Recap

Amazing X-Men #8 opens at a canadian meat packing plant with two dudes named Rick and Eddie fighting over a chick. As the argument starts to escalate, it becomes quite obvious that it’s about to get down and dirty with fists, teeth, and bows flying in all directions.

Rick gets super pissed by Eddie’s attempt to avoid coming clean about his triple-x encounters with his boo, and decides to cold cock dude into another dimension with a big left hand across the face.

No doubt the impact from that punch shook Rick’s bettie so hard in the sack she thought Eddie stopped by for a 10 minute love romp.

Eddie, reeling from Rick’s haymaker cracks his neck on the edge of a table, and that’s “good night sweet prince” as dude fades to black for the last time. Rick panics and decides he needs to hide the evidence quickly, so he stuffs Eddie’s limp corpse into a meat grinder, in a move that would put a tear of pride in Sweeney Todd’s eye.

We then zip over to Ottawa where Wolverine is paying Heather McDonald, A.K.A., the Vindicator a little surprise visit. Vindicator is super stoked to see Wolvie and nearly squeezes the poor guy to death with a massive bear hug.

The two start catching up and Vindicator informs Wolverine that she’s just had a knock-down-drag-out with her boy toy and he’s split the coop for good. On top of a freshly squeezed glass of heartache, it appears her boyfriend has gone missing somewhere in Canada, which almost never ends well. Wolverine decides to lend a hand in the search for the lost lover.

The story shifts over to the Jean Grey School where Nightcrawler is having his insides turned into pudding by Colossus who missed his buddy so bad he felt the need to give him a little squeeze. Lots of hugs in this issue. Now that I think about it, it’s a bit strange. Anyhoo.

As the two pals converse a bit, we see that Storm is listening in, trying to find out where the heck Wolverine disappeared to. She starts interviewing the students, hoping to find some answers regarding the location of everyone’s favorite furball, as she’s concerned that something bad is going to happen to him now that he’s walking around without his healing factor. This is sort of like walking around without your underwear. It just doesn’t feel right.

Storm finally finds her answers when Iceman cracks like a frozen pond under a brontosaurus weiner as Ororo starts to question him. The Wonderful Weather Witch develops a high-pressure system (see what I did there) with a complete freak out on Iceman for letting “Bub” leave the premises.

Back in Canada, Logan follows the trail of Vindicator’s missing beau to a creepy deserted town. Wolvie begins to pick up the scent and put the pieces together of what happened to her lover. It turns out he was attacked by huge, scary monsters, which are lying in wait for this not-so-dynamic duo.

At the Jean Grey School, Ororo enlists the help of a telepath to use Cerebro to pinpoint Logan’s exact location in the Canadian wilderness, but fails epically.

The scene shifts over to Vindicator flying erratically through the forest, destined to pull a Sunny Bono. That is, if she isn’t horribly mangled and devoured by the big hairy beast that’s hot on her tail. Heather attempts to call for help but get’s shafted by her friends due to the fact that she’s a life sucking, energy draining, clingy, kind of gal, and her pals are sick of her whiny woe-is-me intrusions.

Vindicator gets attacked by one beast, tries to fight back, but then realizes she’s surrounded by more of the monsters. One lunges forward, gives her a love bite, and then Wolvie shows up ready to take on the whole pack of crazy critters himself.

We’ll have to wait until next time to see if Logan survives. Since Marvel isn’t killing him off until fall time, chances are high he’ll make it out alive.

The Verdict

Amazing X-Men #8 was light years better than the previous issue which featured Firestar, the most annoying female superhero in the history of comics. There wasn’t a lot of action, but there were slight elements of classic horror storytelling within the pages that made the book exciting and interesting to read.

Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost did a great job of creating some shock value with the the meat grinder scene and the closing panels with Vindicator about to get pulled limb from limb. I thought for sure they were going to have her ripped to pieces. It was a great dramatic moment and a highlight of the book.

Ed McGuinness does a great job with the artwork, crafting sharp images and great panel layouts that give the story some edge.

Overall, the book was a highly fun read. If you haven’t already done so, pick up a copy!

Score: 8.5 out of 10