggedy, pathetic-looking Cyclops, with his visor sputtering and flashing, he finally thinks to himself that he’s really gone and lost his mind now. So much has happened in life, but now he’s finally admitting it. Reality keeps blurring into fantasy. Mutants! Powers! But time-travel? Come on, now.

Perhaps Emma’s lying about her loss of powers. Nah, she’s too fucking mad about stuff right now. Hmm…but she’s always kind of mad, isn’t she? But then again, if she actually didn’t lose her powers then there’s no way she’d allow Scott to think the thinky thoughts he’s thinking right now! At least he thinks so! Haha!

Perhaps Professor Xavier is doing all this! Oh wait, he’s dead! He’s decomposing! Zombie Xavier? Pfft, no way, his legs don’t work. Ain’t no zombie wheeling around in a chair around these parts. But maybe he’s not really dead. Maybe he’s invisible! Maybe he’s invisible and right in front of Scott’s nose. Maybe Scott can’t feel him either. Maybe Xavier is smooching him on the lips right now.

“He wants to see who I was when he loved me. When I was everything that he wanted me to be,” Scott mulls it over. Evidence toward the smooching, if you ask me.

Xavier sent 12-year-old versions of themselves in order to illustrate the point that Scott has really lost his way over the course of these past couple of decades. Right? How old is Scott Summers, like 92?

But no, that can’t be it. Dead is dead, and Xavier’s dead. Not even smart enough to stay alive. What an idiot.

So who would do such a thing? Who would punish Scott so…so…so viciously. Waaahhh! Boo hoo! Blub blub blub!!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Yes! Thank you! Yeesh.

Old Cyclops literally stands there staring at all these youngins while ruminating. The silence must be awkward. It’s probably been three straight minutes already! No one dares make a move…until Scott starts thinking about how beautiful and sexy and bonable a young prepubescent Jean Grey is right in front of his eyes! Or his lack of eyes. In front of his Geordie LaForge visor. Then she yells at him to stop, considering she can hear every single sick thought.

Old Cyclops is still palaryzed with paranoia, fear, curiosity, and big old stiffy. Magneto wants to know WHO WOULD ORCHESTRATE THIS ABOMINATION!! Step forward! NOW!! Spanking time, children!

Old Cyclops keeps undressing Jean Grey with his mind and she tells him to cut it the hell out.

I’m not too well-versed in Jean Grey’s powers, but it looks like she can move stuff with her mind too. Old Cyclops comes running toward her one second, and the next second he’s flying backwards yelling “NO!”, landing right on some stone steps with his face. Right on his face! lmao

“He did it. I hear his thoughts. He killed the professor!” she yells, which is not something that I myself heard in his thoughts! In fact, he did this whole thing where he didn’t know if Xavier was actually dead. Gawd, weren’t you paying attention at all, Jeannie?

In the scuffle, if you could even call it that, Jean flings Old Scott’s visor off his eyes and those plasma beams start spouting every which way. Since he’s now about 20 yards away, I’m fairly certain that Young Cyclops misconstrues this as an ACT OF AGGRESSION AND ESCALATION and reacts accordingly. By that, I mean he yells “Stop!!” and flings his own plasma blast back at Old Cyclops. Their two blasts meet in the middle, with Old Cyclops’ more erratic.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Ha ha ha, your focus is getting a little shaky, old man.

Old Cyclops loses this tug-of-war and gets flung to the side again. He keeps saying stuff like “no, no, no” and “oh no” and “no” and “agh” while the two teams duke it out for a bit. Young Iceman does stuff, then Magneto, then Young Angel, then Magneto tells Magik to get them out of there, then the old team disappears.

“He ran away? Magneto ran away?!” Angel cries incredulously, “Since when does he do that?”

And Cyclops and Magneto were hugging each other? This is their future? Gross stuff, man. They should just slit their wrists now and cut their losses. They should tie their legs to concrete blocks and jump in a pool like AJ Soprano.

Nah, suicide is dumb. They should just go back to their own time. It’s better there. There’s less…well, it’s better there.

Oh yeah, the kid! The face shapeshifter! Benjamin! He’s on the ground looking dazed, and the young redhead runs over to ask him if he’s ok. We forgot all about you, buddy! How are you holding up? Want some Brisk iced tea? You look hot. “You turn into a mutant and the frickin’ X-Men show up and start beating the hell out of each other?” she asks him like it’s all his fault, “And then they just leave?”

