The Batlord

Well, thankfully with this issue the pulp, place-holder subplot is concerned with a rather bitchin' battle between Juggernaut and the X-Men that starts at the very first page with a panel depicting Colossus being lifted off of his feet by a punch from Juggernaut whose fist is about the size of the Russian's chest. Wolverine is in the process of falling on his head, and Nightcrawler is... jumping. But the real tension in this panel comes from Storm, who's cowering in the foreground at the far right bottom corner of the page having a claustrophobic breakdown due to being in a dingy catacomb. So from the word "Go!" we are in crisis mode. I notice that writer Chris Claremont and artist Dave Cockrum are great at really grabbing your attention with the very first page. Not a bad talent to have.




Speaking of that lamewad, seeing as his mutant superpower seems to be shooting beams out of his shillelagh, Claremont wisely keeps him out of the action as much as possible, leaving him to bare-knuckle box Banshee since they are both immune to each other's powers for no apparent reason. I'd like to see just one panel of him hitting Banshee upside the head with the shillelagh, but sadly we are deprived. He also reveals that he and Juggernaut have been paid by someone or other to lure the X-Men into this trap, which is good, since I was worried Tom just wanted to kill Banshee so that he could have the castle all to himself, like Scar from the Lion King, but with a shillelagh. You know, the more I say "shillelagh", the more I like Black Tom. Not as a character, cause he's a pube, but without him I would have no excuse to keeping putting "shillelagh" into my journal.

Luckily though, he's relegated to only a few pages, whereas the majority of the battle takes place between Juggernaut, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Wolverine. Given the dubious circumstances leading up to the fight it's surprisingly tense. Despite their best efforts, Colossus just isn't strong enough to hurt Juggernaut, Wolverine's claws can't penetrate his armor, and since it hasn't yet been established that Nightcrawler can teleport anybody other than himself he's likewise powerless. And Storm panicking in the background just ratchets up the intensity.

No matter how her friends try to reach her, she can't even stand, let alone fight (which leads to a pretty awesome bit where Wolverine interrupts Colossus, who is pleading with Storm, and hurls him at Juggernaut like a chair in a bar fight). In her distress we get to see a flashback of Storm's past where her parents are killed by a crashing plane during the Suez Crisis between Egypt, France, Britain, and Israel. Storm's claustrophobia came when she was buried in the rubble along with her dead parents. Then she was a street urchin, made her way to Kenya, became a god, yadda yadda yadda, I'm sure you know most of this. Flashbacks can be pretty ****, but in this case it helps to build tension even further in a fight that might otherwise be pretty run-of-the-mill.

It turns into a cliff hanger when Professor X, all the way across the Atlantic in New York, hears her psychic cry of distress. He and Scott have a rather heated exchange over Scott's unwillingness to leave Jean's side to help in a fight that would be over long after he got there anyway. This of course leads to Prof X giving one of those "You ungrateful little bastard! I gave you food and shelter!" speeches and then raising his hand to give Scott five-across-the-eye. I guess his pissiness brings on one of his Shi'ar visions, as he sees then Lilandra in a mirror. We'd seen the one dream several issues ago, and Xavier mentioned other dreams on several occasions, but for the most part the Shi'ar subplot had been completely under the radar.




Yeah, no can find the bottom panel with Lilandra in the mirror, but this is the real reason to dig this page. Oh, and Jean has a roommate named "Misty Knight". My assumption is that she is a stripper.

And just as **** is getting tense over in New York, we are plunged back into the castle, where the battle is reaching its conclusion. Juggernaut defeats Nightcrawler, Wolverine, and Colossus, and Black Tom finally hits Banshee with his shillelagh. Twice. Even Storm, who manages to overcome her fear and offer some small amount of resistance, is overcome.

Even though follow up to the Phoenix storyline is rather scant, the parts that do matter are suitably ominous, such as Lilandra in the mirror, and a now awake Jean having an odd conversation with her roommate that implies that the Phoenix may be lurking just beneath Jean's consciousness. They also serve to add pacing to the battle that takes up much of the issue, which otherwise may have lacked much personality. Black Tom and Juggernaut still don't matter, other than as a distraction from the real plot, and I'm only mildly interested in whoever hired them, but they manage to make their appearance in this book pleasurable this time at least. The only real thing that I have against this issue is that after Nightcrawler is knocked unconscious, he is rescued and taken into the walls of the castle by leprechauns. What the ****, Claremont?

