Ultimate X-Men #73
	Story Title: 'Magical' (Part 2 of 3) Writer: Robert Kirkman Penciller: Tom Haney Inker: Scott Hanna Colorist: Gina Going with June Chung Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna Assoc. Editor: John Barber Editor: Ralph Macchio Published by: Marvel Comics Cover by Tom Raney & Richard Isanove
	Reviewed by: Bruce Logan

How is this for an idea? Lets suppose, Jean (and we all know how screwed-up she’s is), how about she in her conscious effort to be ‘good’ developed an elaborate hallucinatory…umm, telepathic hoax. Now this illusion if you will, made not only her teammates but also a rather part (if not the whole) the general populous, think, see and experience an all around true blue, all American, red-blooded (any other clichés left)….oh, as American as mom’s apple pie, hero…who just happened to be a mutant.

Thus, we get Elliot Boggs, the Magician.

Now as awful as this plot supposition sounds, it (for me) is definitely better than if Kirkman and Marvel’s TPTB are planning to keep this Magic-hole around after this arc. This character has single handedly done two things…and I am not talking about him making the Ultimate X-Men look good or even (almost) getting Kitty to consider to break up with her Ultimate beau, Ultimate Spider-Man (even though we know that too is ultimately and ultimate end for this Ultimate couple, if only for Ultimate Mary Jane). Yeah, I know I pulled the same ‘ultimate’ sh*t once before too. So what…sue me?

Anyways, as I was saying that he has done two things. One, not only taken away all the impetus and interest built up BKV’s run, but two, made that third Summers A-hole over in the mainline Marvel universe, look good and half-way interesting. (And I am not talking about Scooter or Alex, but that one-dimensional Vulcan).

‘You did good out there, new guy.’ Ooh, he’s so handsome and so powerful and so…aww, blow me. You know last issue I was happy, I was happy that the art team of Tom Raney and Scott Hanna came back and even if the story was mediocre in reading, at least it looked good while being mediocre. So what if all of Raney’s female characters look all the same (I mean, Kitty and Rogue could be twins, but with different hair styles, for all we know). So what if even his older characters are not quite that old. It looks acceptably okay, and that is a level that Robert Kirkman has been hard to reach…forget being ‘good’. Now, his ‘The Walking Dead’ is not on my pull list, but his ‘Battle Pope’ is, and although I know Battle Pope is juvenile humor and in no way a future classic, at least it gets me to chuckle. Unlike his work here. Here I am ready to take the comic, go out of my house, walk the few hundred meters to the Detroit River, and fling the damn thing into it. Why am I not doing that? Well, for one, I don’t want the pollute the river any more than it already is. And two, who knows when you run out of toilet paper. (Though I am not too sure if I should be doing that with this too. I love my a$$ as my other body parts, and want to keep it Ultimate-STD free.)

The X-Men come back only to find Xavier and his dark-skinned eye-patch and goatie sporting twin, Fury (reminds me of that awful Charlie’s Angels 2 ‘Brother from another mother’ crap). Oh, and we also get a page worth of a look at Cracky-Jean and her one-woman-orgy goblins…or whatever those things are. Once at the institute, in true mindcontrolled-dumbass fashion, they set on to do the obligatory fight scene of this issue….only to have their butts handed to them. Just when Elliot-hole just like any good bad-guy (yeah, from the 60s maybe) is spouting is mouth off about what he could do and what he’s going to do now….

Well, go read the issue for that. No, better yet, save your money and just read the solicits for #74.

Conclusion: Is this the same man who wrote such deep dialogues such as, ‘Lock up your daughters! I’m back!’ (Battle Pope #9). Man, what happened? Marvel’s EIC squeezing his nuts or what...forcing him to tell a non-story story, just to wrack up numbers and keep the series going for that ‘big name’ writer who has been rumored coming about as long as the second coming of Christ?

RATING: 5/10