INDY REVIEWS
Score: 7 / 10 
New X-Men Book 2: Imperial
Table of Contents
- #118 - Germ Free Generation, Book One of Three
- #119 - Germ Free Generation, Book Two of Three
- #120 - Germ Free Generation, Book Three of Three
- #121 - Silence
- #122 - Imperial
- #123 - Testament
- #124 - Superdestroyer
- #125 - Losers
- #126 - All Hell
Issue One Hundred And Eighteen - Germ Free Generation, Book One of Three
Soldiering on into Morrison's second New X-Men book, we discover growing human unhappiness at the presence of mutants everywhere. Well, yawn. The sodding humans are always going on about the mutants in X-Men comics. If everybody up and came to their senses and started saying stuff like 'Actually, Jean, you're right. Telekinesis is kinda kick-ass cool', we wouldn't have much of a series, would we?
Determined to make the demise of the series a reality is a man named (in a startling break with convention) John Sublime. Sublime thinks mutant powers are gnarly and has encouraged those who share this belief to start chopping up mutants to graft their X-organs onto their wretched Homo Sapiens bodies. Scott and Emma head over to his place to make him stop doing this, claiming he's kinda misunderstood the Professor's 'let humans and mutants live together as one' message. Not one who takes criticism well, Sublime reacts by breaking Emma's nose.
Elsewhere, Wolvie is tracking down a young kid with the astonishing mutant ability to, uh, vomit on people. Oh, and she's also turning into an insect of some kind. Which is perhaps more impressive. Regardless, she's captured by some of Sublime's organ-splicin' henchmen who plan on pulling her wings off when they get a moment. This, of course, is when Logan shows up. So you know there's going to be a bit of a henchmen mess next issue.
MVP: Emma. Before all the nose-breaking went down, Emma, Scott and Jean had tried to calm the angry masses hovering outside the mansion, chanting Pro-Creationist slogans. "Stop evolving!!" they shouted. "Just say 'nay' to DNA!!" Emma's response? To push their, uh, 'bliss buttons' and have them make a mess of themselves, bodily fluids-wise. Which, if you're going to be attacked by a mutant is surely the preferred option.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Nineteen - Germ Free Generation, Book Two of Three
Emma and Scott have been captured by the notorious John Sublime, who in between thinking of good band names (eg ' Liquid Diamond Lipstick'), is preparing an all-out assault on the mansion, which he claims is only protected by 'an uppity redhead' and a bunch of 'gifted children with radioactive acne'. Fair enough assessment, really. Jean has many qualities, but surely 'uppity' has to be well up there on the list of defining characteristics.
She's just chillin' out in the mansion, talking to the unconscious Beast about how she has the sniffles. Beast, who thought the tedious conversations might have come to an end with the departure of the Professor, is left with no choice but to regain consciousness. Alas, Jean's wandered off to read the mind of the bird-thing that beat Beast's head in. This is quite the feat, really, when you think about it, but nobody seems impressed. Pissed, uppity old Jean storms out to the mansion lawn ready to take on Sublime's henchmen.
Elsewhere, Wolvie's rescued Angel LadyBug, some fool teen who is turning into an insect and just vomiting all over everything. The owner of the diner where they're eating takes umbrage at LadyBug's constant puking. "Anybody who don't like my special pork gravy is clearly a stinkin' mutie," he says and starts shooting at Wolvie and LadyBug. They can take a hint and skulk off, leaving only a seven percent tip. Ha, take that, mutant-hater!
MVP: Uppity Jean. No real reason. I'm just impressed with her sustained telekinetic moodiness. Keep it cranky, Mrs Grey-Summers.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty - Germ Free Generation, Book Three of Three
Uppity Jean has had a gutful. John Sublime's cult members have shown up to dissect all the students at the mansion, claiming they're 'out of frogs'. Uppity Jean's having none of that lyin' talk. She knows frogs are a dime a dozen, even with rising oil prices. She summons forth Emma's Quincreeplets, five identical telepathic young girls to whack the attackers psychically. The attackers overcome that with 'synapse block inductors', obviously. Uppity Jean takes this in her standard stride, turns their bullets to origami, then makes them all hurl up their lunches telekinetically. Mmmm... classy. Then she goes a wee bit Phoenix-ey, just as Wolverine rocks up with the vomiting queen herself, Angel Ladybug.
