Magneto (2014) #21 Final Issue Review
And so it ends here, with Magneto #21. There’s not a lot to say folks, so I’ll be quick in condensing my thoughts on the conclusion of this series and its perspective on Magneto! Read on!
Okay, the comic opens with a flashback to Magneto’s first fight with the X-Men. In this fight, he pronounces mutants as the new overlords of humanity while handing them their asses, and when we go to the present we find him acknowledging the irony of the situation. The world thinks he’s here to turn a new leaf, a lie the desperate tell themselves as the world is coming to an end.
Another flashback shows when he sinks a Russian submarine because they are preparing to launch a missile in retaliation for him threatening all the governments of the world. He intends to use them as an example. As they die and he watches, he knows there is no redemption and that hasn’t changed now. He sees and himself as a monster, now and forever.
Polaris can only watch on as he does this, having lost her powers. Briar comes up to her and offers her a hand, explaining that he took them because he didn’t want to sacrifice her. Polaris simply states he’s only lying to himself and her believing that. For him, the ends justify the means.
In another flashback her words are proven true as Magneto is talking with Charles and the X-Men, refusing to come to court for laws he doesn’t recognize. Charles warns that the way he does things won’t get the results he wants because it does more harm than good, but then some suits come up to him and tell him they acknowledge Genosha as his land. Not the good way to send a message.
It seems like he’s pushing back the other world back in the present, but Briar can see that’s not the case. His body can’t withstand the power and turns to ashes with nothing left behind, realizing that everything he’d done to this point has taken away everything from him for nothing. The comic ends with the world being destroyed.
Okay, review time.
There’s not much to write home about in the issue. It was the final one and, as we see, Magneto failed in the end. For both the issue and the series itself… well, there was no getting around how it was going to end. This massive crossover crap was always going to ruin it. The art was about the same and we mostly just looked into the final thoughts of a man who thrived on violence and murder to accomplish a goal, only for it to all be meaningless in the end. It’s a shaggy dog story, with the best anyone will be able to say was that he tried.
That’s it.
I give the issue a 3 out of 5, and the series as a whole a 3.5 out of 5. I liked the introspective into it, but the art wasn’t spectacular. The ending was screwed by the crossover, and ultimately everything that was sacrificed for was for nothing.
Magneto #20 Review
I’m back folks, or rather I never left. There just hasn’t been much in the comic world that’s interested me with Secret Wars. But I still read Magneto and some secrets are coming out in what I think is the second-to-last issue of his own series. So read on my review of Magneto # 20!
The comic opens with Mags bleeding from his mouth and nose, wondering if his doppelganger is on the other side trying to do the same and which has gone to greater lengths. He has no clue his doppelganger went nuts, caused that Ultimatum event that ruined the Ultimate-Universe, and is dead. It’s for the best.
Anyway, it turns our Briar was wealthy and bored when she got caught in his attack in Seattle that left her leg injured. She claims she tried to minimize the damage by manipulating him, but it also turns out that she likes the monstrous side of him and pain makes her feel alive. He tells her there’s more to be done before the end.
In the present we see Lorna trying to tell him to stop since he’s killing himself. He reasons that since they keep sending sentinels they have a chance and he was going to keep going, he just needed more power. The Marauders provide him with amplifiers and the charging will take five minutes.
He’s bought that time because Briar contacted SHIELD with her agent and gave them information about the Incursions so they’d back him up as he continued. Lorna also came because she was invited to a club for people who like Magneto, despite the fact he’d maimed them at some point. Yeah, it gets weird, but to each its own.
Anyway, she informed Lorna that he was going to die and it would be best to have his child by his side. The comic then cuts to him draining her powers, so that he can finish up and ends with him looking like he’s exploding with power.
Okay, review time.
All in all, I find this issue a conflicting thing. On the one hand, I know he’s going to end up failing because Secret Wars is a thing and this is hopeless. On the other, I think he’s doing great things and he makes a fair point.
I’ll give it a 4 out of 5.
Magneto #14 Review
Magneto #14 review is here! Read below!
In the aftermath of Axis, Magneto finds himself amongst the ruins of Genosha, where he acts as the guardian of those mutants that remain from the camps Red Skull had established. While there, he receives notice that SHIELD is coming and tells the boy to inform the others to keep their heads down. He takes MGH, determined not to be as weak as he had been the last time Genosha was under siege by the enemy, and then proceeds to do as planned.
