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motimatcha · 24 days

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"nostromo"

PART 5. Survivor for the Nostromo.

parts: one | two | three | four | five

dbd Xenomorph (alien) x fem!reader. smute: unprotected sex; vaginal sex; tongue fucking (cunnilingus); sperm inside; tongue in mouth; size difference; a large amount of sperm; bloating; sex with a monster.

The familiar crackle of the fire filled the space, but for the first time, you bet you could feel its phantom warmth. Perhaps you were warmed by the thought that you would still be able to meet the xenomorph. But asking yourself the question “why do I need this?”, you did not dare to give a clear answer. Because this could be the beginning of the end for you and for you to accept those brewing feelings for a humanoid creature.

Is it possible to joke that his courtship has borne fruit? Or is it the time spent together? The answer to this question could only be given by you yourself, and since you decided to go into the forest to search for an offering that could lead you to the xenomorph, the answer was more than obvious.

The moon was your only companion on this thorny path . Decorated with millions of stars in the dark sky, she looked blankly at your futile attempts and searches in the forest. During all this time, you happened to find several abandoned lanterns of good quality, collect herbs for good luck, a first aid kit, even a high-quality key to the hatch was in your pocket. On any other day, you would have been happy about such a large number of valuable and rare items, as well as improvements to them, but the situation was different and you were looking for offerings for certain territories.

One got the feeling that they exchanged rarity with the items or that the Entity, in mockery, took them away altogether. What did you do with the xenomorph? This couldn’t help but anger you, but gritting your teeth and wrapping yourself in a jacket so that the biting branches of bushes and low trees wouldn’t hit your hands so hard, you continued your search.

He who seeks will find, as your grandmother said, and therefore you did not stop at the achieved result.

The first location found for your offerings was the Loray Memorial Institute, followed by Springwood, Gideon Meat Processing Plant. Apparently the Entity decided to take pity on you, but not too much, and give out offerings in the reverse order of your stay in its world and during the trials. If everything goes on like this, then you won’t be able to get the offering you need in a century.

Exhausted, you sit down on the grass, damp due to fog and dew, and then lie down. In silence, far from the fire and the hubbub of people, you feel calmer than ever. So what if you are a black crow among black crows? You should be proud of yourself, no less; survive the hunt, aka courtship, of a xenomorph , and then be under the protection of the same creature from David, on top of everything else, a successful conversation with GhostFace... it’s time for you to become a living legend of this small world, so as not to go completely crazy. But the idea is not so bad. It will be possible to tell other survivors about this while you are all... while you are imprisoned here for all eternity.

Deep in thought, you don't notice Ellen's silent approach. The woman, concerned about your disappearance, even though she believed in your strength, and the forest shrouded in white fog itself was safe for survivors, but she still decided to check on you. What if you had a nervous breakdown and need the support of a loved one? Ripley , in any case, tried to think that you were close people to each other.

There may be a family not related by blood.

“Are you okay?” a calm and quiet voice pulls you out of your slumber. Louise sits down on the ground next to you, you can feel her familiar warmth and smell, this time mixed with swamp mud. Apparently she was lucky enough to be tested in a rotten swamp, although it also took place at the AutoHaven landfill. “You look inspired, albeit tired.”

“Um, I was looking for an offering,” you answer vaguely before turning from your back to your side towards the woman. So you looked even more like a family, strange, but a family: a mother and daughter, wise in life, in love with a monster. The plot is suitable for a film adaptation of one of the versions of “Beauty and the Beast,” except that the rating will be much higher than that of a regular cartoon, filled with blood and corpses. “So far the search has been unsuccessful.”

The brunette was silent for about a minute. Either she couldn’t find anything to say, or she knew, but had no idea how to do it. Finally, with a sigh, she continued the conversation:

“Do you want to meet him?” and you both didn’t need to clarify with whom exactly. Your nightmare, at the same time an object of interest, haunted you in your sleep and in reality, and with the departure of the xenomorph from the usual tests, this need only became stronger. And thoughts, dark and vicious, visited your dreams much more often than they should have.

And it was time to give answers to my own questions. Is it possible to joke that his courtship has borne fruit? Or is it the time spent together?

“Yes. Really want to.”

The ex-officer does not grin amusedly, but does not express any negativity or disgust towards your choice . You may still regret your choice, but the choice is entirely yours. Everyone must develop their own skills in order to make new decisions based on their experience. Ellen, as a caring person, can only support your aspirations and give advice, but not insist.

“As you said, “after courtship, you must prove your strength by resisting the xenomorph’s attacks , and then you yourself will find your way to him. If you want,” Ripley laughs with you and nibbles grass from the clearing. She pulls out one particularly long spikelet and presses it between her lips, thereby reminding you of a cowboy from the wild west. “It seems your words were prophetic.”

“Yes, I can see it myself,” the woman grumbles demonstratively and waves her hands in the air, and then rummages in her pockets. “Take it. Found it on the way.”

What was in your hands made you sit up abruptly and look in disbelief at the hand holding the offering. The "sluice doors" leading to the xenomorph's territory are in your hands.

“You can take all the things I found while scouring the forest if you give me this offering.”

“I was going to give it to you anyway, I still don’t understand how they work.”

“Thank you thank you thank you…”

You stood up from your seat and, as if under hypnosis, headed towards the general fire, before the voice of the former Nostromo officer brought you out of a kind of trance.

“To the edge of the fog,” was all the woman said before disappearing behind the trees.

You nodded gratefully.

As you moved towards the edge of the safe zone reserved for the survivors and separating those from the killers, the white fog began to rapidly thicken. Was this another test from the Entity? Maybe a test of your determination to see things through? Will you retreat at risk or will you still meet with the one you have been afraid of for so long? Shaking your head, dismissing the thoughts imposed on you that nothing would work out, you moved on.

Soon, a white fog enveloped every part of the space, making it impossible to go further. Somehow subconsciously you realized that this place is the line, the transition between the recreation area and the test, and it is here that you need to use the offering, otherwise the insidious entity will return you back to the fire.

You picked up a green polygon with doors drawn there and threw it into the fog. It, inexplicably fluttering and gurgling, began to become denser, and you were drawn to sleep.

Before you fall into oblivion, you think. How could you talk to Ripley if she was on trial and how did she know where to go?

A brutal industrial interstellar cargo ship where human life takes a back seat to brutal efficiency. Death lurks around every corner of its labyrinthine decks. From Ripley's well of memories, a dark and hopeless realm turns into a terrifying nightmare.

That's what you once thought, but finding yourself at the crash site of the Nostromo, with no generators or grappling hooks, surrounded by control points without turrets, you felt safer than ever.

You hesitantly step forward, hoping to meet the xenomorph, but as you search and spend time walking around the entire map, you realize that it is not here. But this is not so. Otherwise, why would the Entity fulfill your whim and allow you to step into the territory of the fallen spaceship? One can, of course, assume that your the captor just likes to watch how your face is distorted in despair that the stranger has been excluded from the kingdom of essence, and maybe everything is not as simple as it seems at first glance.

You approach the nearest control point. The strange thought “can a person go down there?” takes on new colors when the underground tunnels of the alien remain the only place that you have not yet explored. Exhaling, you turn your back to the entrance and slowly crawl through the narrow hole in the ground. The familiar mucus covers your body from head to toe, and now it becomes clear to you why the alien himself is constantly shiny and so sticky.

The dungeon, made of a material unknown to you, flavored with mucus, greeted you with gloomy silence and rare rays of light penetrating through the tunnels from the control points. You could almost stand up completely, the passages themselves were so wide, but it is worth noting that you still had to bend your head a little so as not to crash into something incomprehensible. And then you had to get down on all fours, because otherwise walking on two legs on the sticky floor threatened you with collapsing on it, and then suffocating in the mucus. Shameful death. Following your plan, you decided to go around the tunnels first along the edge and only then inspect the center, believing that this way you will increase your chances of meeting a xenomorph.

