Watch Dazzler free kidnapped victims from Otherworld while Wolverine tears up the kidnappers’ prison, Jubilee jokes about Dazzler’s ample rear end and everyone except for the readers gets to marvel at Boom-Boom’s bare boobs! We’re not kidding, and neither is she in X-Terminators #3, written by Leah Williams, drawn by Carlos Gómez, colored by Bryan Valenza and lettered by Travis Lanham.
Crash Coarse
I no longer have much use for South Park, but back when my friends and I found it hard to escape, my favorite thing about it was the forced, self-conscious, ridiculous disclaimer at the start of every episode, explaining that the show used “coarse language” and “due to its content, should not be viewed by anyone.”
We’ve had three issues of X-Terminators now, and I think I’ve figured out the formula: What if South Park were arguably feminist, and definitely about the X-Men, and honestly really good. Just don’t expect complicated plots, or subtle feelings, or intricate arguments about the role of the Krakoan mutant nation. We have other X-books for those desiderata. This one pokes and prods frontiers and danger zones normally only explored (within the Marvel Universe) by Deadpool, and you might know all you need to know so far about this beautifully drawn and visually delightful comic if you think of it as a Deadpool comic without men.
Please don’t run away. Let me try that again.
It’s coarse and absurd. It even comes with a disclaimer of its own, where other Krakoa-era, Tom Muller-designed comics have a page with text or diagrams. This one says MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY, in pre-worn type that might have come from a 1990s metal CD; it promises GORE, COMIC MISCHIEF, EXTENSIVE DISCUSSION OF DAZZLER’S ASS and more. When Jubilee and Boom-Boom actually say “ass,” they don’t: There’s a peach emoji over the word in the speech balloons. But here it’s right on the page.
Cheap Sunglasses
Why are they discussing Dazzler’s ass? Because Jubes and Boom-Boom are fighting side by side — and blindfolded, so they don’t create more reflections — in a booby-trapped hall of mirrors where their enemies are their doppelgangers and, beyond the mirrors, voyeuristic vampires, cheering on their all-female fight, orchestrated by Dazzler’s literally bloodsucking ex-boyfriend Alex.
Yes, I know that causality doesn’t make sense, but honestly Jubilee and Tabitha appear to be just trying to entertain each other, just like this comic is entertaining me, and so far it works. I’m starting to think that someone other than me enjoyed the much-maligned “Storm: The Arena” arc of X-Treme X-Men, though this one, unlike that one, knows it’s campy, and makes room for obvious jokes. Lots of jokes.
The first jokes are visual: Boom-Boom (just like last issue) gets covered in blood that matches her rose-heart sunglasses and her outfit, and she doesn’t seem to mind. Carlos Gómez gets the tone and the pace just right here: vivid action, silly poses and a touch of so-called Good Girl art from the 1940s. Williams, who knows how to write a fight scene, also knows how to write boob jokes, which Jubilee won’t stop making at Tabitha’s expansive expense. But Tabitha — much like Gwenpool — knows how to strike back: She may be big in front, but Alison Blaire is bigger in the trunk.
And at this point we get the present-tense scene that reminds us the issue is mostly a flashback: Charles Xavier on the Quiet Council, helmet on, saying, “That level of detail isn’t necessary.” Tabby and Jubes and Alison and Laura stand in judgment before the council, and we see that all the action scenes are flashbacks — our X-Terminators are trying to tell the council what happened and why it’s not their fault.
Butt Seriously
Did I mention that in the council hearing, they’ve got cheeseball costumes on? LIke, classically cheeseball: sexy wicked witch, sexy cheerleader, fairy-tale princess. These young women did not choose these outfits. Someone chose for them. Who? Maybe next issue we’ll find out.
This issue, though, we’ve got plenty of ass jokes — sorry; peach jokes! — to come. Vampire Alex makes the mistake of giving his captive Otherworld natives room to dispel the enchantment he laid on them. Gómez and Valenza excel as they render the industrial-level light and magic involved. Meanwhile, in their glass cages, Jubilation Lee and Tabitha Smith crack wise about Alison’s —
Look, I can’t keep taking this comic seriously, or describing it blow by blow (snort), but I want to show you just how good it is, given what it is, and how much fun Leah Williams seems to have as she gets to remain in character with these foul-mouthed characters as they push the limits of Big Two taste. I’ll confine myself to Jubilee’s remark on Dazzler’s well-trained physique: “Roller rink in the front, five-star bakery in the back. Award-winning cakes.” There’s plenty more where that one came from, too, and not only in Jubilee’s speech balloons.
How dumb — or how ill-informed — are Alex’s vampire fight club audiences? So dumb that when Dazzler tells them to make a loud noise, they do it. And when she asks them to make a very loud noise so that Boom-Boom will show them her boom-booms (the roller rink pair, not the bakery buns), they do. And she does. And that’s all the sound Dazzler needs to make a lightshow big enough to free them from the mirror maze and place them …
… in the Collector’s Collection! Yep, we’re in space. Very silly space-opera space. How will our foul-mouthed, half-undressed, pugilistically inclined quartet, who know exactly what kind of comic book they’re in, ever get free? I’m hoping they contact Gwenpool. She’d know what to do.
Little Time Bombs
- The diamond-skinned, dodecahedron-headed biped from Otherworld whom our heroes rescue put me in mind of the Nova/ROM villain Diamondhead, but they’re clearly not the same figure. The biped here has fractured, fragmented speech balloons of a kind I’ve never seen before. They’re neat.
- Jubilee and Boom-Boom should team up more often. They’re so good at pretending not to get along that one suspects them of becoming secret best pals.
- What, exactly, have our heroes done wrong, and why did the council handcuff them? Maybe next issue we’ll find out.
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids. Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.
