The Factual Opinion

Comics Of The Weakest: Finale Or, Burning An X-Men Omnibus Almost As Difficult as Reading One

So, yeah, this was harder than I thought, and it involved a lot more lighter fluid and brushes with death than I felt comfortable with.

You start off with one of these bad boys:

Then you light that shit on fire:

But these damn bastards won't stay burning:

So you flip them shits on the axis:

Then when it goes out, you figure out the coup de grace:

And then you bail out because the people across the street are starting to congregate, and this shit has taken you thirty minutes, which is why it would've made a lousy video anyway.

For those that hung today and made comments, and for those that swung by, thanks for the support of a silly stunt, that, all complaints aside, was kind of fun.  Also, much love to all the great people who set up links to the site--if that's how you ended up here, I hope it wasn't a complete disappointment. 

That's that.  Comics of the Weak on Sunday night, I'm out.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comics Of The Weakest: And There Is A Light At The End Of The Day--Pages 614 To The End

9:48PM:  Done, right?  One more thing.  You won't want to miss this.

9:44PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 131: Run For Your Life!  I don't really understand why they decided to stop the book here--it's clearly a big cliffhanger before the whole Dark Phoenix Saga, and all this issue does is show one of those creepy scenes where Jean is really pushing into crazy town, which is something she'll end up hanging out in a lot more.  So, instead, you see Wolverine go after some dudes who he apparently kills, Kitty Pryde save the day, and Cyclops continue to NOT plan anything before he rolls in and says goodnight.  So it's just another issue like the ones before--set up continues, Dazzler rolls off into the disco lights of the sky, and there's fighting.  And more of this awful, eyebleeding coloring. 

9:43PM:  How would the X-Men survive any of the stuff they go through if they couldn't rely on Wolverine to kill people?

9:41PM:  And there's Emma The Bondage Queen torturing Storm, who's been stripped to her skintight underwear.  Fine, whatever.  I'm too close to being done to get worked up about it, and nobody else cares, so neither do I.

9:37PM:  I couldn't figure out why Kitty Pryde looked so strange--then it hit me--she doesn't have gargantuan breasts and some overdrawn ass.  After spending so much time with this, where even Moira had D-cups and no fat on her body, it's weirder to see a normal looking person then it is to see all these nubile freaks with to many abdominal muscles.  ALso, Byrne does a decent job of making her look really scared--it sucks that more super-hero artists can't, or won't, draw the range of emotions that Byrne can.  It sucks worse that he's doing it with a comic prominently featuring Dazzler, and Cyclops who is the kingpin of the "you could've been better, i'm a prick" club.

9:35PM:  Now I've got an agenda.  Finish before the 12 hour mark.  One issue to go!

9:31PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 130:  Dazzler  No fancy title, which must mean that this is supposed to be a big deal, that this goofy ass disco singer who looks like that Z-grade hero Firehawk crossed with Jem, who's omigodsototally fucking outrageous, and is apparently in possession of some really good disco, according to Cyclops who has finally acknowledged that he knows "zilch."  The comic is mostly an opportunity to drop more information biscuits on the way to the great Darkness Saga or The Rise Of The Blade Warriors or Dark Phoenix, what have you. 

All I can say is that it isn't as bad as that thing where Marvel published Nightcat and the singer it was based on released an album based on the made-up character.  That, however, doesn't mean I enjoyed it very much.

9:28PM:  People always think I'm being sarcastic when I say this kind of shit, but:  when Cole writes "Check out the Banshee that Werner Roth drew" I immediately, fully, start thinking for a couple of seconds that he means famed German New Wave director Werner Herzog.  It's because of the geek in me, and the coffee, and the closeness to death.  But that's where I go.  Not for long, but I go there, imagining Werner. 

9:24PM:  Some of the images Jean Grey is receiving are "vile."  Part of her though, finds those thoughts....attractive.  OK, I can see how people would find that appealing after reading about the Defenders.  Namor never struggled with his attraction towards guys wearing Freddie Mercury jumpsuits.  It was 1980!  We all struggled with those feelings.  Hell, some of us STILL struggle.

9:22PM:  The Dramatic Debut Of The Dazzler.  I'm guessing this is a Claremont creation here.  Not some "let's be proud" kind of shit.

9:20PM:  Dude, I'm sorry to throw this out there, but if you're a guy who reads comics blogs at all, and Tom Spurgeon comments on a post, that's sort of like winning the Belmont Stakes, and I don't even like horses.  Dirk Deppey threw some love at one of the Economist columns a while back, so I guess I just need to get some Heidi Macdonald and I'll be a Triple Crown winner.  Bling blong.  Sorry, but that's some exciting shit and I'm to tired to pretend that i'm above feeling pretty lucky and flattered.

9:16PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 129:  God Spare The Child...  So this is Kitty Pryde, who a friend has pointed out will eventually drop every racial slur in the book when they start ratcheting up the whole racism thing.  She's a geek, but she's able to escape that Emma Frost lady's telepathy, so she must be carved out of nails or something.  I kind of didn't mind this so much, but what's up with the coloring?  It's so garish, it's like they felt the need to use every shade of purple and neon available.  I had a hard time getting around this.

9:15PM:  Wolverine is reading a copy of Penthouse without paying for it.  No judgment here, that makes a sort of sense.

9:13PM:  I guess this is the first appearance of Kitty Pryde.  Where's her magic dragon?  And since when did Marvel have Superman posters?  She's got one up next to Baryshnikov, and a copy of Fantastic Four on the ground.  Kitty Pryde is a nerd.

9:11PM:  Professor X just docked Wolverine "ten demerits."  What?  Were they trying to 90210 up this Melrose Place?

9:09PM:  Wow Cyclops, that's a whole lot of talking to be doing when you've got your tongue otherwise occupied.  You too, Jean.  Get a room.  People kissing: awesome.  Boring ass characters kissing:  Dumb as shit.

9:08PM:  Uhhh.  Who's the lady in the bondage gear?

9:01PM: Uncanny X-Men # 128:  The Action Of The Tiger!  The titles are all getting really silly--I mean, Action of the Tiger?  What does that have to do with the story?  It's just a loosely imagined statement, not even a metaphor or allegory for anything, just some random ass shit in all capitals.  Oh that's why I don't remember this Isis album, because it's terrible.  Hold on a second.

Okay, thanks, I'm back.  Yeah, so anyway, they saved the day by killing a scared and crazy 20 year old who, it turns out, had only been locked up since he was 10.  You know, it might have been better to lock him up as an infant, at least that way the only world he would have known was his cell.  There's some implication that Moira had tried to cure him of his problems, which feels less like it was planned and more like it was a late-stage cover the ass maneuver.  But what do I know?  I don't write comics, nor do I want to.  I imagine a whole lot of work goes into coming up with giant arctic owls and different opportunities for Cyclops to be a dirty little piece of shit.  Three to go. 

8:59PM:  Colossus becomes a man.

8:55PM:  That's old school, I always forget that new comics don't have the full-in-story recap of previous issues.  Now most of them do the front page recap, just text style, but Byrne and Claremont are bringing to you full on '79 style, and reading about Proteus fantasies for his mom isn't any less disgusting the second go round. 

8:46PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 127: The Quality of Hatred!  There's a lot of back-and-forth shit going down here--turns out Moira isn't divorced, and she's a Nobel prize winner--which makes that whole "housekeeper with a machine gun" into an even more what-the-eff scenario, her kid that she kept in a cell wants to have the sex of the gross with her because he's possessed his father's body, a body he describes as phenomenally strong, which is sort of incestuous and weird too, and, basically, Cyclops could've prevented all of this, and a few innocent deaths too, if he'd just manned up and let Moira blow a freight train through the kid courtesy of her homemade heat-sinking scope on her holy bejesus-that's-a-big-gun.  But hey, we're closer to the introduction of Dazzler than ever, I dumped the 2008 music idea and am listening to an old Isis record, I'm good.  The sun went down though.  That's depressing.

8:44PM:  Oh gross, man, the Proteus guy "wants" his mom.  I'm not even reading into it, that's what it says.  Nasty.  Incest is so tired, I don't want to read about dudes craving beefsteak with there lady godivas.  That shit is rank.

8:41PM:  And Cyclops just threw coffee in Wolverine's face.

8:38PM:  Well, take that back.  Moira is more than willing to execute her own kid.  Tough ass lady.

8:31PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 126:  How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth...!  If you drop ellipses than an exclamation point, how do you pronounce that?  Wait, don't tell me.  It isn't worth finding out.

Well, after all those issues where everybody thought everybody else was dead, the reunion happens and it's such a throw-away non-event that I don't know if I should be impressed or if I should be disappointed.  My wife just told me the room smells like the ocean, and I wasn't sure how to respond.  Thanks?

Anway, i'm entering this third pot of coffee well, but i'm taking it slow, so not to feel sick. 

Nothing much happened here.  There's a bad guy named Proteus, it happens to be the son of the Moira lady, who kept in a cell for it's entire life, but oh god, the X-Men can't kill him.  Oh no, that would be terrible.  They certainly didn't use any of the time (his entire life) he was imprisoned in a fucking ROOM to cure or help fix his condition, so I'm not sure why they don't just ice the poor son of a bitch. 

8:28PM:  In Jean's fantasy world, she rides a black pony named "Satan."  Okeh, Claremont.  Lighten up, bucko.

8:24PM:  I know Madrox The Multiple Man from X-Factor, which i've read a bit of.  He's way more interesting there then here.  What a whiny piece of shit he is here.  Fucking Madrox The Multiple Pussywillow McDoucheykins. 

8:17PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 125:  There's Something Awful On Muir Island!  I keep being surprised by how short these are.  I guess I should be used to it, and they aren't any shorter than current comics--actually, considering the word-to-page ratio, there's quantitatively more here then in the new stuff.  But yeah, I'll flip the page and there's a poorly scanned version of the letters page.  (Which isn't Marvel's fault, but yeah, the quality of the scans are pretty bad.)

Anyway, this is another set up issue,  where they check in with Magneto, who is brooding in an asteroid, Jean Grey, who is a smoker, and more Danger Room shit.  I could go the rest of my life and never read a Danger Room scenario.  I'm curious, but I wouldn't be surprised if these scripts were written and then Danger Room shit was added to pad the story.  It's the same thing, for four years of comics.

Byrne can draw the fuck out of some Colossus though, you got to give him that.

8:15PM:  Beast finally said "Stars and garters."  Also, this whole Black Queen thing is starting up, so we must be nearing the end.  (As if I can't tell.  The book is getting harder to read.  When you are in the middle, it'll lay flat.  At the beginning, or the end, this fucking thing keeps trying to close on my arm.)

8:08PM:  I love that one of the way this Wyngarde guy tried to pick up Jean Grey was to wear a speedo and waltz up to her while she was sunbathing.  Also, interesting sidenote:  Jean has a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and is drinking some kind of cocktail out of a huge water bong.  That's how Jean relaxes.

8:04PM:  Uncanny X-Men Annual # 3: A Fire In The Sky!  Remember when the T-1000 freaks out and hides under the kitchen table?  That's the best part of Fire In The Sky.  The best part of This Fire In The Sky is when it ends.  George Perez, you have attained failure level with this.  Thank god you had other stuff in the pipeline, because this story, regardless of how well it was drawn, made me want to kill and eat the cutest dog in the universe.  I can't wait to get back to the regular issues, regardless of what happens in them.

8:00PM:  Ten fucking hours I've been doing this.  I've never spent that much time doing anything except for two tv marathons-one where I watched all of The Shield: Season 4, which was totally awesome and would do again if I didn't keep up with that show on a weekly basis now, and once in college when a whole group of lunatics marathoned watched that HBO show Oz for a little over a day.  That was stupid, but there was some sex that happened towards the 20th hour, so it's a fond memory, and it was college, which is when you're supposed to do that kind of stuff.  But yeah, i've never spent this much time with comics in a single day.  I don't care what anybody says.  This is horrible.

