The X Marathon

Thoughts

Magneto’s Back! And He’s …. sitting around the table with the X-men.

It’s a sad fact that even with fancy omnibus collections and epic reprints trying to read the X-universe in a comprehensive manner still yields moments of true puzzlement.

Why is Magento here? In fact, is that actually Magneto because the text isn’t actually that clear. We’ve been seeing Magneto take a journey towards becoming more human as a secondary (or even tertiary) storyline over in New Mutants. And the last issue ended with him declaring he’s back. And now BAM! He’s just presented as sitting at a table with Xavier.

It’s a jarring moment. There’s no editorial box to help you out here. If I was a hardcopy completists, I don’t even know where I’d find this moment. Thankfully the internet and Marvel Unlimited exist these days so I’m able to find the moment (sort of) in the first issue of Secret Wars II

As an issue Secret Wars II is surprisingly Mutant heavy – although as its Shooter the X-men get to achieve pretty much naff all. And, probably because its Shooter, it doesn’t quite neatly fit into a coherent arc. Going from his New Mutants storyline to this issue, via Secret Wars II, doesn’t feel like a cleanly drawn out character arc. It just about works, but its juddery. Shooter can’t quite stop writing Magento with his Megalomanic tendancies, while Claremont already has him a remorseful good guy.

Magneto’s paen for peace near the end also feels like he’s jumped a huge number of steps in his redemption already. He needs to be so, so good and worthy now to counter the fact he was so evil for a bit. The popular culture reading of the characters of Xavier and Magneto has been to label them Martin Luther King and Malcolm X of Mutant Civil rights – but in this issue it feels like he’s gone straight to the former. Missing out a lof of potentially interesting character moments.

Fun Panel

Remember, Smoking Kill…

WEAKLINGS

Any Googling

My momentary diversion in Secret Wars II allowed me to discover this “interesting” character. A useless Democrat schlub turned powerful God hero who tries to kill Captain America on the grounds he’s a Republican. Shooter must have been fun at parties.

Thankfully the character has been limited to only a couple of follow-up appearances. And we’ve been especially spared a knowing meta reboot for 2024.

It was a Product of its Time

Although Mutant-phobia has been part of the title for a while, these are the issues that really seem committed to bringing that storyline into the main comic as a driving force for the storytelling. Not just that Mutants are feared by some, but that Mutants represent the type of oppressed minority recognisable in the world around us.

This is, again, very much part of the modern cultural understanding of what the X-men are about – but its striking how much the title really hasn’t been about that. Indeed, the title has previously gone out of its way to find plot reasons why the X-men are outlaws, or made mutant-haters fanatics who are at least basing it on the not-utterly-outlandish notion that powerful mutants threaten humanity’s status.

But in this issue and around this era, Mutantphobia is presented as a populist opinion taking hold in society. “Muties” are dangerous and should be dealt with. Claremont attempts to make the parallel direct with this little exchange.

It’s a really clunky use of the N-word, and one that I don’t think the story has earned. There isn’t a direct parallel here and the word “Mutie” for all the venom behind it does not carry the history of the N-word. Certainly to have Kitty drop it here to make the point is incredibly uncomfortable to read. In the eighties, white writers extolling that racism was bad using language like this was more acceptable. It was a badge to show how serious they were.

It hasn’t aged well, I think. Its telling that reprints often censor this bit – as above. Although the recent Marvel Omnibus doesn’t. Trying to make it work in 2024 is tricky.

Mutant Mailbag Mayhem

It’s only in this issue – the first mailbag we’ve had for a while – that I notice that they’ve ditched the gimmick of the actual X-men answering the letter. They’re still printing out full addresses, which seems insane to my modern eyes. All Bo Davis’ neighbours in Tifton, Georgia would now need they sucked at winning a No-Prize. Sorry Bo. They were probably forced to move.

Meanwhile Ellen Chapin has some interesting theories about how Forge’s power stealing gun works, and this is very much the sort of stuff I enjoy. She only leaves a Box No, so I imagine her neighbours never realised the true nerdy genius that lived among them.

Her question does get the editor to tell them that this will all be answered in a futuire Storm and Forge miniseries, with Barry Windsor Smith on art. I was happy before I knew this was a planned thing, now gutted it never happened.

Thoughts

FINALLY! After what must have endless petitions, a massive letter writing campaign and protests at conventions, Marvel bow to the inevitable and bring back… AXE!

Snark aside, this is another neat little issue detailing what happened to the members of the team that weren’t facing Legion. Namely Sunport and Magma get kidnapped by an underground murderous Gladiator tournament. Which all involves lots of fighting until Magento turns up as Mageus Ex Machina and stops it all. Just in time to head off with the kids for Secret Wars II

It’s a lightweight story, andthere really isn’t much by way of a tightly constructed plot. But its slightly meandering structure (there’s even a sidestep to Lily Cheney’s Dyson Sphere at one point) serves to give all the characters enough spotlight to be interesting.

