Sunday, December 29, 2019

"The End" Week: X-Men Evolution #9!


Man, if you thought I hated Cyclops before, imagine how I felt to see him mugging the Home Alone face: from 2002, X-Men Evolution #9, "House Party" Written by Jay Faerber (per the GCD, misspelled Farber in the comic) art by J. J. Kirby.

This was based on the animated series, so most of the X-Men here were high school-aged; and the adults (Beast, Wolverine and Storm) were conveniently taking the younger kids on a "training jaunt" when Professor Xavier needs to go to Oregon to investigate a mutant sighting. He's forced to leave a batch of mutant teens alone in a mansion for the weekend, what could possibly go wrong? Traditionally, probably a huge spike in the teen pregnancy rate, but this is a Marvel comic...

Word gets out the cat's away, so naturally it's party time at the X-mansion: it seems pretty out of hand to me, but I grew up in a town with a graduating class of 42, so that feels like four counties worth of people to me. The party isn't complete until the Brotherhood of Dick Mutants, Avalanche, Toad, and Blob; crash the joint. The X-Men control that damage fairly well: Kitty steers the Blob to the kitchen, where snack time takes priority; and Kurt teleports Avalanche and Toad into the woods and ditches them. (I would love it if Kurt did that every time he saw them. Like, really ditched them. Blair Witch style.) Still, once a kid starts playing in one of the professor's wheelchairs, they're about partied out. A small fire started while killing the tunes clears everyone out, leaving the team to start cleaning up.

Everything's back to normal when Professor X returns, but Cyclops still confesses. Still, that just proves the professor could trust him. As the second-biggest narc in the X-Men.

Nine issues is actually a long run for a Marvel animated tie-in. (Avengers: United We Stand got seven; I need to add that to the index...) A lot of their series wouldn't even get one; but I don't know why they've had so much trouble getting those going.

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