Psycho Loves Jerkass: Laura and Julian (Part III): A Night on the Town

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Our series hits Part III, easily the longest segment, covering the "Mercury Rising" storyarc that ran from New X-Men #33-36. Laura and Julian take a break from saving each other (though they end up doing that too) to save someone else, and Julian tries to get her to go cold-turkey on killing bad guys. And Emma finally directs her righteous bitchiness at an wholly appropriate target.

Oh, and Laura has clearly been sitting in on Marvel's creator summits, enabling her to predict the future.

As we saw at the end of the last post, post-rescue Laura is intently following Julian around. In this instance, she observes him in the Danger Room with Beast, as they try to get a handle on his power levels after Emma unlocked them last time to let him return to the Institute in time.

Because their past chats have all gone so well, Emma chooses now to have another talk with X-23.






The gap between intentions and methods: a staple of Emma Frost.




Silly Cessily; the only place more dangerous for mutants than the Xavier Institute is the world outside the Xavier Institute.

They head off to a cafe in town, and Mercury monologues for a bit about her powers and how that affects her (she doesn't need to eat or anything like that, but still orders food to look and feel normal), before returning to the subject at hand.



Recalling what I said earlier, X-23's former masters, the Facility, arrive on the scene and blow the place up good. The agent heading this up is Kimura, an invulnerable chick that X-23 can't hurt, and, in a bit of misdirection, reveals that she's actually after Mercury, not X-23. She makes off with Mercury, and Laura heads back to the X-Mansion.

Meanwhile, Hellion is looking around for the two of them.





I like to think that there's a mom 'n pop building supply operation in Salem Centre that does nothing but supply materials to fix the Xavier Insitute's daily property damage.

So the two of them are on the trail of the Facility; X-23 doesn't know where they're currently operating from, so she opts to chase down her old contacts from when she was working for them to get it from them.



Ouch. The dudes run away, spraying machine gun fire everywhere, and try to drive away.





What, no killing people? That's all she's good at!

This arc really brings out a dynamic between the two I really like; I mentioned this in the comments to one of the previous posts, but Julian, when he first appeared, was the Malfoy of the Xavier Institute. Even after he became more sympathetic, he was still supposed to be an "edgy bad boy", which meant in context that he was a bit of an asshole and enjoyed roughing people up. Here he winds up in a situation way outside schoolyard stuff; Laura's not malicious and doesn't really want to get involved in this anymore, but her fighting style and operating tactics are those of an assassin. Moments like this catalyze that Julian really wants to be a superhero.

As you can probably take from X-23's reaction there, she's not a big fan of this, as we see next issue (plus: schoolgirl outfit!).




They go to meet with the Owl (in a rare instance of the X-Men crossing over with the rest of the MU, something that in this period wasn't happening much apart from Wolverine; though Laura's his clone, so maybe she gets the same exemption); this being during the Kingpin's sojourn to Europe and before the rise of the Hood, Owl is running the show in New York.



Laura, you dare suggest that the mighty Owl will quietly shuffle to the background when the Kingpin returns? Or be killed? I think not. Why, in New Avengers #33...oh.



But it only seemed like he was dead. I'll have you know that two years after this was published, Ed Brubaker wrote "Return of the King" in Daredevil (is still writing, I suppose), where this scene happened, which totally proves you owe the Owl an apology.



See. That was nothing like what Laura said would happen.



He squeals.



The Facility, meanwhile, has been trying to laser off some of Mercury's mercury to use it to create a monster mutant-killer; they succeed. Then their security goes off...




The final issue picks up right where they left off.






They do (with some help from the rest of the team, the AXM team, and the Sentinels, who track them to the Facility's base.

Laura actually takes his advice at this point, with humans, even punching someone in the face without using her claws at one point. And so this arc ends with Julian more weirded out by the realities of her life, and Laura more influenced by his insistence on proper heroics (something that, incidentally, she backslides massively on in X-Force; thanks, Scott).

Also, since this series has had a lot of Emma being kind of awful to Laura, I've included the bit where she tries to make up for it. In a neat little moment that creates a bit more ambiguity around Julian's method of disposal shown above, Kimura reappears at the issue's end, ready to plug a few rounds into Laura's head.





Like I said, don't fuck with Frost.

Next time: Some really radical changes in art style. Petty teen drama nearly gets someone sliced-and-diced. Lady Deathstrike gets on Laura's bad side.

Comments

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

That image with Laura and Keller doing Back-to-Back-Badasses?

Following my "Keller is Jean Grey" theory, I'm *fairly* certain I've seen at least one cover/panel of Wolvie and Jean doing pretty much the exact same pose (down to the placement of arms and glowing outline around the TK)

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

So does this make Sofia Scott?