The nature of the story is clearly not really written to let the artist be his usual crazy, inventive self but he handles the conventional story pretty well, and adds a real visual dynamism to set pieces. Cannonball’s failed attempt to rescue his friends is a real set piece of action in comics. Also its striking how we have another detour (so many detours – told you this issue meandered) to limbo and its a very restrained limbo given where Sienkiewicz could have gone with it.

Fun Panel

One of many great Cannonball action panels in this comic!

Any Googling

Half through the issue Dazzler returns – looking suitable revamped for the eighties. This serves to tie in the book with a recent mini-series.

Now – I had never read this series, and indeed its reputation from what I can tell is not good. It’s not reprinted in the X-men (or New Mutants or even X-factor) collections that I’m basing this blog on. So I oringally didn’t have it on my planned list.

However when I got to this stage, I decided to try and have a read anyway. Maybe it’ll be so bad I could make fun of it? Or at least have a decent stab at assessing what went wrong and why I’ve never read good things about it.

And you know what – I enjoyed it a lot. It’s not a classic but it certainly doesn’t deserve its reputation. It’s a fun little story that fills its four issues with a coherent adventure tale, which they don’t always do (Nightcrawler limited series, I’m looking at YOU here!)

It’s sort of a tale about Hollywood, and about the eighties showbiz decadence. So there’s the usual in-panel cameos and in-jokes about the place. The sheer ruthlessness of the place is satirised in the gladiatorial arena that ends up providing the villains for this New Mutants issue and it bumbles along making obvious comments about how folk in the place are filthy liars.

BUT it has a virtue of being unpredictable in its overall plot. Doom is involved, mad producers are involved. As ever with Dazzler the show business its depicting seems weirdly dated, but I do think there’s a subtle difference in Alison Blair’s depiction over the course of the four issues. In the first, she still has the air of a character in a fifties girl comic. But by the end she’s a lot closer to how she appears in New Mutants 29.

And it gets bonus points from me just be being an engaging romance between the two that ends with them not deciding to get together. A decision that doesn’t invalidate the book, but is a nice rejection of cliche while following on from where both characters are in the book. I know its a simple thing, but it gets a lot of plus points from me just by avoiding the obvious Hollywood-friendly ending.

It was a Product of its Time

This might just be me writing in 2024, but references to Magnum in New Mutants will never not be funny.

Mutant Mailbag Mayhem

Thoughts

As a big fan of eighties Marvel there is one title that I keep wanting to really dive into, but have never quite got into. And thats Power Pack. One of the strongest ideas from the period – I think its an interesting concept and a nice antidote to the decades shift towards gritty n grimdark comics. Louise Simonson is also exactly the writer I’d trust to keep faith with the central concept – its kids with alien superpowers. Treading that fine line between keeping the kid’s lives credible and indulging the fun of the fantastical.

It’s issues like this that is one of the reasons I keep meaning to get a big PowerPack omnibus or two. Claremont captures their neat dynamic – and kids having to mix a family life with being superheros is a neat twist on the spider-man set-up.

Alongside this, the issue is an effective single issue story that gives us a taste of an interesting team line-up. Would have absolutely been up for a run of adventures with these guys.

The Morlocks are back – once again playing the role of the mutant underclass, those mutants too ugly or weird to possibly play a role in society like the awesome X-men. The concept is still an interesting one, but it suffers slightly if you think about how it plays into the metaphor of the X-men and intolerance.

Because, firstly, it is a really interesting idea to play with the idea when it comes to prejudice that while there are some who are in a discriminated against minority who can find a way to operate quite successfully in a prejudiced society, there are always others that can’t. If you take the X-men to represent LGBTQ+ communities – there’ll always be a Wolverine. In this clunky analogy the successful handsome gay businessman, happily married who presents a very conventional lifestyle. But then there’s also those who can’t make that leap into mainstream acceptance, because of the very nature of who they are.

Linving in New York, I imagine Claremont was already aware in the Eighties of the way certain elements of marginalised groups were heading into the mainstream. Leaving others deemed too different behind. It’s just a shame that the Morlocks never really explore this idea – they never move beyond their very basic set-up. And then – as we’ll find oujt in a bit – they get wiped out.

Fun Panel

Cool team shot with cool powers visualisation!

