So, it's come to this...

Disclaimer #1: For any of my readers who may be actively avoiding US politics this election season, let me give you a trigger warning. This entry is going to be addressing a politically driven satire that pokes fun at both major party candidates. If that is not your cup of tea, I advise you to give this read a pass.

Disclaimer #2: I'm an intractable bleeding heart liberal and I'm totally in the tank for Hillary and will probably be more prone to noticing the Trump jokes than the Clinton ones. If you don't want to sit through someone taking glee in and/or analyzing social commentary about your candidate of choice, you may want to sit this one out.

For those of you who are still reading this, let's all be honest: the election season has been a bit of a bear and both parties have ended up with candidates that are not without their detractors from within their respective parties as well as from their traditional opposition. But for every dark cloud, there is a silver lining: political satire. Yup, nothing takes the sting out of a particularly unpleasant election cycle quite like all of us gathering together as one to heal by taking the piss out of our entrenched political system. And for that, Marvel has given us this little boon that is Vote Loki.

One thing I love about this book is that it's pretty apparent early on that it's extra-canonical. It's certainly set in the world and basic status quo of the artist formerly known as Earth-616, but there really only a scant few wonky continuity things you need to know going into this book:
1. This is not your father's Loki. In the past decade, Loki has been revived twice, once as a woman (although that didn't take), and a second time as a child (aka my favorite Loki). Kid Loki eventually magically aged up more or less to make him about the same age as Tom Hiddleston around the time of the first Avengers movie. These days, he straddles the fuzzy area between being an anti-hero and anti-villain, but I think you can sum him up best as being a character who uses villainous means with theoretically heroic altruistic intent.
2. Thor is a woman now. Don't worry, the actual son of Odin and Freyja/Gaea is still roaming around somewhere, but the actual person now worthy to lift and wield the enchanted uru hammer Mjolnir (and all the powers that go with it, including the superhero persona) is Thor's original love interest, Jane Foster. And it's slowly killing her. She has cancer and every time she becomes Thor, it undoes the effects of her chemotherapy.
3. Loki and Thor have a new half-sister from another company. In a dispute with Image Comics, Neil Gaiman was awarded the rights to winged warrior woman Angela and he allowed her to be brought into Marvel's pantheon of characters in a wacky timeline-wonky story. To better weave her into the universe (and don't ask me the fine details because I haven't gotten around to reading that story yet), it was revealed that Angela is their long-lost sister. She's basically a hyper-aggressive She-Ra wing wings.

Well, now that I've covered the basics, on with the story of Vote Loki. Years ago (no specific time is given because characters only age when editors and/or Franklin Richards wills it so), the Avengers donated a large sum of money to rebuild a neighborhood in NYC  that had been utterly pulverized following one of their epic battles. If only scenes like this were featured prior to the events of Civil War... I'm sorry but I know it's considered a contemporary bench mark for Marvel, but on a basic conceptual level it's just not that good in terms of logistics and solid character-driven motivation on either side of the divide.

I can't help but notice the character lineup. Cap, Iron Man, Black Widow, Wasp, and... the Hulk? Okay, the Hulk's presence here means this would have to be either very early days or very recent. I could quibble about the details, but I'd rather just skip all that and arrive at the conclusion that this is not in-continuity and the MST3K mantra is in full effect: it's just a comic book, relax.

That money never got where it was supposed to because NY Governor Hitt funneled the donation from the Stark Foundation into his election campaign. Yeah, we are two panels into this book and we are not holding back when it comes to pointing out the deeply skeavy practices we've learned of in recent years in which charitable donations don't end up helping who they're supposed to.

One of the people effected by this morally bankrupt decision was a young Nisa Contreras who couldn't be more than maybe a high school freshman based on her appearance. From here we have a time skip. The book describes it as "a few years later," which in my mind means "not many." Of course, Marvel's timeline is weird, so a few years gave the tween enough time to get a journalism degree and establish herself as a reporter for the Daily Bugle. Of course, when your titular character is a millennia-old deity, what qualifies as "a few years" may be relative.

Nisa doesn't pull her punches and it's a great way of establishing her character as our deuteragonist as she uses her journalistic prowess to publicly take down Governor Hitt, exposing his wrong-doing from her youth. I'm not going to pretend that she didn't have vested interest in seeing him get his comeuppance, but she doesn't seem to gain satisfaction with it. The juxtaposition of the past and present scenes implies that she does have an inherent sense of bias, but it also frames her as a social justice crusader. As much as I think the internet has maligned that expression, I think it's fitting. After all, I think, particularly when speaking in terms of US politics, we are culturally hard-wired to associate truth and justice... and the American Way, whatever that implies.

Sometime later, Nisa is on the presidential election beat and she finds herself in the Spin Room, where she befriends a fellow named Lucas who finds the idea of the Spin Room amusingly subversive and I envy Lucas for remembering a time when a Spin Room was a bit of a distasteful novelty and not the sad truth of our endemic suffering. Yeah, I can hardly remember the Before Time, but for the past 3-4 months I've had to live in a world where Trump has nearly constantly been spewing offensively bigoted incendiary remarks unashamedly, only to have to hear his talking heads explain what he really meant by his latest characteristic racist/islamophobic/jingoistic/xenophobic/misogynistic/politically obtuse statement. I miss those halcyon days...

Our two leading candidates are never named in the series. Marvel has a history of not naming the presidents, at least when they factor into a story instead of being mentioned off-hand, Despite this, they do resemble their real-world counterparts, at least in broad strokes and without playing into their caricatured features. Keep in mind, this book was first announced in March and hit shelves in June, which means that even while we were still in the thick of the presidential primaries, the creative team had the clairvoyance to know that Clinton would end up clinching the democratic nomination and the Republican candidate would be an old white guy. While they are never named, the secret service refer to them as "Enterprise" and "Buffalo." When elected, I plan to address Hillary as President Enterprise and I advise you to do the same.

Nisa, being an observant journalist, spots someone with a concealed weapon in the audience and manages to alert the audience just as a small cadre of Hydra agents reveal themselves. Before they have time to enact their mission, Lucas reveals himself to be our titular character, Loki. He employs irony, besetting magical gold snakes on them. Their bite puts the Hydra agents into a coma.

Now, keep in mind, this happened in the spin room of a presidential debate. There are cameras and reporters everywhere, and with the candidates having been whisked away by secret service agents, the media all train their focus on Loki. This does seem a little odd because you'd think the safety and security of the presidential candidates would be a top priority. On the other hand, this title has a pretty flippant attitude about both candidates and aren't all that fond of the media either, so I guess it's easy to write it off as the media would rather focus on a shiny thing rather than cover the two major party candidates if they can help it.

It's pretty clear that he's toying with them and being fairly coy, but at the same time he's being refreshingly transparent about who and what he is. When asked who he's voting for, he says neither, since they're both liars. Then he declares that if he were president, he'd lie to them brazenly and they'd love him for it. I fail to see the difference is between what he's suggesting he would do and what the candidates do, but this is the basis on which buzz around his campaign is formed, so you just have to roll with it. Throughout the book, you'll see his appearances on media outlets be met with approval from hoi poloi, but you'll notice that the audience we see skews pretty young, and very urban. They're reactions sound more like they want to buck the system or praise a rockstar. This book has some opinions about millennials and/or hipsters.

Despite claiming to not be interested in running for president, he's doing a press junket, including an appearance on J. Jonah Jameson's talk show. Yeah, for future reference, it's actually been a while since he's been the EiC of the Daily Bugle. Between now and then, he's had a stint as the mayor of NYC. Now, however, he's been reduced to being a paper-thin Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly analogue. The studio has the stripes of the American flag in the background, giving it that extra jingoist touch. And like any conservative talking head, he turns out to be a birther.

Of course. The joke is on him however as when Loki reincarnated, he was born with a US birth certificate. I vaguely remember Thor finding the reincarnated Loki in Paris, France. It's been a while since the Fraction run, so I may be wrong. Even if I am wrong, Loki has been magically aged up. He was maybe 12 before, then was aged up to be about 18-21, and yet the minimum age for US candidacy is 35, so I guess the actual qualifications don't matter in this book. Even so, I wonder how he'd go about proving his birth certificate's authenticity.

Basic logic aside, it is worth it to see Jameson get caught on national television looking like a fool. Worth it.

