Superteam Smackdown 4: X-Men vs. LXG
Time for some Superteam Smackdown, live from the The Correctness’s new Herodome, located in sunny downtown Newville. The tailgates are up, the beer is cold, the snacks are carby, it’s time for some smackdown! We have 8 classic superhero teams fighting it out to see who can claim the title.
This week it’s the X-Men versus the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen! Same but different! Old versus new but written old!
RULES:
-The two day prep, fight in an arena still applies.
-No outside interference from people who are NOT on your team. Ie: No stunts from Franklin and Professor X. Your team is your team and that’s who you’ve got.
-Heroes with Multiple team affiliations can only fight for 1 team
– Only 5 members max per team. Current lineups are based on our choices, as we are awesome.
-Remember, this speculation is based on the TEAM MEMBERS we have assembled. Yes, the results would have been very different if Professor X was on the Team, or Green Lantern, or Martian Manhunter or whomever. But they aren’t, so the results are based on who we’ve got.
The full bracket can be seen here
On to Week 4:
TEAMS
WEEK 4: X-men (Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Colossus, and Rogue)
Versus
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Mina, Quartermain, Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man and Captain Nemo)
RobbieRobTown
This is the fight I am excited about. I have been waiting quite some time for this. “RobbieRobTown excited?” You ask, incredulous. Yes. This is as excited as a man without any apparent genitals gets. So, it’s The Claremont era X-Men, vs our second Alan Moore team, the LXG.
Thank Christ, may I say, that we aren’t dealing with Stan Lee era X-Men, who were are glorified Riverdale Gang. No wonder the X-Men were shelved for five years. Not only does Cyclops have a crush on Jean, but so does Xavier. Yeah, That’s right, Xavier wants to bone Jean Grey. Look that shit up. It’s canon, assholes. Gross. That’s like Mr Lodge wanting to bone Betty. I’m not even sure I’d bone Betty, she obviously has self esteem issues, and Veronica is probably bipolar. In fact, I fail to see the appeal of Archie, but I also fail to see the appeal of Beast. FYI, did you guys know Beast didn’t get smart until about 4 issues in? He was just another Thing until then. Once again, Stan Lee, why do we love you? Also read this, goddammit:
http://www.thecorrectness.com/correctness/dark-betty-saga-pt-3-crisis-in-infinite-riverdales/
Claremont was at the top of his game during these years, and I emphasize during these years, because anyone who has read X-Men Forever knows that he was recently clubbed over the head, and his doctors comb through his stool samples for script ideas. If Chris Claremont was a flavour of ice cream, he’d start out strawberry, and end up ballsack. That’s some decadent ice cream. It is literally decadent. Nonetheless, Claremont wrote a mean comic book during these years, and he is the only author I know who frequently uses the word “stygian”. I’m not sure if that is good or not. Claremont does have his flaws. If you feel Marvel overpowers their characters in general, Claremont overpowers his ladies. Dark Phoenix? yeah. Storm? yeah. Even Kitty Pryde is getting the Claremont treatment these days, what with the Wolverine claw…
Alan Moore as a writer has his own unique issues, and I think I can best reveal my concerns about his narrative choices in the ring:
The lights come on (I know the lights are already on, it’s a stadium, why don’t you go fuck yourself, because not only can I not afford to attend live sports, but I’m home every Thursday night writing my “hilarious” “blog”) and our teams enter the arenas from either end, and the fight is on!
Right off the bat, Hyde comes barreling up to Phoenix and tries to rape her. Bad move, she’s psychic, and she melts his brain by making him have an incomprehensible cosmic experience. Yeah, canon.
It’s not over for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Next up it’s the Invisible Man, who rushes in and attempts to rape Storm. Jean however is in psychic contact with Phoenix, and she warns Storm, and Storm can fly. On the ground, we can see tiny puffs of dust where the Invisible Man is repeatedly jumping up to reach Storm like a puppy jumping for a milkbone. Then he is electrocuted through the dickhole. Yeah, canon
Quartermain steps out for laudanum. Then he tries to rape himself. Yeah, canon.
Mina is not about to get raped by anyone again, this issue, too much. That’s why she attempts and manages to rape Cyclops, who she turns into a vampire. Now this fight finally gets interesting. Claremont’s Cyclops often gets turned into things (Yeah, canon). Now Cyclops is shooting vampire eye-force beams at everyone, and he turns the whole audience into vampires that all immediately start raping each other.
Hold the phone though, Wolverine loves to break up a rape, and he kills a lot of vampires. Still, things are looking grim for our X-Men until Phoenix visualizes the League and all the vampire rapists dead. And then Phoenix blows up the planet to be thorough (yeah, canon).
Oh, sorry, and Colossus just sits around and is shitty and Russian and metal, and Rogue touches Mina and rapes her for good measure.Where is Kitty Pryde in this line-up? Not narratively necessary. You can’t rape what you can’t touch, and the Invisible Man likes ’em young because he is a classy rapist (yeah, canon).
Oh, and Nemo goes to find his son. (Yeah, canon).
