The Factual Opinion

Comics Of The Weak: Live?

 

Due to Free Comic Book Day and the fact that the entire staff of these Factual offices have spent most of its non-P90X time holed up with Portal 2, Comics Of The Weak was even more neglected than it usually is, which translates to "Not Dealt With At All". Thankfully, almost nothing was released in the past week, to the point where the Factual's purchasing agent returned empty handed, even though he'd been ordered not to open the front door without a copy of Darkie's Mob. In service of the greater comics community, our intrepid super-hero reader and erstwhile David Allen fan braved a beautiful spring day, grabbed a stack of what fictitious American drug dealers like to call "the shit", and set it down next to the computer for a bit of the old live blogging. If you're seeing this post and there's lots of words missing and no picture, well sister, you showed up early. Otherwise, this is later and you missed the whole goddamned thing. (For those with long memories, yes, we did one of these once before--it ended with a book burning and a whole mess o' follow-up bitching. It is unlikely that will happen this time, but mostly because Tucker doesn't smoke anymore and is thereby less willing to go up on the roof, which is where all the rapists like to sleep.*)

Amazing Spider-Man Spidey Sunday Spectacular
Written by Stan Lee
Art by Marcos Martin
Published by Marvel Comics

The draw here is Martin, and some of what he does in here is worth looking at, for sure. It still isn't one of his best times out of the box--the story contained in this comic was delivered in two page installments in the backs of some pretty hideous issues of Amazing Spider-Man, and that gives the whole thing the same herky-jerky up-down quality that Wednesday Comics or Strange Tales had, where one's investment lasts only as long as it takes to turn the page and get let down again. Basically, this isn't Martin at his best, and since Stan Lee's story doesn't even muster up the brain damaged earnestness of that Spider-Man newspaper strip, the ultimate result is a thing that's just sort of there for awhile, and then is just sort of over. Like chlamydia, except you buy it in a store, and that means other people know you have it for a little while, although they'll probably forget an hour after they see you.

If nothing else, this thing actually increases the interest factor of Martin's upcoming stint on Daredevil, even if it's only going to be two issues. Mark Waid's the kind of guy who seems to actually enjoy giving artists comic-book-type-shit to draw, as opposed to these miserable fucks who seem to think that a 25 dollar book about poorly drawn heads arguing in poorly drawn rooms is the pinnacle of achievement, and you just know that he's chomping at the bit with some goofball shit after spending so much time with the poverty page rate crew over at Boom Central. Considering Daredevil's historical record as being extremely good for brief periods of time, with those periods often sandwiched between unholy garbage, this next slide might be the ticket. But even if Waid's run turns into Murdock Fucks 'Em, Then They Die, as so many Daredevil runs have before, Martin's still got the potential to make a neat poster out of the whole thing.

I couldn't really figure out a way out of that last chunk there. Do people still have posters? Teenagers aren't people.**

Uncanny X-Force #9
Written by Rick Remender
Art by Billy Tan & Dean White
Published by Marvel Comics

Somebody--it was Tim Callahan--wrote about how there aren't any conversations with super-hero comic book creators anymore on the same level of honesty that the old Comics Journal articles had***, and here's another one that was missed: somebody getting Dean White to explain why he didn't do all the backflip twists that he used in the eighth issue of Uncanny X-Force to make it look like Billy Tan deserved to be in the same class as Jerome Opena, because holy god did all that classic Billy Tan bullshit come right back into the mix this time around. It's like somebody throw a full diaper into an industrial dryer, there's just nothing in this issue that was left untouched. The story goes like this: Magneto comes to see Wolverine. And he cries a little bit, and then he hands Wolverine a picture of a Nazi and asks him to go kill the Nazi, because the Nazi is still alive? and so Magneto wants him dead, but for some reason he can't do it himself? and so Wolverine goes to kill the Nazi, and he arrives way too late, as in he arrives after the Nazi has lived a really full life that involved him being married to a pretty woman who loved him to pieces, and then she passed away and now he's just waiting for someone to come kill him, and that someone is Wolverine. And then, because Nazi characters are like kryptonite for intelligence over at Marvel Central, he has one last moment of being like "fuck you, I'm a bad ass Wolverine" before Wolverine cuts his head off with a samurai sword. And then the issue is over, and you're left wondering if the whole thing was a joke or something...because, seriously. This comic JUST STARTED. There was no reason to come out with so many issues--this is the third one in four weeks--when you just could have put issues out on a monthly basis and never done either of these Billy Tan issues, or at least just not done this one. 