[arilou_skiff.insanejournal.com]

Leader of the X-men?

Yes, I believe it does.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

I'm not sure anything that has befallen Scott can compare with appearing in New Warriors v.4.

[long_silence.insanejournal.com]

It was a Space Phantom.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

How's the Nile looking?

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

Didn't Frost's mind fuck on Kimura backfire greatly later on?

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

She hasn't been seen since that issue, that I know of.

Kyle & Yost keep track of their characters, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if she showed up agian.

[long_silence.insanejournal.com]

It's awesome.

The Space Phantoms also replaced Gravity and the gun totting Patriot during Secret Invasion. Those kid heros who don't like killing didn't actually kill anyone!

[silicone_soul.insanejournal.com]

It seems like a pretty horrible idea, at any rate. Yes, let's take this dangerous, powerful individual and cause them unbearable anguish that will only serve to make them more dangerous than they were before.

What could go wrong?

[long_silence.insanejournal.com]

I'm not sure.

Apparently Kimura just got over it and started selling Predator-Xs in Madripoor.

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

Where was this? All the existing Predator Xs were killed either in this or in "Messiah Complex".

[long_silence.insanejournal.com]

That new Marvel Anthology book, Astonishing Tales.

Wolverine and the Punisher are hunting her down.

[zechs27.insanejournal.com]

Also I think Yost/Kyle also said that someone from Laura's past will be appearing in the next few issues of X-Force. Probably Kimura.

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

I pretty much hate Yost's writing, but I love that scene at the end. Emma is such a HBIC.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Sadly for the Mom and Pop store, Xaviers has an account with Damage Control... a BIG one I should imagine.

And, amongst other things, X-23's threat to the Owl overlooks a certain point; the Owl CAN fly, it's his mutant power. He can only fly by gliding, very slowly, but he CAN fly. (He was also originally planned to be the leader of the Alliance of Evil, until they realised how lame he was and they designed a new guy instead... name of Apocalypse, but that's another story)

[angelophile.insanejournal.com]

How long ago did they say that? I only ask since a face from Laura's past recently popped up in X-Force.

[mxlm.insanejournal.com]

I'm sure I don't really want to know, but why the hell is the Punisher going international to halt the sale of copies of Predator-X? Doesn't he have, like, cocaine dealers to kill or something?

[readeriif.insanejournal.com]

Whoever the X-Mansion goes to for repairwork, my personal theory is that picking up these costs was a condition laid out by the X-Men when the Sentinels were set to guard the premises.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Was the face still attached to the rest of the person?

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

Punisher goes after arms dealers too. And since the Predator-X is a big powerful weapon, it would make sense for him to go after the dealers and manufacturers.

[bariman1987.insanejournal.com]

picking up these costs was a condition laid out by the X-Men when the Sentinels were set to guard the premises

Especially since they do a piss-poor job of guarding the place.

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

But was he one of the ones who escaped Decimation? And if he was... What the hell, Marvel?

[readeriif.insanejournal.com]

Eh, what does? As noted earlier, the X-Mansion gets wrecked and assaulted on a regular basis anyway.

I just kind of stop at, y'know, the most prominent symbol of mutant represssion- oh, and thanks to Cassandra Nova and Genosha- mutant genocide, being assigned the task of guarding the last remaining mutants.

Seriously. That's one thing I wish Frost had called Tony on- his company helping to design the next generation of Sentinels. (And yes, the ONE Sentinels are manned, which should cut down on various issues, but the symbology still remains).

[readeriif.insanejournal.com]

... and by 'what does?', I mean 'what does go a good job?'.

[rorge.insanejournal.com]

It's saddening that the guy compared to Magneto in early Academy X days was actually a far better influence on Laura than Scott Summers.

In fairness to Julian, he has been a dick to pretty much anyone he didn't consider a friend. But those he does consider friends, he'll do anything for. Note his acceptance of Kevin, simply because of Cessily's crush, his determination to save Tag, his rage when he thought Nimrod had killed Santo, and his willingness to risk himself to save Laura.

And since the end of the Nimrod arc, I can't recall him being nasty or petty to anyone. PTSD would account for some of that, perhaps, but the kid certainly grew up during the course of Kyle & Yost's run.

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Owl sacrificed himself to Hell in Spider-man/Daredevil on a "My life has been pointless!" whim. Since then, he's come back life without explanation quite often. I think he (and Mysterio) made a deal with Mephisto.

[x5455.insanejournal.com]

That last scene is EXACTLY why I LOVE Emma Frost.

[goblinthebamf.insanejournal.com]

for awhile the mansion was automatically repaired by Shiar tech.


...illegal aliens are takin' our jobs.