This public humiliation is cut short however when the show gets a call-in from who else but intrepid reporter, Nisa Conteras. And she is clearly not on #TeamLoki. Remember that fight the Silver Age Avengers had in her old neighborhood? Well, it just so happens that they were battling against none other than our man, Loki. Gasp! Twist!! As we've learned about Nisa, her job as a reporter is to take down everyone who ruined her childhood. And not even death and rebirth is enough to wipe the slate clean for her. However, it's incredibly fitting considering one of our real world analogues has spent the past few decades ruining the financial futures of contractors and his own employees while getting away scot free.

Loki magicks himself into her apartment, which I have to imagine left Jameson scrambling to fill the time until the commercial break, He want to have a candid tête-à-tête with her, even while she pulls a gun on him. I suppose a single woman in NYC needs to be able to protect herself, but on the other hand making her a gun owner keeps her from being a read as an completely liberal anti-NRA strawman.

He admits to her that he is planning to run, and asks her to visit his campaign headquarters to write a story about it. Despite her better judgment, she goes.

This really has to be a whirlwind campaign because he already has a building full of pollsters making cold calls. The building is called the Ophidia research center. Ophidia is latin for snake or serphent, by the way. That's a nice touch, since most people wouldn't make the catch. It's a dumb mistake because I think the writer assumes that all religions and cultures have the same connotations. No, the god of lies is not the same as the father of lies. He's not the devil, therefore has no association with snakes. The only snake in Norse Mythology is the World Serpent, which surrounds the world, swallowing its own tail until the end of the world. Sidebar: In the Marvel Universe, the World Serpent is a guy and technically Odin's great uncle... because choices.

And of course, there are protesters outside who are crazed out of fear of what a Loki presidency would look like and inside, the pollsters are also crazy because that's what happens when an on-again, off-again villain runs for office. With all that insanity, it only makes sense that Loki hired some protection, so his sister Angela (see above, re: new continuity) has been employed to run security.

Oh, and did I mention Loki is a woman now? Don't think too much about it and don't get too invested in female Loki. Basically, Loki took this form for the day in an effort to throw whatever he can at the wall and see what sticks. They could have done more with this considering how much gender has played into this campaign, but this book is really avoiding getting bogged down with actual issues. Why talk about that when you can settle for ragging on the political process itself? That being said, female-presenting Loki actually does look presidential, as opposed to his default form, who looks like a scruffy rockstar. My boyfriend and I can't seem to agree on who, he does have a late 80's glam affect to his appearance. Steven Tyler? Keith Richards? Steve Tyler?

I don't think Nisa had any intention of coming away from this visitation with anything but an excoriating article, which she sends to her editor with a headline of "Loki Will Burn Washington." Mainly this is because of the ramblings of one crazed pollster. However, she ignores the fact that Loki has some sound ideas about bolstering the economy by providing large businesses who stay stateside with an incentive. Of course, why would she be balanced when she has an ax to grind? I think publicly declaring on national television that she has a beef with him should have automatically disqualified him from covering this story.

That becomes a moot point however the following morning when she wakes to her phone blowing up and discovers that her article has been altered, now reading the headline, "Loki's Campaign Something to Get Excited About." She's barely found out about this change when there is a knock on the door and suddenly she finds herself face to face with Thor the Goddess of Thunder. This lady must seriously be getting tired of Asgardians dropping in before she has a chance to put on something other than sleep clothes.

The next issue opens up with Loki's political ad and then running commentary from a couple of conservative news pundits. I'd say their interaction is a babbling waste, but I think that's the joke. More importantly, when I watch Loki's commercial, all I can think of is the best meme of all time.

I don't know where this fits in the timeline because this was aired maybe a day and a half after Loki announced his candidacy. When we cut back to Thor and Nisa, it's right where we left them.

Thor is not happy, thinking that Nisa is working for Loki. And being extra-canonical, Thor gets to speak like her old-school bombastic quasi-Shakespearean self and it's delightful. When Nisa points out that Loki only changed her headline and Thor actually reads the severely anti-Loki article, she delivers my favorite line of the issue: "Wow. Indeed thou dost indeed burn him."

Thor departs but not without dropping a clue for Nisa to follow, which leads her to returning to Loki's headquarters. Of course she goes while Loki is out at a rally, which only adds to his rock-star status. And everyone seems to be out of the office, as she finds abandoned... save for the cultists in Loki-robes sacrificing a goat. I don't find this as upsetting as the scary looking temple situation Loki has set up in the back of his campaign headquarters. It's an office building and that chamber has to be at least two, maybe three stories high. It makes no sense. And now my brain hurts.

Nisa makes sure that it makes it to the news and we get another visit with the talking heads, this time we have a riff on all the times politicians get caught in a scandal. In previous years, this sort of thing would be career-ending (not necessarily the fact that his constituents are non-Christian, but the fact that their ritual would probably get animal rights/welfare groups galvanized into action). But like certain politician who have been caught on tape bragging about being a sexual predator, Loki seems to be made of Teflon. He pulls the "I'm a god" card, which again, wouldn't fly in other elections and would probably be grounds for a psych eval, but here it becomes a triumphant mic drop for his supporters.

In issue #4, Nisa is going to greater lengths to expose Loki, this time investigating the Hydra agents who just happened to strike at a debate Loki just happened to be attending. They have all recently woken up from their comas and were being transferred to a medium security facility. Nisa intends to go to their new location to interview them, but the truck transporting them just happens to end up crashing in a fiery accident. So much for that idea.

But wait, why is Angela at the scene of the accident? Hm...

She knows that Loki was responsible for the Hydra attack and dispatched Angela to dispatch his catspaws. but before she can snap a picture on her phone, Angela is gone.

Back in the bizarre alternate reality known as news media outlets, a grown woman posing as a journalist (and wearing a large silly bow in her hair) is reporting on the deaths of the Hydra agents and rhetorically asks-- on national television-- who can blame them for trying to kill presidential nominees.

Okay, that does it. What the hell is up with this book?

 I mean, seriously...

There are people laughing so I can't tell if this is supposed to be some sort of Daily Show parody or if this book really thinks that poorly of American TV journalism. Regardless, this lady then suggests that Loki "sends some prison buses" to the now Doom-free Latveria. She also says she misses having Doom there because at least the trains ran on time. Is this supposed to be funny or overt support of fascism? I am so lost...

The next thing you know, Loki is partaking in a debate at the Iowa State Fair (and pulling off "folksy" quite well), and charms the viewers even as he eats one of the most improbable snacks I have seen in a lifetime of eating things nobody in their right mind should attempt to eat (one day. I will replace that Yankee Candle, mom. I promise), and now I think my life won't be complete until I have a caramel apple onion ring cheeseburger cone.

His political rivals are going for the jugular because Latvaria has become the new buzz topic in the debate and Loki has spoken out both against "Buffalo" being too accommodating with them and Enterprise skyping with Doom's children. To be fair, Doom's kid Kristoff is an expatriate living in America last I checked, so he might actually be a viable social contact.

Loki explains that he will deal with Latvaria without risking a single American life. It is such a big shock that even Nisa puts her hunt for Loki's birth record on pause to hear his declaration as he declares the only right thing is to keep boots off the ground in Latvaria and that fighting will not resolve the problem. This is actually quite reassuring to everyone else.

Nisa on the other hand, had a different takeaway from that broadcast.

She immediately buys herself a flight to Latveria, which I assume is can only lead to good things. After all the only thing safer than a dictatorial state ruled over by a egomaniacal techno-wizard is 

a former dictatorial state that has been left utterly destabilized by the sudden removal of a long-standing oppressive regime.

She passes herself off as a member of one of the factions vying for control of Latveria. Elsewhere another faction is searching for one of Doom's special hidden weapons caches. A man leads them past the mystical security door and this guy is totally not Loki guys, I swear. No really, scout's oath. When the rebels come out armed, they are confronted with the armed forces of the current controlling regime and like a bunch of idiots, they use Doom's secret weapons without testing them first and the whole battle scene goes up in a puff of smoke. The man who couldn't possibly have been Loki turns into Loki and I can't help but read this like the end of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Except that Nisa was in the right place at the right time to catch Loki expose himself on video.

This has already made the news before Nisa's plane lands in the states and the news outlets are dragging Loki across the coals. Of course, this book hates millennials and thinks they're stupid contrarians about everything and by the time Nisa arrives, the hipsters have become convinced that if the media hates Loki, he must be a real threat to their establishment and must therefore be the only candidate for them.

At this point, Nisa's about ready to give up.


