The X-Men Review Heard 'Round The Newsgroup!

 

Comics readers who were just getting their feet wet with the Internet as early as the late 1980s and early 1990s may well recall its popular discussion forum, Usenet, which actually had its beginning several years prior but hit its stride when its "newsgroups" were embraced and expanded upon as more and more of the general public found their way onto "the World Wide Web." In time, those groups would migrate to various websites which continue to host them; but until then, they managed to thrive in all their no-frills Unix glory--screens and screens of unformatted text on your monitor, vibrant and active with the wit and thoughts of countless contributors who took an interest in any of the wide variety of categories and topics one could choose from.

Depending on how prolific you were in your writing and how engaged you were in this medium, a benefit of browsing through Usenet newsgroups was encountering those who stood out in this unique crowd and became anchors of a sort in whatever sub-categories you frequented in Usenet's many-branched tree. One of those individuals whose entries I often enjoyed during that time was David R. Henry, a man then in his late 20s (about ten years younger than myself) who originated the "xbooks" group embedded in alt.rec.arts.comics (an example of the tree-like nomenclature of newsgroups) and whose comics reviews were frank, sarcastic, incisive, and delightfully riveting, while at times unsparing in his blunt observations when warranted. In the case of Marvel Comics, the stories that were churned out in the mid-'90s were arguably deserving of that bluntness, the company's financially floundering ship seemingly rudderless in terms of the questionable quality of its stories produced during this time.

Yet rather than damning, Henry included a combination of sarcasm and humor to make his points--good ones, at that--and more often than not you would find that those points were often right on target. Below, you'll get a chance to determine that for yourself concerning one particular X-Men issue: Henry's review of X-Men Unlimited #4 from March 1994, an article in my memories now for over 25 years and of course by this time reproduced in a number of outlets on the web. Only this time, you'll find included selected images from the issue, which were not allowed in the original postings of Usenet but which will serve here to highlight Henry's descriptions of the story's content. (Though I believe you'll agree that Henry's adeptness in that regard is far from lacking!)

Going in, you might also bear in mind that, until companies such as AOL, CompuServe, et al. came along and offered their own forums (to say nothing of third-party message boards), Usenet's newsgroups were the go-to destination for online discourse by not only those who sought a niche in which to air their opinions, but also those who were the very talent behind the books, shows, and films that were being bandied back and forth in postings. As such, there was good reason for these newsgroups to establish a character or line limit to individual posts, since many users hadn't yet found the value of brevity in their writings. Such will prove to be the case with Henry's mixture of diatribe and humor here, which, as many of us can attest to from our own writings from our 20s, had yet to evolve to a more concise approach.

Yet Henry's article is quite a read as is*--and overall, hopefully an enjoyable one which provides a glimpse of what it may have been like to be a Marvel reader in 1994, come hell or high water.

*A few minor misspellings have been corrected.

---

X-Men Unlimited #4

"Theories of Relativity"

Writer: Scott Lobdell, blowing his good will to pieces
Pencils: Richard Bennett
Inks: Steve Moncuse
Colors: Glynis Oliver, a ray of hope in the darkness
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Kelly Coverse, under BOB/Tom

I am really getting tired of stupid villains.

That may seem like a strange thing to say in a X-Man newsgroup. Because, yeah, I know -- this isn't Cerebus. This isn't Grendel. This isn't some high-falutin' alternative rant on the power structure of the dispossessed. It's a superhero comic, dealing with bad guys with silly names parading around in capes and being beat senseless by strong-jawed good guys. Okay, fine, I accept that. When I read a X-Man comic, even though I know it could be more, I know the current target ideal for Marvel isn't the high standards of Sandman, or From Hell, or what have you. It's to provide a little bit of social commentary disguised as a rousing conflict between Evil and Good. Fine. Accepted.

With all of that, nothing of the above automatically disqualifies any of these minor, inconvenient plot points:

--Believable characterization

--Lucid plots

--Intelligent villains played intelligently (dumb ones should be dumb, of course, but just perhaps we should be able to tell the difference, right?)

--Good storytelling.

There. All I ask for from any story, be it a campfire ghostly-ghoulie, a comic book, a movie, or what have you. Those four things. Actually, just the last thing. The others are the candy that shapes the cake, if you will. The force behind the hammer. The columns under the roof. And so on.

Now we come to X-Men Unlimited #4.