Meanwhile, Emma and Scott are about to be cut up by Sublime's personal mutant-hackin' surgeon. And by 'surgeon' I mean, of course, one of his pitiful cult members who has never had an ounce of medical training in his life (I assume, to save time, that medical training is measured in ounces). This proves to be his undoing. Well, that, and Emma waking up and projecting all kind of mental nonsense into his brain. Emma then confronts John Sublime and threatens to throw him out a window. Scott tediously talks her out of this, as you'd expect. But not as well as he might have, given Sublime still eventually (somehow) plummets to his, like, doom.
Back at the mansion, Wolvie's giving Uppity Jean grief about her turning a little bit flamey. "Last time you lit up like this, the whole universe peed its pants," he correctly points out. Uppity Jean blushes. "Oh, you!" she says, before proclaiming she feels great and in no way an uncontrollable ball of world-consuming Phoenix-fire. Before Wolvie can press further, Beast bursts out. In one of his desperate bids for attention he claims the old dying woman in his arms is Professor X. Everybody rolls their eyes.
MVP: Emma. You break-a her nose, she drop-a you off a building.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty-One - Silence
Morrison flips out again, and can't be bothered writing any actual words for the issue. As an immediate consequence, we have an issue told entirely in pictures, as Uppity Jean and Emma psychically venture into the Professor's comatose mind. Of course, if you're going to venture into Prof X's vicinity, then doing so in an all-silent issue is probably the way to go.
Despite the lack of chat, The Professor doesn't let that hold him back on letting us in on his self-image. For, as Uppity Jean makes her way past his psychic self-defenses into his inner self, she finds a shackled frail man. With, uh, a giant, oversized brain too goddamn ginormous to be supported by aforementioned frail body. "Take that, psychic invader," the Professor is saying. "I'm still the brainiest freaking thing you ever did see." Oh, Professor, your inherent modesty is an example to us all, mutant and human alike.
Delving deeper, however, Uppity Jean discovers some kind of repressed memory of the Professor. Showing off once more, it turns out the Professor can remember back to his time in the womb. Just like Sharon Stone. Closer examination of this memory fragment also reveals the Professor murdered his twin sister with an intrawomb psychic blast. So, perhaps a slightly darker side to Charles than we've previously seen. Also - a fresh take on the whole abortion issue.
The issue ends with Morrison being dragged to his word processor, where he emits one (1) speech bubble for Uppity Jean. "Professor X tried to kill his twin sister while they were both still in the womb. We ought to talk." Which is a perfectly valid summary of the issue, if not much of a cliffhanger.
MVP: Artist Frank 'Quietly'. If Morrison's going to slack off word-wise, somebody has to pick up the slack.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty-Two - Imperial
All right, Morrison's managed to get his word processor working for this issue, so we've got some words to work with. We open with some extraterrestrial clowns (the 'Shi'ar') all wailing and panicking, because Professor Xreepy Bald Chick has taken over their ship. As it turns out, they're right to be a-panicking, because Professor Xreepy Bald Chick mind-controls the ship's self-destruct device and blows it totally up.
Back on Earth in the mansion, Beast has cheerfully adopted the role of expositioner, filling us all in on the whole situation, in case we'd been reading previous issues incorrectly, or while drunk. Also, in fresh news, it turns out Professor X (who is now in Creepy Bald Chick's body, in a startling tribute to the movie Face/Off, or possibly Freaky Friday) has motor neuron disease, a 'kind of rapid Alzheimer's' and a new form of degenerative Creutzfeld-Jacob disease. Also, a mild dose of thrush. So none of it's particularly pleasant. Beast estimates he'll be dead in a week and really poor company within four days.
So everybody decides to focus on solving the problem. Each in their own ways. Beast starts tinkering with John Sublime's U-Men tech to see if he can restart the Professor's immune system. He also starts feeling really rather sorry for himself. (Some gibberish about how he can no longer play the guitar.) Uppity Jean tries to console Beast, but is half-hearted at best. She's heard enough of Hank's version of Smoke on the Water to last her a lifetime. Scott, of course, heads off to China to show off his multilingualism and recruit Xorn and his healing star-head. And Wolverine? He's off to sharpen his claws. Obviously.