The Excelsior! Network: All shillelaghs, all the time!

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The Batlord

Well, first of all, this issue has absolutely no Jean, no Cyclops, no Professor X, and no Phoenix. This is just pure Black Tom and Juggernaut. It's been a while since I saw the cartoon, but I don't remember the first Phoenix arc being this much of a slow burn. It's nice to see Claremont pacing himself and keeping us guessing, but I'm still getting used to my expectations being off. It kind of helps that this issue is also easily the best Black Tom book so far. And I say that in spite, and maybe even a bit because of the leprechauns.

As always Claremont and Cockrum catch your eyes with a flashy first page. This time, with an unconscious Nightcrawler being carried through a stone tunnel by seven leprechauns. I want to hate this. But it's just so absurd that my desire for serious storytelling is overridden by my love of stupid ****.




How the **** am I even supposed to critique that? How can I possibly do anything but snort in resigned amusement and just go with it? So anyway, I thought the people Black Tom kidnapped were the castle steward's family. Nope. Tom and Juggernaut kidnapped a bunch of leprechauns. There's an honest-to-****ing-god leprechaun hostage situation going on in the pages of Uncanny X-Men. The Animen are starting to seem pretty down to earth right about now. And now that Nightcrawler has woken up and had his moment of "WTF?! L3PRICONZ DON'T EXIST, YO!", it's now up to him to save his friends who've been captured by Shillelagh-Man/Black Tom.

Unfortunately they're all being kept in some kind of dungeon filled with unnecessarily futuristic, Comic Code-approved torture devices. But most nefarious of all is Black Tom's metal, psychic-torture glove with which it appears he will use to molest Storm. The rape-grin is a dead giveaway.




Pulpy or not, the quasi-futuristic torture chamber does add a bit of a threatening atmosphere. Claremont does a rather good job of keeping up the energy of the last issue pretty much throughout, and even building on it to make it feel like things are heading for a climactic, shillelagh confrontation.

Luckily, with his image inducer, Nightcrawler is able to trick Juggernaut into busting a hole into the torture chamber's wall, and now with the power of fresh air, Storm regains her senses and blows this popsicle stand with a bit of the wind beneath her wings. Wolverine and Colossus are taken along for the ride with minor protest before being dropped on their primary-colored asses outside the castle.




Also, in the confusion the leprechauns are able to escape, and then again rescue Nightcrawler, this time from some fallen rubble, just in time for him to save Banshee from the clutches of Juggernaut and Black Tom, who are threatening to hurl the Irish stereotype from the top of the castle walls. Thus ensues a most spirited fracas. Banshee has a rematch with Black Tom, who has sadly replaced his shillelagh with an ax, thereby losing whatever interest in him I ever had. The others all take on Juggernaut, with better, though still indecisive results. Oh, and Storm fights the traditional anti-Viking castle defense of arbitrary laser turrets.

The tide finally turns when Banshee manages to hurl Black Tom from the battlements into the raging sea, and there's a surprisingly emotional moment where Juggernaut, without a second thought to his own safety, throws himself after the man who he claims is the only friend he's ever had. Not gonna lie, I was kind of touched.

It's certainly impressive that regardless of this plot's pulpy silliness, I was still slowly own over by some excellent characterization on the parts of Nightcrawler, Storm, and even the villains at the end, though the shillelagh is the real star here.

And to add some actual relevance to this issue after all the pulp fun, we discover at the end that the person who had hired Black Tom and Juggernaut was none other than Eric the Red, the guy who'd captured and mind-controlled Havoc and Polaris way back in issue #97. Eric is himself having his strings pulled by who I assume is the current Shi'ar dictator, whose goal is to prevent "Princess Neramani", who is obviously Lilandra from Professor X's dreams, from making contact with the X-Men. So, the seemingly pointless Eric the Red subplot is merging with the first appearance of the Shi'ar, which will also go hand-in-hand with the main Phoenix uber-plot. There apparently is a method to Claremont's madness. Most bitchin' of all, Eric the Red has enlisted the help of Magneto. Juggernaut is all well and good, but the first battle between Wolverine, Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, and mother****ing Magneto is yet more history in the making.