[pause while there is a deep, weeping intake of breath]

 

I could go through the issue on all four those points, but I just don't have the strength any more. So, I'm going to focus on one particular: intelligence. Whether of the characters or the plot or the creative staff, join me now in a detailed journey into Mystique, Rogue, Nightcrawler, and the hair stylist they all share, in this:

~~~Theories of Relativity!~~~

Plot: Mystique is threatening the life of General Armond Guadier, whom she has caught providing -- "I'm sorry, allegedly providing" -- the Friends of Humanity with weapons to nuke mutants. She sneaks into his office, and proceeds to hold him at gunpoint by leaning over him and planting her foot on his chest while he's in his chair. Now, you or I would probably find that an uncomfortable position to hold for a three-page soliloquy, let alone in high-heels, but as the cover to Unlimited #4 shows, Mystique's legs are now three-quarters the entire height of her body, easily allowing her such fancy stunts.

The general, obviously too overcome with the sight of those legs, doesn't throw Mystique off his chest by getting up and fighting for the gun. No, that would presume intelligence, something we'll see is obviously in high demand in this comic. Instead, he sits there and allows himself to be beat upon by Mystique until she kills him -- tough breaks, dude -- so Graydon Creed will "get a message" that she doesn't like being hunted by Sabretooth (in the Sabretooth limited series).

Ah, yes, Graydon Creed. Who spends his time in a mansion in France, despite being the purported head of the Friends of Humanity, a "grass root" organization in the United States. Who dreams of joining the United States Congress and doing Nasty Things to mutants in the country afterwards (apparently Robert Kelly no longer fits the bill for generic X-Congress foes). Who beats his informants into a pulp just because he doesn't like their news -- and still has people working for him. The economy must be shot in France.

Creed is upset as Unlimited #4 begins. Apparently being a borderline psychotic is tiring work. He is drawn to Washington, D.C. to attend the funeral of the general, where Forge (yes, Forge) has already placed Rogue and Nightcrawler in the crowd. Why? Apparently X-Men don't need to be told why, or even what they should look for. Forge just tells them to be in the crowd. Not what to do. Just be there. And, dum-de-dum, off go Nightcrawler and Rogue. Duh, sure boss.

Mystique is there, disguised as a priest who interrupts the eulogy with a sudden recitation of the general's sins, to say nothing of a bomb strapped to the cadaver's chest. While Rogue goes into action to save the innocent bystanders, Mystique beats up Nightcrawler to tell him to meet her at "home -- Rogue should remember."

What is this about messages in this comic? Forge doesn't tell his field team what they're supposed to do, even though he admits to knowing why they're being sent there, and Mystique not only doesn't tell Kurt why he has to meet her at home, she feels the need to beat him up instead of just telling him to his face! (Why do mutants never use a phone call for these sort of conversations?) Heck, if someone just suckerpunched me, my first reaction to them inviting me to some place that they don't even specify to continue the conversation would be "Yeah, right. Screw you, Magoo." But, Mystique is apparently convinced that Kurt will not only be motivated to follow her, but that the message won't get garbled and Rogue won't make a mistake and that they'll all decide that they don't have anything better to do.

Okay, so she taunts him with the evidence of his heritage. Why he can't just talk to her in some neutral place, where reasonable people would do it, is beyond the point of this book -- the plot requires that the characters end up in Caldecott County, so, damn it, they're going to end up there. This is the sort of place where most hack writers spit on their hands, crank up the wind machine, lower the flying goggles over their eyes and pose majestically over their word processor, crying "Plot be damned!" Unlimited #4 doesn't even have a plot to damn, though, so we just have to be content with Mystique then vanishing into the crowd of fleeing people, while Rogue flies Kurt out of there.

And Creed? Creed continues to show that his main concern should be keeping his brain from flowing out of his ears, not running for Congress. Captured by Federal guards and brought before Forge, Creed denies everything, and then -- and this is priceless -- _threatens_ Forge, a government agent, in his own office, promises to "purge the genetic aberrations that are destroying the quality of human life on this planet" aloud, and then says he wants to see Forge publicly executed by hanging... and then walks out, unhampered!

