E is for Extinction, New X-Men # 114-117

words: Grant Morrison
pencils: Frank Quitely

when i heard they’re revamping the x-books again way back 2000, i was thinking of finally ditching my comicbook collecting and well, try to save more money instead. besides, my friend (the one whom i’m buying my comicbooks at) is saying farewell and will be closing his store in baguio for a change in career – in china.

i dunno what happened next but still, i am able to resist my conditioning and bought this together with the other x-books (xtreme xmen, etc).

first pages show cyclops rescuing some mutant kid with 3 pig faces somewhere in australia from a sentinel attack. okay, that’s promising but then realizing how wicked morrison’s mind is. i continued.

it seemed that the human gene is producing new species which we now call mutants. yes. mutants. mutants blooming out of nowhere like mushrooms. before, numbers were a handful till they realized how large their population is. let’s say like around billions.

so how on earth did the xmen find out? thanks to the newest unit the xavier institute have. before it was cerebro, the tracking machine but now, it got a bigger bad ass sister called… wait a second, guess first.

okay, time’s up. it’s cerebra. magnifying telepathic (even latent ones) abilities 10x more.

a spike, jean says but somewhat the very excited professor xaview missed it, neither does the beast who was overwhelmed of their new stuff. (o yeah, did i mention that he looks more like feline now and has 4 fingers for a paw? long story.

that spike was none other than cassandra nova. later issues revealed that she was professor xavier’s twin sister. get this, evil twin sister. mumudrai.

she was near ecuador lecturing some dentist (a trask relative) about evolution and how the evolved humans slaughter the lower species. very graphic is the presentation. you can actually see hands and feet flying.

the poor dentist didn’t do well at the end coz’ cassandra nova was just copying his cells to activate master mold and produce rouge sentinels under her command. finishing him off by piercing his heart. talk about heart break (get it?)

emma “the white queen” frost is introduced here too as a teacher in genosha. bitching actually but she loves her stuff so i guess, she’s pretty much doing good. gone were the generation x days with the banshee.

anyway, cyclops and wolverine were asked to go check the spike which jean saw but got ambushed by the rouge sentinels and were captured. they met cassandra but lost the pig-faced boy in the process as the sentinel burned his body to bacon smell. it was cyclops who gave the killing shot though as he used his eyebeams to end the boy’s agony (he did that? yes!).

they were able to capture cassandra though as wolverine slashed her throat.

before they were able to do so though, she ordered some sentinels to do something… and lifted off.

what did she order? oh nothing special, just to kill off billions of muties and burn genosha. the very island which magneto ruled over.

the xmen and the world were in tears that day. though not all coz’ some racists did like the idea.

cassandra nova is brought to the institute for questioning. while beast and jean went off to genosha to look for survivors. and there they met emma frost holding a dead student. how come she survived while the rest including magneto was a victim of the sentinels? thanks to her secondary mutation, turning herself into a diamond, she was able to see the next day.

back to the mansion, cassandra is a very resourceful woman. she was able to stop the xmen and show them how she mean her business. even the professor wasn’t able to stop her. she managed to get her bald head inside’s cerebra and psychic tentacles came out of her mind.

emma bless her soul, was thinking of helping the x-men all along or was it because she left her louis vuitton bag at the lab? she went back to check on it and snapping cassandra’s head in the way.

you also see prof xavier oulling the trigger and shooting the enemy. hardcore chuck.

so everybody’s safe now.

later that night, jean and cyclops were discussing issues about their marriage. him being possessed by apocalypse which changed his persona and her not standing on his excuse. she feels they’ve been too apart from each other too long already.

then they saw professor xavier appearing on a tv announcing to the whole world what he really is.

“ladies and gentlemen, i am profesor charles xavier and i am a mutant”.

Unstoppable, Astonishing X-Men # 23

words: Joss Whedon
pencils: John Cassaday

joss whedon (buffy, toy story) continues to deliver. he had brought mr. scott summers (aka cyclops) back to the charts.

my favorite x-man, cyclops together with emma frost (the white bitch, err, queen), kitty pride (shadow cat) with her pet dragon – lockheed, piotr rasputin (the not-now-dead colossus), dr. henry mccoy (beast), new student hisako ichiki (armor) and the always cool logan (wolverine) team up with s.w.o.r.d. and danger (sentient being who used to be their danger room’s program) fight against the breakworlders. yeah, another allien race convincing everyone the shi’ar in never enough for the earth’s mutants.

anyway, issue #22 showed how dead cyclops was. breakworld soldiers attack. him volunteering to be left out in space as the rest drop to the breakworld and continue the mission. last page actuallys showed him floating lifeless in the space. is it really vacuum out there, cyke?