By the time we open on our final issue, Nisa is looking to flee the country rather than abide by a Loki presidency. All the while, she watches footage of Loki being saved by a mentally unstable superhuman by Angela followed by whispering between the two. The next thing you know Angela has pulled out her phone and sets up a meeting with Nisa. Thor is there, as well. Apparently, the two had been in cahoots the entire time. Angela had been waiting for an opportunity to save Loki's life in order to compel him to tell her some crucial information... and she happily gives that information up to Nisa in exchange for a lifetime subscription to the Daily Bugle. It's the little things in life...

It turns out they are standing in the base of operations of the Hydra sect that attacked the debate and pulling up their computer revealed "Lucas From Buzzfeed" as their leader. Lucas? Remember him? That was Loki's disguise way back in the beginiing of the mini-series.

This gets published and of course, the millennials are completely fine with it because this book hates everyone too young to remember wondering about who shot Dallas, despite being comics' target demographic. It does however further galvanize the anti-Loki movement, causing the two opposing sides come to blows.

Chaos is erupting in the streets as Loki's fans have not been dissuaded (sound familiar, guys?) and the sitting president and congress even unanimously voted to strip the office of the president of many of its more recently acquired powers in anticipation of a Loki presidency.

Nisa is watching tenuous fabric of American life rip itself apart and the seams when there is a knock on the door and does she ever wear anything around the house besides booty shorts and a camisole? I'm guessing journalism pays the rent, but not the AC. Loki needs help-- he's doesn't want to be president, not if it means causing the nation to tear itself apart. He needs her help getting him get him discredited... which has worked so well in the past. Still, he promised not to tell a single lie in the process, and trickster deities know how sacred promises and deals are.

He instantly transports her to a live studio, changing her wardrobe in the process thankfully. He is expecting Nisa to ask all the best questions and expose him, although it's fairly obvious that he knows it would backfire, presumably to bring both sides of the aisle together in support of him. Nisa has a trick of her own however and causes and upset by handing the mic over to his supporters in the audience to ask questions, this apparently has not happened before. Not a single question has been asked by anyone other than the press. Unable to lie and unexpectedly confronted by his supporters, he's already been thrown two curveballs, However, as the questions go on, it seems like Loki has no concrete plan to address many of the problems facing the nation. Not only that, the supporters who thought he would buck the corrupt system are gobsmacked to find out he'd be working in the interests of all Americans, not just the rebellious fringe.

Nisa sums it up beautifully by asserting the only message his campaign has really delivered on was declaring "the other two candidates are bad" and that's not enough for any candidate to get even close to the presidency.

One particular audience member calls him out, feeling betrayed because Loki would rather work with the government than bring it down and Loki reaches his breaking point. You know when you're the oldest member of your social circle by a significant stretche and you finally have had enough of pretending to be cool and want to let your friends know what's what? Yeah, Loki has stopped being cool uncle Loki and calls his supporters out on the idiocy that has carried his campaign this far.

The next day is the election day and the only states that Loki ends up winning are Nevada, Nebraska, West Virginia, Mississippi, and New Jersey... because if any state will vote for someone who lies nearly all the time and treats everyone like they are morons, it's New Jersey (mwahahahaha.... Trump isn't the only one going down, Chris Christie).

We see a montage of celebration from our cast. Jane Foster in chemo looks up at the hospital television with a staid grin on her face while Angela celebrates alongside Rocket and Groot in the only bar in NYC that will serve the Guardians. Although, probably not for long since Angela's jubilant excitement causes a waitress's face to get smashed with a plateful of pie and drinks. Nisa gets tapped to appear on J Jonah Jameson's show on the Fact Channel and turns around to find Loki in her apartment. Again.

He's fairly certain he's going to lose, but he twists it into a win by suggesting that this whole story was all an overly elaborate ploy to give Nisa the chance to right the wrong that Loki caused in her childhood. Of course, she calls it for the slapdash bullshit it is, but it's more friendly than any interaction they've had thus far. Maybe it's because he's no longer a threat, or maybe it's because tricking him like she did took him down a peg enough for her to humanize him a bit, but this conversation feels genuine and less like the satirical posturing that much of the book has felt like. It's actually pretty charming.

Loki floats away as he pulls out a flip phone (he can join Cap in the anachronistic phone club) as he calls to concede to his winning opponent. Of course being Loki, he frames it like his blowup the previous night was a gift for his/her campaign. And he literally disappears into the horizon as the story ends.

This isn't a bad story by any stretch of the imagination. It's fun and moves at a good pace, but it feels unfocused. This book tries to do too much, mainly because it had too much of a good thing. There is a lot that goes into a US presidential election and this current one has been an insane cycle, so there was no shortage of material for them and in trying to genuinely capture what it feels like to be an American following the election process faithfully, the creative team ended up with a book that feels unbalanced and unwieldy in certain places. I also question the angle the satire took. The crux of Loki's campaign was because everyone thinks the candidates are so bad. We never learn why. They are super generic to the point that they could have been cardboard cut-outs. As a result, the focus of the sature becomes the inanity of the organ grinder monkeys TV news pundits and spending an incredibly large amount of time poking fun at the Bernie or Bust movement. Yeah, with all the material Trump's primary constituency has going for it, the book kept going back to the hipsters/millennial well whenever they wanted to lampoon the American public. And poking fun at millennials and the Bernie or Bust movement is fine, except for the fact that they seem to be the only ones targeted in this piece. I somehow suspect that the writers feared they'd get threats if they aimed their satire at the deplorables, and because of that I feel like the book doesn't have the courage of conviction needed to write truly spectacular social satire.

Past the X-Piration Date: Alpha

Gather round, kiddies. Let me tell you of a time when the Avengers were just barely members of Marvel's third tier titles and the X-Men ruled the mother-f#%&ing world. In 1992, with two main X-Men titles and no fewer than four ongoing concurrent spin-off titles (nowadays, that is considered a very lean X-line, but back then it was massive), the X-Men summarily crushed any other comic book property that hoped to compete with them. And this hegemony over the known universe reached its zenith when the X-Men finally made their way into people's living rooms with X-Men The Animated Series.

Based around the cast of the then-newly launched "adjectiveless" X-Men volume 2, it subbed out Psylocke (for reasons that probably included racial/cultural iffiness and having a backstory that could actually be explained in a 23 minute runtime without a flow chart) for Storm and Jean Grey and it was the best damn thing! Filled with many different, interesting, compelling characters both as protagonists and antagonists, it presented young viewers with a show that mirrored the vexed sociological minefield of real life and actively combined blatantly progressive social attitudes with kicking all sorts of ass with powers that made you both a wonder and an outcast. Being a nerdy little gayboy who on some level already could tell he wasn't quite in step with those around him, I imprinted on the X-Men for life. Yes, they were the greatest thing ever.

That is until they weren't. About halfway through season 4 they had a four-part epic called "Beyond Good and Evil" that could have easily been a capstone to an excellent series. And yet it continued. Nothing else in season four ever managed to match that amazing high point. And probably against common wisdom, they continued on for one last season after that.

Now, to be fair, their final season starts out more or less well. However, after the first half of the season, the show started to plummet like a stone.  Of course, it probably didn't help that they started it off with a guest character and antagonist who very much demonstrate just how far the animators' reach surpassed their grasp: Warlock and the Phalanx.

The two-part story itself, "The Phalanx," is actually fairly challenging and intriguing for a young mind. It's a story in which the Phalanx (which narratively is a rough merging of the actual Phalanx and the Technarchy) goes about attempting to assimilate the entire earth. In the process, all the X-Men save for Beast is captured. He meets up with the renegade heir apparent of the Phalanx, Warlock, and together the two basically have a life-or-death roadtrip trying to stay one step ahead of the Phalanx and making some unlikely alliances along the way.

And we arrive at why this story fails just so damn hard. Warlock and the Phalanx are techno-organic life forms. Warlock has always been depicted as physically very fluid being, constantly shifting form from panel to panel. The various circuits and mechanical bits that comprise him always in motion. He's less of a solid being than he is a metamorphic creature willed into roughly anthropomorphic shape. Granted, this Warlock can shapeshift like his comic book counterpart does, but he only does it as necessary. Moreover, his standard humanoid form, is incredibly static. The Phalanx is slightly better, but that's mainly because as the villains they can do weird and creepy things, unlike our guest-protagonist Warlock.

