#first ever muti character

[the-original-skipps]

|| When you want a piggyback ride.|| Wind Breaker Reactions ||

I wanted to try writing for multiple characters it’s my first time for some of them so sorry if it seems ooc

: Sakura Haruka. Suo Hayato. Nirei Akihito. Sugishita Kyoutaro. Umemiya Hajime. Kaji Ren.

❥ Sakura is dumbfounded by your request. What’s a piggyback and why do you want to ride it? Poor boy is extremely confused by your words. You’d have to explain to him what it is. Once he knows what it is, he’s steaming red from blushing, because you want him to carry you?!He’s sweating hard, your body is pressed against his and your thighs they’re so soft. He said five minutes only but he ended up carrying you to wherever you wanted to go despite the complaints. He’s secretly melting inside because you’re so close to him.

“Urgh...Fine! Just five minutes, okay?!”

❥ Suo clocks his head to the side as a gentle smile graces his face.Suo gracefully knees down, positioning his arms-readying. He looks like a regal prince, as he patiently waits for you to get on his back. When he tries to stand he’ll fake almost falling over, making you scared so that you’d press your body closer to him and that you’d wrap your arms around his neck. When walking he’ll pretend to trip or tickle your thighs. You’re on his back at his complete mercy to do as he pleases, he won’t let you down easily.

“If you don’t hold on tightly, you’ll fall〜”

❥ Nirei has frozen into a statue at your words. You want him to carry you. Here? Right now?! Only after he starts to panic so you try your best to reassure that it was just a joke and that he didn’t have to. Nirei accepts because who is he to say no to you? He’s nervous, he’s worried he might hold you the wrong way or that he won’t be able to carry you. A lot of reassurance is needed and in the end he manages to do it. He’ll get really tired and sweaty but refuse to back down, despite your worries for him.

“I’m o-okay, I can k-keep going….”

❥ Sugishita stares at you blankly, his blank face has you sweating questioning your request to him. However, before you could explain to him that it's a joke and that he doesn’t have to. He nods then crouches down, arms positioned behind him. You had to do a double take at the suddenness of it before mustering the courage and getting on. His grip on you is strong and the view is great from up here. Just point in whatever direction and he’ll go.

“……where?”

❥ Umemiya bounces around in happiness, unable to stay still from excitement. You don’t have to tell him he’s already crouched down ready to go. He’ll usher you to quickly get on. His grip on you is secure; you don’t have to worry about falling. Until he starts breaking out into a run, making airplane sounds. You had to hold on for dear life because he sure runs fast. He’ll continue to have you on his back as he visits the town people and speaks to his fellow team members. You’re embarrassed but he’s not, he’s proud to have you on his back.

“I wonder if Kotoha-chan will let me carry her too!”

❥ Kaji’s eyes widen in surprise his mouth opens but before he could say anything he sticks his lollipop back into his mouth again. He remains silent as crouches down, not moving until you’re comfortable on his back. The whole ride is silent, you’re not even sure where he’s taking you. No matter who tries to approach or talk to him, they are completely ignored. You have to silently apologize to them from his back. He eventually brings you to a park and let’s you down. He then goes to sit and lean on a tree, patting the spot next to him for you to sit. When you do, he lays down to rest his head on your lap.

“I’m going to sleep….”

what do you guys think? should I write more for everyone?

[shiro-s2e2-erukinzu]

Anime only watchers and people who aren't caught up with the Manga, BEWARE... Cuz I'm about to discuss Spy X Family Mission 112 (Part 1)... You have been warned...! 👌

[SPOILERS AHEAD FROM THIS POINT ON]

THIS CHAPTER WAS BOTH FUN & FUNNY!!! 😆 Plus, IT'S ANOTHER MUTI-PARTER!?!? 😵 (We haven't had a chapter split into multiple parts since Mission 67, back in 2022!! 😌)

That's right folks, we got ourselves another chapter split into parts, and it's a fun one so far!! 😄 Endo has done this three times before this chapter with Missions 58 (2 parts), 62 (3 parts), and 67 (2 parts); so now I wonder how many parts will this chapter have (my guess is that it's gonna be a two parter...! 👌😌) But enough of all that mumbo jumbo that probably only I care about, let's finally talk about the chapter in question, shall we...? 😉

So this chapter begins with Twilight trying to wake up Anya because it's time for her to return to Eden...!! 😲

But... Since Anya is freaking relatable AS HELL, she doesn't want to go and tries to come up with anything to get out of going back to school, even claiming to be sick...!! 👌😌 Loid, of course, doesn't believe her, but since Yor is the best mom ever, she wants to make absolutely sure that Anya isn't actually sick, which leads to this:

This family, I swear... 😌

At school, Anya (who actually thought about this before Twilight woke her up) tries to find out from Damian if his dad can truly read minds by asking "What's your dad like? Is he super scary?", but...:

...It didn't really work, so Anya gave up immediately... 😅 This girl, I swear...!! 😌

Then, two of Anya's classmates come to greet her and Becky, AND NOW THEY FINALLY HAVE NAMES!! 😆

We've seen Connie and Meg pop up in several other chapters before this one, but now they are officially out of the "Characters Who Have Shown Up Multiple Times, But Don't Have A Name" Club...!! 🎊 And I'm especially excited that Connie has a name now because she was featured in one of the early Omakes and even Franky commented on her (as seen in the image below):

Which in turn had made me wonder if Anya and her would eventually become friends at some point...!! 😄 Well, that time might be now because Anya was just reminded that she and everyone else will all be in different classes now (though, Becky specifies that they'll only be in different classes for the subjects that were on the test, so at least they'll still have some classes together...!)

Speaking of which, we see that Anya and Damian have at least have Language Studies together, so that's good...!! 😁 Then, Anya heads to her next class with a bunch of new faces and some that we recognize, including Arnold Crowley and Connie, who got pushed by someone, then Anya read her mind and well...:

...She's actually kinda scary...! 😰

So um, yeah... I'm not 100% sure if her and Anya will be friends quite yet...! 😅 Then, we get introduced to two other kids; some prince from the north named Tertius...:

...And this kid...:

...Who might've just become a favorite of mine...!! 😆 (I think that he's pretty dang funny so far...!! 😂)

Closed Eyes Kid apparently flicked a booger onto that Tertius kid and now he's got to GET RID OF THE EVIDENCE before anyone notices...!! 😎:

So when Closed Eyes Kid tried to get rid of the booger on Tertius' face, Tertius just kept dodging him, and now it seems that these two are gonna fight each other...!! 😵

And that's the end of the chapter!! Anya is sure having an eventful day on first day back at Eden...!! 😌

This chapter was really fun, I loved it!! 😄 I honestly hope that Anya makes some new friends, especially with Closed Eyes Kid (he's my favorite so far 😁), Connie (maybe? 🤷) and possibly Arnold Crowley (he actually seems like a pretty nice kid so far...! 👌😌)

So yeah, I'm excited for the next half of this chapter and pretty sure that it's just gonna be a two parter (though, who knows at this point because I never know what Endo is gonna do...!! 😌) Anyway, until the next Mission; take care, be safe out there and be kind to one another...!! LATER ALLIGATORS!! 👋😁

[brw]

3 and 13

3) screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

So I have a lot of bad takes screenshotted because I like to bother my loved ones with them so here are a few;

"Scarlet Witch should be an X-Men book and also the Avengers are an X-Men book because Storm is there I guess". Like is Englehart Avengers an X-Men book because Beast was there? Is that what you're telling me? What??

"The Cassidy's don't know what the Bible is". Girl they're from Mayo. Home to Knock. Which is one of the most famous Catholic sites in the world, with other a million pilgrims coming to visit it every year. It's like a Catholic Disneyland there (I've been). They sell little versions of like every saint in about 50 shops down the main street. Banshee and Tom absolutely know the saints because they're Irish Catholic and they live in fucking Mayo.

"The Fantastic Four are liberals and centrists because they don't like Krakoa". Not gonna get too deep in this one because I'm gonna be MEAN and it probably deserves its own post but man. Ben Grimm was literally right when he said they were just building another Genosha, shut the fuck up.

"Avengers need their token muties on the team" okay first mutants aren't real so that isn't a real concern, two the second ever Avengers lineup was 50% mutant. Beast is a notable member who actively went out of his way to join. Angelica Jones, Dazzler, Namor, Logan, Sunspot, Cannonball, and that's not even going through every member of the Uncanny Avengers like Rogue and Havok and Psylocke and Monet and Cable and Sunfire. Mutants have always been a part of the Avengers and I think if you're that attached to a 10 year old event written by Brian Michael Bendis it is deeply embarrassing for you.

13) worst blorboficiation

Already answered this one twice but fuck it, going with Wanda. I've mentioned it before and I get why it's important for Wanda to be in a healthy space right now, I just also like it when she's messy. Anyway, a lot of people ignore the parts of her and Pietro's dynamic that are messy when it isn't making fun of that one issue of 2015 Scarlet Witch, and it annoys me because she does really love Crystal and I don't like how fans will just ignore that part of her dynamic with Pietro. Like she is on Crystal's side in that arc. I honestly think she probably thinks Pietro deserved it 😭 I'm not saying she's right for that but she is repeatedly shown caring for Crystal and defending Crystal and I think that's a really important part of the tension between her and Pietro. Let Wanda be messy!

[chaifootsteps]

Armchair Psychology Anon here (not a real psych just see patterns)

I've been lurking around in that Discord server and just read the ask about how Stolas is Viv. How she pays a lot of money to see Broadway stars then keeps getting closer and closer to them. How she wants to take them away and talk to them about "her books" (her ideas and projects)

Perhaps Stolas as a child is actually her most vulnerable thoughts and feelings about herself. A lonely, sad rich kid who didn't have many or any, true friends outside of her relatives.

That... that might be true. Even if Viv is writing that subconsciously, what does Stolas say to keep Blitz around the first time?

"The one who wants me, is my first ever friend!"

Remember how I speculated that Viv is incapable of maintaining real friendships with people? That she has to lovebomb them over and over until she doesn't have to keep trying anymore?

It's actually really sad the deeper you dig into the shows psyche.

I've also been watching more interviews with Brandon, and Blitz is basically Brandon. (Seeing Stars literally just confirms Blitz is an impsona of himself). He also says "Imps are the lowest of the low but he's really trying to make something out of himself." Which Brandon said he relates to a lot (See his Class Acts poster).

Brandon also looks a lot happier at this anime con they're at right now because... could it be because Vivs not around?