Thoughts

And so this four part mini series stumbles to an end, with a final issue very much like the previous one. Not really any sort of plot – just Cockrum winging it, running through a collection of half ideas. Stringling them together to get to the page count. It’s such a shame after the fun of the first two issues that it ends like this. There are plenty of Errol Flynn / pulp sci-fi stories that you could have stretched voer four issues, ending in this one with Nightcrawler having defeated the evil threat to Swashbuckleland, made a whole host of interesting friends and having won the heart of a princess. (only to be teleported home at the end!)

I guess it might have been that Cockrum thought such a tale would be too predicatable, and so deliberately changed things up. But even then there really isn’t *anything* to these last two issues that make that change seem worth it. There are ways, I think, it could have gone. Return To Oz was a film around this time, bringing Dorothy back to a land much changed since our last visit. Maybe go down that route with Ktty’s Fairy Tale – return to the fantasy world decades later, when things are darker and much has changed.

(although, Return To Oz sunk at the box office so it might have been wise to avoid that route)

Anyway – there are moments in this that have ideas I would have loved to have seen more off. The adventures of tiny Bamf could have held up an issue on its own, and Cockrum really captures their fun, mischeavious quality.

Cockrum does have quite a thing, however, for having his lead surrounded by women. All of whom are quite utterly desperate for him. It was pretty much the plot of the Bizarre Adventures story this refers back to. And here he gets surrounded by lady Nightcrawlers who all want him. Before he returns to the world of sexy women who call him God. It’s such a weird repeating idea – a very unsexy horniness running through the story, and again there’s no real pay off to it.

In the end its a shame. Nightcrawler is a great character – possibly mt favourite X-man. There is so much about him that could sustain a great story. But this collection of half ideas strung together just isn’t it.

Fun Panel

The last through pages of this book sees Nightcrawler leaping from universe to universe, for no reason other than to give Cockrum more odd, fun things to draw. It’s a good job he does make them fun. Its a mini Cross Time Caper years before Nightcralwer is to go on an epic one!

It was a Product of its Time

Actually one thing that was disappointing about this mini once I’d finished is how it leaves things at the end of Issue 2. In all its swashbuckling excitement we get a fun world, fun villain and fun princess. Nightcrawler is whisked away at the end but given that the Princess is left along, heartbroken and at the mercy of rather creepy boggies, the natural inclination is to think Kurt’s coming back to rescue her.

Only he doesn’t. This is the last we see of her. At the time it probably seemed like a slightly lecherous gag. It has not aged well, and while a lot of the bizarre horniness of this title is just odd uncle being a bit weird, this lands worse than that. Which you would hope they wouldn’t do nowadays.

Thoughts

The wheels come off the miniseries here. Up till now we’ve been enjoying a rollicking swashbuckling adventure and than suddenly the whole thing inexplicably transforms into Return To Kitty’s Fairy Tale. From the first panel and the return of the dimuintive Nightcrawler “Bamfs” (not to be confused with the previous issues diminitive Nightcrawler “Boggies”) this issue seems to entirely consist of running through all the elements from that earlier issue.

And while I enjoy that issue, its charms were in its unpredictability – the silly unexpected fun it had in reinventing the characters and concepts the main title was playing with. To just have an issue that exists just to say “remember that character you enjoyed before? Well, here it is again!” is a disappointment.

If anything, it feels like a fan convention for the earlier issue. All the elements are there -adnthey’re put in front of us for us to celebrate. There just isn’t really any story for them to do. But just to look at them, lined up. On stage.

It really does feel that Cockrum had run out of story after two issues and is just putting in crowdpleasing filler from an issue he enjoyed drawing and that fans keep telling him they love. I guess if you were one of those fans who wanted more, this is the issue for you. It just seemed underwhelming for me wanting more Kurt swashbuckling action.

Fun Panel

Well, it made me laugh!

Thoughts

Swashes continie to be brilliantly buckled in this series – as Nightcrawler does all the things you’d hope Nightcrawler would do. He duels, he romances – if there had been a chandalier in the room he’d have undoubtedly swung on it.

You know the drill of course – Nightcrawler’s gonna get the girl, kill the baddie and save the entire planet. There’s enough action to keep you thrilled as it goes through all these predictable stage.

One striking thing about Kurt Wagner though is that he’s sexy. But he’s sexy in a matinee idol way. There’s a degree of titilation here, but nothing that would shock the vicar. A gag where his costume vanishes is about as sexy as it comes, occuring as it does all off-panel. There’s a cheekiness to it, that feels like to would belong in the media of another era. His sexiness is never dull, but it’s also very safe.

Fun Panel

The moment you see the great cover on this, you’ll think “I’m gonna pays me money to see fighting”. And you get your money’s worth!

Thoughts

A lot feels like it has changed in the X-universe since Dave Cockrum last worked in it. The main X-men title – with Smith and then Romita Jr on art – has embraced an eighties aesthetic, both in fashion and panel dynamism. While in the sister title, Sienkiewicz is bringing experimental art to the table.