Speaking of that last time, he had been injured as shown in the flashback and forced metal into his skin to make his legs move. He wanted to protect them, but his loyal followers took him to the bunker and told him to live on since he wasn’t strong enough. Now back in the present, he states he knows how this will end, but he will determine how it will be remembered.
The SHIELD agents land and promptly gets manhandled. Looks like Briar ‘forgot’ to inform them that he was powered up. He tells that he knew they would meet again, and could almost forgive them for hunting and attacking him, but not in Genosha.
He points out that they can muster all of this to capture him, but didn’t have the decency to try when Sentinels were laying waste to it in the past or Red Skull merely days before. They were too busy to even help with the clean up after both cases. And then, to punctuate the point, he drops a giant hand on them.
Now, it’s clear they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell right now. But, like he said, he knew how this would end. Thus, he decides to surrender for some reason unimaginable to me as the comic ends.
Okay, review time….
We see once more that Magneto continues to be haunted by his past. For everything he’s done, for as much as he loathes others, he clearly hates himself just as much for not being there when they needed him. And it can be said that he’s still feeling the effects from seeing Charles’ ghost, which may play a role in why he decided to simply call it a day. Whatever happens next is anyone’s guess.
5 out of 5 is the score.
Uncanny X-Men #21 Review
And we’ve reached a turning point in Uncanny X-Men #21 folks! Read this review for my thoughts on the matter!
The story picks up where it left off with Cyclops blasting the JGS staff as his powers run out of control until he passes out. Naturally things go from bad to worse as Magik goes Dark Childe and summons a dragon. Storm puts them both down with a bolt of lightning and the group needs to decide what to do with the two as Beast says he’ll handle it. Part of me was cheering that Beast may have been done in by the blast, but it was false hope. Maybe he’ll try to redeem himself by not being a douche-bag, but he doesn’t even get a chance as Mystique wearing Dazzler’s skin has come for the two of them with SHIELD backing her in Helicarriers.
Wait, back up a page. How the hell does Storm know that Magik has Limbo inside of her? She shouldn’t know that unless her daughter from the future told her, and I’d like to have seen that on-panel or at least an admission. And why the hell is Quentin in his bathrobes outside in the rain? Plot-holes!
Uh…anyway, back in Madripoor we have the Blob earning respect the only way you can in the place: kicking the shit out of everyone else in a bar brawl. Like he said, he was an original brotherhood member and he will be respected. But naturally his drug-gained powers fail and he needs his next fix, so like all junkies who know where the source of their drugs come from he goes to get some fresh from it.
He leads Magneto straight to Dazzler, who rightfully points out Mystique has made him a druggie and he should be ashamed. Magneto does not tolerate mutants being exploited for MGH and given the rampage he’s been on in his own series, the only reason Blob is still alive is because they’ve known each other so long. Magneto frees her and they both set out to go fuck up Mystique’s plans.
Back at the JGS it comes as no surprise Maria Hill is there and wants Cyclops. She’s got the hots for him and this is a chance she doesn’t want to pass on. But, since having something wrong with him could potentially back fire while in bed, she gives Beast an hour to see what the hell he can do to fix it, much to the shock of Mystique-Dazzler. They don’t have five minutes before Helmet Head, who I now suspect is a future student of Beast’s from his dialogue, takes control of their Helicarriers and open fire.
Beast, in another moment of shocking competence, tells Storm to take the battle head-on and keep the school intact while he figures out who is responsible by examining Cyclops and Magik. Man, getting chewed out by the Watcher did some damn good after all. Too bad he got shot. As for Maria Hill, SHIELD once more proves their incompetence as they explain they’ve been compromised (again) and Storm brings down the lightning on them.
We then have a brief cut to the NXS school, where the kids have been looking all over for Emma. Her daughters don’t even need to read her mind to know she’s worried and annoyed for Cyclops since he left without her, like you would expect from an ex-girlfriend who isn’t out to ruin your life because you broke up with her. This is a rarity, of course. She says she can feel something is wrong and just as she does something in the sky comes falling down towards them.
The JGS sends out a message for the students to get to the emergency bunker as Quire reads Maria’s head to try and figure out why they’re attacking and Mystique-Dazzler is just walking away. Meanwhile Beast still proves himself a douche-bag by talking trash to an unconscious man he’s known his entire mutant career, but he does say he knows who is responsible just as the Helmet Head tells him it’s time to show him who’s the smarter one as the comic ends.
