And Now...

For the bad news:

X-Men #3

Written by Victor Gischler. Penciled by Paco Medina. Inked by Juan Vlasco. Colored by Marte Gracia.

We won't really focus on the plot the of this issue. In fact, the only background information you should know is that the X-Men are fighting a lot of vampires that Dracula's son is leading. And when I say the X-Men are fighting vampires, it's true. Not much fighting from the women. But I guess it doesn't really matter since the bulk of this issue is about Wolverine's search for Jubilee.

Jubilee used to be one of my favorite X-Men back when the TV series was airing. She was a Chinese-American girl, who lived in Beverly Hills with her wealthy immigrant parents, but then her parents were murdered. Later in life, she discovered her mutant ability and joined the X-Men family, but then she lost her power and went back to being a human. (Which, with the way mutants are treated in the Marvel universe, I was somewhat happy for her, but it did mean that she would probably only ever make cameo appearances from then on) But the torture didn't stop there, Jubilee went from being human to a hungry, sexy, dead thing.

And wow, did they make her sexy. She's not even recognizable to me. It really can't be the same girl so instead, we'll call her Boobilee:

And look at her legs! They're almost double the length of her torso and head. But more importantly, look at these two pictures:

Okay, okay. Now that you're over the shock that Boobilee bit Wolverine, let's actually take a look at how similar these two images are. The one on the right is a WWII propaganda poster. This particular poster shows a Japanese terrorist who's been likened to the vampire myth. Notice the fanged teeth, the obvious sex-and-death intent to a poor American victim, and the implication that if you don't invest in war bonds, it's like inviting this vampire into your home.

However, the image on the left is slightly different: The roles are reversed and now the Asian woman is depicted as the soulless vampire. Essentially, this image represents how our culture feels about women: They will kill you, even if you're the strongest, most masculine, and one of America's most favorite superheroes. (And if you know anything about comics, you know that Wolverine is that man) Also, this image represents how our culture feels about Asians. Yes, Jubilee is a Chinese-American woman, but she's also a stand-in for North Korea because she's one of the more popular characters with Asian heritage and Marvel doesn't have a North Korean comic book character.

To take things a step further, it's important to note that Boobilee wasn't turned into a vampire by being bitten. No, she was infected with a virus that Dracula's son created and released into a crowd of people. (Kinda like bio-terrorism) The sex metaphor is absent in her vamp story, but is certainly present in the image above with Wolverine. In this instance, Asian/woman rapes/kills man.

And that's all you really need to know about this story. It's sad to see one of my favorite superhero teams take such an awful turn. I don't plan to continue reading and I advise against anyone else picking it up.