It takes a lot for me to open an unsolicited email, and it takes even more for me to actually click through to see what they're trying to sell me. Usually? It's books from academic publishers or some company in Japan offering me 7% discounts on imported action figures. Today it was WHAT THE FUCK??? X-Men jewelry???
Admittedly, I have a previous relationship with geek couture supplier RockLove jewelers. My spouse, Meghan, has a nice Doctor Strange-themed ring from them, so this email is not coming out of nowhere — like that email I got a few years back from a sender named "private jets" with the subject line "private jets" and the body of the email just reading "private jets" over and over again. RockLove does good work and I need to say that up front because this email — and maaaaaybe the product — is all over the place. Messy, even.
"SUIT UP, SUGAH" is probably the best way to get me to open an email, or hell, to do anything. Need to take out the trash? SUIT UP, SUGAH. Need to clean off the dead roadkill squirrel someone threw on my stairs? SUIT UP, SUGAH. So it's getting opened.
And what do I find? Well, some generally pretty quality jewelry. Gambit and Rogue, two of Marvel's married-est mutants are linked together with two thematically appropriate "X" bangles. Their pet names for each other, SUGAH and MON CHÉRI are etched in beautiful Comic Sans font, while only the "Gambit" version gets the accent over the E. Does Gambit say "Mon chéri" a lot? It's hard to say. Most times he says "Mon chére". Especially in the cartoon.
It's a weird distinction that even the geniuses at Google can't figure out.
Are there jewels? There sure are. The "Gambit" version seems to have smaller jewels, but more of them, maybe because he's a thief who steals jewels and presumably has a larger tally than Rogue, who doesn't really steal jewels.
So yeah, the jewelry. Weird, a little off maybe? But real items you can purchase for between $125 and $150. The cheaper version is the "Gambit's Bet" version which comes with thick, silver-plated brass rather than the $150 "Rogue's Kiss" that is sterling silver, but, again, you also get larger jewels. It's the "coming soon!" bit that the email includes that really knocked my ass over.
From the gawd-awful foreshortening, Rogue looks like she might be a mile long, maybe even longer. If her hand's in the mountains, her visible foot is hanging at the beach. The distance between one fist and the other is several city blocks. Gambit's bad too, don't get me wrong, but nowhere near as bad as Rogue, whose limbs each have separate representation in Congress.
The other X-Men have it just as bad, if not worse.
If this picture of Wolverine is anything prophetic, it's gonna be a summer of BEEF. Lookit them ham hocks! His arm is AS WIDE as his torso! Wider than his head! How does he fit into an airplane seat with those shoulders? Football linebackers are telling him that they're swearing off steroids because they'll never measure up.
For Storm it's a combination of profile + eye + goose neck. Why is THAT the picture they used for Storm? Was there not an opportunity to say, "She's posed like a microphone attached to a lectern, why did you do that?" It's the most unflattering pose you can give to someone, especially when you compare it to everyone else's action poses. Gambit throws cards! Wolverine flexes his claws! Storm has to concentrate when buying a Metro Card from the touchscreen machine!
But nothing beats Jubilee.
Nothing is right about Jubilee's appendages. If my little finger looked that much like a cactus, it would be broken and I would be screaming. It looks like an afterthought. The gloves don't match either, but that's nothing compared to the disaster which is her feet. The artist gave up. I can't think of any other reason why one is sharpened to a point and the other is sharpened to a less pointy point. I guess you can shoot off fireworks from your fingers while also testing if a bath is warm enough with your boot on, but why show that in an ad? Should we as a society just all agree that feet are difficult to draw and we shouldn't try anymore?
Well, that's your dose of X-Men for the day. Marvel's X-Men collab with RockLove drops on April 17, with additional waves releasing in the summer and fall. And if you have that special someone you want to label as "Mon chéri/cheri", well, you know where to go for your his and hers or his and his or hers and hers jewelry. Suit up, Sugah.
