Welcome back to another installment of Mutantversity! Mutantversity is your home for all things X-Men. In Mutantversity, I, your loyal X-Men tutor, will look at all the things happening in the mutant universe. Each month, I’ll look at a handful of titles and rotate around each month. I’ll keep focus on the most important books or what I consider the most noteworthy. That’ll include crossovers, events, new creative teams and first issues. This month, we’re looking at four key titles from July 2018.
What Happens Next
“X-Men: Gold” #31 by Marc Guggenheim, Pere Perez, Jay David Ramos, Matt Milla and Joe Caramagna
“X-Men: Gold” #32 by Marc Guggenheim, Pere Perez, Jay David Ramos and Cory Petit
I can’t very well leave you all hanging after the wedding that never happened can I? In July, we got to see the fallout of the wedding that didn’t happen between Kitty and Colossus. “X-Men: Gold” #31 and #32 cover that along with putting an end to the whole Mesmero thing with Rachel. Kitty and Colossus meet up the morning after their non-wedding and Colossus is only interested in one thing – leaving. Kitty, after leaving him at the alter, tries to go on about loving him and asks him not to leave but honestly, what else can he do at this point? Leaving is for the best. Just as he leaves, Kitty gets attacked by Rachel. For those who forgot, way back in this series run, Rachel got taken over by Mesmero. He’s been in her head for months now and he’s totally taken her over and is showing her the future that she’s from. In that future, she’s killing other mutants, including her closest friends and that’s what she thinks she’s doing now. Over these two issues, Rachel goes on a tear and attacks everyone and it takes the strength of her relationship with Nightcrawler and her own determination in not being that person anymore to get her out of it. She finally stands her ground and explains why she’s Prestige and not Marvel Girl or Phoenix. She stands up for the path she’s blazed for herself going forward and breaks free from Mesmero.
These two issue move really fast and I suggest reading them together because of how fast it goes. Kitty and Colossus breaking up and parting ways is really fast but I guess that’s really all that can be done now. I mean, if I were dumped at the alter by someone, I probably wouldn’t have much to say. Magik feels a ton of guilt but really, she didn’t do anything. Kitty pretty much had all this in her head and all Magik did was make her actually face it and that’s probably for the best. You can’t start a marriage with all this doubt. I’m eager to see what happens with them because as someone who still stans “Cable and The X-Force,” I want that Colossus back. I also want the Kitty Pryde back who went out to space and hung out with the Guardians of the Galaxy for a little while. Their being apart made them exciting again and as a reader, that’s pretty much all you need to know to not root for a couple anymore. I’ll get into this later with one of our other titles but some couples work and others don’t. This is one that doesn’t work anymore.
One of the things I’ve liked about “X-Men: Gold” is how it feels traditional. That’s usually something I don’t like because I really want this franchise to push itself but this series has been heavy on the drama between the characters, especially the romances and that’s really worked for me as a long time reader. Despite the arcs individually kind of being middling, I’ve really enjoyed the character stuff.
A New Beginning
“X-23” #1 by Mariko Tamaki, Juann Cabal, Nolan Woodard and Cory Petit
I really debated if I wanted to talk about this book because I’m still pretty salty about Laura being demoted back to her old code name. “All-New Wolverine” is truly one of the all time best runs on any X-Men book and it’s a shame that’s ended. With that said, this was not the choice of any of these creators and I am not one to completely write something off without actually giving it a shot. Despite my misgivings about “X-23”, this was a great issue and a really good continuation of what “All-New Wolverine” did. “X-23” #1 begins with a big fight scene as Laura talks about her origins and how this day is her birthday but she doesn’t feel all that attached to it. After Laura and Gabby win the fight, Laura talks to Hank McCoy a.k.a. Beast about the things still being done with Wolverine’s DNA and he gives her a file of a person she should find. Gabby then meets the Cuckoo Sisters, or, unfortunately what’s left of the quintet. Celeste, Mindee and Phoebe are clones from Emma Frost’s DNA and originally there were five of them but two of them passed away. Gabby, being a clone of Laura is super interested in them and in a weird coincidence, it’s also the Cuckoos birthday. They have a cake and explain to Laura that their birthday was picked based on the favorite actor of Sophie and they go off to celebrate their birthday in privacy. Laura and Gabby go to eat and they talk about birthdays and how Gabby really wants to celebrate something like that. At the end of the issue, we see the Cuckoos go off to a church with their cake and it’s revealed that the doctor Laura is looking for is actually working for the Cuckoos and has brought back their two departed sisters. However, Esme and Sophie are not how they were. They are old and dying and the psychic link they all share is not helping things. At the very, very end, Esme talks about how only one of them can survive and pulls out a vial of “Weapon X” and that’s where we’re left.
