Thoughts

The X-men go on the offensive against the Hellfire Club, and walk straight into a trap.

As ever Claremont scripts inventive fights – and in this case not only does he have another team of supervillains and their powers to play with – in this case Shaw, Leland and Pierce of the Hellfire Club – but he also gets to show the X-men getting absolutely walloped. The cover in this instance is no hyperbole, its basically the plot of the issue.

More crucially when it comes to the bigger Dark Phoenix story arc this is the moment where Jean Grey embraces her Black Queen alter ego and sides with the villains. It’s a fun twist in this issue, and Byrne gives the Black Queen a nice gallery of “evil faces” as she sides with the villains.

Does Jean Grey’s turn to the Dark Side make sense? This is a cruel and wicked Jean, clearly enjoying being a villain. The basis of this is not mind control, but something she has embraced, the end result of two key emotional drivers. The first is her increasingly coming to terms with the scale of her powers – this has been cleverly teased over a number of issues now. Jean “fixes” Kitty’s parents opposition to her joining the Xavier Academy, while telekinetically showing off her ability to transform her look. She’s enjoying this power.

This doesn’t amount to wickedness, though. The other key driver on that score is her passionate desire for Wyngarde. From the outset, their timeslip encounters have been about as clearly a sexual relationship that the Comics Code could allow. Jean is indulging a fantasy life, free from the rules of society, where she can indulge her power and sexual desire free from the confines of morality.

This raises a question as to whether there’s been anything in the portrayal of Jean in the comics thus far that would indicate that she would have such a secret fantasy. And on a storytelling level I think its fair to say that there hasn’t been. There’s not been a single hint that I can see in the earlier issues – Jean’s a pretty two-dimensional well-behaved token female on the team for far too many issues.

But I don’t think this is a fatal flaw. Its not a huge leap to suggest that just because we never saw anything that remotely hinted at it when following her adventures as the token female on a team of boy scouts that it wasn’t there. Indeed, I think you can make the narrative justification that, of course, she wouldn’t reveal that side of herself. Socially it just wasn’t acceptable.

The sequence where Wyngarde points out that he had been all the friendly strangers Jean encountered while travelling after believing Scott to be dead suddenly makes a lot more sense. From the friendly vicars, to the young lovers – its credible that he would have learnt more about her than she had revealed to her friends (or on-panel in their adventures) and discovered that she had exactly this fantasy around power and corruption.

So, on balance, I do buy the embrace of the wicked side. And it makes for quite a cliffhanger.

Fun Panel

The defeat of the X-men in this issue does have a final caveat. A thrilling final panel.

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

The revelation that Wyngarde has been Mastermind all along is an odd moment. Why does he suddenly show his true face when he never has had before? I guess its a spot of super villain gloating, but there’s something about the fact that we’ve seen Wyngarde as Wyngarde many times now, removed from the context of affecting Jean’s fantasies. His whole appearance seems to be a permanent illusion he’s sustaining even when there are no minds to warp into seeing him in his handsome form. Unless, of course, he’s also warping the minds of the Reader. Uh-oh.

We’re also told this issue that the White Queen committed suicide after her confrontation with Phoenix in the last issue. Rather than what was implied at the time that Phoenix killed her, or at least she died in the fight when things got out of hand. I’m guessing they decided a Phoenix murder at this stage wouldn’t quite work with the trajectory they wanted the story to take, so changed her demise in the recap. There’s another in-story explanation though – Phoenix has lied to Cyclops, given what its eventually revealed did happen. But that’s another story…

None More Claremont

Being owned “body and soul” is going to become something of a Claremont staple, and this is its first really big outing. Jean Grey is owned by Mastermind “body and soul” and dresses in an iconically BDSM outfit. This is something that Claremont comes back to time and again – taking the overt use of sexual imagery in comics, especially women – and taking it to tell stories where the sexual is an intrinsic component.

I think there is definitely something hit and miss about the execution, or that it isn’t always quite as progressive as Claremont hoped, but its definitely an integral feature of his era.

Mutant Mailbag Mayhem

Another insight into plans that never materialised in this months letters page. Brian M Kane from 142 Altman Rd, Jeannette suggests that the X-men go to Russia. Claremont replies that the X-men will be going there soon. Maybe next fall.

Was this still a Claremont/Byrne planned storyline? Did they intend to explore Colossus’ apparently dead brother? Would be interesting to find out why this never happened.