X-Men #14

Part 2/6 of Bloodline. 

Rachel and Monet are chasing down the shooter that seriously injured two students at the Jean Grey school. Monet shows no mercy after the culprit tries to take out bystanders in a trainstation and then suicide, Monet and Rachel go full force at him with disregard to who is watching. 

Back at the school Storm tries to get answers from her future daughter Kymera while Jubilee does what ever she can to teach her infant son to protect himself. “Come on Shogo, push the beep beep.” And Psylocke locks the school down. “Anyone breaches this school. I’ll hear it in my brains.” 

Storm officially made them a team and chooses that they will take a silent vote for leader, no judgements (half of them can read minds… that’s not really going to work). Suddenly there is an explosion in the east wing. The shooter is escaping (because it was a really bad time for a team meeting) the room is burning and the fire suppression has been disabled. Monet and Rachel decide that they’re going to take the guy apart. He’s about to say “You can’t stop the Future” when Kymera comes out of nowhere with her panther and lays the smack down. But she sees a timer on his head counting down. She retreats, a hawk delivers Shogo to her, she calls for her mom then the man explodes and Kymera is sent tumbling (Shogo pushes the beep-beep). 

Outside: Menacing characters plan to attack them again at dawn.

BromoSuperior

with art by Phil Briones. Hellion and co are stuck in Psylocke’s danger room program. This side story isn’t really grabbing me. But Briones’s version of Psylocke is perfect.

X-Men #12

So after my MANY COMPLAINTS about last issue… my hangs ups have almost all seemed to be addressed this time around.

Selene Gallio’s name was spelled right, Monet and Karima looked like two separate people, they addressed who was where (with a role call, which seemed like a response to complaints that I -and seemingly others- had last time).

The “Meanwhile” was still a “Before” (Quentin Quire was on the plane telepathically combating the Sentinels..

at no point “Meanwhile” could QQ have been at the school with John Sublime last issue ..anyway…

In Japan, Ana Cortes bites the dust (at the close of #11 she stabbed herself through the gut with a sword). And there’s a slightly baffling scene of Madelyne Pryor’s resurrection. And then they introduce who’s on the inbound X-Jet.. which Rachel groans at. And it comes off as BWood being annoyed at readers being annoyed last issue -but I’m so vain, I think this issue is in direct response to me. Anyway; Storm, Rachel, Psylocke, Money, Karima got a tip about Lady Deathstrike’s whereabouts …from Ana. 

Arkea’s the queen bee of the hive mind so they decide to shut her down. They know she’s still recruiting and know it is likely that both the Black Queen and Red Queen have joined up.Monet crashes through the building (again) but instead of heading right for Arkea she goes to get some revenge on Amora while Psylocke has a rematch against Typhoid Mary. Rachel doesn’t get a rematch against Selene (long ago, Rachel faced off with her but Wolverine injured Rachel to take her out of the fight so that she wouldn’t be a murderer) but instead gets attacked by her mother’s genetic clone. 

But Storm negotiates. She tells Madelyne and Selene to just walk away and go elsewhere, just let the X-Men take care of Arkea. 

You don’t span decades with X-Men wanting you dead- or in Selene’s case; centuries- and survive without being a little self serving. They just got their lives back… so they walk away. 

Monet grabs Arkea’s host Reiko (after Arkea goes batshit and makes a run at Storm) and Karima shoots her with a weapon specially engineered by John Sublime. Then Karima says she’s taking a gig with Sabra and Gabriel. 

Okay… This time I liked Anka’s art fine. Maybe the last issue was just rushed, I don’t know. It looked better. The characters were distinct, the lines were clean. The backgrounds were stylishly sparse. 

Then we get to this dubious “Meanwhile”

Cessily and Roxy finally get their issues worked through…

Mann’s art is so good! Paul Mounts colors are so good! This picture that I took with my smartphone in my crappily lit den does it o service. It’s really just gorgeous. This little side mission was certainly fun albeit somewhat convoluted. Look at the ripples! Look at the facial expressions. It’s so good!

Jubilee makes some comments to Julian that aren’t quite suitable for work. Anyway, Sentinels handled. 

I actually kinda dig Quentin Quire, he reminds me of my high school friends. He can come around if he wants.

