X-MEN 97 - MY FRIGGIN BROTHER, THAT FUGGIN GUY

The Professor has a nightmare about spaceships and space and shit. Then we see Havok and Polaris get attacked in their desert home. THen we see the X-men attacked by Havok and Polaris! But what could make those two do that, especially when Havok is Cyclops' fuckin brother even!?! Oh no, its fuckin Eric the Red (Erik the Red is a bad guy). Then Erik the Red and Havok and Polaris escape by flying of into space because Cyclops is too much of a pussy to shoot down is fuckin brother.

This issue was a lot like the last, in that most of the action revolved around the new X-Men showing off their powers and personalities by taking on the latest Monster of the Week. It's cool to see the trademark behaviors are already there. Wolverine is a crazy psychopath, Nightcrawler is a swashbuckling dipshit, Colossus a naive doofus, Cyclops an angsty Mary, and Storm always does what is right.. BECAUSE ORORO MONROE MUST ALWAYS DO WHAT IS RIGHT!

Here is some stupid scene with a bunch of X-Men saying dumb stuff that I changed to make it sound more contemporary.

The drawings are pure shit though. Actually so are the jokes.

So yeah, its corny, but its also still the youtful and vim imbued Chris Claremont, trying to advance all sorts of sub plots and cram in a much fun as possible, while sticking to a fairly straight forward super hero format. So he's brought back Cyclops brother, Alex Summers, aka Havok, and Havok's girlfriend, Lorna Dane (putrid name, btw), aka Polaris; he's teased both Project Armageddon bit and Xavier's space ship nightmare threads; and Claremont's revealed a bit more about the past Moira MacTaggert and Xavier share. And, unlike last issue's throwaway villian, Erik the Red, though a dumb idea by itself, will be shown in the not too distant future to be a much more important and interesting bad guy (SPOILER ALERT, ITS FUCKIN MAGNETO IN DISGUISE).

With these X-Men comics only coming out once every other month, one wonders if Claremont is getting antsy at how long it will be before he can continue the stories. Well you probably don't give a shit but someone probably wonders. Jerk.

Hey lets point out some of that shitty dialog!

- Claremont starts off the slpash page with parts of Hamelt's dumbass Alas Poor Yorrick soliloquiy that gets quoted up the ass. There's probably the titles to like, 10 differnt shitty movies in that speech. My favorite was when Inter-galactic Bounty Hunter Lobo once said "Alas, poor Yorrick, I fragged him well." Ah, fraggin bastiches.

- Claremont explaining what Xavier is feeling during his nightmare (on a spiffy 2 page pre-Star Wars space battle!): "And, ONCE AGAIN, Charles Xavier finds himself drawn out across the infinite, drawn into nightmare... DRAWN INTO HELL!" Live, direct form Hell, it's Spinal Tap!

- And there's more! "He watched helplessly as ten-meter energy beams turn Tricardian steel to puddled slag," because as we all know, the Tricardians have by 1976 adopted the metric system.

- Cyclops: "Havoc-! What's going ON? Why are you and Lorna in COSTUME? SPEAK UP, MAN!" Yeah, MAN.

- Cyclops to Erik the Red: "Mister, I don't know what this MASQUERADE is all about, but if you think YOU can beat the X-MEN - You've got another thing coming! TAKE HIM!" Erik the Red: "No, Cyclops, you will NOT take me, all you will do... IS DIE!" Well I guess is SOMEONE wasn't saying it, stuff like that would never become cliches in the first place. So it's kind of cool when you think of it that way (but still pretty wretched).

Allright, thats all I got for X-Bags number 97. You know it was a real pain in the ass looking for these issues on EBay since all the search results would be for X-Men comics from 1997, and all those comics from 1997 blew. But I did find those comics and I bought them, because I was impatiant and didn't want to have to deal with creepy comic book salesmen in stores and at conventions. What a champion I am.

Speaking of blowing, they ruin the suprise villian of next issue by teasing "The Sentinels Return!" Oh well. Guess we'll see the fuckin Sentinels next time!

And the first MS Paint picture was so bad i decided to add this bonus drawings. Its of Wolverine and Storm sharing and early, intimate moment.