Writer Joss Whedon
Artist John Cassaday
Colorist Laura Martin
Letterer Chris Eliopoulos
Dangerous Part One of Six
Cover Dated January 2005
Shame Lockheed only appears on the cover. Due to solicitations, the original cover that they promoted didn’t have Colossus on it so there was a giant gap there which people clearly called that the final member of the team as why show a cave with that much empty space?
I like how you can see Lockheed so much clearer on the original cover!
So we wrapped up Gifted and this starts the Dangerous arc, their second on the title. Also, originally, going to be their last one before they renewed a contract for thirteen more issues (including Giant Size). Which is crazy as Gifted and Dangerous are both good but to be the only stories from this creative team? That would have been a waste.
I wonder if they really did renew or were they always signed for 25 but with an out at 12 in case it was a major flop?
There is an ad for Dodgeball, coming to DVD on the inside front cover. I still haven’t seen the film but my gal pal Candice tells me it is funny and that I would enjoy it. There are several ‘coming to DVD’ ads in this issue.
Onto the issue :
The opening page starts with a narration captions of a new character that sensing a new beginning. This will be Danger that we meet next issue.
The second page we see that Wing, the mutant who use to be able to fly until Ord forced the cure onto him in the previous arc. Imagine being able to fly and then having that ability taken from you? That has to be pretty devastating, and we see that Wing is pretty depress about it.
Wing isn’t sure what is next for him. The X-Men have agreed to let him stay at the school. Beast wants to run some tests to see if the cure was only temporary. Everyone looks at him with such pity – including his friend Hisako (Armor) and Miss Pryde. I like how he mentions that she has a ‘big new muscle boyfriend.’ I suspect he has a bit of a crush on Miss Pryde. Who wouldn’t? I wonder if most of the students do have crushes on the senior staff? I imagine Kitty seems more approachable than Emma, so she probably gets more crushes. Plus, Emma can read your thoughts and if you think of her, I’m sure that triggers something for her to shut you down. That’s my Emma anyway. Plus, she was dating Cyclops and who can compete with that guy!?!
Wing walks up to a cliff on the Xavier Estate.
Meanwhile, the X-Men are on their way to New York City via the Blackbird. Colossus is riding on the very top of the plane. I wonder how he asked Cyclops for permission to do that? As they had to build a special handlebar for him to do it.
I get that he has been locked in a room for months and wants to feel as free as possible, the team gets that too. But they had to build that handlebar and they had to make sure it was strong enough to not break while he was in his metal form. That couldn’t have taken ten minutes.
Inside, Beast is trying his best to keep the plane steady as he doesn’t want to lose Colossus as they just got him back.
I like how Whedon writes it as ‘months’ as Colossus died in Uncanny X-Men 390 – also titled, The Cure – cover dated March 2001 and now he came back at the end of 2004 – that’s three years so in comic time, probably is only barely six months.
Also, while they are in the Blackbird, the body of the jet is bathed in red light – which apparently, I am a huge fan of the X-Men in red lit rooms. Laura Martin knows what I like!
Cyclops comments that Colossus has seemed quiet lately. Wolverine jokes that Colossus use to be such a prankster. I do like Whedon’s Wolverine, he doesn’t use him too much but when he does, he gets some stellar lines.
Emma asks Kitty, since they are bosom buddies, if he has open to her at all. Kitty tells her that they have reached their destination.
Outside, is a giant not-Godzilla creature tearing up New York City. It is on a rampage. If only there was a giant werewolf and gorilla to accompany him.
Wolverine isn’t impress, it looked bigger on TV.
Cyclops gives out the orders. This turns on Emma, and Kitty wishes she didn’t have to sit next to her on these flights. Cyclops asks Emma to relay the directions to Colossus, he agrees to them.
Colossus jumps from the plane onto the lizard’s nose. He is commenting to himself, and I do like these next three pages – I sort of miss caption boxes. He notices the difference between Scott in his head and Xavier’s voice in his head from years ago. Scott seems more free than the professor. The word, free, has so much more meaning than it use to. He ends his thought with that he really should concentrate on the situation at hand or nose, as it were.
