X-men has gotten weird.
Today I bought my first comic book in several years: “Wolverine and the X-Men” issue 23, wherein the X-men fight Frankenstein’s monster and his army of zombie clowns. This synopsis is not exaggerated in any way. Additionally, there’s a witch who may or may not also be a zombie frankenstein, it is not made clear within the confines of these 16 pages.
The X-men are no longer the X-men that I thought I was signing up for. Only Wolverine, Kitty Pryde, Storm, and Beast were familiar to me, after whom everything goes all bullshit sideways. Iceman, (it’s important to note that this is Iceman the mutant, not Iceman the top gun candidate. The plot will not hold together well if you keep waiting for him to get into his fighter jet and blow everybody up.) is a teacher at the newly formed Jean Grey School for Higher Learning along with one Rachel Grey, who as far as I’ve been able to gather is a short-haired version of her sister(?) Jean, but is immeasurably lamer in that she isn’t possessed by a space-bird-demon. I’m not sure what they teach exactly as the curriculum was not outlined in this issue, but let’s assume it involves mutantery.
Things don’t really get disappointing until we take a look at the students though. I choose to believe that all the talented youth are at the Xavier institute (I’m assuming that’s still a thing, I don’t even know) and that Jean Grey has set up a sort of “mutants with shitty powers” support group.
I’m not sure if Eye-Boy has any actual powers, but his whole body is covered in fucking eyeballs. I can say with a degree of certainty that this is not a combat-ready mutation. What’s the Juggernaut’s weakness? Psychic assault. What’s Eye-Boy’s weakness? Dust. Eyelashes. Direct sunlight. Lemon juice. Turning on the bathroom light when he has to pee at night. Obese nudists. Conjunctivitis. Literally anything that isn’t eye drops could bring him to his knees. As far as his offensive capabilities go, martial arts of any kind are probably not an option. I cannot, in this moment, conceive of a less effective blunt force weapon than fist made entirely out of eyeballs. I can’t comment on his personality or general likability as a character since I don’t believe he had more than one or two lines of dialogue in this issue, but based on how he’s drawn I will be assuming that he is a total pussy.
Shark-Girl is what I guess we’re referring to as a “were-shark.” I do not know how one becomes a were-shark, but I’m willing to take the process of were-sharkification in stride if someone can explain the mechanics of her respiratory system to me. As you may already be aware, people have lungs while sharks have gills. These are not particularly similar organs, and I can’t think of a way to hybridize them without incorporating a couple more animals. With werewolves, at least there is a shared mammalian ancestry with similar physiology: legs and arms and shit. Crossing sharks and people just seems like a game of incompatible organic matter roulette. Like Eye-Boy, she has very little to say in this issue. I assume that this is because sharks don’t talk, but people do so-as the logical average of the two species-she can talk a little. Because fuck you, that’s why.
Seriously though if someone could explain the Frankenstein crossover story arc to me that’d be great.