May the shillelagh be with you... (totally replacing "Excelsior!" jokes with shillelagh jokes for the time being)

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The Batlord

That cover is a bit misleading. It implies that the X-Men were actually able to put up a legitimate fight against Magneto. This is not the case. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Our story starts with our heroes sticking some anti-mutant assturd up on a pole because he won't let them take out his hovercraft boat even after they've already paid to rent it. Colossus however is able to reason with him. So to speak. They then head out to their friend Moira MacTaggert's laboratory on some island off Scotland. Some guy has been looking after it while she's in New York helping to take care of Jean, but he hasn't been heard from in a few days, so the X-Men are checking it out.

No sooner do they near the island than their hovercraft is ripped apart by some unknown force and they wash up onshore, only to be trapped in some kind of air bubble that is never satisfactorily explained. The bubble then rises into the air and shoots toward the walls of the laboratory, though the combined might of the X-Men is enough to destroy the wall before they can be crushed by it. Apparently Nightcrawler can now punch walls.




Within the laboratory the X-Men are finally confronted by the terrifying power of Magneto's cheesy villain introduction speech. And also Magneto himself. Things quickly turn to **** at this point, as it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's wrong with battling a guy who is known as the "Master of Magnetism" when half your team is made out of metal.




Even Storm and Nightcrawler are helpless, as Magneto can use magnetic hoodoo to reflect Storm's lightning back at her, and "sense disruptions along the magnetic lines of force" to predict where Nightcrawler will teleport. Not sure of the scientific validity of any of that, but I'll go with it. There are some pretty imaginative uses of Magneto's powers in this fight, and none better than when he pulls iron dust from the wreckage of the hovercraft to basically encase Banshee in carbonite. The only problem is that with all this clever stuff going on, Claremont must of course explain everything in minute detail. Still, its pretty much what I was hoping for in a fight with Magneto.




All is not lost however, for Cyclops and Moira have just arrived in the Blackbird (or astro-jet or whatever the **** they're calling it right now). They quickly find the man who is supposed to be looking after the laboratory, who reveals that it was Eric the Red who attacked him and freed Magneto, who was being held prisoner here after his last defeat by the X-Men. A defeat that left him as a child. I... okay. Going with it. So after Eric de-childifies Magneto they decide that Magneto will wait for the X-Men to show up, while Scott realizes that Eric has likely gone to attack Professor X while the rest of the team is across the ocean.

Scott finds the other X-Men just in time to distract Magneto with his optic blast before he can finish them off. With a few seconds of breathing room Cyclops gathers his teammates and they retreat to the Blackbird in order to make it back to Professor X. This results in yet another pissing match between him and Wolverine, who is none too pleased at having to puss out of the fight. I suppose he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.

The issue ends with a last page packed with foreshadowing. At the top we see the first ever appearance of the man we will find out is Scott's father, whose headband, large earring, and porn star mustache clearly show him to be a space pirate. Below that we see Lilandra finally arriving at Earth only to be attacked by another space ship. And finally we see Eric the Red watching Professor X and Jean Grey on a monitor and shaking his fist in a villainy manner, right about a caption that reads: Next Issue: PHOENIX UNLEASHED!

****. Yeah. Magneto certainly provided an excellent battle, though its shortness was kind of anti-climactic, but I imagine it's just supposed to be a taster for their next confrontation anyway. He's still a placeholder villain though, but with the revelation that both he and Black Tom and Juggernaut were just diversions in the first place at least we know why the X-Men were getting so much busy work. Well, whatever the case, next issue looks like when the real **** finally hits the fan.

Deuces, true believers!

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The Batlord

Shit. Meet fan. Fan. Shit. Well the slow burn seems to have become an excrement shrapnel explosion. There isn't an emotional roller coaster scene like the goodbye in the space shuttle at the end of #100, or Jean in the hospital after the shuttle crash way back in #101, but as far as fast-paced action with not a hint of pulp this is hands down the best issue of the whole run. There isn't even any competition. You might say it's a bit of an abrupt change, but considering how long we've been building up it's a refreshing change of pace, like a wet dog nose on your back when you're sound asleep.