Kitty continues our second page of inner monologues. She is phasing people out of danger. She believes it means something that it was her who found Colossus, and not someone else. Though during that mission, it could have only been her. Which means, it has to mean something as no one else would have found him. Kitty phases a woman out of the way as a car comes crashing at them. She thinks to herself that she probably should start concentrating.
Wrapping this three page sequence, Wolverine is stabbing the giant lizard and his only thought at the time is – that he really likes beer. A running motif with Whedon’s Wolverine.
We cut to Emma, as she is evaculating an entire building. The civilians’ inner thoughts are – I want to leave in a swift and orderly fashion – in a cycle. She is standing next to Cyclops, who is optic blasting the monster.
Beast is blasting away at the creature while in the Blackbird. Then he gets a call on his phone as the Fantastic Four in their Fantasicar has arrived!
Getting to see Cassaday draw the Fantastic Four is a real treat. If I was Whedon, and just for myself too, I would have tried to cram as many cameos as possible so that I could say I wrote those characters but also to see Cassaday’s version of them. Whedon got to write the Runaways, people don’t seem to talk about that run so I’m not sure how well he did. I suppose the absense of comments is something. But the Runaways are no X-Men, so it could have been the size of the fanbase. Proving that X-Men fans and not just Whedon fans made Astonishing the success it was as I’m sure his Runaways run didn’t do amazing numbers. Or dare I type – astonishing numbers.
I really like Whedon’s Fantastic Four, or mostly, I like how humorous Thing is. He gets some classic lines here. He is first mad that the X-Men are infringing on their giant monster business. Next, he makes a comment about how he thought they made a cure for you people, to which Wolverine thinks he means mutants but he really mans Canadians.
There is an ad for Elektra coming to theaters on January 14th. I actually saw this film in theaters and was highly disappointed by it. I mean, you take an urban character and put her in the woods? How does that even get out of the approval setting? And there is a guy with tattoos that come to life and off of his body? Ooof! The DVD at least as a deleted scene with Ben Affleck portraying Matt Murdock in a dream sequence.
Right after that is an ad for an EyeToy game for the PS2, such a horrible device and failure that was!
Back at the ‘mansion,’ which is the mansion but really a Danger Room sequence. Armor meets up with her old friend. He is thinking of sucide and she does everything short of pushing him off the cliff. She keeps calling him, Eddie, that isn’t his name but since he doesn’t have his gift, he shouldn’t be at the school for the gifted nor have a cool mutant name. His parents are super excited to have their son back as he is no longer a mutant. All of this is too much for poor Wing.
Back in New York City, this happens :
How awesome does that look? Way!
After a quick game of Whack-A-Mole by Thing and Colossus, the monster is back into the ground. Reed is sure that it was one of Mole Man’s creatures, as it was heading towards the Baxter Building.
Reed asks Cyclops why they were there. Cyclops tells him that they are trying to do more superhero stuff. Reed knows that the X-Men have saved the world numerous times but the stinky flatscans don’t know about that.
Sue is happy to have saved the day with the X-Men, as it should do wonders for the mutant community, to be seen working with Marvel’s First Family.
Human Torch wonders what happens if this back fires and they start getting the heat that the mutants gets. Wolverine tells them that he will get a more interesting type of fangirls. Johnny asks his brother in law if they can turn evil. Reed tells him that maybe they can after dinner. Such a fun couple pages!
The X-Men are back in the Blackbird, heading home. Colossus is in his seat. Kitty and Colossus are lost in their own thoughts.
Cut to Agent Brand as she is having to defend herself to the SHIELD committee. They are upset as she made a deal with Ord that really blew up and endangered Earth.
Brand makes a reference to Breakworld having a bullet pointed at Earth’s head – which is amazing foreshadowing that I haven’t picked up on until this reading! And I’ve read these issues a bunch, thanks to my not-so-handy omnibus plus all four motion comics so I’ve had these issues read back to me as well!