Fucking teasers! Would it have killed them to just say the guy’s name in the last panel so people could rail about it! Stop dragging it out, Marvel!
Ahem… okay, review time.
The art was not to my liking but sadly was standard for this series, which is a damn shame considering how All-New X-Men is goddamn beautiful. Even worse is the fact that the pages are a jumbled mess to me as they cut away at the worst times. They couldn’t have done the NXS scene before the scene with Maria appearing?
The plot is moving, so there’s that, but I can’t give this more than a 3 out of 5.
Avengers Undercover #4 Review
In the last issue of Avengers Undercover Hazmat claimed revenge for Mettle by frying Arcade to death. This issue deals with the fallout of cold-blooded murder when you don’t have ties to the Avengers despite the name to bank off the movie that was released. This is my review of Avengers Undercover #3.
The story picks up where we left off, with the kids standing over Arcade’s remains. Well, the dust from his bones anyway. Cammi, being savvy enough to realize that Arcade was an ego-maniac and was probably filming their rematch, asks Deathlocket if she managed to get the extra cameras no doubt hidden around. When she states she probably didn’t it was safe to say it was time to go.
Ax-bro asks if Hazmat is alright as they flee and she states she snapped but she’s well enough so they can fight their way out through the corpses and other murder-addicted clients. Cullen doesn’t see why they need to rush, but Cammi states they violated several laws including watching as Hazmat put him down, which counts as pre-meditated murder even if only one of them did it. And Chase is slightly more jerkass-ish, but that character assassination is par the course since Avenger Arena and sadly I’ve gotten used to it.
Needless to say Cammi is right since SHIELD, who couldn’t find Arcade any other time to this point, manages to drop in right when they are about to escape. And suddenly they’re able to take down Cullen when he just went through wiping out their Brazil base and Nico? Come on.
Hours later they’re all in a containment facility where their friends and family are visiting, except for Deathlocket’s anyway. Ax-bro gets a lecture from his old man, Cullen and his sister argue, Stryker and Finesse visit Hazmat, Molly is blaming Nico for all of this to Chase while Karolina is greeting Nico. Where the hell is Victor and Old Lace in this? I get they probably couldn’t sneak the dinosaur on-board, but what’s the grandson of Hank Pym’s excuse for not seeing his ex-girlfriend in lock-up other than trying to get him to flash his Avengers card and give them the option of going to Avengers Academy or prison?
The above panels are mere bubbles while the meat of the dialogue is between Cammi and her mother. Her mother doesn’t blame them, like me she believes Arcade had it coming and is willing to fight tooth and nail to get her out. Cammi doesn’t want her to and just wants her to focus on taking care of herself, but her mother sees Cammi as the only thing in her life worth something and she’s not letting anyone take her away. Truly, the most heart-warming moment in this issue…
Of course then SHIELD proves to be incompetent and Daimon warps them all out in like three seconds flat. There’s the incompetence I remember. The son of Satan escorts them to Tower Zemo, where the more savvy of the kids note all this seemed planned out while Ax-Bro once again asks Hazmat if she’s hanging in there while Nico chats with Daimon on spell-working until they reach the banquet hall.
Zemo is there and basically states they live in a world where the average joe can live how he likes but people with powers need to ether cover it up or play heroes, not for personal gain. Now, I want to say he’s wrong. But technically speaking I can’t, because in almost every superhero story you read someone looking out for themselves with their powers will either be called out on it, turned into a villain, or seem like a selfish jerk.
For example Spider-man let a robber go past him once because he wasn’t a cop and thus not obligated, yet Uncle Ben dies to teach him a ‘lesson’ about with great power and responsibility. Come on, the chances of that happening were slim to none if they didn’t want to push him into being a hero. That’s part of the reason I liked Otto and Kaine more than Peter at present and I hope when they introduce Silk into Amazing Spider-Man.
…Okay, I didn’t mean to but that sounded like a plug…
Anyway, the kids tell him to skip straight to the point. He states he’s not asking them to do evil, but they have potential that can’t be realized in the normal world (again, he has a point) and asks that they join them as the comic ends.
Okay, review time.
First off since when is SHIELD competent enough to have a sorcery division? Even if Zemo somehow set it up, and I’m not doubting it, that seems both bullshit and contrived at best. Don’t they have someone else’s lives to fuck up?