As usual page one takes off with a bang with the X-Men about two seconds into a confrontation with Eric the Red at their private airfield. It's all lookin' like smooth sailin' and ass kickin' for the team till page two when Fire Lord drops from outer space to take some names of his own. (If you don't remember Fire Lord from the 90s X-Men or Fantastic Four cartoons he used to be one of Galactus' heralds.) Eric plays the victim to convince Fire Lord that the X-Men are the real villains, and the ensuing fight is over almost before it begins. Damn. Ever since they got back from space the team have been doing nothing but getting their asses handed to them from one end of the globe to the other. Juggernaut and Black Tom, Magneto, but none of them has the X-Men into the dirt quite so decisively as Fire Lord.




Cut to a couple bug-looking spaceships near Earth, with Lilandra's ship being chased by a Shi'ar Captain Kirk: he starts off making a verbal ship's log, half slouches in a chair in the middle of a circular bridge, and has an alien science officer (well, they're all alien, but there's no such thing as a science officer except on Star Trek in the first place). Luckily, instead of some homely-looking guy with pointy ears, the science officer is a foxy, blonde, alien chick. But yeah, the captain is totally Kirk. Except with a horizontal, feather mohawk. Anyway, he's pursuing Lilandra under orders of her brother, the emperor of the Shi'ar Empire, and almost catches her until they all panic upon hearing that the Earthlings have previously beaten Galactus four times. Overused plot much? Still, before pulling back they manage to destroy Lilandra's ship, who luckily manages to use a Star Trek transporter to get to Earth. (Oh ****! Apparently the captain's name is actually "K'rk". God bless comic books.)




Cut again back to Earth and Jean Grey's apartment, where she is being visited by Professor X and her parents. With barely two panels of downtime Lilandra teleports right into the room and collapses, and we shortly discover that she is similarly foxy. By giving Lilandra a quick telepathic English course Xavier bridges the language barrier and likewise reads a bit of her mind, which will be important later. From here on it's pretty much nonstop mayhem. It was pretty hectic before, but I checked, and there is only one page until the end that doesn't have an explosion or energy blast, and that one has Nightcrawler swinging from a pole with his tail. Close enough.

As if all of this wasn't upsetting enough, Fire Lord blows up one of Jean's walls like an *******, and declares that he is there to take Lilandra and Xavier. Naturally, since this is the seventies and Jean's roommate is black and has an afro, she draws a revolver, cause she's obviously Foxy Brown. Luckily for Fire Lord she isn't forced to waste this jive turkey as Jean becomes Phoenix and blasts him out of the apartment and out into Central Park, where he promptly falls on and blows up a car. He got lucky.




It's been almost five issues since we last saw Phoenix, and boy does she make up for lost time. Fire Lord is pretty bitchin', and puts up a good show, but doesn't quite seem to understand that they are not going blow for blow. He is getting knocked halfway across New York City. She is not. With crashing flame dudes, screaming civilians, and energy blasts galore this is just what the doctor ordered, but it isn't too long before Jean finally finishes off Fire Lord and blasts him straight to hell (i.e. New Jersey). It's also worthy of note that Jean, while Phoenix-powered, seems to be for the most part herself. Phoenix's personality peeks out here and there, and Jean somehow knows how to use powers she's never had before, but Jean Grey is still in control.




Lest we forget Eric the Red, in the confusion he knocks Lilandra and Professor X unconscious, bringing them up onto the roof of Jean's apartment to be brought back to the Shi'ar emperor via a "stargate", which basically looks like the Stargate stargate if it were constructed from an erector set. Then there's a whole bit where the X-Men ride in to the rescue in an unexplained hover craft and get shot down, which is important since they hadn't been pooped on since the beginning of the book and they were due. They manage to save Xavier, but Eric the Red still ****s off with Lilandra in the stargate, which closes after him.

Too late to do much of anything useful the rest of the X-Men, quickly followed by Phoenix, arrive at the stargate to find Xavier saying things like "Curse you!" He seems disproportionately distraught at the abduction of some random alien chick he has just met, but with a little help from some awkward exposition from Jean we discover...




In some ways this run so far has been kind of overrated since Giant-Size X-Men. There's been hit-or-miss emotional moments, and the tendency to fall back on lame pulp can be aggravating, but the quality is steadily rising as Claremont gains experience. And he's obviously improving. Just look at the difference in quality even of the pulp with the laughability of Count Nefaria vs. the relative sophistication of Black Tom. The main difference being a greater emphasis on character interactions and sequential storytelling that continues directly from one issue to the next. From what I hear, when John Byrne replaces Dave Cockrum as artist with #108 is when the true classic Uncanny X-Men period starts, so I'm looking forward to it.

