Worst of Wednesday 2008.04.16

It's official, I fucking hate X-Factor. After only really knowing the series from the very first roster, I got back into reading the series during the Messiah CompleX story arc and have carried over into the new Divided We Stand crossovers as well.

Now, I'll admit, I've hated the book ever since I started picking it up last year. Really I only bought because I figure if I'm going to follow a story arc, there's no sense in skipping over just one book. I think the characters are all stupid, the dialog is poorly written, and the plot up to this point has, in the few points where it is not just two guys standing around on the street talking to each other, seemed to mainly focus around "What are the X-men doing right now? Let's go check that out." But then I saw the cover to issue 30
Ok, I'm just going to cut to the chase here. In case you're absolutely fucking blind, let me just go ahead and let you know that Arcade is the bad guy in this issue. Arcade. That alone got me pretty excited in itself, as Arcade usually means "robot clowns" or "giant pinball machine". Any comic book that has Arcade as the bad guy is going to filled with a lot of crazy carnival-themed death traps and is going to be an absolute joy to read.

Except this one, that is. No fucking clowns. No fun and zany traps. What this issue did have was threats of castration, a man rolling around on a huge boulder for what can only be assumed is half the plot of the entire issue (he disappears about 1/4 of the way into it, but appears later to hit someone with the same giant boulder), people being shot, and a man who has nowhere else to turn to in life giving a sad two page monologue all while slowly killing himself by drinking poision.

Not funny at all! Really, not very entertaining in general. Any comic that can make Arcade a lame villain has got to be the worst comic ever written.

But, to give them the benefit of the doubt, Arcade has the greatest socks ever seen in a comic book.