I am so digging Romita Jr’s art in this readthrough – and, I mean, you open this issue and get confronted by this brilliant panel. Absolutely textbook example on how to get a reader excited by the comic.
And yet again Claremont’s writing reminds me – in the best possible way – of modern TV writing. There’s an incredibly well-written sequence of pages as the X-men, just trying to mind their own business at the mansion, learn one-by-one that the Juggernaut is back. It gives all the characters a beautiful few panels of character. Illustrated like fine direction. You could put this sequence in a modern TV show and it would not look out of place at all.
We also get a nice little cutaway developing Storm’s return to Africa. Again – in the world of modern comics this would all be its own spin-off. Having it be its own plot in the main comic is another link to modern TV dramas like Game of Thrones.
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Nevermind a team shot – here’s Rogue/Nightcrawler/Colossus combined. Its a shame that they don’t do this more often with her powerset.
Any Googling
I’ve mentioned a few times the way that the X-universe, over the course of several titles, is integrating Rachel. What’s interesting is that parallel to that they are also bringing Nimrod into the tale.
They do seem to be running in parallel, deliberately, but I couldn’t recall them ever really leading to a conclusion. A google search suggests they don’t. It’s interesting whether there were plans – a Rachel antagonist to be central to her storyline that never really materialised.
The google search also highlighted that the character has quite a long history and is still important to the comic. Which is interesting because I don’t think its that interesting a character. Fantastic design, though
And so this two-parter comes to the incredibly shocking conclusion that the seeming paradise the two super hero teams have discovered is no such thing, and that the characters will all have to reaccept the flaws they thought they had lost.
Sarcasm aside, the issue makes a pretty good job of telling the story of how the characters get to the inevitable conclusion. Of course there are arguments, a bit of a slugfest and then the heroes doing the right thing. All to thwart the machinations of Loki.
Loki’s inclusion is quite odd, because in all honesty this never really feels like an Asgardian story. It doesn’t really use much of the Marvel Universe’ Asgardian mythos – and the big epic Gods to the Gods that leap out the machine to fix things are so generic that they could be anyone.
Indeed Claremont has something of a soft spot for the bsasic story of someone incredibly powerful using the X-men to get something done, because for all their power they know there are even Greater Gods they are wary of. Loki, here, needs the heroes to do what he wants so he can get a reward. But thanks to the X-men thwarting him, the Super Duper Super High Powers reject him. It feels an odd victory for the underdogs when they rely on the Absolute Overdogs to get by, but it feeds quite nicely into keeping the team streetlevel.
And yet again – we have another big hint that Northstar’s gay. It’s frustrating to read in a way because the comic can’t do anything with it. The Comics Code won’t allow it. Which is a shame because there feels like an interesting story to be told between these two characters now that Rogue knows the truth and is symapthetic. A story that could see two people help each other come to terms with their identities. Such a shame this route couldn’t be taken.
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Defiant Wolvie with a Dragon. So cool.
None More Claremont
An absolutely highpoint of the issue is in the final few pages where Rachel finally has a one-to-one encounter with her Dad. Cyclops does not know that Rachel is his daughter from an alternate future timeline, and Rachel has struggled with how to deal with that. The conversaiton unfolds nicely, but the beautiful subtle peak of it is Rachel’s simple “I’m not going to tell him” thought bubble underscoring her words to him.
It’s so well executed visually. Her inner thoughts accompanying her words, a major moment underplayed, yet capturing the moment of relief she must feel. The burden of needing to tell him is gone. Fantastic stuff.
This is a two-issue miniseries that brings back two things I love – the art of Paul Smith and the Canadian super-team Alpha Flight. As is the case in the main title, it also plays with a large array of X-characters from across the title’s continuity. Scott Summers is back, living his Alaskan pilot life with Maddie Pryor. Illyana and Doug Ramsey from the New Mutants also show up.
That’s not all, though, with Scott and Maddie kidnapped while flying a plan – the small number of crew and passengers on the plane also ket swiftly defined as characters. And if that wasn’t a lot already, Loki and Asgardian mythology turn up here too.
Claremont is a skilled enough writer to keep all these strands going alongside each other. The new characters get drawn in broad strokes, but this efficiently gets us up to speed with the essential qualities they have for the story. I’ve not been reading Byrne’s Alpha Flight alongside this project, but that did not mean I felt lost reading this. Again, there’s an effortlessness with how Claremont fills the reader in on where all these Canadian characters are in their lives (and their own title right now).
Given the differences between the two men at this point – it must have been a challenge for Marvel editorial to have got Byrne to accept Claremont getting to play with the characters he was writing for on the Alpha Flight title. But Claremont does a great job with them – I think. The brief mentions of their issues/problems makes me intrigued to want to read that title. And new characters like Puck and Talisman seem instantly intriguing. It must have been a great advert for the other book.