In some odd ways, the Phalanx have affects that seem like the story adapters were fond of Star Trek's Borg and Changelings. At one point the Phalanx literally say "resistance is futile." Resistance to what, you might ask? Why resistance to joining the Phalanx collective by merging into the big blob of Phalanx. This is best illustrated with Warlock's lifemate, who was forcibly absorbed into the collective prior to the start of the story. For the record, Warlock's lifemate an invention of the cartoon and he is largely depicted as asexual... unless you count his mergings with Doug Ramsey... up until very recently in continuity, at least 30 years after his initial appearance.

The funny thing about his lifemate though is that as an individual Warlock's lifemate seems coded as traditionally female. I kind of want to point out the oddity that a race of basically living circuitry has a gender binary, except that I keep referring the Warlock as "he," so I guess I don't have a leg to stand on. Once absorbed into the Phalanx however her default form becomes something that I feel fairly certain must be referencing, but I have no idea what. It strikes me as one of those Easter eggs Marvel animators would put in for the savvy viewer, but your guess is as good as mine.

One last nugget before we move on to the rest of the season. Early in the episode, the Phalanx implant themselves in the form of Sabretooth, who allows himself to get captured. Wolverine goes down to the cells to confront his adversary and that's when you notice the colorists just giving up on trying to find where Wolverine's uniform ends and his face begins. Yeah. That goes all the way up to his lips. He swallowed the zipper.

In "A Deal With the Devil," the animation is still relatively okay, but you'll notice that Storm will generally either have her hair in a ponytail or in a submersible uniform. Yeah, this was a shortcut the animators used a lot toward the end of the season. Having her hair pulled back and less vibrant and luscious meant that the animators didn't need to worry about animating all those loose flowing locks. To be fair, though, the art is not why this episode sucks. For that, look no further than the fact that it's trying to make Omega Red happen. It's not going to happen, Marvel. Note that he is effectively a Cold War Era villain... who was first introduced in 1992. For any younglings out there, ask Dr. Internet when the Berlin Wall fell. Yeah, Omega Red isn't a compelling villain in his best moments, but he bears the additional sin of being a villain without a purpose. In a series where all of its heroes and villains all stand for something greater than themselves, he's obsolete from the starting gate.

Next is "No Mutant Is An Island." It was supposed to air during Season 3 between the two Phoenix arcs. However the animation was so bad that they backburnered it and it wasn't for another two years before they both had it fixed and had room in their schedule for it. It's... fine. It's not all that great an episode, but for the standards of X-Men TAS it is presentable. In this one, a grieving Cyclops quits the team and goes to the orphanage he grew up in for... reasons... and rescues four of its current residents when they are adopted by the Purple Man as part of a nefarious plot. Those four orphans are Taki Matsuya (technopath), Tabitha Smith (energy-based "timebomb" creation), Skids (personal force field), and Rusty Collins (pyrokinetic), all members of the short-lived X-Terminators, the latter three later joined the New Mutants, and Tabitha Smith even has been on various incarnations of X-Force. Of course, the animators sided with recognition rather than common sense. In 1996, they have Boom Boom dressed like she just got back from see Tiffany and/or Debbie Gibson live on tour (hint: she looks like the 80s incarnate). Meanwhile, Taki, who is not a superhero, apparently wears casual apparel that would do Flash Gordon or the Rocketeer proud.

So, hilariously, at one point Scott attempts to gain the young Rusty's trust by demonstrating his abilities. He shifts left to right to see if anyone's looking, then instead of doing something small like simply shooting at the ground nearby he fires off a huge blast at an abandoned building. That's the X-Men's master strategist for you. Instead of embracing discretion, he does something that not only must have drawn people's attention but also could have caused a building to collapse and potentially fall on both him and Rusty. Nice going, Cyke.

The Purple Man is an odd choice for a villain, considering this story is begging for Mr. Sinister and Purple Man has no ties to the X-books, as far as I'm aware.

Not much else to say except that Rusty's voice actor sounds ten, but the art makes him look like a 29-year-old with a bad middle-part haircut. Oh, and Taki's powers are referred to as his wheelchair transformation powers, which is so ridiculously amazing that it deserves an award for how hard it fails.

In Longshot... the X-Men help Longshot against Mojo and Spiral. If that sort of thing floats your boat, more power to you. I was bored. But then I started noticing something sounded wrong about Mojo's voice actor. I checked the episode's IMDB page (and it won't be the last time I felt compelled to do so), but it lists the same voice actor as his last appearance in "Mojovision." My only conclusion would be that whoever has been editing the sound, especially on the actors' recordings have changed equipment and can't replicate whatever effect they used in previous seasons. He kind of sounded like a maniacal Bobcat Goldthwait. How he just sounds like a Bobcat Goldthwait.

However, the animation in "Longshot" can not be faulted. It's actually some of the best in the season. In a series where the animation can in hindsight be a little clunky at times, they make Longshot look as effortlessly agile as luck would have it. Of course, if I were a kid watching this (I think I watched it, but Longshot doesn't really hold my attention), I would have been really confused by his demonstration of psychometry. They don't even explain it in the episode. He just does it while they are trying to rescue Jubilee and everyone just accepts that he is speaking with authority instead of asking how he knows this shit. Years later, Layla Miller would just know shit, but everyone will give her grief about the why of it all.

Moreover, there are Warwolves. Okay, they aren't the verbose very anthropomorphic Warwolves of Excalibur, but I appreciate such a late-in-the-series episode is willing to not only bring a weird-ass villain like Mojo back, work in a narrative around Longshot's rebellion, but then even throw in the Warwolves, whom for a first time viewer would just seem like weird, scary metallic wargs. Throw in more of the weird shit, X-Men. More, I say!

"Bloodlines" is all about Rogue and Nightcrawler. At first, I thought I'd be too biased by their inclusion in primary roles to have that much of an objective opinion. Or that's what I thought until I saw the Friends Of Humanity's version of the KKK grand wizard get-ups. Oh, god(s). Fox Kids, what were you thinking? You should have quit when you were ahead instead of trying to pull a fast one on Broadcast Standards and Practices.

What what what are you doing, Fox Kids?

Think of your life! Think of your choices!

Anyway, what we are watching here is a spin on X-Men Unlimited #4, in which the biological relationship between Graydon Creed, Nightcrawler, and Mystique is revealed. Just throw in a dollop of Wolverine having mutant passing privilege issues and a pinch of Jubilee's abandonment issues, having grown up in the foster system, and you more or less have the same story in the broad strokes. Wolverine takes out his resentment of trick-or-treaters by putting on a Beast mask and scaring them. I think it's oddly hypocritical of Logan for begrudging baseline humans for dressing as mutants on Halloween when he made a mask of one of his own friends who is explicitly deprived of the same passing privilege he enjoys. Sidenote: it appears that the kids he scares off are dressed as the original Daredevil, an extremely off-brand looking Spider-Man costume (maybe it's a clone saga variant I'm blissfully ignorant of), and freaking Devil Dinosaur. Oh yeah!

 Of course, as much as I like the fact that this is an episode centering on two of my favorite X-Men, while Rogue is pretty much peak Rogue, TAS Nightcrawler is the genesis of "boring Priest Nightcrawler." He's basically Ned Flanders with a tail. Mystique tries really hard to balance out Kurt's high-handed forgiveness at all costs approach by being boss AF, but even she succumbs to his charms. Even when he's all preachy and priest-y, I'd still fuck Kurt. Though, I'd refuse to do the missionary position so he'll have to go to confession or something.

Holiday greeting cards from Raven are probably very hostile.

Arguably, that was the last of the good episodes. The common wisdom is that it is only the last six issues, but the two-parter that precedes them is such a raging POS that it earns its place. Perhaps I'm being a little harsh on it, but I have issues with a story that does such short shrift to a character by placing them front and center. "Storm Front" as the name might suggest, is a Storm-centric episode in which she is acting wildly out of character from the top. In the first five minutes alone, she's panicky, unable to maintain her composure, and is easily subdued and kidnapped. Granted she seems to do it in a histrionic "no indoor voice" style, which in retrospect is at least her TAS defining trait.

The  It does play into one of Storm's long-standing tropes: the more exalted the villain, the more likely they're going to be into Storm. Our villain du jour is Arkon, ruler of the alternate dimension of Polemachus. Note that those names, transliterations and neologisms aside, translate to "Ruler" and "Warrior Land."

Come, my land has tyranny and all the loin cloths
you can ask for.

