Saturday, April 23, 2011

Wolverine and Jubilee #4 & Uncanny X-Force #8

Two Marvel reviews to get through here, including one that was so bad it was nearly Brightest Day bad! Hmm, then again, that's probably overstating things... NOTHING is Brightest Day bad...

Wolverine & Jubilee #4(of 4):

Summary: With Jubilee lost in... um, I don't know, a necklace, Wolverine is trying to figure out how to free her. Meanwhile, Rockslide meets a dragon and befriends it... Oh boy, this is going to be one of THOSE comics, isn't it... In necklace world, Jubilee runs into a mammoth dragon, that seems intent on killing her because she was trespassing or something. The dragon Rockslide was talking to sends him to help Jubilee, but he isn't exactly that excited to be fighting a giant dragon. Wolverine finds a magic ring inside the head of a zombie(yes, really), and the ring transports him to necklace world. He meets up with Jubes and Rockslide, which gives Jubes the courage to fight the giant dragon. Jubes meets with little success, so Wolvie and Rockslide distract the dragon, giving Jubilee enough time to climb up the dragon and spear it through the head, killing it. For some reason, killing the dragon sends Wolvie, Jubilee and Rockslide back to Earth, which is as good a place as any to end this review.

Thoughts: This was ALL sorts of bad! I skipped most of the end, with Wolvie talking to the Whore, and Rockslide talking to Jubilee, because it pretty much went nowhere... Kind of like this entire mini-series actually. There was no finality to anything. The vampire that framed Jubes and played Wolvie basically disappeared last issue and was little more than an after thought here. You know, the vampire who was the main antagonist for the majority of this mini-series! Now I remember why I hated Kathryn Immonen's Runaways run! This issue was simply terrible. If not for the art, I'd have happily given this comic an even lower score.

Score: 2 1/2 out of 10.A no-prize to the first person who can explain a)what the purpose of this mini-series was, and b)what the HELL was going on in this issue!


Uncanny X-Force #8:

Summary: Deathlok decides to watch over the World, since Weapon Infinity would sprout from the World if it fell into the wrong hands. While Fantomex isn't thrilled with that idea, he decides to let Deathlok stand guard over the shrunken city. While that is going on, Deadpool is on an X-Force mission at an army base after Psylocke reported sensing some unusual psychic activity emanating from there. Pool's devices don't pick up on any weird readings, but his transmission is cut off, leading Wolverine to believe that something was wrong there. Wolvie goes looking for the rest of the team, and discovers Archangel and Psylocke having one of their meditation sessions. Before Wolvie interrupts, Psylocke manages to lock away Warren's evil Archangel persona. The team is gathered, and they head to the army base, where Psylocke immediately senses the presence of the Shadow King(!). Psylocke meets the Shadow King on the astral plane and attacks, but is assaulted by the King's vast psionic abilities. The Shadow King takes control of all of the members of X-Force except for Fantomex(who is immune to psychic tampering due to his mask), and sends the mutants out to kill Psylocke's body and launch nuclear missiles at Crazy Mutie Island. Say what you will, but the Shadow King sure is ambitious! Fantomex protects Psylocke's body for as long as he can, but is overpowered by Deadpool and Wolverine. As for Psylocke, she realizes that she couldn't defeat the Shadow King on the astral plane, so she heads back to her body, rushing inside the base to stop Archangel from launching the nukes. Psylocke enters Archangel's mind to protect him from the Shadow King, but inadvertently draws the Shadow King into Archangel's mind, where he immediately senses evil Archangel. Shadow King releases evil Archangel, who repays him by slicing his astral projection to shreds. Before Psylocke can do anything, evil Archangel banishes her from his mind and forces her to forget what she had just witnessed. From there, Archangel wakes up and slaughters an innocent soldier. The rest of X-Force, now free of the Shadow King arrive on the scene and figure that killing the soldier was the only way Archangel could prevent him from launching the missiles.

Thoughts: I'll admit, I'm a sucker for old school X-Men villains, so seeing the Shadow King here made my day. Besides that though, there really isn't much else to say about this one. It focused heavily on Psylocke and Archangel, who are probably my two least favorite X-Forcers. Plus it made me remember that awful X-Men storyline from the 90's with Psylocke and the Shadow King... Ugh... As for this comic, it was okay. Not great, not awful, simply okay.

Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.Yes, I am a closet Shadow King fan...

4 comments:

  1. omg the art for x-force was suburb

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  2. the point of the series was obviously to make Jubilee an x-man again. My review can be found at SciFi Media

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  3. Hmm, I don't know... If that was the point of this one, I don't think it succeeded, especially since Jubes was still doing the whole, "outsider amongst outsiders" thing in the most recent issue of X-Men. That one issue of X-Men actually did a better job of incorporating Jubes back into the X-family again and could have easily replaced the Wolvie/Jubes mini.

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