X-Men 134: Too late, the heroes! To apologize, oh yeah it’s too late! It’s too late!

WHAT WE LEARN THIS ISSUE:

IF MASTERMIND’S TRUE APPEARNACE ISN’T THAT OF THE PROTOTYPCIAL PEDOPHILE, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS

HARRY LELAND IS STILL A TUBBY BITCH

THE BEAST WORKS FOR THE FUCKIN AVENGERS

CYBORGS HAVE FEELINGS TOO

WE ARE ALL REALLY FUCKED NOW!

Journey up my recap: Cyclops didn’t die (see, Nightcrawler, you worry wart!) but he and the rest of the X-Men are still being held captive by the Hellfire Club’s inner circle, which includes Jean Grey, who has been turned into the evil Black Queen by that turd sniffer Mastermind.

But, by killing Cyclops on the astral plane (I still have no idea what the fuck that is supposed to be) Mastermind inadvertently broke his own spell on Jean Grey, de-ensorcellating her. She then frees Cyclops, who frees the rest of the X-Men, and who then proceed to beat the crap out of the inner circle. And Wolverine finally shows up to help, informing Sebastian Shaw: “you an me got business – an all the flunkies in creation ain’t gonna keep me away!” Yeah, go get em, Wolvie!

It’s the opposite of last issue’s fight and the X-Men, learning from their past mistakes, hand the inner circle a pretty vicious butt whuppin. Jean Grey, having done Bob Marley proud and emancipated herself from mental slavery, corners Mastermind and discovers that Mastermind had combined his illusion casting powers with a ‘Mindtap Mechanism’ fashioned by that pasty bitch the White Queen, to help control Jean’s mind. Super pissed and overflowing with raging Phoenix Force, Jean gets medieval on poor Mastermind’ anus.

Here’s how Claremont described the punishment Jean levied on the now helpless Mastermind: “At Jean’s touch, his mind expands at the speed of though, racing instantly from one side of reality to the other, through all the infinite reaches of space and time. In the blink of an eye, Mastermind finds himself in touch with the universe – his brain flooded with all the myriad absolute, contradictory truths of existence. He screams. Unable to cope, he runs. Unable to escape, he drowns. He is, after all, only human – a man of limited awareness, limited power, limited ability, transformed in a twinkling into a god. Some people can handle the experience. Some people can’t.” It’s strongly implied here that Mastermind decidedly can’t handle it, and his shit is altogether ruined. Jean then kicks him while he’s unconscious (or panconscious, I guess), taunting, “Enjoy your ‘trip’, Jason. You won’t be coming back.”

Some heavy fucking doo doo right there, man.

So all’s well that ends well right? Um, nope, in the last page, Jean explodes the getaway jet the X-Men are escaping in and informs them all that she’s totally flipped her shit and is no longer the woman they knew. She is fire and life incarnate. She is, now and forever, Dark Phoenix, and we’re all in deep shit.