Well, that's about it. Next issue we get to see what's on the other side of the stargate, and likely get to see even more Phoenix awesomeness as her battle with Fire Lord was clearly a taster. Supposedly Claremont actually wanted her to fight Thor, just to show everyone how much of a badass she'd become, but the Marvel bigwigs apparently didn't want one of their star characters getting beat up by a girl, so instead they faced her off against somebody who'd recently, at the time, fought Thor to a standstill.

Oh yeah, **** you, you sexist Marvel editors and misogynistic comic book fans! You stole Phoenix vs. Thor from me! You can kiss my ass. I hope they turn Thor into a girl just to piss you off. Oh wait...

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The Batlord

What the crap? I feel like I just read the comic book version of a clip show. It starts out where the last one left off, with Xavier on the roof of the building with the stargate. Jean's parents and her roommate, Misty Knight (aka Foxy Brown), are all looking rather concerned, while Fire Lord, fresh from New Jersey, is demanding to know the license plate of the Phoenix that just ran him over. Before the scene can get very far Xavier passes out, seemingly due to Lilandra's disappearance and the psychic connection that she forged between them for an as yet unexplained reason.




All well and good. Sounds like a nice way to build some tension, right? Well, perhaps you can forgive me for instead seeing the entire rest of the issue as a rehash of the new X-Men vs. old X-Men fight in #100. Cut to the inside of Charles Xavier's mind, who is now dreaming of the X-Men in the Danger Room. They don't seem to be getting along very well, until the old X-Men show up and give them the same "We think you guys suck, so we're going to kick all of your asses and go back to being the real X-Men" speech that they used six issues ago. And so ensues the rehashed battle sequence.




I get the basic point. Even aside from Charles' issues, it's been established that the new X-Men are rough around the edges as a team, and the writer is trying to compare and contrast them with the old X-Men, but they've done this. If Claremont wanted to reinforce this idea, then he should have come up with something that wasn't just plagiarizing himself.

So they all fight, yadda yadda yadda, and then Xavier shows up and reveals that this is all just a figment of his imagination. But of course, since Claremont is creating a filler issue to deal with a problem (Xavier's mental state) that doesn't really need it's own book, he's going to fall back on goofy pulp, and what pulp comic book would be complete without a goofy pulp villain? And since we already have rehashed doppleganger X-Men, then logically the villain should be a doppleganger Professor X, who is apparently Xavier's selfish side who's been allowed to run rampant now that his mind is all out of whack.




And then there's a fight, and Xavier retakes control of his mind, and who really gives a ****? Good lord, Claremont. You've been winning me over more and more and now you drop this turd at the exact moment I'm expecting for the pace to maintain its pace? You can't keep doing to this to me, and if you are, don't suck at it.

NEXT!

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The Batlord

Well, they managed to wash the taste of #106 out of my mouth. This is pretty much the no-holds barred romp that was promised with the end of #105 when the X-Men all jumped through the stargate. The only thing that doesn't happen is some Phoenix action, Jean being too tired from powering the stargate to be any help. Other than that though, they deliver on their promise of fun.

From the very beginning the X-Men step out of the stargate into what looks like an intergalactic Gay Pride Parade, but is in actuality the Shi'ar Imperial Guard surrounding the emperor D'Ken as he keeps Lilandra captive right next to what looks like the universe's largest Ring Pop.




I'm sure we can all guess what happens next. Someone tries to reason with someone else and it doesn't go well. These are superheroes meeting for the first time after all. These things never do. Sci fi action ensues...

The best has to be when Wolverine gets his clothes burned off by a Fire Lord knockoff, throws the dude's girlfriend at him, and then steals the Wolfman's caveman outfit.




Honestly I think this may have be his best character moment yet. It's the first time where Wolverine really feels like Wolverine and not just the guy who I know is Wolverine.