Man, has this guy learned _nothing_ from Watergate? Heck, was Lobdell even alive when it happened? What serious contender for public office would EVER say that aloud, especially in an office of an acknowledged enemy of his? Creed is supposedly a major political player in the Marvel United States, although with his observed intelligence maybe taking over Romper Room would be a more believable goal. Do you have any idea how much money 60 Minutes would pay for a tape of that conversation? How much HARD COPY would pay? The guy would be so deep in doo-doo that a horde of Purple Men working on his campaign spin wouldn't be able to save him. How could anyone sensible say such a thing when the threat of taping is so obvious?

If the point is that Creed is such a psychotic that he just wouldn't think of that, then how has this anger escaped the notice of the press corps, who are even capable of digging up hidden half-brothers and ex-highway patrolmen who have grudges? And anyway, isn't threatening a federal officer, which Forge is, with death, which Creed does twice, a crime? Why is it that it's the fans who are thinking of such obvious questions? Why aren't the writer or the editors doing this?

Ah, but such considerations are not for us. Not this book. Forge is spying on the conversation, of course, but heavens forbid that he should have some sort of tape to ruin Creed's career with. Nope, Forge has just arranged to have Nightcrawler and Rogue overhear the conversation. And then Rogue says, right there on the page they're revealed:

"What was the point of having us eavesdrop on this little encounter?"

He didn't even tell them why again! He just said, "Here, stand in this closet." And they did it! No questions. No wonderings. Man, I want to play a game of Simon Says against these people for millions of dollars. "Rogue, go jump in that volcano. Nightcrawler, hold your breath until you die." "Sure!" "Right away!"

No, "gee, can't we just listen in by microphone... maybe there'll be a _slightly_ less chance that we'll be discovered?" Just Forge, saying something, and those two, just going, "Huh. Sure, dude."

And there -- same page as the above quote (what is it, page 24?), just in case the point has not been completely made utterly clear, Nightcrawler follows up Rogue's deep observation with:

"What I question is exactly what do Rogue and I have to do with any of this?"

[sound of exploding brainpan]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. When the characters themselves are complaining about the plot, you know something's wrong.

Gack. I'm sorry. It's just that I've always been under the illusion that Nightcrawler and Rogue are sentient, thinking beings, who often perform better when actually told what they're supposed to do. Instead, we get Forge acting like some reject from spy-master school, playing manipulative games with their minds and refusing to tell them what's going on. For what reason? Is there any, at all, humanly possibly character-motivated reason that a man wouldn't tell his field team information that would help them in their quest (assuming it wasn't a suicide mission)?

None I can think of. Hold on a minute... I've been typing these last few paragraphs with Creed's ugly mug from page 23 glaring at me from near the keyboard, so I'm going to flip the page...

Ah! Much better. Okay, the real reason, of course, is that the revelations that Forge should be telling Rogue and Nightcrawler can't be revealed to them because Scott Lobdell, writer, needs them to be the shocking truths revealed at the end of the comic. So it's a ham-handed way to get the plot going to where he thinks it should go, instead of having Forge tell the pair the truth about Mystique and Creed (which he knows), and having them deal with it as thinking adults for the rest of the issue. It's dumb, it's Manipulative Writer Copout 101, and it's just plain bad writing.

But, hey, we're not even to the staple yet! After a bit more meandering, where Rogue and Nightcrawler _again_ stress they don't know why they should be doing this (Forge should be selling Clinton's health care plan, not wasting away in some mutant affairs office, based on this comic), and Forge tells them "Just do it," everyone hies off for the Deep South. Ours is not to wonder why, eh, Forge? Oh, not before Forge also reveals that the totally psychotic Mystique of Uncanny #289-302 was just bad writing. Well, he doesn't phrase it that way, but that's how it turns out with this bugger of a retcon: now she wasn't really insane, she was just _acting_ insane so Forge would take her into his care so she could copy stuff from his computer files! Boy, if the plot's not working one way, just go back and make it look better in hindsight, huh? And it's a good thing Xavier didn't notice her just play-acting insane with those powerful telepathic brainwaves of his, wasn't it?

But anyway... to Mississippi. Wait... wait a minute, I hear something... something... voices! Voices talking... like I'm psychic... it's, wait, they're saying... um, I see a spaceship, and some guy, leaning in a chair, and, and...

