Preview for Uncanny X-Men #4 (plus some musings on a recent cartoon crossover episode)

[icon_uk]

Newsarama has a few X-title previews, including Uncanny X-Men #4



This issue is a one shot which features the return of the Borg Phalanx (Nosiree, not the Borg, not the Borg at ALL!) as we see a story from the point of view of an isolated member of the Collective... the Hivemind!.



Along comes Sinister with what looks like a vacuum cleaner/proton pack on steroids and captures one, destroying the rest of the cluster.



Well, there's no way THIS could horribly backfire on Sinister, is there now?

And this gives me a chance to mention an amusing little comparison I noted a few weeks back.



Now, Ben 10 has been a fun cartoon series (The sequels less so IMHO, but let's not go into that here, unless anyone cares to of course) but there have been one or two suggestions along the way that it's not entirely original in concept. The entire notion is Dial H for H.E.R.O. writ large, and a couple of the alien forms that Ben can dial up are also skirting the edge of existing properties, and none moreso than the techno based alien known as Upgrade...

Here's Upgrade



And here's Warlock (Just for variety this is how he appeared in the 1990's X-Men cartoon series)



Now one of Warlock's more unique powers was that he and Doug Ramsey could merge forms compltely, becoming essentially, a fusion of them both, known as Douglock...




That was Alan Davis' take on it, this is Art Adams...



You can read as much subtext into those scenes as you like, I know I do. :)

Generator Rex is another series from the same "Men of Action" stable as the Ben 10 Franchise, about Rex, another teenage hero who, due to a complicated plot device, has the ability to spontaneously cause nanites in his body to produce a number of technological extensions to his own body, allowing him to fight many of the similarly nanite infected life-forms which resulted from the same mysterious event which gave him his powers. (It has some great designs to it, especially some of the monsters, which are insane anime level monstrous.)

But getting back to the theme of this portion of the post, in the recent Generator Rex/Ben 10 crossover episode (Which wasn't that bad), we see something which may be a touch familiar in concept and tone. As Ben explains that the only way for Rex to use his own tech-generating powers to stop the bad guy is to get an upgrade... and he means it in a more literal sense than Rex realises. .



So Ben dials up Upgrade...



And then...










Yup, you have just seen two guys mingling molecules at the most profound level on primetime cartoon TV! Mazel Tov!

And after noting that it feels weird (No shit Rex!), the first thing that Ben does now he's achieved total bodily penetration with another fella is redesign his wardrobe (I hate to use the term "How gay is THAT?" but it does seem more appropriate here than usual. :) )




Ben then mimics another of Warlock's tendencies when Douglock was created, popping up a spare head to converse with Doug.




There isn't a proper clip I can find online to demonstrate it with their discussions, but this AMV has most of the salient points...


And to round the episode off, it's perhaps better that we don't discuss the Freudian implications of one guy sucking another guy up to fire him out of his great ummm... "Slamcannon"... o_O

Comments

[auggie18]

Heard a lot of good things about Generator Rex, but the main character seemed a little, um, grating. Might give it another shot, though.


There really isn't a way to have two character merge that isn't at least a little 'sexual undertone"-y, is there?

[icon_uk]

Oh he is grating, and both smug and obnoxious, as such teenage heroes tend to be, but he seems to have a little more justification for it than some.

There really isn't a way to have two character merge that isn't at least a little 'sexual undertone"-y, is there?

Not if there's any justice! :)

[auggie18]

Yeah, he was sort of intense. Ly. Unlikeable. The setting seemed cool, though, as did the animation. Maybe you get used to Rex? After all, Kon-el started off a huge dick and he became a favorite character.

Was this a cross dimensional thing? Because, while I've never seen Ben 10, it always seemed less future-y than Rex Generator.

[icon_uk]

I find his unlikeable traits more interesting than Ben who hasn't had any noticeable personality since he was 10.

Oh, and it was indeed cross dimensional as Ben and Rex exist in different universes, in Rex's "The Event" happened six years ago and changed everything. In Ben's world there was no Event, but the Plumbers have been tracking aliens on Earth for decades. (Ben goes to his hometown in Rex's world, but finds it different, and his family don't exist)

[dewinged]

I find his unlikeable traits more interesting than Ben who hasn't had any noticeable personality since he was 10.