Nightcrawler is also great to watch in a battle. A guy like Colossus just has to punch his way through, but Kurt's powers are only really useful for evasion unless he uses his noggin, so if he's on panel it's usually right before he's about to do something clever, such as when he uses his holographic image inducer to trick a shapeshifter in the form of a giant monster into thinking he's an even bigger monster. If he weren't so ****ing cool looking he'd be easy to overlook as an underrated character.




He's also the only one who can rescue Lilandra, who is about to be... eaten(?) by some soul-stealing demon to whom she is being sacrificed by D'Ken. In the nick of time Nightcrawler manages to teleport her away, which I would assume would stop the whole bad thing that's about to happen, since D'Ken makea it sound like only Lilandra's soul will do, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference in the end, so... I guess it's just an arbitrary damsel in distress kinda thing. It's cool though, since it shows for the first time that Kurt can teleport somebody else, of which he wasn't yet aware, though it nearly kills him to do it.

Now with Lilandra in hand she drops about two pages worth of exposition that has just enough bitchin' spaceships and creepy aliens to make it not boring. So... brother D'Ken wanted supposedly lost ancient ultimate evil weapon and she was all like "You're a douche" and he arrested her and there was civil war and she lost but managed to escape, and theeeeen... for no apparent reason she accidentally formed some kind of psychic-soul mate connection with Professor Xavier and decided to head for Earth. So far there is no explanation for how this occurred. All of a sudden they were just OTP 4 life. So basically the entire catalyst for this plotline is that love transcends time and space.

As excellent as the action is, I'm starting to doubt the magnificent brilliance of my man Chris Claremont. It's one issue from the end of the first part of the Phoenix Saga, and he's still making me facepalm. The whole "evil weapon that might accidentally destroy the universe" thing is supposed to be brought about by the alignment of nine "death stars" that activate the giant Ring Pop (M'Kraan Crystal) and... well that's next issue. But unless Claremont pulls something out of his ass we're dealing with phlebotinum. And supposedly the whole "Phoenix as an intergalactic entity" thing was a retcon, with Jean originally just getting her powers supercharged by cosmic rays, Fantastic Four-style. So at this point there isn't even an actual "Phoenix". Jean is just a bit wonky in the head.

The ending is saved to an extent by the appearance of the Starjammers, the space pirate team of rebels led by Cyclops' dad, Corsair, who arrive to turn the tide against the royal guard, thought too late to stop the M'Kraan Crystal from activating. At least we know that he's actually Scott's dad even at this early point, as Jean reads his mind and discovers the truth. The issue ends with that astronaut guy who was supposed to be piloting the space shuttle in #100 talking to Mr. Fantastic about how the fabric of reality just hiccuped or something. Spooky.

I'm glad Josh Byrne is coming on next issue as artist, not that I have anything against Dave Cockrum, as he's done a fine job so far, but if Byrne is the other half of the writing team that really made this series the best thing going on in comic books throughout this time period, then he needs to show up as soon as possible. Claremont obviously has great ideas, and despite some shortcomings in his ability to write the kind of ambitious story arcs he's aiming for, he really does have a flair for engaging storytelling. But an extra set of hands would not go amiss.

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The Batlord

Well, this was a task. Finally got all the way through the first Phoenix Saga and I need a break from this comic for a bit, not to mention from reviewing a series issue by issue as I read along. I feel like Trollheart doing all this ****. At least this saga went out with a bang. I was all prepared to roll my eyes at the phlebotinum, but Claremont managed to come out with some pretty good sci fi epicness.

It starts out about as I pictured, with the X-Men and Starjammers marveling at the terribleness of the M'Kraan Crystal being activated. Soon they are confronted by a midget/robot/goblin-looking thing that turns out to be a guardian of the crystal. There's a nice little scene of Wolverine taunting it and then mocking Cyclops for warning him to be careful.




A battle ensues, and even Phoenix/Jean can't beat the midget-thing head-on, until Banshee finally hits it with a sonic blast that scrambles its circuits. No sooner have they patted themselves on the back than a giant robot with power "a thousand times greater" than the midget-thing's arrives to **** on them. One of the Starjammers arbitrarily decides to throw Lilandra's dictator brother, D'Kan, at the M'Kraan Crystal, which causes them to be immediately transported to a weird, dead, alien city inside of the crystal.

