Remember back in 2010 when the new X-Men flagship title was announced and everyone went “Yay!” before they found out it was going to be a vampire story and lost their shit like Nuv at his Sweet 16 party? Here’s some quotes pulled from message boards WAY before the first issue ever came out:
“Way to dick-ride Twilight Marvel!”
“I already told my local comic shop that I didn’t want this.”
“GIMMICK!”
“Marvel has jumped the shark.”
“[Dracula’s original outfit will] come back when this sham of an idea goes tits up.”
“What’s wrong with Nuv’s face? Was he splashed with acid or something?”
And of course you had Mark Millar whining his nuts off that Victor Gischler stole his idea and a bunch of other wonks whining that it doesn’t follow the continuity of an MI:13 / Captain Britain storyline that happened a year ago or something. Let me address these two concerns by telling Mark Millar to shut his stupid face and by chuckling at the losers who still read Captain Britain comics.
X-Men: Curse of the Mutants RULED and here are nine reasons why.
1. The Introduction
How do you infect a bunch of dopes (and one very important ex-mutant) with a vampire virus? Dress up one of your minions Nuv Takhar Saturday-night S&M style and detonate him in the middle of a public square. Man, I wish I could detonate Nuv in a public square. Oh snap!
2. Wolverine Actually Gets Stabby
You know what sucks? When companies make their comics (and invariably, movies) overly PC by making sure their bad-ass characters never get to go full bad-ass. Wolverine has always been a classic case. Oh, I’m not going to stab that guy because blood scares kids so I’ll just cut the rope on the chandelier and maybe that will fall on him or something TOTALLY WACK! Luckily, all bets are off when it comes to this book and that’s what makes it awesome!
3. Blade!
Okay, I didn’t see any of the Blade movies but I hear they were pretty decent. ANYHOO, if you’re going to write a story as over-the-top as Vampires vs. Mutants, why not bring in the motherflippin’ Daywalker to help out? The best thing about the character (and I know Nuv will agree with me here) is his vintage 1970’s Village People moustache.
4. Vampire Jubilee Looks Good
Unlike Nuv’s Mom, I’ve never cared one way or the other about Jubilation Lee. But I could be convinced if this business keeps up. ‘Nuff said.
5. Dracula Drops the Skeeziest Line Anyone Has Ever Dropped on Emma Frost EVER.
And the fact he did it just to piss off her boyfriend Cyclops is just the icing in the cake. God I hate Cyclops. Of all the X-Men to ever get killed, why couldn’t they do it to Scott Summers and JUST THIS ONE TIME IN THE HISTORY OF COMIC BOOKS, make it stick?!
6. Blade Loves Gaga
Angel finds out that you can’t read his poker face.
7. Iceman Gets Blessed
What better way to fight the unholy undead than get your watery self blessed by a priest before throwing ice shards into the hearts of your vampire foes? God damn there is no reason why anyone should like this corny comic but it’s just so fun! It makes me sad because I’ll probably never have as much fun reading anything until Nuv’s obituary gets printed in the paper.
8. And Speaking of Corn…
The dialogue through these six issues is torn straight from the cliché handbook. Gischler hits every standard phrase imaginable from “Rip ‘em apart!” to “What are you waiting for?!” to “You’ve got to break eggs to make omelettes.” Sure it’s silly, but it’s not stupid in the way Nuv is stupid.
9. Jubilee is Left a Vampire
For those who don’t know, Jubilee lost her powers when the Scarlet Witch wiped out most of the mutants back in House of M and she hasn’t really done anything but mope about it since. So the fact that she’s a vampire with a super bad temper now completely revitalizes the character. Way to not return everything to the status quo Gischler!
Well, there you have it.
– Ian
P.S. OH WAIT! I forgot to mention the art itself! If you’ve checked out any of the images that accompanied this post, you’ve already seen for yourself that Paco Medina is an absolute CHAMP with the pencil. In fact, I’ve become such a big fan over the course of this arc that I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more of his stuff in the future.
Listen up, jerk sauce!
- Wolverine gets stabby quite often these days, as mentioned more than once HERE.
- Blade 3 wasn’t very good, but agreed on the moustache.
- Don’t listen to the voices coming from your perv-pants (they’re just crabs, not your pee wee pee-pee): Jubilee sucks. Any kid at Halloween could’ve had her ‘powers,’ and on the old animated series they made a sound almost as annoying as listening to you drone on and on about nothing.
- Iceman becoming Holy Water is inspired/awesome. You biting yet another joke from me is not. (Go HERE and read until you see “obituary.”) Then: die.
Knowledge!
Huh? Wha? I never!
Apparently… you did.