7:57PM:  I keep looking for where Perez and Claremont have credited Windsor McCay for this, since it's all straight out of Little Nemo.  Haven't found it yet.

7:56PM:  I forgot how long annuals are.  This is awful.

7:51PM:  Okay, so hopefully Cyclops won't tell everybody to run away, as now they are attacking the X-Men at home.  Well, not they, this Arkon guy is.  I thought all Thor villains talked funny.  This guy talks like Magneto.  Hey, where the fuck is Magneto?  It doesn't take a year to recover from busted ribs.

7:49PM:  Just saw Sharif's comment, and that interests me--who on this team does Claremont get to take credit for?  I'm always interested to see which Marvel characters have successfully survived that didn't come from Stan Lee (and whomever he had as an art partner, as they always seemed to have a hand.)

7:46PM:  Storm begins taking off her clothes as always, the second she enters her room.  Thankfully, the Arkon guy shows up before she finishes, saving me from another of those debacles.  Coffee!

7:43PM:  It's probably just a phrase, but Cyclops just implied that he "hired" the X-Men.  Are they getting paid?

7:42PM:  I don't know Thor or his comics.  Is Arkon a big deal?  He doesn't look like a big deal.

7:40PM:  Hey, it's George Perez.

7:35PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 124 He Only Laughs When I Hurt!  The third pot of coffee is being brewed.  I also drank a Red Bull earlier.  I have to say, I wonder how this would have gone if I was just drinking whiskey all day.  Or something really sleazy, like Coors Light.   So, the whole Spider-Man thing last issue, where he got all freaked out and destroyed a phone booth upon finding out the X-Men had been kidnapped by Arcade?  I guess he just went home, as he never shows up to do anything for anybody in this issue.  Instead, the X-gang fights there way out of Murderworld, which is less difficult than the name implies, and then, as always, Cyclops makes everybody RUN AWAY.  Seriously, Cyclops?  Give it up.  You've retreated from every single battle throughout every story of this book.  The only time the guy bucks up is when his back is literally to the fucking wall.  Cyclops, you are not a hero.  You are a lazy bum.  Anyways, we're really moving and shaking, right?  This is good timing.  Second winds! 

7:30PM:  Naa, I don't buy it.  I'm sure there's some weird explanation for why Storm can use electricity underwater without hurting herself, but I don't buy it.  That's completely absurd.  So is the Maybe It's Reno album.

7:21PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 123 Listen--Stop Me If You've Heard It--But This One Will Kill You!  So this is Arcade, huh?  He's not too bad, kind of a creative sort of guy.  This is a lot like that Marvel video game, which sort of makes sense that it would be.  Nothing in here could be readable and the last page would still be pretty classic:  Colossus puts on a red apron like outfit, with a little red hat, and red wristbands and calls himself "Proletarian--Worker's Hero of The Soviet Union!"  He has Lenin on the front of his outfit.  On the bottom of the page, Arcade is wearing Converse All Stars with huge lifts on them.

I mean, yeah, it's silly, but it's pretty great.  I'd really like it if this whole thing would take itself less seriously, but until then, this will have to do.

7:18PM:  Guess Storm was taking a cold shower.  Her nipples are drawn like sundials.

7:17PM:  Bullshit.  Banshee doesn't have what it takes to own a copy of Finnegan's Wake, much less read it.  That asshole couldn't comprehend a copy of Men's Health, and that magazine is the same every month.

7:16PM:  Hey, it's the Dragon Lady from Terry & The Pirates.

7:13PM:  Hey, it's Spider-Man.

Comics Of The Weakest: We Now Enter The Heart Of The Matter-Pages 400-600

7:08PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 122: Cry For The Children!  The heroin issue, where Storm goes wandering around Harlem and walks into a nice multicultural shooting gallery, where a bunch of junkies are hanging out, and where John Byrne doesn't give a fuck and draws one of the sad little criminals in a "Sharks" jacket, letting us know that, for Byrne, West Side Story & a bunch of pathetic drug addicts walk hand in hand down a street paved with broken dreams and clear glass vials.  Then Arcade shows up, looking like a combination between a clown and Col. Sanders, and he likes to spin his hat while he talks.  So far, I can appreciate that sort of behavior.

I know it wasn't these guys fault, but whoever came up with Luke Cage's old outfit should be run over by a train.

7:02PM: Geez, Wolverine, what are those?  Virginia Slims?  What a lame looking cigarette.

6:55PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 121: Shoot-Out At The Stampede!  That's got to be the worst title yet.  Stampede At The Shoot-Out would be preferable.  Aw, well, that's titles for you.  Anyway, this will live in my memory as the Giant Arctic Owl issue.  Other stuff happens, but the ending is so awful--they just run away from the Canadians again, not resolving this whole Wolverine-is-bought-and-paid-for by the Canadian government.  I suppose there's potential for it to be a somewhat emotional story about indentured servitude, but knowing Claremont and Byrne (from what I've seen so far) it was just be a ham-handed story where the word "slave" got used in a really obnoxious fashion.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm looking forward to the next issue--they're going to get home, finally, yes?  They're going to see all their belongings packed up and cry next to their headstones?  Cyclops and Jean Grey are going to have an uncomfortable reunion?  Banshee will officially be fired?

6:53PM:  Maybe this is just shitty drawing, but the owl keeps changing size from panel to panel.

6:49PM:  "You may be a match for my human form, woman.  But can even you stand against...A Giant Arctic Owl!"

Well, I think Storm should be able to take an owl no problem.  She is a goddamn super-hero, right?  And if you're going to shape-change into a "giant" owl, it should be bigger than Storms head.  That just looks like a regular sized owl.

6:41PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 120 Wanted: Wolverine!  Dead Or Alive!  That's the first double usage of punctuation for a title.  Once again, I'm more curious about the mechanics of story here then the story--did Claremont invent this Alpha Flight team?  And how long was it before they had their own series?  Here, they just come across as a group of incompetents, especially when one of them takes a plane (with civilian pilots on board) and throws it into a building.  I've seen Die Hard 2, and I know that planes can blow up really easy.  Otherwise, it's another adventure that relies on Cyclops having a lousy plan, which he of course provides, and once again the team is hampered in it's attempts to get home.

The Homer thing is becoming somewhat apt--while I doubt if there are that many references to the Odyssey to be found here, they do have a lot of people assuming they are dead, and they're just trying to make it home before some occasional sex destroys committed relationships.  Also, Cyclops.

6:40PM:  I guess this is back when Alpha Flight wasn't considered a shitty joke of a team.

6:34PM:  Well, if i'm going to nitpick complain about the treatment of women, I should acknowledge that both the pilots on this airplane are women, and they are being treated as capable, non-crazy individuals.  Still, that "just a girl" thing leaves a bit of a bad taste.

6:30PM  Wolverine said his name was Logan.  Is that a first?  Also, I should acknowledge that the boat owner from way back did get reimbursed for his boat, but he's still a mutant hating prick.  I don't care to change my thoughts due to this disclosure of information.  But yes, he got reimbursed for his hovercraft.

Also, i'm not catching the malefic lines yet--maybe I'm missing them?  Or is that because Phoenix has been shuttled to the background?

Sharif--excellent point about Lilandra.  That whole relationship is too ridiculous to enjoy.  And yes, "I'm only a girl" was Mariko.

6:23PM Uncanny X-Men # 119 Twas The Night Before Christmas...  I guess I'm just used to the tendency at DC to do these really obnoxious Christmas stories where Superman gives a kid a train and Red Arrow punches homeless people, because i'm once again surprised that an X-Men X-Mas is mostly another fight comic.  Things simmer down after the easy defeat of Moses the Mastermind Of Magnums And Merlin of M-Words--thankfully, Banshee is there to show off his "sonic" powers, which, while based in sound don't seem to affect anyone but the person he focuses on.  Whatever, there's no science here.

God, it's really stuffy in this room.  I've got the window on, but i bet it smells like a fucking dorm room.  Just all dude rank.  Dude rank and X-Men, welcome to Saturday at my place.

Anyway, I guess I'll be reading about Colossus and his family soon, as his "i miss little papa and tiny mama and wee wee sister in motherland" complaints are coming every other page now.

6:16PM:  I'm going a little slow, as bowl of food has been brought to me.  I realize it's somewhat pathetic to be eating a bowl of food, but I don't what to break my concentration, and I'll have plenty of time to eat off plates at a proper table tomorrow.  So for now, I eat my lovely home-cooked meal out of a bowl, like some kind of sad, pathetic little man with no hopes or dreams beyond making it through another three hundred pages of comic books.

6:08PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 118 The Submergence Of Japan  Well, it's all kind of going alright, I guess.  There's something totally absurd about whatever is going on with Professor X, and it's breathtaking how long they're keeping this whole "everybody thinks everybody else is dead" story.  Also, I'm never going to get over how often they show other super-heroes saying, that they're "too busy" to come help out with the entire "Huge crisis" thing.  They don't even say "oh, you can handle it."  This woman, who must be Iron Fist's girlfriend gives him a call and the guy is just all "naw, i'm gonna stay here.  Talk to you later bye." 

But then you get to the end, after the weird sexist thing with the Japanese woman, and it turns out that the bad guy is some black guy with a severly receding hairline who introduces himself by saying "I am Moses Magnum, master of the magnum force!"

And then I kind of understand why Iron Fist and Luke Cage won't get on a plane.

6:06PM:  "The fault is mine...I am only a girl."  The fuck?

6:04PM:  Oh, and Sunfire is still totally an asshole.

5:58PM:  Cyclops, to Wolverine:  "You read Japanese?"  "Yup."  "I...didn't know."  Yeah, well, that's why you're kind of a half-ass leader that no one on the team respects except for Colossus, and that seems to be mostly because he's got the mind of a 12 year old.  I can't believe I'm disliking Cyclops this much, but he's a real fucking tool.

5:47PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 117 Psi War!  The whole issue is an Aesop's Fable told by Professor X, about how he went to a third world country and killed some fat guy in a mind-war, and it reminded him that he should start his own private army to kill all mutants who's politics he disagreed with.  I am totally taking that out of context.

Still, this is kind of something I'd been waiting for:  after all the issues I've read, this is the first time Professor X has explained his actual motives behind having a team of X-Men in the first place--because there are evil mutants, and good mutants should stop them.  Up until then, every single issue has related to problems coming TO the characters.  This is the closest they've gotten to having a purpose--oddly, it's after they've all seemingly died that Professor X points out that he had one.  (Maybe you should have shared it with them?  Eh?)  Artwise, Byrne continues to do great faces and classic super-hero bodies, while letting the backgrounds play out however he wants too.  Why does the airport go from white and yellow to blue, to black with concentric circles in orange?  Well, why not?

Oh, and music wise, it's been this Skyphone album--it's more of a squeeky Brian Eno type sound, with long ass tracks, so it hasn't made much of an impact.  That's good.  To be honest, it was hard to pay attention to the comic when I was listening to Santagold, as that music is pretty interesting--good or bad, it was interesting.

I'm kind of amazed that some of you guys are reading along.  That's pretty spectacular. 

5:42PM:  I'm disgusted by the fact that when telepaths do battle in the astral plane, they do so nude, but with their groins missing--it's just an invisible coating of skin where their junk should be.  Show me the junk.  If i've got to wade through love letters to Phoenix and Storm the Goddess of Ripped Fabric, then I want to see some cock and balls.  That's only fair.

5:40PM:  My wife is cooking spaghetti from scratch!  How lovely.  Oh, and don't worry about me Sharif.  I drink coffee like this when I'm trying to go to sleep, it's actually not that out of the ordinary.  On another note, the Arabian Shriner version of the Kingpin has showed up.

5:35PM:  Oh, bananas!  Lilandra is trying to make coffee, that oh so lovely thing that is so lovely i never want to do this again ever, and last night i picked up Bottomless Belly Button and oh god I'd rather be reading that right.  Keep trucking.  Wolverine called Colossus "Bub."  So now we just need an old fashioned "Best I am at what I do, and what I do is repeat the same cliched catchphrases."