At this point I'm thinking things are finally getting a bit interesting. I can't find the picture, but all the buildings have got that white, quasi-futuristic look that's just a bit too Utopian. What should be the sky is just blackness. Not even stars, just blackness. And then there's the weird yellow sphere in the center that looks like a small sun. The history of this place is never explained, but we can assume that the sphere had something to do with it. All in all it's a pretty mysterious and menacing place.

The sphere then emits some kind of rays that hit the X-Men and make all their worst nightmares come to life, but only Jean is able to overcome them. Unfortunately, Scott is panicking at this point and accidentally hits the sphere with an optic blast, cracking it. Jean now switches to Phoenix form, all flame-birdy, and merges with the sphere to try to repair it.

Alright, here's where things get obtuse. Jean seems to have some kind of instinctual understanding of what the sphere is, so most of the rest of the issue is her narrating what's going on. The sphere is some kind of containment field, a "geodesic latticework of... anti-energy?" that is holding in a neutron galaxy. The fact that I have to look this up and most of it isn't even in Wikipedia after almost forty years is pretty impressive, even if their scientific validity is highly dubious.

This lattice is dying, and when it does the neutron galaxy will be released, and since it is so ultra-dense, it's gravity will destroy the universe (go with it, this isn't Larry Niven). All throughout all of this exposition is some stunning imagery that would be pretty special even by today's standards.





In order to rebuild the lattice she must use her life energy, the energy of the Phoenix, but it's still not enough. So, she gets help from Storm and Corsair, who she now informs that he is Scott's father. This is successful, though there is again question as to whether Jean will survive, but this time she does. Then there's talk about a tree, and, **** it, here...




Apparently this nebulous, tree concept is the new anti-energy lattice or something, and then everybody is back through the stargate (not skipping anything, they're back the very next panel), Jean's okay, Fire Lord knows they're the good guys, D'Ken is now catatonic, Lilandra is still exiled until the Shi'ar council decides she's Empress, in the mean time she and Xavier can have cripple sex, and in general all's well that ends well. Of course Jean still has the Phoenix, but that's a tale for another day...

I don't know how much of this ending Claremont had planned and how much was just him flying by the seat of his pants. The abruptness of the concept of the neutron galaxy and all the rest suggests he was coming up with it as he went along, but if he pulled all of this out of his hat it's still impressive. It's likewise a mystery just how far along the concept of the Phoenix was by this point. If it's true that it was originally just cosmic rays supercharging Jean's powers and not an actual entity, this issue still hints that the Phoenix was something else. I also don't know how much of all this was thanks to new artist John Byrne, but given the unprecedented ambition of the artwork, I'm imagining he may have had a hand in the raised quality of this issue. From what I hear the very next issue is a Wolverine-centric one, and since Byrne was supposed to be his biggest fan on the team, I'm imaging he had a lot of creative input pretty early on. If so then it should be a pretty wild ride from here on out. An excellent finish to an up-and-down story arc. Well played.

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Unknown Soldier

How far are you intending to go with these X-Men write ups and how far do you plan on reading upto with the X-Men?

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

The Batlord

Well, I'm at least going to the end of the "Dark Phoenix Saga", although I'd like to finish "Days of Future Past" at some point too. I don't know if I'm going to be able to keep up the same pace though. Taking all that time to do a write up after every single issue was exhausting. I'll at least wait till I read a few issues before doing an issue by issue review next time.

But I'm definitely taking a break from that series at the moment and catching up on Uncanny Avengers, which I've been meaning to read for weeks. I was going to do something not X-related, but then I found out Sunfire was joining the Avengers around issue #8, and I kind of love him for being such an *******, so I had to get in on that. Excellent series, BTW. Gonna feature it pretty soon.

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The Batlord

Deadpool vs. Carnage #1-#4 (miniseries)

Well this was a fun little romp of oddness. Not necessarily one for the Comic Book Hall of Fame, but neither is it disposable. Seeing as how I've only really been reading comics a short while, I've never really read any Deadpool. I've seen a few random pages here and there (like his "Yo mama" joke battle with Spider-Man), so I at least understand the basic gist of the character, but this is still pretty much my first real introduction to him. Haven't read all that much Carnage either, but I at least know enough. Regardless, when I saw the title, I just had to hit "download".