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Never eat tuna salad before being magically transported by a mutant sorcerer.

Time to shift gears and see what’s going on at Weapon X. The two newest recruits, the non-Benjamin recruits, are hanging around the ugly industrial nightmare of a hideout and getting to know one another. You got Eva, the time-stopping Australian chick, and you got Christopher, the bringing-friends-back-from-the-dead not-a-chick.

Christopher likes Eva’s accent. Eva probably doesn’t like much of anything of Christopher’s. Nevertheless, they bond a bit over their newfound mutantdom and the fact that the police are after both of them by accident! They chit-chat about their powers, or at least what people are saying their powers are since they don’t really believe it. Pretty soon they’re like “wow cool” and “omg”, and they’re gonna be friends now because they probably ain’t got no friends no more anyway.

The three X-Men Rogues pop into Weapon X after having successfully escaped a group of confused children. Cyclops walks away without a word while Frost, Magneto, and Magik discuss who they just encountered. The Original X-Men! The Fab Five! Scott Summers, Jean Grey, and the rest, whatever their names are! They just encountered all of them in their acne-ridden, sweaty, youthful forms. It’s messed up, right?

Magneto starts getting vicious toward Frost. He accuses her of making this happen, and she snarls back at him. Tells him to take his fucking medicine, GRANDPA, basically.

She’s just touchy because now she’s gonna be caught in a love triangle with Scott and a literal child. And that’s gross.

Meanwhile, at the place where Kitty Pryde is fumbling around playing doctor with Beast, she desperately tries to get ahold of Reed Richards who, as we all know, is currently sucking some monochrome lady’s pussy, so he can’t come to the phone right now.

Without Reed Richards available to help fix the dying Beast, Pryde must move on. She hopes Richards is ok. Personally, I don’t care one way or another about Reed Richards. If he dies next I won’t stop eating this delicious burrito that I’m currently eating. It’s a really good burrito.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Like I said, Reed Richards is poonin’. Also, it was funnier when I thought these kids were 12. You’re a real buzzkill, Iceman.

The thing that gets me, the guy mostly ignorant about the vast and dense X-Men mythology, is everyone freaking out about Jean Grey running around again. Like, yeah, I get it, she’s dead in the present, but who cares? Is she going to telekinesis her way into launching the school into the sun? Is she radioactive as all get-out? What’s the big deal?

Oh well, something for me to figure out in ten years I guess. For now, I’ll roll with it. Pryde and Iceman ultimately wonder what Old Cyclops thought of his old self. His young self. You know what I mean.

INTERMISSION TIME, YOU RUBES. Be sure to tell all your friends about TomWritesAboutStuff.com unless, of course, you don’t have any friends. Sorry.

And we’re back! FLATTOP MOUNTAIN, COLORADO! Speaking of mountain, Reed Richards is mountain. Mountin’ dat ass.

Young Cyclops sits atop the bluff and stares wistfully in the distance. Jean Grey is passed out and Young Beast hopes she’s not dead, then she wakes up, and he’s happy about that. That’s nice.

Everyone asks her a bunch of questions, and she’s clearly in NO MOOD for that stuff. Everyone’s thoughts hammer into her brain. She’s totally wigging out, man.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

They should have snuck in one thought that was just like “I like big ol’ honkin’ titties”. We don’t have to know who it was.

Then, as if from the flick of a switch, the voices stop. Jean must have figured out a way to block it out. “Great day to find out I’m an untrained psychic,” she tells the group after assuring them that’s she’s ok, and–

BLEH! That’s her collapsing. Dead.

Just kidding! Now that Jean seems to have recollected herself, the others want to vamoose! Get out of dodge! Blow this popsicle stand and never look back, by cracky! Most want to put all this unpleasantness behind them forever. Not Young Scott, though, he wants to keep all this sharp in his mind forever! Probably because he’s the one who becomes the problem?? I mean, not a stretch here.

Young Scott asks Jean if she’s ok. She glares at him. He looks sheepish. They all hop in the jet with the intention of heading back to the school, except for Young Iceman. He wants to rassle with Magneto and Old, Evil Scott! Everyone says he’s dumb. So they leave.

At another undisclosed location, Old, Evil Scott sits atop a bluff and stares wistfully in the distance. Emma Frost approaches to be like “hey, buddy, I just want to let you know this wasn’t my fault, k?”

