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Uncanny X-Men # 426
"Sacred Vows"
Part 2 of 2 |
Rating:
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Writer:
Chuck Austen
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Penciller:
Philip Tan
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Key Events
- Lorna's REALLY REALLY crazy
- Alex and Annie are officially a couple
Questions Raised
- How much of this script was a direct answer to the fans' remarks?
- More crazy Lorna? Please?
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Inker:
Philip Tan
| Colours:
Avalon Studios |
Letterer:
Rus Wooten
| Editor:
Mike Marts |
EIC:
Joe Quesada
| Date:
August 2003 |
| Featuring:
Havok, Annie, Iceman, Carter, Juggernaut |
| Versus:
Polaris |
Quick Synopsis:
Cain watches from the mansion while Lorna does a mass blood-flow-reversal-thingie and takes out everyone at the wedding save Alex, Annie, Carter and Bobby. She quickly takes care of Bobby as well though, and Alex manages to make himself fly away with Annie and Carter. Lorna hunts for them. As the trio hide, Alex reveals that he loves Annie. It turns out that they do indeed know each other because Carter was linking their minds while Alex was in the coma. He knows practically everything about her, including the fact that she is afraid of mutants because her ex was a violent mutant. Lorna breaks up the tender moment and Annie reluctantly runs with Carter. Alex is prepared to take Lorna out if necessary, but he doesn't get the chance. Lorna seems about to kill him when Juggernaut comes by and knocks her out. Later, Paige and Jubilee are watching Carter for the day while Alex and Annie have run off to Paris.
Full Synopsis:
Cain isn't having much luck with a pinball machine in the mansion and is about to smash it when he looks out the window and sees Lorna unleashing a magnetic wave of some sort. Everyone at the wedding drops to the ground, except Alex, Annie, Carter and Bobby. Alex tells Bobby to encase Lorna in ice because there's no metal in water, but Lorna says there's trace metal in everything and she shatters Bobby's attempts. She focuses on Bobby, ignoring his claim that he still loves her by saying she's getting married today over Annie's dead body. Alex grabs Annie and Carter and tries something new: He manages to fly. I'm not entirely sure how, but he does. The three of them end up some distance away in the lake. Lorna begins to look for them, singing "Here Comes the Bride" to herself.
On the shore, Alex helps Annie and Cater out of the water. Annie asks if Lorna is going to kill them, but Alex doesn't really know. He's scared, since Lorna is so powerful and seems a tad off her rocker. Annie says that she'll give herself up to Lorna if she promises not to hurt Carter, but Alex says he won't let anything happen to either of them now that he's realized how he really feels.
Lorna's still on the prowl, still singing to herself.
Alex is collecting wood and making a set of stakes, ala Buffy. Wood has no metal, so he figures it's probably the best way to take out Lorna if he has to. Annie wonders how he can do that, since he loved her, but Alex says that was a long time ago. He now knows that he wants to be with Annie. She says that isn't possible because he doesn't even know her, but it turns out that Carter was linking their minds together, both when he was in the coma and after he got out. Alex knows pratically everything about her, including the "dates" they've gone on in her mind to San Francisco, Hawaii and Paris. He also knows that she's afraid of mutants because her old boyfriend, Carter's father, was a mutant who tried to kill her when he found out she was pregnant. Carter was afraid to say anything because he thought that his mother would be mad at him, but she was so lonely that he just wanted her to be happy. Far from being angry, Annie's happy that she isn't going insane, and she recites some of the stuff she knows about Alex, too.
The tender moment is broken by Lorna's arrival. Alex yells for Annie to escape with Carter, which she does reluctantly. Alex fires at Lorna, but has no effect. She's upset enough that he had to dump her, but to do it on their wedding day in front of friends and family, well that's just too much. I'm guessing that she next says something about humans, but can't be sure because there appears to have been a printing error on my copy, but she then starts yelling that humans and those who "consort with them" need to be eradicated. She decides to start with Alex, but then Juggernaut arrives and knocks out Lorna.