If Stolas is Viv's self insert (especially since she goes out of her way to like tweets saying Blitz is the one who could've stopped at any time, and Stolas is the victim), and there's jokes about her having dick envy, as well as her blatant fetishisizing of gay male relationships...

Chai, I really think Blitz x Stolas is her way of Brandon x Viv.

It's possible she also sees herself as Ozzie, and guess who plays Fizz? As well as Adam, and Pen?

(Less evidence for that, but Ozzie is also rich and powerful).

I know she knows Brandon is gay. Obviously. But... she created a rich, sad, powerful male character to be hopelessly in love with someone who clearly is uncomfortable with him. And they obivously butted heads about it. Brandon certainly seemed uncomfortable at the anime panel where she was saying, "They'd make a cute couple..."

And maybe she's not attracted to Brandon necessarily, but obviously maybe wants to be a man in a gay relationship. But she is transphobic of transmen, so she'll never become what she hates.

I dunno Chai, it just keeps getting weirder and weirder the deeper you go....

I also think the lovebombing of Blake as of late is really creepy too. Especially the "cum" comment.

It feels like a grooming tactic. Older adults saying and slipping little "jokes" here and there to make the victim used to it... not mention the song is about "choking and dying of poison" at the hands of Angel's abusive rapist pimp.

Viv... she's very troubled. I feel very bad for Blake and Brandon as of late.

Michael and Ashley and others really dodged a bullet. Goose seems to be keeping Viv at a distance as well. I'm sure Goose knows everything M&A went through and it's a delicate situation for sure.

Armchair Psychology Anon, know that I'd happily watch a 12 hour, muti-part series centered around your Viv analyses. I really would.

[popculturebuffet]

House of Claremont: Mutant Month: Marvel Graphic Novel #5: X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (Comission Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy muties and welcome back to Mutant Month, my celebration of those mighty mutants of marvel. After a bit of a rough start with the X-Men's first animated appearance, i'm proudly taking a look at one of the X-Men stories ever,God Loves Man Kills.

This review also relaunches a feature on this blog that will likely exist as long as this blog does. It was supposed to be a full retrospective of Chris Claremont's 186 issue, 16 year run on Uncanny X-Men, also throwing in his 12 annual issues, various mini series, and other x-ongoing New Mutants. It was an ambitious idea brought about by me having collected almost EVERY issue of Claremont's run and various associated minis on comixology, with only a few stray issues and a few trades left to complete it. Thanks to that i'd seen what a deft, well crafted masterpiece this run is: while it has it's flaws, down periods, and various things that haven't aged well, it's a glorious nearly two decades long epic with lush character arcs, brilliant ideas, and tons of twists and status quo changes to keep things from getting too stale. While the run begins and ends at Xavier's School in between we have Thunderbird's tragic death, Jean becoming a living god before it consumes her and her apparent death, Scott leaving as a result and only returning on and off before leaving for good, one of their sworn enemies who'd done something truly unforgiable to a friend of theirs joining the team in desperation (More on that next week), Storm's slow change in personality and temproary (though still YEARS LONG ) power loss, the arrival of Rachel Summers from an alternate future, Rachel's departure coinciding with half the team being brutally decimated in the morlock massacre and Storm forced to rebuild the team from almost scratch, said new roster dying to save the world and being reborn in secret, and the ENTIRE TEAM scattered to the winds, leaving the book to focus on the individual members as wolverine slowly pulls them back together and Forge forges a new team to replace them, and finally the team merging with x-factor to create two new teams of x-men. And that was just what I could squeeze in reasonably A lot of great stories both noted forever and forgotten to the sands of time by all but those who read them in the 80s or read them all now are squeezed int his epic.

And that very reasoning.. is why I ultimatley coudln't do it. I tried streamlining the run and summarizing.. but at the end of the day i'm a man who likes to really analyze stuff. And make goofy jokes, but while I could do the latter as good as always it became clear the run was just too massive to quickly summarize it all and do it full justice, and doing it piece by piece in order would possibly take a decade. It's the double edged sword of relying on commissions and patreon reviews: it allows me extra money each month and comes in handy quite a bit, and allows me to meet nice respectful people who love my work enough to do it... but it also means I sometimes have to delay things I personally planned to do on my own time. And given my venture bros retrospective has already been a victim to this quite a bit, I decided an even LONGER project. There's also a simple fact: While I love this era of x-men and it's easily one of the best if not the best, no question... there are tons of OTHER great x-men and mutant stories out there and other retrospectives to do from peter David's masterful noir run of x-factor (and not to shabby government and corporate runs), to Leah Williams own great sadly short lived take recently, to the various epics currently spinning out of the krakoa era and into the fall of x from Hickman, to Gilleon to Ewing to Duggan to williams, and even OTHER x-books from the 80s and early 90's with Claremont's phenomenal new mutants, interesting excalibur, and Louise Simonsons deft work on X-Factor and later also New Mutants. There's just too much X for one lifetime of review work to spend most of it on one run.

So this is my compromise: instead of a long retrospective looking at it in order, i'll be taking ocasional looks at stories I like, and maybe the one or two I don't, here. Both on my own, with one of my faviorite parts of the run planned for next year if I can squeeze it in

And on comission's like this. If ther'es a stretch of this massive run or another x run you want me to cover i'm down for it.

And I was paticuarlly down for this one for two reasons: the first is God Loves, Man Kills is not only one of my faviorite x-men stories.. but probably the best of Chris Claremont's run. And given he had PLENTY of good work before and after this, the run of issues I just teased above was also happening around this time, that is saying a lot.

The other is the person who comissioned it: Kevin is both the first person to comisson work for this blog and the one who does it the most and has become a good friend. But while he's many things: great with duck triva, obessed with a lesbain owl, the #1 molibby shipper, and a great guy to work with... he's not really an x-men fan. Spider-Man yes, it's how I was able to spend a glorious half a year reviewing spiderman and likely will again in the future, both with a video game review planned later this year and tons of other stuff for the future. But when it comes to the strangest heroes of all he usually just shurgs and this month was something he wasn't really involved in at first. Which is fine, I don't do this blog just for one person and he dosen't have to like everything I do.

So it meant a LOT to me when he asked if I could cover God Loves Man Kills. He was curious after I mentioned this theme month coming up and looked into some famous x-men stories, thought this one was interesting as it's both rightly hugely aclaimed and still has echoes to the state of the world today. And since he watches and reads what he commissions it also got him to read some classic x-men and hopefully more eventually. He also has another one coming at the end of the month and much like this one it's a story I was bound to cover eventually. But you'll find out about that one later. For now join me under the cut to dig into one of the greatest x-men stories of all, a tale of frightingly realistic prejudice, tyranically faith, and perseverance in the face of overwhelming hate and a doubt if your dream will ever come true.

Purity: God Loves Man Kills comes to us from the Marvel Graphic Novel series, another thing i've been wanting to talk about. Marvel Graphic Novel was the brainchild of Marvel's Editor at the Chief at the time Jim Shooter. I'm not a huge fan of Shooter as while he WAS EiC during one of marvel's biggest boom periods, he was also a giant prick who was not great at the actual writing part most of the time but insisted on giving himself books, was a homophobic shithead who refused to let gay characters into his book (it's why Claremont had to imply as hard as he could Mystique and Destiny were a couple), and being behind famous writing debacles like Hank Pym's mental breakdown, the hobglin's true identity and of course the previously reviewed avengers 200. Aka

I'll be covering the followup to that next week, thank god. But for all the guys faults and serious lastingly damaging fuckups.. he still had his moments. For instance with X-Men itself he had Chris break up Kitty Pryde (14) and Colossus (19) which was both better for both characters in the longrun but the fallout of said breakup ended up being some of Chris' best work.

This is one of those moments: With Buisness picking up at the tale end of the 60's, Jim decided to capitalize on the "Album" format from European comics. So we go the marvel graphic novels, super sized stories following marvel's best characters, though usually not involving the main book's creative team for time purposes. We still got powerhouse names like David Michlinine, Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, JM Demattis, Larry Hama, Mary Jo Duffy, Ann Nocenti, Gerry Conway, Roger Stern, Doug Monech, Mark Gruenwald, Alan Davis, Jim Starlin, Bob McLeod, Walt Simonson, Jackson Guice, Mark Silvestri, John Byrne, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragones, John Bucschema, Denny O'Neil, Bruce Jones, Mike Mingola, Paul Gulacey, and Ross Andru. And i'm sure I missed some. The books were a lot of things. They were a way for creators to work on characters they normally hadn't, to serve as an additional piece to big runs, or to launch less superhero oriented stuff and creator own books. Yes marvel actually did creator owned books at one point, something I never would've known without my good twitter friend Belle (Not caling it X, probably the only time something named x wasn't for me in any way shape or form), and was part of the reason for this line. It's also thanks to her getting me curious in this line again that I found out about oddities like an adaptation of willow by Power Man and Iron Fist's real mom Mary Jo Duffy, a full roger rabbit adaptation.. or a full SEQUEL to Roger Rabbit that I'm DEFINTELY looking at one of these days. It was mostly a marvel vehicle though.

Despite their isolated nature, most of these books are fully cannon to the main marvel universe and many of them had a lasting impact: New Mutants introduced the team to the marvel universe and took Donald Pierce out of the hellfire club, Spider-Man: Parallel Lives dealt with the revelation that Mary Jane had known peter was Spidey all along and showed her past with that new perspective in mind, Dardevil Love and War continued the vanessa fisk subplot from dardevil, the inhumans once shot introduced Black Bolt and Medusa's Son Ahurua, Dazzler: The Movie outed Allison Blaire as a mutant to the world, and the classic Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: triumph and torment finally ended the longstanding subplot about Doom saving his mother's soul from mephisto.

So that makes it a surprise that this story wasn't strictly considered canon till 21 years after the fact. Part of this is the standalone nature: while the book DOES have some important steps in Magneto and Kitty Pryde's character arcs, it's pretty much the ONLY comic chris wrote he didn't somehow later factor into his x-men run. That's not hyperbole either: X-Men and New Mutants regularly impacted each other, with Xavier's departure leading to Magneto becoming their teacher, Selene being introduced fighting the New mutants before becoming a thorn in the big kids side, and Betsy Braddock, the future Psylocke, ending up at the mansion and eventually on the roster thanks to a new mutants annual.