Alongside the writing, though there’s the art. And what a joy it is. Paul Smith really makes it all seem so easy, from the detailed, emotional realism of close-up personal moments…
… to the epic Asgardian psychedelic freakouts. It’s all great.
The story itself sets up the idea that this magical place can “cure” the team of all that ails them. I’ve read enough of these stories to already know how this is going to end. But all the factors given above mean I still enjoyed the ride despite knowing where it is going.
Fun Panel
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
There’s something contrived about the early pages – where Rachel goes off to fight Alpha Flight because shes convinced they did something to her dad. It’s never entirely clear why she would think this so absolutely. The whole fight does feel like padding – if only the two groups would spend a few seconds it will all be sorted. Because simply any one of them would be able to notice that none of this is making much sense.
It was a Product of its Time
Missing out on reading the main Alpha Flight title, I don’t really know where it was with the Northstar being gay. Claremont does what you’d expect – dropping hints to it without ever being explicit. Of course, now we all know this was the intent, the characterisation of Northstar as an arrogant, unhappy loner feels a bit too close to lazy cliches of closeted characters. It’s a feature, and a flaw, of some of Marvel’s attempts to be progressive. You can’t help but feel glad they tried – even if the execution is just too close to Conservative stereotypes.
Claremont returns to his equivalent of Paul McCartney’s “Granny Music” – an insanely twee and shamelessly populist return to a storytime fairy tale. It had worked when Kitty did it way back in Issue 153 so why not have another go at this format?
And yet… I’ll defend Claremont’s touches of twee quite a bit but this issue doesn’t quite work. In attempting to recapture the magic of Kitty’s Fairy Tale, it instead just makes that issue seem all the more precious. Because this issue has all the same elements – but it’s not enough. The whole thing just doesn’t quite come together.
It’s quite hard to put my finger on why it doesn’t work. I think part of it is that this is an Annual and so the tale has to fill a lot more pages. There isn’t enough to the central gag to really sustain that.
Also I think you’re fighting against the fact that the comic feels very different now. It has developed in depth and tone. Trying to re-tell recent story concepts in such a twee comedy form feels more jarring. Whereas previously the reworking of the main characters as infantile, fairy-tale tropes felt like a neat gag – here it only delivers less interesting variants of the characters we’re getting increasingly to care for.
There is a lot of fun in its space-sci-fi setting, but again, the X-men have adventured for real in this world. This feels like a more childish, two dimensional take on a type of adventure the X-men actually have. And finally there was something rather beautiful in the way Kitty’s Fairy Tale gave all the readers a likeable insight into the newest member of the team. And the context made a lot of sense – it was for a very small child.
Here Illyana’s storytelling doesn’t really tell us anything about Illyana – we’re not charmed by her naive youthful charm that glows out of Kitty’s story. Instead Illyana just feels like someone telling a tale round the campfire. And ultimately it never feels like a tale anyone would tell their contemporaries round a campfire. Its not funny enough to be a comic tale, and not narratively strong enough to hold such an audience’s attention. It just feels like an in-joke.
Claremont does use the extended page count to spend a bit more time with characters after the story. And we get a post-breakup reconciliation between Colossus and Shadowcat. It’s a nice understated moment that they both needed to share.
Overall a flawed experiment. It’s telling that after this Claremont doesn’t really go back to the Fairy Tale within a Tale format again. It was too well suited to just one time and place.
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Steve Leialoha’s art has its OTT excesses which do throw me out the book a couple of time – but elsewhere in the same comic it has some wonderfull beautiful, colourful moments that suit the issues tone.
It was a Product of its Time
In all the in-jokes and rehashes that thie story has, Shadowcat’s costume change gag gets an outing – with new – very eighties outfits designed by one “Trina Robbins”. I wonder whether this was maybe a competition winner but a quick google reveals it was Leialoha’s partner and a comic artist with a considerable underground comics movement background. Also someone so cool as to be referenced in a Joni Mitchell song. The things I am learning doing this blog!
Issue number 193 is an odd place to pick for a special. It says a lot about how much the relaunched X-men title was seen as its own success that one hundred issues after it restarted it gets a special.
It’s a great issue too. Thunderbird returns – or rather his younger brother does – out for revenge for his brother that died 99 issues ago. It makes sense that a warped sense of macho honour is driving on the younger brother, given that this was what killed the first Thunderbird – but it is a little shame that there isn’t more to the character. This feels like the start of a story for the character – but as the Hellions aren’t ever going to get their own title – we’re unlikely to see it anytime soon.
