X-Men 189 Two Girls out to Wang Chung

What we learn this issue besides that Cindi Lauper was very popular while this issue was on the stands.

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY IS ALSO BEING RESTORED WHEN THIS ISSUE WAS SITTING ON SPINNER RACKS. SO GOOD FOR YOU, YOU FUCKIN STATUE.

CHRIS CLAREMONT LOVES PUTTING HIS FEMALES IN FETISH COSTUMES. DON’T BELIEVE ME? JUST WAIT.

IN SOME SPOOKY PRESCIENCE, RACHEL SUMMERS FLASHFORWARDS TO A TIME WHEN THE TWIN TOWERS COLLAPSED, KILLING THOUSANDS. LOOK, THIS WILL GIVE YOU THE HEEBY JEEBIES:

STORM FUCKS OFF BACK TO AFRICA DAVE CHAPELLE STYLE.

FANCY LONGSHOREMAN STILL HAS HIS FABULOUS NECKLACE!!! BUT THEN HE IS MURDERED. NOT SO FABULOUS!!!

RACHEL SUMMERS LIKES TO LAUGH AT OTHER PEOPLE’S BEDROOM KINKS. WELL EXCUSE ME FOR USING A VACUUM CLEANER IN THAT WAY MS MORAL MAJORITY. I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO’S DONE THIS YOU KNOW.

MEGA BAD ASS SEBASTIAN SHAW PRETTY MUCH JUST SITS AROUND LIKE A MEGA BITCH. BAD BITCH SELENE ALSO GETS TAKEN DOWN (OFF PANEL!) LIKE A MEGA ZILTCH. LAME!

BUT SERIOUSLY, LOOK AT THESE FUCKING OUTFITS:


A pretty solid, if silly, one and done issue. The magic necklace sets up the next issue but no sign of any other subplots, like Magnadoodle’s reappearance in the Bermuda Triangle that we saw last issue.

What is nice is Claremont, and most of the rest of the Marvel Universe, kept better track of their characters during these era. So Kitty Pryde and Wolverine aren’t in this issue at all because they’re busy having adventures in Japan. This is in direct contrast to the current system employed, where Wolverine stars in about 10 fucking comic books at once.

It’s also nice to see the always excellent Steve Leialoha’s inks on JRJR’s pencils. The difference between the also awesome and regular inker, Dan Green, is striking, but both bring unique styles that yield equally pleasing results. Leialoha has a cleaner, more angular aesthetic compared to Green’s messy, frenetic stylings. You can see Leialoha killing monthly in the excellent Fables comic, written by Bill Willingham and penciled by Mark Buckingham. Man, that’s a lot of fucking hams.

The main protagonists are two B teamers, the aforementioned whiny Jean Grey offspring from the future, Rachel Ratail Summers, and the previously unseen (in the pages of X-Mans) Amara Aquilla, AKA Magma, a descendant of ancient Rome who had been living in an ancient Roman style enclave in the Amazon, undetected for over two thousand millennia by modern civilization. Sure, why not? It’s fuckin comics, ain’t it?

Rachel has a flasback to the future where she is dressed up in a spike studded full leather body suit and leashed to a master. Nice. Then the two of them end up in the Hellfire club, disguised as frenchmaids. Sweet. Then they fuck shit up with Selene and Sebastian Shaw. Shaw just hangs around with his thumb up his kinetic energy absorbing ass, while Selene runs rampage all over the god damn place. Then Nightcrawler shows up and teleports Selene out of the room. Then Xavier says that he neck pinched her into submission (which we don’t see) and that’s the last she’ll be bothering anyone. Which is a totally the gayest resolution ever.

Next issue, shit gets fucking weird. Barbarically weird.

Oh and I’d like to point out that when the magic necklace discovering longshoreman is waiting to be murdered in the subway he is holding a cutting edge for the time Sony Watchman. Plugging something like a iPad into a comic these days would be passe but this is before the internet. Literally. Someone had to copy an ad or use an actual Sony Watchman as a reference to draw one. Now, because we live in the greatest age of civilization, I can Google “Sony Watchman” and see pictures in seconds, then look it up on Wikipedia and learn shit like how this device was released in Japan in 1982, but was not released in America until two years later, a year after this comic came out (1983)! The Internet is some cool shit, isn’t it?!