New X-Men? #96

All-New, All-Different X-Men #96

“Night of the Demon!”

Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum

Summary

Mourning the death of Thunderbird, Cyclops accidentally releases a demon named Keirrok who wants to eat the X-Men’s souls. (I’m not making this shit up, I swear!) Also, Moira MacTaggert joins the Institute.

Rolling Commentary

Page 1: I swear, if Cyclops spends this entire issue crying because Thunderbird is dead, someone’s gonna get it… Wait a moment, where the hell is Cyclops here, anyway?

Page 5 in the Danger Room, and Wolverine is taking himself very, very seriously. And oh god! The accents! The horribly, eye-gouging accents! Dear god, make it stop!! Whenever I see Moira and Banshee are in the same room, I die a little bit inside from the bad accents…

Page 7: Sigh…another Doomsday operation…(sort of) Would any military personnel really name a secret project “Project Armageddon”? Really?

Page 9: Gosh, I wonder if there’s more to Moira than meets the eye?

Page 11, and what the crap is this shit? I realize that we’re all going into ‘fight mode’ here, but why is no one standing there going “What the fuck is that thing?!?!” Also, shame on Cyclops for hitting that magic stone that I guess just happens to be sitting outside the Xavier Institute. This is why he’s repressed, you know? Every single time he cuts loose in anyway, something stupid and horrible happens. Also, just how the hell are Charlie’s “mental powers” supposed to protect him from being ripped to shreds by a demon, hmm? And Colossus still has that crush on Storm. And it’s still kind of cute. Because he’s about 16, and I think she’s between 20 and 25 right now.

Page 13. Yay for Adamantium claws! (Do we know that’s what they’re made of yet? I don’t think so…) Also, I’m pretty sure this is the first time we see Wolverine go all berserker on us, as well as the first hint of what he is. Awesome.

Page 18. I have no idea what just happened, but whatever. Aren’t demons supposed to fight Dr. Strange and the Defenders? (What’s a Cairn anyway? It just looks like an obelisk to me. And again, why is this thing on Charles Xavier’s lawn?) First bit of Storm’s backstory here too, which is good, I suppose. And I guess we’ll be hearing more about Project: Armageddon later. Whatever.

Post Mortem

Stupid, stupid, stupid villain. Stupid. I’m sorry, but that was a filler villain and he was boring as hell. “I’m a demon with vague Lovecraft references thrown in, I’m going to eat your souls!” It’s insipid. Blah. There’s absolutely no explanation for any of the nonsense going on in this issue.

The ending is messy, and honestly, the best things about this issue are the little hints about Wolverine and Storm. I’m wondering if all these references to N’Garai come back to light in Inferno, 150 issues later. If so, that’s kind of cool, but for the moment, this issue is kind of ridiculous and WHAT THE CRAP WAS THAT CAIRN THING DOING ON XAVIER’S LAWN? I’m serious, this is bothering me. Didn’t it come with the property or something? How the hell does something like that just appear there?

And I guess Adamantium is magical or something, since Kierrok says nothing else has ever hurt him. I guess. I will say this, though, if the point of this issue is to make me forget that Thunderbird died, it worked, because now all I want is for a real, actual villain to show up (Count Nefaria so does not count) and do something important. Filler is bland. But hey, at least we get those origin hints I mentioned.