Fucking Day: My Mutant Heart

In 2006, Marvel released a series of one-shot romantic comics for Valentine's Day called "I Heart Marvel." I'm not sure what the editor of these comics hated more, X-Men or the entire concept of love. Something went deeply wrong with My Mutant Heart, the X-Men's anthology of what is supposed to be romantic little Valentine's Day stories. Everything about it went haywire, starting with the cover. Most of the cover art for these stories had horny soap opera vibes:

But I guess Marvel spent all their cash getting the abs on Thumbelina Mary Jane just right and Upside-Down-Big-Titty Squirrel Girl's hands incredibly wrong, so they didn't have anything left over for the cover of My Mutant Heart. It looks like they ended up stealing a teen girl's confused, hormonal doodles from art class and publishing it. It looks like Tina Belcher made this:

There's so much going on here. Working from the back right, it looks like Cannonball is trying to pee, but it's a naughty little secret, and two cupids are looking at his dick with heart eyes. There's also a man in the distance admiring his dick with a more stalwart posture, as if to say, "yes, a dick, I'm familiar." Then you've got Doop, and I know here you might be saying who is Doop? Don't worry about it right now, but know that it's unusual for him to be dressed as a french maid. Finally, Wolverine is stab/punching a box of chocolates.

If you notice the hand to the left and the welcome mat below Doop's…I don't know what body part that is for Doop. I'm going to guess big thumb? Maybe his whole body is thumb? That sounds right. Anyway, the welcome mat indicates someone answered a door to find that all three X-men were trying to seduce them in their own unique ways, and of course, Wolverine's love involves stabbing. "I'm surprising you with three romantic knives, and I've killed your fucking candy, bub!"

To make this cover even more bizarre, the first story opens with Wolverine in Nazi Germany. Starting with that cover and then opening your story, "So about the holocaust," is literary catfishing. Not to mention the art style of the Wolverine story is vastly different and also so much worse.

That dude who looks like a taxidermied member of The Gorillaz is supposed to be Wolverine. There's nothing wrong with him. He's not under a spell that makes him look stupid or anything; that's just regular hunky Wolverine who gets portrayed by Hugh Jackman. No one message me to tell me that Wolverine's a weird little guy in the comics! I know what Wolverine looks like, and this isn't it.

Wolverine is with a woman named Catharina, and they're about to embark on a dangerous mission together. She gives Wolverine her necklace and then instantly betrays him, which makes Wolverine feel…teeth?

"It makes me feel... s-saaaadd? No, knifey. THIS FEELS KNIFEY!!"

Pretty much everyone in this comic is far away or half in shadow, I strongly suspect because the artist wasn't great at giving full face. My evidence is this panel where Wolverine suddenly becomes a knock off version of himself named Ferret Man that you would find in a midwestern gas station. A fun fact about the artist who drew it is that he never worked for Marvel ever again.

The woman apologizes to Wolverine and says the Nazis were going to torture her sisters and kill her if she didn't betray him. Then they kill her anyway in front of him as they gas him into unconsciousness, and he vows revenge on the Nazis who did this. God, this screams Valentine's Day.

The comic ends with Wolverine at the grave of Dr. Lukas Maier, presumably that Nazi doctor he vowed to kill. This comic is his first and only known appearance, and the man died at the age of 82. So either Wolverine busted into a nursing home and smoked an old Nazi, or he never found the guy? It's unresolved, and this is never brought up again by Wolverine, a man who's done many shameful things in comics he doesn't like to talk about, including join Alpha Flight.

The next story in this romance anthology is by Peter Milligan, writer of X-Force and X-Statix, who famously once tried to write a resurrected Princess Diana onto his X-team. He's the creator of Doop, the green potato waving his thumb butt(?) on the cover. Doop might not be a mutant; no one knows what he is or is brave enough to ask, so he gets to hang with the X-Men. Also, he's got a ton of ill-defined powers including super strength, some mind stuff, and once he sucked his entire team into a dimension inside his body when he popped a pimple. That's pretty much Doop.

His story transitions the reader gently from Nazi stuff to domestic violence stuff. It's about a man who hires a private detective to find out if his wife is cheating on him, and it turns out she is, with Doop. It's X-Men cannon that Doop fucks. He's even had a fling with Kitty Pryde at one point. So this affair is actually very in character for Doop.

The detective cutely lies to the husband about the affair, telling him, "I can honestly say she's not seeing another man." Then he keeps spying on them but makes it very clear this time it's for pervy reasons. He's become obsessed with the couple and is stalking them now, because he’s fallen in love!

The woman ends up leaving her husband for Doop. When the husband returns to the detective, clearly out of his mind, demanding to know where his wife is, the detective gives their location to the husband. They've checked into a hotel in Nevada because Doop probably doesn't have a house for her to move into. He lives between Professor X's couch cushions, or in a pocket jelly bean universe or something. Anyway, the husband shows up at the hotel and tries to murder Doop and his wife.

The detective punches out the husband. Which is nice, but no one is in any real danger here. Doop could turn that man into a pepperoni pizza and literally eat him for lunch. If anything, the detective spared the husband from the unknowable wrath of Doop with a mercy punch.

With the husband knocked out, the detective decides to take a chance and confess his undying love for the person(?) he's been stalking, Doop. The detective is in love with Doop. It turns out pansexual icon Doop is willing to give him a shot. They drive off into the night together, and their headlights form a little heart, aw.

So, this is the story of Doop ruining a woman's life. She left her husband for Doop, and the second some dude pops up and is like, "I also betray people, we should kiss!" Doop is just like, "fair point, goodbye forever, blondie." Apparently, watching a man get punched in the face is a real turn on for Doop.

The final story in the anthology is about Cannonball, an X-men I'm not a fan of because he's just Cyclops but from Kentucky. Don't message me about how right I am, I already know. However, people find him hot, so I was hoping that this story would deliver on at least a little of the horniness the terrible cover promises.

The story takes place during a time when Cannonball was dating a reformed mutant named Lila Cheney, who has the power of interstellar travel. She's focusing on her band, Cats Laughing, and Cannonball starts to worry that she's sneaking around because she's started stealing again. He digs through her bag and finds something called a congrevean love sphere, which she actually bought as a gift for him. That sounds far too freaky for Cannonball. You don't buy Alabama Cyclops a sex toy as a present. It would take 30 minutes to explain it, and 60 for him to pass that story along to God.

Naturally, Lila is angry at Cannonball and also too good for him in general. He tries to make up for not trusting her by quietly sitting at the back of one of her shows and waving at her as she sings her hit song, "My Boyfriend's a Loser…Yeah! Loser, Loser, Loser!" I hate to break it to Cannonball, but songs take a while to write and a whole band had to learn them. Lila has had that one ready to go and has been waiting for him to piss her off.

This is resolved when an alien fan from the planet where Lila has been playing a side gig to afford the love sphere for Cannonball shows up and tries to steal her guitar. Cannonball kicks his ass, and Lila forgets how he dug through her stuff. Everyone in this romantic comic book loves watching other people get punched. The story ends with them chastely kissing and a voiceover from Cannonball says he got lucky that night, which is precisely the kind of weird old-timey language that makes me hate Cannonball. I don't need to know what it sounds like when Colonel Sanders gets horny.

Someone at Marvel really curated this Valentine's Day collection to include Nazis, domestic violence, a tragic affair, and a woman serenading her boyfriend about how she hates him in front of a mass audience. Then they gave it a cover so repellant no one would ever pick it up and find the horrors inside. The Cupids staring at Cannonball's crotch were a message!

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