But another fun aspect of this issue is that it returns us to a story those early issues did so well – the X-men besieging an enemy base. It has all the hallmarks of Claremont’s skill in this mini-genre, it’s inventive and all the little plot strands as the attack goes on keep things gripping.
The special is also meant to the change the status quo of the X-men, they’re now outlaws due to attacking an army base. We’ve sort of been here before and it doesn’t really work – falling foul of the fact that if a few important heroes just talked to each other after the end of the issue this could be resolved really quickly. But there’s a bigger picture here, the extent to which Mutant heroes are outsiders – outlaws even – is going to be pushed heavily going forward. It needs a set-up here, in an anniversary issues. And lets just assume that they just won’t all talk to each other because … reasons.
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Of course there’s going to be a great Wolverine issues for the celebratory issue of the comic that made him famous!
Any Googling
There’s a pleasing amount of Hellions appearing in this issue. As someone who would have loved them to have launched a Hellions title during this era, I’m enjoying seeing a few of these characters again. And taking on the X-men too.
And then… Firestar appears. Firestar from the cartoon! Not only that but she drops in as if it is in the middle of some larger story. I wasn’t aware there was one, so thought I’d look online for more info.
To my surprise I discovered that there was indeed a limited series around this time. Designed to bring the character into the Marvel comics universe. Looked interesting, so decided to check it out.
Very happy I did! But this is a surprisingly full mini-series. Or at least given that its chock full of Hellions Action, definitely something in my wheelhouse. It’s an especially odd seriesin its treatment of the events in this X-men issue (which was, Google tells me, her first ever appearance in Marvel comics continuity). They don’t follow on from it – or they aren’t a story set before it. The events of this X-men issue take place about halfway through the miniseries. After her discovery of mutant powers and joining Emma Frost’s Academy, but before the last two issues which see her defeating the White Queen.
I enjoyed this discovery a lot – indeed if I had known and read this title before embarking on this project I probably would have included these issues in the running narrative. It’s got a nice tone and some fun art. And the political machinations of the Hellfire club, and Firestar discovering this world and rejecting it, all makes for a great story.
It does rather gloss over Empath’s decidedly icky power set being abused in the way he does it. Sure, Firestar ultimately defeats it but I am surprised this isn’t more of a comeuppance for the character. The last few issues have demonstrated that Claremont does have a sharply honed idea of consent – but this doesn’t carry over to DeFalco’s script.
But back on the plus side, I do enjoy Mary Wilshire’s colourful art and, of course, MOAR HELLIONS!!
Back on the Main Title, and its striking how this comic has evolved. This issue contains all the hallmarks of the era. The appearance of Warlock’s Dad ties the title in closely with the developments in New Mutants. We get more detail about Rachel’s background and her story, incrementally revealed in the issue without really being the story. The melodramatic stories of major characters tick along nicely and it all leads to a dramatic finale.
Its very much a comic comprised of lots of lovely little moments for many of the characters. Without ever really adding up to a story. Even Warlock’s Dad – who the cover would suggest is the main antagonist – turns up without it leading to any sort of resolution. Of course, you’d expect that in the pages of New Mutants but it makes this issue such an oddity that nothing really gets resolved. Rather than a beginning, middle and end – its all middle, middle, middle. Which is something that Claremont often got accused of – especially with his long arcs – but so far hasn’t really been the case.
The epilogue though is where this broadly lightweight issue suddently comes crashing into a dark grimness. The sequence is genuinely shocking, forming a great cliffhanger.
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Romita Jr does a really excellent job with Warlock. I’ve said before – he’s a character who conceptually seems tailor-made for a universe illustrated by Sienkiewicz, but Romita Jr makes him fit his style very well.
Romita Jr’s style also works in the build-up to the reveal of the villain. Stuff that has been effectively killed by Warlock’s Dad – transformed into lifeless statues – hit home given the more realistic style of the art. This is recognisable stuff, but something is wrong.
None More Claremont
There’s an interesting sequence here – where Nightcrawler suffers the consequences of not respecting Rogue’s boundaries. A point she has to properly lay the law down over.
This seems so incrediblhy modern now – Nightcrawler’s “fun” ignoring of Rogue’s boundaries and then the consequences. It’s a moment that has aged incredibly well.
An interesting miniseries comes to its conclusion here. And while the ending is nothing earthshattering and pretty predictable it is still enjoyable enough.
Milgrom’s art handles the fighting well, if it sometimes does feel a bit rushed and cartoony. Actually the latter isn’t really a criticism. There is a Saturday morning cartoon vibe to a lot of the action here, but Saturday morning cartoons were often tremendous fun and this taps into that nicely.