But here you are inspecting every passage at the border, then slowly crawling towards the center because of all the mucus stuck to your body, and the one you are looking for is still not there. There were no tears when you leaned against one of the walls and sat down with your legs bent towards you. The heavy realization that the xenomorph has been removed from the realm of essence falls on your shoulders. A heavy lump rises in your throat when the first plaintive sob escapes your lips. This was, at least, unfair, but the natural outcome for violating the rules of the world of the Entity and the corresponding punishment - for the life of one survivor, the killer pays with his own.

“Apparently, it’s time to leave,” you thought and directed your gaze to the exit to the control center ahead of you. You had just managed to lift your butt off the floor when suddenly there was a sound of a passage opening and a xenomorph descended, gracefully and naturally . “Is he really...”

The stranger you were looking for underground was himself looking for a violator of his peace on earth, sensibly believing that none of the survivors would think of descending into his kingdom. To see you here - covered in the mucus of an underground tunnel, tearful, but seemingly happy - was beyond all his expectations. His precious couple, who reciprocated his advances in marriage, themselves came and descended on him, honoring him with great honor.

The creature from distant space froze in place before taking a step towards you, then another, and now he was already at your feet. Seeing a xenomorph so close, knowing that it would not harm you, was surprising and amazing. Adrenaline hit the blood, and the heart began to beat so fast, attracting the attention of the predator. The alien made a sound similar to a purr, at least you could interpret it that way, before burying his smooth head into your chest. The strangers' hearing was a little weaker than that of a human, but even so, leaning close to your body, practically pressing you into the soft surface of the walls, the creature could hear the beating of your heart.

You knew that once you came and descended here, the xenomorph would not let you go. Remember Ripley said that the humanoid wants to create a new colony with you and you, being a vicious child of the Internet who knows about rule thirty-four, hoped that creating a colony implied a method common among people. Just the thought of what a monster’s penis might be like and how it penetrates inside you already excites your nature: there is a pleasant tug in the lower abdomen, it becomes wet from the approaching vaginal lubrication, and you want to see with your own eyes, feel for yourself everything that can give you xenomorph.

The latter seemed to sense the excitement hanging in the air . He hissed, but not threateningly, as it had always been before, but low and gutturally, so that his knees began to tremble. The alien took two steps back, allowing you to take a more comfortable sitting position, and just when you thought that everything would happen right here, the xenomorph suddenly shook his head negatively and waved into one of the corridors. You had no choice but to follow him.

He led you to one of the far corridors of the tunnel, where you had already been, but you did not properly examine the seemingly identical walls at first glance. And apparently in vain, because they lost sight of one of the secret passages leading somewhere deep down, where the temperature only rose, but not so much that it became unbearable for you. Clothes soaked in mucus clung to your body, outlining the curves of your body, giving the xenomorph an excellent view not only of your juicy ass covered in the fabric of your pants , but also of your breasts with hard nipples, and your long neck, so thin and inviting to leave its mark there. The stranger does not need imagination at all, his instincts and the growing desire to possess your body, heart and soul - all of you - did their dark work. The humanoid creature paused before smoothly descending, standing on its hind legs and extending its large palms towards you, lowering your half-size body down.

Based on generally accepted human standards, you could describe this place as a bedroom, making allowances for the non-human appearance of your future or current lover. The floor under your feet, which was a kind of flesh, was warm, soft and slimy, making it impossible for you to walk on your feet with shoes on. Perhaps, if you had the same sharp claws as a xenomorph, allowing it to cling to any surface, it would be much easier for you, but for now, overcoming the fear of the unknown, you take off your shoes. Your feet touch the soft floor, slightly springy and sagging under your weight, but overall the feeling was not disgusting.

You, drenched from head to toe in the secretions of a strange cave, feel more relaxed than ever.

The xenomorph hisses, attracting your attention and pulls the sleeve of your sweater towards him, pushing you to sit in a small recess in the bedroom. Can this thing be described as a bed? Maybe yes.

Surprisingly neat and gentle movements contrast so much with the wild nature of the stranger that it becomes almost funny. A light half-smile adorns your lips when the creature, picking up the hem of your T-shirt under your jacket, tries to pull it off of you over your head. As soon as you do this, it seems as if it becomes easier to breathe, but inside everything is tugging and burning with impatience. The mucus, which no longer seems so disgusting to you, envelops and warms the body, allows you to relax as much as possible, and now you forget about any pain in the body that tormented you due to both the uncomfortable posture while moving and the for a long walk on the surface. All fear has receded, relaxing and preparing your mind.

The stranger’s attempt to take off your pants was unsuccessful, just like yours, because the fingers covered with a layer of mucus simply could not grab the slippery button. For the first time, the sharp tail of a xenomorph was so close to your body, not in an attempt to kill, piercing through your body, but to get rid of a wardrobe item.

“However,” you think, looking at the sharp tip of the alien’s tail, “I wouldn’t mind trying games with a knife.”

You decide this for later, when the degree of your mutual trust moves to a new level. The xenomorph , kneeling in front of you, hisses and purrs contentedly. You slowly, a little fearfully, spread your legs to the sides, giving him a view of your womb, the pink folds of which are covered with your own juices and mucus. The xenomorph is dripping with saliva from his mouth when your hand reaches down along his stomach, covers his pubis with your palm, and thin fingers spread the natural barrier to your entrance to the sides - another narrow hole shrinks around the void, calling on the alien to fill it with himself. You thought that this creature had no mouth, that it was replaced by that extending thing with fangs, and for a second you even doubted the correctness of your decision when the alien opened its mouth, but instead of seeing the usual second mouth moving forward, it touched your womb something cold, thin and just as slimy.

The xenomorph has a tongue. Long, with a green tip that turns black the closer it gets to the throat. The xenomorph's tongue became thicker somewhere in the middle, you could compare its thickness to your three fingers, and there were also ribbed protrusions along the entire body.

It was hard to believe that it would be inside you, and you were counting only on light caresses, but the alien was determined to prove you wrong. Even if he himself had no idea about the course of your thoughts.

The actions of this snake tongue can be described as “chaotic” rather than “planned” or “purposeful,” but it is worth giving credit for its efforts. The sharp contrast of the coldness of the tongue and the warmth of the room excited your nerves brought to the peak, causing his every movement to tremble in your body. Here the xenomorph caresses your clitoris, tense with excitement, and you are ready to burst into ecstasy at any second, and a second later it teases your entrance to the vagina, penetrating inside with just the tip, and a disappointed groan already escapes your lips. All you can do is rush around the floor in the hope that the absolute weapon will stop playing with you, or mocking you, to be honest, and will fill your needy body, if not with its penis, then at least with its tongue.

Perhaps your prayers have been answered.

As soon as you open your mouth to tell the creature exactly how to move in order to bring you the maximum amount of pleasure, it puts its tail across your stomach, and its paws with razor-sharp claws touch your thighs, spreading them even further to the side. It knocks the air out of your lungs, but as soon as his cold tongue slides inside, stars flash before your eyes. It’s so unusual, strange, but pleasant to feel inside, from this feeling of gradual fullness as the xenomorph slowly and carefully pushes its tongue inside your womb. His movements are rhythmic and slow, first a little forward, then almost completely withdrawing from you, touching the sensitive clitoris with his growths along the tongue. Oh, that wonderful feeling of friction and pressure, pulling moans from your lips. Your hands are rushing around, not knowing where to place yourself . Maybe grab a stranger’s tail, counting the vertebrae with your fingers, or play with nipples swollen from excitement? Well, you have two hands to do both.

As soon as you touch the tail, slightly touch a sensitive point of the alien body, the xenomorph begins to squeal, pushes its tongue into you a little sharper and deeper than originally planned, as you arch your back, but most importantly, your lover’s tongue arches after you, touching and pressing on the very point that brings you a lot of pleasure . Your loud moan, the echo of which reaches your ears, in which you can hear the frantic beating of your heart, marks the arrival of your first orgasm.

The alien had to do so little to get you to your peak that it's almost astounding. Will you then be able to normally perceive caresses from a person or will you become addicted to the feeling of buzz and euphoria from the alien language, and then the penis?