Later, Paige and Jubilee are discussing what happened. Lorna apparently reversed everyone's blood flow for a moment at the wedding, which is what knocked them all out. Jubliee wonders why she didn't do that to Bobby and Paige wonders if she doesn't still care for him. But she doesn't want to try to figure Lorna out too hard, "that's Professor Xavier's job". Jubilee wonders where Alex and Annie have run off too. Paige doesn't know, they just asked her to watch Carter for the day. Alex and Annie have escaped to Paris and kiss at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
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Review:
"Here comes the bride, she's out of her freakin' mind ..." Gods, just thinking about Lorna in this issue makes me crack a smile. She's off her rocker and I love it. Is it in character for Lorna? I honestly couldn't tell you, she always bored me and I thought her taste in men was deplorable. I'm still inclined to believe that, frankly, but at least her actions seem more based on humiliation than an inexplicable connection to Alex (who is even more a prick now than ever in my opinion, but he doesn't really have to try hard to increase my hate).
So yes, anyway, crazy crazy Lorna. Flying around, looking like Magneto, humming "Here Comes the Bride" and quietly chiding herself for getting the tune stuck in her crazy crazy head. I enjoyed that so much that it's almost enough to make me forget about the rest of the issue.
But not quite.
Alright, so what I didn't like:
- Bobby still has a thing for Lorna. You know it's been so long since these two were an "item" that I haven't even read those issues. What are we talking about here, issues older than me? In all that time, Bobby hasn't, to the best of my knowledge, lamented losing Lorna (oo, alliteration) once after getting over it. For him to have been harbouring these deep feelings after a good couple of decades seems absurd to me. I can see him getting depressed because he's feeling lonely and he did indeed have Lorna "first", but outside of that, I'm just not buying it. Particularly not when it looks like Chuck is trying to set up Bobby and Lorna as a couple again.
- Alex can fly? ...I'll wait for an explanation on that one, but until then I'll just nod and smile.
- Annie and Alex. I've already established that I don't like these two, but I had to chuckle at the explanation for things. Think Chuck reads online message boards much? "You've all been complaining that they can't love each other because they don't know each other? Behold! Carter provided the link between Annie and Alex so they now know each other better than you probably know YOUR spouse! We prove this by having Annie know that Alex hates cauliflower! As for those of you who don't like Annie because she's anti-mutant, we'll explain that away by saying that it's a learned response from her violent ex who also happens to be a mutant and has violent mutant friends! Violent! Mutant! Annie! Good! Cauliflower!"
But you know, that aside, I have to say that I prefer Uncanny to New, and the reasons why are simple. I feel that, underneath it all, Chuck loves our mutants. While I can't say that I'm overly impressed with any of the storylines of his that I've read thus far (though bear in mind, I haven't read very many post-relaunch issues yet), the guy clearly knows his history. I may question rehashing this Bobby/Lorna thing, but the fact that he can even bring it up shows he has AND WILL USE knowledge of past events to shape the current ones. It's past continuity we're talking about here, and that's something that I can't help but feel Morrison doesn't give a damn about. Chuck's X-Men do have a past and it does matter. He gets bonus points for that as far as I'm concerned.
Plus, you know. Crazy crazy Lorna.
Actually, thinking about it, I also really like Chuck Austen's dialogue. He may not be weaving the most deep and thought-provoking issues at the moment, but he's been aces in the dialogue department for this arc. Maybe we'll be lucky and he's about done laying the foundation for his own run, and we can move forward. Cuz I get the feeling I could really like Austen's work if he could just find a groove that agrees with me.
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Quotes:
- Juggernaut: Oh man, that don't look good.
- Lorna: Great, now I got that stupid song stuck in my head.
- Lorna: Dum dum dee dum dum...Ah, dammit!
- Lorna: Are you trying to tell me that if I had known you hate cauliflower, we'd be down there getting married right now?
- Lorna: It's bad enough to do this to me EVER. But why TODAY, as I'm walking down the AISLE for God's sake? In front of all my FRIENDS? In front of all my FAMILY? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BE SUCH A SUMMERS BROTHER ABOUT IT?!?
- Juggernaut: You did say I was on your team, didn't you?
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