X-MEN #8: Tooth and Claw

Life's a picnic with the X-Men

Originally Published May 1992

We begin with frustration as Wolverine, having come to the realization that his entire backstory is some kind of elaborate amnesia and drug-induced lie, furiously tries to Google everything he thinks he knows about himself, and comes up with nada.

Me when I can't remember my new 13-character password with numbers and symbols

Wolverine is so intent in his attempts at hacking that he declines an invitation to the reception for the X-Men's newest member, psychotic super-cop Bishop. In Bishop's time, the X-Men are the stuff of legends so of course he has to fangirl about meeting them...

Sorry, they must not have any copies of Uncanny X-Men #201 left in your time

When introduced to the group, Bishop notices that there's one X-Man about whom very little is known -- but when Gambit calls him by a familiar pet name, it sparks some recognition.

Gambit indirectly confirms that his surname is LeBeau, meaning he and the Witness, the creepy old creep from the future who was the last person to see the X-Men alive, may likely be one and the same.

 

When Bishop reveals that the X-Men will soon be betrayed by one of their own, and that Gambit may have something to do with it, the team reacts with shock... shock that Bishop would just go throwing around such wild allegations!

Come on, we've known this guy for five whole weeks. Don't you think he would have betrayed us by now if he was going to?

Jean, ever the voice of reason, chimes in that yes, this is all fascinating, but we planned on having a picnic today, and the egg salad is going to turn if we keep it out of the fridge much longer.

At the lake, where the picnic is being held as scheduled no ifs ands or buts, Jean wants to take a few moments with her man Cyclops to express her concern about the Professor's silence on the matter of being re-paralyzed...

Charles Xavier? Being private about something? I doubt it

...but Cyclops has other things on his mind.

(The Cars' "Moving in Stereo" plays) [link SFW don't worry]

Like, um...

The, uh... what do you call it...

Oh, right, the Professor, yeah, he's a good guy, a real Chad. Where's the dip?

So yeah, the comic takes this opportunity to get a little cheeky, teasing that Cyclops may have a little thing for Betsy now that she's in the body of an impossibly toned and leggy Asian ninja. Let's leave aside the fact that Jean Grey is also an impossibly fit, leggy redhead who is actually wearing a much more revealing swimsuit than Psylocke -- gotta love Jim Lee but all these women have the exact same Barbie Doll Porn Star body -- some guys always feel like the grass is greener elsewhere.

I'd make a remark about how it's the new regime indulging in a little fantasy for its audience of horned-up 13-year-old boys, but let's face it, the previous regime is the one that gave us Emma Frost, Selene, Horny Moira and constantly-nude-and-wet Psylocke in the first place. That's just comics.

When Bishop -- who hasn't even changed out of his uniform for this day of casual recreation -- overhears Jean using her telekinesis to dunk Scott in the water for his horniness, his response is to grab his gun and join the action, since playfulness does not exist in his time and all conflicts are a matter of life and death. I'd say that bringing a massive gun to a picnic proves Bishop is from a hardscrabble, postapocalyptic future, but it really just makes him an American. Storm lectures him on his means and methods.

In another part of the park, Rogue and Gambit engage in some verbal foreplay.

But when he interprets Rogue's interest as a green light, she runs off, reminding him that she can't touch yuh without absorbin' yuh mem'ries an' powers!

No Glove No Love

They run into Bishop -- literally -- and he reiterates his suspicion that Gambit will one day very soon be betraying and murdering the X-Men but not on my watch son. Their argument devolves into a fight, where Gambit uses his power to charge a pie with kinetic energy.

After the baked good errantly hits Rogue -- enraging her because she spent foah howas slavin' ovah thuh uhven to bake it -- the situation is diffused and Rogue points out the absurdity of Bishop trying to punish Gambit for something he hasn't even done yet. Bishop admits that yeah, maybe there's a little ambiguity and a sliver of a chance Gambit won't be guilty, but before the moment can breathe, another thing happens!

Yes, that's right it's none other than... whoever this is!

I can tell by your accent, you're not from around here. Or anywhere outside of a Scott Lobdell comic

Bishop is ready to fight for his right to be the one to kill Gambit, but the Cajun intervenes.

You think you can take her? Please do! Ha ha ha.