With one hand you cover your tightly closed eyelids. You try to catch your breath, but it’s all in vain, because the overexcited and full of energy xenomorph is ready to continue giving you affection and pleasure. After all, you are his couple, who reciprocated. The tongue inside you rubs and curves, getting thicker and thinner and always touching your swollen clitoris so that you don't have to worry about having a second orgasm. The movements become faster and more chaotic, as if the alien is trying different methods and approaches on you to find what gives you the most pleasure. And when you are ready to reach the peak of orgasm for the second time, the xenomorph allows you to do this too, smearing the wide part of his tongue along your scarlet bundle of nerves.

This time it just rings in horror, and black dots flash before your eyes in place of the stars.

The xenomorph steps back. His slippery tongue comes out of your womb. And such a sound is heard, vulgar as in porn, but damn exciting. It’s as if a plug was pulled out of you and all that mucus that came inside along with your tongue began to flow out of your body.

Having barely caught your breath and found the strength to open your eyes, you look down to where the xenomorph is located. But he soon reached forward, placing his huge paws on either side of your chest. You were wondering if someone else has a penis, right?

There, pushing the groin shields to the sides, it appeared. Something that will divide your world into before and after.

Big, long. The tip of the xenomorph's penis was slightly elongated and thin, becoming thicker just below, and tapered again at the creature's hips. Its color was identical to the tongue - green at first, gradually turning black - and had growths, two of which ran along the upper part of the penis and one below. You could assume that the maximum length of these protrusions does not exceed half a centimeter, but this will be enough to give you an unforgettable experience.

A clear viscous liquid dripped from the tip of the penis, not the same as the mucus that envelops your bodies and you remembered the word pre-cum . Apparently this is typical even for xenomorphs .

“I want to touch,” became your first thought, and you listened to your desire. The stranger, showing you the highest degree of trust, allowed you to touch his most sensitive part of the body without any obstacles. And he hissed in surprise as soon as your hot hand touched the alluring flesh. "Marvelous".

The penis in my hand felt pleasantly heavy. It was slightly warmer than the alien creature's tongue; either the humanoid was simply excited until the body overheated, or its organ itself should be warm. In addition, it itself was soft to the touch, but hard, no matter how paradoxical it may sound. Mucus began to accumulate between your fingers as you ran up and down the ribbed shaft. Soft, pleasant, slippery. And it will end up inside your body.

Being under the influence of hypnosis due to the fascination with the xenomorph’s penis, you yourself, without knowing it, bring him to his first orgasm in his life. The alien life form does not know what it means to hold back, applying a similar concept to you for the first time, so as not to simply break the bones in your body, but otherwise gives its all. White streaks of sperm spread across your chest and stomach, slowly flowing down. You pick up one track with the tips of two fingers, spread them to the side, noting how thick and viscous the sperm of the creature from outer space is, that between the fingers spread in different directions, a string of sperm remains hanging between them.

It tastes... strange. It’s as if there is no taste at all.

The xenomorph groans . His nervous, twitching movements of his pelvis back and forth lead you to the idea that he himself wants to fill you with himself as soon as possible, and not only with his penis. You yourself have to raise your body to align yourself with the length of the penis and place the tip at the entrance to your body . My mouth was dry from anticipation. The creature's strong tail grabs you at the waist, sharply lifts you a little more, which is why you have to grab onto the powerful shoulders of your lover, in particular, reach for the tubes protruding from the back, in order to keep yourself in place. The legs can barely be locked behind the xenomorph's back, so you rest against the area above its tail.

Unusual pressure and stretching constrains your body . Despite the preliminary preparation, a copious amount of lubricant such as saliva, mucus and your own secretions, this is not enough to fully prepare yourself for the meeting with this monstrous penis . Only the head has penetrated, and it already seems to you that there is nowhere else to go . But at the same time, you want it to enter you completely, to divide you into two parts, to destroy your pussy, declaring its sole rights to your body and pleasure. Therefore, the xenomorph slowly moved further, penetrating you deeper and deeper with its monstrously large penis, exerting pleasant pressure with its size. The lumpy growths only complemented this wonderful sensation, pressing on the most sensitive points inside your body, and rubbing against your clitoris along with the thick penis. From pleasure, your mouth opened by itself, and pleasant moans, along with unintelligible babble, caressed the stranger’s ears. He was happy to feel that his partner was getting as much pleasure as he did from the feeling of how tightly the vaginal walls fit around his penis . How they tremble every time he plunges deeper into the supple body. He might think that he is intoxicated by this sensation and now he will certainly not let you go from his grip, he will fill you with his sperm, even if you cannot get pregnant in the realm of the Essence. He didn't care at all as long as it meant he could have you in every sense of the word.

The xenomorph stopped moving as his cock entered you fully, tearing through your sensitive walls, overloading your nervous system with the signals it sent. It was hot, cold, hot, everything throbbed and burned, but the vicious desire to become a victim of an alien creature, to be completely fucked and filled with his seed, overpowered any feeling of fear. But you were afraid to move, reasonably fearing that the feeling of pleasure would disappear. The alien decided to act first; slowly, his pelvis began to move away from you, creating many trails of mucus connecting your bodies. You wanted to tell him to stop, not to deprive you of this wonderful feeling of fullness, when he succumbed back forward, a jerk of the entrance turned around, crashing into your fragile human body with all his bestial power.

For long seconds you lost touch with reality, and when you returned, the feeling of lust, pleasant bliss and excitement that spread throughout your body, capturing every part of your body and soul, dispelled all doubts. You loved the xenomorph, his monstrous cock in particular adored you just like he did. The thrusts became smoother each time as your body and womb got used to the size of the alien creature, adjusting and stretching to suit its needs. And when there was no resistance left between you, when the xenomorph could freely penetrate you, desecrating your flesh with his nature, the angle of entry of his penis into you changed, as did the speed. The creature from another world had strength and endurance incomprehensible to the human mind, so it was not difficult for him to rise with your body on his hind legs and sharply lower him onto his penis, touching with the tip of his penis such places that you could not even think about.

It was nice. It's terribly pleasant. The vulgar sounds - your moans, his animal hands, as well as the slapping of your bodies against each other and the squelching sounds coming from the entry of his penis into your womb - only spurred the arousal of the two of you. The xenomorph opened his mouth, releasing his tongue, which immediately entered your mouth. The feeling of movement, both in your mouth and inside, completely severed your connection with reality and there was nothing left except the pleasure you received.

The pace of the thrusts gradually changed, becoming faster and sharper with each passing second. At the edge of your consciousness, you understood that the xenomorph was about to cum and his sperm would paint the walls of your vagina white. I wonder if there will be enough of it for your tummy to become bulging, if even now, by touching the designated part of the body, you could feel its ribbed penis under your fingers? Most likely, yes, but the excitement to check was as strong as your excitement.

After a few thrusts, the xenomorph released his cum into your body. You felt his cock throb as load after load of cum shot into your body. And there was really, really a lot of it. So much so that, despite still having his cock inside you, acting as a plug, white streaks of his seed were already running down the inside of your thighs and large white drops fell onto the slimy surface of the floor. The alien's long tongue licked the tip of your nose before being hidden in the creature's mouth. It, carefully supporting you in the air, sank back onto the warm floor and laid you under it.

It was clear as day that the xenomorph had no intention of leaving your body just yet. At least until he satisfies his hidden desire to impregnate you.

a little about this work.

Initially I planned to write only one part, the fifth, but I thought that without a pre-story it would not be so interesting.

It took me a day to write. in total there were 32 pages in Word, font Times New Roman, size 14.

I was thinking about attaching files with the Russian and English versions, but Tumler does not have this option. In any case, I don’t know about this.

At the moment, I finished making the last changes at 4:33 am on May 1st, whereas I started at 11 am on April 30th.

