Cyclops is Still a Jerk, Sucks
I gave up reading X-Men comics awhile ago, shortly after “Messiah CompleX” ended. I followed the team’s move out to San Francisco, but once they had that whole flash into the 70s thing, the art became inconsistent, and I gave up. I should clarify: that was Uncanny. I gave up on the other stuff immediately after that stupid crossover.
This week, as fate would have it, I found myself in the comic shop with only one book to pick up. I noticed that there’s a new crossover called “X-Men: Second Coming,” though, so I gave it a whirl. I probably shouldn’t have.
Here’s the basic premise for those of you who have been avoiding the X-Books like Pestilence: The X-Men are worried, because no new mutants have surfaced lately, and their kind is close to extinction. Hope, which is the name of that little baby from Messiah CompleX, returns to the present day with her guardian, Cable, after having successfully survived Bishop’s manhunt through time.
They’re immediately attacked by some robots and tracked by some human supremacist group. Cerebra detects their presence, so Cyclops fully mobilizes the X-Men to go find the duo and bring them back safely to their current hideout. Certainly, a lot of fighting will come of this.
Now it might be due to my absence from the books, but am I the only one who thinks this entire premise is ridiculously stupid? When Messiah CompleX ended, everybody was all upset by all the fighting, so Cyclops told Cable to take the baby to the future and give it the chance Cyclops never gave his own son (psst, I’m talking about Cable).
And now, years later, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we just back to the exact same bullcrap that was going on when Cable and Hope first left the present day? Cable was trying to protect the baby, on the run from numerous factions all out to either kill it or save it. Unlike then, now we’re picking up the story with Cable trying to protect the teenager, on the run from numerous factions all out to either kill it or save it.
Ok.
The thing that bothered me most about the issue, though, is that jerk Cyclops. He’s still going on about that nonsense how the X-Men need to work to create more mutants or their entire race will go extinct. It stands in contrast to what the X-Men have always been about, though; the X-Men have always fought for human/mutant coexistence, and now, if it’s true that mutants aren’t actually the next step in the evolutionary process like we all thought they were, shouldn’t they just accept it and move on? Why’s Cyclops so damned interested in playing God?
One nice thing about this issue is that the other X-Men are starting to figure out that X-Force kills people, because they have some chick stab a guy through the head right in front of the rest of the team. It’s really gross. Anyway, my point is that, hopefully, the rest of the X-Men will find out that Cyclops gave the lethal force order, so maybe they’ll all beat him up and kick him off the team.
I hadn’t read any X-Men in awhile, and this did nothing to motivate me to give them another chance. I was hoping for something decent. Instead, it just turns out that nothing has really happened in, what, two, three years?
And Cyclops is still a pompous jerk.
Wow, that sounds terrible.
And how do you successfully evade a manhunt through time? Isn’t one of the perks of hunting someone through time that you could just screw around for a while and then pick up where you left off, because the whole concept of time-jumping is non-linear and thus not subject to the limitations of sequence?
I would put in the effort to try to figure out an explanation to your question if I felt like the people who wrote the series had done the same.
Looks like I’ll be giving up Uncanny X-Men for three months after reading this issue. This is the second time in a year I’ve given up Uncanny for a period (the last time was the Dark Avengers crossover), and I imagine that when I start reading it again after this crap is over, all I’ll really need to know will be in the recap page.
It’s really a shame, though, because I’ve been enjoying Matt Fraction’s Uncanny quite a bit. The last issue ended with Magneto bringing Kitty Pryde back from outer space (she’s been trapped in that planet-bullet since Joss Whedon’;s Astonishing X-Men ended), and Colossus rushing to embrace her, only to discover she’s trapped in her phase-state. Now I guess I’m going to have to wait until July to see how that plays out. Sigh.