X-Men 223: Old Men and Poor Tim

What we learned this issue besides that poor Timmy has a looooooong night ahead for him.

EW MORE PEDOPHILE JOKES? AND WHATS THIS, A SNAKE?

THANKS FOR THE MEAL, STUPID.

BLOB LOOKED AT HIS ASSHOLE IN THE MIRROR ONE DAY. IT BLEW HIS FUCKING MIND.

 I DIDN'T REALLY KNOW ABOUT THIS JOKE BUT WHATEVER. I DID IT.

THIS ONE WAS POSSIBLY WORSE, ACTUALLY.

AND SOMETIMES DREAMS DO COME TRUE DUDE. THEY SOMETIMES DO.

 LOGAN GETS LIFTED. PUFFING AND PUFFING BUT NO GIVING.

THIS WAS A FAKE AD THAT THEY PUT IN THE ACTUAL ADS OF THE COMIC. ITS AWESOME. THIS IS WHY I LOVE COMICS. I WISH THERE WAS A CAPSLOCK FOR WHEN YOU WERE ALREADY IN CAPSLOCK.

HAHA, SNAKES CAN'T BELCH!

WORD.

HEY HAVOC, WHY DON'T YOU FEED HER SOME BEER. GET HER SLIVERING THIS WAY AND THAT. GET HER ALL FUCKED UP.

Does anyone actually watch Saturday Night Live anymore? It's fucking terrible. There's like one funny bit per thirty minutes. Even though I'm drinking (ROCKFIST), i got so bored I just put on Adam Sandler's They're All Gonna Laugh at You on Spotify. Hence the 'Buffoon' jokes strewn throughout the post.

Whatever, I'll get to the X-Plops already but seriously, who is writing these SNLs? Why does Lorne Michaels allow this? Is he not involved? Can they not find funnier people to write and preform? Do they have funny people but just don't let them be funny? THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS BULLSHIT?

Seth Myers should jump into an open volcano.

Ok, so, X-Pals, this one starts with Freedom Force being all like, yes we'll take this old WWII guys from those issues before. And we'll ask Destiny what she thinks, and Destiny is all like, well I can see into the future and here's what I see: THE X-MEN ALL DIE!!!! Oh my god it's like foreshadowing but when it's way more obvious even.

Then the Blob had the longest pee and Valarie Cooper was his piss pal.

THEN, the Storm, Injun, Vision Quest subplot takes over as the main plot and Naze and Storm trip balls(not making that up) and Storm fights a bear and then a snake but its all in her mind. All part of Naze's master plan to bop the man (here the part of the man is played by the X-Men and the temporal universe).

Also the X-Men hang out and act all agnsty and Havoc and Madalyne Pyror become pals. They share popcorn that tastes like someone jizzed all over it.

Hey, is that Dazzler pissing in that guy's fucking gas tank?

Whoops, quick PS - they just did the 'Technology Hump' bit at the very end of this SNL and a couple parts had me in fucking tears. HEY JUST SHOW SOME SERIOUS TECHNOLOGICAL PENETRATION YOU ASSHOLES. Nicely done. Nicely fuggin done.

X-Men 222: FARTBEAK

What we learned this issue besides that Scalphunter has some killer boots, man.

WOLVERINE FIGHTING SABERTOOTH ON THE COVER = $ALE$ BITCHES!

ALSO THIS COVER HAS MANY SIMILARITIES TO THE LAST COVER. BUT WHO GIVES A SHIT. WHY DONT YOU BLOG ABOUT IT IF ITS SUCH A BIG GOD DAMN DEAL, DORK. 

 SPEAKING OF DORKS. CHECK OUT THIS FUCKIN SCHLUB.

 I GUESS SOMETIMES, NO DOES MEAN NO.

 WHAT GOES BETTER WITH CAMPFIRES THAN BEANS? AMIRITE OR WHAT?

 COUSIN TO MAN-BEAR-PIG.

JUST LIKE THE COVER. AGAIN. IM SENSING SOME FUCKIN THEMES HERE.

Another quality issue full of dope art and rad ass fighting and angst and some mystical nonsense in the desert with some Native Americans. OK so I still don't get the whole Native American vision quest, but this time Storm and creepy old balls having possessed former mentor of Forge, Naze, fight some insane shapeshifting giant snakes with the heads of owls and the arms of bears. It's pretty cool, despite making no god damn sense whatsoever.

Except for the ma snake bear owl injun fight (the explanation given is that the mystical world is all fucked up because of Forge and Dr Strange and Dormammu or something, and so evil spirits like the "Eye Killers" are  infiltrating the corporal world), the whole issue is the Marauders and the X-men finishing their fight in San Francisco. The mutant friendly cop Lt. Morrel from 30 issues ago even shows up. As do the Japanese kids who made a cameo 40 issues ago after Secret Wars ended and the X-Men got randomly dumped out in Japan. Now those exact same kids are in San Franciso on vacation. Yes the Marvel Universe is a small, small world (and to his credit, Claremont has Rogue make a meta joke to that same effect).