#dbd x reader #dead by daylight x reader #dbd xenomorph x reader #xenomorph x reader

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popculturebuffet · 8 months

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House of Claremont: Mutant Month: Marvel Graphic Novel #5: X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (Comission Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy muties and welcome back to Mutant Month, my celebration of those mighty mutants of marvel. After a bit of a rough start with the X-Men's first animated appearance, i'm proudly taking a look at one of the X-Men stories ever,God Loves Man Kills.

This review also relaunches a feature on this blog that will likely exist as long as this blog does. It was supposed to be a full retrospective of Chris Claremont's 186 issue, 16 year run on Uncanny X-Men, also throwing in his 12 annual issues, various mini series, and other x-ongoing New Mutants. It was an ambitious idea brought about by me having collected almost EVERY issue of Claremont's run and various associated minis on comixology, with only a few stray issues and a few trades left to complete it. Thanks to that i'd seen what a deft, well crafted masterpiece this run is: while it has it's flaws, down periods, and various things that haven't aged well, it's a glorious nearly two decades long epic with lush character arcs, brilliant ideas, and tons of twists and status quo changes to keep things from getting too stale. While the run begins and ends at Xavier's School in between we have Thunderbird's tragic death, Jean becoming a living god before it consumes her and her apparent death, Scott leaving as a result and only returning on and off before leaving for good, one of their sworn enemies who'd done something truly unforgiable to a friend of theirs joining the team in desperation (More on that next week), Storm's slow change in personality and temproary (though still YEARS LONG ) power loss, the arrival of Rachel Summers from an alternate future, Rachel's departure coinciding with half the team being brutally decimated in the morlock massacre and Storm forced to rebuild the team from almost scratch, said new roster dying to save the world and being reborn in secret, and the ENTIRE TEAM scattered to the winds, leaving the book to focus on the individual members as wolverine slowly pulls them back together and Forge forges a new team to replace them, and finally the team merging with x-factor to create two new teams of x-men. And that was just what I could squeeze in reasonably A lot of great stories both noted forever and forgotten to the sands of time by all but those who read them in the 80s or read them all now are squeezed int his epic.

And that very reasoning.. is why I ultimatley coudln't do it. I tried streamlining the run and summarizing.. but at the end of the day i'm a man who likes to really analyze stuff. And make goofy jokes, but while I could do the latter as good as always it became clear the run was just too massive to quickly summarize it all and do it full justice, and doing it piece by piece in order would possibly take a decade. It's the double edged sword of relying on commissions and patreon reviews: it allows me extra money each month and comes in handy quite a bit, and allows me to meet nice respectful people who love my work enough to do it... but it also means I sometimes have to delay things I personally planned to do on my own time. And given my venture bros retrospective has already been a victim to this quite a bit, I decided an even LONGER project. There's also a simple fact: While I love this era of x-men and it's easily one of the best if not the best, no question... there are tons of OTHER great x-men and mutant stories out there and other retrospectives to do from peter David's masterful noir run of x-factor (and not to shabby government and corporate runs), to Leah Williams own great sadly short lived take recently, to the various epics currently spinning out of the krakoa era and into the fall of x from Hickman, to Gilleon to Ewing to Duggan to williams, and even OTHER x-books from the 80s and early 90's with Claremont's phenomenal new mutants, interesting excalibur, and Louise Simonsons deft work on X-Factor and later also New Mutants. There's just too much X for one lifetime of review work to spend most of it on one run.

So this is my compromise: instead of a long retrospective looking at it in order, i'll be taking ocasional looks at stories I like, and maybe the one or two I don't, here. Both on my own, with one of my faviorite parts of the run planned for next year if I can squeeze it in

And on comission's like this. If ther'es a stretch of this massive run or another x run you want me to cover i'm down for it.

And I was paticuarlly down for this one for two reasons: the first is God Loves, Man Kills is not only one of my faviorite x-men stories.. but probably the best of Chris Claremont's run. And given he had PLENTY of good work before and after this, the run of issues I just teased above was also happening around this time, that is saying a lot.

The other is the person who comissioned it: Kevin is both the first person to comisson work for this blog and the one who does it the most and has become a good friend. But while he's many things: great with duck triva, obessed with a lesbain owl, the #1 molibby shipper, and a great guy to work with... he's not really an x-men fan. Spider-Man yes, it's how I was able to spend a glorious half a year reviewing spiderman and likely will again in the future, both with a video game review planned later this year and tons of other stuff for the future. But when it comes to the strangest heroes of all he usually just shurgs and this month was something he wasn't really involved in at first. Which is fine, I don't do this blog just for one person and he dosen't have to like everything I do.

So it meant a LOT to me when he asked if I could cover God Loves Man Kills. He was curious after I mentioned this theme month coming up and looked into some famous x-men stories, thought this one was interesting as it's both rightly hugely aclaimed and still has echoes to the state of the world today. And since he watches and reads what he commissions it also got him to read some classic x-men and hopefully more eventually. He also has another one coming at the end of the month and much like this one it's a story I was bound to cover eventually. But you'll find out about that one later. For now join me under the cut to dig into one of the greatest x-men stories of all, a tale of frightingly realistic prejudice, tyranically faith, and perseverance in the face of overwhelming hate and a doubt if your dream will ever come true.

Purity: God Loves Man Kills comes to us from the Marvel Graphic Novel series, another thing i've been wanting to talk about. Marvel Graphic Novel was the brainchild of Marvel's Editor at the Chief at the time Jim Shooter. I'm not a huge fan of Shooter as while he WAS EiC during one of marvel's biggest boom periods, he was also a giant prick who was not great at the actual writing part most of the time but insisted on giving himself books, was a homophobic shithead who refused to let gay characters into his book (it's why Claremont had to imply as hard as he could Mystique and Destiny were a couple), and being behind famous writing debacles like Hank Pym's mental breakdown, the hobglin's true identity and of course the previously reviewed avengers 200. Aka

I'll be covering the followup to that next week, thank god. But for all the guys faults and serious lastingly damaging fuckups.. he still had his moments. For instance with X-Men itself he had Chris break up Kitty Pryde (14) and Colossus (19) which was both better for both characters in the longrun but the fallout of said breakup ended up being some of Chris' best work.

This is one of those moments: With Buisness picking up at the tale end of the 60's, Jim decided to capitalize on the "Album" format from European comics. So we go the marvel graphic novels, super sized stories following marvel's best characters, though usually not involving the main book's creative team for time purposes. We still got powerhouse names like David Michlinine, Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, JM Demattis, Larry Hama, Mary Jo Duffy, Ann Nocenti, Gerry Conway, Roger Stern, Doug Monech, Mark Gruenwald, Alan Davis, Jim Starlin, Bob McLeod, Walt Simonson, Jackson Guice, Mark Silvestri, John Byrne, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragones, John Bucschema, Denny O'Neil, Bruce Jones, Mike Mingola, Paul Gulacey, and Ross Andru. And i'm sure I missed some. The books were a lot of things. They were a way for creators to work on characters they normally hadn't, to serve as an additional piece to big runs, or to launch less superhero oriented stuff and creator own books. Yes marvel actually did creator owned books at one point, something I never would've known without my good twitter friend Belle (Not caling it X, probably the only time something named x wasn't for me in any way shape or form), and was part of the reason for this line. It's also thanks to her getting me curious in this line again that I found out about oddities like an adaptation of willow by Power Man and Iron Fist's real mom Mary Jo Duffy, a full roger rabbit adaptation.. or a full SEQUEL to Roger Rabbit that I'm DEFINTELY looking at one of these days. It was mostly a marvel vehicle though.

Despite their isolated nature, most of these books are fully cannon to the main marvel universe and many of them had a lasting impact: New Mutants introduced the team to the marvel universe and took Donald Pierce out of the hellfire club, Spider-Man: Parallel Lives dealt with the revelation that Mary Jane had known peter was Spidey all along and showed her past with that new perspective in mind, Dardevil Love and War continued the vanessa fisk subplot from dardevil, the inhumans once shot introduced Black Bolt and Medusa's Son Ahurua, Dazzler: The Movie outed Allison Blaire as a mutant to the world, and the classic Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: triumph and torment finally ended the longstanding subplot about Doom saving his mother's soul from mephisto.

