The Four Color Media Monitor

Superhero Hype/Yahoo announced that, shortly after Rogue was turned into a sacrificial lamb in X-Men, now another comic does something similar with Bishop under the guise of "satire":

The secret of the death was revealed in Longshots #3 by Gerry Duggan, Jonathan Hickman, and Alan Robinson. The satiric series centers around Mojo; an interdimensional entertainment executive and frequent foe of the X-Men. Unsurprisingly Mojo wanted to capitalize on the Age of Revelation event. Unfortunately, with all the recognizable heroes from the MCU tied to other projects, Mojo was forced to build a show around has-beens and wash-outs like Rhino and Kraven the Hunter. Also, the only one of the X-Men he can recruit is Bishop.

Despite this, Mojo pressed on, despite most of his new cast of heroes dying early on. This included Bishop, who was blown up by an off-panel enemy he apparently recognized. However, the question of who killed the popular X-Men member was completely forgotten in the wake of Mojo’s failed effort to hire Galactus as the big bad of the series. It doesn’t get brought up again until Longshots #3, when Longshot questions the forgotten subplot while deciding if he should join the series sharing his name.

The death of Bishop is explained in a flashback, after Mojo admits he has no idea how to resolve the subplot. The flashback reveals that at some point in the past, Bishop was abducted by Mojo’s minion, Spiral. She also stole a variety of kitchen utensils and a ripped red curtain.

Using the purloined objects, Spiral fashions a crude costume that makes the captive Bishop look like the time-traveling villain Stryfe. She left him behind, tied up, with a grenade in his mouth. When the future Bishop saw what looked like one of his greatest enemies, he shot first without asking questions. This resulted in the grenade going off, killing the future Bishop, and vaporizing the past Bishop.

Well this is certainly disgusting, right down to the whole "revealed" cliche. And emphasizing this as "satire" is no excuse either. Even if this isn't being made canon, and even if it's only temporary, it's still atrocious. It's also laughable how some characters, villains or otherwise, in this story are emphasized as has-beens and wash-outs, because everything depends on how they're written, not whether anybody cares about them or not, and the point definitely applies to heroes.

How much longer is Marvel going to last if this is what they've brought themselves down to? It's just head-shaking.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, marvel comics, msm propaganda, violence, X-Men