Mainly, it comes down to this: unless you're doing the Red Skull or Hellboy, relying on Nazi stories makes you a lazy fucking asshole. They should set up a room at Marvel Comics, and that room should be full of all kinds of horrifying Nazi iconography, like buckets of stolen gold teeth and lamps made out of human skin and close up pictures of emaciated concentration camp victims, pictures where you can see what infected bed sores look like, and then everytime somebody wants to write a Nazi story they should make them sit in that room for an hour while listening to an audio recording of iFanboy or Awesomed by Comics or any of those kinds of comic book podcasts, and then after that hour, if they're still convinced that Nazis and super-hero shit goes together, they can do their story. Otherwise, grow a fucking pair and learn how to make a Mister Sinister storyline work.

Superboy #7
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Marco Rudy Daniel Kor, Jamie Grant & Dom Regan
Published by DC Comics

It would be an insult to waste time talking about the story in this comic, so let's just say that it seems to be a riff on that Man Who Has Everything story that a bearded wizard wrote back when comics cost a nickel and they kept Dr. Who fans in cages. But fuck the story, if Jeff Lemire wants to do that story, he should have at it, it is not like anyone on Earth gives a shit what Superboy comic book stories are like. He's a super-hero whose costume consists of a t-shirt and jeans, for christsakes. Fuck the story, because boys and girls, this is it, one of the ones that'll slip through the cracks if you're not careful: this is as weird as Big Two comics gets, now that Bill Sienkiewicz inks everything with a bunch of broken sticks he stole from a Boy Scout troop. Take a look at this opening page:

Make no mistake, sarcastic guy: this is the DC equivalent of Brecht Evans right here, in terms of coloring. This is somebody digging around for something in photoshop besides the regular SHINY and SHINIER and SHINY ENOUGH TO SHAME GOD buttons that everybody usually relies on over at DIGIKORE and SLICE and TWO LIVE STEWS as well as all those coloring places that don't use horrible names and yet still suck the life out of comics in a way that the most trans-media Hollywood pitchmeister fuckface writer type can't even begin to imagine, which of course is why they're plying their ten year old high concept idea about bears and knife-fucking in comics in the first place, because they lack an imagination and are probably Catholic. THIS:

These pages aren't really going to do the whole beast justice, but yeah, this is the other guy who draws the comic, and he really digs on these arbitrarily designed layouts (of which what you see above is a mild case), to which I guess one could thank JH Williams, because old Superboy 7 is right up there with those two Batman Annuals about how Batman will only hire Muslims who have no discernible accent to go along with an absence of any political awareness, and all three of these comics prove that DC's editors put "randomly designed panels" on the left side of an equals sign, and on the right side they put a picture of those Batwoman comics that will probably never come out. Because they can't tell the difference oh never mind, look at this:

 

So fucking weird, this comic. I'm really not doing it justice.

Moon Knight #1
Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Alex Maleev
Published by Marvel Comics

Has any other character had as many chances in the last few years as Moon Knight? I don't mind if Marvel wants to keep acting like there's a big demand for the character, it doesn't bother me or anything, but this is one of those titles that serves as a head and shoulders example of the same dearth of creative thinking that has resulted in millions of dollars being spent so that Zach Snyder can climb the heights of Mount Brainaic and remake Superman II, only in this case it's a bunch of guys who were actually working at Marvel during the last two attempts to make Moon Knight a palatable choice, and neither of those times was the comic in direct competition with 17 Thor books and 29 Captain America comics, none of which are distinguishable in terms of quality against Moon Knight, which seems to be a comic designed for the people who complain when the New York Post spoils plot developments on 20 year old reruns of Remington Steele.

Fear Itself #2
Written by Matt Fraction
Art by Stuart Immonen
Published by Marvel Comics

Nina Stone will be handling the Factual's "official" take on this later in the week, and I'll be participating in something else somewhere else, but I did think it might be un-Christian of me not to admit that I liked the dialog where Odin and Thor talked back and forth to each other about humans and obligations, etc. It worked, whatever. The rest of this comic felt like the same kind of tired you feel when you're stuck in a conversation with someone about 'zine culture or how much things used to cost. At the end, there's a drawing of some flying versions of those battle suits they had in Avatar destroying the White House, and it was a great reminder of a simple rule that nobody ever mentions because I'm making it up right now, and that rule is the reader should never be able to count how many bad guys there are in a gigantic destruction scene, because it just makes it seem like it's not that big of a deal when there's a specific number of a thing.

The Boys #54
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by John McCrea
Published by Dynamite

I quit reading this comic. Dynamite is the fucking pits. 