Is Jubilee actually gonna do vampire-y stuff. I feel like they’ve been teasing me with this for 8 months. 

This is one of my fave series, I’m glad to see it was back on track this month. I did think it was weird that Selene and Madelyne just walked off, now there are two big bads on the loose, I’m sure they will be popping up somewhere soon. This was a much better issue, I’m still a little baffled about the way the story is being split up.. but I’m okay with it as long as there is consistency and cohesion between the two plots. 

Nerd News-day Tuesday

I would like to introduce you to my nerd-news round up lazy blogger process. 

Step one: Haunt Gail Simone’s twitter. Remember that Tomb Raider  #1 come out tomorrow. Find an indiegogo for a She Walks in Shadows, an all female HP Lovecraft inspired anthology. If you throwdown $500 you get (among other things) a ukulele fit for an Elder God. Bitchin’.  

Step two: Check on Brian Wood. Find some sneak peeks of next issue (which I’m super excited for even though I chewed the last one a bit).. it’s one of Mann’s pages (the people involved don’t make sense to me in continuity with the last one. Whatever. I’m letting it go)

 

Step 3: Wish that Amanda Conner used her twitter more.

Step 4: See what’s going on on flipboard. Find an article about men using chivalry to emasculate each other, 4b; realize you “don’t understand men,” 4c; realize you flipped the big tire at crossfit to show off to another woman. 4d; remember that gender roles are bullshit.

HOLY SHIT A CAR THAT RUNS ON AIR (mostly)

RunDisney announces an Avengers themed Half-Marathon. So dust off your kicks, your GPS watch, your purple sweats and your green body paint and get ready to SMASH the finish line! Registration opens March 25th!

Hollywood lost writer and actor Harold Ramis, Ghostbusters 3 is still on. Well, probably. 

In the TV world: Almost Human and Agents of SHIELD still not officially renewed or cancelled. No official news about Dracula. Almost Human and Dracula need another season. I’m not fully on board with Agents of SHIELD, I keep watching, but they’re lucky Ziva left NCIS or I wouldn’t have. CW is where you want to be if you’re a supe, Supernatural, Arrow, Vampire Diaries and the Originals AND (probably) Beauty and the Beast are renewed.

Under the Dome will be back June 30th, new teasers came out already, hinting at “an unexpected romance” and the death of two favorites in the season premiere. I hope it’s Junior. 

And for no reason, a pic of Jessica Alba looking like Drew Barrymore in Scream:

Ooooh, and a really rad article about a Siberian mummy and her 2500 year old tattoos. Who says tattoos will look ugly when you’re older? 

X-Men #9

Monet shows off what a powerhouse she is in this issue instead of just trading catty quips with Jubilee. Sublime is being interrogated by former fling Rachel Grey when Arkea becomes aware again. Uh-oh. Jubilee and Karima do some human style crime busting and the track Ana/Yuriko/Lady Deathstrike to Dubai. 

Arkea, however is harder to pin down. She/they came to earth as bacteria on a meteor which broke into several pieces as it hit Earth’s atmosphere. Since alien bacteria have no care for political borders or alliances the X-Men get a little help from SHIELD to prevent this from starting WW3. 

Monet is the first on the scene in Dubai where Reiko has androids being built per Yuriko’s instructions. Amora is stunned, Typhoid Mary is impressed. Yuriko tries to tell her what John Sublime has warned but Reiko becomes possessed by Arkea. Arkea also senses that Sublime is alive (Yuriko believed she had killed him, but Psylocke made a last minute save) and with the X-Men. 

Yuriko asks Arkea for an upgrade. Odin’s curse is lifted from Amora and she gets her powers back. Monet crashes through the building at Mach 3 and messes up their Body Shoppe while Typhoid Mary makes off with Reiko/Arkea. Amora engages with Monet and Ana/Yuriko leaves her to deal with the lone X-Men. 

Reiko propagates the Arkea virus and 6 major alerts go off across the globe. Karima is at risk for repossession, Monet is left for dead AND Sentinels are rising out of the ocean. 

