You dont know true horror until youve been forced to read a comic book guest starring the 1990s-mutant-book-Mary-Sue that is Adam X The X-Treme (to give him his teethgrindingly awful full name, which I shall be using every chance that I get in this entry, because comedy). Adam X The X-Treme is a half alien, half mutant, all lame anti-hero, which *Grandpa Simpson voice* was the style at the time. In true 1990s fashion, hes the spitting image of Alice In Chains singer Layne Staley in 1990, complete with tufty goatee and expression of angst-ridden constipation. He wears a backwards baseball cap (A BACKWARDS BASEBALL CAP) over a topknot, and a leather uniform covered in razorblades and spikes, and carries two curved blades that look like boomerangs. The reason for all the edges? Because if you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room, maaan. No, seriously - there's actually a reason. Adam X The X-Tremes mutant power is the ability to set fire to oxygenated blood. In other words, if youre bleeding he can flash-fry the wound. There is literally no superpower that is more nineties than that. At one point, writer Fabian Nicieza fully intended Adam X The X-Treme to be a third Summers brother. The prevailing storylines of the time centering around Cyclops indicated that together, he and Jean Grey had the genetic potential to be the greatest power couple in comics history. The Summers kids, both siblings and children, are therefore the First Family of the X-titles. Fortunately, calmer heads prevailed and it was pointed out that Adam X The X-Treme, the bastard child of a surfboarder and Kevin bloody Nash, should probably not take up any more four-colour real estate than absolutely necessary. Adam X the X-Treme is clearly a placeholder in the X comics for a certain nineties comics creator who wasnt 'cool' when he was a kid. To compensate, Adam X the X-Treme, is so cool that he actually turned down a place in the X-Men although this may have been more to do with the fact that Nicieza realised that none of the other X-writers would touch Adam X The X-Treme with a ten-foot pole. This is possibly because of choice faux-grunge monologues like this:
I am an outcast...I always have been. Of everywhere and nowhere my whole life. A part of everything around me, but also apart from everyone I know."
Yeah, okay Fabi-- I mean, Adam X The X-Treme. We get the point, youre very deep. Now put your hat on properly, there are children reading this. Today Adam X the X-Treme, mostly appears in comic books designed to take the ever-lovin p*ss out of him, which is absolutely as it should be. In related news, Poochie died on the way back to his home planet. Tell in the comments who you reckon is the worlds worst x-character: hero, villain or supporting nebbish. Go!... It's Adam X The X-Treme, isn't it?
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
