X-men unlimited 5. Xmen green part 1

[Grunty]

What the hell did I just read ?

A heavy handed and crudely written attempt at trying to make a statement about how pollution harms the environment by the looks of it.

Also, last I checked, Nevada doesn't link to the ocean - how did that Plastic bag get to where it's supposed to go to get swallowed by the turtle ?

I feel like having to play devils advocate here, but this a realistic scenario and part of a world wide problem involving the massive amount of waste produced by the modern world and it's industries.

Besides the possibility of the bag being simply carried by strong winds through upper atmospheric layers until it landed in the ocean, there is also the aspect of waste disposale companies and their treatment of things like plastic waste.

Plastic bag is thrown in the trash in las vegas -> Plastic waste is collected by a big waste disposale company -> Throws all plastic waste into a big container -> Multiple scenarios:
1. Company just illegaly disposes of the plastic waste in the ocean.
2. Company ships the plastic waste to poorer countries for further disposale.
2.1. Plastic waste is not properly stored and partialy falls into the ocean.
2.2. Workers don't care if waste is lost so it flies away and into the ocean.
2.3. Subcontractor disposes of plastic waste in the ocean for cheap.
2.4. Company just throws waste on a large dumb in developing countries, where it will remain unsupervised and likely filed through by poor locals, causing it to be scattered to the wind and ending in the oceans.

People have found plastic waste in the ocean they can date back to be more than 40 years old and from the other side of the world, because the writing on it is still intact.

But intact plastic isn't the worst problem, it's when it's grinded down to fragments which fishes, oceanic animals and fish eating birds swallow (via the fishes), causing their stomachs to be sealed up or they get it into their mouths and nostrils where it gets stuck or creates cuts. There are pictures of sea turtles with plastic pieces in their nostriles as if someone rammed a long nail in.
Micro-plastics (plastic waste grinded down to microscoping size) are even worse.

So the scenario of a sea turtle dying from plastic bag that comes from Las Vegas and somehow ended up mostly intact in the pacific ocean is actualy a real scenario because of either the interconnected weather system or the global waste transport and disposale industry.

However this story is so crudely written and trying to hammer the reader over the head with this real world issue that it runs the high risk of doing more harm than good for anyone to take it serious.

Especialy with the questionable moral displayed here, by having a previously innocently written young mutant character perform first degree murder for lower reasons.

"Don't work in a grocery store that uses plastic bags or a mutant girl comes in and stabs you!"

And just because the victim is middle aged white guy who was presented as "insensitive" it's not going to make the crime any less extreme. What if the guy is a loving family father who together with his wife had adopted 3 orphans from the Sahel region in africa? Who is going to tell them that their husband/father got killed by a mutant over a dead sea turtle and a plastic bag one of his customers threw away?

Edit: Also thinking about the 40 year old plastic waste example above. The bag Nature Girl finds could have been from the 80's long before the clerk actualy started working in Owen's shop.

[bladeofdarkness]

And just because the victim is middle aged white guy who was presented as "insensitive" it's not going to make the crime any less extreme. What if the guy is a loving family father who together with his wife had adopted 3 orphans from the Sahel region in africa? Who is going to tell them that their husband/father got killed by a mutant over a dead sea turtle and a plastic bag one of his customers threw away?
.

That's almost exactly what I was thinking about this insane scenario - a guy who only appears in one scene gets murdered over insensitivity and we're supposed to think "well, she might have had a point" because we get to know nothing more about him besides that one scene.

You're not likely to see his wife crying as she gets the word of her husband's murder.
You're not likely to see a scene of his little kids failing to understand why daddy's not coming home anymore.
He didn't even DO anything wrong - but he didn't care enough about the turtle, so I guess he's the bad guy.

And we're supposed to sympathize with NG over how much "trouble" she's in - Even Xavier describes her as "hurt, and misguided"
Complete idiocy.