Next, it really seems like they’re trying to push Axbro and Hazmat together with all this concern he’s showing her. I get someone needs to play mediator and councilor, but they could have just as easily have had Deathlocket ask her. Please, please, don’t force it Marvel. If it happens, it happens, but don’t force it until we feel like we’re being strangled with the red string.
Last is the recruitment offer at the end. In my opinion, if the title didn’t spoil the whole premise of the book, I can see Hazmat, Cullen, and Deathlocket agreeing off-hand. Hazmat’s stint in Avengers Academy was because she was a potential villain and she wasn’t all that close to her parents before all this so she has no real strong ties left, Deathlocket was accepted there with ease rather than being in a SHIELD lab and she doesn’t seem to have any family while Cullen’s already made his case.
Ax-bro would probably go to keep an eye on Hazmat and Cullen, but Nico, Chase, and Cammi are not as likely. Nico and Chase rebelled against their parents because they were criminals, but they’ve lost their loved ones and Chase did go somewhat villainous after Gert died. If the solicits about Alex Wilder coming back is true, then him and Gert are incentives to join up.
Cammi is the token good-teammate. She’s obviously going to have to be pushed into it. She and Ax-bro are probably the ones who consider this undercover thing in the first place.
Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man #1 Review
Okay, Miles has been around for a bit so it’s time he got a series named after him. So in this continuation of his life upon donning the Spider-Man mask again I’ll be reading and reviewing it to give you my biased opinion of what I think of it. This is the first review of Miles Morales: The Ultimate Spider-Man and it already contains swearing so beware!
The story begins at a top-secret SHIELD containment facility. Since Cataclysm ended the way it did, SHIELD has been disbanded and that means all their prisoners get transferred to a federal prison. That includes one special bastard who by all rights should be dead:
Norman-fucking-Osborn, aka the Green Goblin, aka the man who killed Peter Parker. Apparently he didn’t die and Fury thought to keep his ass locked up since nothing seems to finish the damn job. The guard, no longer assigned to watch him, knocks his teeth in for killing Peter and tell them to keep an eye on the bastard…it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that’s going to end.
Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, two guys are discussing whether or not Captain America is dead. Let’s face it, they didn’t find the body so he’ll probably pop up later on. But this meta-discussion gets ended when some spider-man dressed douche-bags decide to make with the robbing of an armored truck. This is not what Miles needs.
Speaking of his needs, he’s making out with Katie Bishop when she’s asking where he was last night. Considering the shot of the All New Ultimates I would say he’s busy, but since he can’t explain that because she’s not in the loop she incorrectly assumes it was because Jefferson had came home. Apparently his Dad decided to simply abandon him…see my end notes about that. Either way the discussion comes to a close when a teacher tells him to get to class and we get an angsty teen shot.
We then skip to Long Island Expressway where Norman turns into the Green Goblin and escapes, shocker, and then back to Miles and Ganke. Miles is once again debating with Ganke on telling Katie his secret identity and Ganke argues against while now crushing on Dagger instead of Gwen. He’s got a thing for older women since puberty kicked in I guess….I can respect that.
Miles reminds him that she’s taken and out of his league and then goes pouty face when Ganke mentions he helped him be Spider-Man. He then decides to call up Mary Jane and gets some advice. She tells him that yeah it’s good to tell the girl because she shouldn’t have to find out after his death makes the front page of the news. But she also warns him that it’s like being married, you tell her then you’re connected for life, so make sure she’s not a villain or decides to go the woman-scorned route if something goes down.
Miles stress-level continues to rise as he learns about the fake spider-men and knows that he’s going to probably be framed for a crime he didn’t commit soon enough. As he enters his home he finds someone ransacking the place looking for something and when they turn around it’s…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it….
It’s Peter Parker!
Okay, review time.
Really, Peter’s back…yeah, I’m not buying it. Last time I checked, Scorpion and Jessica were the only clones still running around so I say it’s him. Actually, did those two Chameleons twins get killed off or not, because that would explain so much…
The debate about telling girlfriend or not doesn’t really interest me because it’s been done before and they have us another shot of Miles being angsty, probably because he resents being Spider-Man again now that it cost him his last family member. His life was so much better before he put it on…
Speaking of which, was the Marvel staff smoking something hard when they thought that up. Jefferson abandoning his son and Miles going angsty? You’re having the African-American father, who was reasonable up until the mask came off, abandon his son? Just to make him a troubled teen rather than the chipper kid he was like ten issues ago? Really?