Well, that was quite an eventful story. Arkea was this team’s first major villain and caused a major rift between Rachel and Storm when there was a disagreement over how to handle Arkea (Storm said Psylocke should take out Karima and there has been a power struggle between Rachel and Storm since). Well, Arkea is back with a definite vengeance and now has some serious firepower in the form of these Sentinels. As if “The New Sisterhood” wasn’t enough of a threat! These villains will be along for the rest of this story arc and the next, so there is no easy resolution.

This series is just consistently awesome. Can’t wait for next month!

X-Men #8

X-Men #8

The eighth issue of “Brian Wood’s X-Men”/”The All-Girl X-Men” keeps it low on the Y chromosomes with All-Girl enemies! Post- BoTA the in-fighting hits a low for this team as they unite to stop Lady Deathstrike!

(My HBD tweet from Brian Wood, so huge.)

An intruder alert goes off at the Jean Grey School, the first to respond is Psylocke. It’s Typhoid Mary. She’s grabbed all the medical info on Karima, Shogo and Arkea. 

Mary escapes but Psylocke is on her trail (after getting dressed in the yard, much to Quentin Quire’s pervy amusement). Rachel (who sleeps in her full X-Men uniform) calls John Sublime to tell him the bad news. Except he’s already at the Cortes Compound, home of the new incarnation of Lady Deathstrike. 

Ms. Cortes, ahem… Yuriko is excited about the prospect of injecting Arkea. Treating alien bacteria hellbent on taking over the world/his sister as a body modification just not amuse John Sublime. 

But he believes that the X-Men will stop her (after all, they have stopped him and Arkea before).

Typhoid Mary shows up, believing she’s lost her tail. She’s psyched to learn that the Arkea live sample is a contagion. Lady Deathstrike cracks open the biohazard bag. John Sublime struggles to get the sample from her. When he does, he finds that the sample is inert. He shows off his big brain, telling the villainesses how he would find other samples that could potentially be alive. But he says he won’t. And they can’t kill him because they need the information! Ha ha ha, John Sublime will have the last laugh.

Or not. Typhoid Mary scrambles his brains and gets the info. She takes off with Lady Deathstrike and leaves John drooling on the carpet. Betsy steps in, scoops John up off the floor and they head back to the Jean Grey School. 

The bad girls land in Norway. Enchantress fights them with a stick and gives Typhoid Mary a thrashing. Enchantress has been stuck there 2 months. Thor exiled her and stripped her of her powers. Enchantress saw the meteorite strike nearby, Lady Deathstrike says that if she shows her the meteor that she can make Enchantress more powerful than Odin himself. 

Bling! and Jubilee are having their Degrassi Junior High moment. Bling! points out the hypocrisy of the “inclusive” X-Men before planting a kiss on a somehow surprised Jubilee. 

But Monet struts by and tells Jubilee that they’ve got a mission.

 

…That’s not from this issue, it’s a #throwbackthursday to their Generation X days. 

The THREE villainesses find the meteorite and make a pact, a sisterhood, to stand against the X-Men!

This issue was really enjoyable. A ton going on. Jubes is getting all the afterschool special plotlines… isn’t she a vampire?! Jubes, do vampire stuff! On the art front: I’m enjoying Terry Dodson’s take on the girls and since he and Wood go back with Monet, Jubilee and the crew to Generation X I have high hopes for the rest of this story arc!

+ You know we’ve discussed KP Vampire Slayer before- Including how the now Professor K was the inspiration for Buffy Summers. But did you know:

Circa 2000- Monet St. Croix faces off against Vampire DeLaCorte …completely unrelated to Jubilee being covered in vampire blood in a terrorist attack/being bitten by Xarus, son of Dracula in 2010.

interestingly enough Dodson drew this comic up to this issue and Wood started writing the one right after. 

X-Men #7

Brian Wood’s book is back! post-Battle of the Atom, post-some weird scandal/accusations against Brian Wood, post-Kitty Pryde leaving the “team”

We begin in Bogota, Colombia. The just-eighteen Ana Cortez inherited a fortune from her father, a tycoon with diversifications in oil, real estate and weapons. Travelling with Reiko, she takes an injection and Reiko calls her Yuriko… then she leaves. Ana says that an Angel of Vengeance is inside of her. 