So that makes it a surprise that this story wasn't strictly considered canon till 21 years after the fact. Part of this is the standalone nature: while the book DOES have some important steps in Magneto and Kitty Pryde's character arcs, it's pretty much the ONLY comic chris wrote he didn't somehow later factor into his x-men run. That's not hyperbole either: X-Men and New Mutants regularly impacted each other, with Xavier's departure leading to Magneto becoming their teacher, Selene being introduced fighting the New mutants before becoming a thorn in the big kids side, and Betsy Braddock, the future Psylocke, ending up at the mansion and eventually on the roster thanks to a new mutants annual.

Beyond that , Chris loved bringing in characters from other books he worked on: Jean Grey roomed with Coleen Wing and Misty Knight from his book iron fist, Jessica Drew Spider-Woman guest starred in an x-men issue then later in one of her comics found Banshee's daughter Siryn. And not stopping there many characters chris created for other books became mainstays of uncanny x-men: Mystique started out as Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) arch enemy, Arcade was a one off villian in an issue of Marvel Team Up and Wolverine's arch enemy sabertooth started out as an iron fist villian. Most notably, and something we'll talk about next week, after the disaster that was avengers 200, Chris was so pissed off he took carol and added her to x-men for some time via avengers annual #10.. and in the process also introduced Rogue. Chris used everything he had so the fact this story just.. happened with so much fanfare and two big character moments and never came up is odd.

The other problem is that Chris kept a very tight order of events and had a lot happening... and as a result WHEN this happened is nigh impossible to figure out. It's down to the roster; The roster in this book is Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde. Cyke is the first issue as after Jean's death in the dark phoenix saga he was in and out of the team for a while: he left right after to find out if he even WANTED to go back, but this being the life of an x-man ended up stranded on Magneto's spooky elder god island he found and made into a headquarters, because I mean.. what else are you going to do with a spooky elder god island. After a fight with Mags in which he realized how far he nearly went and fled to parts unknown, the X-Men took the base for their own while the mansion was in the shop before Cyclops peaced out again to spend time with his dad who just got back, from outer space. To make matter's somehow even more complicated, the x-men were then kidnapped to space by the brood. Cyke would leave the issue after this adventure to go spend time with his dad and meet his long lost grandparents before he had to go back to space again and be a sexy mustache space pirate as earth had become too alien to him peter quill style.

And that issue is the other problem: the issue before that, after Xavier got his alien clone body.. he bumped Kitty Pryde, the x-men's cool teen who met the team during Dark Phoenix Saga and joined right after, down to the New Mutants. This is a problem as the only real window for this story to happen... is when she was busy convincing Xavier to repromote her.... and during that Window Logan implicitly left for his homeland of Canada before heading to japan to pick a fight with his girlfriend's abusive fiancé and even more abusive dad, who he of course murdered in a samurai duel.

So it' SEEMS impossible for this story to fit. And that's because it is. trust me I tried my best.. but going to x-men 168, aka

Logan leaves for the candian rockies.. and has Kurt drive him to the airport... taking Kitty and her bestie and colosuss sister who was aged up when she was kidnapped by a demon man on Magneto's Spooky Elder God Island, with them.. while Kitty was still campaning to join the x-men. Not only that Xavier's space girlfriend Illandra and the new mutants themselves are absent from the story, just to make ti clear

So yeah this story is canon , but fits nowhere really in canon.. and in an interview in the extneded cut (which I turned to to try and find out if it added anything to explain why it dosen't fit, which no it didn't it's just got some added wraparounds in the present day at the time continuity), that was by design. Chris wanted to make this story one that could be read by anyone, one and done. If you wanted to read more x-men great. if not , you still got your money's worth and got everything these characters were about.

The story itself came from the times: It was the time of Ronald Regan and a new wave of conservatives trying to bring back "the good old days" and morals and all the usual smokescreens "for when things were a lot WHITER and STRAIGHTER and we didn't have to reckon with our actions. " This call for moral panic nicely dovetailed into the rise of Evangelical Preachers, using tv as a means of indoctrination and trying to paint anyone against them as not in god's will and anything they didn't like as "not TRULY of god". Naturally given Chris wrote a book about a disenfranchised, if fictoinal group that happened to have a christian (Nightcrawler) and jewish (Kitty Pryde) person in their ranks and an arch enemy who lived thorugh the holocaust, the story was perfect.

To chris this kind of purity of purpose coupled with narrowmindeness was dangerous as hell, and made for a good story speaking out against it.. one that continues to resonate on as narrow minded assholes who GENUINELY think their doing the right thing by hurting and suppressing people and who they are haven't exactly gone away, simply changed shape. Heck while this still is mostly a one off story, the themes of someone trying to legislate opression and make it sound resonable were already in the main book with days of future past (which shows a nightmare world where this DOES happen.. and also gets hyjacked by giant robots), and would continue to be a key theme of the x-men to this very day.

So now the stage is set, we can finally begin a battle.. not one of the usual claws, optic blasts and thunder bolts.. but of survivial. Of ideas. Of one group trying to do the right thing in the midst of a direct call for them to be trotted out and murdered. To be wiped away in the name of some "higher purpose". It's a battle of faith. Let's see how it plays out shall we?

Not the First, Far from the Last:

The opening to God Loves Man Kills.. is one of the most chilling scenes i've read in a comic. And it's chilling simply because it could happen anywhere: Two black children are running for their lives.. but sadly don't make it, as their soon cornered by the purifiers, three people in black tactical gear. And why are they hunting these innocent children? Why have they already killed their parents?

It's an utterly haunting sequence. The fact the children are black isn't a remote coincidence, but to simply hammer home that this kind of shit happens. To draw parallels to the same sort of shit racist have done: killing innocent people.. then displaying the bodies as some sick trophy to show exactly WHY they just slaughtered innocents: they were not what these butchers considered a person and to them, they deserved to die. Thankfully before the Purifiers can get their intended show of stringing up the bodies, each with a sign saying "Mutie" on them, someone else comes along to take this horror show down so these children's bodies can at least have SOME dignity in death instead of being used as as sick prop

I love the small touches i'm only noticing now as I review this: the true PAIN on Erik's face after seeing this, him gently going over the body. It also speaks to his history: he's seen countless children die around him in his childhood in a concentration camp.. and saw his own daughter Anya die tragically simply because Mags himself was a mutant. It says a lot about who he is and that behind the vengeance, behind the vow of "Never again" he swears right after.. is a man whose simply seen too many of his peopled die... and will not let this happen again. And god help those who did this.

We then meet our main antagonist, Reverened William Stryker. Like the above.. this intro is brilliant. Stryker, head of his evangelcial "Stryker Crusade" is reading the bible in his office, before preparing to review some files and having some dinner sent up to eat while he looks over them. Said files are also a really neat way to show off the current roster of x-men and what they can do, with some really great art added. Stryker already has plans for them, but first he has to be at the studio: he has a show to put on.

We cut to Stevie Hunter's dance studio. For those less familiar with her Stevie was a major supporting character during Claremont's run. When Kitty joined the school, Charles, wanting to make sure she had a well rounded life outside of academics and surviving the experince, enrolled her in dances classes hosted by Stevie, a former professional dancer whose career was cut short by injury. He'd later do the same for the new mutants, and it's a nice character thing: it shows as gruff and standofish as Charles can be.. he wants what's best for his charges and wants them to have some normalcy in a life where that will be hard to come by.

Starting here , and with Kitty, isn't a coincidence: as Chris said in the aforementioned interview, the younger characters provided a vital viewpoint: the future and what exactly to do with it when it looked so bleak.