Beyond that , Chris loved bringing in characters from other books he worked on: Jean Grey roomed with Coleen Wing and Misty Knight from his book iron fist, Jessica Drew Spider-Woman guest starred in an x-men issue then later in one of her comics found Banshee's daughter Siryn. And not stopping there many characters chris created for other books became mainstays of uncanny x-men: Mystique started out as Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) arch enemy, Arcade was a one off villian in an issue of Marvel Team Up and Wolverine's arch enemy sabertooth started out as an iron fist villian. Most notably, and something we'll talk about next week, after the disaster that was avengers 200, Chris was so pissed off he took carol and added her to x-men for some time via avengers annual #10.. and in the process also introduced Rogue. Chris used everything he had so the fact this story just.. happened with so much fanfare and two big character moments and never came up is odd.

The other problem is that Chris kept a very tight order of events and had a lot happening... and as a result WHEN this happened is nigh impossible to figure out. It's down to the roster; The roster in this book is Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde. Cyke is the first issue as after Jean's death in the dark phoenix saga he was in and out of the team for a while: he left right after to find out if he even WANTED to go back, but this being the life of an x-man ended up stranded on Magneto's spooky elder god island he found and made into a headquarters, because I mean.. what else are you going to do with a spooky elder god island. After a fight with Mags in which he realized how far he nearly went and fled to parts unknown, the X-Men took the base for their own while the mansion was in the shop before Cyclops peaced out again to spend time with his dad who just got back, from outer space. To make matter's somehow even more complicated, the x-men were then kidnapped to space by the brood. Cyke would leave the issue after this adventure to go spend time with his dad and meet his long lost grandparents before he had to go back to space again and be a sexy mustache space pirate as earth had become too alien to him peter quill style.

And that issue is the other problem: the issue before that, after Xavier got his alien clone body.. he bumped Kitty Pryde, the x-men's cool teen who met the team during Dark Phoenix Saga and joined right after, down to the New Mutants. This is a problem as the only real window for this story to happen... is when she was busy convincing Xavier to repromote her.... and during that Window Logan implicitly left for his homeland of Canada before heading to japan to pick a fight with his girlfriend's abusive fiancé and even more abusive dad, who he of course murdered in a samurai duel.

So it' SEEMS impossible for this story to fit. And that's because it is. trust me I tried my best.. but going to x-men 168, aka

Logan leaves for the candian rockies.. and has Kurt drive him to the airport... taking Kitty and her bestie and colosuss sister who was aged up when she was kidnapped by a demon man on Magneto's Spooky Elder God Island, with them.. while Kitty was still campaning to join the x-men. Not only that Xavier's space girlfriend Illandra and the new mutants themselves are absent from the story, just to make ti clear

So yeah this story is canon , but fits nowhere really in canon.. and in an interview in the extneded cut (which I turned to to try and find out if it added anything to explain why it dosen't fit, which no it didn't it's just got some added wraparounds in the present day at the time continuity), that was by design. Chris wanted to make this story one that could be read by anyone, one and done. If you wanted to read more x-men great. if not , you still got your money's worth and got everything these characters were about.

The story itself came from the times: It was the time of Ronald Regan and a new wave of conservatives trying to bring back "the good old days" and morals and all the usual smokescreens "for when things were a lot WHITER and STRAIGHTER and we didn't have to reckon with our actions. " This call for moral panic nicely dovetailed into the rise of Evangelical Preachers, using tv as a means of indoctrination and trying to paint anyone against them as not in god's will and anything they didn't like as "not TRULY of god". Naturally given Chris wrote a book about a disenfranchised, if fictoinal group that happened to have a christian (Nightcrawler) and jewish (Kitty Pryde) person in their ranks and an arch enemy who lived thorugh the holocaust, the story was perfect.

To chris this kind of purity of purpose coupled with narrowmindeness was dangerous as hell, and made for a good story speaking out against it.. one that continues to resonate on as narrow minded assholes who GENUINELY think their doing the right thing by hurting and suppressing people and who they are haven't exactly gone away, simply changed shape. Heck while this still is mostly a one off story, the themes of someone trying to legislate opression and make it sound resonable were already in the main book with days of future past (which shows a nightmare world where this DOES happen.. and also gets hyjacked by giant robots), and would continue to be a key theme of the x-men to this very day.

So now the stage is set, we can finally begin a battle.. not one of the usual claws, optic blasts and thunder bolts.. but of survivial. Of ideas. Of one group trying to do the right thing in the midst of a direct call for them to be trotted out and murdered. To be wiped away in the name of some "higher purpose". It's a battle of faith. Let's see how it plays out shall we?

Not the First, Far from the Last:

The opening to God Loves Man Kills.. is one of the most chilling scenes i've read in a comic. And it's chilling simply because it could happen anywhere: Two black children are running for their lives.. but sadly don't make it, as their soon cornered by the purifiers, three people in black tactical gear. And why are they hunting these innocent children? Why have they already killed their parents?

It's an utterly haunting sequence. The fact the children are black isn't a remote coincidence, but to simply hammer home that this kind of shit happens. To draw parallels to the same sort of shit racist have done: killing innocent people.. then displaying the bodies as some sick trophy to show exactly WHY they just slaughtered innocents: they were not what these butchers considered a person and to them, they deserved to die. Thankfully before the Purifiers can get their intended show of stringing up the bodies, each with a sign saying "Mutie" on them, someone else comes along to take this horror show down so these children's bodies can at least have SOME dignity in death instead of being used as as sick prop

I love the small touches i'm only noticing now as I review this: the true PAIN on Erik's face after seeing this, him gently going over the body. It also speaks to his history: he's seen countless children die around him in his childhood in a concentration camp.. and saw his own daughter Anya die tragically simply because Mags himself was a mutant. It says a lot about who he is and that behind the vengeance, behind the vow of "Never again" he swears right after.. is a man whose simply seen too many of his peopled die... and will not let this happen again. And god help those who did this.

We then meet our main antagonist, Reverened William Stryker. Like the above.. this intro is brilliant. Stryker, head of his evangelcial "Stryker Crusade" is reading the bible in his office, before preparing to review some files and having some dinner sent up to eat while he looks over them. Said files are also a really neat way to show off the current roster of x-men and what they can do, with some really great art added. Stryker already has plans for them, but first he has to be at the studio: he has a show to put on.

We cut to Stevie Hunter's dance studio. For those less familiar with her Stevie was a major supporting character during Claremont's run. When Kitty joined the school, Charles, wanting to make sure she had a well rounded life outside of academics and surviving the experince, enrolled her in dances classes hosted by Stevie, a former professional dancer whose career was cut short by injury. He'd later do the same for the new mutants, and it's a nice character thing: it shows as gruff and standofish as Charles can be.. he wants what's best for his charges and wants them to have some normalcy in a life where that will be hard to come by.

Starting here , and with Kitty, isn't a coincidence: as Chris said in the aforementioned interview, the younger characters provided a vital viewpoint: the future and what exactly to do with it when it looked so bleak.

It's also a great way to start as once again Claremont makes sure things are well and grounded as Kitty.. is beating the shit out of some asshole named Danny.. to the point she's sent him out the door. He only gets a hit in once Peter, aka Colossus, mother russia's finest and kitty's crush, shows up distracting her. Kitty's held back by her bestie and borderline love intrest Illanya. Seriously why haven't they been a thing. Questions for later. For now Stevie comes out wanting to know what the hell is going on, her exact words. Kitty admits to starting the violence portion of the evening.. but only because Danny was talking about all the GOOD the stryker crusade is doing and how swell it is they want to commit mutant genocide. Peter suggests they end it there.. which is code for "You've said enough little bigot, just try me". It's also notable that peter is so angry: one of his defining traits is how he's a gentle, kind young man and abhors violence. He fights because he has to and because it's the right thing to do, not because he wants. So to get him angry takes a lot. Danny backs off.. but whispers once peter's around it's on because he has the self preservation of a goat. We also coincidentally never see him again. Maybe Logan gave him a talking to and he wisely left town after voiding his bowels. Who knows.

Stevie isn't pleased with Kitty and we get that moment I was hinting at the one part of the comic that dosen't entirely work for me

Now I GET what chris was going for and Kitty's point: that just because it's word's.. dosen't mean someone saying intolerent bullshit, ESPECAILLY since in this case the dipshit was advocating genocide, is something to just ignore or brush off. And it's MEANT to be a spur of the moment thing a teenager would say, hence it not ruining the scene.. but Chris STILL really shoudlnt' of had a privilaged white teenager say the n word to a grown black woman whose probably been through a LOT of this shit and has gotten used to having to ignore it. Even for the time the n-word should not have been used especialy in refrence to a fictional minority. The rest of the scene works.. but this REALLY dosen't and sticks out like a sore thumb in a work that otherwise holds up.

Kitty and Peter return home just in time for something on TV, greeted by

and Nightcrawler, everyone's faviorite sexy demonic looking christian. I LOVE Logan and Kitty's talk here too

I love everything about this. How casual logan is, how fatherly he comes off to her, and Kitty showing that Stevie's fears of her using her training unfairly were unfounded: Kitty was holding back and wouldn't use it on a civlian no matter how much he deserved to be ground into the pavement.

Turns out the show their all watching is the same one Stryker was preparing for: A debate with Xavier over mutant kind. And Xavier looses pretty badly as best summed up by this panel

It perfectly sums up hate groups like Stryker's best weapon: couching horrifying, nightmarish notions.. and making them sound ALMOST resonable. it's something I saw a few years back when JK Rowling tried to defend her transphobia; her "apology' letter TRIED to sound resonable.. but underneath you could see all the transphobia couched in her arguments and all the hate clearly there. It's just to some, sadly.. the argument is more pursasive and that's where the danger is: not in us who can see it.. but that some of us may not or may be indorcianted otherwise.

Kitty is understandably even more pissed after all of this and decides to break some stuff, so we get a few pages in the danger room. It's a fun sequence. I"m mostly glossing over it as story wise it dosen't really have a lot of function, but it's a nice way to slip in some more typical superhero action without undermining the story: the context of the heroes needing to work out how aggravated and scared they are with a good distraction makes it work, it's only a few pages so it dosen't take up much of the comic, and it has a fun solution: the heroes are all given individual assignments.. but only accomplish them when they help each other out, a clever exercise. IT's one of the reasons I love the danger room: it's a neat way to show our heroes training, something most superhero comics don't have time for and a fun way to interject action sequences into issues that may otherwise not have them.