It’s perhaps churlish to complain about the predictability of the happy ending – where everything unfolds exactly as you’d expect. Not least because it does feel great that Kitty has had this adventure and has earned a happy ending that really fits the character. The more I think about it, the more I probably wouldn’t want anything too twisting or dark n gritty. A YA-pitched Happy Ending fits just right.
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Like I said, Saturday Morning Cartoon Action!
If anyone asks, I’m spending the rest of my day composing the theme music to this cartoon. I can think of plenty of rhymes for Kitty Pryde but what rhymes with Wolverine?
One thing that modern TV dramas seem to have forgotten is that while its all well and good to tell a big epic long-running story, episodes themselves need to work as episodes – there needs to be a structure and a story and a resolution within the single episode – even if the resolution is a cliffhanger and much of the story helps develop longer arcs.
This is why, I think, Wandavision works better than Hawkeye when it comes to the MCU TV output. The former has a great overall story, but also each of the episodes has their own feel, their own story to tell. Whereas the latter has a number of interesting overarching plots and each episode just feels more like 45 minutes-ish of moving along a few of them.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the stuff in Hawkeye was great but it suffers from losing sight of the advantages of having an episodic format.
This is a long-winded way of introducing the point that this mini-series has really won me over in part because each issue is a satisfying issue in itself, has its own feel and yet slots nicely within a greater plot being told.
All of them cover an aspect or idea within the story – and its testament to how well they do it that it frequently leads me wanting more. I want more of Kitty adventuring, I want more of evil Kitty, I want more of evil Kitty v Wolverine. But this series never dwells too long on any one of these. Its racing through the ideas with a brilliant pace.
So this issue is all about newly ninja-fied Kitty seeking revenge on those who corrupted her. Its a great little action issue for her, and it nicely calls back to issue one to show how this adventuring Kitty has changed. (and also how she has saved who she is).
Another interesting parallel with modern TV is that while this is fun to binge in a single sitting – I think it would be a more enjoyable episodic experience reading it monthy. Each issue a satisfying new step on the journey.
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I do feel guilty now with some of my snarky comments on Milgrom’s art early on. He’s really come into his own by this issue. Fun, colourful and dynamic. And this nice reflective moment calling back to the issue 1 I was too harsh on.
None More Claremont
And so Kitty Pryde – having bounced through a few names so far and seemingly settle on just being Kitty Pryde finally gets a name that sticks. Shadowcat is the name that she will use for the rest of the Claremont run and is still associated with the character. It’s interesting to think whether this in-story issue with names reflected Claremont’s own attempt to find a name that sticks, or whether Shadowcat was devised quite early and we’ve built up to it.
Also Claremont highlights his skills writing for the character in this issue. Her becoming Shadowcat feels like a name that will stick because it feels like the character has earned it, they’re adopting a mantle not accepting a codename. And its a name that – having followed Kitty for so many issues now – that fits the character.
Also bonus points that, in resisting this takeover, Claremont is still avoiding his Clive Barker-lite “body and soul” stuff. In context that would probably just be too icky here. Instead its a teenage girl being defiant, and it lands effectively
After the cliffhanger at the end of last issue – this next one crashes into the story somewhere very different. Indeed for a second it feels like the reader might have missed an issue.
Watching modern streaming dramas it feels almost the norm for new episodes to open playing with time, and leaping into the story this way feels very current. That said – it doesn’t quite pay-off when it comes to the flashbacks to tell us exactly what happened in the moments after the end of last issue. It’s almost as if this is a sequence that would work so much better on a TV show than in a comic.
It’s also a slight shame we didn’t get more of Evil Kitty. Her brief period as a zealous ninja is almost immediately reversed. That said, there is a lot to enjoy in Wolverine and Kitty interacting here. It’s effectively a deprogramming, and its nicely played. Both characters feel real, and its nice how visually inventive the issue is when it happens.
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More Milgram fun – with a nice change of style when Logan tells a story.
The cover is no lie here – in this issue Wolverine fights the Converted Kitty. Its a nice sequence, not least because it really feels like the bad guys have spotted a real weakness in Logan. He will struggle when confronted by a friend – especially if the friend is a kid.
In fact – readers rarely see Wolverine as wrong-footed as he is here. Normally his obstacles are being up against – being up against impossible foes and grimly persevering. But here he’s shocked and to some extent clueless. It’s nice to see the character taken to a new place.
Alongside the big front cover title fight – there’s a nice little subplot for Yukio here. As Wolverine’s Manic Pixie Dream Ninja she often seems a little too conveniently the perfect love that cannot be. So its nice to see her get her own subplot – and at least enjoy her reckless adventuring without it coming with declaration for love for Logan.
The X Marathon 