X-Men Vol. IV by Brian Wood issues #11-12

OHMYFUCKINGGOD ROGUE DIED IN THE Uncanny Avengers, a title I will be reading in my comics roster for next year. No wonder she was officially removed from Brian Wood's cast. AND I WAS JUST BEGINNING TO ENJOY HER AGAIN. She's my first love. My childhood favorite. And now she's dead, dead, DEAD! This was only brought to my attention because halfway through issue #11 of this series, Rachel said something about wishing that they could get Rogue back, and I thought they only meant she went on a sabbatical, or had other ongoing adventures with other mutants. BUT NO. She died in another title. Well, fuck that. But then again, it's only a matter of time. X-Men constants have been biting the dust lately. There was Jean Grey then Nightwalker, then Professor X and now Rogue and apparently Wolverine had also died recently (I'll be reviewing Wolverine and the X-Men as soon as I finish this). It's fine. I'm fine. Death comes for all of us even for fictional characters. It's okay. DC Comics' Damian Wayne taught me how to be strong, and his resurrection story in Peter J. Tomasi's Batman and Robin was one of daring hope but also a risky venture. If any of these dead X-Men do come back, I'd rather it'd be done respectfully and amazingly. If not, then they better just stay dead then. Dammit, I really don't want to begin this review with such dreadful news. 

But what is there to say about the last two installments for this arc anyway? Well, I have nothing to offer in this post but blatant abuse of Mean Girls quotes GIFs because I can't help but feel like the Sisterhood of Evil is an incarnation of The Plastics. You know what, LET'S JUST SAY IT IS. I'm going somewhere with this, just work with me here. Okay, so we have Lady Deathstrike transferring her consciousness to the heiress of a crime family named Ana Cortes. She then recruited Typoid Mary and Amora the Enchantress. For a while, their triad accomplished some things, mostly by stealing a copy of Arkea (WHO IS TOTES NOT FETCH), an alien infection thingamajit who is also the twin sister of hunky John Sublime (who may or may not have telepathically tango-ed with Rachel Grey, if you know what I mean). Why? Because mean girls can do anything, that's why! Deathstrike said something about power and prestige and world domination but meh. That's too generic of a reason. I feel like her grand motivation should have been like "BECAUSE I CAN AND I WILL, SO FUCK Y'ALL" because that would have been more acceptable, really. I probably would have cared more. Or not. WHATEVER.

So, Lady Deathstrike is Regina George and her army of skanks are Mary and Amora. Mary's the smart one (I think?) so she's Gretchen Wieners. She's Gretchen because I want Amora to be Karen Smith because Amora is a blonde too and I think she's also pretty dumb herself for joining the Sis of Evil anyway. For Odin's sake, she's an Asgardian! She should have standards or some shit.

Have some self-respect and stop being such a blonde, Amora!

ANYWAY, moving on. Once Lady Deathstrike acquired Arkea, Arkea totes possessed the body of her willfully ignorant best friend Reiko. This time, Arkea becomes the new Regina because she's more powerful and persuasive and intimidating when she's really such a GODDAMN CLICHÉ EXCUSE OF A SUPPOSED VILLAIN. Really, Brian Wood. Stop making Arkea happen because it's not going to happen. Arkea did grant Amora some powers again and Typoid Mary got a hold of her multiple personalities, but Lady Deathstrike realized she made a mistake awakening Arkea especially now that Arkea planned to subject her host body Ana Cortes into some freaky experiment. Who really knows. I wasn't paying attention anymore to the entire plot itself because the directions it's going are sporadic AND DID I MENTION MY INTEREST HAS DWINDLED INTO THE SIZE OF A GREEN PEA? Because it did. 

So back to Mean Girls. Arkea wants to recruit two new members for the Sis of E. The contenders are Selene Gallio, a.k.a The Black Queen and Madelyn Pryor. She was Scott Summers' ex-wife and a clone of Jean Grey (it was a weird time in the Claremont era, okay?). You gotta hand it to the Sis of E, though. They're consistently expanding their enterprise even though they're all catty bitches who hate each other and are only tied by alliances that mutually benefit their greedy, pitiful goals. Mean girls are all built the same way like that.