We end the issue with one of those Shi'ar fools crash-landing on Earth sans spacecraft and pleading with cows for help. Oh, those wacky Shi'ar!
MVP: Uppity Jean. Just when you think nothing can surprise you in an X-Men comic, Uppity Jean starts wearing her hair in pigtails. She also picks a fight with Scott. So there's still some sense of stability.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty-Three - Testament
It's a typical day in the mansion. Uppity Jean's making a press statement to the assembled media hordes, the dying Professor has mistaken Uppity Jean for his dog, Emma's being snooty, Wolverine's off to the nearest bar to write himself off and one of Emma's Quincreeplets is in love with a giant green alien. Of course, at this stage, she doesn't know he's a giant green alien. She thinks he's a dreamy young Japanese lad. Sad, isn't it, how the giant green aliens always have to hide their true nature in order to get a cheap snog from a blonde schoolgirl?
Despite Giant Green Alien-San's efforts in camouflaging his true visage, the other four Quincreeplets still don't approve of him one iota. Their prejudices can not be overcome with a simple body morph. But in a powerful message for young readers, the girls' blind racial hatred is validated when Giant Green Alien-San leads an attack on the mansion. His co-attackers? Why, those mind-controlled alien fools, the Shi'ar, of course.
If that's not enough fan-hitting for one afternoon, Beast has locked himself away in the basement laboratories for a zany burst of Sunday afternoon research. They don't call him 'beast' for nothin', people. He is pure party animal. Furthermore, he's discovered the 'flu' they've all got is, in fact, an attack on their cellular systems by 'nano-Sentinels'. He tries to tell the others but they're all 'under attack by the Shi'ar just at the minute, Hank' at him, so he sulks back to his microscope. Oh, and Scott? Captured like a total dork while visiting China, as you'd expect.
MVP: It's gotta be Giant Green Alien-San. It's not every alien invader who gets a bit of blonde crumpet as part of the first wave of attack. The finest effort since ET got a virtual snog from a young Erike Eleniak. Kudos.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty-Four - Superdestroyer
Okay. So where were we? Ah yes, Shi'ar attacking the mansion. Well, that's proceeding in typical fashion. Uppity Jean is trying to usher the assembled media into the basement, figuring that's going to be the safest place for them (ie without access to their editors). Strangely, she's trying to get them down there by simultaneously mind-controlling the lot of them, rather than by simply saying 'There are unstoppable alien creatures attacking! Run!! Run for your misbegotten human lives!!!'. Sometimes, possessing mental telepathy means you overlook the simple solutions. But will Uppity Jean listen to reason? Of course not.
On the outskirts of the mansion grounds, Wolverine's staging a more or less lone fightback against the Shi'ar Superguardian Elite. He's doing rather well, too, picking them off one by one in his usual stalking, gutting kind of fashion. Then Beast, tired of Uppity Jean's refusal to listen to him about the nano-Sentinels destroying them from within their bloodstream, heads out to help Wolvie. So, obviously, the tide immediately turns in favour of the Shi'ar, but not before Uppity Jean also assists by kicking one in the stomach for having the temerity to call her 'moody'.
As the Shi'ar close in on the defeated X-Men, determined to sterilise them all (but in a nice way - the Shi'ar leader Gladiator makes that perfectly clear, even extolling to Logan the vocal upsides of becoming a castrato), all looks lost. But then Smasher, The Shi'ar Who Talks To Cows, shows up and reveals the bovine truth about, y'know, the mind-controlling and X-Men innocence and so forth. Gladiator demands an immediate internal inquiry into what would have been a colossal administrative snafu.
Oh, and Scott and Xorn? Loaded up into a cannon about to be shot at the Earth by Lilandra, the previously discussed mind-controlled Empress of the Shi'ar. As you'd expect. Not sure how much damage she thinks she'll do to the Earth by shooting the pair at it. Even if Cyke turns his eye beams on, at best he'll blast a small hole in, say, Kentucky before going splat. But Lilandra's just seen Star Wars and is all Death Star-obsessed. And frankly, nobody's going to talk her out of it. So, Xorn and Scott are left with no choice but to escape on the issue's closing page.
MVP: Wolvie. "No force in the cosmos has ever disabled so many of the Imperial Superguardian Elite" admires Gladiator, after finally subduing Wolverine. Which has perhaps more nobility than Logan's earlier conversation opener: "It's me, you dumb super moron."