It's also a great way to start as once again Claremont makes sure things are well and grounded as Kitty.. is beating the shit out of some asshole named Danny.. to the point she's sent him out the door. He only gets a hit in once Peter, aka Colossus, mother russia's finest and kitty's crush, shows up distracting her. Kitty's held back by her bestie and borderline love intrest Illanya. Seriously why haven't they been a thing. Questions for later. For now Stevie comes out wanting to know what the hell is going on, her exact words. Kitty admits to starting the violence portion of the evening.. but only because Danny was talking about all the GOOD the stryker crusade is doing and how swell it is they want to commit mutant genocide. Peter suggests they end it there.. which is code for "You've said enough little bigot, just try me". It's also notable that peter is so angry: one of his defining traits is how he's a gentle, kind young man and abhors violence. He fights because he has to and because it's the right thing to do, not because he wants. So to get him angry takes a lot. Danny backs off.. but whispers once peter's around it's on because he has the self preservation of a goat. We also coincidentally never see him again. Maybe Logan gave him a talking to and he wisely left town after voiding his bowels. Who knows.

Stevie isn't pleased with Kitty and we get that moment I was hinting at the one part of the comic that dosen't entirely work for me

Now I GET what chris was going for and Kitty's point: that just because it's word's.. dosen't mean someone saying intolerent bullshit, ESPECAILLY since in this case the dipshit was advocating genocide, is something to just ignore or brush off. And it's MEANT to be a spur of the moment thing a teenager would say, hence it not ruining the scene.. but Chris STILL really shoudlnt' of had a privilaged white teenager say the n word to a grown black woman whose probably been through a LOT of this shit and has gotten used to having to ignore it. Even for the time the n-word should not have been used especialy in refrence to a fictional minority. The rest of the scene works.. but this REALLY dosen't and sticks out like a sore thumb in a work that otherwise holds up.

Kitty and Peter return home just in time for something on TV, greeted by

and Nightcrawler, everyone's faviorite sexy demonic looking christian. I LOVE Logan and Kitty's talk here too

I love everything about this. How casual logan is, how fatherly he comes off to her, and Kitty showing that Stevie's fears of her using her training unfairly were unfounded: Kitty was holding back and wouldn't use it on a civlian no matter how much he deserved to be ground into the pavement.

Turns out the show their all watching is the same one Stryker was preparing for: A debate with Xavier over mutant kind. And Xavier looses pretty badly as best summed up by this panel

It perfectly sums up hate groups like Stryker's best weapon: couching horrifying, nightmarish notions.. and making them sound ALMOST resonable. it's something I saw a few years back when JK Rowling tried to defend her transphobia; her "apology' letter TRIED to sound resonable.. but underneath you could see all the transphobia couched in her arguments and all the hate clearly there. It's just to some, sadly.. the argument is more pursasive and that's where the danger is: not in us who can see it.. but that some of us may not or may be indorcianted otherwise.

Kitty is understandably even more pissed after all of this and decides to break some stuff, so we get a few pages in the danger room. It's a fun sequence. I"m mostly glossing over it as story wise it dosen't really have a lot of function, but it's a nice way to slip in some more typical superhero action without undermining the story: the context of the heroes needing to work out how aggravated and scared they are with a good distraction makes it work, it's only a few pages so it dosen't take up much of the comic, and it has a fun solution: the heroes are all given individual assignments.. but only accomplish them when they help each other out, a clever exercise. IT's one of the reasons I love the danger room: it's a neat way to show our heroes training, something most superhero comics don't have time for and a fun way to interject action sequences into issues that may otherwise not have them.

Back at the Studio Stryker's preparing for his first attack on the x-men... and conviently Xavier brought Cyclops, team leader and certified badass, and Storm, also team leader and certified badass about to get even more badass during this time period with her awsome mohawk and change in character, with them. Xavier's already on edge as he noticed Stryker has Psy Screens.. which means he KNOWS Xavier's a mutant.. but sadly can't warn the rest of th eteam as they get ambusehd and Scott and Ororo are seemingly gunned down. It's part of what makes Stryker such an effective antagonist: while he does indeed have an evil over the top super villian plan... most of his methods are mundane. Simply using guns , subterfuge and careful cordinated strikes. Basic military tactics and espionge. He has fancy sci fi stuff to block xavier's mind reading and what not, but he uses pretty mundane stuff. It underlines that this is at the end of the day just a normal guy who happens to have a POWERFUl cultish following.. and that despite the powers, despite the training the x-men are as vunerable as anyone to a military strike.

We cut back to the mansion where Nightcrawler gets a night caller telling him the professor, jean and scott died in a car crash. The next scene is effective; Kitty mourns, and is baffled that something mundane as a car crash could take out her surrogate big sister, a genius tactician and her mentor.. and also Scott and Xavier. Turns out though Illanya isn't just there to comfort kitty.. and ask kitty about her crush on her brother Peter.. but to point out a weird survelnce divise. Kitty's response is clever as hell and speaks to how despite her age she's every bit an x-man: she disables the thing, then plans to wait to ambush whoever set it up.

At the scene of the accident Logan confirms Kitty's suspcions: the scenes for the bodies found at the wreck are all wrong and the wreck itself has all the halmarks of a staged accident.. a nice way to use Logan's CIA past as he admits to have done a few of these himself. He was also smart enough to have Kurt do survielnce.. and find the purifiers watching them ready to attack. It's a nice little show of Wolverine as leader: it dosen't come up a TON in this run early on, but under Ororo he's second in line to lead the x-men , wether he thinks he can or not.

The x-men turn the tables and ambush the purifiers for a change, in this case some goon Wolverine easily yanks out of a car and Anne, Stryker's right hand who tries ramming Nightcrawler with her car.. which fails horribly since you know, he's a teleporter and she should know this and colosus totals the thing with Nightcrawler saving her life with one heck of a line

Unfortuantley for our heroes not only does said attempted marytr escaped.. but she had some goons with her in powered armor who easily down colossus. Before they can get the rest of the x-men though.. they get some unexpected help.

It's one hell of a scene. Before this set of our heroes can react though, we cut back to kitty and yana. The goons arrive and Illyana is understandably scared: at this point, outside of the time in a demon realm, she's mostly a normal teenager and hasn't yet trained in her powers. So when Kitty goes to investigate and the purifiers find her, it's utterly terrifying to see.. and worse to see Anne shoot an unarmed girl. Her point blank shot somehow.. stuns Yana?

Thankfully not depriving us of one of the best new mutants... just kidding their all the best. It's hard to choose.

Kitty hides in the trunk, but turns out the Purifiers have sensors and spray some knockout gas in there.

Back with the X-men logan is using his usual charm and tact to interogate one of their suspects

Left one's charm, right one's tact, middle one's grace. Magneto suggets an alternative.. and procedes to somehow use magnetics to make the guy tell them what he knows

I love Magneto's line afterwrods too

It's a brutal line and sums up magneto in one line. Truly perfect.

While nightcrawler worries sinking to their foes level makes them no better we cut to

As you can imagine this scene confused the hell otu of Kev. It works thematically for me: Stryker is trying to brainwash xavier and is thus framing his students, his family, as murderous monsters. It's part of a brilliant and horrifying psychic ploy: their torturing Scott and Ororo, the only reason their still alive, right next to him so he feels their pain, but have doped Charles up so much he dosen't realize their not hurting him, letting his own inner guilt rationalize why they'd hurt him. Scott is especially a good pick for this: as I mentioned since Jean's death he's been questioning his place in the world and, after all the training Xavier's given him, if he can even LIVE a life outside the x-men. He's as much Xavier's son as his real son who he dosen't know about yet and thus his betrayal would sting the hardest while for Oroo he took her out of an innocent existence away from strife as a goddess to the harshness of the real world. His own fears of what he's done to his children, how he's weaponized them and the two he's lost.. .are the greatest weapon of all.

We then find out Stryker's back story.. and it is... utterly horrifying. Stryker was a decorated army guy who was driving home with his pregnant wife. She gave birth to their son and well...

