X-Men X-Cess: The Maverick Show

October 5, 2013 The Nerds of Color

Originally posted at Adam WarRock’s tumblr page.

I bought a bundle of X-Men Vol. 2 issues, 1-79, and I am going to read them all and blog about them here.

X-Men #6 — Farther Still
I was obsessed with Maverick as a kid. Seriously. I don’t know why, I just loved the dude’s mask and his general bad assedness. He’s like the Boba Fett of the X-Universe, this dude who is literally there for like, a few issues, then disappears and all he does is own shit while he’s there (which… I guess Boba Fett doesn’t own shit when he’s being tossed into the sarlacc pit, but you know what I mean). Case in point, this issue starts out with Maverick bringing Logan back to life, Pulp Fiction style.

Maverick’s also the thrust of the beginning of the whole modern Weapon X origin storyline with Wolverine. For a guy who’d been around since the 70s, they took a decade-long ramp up to the 2001 or so, to actually tell the MYSTERIOUSSSSS origin of Wolverine, which was always hinted to, most notably leading up Wolverine #50 with this awesome claw marked cover (which actually didn’t answer much about his origin). But these issues give us the history of Maverick, Creed and Logan as some kind of black ops Weapon X team.

Oh man, and here’s like 5 pages of Longshot and Mojo in the middle of the issue. So weird, but also very cool (a story that was coming in like four more issues).

Apparently they were the Fenris Twins in the issue before, so I made a mistake in my last post. I don’t care. And like I said, Shaw, Trask, whoever, white dudes in suits/tuxedos in this universe all look the same (is that racist?). I guess the rest of the issue is the X-Men trying to save Wolverine, and Wolverine having memories.

Oh shit, I totally forgot about ballin’ ass pimp Sabretooth. OK, that deserves a picture. And then he drinks the blood of Gambit. I mean, look, this is an issue with mostly Wolverine memories and an interlude in the Mojoverse. Not like there’s much here to talk about.

X-Men #7 — Inside… OUT!
See, look at those titles. Ridiculous, Jim Lee.

It’s also worth noting that a lot of plots seem to hover around the deus ex machina that telepaths like Psylocke, Jean, Professor X, et. al., take over someone’s mind and they act like fake hostages to get into the enemy’s base. Which I guess is usually to save someone who was captured. Which I guess leads to the next point, that the X-Men probably get captured more than any major Marvel team. Which I guess I liked? I don’t remember why that resonated with me. They go on dates, play basketball, and get taken hostage a lot.

The issue ends with a relatively predictable fight with Omega Red (Betsy psyblades a lot of people, Rogue throws him, Wolverine slashes him, Gambit throws charged things, Cyclops has a moment where he blasts through the wall and they all stand there asking for their captured teammate back, Jubilee stands in a sassy stance). And ends with more mysterious Wolvie origin talk, as he disappears after giving Maverick whatever that thing is that I don’t care.

See ya later Maverick.

UP NEXT: Bishop. Yeah, that’s right. TIIIME TRAVELLLL