Monday, April 18, 2011

There's a side of Canada you don't see everyday...

So, we've looked the Mutant X figures a few times, but here's a look at the second-to-last regular issue of the series, Mutant X #31, "You Say You Want a Resolution?" Written by Howard Mackie, art by Ron Lim and Andrew Pepoy.

I had mentioned before that the Mutant X universe seemed to have a lot of events go wrong before the Havok of the Marvel Universe ended up there, but that earth seemed to have a lot of problems earlier than I had thought: Storm and later Gambit being turned into vampires, Madelyn Pryor and Warren Worthington possessed by demons and going evil, the defeated Beyonder imprisoned in the earth; and now Canada as "the most militarily aggressive nation on the planet." Weapon X's current batch of super-soldiers has chased Wolverine, his family, and Havok's team across the border; and now World War IV could be the result unless Wolverine goes back.

Unfortunately, that pisses off Captain America, and in the Mutant X tradition of worst-case scenario, he's not Steve Rogers, but a latent mutant that went through what was left of America's Super-Soldier program. (The Director of Weapon X points out that was before Canada killed the inventor and pillaged the program for themselves...) Now with powers off the charts, Cap hulks out, unleashing huge amounts of energy, and destroying all the enemies of America that he can. I haven't read all of this series, but I think this Cap was relatively stable up to this point. Now, he can no longer tell friend from foe, fighting his old teammates, the Avengers. Quickly defeating "Iron Giant Man," Cap kills him, and the others including Hawkeye, Typhoid Mary, and Deathlok? Maybe Mary had a more hero-friendly name there, but she's dead now, so... Havok is forced to put his teammate down, although it appears that the energies they have released may have even damaged the moon, so it's tough to say what's left of America, Canada, or earth; except that after Cap is beaten, the Beyonder pulls his body underground. Havok and what's left of his Six return to their headquarters, where Alex is starting to realize this world has problems beyond what superheroes can deal with, when he promptly gets bitten by Dracula...

I can't tell if this is a typical issue of Mutant X, or if a little more is crammed in this month since the end was near. Frankly, from what I've seen, this was par for the course. Although, now I'm wondering how much of that world was doomed, and how much was wrecked by Havok.

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