That shot of the knife.. is haunting. It's something I never really focused on in previous reads.. and i'm not sure i'll be able to forget now. Stryker was so convinced his baby was an abomination, so unwilling to accept his child for what they were instea dof what he thought they were.. he murdered an innocent baby then SNAPPED his wife's neck for no good reason. All because in his eyes they were just a monster and the one who created. It breaks down Stryker and shows what he REALLY is inside: while he tries to frame this a sa crusade, that the birth of his child was God showing Stryker his new purpose in life, hence his founding of the crusade. But at the end of the day: he's a bigot. He saw his child was diffrent and stabbed him to death and instead of dealing with kiling his wife and child, instead of acccepting he acted on his worst instincts and did something truly horrible.. he convinced himself that no, GOD told him to do this. God told him this was the right path. and he should kill more, hurt more, do more. It's the real, pure danger of crusades like this: the absolute conviction that the horrible things your doing are right. People who just side with bigotry for their own self intrest are bad.. but it's the people who TRULY belivie what their saying who are the most dangeorus. To use JK Rowling the reason she's so dangeorus to trans people is that she GENUINELY thinks she's helping women. That she THINKS she's resonable and can convince other people.. and that like stryker she has the money and resources and influence to do real harm. It's easy to stop a hypcorite, just show them as they are to their followers if their not brainwashed enough. it's harder to stop someone who GENUINELY belivies the hate they speak and cannot be talked down or beaten with logic. The only way to beat them is with public opinon and that's a harder task than it should be.

We get a truly chiling ending to the scene as Stryker coldly orders Anne to execuite kitty and Storm, a surrgoate big sister to the girl can only wail in horror.

Lucky for kitty, she managed to phase the escond the gas hit, but some still got her.. so she escapes her execution.. but is still being hunted by Anne. And whiel she TRIES to get help.. she instead finds a gang who fully plan to assault her. Her only salvation is that Anne shows up and the gang is too busy with her and Anne's too busy killing them all for being in the way for either to notice her escaping. Kitty BARELY calls the school for help in time and even then all she can do is hide in a subway.. and watch as a police officer takes a bullet for her, the purifiers glad to let him die and blame it on her. Thankfully like her fellow x-men, Uncle Erik is here to save the day...

The x-men quickly clean up the rest of the Purifiers and Kitty's shocked to see Magneto on their side. He quickly proves his nobility though, saving the officer and giving the x-men a magic car door ride to go get the guy help

While he's showing them the world, shining shimmering splendor, he explains whose after them to the officer.

We then cut back to xavier whose finally been convinced to kill Scott and Ororo.. and stryker's plan becomes frightingly clear.. now he's capable of killing his two faviorite children.. what would he do to any other mutant?

Meanwhile Kitty and Kurt confront the guy who indocrinated Xavier, Doctor ramsey. I guess doug has a racist uncle? Anyway Nighcrawler gets some poetic justice, using his frighting facade to scare the crap otu of the racist. What I love about this is while the art makes kurt look terrifying.. we know him well enough, even just in this tsory to know he's bluffing. We saw earlier he was horrified with Magneto and Wolverine fully willing to toruture a guy. But this guy dosen't know that. And he's still wiling to mildly choke the guy, not at all sympathetic after all he's done. Kurtmay be one of the most noble souls ever put to comics.. but this scene is a nice reminder: he kicks ass for the lord.

At Stryker's headquarters, his goons and anne plan to take Scott and Roro to be cremated and Illayana to be examined.. but by now you know the bit: magneot is awesome, yanks the elevator out. His constant saves COULD get tiresome.. but they work as a show of power and the gap that still exists between him and the x-men: sure we get to see them all be awesome.. but these moments remind us WHY he can take on the whole team by himself, WHY he was such a threat.. and why him joining them is such a big deal. He could probably handle all this himself.. but despite being on opposite sides, despite having opposite approaches... he respects them. Okay sure he shoved them into a nanny robot prison a while back, but after they nearly sank him in lava he got respect.

He then proves the point by reviving scott and ororo. Turns out subcocnoiusly Xavier rebelled and thus only put them in a deathlike coma. Scott.. is naturally a bit nettled to see his arch enemy in front of him after he just nearly died, which leads to one hell of a speech from Mags.

Something that's really easy to forget, especaily after that.. is that Magneto started out.. as a pretty awful character. He was a bully, a dictator who wanted to conquer humanity because he could, cowed his subordinates into submission and kept Scarlet Witch in the brotherhood purely out of obliggation to him for saving her and pietro from an angry mob. And early on while Claremont had him as a BETTER villian, more intimidating and a larger threat, especially since two of the x-men were now weak to his powers, he was still a bit of an ass who decided the best way to get his revenge was to strap the x-men to chairs where they couldn't move and have a nanny robot feed them which gave me nightmares as a kid

It's only in his next apperance did Magneto shift from "Dr. Doom Clone" to "one of my faviorite characters in all of fiction. With I Magneto we not only found out his backstory as a survivor of asuchwitz but his next attempt to conquer the world, boosting his powers and giving the world an ultimatium: surrender or perish. And it's this version that's been the basis for the character ever since: a broken man defined by tragedy whose determined to conquer a world that hates and fears him so the tragedies of his past NEVER happen again. Never again.

It's this conversation that especially highlights that: Magneto asks WHY fight for people who hate and fear you, when he can change the world by force. It's a question superheroes in general struggle with and many mock superhero media for: how much should they do. Should they take the choice away from a humanity that's often misused their choices? And the answer is... no. While you can see WHY Max wants to do this, why he wants so badly to force a better world on everyone, to force a better future because he sees humanity as simply INCAPABLE of anything but hate and self destruction.. it's not the way. Humanity.. is fucked a lot of the time. True. But there's good in us and simply asking someone to fix all of the problems we, especially our goverments, should be working hard to fix isn't fair.

And as Cylclops points out it's just.. not sustanible. Even with Magneto's dream of the x-men joining him and following in his footsteps... what happens if someone decides to overthrow them? or take this world from them? And more importantly.. is it REALLY worth giving up all freedom and self control for a better tomorrow? It's why superheroes fight.. and it's why the X-MEN fight. The world their in is fucked up with tons of racists, multiple genocides and currently a giant hive of bigoted jackasses trying to wipe every last mutant out. But what makes the x-men so special.. is they fight on anyways. Against everything humanity does, against all their bigotry.. they fight for a better tomorrow. Even in the Krakoa era where they basically bribed their way to a homeland.. many of them still dont' abandon humanity, try to work with them and try and help. They may deserve a home after everything humanity's done.. but they don't deserve to be abandoned because of bad actors and hateful dipshits. It's why the x-men fight for a world that hates and fears them: because even if the dream's never been fully achived.. it's a dream worth fighting for. A better world. A dream that's always worth fighting for.

Magneto makes a point though: While this debate is engaging... they have bigger issues to worry about. Anne warns Stryker.. but his ego once again flairs up. "They're a handful of children annie and i'm a servant of the world. What can they do to stop me?" As I said before fraudsters, grifters, conmen.. their dangerous sure.. but it's the people who TRULY belivie their doing the right thing while advocating to destroy an entire people that are the most dangerous.

Stryker begins his sermon advocating for genoicde, with many other evangelicals apparently getting antsy according to a handy newsmans exposition. Granted it's likely less because they disagree with him calling for genocide, they just want him to say the loud part quiet again.

It's during this sermon Stryker's plan activates. And if you've seen x-2, which largely adapts this storyline but changes Stryker from preacher to soldier, you've likely figured it out: use Xavier to commit full on genocide of the mutant race. It's stronger CLOSER to him, so Nightcrawler's able to help a boy close to it.. but it's very clear if they don't do something SOON their going to die and the rest of mutantkind after. Wolverine poitns out the issue: they CAN attack but it'll make them look bad. And just to prove rule of three can suck his dick, Magneto once again saves the day, swooping in to confront stryker.. and thus providing a diversion. And to make his point for once Magneto .. dosen't attack. He breaks the roof to get in and make a minty fresh entrance, but he repairs it as poitned out by a sentator. Stryker,, high on his own hype, has Charlie strike him down. We get a really nice moment as Magneto has a revelation about his foe: all this time charles.. was holding back. And he's now seen just how dangerous his old enemy would be if he wasn't. Some protestors try to mob magneto, but some police break it up before they can win a collective darwin award for beating up a guy who in his previous appearance LEVELED AN ENTIRE CITY and a nuclear sub.