Scott’s pretty absent-minded at the moment. He’s all fucked up after seeing Jean Grey, which I’m already getting pretty tired of. Frost, obviously, has a vested interest in making sure her bone buddy isn’t straying, so she asks him pointedly what these youngins were all here for. Scott tells her to zip the lip. “I’m serious,” she says, rather seriously as is my observation, “If we know what they want then we know who did this.”

Sounds reasonable! Scott tells her to zip the lip again. But then admits that they came to the future to witness the monster that Old Timer Evil Scott has become! Boo! Hee hee hee.

Frost thinks about this for a second. “So, if that’s the motive then all we have to ask is who– who has the wherewithal and technology?”
“Hank McCoy,” Scott says simply. Ding ding ding! And that’s a wrap!

And why is all this happening? Because, Scott, you murdered Charles “Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise” Xavier, and Beast is salty about that, so he’s looking to punish you.

Cyclops makes a twisty grimace about this. Like there’s poo in his pants and the poo is uncomfortable.

Next, we see what those other hapless old-timers are doing: Wolverine and Storm. Their GPS tracker isn’t working, so they can’t GPS track anyone, and that means Storm is tired of being useless so she’s going to go out there and look for them by god. So don’t stand in her way, Wolverine, because sh–

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #4

Man, everyone is so scattered. If Professor Xavier was here he would know how to lead. He would, uh…throw an Infinity Gem at somebody

The youngins comically show up at this point in their big fat ship and they land ten inches from Storm and Wolverine. The kids are like “WE’RE THE TEACHERS NOW”.

As a group, the young X-Men burst into Beast’s hospital room / janitor’s closet and Young Hank waves his arms like Matt Foley, Motivational Speaker going “BLAAB BLUURRB BALAUHB I’M GOING TO TAKE CARE OF MYSELF GODDAMNIT!” He wants all the files, all the info, all the records, all the skinny on the mutagen that made him BLUE and FUZZY and he wants it NOW!!!

So Pryde lets him, because she needs a damn doctor and Doogie Howser over here is the best hope. Beast wakes up just long enough to call his young self a good looking hunk ‘o man *wolf howl*

Well, all that autoerotic excitement sends Beast’s heart into a tizzy! His machines start beeping and blooping, sending him into cardiac arrest! Oh no!

Beast lets out a beastly growl. “NNYARGGHH!” he says, like a nerd who lost his retainer.

Final Thoughts

I don’t give a shit one way or another if Beast lives or dies! But he’ll live. That’s exciting I guess.

In other news, we have one issue left of this story and I hope it ends with Old Cyclops blubbering and moaning like the other four issues! That shit is funny.

Fun stuff lies ahead.


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Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12 – “The Hero Emerges”

* Part 12 of 12 of the Superman: Birthright limited series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Superman: Birthright, Issue #12 – “The Hero Emerges”! This is it, this is the end of the 12-part limited series! Say your goodbyes, get your yearbooks signed, don’t forget to swap phone numbers to stay in touch! In the previous installment, Luthor has hired an army of goons masquerading as Kryptonian invaders to make a mockery of Superman (and level Metropolis just a little bit too, while they’re at it, for fun). Superman spends a good portion of the issue fighting back kryptonite sickness just to keep these smelly teamsters at bay.

Meanwhile, Lois Lane is tipped off about the kryptonite meteorite in Lex Luthor’s lab. She endeavors to sneak in there to attempt to shut off the magic green sickness machine and steal the rock under Luthor’s nose.

She almost succeeded. But Luthor noticed.

And now “the hero emerges”, as it seems. In this iconic twelfth and final issue, does Superman take a giant Superdump on Lex Luthor’s face and then strangle him with a garbage bag? Or maybe a real hero finally shows up, like Wonder Woman? Hey, she’s got comics! Maybe I should read some Wonder Woman comics.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12 [September, 2004]
Written by: Mark Waid
“The Hero Emerges”

Superman: Birthright: Issue #12

Superman lies on the cracked ground between the Metropolis Mofos and the Kryptonian Kunts. With the blue and red pajama man currently incapacitated, Jimmy takes the TOUGH GUY helm with his INTIMIDATINGLY CRAGGY-FACED PRESENCE. “You guys weren’t half the threat you pretended to be. We did a lot of this ourselves. But we’re not afraid anymore. Get him.”

lol “get him”. OK, Jim.

