Thoughts

Comedy is subjective. And the same applies, I think, to zaniness in comics.

Marvel Annuals always seemed to exist slightly outside the usual run on the title. And sometimes this meant that they could be used to do something different. This is certainly the case here. The main title has just seen the “From The Ashes” saga, which saw genuine peril and genuine emotional consequences for many of the main characters. The same is also true for the recent Wolverine mini-series.

It’s not true here. A tale of a crazy super-powerful alien racing through the Marvel Universe, episodically picking up items its after – this feels like a story that exists to embrace wackiness and fun. It succeeds. Sort of.

While I enjoy the playful nature of the issue – for my money its just not funny enough. And if you’re an issue that exists to be wacky and playful, that’s a real shame. All too often what could be funny just feels self-indulgent. Also if you become so wacky that nothing appears to have any real consequences for the characters, it takes away one of the key charms of reading a run on a comic.

For me personally, this level of wackiness does need anchors in the reality of the characters and the threats posed by their universe. I appreciate that might sound weird when talking about a super hero comic book – but I do think its important when it comes to making playful stories work. Only a brief trip to the Hellfire Club brings any of this to the issue, and its completely inconsequential to the story being told here.

This feels like an early precursor to both the Mojoverse and then Claremont’s run on Excalibur – both of which add just enough darkness and reality to the mix. Having it act as a grounding from which the playfulness can soar.

Fun Panel

There’s a long list of artists/inkers who worked on this issue – suggesting a hurried production schedule (as does the fact that Claremont adopts his frequent trick of telling longer story in “chapters” only for this structure to fall apart half way through). But this panel is worth it! Micheal Golden drew it, Bob Wiacek inked it, Glynis Wein coloured it. Plus it features a Nightcrawler.

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

Another product of the hurried production is seeing Cyclops on the cover, taking on the antagonist of the issue. And yet he’s nowhere to be seen inside having already left the title.

Any Googling

You can’t read an extended block of Marvel comics in this era without starting to come across injokes and direct references to those working there at the time. Chris Claremont and John Byrne had on-panel cameos, as did Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

But this issue takes it further by basically featuring the Marvel offices, for a feast of injokes about the staff there. It’s all absurdly self-indulgent although I will say that in the days before the internet – this (and any profiles on the Bullpen page) was the only way I had to get an inkling of what the folk who worked on the comic looked like. So at the times, these cameos at least felt somewhat intriguing.

Now with the internet, its easy to find out so much about everyone working on the title – and official and unofficial newsites keep you up to speed with a lot of what goes on. But back then, this is the best we had.

None More Claremont

Another baseball game. Although, to be honest, these are turning up a lot less frequently than I thought they would. I’m beginning to suspect that the cliche of the X-men Play Baseball may be more of a post-Claremont thing.