My name is Ana Cortes/My name is Yuriko Oyama

Ana is purchasing The Yuriko Consciousness and providing her with what she needs to resume life as Lady Deathstrike. It involves nanites. 

At the Jean Grey School: Jubes gets great news (which she kind of already knew from the time travel fiasco) her adoption of Shogo is being processed! She’s going to be his legal mom! Monet (who?) busts in on Jubilee getting this great news from Storm. Which is rude, granted. But Jubilee snarkingly calls her “Princess Perfect” in overwhelmingly immature and jealous and out of character fashion. 

Karima is getting back into shape after her coma (that she was in until the Arkea incident where she was almost killed by Psylocke under Storm’s orders, after being overtaken by an alien bacteria hellbent on conquering Earth that could control anything mechanical). Beast is monitoring her on a treadmill and tracking her vitals. Monet pops in and then invites Karima for a run. A real run. Outside.

Lady Deathstrike (in day of the dead make-up) is headed for the Jean Grey School, and specifically… she’s looking for comatose Karima. Upon seeing Karima Shapandar, Lady Deathstrike calls the convoy to a halt and Monet and Karima know they are in trouble. Karima takes a bullet to the shoulder. Monet makes some shock waves. Lady Deathstrike tries to lie to the telepathic mutant. But she knows. And so she makes an escape.

Storm asks for Monet’s help figuring out how Lady Deathstrike has returned. Monet says that she’s supposed to be taking some down time and that she’s not looking to be the team bruiser. And Jubilee replies, “No one asked you to. God.” (ummm.. Storm asked for her help… why are there more juvenile quips here?) Rachel makes some snide comments to Storm about the state of their “team.”

Then the issue rounds itself out with Ana getting decent intel on the X-Men, she decides the target is Arkea and team up with Typhoid Mary to steal it.

(Also this very Degrassi tidbit where Bling! confesses to Jubilee that she had a crush on Mercury and asked her out on a date, Mercury punched her in front of everyone and she was mortified. Jubilee rightly says that no one has a right to treat her that way! Yay, LGBT characters… but also… incredibly random, this has been on the sidelines since the first issue and we just now get the ‘why’)

While I was glad to see Ana Cortes, Karima Shapandar and… sort of Yuriko Oyama adding more diversity to the cast… why are my girls suddenly acting like tweens? Jubilee has been playing momma and getting more mature and clear headed, so why is she quabbling with “Princess Perfect”? especially with the team all up ended after the recent disagreements and the departure of Kitty Pryde. WHICH NO ONE BRINGS UP.

KP gets no respect. In the books or the movies. In this completely silly statement, writer of X-Men: Days of Future Past Simon Kinberg says that Wolverine is sent back in the movie version, even though it was Kitty Pryde in the comics because, “…when we started thinking about the logistical realities of Kitty’s consciousness being sent back in time, to her younger self, as opposed to her physical body being sent back..it was impossible. Obviously in the book it’s Kitty..but you’re talking about an actress (Ellen Page) who, in the age of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, would have been negative 20 years old.” I’m just going to say it: So write it different. Wolverine has had his movies. Origins was terrible and The Wolverine was sub-par. Move on. Read more here.

Ummm.. And Jubes can go back to acting like a grown woman. Rachel, too. And Storm can stop ignoring valid issues any-time-now.

Battle of the Atom Chapter 7

Or X-Men #6

My fave X-Men book. I have been enjoying the crossover, but this series in particular is the reason I’m reading about all these mutants! Exciting!

 

This cover is not incredibly exciting. The issue was good, though.

Jubilee wakes up to a screaming Shogo and Bling! who made Shogo a device that corresponds to Jubilee’s telemetrics tries to talk to Jubes about her feud with Mercury. But she gets interrupted… again. This time by Rachel, Rogue and Wolverine returning to the Jean Grey school. Wolverine asks Rachel to spy on the future X-Men. Which seems too late since Jean/Xorn is ready to throw young Jean, young Scott and young Angel in the time cube.

But young Beast and young Iceman are gone! (Last issue they bugged out with Magik to the distant future and then met up with present day Cyclops)  This is not new that Xavier’s grandson takes well and he directs his intense rage at Bling! WTF! Wolverine steps in. During the commotion Rachel is able to interlope and finds that the future X-Men are all freaking wrong… and future Kitty Pryde proves to be… Wolverine’s son…

WOW

All Hell breaks loose. 