“Don’t bother,” fuzzy-chested Superman says, bouncing up onto his feet and punching this Van-Gar guy in the ol’ kisser.

This Van-Gar might be a twerpy douche, but this giant laser-shooting tank is not. That can still really kill people!

“Jimmy? Relax,” hairy-breasted Superman says, grabbing the tank by its tread and lifting the thing above his head like it was a soccer ball.

Looks like Superman’s got this covered! No more kryptonite poisoning; perhaps he’s going to stop being a baby? Works splendidly for me! I can check in with Lois Lane now.

Oh geez, she’s screwed!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

“I know you accidentally burned off all your hair in a fire, because I just received my copy of Superman: Birthright, Issue #8 in the mail yesterday!”

Lois Lane knows a lot, sir, and now the rest of the city will know what she knows too because the pen is mightier than the sword! You’re not going to decapitate this journalist! Not today!

So she starts talking. He already grabbed the kryptonite from her hand, but she’s talking anyway. A lot of talking. She knows these photographs are real, but from thousands of years ago, as indicated by the differences in modern starcharts! She also knows that, by removing the kryptonite from his power grid, this whole “invasion” is smoke and mirrors and lies and deceit and acting and scheming! What else? Oh yeah, and now Superman is beating up the bad guys as they speak! She knows that too. She knows it all the way deep into her fallopian tubes.

Pfft, whatever, sister. The Lexcorp Army is 100% real, vicious, and feral, and they’ll make short work of Superman and all those dumbshit citizens of Metropolis out there. Jimmy Olsen? Do you think he’s any match for a round of military bullets to the fucking face? Puh-lease.

A big boom reverberates through the building. One of the Lexcorp Army drones radios Lex Luthor to whine about a problem, which Luthor doesn’t want to hear one word about.

Oh, you’re going to say words anyway? *huff* Fine. They can’t leave the building! Someone threw a very large laser-shooting tank in front of the door.

Luthor tells them to find a way out anyway! Meanwhile, Lois is hitting everything she sees in the lab with a wrench, which is some good stuff right there.

Van-Gar doesn’t look very intimidating anymore. “Looks like your boss has cut you loose,” observes Superman while feeding him a mouthful of fist and chips! Right to the teeth.

No way. Lex Luthor is loyal, he would never leave Van-Gar out to dry like this!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

“You don’t know him like I do. For instance, did you know that he burned all of his hair off in a fire? Check out Superman: Birthright, Issue #8!”

Superman punches Van-Gar’s lights out, cracks his face mask wide open, and reveals a normal-looking dude. Just some unconscious loser with long eyelashes.

Jimmy tells Superman that it’s cool that he’s feeling better even he does freak him the fuck out. He hands Superman his missing ‘S’ patch, which gets seamlessly sewn back on with laser eyeballs.

“Superman’s own people will tell me how to stop him,” Luthor triumphantly decrees while smacking Lois Lane to the floor! He can just set up one of his time travel Zoom meetings and ask “how do I kill you guys?” to whichever decadently dressed dork he comes across first.

“Using a wormhole to scan Krypton’s past was always only the first step,” says Luthor, doing a lot of talking of his very own, “The true goal was to transmit as well as receive. To establish a dialogue.”

Why, so he can try to get a mail-order Kryptonian bride? Whisk her away from the past and into his waiting arms?

Luthor found out another cool thing you can do with kryptonite. You can make a bomb out of it! You just need a little kryptonite, gasoline, and styrofoam. And honey. And bull semen, certainly. Anyway, he’s got himself a little troop of suicide bombers. Why? Who knows! And who cares! But he’s gonna press this button here: *boop*. Now these bombs are going to go off on a timer. Also, shut up Lois. Out the window with you!

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

I’m beginning to think that Lois Lane is the most gravity-prone human being on Earth.

Lex Luthor gets bored of Lois Lane’s nonsense and shoves her out of the skyscraper. While his kamikaze mannequins are blowing up the city, Superman will be too busy dealing with that to deal with her! Plus, she’ll probably hit the ground in roughly fourteen seconds. Do you think Superman can catch a falling woman within fourteen seconds? That’s a short amount of time! 1…2…3… and so on. Goes by quick.

One of Luthor’s Army explodes on the street. Everyone’s freaking out, man. That’s some crazy shit. Fake Van-Gar starts glowing green and panics. “Nooooo! It’s trying to detonate! Get it off me get it OFF– I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” he screams like a little baby. A little dying baby.