If by "lunch" you mean "world dominance and fuck-yeah power and death to the X-Men"

Where was I again? Oh right, Arkea wants to experiment on another girl's body. Not surprising. She did violate Karima's body before when this series began. A rapist has a pattern that way, you know. But I think Ana Cortes' consciousness switched back to her old self during this attempted rape, and in a desperate moment she stabbed herself in hopes that they won't be experimenting on her body WHICH DOESN'T MAKE BUTTLOAD OF SENSE because she's made it easier for Arkea to turn her into a vessel for someone else' thought consciousness since she essentially abolished herself. God, Ana, don't be such an Amora. If I were Ana, I would have stabbed Arkea's body instead. I mean, sure, the cunt will just transfer herself to another host body but the satisfaction of killing that pesky bitch with a knife on the boob is ultimately worth it. Why does Caesar Arkea get to stomp around like a giant while the rest of them try not to get squashed under her big feet?

BECAUSE THAT'S NOT WHAT ROME THE SIS OF E IS ALL ABOUT! WE SHOULD TOTALLY JUST STAB CAESAR ARKEA!!!

Arkea got to experiment on poor Ana Cortes. And then Madelyn Pryor showed up with a new body. Or did they use Ana Cortes' body and modified her into a smoking redhead? YOU KNOW WHAT I didn't even care to look back on the previous pages to confirm it. Fuck it. So Maddie is here and Selena is here and the X-(wo)Men crash their initiation party in Japan and it was pretty great because I did like the ass-kicking Gretchen-Mary and Karen-Amora got from Psylocke and Monet respectively. And what of the X-(wo)Men? Well, I still like them as the heroines (not like I was given a choice since the villainesses are so crappy). Still, Storm, Rachel Grey, Monet, Psylocke and Karima are actually jiving well together now even if they still have their differences and probably won't work with each other unless the men are there to be ice-breakers. Srsly, where are the fucking men? There is so much estrogen drama here that if only Wood was a better writer then I never would have minded so much because estrogen drama runs in my veins. But hey, an all-girl mutant supeheroine team. Who doesn't want that? Also, nothing bonds women together than when they are trying to take out another group of women.

And YES, Gretchen Wieners is my favorite Mean Girls character. Fucking deal with it.

Madelyn Pryror with her hot new bod, together with Selene who really is just there for prop purposes because she hardly speaks AND WHO THE FUCK IS SHE ANYWAY?, were propositioned by Storm. The weather goddess offered them a truce, that they walk away for now and the X-(wo)Men will deal with them later since their target priority is Arkea anyway. Maddie has no problem with this. Selene is a pushover nobody so she agrees to do the same and leaves the scene. Arkea was pissed. But Maddie, armed with a fabulous new body without having to search for one herself, doesn't give a fuck that it was Arkea who gave it to her in the first place. Motherfucker doesn't even acknowledge the 'betrayal' on her part and she just waltz out of there like a champ. I enjoyed that. Thank you for embarrassing Arkea like that, Madz.

So sorreh, Arkea, but yeah YOU'RE  A WHORE. 

The X-(wo)Men got to apprehend Arkea with the help of her twin brother John Sublime. Apparently, he was able to destroy all copies of her globally so she won't infect any machine ever again. And then he invents a gun that can kill her. Karima did the honors and off-ed her. 

Yay, she's dead!

But the poor girl was a former law enforcement so becoming the assigned executioner (but she volunteered) was too much for her and even though Arkea had it coming, Karima felt like she needed to be a part of another team and so she decided to join Gabriel Shepard and Saber instead, just to get away from the X-Men drama for a while. Her friends easily accept this, knowing she deserves the break and some space. I'm happy for Karima for doing a brave thing. That couldn't be easy, turning her back on her friends but it was the healthiest option for her. 

There's also a Meanwhile story about Jubilee and the mutant teenagers taking on some Sentinels in the sea. Only thing that mattered there was that gay mutant Bling was able to resolve her issues with her crush who finally apologized for punching her and agrees to go out with her--but only as friends. For now. I don't know. But hey, progress! I really hope the next story arc would be more enjoyable than this shite.

SORTA RECOMMENDED: 6/10

EDIT: I have officially dropped this title. I just can't read any more of this. There are simply no characters I emotionally latch to or stories that I'm emotionally invested it. So forget it! I will just devote my time on The Uncanny X-Men and Wolverine and the X-Men instead.