but this issue, however, lets readers be amazed how great a strategist cyclops is. all according to the plan. he was brought back to life by the breakworlders’ technology (same process that colossus went through) questioning him what their plans are. it is also explained how his lies/deception against the green metal coated warriors is planted. thanks to telepathy, things were sorted out. they, the enemy, definitely fell for it.

what i loved the most is how his insane calmness, as wolverine says it, is expressed. there you go dead. you wake up realizing how it felt to be.. umm, dead. then you see someone asking questions which makes you dizzy, in pain and is surrounded by alliens (i used the wrong word since cyclops is the allien as far as the breakworlders are concerned). what will you do? just listen and wait till backup comes a knocking.

i wish i have that ability. lol! and have i mentioned that he lost his powers a few issues back? thanks to the insane white queen who left him drooling in bed.

anyway, pissed cyclops explained everything then shoots the executioner with his eyeblasts and said, “to me, my x-men.”
sweet!

Psi War, X-men (volume 2) #: 77 – 78

so i have been reading them books. how about doing the actual review on them? here’s where i start. it’s an old comicbook that i have staring the best(est) x-lady i know, psylocke.

words: Joe Kelly
pencils: German Garcia

elizabeth “betsy” braddock (Psylocke) at her best.

i liked the way the author started the book:

“once upon a time there was a goddess, who in truth was not a real goddess, but a mutant who was believed to be a goddess when she showed she could control the weather. she had a family, all gifted with powers as well, and they were known as the x-men. but one day all the x-men died and she was buried alive in their corpses. the end.“

now, how could you argue with that?

previous issues show storm receiving a mail from ainet (adoptive mother from her tribe in kenya) , storm went off for a visit. sensing danger, asked the aid of psylocke, canonball, wolverine and the 3 new x-men (maggot, cecilia reyes and marrow). with the x-men on low budget, their travel depended on betsy’s newfound powers. thanks to the crimson dawn. they were enveloped by shadows like stepping on a quicksand.

the team got separated with each other as they arrive the place. psylocke and wolverine battled sand warriors but when all’s done, psylocke is left alone. canonball woke up to be in a cave with his dad trying to kill him just because of leaving the guthrie family. storm and the rest found the villagers under some kind of a trance state and saw ainet with a strange creature who introduced itself as the spider god, ananasi, wanting to marry the weather goddess.

this gets complicated as the enemy struck the rest of the xmen with their wants. marrow without her uncontrollable bone growth and maggot free of his slugs (his digestive system actually). ananasi showed himself with his dog, a chained wolverine.

psylocke comes a knocking slicing her way through ananasi. it ws then revealed that ananasi isn’t a god after all. he is a telepath of the high order using ainet to control the sands.

then comes the battle as ananasi strikes back. playing tricks with betsy as storm finally realized how the game is played. ananasi was never after ororo for marriage nor was he after the tribe all along. definitely not to control the x-men. just one thing he wants. and it’s betsy’s power. telepathy.

too late for that as psylocke formed her psychic blade. striking ananasi. have betsy heard what storm have been shouting all along, she wouldn’t have made the biggest mistake of her life.

ananasi’s image faded and exposed the truth. they’ve been fighting at the astral plane with mind connected with another mind, and so on. it was psylocke’s blade that created a chain reaction and propelled in circle, with the speed of thought, and hitting her. a radical psionic event.

to his triumph, ananasi ripped his disguise. he’s none other than the shadow king.

the result of the pyschic blast didn’t just end with betsy. it actually crippled the telepaths on earth. also the other super beings such as dr. strange and spiderman.

and to think, betsy might not have survived the ordeal. thank goodness to her crimson powers, she reverted to being a shadow and slowly rescued storm out of the hole the enemy put storm into. having the feel of the shadow’s powers, it looked like their presence isn’t felt. undetected. this is an advantage, storm is holding on to.

with psylocke back to business, she fought the trickster again as storm (together with ainet) freed the other x-men from the shadow king’s manipulation. marrow’s wild nature led to them being sensed so psylocke sent them back to the real world. now, all alone against the enemy even the great professor xavier had problem dealing with.

true to his name, the shadow king is hard to defeat. psychic battle wouldn’t work on him not unless she improvises and drives the battle to the next level, discovering what weakness the enemy has.

as the shadow king attempts to affect every mind on earth, betsy discovered his nexus, the soul of every person on the psionic plane. this had an effect too on her as she feels what he feels. absolute power.

but of course, we all know what an x-man is all about, being the hero.

betsy got her chance and sends her shadows to consume the shadow king. the enemy screamed in pain but warned her that what she’s about to do will cost her her power. the totality of her focused psychic power created a prison wall to contain the trickster.

as she returned to the real world, storm hugged her.

thanks luv’! (if i’ll get this from betsy, someone shoot me now!)

this left me with question actually. this story meant betsy didn’t have her powers back BUT what about her shadow powers(?).

and have i said that the art rocks? okay, i’ll say, it rocks!