Back at the Studio Stryker's preparing for his first attack on the x-men... and conviently Xavier brought Cyclops, team leader and certified badass, and Storm, also team leader and certified badass about to get even more badass during this time period with her awsome mohawk and change in character, with them. Xavier's already on edge as he noticed Stryker has Psy Screens.. which means he KNOWS Xavier's a mutant.. but sadly can't warn the rest of th eteam as they get ambusehd and Scott and Ororo are seemingly gunned down. It's part of what makes Stryker such an effective antagonist: while he does indeed have an evil over the top super villian plan... most of his methods are mundane. Simply using guns , subterfuge and careful cordinated strikes. Basic military tactics and espionge. He has fancy sci fi stuff to block xavier's mind reading and what not, but he uses pretty mundane stuff. It underlines that this is at the end of the day just a normal guy who happens to have a POWERFUl cultish following.. and that despite the powers, despite the training the x-men are as vunerable as anyone to a military strike.

We cut back to the mansion where Nightcrawler gets a night caller telling him the professor, jean and scott died in a car crash. The next scene is effective; Kitty mourns, and is baffled that something mundane as a car crash could take out her surrogate big sister, a genius tactician and her mentor.. and also Scott and Xavier. Turns out though Illanya isn't just there to comfort kitty.. and ask kitty about her crush on her brother Peter.. but to point out a weird survelnce divise. Kitty's response is clever as hell and speaks to how despite her age she's every bit an x-man: she disables the thing, then plans to wait to ambush whoever set it up.

At the scene of the accident Logan confirms Kitty's suspcions: the scenes for the bodies found at the wreck are all wrong and the wreck itself has all the halmarks of a staged accident.. a nice way to use Logan's CIA past as he admits to have done a few of these himself. He was also smart enough to have Kurt do survielnce.. and find the purifiers watching them ready to attack. It's a nice little show of Wolverine as leader: it dosen't come up a TON in this run early on, but under Ororo he's second in line to lead the x-men , wether he thinks he can or not.

The x-men turn the tables and ambush the purifiers for a change, in this case some goon Wolverine easily yanks out of a car and Anne, Stryker's right hand who tries ramming Nightcrawler with her car.. which fails horribly since you know, he's a teleporter and she should know this and colosus totals the thing with Nightcrawler saving her life with one heck of a line

Unfortuantley for our heroes not only does said attempted marytr escaped.. but she had some goons with her in powered armor who easily down colossus. Before they can get the rest of the x-men though.. they get some unexpected help.

It's one hell of a scene. Before this set of our heroes can react though, we cut back to kitty and yana. The goons arrive and Illyana is understandably scared: at this point, outside of the time in a demon realm, she's mostly a normal teenager and hasn't yet trained in her powers. So when Kitty goes to investigate and the purifiers find her, it's utterly terrifying to see.. and worse to see Anne shoot an unarmed girl. Her point blank shot somehow.. stuns Yana?

Thankfully not depriving us of one of the best new mutants... just kidding their all the best. It's hard to choose.

Kitty hides in the trunk, but turns out the Purifiers have sensors and spray some knockout gas in there.

Back with the X-men logan is using his usual charm and tact to interogate one of their suspects

Left one's charm, right one's tact, middle one's grace. Magneto suggets an alternative.. and procedes to somehow use magnetics to make the guy tell them what he knows

I love Magneto's line afterwrods too

It's a brutal line and sums up magneto in one line. Truly perfect.

While nightcrawler worries sinking to their foes level makes them no better we cut to

As you can imagine this scene confused the hell otu of Kev. It works thematically for me: Stryker is trying to brainwash xavier and is thus framing his students, his family, as murderous monsters. It's part of a brilliant and horrifying psychic ploy: their torturing Scott and Ororo, the only reason their still alive, right next to him so he feels their pain, but have doped Charles up so much he dosen't realize their not hurting him, letting his own inner guilt rationalize why they'd hurt him. Scott is especially a good pick for this: as I mentioned since Jean's death he's been questioning his place in the world and, after all the training Xavier's given him, if he can even LIVE a life outside the x-men. He's as much Xavier's son as his real son who he dosen't know about yet and thus his betrayal would sting the hardest while for Oroo he took her out of an innocent existence away from strife as a goddess to the harshness of the real world. His own fears of what he's done to his children, how he's weaponized them and the two he's lost.. .are the greatest weapon of all.

We then find out Stryker's back story.. and it is... utterly horrifying. Stryker was a decorated army guy who was driving home with his pregnant wife. She gave birth to their son and well...

That shot of the knife.. is haunting. It's something I never really focused on in previous reads.. and i'm not sure i'll be able to forget now. Stryker was so convinced his baby was an abomination, so unwilling to accept his child for what they were instea dof what he thought they were.. he murdered an innocent baby then SNAPPED his wife's neck for no good reason. All because in his eyes they were just a monster and the one who created. It breaks down Stryker and shows what he REALLY is inside: while he tries to frame this a sa crusade, that the birth of his child was God showing Stryker his new purpose in life, hence his founding of the crusade. But at the end of the day: he's a bigot. He saw his child was diffrent and stabbed him to death and instead of dealing with kiling his wife and child, instead of acccepting he acted on his worst instincts and did something truly horrible.. he convinced himself that no, GOD told him to do this. God told him this was the right path. and he should kill more, hurt more, do more. It's the real, pure danger of crusades like this: the absolute conviction that the horrible things your doing are right. People who just side with bigotry for their own self intrest are bad.. but it's the people who TRULY belivie what their saying who are the most dangeorus. To use JK Rowling the reason she's so dangeorus to trans people is that she GENUINELY thinks she's helping women. That she THINKS she's resonable and can convince other people.. and that like stryker she has the money and resources and influence to do real harm. It's easy to stop a hypcorite, just show them as they are to their followers if their not brainwashed enough. it's harder to stop someone who GENUINELY belivies the hate they speak and cannot be talked down or beaten with logic. The only way to beat them is with public opinon and that's a harder task than it should be.

We get a truly chiling ending to the scene as Stryker coldly orders Anne to execuite kitty and Storm, a surrgoate big sister to the girl can only wail in horror.

Lucky for kitty, she managed to phase the escond the gas hit, but some still got her.. so she escapes her execution.. but is still being hunted by Anne. And whiel she TRIES to get help.. she instead finds a gang who fully plan to assault her. Her only salvation is that Anne shows up and the gang is too busy with her and Anne's too busy killing them all for being in the way for either to notice her escaping. Kitty BARELY calls the school for help in time and even then all she can do is hide in a subway.. and watch as a police officer takes a bullet for her, the purifiers glad to let him die and blame it on her. Thankfully like her fellow x-men, Uncle Erik is here to save the day...

The x-men quickly clean up the rest of the Purifiers and Kitty's shocked to see Magneto on their side. He quickly proves his nobility though, saving the officer and giving the x-men a magic car door ride to go get the guy help

While he's showing them the world, shining shimmering splendor, he explains whose after them to the officer.

We then cut back to xavier whose finally been convinced to kill Scott and Ororo.. and stryker's plan becomes frightingly clear.. now he's capable of killing his two faviorite children.. what would he do to any other mutant?

Meanwhile Kitty and Kurt confront the guy who indocrinated Xavier, Doctor ramsey. I guess doug has a racist uncle? Anyway Nighcrawler gets some poetic justice, using his frighting facade to scare the crap otu of the racist. What I love about this is while the art makes kurt look terrifying.. we know him well enough, even just in this tsory to know he's bluffing. We saw earlier he was horrified with Magneto and Wolverine fully willing to toruture a guy. But this guy dosen't know that. And he's still wiling to mildly choke the guy, not at all sympathetic after all he's done. Kurtmay be one of the most noble souls ever put to comics.. but this scene is a nice reminder: he kicks ass for the lord.

At Stryker's headquarters, his goons and anne plan to take Scott and Roro to be cremated and Illayana to be examined.. but by now you know the bit: magneot is awesome, yanks the elevator out. His constant saves COULD get tiresome.. but they work as a show of power and the gap that still exists between him and the x-men: sure we get to see them all be awesome.. but these moments remind us WHY he can take on the whole team by himself, WHY he was such a threat.. and why him joining them is such a big deal. He could probably handle all this himself.. but despite being on opposite sides, despite having opposite approaches... he respects them. Okay sure he shoved them into a nanny robot prison a while back, but after they nearly sank him in lava he got respect.

He then proves the point by reviving scott and ororo. Turns out subcocnoiusly Xavier rebelled and thus only put them in a deathlike coma. Scott.. is naturally a bit nettled to see his arch enemy in front of him after he just nearly died, which leads to one hell of a speech from Mags.

Something that's really easy to forget, especaily after that.. is that Magneto started out.. as a pretty awful character. He was a bully, a dictator who wanted to conquer humanity because he could, cowed his subordinates into submission and kept Scarlet Witch in the brotherhood purely out of obliggation to him for saving her and pietro from an angry mob. And early on while Claremont had him as a BETTER villian, more intimidating and a larger threat, especially since two of the x-men were now weak to his powers, he was still a bit of an ass who decided the best way to get his revenge was to strap the x-men to chairs where they couldn't move and have a nanny robot feed them which gave me nightmares as a kid

It's only in his next apperance did Magneto shift from "Dr. Doom Clone" to "one of my faviorite characters in all of fiction. With I Magneto we not only found out his backstory as a survivor of asuchwitz but his next attempt to conquer the world, boosting his powers and giving the world an ultimatium: surrender or perish. And it's this version that's been the basis for the character ever since: a broken man defined by tragedy whose determined to conquer a world that hates and fears him so the tragedies of his past NEVER happen again. Never again.

It's this conversation that especially highlights that: Magneto asks WHY fight for people who hate and fear you, when he can change the world by force. It's a question superheroes in general struggle with and many mock superhero media for: how much should they do. Should they take the choice away from a humanity that's often misused their choices? And the answer is... no. While you can see WHY Max wants to do this, why he wants so badly to force a better world on everyone, to force a better future because he sees humanity as simply INCAPABLE of anything but hate and self destruction.. it's not the way. Humanity.. is fucked a lot of the time. True. But there's good in us and simply asking someone to fix all of the problems we, especially our goverments, should be working hard to fix isn't fair.

And as Cylclops points out it's just.. not sustanible. Even with Magneto's dream of the x-men joining him and following in his footsteps... what happens if someone decides to overthrow them? or take this world from them? And more importantly.. is it REALLY worth giving up all freedom and self control for a better tomorrow? It's why superheroes fight.. and it's why the X-MEN fight. The world their in is fucked up with tons of racists, multiple genocides and currently a giant hive of bigoted jackasses trying to wipe every last mutant out. But what makes the x-men so special.. is they fight on anyways. Against everything humanity does, against all their bigotry.. they fight for a better tomorrow. Even in the Krakoa era where they basically bribed their way to a homeland.. many of them still dont' abandon humanity, try to work with them and try and help. They may deserve a home after everything humanity's done.. but they don't deserve to be abandoned because of bad actors and hateful dipshits. It's why the x-men fight for a world that hates and fears them: because even if the dream's never been fully achived.. it's a dream worth fighting for. A better world. A dream that's always worth fighting for.