This…is not the type of controversy they should be trying to stir up. It’d be one thing if Jefferson was shown as abusive before, rather than just one stress-induced incident that they could both sit down and talk about after the end of the world. I mean, he was a semi-bigot with grievances against Spider-Man, but seriously they pulled that out of their asses over the course of ten pages rather than ten issues like Jefferson one day finding his spider-suit and then stewing it over.
I shouldn’t have expected better. I blame myself…no, wait, I blame Marvel. C’mon now, having Jefferson abandon him is just fucking cheap and plays into negative stereotypes on top of Miles going angst over it. The only excuse that I’d accept is that he died and they’re hiding the body. I don’t fucking want broody Miles because his Daddy left him, that daddy issue shit gets old.
You don’t see Cloak bitching about his circumstances…just saying…and for fuck’s sake, stop taking off your mask Miles!
Anyway, I can’t give this a perfect score because of the above and we know that Peter is either a clone or a shape-shifter who appears after SHIELD is closed down. Really, sending super-villains to federal prisons just begs for it. Given that in 616 Mystique breaks in and out of SHIELD for a hobby it’s fairly obvious. In fact I’d like to be proven wrong…
It gets a 3 out of 5. Clean it up, Marvel.
Uncanny X-Men #19 Review
After the atrocity that was Issue #18, I admit I lost some faith in the series. Let’s see if I can’t get it back by reviewing Issue #19 of Uncanny X-Men, in which the war against SHIELD is declared anew.
Our story begins in Atlanta, after Cyclops has kicked Hijack off the team. It appears that a day has passed and Hijack slept off being given the boot, only to wake up and find Maria Hill and three SHIELD agents in his home while he’s in his Spider-Man undies. She tells him they have no reason to fight, not that she didn’t remove everyone else’s car in the neighborhood to be safe, and tells Hijack to give her all the information he has Cyclops or she’ll detain him forever, claiming that since he’s been cavorting with a known terrorist she’s allowed to hack his email…
In which the moron apparently wrote about how he was booted out to his girlfriend and was begging her to take him back. Leaving aside the fact that his girlfriend got him shot before, if you gotta get relationship advice from the person threatening to arrest you, you fucked up somewhere.
At the same time this is happening, Mystique and Sabertooth have Dazzler in some undisclosed location. Her eyes and ears are covered so she can’t hear or see anything, and Mystique makes it known that she considers Dazzler a traitor to her people. But, when asked why she doesn’t kill her and be done with it, she tells Sabertooth that Dazzler still has her uses.
Mystique has been using Dazzler as the source of Mutant Growth Hormone, you know that stuff that pissed off Magneto so he dropped her through a building? She, hypocritically, claims that Dazzler is a “sell-out dirty whore” for working with SHIELD and then goes about her way. The moment she’s out the door, Dazzler says “Ow” which, given the timing, indicates that she’s not only aware of what’s going on but she knows what Mystique is doing to her. Yeah, she’s going to be pissed off as hell once she gets free.
Maria Hill, after the above, is still harassing Hijack and claims that Cyclops knew they must have been watching his place and set this conversation up. Now, while I’d like to dismiss this notion outright, given what happened to Eva and Fabio when they visited home…I have to admit she’s got some logic there in that he had to of known that was going to happen. Since Cyclops didn’t have the Stepford Sisters give a mind wipe to him, the evidence looks damning to both me and Hijack.
Speaking of Cyclops, he’s watching Cerebro for new mutants as Eva arrives. He’s looking at the big picture, reminding himself what they’re fighting for. He then notes Eva has been different after the training mission and tells her that she can tell him anything, but she hesitates and uses the signal of a powerful mutant popping up as an escape to avoid the conversation, only looking on mournfully as he leaves.
The team arrives in Chicago, only for it to be a trap in the form of a big Sentinel that gives birth to a bunch of smaller ones. Magik, Fabio, and Cyclops’ mutant powers fail to work appropriately, leaving Cyclops to cause a boatload of property damage and Magik unable to teleport them to safety before they get caught in the enemy crossfire and there isn’t anything left in the spot, making it seem as though they were blasted to atoms.
