Uncanny X-Force #6 AKA Wolverine is still a hypocrite

[long_silence]

So the last volume of Uncanny X-Force ended with both Wolverine and Psylocke going through some tough trials (Wolverine was forced to kill another one of his kids, Psylocke was forced to kill Archangel and her brother) and both of them deciding that they couldn't keep running their secret kill squad anymore.

Psylocke tried to become a teacher at the Jean Grey School but she didn't exactly have the temperament to handle the students like Quentin Quire

So Wolverine suggested that Psylocke go on a mission to take care of one of the X-Men's loose ends, Spiral.

Things got a bit out of hand, Bishop showed up, a couple of public battles with both Bishop and Spiral that endangered civilians, Psylocke was kidnapped by one of the Fantomexes, regular X-men stuff

So a lot of this issue was Psylocke having a psychic conference with Wolverine about what's happened.










I've felt that this title was maybe a bit superfluous since Brian Wood's new adjective X-men also has both Storm and Psylocke on the roster, will tie into the next X-men crossover and has gotten way more attention because of the all female cast. But this scene really makes me hope that both books can coexist

Comments

I keep forgetting

[blue_bolt]

Is Betsy back in her original British body or is she still in her Asian one?

I thought she was back in her original but it's hard for me to tell with the art.

Re: I keep forgetting

[long_silence]

She's still in her Asian body, Marvel likes it better because they get to feign racial diversity in a B-List character.

[captainbellman]

This art...does it improve when they leave Cerebra? Because what I'm seeing here looks like a slightly wordier fan-comic I might have expected to see around Tumblr.

[long_silence]

This is Adrian Alphona's stylistic art, personally I think it's kinda perfect for scenes on the astral plane.

Dexter Soy does the art for scenes in the real world. Personally I prefer Alphona's style

[thatnickguy]

Wait wait wait. This is the same artist from Runaways? Jesus, I can see it now, but it's just not the same as what I enjoyed in Runaways.

[sir_razorback]

Logan, do you put your mask on THEN shave in the mornings? That's backwards, man... :p

[bardbrain]

Saves on razors.

But that raises the question: How does Wolverine grow hair?

Hair is dead cells. His cells regenerate.

[sianmink]

hair is more of an inert extrusion from living cells. like fingernails are.

[jlbarnett]

Spiral isn't a mutant.

[akodo_rokku]

Unless she's being retconned into being one.

(It would appear that she is.)

[northstarfan]

To put it politely, Sam Humphries has been playing fast and loose with backstories. Less politely, I sometimes wonder if he got anything except editorial cliffnotes on some of this cast.

I gave this book a chance because I was interested in seeing Puck knocking around the MU outside of Alpha Flight, and dropped it two issues in. If there had been more of this sort of scene, there might have been a very slight chance of me sticking with it, as Wolverine getting the short end of things is always good for winning points with me. But, at the end of the day, I thought this was a book trying so hard to be edgy that it looped right back around to juvenile.

[long_silence]

I don't think Psylocke is saying Spiral is a mutant here. She's saying that the way Wolverine treats mutants who don't automatically fall in line with his way of thinking, makes them isolated and desperate which is the way Spiral feels right now.

Humphries seems to have done some research into Spiral's history. He's one of the first writers in years to mention her origin as Ricochet Rita, how she had a job and a dog named Pizza, and how Mojo took her and twisted her and turned her into Spiral.

I don't disagree with you on Humphries' use of continuity with the Demon Bear or Bishop

[auggie18]

Okay, my continuity-fu is a little weak here, but Spiral's backstory had her getting brainwashed, right? She was Rita, then Mojo brainwashed and bodyshopped her into being Spiral. Has anyone tried unbrainwashing her? Is there a reason that telepathic shananagins can't bippity boppity boo her back into being Rita again?

[icon_uk]

Too much body modification perhaps, there's almost nothing of Rita left.

Personally I always hated Spiral being Rita, what with not only the different number of arms, but the different number of fingers (not sure why that bothers me more, it just does)

[gunny]

Way back in the day, Longshot tried to wake Rita up in Spiral because Rita was peeking through more and more. In the end, Rita told him that she loves being Spiral and that was that. Just saying "Longshot" should tell you how long ago that was. Man, I'm old.

[cyberghostface]

lol at Wolverine's face in the last panel

[starwolf_oakley]

"Quit slicing all my problems away." Well, yes. Arguably, he's done that ever since the day he joined the X-Men. Yet... I just don't see him manipulating someone into being a "black ops secret murder team" without TELLING a person that is what he wants from them.

I've griped about Cyclops starting his own "black ops secret murder team" in X-Force, but at least they KNEW that's what they were supposed to do.

[theflames]

But remember he's growing into the kind of person who doesn't want mutant kids to have to fight the things that are coming for them. He's never stated that same want for adults.

Whenever *anyone* changes their lifeview so drastically, they're bound to fall into murky waters and hypocrisy - that doesn't excuse them however.

This is just one example, he wanted Psylocke to do what he thought her instincts would make her do - but he couldn't just tell her to kill, since he recently backed out of that game... just not as wholeheartedly as he thought. But he likes loopholes (look back as far as schism to see the truth in that), so if he isn't doing the killing, he should be fine. Or so he thinks.

I'm more interested in what happens when the kids he's sheltering from these dangers grow up, and want to be apart of the team. There are a lot of convenient powers there, and honestly making an adult a killer is no better than making a child.

[theflames]

You know... I say this here because there conversation triggered it in my mind... but *nothing's* changed due to the creation of the Jean Grey School. They're all still gonna grow up and be X-men, less experienced X-men, but X-men nonetheless.

[md84]

And that's if they're lucky. Young mutants don't have a very high life expectancy.

[ablackraptor]

That was largely my main problem with Schism, and Wolverine's recent attitude concerning the children, especially since, when he did it, there was less than a hundred mutants at that point. You can question Cyclops' morality or his success rate all you want, but at the end of the day all his decisions were to minimize the loss of life to the remaining mutants. Splitting them into two groups, leaving both groups limited in firepower and numbers, not only weakens them as a result, but by minimizing the fighting experience the younger and weaker ones get, Logan was putting his half of the mutant population at risk for the sake of a false sense of peace, which by result would also put the other half at risk too, just because he lost a dick measuring contest with Cyky.

I'm an idealist, and I still think he was being an overly-optimistic prat about it.
Unfortunately, then AvX came and gave me different reasons to not like his current direction. Isn't it weird that Marvel seemed to be trying really hard to make Cyclops a morally ambiguous semi-villain, yet its Wolverine I'm starting to see as a badguy?

[shadowpsykie]

someone is questioning Logan and comes off as a hypocritical manipulative ass? heh, i might have to read this....

[joetuss]

Im sorry but I have to say this...can marvel please bring back peter parker...PLEASE!!!

[q99]

Wolverine is increasingly turning into Utopia-era Cyclops with less self-awareness.