He's basically Space Conan. He was even created by Roy Thomas, who is most notable for writing Marvel's Conan comics. As such, he's arrayed in a furry loin cloth and boots that he probably skinned himself, but also a gold chestplate and silly crown that kind of looks Viking by way of the Aztecs, a purple cape, and belts both across the chest and the waist with then-futuristic gizmos and laser pistols holstered on them.

And like any self respecting noble antagonist/warrior space-king, he wants an exotic-looking beauty with Amazonian proportions to be his bride. No, really, in the comics just under the pen of Claremont alone she is sought after by Dr. Doom, Dracula, Loki, and extra-dimensional space-emperor Khan, so this guy is... I don't want to say she has a type, but she definitely attracts a certain type.

Anyway, the reason he kidnaps her is because his world's environment has turned against them and they are in need of a weather manipulator to save the day. Of course, if he'd simply come and asked, I'm sure a compassionate woman like Storm would have acquiesced, but I'm fairly certain there is some psychic whammy going on here. I mean, look at her face. They make a point of having a close up of her early in the episode just to highlight how blue her eyes normally are and then for reasons that defy logic they display... this. I mean, changing her physical features ever so slightly is great visual shorthand to communicate that something is awry, but she just looks wrong. The face... the Animated X-Men, even the women always felt like they were lovingly, laboriously carved into the page, but now Storm's face has been drained of definition, making her look listless and more than a little like a chubby baby.  And her eyes? Those are dead, lifeless eyes, utterly failing to convince the viewer of the illusion that the sequence of 24 frames per second is a living, breathing character.

The animation has eaten her soul.

So, as the first half ends, Storm, probably within hours of being forcibly kidnapped declares her unending love for Arkon and declares that she will remain in the alt.reality as Arkon's queen. As we pick up in the next episode, every one of her rescuer teammates seems fine with this. The only exception being Wolverine, who seems to be the only character that remembers that mental manipulation is an actual thing that happens on the regular in their world. Storm has gone native to show how happy she is here. Also, there's the "happy accident" of her hair being in a ponytail and thus easier to animate. Jubilee is fully supportive, in love with the idea of Storm being a queen, and quite honestly reminds me of the dynamic between Susan and Barbara in the classic Dr. Who story "The Aztecs." Beast and Cyclops fall mainly in the camp of "respecting Storm's decisions." This would be excellent behavior from teammates who have her back if it weren't so clearly she is not in her right mind. Instead, they look like shmucks.

It isn't until it becomes increasingly clear that Arkon his a cruel and sadistic authoritarian who punishes his people at the slightest of perceived slights that his romantic whammy starts to wear off Storm. His people are so downtrodden that they don't even get irises and pupils. Either that or the animators were cutting corners again. Wolvie, Beast and Cyke  team up with freedom fighters while in the palace Jubilee is still in supportive little sister mode as Storm vacillates back and forth on her feelings about Arkon. Good God Get A Grip, Girl!

Even with Arkon's thrall weakened, her face still looks wrong. And what the hell is Jubilee wearing on her head?! From the front, it's a tiara, but in profile, it might be Halloween cat ears. I've heard people describe animated Jubilee as kind of a merging of her and Kitty Pryde, but I never bought it until I noticed how quickly and how badly she took to playing dress-up here. But at least she does have the virtue of telling Jubilee the obvious "he's not worth it," and that's that. Storm puts her hair down, which is shorthand for being all better and she peaces out. End credits.

Remove her rain slicker and she'll find amazing new ways to
be a fashion victim.

Just for a sense of perspective, this is still before the quality goes completely to shit. These last six episodes were ordered last-minute and were not originally budgeted for. In order to cut costs, they were made by a much cheaper, lower quality animation house.

You can immediately tell that something is deeply, wrong even in the opening credits. The traditional opening that highlighting each member of the main cast has been replaced by a sequence of clips from prior episodes. The clip show is one of those television staples that a show has run out of time or money or both, but this wasn't necessary. It's not as though the opening sequence has to be reanimated every single episode. Thus, my theory is that this was an intentional warning from the showrunners that they cobbled together after seeing what they had to work with just to give viewers a hint of the shitshow that laid before them.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and any multitudinous designations that do not fit a gender binary, welcome to "Jubilee's Fairytale Theatre." This is one of the show's many attempts to try to directly retell one of the classic Claremont stories, "Kitty's Fairytale." The problem being that premise aside, these are nothing alike. "Kitty's Fairytale" is basically a fairytale retelling (told to Colossus' baby sister as a bedtime story) of the Dark Phoenix Saga with a happy ending and included heroic swashbuckling pirates (pirates were fairly on-trend in the 80s) as its protagonists, Jubilee's Fairytale Theatre is quite the different animal, as we shall see.

As this episode begins, you might be wondering, "did I turn on Captain Planet by mistake? And how did Gi get her hands on Jubilee's signature ray-bans (remember ray bans, you guys)?" But no, you're still in the right show... technically. Yeah, the animation is drastically different, but hey at least we have a silver lining of having the animation actually making Jubilee look like her appropriate racial background. So progress...(?). Also, she seems to have grown 8 inches overnight. Yeah, the original airdates between this and the previous episode were a week apart, so this had to have been jarring as fuck. I vaguely remember young seventh grade David watching this and wondering if I was taking crazy pills or something.

The new animators must have never been given any visual
references for Jubilee. 

The rest of the team has gone out on assignment including the Professor who had made a commitment to a local elementary school to show a local group of elementary students the cave formations beneath the estates. So, being that Xavier is a jerk with a penchant for childhood endangerment, he saddles Jubilee with his responsibilities. Aside from the fact that he left a  group of kids in the hands of a minor who tends to accidentally blow things up when she's upset, you also need to take into consideration that their parents signed permission slips with the understanding that they were entrusting their children in the hands of mature adults... mature adults who have Act 33 clearances and experience leading tourists through potentially dangerous environments, such as treacherous caves that just happen to turn out to be seismically active. In Upstate New York. Just go with it everybody.

Jubilee is less than pleased to be here, naturally, so she's reading fairly listlessly from a guide book. Somehow, an earthquake happens in New York. I'm just going to let it pass because they needed some sort of contrivance why Jubilee of all people would be both trusted with children and willing to BS a fairy tale on the fly. If you need an example of how this episode dates itself, note the tone of wonder one of her young charges has at the sight of the cutting edge beeper she uses to contact her teammates.

Were these kids were bused in from Stepford, Conn.?

Jubilee manages to completely hide the fact that they've been caved in from them by suggesting that the kids all sit in a circle. And oh my god do these kids not exist in any feasible reality. They're just all so twee. There are the girls that immediately ask if there will be handsome princes and true love in the story only to be countered by boys who say "True love? Yuck." Oh and the boys are twins, so of course, they say it in unison. And I owe an apology to Storm's animator in the last episode. I thought her eyes were dead and lifeless. And then I watched "Jubilee's Fairytale Theater" and it totally reset the bell curve.

I've seen more effort in PowerPoint Documents. 

Jubilee's story has some pretty lazy exposition. Story book pages with cheap sparkly transitions that I could probably whip up after a five minute tutorial with Windows Movie Maker. It sets up Scott and Jean and the good prince and princess... who will have little bearing on the plot, the macguffin of the story is the MacTaggart crystal, and our villain is the unfathomably evil wizard Magnus the Malevolent. Yeah, Jubilee seems to be forgetting all the times Magneto has allied with the X-Men or at least been on uneasy truce terms with them, which I think actually outweighed his outright antagonistic appearances by the end of the series.
So we leave bad transition land and enter into a generic road in a forest. There we find that

The best mullet in all the Seven Kingdoms

Gambit is playing a rogue whose metal bo staff gives him +2 sexterity. He flees from metal suit henchmen with Magneto helmets for heads and could have been repurposed henchmen from the Felix the Cat movie. He happens upon some kindly peasants who resemble Longshot, and her adoptive parents who haven't been seen since "Night o the Sentinels." Something tells me a kid would need a keen eye to pick up on Longshot here, though how many four-fingered blonde mulleted characters could there possibly be? And it's only because I sat through multiple viewings that I'm about 75% positive about the other two being the foster parents. I'm guessing since we're plumbing Jubilee's subconscious in this story, it is only reasonable that guys she has recently crushed on and people who have treated her as family should work their way into the narrative.

