Age of X-Man: The X-Tremists #2
Writer: Leah Williams
Art by: Georges Jeanty
Cover by: Razzah
The Story:
The Age of X-Man Continues!
As Department X continues its work of purging and revising the ill-fitting elements of society, an encounter with a pregnant rebel begins eating away at the team from within. Cleaning up the minds of the world can be a dirty job…
As Department X continues its work of purging and revising the ill-fitting elements of society, an encounter with a pregnant rebel begins eating away at the team from within. Cleaning up the minds of the world can be a dirty job…
In Stores: March 27, 2019
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
11 comments:
Really like the cover. Nice to see Betsy in a non action pose for once. The butterfly looks so nice.
Also I'm liking the preview the tone is sweet and the dialogue works.
Also, her hair is drawn like Betsy’s hair with a wave to it here versus super straight like Kwannon’s, so it seems like this artist on interiors got the memo.
And the color is correct; not so
light that it looks almost like Pixie’s pink hair, but not super dark that it looks like Kwannon’s black hair dyed purple.
Psylocke in X-tremists is a good throwback to when Betsy remembered her softer female side. I like Betsy to be a ruthless fighter and killer when occasion calls it, however I like Betsy celebrating her womanhood and relax sometimes.
I've read the Apocalypse and the X-tracts and it blew me away how interesting the reversal of characters feels and looks. All I want is a full-scale war between the X-tremists and the X-tracts. Unveil is the weirdest/creepiest new Black mutant, don't mind if she and Psylocke had a brawl. Jubilee vs. Dazzler is also a must see.
@Rahsaan Chisolm Yes finally Betsy's hair got some volume! The violet color is also a big improvement and doesn't look Pixie-ish at all. Pixie has bubblegum pink a trademark color for faeries. Kwannon was better with her hair natural black and without blue eyes. Sapphire Styx who is also an Asian had her hair dyed red for some reason. There's a trend Asian people to dye their hair but it's a minority. With that said neither Sapphire Styx nor Kwannon strike as Harajuku girls.
Nice preview. From what I read, it seems many readers thought (and disliked) that the first issue had too many jokes for a miniseries supposed to show the dark side of the Age of X-Man. These pages don't seem to have many jokes and also show a sweet side to both Psylocke and Iceman (despite being a black-ops team, it seems the Department X members do mean well and are nice people).
@Jaime, yeah. I dig when we see Psylocke styled. After the Siege, the writers forgot that during her tenure before we often saw her with different hairstyles from earlier bouffant to layers to partial updos to side bangs. It’s like in their attempt to make her a killing machine, she lived in her uniform and took no care ro her inner fashionista. Granted, none of that is necessary on missions, but I loved how stylish and fabulous her clothing was in the 80s, including her sleepware. That was actually my biggest problem with Uncanny 244. The shopping trip was silly in that there is no way in hell Elizabeth would need fashion and haiir advic from Alison. Nor would Ororo need Alison to force her out of timidity by that point as Storm always has had a hubris about her. It was like Claremont had forgotten who he’d been writing for years already.
FSaker, we’ll see how nice she is when she puts that death mask on. That mask is dope as the centerpiece of her uniform. Along with the hood it’s like an darker, more mysterious update to her Outback armor.
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Rahsaan, THAT's the creepy part. Hunting down citizens is something we'd expect from a X-Force team full of violent and antisocial people... NOT people who bake cookies for visitors, rescue cats from trees and cheer up sad children. This duality in the X-Tremists is disturbing, especially because when they DO get violent, they don't seem to either enjoy it or hate it, it's just mechanical.
Speaking of this duality, I guess I don't understand the last two pages. Are they diminishing the fire (without extinguishing it completely) to make the job easier to the X-Men (so that Nate's team can take the credit)... or are they CAUSING the fire (while avoiding any animal casualties) to give the X-Men an excuse to save the day and look good? If it's the second case, that's just... wrong on so many levels.
@Rahsaan Chisolm Claremont took the diva out of Psylocke in order to make her a ninja Shredder. It was way better to have an alluring Psylocke who as a decoy looked frail but packed a Psycho-blast and some lethal moves. As a former agent and a spy, I refuse to believe Betsy was weak and useless. She could have taken a crash course at S.H.I.E.L.D. to become a weapon and not learn everything by swapping bodies with a Yakuza woman. It cheapens Betsy's martial arts because she didn't work hard to earn them.
On the girls shopping spree in UXM #244, Claremont outdid himself by making the Uncanny X-Men fun after many hardships and friction between the members. To Claremont's defense Ororo was a goddess and a fighter with principles and modesty, so it was tough to play supermodel and throw herself at guys. Also this issue was the best introduction for a new character. You have a blast reading it and all your misgivings about Jubilee disappear given she's not forced on you. His plot had Jubilee tell her origins, team up with the X-Women and become a first Robin to the Outback X-Men doubling down on her development.
@FSaker The X-tremists are extremely bipolar people. They are do-gooders on the surface but their programming makes them dangerous. To add insult to injury their compassion acts up but they ignore or suppress it. Truly they are a black ops team sugarcoated with kindness. They destroy lives while thinking it's for a noble cause and are staffed by the most powerful mutants. So I think they are starting the fires or maybe they control them to boost Nate's ego in claiming victory and fame. This is a dictatorial practice used in all tyrannical regimes.
Leah Williams regarding Psylocke in AOXM:
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/03/07/leah-williams-has-reinvented-the-blob-in-age-of-x-man-x-tremists/
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