And Jubilee throws her baby at Rogue and Psylocke (who says “Eep!”) and screams “I hate when telepaths fight ‘cuz I have no idea what’s going on! But I’m blaming you, ‘cuz I don’t like you anyway!” She bares her fangs and lunges at Xavier’s grandson! YES! 

Ice Hulk fling Jubilee into the ceiling.

Psylocke (still holding Shogo) swings a 90 pound mace at Ice Hulk.

Rachel psychically fights Xavier and is successful until Molly cracks her over the head.

Side note- Wolverine is missing his healing factor? WHAAAAAAT?

Jubilee, from the roof yells “Shogo! Push the beep-beep!” and Shogo gets put in a bubble so that Psylocke can fight Deadpool, then Jubes, her baby and Bling! run off. 3 of the 5 original are being held by Xorn/Jean and future Beast, Kitty, Storm, Beast and Bobby are also captive after Xorn/Jean’s psychic attack. The school gets locked down so that the real future X-Men can’t show up. 

And they do …obviously, along with Cyclops and Emma Frost. 

Pretty much all of these issues have had a huge WTF moment at the end… this one is no exception.

We’re getting towards the end. 3 more left in the cross over. Things that made no sense: Everyone stood around and watched while “Xavier’s grandson” (who is actually young Charles Xavier from the future… ummmm) beat up on Bling!? What? Rachel, Rogue, Psylocke and Jubilee (who made Bling the #2 in charge of Shogo) watched?! Umm… no, that doesn’t sound likely. 

Thanks to Rogue’s interaction with IceHulk we know that no one is driving that bus.

Why is Wolverine’s son blue? Did Wolverine and Mystique have a child? I have no idea what’s going on here. Please help me out… 

Marvel Now! X-MEN #1 & #2

 

 

So I just picked these up today, #1 is about a month old, and #2 just came out today.

The covers!

Look at these lovely ladies. 

 

And everyone’s looking all bad ass. Storm’s looking FIERCE with her mohawk and cleavage and impeccable posture. Psylocke is looking deadly serious. Kitty looks ready to play or pounce. & Rogue and Rachel are calm, composed and ready for anything. Which is good, because Jubilee up there is about to make some questionable decisions.

And then I saw Issue #2 and said…

Freaking Seriously? There’s a baby?! 

Because even though I know that babies are the superheros of tomorrow, they don’t exactly scream “Hey! Mainstream Readership!” 

And the rest of the team is in the background at war with some machines. Which is a very accurate depiction of what is really going on here.

See, I’m not even mad about the baby. Jubilee adopted/stole him. She carries him in a backpack. He’s carrying an alien bacteria that can possess machines and is out for revenge/hellbent on taking over the Earth. 

Maternal instincts turn troublesome when Jubilee tries to bring baby Viggo to The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Along the way she is followed by X-foe John Sublime, and his sibling is inhabiting this baby. 

Jubilee calls her girls, and they come to her:

awww look a baby! (Storm is not as enthused) 

Rogue averts a train crash, Psylocke works some fabulous telekinetic awesomeness on John Sublime. However, Arkea (the sister/alien bacteria) gets loose and inhabits a comatose Karima, sending the whole school into lockdown! Which is where issue #2 picks up. 

The first X-Man Arkea fights is Beast. The second is Rogue, there’s this one point where Arkea says ” You are stronger than the blue one yet your outward physiology presents as inferior.” And then Rogue punches her through the floor. Hooray!

Arkea/Karima gets away, Jubilee, (a now bacteria free) Viggo, Storm, Rachel and Psylocke fly out after her! Kitty Pryde and the X-Kids are left behind to clean up the destruction… however, one of them digs up a cliffhanger!

So pumped on this. Great story so far, action galore, distinct personalities that translate really well. The art is beautiful and intense. Everyone kicks ass in their own unique way. It’s the X-Men you already love just with less hairy chests. Only 2 issues out so far, so there’s still time to get in on the ground floor… I recommend you do!

“SECURE THE INFANT IT’LL KILL US ALL” 

Legit.

5 Mohawks!