The conversation continues back at the Mansion, where Gambit introduces the team to Bella Donna Boudreaux, who is indeed his wife, by marriage. It seems where they come from, some obscure place called Nawlins, society is divided up into clans of Thieves and Assassins, who were constantly at war until Gambit and Bella Donna tied the knot, Game of Thrones style.

But then Gambit went and killed Bella Donna's brother, who for some reason objected to this arranged political marriage, causing Gambit to flee NOLA in order to preserve the nonaggression pact (the very same one he had gotten married in order to create.) Now, however, the Thieves and the Assassins are going at it again, and for some reason it's determined that bringing Gambit back will actually help matters, instead of bringing things worse.

So, of course, the X-Men are coming along.

Except for Bishop, despite specifically saying he was going to be watching Gambit like a hawk, because he's not a regular castmember in X-Men. Seems to me a real supercop would not just let his prime suspect slip thousands of miles away on a whim. 

Oh, and it's Mardi Gras, because why the hell would you set a story in New Orleans in any other time of year?

As a wild coincidence, someone else is arriving in the Big Easy at this very moment...

To be continued... in the pages of Ghost Rider!

Further Thoughts:

Between Psylocke, Jean and Rogue all in swimwear or short shorts for the duration of the issue, it's obvious that the comic is leaning hard into the male gaze appeal, the cheesecake factor afforded by Jim Lee's renderings of the X-women. I don't mean to downplay it, but this does sort of go with the territory of selling to 13-year-old boys, especially in a pre-internet era. To a degree I think of it as harmless fun, remembering what I was like as a kid and how fun it was to see fantastically hawt bods on the page, while also tsk-tsking it from my position of adulthood and seeing the way it objectifies women and presents unrealistic hyper-sexualized bodies (both female and male.) It's a trend that would get worse before it got better: I follow a podcast and twitter account examining every issue of Wizard Magazine which makes for a fascinating time capsule of the industry as it was in the 90's, and the amount of press for books like Witchblade, Lady Death, Darkchylde, Gen13, and more, whose primary reason for being was to provide illustrations of scantily-clad, impossibly-proportioned babeasaurus rexes, is incredible, although they also gave ink to Terry Moore for a chance to correct some misconceptions about how the human body works.

Nowadays, instead of Jim Lee art, we have AI porn featuring "women" with impossibly rounded and shiny-sheened breasts. I've heard it compared to stag beetles which often try to have sex with glass bottles because the glass is like a more appealing imitation of the female beetle's exterior than the real thing. Point being, we can be lighthearted about the desire to look at sexy artwork and point out the absurdity of the existence of women with 40" legs and 10" waists and see it for the crass heteronormative and exploitative marketing strategy that it is. It's not all good or all bad.

And that's all before we factor in the Asian fetish of it all, when it comes to Psylocke's new appearance.

Sex sells, and if you're hard up enough to buy into this conception of sex, you deserve to get bilked. I only hope that it doesn't turn readers off who come looking for something other than boobalicious insectoid women with gravity-defying rock hard knockers.

I do feel, however, like they missed out on an opportunity to cut away to Jubilee, sweating it up hauling some giant cooler up a hill while wearing baggy shorts and complaining that the job didn't go to someone with super strength.

As much as this issue is mostly pretty lightweight material, I'm happy to endorse it. Serving up "X-Men at rest/play" issues to examine the character dynamics and set up future plots is a time-honored tradition and this one very much recalls (Uncanny) X-Men #109, another picnic-themed issue which provided a great breather for the X-Men following the M'Kraan Crystal affair.

The conflict between Bishop and Gambit provides some great grist for tensions between members of the X-Men, although with Bishop mostly featuring in Uncanny the two characters will likely be a lot more separate for the time being. 

We're also getting more steamy romantic plots, with Cyclops' wandering eye and Rogue and Gambit's flirtation. I may not "ship" the two of them, but I get the dynamic -- Gambit is a player who is not used to being turned down, and Rogue's powers make her literally unattainable, even if she wants to give into her carnal desires -- which she's not totally sold on with Gambit, but he makes a fine target to practice on.

This Thieves and Assassins stuff... I can't with that right now because the idea of it being such a high-stakes borderline medieval feud set in the French Quarter is funny and weird to me. Nevertheless, it's something for the team to do and adds some kind of backstory and raison d'etre (as Gambit might say in an incomprehensible attempt at an accent) for our Cajun hero.

Sorry, it can't be a bad comic if this happens, those are the rules