5:27PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 116: To Save The Savage Land!  I didn't notice exactly when it changed, but these aren't very long anymore.  Some are only 20 pages, and one of those is usually a big title sequence.  The shorter it's gotten, the more things are getting compacted--the background art is a lot more basic--mostly just color fields, sometimes they match the areas they're in (a yellow room makes for a yellow colored background) and other times they just change on what must be a whim.  (Light blue would make sense for the outdoor stuff, but it came up a few times here for interiors, clashing with what the rooms had been in the first place.)

Violence wise, things are getting more similar to what I know of the X-Men--everybody but Wolverine tries really hard to save the bad guy when something happens, and turns a blind (but grossed-out) eye to whatever Wolverine does with his claws.  In one part, he sticks his fist in a gigantic dinosaurs mouth and pulls the trigger.  Biologically, that means the claws should have popped through its head, underneath its brain, meaning it wouldn't have died immediately, but I guess he could have turned his fist inside its mouth.  Well, that's disgusting.

The ending is straight out of Homer--a storm takes the X-Men away...forever?

5:26PM:  And now Wolverine has off-handedly mentioned his healing factor, so I guess that's coming into play.

5:22PM:  I don't know what Wolverine did, exactly, to make Nightcrawler and Storm get so grossed out--obviously it involved one claw pop and death, so I can imagine.  And what I imagine is a pretty good indication that maybe this Wolverine is going to start to behave the way Wolverine does now.  I wonder if this book will include the first use of the term "Bub."

5:13PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 115:  Visions Of Death!  Good god, that's a lot of talking.  Page after page after page of Ka-Zar and this Lykos guy talking about some guy called the Petrified Man, or the Sun-God, and an alien race of vampires, and exploding golden cities, then Ka-Zar talks about how he was flying around in an alien war on top of a flying shark and the shark has a belt on it, but then the shark disappeared and he fell down and hit his head, and Lykos "nursed" him back to health.

Then at the end of all this goofy ass shit, the X-Men, who all had ripped up their costumes and gone native for a week of sun & sexiness, they put their costumes back together (and i'm sure this relates to the "unstable molecules" they made them out of, and go "Hey, that's screwed up but fuck you, we're rolling out.  Just remembered that shit was pretty bananas when we showed up here in the first place, also I should probably tell my girlfriends parents that she's dead."  (Jean Grey, who isn't, but they don't know that.)

Awesomely enough, after all the explanation, Tarzan, I mean Ka-Zar, says "Oh really?  Don't care about the God problem? That's cool, actually, I was just describing it because I wanted to let you know what's up 'round here, but have a great time going home and thanks so much for having unprotected sex with the women of the village, I'm sure it was great.  Peace out motherfucker!"

4:55PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 114:  Desolation  So, for all the reliability of Cerebro, it apparently doesn't work when the team is out in the Savage Land, where, within a week, all of them have stripped off their shirts and Colossus has decided to have a menages a trois with a couple of women who look like every perverts fantasy of deserted island.  So they go from the team that will stop at nothing to yell at each other and save the world in half-ass fashion to the Blue Lagoon in about, oh, say 20 seconds.  Meanwhile, Jean Grey and Professor X are off crying it up at the Cry Cry Baby Mansion in Babyville, New York. 

I think it was Bill Hicks who once wondered when we tv commercials were just going to turn into full on pornographic short films, where a woman would just spread her legs, completely naked, and start masturbating while the announcer said "Go buy a Cadillac."  That's sort of how it feels to read a comic from almost 30 years ago where Storm is drawn in such a fashion that says, hey, 13 year olds, if you wrap your fist around your junk, you'll find a magic place inside your mind where God lives and he will bake you fresh bread.  Make sure you lock your bedroom door!  Let's be clear:  i'm not offended.  I'm not saying 13 year old shouldn't masturbate.  Hell, all those school shooters and 14 year old mommies and daddies should've masturbated a lot more.  I'm not saying this shit isn't sort of sexy in a "well, it's a cartoon" kind of way.  But it just does nothing for me.  I don't get why it's there.  It's not like comics are like a television show, or a movie, where sexy people sell it to an audience.  All the little sales reports they do say that the audience for barely dressed chick heroes is pretty meager--otherwise that Witchblade and Lady Death shit would outsell Spider-Man and all the other big boys.  But it doesn't, because there just aren't that many people who want some mildly titillating imagery.  As it is, it's not offensive because it's sexist, or any of that.  Shit is just boring and irritating.  And let's not fuck around: if I don't get why it's there, and it doesn't make the story better, I'd just as soon not deal with it.  Some people are just like, aw, take the bad, leave the rest.  Fuck that.  I ain't running a democracy in my brain, and i'm not going to play support group on my taste.

4:52PM:  I don't know about the rest of the world, but I could do with a little less of guys looking at Storm and screaming about how beautiful she is while she behaves like a coquettish nymph and says things like "I was given these robes.  Do you like them?"  Sister, that shit ain't a robe.  You've torn some rags up and tied them around your groin and your nipples.  It's just a lot more than I feel like reading about.

4:47PM:  Why does Cyclops keep getting mad at Wolverine when he puts himself in situations where he might get himself hurt?  Wolverine has that healing factor thing.  Doesn't Cyclops know that?  How has that not come up in all those danger room sequences they keep mentioning?  I think the best song on the new Santagold album is "Starstruck," fully acknowledging that it's the silliest song on the planet.

4:41PM  Uncanny X-Men # 113 Showdown!  Well, it's an apt enough title, although this issue doesn't totally make a huge amount of sense.  All that shit with Storm (who is only claustrophobic when it helps the story, just as Jean Grey is only a goddess when it's necessary) ended with her failing to get out the X-Men out of a jam, but then there's no indication at all what happens next.  They just get out of it.  So go figure.  It's still not that bad of a fight scene, what with the whole group finally, after around twenty issues, fighting as a team.  Cyclops still isn't much of a general, more of a shepherd with anger management problems.

4:35PM So the whole reason that they're going to escape is because the robot Nanny leaves the room for three to four hours at a time?  Where does she go?  To clean other areas of the empty facility?  Yes, it's nitpicky, I know, but seriously, it's a goddamn robot nanny and that doesn't deserve even the slightest "benefit of the doubt."  Maybe I'm just upset that the X-Men are going to escape before Cyclops gets his "bath and massage" from the robot nanny.  And you know what else?  The story doesn't say it, but clearly these motherfuckers are wearing diapers.  Diapers. 

These chairs look exactly like the ones in the latest Angry Youth Comix.

4:25PM  Uncanny X-Men # 112 Magneto Triumphant!  Well, never mind.  I guess he doesn't have his purpose yet, because Magneto's entire, nefarious plan, the one that he's set up a secret base underground inside an ice floe with the only entrance through a live volcano (yeah, just ignore the lava/ice thing), that whole plan is just to imprison the X-Men with a robot nanny.  A robot that he calls "Nanny."  And that he bought a french maid costume for. 

He bought, or made (which i find the prospect of to be even more hilarious and probably more accurate) a French Maid outfit for a robot, and he gave her fake hair, and, AND, he gave her lipstick.  And then he called her "Nanny."

I'm not intimidated.  I don't care what else the story says, about how this is payback for Magneto getting turned into a baby, about how Chris Claremont's idea that "If there is a hell, it cannot be more terrible than" to be treated as a six-month old child. 

Fuck, I'd even been warned about this.  I knew that this robot Nanny was coming.  I'm still just---I don't know.  Blown away?

4:18PM:  I actually have read some of the Ultimate X-Men series-the early Millar stuff, and I thought it was alright.  I liked the way Magneto was presented there--less as a lunatic villain, and more as a lunatic villain with a purpose.  As awful as he was in the stories I read--totally genocidal and the rest, it came from a clear, defined purpose and motive.  He made for a good villain.  So far, from what i've seen here (which is very little) he seems like a run-of-the-mill bad guy who's yet to reveal any hard core motive to raise mutants above humans in a worldwide fashion.  I'm writing this early in the issue here, so it may change.  Probably.

Comics Of The Weakest: The Uncanny Arrival Of A John Byrne--The Next 200 Pages

4:07PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 111 Mindgames!  I'm not going to jerk off to it, but this is definitely better than the last issue.  It's got one of those moments of curiosity that nerdy comics fans can love, the moment when Wolverine, through sheer-just-being-really-mad rips solid steel chains in half, and the art is pretty fantastic.  Most of all, it's kind of great that when Magneto shows up at the end it's one of those moments where he spins around in a chair and stands up out of the shadows.  It's just great, because you sit there going, "Wait a second."  So Magneto purposely hoped into a chair and pretended to be playing with the computer keyboard (the computer is clearly off) and just waited for the X-Men to show up so that he could spin around in his chair and act all nefarious?

The main villain in the story is some guy named Mesmero, whom I've never heard of, but I guess he's a mind-control dude.  Wildly divergent powers though-he can grab Phoenix, she of the powers of the stars and moonbeams in a California minute, but the Beast gives him serious trouble?  Why?

So, either way.  Not too shabby.  I can't imagine re-reading it, as it's a bit low on the "Wow, this is a really solid, innovative comic book that changes the way I think of the medium" nor is it "A clusterfuck of excitement, like a night of sex with a thousand dicked ball of love and ambrosia."  It's more just a good old fashioned single, in the 4th inning.  Keep hitting singles, you can win the game.  But it's not going to be a game anybody watches on ESPN Classic.

4:04PM:  Isn't the Beast supposed to say goofy shit all the time?  He's the "stars and garters" guy right?

3:59PM:  I just stood up to stretch my legs out and my wife pointed to a huge bowl full of tiny snickers and Hershey kisses, and said "Who is amazing?"  I told her she was, because I enjoy a good little piece of the mainstream candy on the occasion.  Number 111, page 381, let's continue.

3:53PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 110 The X-Sanction!  This is another fill-in issue, this time with a guy named Tony DeZuniga, who leaves a bit to be desired.  Most of that bit is related to the desire for it to be John Byrne doing the pencils.  The rest of the bit is related to the desire to have never read this comic, as it's completely awful, and it sort of makes me hate myself.

It starts with a baseball game, and then there's a big fight in the Danger Room.  Otherwise, who gives a shit, and then Wolverine wants to "love" Jean over a game of pool and beer.  Cyclops is all like no way dog, ya'll can suck a dick.

Somebody in the comments said things will get better with the next issue.  I pray to god you're right.

3:39PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 109 Home Are The Heroes!  Okay, this is getting to me a bit better.  After the last few, I seriously was thinking I might get this done a lot quicker, as it had just become completely stale and i'm only just now reaching the half-way point.  Instead, this issue quiets it all down and somebody finally tells Cyclops that he's a total fucking softcock and that if he wants to be a mopey prick, he should do it in his room.  I'm fully aware that he's going to stay a softcock for life, because I've read enough X-Men comics in the past two years to know he doesn't take the "quit whining" advice, but it's still pleasant to see him get called out on it.  What surprises me the most here is that these characters seem so familiar, even though this is all new information to me--the look that Byrne has for them is so much how I'd have imagined this to be--unlike Cockrum's stuff, there's also a certain level of variation in the emotional quality.  Rage no longer looks exactly like fear, there's things like concern showing up in people's faces.  Interesting.

I can't really say anything nice about the whole nudist subplot of Storms--it seems that we're supposed to accept that she is some kind of ignorant, but beautiful, savage who can't be bothered to understand the silly white man's ways.  But this only comes up when it involves a situation where she's going to get naked?  Really?  That's ridiculous.

3:33PM:  Aw, Colossus, what a supreme dick maneuver--Banshee finally gets off his ass to make it clear how much he wants to get a piece of Moira, she responds totally in kind, and now he's sandbagging on their fucking sexy romantic picnic.  Peter Rasputin, you are an asshole.  Especially when Nightcrawler is begging for a wingman.