Captain BOB: Scottie! Scottie! I need those retcon cannons up NOW!
Scottie L: B'cap'n! I dinnae think the plot c'n take much more of this!
BOB: Damn it, Scott! There's a large piece of characterization coming right at us! I need those retcons NOW!
Scottie: Cap'n! Jus' give me ten more pages! Y'cannot change the laws of fiction!
BOB: Mr. Scott, we're almost approaching the Deadline. We CAN'T wait any longer!
Scottie: >Sighs< Aye, C'pn. Retcon cannons on.
BOB: That's it, Scottie! More power. MORE power!

...fizzle... no, THIS one is art, THAT one is soup... zzzSSSZzzs... In springtime, the only ringading time, birds sing, hey ding... >POP!<

Whoa! Gotta lay off those late night pizza orgies. Where was I? Oh. Unlimited #4.

Sigh.

Okay, we're into the Deep South by now -- don't look back, but Graydon Creed is following our heroes in his private aircraft -- as Rogue flies Nightcrawler into Caldecott County, her homeland.

We now enter the only decent part of the book, even if it completely contradicts everything we've learned about Rogue so far. It's indicative that in its best scene, Unlimited #4 can't even get its facts right. Rogue gives us the scene where she supposedly meets Mystique, and she looks adorable in her overalls and shotgun. The trouble is here that Lobdell says Rogue doesn't meet Mystique until after she's kissed Cody -- but then in the flashback, she appears about nine or ten (she was in her teens with Cody), plus it's already known that she was already living with Mystique before she kissed Cody (it's even been shown in the backup stories in Classic X-Men).

It's a cute scene, to Lobdell's credit (and he doesn't get much for this issue), but it's to his and BOB's discredit that they not only don't catch these contradictions, they apparently don't even care about them. Plus, Rogue's original quote (don't ask me where, I don't do issue numbers) as to what happened after The Kiss was "I ran and ran and ran." In fact, she ran all the way back to the house where she, Mystique, and Destiny were living. In the unusual hallucination which is Unlimited #4, though, she and Cody spent _three days_ unconscious beneath the old swinging tree before the town people found them. Are we to assume that Rogue is now a sleepwalker of legendary status? And, by the way, how exactly did a bunch of young kids survive three days without food and water anyway?

But, hey, that's okay, because as long as he's ignoring one character's established history, Lobdell's decided to go all the way and ignore everybody's! Man, equality knows no boundaries, you know that? Nightcrawler is now no longer left with the Gypsies by some dying woman, who comes staggering out of the night -- Mystique (oh, you do know she's his mother now?) throws him off a cliff as a baby to save herself from a crowd of mutant haters.

You might ask yourself -- is this the same woman who was incapable of hurting a _robot_ of Nightcrawler because of the love she feels for him in Uncanny #176? Who now gloats that she never felt anything bad about it? Hey, this is LobdellLand; please check your characterizations at the counter. Mystique has to be a baddie in this one, because that's what the plot says. So, now we get Mystique as Lady Psycho. An interesting twist on Mystique's character, since up 'till Claremont's departure, one of the most _together_ people in Marvel was Mystique. About her only doubts were how to best raise Rogue properly. The rest of the time, she was one of the coolest, smoothest, sanest operators out there, who put together a team that could defeat the Avengers, and _did_. Now, suddenly, she's Raving Raven, chuckling about how she loved throwing Nightcrawler over a cliff, and babbling about how she doesn't know what her true identity is.

Okay, maybe the death of Destiny unhinged her. I could, maybe, possibly, with a lot of prodding and large neon pointers, accept that. But there hasn't been any motivation like that in the books. There hasn't been any sign that, now, Mystique has _ever_ been sane. Which makes me wonder when this newest Skrull will be unmasked.

Oh yeah -- plottage. Graydon has finally caught up to our heroes, and attacks Kurt (I was waiting for him to attack Rogue, so we could watch another underpowered bozo beat her up without breaking a sweat), but miracles of miracles, Kurt actually defeats him. Not before we're treated to far too many pages of a Creed soliloquy, though, which manages to pack all the emotion of a phone book with the clarity of a tax form into just under three pages.

Meanwhile, Rogue has taken this advantage of not being in the plot to try to fly away before Lobdell can find her again. Too bad, she doesn't get nearly far enough; by page 38 she's back in the limelight again (cheap Rogue puns are my only way through this next section. Bear with me, folks). Rogue briefly comments on how arbitrary X-character characterizations have become since the X-Odus ("When the characters themselves are complaining..."), and then we get her continuity-twisting flashback back to The Kiss.