Superman scoops this miserable sack up and tells him to quit his whining. His kryptonite bomb is beeping like crazy. Lois Lane still falls.

Superman rips the bomb off of Fake Van-Gar’s chest and, presumably, launches it safely away somewhere else in the sky. It might have killed a bird or a blimp or another superhero, maybe, but we’ll never know. The explosion is too big to see what, if anything, died. But I’m sure something died!

Lois’ head is less than five inches from the ground before he catches her. “Hi,” he smiles while she has a fucking heart attack. There’s a full-page spread of Superman holding her safely. His erection is so intense you can see it vibrating right in your face on the paper.

This bald dumbass probably thinks everything’s going to plan. He probably thinks Lois died and all his suicide bombers died and Superman is dead. He’s trying to contact Krypton through his portal again. He’s probably going to explode fire in his own face again just like in Superman: Birthright, Issue #8! I’m not sure if I mentioned that yet.

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

Does anyone out there know how I can flip this PDF? PLEASE?!

“Come in! COME IN! This is Lex Luthor from the Planet Earth! My world is in dire peril!” Luthor yells into the swirling green void. He gets a lot of broken-up responses from disembodied voices, nothing in any real context, but Luthor keeps desperately yelling and asking for someone to talk to him.

Superman stands a few feet behind Lex, looking at him with pity. He remembers what he said before, what he told his parents back in Kansas about teenage Lex. The teenage Lex who holed himself up in the science lab, or tried to give the mayor his ideas for making Smallville a better place.

“I think he just wants someone to talk to.”

Good for Lex. I’m not entirely sure why he would want this. A guy like Lex Luthor should be smart enough to not need anyone to talk to.

Lex Luthor needs weapons! And ammo! And some Baked Lays! There’s a shortage of Baked Lays! Please help!

Superman grabs this douche by the scruff and drags him away. “Luthor, stop grasping at straws! It’s over!”

And Lex turns his head, looking like he just aged six thousand years in the last couple of minutes. He tries to punch and get away from Superman while the disembodied Kryptonian voices phase in and out, wondering if the whiny bald voice that they’re hearing on their end is even fucking real. Lex Luthor is like “it is TOO real, I’m real! WHY DO YOU THINK I’M NOT REAL? Is it my stupid bald face??”

Superman is, surprisingly, struggling to keep Luthor at bay. He huffs and puffs and tells him he lost and to give it up and pull the plug on your portal doohickey. “You lost! Ask Lois! Ask Van-Gar! Ask everyone who reads tomorrow’s news who started this nightmare, and who stopped it!”

Conveniently enough, it’s at this point the the portal is showing visions of Jor-El and Lara making arrangements to catapult their baby into space. The Last Son of Krypton and all that. Superman watches and grasps at the screen dramatically, all like “Mumsy?! Poppy?! Father?! Mommy?! Wah! Hello?! Wah!”

In the matter of seventeen seconds, he learns that he’s Kal-El from Krypton. Oh boy, how cool is that shit? The planet is gone and you’ve been Clark Kent for 25 years. Who cares?

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

Nice to meet you. My name is Bleep Blorp of Bloopton.

Oh, I see now. Lex Luthor is in an even match right now because he fisting a shard of kryptonite. “Last of your race. Which makes this genocide,” Lex says, punching Superman with a handful of scary, glowing, green rock, “I’m doing you a favor, Superman. It’s agony being alone in this world.”

Superman punches this doofus right back! Fist to the face style, the old-fashioned way! “You weren’t always, Lex. You made your choice. And so have I.”

Jor-El and Lara keep talking about their decision to launch their baby into almost-the-sun, wondering if they’re making the right choice, and Superman flails at the portal trying to get his parents to hear him. It doesn’t work. He doesn’t get through. Then the portal disappears. lmao

Superman: Birthright, Issue #12

“The multinational conglomerate mogul was ‘visibly pooping his pants’, per many eyewitness accounts on the scene.”

The next day, the Daily Planet’s front page feature, written by strapping young go-getters Lois Lane and Clark Kent, exposes Lex Luthor for his attempts to terrorize the city through means a fake alien invasion. Nice try, punk! Oldest trick in the book!

It’s nice to see that the official Daily Planet website looks even shittier than my dumpheap of a blog. That’s 2004 for you.