3:31PM:  Everybody is wearing a clothes that have these weird designs on them.  Designs that must be done by--well, not computers, but they don't look drawn.  It's really garish and awful.  I mean, these clothes are bad enough, but gawd, this is terrifying to look at.  I'm not handling it well.  And the coffee intake is starting to make me feel a little sick.

3:28PM:  I keep forgetting to mention how weird it is that Storm tears off her clothes the second she gets home.  Every time.  Now, it seems she talks to her houseplants as well.

3:15PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 108 Armageddon Now!  The end of the whole alien storyline, and my first experience with something a friend had warned me about.  A three page monologue/love letter/bizarre plot description about Phoenix, who's powers still seem to be "whatever is necessary."  I'm not going to transcribe the whole thing, I'm sure enough people know these things, but oh god did I not like it.  This whole overbloated seriousness to the whole thing--a "tree of life--with xavier its lofty crown and Colossus its base....Tiphareth.  Child of the sun, child of life, the vision of the harmony of things." 

It's like reading about somebodies weird, imagined religion, and then realizing that it just keeps going, and going, and it just isn't interesting, or fun to look at---it's just ponderous and weird and I don't get it.  Not what it says--oh, no, that part comes across like a brick through plate glass--I don't get what the turn-on is here.  The fighting, shit, I get that.  The stupid simple ramblings on racism, the soap opera.  I know people like that.  But this weird, silly bullshit?  What does that do?  What does it serve?  How does it..ahh.  It probably isn't designed for this kind of ingestion.  If you've ever spent a lunch break at work reading all kinds of weird, disconnected articles on Scientology, you know what I'm talking about.  How the first few, the ones about Fair Game, and the ones about Xenu, how they're funny because they're so fucked up and awful.  But if you just keep going, it doesn't matter how fucked up and awful they are--you just get numb to the weirdness.  You're so used to the freakshow screaming at the logic, the common sense in your brain, the part of you that knows "This is all bullshit" that you just shut down.  And then you look up, and it's been an hour, and you're just...fucking ashamed of yourself.  Ashamed that you spent so much time with the volume at the same level, because now things that are quiet, and things that are subtle--you can't grasp them the way they should be grasped.  You're like the guy who watches Die Hard and Predator so many times that he can't calm down for something that's quiet.  Something that doesn't explode or scream. 

That's what this feels like.  It feels like the volume of pretension never goes down, and that volume was deafening to begin with.  Hell, it's probably exactly what it feels like if you're reading these right now.  Like this is just too goddamned much.  And it is.  That's the X-Men.

3:12PM:  Corsair, the sleazy guy with the headband is the father of Cyclops?  How did Cyclops not know that?  Something tells me I've got a Spielberg style "estranged fathers" story coming up.  That's great.  Just great.

3:08PM  Have to say, Byrne is doing fine.  No disrespect to the Cockrum, but the characters look more dissimilar now--Cyclops and Wolverine don't have the same exact body type, etc.  Facially, there's a little more subtlety.  I'm missing those scream faces a bit.

3:02PM:  Jesus Christ, is that supposed to be Jimmy MotherFucking Man From The Plains Carter?  "The accuracy of youh data?"

2:53PM:  Uncanny X-Men #107 Where No X-Men Has Gone Before!  So this is another balls-pinned-to-wall fight comic between the X-Men and these Lilandra alien warrior people, all of whom look pretty much like the Legion of Super-Heroes, and share some of their powers.  Excepting the earlier stuff about racism and complaining heroes, I'm not seeing a lot that's any different than anything else in super-hero comics.  THese are well-drawn Cockrum sequences, I can give it that, and although Claremont's dialog is way wordier than necessary, it makes sense in it's own weird way--but what else?  This is just fighting.  People were getting this excited about waiting two months to read about a shitload of fighting between the X-Men and a bunch of new characters they'd never seen before?  Why?  There's none of the soap operatic romantics, Wolverine hasn't tried to get in Jean's pants, nobody has dropped any "muties."  It's all just a bunch of...well, whatever this is.  Fighting.  The possible end of the world.  Yawn.  This is it for Cockrum.  That's too bad. I like his scream faces.  There's too many of them, but they were getting to be kind of fun to look forward too.

This Constantines album, Kensington Heights, it's pretty good.  I like it, while I acknowledge that may be because it's just so damn simple.  But it's nice.

2:52PM:  Coffee number 9.

2:50PM:  So huge green fish like monster wearing underwear just showed up.  Name is Ch'od, and I think he or she is hitting on Nightcrawler.

2:47PM:  Wolverine stole some dudes clothes, okay, but did it have to be that dudes?  He's wearing an alien's spandex suit.  That's just completely disgusting.

2:32PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 106 Dark Shroud Of The Past!  This is a fill in issue drawn in 1975 by a guy named Bob Brown, who actually died three weeks after the issue was eventually published.  (According to a note in the letter column.)  It's a pretty terrible story, although the art isn't that bad.  It's just a big Danger Room fight between the X-men and a phantasmal old X-Men team, and it's totally fucking boring and brings nothing to the table except to continue the trend of me disliking the Professor.  He's just such a colossal prick to everybody, for no reason other than that he isn't enough of a grown up to keep his mouth shut.  Out of all the issues, this is my new least favorite one.

One little caveat that I found was that these issues were coming out on a bi-monthly basis back in 77, which means that, after all the nonsense in 105, people who were keeping up with this comic had to wait a whole four months for the next installment.  Considering how much people nowadays are complaining about late-shipping comics and all that, it certainly doesn't seem to be that new of a trend.  After all, this fill-in issue, which is what would have showed up without warning after waiting two months for the next installment in the space adventure storyline started in 104/5, the same complaints and anger must have been there.  I'm sure that's not new information to anybody, and in a way it isn't to me either--it's more that I've always assumed that late-shipping books was always a problem, but I'd never come across a specific example.

2:20PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 105 Phoenix Unleashed!  There's your exclamation point, and a whole slew of new people to meet--some asshole called Firelord, another one of those characters with god-like powers who is completely gullible.  Eric The Red turns out to be somebody named Shakari, which I can't help imagine is pronounced like the singer, and it's off on another space adventure.

I don't really understand Phoenix's powers--so she's--well, what, exactly?  She just seems to be a "whatever Claremont needs" kind of character.  Is your little stargate broken?  She can fix it.  Is it dark?  She can make light.  Fly.  Anything.  She's horny for killing too, I imagine eventually she'll have a hard time fighting that off.  I had to go back and look at the issue to see if Wolverine was in it.  I don't think he said a word the whole comic.  Neither did Storm, Colossus or Banshee.

Okay, they did, just a couple of panels.  Still, this whole thing is Professor X freaking out and screaming, a huge amount.  Again, there's nothing funny here.  It's all really convulsive seriousness.

2:17PM:  Definitely Claremont.  Cockrum just told him to "Shut up an' run!!"

2:16PM:  There's Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum, in the comic book.  I think it's Claremont, he's telling Dave what to draw.

2:14PM:  Jean Grey and Misty's apartment in Greenwich Village would cost at least 10 grand a month if they were renting.  Even in 1977.  They don't seem to have jobs, so I imagine Jean is using her powers to steal or something.  It makes the apartments on Friends and Seinfeld look like fucking hovels in comparison.

2:10PM:  I always think it's so boring when aliens just look like human beings with weird shit attached to them.  These Lilandra people look like humans with fins on their heads--five fingers, regular height, musclebound structure--although they do have one goofy looking motherfucker with six arms and multiple joints.  He's looking directly at the reader, whereas everyone else is looking off to the right.  It's always kind of striking when comics do that-when somebody seems to be staring up at you from the page.  It makes me want to know more about weird guy.

2:07PM:  Ew, i spilled a little coffee on this page.  There goes the whole Mint condition! 

1:53PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 104 The Gentleman's Name Is Magneto Another no punctuation title, although this one could have benefited from an exclamation point.  This time around, it's another racial slur, this time somebody calls Banshee a "mick" which is like--i'm not offended, but seriously, what's the goddamn point of that?  Nowadays, yeah, no kids read comics, but seriously, back in 1977, kids were--oh well.  I guess the argument is that mick isn't as offensive--but that's not the point, it's a slur.  Don't use them.  There's no reason for that, other than to amp up the "seriousness" of the whole thing, and these assholes are wearing spandex and a guy doesn't want to rent them a boat because-well, fucking hell, these are the same jack-fucks that have destroyed an airport and a couple of other buildings on live tv.  If you run a boat rental business, it's not racism to not want to rent to the X-Men.  It's the fact that these assholes are probably going to destroy your boat, and they're not going to pay you back for it, because they're going to be on the way to another funeral, etc, and so on.  And then they take the boat anyway, and then they destroy it, and they weren't even on their way to save the world, they were just checking out a secret prison run by their housekeeper.  But hey, throw some nasty words into the boat rental guys mouth, and his very real concerns become labeled racist.  It's not racist if a bunch of terrorists with a well-documented history of untold destruction show up and say "what the fuck man, rent us a boat, we had a deal."  Screwballs.

Magneto was a baby?  A little baby.  He got turned into a baby, and now this Eric The Red guy, who still seems to be the whole fly in the ointment guy, changes him back to being grown up and angry.  Okay?

What's this Starjammers shit?  I know that one character from the Grant Morrison story, she's Xavier's ex-girlfriend or something, but who's the dipshit with the bandanna?  He looks like a sleazeball.

1:49PM: More of the fucked up pages.  That's really obnoxious.

1:47PM:  Something is seriously wrong with the coloring on the page where they introduce Magneto.  It's readable, but it's really fucked up.

1:40PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 103 The Fall Of The Tower The first story not to have a punctuation mark in the title, not that it matters.  Leprechauns!  Running around, saving the day, being Leprechaun-y, but more Lucky Charms then those horror flicks starring the guy from Willow.  The best stuff here is anything involving-hold on, sandwich time.  Hey, it's cut in half.  I feel like a little kid.

Okay, so the leprechauns are great, obviously.  I'd rather read about them.  The other thing that's nice is that it turns out that when Colossus threw Wolverine over that wall, he overshot and threw Wolverine over the castle.  This was the first time that there was anything silly in this entire volume, and instead of it being played for laughs, it's played all serious.  This comic takes itself way too goddamn seriously.  Also, the tower?  Never falls down.

1:37PM:  My wife is home and I asked for more water and a sandwich.  She agreed, and is not angry or disappointed that I think this is taking too long.  Hey, she took away the old water bottle!  What a nice lady.

1:34PM:  Wolverine calls Storm a "dumb broad" and Colossus throws him over a castle wall in response.  I fully acknowledge the sentiment, but for chrissakes man, you're in the middle of an all-out conflict--settle your disagreements about his chauvinistic language later.  And why forgive Storm so quickly--she only just finished bawling her eyes out about three minutes ago.

1:30PM:  HEY, leprechauns!  Yes, that's the best thing so far!  Leprechauns saving Nightcrawler!  Don't screw this up Claremont.  Oh shit, I bet they got powers too.

1:21PM:  Uncanny X-Men #102 Who Will Stop The Juggernaut?  The short answer is that no one will stop the Juggernaut, especially not Cyclops.  He flat out refuses to leave Jean Grey's bedside, even though she is awake and seems perfectly fine.  Professor X shows off a remarkable temper about this, calling Cyclops a "insufferable cur" which you don't hear that often, unless you live in England and are worried about the Black Death.  Everybody gets the shit beat of them, it turns out I was wrong to think the Juggernaut was a new character, and for some reason Wolverine doesn't ever shove his claws into the multiple parts of Juggernauts body that are exposed by his costume.  Like his eyes.  Just stab him in the eyes, right?  Whatever, there's probably some reason he can't do that.

Storm spend this entire issue CRYING.  In a corner of the same room the other guys are getting beat to holy fuck.  Just crying.  Cry cry cry cry, until the last page, where she gets knocked the fuck out in one panel.