[jwatson]

i read through another source as you couldn't pay me to get unlimited due to it's complete spitting in the face of people and characters of color but this artist really did a much better job at the digital format than the previous ones by adding litting things to their "border" etc that kept the flow pleasant and engaging. Story seems juvenile though.

edit: that said, team nature girl. *shrugs*

edit: by juvienile i guess i would say more compressed. This one issue was definitely better than the first arc but once again all things lead to logan. I swear these folks can really make you not want to see a character you like cause he is in everything. We have Daken, laura, and Scott among many other tracker type mutants but all roads of course lead to multiple man logan.

[jwatson]

Also why would they send wolverine rather than Storm, or Rictor, or Magma, people who have their own connection to earth and may have actually felt some of the overwhelming feelings nature girl did.

[Grunty]

)...)
edit: by juvienile i guess i would say more compressed. This one issue was definitely better than the first arc but once again all things lead to logan. I swear these folks can really make you not want to see a character you like cause he is in everything. We have Daken, laura, and Scott among many other tracker type mutants but all roads of course lead to multiple man logan.

We also have (as some mentioned) Storm who's personality, relation to nature, personal history and history in dealing with stab happy young woman, would make her a better fit to bring Nature Girl in, especialy since she is no slough in tracking either (and is one of the most recognized X-men besides Wolverine).

Gambit who has connections across the globe, is pretty good at finding things and has his own history with murderous woman.

Bishop, who is a actual detective and lawman, plus who had a pretty dark murderous period in his life himself (as much as it pains me to bring it up as something still canon and ignored rather than resolved).

Warpath a trained tracker, who had his own "troublesome teenage villain" phase.

And those are just the other "cover worthy" characters suited for finding her, i can think on top of my head.

Yes Wolverine is popular and sells issues by existing, but they can't blindly rely on him forever to sell a digital X-men book (otherwise just make it a digital Wolverine series), especialy when it starts this crudly into it's second storyline.

[Sutekh]

Also why would they send wolverine rather than Storm, or Rictor, or Magma, people who have their own connection to earth and may have actually felt some of the overwhelming feelings nature girl did.

And hey, if they sent Storm or Rictor, or Bishop or Warpath, from Grunty's post, then it would be a POC coming to giving a 'splainin' to a POC, which has better optics than sending the white guy to talk down to the Asian chick.

[Milici]

They could have used Caliban to track her, since that is what he do. But no! is always the Wolverine show at the X-Office.

[Sin Nick]

Wolverine was the best option and using anybody else wouldn't have improved this story in any sort of way. Nature Girl would still be an idiot and a murderer.

[Milici]

Wolverine was the best option and using anybody else wouldn't have improved this story in any sort of way. Nature Girl would still be an idiot and a murderer.

heh it would have been a bit resreshing to see somebody else instead of Wolvering. It still would be awful and Natur Girl would be irredeemable anyway, but just to not see Logan for just one issue would be an improvement.

[CoCoBandz]

No one deserves to get stabbed for their idiocy. Though I don’t object to NG’s response to his entirely.

Are you suuuure? I know some top shelf idiots that could use a good shanking.

[Starfish]

If they must turn Nature Girl into a homicidal eco-fascist and want the reader to have sympathy for her, at least have her go after someone in a position of power who appears to be deserving of the animosity. This makes her come off like a right-wing cartoonist's idea of what eco activists are like.

[bladeofdarkness]

This makes her come off like a right-wing cartoonist's idea of what eco activists are like.

Or... like an actual eco activist.
Eco activists don't target "deserving" targets - they block roads in a way that just frustrate the hell out of ordinary people who are just trying to get to work/home.
They nail metal spikes into trees in a way that endanger random loggers.
They aren't a particularly discerning lot.

[From The Shadows]

Nope, with a pair of scissors on the counter

Ah.

What the hell did I just read ?

Why turn NG into a villain for no reason ?

Also, last I checked, Nevada doesn't link to the ocean - how did that Plastic bag get to where it's supposed to go to get swallowed by the turtle ?

Someone who saw it as beautiful.

[Kurolegacy]

I swear that the writer must’ve been watching this when he wrote this story

[Cane_danko]

I like the story. I don’t care what the haters have to say about it.