Perry White buddies up with his two favorite reporters! Lois Lane is already salty. Luthor’s doctors are already blaming his actions on something akin to “insanity by radiation poisoning”, so this bastard is going to beat the charges. That doesn’t kill White’s buzz one bit. Until that happens, good work! Maybe you can try again next time!

Clark Kent laid the finishing blow! A confession out of Van-Gar, or should he say, John Hargerfort! I knew it all along!

“Thanks for talking me up,” Clark says to Lois after White goes back to his office for a couple shots of whiskey and a nice pud tug, “probably why I still have a job.”
“No. You still have a job because I cadged your crybaby resignation letter before Perry found it,” replies Lois, waving the sheet of paper in Clark’s face.

Well there you go. Looks like this nerd is here to stay. Clark tries to ask her out, but she calls him a crybaby again and tells him to go screw.

“Would it help if I were able to leap tall buildings in a single bound,” Clark asks her with the shittiest of shit-eating grins. And Lois flounders like a real fish about this. A real floppy fish. “I– that’s– n-no! What are you implying? That I have some sort of lame crush on Superman?”

“What are your sources? Did he say something?” she asks him, perking up, getting moist in the loins.
“What, to me?” replies Clark, coy as the dickens, “Come on, you ever see us together?”
“So noted.”

Clark tells Lois to be careful. People still don’t trust that Superfellow. Lois thinks the public will come around. Only a matter of time.

We end back at Krypton, where Superman’s message to his parents actually made it through. Jor-El and Lara watch the screen.

“Mother… Father… …I made it.”

Then, to celebrate the success of their mission and the continued life of their baby, they kiss and fuck.

Final Thoughts

All right, Mark Waid, you certainly redeemed yourself here. After your war crime that was the first seven issues of Captain America from the late nineties, this limited-run Superman origin story has won me over on both YOU, you fat nerd, and Superman in general. As a character. As a man. Etc.

So what does this mean for me? More Superman? Sure, perhaps I’ll stick to this early-’00s era! That way I can possibly see Clark Kent try to unsuccessfully uninstall Bonzi Buddy on some Gateway computer with Windows ME before watching episodes of Becker.


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All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

* Part 3 of 5 of the Yesterday’s X-Men storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: All-New X-Men (Vol. 1) Issue #3! In the previous installment, Beast successfully brings the youngins BACK TO THE FUTURE much to the chagrin of the rest of the older X-Men. In the middle of the plan, Beast writhes and lurches and falls into unconsciousness. The youngins decide to carry on with Beast’s plan and go find Old Cyclops and tear him a new one. They leave for Dallas in the X-Men jet. They’re all 12 years old.

So that leaves all the adults scrambling to figure out how to stop these kids before they do something drastic! Such as stopping Old Cyclops, for instance. How radical.

Hilarity ensues.

All New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3 [February, 2013]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis

All-New X-Men (Vol. 3), Issue #3

Today’s story flashes back to ten days ago, where Cyclops is recruiting his tiny team for a revolution! Magneto! Magik! Welcome to the new Xavier school! That crippled bald bastard would’ve loved genocide!

Cyclops takes his new buddies on a field trip to “Weapon X”, a place where humans performed experiments on mutants. Torturous experiments! Waterboarding and John Tesh album listening parties! Wolverine was created here, and you know how angry THAT guy is. That guy still hates John Tesh to this day.

This is their home now. This is the last place anybody would look. Now, let’s get some more dang mutants!

Hard to believe this only started ten days ago. Not even a fortnight. I can’t even do a load of laundry in ten days.

Jump to eight days ago! A military team is scoping out the outskirts of San Francisco. Intelligence must have already caught wind of Cyclops’ lofty plans, so they’re looking for him. They’ll take him down by any means necessary!

They’re also taking things quite seriously.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

Hey, we all need our daily morning dose of the Whiny Old Radio Jew.

Oh no! Out of nowhere, a Code 4! A Code 4 is “mutants appearing out of thin air right in front of us in the middle of the road”, and out of 950 other codes it gets fourth billing. It must happen often enough.

It’s Cyclops and Magneto, and they both stare frownily at the oncoming convoy. The driver of the front vehicle is freaking out, but the commander insists that he sticks to the plan, does not pause, does not deviate, and stops complaining. Or else he’ll be picking his teeth up off the ground with broken fingers.

The helicopter starts firing. Magneto’s got this! He does his magnets…but it doesn’t work. He and Cyclops get nervous.

