POBB July 28, 2024

Pick of the Brown Bag

July 28, 2024

by

Ray Tate

Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag, a review blog becoming more frequent every week.

 ...Sigh...

What is it about the X-Men that's so friggin hard!  

Gah! Gah! Gah!

Anyhow, that's the emotional part of the review.  Now, let's get to the subjective and objective criticisms of NYX.  First, what I liked.

The art by Francesco Mortarino is fantastic.  I have zero complaint about the art.  

The colors by Raul Angulo tend to shift from warm and natural for day scenes to nightclub purple and mutant green.  

All of it aesthetically pleasing.  So, yeah all the illustration is welcoming to the eyes.  

Sophie Cuckoo, nope that's apparently her real name, has a winning comment about Ms. Marvel's sobriquet that I'll not spoil here.  

In fact I liked Sophie's and Kamala's developing friendship throughout.  Why couldn't this aspect be in a story that I actually cared about?

It's also nice to see Kamala Khan's brother worrying about her.  He incidentally doesn't know or only suspects that his sister is Ms. Marvel.

Now for the rest...Something happened to Krakoa, the Mutant Paradise Island.  Mutants scatter across the mutant-hating globe without teleports to an idyllic refuge.

Some of these mutants include Prodigy, the aforementioned Sophie one of the Stepford Cuckoos and X-23 who is back to being Wolverine.

I realize that some reading this believe I just had an aneurysm and for my last act typed out some gibberish.  I understand.  So, let me explain.

Prodigy is exactly what his name implies.  He's a really intelligent mutant character.  Though kind of a priggish sphincter.

The Stepford Cuckoos combine the names of two science fiction novels that spawned popular movies: The Stepford Wives and The Midwich Cuckoos.  The latter gave us this...

X-23 is a female clone of Wolverine.  Real name Laura Kinney, she possesses all the powers of Wolverine and a similar personality, but her different experiences make her a different person.

Now, you may be wondering how I’m aware any of this.  Faithful POBB readers know.  I gave up on the X-Men very quickly; soon after the Tigra team-up from Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum.  Mostly for good when artist Paul Smith left the book.  

However, all of the characters I mentioned appeared somewhere else.  I am a fan of X-23.  Ever since Avengers Academy.   Tom Taylor wrote her in her own Wolverine book, and I was happy as a squirrel in a tree full of nuts.  As to, Ms. Marvel…

I like Ms. Marvel.  I believed her center presence on the cover indicated NYX wouldn't be a mutant war book and just something fun to read.  I didn't know Ms. Marvel was a mutant.  I thought she was an Inhuman.

Sure.  That explains it, but was it necessary? Was it necessary to make Ms. Marvel a mutant and an Inhuman? Does it make this character any more fun.  I'm going to say no.  In fact, it takes an already fun character and makes her damn annoying.

I mean if I were to take a shot of whiskey every time Ms. Marvel insinuates or outright mentions her newfound mutanthood I'd be smashed out of my mind.  

None of this mutant-pride flag-waving was necessary because it defies the writing precept of showing not telling.  

The fact is that scribes Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly could have simply had Kamala state, "They have a new curriculum I'm eager to try."  There's no reason to go full blown mutant technobabble since on page eight we get this exposition dump.

One or the other not both.  They could have also eased my troubled mind and foreshadowed Prodigy's blah-blah had Ms. Marvel stated to Bruno, "They have a new curriculum I'm eager to try.  STEM, a mutant inclusive history course, Bohemian architecture.  So many things to learn."  What exactly do editors do nowadays?

Kamala literally bumps into Sophie Cuckoo in the next scene.  They hit it off.  Sophie divulges that she's attending class for a specific reason.

After a discourse between Sophie and Prodigy we do not see, Sophie takes Kamala to a club.  There we meet Anole.  He's named after a harmless lizard.  Does that keep him out of trouble.  Nope.

A fight ensues, and the bouncer is accidentally hurt, which leads to ejection.  

During the fight, Kamala learns of something going down at a subway station.  She tries to engage Prodigy, who's uninterested.  

Calling the police would have been the best idea:

"Officer, this is Ms. Marvel.  I've got wind that something bad is going down on Rocket Number Nine.  Maybe send a bomb squad.  I'll meet you down there."

She only knows that the mutant racist group are planning something.  She doesn't actually know superpowers will be involved.  The police and perhaps Iron Man and Spider-Man would be best suited for helping her look for trouble.

It's at this moment that Wolverine inexplicably makes an appearance.

Despite having hyped up sensory powers, I can't for the life of me think why she manifests at the moment Kamala doesn't need her.  

Oh, and Wolverine would have been perfect mutant kumbaya back-up to look for the hate group's shenanigans, but apparently despite what she says, Wolverine doesn't do heroism anymore.

Wolverine's non-participation warning doesn't deter Kamala who goes off looking for problems on her own.  Unfortunately for her and everyone involved, including the reader, mutant racists are not the cause for consternation.

Another fucking mutant looney with a bucket on his damn head.  Why? Because these stupid helmets are supposed to block out telepaths.  It's canonical.  Fuck me.

We do get a reveal.  Who is the dashing young lad in the bucket?  Got me.  They do a dramatic dum-dum-dum.  I still got nothing. 

In fact the whole team of Evil Mutants, can't tell if they're a brotherhood, gets a dramatic dum-dum-dum.  Except for "one," I got nothing.  I also got nothing out NYX.  No fun.  No good Wolverine moments.  Just mutant wtf.