How DO you kiss a guy with a beak anyway?

There are few titles that I loved as much as Morrison’s New X-Men. It pretty much had everything: intriguing new characters (fuck yeah, Xorn!), heartbreak (oh no, Xorn!), betrayal (man, fuck you, Xorn). And of these new characters, there are three who ultimately stand out above the rest and deserve the Underrated Underdogs treatment: Fantomex (which I’m soooo gonna let Jon handle), Beak, and Angel.

But why do I give a two shits about Beak and Angel?

They’re two balls of teenage angst, for one! They are seriously the best representations of two high school kids I have ever seen in a comic book. Look, Beak claims he’s “straight edge hardcore” (we all listened to Minor Threat when we were 16). Angel is labeled as a “skank” by the other X-Kids (if there’s anything teenage girls hate it’s teenage girls!). Yet, one kiss and they’re in love forever (your first relationship was totally like that, admit it). Put them together, and you have one of the biggest “awww” couples of comics (why I forgot them on the Top Ten Second String Comic Couples, I’ll never know).

Next time!

As was a major theme of New X-Men, both of these characters were publicly chastised after their powers manifest at puberty (Beak by Dutch school children and Angel by her abusive step-father). They hate being in the “special class” at school (with the exception of the constant lessons between Beast and Beak) and they hate themselves until they have each other. Then nothing else in the world matters. And then sometime between fighting the U-Men and getting awards for beating the U-Men, Beak got Angel preggers. Three issues later, they had six babies with wings (fastest gestation ever!).

Following this, Beak proved several times over just how commited he was to Angel and the kids. When it turned out Xorn was (SPOILER ALERT IF YOU ARE A FEW YEARS BEHIND, SRSLY SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH)  Magneto in disguise and he turned the “special class” into the new Brotherhood of Mutants, Beak questioned the conversion to evil and got the shit beat out of him by Magneto. Then, to get Angel and the kids back, Beak fucking took on Magneto again. It’s adorable and it’s brutal! It’s adorabrutal!

Adorabrutal (uh-dawr-uh-broot-l) adj. This right here.

Anywho, Beak, Fantomex, and the X-Men took Magneto down and then they lived happily ever after.

As if! Comics don’t work that way, dummy.

I’ll admit, after New X-Men, I never read any more of the story lines with Beak or Angel. I never read any other titles with Beak, with the exception of a little House of M. Beak ended up in the Exiles, skipped around the Marvel multiverse for a while, came back, dealt with a funky reality where Angel was a model and the kids didn’t exist, and then got hit with Scarlet Witch’s crazy fit.

Apparently, Scarlet Witch made Beak, Angel, and the kids (save Tito) humans (boring!). Then they got technologically-enhanced suits and implants and joined the New Warriors (what?). Now they just look like stupid ol’ people with stupid ol’ powers with the stupid new names of Blackwing and Tempest. At least they’re still together!

Way, way less cool, but together.

All right, let’s close this fucking thing. If Marvel somehow gets these two characters back into pre-Generation M shape, I would be so fucking into that. I mean, this is a comic book in the Marvel Universe. They can totally pull a Jean Grey and revert these characters back to when they were awesome! I mean, it doesn’t even have to be Morrison! I’m pretty sure that given to the likes of Jim McCann or Ed Brubaker or Brian Michael Bendis, it’d be totally rad! It could be the Marvel equivalent to Green Arrow/Black Canary!

Get on it, Quesada!