This Islands album isn't bad, but i'm not ready to call it good yet.  I still haven't heard anything by them studio style that's as good as their live show.

Man, I'm going to need to eat lunch soon.

1:19PM  Going to start a new post each 200 pages, just to keep it from being to unwieldy on the maintenance tip.

Comics Of The Weakest: Your Pants Are Far Too Tight For You To Be Respectable

1:05PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 101 Like A Phoenix, From The Ashes!  Not really truthful, that title.  Phoenix shows up for the "prologue" which ends with Professor X forcing the X-Men to take a vacation.  That's why the end up heading out to Banshee's wacky "ancestral home" which is, for storytelling purposes, a gigantic castle from every single era of medieval times.  I guess this is the first time the Juggernaut has showed up, and I wonder how much anybody takes him seriously ever since that silly youtube video where the guy kept saying "I'm da Juggahnot!"  Either way, the final nail had to be when Vinnie Jones played him in that awful Brett Ratner movie.  He only shows up at the end, but it basically encapsulates how I feel about this whole issue, and to some extent, most of them so far--the fighting and screaming is so repetitive and devoid of consequence that it's hard to enjoy on a storytelling level, the personality "dynamics" is mostly stuff like Storm thinking to herself about how she's claustrophobic, Nightcrawler is the sort of goofball that's neither funny or clever, just irritating, like a wart or dirty toothbrush.  Alan Cumming was the right call to play that character in a movie--I don't really believe in Alan Cumming either, he's fine in Titus and Cabaret, but he always struck me as someone who isn't ever a real person.  He just wakes up and puts on a caricature of a human being that's really zany and pansexual before he goes out to drink absinthe and talk about Dead Can Dance lyrics.  I can see how this gets addictive--i've no interest in whether they get out of the fighting predicaments, but I'm curious to the next development in Wolverine's desire to "get" Jean Grey, I'm curious to who's going to die next.  Knowing that's the only "development" coming is pretty pathetic though--but it's no more pathetic than wanting to know the Joker's next plan, and it's less pathetic than wanting to know the developments in Hal Jordan's relationships.

1:02PM:  So Banshee takes the X-Men on a vacation, but only Storm is allowed a seat in the truck/car thing he's driving.  Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Colossus have to ride in the bed of the truck/car, like dogs.  Adorable.

1:00PM:  Hey, it's Green Arrow!  Green Arrow is a doctor!

12:56PM:  "What's Jean Grey to you anyway?  Someone I like.  An' Want.  An' what Wolverine wants--he gets."  Jesus, that's just some creepy ass shit to say.  I wonder how many fans identified with that kind of behavior.  Hopefully, not too many.

12:45PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 100 Greater Love Hath No X-Men...  Well, after the last issue, this was kind of a relief-it's one of those straight-up fight books with no excursions into B-plots or exploratory racism.  Just dude on dude, lady on lady, punch and shoot.  Wolverine lets everybody know that he also has dog powers, and can smell robots.  The idea that some scientist can so easily, and quickly, make robots with super-powers is one that happens in comics regularly, and it's always really stupid--not so much in these, since the whole "let's make these spandex books realistic" thing didn't get started back here. But yeah, still kind of like...what?  You can make robots that have telekinetic powers?  And this is what you do with them?

Is this the first time Jean Grey dies?  It's a to be continued, so I'll find out, but this is a hell of a lot more dramatic than the death of the Proudstar guy.  It would help if I didn't know that the X-Men's biggest running joke is the death and rebirth of the characters, Jean specifically.  Still, the scene where she just decides that she's going to knock her boyfriend out cold instead of discuss things with him--well, that's sort of great.  I don't think I'd be able to tolerate it if it was a guy who just went "Look, shut up bitch" and cold-cocked his wife because she was getting mouthy, but seeing Jean do it...I don't know, it's just kind of pleasant.  It helps that Cyclops seems to scream about everything.  You want some pizza Cyclops?  Can we get a pineapple pizza?

"Dear GOD the PIZZA MUST BE VEGAN, why not CHINESE instead!  MY EYES...THE GOGGLES do NOTHING."

Oh, something on my chair, which is new and very nice, and very, very expensive, keeps falling off because the people who delivered it didn't assemble it properly.  I will fix it when i'm done.  Also, it's raining here in Brooklyn.  Also, I'm sorry for the Simpsons reference.  I'm out of coffee after 8 total cups, and my wife is at yoga.  Time for Stan Lee's essay.

12:43PM:  Well, there's the first fastball special.

12:27PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 99 Deathstar, Rising!  Now we're getting into the heat of the whole "brothers, sisters, gays & straights, blacks & whites, hold hands and drink a can of Tab, we're all the same underneath the sheets."  First it was Jean Grey calling the Lang guy a Nazi, in the last issue, and now it's "Anti-mutant hysteria sweeping the country."  Of course, if they were full on going for the Nazi allegory, then the news wouldn't refer to the anti-mutant protesters as hysterical, they'd be concerned Americans, and any assault on an "outspoken foe of the anti-mutant movement" would go un-reported.  That's how propaganda works--in this case, the point of view seems to be that the anti-mutant movement is considered to be that of the minority, as the media is still operating from a pro-mutant point of view.  So it's not really Nazism.  The Nazis' embraced widespread anti-Semitic propaganda.  Specificity, of course, is going to be lacking in a comic book, but that's the whole thing about using something like Nazism.  That's one of the big guys, it's a big fucking argument, and it's, like a Spider-Man, a great responsibility to start utilizing things like real genocide, real racism, to increase the flavor of your story.  If you're not going to do it accurately, to present the real kind, then don't do it all.  By ignoring the culpability of the news media, and propaganda specifically, it implies that one can trust the statements of the media and propaganda, as they're presented here to be trustworthy.  That wasn't the case in Germany and Rwanda.  It isn't the case in North Korea and Darfur.  That's in part, why it worked-because the masses who weren't actively anti-Semitic, who wouldn't behave as willing participants in the Holocaust, were given a easily embraceable way out--the language of "this is the right thing to do, we're looking after your interest" was available to them.  The people were able to stay cloistered in a language of lies and pamphlets.  Here, the media isn't providing that--they're saying, no, anti-mutant attacks are wrong, they're bad.  That's not what happened.  (And this is even more complicated and complex then that--i'm just pointing out one of the many ways this could have been done in a more convincing, and less immature, fashion.  As always, go ahead and use the arguments if you want, one should be free to do whatever they want in writing--but if you're going to take a stance that it's "important" then do it right, and do it accurately.  So far, this is just offensively ignorant, and almost willfully lazy.

12:08PM:  Uncanny X-Men # 98 Merry Christmas, X-Men...  Quick digression-this Omnibus also reprints the letters page, which I've taken a cursory look at everytime, but have yet to care about anything in it.  Jo Duffy wrote in on this issue--who is that?  I know that name.

I was sure this was going to be a terrible Christmas issue, but after the first two pages, all of the "Merry X-mas, cocksucker" shit went out the window--this is another fight-fight-capture-fight issue.  This time, the Steve Lang guy brings a bunch of Sentinels to the table, they kick the ass of the X, then the X kicks back.  Wolverine rips off most of Jean Grey's dress, which seems to be the beginning of that shit they do in the movies, where he totally doesn't give a shit that Cyclops and her are together, and she pretends to be mad about it while keeping her options open.

The most interesting thing here for me is that it's the first time Banshee looks like a person--maybe it's the inking or something, because it's still a Cockrum structure, but the wrinkly infant thing isn't here.  After that, it's interesting how unrepentantly ugly Wolverine is.  Just a straight up hideous looking motherfucker.

Oh, and now it looks like the space shit is going to come to the fore, as it turns out that all the captive X-Men are in a space jail.  Actually, it ends with Wolverine, Banshee and Jean Grey floating in space, which means that the next issue must include some kind of explanation for why they haven't gone all Total Recall with popping eyeballs.

And yes, Ruby Suns is done, now it's the new Spiritualized which, so far, is fantastic.  There best since Ladies and Gentleman.

12:01PM:  Roughly two hours in, and i'm just now 1/8 of the way through, meaning this will take 16 hours?  No fucking way.  Yes fucking way?

11:51AM:  Uncanny X-Men # 97 My Brother, My Enemy!  The Steve Lang guy from the last issue puts his plan into place, and it has something to do with getting a dominatrix in red to mildly control "Doctoral Candidates" Havoc and Polaris (okay, I know who that is now) to do..something with Professor X.  They fail to capture/kill the bald one, and there's a LOT of screaming faces.  First it's Havoc, then Cyclops, then back and forth between them.  Lots of people go flying around, nobody gets hurt except for probably all the people at the airport who disappear pretty quickly.  For some reason, Jean Grey is there, so wherever she decided to disappear too, it wasn't far enough away not to come visit.  The whole issue opens with some kind of huge space battle that Professor X has been dreaming about--I guess that's how all of these comics work.  They have some A plot, which is the Havoc & Polaris thing, and then there's a background B plot that will come up again later.  I have a particular loathing for most science fiction stuff that isn't directed by Tarkovsky, so I can't imagine that will be fun.  Out of all of them so far, this is my least favorite issue.  None of the glaring weird dialog to be entertained by, just a bunch of people screaming and fight scenes that only make sense because of the omnipresent dialog boxes.  Cockrum is far more interesting an artist than Portacio, but this shit is completely lacking in subtlety.  It's just screaming, all the fucking time.

11:48AM:  Man, I don't give a shit who Eric the Red was, or whom was Eric the Red.  Referencing some shit from 40 issues ago?  Fuck you, comic book.

11:46AM:  "Doctoral Candidates Alex Summers and Lorna Dane?"  Doctoral candidates in what?  Why is Cyclops wearing Elton John's sunglasses? 

11:43AM:  If you care, this is coffee number 5.  The Ruby Suns album continues to not only disappoint, but actively make me angry.  Is Moira the Professor's ex-girlfriend?

11:33AM:  Uncanny X-Men # 96 Night Of The Demon!  When does John Byrne start drawing these?  I'm fine with Cockrum, although he uses the same tricks over and over again--everybody is always screaming if they're doing something, and if they're doing nothing, they're just...vacant.  Anyway, here's the thing--this is the first full on "Claremont" issue, with no Len Wein as plotter, and...it shows?  Lots of strange, cumbersome dialog, lots of people being total assholes.  It opens with four pages of Cyclops brooding, responding to a narrator who's sort of describing what he's thinking, and yet also conversing with Cyclops, who responds by talking back and blowing up a graveyard.  Wolverine then calls Colossus "Baby."  Which is fine, I guess.

The second best, or worst, thing about this is when they cut to Banshee, who is wearing a gigantic Scottish hat, smoking a pipe, and wearing a white turtleneck.  He looks like an Irish dockworker from the 1920's.  Absurd.  The third best or worst thing is after this, when Professor X responds to Storm's natural concern that the new housekeeper, whom only Professor X has met, is trustworthy--he says "Rest assured--our secret is safe with Moira MacTaggert.  Safe unto DEATH."  (Italics are there, in the book.)  If somebody said that to you after asking a simple question, I think i'd nod and back out of the room, pack my bags and jump out the nearest window.

The first, the worst, the best?  That's when a one-eyed dragon shows up and says "I am Kierrok, little animal--Kierrok the Shatterer of Souls--Keirrok the Slayer of Men--Keirrok the Damned!  And I have come for YOU this night, humans--for your lives--and for your souls!!" 

What the fuck?  How is that supposed to make me care about racism?  Is that supposed to be awesome or something?  If this wasn't couched in all the whiny freakshow complaints, maybe, but as it is, it just seems like the Kool-Aid man came crashing through the wall and turned out that he wanted, less to party, but to eat my dad's face.

11:29AM:  Well, no more M83, but considering how totally obnoxious this Ruby Suns album, I'm missing it now.  This is the kind of music that would make the perfect soundtrack for a Latin American musical version of Patch Adams.

