Black Nerd Problems

by William Evans

  My father grew more and more silent after the string of deaths of Black men at the hands of police that began publicly with Michael Brown and never really ended. I had a hard time understanding why. My father is outspoken and also brilliant, which makes him simultaneously a great conversationalist and annoying if you aren’t close to his level on things. But he was saying less as yet another cop was excused in yet another Black person’s death and I began to notice. After Tamir Rice was killed in Cleveland, I called my father and we had some very sparse conversation before we began theorizing on the role of fiction in our nonfiction lives. Every once in a while, I get these notions that I can outwit my father into pulling some emotional tether to him. I asked him if we love fantasy and fiction as a means to escape everyday life, but I think I meant, does he use fiction in this way? He answered, “It’s not an escape. It’s hope. The good guys win and life has value in a fantasy story. It’s not about getting away from something. It’s about inserting hope into what you can’t outrun.” See, my father knows when I’m trying to trick him into answering a question about himself, his answer shows me that I’ve actually tricked myself into believing it’s not about me. This is also as direct as he gets these days.

  When my father says that he enjoyed how they showed Thorin Oakenshield’s descent into madness during the Battle of the Five Armies, what he means is “I can’t believe that Charleston cop shot that man in the back.” When we argue which movies had the best big battle scenes, we’re really talking about how he didn’t expect me to watch Black folks killed indiscriminately the way he did over thirty years ago.

  The night of the verdict where George Zimmerman was cleared of all charges, I was a mess. I needed to get out of the house, away from everything safe and comfortable, because all of a sudden, it didn’t feel that way. It was near midnight, but I called my dad. I didn’t expect him to pick up, but he answered like he hadn’t been asleep yet either. He listened to me rant for twenty minutes or so without saying much, just letting me rant about my anger. My anger. As if he didn’t have close to three decades of anger like this ahead of me. He just kept sighing and saying, “Wasn’t supposed to be your war.”

  It sounds like something an elder character in a fantasy novel would say to the young protagonist who is thrust into service ahead of schedule. The difference isn’t whether either of those worlds have dragons or not. It’s that one of them definitely has a point when things will turn around and work out. I don’t dare ask my father if he thinks there’s a turn coming in the reality we walk through now.

  The week that nine people were killed in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, we were both silent: him trying to figure out what to say this time, me still trying to study up on my Tolkien to prepare for the conversation. I’ve been told that’s where you can find hope. Hope by the volumes, if escape isn’t a possibility.

  Two Dope Boys and a Comic Book: House of X

  OMAR & WILLIAM, aka The Two Black Mutants Who Missed the Mission Cuz of CPT

  JONATHAN HICKMAN WOKE up one day and decided to save the X-Men franchise in 2019, and the mutants in the Marvel Universe ain’t been the same since. Hickman’s House of X and Powers of X series put the X-Men where the fuck they needed to be. They got their own island of Krakoa, they got their own nation, laws, and politics. But we know Sentinels have been the bane of mutants’ existence since the beginning of Marvel space and time. So imagine if humans, led by Dr. Gregor, made a Mother Mold out in space, whose sole purpose is to create next-gen Sentinels that mutants could never counter. I know, fuck humans, right? But before Mother Mold could be finished, the X-Men got wind of this secret space station and sent a strike team to take out the facility before it was completed. Which leads us to Hickman’s House of X #4 and why it just hits different. Please know that we had to schedule some time in the Danger Room and work this shit out. My mutants, shit might never be the same.

  WILLIAM: Nah, man. Naaaaah, man. I wasn’t ready. Like, I knew what could be coming, but my ass was not ready, my mutant. I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe the beginning. Or like, before the beginning, before the tears and shit. What you think the X-Men were listening to in the Blackbird on the way to the Mother Mold, man? I’m guessing Scott “Whatever It Fucking Takes” Summers grabbed the aux cord and put that Dreams and Nightmares on as they entered the orbit. Just the thought of that piano playing on their approach got me shook, man.

  In a way, this is what Scott’s whole fuckin’ existence been leading up to, man. Taking a fucking X-Men assault team. Let’s not mistake what this was, the gotdamn Navy SEALs of forward-assaulting-ass mutants on a suicide trip. This shit was best/worst-case scenario Mass Effect 2 going through the Omega 4 Relay. I can’t. I done read this issue twice and I still can’t.

