Laura Kinney (the best Wolverine!), Alison Blaire (the no-longer-so-disco Dazzler!), Jubilation Lee (surprisingly practical!) and Boom-Boom (boom, there it is!) have fought their way out of a vampire monster arena only to end up trapped between star systems, stuck in a quasi-harem on the Collector’s spacefaring retreat. What’s a girl to do? Find out in X-Terminators #4, written by Leah Williams, drawn by Carlos Gómez, colored by Bryan Valenza and lettered by Travis Lanham.
Snort.
Leah Williams has once again created a mutant story that fits perfectly, seamlessly, into the serious business of X-comic continuity, and yet defies us to take it, or anything, seriously. She’s also — maybe a greater achievement — made a raunchy comedy that’s thoroughly feminist, in a genre whose landmarks are mostly nearly unwatchable due to sexist nonsense. She’s even got literal toilet jokes.
She’s also got, in Gómez and Valenza, an art team that understands how to support her jokes best: by drawing with absolute, serious, shiny, heightened, admiring near-realism, so that the characters who do goofy things (and everything is a goofy thing) look like they mean it, and mortal peril looks like mortal peril, and our heroes mug for one another, but not for the camera. And — best of all; I can’t wait any longer to say it — Williams has found, in the vaults of Alan Davis’ Excalibur, the greatest sound effect in the history of comic books, and she has polished it off, and repurposed it for this issue, and made it sing.
That immortal, panel-filling, exclamation-punctuated sound effect is, of course, the undying “BA-THROOOOM!” — the sound that plumbing makes when it explodes — and if encountering that sound effect on a page isn’t your idea of a good time, then you and I have very different ideas of a good time.
We begin on the Collector’s spacecraft, which isn’t technically a satellite because it doesn’t orbit anything, and we discover Laura accusing Alex the kidnapping vampire ex-boyfriend (literally a boyfriend from hell) of … well, let’s just quote her: “You like pee. You’re into it.” See, he won’t give the many women trapped in his harem privacy for their business. He won’t even let them block sightlines with racks of clothes. Creepazoid powerful men who own buildings with spy-cams in the loo have been all too real: One ran a Washington, D.C., synagogue. It’s not the only place where the X-Terminators’ antics intersect with IRL dilemmas: Williams has written a wonderfully silly tale of revenge on Men Behaving Badly, from spy cams to “cosmic condoms,” aka Quantum Gauntlets, which (of course) Alex also controls.
Not that our heroes need them to plan an escape. But first, Laura Kinney must shower: not for the escape attempt, but because, as Jubilee politely points out, she hasn’t washed or changed clothes in a week. “You smell like your dad.” Of course, no hero costumes exist on the non-satellite, only sexy Halloween costumes (that’s why Laura hasn’t changed clothes). Laura must dress as a sexy witch, to go with the cheerleader (Dazzler), sailor (Jubes) and sexy clown, or possibly sexy version of Tenniel’s Alice in Wonderland (Boom-Boom). Thus attired, they plan to destroy the non-satellite by blowing up the plumbing, thus forcing everyone (including the Collector and Alex) to escape or die.
“This is the dumbest mission I’ve ever been on,” complains Laura. “And the most fun you’ve ever had, don’t lie,” answers Jubilee. And they might both be right. The plan semi-fails, because the Collector decides to boot everybody out the airlock, but the disruption allows the trapped women and other aliens to head to the transport room, where Laura has time to program in only one set of coordinates: Krakoa. “We’re going home with a hundred-plus stowaways.”
And, of course, they land in the middle of a baseball game. The kind where the mutants can use their powers. Betsy, in the outfield, shows no interest in catching a ball under any circumstances. Gambit and Rogue are into it. Bei the Blood Moon, for the first time in an X-comic, and without explanation, talks: She says “Safe!” — she’s an umpire — which causes her husband, Doug, to cheer for her. “Doug, you did not warn me of this baseball tradition,” she adds, which I guess they communicate normally now? Maybe they tell each other pee jokes. And if you thought Gómez, drawing everything as if it were a serious Hickman-Larraz comic, shone before, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen him draw Emma and three Cuckoos having a picnic with Champagne.
Also there’s Dracula. You know him. He’s from Transylvania, but he gets around. He’s got a bone to pick with these Krakoans who have messed with a vampire. But Jubilee’s got a legalistic bone to pick with him.
Look, you probably know if this comic’s for you by now, and honestly I hope it is. It’s maybe what the movie Bridesmaids should have been, if that comparison helps. But with powers. Watch your back and get to know a reliable plumber, and brush up on international vampire law. Ba-throooom!
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.