Magneto makes a point though: While this debate is engaging... they have bigger issues to worry about. Anne warns Stryker.. but his ego once again flairs up. "They're a handful of children annie and i'm a servant of the world. What can they do to stop me?" As I said before fraudsters, grifters, conmen.. their dangerous sure.. but it's the people who TRULY belivie their doing the right thing while advocating to destroy an entire people that are the most dangerous.

Stryker begins his sermon advocating for genoicde, with many other evangelicals apparently getting antsy according to a handy newsmans exposition. Granted it's likely less because they disagree with him calling for genocide, they just want him to say the loud part quiet again.

It's during this sermon Stryker's plan activates. And if you've seen x-2, which largely adapts this storyline but changes Stryker from preacher to soldier, you've likely figured it out: use Xavier to commit full on genocide of the mutant race. It's stronger CLOSER to him, so Nightcrawler's able to help a boy close to it.. but it's very clear if they don't do something SOON their going to die and the rest of mutantkind after. Wolverine poitns out the issue: they CAN attack but it'll make them look bad. And just to prove rule of three can suck his dick, Magneto once again saves the day, swooping in to confront stryker.. and thus providing a diversion. And to make his point for once Magneto .. dosen't attack. He breaks the roof to get in and make a minty fresh entrance, but he repairs it as poitned out by a sentator. Stryker,, high on his own hype, has Charlie strike him down. We get a really nice moment as Magneto has a revelation about his foe: all this time charles.. was holding back. And he's now seen just how dangerous his old enemy would be if he wasn't. Some protestors try to mob magneto, but some police break it up before they can win a collective darwin award for beating up a guy who in his previous appearance LEVELED AN ENTIRE CITY and a nuclear sub.

While the X-Men try to figure out how the hell to get to Charles before he kills them all, Annie goes to the reverned.. only for her ears to be bleeding like the other mutatns. She too is one... and instead of saving her like she begs for...

It's the final sign that there is no good left in Stryker, that even those loyal to him, even someone who tried their best.. must die simply because he says so. Not god. HIM. He killed a woman who did nothing but serve him faithlly and was wholeheartedly on his side.. and who he casts aside instead of even TRYING to save. After all if he would slaughter his own child.. why would Anne be saved? What makes this death all the more chilling.. is that after all Anne's done, her horrifying hate crime at the start, her attempted murder of kitty, and god knows what else we didn't see on panel... there's no catharsis. no joy in her death. There's no peace to be had. Just the senseless waste of her life doing nightmarisht hings in Striker's name, and the horrifying sight of her snapped neck. A life wasted in the name of a man who claims to speak for god.. but as our title tells us God Loves. Man kills.

We then pivot to one of the most awesome things Cyclops has ever done. So with so many people on the cusp of death, Wolverine feels they have no choice: they have to play it his way.. which means he teleports in and puts an end to the man who gave him a better life: to prevent charles from becoming everything he hates, Logan has to become everything he's tried to grow past. Thankfully.. Cyclops had a way around that.

And just to underline it right after, when Wolverine points out how close it is... Cyke explains his logic: He knew.. and also knew if his timing was even the SLIGHTEST bit off Charles might sense one of them too early. As for why let Wolverine attack it was simple: Charles is usually a non combatant. He doesn't have the countless hours of training nor the field experince and thus Scott correctly figured a two pronged attack would catch him off guard. If one side failed the other would succeed.. and Scott was FULLY aware that if Wolverine had to do it, his mentor would be dead. So to recap Scott pulled off a massive amount of precision ricocheting, with a backup plan that could kill his surrogate dad, all betting that he could both hit it and with the knowledge that if this failed everyone would be dead... and pulled it off without a hitch and with the utmost confidence. Just.. remember this the next time you hear someone call cyclops boring. Unless it's the movie version.. or the 90s animated series.. or wolverine and the x-men.. okay maybe just the comics and evolution.

So the day's saved right? Well normally yes. The villains foiled, Stryker outright killed someone on live tv. But in another awesome moment.. Scott notes.. it's not over. Ther'es one last thing to do.

It's the hard truth: in most other superhero stories, The X-Men already won.. but here if they back down now Stryker's message continues and he just picks it up, possibly even tries genocide again. Even if he gets arrested for Anne's murder i'ts not going to stop his message or him from preaching it. And I love how every x-man falls behind scott with not the slightest hint of hestation. Their walking right into an angry mob, no intention to use their powers, simply because walking away would let a bad man triumph and hurt other mutants. Because walking away is the easy thing.. but it's not the right thing and it damn well isn't what an x-man does.

So our heroes walk in.. and make their stand.

It's one last moment in a trilogy of awesome for Scott: tearing the fuck out of Strykers rehtoric and getting down to the core of most prejudice; Stryker thinks their less than human, that they don't deserve to exist.. and like any human .. they do. Their here. Their real. And he can't accept it. He'd rather destroy them. And when Stryker tries to fall back on the fact Nightcrawler simply looks diffrent.. someone steps up.

Now this moment's great on it's own, Kitty defying his trying to unperson kurt and standing bravely, pointing out what makes Kurt so awesome: he had every reason to turn in on himself after all the shit life's thrown at him: a mother who abandoned him, a step brother he was forced to kill in self defense, an angry mob nearly staking him before Charles saved his life... yet instead.. he's a jovial jokester. He loves, he lives, and he's a gentle soul. He's one who fears turning into his enmies, one who tries to take the righteous path. And like Stryker.. he believes in god. Nightcrawler is every bit as relgious.. the simple diffrence.. is that he dosent use his faith as a thin justification to slaughter everything he hates. To cast out what's diffrent. He uses it as faith should be used: to help others, to enrich his life, and to be kind.

What makes this moment for me beyond that though... is it pays off a long character arc for Kitty. When Kitty first met kurt.. it wasn't exactly a great relationship. She ran in fear the first time she saw him and even after finding out , no this is a good guy, she was still nervous around him for some time, gravitating more to the more human passing Roro and Peter. And yet over time.. the two became friends. They bonded.. and she felt ashamed, realizing Kurt.. is just a bit marshmellow. A kind soul who only wanted to be her friend. And this is the payoff for that: her going from a scared kid jumping to her assumptions about a man hwo just looks kinda spooky.. to being BEST FRIENDS with the guy and willing to take a bullet for him. Thankfully.. that blam we heard.. wasn't stryker's gun

The ending of this story.. speaks to it's tone. While our heroes still beat stryker morally and with words, they still won the battle.. what ultimatley strikes him down.. is a regular police officer. A cop simply not wanting a child to die. A normal person doing the right thing. And a ray of hope that maybe just maybe our heroes words got through to some people.

Said ray... dosen't last long as Magneto makes a valid point back at the mansion... and for once.. Charles listens.

It's a moment of weakness.. Charles accepting that maybe his dream isn't enough.. and it' smost fitting that the one to snap him out of it.. is the first person he brought that dream to. His son. And he makes the point I did earlier: this fight can't be won by brute force. This can't be won by FORCING people to accept them.. it has to be won through hard work. It may get worse (And it will), the tims may be tough.. but it's a dream worth fighting for. A better world not paved in blood... but in hope and hard work for a better tommorow. Is it idealistic? Perhaps. Unrealistic? entirely. But it's a noble ream: of a world of accpetince, kindness and love.. and one Scott and the others aren't willing to throw away. And as long as they aren't, charles realizes he can't either.

Naturally Max's response is to call them all fools.. but it's his last few words that really leave an impact

It's a nice touch that Kitty, who magneto nearly killed last time they fought not realizing she was a child and whose near death drove him to realize how far he'd fallen, is the one to speak up. And it's telling for where Magneto's arc is going under claremont.. that he relents a little. He can't fight for a cause he dosen't belivie in.. but he WISHES he could. He's gone from hating the x-men.. to badly wanting to be one of them.. but knowing his heart just isn't in it. From just seconds ago calling them all fools.. to deep down hoping they win. Showing that even if he still thinks eventually they will fall and it'll be his turn.. that maybe just maybe.. he won't have to. That maybe there's a future where he can fight for a better tommorow instead of forcing it.

So we end with Xavier tearfully thanking his students, and Ororo congradulating Scott for what he ddid. he tells her it's what he woudl've done for any of them and at the end o fthe day... it's love that drives this. Love for each other.. and hope for a world ran by love and not hate. But we're not there yet. But maybe... maybe someday.

So if it wasn't obvious.. God Loves Man Kills is a masterpiece. And having to go over it painstakingly for this review.. I stand by waht I said. This is the best x-men story ever. A story that sums up everything the x-men stand for in a neat package, pits them up agains ta unique an dhorrifingly real threat, and says a LOT. All in 60 bneautifully drawn pages. I ddin't mention him much in this review but Brent Anderson's art in this comic is next level stuff. Gorgeous, evocative, and hitting all the right notes. IT's some of the best art in comics and fits well with one of the best stories in comics. If you haven't read this one, do so immediatly. Even if you don't normally read x-men... this is a heck of a good way to start. Thanks for reading.

Next Time: We see the start for one of the x-men's greatest as she... steals an avengers powers and punches iron man in the face. So a bit of a mixed bag all things considered.

[mrawkweird]

A lot of the more hyperbolic reactions have come from long time Sonic heads who sort of rightfully feel gypped. I've only seen episode one and various clips so far. Episode one being the one praised for feeling the most like the movies.

Though from what I've gathered, the show is at it's best when Knux is around or/and they really lean into the insanity of the situation.

I've heard people freak out and go "Damn, if the shows this bad then I got no faith in Sonic 3" like the muti million blockbuster is really gonna try and emulate the shit from the possibly less than one million streaming show, plus we already know the details about the trailer we just haven't seen it for ourselves yet.

I got to say at this point I just respect the hustle Paramount pulls with Sonic series, having the main draw be these expensive ass cgi characters but filming enough stuff with humans to balance out the cost so the movies are never too expensive so unless they go up against some expected to be box office juggernaut they're garneted to at least meet back their budget at the box office

Anyways I'm gonna watch the show at slow pace, possibly just on or two a day opposed to binging it.

Also would you believe me if I told you this wasn't the first Knuckles spin off with the complaint of not focusing on Knuckles enough?