  OMAR: “Push me to the edge, all my X-Men dead!” The foreshadowing for this shit coming down to the Stringer Bell [read: The Wire] was Magneto and Professor X an issue ago telling Cyclops that the odds for this mission’s success were damn near impossible. Scott’s team got sent to stop the Mother Mold from creating Sentinels that would murder mad mutants. Plus if the team does happen to succeed, the Mother Mold is located dumb far in space with no guarantee of making it back alive. Scottie “Five Beams a Day for Three” Summers asked them both, “My mutants, does it need to be done?” Charles Xavier nodded like, “You already know.” Scott told them, with utter fucking disgust in his visor at even the thought of his team failing, “Then it will be done.” You Marvel Comics fans don’t hear me tho. My mutant Cyclops put a blue bandanna on the steering column of the Blackbird jet, looked back at the team seated behind him as they reached orbit, and said, “I’m getting rid of these muthafuckas tomorrow… X-Men taking this series in three games.”

  The mission was supposed to be In-N-Out Burger, baby. They was supposed to order the fade, pull up to the drive-thru window, catch it, then be home in time for This Is Us. But these hatin’-ass humans straight blew a whole-ass hole in their hull. Xavier was calling collect via a psychic link to see what’s what. They even used the psychic link to project what was happening through a pool of water Storm created. First thing they saw was the Blackbird’s paint job all the way fucked up now. You can’t blot them bloodstains out. Husk and Angel dead, laid out and folded like ya momma’s church crown and Sunday best. Xavier lookin’ around like, “This the right channel? Aye, who keeps thinking about Apollo 13?! You messing up the link. Oh shit, Jean? This live?! Gaaaaawddayuuuuum!”

  WILLIAM: That’s when I knew, fam. When they said Angel was dead, I was like sheeeeeiiiiit, Hickman came in like Thor to Thanos except he went for the head the first time. All these muthafuckas might die. How you gonna start the issue that way? Previously on House of X: Angel and Husk dead as fuck. I say gawwwwddayuuuuum. But this X-Men team, man, you hate to see it but they make a mutant proud, man. Nightcrawler’s internal plumbing all fucked up and they done stripped Wolverine down to the white adamantium meat.

  Speaking of which (and we’ll get to the big shit later), but I know folks have been tired of Wolverine’s undying ass for the last year. They done killed and rebooted this man more than Spider-Man films in the last decade. Wolverine is an example that cancel culture don’t really exist, nah mean? But he earned all the accolades this issue, man. My dude said, “Don’t kid yourself, Red, we’re playing for blood here.” Logan said let them bodies hit the floor and leave that soft shit in the burning Blackbird, fam.

  OMAR: Wolverine said, “Just so we’re all clear, I’m running up in this Starship Enterprise knockoff and stabbing everybody. I’m talking red shirts, blue shirts, yellow shirts, admin roles, everyone in human resources, payroll, legal department, cafeteria workers, maintenance workers, sanitation workers, and IT tech support. I don’t give a fuck if it’s Take Your Kid to Work Day today either. Snikt. Fucking. Snikt. Feel me?” There’s five minutes left on the clock, no time-outs, and two benched players. What you gon’ do, Cyclops?! He had the team go for the Phil Jackson full-court pr
ess. Nightcrawler teleported them to four different points to fuck up the Mother Mold. Did that shit while his organs were straight cranberry juice. My mutant coughin’ up that Ocean Spray and still put 8 points on the board, securing his section on some ’88 Isiah Thomas dropping 25 with a sprained ankle. Section 2 closed. Wolverine, *counts bodies he killed* 14 points. Section 4 closed.

  We got humans coming for Marvel Girl and Monet who are still stationed on the Blackbird? They tryin’ to trap Monet the Empath? Monet the head boss of Bad and Boujee? We just got her back from Generation X. Maaaaan, Monet threw Jean in the escape pod, said, “Keep the channel open while I draw these fouls.” Monet took out the Allen Iverson braids when she transformed and made it a Hot Girl Mutant Summer in space where no one could hear these muhfuckas’ knees scream and buckle.