11:26AM:  Because I'm a film nerd more than a comics nerd, the first thing I think when I see there's a character with the last name Lang is that I'd really like to check out that new two-disc version of M.  That movie is classic.  This Lang is named Steve, and he is one of those people that screams at his subordinates for no reason other than that he's crazy, and screaming bad guys are Claremont's stock in trade, it seems.

11:12AM:  Uncanny X-Men # 95  Warhunt!  In other words, this is The Doomsmith Scenario, part two, or "The Death of James Proudstar"  For whatever reason, that death is drawn with Professor X, who had none him all of three fucking days, breaking down into a massive scene of emotion, which is also drawn with flames coming out of Professor X's back, and his face is colored purple, than aquamarine.  What?

Oh, god, this M83 song is 11 minutes long, and I think it's just this one tone non-stop.  Boring!

Banshee, again, has been drawn, this entire issue, as if he doesn't have enough skin to cover his skull, but that skin, which is taut against bone, is also wrinkled.  And his haircut is like the haircuts of the bad guys in Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, which is a great movie that George Lucas ganked a bunch of battle scenes from. 

There's so much weird drawing stuff in here--James Proudstar's eyes are yellow all of a sudden, then white, he punches a glass cockpit while in flight and the glass goes FORWARD, against all understanding of physics, but even the worst drawing in the world wouldn't be enough to obscure the worst storytelling twist yet--after all that "Omigod the DOOMSMITH Protocol,"  with a five minute countdown to the end of the world, Professor X goes "Cyclops, What are you doing!?!  That SHIT IS TOTALLY BROKEN."  And that's the end of the whole "world's going to end" thing.  That kind of twist makes even the worst deus ex machina look like Nobel Prize winning Kenzaburo Oe.  Coffee cup number 4.  Moving on.

10:58AM:  Uncanny X-Men # 94 The Doomsmith Scenario "The Air Force called the Avengers for help but we can't handle it right now." (Hank McCoy, The Beast, via videophone.) That's the definition of this issue.  Somebody takes over NORAD, and activates a system that, if left to play out on its own, will destroy the world by firing the entire nuclear arsenal of the USA.  Interestingly enough, this is the way the US government has it programmed-the bad guy didn't do anything but activate the program--Claremont (who wrote this one, although not on his own, is saying that the US governments fall-back plan is to destroy the entire goddamn world if it looks like the country might fall.)  That's pleasant.  Maybe true, but only if you happen to be a "the moon landing WAS FAKED" kind of individual.  Moving on.  This is still taking too long to do, and although a 24 live-blog would be funny, it would also be totally goddamn absurd.

10:55AM:  If you work in NORAD, you have enough sense not to press the button on a weird mechanical object you've never seen before that says "PRESS ME."  And was delivered to you via the MAIL.  Also, they don't allow personal mail delivery at high-security nuclear facilities. 

10:49AM:  Oh, yeah, to the guy who thinks this is "jumping the shark."  Seriously, jumping the shark implies that you were cool at some point, doesn't it?  Comics blogging--never fucking cool.  Miles Davis, Coltrane, Steve McQueen, Tetsuo blowing up a tank with his mind, Frank Santoro, Deena Pilgrim from Powers, David Fincher, Miranda Richardson in Cronenberg's Spider, Helen Mirren--that's cool.  Blogging?  Blogging is, has, never been cool.  That's like saying Myspace jumped the shark.  Myspace was jack-fucking-ass to begin with.  There's no way to jump the shark in comics blogging.  And I say that with nothing but love for Jog, Matt Brady of Warren Peace, and Abhay, who do it better than everybody else.  Comics blogging is rearranging books in order of publication instead of alphabetical--fun as hell, but totally uncool.  Also uncool?  This new M83 album.  (Only 2008 music, all day, first few hours will be recent downloads.)  M83 album and comics blogging--jumping the shark would, conversely, make them cool.

10:45AM:  Holy shit that is the dumbest outfit I've ever seen.  Jean Grey is wearing this blue-pink ensemble with a hat that's a cross between a cowboy hat and a gigantic nacho bowl.  And a flower, and huge pouch style pockets on the jacket.  She looks like she's a 90 year old nail salon owner.  If she can read people's minds, does she hear them saying "Jean looks like a fucking idiot today, did she get dressed in the dark oh shit CAN SHE HEAR ME?"

10:44AM:  I'd buy a t-shirt that says:  "Killed by my eyes!  My cursed, mutant, energy-blasting EYES!"  That sounds like an old Minor Threat song.

10:39AM:  More COFFEE.  Cup 3.  That new Death Cab album is just as horrible and as irritating as I expected.  Apologies to my brother, but yes, I have no interest in listening to that.  It's like watching a 40 year old hang out in the parking lot of a high school and try to get kids to dump Lil Wayne for Crosby, Stills & Nash.

10:28AM:  Giant Size X-Men # 1:  Ok, I'm going to have to figure out something a little different-thirty minutes for a comic and some nonsense Muppet show style complaining isn't going to work.  Less frequent updates, faster reading.  (Sorry, but this is live, and there's been no real plan here.)

Well, for starters, this has some nitpicky things wrong with it, as far as I can tell--the basic conceit that these X-Men suffer from being treated "differently" only really comes up in Nightcrawler's case, early in the issue when he decides to take an entire mob of villagers in hand-to-hand combat.  In fact, all that goes right out the window when they run into a mutant who, through no fault of its own, happens to be a gigantic island that feeds off the powers of mutants.  (Yet doesn't seem to kill them, or even make them suffer that much--as soon as everybody gets free, they're ready and raring to yell at each other, a lot.)  Solution?  Throw all that ethical "mutants deserve to be treated like any individual life-form" shit and throw the gross, unattractive island into the galaxy, away from the mutants that (even in Nightcrawler's case) look like people.  So, yeah, mutants should all be treated the same, as long as they aren't really fucking gross to look at, really powerful, and have creepy dietary needs.  If the X-men really gave a fuck about all that ethical shit, they'd each take a turn once a week feeding this poor bastard.

The characters themselves don't have that much of a defined personality--it's all just "traits" as personality right now:  Sunfire is...an asshole!  Cyclops...yells a lot and is sort of incomptent!  Thunderbird is...an armchair Noam Chomsky!  Storm is....well, she hasn't really done anything yet.  Nice to know she spent all that time in Africa WAITING for people to come and ask her for rain, she couldn't just, you know, make it fucking rain without putting on a pageant.  What a selfish bitch.  Jean Grey, who I understand becomes a big deal later, doesn't really do much here, nor does Wolverine.  Havoc and Iceman really hate each other, but they're sort of B-grade losers, right?  Professor X is just sort of--I don't know, a creepy fuck in a chair.  This entire issue could have gone a different direction, with him inviting a bunch of strangers over to his secluded mansion, giving them homemade spandex outfits and then introducing them all to his houseboy--"Meet Scott--he and I have been together a long time.  Practically raised him.  Please go find my old harem of mutants.  In return, you can join me--is your outfit comfortable?  Tight enough?  Scrumptious."

Art-wise, Cockrum draws yelling in a way that's yet to irritate, but Banshee looks awful, every single time. 

10:27AM:  If I keep doing these little updates this is going to take too long, and it's not going to be entertaining to read unless you read it along with the comic, which no one on Earth should have to do.

10:25AM:  Lorna Dane?  What?  Is that the girl who has Magneto powers?

10:23AM:  When somebody says, "Hey, did I keep you waiting long" and your response is "Aw, naw, just got here ourselves,"  it's pretty supreme dickishness to turn around and IMMEDIATELY say "Since we are ALL finally here..."  Man, fuck you Cyclops.

10:21AM:  On top of the previous complaint-there's no real plan here.  Last time they came to this island everybody disappeared immediately.  Now they are just coming back and doing it the same way again. Dumb ass shit.

10:19AM:  I'm not sure Cyclops has any business being a leader if the first thing he does on his rescue mission is to leave something (the "mini-cerebro unit") on the goddamn plane, right when he arrives.  Considering that's sort of necessary equipment, it's the equivalent of a general going "oh fuck bro, we gotta head back to the boat here on the normandy beaches, totally left the radio, geez.  Swallowed a bug, that."

10:17AM:  Nightcrawler calls people "man" but something tells me it's not in the tone that I'm imagining.  Whatever, dude.  Yeah, man.  'Sup?

10:15AM:  Jesus this Banshee guy is obnoxious.  He's barely done anything and I can't stand him.  He has the face of a wrinkled baby.  I need more coffee.  This is cup number two. 

10:11AM:  Sunfire's personality is sort of fascinating.  Now he's furious at Cyclops and Professor X for expecting him to help them find the missing X-Men--all of whom I recognize from the movie, except for the girl who looks sort of like She-Ra with Melanie Griffith's Working Girl haircut.  Then the other guy is Havoc, I don't know why I know who he is, but he's Cyclops brother--right?  I think he is.  Doesn't say.  Anyway, Sunfire.  He's being a huge asshole for no reason whatsoever.  Wait, somebody just called him the "Jap."  What the fuck?

10:07AM:  "Hank McCoy's dexterous digits might be--eh--handy on a job like this."  Jean's a perv.  Not bad.  I though Iceman was a kid.  Here he looks like he's 40 years old.

10:05AM:  Wait, that doesn't make any sense.  Sunfire:  "Right now you will tell us why you dragged us here!"  The whole first chapter is Professor X convincing them to come to his little dinner party by appealing to the individual characters greater sense of commitment to the world.  They've been there five minutes.  Why is Sunfire such a dick?

10:03AM:  I can't get over Banshee-now it looks like he's telling Sunfire a story about a fishing trip.  And Sunfire looks like he's trying to pick up girls at a bar.  What does the sun, or fire, have to do with his costume?  He looks like a crab.

9:57AM:  They don't fuck around, eh?  "The Grandeur and the glory begin anew with SECOND GENESIS!"  Banshee looks kind of like a crappy vampire.

9:48AM:  Simple Survival, by Chris Claremont:  The first of four essays pretty much doesn't really need to be criticized, it's just Claremont saying how proud he is of the work he did.  He should be.  Whether I end up liking any of this or not, these comics certainly made a huge impact on a lot of people.  For better or worse, the X-Men are a source of joy for a decent portion of the comics readers roaming the world.  Good for them. 

Comics Of The Weakest: An Uncanny Trip Through The Omnibus (Basic Instructions, Introductions, Interpretations)

If everything plays out according to plan, it's 10:00 AM on May 31st, and I'm reading the Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume 1, with a Firefox window open on the browser, preparing to update whomever has taken some summer weekend time to read my thoughts/reviews/complaints/missives on this, Oh Holiest Of Holies, incredibly long and extraordinarily large volume on mutants, spandex, overly serious meditations on racism, irritable psychopathic Canadians, etc. 

Let's go over background information and some of the arbitrary "regle de je," eh?

-This was an impulse purchase made solely on the basis that, when preparing for a gigantic wedding to the woman of your dreams, one feels the need to spend money on something that's totally selfish and completely unnecessary.  As soon as this weighty hardcover arrived, all desire to own and or read it completely evaporated.

-The idea to live-blog while reading it came about while in conversation with Matt Brady, the one who doesn't hate cats.

-As much as I like to complain that the X-Men are a bloated, over-published franchise, I've never actually read any of the stories or issues that are ported to be "classics."  Except for the final two issues reprinted in this book, which I believe is available in the Dark Phoenix Saga trade paperback, I've never read any of these comics before, and I'm not aware at all what happens in them from any other sources.  My dislike for the X-Men solely stems from the arbitrary nature of how people end up reading, and liking, spandex super-hero comics in the first place--my first forays, and eventual dismay and exhaustion with long-running and repetitive super-hero comics was in the DC realm because that was what was immediately and easily available.  Recent, vaguely adult based attempts to "explore" the X-universe has resulted in a lack of desire to become enmeshed in the world of a title that has such an extensive backstory:  simply put, i'm not interested in doing a bunch of catch-up on a comic book about super-heroes, in hopes that the more recent stories will be more comprehensible and, hopefully, entertaining.  I fully acknowledge that this is in a sort of contradiction with the argument that the majority of long-running super-hero comics is repetitive.  Basically, the seed was never planted for the X-gang.