I do believe it because I know that frustration mostly stems from the feeling that Knuckles won't ever get the credit they believe he deserves due to past events. The world could always use more Knuckles but I think the last thing this show ever did was disrespect the character. Hell, one episode even feels like a straight up tribute to him. One might even be able to argue that the series as a whole is a tribute. A very affordable tribute. When it comes down to it I think they just showed exactly why this thing still had a movie looking budget for a streaming series and it's because they used as much as could be afforded for it.

Also, if people enjoyed episode 1 most of all then there should be no worry about the third movie considering that was the one episode actually involving the director of the films. Like, I get we've all been burned before and not just by Sonic but I don't think we're back in "Ugly Sonic" territories of down bad like some would make it out to be. I have absolute faith that fans will be eating like Robotnik in those theaters come December.

[nikethestatue]

Ten Questions For Fic Writers

I got tagged by @cateyesinlove

How many works do you have on AO3? 62 (but many are muti-chapter)

What's your total AO3 word count? 712,280

What fandoms do you write for? ACOTAR

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Most of the time. I typically don't respond to 'when is the next chapter?', but if it's a discussion, then I will.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so, but people have used my OG characters (mostly children) for their fics. They've asked for permission. I believe some have used my storylines.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No.

What's your all-time favorite ship? Elriel and Elain x Azriel x Fenrys x Ruhn

What are your writing strengths? dialogue, world building, smut

What are your writing weaknesses? probably angst? I am not sure. Aversion to HEA? Going too dark?

First fandom you wrote for? It was for a band I used to follow. The fic was so realistic, people started taking it as 'canon' as if it really happened and I basically got a cease and desist order...It was weird. LOL

tags: @danydragons21 @bloomingdarkgarden @fauxdette @gripefroot

(I feel like no one writes anymore....yikes)

[widevibratobitch]

what/who is your fav don giovanni. mine is muti with shimell. but no one beats siepi in acting. kwicien maybe

ohhhhhhh bless you for asking me this <3333 under the cut so as not to spam

i gotta say, I have a soft spot for Mariusz Kwiecień (he was my very first Don Giovanni, actually - that Met 2011 production was the very thing that got me into opera in the first place!), he's definitely THE best 21st century Don Giovanni to me. Acting-wise he's absolutely breathtaking and even if he cannot compare vocally with the old giants like Siepi I'd say he was pretty decent (i'm so weak for him singing that one ✨andiam✨ in La ci darem la mano in falsetto - he always does it and my legs always turn to jelly in that moment). Saw him perform it live only once and that was the moment i truly understood what the word katharsis meant. fucking CHILLS.

I really, really love Samuel Ramey (especially when paired up with young Furlanetto!). That hair, the little earring, that insane stage presence and energy. Also I don't think I've ever heard another rendition of Fin ch'han dal vino that would be as precise as his. It's a devilishly difficult aria, especially when done in the proper tempo, there is quite literally no space to breathe, it's insane - god knows I'm not an easy listener and bitching about opera singers is my personal hobby; but in the case of this one aria I am very forgiving and I usually just expect the singer to fuck it up with no hard feelings from me - but Ramey doesn't miss a single note!

And of course, of course - Cesare Siepi. I think he's the most legendary Don Giovanni and no wonder really. He's amazing, simple as that.

There are many good Giovannis out there, but those free are my personal favourites - though bonus points for... Bryn Terfel. I'm not a huge fan of his singing but that dude can act. Not to be a mean bitch lol but he obviously wouldn't be anyone's first choice (definitely not mine) for a character like Don Giovanni appearance-wise. AND YET - he somehow makes it work... chapeau bas (talking about that Met DG under Levine - say what you want about Levine, I hate that bitch as much as the next person, but he's one of my favourite conductors for both Mozart and Verdi... yikes).

if we're talking specific recordings... I don't have a perfect one, I'll always find something that I'd change, whether it be tempo or a singer. But yeah, I'm also really fond of that Muti recording! The tempi are insane sometimes, some are even faster than what I'd set myself and that's honestly impressive, brave and so so sexy of Muti fr. I think if I had to choose just one recording, that would be it. The cast is also good, especially the ladies. Vaness as Elvira (she's absolutely stunning, also as Anna with the amazing Jerry Hadley in that one Met Recording - also with Ramey and Furlanetto - she's THE soprano for all Mozart roles for me, her Fiordiligi and Vitellia are also legendary), Studer as Anna and I really like the Zerlina, I'm so tired of squeaky meowing Zerlinas like Battle and the whole gang...

Another two I like, though perhaps more for the singers than the conducting itself, are the one with Ramey as Giovanni, Furlanetto as Leporello, Agnes Baltsa as Elvira and Gösta Winbergh as Ottavio under Karajan and one with Sherrill Milnes as Giovanni, Walter Berry as Leporello and Żylis-Gara as Elvira under Böhm. I generally tend to concentrate on the singers more and only really notice the conducting when it's so awful that I just can't look past it lol

wow, that was long, weird, who would have thought that you'd get a long answer from me to a Don Giovanni related question huh

[chiefbeifongcanrailme]

💞🎙️💘

Hi Mochi! Have I told you how great your name looks in my inbox?💅🏻

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language I think the characters. I believe characterizations are everything. If you've got that in the bag, no matter what kinda plot you throw your characters into, the story will most definitely tell itself. And that just makes writing easy as a process. The great thing about fanfiction is that I don't have to delve all that much into worldbuilding because that's already set and then I can focus on my characters and see where my plot leads. Sometimes, though, sure, I end up having to do some amount of worldbuilding in order to explore the plot or certain adult themes that the series may not have captured for obvious reasons. I do also get caught up with grammar and stuff, but I think if you're telling a good story and your intent is understandable, grammar isn't as important. But I'm a neat freak so my grammar ought to be a certain way lmao.

🎙️which one of your fics would you like someone to make a pod-fic of? I think Soul once I finish it. I would kill for someone like James Earl Jones or the Poetsquarecats lady from Tiktok to narrate it.

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write? Probably my very first muti-chapter fic ever, Chaos since I now know I could do better with it. I've pretty much said everything I wanted to on it, but I know I jazzed up some of the consistency, continuity, grammar, etc. I know I got better through the course of that fic, and because of that visual on my progression as a writer, I will not rework/re-edit, or re-write it.

Let's Get ((REAL)) fic writer asks!

[xxdoubledaisyxx]

Jews are money worshippers

Americans are wannabe-money-worshippers. They both make the same mistake of equating the god of money to the god of war because they have a role in the process of commanding a nation to victory to a king like me. However, that is also why people like me write down Torah for them. If they adhere to that, they will be spared when the Day of the Lord comes for all mutilated freaks ruining everyone's lives with their evil and stupidity. If not, like Americans who do not even have a written law of morality in existence to adhere to when they forget natural conscience and warnings from the soul about dangers to the soul, then they will most surely suffer for my amusement.

This will not be a game to me, but will certainly be far more amusing than any games they could ever hope to dream up in their delusions.

Sometimes the jewfiends will use human sounding words. Do not believe them. It is a mimicry they are producing like a parasitic predator intending to deceive you with human language. Do not trust them. Do not believe them. Do not allow them to be in your presence unless they are under guard and imprisoned for deportation elsewhere if not execution.

Like a nasty and evil bug that walked into your house through a crack somewhere and believed for a moment that they owned the place until you saw them strutting about in the open, proud of their newly conquered territory.

That Ben Stiller commercial when he mocked the god of war with his delusions of vanity about Kratos. See how the vile jewfiend boasts of his victory over the free people of America because it now believes this domain to be under the authority of circumcised laws and powers.

I don't know if I can ever watch another movie with that actor after being so horribly offended by the sight of him dressed like Kratos on tv as if the entire purpose of the skit was to boast most cruelly and unjustly to a conquered enemy. A person like that has no awareness of nuclear threat in a time of war, the countless dead in a time of world war, and the bloody and terrifying history of justice making examples of people like him because of what they do not know about themselves.

The video game God of War Ragnarök was jew propaganda produced by the USA government, likely the CIA. That is why the game was embarrassingly poorly written, offensive to the dignity of warriors and faithful pagans, and unplayable because of how poorly designed it was and meaninglessly boring in plot.

It was the point with Atreus and his whorecunt slavegirl human condom from the jew fantasy delusions about their dicks-- the one where they were riding some water buffalo picking up fruit in a swamp or something... I could not suffer another moment of such a boring waste of time. God of War. wtf possessed you to ever include a passage of gameplay so tediously dull and tailored to the people who hate violence and love on stage because they have not lived enough to know any meaning in their lives other than eating and sleeping.

Supposedly the god at the wall was going to kill Atreus, and that's what I like to believe happened, because I will never play the character of Kratos through the story enough for the bastard mutie freak to be spared.

I do not want to include the clip here, but I will tell you my immediate impression when the whorecunt human condom girl first made her appearance:

"oh... it is Atreus the boy from my dreams of prophecy! I can't wait to swallow his circumsmegma every day for the rest of my life!!!" ... blah blah blah in various offensively poor dialogue. Insulting to the intelligence of human beings, especially because of how young that girl was in the game as a character to be so vulgar with her body.

The fantasy of the circumcised freak to be "liberated from fate" was purchased in the game at the expense of female dignity and liberty. The feminine roles of the entire game were designed as entirely subordinate to the male roles as sexual objects to support the jew and mutilated freak fantasies of identifying with the gods; the circumcised people fantasizing about having an identity on equal footing with a god.

They always fantasize about that and get struck down because circumcision is most unsightly and vile to all sight. I don't know why you try to convince yourselves that heaven likes the sight of your defiled bodies when it is most clearly repulsive to the sight of nature to see the result of circumcision on a human soul.

... vile god damned disgusting creatures. waste of organic life. dangerous to all other organic life. better off genocide. save yourself from the future of their nuisance.

"after all," Freyja begins to say in the sickening tone of hubris that is a woman thinking she is equal to a man in a circumcised world, "our children are the only way we can pass our identities on."

I almost barfed. They wrote that line for the goddess Freyja of the Norse rites and traditions. That is a mortal thought of the most perverse and disgraceful ignorance in sin. The person who wrote that dialogue for that character intended to discredit her authority as a deity. That would be the motive of any jew or mutilated freak, godless and senseless to natural forces of reality as they are, and thus was the entire purpose of telling stories in a Norse tradition. Circumcision has no relevance to Norse culture except as the sign of evil worn by the freaks of an uncivilized world who threaten the peace of Asgard.

I am a god without a family.