  WILLIAM: The Monet exit?!? My gawd. Bury her a fuckin’ G. I don’t know what to say, Marvel Girl, try harder. Bast. She went straight Blanka on that crew, man. I knew she wasn’t gonna survive it, but still, that’s the Doc Holliday outro right there… unlike Mystique, who got shot out an airlock and is now lookin’ like one of the seven hundred ways that the movie Gravity could’ve ended if Sandy B. failed her mission. Remember in Justice League Unlimited when they shot Grodd’s ass out into space? Well, him and Mystique are neighbors now. Dr. Gregor, head scientist at this Master Mold space station, told Mystique, “Don’t let the space freeze you where the good Lord split you.” Man, House of X came out three days ago and Mystique still drifting through space. She a satellite now, fam. They bouncing DirecTV off her. I feel like we should mention back on Krakoa, where everyone watching Jean emote the terror via the psychic Storm Summer Jam water screen. This was like those Super Bowl parties where the home team blows a 20-point lead. Hank probably burned his X-Men jersey and crying in the shower with a bunch of empty beer cans at his feet.

  OMAR: Meanwhile, Dr. Gregor said fuck beta testing and brought Master Mold online early. Whole block heard that advanced 56k modem dial-up get fired up and knew the game was all fucked up now. Charles Xavier heard that Mother Mold computer get the putin and told his children—my fault, his Children of the Atom, his #1 draft pick, his ’63 and ’75 Dream Team members… “Do whatever [the fuck] it takes.”

  As a former athlete, when your coach says, “Do whatever the fuck it takes”? Your only option is greatness. No excuses. No apologies. Thas it. Scott “Optic Blast Ya Whole Block” Summers was looking out that window thinking nothing but Dido lyrics (“My tea’s gone cold / I’m wondering why I got out of bed at all”) when the MVP Nightcrawler said, “We can get there” (“The morning rain clouds up my window / And I can’t see at all”). Wolverine told his mutant, “Ain’t no other way, Slim…” Scott, forearm against the glass, seeing nothing but red, dead, and a chance at redemption, told his peoples their last marching orders… “Go.” (“And even if I could, it’d all be grey / But your picture on my wall / It reminds me that it’s not so bad / It’s not so bad…”) But it is that bad, Dido, ’cause this is X-Men black ops, baby. SOMEBODY GOTS TO FUCKING GO!

  Nightcrawler and Wolverine about to teleport into space in front of a fucking sun to destroy a literal mother of all Sentinels. Ain’t no happy endings here. The days of the future done past right here, fam. Right before the quantum leap Wolverine asked Nightcrawler if there’s a spot in heaven where thugs get in free and you gotta be a G. Nightcrawler told his mans and dem for the past forty-four years, “I’ll have the spliff waiting for you on the other side, my guy.” *screams at how fucking good this shit is*

  WILLIAM: “The bravest man I know.” The fucking respect! Scott is watching Wolverine be turned into a bucket of Popeyes and eulogizing this man in real time. For Scott to say that about Logan… nah, man, there are fucking Tetris levels to this. Arrrgghhh. AND WE THOUGHT THAT SHIT WAS OVER. Scott acting like he lost the platoon but won the war. Your boy really thought he was about to find a super-suit in storage and reverse eye blast his way to the escape pod. Humans did all the dirt, but you gotta respect Dr. Gregor’s level of savage. Scott tried to tell her that the Mold is a shooting, is just a dead satellite now, so he’s worthless as a hostage. Dr. Gregor aimed the pump-action shotgun at his head and was like, “Nah, you just worthless.”

  We way late on this, but shout-out to the artists Pepe Larraz and Marte Gracia. This whole fuckin’ issue slaps in the visuals, but that Dr. Gregor reflection in the mutant formerly known as alive, aka Cyclops? Chef’s fucking kiss (translated from “pretty damn great when you need to lead up to a muthafucka getting their head blown off”). And through all that. THROUGH ALL THAT, we’re still not done! No X-Men mission is complete until Jean dies. And Jean dying alone at the hands of about four Sentinels in space might have been the most tragic. Fuck, man. Back on Krakoa, Storm dropped that water, then dropped down in the prayer formation cuz that’s the only thing she got to whip up now. Some prayer for the souls of them X-Cats.

  OMAR: *lifts head from hands* Hickman is… Hickman really is, yo. Hickman is giving us Mutants in the Hood. Cyclops hit the corner and got that shotty click-clack, bla-ow. All I heard was Cuba Gooding Jr., yellin’, “Riiickyyyyyy Scooooooottieeeee!” I legit don’t even have the words. Charles Xavier hit an ill soliloquy in the aftermath when them X-Men got X’d. “Look what they’ve done… what they always do. Look at how this always ends. With fire. With death. And funerals of our children.” I dunno about y’all, but I heard that shit in the voice of Danny Glover holding twenty-year-old scotch while staring out into his backyard. Maaaaan, when that X-Men talk start sounding like the Black experience in ’Murica? Woooooooooo. I mean I’m sure Storm/Bishop given a soliloquy of that effect mad times. Xavier is just saying it out loud now, but I digress.

