He’s A Complicated Booger: Wolverine And The X-Men #17 Review

After reading Wolverine And The X-Men #17, I want nothing more out of the rest of my life than to go drinking with Jason Aaron. And for the first time, when I imagine drinking with a comic creator, I question whether or not I would survive the experience. Because based on this issue, clearly Aaron can put  ’em away.

Wolverine And The X-Men #17 costs $3.99, but it is easily worth several thousand dollars. Wolverine And The X-Men #17 features neither Wolverine, nor The X-Men, and that is okay, because none of them are bad enough motherfuckers to pick up the real hero of this book’s jockstrap. Wolverine And The X-Men #17 instead features a secret warrior with two brains, who craps fire, makes sex with anything that walks, moves or crawls, makes James Bond look like a whimpering mongoloid with a bum knee, and looks like a giant booger.

Wolverine And The X-Men #17 is the most balls-out fun that four bucks will buy you all this week.

Doop, known by we long-time comic readers as the cameraman for Peter Milligan and Mike Allred’s late and lamented X-Statix series from 2001 or so, has long been a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in what appears to be mucous. Green and shaped like an elephantoid testicle, he speaks his own language, keeps his own counsel, and as a staff member at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning, he seems to draw a check for reading pornography, passing out inappropriately, and stealing food out of the fridge. So what exactly does Doop do at the school? What is his purpose? I mean, besides being a convenient life form for Beast to perform experiments on, and a general irritant to the faculty and student body? Funny you should ask…

In this issue, we learn that Doop is the secret service that keeps the school running. A combination fixer, shadow warrior and unstoppable political force, he’s the guy behind the guy, answerable to no one except Wolverine, and defeatable by no one at all, from Nazi Bowlers to school board members to Sabretooth himself. Doop keeps the trains running on time. Doop is the Man Behind That Wall. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him…

Look, the idea that a drooling mass that looks like a diseased nut is some kind of secret enforcer that even Wolverine feels he needs in order to function is ridiculous on its face… and that’s why it’s so Goddamned awesome. In this one-and-done, we go from Wolverine trying to woo Doop away from his civilian life of booze, broads and adventure (he is… the most interesting snot in the world) to seeing Doop defend the school from threats no one, including Wolverine, is aware of. Doop goes from knocking out Nazi Bowlers (no, I wasn’t kidding) to persuading angry school board members to support the school by doing the Dirty Boogie with them (male and female) to fighting time-travelling real estate speculators to… ah, I don’t want to spoil anymore. The point is, it is ridiculous. It’s goofy. It’s silly… and it is easily the most lighthearted fun you will have with a comic book this week – a week that includes an issue of The Goon, and that’s saying something.

Mike Allred’s art is simply a perfect match to a story like this, and not just because he created the look of Doop back in X-Force and X-Statix, although seeing his lines on a character from those books made me want to dig through my longboxes and wallow in some nostalgia. Allred has a cartoony style with simple, medium lines, which is what you want from what amounts to a Roadrunner cartoon of a comic book. He even shows clear, unambiguous emotion coming from Doop, who is often facially nothing more than a pair of eyes stuck into what looks like a Mr. Potato Head some angry kid spray painted puke-green; for example, the rage on Doop’s face when he attacks that nun with a baseball bat is palpable. Allred’s stuff doesn’t work for everything, but I can’t imagine another living human being drawing this comic book.

I don’t know where this book came from, but I picture Jason Aaron finishing up the heavy, dark storyline on Scalped, knocking back a shot of Jim Beam, wiping his mouth and saying, “Okay, that was fulfilling… but it’s time to have some fucking fun.” And fun is exactly what this book brings. If you finish this issue without a big, goofy smile on your face, you’re dead inside and we officially have nothing in common… and I’m not just saying that out of terror because Doop takes out a mouthy Internet critic (hi, Jason!).

I can’t recommend Wolverine And The X-Men #17 enough. Check it out.