Magneto's off-brand Doombots

The kindly NPC's attempt to hide Remy under the hay in their wagon but the "Clankers" catch up with them. At that moment, what should happen buytthey are rescued by a messianic hero that the Clankers think is a myth peasants tell themselves. And so we meet Jubilee's author avatar/Mary Sue character. She's the best of the best without any real struggle, instead of low level fireworks, her powers are treated like potent lightning bolts, and say, is it just my imagination or does she have hella large breasts that she doesn't have in real life? Well, I guess that's what middle-aged straight white men in a writers' room think a 15-year-old would include in an idealized version of herself. Of course, maybe it's just my imagination. I would go back and double check, but examining the cleavage of an underage girl in a children's cartoon sounds like a sketchy way to spend your free time.

Her greatest magical treasure is her wonderbra

She's so invested in making her self-insert character an unrepentant 90's hero protagonist that she speaks in nothing but quips (whether they are clever is up for debate) while she fights and even has her own lame catchphrase: "Getting out of tight places is what I do." Undoubtedly, it's intended to be Jubes' kinder, gentler version of Wolverine's catchphrase. Also, she seems to be an elf. I'm wondering if the writers were intentionally poking fun at fanfic writers in this episode. Or maybe they actually bought someone's fanfic just to save time.

Being a fanfic protagonist, she is the best, most perfect Jubilee elf playing as ranger that ever was and single-handedly takes down all the villainous clankers. Then the party is joined by Trollverine. And oh my god(s) this is amaztupid. He's green from head to toe, has tusks, wears tattered shreds of his usual attire rendered into a kilt, hood, and harness, which makes me think he's a submissive at Ye Olde Leather Bar, and has broken shackles on his wrists like my old My Pet Monster doll. It's fairly remarkable. Additionally, he speaks with an odd sort of lisp that makes him sound like a congested Bessie Higgenbottom. The stuffed up nose might be due to the giant ring pierced through his septum. Oh, and he's Jubilee's sidekick.

His day job is cage dancer at the popular troll bar, The Tannery.

Just for reference, this is his analogue in Kitty's fairy tale.

So it turns out Gambit is relevant to the plot because he was hired by the bad guy to steal half of the macguffin (it's kind of a triforce deal, so whoever gets both half is all powerful yadda yadda), but he hid it instead. Jubilee clearly knows what's what because not only is her story version of Gambit morally ambiguous and self-serving at best, but he's also a creeper, hitting on Jubilee as he offers to show her where he hid the crystal. Yeah, Jubilee is 15 in this series. Gambit: total creeper, habitual liar, AND a pedo. Yeah, if you're going to read my X-related posts, just accept and embrace the fact that I think Gambit is the worst of the traditionally accepted X-Men.

He leads Jubilee and Trollverine (he's called "Logan" in the story, but I'm sticking with my wording) to a poor man's cave of wonders-- no really, it's a cavern laden with treasures that has not one but two entries that resemble giant heads and I think the only reason they don't resemble tiger heads is to avoid a "cease and desist" letter from Disney -- where Jubilee immediately gets distracted by a gem encrusted diadem.

The Poor Man's Cave of Wonders has not one, but two
security check-points.

And oh my gods Sabretooth! I have no words! None. He looks like one of Sid's Frankenstein'd action figures in Toy Story. Creed's head was ripped off his action figure and stapled onto Grizzlor's, from Masters of the Universe. Just bask in the glow of this ridiculousness for a moment, everybody.

The head transplant was a success... after a fashion

Back in reality, even with with application of shaky cam, these kids still have no idea that they are in any kind of danger. These kids are a special kind of stupid. Is this what the story writers thought of children? If you were the target age demo when this aired, you should take it as an indictment. The area is destabilizing and Jubilee convinces the kids to go for a little walk up not an incline, but a fairly professionally installed-looking set of stairs in the cave just in time for an underground river to burst through the rocks and flood the area they were just in. The just left the chamber when the water rushes in. Believe it or not, showrunners, kids notice shit. And they're really good at picking up on things when adults don't want them to notice.

After the commercial break, Jubilee has led the kids into a dead end, but goes back and blasts some rocks down from overhead in order to stopper off the water level. I'm just not going to address the fact that she could have quite easily have accidentally caused the entire cavern ceiling to collapse on her and the children because the episode relies so heavily on Jubilee's fanfic insert character playing in god mode that we can only assume the writers were writing the actual Jubilee that way too.

The kids ask her to resume her paint by numbers fantasy story. Even if this hadn't been prior to the era of smart phones and portable devices, the kids wouldn't be getting reception down there and would simply be incapable of amusing themselves without external stimulation, since we've raised a generation of children who have had iPads instead learning to amuse themselves during long car rides, camping trips, etc. They'd be as desperate for something, anything to hold their attention that this stupid story is a point of focus.

After another cheap looking storybook page to remind us what was happening before the commercial break, we find ourselves back in the ye old Money Bin where we last saw Jubilee and company being confronted by a yeti wearing a Sabretooth mask. Jubilee singlehandedly takes him down with all the pathos of Sonic the Hedgehog and they get the hell out of dodge before his backup dancers, more of Magnus' Clankers (btw, they're animated suits of armor, which makes me really want to watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks now) can do much other than levy some threats.

Having made it out of the cave with their half of MacTaggart crystal, Jubilee's party is joined by the floating disembodied head of Oz the Great and Powerful  Jambi  Xavier the All-Knowing. He announces that Jubilee is the chosen one destined to save them all. Ye gods, for such a departure from the original "Kitty's Fairytale," this episode is utterly devoid of original ideas. Then Xavier just disappears. Yeah, his inclusion in the narrative felt organic and motivated.

Meka leka hi meka hiney ho!

Anyway, the gang walks off-screen to actively fulfill Xavier's prophesy, then a rat scurries down and transforms into a mage and tells nobody in particular that he's off to inform his master of what he has heard. I think this is supposed to be Morph's analogue. I tried to figure it out on IMDB based on the episode's voice cast, but only four actors are credited in this episode. I guess it was either remove their names or let everyone list themselves as Alan Smithee.

The heroes break into Magnus' palace and find their way to Magnus' half of the crystal just in time for Magnus to shut them down. Magneto as a LARP sorcerer is a revelation. I kind of want to cosplay as this. No, really, I'm actually being serious. Most of the character designs go so hard for fanciful that they overshoot their target and land on silly, but Magnus' design is such a fantastic blend of things that seem like they should feel ridiculous that they work incredibly well together. The drape and flow of his cape is amazing, especially when he's in flight. His arch cowl brings to mind a lot of 80's high fantasy, his large grometed pauldrons are simply perfect. He's got pointed wizard shoes, guys! Plus look at that visage. Even just from the neck up, he's a wonder to behold. He's got long 80's metal band power hair, a goatee of evil, and they even worked the stylized horseshoe "hood ornament" of Magneto's helmet into his circle- crown. Let's face it, gentle readers-- I have a strong contender for my next Halloween costume.

Magneto's got swag.

Magnus takes both halves of the crystal, and fail fail fail. Okay, animators. Did you guys even read the script? These are supposed to be two halves of one precious stone. The script even goes so far as to refer to them as shards. And yet these are clearly two discrete precious stones, identical gems both of which processed into a baguette cut. Gem cutting wasn't even a thing that could be accomplished until the 18th Century, by the way.

Magneto loves man handling his stones

He only uses his Clankers to restrain Jubilee however because he needs her to enact his plan. Jubilee is the key to unlocking the power of the crystal and he threatens the life of her stalwart trollfriend in order to ensure her compliance, ensnaring him it what I think it supposed to be giant amoeba made of quicksilver that seems to want to strangle him. I feel like this specific is a plot point gets reused in the third act a lot of kids' animated adventures, but my mind immediately goes to the Care Bears Nutcracker. Yeah, I'm plumbing the depths of things I'm willing to admit I've watched enough to be able to cite them. So Jubilee basically uses her fireworks to power the crystal, delivering unto our villain his ultimate objective.  Now Magnus has no further need of his henchmen, he blows them to pieces. Yeah, it seems like we're supposed to read that as his cruelty, but they were suits of armor his own will was animating. It's like pulling your arm out of a hand puppet and expecting to be treated like he disemboweled someone.

He refuses to uphold his side of the bargain to free Trollverine, so she unleashes her powers on him at full voltage. He taunts her, declaring that she's only making her stronger, but it seems that was the idea. She has turned his suit into an electric magnet, drawing anything metal, even if it's bolted to the wall. Nuts, bolts, discarded armor, torch sconces, etc fling themselves at him, knocking him to the ground. I guess we're playing by "king of the mountain" rules because him falling on his ass is good enough for a conclusion.

