X-Men vs. Juggernaut, Pt. 2

As we left off on Wednesday, the normal method of taking down the Juggernaut has failed.  Emma Frost’s attempted mind molesting backfired and the unstoppable behemoth is slowly making his way to San Francisco.  To destroy it.  Don’t worry, the X-Men are on it:

We pick back up with the second half of Uncanny X-Men #540-543, written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Greg Land.  The X-Men army marches into battle.

Plan 4’s a bust.  Turns out when possessed by an evil Asgardian god, walking on air gets added to the power arsenal.  But despite many offensive words you can call mutants, quitters isn’t one of them.

To be fair to the X-Men, it doesn’t seem like Juggernaut’s fighting back very much.  Much more of a slow crawl to annihilate the city.  Still, when there’s only 200 mutants left on Earth and half of them have tried to stop Juggernaut, the options are becoming a bit beyond the X-Men’s creativity.

Finally, the half-naked Juggernaut oracle offers a solution:

Of course, she refuses.  She’s a good woman after all, though the offer remains tempting in her private meetings between her own human military commanders.  Time for Cyclops to play with strategies above his understanding.

You know about Magik?  She’s Colossus’ sister and current ruler of the demonic Limbo dimension. Nasty woman, almost certainly a sociopath, and quite possibly the last chance to save San Francisco.

Y’see, Magik’s a demon expert, and Juggernaut’s superpower derives from a demonic artifact.  So one possible way to neuter the unstoppable monster is to remove that whole unstoppable part.  Luckily, Magik’s buddy-buddy with the demon responsible for Juggernaut’s origin.

Juggernaut being possessed by an Asgardian god totally goes against the whole being possessed by a demonic god.  Demons can be so petty at times.  Cyttorak, seeing his avatar cheating on him with another baddie, does the only responsible thing — he strips Juggernaut of his power.  A couple of things to note.  First, Juggernaut’s still possessed by the evil hammer, so his strength isn’t exactly hampered.  Like at all.  And more importantly, Cyttorak needs to have an avatar running around Earth. It’s probably an ego thing.

Well, of the three, who’s by far the most capable choice?

Say hello to Juggernaut Colossus.  Understand this isn’t temporary.  He gets to keep the powers after he’s done pounding the crap out of the last avatar.  Witness Cyclops’ final plan: the one where two enormous behemoths punch each other to death.

By the way, the Asgardian Serpent god plays it safe.  Of his seven monsters rampaging around the world, he only loses one by the time the final battle starts.  That’s called good management.  Most importantly, the X-Men save the day and San Francisco is safe.

Except for one final detail.  You remember earlier when I mentioned that Mayor Sadie had met briefly with her soldiers to see about possible mutant destruction plans?

I present this moment to you as the finest example between Professor X’s and Cyclops’ X-Men.  Scott Summers may be the professor’s protégé, but the two lead in very different ways.  Plus, Cyclops has a gorgeous head of hair.

Welcome to the new generation of X-Men.  Meet the new boss, who is definitely not the same as the old boss.

X-Men vs. Juggernaut, Pt. 1

Not any Juggernaut, this one:

Y’see, during the Marvel Fear Itself event, seven magical evil Thor hammers fell to Earth.  Each one transformed the respective hero/villain into a way tougher version of themselves.  Also, now with a giant hammer.  Juggernaut got to be one of those lucky seven, but unfortunately the main side effect is becoming the mindless slave of a forgotten Asgardian supervillain.  That’s the breaks.

A few articles ago, I briefly mentioned that when Cyclops assumed leadership of the X-Men from Professor X, he turned it from a school into an army.  That’s not an exaggeration, and Uncanny X-Men #540-543, written by Kieron Gillen and drawn by Greg Land, is the perfect arc to prove it.  By the way, if you get a chance, check out Gillen’s entire run on Journey Into Mystery.  I can’t begin to explain how amazingly wonderful it is.  A superb literary achievement.

With a rampaging Juggernaut heading towards the X-Men’s base of operations near San Francisco, it’s time for America’s favorite mutants to jump into action.  Also, I guess to deal with that half-naked oracle as well.  First, Cyclops and the mayor of San Francisco have a combat briefing.  Polite diplomacy and all.

That’s Emma Frost in a cowboy outfit.  Emma being Emma.  Think the power of Jean Grey with none of the vices like modesty or prudence.  As usual, fights like the one about to happen always start off the same.  Cyclops will take his A-team into battle and see how they fare.  Test the waters.  You probably know how this is going to go.

If you ever have any doubt of Cyclops’ awesomeness, you should have all that erased by the end of part two.  Currently, the main X-Men roster consists of Cyclops, Kitty Pryde, Colossus, Iceman, Magneto, and Emma Frost.  And honestly, that team alone would be able to pretty easily wipe out the Avengers, much less Magento’s former henchman.

So far, the helmet idea isn’t going accordingly.  Let Magneto, master of magnetism, handle this.

Look, military commanders have setbacks all the time.  It’s how the deal with the next step that makes them great.  And Cyclops is great.  Witness one of the most famous lines in recent comic history:

Plan 2 commence:

Hope Summers, the teenage Mutant Messiah, has the power to mimic any abilities of those around her.  So Cyclops surrounded her with all the mutants.

Mission success!  Turns out a hundred mutant powers at once can rip the helmet off a God-like being. Time to for Emma to be useful and psychically shut the monster down.

Oops.  With that, the second half of the arc and another twenty images will conclude Friday, including a story development that changes one of the X-Men permanently.  How’s that for a tease?