-I don't really know what live-blog means.  I plan to update this post, all day, every time something comes up that I feel must be recognized, and after, of course, every single issue.  I will not stop until I am all the way through to the end.  I will read every single one of Chris Claremont's scripts, and will look at every single panel.  I will only stop to wallow in the art and moon around like a tour guide if, and only if, the work itself is so striking that it forces me too.  I'm not going to magnify glass this thing looking for tiny clues and mild drawing mistakes:  if there's glaring shit, I'll probably point it out, but I have no intention to memorize the colors of belt buckles and keep a running total of when the coloring is off.  I will, probably, post some updates on what food I'm eating, how much coffee I've drank, whether or not it's cold outside, what the bathroom looks like, how comfortable my chair is, what song is playing, whether I like the song, something about my mother, about how she always told me I was special, more special than anybody else, so special she just had to kiss me on the mouth, and then I will probably do something, or say something, that is really over-the-line, and you'll feel like you did when you found out that your uncle collects troll dolls and writes racist jokes on their bellies with a silver Sharpie.

-Art wise, the reader is going to have to make do with covers of the issues--while this process will certainly take a few hours, scanning in images of panels will take far too much time for it to be enjoyable in any fashion whatsoever.  So, covers only, and some of the ones I've found have been less than stellar.

Let's do this thing.  You can talk back in the comments of the post following this one.  Yes, I'll probably incorporate comments into the posts, especially the ones where you feel the need to tell personal stories about how much the X-Men "meant" to you.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Economist Versus Idiot: Maybe Africa's Problems Will Be Solved Through Cheese

The World Last Week

-India and Pakistan had their first meeting since…some “stuff” happened in Pakistan, and “things” changed a bit.  You know what I’m talking about.

-The Economist refers to something in Naples as the “rubbish mountain.”  It is a big pile of trash.  It would be preferable they call it that.

-Did Obama really say that Iran didn’t pose as big a problem as the Soviet Union?  Huh.  That seems kind of like apples and oranges.  Massive explosions that cause untold environmental havoc along with huge death tolls are pretty much, well, massive explosions that cause untold environmental havoc along with huge death tolls.

-It’s a bit of a surprise, a pleasant one, to find out that John McCain’s campaign is asking it’s staff to either sever their ties with lobbyist or leave.  And then is actually following up on it.  That doesn't make him any less 72 fucking years old.

-This reader has never, not once, had a good experience with American Airlines, and has actually never met a single employee of American who was even in close resemblance to a nice human being, so finding out that their stock dropped 24% is a cause for us to cheer.  Discovering it’s because they are the first airline to charge for a passengers first checked bag ($15!), while bad news for some, is also great news—it brings the happy day when that pathetic excuse for a company finally has to shut it’s doors that much closer, and the thought of receiving oral sex on it’s corpse is one that will dance before us for weeks.

-Hey, you heard it hear first:  things in the Congo are going to get way, way better, and it’s going to happen extraordinarily fast!  Why?  Because somebody cares?  No!  Don’t be a fucking idiot—they found some oil there!  Oil in the Congo means get ready for things to be totally chill in the Congo!  Nothing is more appetizing to huge corporations with the budgets required to institute real change in suffering countries than oil.  Hey wait Iraq is all fine now right?

-Hey, BP’s Moscow offices:  why would you want to be an energy provider in Russia?  What’s it going to take for you guys to comprehend what the rest of the world has already figured out—that Russia is going to burn down whatever laws it takes and kill whoever they have too to control that industry, completely.  Do you need to hear it that simply?  Because here it is, that fucking simply.  The second time in sixty days that your office gets raided should be the last time--but don't worry, i'll remember to say "told you so," like a dick, when number 3 rolls around.  Have an AWESOME summer!

Leaders

-2/3 of the world’s population are going to experience double-digit rates of inflation, coming soon to your local country.  It’s not all oil’s fault too—it’s also food!  Fuck you, food!

-The minor debacle that was made out of the whole “appeasement” thing gets a leader article, giving it far more attention than it requires.  But it is nice to know that Gordon Brown won’t let the Dalai Lama into Downing Street.  (Nice in the “Geez, Gordie, you really get off on no one liking you” kind of way.)

-So, if massive data centers (those places where they keep all the giganto-servers that run the worlds computer networks) are rapidly becoming major energy hogs, how long before some loony eco-terrorist starts going after them instead of putting saw blades in old growth redwoods?

-Personally, I don’t have much of an opinion on omega-3, ginseng and vitamins, but it’s pretty awesome that The Economist classes them as “quackery.”  Interesting to see them take the “thumbs-up for smart drugs” approach.

-Considering how awful things are in regards to Iraq, the briefing on the status of Afghanistan is a pretty rewarding read--while it's more than a little ghoulish to try and take credit for the progress being made there, it would be just as repugnant to pretend that there hasn't been some resounding success there.  Hopefully, that's a trend that will continue in the months to come.  (Easiest thing to do now would be to make it more financially rewarding for the farming communities there to grow something they can sell besides opium.)  Get ready to find yourself in support of "slush funds" for the first time ever.

Letters

-A whole lot of people feel like writing in about Barack Obama, and the Economist responds by extending the letters column to multiple pages.  Mistake!  It would've been nicer to focus on Dina Medland's missive about how uncomfortable she was to see the recent St. Sebastian/Gordon Brown mash-up cover.  She ends her letter "Tut, tut," making her the person I most want to punch this week.

United States

-The last time The Economist had a big write-up on gay marraige in the US, they put the story on the cover and treated it with a modicum of seriousness.  This time, they make snide comments about "a strict leather-and-denim dress code" and refer to some parts of Palm Springs as "pinker than others."  Although it goes unmentioned in this article, that cover story from a few years back made the Economist's stance on gay marriage pretty clear:  they don't have any complaints about the issue, and feel that, as interracial marriages once were, marriage amongst homosexuals will someday be legal, and receive widespread acceptance--even if it's not a vocal acceptance.  They make no argument whether it should happen today or tomorrow--just that it will, and that they have no problem with that.

-Chris Rock's last major comedy special was pretty disappointing, and his last few films have been atrocious, but the joke that The Economist quotes for this Hilary piece is pretty clever:  "Nobody had heard of superdelegates until a black man looked like he'd win the nomination."

-Another farm bill gets pushed out, with a five-year pay out system that will dole out $307 billion.  The catch is that, to get some of that $307 billion, your household has to already make $1.5 million a year.  Go through that one more time.  $307 billion for people (like David Letterman and David Rockefeller) who already pull in $1.5 million a year.  Go through again, as many times as you need to.

-Branson, Missouri is opening a show called Noah-The Musical which will have more than 40 actors, 75 live animals and 75 animatronic ones.  That, right there.  Branson.  That's where all that stuff in Revelations is going to start.

-Looks like you can't use Berkeley as your punching bag when you want to make fun of ignorant liberal activists with Blackberries, trust funds, and no real problems:  90% of students are in favour of removing the naked protesters living in trees for the last 16 months.  Thankfully, they still ride bikes in San Francisco, ensuring that there will always be somewhere we can all easily bring up when we want to vent our irritation at no longer being able to use aerosol hairspray.

-Lexington tosses out a softball with an easy-peasy column on how old John McCain is.  While you gotta kind love how crazy the dude is, dude is seriously old.  How old?  Older than Velcro and plutonium, son.

The Americas

-Regarding El Espectador, the Columbian newspaper that relaunched as a daily after having been economically forced to become a weekly back in 2001:  how many American or European newspapers would continue to push the envelope after their distributors were threatened?  Their offices bombed?  Their editor, murdered?  While their are certainly quite a few journalists in America and the EU member countries that are courageous, intelligent individuals, few would be able to compete in the bravery department with those in Columbia.  Amazing.

-Did you know that all Canadians convicted in a foreign country could be repatriated to a Canadian jail?  Well, they can't anymore!  Take that, some dude in Guantanamo!

--Remember how they found that laptop that looked to prove Hugo Chavez connection to Columbia’s FARC guerrillas?  Thanks to Interpol, turns out it’s true, which means, just like I’ve always said, that you should never put incriminating evidence that you’re funneling government money to another country into the hands of a guerrilla army on any type of computer that is easily pick-uppable.  If you’ve got that kind of stuff, make sure that it’s really hard to leave in a cab.

Asia

-If the Chinese Communist government were to collapse in on itself sometime over the next twenty years, the seeds for it could probably be traced to the growing power of the NGO, and the groundswell of support found among the mainstream populace.  That's not to discount the recent patriotism on display--it's just that eventually these groups are going to notice that the success their organizations are finding in earthquake relief could just as easily translate to politics.  Still a long way off, and still not necessarily the way to go--after all, dumping the Party didn't work out so well over in Mother Russia.

-Just in case you don't read past the headlines:  yes, the military junta in Myanmar let in some disaster relief--specifically they took delivery of ten helicopters from the United Nations.  They still aren't letting the American, French or British naval ships loaded with supplies and minutes away, into port.  (The helicopters are supposed to be so they can ferry supplies-which they don't fucking have-to the Irrawaddy delta, one of the hardest hit areas.)  Not to be pessimistic, not that there's really another option with these scumbags, but how much do you want to bet that those helicopters are going to actually get used to help any of the suffering civilians.  Come on, let's be real.  Ten bucks?

-The most worrisome thing, to my mind, isn't that Pakistan will continue to spiral into a base training camp for thousands of terrorist organizations.  Regardless of the truth that the governmental conflicts are sending things in that direction, the worrisome thing is that India isn't going to tolerate too many more atrocities that have roots in some of the crazier portions of Muzaffarabad.  And nobody wants India and Pakistan to take things past the talking stage.  Maybe that doomsday cult that Busta Rhymes is in, but besides them.

-I can't remember how the election that put Ma Ying-jeou in Taiwain's presidential seat went down, but I remember that area struggling with Chinese intrusion on their past few dalliances at the polls.  Either way, they seem to have lucked out with this guy-no matter who he puts in charge of the Mainland Affairs Council, his speech puts him in the Good Old Boys club for sure.

-Vietnam's Communist Party implores journalists to sniff out corruption, then incarcerates two of the best under false charges.  See, that's just mean.  Remember Jack Palance in Shane?  Just mean.

Middle East and Africa

-Well, if you’re trying to escape Zimbabwe, Mozambique or Malawi, don’t go to South Africa, where indigenous gangs just killed 42 refugees.  Part of the reason was that the refugees were “criminals.”  Huh.  It’s some serious assholery to kill 42 people and displace twenty-thousand others and then call them names that, you know, kind of actually apply to you.  Do you see what I’m saying here?  (You’re a dick.)

-The Sudan's problems don't stop at the problems in Darfur, which is great, since it took all of four years for anybody to pay attention to Darfur in the first place.  Maybe this, in the most horrifically cynical fashion possible, is what all those people in the UN were hoping for--that the entire country would break down into a North/South civil war and then the rest of the world would stop complaining about that whole genocide thing. 

-Is there ever a good story that starts with the whole "poor people built their houses on government land" kind of introduction?  Nice going, Kuwait.  Nice.

Europe

-What was Nicolas Sarkozy freaking out about back in February?  He was freaking out about what text-messaging would to the French language.  Look France, I really want to care about you, I really fucking do, but....just grow the fuck up, okay?

-When Georgia (that country that Russia is looking to take over) calls to talk to the new Russian president, the calls get routed immediately to Putin.  You know, everybody already knew the new guy was going to be a figurehead, but do they have to rub it in so quick?

-How are the Turkish and Armenians trying to get past their differences?  Through regional "peace" cheese.   As in cheese, not nacho cheese, but cheese nonetheless.  I don't know about you, but if there was a massacre in my relationship history, and somebody tried to get me to sit down and hash it out with the offending party over some "peace" cheese, I think I'd just die from happiness right fucking there.

