Weapon X #8
Writer: Frank Tieri
Pencils&Cover: Georges Jeanty
The Underground: Part 2 of 6The errors on the recap page persist. I hardly doubt this will change. The cover is a cheesecake shot of Domino fondling a rifle suggestively. I pity any fanboys who bought the issue thinking that was an indication of its contents. On to the story.
We open with Mesmero happily abusing his powers. This is fine, as we're supposed to pretty much loath and detest most of the Weapon X agents. They're scum, they know it, we know it, and I do have to give some credit to Marvel for being willing to do a book from the other side of things. These are the bad guys. They've done a good job of showing it. Anyway. He runs afoul of some mutant-hating meathead, suggests said meathead go do inappropriate things in a pet shop, and sends the dolt's girlfriend off to meet him in a hotel room later. It's actually kind of funny in that 'this is wrong' kind of way.
Cut to Sabertooth catching one of Neverland's doctors sneaking people out of the camp. Creed, of course, has been expertly written as one sick bastard since he first showed up in Deadpool: Agent of Weapon X. It's disgusting, it's in character, and this will be no different. He's bound to extort some truly horrendous price out of the doctor as payment for not going to the Director. But we'll have to wait to find out just what that is.
Back to Mesmero and his dying mother. As he was earlier, Mesmero is busy controlling everyone around him. His mother calls him on it, tells him that she's tired of it (he's even been hypnotizing her pain away) and ...well, we'll get back to this.
Meanwhile in Utah, Reaper and Wildside tear up a basketball game. Three notes here: One, it was mentioned in issue six that they signed up with Weapon X to avoid getting killed. Two, I'm pretty sure these are the guys who were mauling the burger joint as they've got the same message of 'free Neverland' (a side note, the public thinks that 'Neverland,' if it exists at all, is a holding camp for mutant *terrorists.* So, basically, this is one hell of an organized effort to make everyone hate mutants). Three, Reaper's been dead in the normal MU since X-Cutioner's Song. Nice oversight there, guys. Granted, he's really only memorable for constantly getting his hands lopped off, but still. Anyway, the two of them seem to have gotten upgrades by way or some sort of morphable technological hand replacements. Anyway. Their party gets crashed by Mavrick and Domino. Maverick wants to kill them, Dom says Nate wants them alive. And then gets slashed up by Reaper. Must not have hurt too badly, she doesn't utter a sound. Maybe the lettering guys missed a spot. Oh, and Reaper's an idiot, as he feels the need to say "Getting caught's a no-no," as he and Wildside make their escape, thereby virtually assuring that Dom and Maverick will put two and two together, as they already know Reaper and Wildside were taken to Neverland. I guess even Weapon X couldn't make these two smarter.
Cut to Washout drying out. Now, we've known from the beginning of the series that the trick to the Directors whole program is that his 'power enhancements' are temporary and pretty much fatal. But poor Washout didn't know that of course. So now he's flaking *and* has a stupid-ass codename, and Agent Jackson probably has another recruit for what is bound to be the beginnings of an internal coup.
And then Mesmero's mother bites the dust. Well, there's some dialogue first, but that's the gist of it. Nathan, Blaquesmith, and Meltdown are watching all this on the mini-camera from last issue. Nate mentions that this is going to effect Mesmero's confidence, and thus his powers, as their effectiveness is keyed into his confidence in them. He logically points out this is something they can exploit. Tabitha accuses him of being unsympathetic, Nate points out that they didn't kill the woman, leaves, Tabitha says to Blaquesmith Nathan's changed, the beady-eyed ET wannabe agrees, and I want to hit them both with X-Force issues. No, he hasn't changed. This is exactly the Nathan that blew up his entire mercenary team in the Yucatan to try and stop Stryfe. This is nothing new. Had Dom been standing there at the time, I'm sure she would have laughed her ass off.
We end the issue with more Director and Aurora. The Director has finally, it seems, taken her advice and gotten his face fixed. Cue all the readers wanting to gag.The final verdict? There were too many plot threads in this issue. We had Mesmero and his mother, we had Creed and the doctor, we had Dom and Maverick vs. the MLF boys, we had Washout falling apart, we had Nate being all 'mean,' we had the Director trying to get his groove on. Pick one! Or, y'know, three even. There was nothing *wrong* with the story (other than Reaper being, well, alive again) but there wasn't enough of one story to hold it together. They brought in Cable Et All for this arc for a reason, it would be nice to see the characters actually used for more than a page or two, especially if they're going to whore them out on the cover. The writing gets a four. The execution, however, gets a two.