While the X-Men try to figure out how the hell to get to Charles before he kills them all, Annie goes to the reverned.. only for her ears to be bleeding like the other mutatns. She too is one... and instead of saving her like she begs for...

It's the final sign that there is no good left in Stryker, that even those loyal to him, even someone who tried their best.. must die simply because he says so. Not god. HIM. He killed a woman who did nothing but serve him faithlly and was wholeheartedly on his side.. and who he casts aside instead of even TRYING to save. After all if he would slaughter his own child.. why would Anne be saved? What makes this death all the more chilling.. is that after all Anne's done, her horrifying hate crime at the start, her attempted murder of kitty, and god knows what else we didn't see on panel... there's no catharsis. no joy in her death. There's no peace to be had. Just the senseless waste of her life doing nightmarisht hings in Striker's name, and the horrifying sight of her snapped neck. A life wasted in the name of a man who claims to speak for god.. but as our title tells us God Loves. Man kills.

We then pivot to one of the most awesome things Cyclops has ever done. So with so many people on the cusp of death, Wolverine feels they have no choice: they have to play it his way.. which means he teleports in and puts an end to the man who gave him a better life: to prevent charles from becoming everything he hates, Logan has to become everything he's tried to grow past. Thankfully.. Cyclops had a way around that.

And just to underline it right after, when Wolverine points out how close it is... Cyke explains his logic: He knew.. and also knew if his timing was even the SLIGHTEST bit off Charles might sense one of them too early. As for why let Wolverine attack it was simple: Charles is usually a non combatant. He doesn't have the countless hours of training nor the field experince and thus Scott correctly figured a two pronged attack would catch him off guard. If one side failed the other would succeed.. and Scott was FULLY aware that if Wolverine had to do it, his mentor would be dead. So to recap Scott pulled off a massive amount of precision ricocheting, with a backup plan that could kill his surrogate dad, all betting that he could both hit it and with the knowledge that if this failed everyone would be dead... and pulled it off without a hitch and with the utmost confidence. Just.. remember this the next time you hear someone call cyclops boring. Unless it's the movie version.. or the 90s animated series.. or wolverine and the x-men.. okay maybe just the comics and evolution.

So the day's saved right? Well normally yes. The villains foiled, Stryker outright killed someone on live tv. But in another awesome moment.. Scott notes.. it's not over. Ther'es one last thing to do.

It's the hard truth: in most other superhero stories, The X-Men already won.. but here if they back down now Stryker's message continues and he just picks it up, possibly even tries genocide again. Even if he gets arrested for Anne's murder i'ts not going to stop his message or him from preaching it. And I love how every x-man falls behind scott with not the slightest hint of hestation. Their walking right into an angry mob, no intention to use their powers, simply because walking away would let a bad man triumph and hurt other mutants. Because walking away is the easy thing.. but it's not the right thing and it damn well isn't what an x-man does.

So our heroes walk in.. and make their stand.

It's one last moment in a trilogy of awesome for Scott: tearing the fuck out of Strykers rehtoric and getting down to the core of most prejudice; Stryker thinks their less than human, that they don't deserve to exist.. and like any human .. they do. Their here. Their real. And he can't accept it. He'd rather destroy them. And when Stryker tries to fall back on the fact Nightcrawler simply looks diffrent.. someone steps up.

Now this moment's great on it's own, Kitty defying his trying to unperson kurt and standing bravely, pointing out what makes Kurt so awesome: he had every reason to turn in on himself after all the shit life's thrown at him: a mother who abandoned him, a step brother he was forced to kill in self defense, an angry mob nearly staking him before Charles saved his life... yet instead.. he's a jovial jokester. He loves, he lives, and he's a gentle soul. He's one who fears turning into his enmies, one who tries to take the righteous path. And like Stryker.. he believes in god. Nightcrawler is every bit as relgious.. the simple diffrence.. is that he dosent use his faith as a thin justification to slaughter everything he hates. To cast out what's diffrent. He uses it as faith should be used: to help others, to enrich his life, and to be kind.

What makes this moment for me beyond that though... is it pays off a long character arc for Kitty. When Kitty first met kurt.. it wasn't exactly a great relationship. She ran in fear the first time she saw him and even after finding out , no this is a good guy, she was still nervous around him for some time, gravitating more to the more human passing Roro and Peter. And yet over time.. the two became friends. They bonded.. and she felt ashamed, realizing Kurt.. is just a bit marshmellow. A kind soul who only wanted to be her friend. And this is the payoff for that: her going from a scared kid jumping to her assumptions about a man hwo just looks kinda spooky.. to being BEST FRIENDS with the guy and willing to take a bullet for him. Thankfully.. that blam we heard.. wasn't stryker's gun

The ending of this story.. speaks to it's tone. While our heroes still beat stryker morally and with words, they still won the battle.. what ultimatley strikes him down.. is a regular police officer. A cop simply not wanting a child to die. A normal person doing the right thing. And a ray of hope that maybe just maybe our heroes words got through to some people.

Said ray... dosen't last long as Magneto makes a valid point back at the mansion... and for once.. Charles listens.

It's a moment of weakness.. Charles accepting that maybe his dream isn't enough.. and it' smost fitting that the one to snap him out of it.. is the first person he brought that dream to. His son. And he makes the point I did earlier: this fight can't be won by brute force. This can't be won by FORCING people to accept them.. it has to be won through hard work. It may get worse (And it will), the tims may be tough.. but it's a dream worth fighting for. A better world not paved in blood... but in hope and hard work for a better tommorow. Is it idealistic? Perhaps. Unrealistic? entirely. But it's a noble ream: of a world of accpetince, kindness and love.. and one Scott and the others aren't willing to throw away. And as long as they aren't, charles realizes he can't either.

Naturally Max's response is to call them all fools.. but it's his last few words that really leave an impact

It's a nice touch that Kitty, who magneto nearly killed last time they fought not realizing she was a child and whose near death drove him to realize how far he'd fallen, is the one to speak up. And it's telling for where Magneto's arc is going under claremont.. that he relents a little. He can't fight for a cause he dosen't belivie in.. but he WISHES he could. He's gone from hating the x-men.. to badly wanting to be one of them.. but knowing his heart just isn't in it. From just seconds ago calling them all fools.. to deep down hoping they win. Showing that even if he still thinks eventually they will fall and it'll be his turn.. that maybe just maybe.. he won't have to. That maybe there's a future where he can fight for a better tommorow instead of forcing it.

So we end with Xavier tearfully thanking his students, and Ororo congradulating Scott for what he ddid. he tells her it's what he woudl've done for any of them and at the end o fthe day... it's love that drives this. Love for each other.. and hope for a world ran by love and not hate. But we're not there yet. But maybe... maybe someday.

So if it wasn't obvious.. God Loves Man Kills is a masterpiece. And having to go over it painstakingly for this review.. I stand by waht I said. This is the best x-men story ever. A story that sums up everything the x-men stand for in a neat package, pits them up agains ta unique an dhorrifingly real threat, and says a LOT. All in 60 bneautifully drawn pages. I ddin't mention him much in this review but Brent Anderson's art in this comic is next level stuff. Gorgeous, evocative, and hitting all the right notes. IT's some of the best art in comics and fits well with one of the best stories in comics. If you haven't read this one, do so immediatly. Even if you don't normally read x-men... this is a heck of a good way to start. Thanks for reading.

Next Time: We see the start for one of the x-men's greatest as she... steals an avengers powers and punches iron man in the face. So a bit of a mixed bag all things considered.

#x-men #magneto #chris claremont #god loves man kills #scott summers #cyclops #wolverine #storm #nightcrawler #colossus #kitty pryde #kate pryde #kurt wagner #logan howlett #ororo munroe #william stryker #erik lehnsherr #charles xavier

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