Why I Stopped Reading X-Men

A few years ago, Uncanny X-Men had an utter dog shit story arch that ripped off Romeo and Juliette, while completely missing the point… Which is sad because everyone who manages to make it through a Western school system has that play beat into their adolescent skulls.

After that story arch concluded, I stopped buying X-Men comics.

It was also the last time I purchased a comic written by Chuck Austen.

Here’s a brutal review of one of those issues written in iambic pentameter. Ah the memories.

But soft! What shite through yonder window breaks?

A new Uncanny X-Men, for my sins.

Another clueless stab at teen romance

As Austen, Cliff’s Notes clutched in sweaty hand,

Recycles wholesale chunks of Shakespeare’s plot

And paraphrases lines of dialogue too.

Of course, the plot of this romantic play

Is fair game, having been revamped before

In musicals and so forth. After all,

It’s not like Shakespeare wrote the plot himself -

He got it from the poet Arthur Brooke.

Enough of this digression. While the plot

Has proved enduring classic down the years

That doesn’t mean a writer cannot cock

It up if he tries hard enough. He could,

For instance, cut and paste some classic scenes

Without the faintest understanding why

They worked for Shakespeare in the first place, thus

Reducing them to shameless gimmickry

(Which – yes, I know – is just like this review).

Within this issue our young hero Josh

Goes visiting his Juliet at night

And speaks “sweet words of love” (allegedly)

From just outside the window of her room.

The balcony routine, in other words.

You couldn’t do the story without that.

Except the point has been completely missed.

The way love stories work is simple: take

Two lovers and throw barriers in their way

Which they will spend the story fighting through

And end triumphant (or, in this case, dead).

The balcony’s a clever stage device

Which lets poor Romeo and Juliet

Share stage time on their own but never touch

Because there’s no way Romeo can climb

Up to the balcony to be with her.

Of course, in Austen’s version, that’s all fucked

Because in Austen’s version, Romeo

Has got a pair of great big sodding wings

With which he promptly flies up to the room

And thereby makes the whole scene die a death.

It doesn’t help that Josh and Julia

Proceed to spout some truly dreadful lines

Of dialogue of grimmest purple hue

And cretinous stupidity to boot.

“How did you find me?” blithers Julia

As if there were some mystery in this.

You’re in your house, you stupid fucking girl!

How do you sodding think he found you there?

And then they drone on for another five

Godawful pages of quite subtext-free

Bad dialogue which someone must have thought

Was beautiful, poetic and all that

But actually is painful to the eyes.

“You’re like a winged messenger from heaven.”

“Love doesn’t ask permission, it demands

Obedience.” Please Jesus, make it stop.

“I wuv you!” “I wuv you!” “And I wuv you!”

That’s basically all they have to say.

Poor Salvador Larroca does his best

To wring some kind of content from the script

But when the script is quite so bad as this

There’s only so much anyone can do.

The lovers say exactly how they feel

In detail, leaving nothing for the art

To do. Although the writing is quite bad,

Admittedly it’s very nicely drawn

Allowing for the quality of script.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see

So long lives this, which quite depresses me.

Throwback review via Bleeding Cool