An X-Man is slated to destroy Breakworld and all they wanted was that X-Man’s head. That is the price that Brand is happy to pay. She will make any ally, sleep with any foe as long as it protects Earth. There are no lines that she won’t cross as there are no lines to hold her back.
Also, the committee knows about the bullet too, she implies. Once we get to Astonishing X-Men 24, I have to see if she is shock to see the actual bullet or is she pretty unimpressed with it. She may have been wearing her sunglasses too so that might have blocked her feelings from us the readers.
She clearly isn’t demoted and is still the head of SWORD. Good thing too, as she isn’t the leader that we deserve but who we need.
There are back to back ads for DVDS – I, Robot and Napoleon Dynamite. I bought the second one and I keep meaning to own the first one as I would like to use that as my thesis statement for why we should never go into the building robot business. It has never turn out well for us human types. That’s why I can’t believe that Carnegie Mellon University is allowed to exist – especially after one of their robots drew first blood! That whole branch should have been shut down!
Back at home, the X-Men are disappointed that their rescue mission only was given 30 seconds of news time. Which goes back to my thoughts about the reality of the Marvel Universe and especially the state of New York. I imagine the news channels all have like a ‘super hero minute’ as they can’t be spending all day talking about superheroes.
Wolverine comments that he doubts the footage will go nationally. Which, I doubt X-Men and Fantastic Four fighting a giant lizard and all that resulted was some damaged buildings, would be of any interest in Montana. Maybe, just maybe, the entire country does a superhero minute, if there was an infrastructure for it, so they just replay the same footage. I can imagine that being the case.
Emma is more upset that there was three minutes of coverage for Paris Hilton. Colossus doesn’t know who that is, and Beast tells him it doesn’t matter, on a lot of levels. It is a dated reference, in back in 2004 but now, I’ll be surprised if new readers will remember who Paris Hilton is as she isn’t in the limelight anymore. Unless she is and I’m no longer paying attention to celebrity news. I don’t even have time to watch Joel McHale on the Soup!
Though, would celebrities and movies still get the attention they do with superheroes? I wonder if Avatar would still be the highest grossing movie as clearly there will be no Avengers movie in the Marvel Universe.
Kitty can’t believe they can’t get better press than that. Cyclops reveals his thoughts on the news. They have the stories already prepared, they just wait for the right pieces to fall into place or they bend them until they do. The story will never not be about, the Mutant Menace.
Emma then says another line that Kitty wishes she never heard – that J. Jonah Jameson will be tongue kissing Spider-Man before the X-Men can catch a break. I wonder why she says ‘tongue kissing’ instead of ‘french kissing’ is it because she isn’t twelve?
Then Armor comes in, she hasn’t seen her friend Wing in a while. So we know the Armor from earlier wasn’t the real one.
The Cuckoos follow her, stating that Wing doesn’t have much more time. Emma is surprised she didn’t pick up on it but she has had a bit of a day. The Cuckoos point to Blindfold, making her first appearance! She is mentioned in issue four but seven is when we see her.
Blindfold gives a cryptic message that once he dies, a new being will exist.
Cut to Wing, in a puddle of his own blood. He flew one last time, but it only lasted three seconds. Once he dies, the mansion and the cliff disappear, revealing it to have been a Danger Room simulation the entire time. Odd how the message on the screen is, Exercise Complete. It is a bit of a haunting final splash page, a young boy is dead in a giant room.
Wing’s death breaks Danger out of her room and takes on a new shape. It is a decent arc, I would just rank it as the fourth good one as it is just beaten by more enjoyable arcs.
Torn
Gifted
Unstoppable
Dangerous
Unstoppable, loses points for the abandoning Kitty in deep space but once she came back, I could enjoy it more. Thanks to Matt Fraction!
Kitty does get some great moments in this arc but it is the only one where she isn’t the real star of the book.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 