Besides all sorts of slam bang super hero action (that fucks up a good bit of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge just for good measure), the main tension in this issue is between Havoc and Polaris, two reunited lovers at odds against each other because Lorna Dane is possessed by the evil spirit, Malice (or mutant, I'm not actually quite sure what the fuck Malice is). Malice is an evil bitch and cruelly taunts Havoc, who still sports a hulking boner for Polaris, and Malice knows this, flying right above him but out of reach singing, "You will never get theese, you will never get theese! A la la la la-la!"

Claremont impresses with his ingenuity by finding new and interesting ways the various Mutant powers interact in a fight. Though it is kind of cheat having Deus Ex Longshot around to just say, "Oh look, my mutant power, which is LUCK, found some improbable way of saving the day. Good for us."

Also dig the way Claremont plugs his buddy George R.R. Martin's superhero anthology, Wild Cards. This was before A Song of Ice and Fire ever started and way before HBO's mega bad ass adaption Game of Trombones. Haha, the passage of time. 

GREAT, MAYBE NEXT WRITE UP WILL JUST BE ALL CURSING AND NONSENSE AND TAKE WAY LESS TIME.

X-Men 221: Def by Lounging

What we learn this issue besides that Marc Silvestri realized too late that he had drawn Wolverine's left hand in a position that would obscure his face if he had his claws extended and so he had to leave them retracted. Fascinating, I know, right?

HOLY SHIT IT'S BEEN SO LONG THAT I FORGOT THAT I ALREADY "PREPARED" A COVER FOR THIS ISSUE. HERE IS THE ONE FROM 2011.

AND HERE'S WHAT I DID IN THE NEW MAYAN WILLENIUM.

EERILY SIMILAR, NO? 

WE FINALLY SEE THAT NASTY TOOTHED FUCKFACE MR. SINISTER. NICE NAME, BRO.

 SOUNDS LIKE HE IS A FAN OF THE BEATSIE BOYS. RIGHT ON.

 YES, FINE WORK, INDEED.

HEY MAYBE THEY ARE BOTH GAY. THAT WOULD BE COOL WITH ME, MAN. 

 WHY IS THAT GUY BEHIND HAVOC ALSO IMMUNE TO HIS PLASMA BLASTS?

HOW FUCKING GREAT IS THE TERM, FONZANOON?

Man it has been a really long time. But back in the day I was a student with free time and few responsibilities (that I cared much about). Now I am a busy working man with more responsibilities that I still care little for but fulfill for fear of personal insolvency. But it's also the weekend and I woke up before noon and pumped a bitchload of caffeine into my system so now I'm ready to do this again. So let's fucking do this then!

This is a pretty decent issue, and I am a big of this era of Marc Silvestri's frenetic cartooning. He is a skilled artist of the highest caliber. I saw Silvestri was penciling some Marvel comics again recently but it looks like he's spending way too much time on his drawing and over-delineating everything. Chill out on the cross hatching and get back to the quick and dirty sloppy style that served you so well during your glory days on the X-Men Mr. Silvestri!

Fucking christ that was the most fanboyish bullshit I've ever said in my life! Fuck!

Anyway, We finally see Mr. Gary Sineseter and he looks as ridiculous as his name implies. I believe the reason for this was that Claremont's long term plan for the character was to reveal that his secret identity was that of a troubled youth who gained incredible powers at an early age and was stuck in a state of arrested development. Also he was from the same orphanage of Scott Summers and developed an unhealthy infatuation (homo-crush?) and now goes around in his over the top 'bad guy' persona to fuck with the X-Men all in an attempt to get attention from Cyclops.

Over course Claremont never got around to all that and quit the book before this could be revealed. Subsequent writers inevitably fucked that all up and Mr. Sinister is, as a result, a pretty flawed character.

WHATEVER.

His first action as a bad guy here is to check Sabretooth before he wrecks Sabretooth, establishing his credentials as a seriously superpowered villain. Because if Sabretooth can go to toe to tow with Wolverine, and Mr. Sinister and blithely ruin Sabretooth's shit without breaking a sweat, well then by the transitive property, blah blah blah.

So we learn a bit about Mr. Sinister and the Marauders. Not too much, mostly that they want to kill Madelyne Pryor, who is now an embarrassing loose end after editors demanded Cyclops dump her and their baby to rejoin the old original X-Men in the new comic book, X-Factor.

Storm continues her fairly racist Native American vision quest with the mystical and secretly evil Naze, who also creepily hits on her like some old pedo. Also Dazzler and Rogue snipe at each other like a couple of knitting circle yentas.

Yes there is dysentery amongst the ranks. But they all pull their shit together to stop the Marauders from murdering Pryor. But the battle is still raging at the end of the issue, when the possessed former X-Man Lorna Dane (for serious that is her name) aka Polaris, aka female Magneto, shows up for the first time in a  bitchload of issues this time as a villain.

The fight that takes up most of the issue is pretty bad ass and is classic Claremont (rife with Clarmontisms, like calling Dazzler, 'Lightengale', whatever the fuck that means), and there was some interesting things I was going to point out, but I've written enough as it is. And I think I want to go guzzle some more November Juliet (thanks Generation Kill!) and maybe squeeze in another issue. So really its a win win. Fuck yeah we did it.