Scott’s plan to let the Proteus problem fix itself by convincing Proteus to commit suicide works, and suprise, suprise, one of the only voices of dissent is Scott’s abandoned bastard kid Cable. Proteus’s own mothers don’t even give a shit, although based on that disembodied head there maybe we’re supposed to assume that the Shadow King is still influencing Moira. I don’t fucking know, but what I do know is that Piecemeal is fucking dead, and I’m pretty god damn sure he had no intention of committing suicide at the start of this story. He seemed like he was wanting to be relieved of the pain that was being inflicted on him throughout this entire train wreck of a crossover. And guys . . . guys … get this. Want to know who the “Kings of Pain” end up being? It’s one of those Rob Liefeld characters whose name you will never remember, and Toad.
Toad! Toad was the chessmaster! Fucking Mortimer Toynbee himself! This guy!This rube! I don’t fucking believe it. I’m starting to remember why I quit reading X-Men for a couple of decades there after Claremont left. (X-Factor Annual #6 – 1991)
This … is an amazing plan. In order to stop Harness from using Piecemeal to continue to syphon mystical energy out of the air, Moira has Multiple Man make a bunch of copies of himself to hold Piecemeal down with sumo holds and then she runs out there with those little paddles and she tries to drain his energy. As you can imagine, this doesn’t work.
Honestly! That’s like trying putting out a house fire with a spray bottle of Windex! Isn’t Moira supposed to be a scientific genius? This was the best plan she could come up with?? Honestly. Then, when Warpath punches Harness in the face and knocks her helmet off revealing she’s a woman, she INSTANTLY goes from being a verbally and physically abusive thug to a caring mother.
And then this leads to Proteus being reborn because Piecemeal had been consuming the energy that got spread out all over the world when the X-Men defeated Proteus way back in Uncanny X-Men #128. All of this mealy-mouthed storytelling just leaves me with tedious questions. Like, why was this mother torturing her kid?? And why did she seem to be enjoying it so much?? And do you seriously think we forgot about that because it just happened in the last god damned issue!! (X-Men Annual #15 – 1991)
Geez look at how draw right up everyone’s buttholes in these comics (including Nova). Anyway, once everyone gets together on Muir Island and stops fighting, we get a recap on the old Proteus story from Uncanny X-Men #125-128 which is good for people like me because I read those comics like five years ago and I completely forget how all that went down.
Imagine if you were reading all these comics when they were published and it had been like 12 years since you read that story! Who could possibly remember! Reagan came and went in that time!! Nine seasons of the Facts of Life had concluded!! No one was the same after that! (X-Men Annual #15 – 1991)
So the New Mutants (actually I guess it’s X-Force now even though the X-Force comic hasn’t started yet) and the New Warriors travel to Muir Island to investigate the power nexuses they’ve been detecting, and of course there’s no welcoming reception here because everyone on the island is possessed by the Shadow King who’s still forcing them to dress sexily (and has been for like a year and a half at this point). That makes sense, and I’m thinking, ok how is this going to play out?? How are our heroes going to interact with a whole bunch of corrupted X-Men side characters? And they even acknowledge this state of affairs by having the Shadow King’s disembodied corpse face floating above everyone, but then, for the sake of, I don’t know, plot I guess, the Shadow King just fucks off out of this comic for the next 30 pages?? Seriously? Like, he just stops possessing everyone for a few hours so we can do this story?? And when he … “loosens his hold,” Moira and Lorna don’t kind of shake the cobwebs loose and wonder why they’ve been dressing like they’ve been sleeping over in Lady Gaga’s basement for the last 18 months? Ya gotta be shitting me with this shit. And then, because this is a Marvel comic, a fight still happens, because it has to, FOR NO GOD DAMNED REASON, causing hundreds of thousands if not MILLIONS of dollars of damage to Moira’s scientific research facility.
Namorita gets slugged in the face by someone with super strength for the second time in two issues, and eventually everyone stops fighting and we continue on with the story like nothing happened.
What was the point of that! There have been a lot of pointless battles in these X-Men comics where all the good guys just start fighting each other for no good god damn reason instead of having a normal conversation, but this was one of the most pointless. It would have made sense if the Shadow King was still possessing everyone, but he’s in the bathroom for this entire comic! Yes, I know we can see him in Moira’s eyes, but that makes even less sense! Why did they stop fighting then! What’s he doing in there! Why do these characters act like this??? (X-Men Annual #15 – 1991)
Man I can’t tell any of these Kings of Pain covers apart. They all look exactly the same! BDSM Halo character. Obese guy on a leash. Different superhero team bouncing off them. It’s like an Instagram story from a Chris Claremont pajama party. (X-Men Annual #15 – 1991)
I do not like this comic art. I do not like it in my shopping cart. I do not like it when I fart. No, I do not like this comic art. Paul Smith is one of the greatest X-Men artists of all time, but dang, after the last few issues drawn by Jim Lee, which had extremely dynamic layouts and eye popping detail that was practically jumping off the page, these panels feel like they were drawn in the 1960s. Bland, straightforward, and derivative. While I’m enjoying the beginning of this new story and am looking forward to the long awaited resolution of the Shadow King plot line, this all feels awfully disjointed from the previous few issues, and not just in its aesthetic design but also in its continuity as well. For instance, how did Guido get here? How did Rogue get here, for that matter, and where did she get a clean uniform? She’s been wearing the same stained rags for her entire jungle adventure in the Savage Land which lasted for months. Same goes for Moira who has been dressing super provocatively for the past several dozen issues or so (or so we’ve been told) but is now wearing some kind of Scottish tribal chieftain uniform or something. And where did this gladiator arena come from? We just visited Muir Island to murder Proteus and things hadn’t yet devolved into Mad Max in Thunderdome. Not impressed with this continuity at all. (Uncanny X-Men #278 – July 1991)
