Wolverine and the X-Men #8:
Summary: The Baby Hellfire Club hire Sabretooth to tear the heart out of Wolverine's school, the heart being Beast... From there we head to said school where Beast is explaining to Wolverine that he was shot with some sort of Matter Transmutation Ray that caused his adamantium to become malleable, leaving Wolvie with two broken legs. Beast decides to head to SWORD to get a Matter Transmutation Ray, and finds Sabretooth there killing people and promising to kill Beast's on again, off again girlfriend, Abigail Brand... Well it was sure convenient that Tooth attacked SWORD the day Beast was heading there, now wasn't it. Meanwhile, Crazy Angel and a bunch of the annoying students from the school head into space to steal a Transmutation Ray from the aliens who originally shot Wolvie with the gun. Tooth manages to defeat Beast in battle, tearing out his guts, although Beast happens to be stronger, more agile and presumably more durable than Tooth... Tooth then decides to finish off Brand where Beast could watch the show. Beast makes one last ditch leap at Tooth, knocking him away from Brand, who proceeds to shoot Tooth repeatedly, causing Tooth to sail away into space, crashing on the moon. As for the students, they beat up the aliens and Crazy Angel brings Wolvie the Matter Transmutation Ray. This issue ends with the Baby Hellfire Club deciding that instead of striking at the faculty they should strike at the student body, since that would inflict the most damage on Wolvie and the school.
Thoughts: Okay, first things first, this comic was way better than I expected it to be. I thought the Beast/Sabretooth fight was good, even though I disagreed with the way it ended(as I stated in the review). Interestingly I think this issue finally solidified in my mind what I hate the most about this series... Now, I've made no bones about the fact that I think the idea of a Baby Hellfire Club is asinine. I've said as much since Schism, and I stand by that to this day. However, when the Baby Hellfire Club members said they were going to go after the students at the school the first thought that crossed my mind was “GOOD”! Much like Morrison's New X-Men run, the students in this series are just completely unlikable. However, UNLIKE Morrison's New X-Men run, the story here is WAY weaker. So while I could overlook how much I hated the students in New X(seriously, Beak and Angel were two of the worst characters in comic history. And what the hell is a Glob Herman?) because the story kept me engaged, that's not happening here. The students are almost always the center of attention, which is troublesome since I can't stand them... With that said, that makes my post-AvX decision on this book really easy... Unless there is a radical change in cast after the AvX event here(and I don't expect that to happen), I'll be dropping this series.
Score: 6 1/2 out of 10.
Wait, so now I have to root for the Baby Hellfire Club?
I'm OK with the kids, but I think it's only because I hate the way Aaron is handling the adults so much that they're moderately more interesting in comparison. I loathe the Kiddie Hellfire Club, but my only hope is that they're be more interesting when they're fighting the more age- and experience-appropriate kids than when we're supposed to believe that they're giving Wolverine and the X-Men a run for their money. The Beast part of this story was fine, but I can't say I was really all that engaged with it. In fact, I realized that I didn't even mention it in my review!
ReplyDeleteNope, for me it's the students. Usually there will be that one student you either root for or can relate to in a book like this. But for me? There's not one here. I only see Kid Apocalypse/Evan as having the potential to get me as a fan, but he wasn't even developed by Aaron!
ReplyDelete"In fact, I realized that I didn't even mention it in my review!" HA! I was the opposite as I spent WAY more time on the Beast/Tooth fight than anything else.