Yeah, Gwen took up all the unlikeable on that show. :)

[icon_uk]

Though I can sympathise with her situation. She went from the original series "aspiring sorceress, with a wide array of magical skills to be acquired", to "low level Teen Lantern" solely because her deceased Grandma was actually a not-dead-at-all alien.

[dewinged]

See, I watched some of the original series from the start. I never even got to the 'Gwen is a sorceress' part; she was, to me, so obnoxious I stopped watching after a couple of episodes.

[icon_uk]

If I were an overachiever, stuck for weeks in an RV with only my slob of a self-absorbed cousin, who has been redefining "insufferable" since he lucked into his magic watch thingie, for a peer-group, I'd be past "obnoxious" and into "homicidal".

[kovacs]

I've tried watching an episode. REALLY couldn't get into it.

[icon_uk]

It's very arc driven from what I've seen, miss a couple of episodes and you can completely lose track of who is now allied to whom and who has appeared on the scene (I didn't know Rex's brother had appeared on the scene (or that ge even had a brother) and it's not quite clear who's side he is on, beyond some sort of filial loyalty to Rex)

[bruinsfan]

There really isn't a way to have two character merge that isn't at least a little 'sexual undertone"-y, is there?

I thought Madison Jeffries' brother found a way in Alpha Flight.

[damar148]

Those Phalanx look godaweful.

[icon_uk]

Most Phalanxed humans look like that don't they? (Either that or the ones on the cover)

[damar148]

The ones on the cover are the ones I remember from the big crossover event that started Generation X.

[icon_uk]

They're shapeshifters, they usually keep a sort of humanoid form like the ones seen in these pages, but will merge and mix if they have a plan, like forming the Babel Spire which is the primary goal of basic Phalanx.

[big_daddy_d]

I LOVED that Ben 10/Gen Rex crossover.

[akodo_rokku]

Motto!

[midnightvoyager]

Wait, is Sinister experiencing on that thing's crotch? ALL OF THOSE TOOLS are pointing toward it.

I guess we know why the not-borg is so traumatized, then!

[midnightvoyager]

EXPERIMENTING

FREUDIAN SLIP

[icon_uk]

All the best ones arse... I mean ARE!!!

[citygod]

The not-Borg even mentions "undiscovered countries"... where have I heard that phrase before...

[icon_uk]

Shakespeare by way of the Klingons in a Classic Trek movie

[citygod]

And it's a mis-quote, isn't it? When Plummer says "To The Future: the undiscovered country, from which no traveller shall return" shouldn't the quote be "death, the undiscovered country, from which no traveller shall return"?
Or perhaps it lost something in translation from the original Klingon.
ps love your seasonal Robin icon.

[icon_uk]

That is indeed the the original quote, but I don't think it's a misquote, so much as a partial one. The Klingon chap is making a toast to the Future, then starts the quote because he thinks it applies to the future as well as to death.

And thank you, he is a fluffy little fellow isn't he? :) Saw him on a Christmas card and thought he'd look nice scanned. He'll be being put away for the year come Twelfth Night of course.

[silverzeo]

... Ben10 and Generator Rex are basically Kon-El....

[icon_uk]

Costume wise I can sort of see the connection, otherwise, not so much.

[silverzeo]

Basically their positions: Ben is now acting the way Kon was when he started out, using their superhero cred to be a teen celebrities, making both have big obnoxious egos which makes their "normal" girlfriends hate them cause they tend to show off. Rex is like when the Kid worked for Cadmus: Both work for a agency that deals with genetics, trended by no-nonsense soldiers, hot super scientists, plus a evil woman had a hostile take over their respected labs at one point or another.

But then again, Rex and Ben are both blender mixes of comics from both Marvel and DC...

[arilou_skiff]

After Annihilation: Conquest anything the Phalanx does seems a bit of a step down y'know?

[icon_uk]

They never struck me as being likely candidates for Annihilation Conquest to be honest, they had already been established in the M-Tech Warlock series as being nothing more than leftover Technarch food that had reached critical mass and developed delusions of competency.

Their entire purpose was to create their "Babel Spire", which they thought would gather more Phalanx to come and get them off whatever backwater rock they'd come into being on, but instead was actually sending a message to the Technarch homeworld with a message akin to "Clean up in Aisle 3" because they would then find a Magus level Technarch coming along to obliterate the world they were on.

They couldn't even assimilate mutants when, as seen above, Techarchs could do so without a problem (They could even REVERSE the process... though as Warlock points out it was always risky)