A vacation ambush with Cyclops

I’m a bit sick today, so let’s skip some complicated back story, a melodramatic conspiracy, or complicated love triangle.  Let’s just enjoy a superhero brawl.  Cyclops will do.

As Professor X has been slowly phased out of X-Men leadership the past decade or so, Cyclops (real name Scott Summers) effectively and confidently took up that mantle.  Then he transformed the X-Men from a school to an army.  Bigger threats attacking mutant-kind, I guess.  Before that in 2001, back when he was still with Jean Grey, he received his own miniseries Cyclops #1-4, written by Brian K. Vaughan and drawn by Mark Texeira.  Here’s a scene from the first issue.

We all know by now that superheroes can’t have vacations.  A supervillain or robot or parasite will inevitably burst through the door for our hero to rough up.

Cyclops has the odds badly stacked against him.  Juggernaut’s practically invincible and Black Tom Cassidy has similar powers as Cyclops.

Yes, Cyclops can really only shoot eye lasers.  Nowadays, where everybody can fly, lift tanks, and survive nuclear blasts, I guess eye lasers don’t really stack up.  Except Summers has been fighting baddies since middle school.  And while my X-Men knowledge may not be as extensive as other superheroes, I do know that very few characters are capable of out-thinking the X-Men leader.

No one can take Juggernaut in a fist fight (except maybe the Hulk), but his intelligence borders on the pity of sympathetic doctors.  I’m saying he’s dumb.

If you’re confused by Black Tom Cassidy, you’re not alone.  The dude’s a minor bad guy at most. Though he is Irish, which I assume makes for some welcome diversity in the comic book world.  Too bad no one takes the man seriously.

Now things get interesting, right?  If the full force of laser eyes can’t scratch Juggernaut, then him with a hostage pretty much guarantees victory.  Except he’s up against Cyclops, who has been blessed with serious brains to go along with his boyish good looks.

Let’s be fair.  Juggernaut knows the X-Men aren’t killers.  Except for Wolverine.  And Psylocke.  And Nightcrawler.  And Cable.  A few more I’m missing.  Okay, so there’re are a few exceptions.  But Cyclops?  Totally not a merciless killer, but definitely a merciless actor.

And truthfully, Cyclops has been through some crazy stuff recently.  The early 2000s had some crazy X-Men stories.  Anyway, Juggernaut hates losing fights, but he hates losing friends even more.  Giant of a man, giant of a heart.

Battle over.  Next up, the three of them giggle together among hot cocoa and Snuggies.

Iron Man roughs up Grey Gargoyle

While we’re on the subject of Iron Man, we should take advantage of the last article and watch him get his butt kicked struggle against insurmountable odds.  Specifically, the Grey Gargoyle magical-hammer-wielding monster.

Know anything about Grey Gargoyle?  You probably shouldn’t.  Whenever Grey Gargoyle touches someone, they turn to stone for an hour.  That’s really it.  The supervillain gets thrown in against any hero who needs a baddie to beat up in between the real plot.  I mean, the dude looks like this:

Well, until the Marvel event Fear Itself, that is.  Seven magical Thor-ish hammers crashed on the planet, turning each of the lucky users into demonic powerful monsters.  Unfortunately, Iron Man doesn’t know this yet.  He’s about to find out in Invincible Iron Man #504-505, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Salvador Larroca.

Click on the double-spread below for a larger version:

Grey Gargoyle’s cute stone power just became a lot more deadly.  Also, so did Grey Gargoyle.

Okay, so let’s go over the odds of each combatant.  With the possession from the hammer, Grey Gargoyle’s a mindless monster, incapable of anything beyond primal, instinctive actions.  Major weakness there, except for that whole Thor-levels of strength he now wields.  Remember the last time Stark fought Thor?  I do.  Very bad news for Iron Man.

Look, superheroes get knocked around all the time.  No big deal — except for that whole the city’s-turned-to-stone thing.  Because every misstep leads to this:

Round one ends as you expect it.  Gruesomely.

One small benefit of fighting a mindless monster — Grey Gargoyle can’t tell the difference between unconsciousness and death.  Especially when the opponent is wearing armor.

I know that the comic book world has little problems with massacring huge groups of people and cities.  The Ultimate universe will take down entire countries each issue.  But if you realize that every splotch of grey are wrecked Parisians, this is brutality on a horrifically visual level.  Also brutal?  Iron Man deciding it’s a good idea to stand up:

As of now, the second round’s going about as well as the first round.  I’m sure he can pull himself together and pull out a secret weapon or something, right?

Maybe not.  Luckily, at this point, one of the Iron Man clones/villains shows up to shoot missiles.  You can imagine how that goes.  I’m going to skip all that part, but this next picture is super cool:

I want to mention one benefit of Iron Man comics.  He’ll always have huge robots with huge guns blowing stuff up at least once an arc.  That’s what makes Iron Man so awesome.  Then he uses his own robot suit to punch other robot suits.  God, I love it.

Oh, and finally Stark pulls out a big time weapon.  A laser sword, duh.

Always a good idea to slice off half the opponent’s head if things aren’t going your way.  And the winning blow?  Only a matter of time until Iron Man kicks him in his monster face and stands victorious over his defeated foe.  I mean, he would have if this didn’t happen:

Strategic retreat.  Did they tie?  Let’s just think of this as Iron Man’s Vietnam.

With that, the Paris brawl comes to an end.  For the rest of Fear Itself and Iron Man’s major role in the conflict, you have to buy the books yourself.  Spoiler alert: lots of new costumes.