Somewhere around here Mystique and her boys show up. Everyone is apparently deeply confused after having all their pasts rewritten, since after a bit of more flashback, Graydon makes the mistake of opening his mouth again, and they all let him. Man, this guy makes Reagan seem like Einstein.

Okay, having filled some forty pages deftly without once having to resort to a plot, it's time to end the book! So, in comes the helicopter, dakka-dakka-dakka. Much flames and booms, and Kurt and Mystique find themselves hanging from Rogue's old swinging tree, while Graydon and his mobile grass-roots weapons platform have themselves an air-to-air discussion with Rogue.

And here, at last, Lobdell tops himself. After fifty pages of cretinous dialogue, dirge-like pacing, and motivations so goofy you could stand them upside-down and they'd make just as much sense, who could guess that the crowning stupidity of the book would take place at the very end? After everything else that he managed to cram into this issue, there was still room at the end for this, as supreme a bit of threatless climax as was ever penned:

The Blue People are hanging from a burning rope over the Mississippi. I note with interest that Bennett, on page 50, apparently believes the lower Mississippi has large waterfalls which people can conveniently plummet into. While we send him to history class, to cleverly explain just how those paddlewheels made it from Ohio to New Orleans on his Mississippi, we now face the harder task of explaining Lobdell's climax.

Once again, the Blues are hanging by a rope over a waterfall on the Mississippi (why ask why?). Nightcrawler has been stunned by the attack of the helicopter, and risks plummeting into the, um, rock-strewn depths of the churning Mississippi. Mystique is too far away to help him, let alone the plot. Meanwhile, Rogue has managed to get her hands into the enviable position of being around Graydon Creed's neck. Damn! Itchy trigger finger!

Well, that's the way I would have ended the story. But here, she makes the mistake of letting him open his mouth again. And Creed makes a statement so utterly stupid that it's only Lobdell's apparent matching cluelessness that prevents this issue from having a happy ending. Well, that, and Marvel not including a "If you finished this issue, send in this coupon for a complete refund" coupon at the end of the book, of course.

Creed: "You can't drag me back to D.C. by my throat... AND save my mother and brother from death!"

Okay, let's review the situation one more time. I like being clear on things when my brain hurts. It helps me be sure it's the world that's all wrong, not myself. Mystique and Kurt hanging by their fingertips over some sort of pit. Check. Rogue with Creed in hand. Check. Creed being an idiot. Oh, yeah. Double check. Rogue with the ability to lift over fifty tons, fly faster than the speed of sound, and having two hands, and room for tucking someone under her arm, considered.

Check? Check, please? Please, waiter, I'd like to leave.

Rogue, the next page: "T'ain't no way I can save them both from tumblin' to the river below!"

Rogue. Darling. Dear. Woman-whom-I-have-founded-a-fan-club-for. You have two hands, two arms, and one brain. Use them. Throttle Creed, so we won't have to listen to him. Tuck him under an arm somewhere. He can't weigh that much, he has a vacuum in his head. While you're leaving, place an off-hand kick on the helicopter. They don't fly so well when they're upside down. Fly, at your supersonic capability, down to Mystique. Oh, darn, Creed looses his hearing from the sonic boom. Pick her up in your free hand. Have your mother, or yourself, with your other free hand -- you're only carrying no more than 500 pounds, which should be like getting bread out of the freezer -- grab Nightcrawler. Fly away.

Here's another possibility. While you were still holding Creed, get a good two-hand toss on him and launch him straight up in the air. You once threw the Blob over a mile, so you should be able to get near-orbit on a lightweight like Creed. Go down and save your family, which, now with two hands free, should be even easier. Deposit them safely on shore somewhere, briefly ponder where that waterfall came from, and then gently catch Creed as he plummets back to earth. Or let him crack his skull open, that's always a possibility. What's that? Worried about the helicopter's weapons? Well, the machinegun can't hurt you, and anyone firing a air-to-air missile at point blank range has more problems than even this plot.

Another one: throw Creed in the river. Save family as before. Fish Creed out of river. Wonder about waterfall, et. al.

Another one: Oh, come on. Do I have to think of everything around here? There's supposedly some thousands of people who read rec.arts.comics.xbooks, and every one of them should be able to come up with a unique way Rogue could have shut Creed up, saved the Blues, and still come out with any more dignity than she did in this howler. Those of you interested in home assignments may consider this a challenge.