So the immediate feeling when you start reading Nightcrawler is that it has almost a retro feel to it. Even though it was only a few years ago this was the main art on the title, it feels like taking a giant leap back.

BUT then, as you read the issue, you start to be reminded of all the great things about Cockrum’s art. The dynamic ships and the intriguing alien character designs. And one of his greatest creation – Nightcrawler – is thrown into a universe with all of this – and more.

So while at first the art style might jar – but the end I am loving this comic.

Fun Panel

Beautiful alien floating ship needed? Better Call Cockrum.

Any Googling

As frequently happens on this readthrough – the appearance of a reference to another comic leads me into a google search to find out more. Here the editor points out that Nigthcrawler had a previous adventure in “Bizarre Adventures” – a black and white bi-monthly title that Marvel produced without limiting themselves to Superhero content.

Diggout out the story reveals a very strange affair where Nightcrawler and the Vanisher – both teleporting heroes – find themselves in a universe of almost exclusively females. Who want to screw them loads. Nightcrawler being Nightcrawler decides he does need to head back to our universe. Although, curious, remarks that he hopes one day to return.

Nightcrawler is a surprisingly sexy character, a swashbuckling charmer who nonetheless has the heart of a nice Sunday school teacher. It’s therefore incredibly odd to have him dropped into the comci equivalent of a sci-fi soft porn storyline. That doesn’t really go anywhere. Maybe there’s an X-rated cut of this hidden in the old Marvel building where Cockrum got to tell the horny story he really wanted to here?

Thoughts

The Legion three-parter comes to a close, ending what has been the best story so far in the Sienkiewicz run, which probably means it is also the best New Mutants story so far too.

The art continues to be visually stunning – surreal flourishes and genuinely vast dark imagery continue. But its Claremont’s writing that also makes this story. It has a neat twist, which I will admit I didn’t see coming and everything builds to a grim concluision that feels satisfying as an ending, without seeming pat and easy.

Fun Panel

Team shots are always great in my book. And Xavier, two exes, some New Mutants and two of Legion’s personalities flying through his nightmare mindscape is the sort of image (and sentence) that only works in comics.

It was a Product of its Time

I wish it was to be honest. It feels depressing reading this story – so rooted in violence in Israel and Palestine and think that things are just the same nowadays.

Thoughts

An sbsolutely corking mind-melt of a psychedelic adventure – this is an issue that delivers and really demonstrates why you’d bring an artist likke Siekiewicz onto the book.

The horror from the last issue is upped into a nightmare as the heroes find themselves trapped in David’s damaged psyche. The art switches effortlessly from the elegantly simple surreal to bleak vast landscapes – representing very different types of nightmare.

If I have one minor quibble it is that Xavier goes from genius to moron in the space of a page. Firstly accurately diagnosing what’s up with David, which given what he’s been shown so far, is a leap of genius. A detailed (and accurate) diagnosis that comes out of nowwhere.

Then a page later, absolute refusal to admit the obvious that the kid is his son. Xavier, you dumb schmuck.

But this is minor – to be honest I’m only mentioning it because I need to find something to write. Because if I focused on all that’s good today’s blog would just be me writing SIENKIEWICZ IS AWESOME over and over again.

Fun Panel

Such a brilliant, surreal nightmare landscale. SIENKIEWICZ IS AWESOME! (repeat x 2000)

Thoughts

We’re back intoi the Sienkiewicz Era of New Mutants and possibly the most iconic story of his tenure as artist. The character of Legion is introduced here, in a story that has a brilliantly compelling dark tone. It has moments of real horror where the mystery and inexplicable events in the writing match the twisted and unsettling art. Best summed up in the page below that’s just awesome.

Proteus gets mentioned here and its intersting to compare and contrast these set-up issues. Both are tales of children that have become horrors. But whereas the earlier story fitted well into the sort of horror around in the late sixties and seventies – there’s something Doctor Who like in the way Proteus murders – this issue is more visually striking. Almost Lynchian.

Whereas the moment Proteus finally breaks reality is presented as terrifying because of how “realisitc” everything before it looked, this story opens in a much more unsettling reality, and then doesn’t let up on the uncanny. As the adults talk about the dangerous child, the sense of an unknown threat

Fun Panel

I feel mean picking this out, not least because there’s great art in this issue but this is just strking for all the wrong reasons!

None More Claremont

The return of Gabrielle Haller forces Claremont to confront the incredibly icky nature of their “romance”. I think Claremont is trying to have his cake and eat it, acknowledging the problemlatic nature but then trying to gloss over it by insisting that in this case it was ok. I don’t really buy that but I guess its a good sign that he felt the need to try.