Britain

-Basically, this entire article about construction firms shows up in later in the newspaper, only they change the word "Britain" to "parts of Spain."  Go figure--build a shitload of apartments that no one wants and guess what?  They still won't want them when you're finished building them.  If it wasn't for the negative effects this has on the economy, no one would care.  Construction conglomerates are in trouble--oh how my heart bleeds!

-Britons don't give a fuck about abortion, couldn't care less about sinking into that debate, the Economist puts up a picture of one of the most unattractive pro-lifers they can find.  God, Ricky Gervais' stand-up on Grand Theft Auto IV is so disappointing.  (Sorry to the cheapskates, but you'll have to buy a copy to see the protester--worth the price, if you dig on ugly folks.)

-Remember all those times when people build houses on floodplains in Florida and everybody gets all critical of them?  Well, you can do that in Britain as well.  They live in Hornsea, which is an Atlantis-in-the-making over in Yorkshire.  Tea time?  Better hurry!

-Nice article about football here, the non-helmet kind, includes the quote of the week for The Economist:  "How could a sport get better by limiting competition and lowering standards?  English children are bad at football mainly because the training is bad."  Awesomeness, that.

-Bagehot takes the easy way out, riffing on the earlier non-event that was the abortion debate.  Maybe it's just being a spoiled American talking, but it's not an abortion debate unless somebody is screaming and showing off some full-on gross-em-out pictures.

International (Back To Thinking This Section Needs To Be Incorporated Somewhere Else)

-Something about cluster bombs and the spread of civilian nuclear technologies.  Readable, but if it can't make leader status, then you sort of feel like you're reading the Junior Economist Highlights For Children.

-However, this tiny piece about the 2.3 ton stockpile of rice that Tokyo is sitting on will haunt you, if you happen to be buying rice.  Open the doors and you could halve the world prices.  (Also, second best quote of the week:  "Japan wants to send 200,000 tonnes to the Philippines.  That's nice.  But it could go a lot further.)  "That's NICE!?"  Sarcasm, Economist writers!  No one does it better than you guys.  A shake of the junk, your direction!

Business

-You don't need to put on your smart cap to understand the article here about the new boom in fiber-optic cable, but if you take the time to read this quickie, you'll miss that time when it's gone.  Useless information!

-Did you know that there are 78 direct adult descendents of John D. Rockefeller?  Well, 72 of them just teamed up to re-write Exxon Mobil policy.  It's a struggle here:  root for the bluebloods or the oil corporation?  This isn't a lesser of two Kerries and Bushes here, this is full-on gross gross gross on both sides of the gilded negotiating table.  As always in these situations, your best hope is for a bear attack.

-We all know phone books are on the way out.  What none of us know is how much we're going to want to punch old people who talk about phone books in the same irritating fond-ass tone that people use when they talk about walking 16 miles to school to burn their draft cards while napalm fell on their brass diving helmet.  Will we be able to resist?  Will futuristic anti-depressants be strong enough?

-I still can't believe that Leica is even a company anymore.  Decent photography is on it's last legs along with phone books, and expensive SLR's have about as much potential for a renaissance as a Jerry Lewis holocaust movie does.

Finance and Economics

-Here's where the smart drugs would help--Buttonwood is earning his paycheck on this column.  Will risk-return trade-off be as good in practice as it is in theory?  I've read the column seven goddamn times and all I can tell you is that the hedge-fund industry is "certainly a varied one."

-Jesus God, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold $5.3 trillion in debt.  That's why you should be scared.  No one cares how much you're paying for milk-$5.3 trillion.  Sleep on that!

-Japan's moneylenders call a dozen times in a hour demanding repayment.  They show up in the middle of the night, and they'll offer to remove a kidney or an eye to make good on a loan.  Japanese moneylenders are way, way more intimidating than any of those people in noir movies.

Science and Technology

-Remember back when some scientists figured out that kids who were abused would probably have shittier lives than kids who were read to every night and, you know, loved?  In the world of obvious shit that scientists get paid to "prove,"  some lazy dudes figured out that when somebody treats like a subordinate, you don't do as well on memory games.  For god's sake guys:  cure some cancer.  Some colds.  Some anything.

-The science article that can teem up with Buttonwood's column for making me feel like a complete moron is found here:  it's all about the Casimer effect, a "curious consequence of quantum theory."  Yeah, i'm sure you understand it in all it's ramifications.  Sure you do.

Books and Arts

-I don't think I want to read a depressing ass history book about all the cruel and fucked up ways that governments have tried to control population growth, but I'm not going to tell Matthew Connelly he can't write one.

-Also, as much as I dig on some Pixar flicks, I don't think I need to drop thirty bucks to read about all the company.

-Now, a book about the guys who figured out how too jack elections in this country and turn them into the wacked out popularity-contest-on-crack cocaine thing that we got going in the US, now that, that I'm totally down for.  Let's talk, James Harding: let's talk about a book called Alpha Dogs.

-Hey, they reviewed that shitty Indiana Jones movie!  They also recommended that Spielberg make a movie about Cate Blanchett's character on a "one-woman crusade to restart the international communist conspiracy."  One more time:  I love The Economist, but they have the shittiest movie reviews on the planet.   At this rate, they'll probably call The Love Guru the "best American film in 20 years."

Obituary: Irena Sendler

-Okay, it was beyond arrogant to claim that I was ever going to know who all these people were.  I severely doubt next weeks obit will be on Sydney Pollack, so this is a trend that will be sure to continue.  Irena Sendler, who showed up Oskar Schindler in the "saving Jews from the death" competition (which is totally a great competition to be any place in, as long as you're not the same dead last the majority of Europe was at the time.)  Suffering torture, under which she revealed exactly nothing, hiding out under an assumed name afterwards and, most impressive (while sad) of all, "appalled" to be treated as a heroine.  "I feel guilty to this day that I didn't do more."  Unlike a certain, relatively trite and schmaltzy piece of film dialog delivered by a laborious performance, that's coming from someone who did far, far more than the majority of this world will ever be able to imagine.

Music of the Weak: Singer/Songwriter Battle Royale

A couple of weeks ago, we confessed to having a severe weakness for girly pop.  This week we would like to confess that we have a similar weakness for angsty acoustic pop rock, especially by male singer/songwriters.  As we grow older, this little weakness seems to be slipping away.  However, lately we have been rocking out (or, more accurately, “rocking” out) to the subtle sounds of David Gray’s White Ladder, Counting Crows’ This Desert Life, and Dave Matthews Band’s Before These Crowded Streets. 

Recently, Entertainment Weekly ran an article noting 8 emerging, singing, songwriting dudes.  In an attempt to see where we’re really at with our predilection, we here at The Factual Opinion have decided to investigate.  Yet, in order to satiate our blood lust (did we mention that weakness as well?), we are pitting these 8 dudes against one another in our First Ever Music of the Weak Singer/Songwriter Battle Royale.

The rules are simple: This will run as a single elimination tournament.  We will listen to two of the songs by these singer/songwriters that EW deems best, and decide which one is (factually) better.  Winners of the first round will face one another and so forth until there is one winner.  The winner will receive a spot on my iPod and a tiny shred of credibility. (We are the makers of dreams.)

For those of you playing along at home, our money is on Bon Iver, who we’re already a bit familiar with, and who has hair that seems to be disappearing quicker than ours is, which makes him okay in our book.

Here we go.

ROUND 1

Brett Dennen – “Darlin’ Do Not Fear”
VS.
Landon Pigg – “Coffee Shop”

Both of these songs would settle nicely on adult contemporary radio, which is sort of expected.  Musically, “Coffee Shop” takes the edge over “Darlin’ Do Not Fear.”  Landon Pigg sounds confident with a spare guitar and a lot of space, whereas Brett Dennen rides a Caribbean groove a la Jack Johnson or that fourth episode of Lost when Hurley’s discman is still working.  Lyrically, though, they’re miles apart—with Dennen whoopin’ on some Pigg ass.

Frequently, songwriters use a device known as “metaphor.”  Apparently, Pigg has never heard of such device.  “Coffee Shop” is about falling in love with a girl in his favorite coffee shop.  I, Marty Brown, will personally give you a five dollar bill (one of the freaky new ones!) if you can find some sort of over-arching allegory here about Christianity or communism.  There are two basic sentiments: 1) “I think I’m falling in love with you,” and 2) “I just realized that the reason I like this coffee shop so much is because I’m falling for you.”  “Darlin’ Do Not Fear” may not find Dennen at the height of his poetic majesty (that would be when he rhymes “crescendo” with “akimbo” in “She’s Mine”), but he does do some creative writing—even if he does only end up with lines like, “Find something to hold onto or to let go/ To help you through the hard nights like a flask filled with hope”—so he takes this one by a large margin.

Justin Nozuka – “After Tonight”
VS.
Paddy Casey – “City”
The Nozuka song is awful.  He actually sings, “Give me your right hand/ I think I understand,” giving you your second opportunity to receive five (5!) dollars if you can make that line make any sort of sense to me.  I dare you.  Paddy Casey wins here simply by virtue of having both a pretty bombastic rhythm and horns.

Brendan James – “Hero’s Song”
VS.
Newton Faulkner – “Dream Catch Me”

Brendan James.  Wow.  Here’s a guy that’s taking himself pretty damn seriously.  “Hero’s Song” is about a guy in the desert with a pendant and a dream.  Smoke and explosions surround him, plus a cloud of hate (metaphor!).  Confusion. Pain. Etc.  Yikes.  Remember when that chick on American Idol sang “God Bless America”?  That was awesome.

“Dream Catch Me” isn’t quite as offensive, and it’s driven by a pretty weird electro beat, which I can respect, but it’s still not “good” in any objective sense of the word.  Still, it’s enough to win this round.  Could it be that 1998-99 was a golden age for radio-friendly dude rock?  At least I have Bon Iver to look forward to.

Sam Amidon – “Saro”
VS.
Bon Iver – “Skinny Love”

Sam Amidon is shirtless and wearing a cowboy hat on his album cover.  How am I supposed to feel?  “Saro” is not a horrible song—it reminds me of Sufjan Stevens and The Hour of Bewilderbeast—but it pales next to “Skinny Love,” which may be the one genuine quality song in this battle royale.

Let’s cut right to the chase here.  We don’t need a second round.

FINAL ROUND

Brett Dennen – “Darlin’ Do Not Fear”
Paddy Casey – “City”
Newton Faulkner – “Dream Catch Me”
VS.
Bon Iver – “Skinny Love”

Let’s forget for a second that the Entertainment Weekly article is basically just a press release, and that there’s not a whole lot to believe in among this group of gentlemen.  What makes Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love” qualitatively better than any of these other songs?  Well, he sings in plain declaratives like Landon Pigg, but without giving away that there might not be a whole lot of substance behind his lyrics.  He doesn’t put a whole lot of emphasis on vocals in his mix, so maybe he’s not taking himself so seriously.  The guitar is simple and buoyant.  There are horns.

Each of these other guys places his vocals front and center—as if he were making an Important Statement—and then has nothing to say.  The exception might be Paddy Casey, whose “City” is more about the rhythm and the wall of sound, but doesn’t go anywhere.  We will admit that “Darlin’ Do Not Fear” has grown on us quite a bit over this process—Dennen has an interesting voice, and lyrically the kid may be all over the place, but at least he’s trying.  We’ll give points for that here at TFO.  Let’s declare Casey the 2nd runner up, behind Dennen.  Bon Iver is the obvious winner here.

…that is, unless you claim one of these crisp five (5) dollar bills.  We’re gonna give you one more chance to earn one.  Name for me a singer/songwriter who meets the following conditions: 1) I haven’t heard him; 2) he has a MySpace page; and 3) he can kick Bon Iver’s ass.  Anyone?

-Martin Brown, 2008