I never care about the feelings of others or their interpersonal relationships because there are no such people in my life to feel such things myself.

"but I love him!!!"

and I don't love you, whorecunt. You both can die. My daughter? I have no daughters nor sons. Die, creatures of filth, ignorance, and sin!!!

[baphomutie]

Need a bratty mean girl? What about a flighty spellcaster? Even if you need a tough-as-nails barbarian, Mutie is your girl!

My first ever character demo reel scripted, directed, and edited by Very Berry Studios! Working with them was an awesome experience.

I'm currently open for VA work and auditioning for original and fan projects!

[yolandag26]

Alienation and Exploitation

Alienation and Exploitation 

Within the first 10 minutes, the exploitation of individuals and its bodily horrors resulting from capitalism are ever-present in Neil Blomkamp’s 2009 sci-fi film District 9. Though the film engages in social commentary, it participates in the xenophobic treatment of Black Nigerians who are given the roles of prostitutes and gangsters. These depictions reify associations of Blackness with otherness. The film further engages in a controversial representation of Nigerian religion called “muti,” which is essentially the idea that by ingesting alien body parts, individuals would inherit the power of the aliens. As Nigerians are depicted eating alien flesh in a primitive manner, Blomkamp engages in a view of African religion as a crude system. It is also disheartening that the film is set in Johannesburg, South Africa, but the protagonist is a white male. It instead exploits the history of South Africa and dehumanizes Black characters. 

In this film, Blomkamop envisions an imaginary world where aliens are rescued from their mothership by humans. Due to their physical distinctiveness, the aliens are moved into militarized slums, alluding to systems of segregation and relocation. The film introduces Wikus Van de Merwe, a head operative for relocating aliens in MNU from District 9 to District 10 because the residents of Johannesburg want to eliminate the presence of aliens. The aliens forced into an unforgiving and unfriendly world are locked in a struggle for survival, where human gangs rip off the aliens for cat food in exchange for their weapons. 

What stood out to me was the scene in which Christopher is heartbroken upon witnessing how MNU’s genetic research program treats other aliens or what they consider “prawns” for their resemblance to the sea creature. MNU’s concern in redefining the status of humans by engaging in cruel experimental practices reveals capitalist unethical treatment of bodies as expendable and abusable for profit. With these practices, I drew a parallel between District 9 and Sorry to Bother You in its use of science fiction to force viewers to consider the ethics of capitalist systems that benefit white individuals to the detriment of people of color.

The dehumanization of the relocation plan forces the aliens to revolt, realizing that they are the new underclass. This awareness echoes Kibwe Tavares's Robots of Brixton, which captures robot police confronting robot protestors. These graphic scenes highlight how technology takes us back to how humans behave. In District 9, technology plays a pivotal role for MNU, which relies on Wiku’s transformation to operate alien weaponry, which only aliens can engage. According to Octavia Butler, maybe humans are not smart enough to control the technologies we create. We must not be naive in thinking that AI technological developments will always be in our favor simply because we say so. 

[missg00dk4t]

Comics Fangirl n°4 - Fangirl X

This review is about "Earth X #0"/1999

Plot by Alex Ross & Jim Krueger

Art by Alex Ross, John Paul Leon, Bill Reinhold and Matt Hollingsworth

Welcome back, my muties 💙 Did you miss me? What do you mean "no"?

Today's review is about the beginning of what is often called the "Earth X trilogy".

The comic starts with a short narration by this universe's Aaron Stack, Machine Man. Quite "à propos" for a character created by our lord and master Jack Kirby for a "2001 a space odyssey" comic adaptation, he is visited by his own black monolith.

He is then almost instantly transported to the moon by none other than Uatu, the watcher. He strips him of his "humanity", forcing him to expose his artifical nature. He reinforces that transformation by refusing to address him by his human name, calling him "X-51" instead.

Uatu then proceeds to recount the birth of the human race, following the Celestial's tampering with humanity's genome, "planting a seed". When Aaron contests Uatu's cold description of events, the watcher talks down to him like he would a child. Aaron holds on to his humanity and can't help but confront the watcher on details he disagrees on. The watcher tries his best to force a cold analysis of how the "Age of Heroes" was prepared for by the Celestials and is all part of a grand design. According to him, the events that changed the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, and all the others, only resulted in them gaining their abilities because of the "Celestial seed". By Uatu's account, there are no "accidents", only a master plan that spans millenias.

Uatu continues his description, arriving to what is, at the time of writting "present day". The Watcher tells Aaron he brought him here for a reason. Ironically for a watcher, Uatu cannot see anymore. He needs someone whose mind won't melt in the face of the massive amounts of info to process as a watcher, and Aaron, who he insists on dehumanizing, seems like the perfect candidate...

This concludes the first volume of a saga that spans three dense series. The story starts slow, but trust me it goes places,and covers just about everything in the Marvel catalog at the time.

Ever wondered what's up with the divinities in the Marvel universe? What difference is there between mutants and the rest of the super-powered population? All that and more is addressed in this "trilogy". The themes touched upon are "What defines humanity?", "can we control fate?", "what is right or wrong, and do such notions matter in the grand scheme of things?".

Needless to say, if you're looking for some easy reading with light, superficial themes (*kof*MCU*kof*), this is not the series for you. This is comics at their best, full of pathos and philosophical explorations. In my opinion, this is a fantastically written book, on par with the original Watchmen and the likes.

I give this comic a Dystopia/10

Talk to you later, true believers!

Fangirl out.

[clumsyenby]

full masterlist | my Genshin Impact masterlist

hello all! while i am primarily a FNAF writer, i'm excited to announce that i've finally started my draft on my first piece for Genshin Impact! falling into the wormhole of GI fanfics has made me fall in love with the game - tumblr has so many talented and amazing writers!

here is my rough draft description for my piece. main characters etc. for this piece have yet to be decided, i only have the main idea right now. i'm still on the fence on whether it should be a one-shot or a muti-chapter series.

let me know if you'd be interested in reading the finished piece! it will hopefully be posted a week (or two) from now. as always, likes and reblogs are very much appreciated! :)

SAGAU AU - God!Reader. Gender-neutral and usage of They/Them pronouns.

TW: Yandere behaviour, cult-like behaviour etc. Though any blood and gore scenes (if any) will not be in detail, DO NOT read if Yandere behaviour makes you uncomfortable.

title and description under the cut! <3

If Not a God, Who Am I?

Never once in your lifetime did you ever expect to be thrown into the world of Genshin Impact, a game you only played once a week with your friends. Much less did you ever expect to suddenly be thrusted into the life many could only wish for, the role of a God. Not even an ordinary God - The residents of Teyvat saw you as The Creator of Teyvat.

There was only one problem: You are an atheist.

You do not believe in Gods.

a final note: hopefully the Atheist!Reader AU for SAGAU has not been done yet (if so, let me know! i'll give proper credit)! this idea has been bouncing around in my head for the past week, especially as an atheist myself. i thought that it would be a really fun idea to work with: someone who does not believe in gods, is suddenly thrown into the role of a god.

[popculturebuffet]

Mutant Month: The Marvel Super Heroes: Dr. Doom's Day!: Hawkeye is an X-Man Now (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy muties and welcome one and all, wether you fly, shoot rays out of your eyes, make pasta in your nose or your heart can shoot an all inspiring ray that teaches people how to truly love themselves and then explodes them inside out, all are welcome for a celebration of 60 years of the strangest heroes of all, the outlaws, protectors of those who hate and fear them, those undergoing a fall, the uncanny, astonishing, amazing, dark, immortal, red, blue, gold, black, and green, the

As I haven't remotely hid on this blog but will repeat for newcomers, I love the x-men. Their my faviorite superhero team and are easily my faviorite franchise in comics, with spinoffs from New Mutants, to X-Factor to X-Men red all ranking among my faviorite comics ever. I love these characters dearly and haven't covered them nearly enough on here so I decided to celebrate the 65th anniversary with mutant month... and while we're a few months late due to moving and such, this month happening was never in doubt and wills tand as a yearly celebration of all things x.

So to kick this off we've got an odd little note in x-men history, one I wasn't even aware of till asking my good friend emma what animated apperance of the x-men she'd like to cover.. and finding out their first wasn't on spider-man and their amazing friends like i'd thought but much earlier, on a show known for awesome theme songs, shoddy animation and not much else. Yes folks before costarring in the friendly neighborhood, before all the 90's tastic spandex, before 2000s teenage angst and awesomeness, and before the last gasp till a revivial of said 90s spandex, the strangest heroes of all became the allies for peace and teamed up with one of the first mutants to combat the greatest evil the world had ever known on a barely animated marvel cartoon. Also hawkeye was there. So join me under the cut if i've peaked your intrest as we inter the limitedly animated world of the sub mariner and his allies for peace on the marvel super heroes!

The Marvel Super Heroes wasn't just the first animated apperance of the x-men, but the first marvel animated series PERIOD. Create din 1966 and running for 65 episodes (with each episode having three chapters to it but seeming to tell a complete story). The series was made on a budget somewhere BELLOW a paperclip and a piece of string, a singular bottle cap. They simply scanned the actual comics, barely aniamted them, added some effects and for lip movements used Syncro Vox. For those unfamiliar with it Synchro Vox was a super cheap effect where they cut out the characters mouths and had real human mouths recite the words. And if you say "Well jee whiz jake that sounds like a styigan nightmare from the deepest depths of my subconcious" then your right on the money. There's a reason it didn't outlast the 60s.

As you can imagine this .. looks pretty bad and it's better ot just read the actual comics. The actors TRY, they do, but static, barely perserved images on a screen just can't match the panel work in the original jack kirby art. Congradulations Marvel Super HEroes, you found a way to somehow make JACK KIRBY ART not work. I hope your proud.

It's only lasting impacts are , and i'm completely convinced of this, serving as the inspriation for this incredibles short

At first I thought it was cheap animation in general but knowing now this cartoon uses synchro vox and seeing this cartoon again.. yeah. Good on you crew for doing such an incredibly deep cut and making it work on it's own.

The other is the theme songs. The theme songs for the most part slap.

YOu'll also recognize the Iron Man theme song as they used a jazzy instuermental in his film. And given it's the best of the bunch it's easy to say.

There's two themes missing from this. The first is the shows theme itself. Which is... a lot.

I mean they did get namor down pretty down pat.