After this, there's nothing left but the weeping and the wounded. Creed limps away, to froth again another day. Mystique supposedly sacrifices herself into the raging, mountainous cataract that Mark Twain called the Mississippi so Rogue won't have to make the hard decision of "Who to save?" (The answer, as shown above, is so numbingly simple they could, possibly, use this issue at dentist offices.) Rogue and Kurt fly away, over the vast countryside. Do they look for Mystique? Bodies float, you know. She could be, you know, alive, or something. Just in case? Show some, you know, emotion about their real or adoptive mother? Heck, no. They happily fly away, knowing that in any comic this bad dead ain't dead unless it's the plot. And look at the line Kurt gets at the end:

"I'm afraid it may be a long time before anything will be 'fine' again."

TRY and tell me that isn't ironic.

Evaluation: I am a man with a large vocabulary, even if I have trouble spelling half of it. I have rather rich and active descriptive powers. I own four thesauruses, I have a collection of old dictionaries, and I don't shirk at creating new words if somehow the ones I have in my arsenal aren't enough. Despite being this well-prepared, I am forced to admit to an amazed, awe-struck defeat when presented with X-Men Unlimited #4. There aren't enough synonyms for shit to properly define the book to its true wretchedness.

This isn't just bad. Friday the Thirteenth Part Six was bad. This isn't just stupid. Johnny Storm waking up next to a Skrull was stupid. This isn't just a hack job. Harry Stephen Keeler's "The Case of the 16 Beans" is a hack job. X-Men Unlimited #4 is, without a doubt, perhaps one of the worst pieces of anything I own. And I collect "bad" pop art. I relish the weird, the unusual, the offbeat. I enjoy "disreputable" art forms, like pulp detectives, comic books, popular science magazines. I have a collection of _infomercials_ by my VCR for my viewing pleasure, for pity's sake. And X-Men Unlimited #4 has nothing to recommend it. Nothing.

Not a bit of wit. Not a bit of whimsy. Not in writing, art, or editing. Not in colors, composition, or design. Not in characters, plot, or dialogue.

I used to think Scott Lobdell was the best thing to happen to the X-titles in a long while. Now, he's going to have to damn well write the Watchmen of X-titles to win me back to his camp. This isn't an occasional slump, or a hurried one-off. This is bad. Real bad. So bad you could fit large, bloated mammals through the plot cracks. So bad that there ain't no excuses for it.

There is no plot. Flying down to the waterfalls of Mississippi to get confusing retellings of your past is not a plot. The motivations, especially with Forge's "Get-A-Clue" spymaster routine, are so terrible that even the characters are complaining about them. The reason why that little saying, "When the characters themselves are complaining..." usually works, is that when a bad writer has himself written into a place which looks so ludicrous that even he realizes the audience is going to go, "Yeah, right," it's just natural for a character to speak up going "But why...?" so that whoever's Mr. Exposition in the scene can quickly make up some flimsy excuse to the effect of "No, really! The plot is _supposed_ to go like this!"

There was no human reason for Forge not to tell his operatives what to expect going in. If he wants them to be effective -- heck, if he likes them as friends -- he'd tell them himself. Hey, you just found out the identity of one of your good friend's mother, who's been missing all these years. Do you tell him yourself, or wait until a raving lunatic can hunt him down in his assault helicopter and trust the lunatic to spill the beans? Yeah, that's what I thought.

The climax isn't one -- anyone who's even picked up Rogue's entry in the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe can think up plenty of ways she could have saved everyone. That makes what passes for the emotional revelations at the end of the book, that Mystique only does anything just to suit herself, even more false and bogus than it already is based on her previous appearances.

Of course, given Unlimited #4's blithe disregard for previous appearances, I guess we shouldn't be too picky, huh? Okay, fine. Take out the clumsy retcons, assume all the flashbacks in Unlimited #4 took place as written, and you still have a shoddy, unworkable, incomprehensible slug of a script. Luckily, if turnabout is fair play, future Marvel writers will blithely ignore Unlimited #4 as much as it did established continuity.

And I haven't even mentioned the art yet. Richard Bennett draws people who apparently scrub their faces daily with steel wire mops. The action scenes are cleverly made confusing enough that the pathetic script has no chance of clueing the reader in to what is going on. It's muddled without being stylistic, and terrible without being bad. In short, if you had to pick an artistic job that matched Lobdell's efforts for Unlimited #4, you'd be hard pressed to pick a better match than the stuff Bennett turned out.

