It's the Sunday morning after, and baby, who the hell are you?
So, in my grand adventures yesterday (a few errands that would normally have taken an hour to run that ended up requiring ALL DAY to accomplish due to Translink dependency), I had to stop by the bookstore in order to clear a couple things up with my manager. She was out for a bit, so I had time to kill.
An X-Men manga entitled “X-Men: Misfits” was released a little while back, and we’ve had a copy sitting on our shelves for a couple weeks. Seeing as I had the time, I took it in to the back and gave it a read.
Upon finishing, I was unsure if I was supposed to laugh or cry.
Allow me to share this glorious experience with you all.
So our hapless heroine is Kitty Pryde.
WHO ARRIVES AT THE MANSION TO FIND SHE IS THE ONLY FEMALE AT XAVER’S OUSTIDE OF STORM, WHO TEACHES BIO/EARTH SCIENCE AND PUNK DRESSING 101.
Already, I am not entertained. Though the character design for Storm was very close to her Mohawk phase, which wasn’t too bad.
Of course, Kitty’s now the target of every male in the school. Particularly an organization called the ‘Hellfire Club’; a clique in the school that are the favourites of professor Lenscherr and therefore get all sorts of funky privileges. This group is comprised of Forge, Longshot, Pyro (who actually maintains some Australian-eque speaking patterns), Havok, Quicksilver, and Angel. They are all, of course, pretty, pretty shirtless bishonen boys with rippling eight packs, and the Danger Room - which Forge has modified - has become their clubhouse when not in use for training.
(The fact that they call themselves the Hellfire Club, and there is no Emma Frost in sight makes me an UNHAPPY CAMPER. I’m JUST SAYING.)
The only boy who doesn’t seem to pay attention to her is the one she’s really interested in: Iceman. Of course. Many lame sort-of jokes are made about his ‘cold’ demeanour.
Now, in this sort of manga, there HAS TO BE A LOVE INTEREST. It’s just a rule. While Warren flirts obviously and fiendishly, it ends up being Pyro, the Bad Boy In Residence (tm). While Forge treats Kitty like a favourite little sister (and many chibi images of Kitty as a catgirl are used), Pryo determines that he is now Kitty’s boyfriend and all the other guys can step off or face his firey wrath.
THREE GUESSES TO WHERE THIS IS GOING GAIZ. BEGINS WITH E, ENDS WITH DWARD. RHYMES WITH ‘WTF BACK THE HELL OFF RESTRAINING ORDER’. I’m not even kidding. He makes comments about how dangerous he is and EVERYTHING.
He reams out Fred Dukes for sitting next to her on the bus. Forge gets yelled at for just hanging out with her, even though he’s a member of their ‘club’. Any boy within a ten foot radius of Kitty becomes Pyro’s least favourite person.
Bobby remains aloof and a pretty, sparkly bishonen as the Professor has Kitty and him work together on helping her with her powers by creating a big block of ice to phase through. She gets stuck inside, and if I’m remembering correctly, goes unconscious inside the cube only to wake up in Bobby’s arms to an ‘oh, you’re not dead’ expression. Kitty spends that night attempting to convince herself that she is not angsting over him.
Then there is abuse of Scott by the entire Hellfire Club. Which is sad, because Scott is the only character in the manga to have a personality outside of a male harem manga sterotype, and he’s only present for a few pages to be mocked/belittled by the club. The brother issues painted between the Summers boys are surprisingly interesting and I would have liked to seen MORE OF SCOTT DAMMIT that developed further.
The class goes on a day-trip to New to New York, and the Club comes across a pro-registration, anti-mutant protest. Unamused, they decide to show the flatscans what’s what. Kitty does not like this. Iceman and Scott step in to keep the Hellfire Club from being dumb, chaos ensues, and Alex blasts Scott away.
Iceman and Pyro replay the fire-and-ice scene from X-3 (now in *S*P*A*R*K*L*E*V*I*S*I*O*N*), though nowhere near as awesome or as satisfying. Iceman gets blasted backwards somehow, Kitty phases him to save him from getting dead, ending up in the completely manga-cliché position on top of him. Awkwardness ensues, the romantic tension is supposed to be palpable, and Percy gags a little.
Pyro, unsurprisingly, then becomes the ex-boyfriend, though I don’t think anyone tells him this. I doubt he’ll take it well seeing as how he was willing to yell at his and Kitty’s friends for getting too close to her. Methinks he will contract raging-ex-boyfriend syndrome, and this will continue further into the series when Kitty starts seeing Iceman, since we all know it’s going to happen. I mean, just look at the cover and tell me it's not.
(She will of course, end up bouncing back and forth between both guys, as that’s just what happens with this kind of storyline in manga. Oh, woe is me! I am torn between two equally gorgeous boys! The cold, aloof loner who is not interested in me in the slightest, and the hothead bad boy who probably oils my window at night who is far too interested! WHATEVER SHALL I DO?)
On a brighter note, Remy makes a cameo. It’s mercifully brief, which means he wasn’t ruined - Kitty can’t sleep at one point as she is busy angsting about Pyro and Iceman, so she goes to the kitchen for a snack where a mildly IndustrialRockerBoy!Remy is cooking. Without a word, he feeds her, she gushes, and he lays on the Cajun charm super thick and super quick with a ‘My pleasure, mademoiselle.” He is never seen or heard from again. Perhaps Edward Pyro killed him and hid the body, seeing as he had the audacity to be nice to Kitty?
My conclusion? For a shojo manga, it’s pretty run of the mill. For an X-Title, it’s horrible.
AND SWEET MERCIFUL HEAVENS I MAY ACTUALLY SKIM THE NEXT ONE. *headdesks*
ETA: Some images to spork your eyeballs out to:
Behold! the group that WANTS to be the Hellfire Club!
Also behold! Greek God Warren!
Behold once more! Edward! Pyro!
See Alex and Scott! See Alex taunt! See Scott seethe! See Kitty get shuffled away so the reader doesn't get to see anything interesting!
DID WE MENTION COLD AND ALOOF BOBBY IS COLD AND ALOOF? BECAUSE I DON'T THINK WE'VE MADE THAT ABUNDANTLY CLEAR ENOUGH YET.
And the mercifully short appearance of Remy. Just because.
