X-MEN 117: SIGH... WOPS

No actual Italians show up in X-Men 117, so that completely unnecessary bit of racism (if you're one of THOSE people who consider Italians a race, that is), is just because the real title is PSI-WAR and after the 'sigh' I couldn't think of anything else to use and also because I fucking hate those greasy dago goombas.

The opening splash page features our heroes on some pathetic looking raft, trying to float away from the Savage Land (located in Antarctica, duh) to South America. Instead of a leasuirely slow boat to Tierra del Fuego, however, the X-Bags get stuck in the storm of the century! (which everyone knows is represented in comic books by drawing a shit load of thin little lines all over the page) Shit! What are they to do now!

It really can't get any stupider. Storm honestly says, well sorry guys, can't help you this time, and everyone just kinda shrugs and says, well, sucks for us then. Ridiculous. It'd be like Wolverine being stuck in a butcher shop saying "Oh man, if only there was a way for me to cut up all these delicious meats!" I understand that for plot reasons the X-Men have to be in some sort off peril so that the random passing frighter can rescue them and take them to Japan but, I dunno, make it a rogue tidal wave or come up with a reason for Storm's powers to stop working or something. Having the X-Men get troubled a storm when fucking STORM IS ON THEIR TEAM is just dumb.

But I digress. Back to the story: the aforementioned totally random freighter picks up the X-Men and then oddly explains that everything about their ship is a secret and the X-Men must go down below decks for the remainder of the voyage and not ask any more questions.

What the fuck, I know the X-Men are good guys but why can't they just tell Captain Hama and First Mate Takeda that the Jinguchi Maru is now the X-Frighter and the X-Men will do with it what the damn well please. Unless any of these Nipponese sailor pussies have super powers than they can kindly direct all protests to bottom of Colossus' shiny metal backside.

But no, the X-Sheep do as they're told and are not heard from again until next issue.

The next page cuts to the X-Mansion where Jean, thinking all the other X-Men are dead, says goodbye to Xavier's new squeeze piece, Empress Lilandra, and takes off. It's a very touching moment.

Lilandra then goes and finds her crippled soul mate and tries to feed him some bagels and smear (really!), but Xavier is too distraught over all his students being dead. Oh boo fucking hoo you big baby.

Xavier then goes into flashback mode and starts blabbing about his boring ass past. It starts in a comic book montage where Xavier's big bald chrome dome takes up the whole page with little pics of his personal history pasted on the side of that smooth hairless pate. Xavier met Moira MacTaggert in grad school and they fell in love (so that mystery is solved, whoopee) but then got drafted and fought in the Korean War (which obviously can't be true anymore since it would make him like, 90 years old now, but whatever) and then Moira broke up with him without explanation (too be resolved in later issues, I bet!). Xavier then bummed around the globe like a dirty hippy until he landed in Cairo, which according to John Byrne has pyramids right there in the middle of the city (note, this is false).

Continuing with his dumb fucking story, Xavier explains that a young Strom, being trained by Achmed that master beggar thief (yup, still a terrible idea, Claremont), picks his pocket. Goodness, what are the odds! Cue-ball the Explorer (Chuck being bald since his twenties, apparently), actually gets his wallet back from Storm but then runs into Amahl Farouk, another powerful mutant psychic hanging out in Cairo. He is evil though, so he and Xavy end up duking it out on the astral (ie psychic) plane.

Long story short, Chuckiepoo wins and Farouk is dead (spoiler: he is NOT dead). Chuck leaves, mentions how he later gets his legs broken fighting some alien named Lucifer (this happened in earlier, even shittier, Silver Age X-Men comics flashback) and then decides to stop evil mutants like Farouk by started the X-Men.

Lilandra is all like, hey yeah, great story *YAWN*, tell it to me again, please. And then we see Jean Grey at an airport where she runs into her old room mate who is also at the airport who plugs a different comic that she is in that is also written by Chris Claremont (Power Man/Iron Firs. Great name). The End.

So-so ish. The all mental fight scene between Xavier and Farouk is fine, but not much else goes on. Also the fucking Superbowl is on and I've got some wops to beat up, so thats enough of this. Next issue: DIRTY JAPS!