And the magnets still don’t work.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

Talk about a sight for sore eyes! lol! lol!

The subsequent thirty panels show many outlandish explosions. The front vehicle slams into both of them, tossing the two around like sacks of disgusting meat. Cyclops loses his visor and his plasma eyeballs shoot every which-way, taking down the choppers and vehicles as they all start crashing into each other.

Cyclops tries to shield his eyes frantically with his arm. “Oh no… oh no…” he pants. Magneto gets up and runs toward him, asking what he fucking did. Like he couldn’t figure it out.

Scott “Blind Lemon Jefferson” Summers scrambles for his visor, wondering what’s going on. Meanwhile, Magneto starts flinging trucks around, making a ruckus. He unlatches a cargo truck, but one of the big mean military men puts a gun to his head and threatens him with scary gun violence!

“I just don’t care for that kind of talk,” Magneto drawls like a southern deputy marshal, “Never have.” He then magnet-crunches the rifle as it’s discharged, which explodes the gun into a torrent of fiery shrapnel!

This is exciting, isn’t it? The issue is already half over!

“What’s happening to us?” Magneto asks, definitely the more calm and collected of the two. Cyclops’ visor sparks and smolders. “It’s the humans, they’ve done something.”

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s wrong, I just saw ten pages of dumbass explosions and X-Men getting hit by cars.

The cargo truck opens and a woman comes out. “What did you do?” she asks, unhurt. Magneto struggles to get her metal facemask restraint off of her, which further panics Cyclops.

“Damn it, why’d you even bother?” the woman asks, rather ticked off. The woman is Emma Frost, and she tells Cyclops that “everything they built together and everything they were working towards is over.”

Plus, she’s mad because Cyclops left her in the hands of humans after stealing her Phoenix Force. The gravest of sins! Cyclops denies his involvement in that, but Emma gets into a hissy fit and starts hissy-slappin’ him. Emma should know that the Phoenix Force was making them both nutso!

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

Bullshit it wasn’t you. This has your plasma blast fingerprints all over it, sir.

“So it wasn’t you who betrayed me and left me for dead?” Emma shrieks and screams and spits, “It was you who murdered Charles Xavier in front of all of us?!”

Cyclops is ready to do a pinky swear on it if Emma Frost is willing.

Whatever. She’s outta here. Have a nice life, you fire-eyed loser. Eat a butt.

Cyclops urges her to read his mind. Go ahead! Dig deep in there! Wiggle and swerve your way past all the repressed childhood memories and the weird sex stuff and you’ll know how truly sorry he is! GO ON!

Nope! But she stops walking and turns around to talk.

“My powers aren’t the same as they used to be,” she says, “and neither are yours from the look of you.”

So what happened? Magneto and Cyclops are a couple of dumbass men. They need a woman to tell them what’s what. As usual.

“You don’t GET IT?! REALLY?” she cries incredulously. Jesus Christ and What the Fuck! It was the Phoenix, you dummies! It changed them! Broke their mutations! Does she have to spell it out for you, you braindead dipshits!

Magento sputters. He didn’t have the Phoenix! Why is he affected? What did he do to deserve this??

Well, if Scott Summers was truly innocent and free of all blame, Magneto’s mutations wouldn’t be all mangled and busted. But, hey, this guy over here *points* let him have it pretty damn good with the Phoenix Force. So, haha, whoops, talk to him about it.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

I know I’m overdoing it with the Cyclops panels, but man are some of these too good to pass up.

While Emma appreciates the jailbreak, she’s got to mosey. Where? Away from them. Peace out, nerds.

Cyclops is desperate for redemption. Crying red tears of eyeball magma. Emma’s not having it. And she can’t say anymore right now because the fuzz is coming!

“ILLYANA! Get us out of here!” Cyclops screams into his Star Trek wrist communicator. No response.

Five police cars gun down the road at a trillion miles per hour.

“ILLYANA!! GET US OUT OF HERE NOW!!”

No response.

Magneto and Emma have a calm chat while Cyclops huffs and pants into his arm. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll fix this. There are ways,” Magneto assures her, but she just glares back at him wordlessly.

Finally, the police arrive. The three mutants are nowhere to be seen…

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS! TODAY! Meaning 10 days after the beginning of the issue. Meaning 8 days after the scene that just ended. Meaning 20,000 days before I might start giving a shit. A large protest is being held outside of a residence hall. Twentysomethings hold signs that say “MUTANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO” and “CYCLOPS CARES” and “HORN IF YOU’RE HONKY!”