We cut back to reality where apparently Jubilee used her actual fireworks to get the kids out of the cave (is the Xavier School open about their mutant status in TAS's version of continuity?). Cyke, Gambit, and Wolvie are there to meet them in their civvies. And for some reason it was determined that Gambit's idea of what to wear at a plain clothes rescue/excavation mission is strikingly similar to what he wears out on date night. Although considering Cyke is dressed for a night with his bowling league, maybe we can assume that they both would rather be somewhere else. Also, just in case you've gotten used to the cheaper quality of the animation, Logan, Remy, and Scott are here to remind you. The rest of the story looks positively photo-realistic compared to how they're rendered here. There is no effort beyond what is minimal. They didn't even draw in the blacks of Gambit's eyes. Maybe the animator was a "Third Summers Brother Gambit" truther and wanted them to have matching eyes. Regardless, this is how I'd expect to see them drawn in a tie-in activity book or maybe even on the back of a Burger King Kid's Club box, but not in something that a director/editor/showrunner/producer to look at and say, "yes, this is fit for public consumption.

Unfinished art that accidentally made it to broadcast

Somehow, despite being provided any visual aids or any reason to associate her story with reality, one of the kids identifies Wolverine as "Logan the Troll." I'm assuming Wolverine just let it roll off his back, but what the hell is that kid's problem? You just don't go around calling people you've just met trolls... I mean, unless you're dealing with an asshat on an internet forum.

With the kids waiting for their bus at the steps of the X-Mansion, Jean Grey seems surprised (disappointed?) that the kids don't seem to have mental states that reflect intense trauma. Jean Grey is a glass half empty kind of person. Wouldn't you be if you were stuck with Scott when you could be out consuming the cosmos?

The kids ask Jubilee to finish her story. Note that she completely skips over the actual end of the climax she was working on earlier. We just skip to the afterparty at the castle. Apparently a very shrill-voiced Jean is all a'twitter at the prospect of making Jubilee a princess and playing Julie Andrews to Jubilee's Anne Hathaway. As shrill as Queen Jean is, King Scott is so droningly bland that I'm fairly certain this is meta-commentary. Ye gods, what the hell is wrong with Scott's face? Where is his upper lip?! Is it hiding in his big ugly turban?

Is there no low point in the Uncanny Valley?

Jubilee slips out, stepping out of the gown she had been wearing with her elfin costume underneath it and runs off to have adventures with her buddies as we transition back to reality to see the vermin children driving off in their bus, eager to come again to hear another story. Really, kids? It didn't even qualify as "okay." Maybe they're all life model decoys of real kids who've been programmed to be impressed  by anything. Jean and the Professor, meanwhile are pleased with Jubilee's ability to manage a crisis singlehandedly, but probably nowhere near as much as Jubilee is pleased with herself.

Guys, this has been a lot of fun, but this article is massive and we still have five more incredibly badly animated episodes to go. I'm afraid we'll have to finish up this journey into facepalms another time.

Come back in two weeks for the next issue of "Batman : Under the Red Hood."

A Whirling Vortex of T-Rex!!

So who knew when I sat down to read a series about a little girl genius and a giant red T-Rex that I'd be squeeing over the dinosaur? Today we're looking into one of Marvel's newest offerings from the past year, Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur. Written by Brandon Montclare and Amy Reeder, it has Natacha Bustos as the artist and Tamra Bonvillain on colors.

There isn't too much essential continuity you need to know, but this is a surprisingly storied character. He is a rare example of characters created by Jack Kirby who isn't tied into the cosmic or straightforward superhero end of the Marvel Universe. In case the name didn't give it away, he's a dinosaur, but due to some plotty stuff in his origin which is a story for another time, he's actually a mutant dinosaur.

No, really, his being a mutant is actually a specific plot point in the Fallen Angels mini series, so despite whatever latter day retcons Marvel will assert to assert that he's actually an Inhuman or whatever, we know the truth.

But yeah, unlike your average T-Rex in the Mavel Universe, instead of being green, he's fiery red. Additionally, he's endowed with heightened intelligence (human or higher) as well as superior strength. Yeah, those flimsy little T-Rex arms are actually pretty mighty.

He comes from a place called the Valley of Flame, a prehistoric world which, depending on the era of publication and who is writing is either in Earth's prehistoric past, is in an alternate reality where dinosaurs are still alive, or is on another planet. Marvel currently stands by the multiversal designation of Earth-78411. This despite the fact that Marvel laid its Multiverse to rest last year. Way to commit to your decisions, guys.

The only other people of the Valley of Flame relevant to our discussion are the primitive race of men (homo habilis, according to the wiki) who are divided into two different clans: the Small Folk and the Killer Folk. Take a wild guess which tribe you should be rooting for. Devil Dinosaur's lifelong companion and fellow mutant Moon Boy is a member of the Small Folk and most all their appearances prior to this series were in tandem.

Okay, that's enough backstory: on with the show.

Our story begins with a quote from Dr. Gregory Stock, “humanity is leaving its childhood and moving into its adolescence as its powers infuse into realms hitherto beyond our reach.” Every issue starts with a passage like this from a luminary of the scientific community. I'm not sure how well they all relate to the book's human protagonist, but in this case it is markedly fitting. Presumably having such a young protagonist means that we are embarking on a child's version of the hero's journey, which places a heavy emphasis on the transition to maturity, learning to put the greater good above selfish desires, and "putting away childish things."

Meet Lunella Lafayette of Lower East Side Manhattan. She is a nine-year-old girl genius whose bedroom is wall to wall science. A solar system mobile hangs above her, while posters of Neil Degrassi Tyson and the Moon are hung on her walls. Models of molecular compounds are scattered on the floor and whereas most kids get nagged in the morning to wake up before school, we find Lunella hiding under the covers as she doing science. What is she cobbling together? Why does she feel compelled to hide head to toe under the covers with a flashlight cradled in the small of her neck as she performs presumably delicate mechanical construction? Not a clue, but odds are I wouldn't understand what that thing does without a flowchart.

Sadly, it seems Lunella has applied to quite a few of Marvel's supergenius schools, but has a cork board full of rejection letters. I'm assuming she stamped the huge red "rejected" marks on them herself. They're pretty uniform and I have a hard time believing educators would be that nasty to a nine-year-old.

Lunella's mother is calling from outside the bedroom for her to get moving and ready for school, but Lunella is a lot more interested in working on her device. She asserts that it is the key to solving the biggest problem, maybe even the city. However, Mother Lafayette has her daughter's number and mentions that the schools she has been applying to probably check attendance. And it is hilarious to see just how her eyes widen in terror as she speeds through getting dressed for school and out the door and taps a button on her tennis shoes transforming them into roller skates, helping her beat the clock.

Deployable roller skates? Meh. Next
time try rocket powered roller skates.

And this is our first full view of Lunella's character design. She's African-American and wears her hair, in one big frizzy floof of a ponytail (which defies logic, considering it's more wavy than curly when it's down). She wears  round purple glasses, a t-shirt with the moon on it, khaki shorts, and knee socks, and shorts. I won't lie, I think her design could do with a few more inches on those shorts. I ought to also include her backpack in that description, as any self respecting geeky little kid probably has quite a number of essentials in their backpacks that they cannot do without.

I think she is a little leggy for a nine-year-old. I think an inch further in that direction, I would have been worried that they're trying to sexualize a 9-year-old, but they manage to dodge that by emphasizing her sheer awkward body language as she rushes to school. Seriously, Lunella. You have two free hands and you are a literal genius. Why is that sandwich bag in your mouth?

Lunella arrives just as the bell rings, but her teacher is pretty mean-spirited to her anyway. Yeah, I have a hard time buying how venomously her teacher speaks. Even if a teacher is at her wits end trying to relate to a student, this is not how a teacher would communicate with a gifted-but-problematic student. This is how overly protective parents think a teacher would act. Or, considering we are deep in Lunella's POV, this is how a student with a superiority complex perceives her teachers.

Either this girl is hearing what she wants to hear instead of the spoken
word or this teacher is on the verge of a new career path.