What seems like a completely arbitrary mash-up actually works pretty well, as the basic premise of this seems to be figuring out just which one is more whacked in the head. You'd think Carnage would have the edge, just by virtue of being the villain, but this is not so. Carnage may be a homicidal maniac, but as far as the nuts and bolts of being a fruitcake, Deadpool is in a league of his own. At the beginning, Carnage has just recently escaped from prison, and in order to evade the law he decides to commit only completely random acts of murder and mayhem. Whether it be in a roadside diner or a pawnshop, there is no method to his madness. No great, evil plan. No "And now I shall finally destroy Spider-Man!" scheme. Just arbitrary violence without any pattern to be traced. Or so he thinks.

Enter Deadpool. He is likewise out of his gourd, but seems to be able to tap into some kind of pattern laid down by an unnamed, higher power by using clues that any sane person would overlook or dismiss. He sets out on a hunt for Carnage, not because he's being paid, or out of a benevolent sense of duty, but because he was channel surfing and the various sentence fragments he heard from the split second he paused on each station seemed to form a message telling him to go find the symbiote. So, Carnage is crazy enough to shed reason in the name of chaos, but Deadpool's crazy is so advanced that it can actually interpret this chaos. Hijinks ensue.




That's pretty much what makes this series work too. Any other day of the week, Carnage is so unpredictable that everyone else is forced to play catch-up. But not Deadpool. He starts his search by following an arbitrary butcher who just happens to be carrying a bleeding package of meat, which leads him to a convenience store where he sees a kid playing a Mortal Kombat knockoff arcade game which, purely coincidentally, says things like "Massacre!" and "Maximum carnage!", and wouldn't just know it, there's a magazine rack with a magazine with Cletus Kasady on the cover. Underneath that is one with a ghost town on it's cover. So naturally Deadpool decides this ghost town must be where to find Carnage. **** me if he isn't right, too.

Carnage does not know how to deal with this, or Deadpool's off-the-wall fighting style. He always somehow manages to elude Deadpool, and yet, like Frankenstein, there he is again. And again. One of my favorite things about this miniseries is that they kind of humanize Carnage a bit. Not to make him sympathetic, or develop his character, but just to make him look almost like a poor, hapless chump being subjected to the whims of a madman.

My favorite scene in the series is one in which Carnage, now in his human form after having recently evaded Deadpool for the first time, is riding along the highway with his girlfriend, Shriek (from Maximum Carnage), Bonnie and Clyde-style. They seem to have a legitimate, mutual affection for one another that makes them seem weirdly domestic at times, so rather than evil crazies on the way to their next atrocity, it just feels like a wholesomely-criminal couple out for a drive.

Enter Deadpool. Without warning, out of the CB radio in the backseat comes the voice of Deadpool. Carnage, one of the most fearsome villains in all of comic bookdom, whose rampages horrify even the stoutest of superheroes, is stupefied, for there is absolutely no reason why Deadpool should have been able to find him (how he did find him was even more convoluted than the magazine rack thing). Carnage and Shriek don't even have any idea where Deadpool is until they see him in the grain harvester strapped to the tractor trailer directly in front of them. The expression on Cletus Kasady's face is one I can only describe as wide-eyed-"WTF?!".




I imagine this is about as light-hearted a series as you can have with Carnage in it. Aside from him having a girlfriend, they also take the piss with him by playing up him being a redneck, his name being Cletus and all. He has a mullet, walks around in his underwear, hawks loogies, and uses "ain't" and other Southernisms on a regular basis. Imagining symbioted-up Carnage's voice with a distorted, hick drawl is surprisingly amusing. And of course Deadpool zeroes right in on this. Another highlight is during their first encounter, when Deadpool offers to have a long chat about their issues, "Maybe over a beer... or your pappy's favorite moonshine...". Not that there isn't more blood, guts, and graphic violence than you can shake a stick at, of course. This is still a series co-starring Carnage after all.





I'd also like to think that, while Carnage is obviously a Spider-Man villain, that he may also develop an equal rivalry with Deadpool. While Spider-Man may beat his body, Deadpool somehow manages to shatter Carnage's entire belief system. I'll leave you to interpret that statement.

So, if you dig violence, stupid, and either Deadpool or Carnage, then I'd definitely give this a shot. It won't redefine your concept of what a comic book can be, but it's a fun way to pass an afternoon.


Oh, and while doing a Google image search for "deadpool vs carnage", I found this. I must hunt.

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