Continued belowLike I said, I don’t like to write things off before giving them a fair shot and I’m really glad that this book is as good as it is. It stills feels like “All-New Wolverine” but even more personal. Mariko Tamaki’s run on “Hulk” with Jennifer Walters was met with mixed response but I really enjoyed it. Tamaki has a knack for taking superheroes and focusing in on their weakest points or their most emotionally sensitive points. With She-Hulk it was her anger and PTSD. With Laura, it’s her humanity and her constant struggle to break out of being an engineered weapon. She has a hard time embracing relationships with people and little things like birthdays are ‘genetic markers’ and nothing more. This story is a contrast of these two groups of clones – one side being the Cuckoo Sisters and the other side being Laura and Gabby. They handle things very differently and handle their uniqueness very differently and I’m really excited to see that explored more. The best part of “X-23” #1 is that Gabby is back and she’s her. Her playfulness has remained the same, her look is still great and it’s just so nice that she hasn’t been lost in the change back to “X-23.” She’s a special character and I would probably flip over a table or something if she just vanished.
Righting A Wrong
“Cable” #159 by Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson, German Peralta, Jesus Aburtov and Travis Lanham
“Cable” #159 picks up with another flashback to Cable’s childhood 2,000 years into our future. Cable is having a bit of a rough time because his powers are starting to come through and he needs to learn how to use them. His parents Slym and Redd (you know who they are) are arguing over what to do about this. Cable runs off to show that he can control his powers and he gets startled by someone and loses all control. That someone turns out to be his childhood friend…METUS and basically Cable destroys his life when he infects him. His family rejects him, his friends and his neighborhood shun him. They don’t believe he’s who he is and he ends up deciding to take revenge on Cable. Cable is able to go through the time stream and reverse this but almost loses himself in the process. At the end, he takes him to Central Park, to the school and gives him a home he never had. It’s a great ending for a series that never quite got off its feet until the end here.
This final arc in the Cable series has been really special and I really hope it does well in trade form. This took the very long and confusing history of Cable and streamlined it into an incredibly personal story that anyone with even a passing interest could follow. That’s an incredible feat in and of itself. “Cable” #159 is Cable doing something right with time travel. He’s fixing something that should have never happened in the first place and actually leaves something off in a better place. That’s never the case with time travel stories and it makes a ton of sense in the flexible rules of the X-Men universe. I know a lot of people who are really only interested in the “main” characters may pass on this but don’t. Seek this out in trade form. Do yourself the favor.
Marriage Doesn’t Make You Boring
“Mr. and Mrs. X” #1 by Kelly Thompson, Oscar Bazaldua, Frank D’Armata and Joe Sabino
Rogue and Gambit got married and everything is right in the world. “Mr. & Mrs. X” was initially solicited as a classified title and that was incredibly annoying. Not to go off topic too much but that’s absolutely not how you sell a comic book to anyone. Tell us what the book is or wait to actually solicit the thing. Anyway…Rogue and Gambit are married and “Mr. & Mrs. X” begins with their actual wedding. After Kitty and Colossus go off after not getting married, everyone gets ready to watch Rogue and Gambit get married. They get all dressed up and figure out who’s side of the “family” they’re technically from. The bride and groom get themselves together emotionally because this a huge step and Rogue gets a surprise visitor in the form of her sort of mom Mystique, who has been posing as Abigail Brand the whole time. Rogue and Mystique share a very special moment about their relationship and what comes next. There’s even a great mom moment for Mystique when she questions her daughter’s choice to marry Gambit of all people. Rogue puts on a power dampening collar so that she can actually have a kiss (and then some…wink wink) on her wedding day and they get married. It’s romantic and sweet and very much them. They go on and start their honeymoon in outer space but get called in on an emergency because they’re the closest ones to the threat because it’s in space. They take the call and end up meeting Cerise, Shi’ar warrior who they haven’t seen a very long time. They get in a big fight with another group and end up separated and on the last page, Rogue is met by Deadpool of all people setting up a big adventure for the two of them.
There is a misconception with couples in media that once they get together or actually get married that they become boring. That could not be farther from the truth. The problem is that no one ever really knows what to do with a couple once they get together because the characters are almost entirely defined by being a couple. Their love and their feelings are define them and once the couple is together, what else is there? It’s a shame that so much media is like this because your life doesn’t stop once you get married and are, you know, actually happy. Rogue and Gambit are two characters who have had their own stories separate from each other but have this easy way of falling back into each other’s arms. Creative teams have come and gone and given this pair their own twist but finally they’re married and they’re really happy. Proving that marriage isn’t the end of your adventure, “Mr. & Mrs. X” #1 is fun. It’s romantic and has just the right amount of action to please any X-Men fan. I’ve said this before but I can’t think of someone more perfect to handle this story than Kelly Thompson. She’s someone that’s always been a fan of this franchise and these characters and there’s so much love in how she’s crafting their adventures together. This first issue covers a lot so it feels a little all over the place but it works so well to establish the series. The wedding itself is romantic but still very much Rogue and Gambit. I mean, Mystique shows up and they’ve basically stolen this wedding instead of paying for their own. It’s so “on brand” and even their vows are uniquely theirs. I don’t know about this whole thing in space but I’m so sold on Thompson’s voices and the care she’s taken with these two.
What were some of your favorite X-Men books in July 2018? Let me know in the comments below!