However, they appear a minute later safe and sound. Eva sealed them in a Time Bubble and warped them all a minute forward to avoid the damage. Magik then shows the fruit of her training with Doctor Strange before he started playing super-cop and uses a defensive spell, an energy manipulation spell, and a spell to make some multi-headed dragon thing that chomped on the robots.
With that done, Cyclops congratulates Eva on a job well done and she smiles earnestly, but Celeste whispers to her she needs to tell him about what went down in her trip to the future. Before Cyclops can follow up and tear the biggest robot apart it runs away. They reason that whoever sent it rigged it to mess with mutant powers, but only those they knew about. I’m calling bullshit on this because there are only a handful of ways that works.
One is magic, in which case I expect those Sentinels to be magic-proof like that ass-pull in Battle of the Atom next time. Another is like what they did to Cyclops in the prison with the shock collars. In both cases they were general purpose, but the way they’re talking is that the person making them is tailoring them, and considering Eva’s powers still work it’s not something that suppresses the X-Gene completely.
Either way, the new students get their first taste of a hate mob and Cyclops is pissed off because this was some sick game and he’s tired of being hunted. He declares if it is SHIELD behind this they’re going to war, and if someone else was using SHIELD to do it and they didn’t care enough to put a stop to it, then more war. Basically, he’s decided SHIELD is the main enemy as the comic ends with dome-head watching from wherever he is.
Okay, review time.
Judging from how things are going, I’m just assuming they didn’t count #18 as canon, which I’m all for given the mess that it was. But the humor in this issue was rather crass and I can’t say the dialogue was anything revolutionary, in fact it felt like a step down from Issue #17, but the mediocre artwork is still miles ahead of what it was from the last issue and the plot is progressing.
3 out of 5 is my rating for this issue.
Uncanny X-Men #17 Review
Stuff Happens. Important Stuff with the Kids.
At this point I’m starting to think that the NXS kids deserve their own side series like Wolverine’s do. But then I think about that travesty and decide this way better as I review Issue #17 of Uncanny X-Men…although I will admit the one about Toad was a good one.
The issue begins with the kids being dropped off in a strange landscape and left there with no instructions by Magik. Given that she can teleport across time and space, it’s natural to assume that they may not even be on earth, but each comes up with their own theory as to where they are and that they are being tested. Also it appears that Phoebe has dyed her hair red like she said she wanted back after Irma went black.
Anyway, Hijack reveals he kept his cellphone and whips it out. They tell him Cyclops said they can be tracked by them, but he states he couldn’t break his contract so he kept it and then states they’re in Montana. They are then split apart by a very large creature with jagged teeth and a deafening roar.
Eva, who has a very potty mouth upon being surprised, goes with Fabio and correctly guesses its training to see how they deal with unpredictable situations. That includes her and Fabio being surprised again by some Ostrich-dinosaur thing that chokes of Fabio’s goldballs (sorry for the phrasing) and keels over, but not before Eva has vanished in her Time Bubble and is nowhere to be seen.
With Phoebe and Irma, they have to put up with Triage screaming like a little girl because they ended up in a cave with a spider-slug thing the size of his fist. I will never let him live this down, but since the girls are trying to hide Irma does the mind manipulation thing they did in Limbo to make him brave. He seems to like it, but that might because he and Irma clearly are developing something and having a pretty girl in your head doesn’t sound too bad as long as you can stop thinking about dirty thoughts every few minutes. It worked for Cyclops and Emma, if you ignore she took advantage of his vulnerability while with Jean and then Jean hooked them up to avoid a bad future from the grave…Yeah, he might want to be careful in the long run. Anyway, Fabio finds them, but Eva is still nowhere to be seen.
We then skip to Benjamin, Hijack, and Celeste hiding. She explains they are in Tabula Rasa, a.k.a the place Archangel blew up and led to the bad future of Uncanny Avengers. She’s giving them an overview of them being in a bubble that will show what the earth will look like well after I’m good and dead when she can sense a mind in the distance. Unfortunately said minds don’t like her and mind-rape her to the point that her sister’s couldn’t hear her and assumed she was dead within their Hive Mind, leaving it to Benjamin to try and reason with them by using his powers to gain some level of trust and understanding and calming them down. It works to an extent, as they touch and read Benjamin’s mind, and they reactivate her brain.
She’s pissed, more than Emma when confronting an Adult Jean Grey, and tries to mentally assault them despite Benjamin stating that they are an evolved species. It goes poorly. But then Eva pops up and traps them in the time bubble.