A slightly dumpy redheaded woman tells a baggy-pantsed Crispin Glover-looking mofo named Benjamin to grab a sign, but he doesn’t wanna. Not his thing. He looks like he’d rather shoot up the school than participate in any mutant-related hippie congregation. He starts inadvertently making her feel bad; insisting that protesting is useless and trying to make a difference is futile!

The woman looks hurt and tells Benjamin to stop mocking her by imitating her voice. What’s really happening, though, is that Benjamin has basically turned into his friend.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

Nothing to see here, people. Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy are just having a conversation.

This, of course, draws the attention of the crowd. People start taking pictures with their phones. Benjamin freaks out a bit, then suddenly his eyes roll to the back of his head like he was knocked unconscious on his feet.

Elsewhere, Cyclops is crying in the forest! His visor still malfunctions, he keeps sending blasts from his eyes unintentionally, he keeps yelling stuff like “No…” and “No, no, no…” and “NOOOO!” Pretty funny stuff! He loses his visor again. lol

“Scott, you’re embarrassing yourself…” Magneto tells him like a true friend. Scott’s sad, man, just shut the hell up. Don’t you know how many years Scott has spent trying to control his powers? His whole childhood, and then some! Now it’s like square one again. Have a little sympathy, Magneto, you mutant jerkass.

Plus, new mutants are going to be looking to them for guidance. How is being shitty with their mutant powers going to help anyone?

“And you think I wouldn’t be able to understand this? As least you did it to yourself,” Magneto complains while sending Scott’s visor back over to him. Time for some tough talk, Scotty: Magneto has been through hell and back himself. He knows what it’s like to suffer, he knows what it’s like to go insane, and he knows what it’s like to lose everything. He has done shit that still haunts his dreams! And guess what? He could’ve blamed the insanity. He has in the past. But, in the end, it was all his choice. So quit blaming the Phoenix. The Phoenix ain’t really done nothing. This is all you, muchacho.

Scott doesn’t want to hear it. He cries some more. Magneto tells him, if he really wants to make it right, he’ll give Magneto back his full god-given power or so help him he will throw a big turd at his face.

All-New X-Men (Vol. 1), Issue #3

Mother has arrived to quell her Rude Boys.

Magik shows up to put an end to the fighting. “Magneto has finally admitted he’s mad at me, Illyana,” Scott tells her immediately, pointing a finger at him while he storms away. “I would be mad at you too if you screwed with my powers,” Illyana retorts. But she didn’t lose any powers. In fact, she thinks she actually gained powers! She can conjure energies from the Limbo Dimension now! The Limbo Dimension! I can’t think of a single joke about this, can you? The Limbo Dimension!

Here I learn that Peter Colossus steel guy is Magik Illyana’s brother. Scott asks if Illyana found him. Illyana says that Peter does not want to be found. It sure would be nice if Colossus could join us, you know, in our pursuit of whatsits…mutant genocide. That would be keen.

“If he finds out what happened to Xavier…he’s going to kill you,” Illyana warns Scott darkly. They even zoom into her serious face to show the seriousness of the murder scenario.

Emma appears from out of the woods. She’s holding a tablet with a Facebook page loaded on it. “Anyone in the mood to save a mutant? We got another one.”

Another one indeed. The face-morphing kid. It’s late at night now, and the media is swarming the crowd while Benjamin keeps morphin’ his face and getting his picture taken with college kids that are like “whoa”.

“Benjamin, you’re a mutant,” the dumpy redhead tells him, grinning, “You’re one of the new mutants!” And I don’t think Benjamin wants to hear that, but LIKE A BAD CASE OF ANAL POLYPS, the X-Men team pops in unwanted to tell him that it’s true. “And the new mutant revolution is starting.”

“Revolution? When did it become a revolution?” asks a voice from behind. It’s Young Cyclops! “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Young Cyclops asks a very startled Old Cyclops! The Young X-Men team is hear from the past to stop them!

Iceman’s gearing for a fight, puttin’ up his dukes like he’s going to kick anyone’s ass like he isn’t 4’6” tall and made of very brittle ice.

Final Thoughts

Good thing Old Cyclops’ powers suck right now. He won’t stand a chance against these prepubescent wimps!

Fun stuff lies ahead.


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