And, believe it or not, as long as I'm here... yeah, I'm gonna do a Page Count. Believe it or not. BTW, Unlimited #4 does not have numbered pages, perhaps in a misguided attempt to protect the innocent. That's to no avail -- I'll start at the beginning and count to the end, skipping advertisements and not including them in the tally. Bring out yer dead!

THE PAGE COUNT

Page 2-3: It's a good thing Army training doesn't cover such dangerous tactics as Getting Out Of Your Seat. Otherwise, Mystique could have been in big trouble.

Page 4: Note that reference to a "grass roots movement". It will become damning... uh, that is, important, later.

Page 7: I just noticed -- Unlimited #4 is remarkably clear of Lobdell's usual oppressive captions. If this is what we get if he doesn't use them, keep them in, man, keep them in!

Page 10: He lied! Oh, oh, hold my sides. The wit.

Pages 15-16: By Hastur, Bennett draws a needlessly cluttered page. The familiar feeling at the back of Rogue's neck is hair, btw.

Page 17: Arlington graves don't look like that. While I'm here, is it out of place to wonder about any sort of honor guard who would open up, all with automatic weapons, in a place of honor and respect like Arlington National Cemetery? Just wondering.

Page 18: Note Mystique's thought balloons. Did she plan this or didn't she? She knew there'd be someone there to defuse the bomb, but she's surprised to find Rogue there. Can't we get the plot contradictions to at least take place on different pages?

Page 26: Wow, a private aircraft! Keen! Wait a minute. [Sounds of confused paging through the issue] Didn't General Guadier call Friends of Humanity a "grass roots" organization? Why, yes he did. And wasn't there some big brouhaha a year back or so over large charities and grass roots organizations siphoning their money away from their charity/activist work to buy perks for their bosses? Why, yes there was. Given this, what the hell is Creed doing running around in a private _gunship_? If all of the FoH is in on the joke, then why hasn't the rest of the world caught on? It's not like Creed's the toughest guy to outsmart. Oh, I almost missed this killer piece of dialogue: "Of course. I should have figured it out on my own." Graydon. Pal. You still wear underwear with the left and right legholes marked out for you. Don't strain yourself.

Page 38: "Ah don't get it. Never have... and Ah'm beginning to doubt Ah ever will." Rogue, when anyone figures out Unlimited #4, we'll Fed-Ex you the results.

Page 47: Graydon's so-called "scorched Earth" order is about as effective as the rest of his plans. If Mystique really was thinking, she'd point out that a far better thing to do, in a take-no-prisoners, don't-worry-about-me type affair, especially when there's a powerhouse like Rogue in the area, would be to launch a couple of large air-to-surface missiles from a couple of klicks out, instead of bothering with this "hover in the area and fire a machinegun" nonsense. I hear white phosphorus is especially popular with grass roots organizations nowadays, and a few high-explosive missiles with the original anti-personnel vision deterrent would take out the more mortal mutants in the area, and mess up Rogue bad enough that you could close in with anti-mutant snark pistols and end it right there. Boy, it's a good thing that a paramilitary grass roots organization like the Friends of Humanity doesn't have anyone with Boy Scout training to offer tactical advice, isn't it?

Page 48: If Rogue _did_ drag Creed back to D.C., would there be a chance he'd be removed from the timestream in Zero Hour? I'd buy that issue.

Rating: This book is without one single thing to recommend it. That trees died to create this is a sin. That thinking beings supposedly worked on producing it is shocking. That it was accepted by any editorial staff capable of reading English is scandalous. The only reason to buy this book is if, in so doing so, you deny yourself money that would otherwise be spent on self-destructive habits like cocaine, crack, or Magic: the Gathering. And it still would come very close to a zero-sum tradeoff. Utterly the worst X-issue published since the X-Odus. If there is a worse comic published by Marvel before the end of the century, they are in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. In short, I didn't like it much. And as soon as I think of a number significantly negative enough to give it, I'll rate it.

"I have no comment. But, please, go hurt yourself." --Richard Darwin

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David R. Henry-Rogue Fan Club//NodaKon is coming! Xbookers email for more.
"All you of Earth are IDIOTS!"-P9fOS / What was the question? -- Kate Bush
Evolution: Give it some time, it'll grow on ya.