Winner: X-Men
Loser: Alan Moore’s weird unpleasant fantasies.
admin_rock:
A few words about Alan Moore, before we get too far: He’s brilliant, and frickin crazy. Between The Watchmen and The League, even Top Ten, he’s proven that he can write team books like no one else. Seriously, without The Watchmen, the “modern age” of comics looks pretty damn different. All of this angsty posing, heroes with emotional crisises, and arcing storylines with future ramifications, for better or worse, can find their genesis in Moore.
Yes, he’s bugfuck crazy. Yes, he’s creepy and you’d be uncomfortable spending time with him alone. But honestly, any comic fan worth their salt would kill for a body of work like his.
On to the X-Men. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for them, I suspect due to the Claremont days. That makes it especially hard to see the lazy monstrosity that is X-Men Forever. Back in the day, the X-Men was a glorious book filled with win. Apparently, his ethos has changed from writing characters with personalities and situations, to playing “what if” with craptastic results.
Onward:
This fight is tricky. On a bright summer day, while lunching, The Correctness determined that a Team Smackdown was in order. While composing the bracket, we all thought it would be a great idea to include The League. It was a brilliant lateral thinking move. AT THE TIME. Now, I’m faced with having to write out this battle, which, while this complaint has been made in previous weeks without nearly as much justification, is ridiculously one sided.
For you see, the League is composed of the following: A once powerful man who no longer fits in with the world, an annoyingly snooty woman, an Indian guy with lots of cash and cool ride (Damn, this could be the Justice League), and two guys with actual powers. Griffin is able to become invisible, which is pretty cool. Hyde is pretty badass.
But they’re taking on the X-Men, who are never a pushover. Frankly, if Hyde was excluded, I think The Correctness could probably take The League, bolstered by our own cleverness and years of table top gaming.
So this is how it goes down:
Jean Grey walks to the centre of the arena. The League are all there, confused by the lack of attendance by the X-Men. At hte horn, Jean Grey unleashes a psychic blast that takes out Quartermain, Harker, and Nemo, and possibly Griffin, though he’s invisible. Hyde rages, as he does, and leaps toward Jean. He’s slammed to the ground, courtesy of a fastball special. Wolvie and Hyde go toe to toe, Wolvie slashing bits of Hyde off, Hyde getting mad and throwing and slamming wolvie around.
Jean is grabbed from behind, and struggles with her invisible assailant. Rogue saunters out in a bikini, which gives the Victorian Griffin a super boner. He rushes over, and grabs Rogue, which renders him unconscious, and Rogue invisible. She heads over to help Wolvie, and the two of them pummel Hyde into the turf.
Cyclops sits at the side, being a douche as usual, and Colossus draws something sensitive, remembering that he once had a character, before Claremont gave up and started phoning it in.
Winner: The X-Men.
Tbinns
Oh Robbie Robtown, surely you are exaggerating.
There is so much more to Alan Moore than great characters of classic literature fornicating. The guy’s a genius …I mean look at him, is this the face of a man obsessed with raping plucky heroines of days gone by?
AAAAAAAAA!!!!!!REGISTER IT!! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!HE’S CLIMBIN IN YOUR WINDOWS!! HE’S SNATCHIN YOUR PEOPLE UP!! HIDE THE KIDS, HIDE THE WIFE!!!
Okay, so he looks creepy. And he did write a porn comic featuring three fairy tale heroines. And he probably read Little Women and said “This is bullshit, where’s all the rape?”…and there’s a good chance his next project involves Tintin and Snowy double teaming Heidi in an isolated chalet in the Alps.
But that doesn’t mean he is a creepy rape obsessed weirdo.
Alan Moore is the creative force behind….Oh hang on… Sorry… The Correctness has just learned that Alan Moore insisted on having his name taken off this particular Smackdown.
Hardly surprising. Perhaps it’s for the best.
so LXG vs. The X-MEN
Right off the bat, I’ll have to say you can probably count the Invisible man out of the fight. He’ll say that he’ll be there, they will THINK he’s there, but he is a two timer and will probably be off somewhere checking someone off of his “To Rape” list.
That leaves us with Captain Nemo…without his submarine. So not much help there. Alan Quartermain, who while not technically a rapist, has raped several continents in the way only a classic imperialist could. Mina Harker, who after getting it on with a dude who was centuries old, hooks up with Quartermain because apparently he is the next best thing. And Mr. Hyde, or as I like to call him “Rape Hulk”
On the other end of the stadium: Wolvie, Rogue, Colossus, Cyclops, and Jean Grey.
Hyde comes barreling over, Colossus meets him halfway, and they start to pound the living shit out of each other.
And that boys and girls is the closest thing this comes to a fight, which is why everyone else stands around and watches it for about ten minutes, just to give the crowd their moneys worth. Because immediately after that the X-men plow through the League like they aren’t even there.
It’s a full on pasting that lasts all of about 7 minutes. It would have been two minutes if Mina hadn’t put up such a fight.
Winner: X-Men, and every female character in literature.
DECISION: The X-Men
The X-Men move on to face the Justice League, which will prove a bit more difficult for them. However, that will have to wait, as next week, the first semi-final features The Avengers vs The Defenders. Join Us! Rant below!