So kudos. Speaking of Namor his absence from that montage kinda speaks to him as a whole. As doe shis theme being a bit.. less than the others

It's not bad, but you get they just didn't quite have Imperius Sex Machine as defined as the other 4. Captain America at the time was a man of action, who fought for the people and was a symbol of all of america has to offer. Iron Man was a playboy who kept people at a distance. Thor is a god full of the majesty and wonder that brings, and Hulk.. well okay Hulk's theme is just goofy but damn if it isn't fun and still gets the point across. But namors is "Look at him ain't he powerful. He rules a kingdom. So for those less familiar with the prince of the deep who might of missed wakanda forever, a quick recap: Namor started as a golden age super hero, one of Timely, the future marvel comics, first, and one of the big three of his day with the human torch, a diffrent one than the one who'd later flame on with the fantastic four, and Captain America. LIke most timely heroes he vanished to the sands of time for a while. So cue the Fantastic Four and the true birth of the marvel universe. And since Marvel coudln't just let their bigger names of days past simply lie around, they put the human torch moniker on our boy johnny storm. And once the fantastic four proved to be the hit they were, they decided to bring him back via this book to test the waters.

It's a clever return too: Naturally the person to bring namor back is Johnny Storm, the new human torch and spirtual successor to the original who Namor famously battled in the golden age. Johnny was a teen at the time and ran away from home eventually ending up at a homeless shelter.. and finding NAMOR. Turns out since wwII (an increasing gap but unlike most in comics one that dosen't need to be handwaved as Namor is immortal), namor lost his memory and grew a beard. Johnny uses his power to burn it off

And unable to convince namor he's a freaky fish guy dunks him in the bay. The good news is this brings Namor back. The bad news.. is this brings namor back, who sees his kingdom in ruins and wages war with the surface. The four are able to mostly repel him, and Namor ends up taking a liking to JOhnny's sister Sue. These became his primary character traits: wanting to lash out at the surface, and wanting to nail Reed Richards girlfriend and later wife. Seriously just a few years later the guy buys AN ENTIRE FILM STUDIO when he hears Reed's gone bankrupt simply to try and win her over. As other books sprouted up he'd appear in them, mostly to punch the hero or be courted by various supervillians to team up with them as he was the hottest guy in prom. And that's where the decision to make HIM the 5th pillar of this show really makes me tilt my head. Namor isn't a TERRIBLE character. He's not one I like a lot, but it's simply because outside of his stint with the x-men, where both Matt Fraction and especially Kireon Gilleon really nailed him down: arrogant, but not without honor, powerfula s hell and knows it and while certainly willing to go after someones partner does so because he senses a lack of passion. Dosen't make it okay. Also as seen above it shows his tastes are wide, varied and awesome.

The problem is most of the time he's just an angry fish man with a pretty standard power set and a fairly boring kingdom. Wakanda forever completely redesigning it really helped the MCU version.

But just thinking of the remaining superhero books they could use while fantastic fours rights were elsewhere, as were spideys, they still had ant-man and the x-men. (The avengers were around but were largely saved to adapt in cap and iron man's shorts). I get it to a point: Ant Man had recently been canceled and X-Men.. weren't exactly a hit.

See the early x-men adventures.. aren't great. Their not terrible, there's some good ones as i've read them, and it's not exactly a big secret in the x-men fandom or marvel fandom as a whole that while the CONCEPT for the x-men was great: a new evolution of mankind with powers, that next step being largely teens and young adults struggling to control them.. but Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had no idea what to do with this. Stan 100% created the concept of mutants so he wouldn't have to make up an origin for every superpowered villian or hero. You can only use good ole radation so many times before people catch on and Thor, Cap and Iron Man all had super unique origins that coudln't easily be replicated. The most they could do thor wise is bring in another god from another mytholgy with herc.

But it was at it's core just weaker versions of the kinds of stories he told elsewhere and fell HEAVILY into

Ant Man baffles me as while yes, his book was canceled.. they still had a WHOLE series to mine stories from with interesting visuals. He was still an avenger and he and jan played off each other decently when it didn't fall into Smilin Stan really not knowing how to write women.

SO I KINDA get it as Namor was more the default.. but it still felt like a weird choice given they didn't have mcuh to work with where he wasn't the villian and actively seemed to refuse to adapt any story where he was. IT was just an odd choice to pick someone who at the time was mostly an outright villian and most of whose character arc from that was in books they woudln't use.

So when you have to use WHATEVER you can, what do you do? Well if your this show.. you do something profoundly bonkers and hilarious.

The Actual Episode:

So.. this episode is a mighty marvel frankenstien's monster.

NO not him. He wasn't around yet. NO this episode is clumisly stitched together from two diffrent ff issues. Fantastic Four #6 and Fantastic Four Annual #4

The first makes sense as it features Namor teaming up with one of marvel's best villians who they apparently could use in both shows: Doctor Doom. They simply had to replace who his nemesis were. And that of course is where our futuraly uncanny x-men come in, simply slapped into the baxter building and given the ff's reputation and relationship fighting doom. Oddly they woudln't actually fight doom during the 60's like everyone else. Eventually though he did leading to this awesome cover

Granted FF writer at the time John Byrne didn't like the story because Doom was tricked by X-Men enemy and my boy arcade and tried to retcon it but that's a story for another day.

Point is the X-Men hadn't fought doom.. but given they were more generic superheroes at the time having them step into the ff's roll actually makes a lot of sense. And they even had some panels they could use from the x-mens series of them battling namor.

Yeah for some weird reason they decided instead to mash this story.. with FF Annual #4, the wedding of Sue Storm and Reed Richards. An issue that I haven't read but i'm bound to cover eventually for my annual February superhero wedding special

It is famous enough for me to have the gist though: Sue and Reed get married but this being a superhero comic, some action gets thrown in. In this case Dr. Doom decides to gift them EVERY SINGLE AVALIABLE SUPERVILLIAN in the marvel universe. That's not hyperbole. Pretty much every villian who could from street level guys to the big bads like Kang showed up to try and beat the shit out of the ff.. but this being the wedding of two public super heroes, every super hero in the marvel universe short of spidey (who didn't seem to show up, loner that he was). IT comes off at least from a distance as a big old celebration not just of the happy couple but of how much the marvel universe had grown.

As a result though the first half of this episode is just a lot of fighting and feels really disjointed esepcially once the ff #6 adaptation kicks in as there's never really any resolution to the "all the supervillians are given a subconcious signal to fuck with my arch enemy's wedding day. " part of the plot. Or here it's because the X-Men are getting a major award. Which is nice given how their usually treated.. but for some reason here their called "the alliance for peace".

Look if you had to rename the x-men, and why on earth would you even back then at their weakest, why not the peace patrol, the peace posse, Cyclops and those other 4, the Beast Brigade, the Merry Mutant Marching Society, Not-The Fantastic Four, The Fantastic Five, The Sesnational Six, Uncle Charlie's Funtime House Band, Scotty Dosen't Know, The Teen Angels, The Alps, The Marvels, The Recess Monkeys, Code Yellow, The Mutants, XX-Men, The New Justice Team, Fruit Punch, We Hate you Please Die, Hated and Feared, Diaper Time, Stars and Garters, or Suck it Erik? Did they only have 5 minutes? I did and I came up with all of that, so how.

At any rate the first few minutes is just a lot of fighting. Again they HAVE an issue with namor. I get not wanting ot use all of it: Wanda and Pietro were still in the brotherhood of evil mutants at the time and it was back when Magneto was less "one of the most complex, compelling and awesome characters ever" and more "Dollar Tree Doctor Doom". But you HAVE PANELS OF THESE CHARACTERS FIGHTING NAMOR

There's also some with beast. So there was more than enough to do that and still use bits from ff #4. Just have doom narrate he's having mole man attack them. Instead once the fighting stops most of the x-men vanish, widdling down to just xavier who, thanks to using the wedding panels, is in his best baby blue prom tuxedo.

Oh and instead of just angel and professor.. we also get the greatest of all x-men, king of kings. Hawkeye. Yes for no reason other than they could crop other characters out easier probably, Hawkeye shows up a lot in the second act and is implictly a member of the defenders of peace. So in this reality, playing Mephisto's Advocate, either Hawkeye's a mutant with super sharp aiming ablities, or Hawkeye came to the X-Men to tie one of them up to prove he could join them instead of the avengers and Xavier was like "Fuck it come on in bud."

The rest of the ep is.. fine. Namor is asked to team with dr doom, then is betrayed by doom. We do get some awesome over the top stuff as Dr. Doom needs to use the grabber to pull the x-baxter building into space. So namor SWATS MEOTRS AWAY then chases Dr. Doom and ethan hawke into space and somehow survivies. IT's the cheesy kind of fun I want

So yeah.. for a first x-men in animatoin apperance this is pretty bad. Their barely featured as a team, Jean hardly gets to do anything, and it's two stories that just don't work together welded together. We have to assume at the end new york just.. burnt to the ground because Dr. Doom left all the other super villians int he world on. Or like the actual story the watcher just said "Fuck this' and ended it. Either way it's a pretty bleh episode and even the weird as hell way the x-men are used dosen't give it much of a recomednation.

Thankfully next up in x-men month we have something a bit more fitting as it's time for one of the greatest x-men stories of all: God Loves, Man Kills. Thanks for reading.

[talonisputi]

Jumputi Series #3: Bauman

Manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and drawn by Takeshi Obata, the same team behind Death Note.

Synopsis: This manga centers around Mashiro Moritaka, a middle school student who is asked to be a manga artist for classmate Akito Takagi's stories. After being pushed to meet with his crush Miho Azuki who reveals she wants to become a voice actress someday, Mashiro proposes that they marry when she becomes a VA for an anime adaptation of their manga. Mashiro and Akito then set out to create a manga that makes it into Weekly Shonen Jump.

Characters:

Mashiro Moritaka- One half of the manga Duo Ashirogi Muti, he was reluctant at first to become a manga artist because of the demise of his overworked manga artist uncle. His largest motivation is the promise between he and Miho Azuki.

Akito Takagi- The other half of Ashirogi Muti, he does the storylines for the manga. He resolved to do manga after being frustrated that his parents were pushing him to be an office worker.

Kazuya Hiramaru- A salary management who overhears Takagi talking about making manga and decides to quit his job to do do as well, thinking it would be easier. His series Otter 11 gets serialized and he then regrets it, finding that keeping up a weekly manga was more work than he wanted

Eiji Nizuma- A high school genius mangaka with a love for manga who has been drawing manga ever since he was little. From Aomori, he moved to Tokyo for the serialization of his manga Yellow Hit on the condition that if he becomes Jump's best mangaka he will be given the right to end one series in Jump that he hates.

Added 07/17/2018 in a New Heroes Gacha