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty-Five - Losers
Okay, lots of stuff happening here. Professor Xreepy Bald Chick has just ordered Lilandra, the Empress of the Shi'ar to start attacking most of the galaxy. Some of her subjects are a bit 'uh, isn't this a bit like bringing doom onto all of galactic civilisation?' but others are far more obedient and genocidal. But before the obedient subjects can sensibly lay waste to the troublemakers, Scott and Xorn show up and pick a fight. Professor Xreepy Bald Chick doesn't care. She just wanders off back to the X-Men mansion, but not before totally ragging on Cyclops. "You're broken and dead inside, and it will never be right again," she says. "Face up to it and kill yourself." Harsh, thinks Scott. But the spaceship blows up before he can contemplate her constructive criticism any further.
Back at the mansion, Emma's Quincreeplets have teamed up with Angel Ladybug to rescue, uh, Beak. Beak's mutant power? To look like a chicken embryo! Take that, Homo Sapiens! Down in the bowels of the mansion, meanwhile, there's much squabbling going on between the feverish Uppity Jean, Wolverine and Beast. Hank has come up with a cure for the Professor who remains stuck in Creepy Bald Chick's dying body. But Uppity Jean is convinced it's a trap. "Hank. Listen, you idiot!" she says, showing the tact for which she is so widely renowned. Short of the story is Uppity Jean is convinced Creepy Bald Chick is coming back to the mansion to switch bodies again and curing her dying body will only be helping her out.
Her preferred plan? To suck the Professor's mind out of Creepy Bald Chick's dying body and store it in a little mental cryogenic chamber she's been working on in the back of her mind. 'That's just stupid' seems to be Hank's general POV with regards to this scheme. He fears Uppity Jean's head could 'burst and we'll lose both of you forever'. Dr McCoy, graduate of the Scanners Institute of Medicine. Anyway, Wolvie takes Uppity Jean's side, as you'd expect, leaving Beast with little option but to suddenly declare that he's gay (?). Whatever. Then the Shi'ar Superguardian Elite head outside to stop Professor Xreepy Bald Chick.
They fail.
MVP: Got to be Hank. That's the way to come out of the closet, people!
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Issue One Hundred And Twenty-Six - All Hell
Last issue, we left Scott 'Cyclops' Summers and Xorn 'Xorn' Xorn in an exploding spacecraft. Certain doom, some of the less worldly of you readers might be thinking. But then, you clearly don't know Cyke. His escape plan? To simply run away from the explosion. Brilliant, really. It's a wonder it hasn't been thought of before. Apollo 10, we're looking at you.
Meanwhile, back in the mansion, that Creepy Bald Chick, still in the Professor's body, is finishing off the Shi'ar Superguardian Elite who, frankly, need to lift their game if they want to keep their title. She heads for the mansion, where Uppity Jean has successfully sucked the Professor's mind into her own. This has, however, given her a 'killer migraine'. Fortunately, Scott's 'run from the exploding spaceship back to the mansion' plan has worked. Somehow. Luckily, it seems there was some kind of teleportation device to help him out there. Which surely helps, no?
Xorn cures Uppity Jean of her migraine. He doesn't use his powers for this. He just grabs some Panadol from the first aid kit. But, because that's not enough to satisfy the fanboys, he then starts using his healing powers on her, Scott and Beast and cures them of the nano-Sentinels we've mostly forgotten all about. Beast, typically, is unimpressed and not afraid to say so. "I thought I was the medico on this team," he sniffs. He then sulks off to help Wolvie fight Creepy Bald Chick, which (just like a couple of issues ago) immediately turns the tables against the X-Men. The Creepy Bald Chick goes to kill all the mutants in the world via Cerebra and telepathic attacks and stuff, but instead only succeeds in returning the Professor's mind to the body (via one of Uppity Jean's crazy schemes that nobody particularly followed and which she invented purely as an attempt to show up Runnin' Scott). As a result of this and some Emma sleight of mind, that Creepy Bald Chick is left stranded in a mentally retarded body. Happy days!
MVP: Scott. His calm 'we're going to run away from an exploding spaceship' mindset sets bold new standards for future superheroics and, indeed, middle distance running.
(For a proper analysis of this issue, see Geoff Klock's review)
Next: New Worlds
Begone,
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