She looks like she went through hell. Her hair is longer, her clothing are torn, and she looks like she aged a bit. But the first things she does were hug Benjamin as though she hadn’t seen him in a long time, tell Celeste not to tell anyone anything about what she gleamed from her mind, and kissed Fabio on the forehead. But she became downright hostile to Triage, who only wanted to heal her, and seeing as the two of them were the first of the team to meet up and be friends he must’ve fucked up bad in the future.
Anyway, SHIELD shows up with Nick Fury, Coulson, Fucking Hawkeye, and Spider-Woman because of Hijack’s phone. Yeah, he fucked up. They want Cyclops, the big fish, not the small minnows and tell them to put their hands up.
The Stepford Sisters can’t affect them because SHIELD regularly has anti-telepathy equipment given their line of work. Now Eva could probably take them again, but Hijack turns their fancy gear on them. It’s then that Magik teleports them out and back to their base.
Cyclops is pissed off. It was a field test to see how they reacted, and most of them passed with flying colors. Even Fabio, who stumbled his way into a victory. While I doubt Celeste and Triage did as well, the only one to outright fail was Hijack.
They were in the most unexplored place on the planet and SHIELD tracked them down in 15 minutes, because of his cellphone at that, and he revealed his power. Next time SHIELD is going to be prepared for it like they were with the Stepford Sisters. Cyclops can’t have that so they drop him off at his old place, which is bad when you remember what happened to Fabio and that Mystique will most likely be the one talking to him with that silver tongue of hers to turn him evil, and the issue ends.
Okay, review time.
First off, considering that Kitty was in the background during that lecture I’m assuming this is before the Trial of Jean Grey. Second off, according to rumors next issue revolves around Cyclops, Teen!Cyclops, the aftermath of this chapter, and Tempus’ crush on him.
While I want to believe she went to a bad future and took some training from hell, there is a chance that the writers aged her so they could pair her with Cyclops if what I’m hearing about her romance for him coming into play. You can’t blame the young girl either for the crush. He’s hot enough that Pixie, Irma (for a while), and even the teenage host of Lady Deathstrike in X-Men #11 wants him.
Teenage girls find him hot, to the extent even his teen version was getting some play before BOTA, but while Cyclops is a lot of things, and most of them positives with a spattering of negatives, he’s not skeezy enough to have a relationship with her like that. Even though he did meet her mother already, and she was his first rescue, and so on. That’s Wolverine’s department.
Not to mention, whenever she was at clearly traumatized her. I mean, getting lost in time is mandatory for an X-Men with powers remotely close to hers. But if there is any luck she learned more about her powers and will serve as the leader of the team behind the adults.
As for Hijack, I’m conflicted on how to feel because Cyclops was a little harsh, but he has a point since they stated he warned the idiot about the phone thing. It’d be one thing to kick him off the team because he was disobeying an order that was morally wrong, but Hijack admitted the main reason he didn’t toss his phone was because of the damn contract. You’re an X-Man, and a fugitive one at that, fuck the phone contract and worry about the giant-ass robots SHIELD and Helmet-Head keeps sending at you!
Honesty, Cyclops can’t have that sort of reckless behavior right now and was somewhat right to kick him out, despite the benefits his power-set has to offer. If he’d used his phone at the base, they would have been compromised in a hurry. Like Cyclops said, mistakes have killed good X-Men before.
But Hijack knows wayyyy too damn much to be let go if he decides to go traitor and turn them into SHIELD. I don’t normally agree with mind-fuckery, but at least fudge the location of their base in his mind so he can retain his abilities and know how they work without compromising the group. Even if he’s being used as SHIELD bait by some chance, like a couple of people suggest when I lurked in the forums.
The sad thing is that I liked Hijack as he had the potential to be a great character. A victim of prejudice-turned-crusader of their rights without going overboard, a neat power, and as an older member of the team he would have been an excellent big brother figure to the rest of the younger members (barring Benjamin since he’s collage-age). On the other hand, the X-Men are lacking interesting villains and if you can’t join or stay with the team…in the end it really depends on what the storyboard has laid out for Hijack, but this won’t be the last we see of him.
So, between Tempus having aged and gone on her own time travel trauma and Hijack gotten the boot, many things have happened. I’m calling this a must-have issue that will have major effects on the plot, so it gets a 5 out of 5.
Twilit Dreams Circle 