Grab Bag

This was going to be where I dumped something on the other comics that came out this week, but I just can't keep going with these things. They're horrible! What a lousy week. Try this instead:

Onward To Our Noble Deaths
By Shigeru Mizuki
Published by D&Q

It's obvious that the marketing money is way behind Chester Brown's crybaby book about why girlfriends are scary instead of Noble Deaths, but that's okay, Mizuki was born in 1922 so it's not like D&Q have to dodge his phone calls that much longer. But this is a good one, a diabolically special book that stands in stark relief against so much World War II fiction that it ultimately makes a huge portion of the History Channel's programming block look shallow. Even if it was just the song lyrics that are being presented here, this book would be a revelation. Great stuff, and a firm (and necessary) return to the Tatsumi level of quality that had made D&Q's manga line so exciting in the first place.

Judge Dredd Complete Case Files 5
Written by John Wagner & Alan Grant
Art by Bolland, Dillon, Ezquerra, Others
Published by Rebellion

This is the Apocalypse War story arc that explodes out of Block Mania, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find something that does exactly what this story does to the extremes that this story does it. It's basically a perfect Judge Dredd arc--you can tell that he's going to win, because he's Dredd, but it takes a while before you really grasp how incredibly far he's going to have to go to get the win, and the skill at which Wagner (and Grant, apparently?) manipulate the basic "fascism works" Dredd shtick is really at its best. It's a crime how rarely Wagner gets mentioned in terms of quality serialized storytellers. I really wish I liked something else he did. Anyways: Apocalypse War. It's unmissable, and so much better than mini-comics.

I think that's it. Phoenix 1 (Tezuka) was really good, and that second Krazy Kat collection (second in terms of chronology, release wise, I think it was the 12th Fantagraphics book) was very good as well, but I don't know that I have the energy to say anything beyond that. The previous Krazy Kat book was a bit of a chore to read--some of the panels just went on and on and on, and I far prefer the ones that maintain the what seems to be Krazy's natural rhythm, which is a quicker, loping pace--and the latest installment had more of what I like. It also had a page where Ignatz explicitly attempts to murder Krazy by drowning him, which added a level of nasty to the relationship that I think only makes it more rewarding. 

*One of the things that I've been told about working at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is that they're heavily invested in one kind of humor, and that kind of humor is classified as "Lasers 'n Rape", and I totally believe it, because just saying that phrase out loud conjures up a very specific kind of person, and that person really likes improv, and is a total fucking asshole.

**Neither here nor there, but I was looking at the last issue of New York Five and it struck me that making comics, or books, or basically anything that involves reading for teenagers is probably the worst possible idea ever, because aren't teenagers the most unlikely group on earth to sit around and read? And wouldn't the audience of teenagers who sits around and reads be the bottom of the gene pool kind of audience anyway? Teenagers should be out screwing up their lives and banging into each other at concerts, they should be doing all the shit that college and student loans and credit card debt will eventually neuter and make terrible. They can sit around and read and get fat and be superior to each other later, when they don't have a choice and no one wants to kiss them anymore, but they shouldn't be doing it now, it's practically criminal to suggest otherwise. This isn't New York Five's fault, and it seems pretty obvious that New York Five isn't for teenagers anyway--one of the main emotional beats involves a girl dumping a boy's Compact Discs on the street, and if there's one thing that screams 30-somethings, it's punishing a man by messing with a box of *gulp* Compact Discs. It just made me think of teenagers, which is sort of (maybe? who cares?) what the Minx line, which New York Five was spun out of after being apparently one of the only ones people liked, was supposed to serve.

***Tim's half right--comics people don't talk shit in an actual print magazine anymore, but they still talk as much (if not more) shit than they did back in those old Journal interviews. They just do it via email, via twitter, via message boards, via signings and conventions and all the rest. And while that stuff is sort of semi-private at first, it never stays that way...but even if it did, there's shit out there worth looking into on the margins. The question is: why the fuck would you want to? Hickman gave a pretty telling interview of the original ideas behind what became that boring SHIELD comic he does, an interview that pretty much laid bare how the House of Ideas was embracing the House of Make Sure This Idea Won't Result In Us Sharing Movie Profits With Sony, but do you have the time or patience to listen to the 20 other interviews Hickman gave where he didn't mention that kind of stuff and instead stuck to the boilerplate ad copy? And if you do, wouldn't you be happier fucking whores, like Chester Brown did? I saw a picture of the way he drew himself after he paid a woman to fuck her, and he looked like the happiest skeleton that had ever appeared somewhere besides a vinyl sticker attached to a front door in October. All it took was money and the willingness to fuck whores!

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