Still, Lunella isn't exactly a prize herself. She may be a child prodigy, but she's still a nine-year-old and has a lot of growing up to do. She actively disengages in the class room, again to her teacher's chagrin, preferring to work on a design for a Kree detector. When the teacher, who calls her "Little Miss Know-It-All" (again, this is how helicopter parents think teachers treat their special little snowflakes), calls on her to answer the question of the theory of evolution, Lunella only begrudgingly responds and instead of answering the question asked, she delivers a small diatribe about why calling it a theory is inaccurate. Of course, she's the only one reveling in her intellectual superiority. The kids all laugh at and taunt her, calling her "Moon Girl."

That night, at the dinner table, her parents try to reach out to her, encouraging her to engage more with her classmates. Make friends. A friend. Then there's this little moment that I'm certain had to be deliberate. As her parents are trying to reach her verbally, her mother extends her hand and we see a panel of her hand not quite reaching her daughter's. It is just a moment of hesitation before she takes it in the next panel, but it makes me wonder whether there is a reason why we see that moment of their hands not connecting yet.

Suddenly, I realize that there might be grounds for an Aspergers reading of Lunella. She's hyper intellectual, avoids eye contact, lacks an ability to pick up on social cues, generally behaves unsympathetically to others, and now this little moment hints at an aversion to physical contact. Of course, this might just be me projecting and could totally be unintentional, but I'm kind of interested in having a protagonist with an Austism Spectrum Disorder, especially if it is eventually made textual and not just left up to the reader to interpret. Granted, I watched the Girl Meets World episode, "I Am Farkle" earlier this week, so perhaps this issue is just floating around my head lately.

Sometimes, having a gifted child isn't exactly a gift.

But she really doesn't see the point in her parents' plea for socialization. She doesn't expect to be at the school much longer and she has much more important objectives in mind, which takes us to later that night.

Almost assuredly past curfew, Lunella is out using her newly minted Kree detector. Her narration hints at the urgency of her project, saying that if she doesn't suss out her problem soon, she won't be human anymore. Juxtaposed against her tablet showing an article on the Kree and a news paper article about the Terrigen Mist and we start to get a clearer picture that she is worried about potentially being afflicted with Terrigenesis. Goddammit. I was really hoping to avoid dealing with the Inhumans after that abysmal Uncanny Avengers arc. Don't get me wrong, I love Ms. Marvel, but the Inhumans really need to get their proverbial peanut butter out of the rest of Marvel's chocolate.

While probably not what she was looking for, she does manage to find something of note in the form of a strange glowing orb with a criss-crossed pair of metallic rims orbiting it that emits a "kree-kree" sound. I'm not certain if it is a Kree artifact, but at least she detected a "kree."

Ladies and gentlemen:
The Main Event!

Ages ago, according to the narration (so we're ignoring the wiki's multiversal designation), we find ourselves in the  Valley of Flame, where the Killer Folk seem to be in possession of  the same glowing do-dad Lunella has found. They call it the Nightstone and they seem to worship it, intending to make sacrifices to it in order to "slake the Nightstone's bloodthirst." Yeah, wondering now what this thing is going to do to Lunella after prolonged exposure...

The Killer Folks' ritual sacrifices are put on hold when who should break up their holy rite but freaking Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy! Yeah, those blood sacrifices? The Killer Folk outsourced them and have a slew of Moon Boy's people lined up for the slaughter. While DD stomps his way through their foes, Moon Boy gets his hands on the Nightstone and intends to take it and bury it where the Killer Folk can't find it. But before he can make a getaway, he finds himself set upon by a bunch of Killer Folk who don't take kindly to Small Folk getting their fingerprints on their murder bauble.

Elsewhen, in the equally inhospitable realm of contemporary elementary school gym class, Lunella has abjured from the dog eat dog world in favor of marveling at her new discovery, which she has not-quite-subtly hid in her backpack. Remember how her homeroom teacher was kinda horrible to her? Well, her gym teacher is a whole lot worse. Not only is he vile to her, publicly shaming her for not joining in the game, but he violates her right to privacy by reaching into her bag and pulling out her "omni-wave projector." Not only does he infringe upon her privacy, but he shows no sense of remorse as he spins the strange device on his fingers, like a basketball, no doubt showing off to a bunch of 4th graders in the hopes of them not realizing he's a loser who has to pick on 9-year-olds to compensate for his own insecurities.

I'll go out on a limb as guess he has a small penis.

Again, I can't help but notice a disconnect within Lunella that might allude to a neuro-behavior disorder. Instead of getting upset about this clear infraction from her teacher, her inner monologue is fixated upon riddling out what exactly she has and what it might be used for. Considering I have a condition in which hyperfocus is certainly a part of the equation and happen to know it's also a symptom of Asperger's, it definitely caught my attention. It isn't until her teacher's actions have "comic book science" implications that we see her reacting to him.

Being both a bit of a bully and a show off, he spins her discovery on his finger like it were a basketball. However, this has some adverse effects as it causes a whirling green vortex to manifest. Nice going, jockstrap.

Back in the jungle primeval, the Killer Folk have Moon Boy surrounded, and he clutches the Nightstone with all his might as they beat him within an inch of his life. However, by the time they've finished with him, what a coinkidink, the Nightstone has vanished and there is another swirling green vortex, which they enter in the hopes of finding their precious totem. Of course, being chased into it by Devil Dinosaur was only a kicker in terms of reasons to enter a mysterious portal.

DD finds Moon Boy on the jungle floor, speaking with a quivering voice. Fairly certain that he is going to die, he beseeches his trans-species lifemate to avenge him, pointing up to the moon as he refers to himself in the third person. It is in this scene that we find what I expect will be the first of many panels (I read the first three issues at once as part of Marvel's Timely line, so I've been able to connect the dots a bit) that will make you look at Devil Dinosaur and say "aaaaaawwwww." His expression as Moon Boy says (presumably) his final words are as tender as any sad puppy's face,

Lunella manages to get her "omni-wave projector" to stop spinning, but is pretty shocked, as are her teacher and classmates, when she is almost jumped by a bunch of Australopithecines. Then she is even more surprised when a giant red mothafucking T-REX with fiery eyes rampages through the portal! There was a time when even I thought one Sharknado was laughable, then each sequel further chipped away my hope for humanity. But one film about a vortex filled with T-Rexes would totally reverse my esteem in the world we live in.

Devil Dinosaur chases the five of them down, tearing through the high chainlink fence of the schoolyard only for the Killer Folk to find refuge down a New York subway, where Devil Dinosaur is far too large to reach. Also, I think he might be a little tangled up in the remnants of the fence. Either that, or due to prior visitations to our time/reality/planet, he has learned only to cross the street at a crosswalk.

Look at those eyes. They'd be wet with tears if they weren't all fiery.

Lunella is apparently not down with his roaring because she yells at him to stop. Smart kid. A real genius. She's maybe 60 pounds soaking wet and she just caught the attention to, as far as she knows, a dangerous prehistoric apex predator (yes, I know paleontologists argue that T-Rex was a scavenger, but fuck that noise). He leans in and sniffs at her while she begs him not to kill her. He acquiesces and instead takes her by the backpack with his teeth and stomps away into the busy streets of Manhattan. Did he sniff something of importance from her? Do Marvel's child geniuses secrete a special pheromone that is catnip to theropods? Or did he make an immediate associate between her and Moon Boy from the moon on her shirt? Wait, didn't she wear that shirt yesterday? Is she like Doug Funnie and has an entire wardrobe of the same outfit? We need answers, Marvel!

And this probably isn't even the oddest think to happen that day in
Marvel's Manhattan.

So, this is exactly what I want out of a non-superhero book in a lot of ways. It has one of my favorite Marvel standards: a child genius who actually acts like a kid. Okay, she isn't exactly a ball of sunshine, but considering kids can be horrible, I think it works. She has a lot in common with Damian Wayne, who is one of my favorite current DC characters for exactly that reason. She's too intelligent to click with her age group, but she lacks the emotional maturity (read: humility) to have a place at the grown up table, either. I also like that despite the fact that her co-lead is a freaking mutant T-Rex, her problems seem smaller in scope than the average current stories I end up reading. This isn't a life or death story with impossibly high, Earth shattering stakes. It's wacky adventure with one very old character and one very new character, both of whom do not fit into the standard comic book protagonist mold. And I cannot wait to continue reading it.

Next Week: Grab a bowl of popcorn and fire up your dvd/bluray player as I take a look at the infamously, comically abysmal final season of X-Men The Animated Series. Bad animation fashion show, here we come!