  Look, I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I do know that we are now in the endgame. All I know is Xavier and Magneto ’bout to go student loans on humanity. They gon’ be making mad house calls ’cause there is a debt that must be paid. I need to know how I can show I am a mutant ally ’cause I want no parts of that smoke, bonfire, hell or high water Xavier ’bout to bring. Y’all got a safety pin I can rock? There a form a normie can fill out?! Lemme know.

  Blade II Still Has the Most Disrespectful Superhero Fades My Black Ass Has Ever Seen

  OMAR HOLMON, aka Wesley Snipes’s Spotify Playlist Curator

  BLADE IS THE reason superhero movies are the new Spaghetti Western. Tell me I’m wrong, look me in the windows of my soul and tell me differently. Iron Man had to get Blade’s blessing before ushering in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. *Allen Iverson voice* I mean we talking ’bout Blade? Blaaaaade? Wesley Snipes’s Blade series, my vampire? Blade was proof that comic book characters could turn in successful film adaptations on the big screen. Blade II, however, *wipes tear away* Blade II is scientific proof that there’s only one way to beat a roomful of henchmen’s ass.

  I done seen some fight scenes in my day, but a roomful of Edward Cullens getting the stakes beat off ’em? Where they do that at? I ain’t ever seen grown-ass vampires get defanged on-screen before. If you’ve never seen this fight scene it is a must. YouTube it right now. Type in “Blade 2 Final Fight with Reinhardt.” I am entirely deadass, do it because we gotta John Madden these highlights *rubs hands together* when I tell you no henchman’s ass was safe in Blade II. Y’all remember the scene, right? Blade was above that pool of blood getting shot at. Then he threw himself off that catwalk into the blood bath bomb below him. In real life, Wesley Snipes then rose up from that pool of red dye #40 and cranberry juice ready for fight choreography. What we saw was Blade rise up from a blood Jacuzzi, get surrounded by the mid-level boss Reinhardt’s men, then tell the house DJ, “Yo, put something with some bass on that I can beat these muthafuckas’ ass to.” I’m not sure why the DJ obliged but whatever, because soon as the Crystal Method’s “Name of the Game” came on we got the most detailed mollywhopping fight scene in comic book history to this day.

  First and foremost, he gave two dudes a fucking Shawn M
ichaels Sweet Chin Music superkick. Blade kicked Henchman #2 so hard the windshield of his riot gear helmet said, “Fuck this,” and flew out the helmet. I’m just saying, if I’m Henchman #33 and I see Blade channel Shawn Michaels’s superkick on Gary (Henchman #2), I’m shopping my résumé out for a new boss. I’m emailing Wilson Fisk, Lex Luthor, Talia al Ghul, or Black Mariah. Blade legit superkicked Henchman #2’s face off then went back to Henchman #1, who was already down from a knee to the stomach, regretting all his life choices right as Blade A-Town stomped his face in. That riot headgear must only have +1 defense, ’cause that visor got crushed like a soda can. Blade legit just American History X’d a man’s facial pattern without a second thought, bruh. Blade gave dude Seth Rollins’s Curb Stomp finisher. Blade out here mosh pitting on people’s faces then handing out additional Young Bucks–level superkicks! Blade superkicked Henchman #4 so hard gravity forgot which way was right side up for duke. The man turned into a confused twist as that kick sent him into that blood bath.

  The next guy (Henchman #6) to get it was a dude that caught the highlight fade of this entire fight. Blade roundhoused this poor man so hard that he went over the rail of the platform they’re on doing a gymnastic twisting pass. Yeah, I had to look the move up in order to properly describe it. I’m not even sure that henchman even took gymnastics as a youth, but after the power of that fucking all-around-the-world roundhouse kick? I mean gawtdaaaamn—he still tumbling to his doom as far as we know. For real tho, Blade kicked dude so hard he Fruit Roll Up’d himself. How you kick a man so hard he lands Tony Hawk’s 900? Fam went over the rail like a spilled drink. Listen, if you ever get roundhouse kicked so hard that it makes you Simone Biles in the air, you need a new line of work. Security is not for you.