Review: Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 4: VS. S.H.I.E.L.D. by Brian Michael Bendis, Chris Bachalo (Illustrator), Kris Anka (Illustrator)

Uncanny X-Men, Vol. 4: VS. S.H.I.E.L.D. by Brian Michael Bendis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pot Luck Buddy Read

If you haven’t been keeping up with this title, there may be SPOILERS in this review.
{insert spooky voice}
You’ve been warned! Ooga Booga Booga!

As the title suggests, Cyclops and his Uncanny X-men declare war on S.H.I.E.L.D., and hilarity naturally ensues.

Now, this isn’t a spoiler since you’re also getting things from Maria’s POV, but all the attacks on the Scott’s crew are only being made to seem like they’re coming from S.H.I.E.L.D. I fucking hate typing out that acronym, and she’s scrambling to figure out what the hell is going on.
When they finally do the Big Reveal at the end, I was a bit…
Underwhelmed?

Yes, I knew who the character was, but it was more WTF? than WOW!, if you know what I mean.
Maybe this was something I would have found cool if I had been following all of the other multiple X-titles out there? Not sure.

Anyway, the war with S.H.I.E.L.D. Goddamn it! All those freakin’ capital letters and periods! was secondary for me. There were plenty of other highlights in this volume.
Such as…
The unmasking of Mystique, who has been posing as Dazzler since volume 1! FINALLY we find out where Dazzler has been kept, and we also get Magneto back for a bit when he pulls off her rescue.
Although, she does go through a bit of an identity crisis after she gets back.

Do we like Dazzler’s new look, or is it too gimmicky?
Well, I will say that now it’s a helluva lot easier to tell her apart from Illyana and Emma Frost. Before? I sometimes had to squint really hard, because the blondes tend to blend together.
I don’t know, though. Jury is still out on Angry Dazzler for now.

The really juicy bits of this thing have to do with a buttload of secrets that get spilled when She-Hulk shows up at the Jean Grey school with Xavier’s will!

Naturally, everyone has to be present in order for her to read it.
Dum, dum, dum…
Which means that the X-men have to invite Scoot & Co. over for tea.

To me, the secrets the old man had been keeping made the whole volume worth it. I still can’t get believe…

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Review: X-Men – Primer; by Brian Wood

X-Men, Vol. 1: Primer by Brian Wood
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What a HUGE disappointment.

Brian Wood! YAY! (DMZ, Northlanders!) with an all-ladies X-(wo)Men team!

So excited by the all ladies all the time, they forgot about plot, or good writing, or character interactions that make sense.

Oh and they also decided to include a bunch of characters no one knows/remembers, which is the fastest way to get new reader and others (ie. ME) to stop caring.

John Sublime (some uber-badass, now seemingly in need of the X-(wo)Men to help him, says that his twin sister’s…spirit? Aura? Being? Hard Drive? USB Stick? Or some shit is alive and has tricked it’s way into the Jean Grey School.

All thanks to:

Yes that’s right, all thanks to: MALLRAT GIRL! (her given name is Jubilee, and she’s a vampire too apparently, but only needs sunglasses…at night…so she could be called Corey Hart)

Anyhow, Jubes (as someone decided to call her, which makes sense, as she’s about as substantial as a Ju-Jube) randomly takes a baby from the ruins of a Bulgarian hospital; because ya. But do any of these normally rational women make a single mention of baby napping a foreign child who may have parents waiting for it? (actually, no. Jubes is about the only one who feels bad about it, and when Mallrat feels bad about something it usually involves Orange Julius being out of slurpees)

So, cue up evil sister “entity” which possesses some chiquita banana who’s been in a coma while Beast tries to figure out how to save her…

In the midst of it, Storm is ready to make the decision to take her out in order to stop the entity. Apparently Mz. Rachel Grey doesn’t care for this. Funny enough, they decide to make this into a high school popularity bitch fest contest. Instead of saying um…I was Queen of Wakanda, I have been to the future, I survived getting busy with Wolverine, and I’ve had the Black Panther inside of me (No euphemism actually), oh and I’ve been an X-Man since before you were a dirty thought in your dad’s brain; they go to a full out leadership debate.

Hint: if you want a cool new team of ladies, then don’t try and make them just like the men (we DO NOT need you fighting like X and Magneto, Cyclops and Wolvie or anyone else. Just show you’re better than that by getting along). It just feels awkward and forced, like someone said “better have a leadership crisis”. Not “OK Storm is OBV. the boss, since she’s the boss of everything else too. Oh and MOHAWK. Shiver me timbers that’s hot. White hair and everything…mmmmmm.

OK so blah blah, more shit; I think we’ve got Storm; Grey not Jean; Rogue; Betsy Braddock mmm nice new costume fit for the modesty era; Jubes, and I think Kitty was in there too.

Oh and by the way; wouldn’t Kitty be a natural choice for leader behind Storm anyhow? Seriously. I guess they just tried to make Rachel less appealing? Also, it looks like she was on a month long bender….the artwork makes her look exhausted and sorta manga styles.

Evil thingy is defeated; baby is kept; Rogue saves people on a plane by absorbing more powers but somehow this drains her, and she can’t even fly anymore? Also, where the FUCK did she go for the next installments??? She’s not even in Battle of the Atom FFS.

There’s a side story with Jubes taking the baby on a road trip around Cali with Logan, who ends up buying the house she grew up in for her, just cause. Right. Everyone loves Logan, he’s always had a soft spot for vampires mallrats idiotic children who pretend to be X-Men.

You might also have noticed, this is only 4 issues…

So we get Jubes’ “CLASSIC” first appearance, when she is saved by the X-Girls circa 1989 when Storm was still hot, Rogue was Carol Danvers, Dazzler was…really? Dazzler? Isn’t she just Jubilee without the soft Asian vampiric overtones? The one who used her fireworks for making money and disco dancing, not just walking around the mall all day?, oh, and Psylocke who looks like she’s straight outta 1896.

They save her from a…MALL. Yup.

So in all, this is a big disappointment, like forced on me somehow, and I didn’t like it. I really WANTED to like this, truly, I did, but really.

Malls, babynapping, possessed evil entities, and someone thinking they can talk shit about the Goddess of Thunder? Fuck that noise. She’s like Thor without the hammer…(double entendre here…see what I did?).

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