The X Marathon

Thoughts

The last issue ended with a great cliffhanger, and there’s a nice resolution to it here and Claremont brings together all his magical X-characters to the fight with – well – its never really defined.

Claremont has been pushing the darkness in his various Hells. From the rather classical firepits of Belasco to more twisted and nightmarish Hells. Such as this one where some sort of horrible, vague Lovecraftian *thing* emerges and threatens to take over the Earth.

Of course, these takes on Hell are going to continue in the title, and to some extent get even more disturbing in the run-up to Inferno but its interesting to see these early forays into a Hell that isn’t just Belasco in Dante’s Inferno.

Illyana Rasputin turns up, as does Amanda Sefton – and the issue presents us with a nice reveal to Colossus as to what his younger sister actually is now. Boith Illyana and Amanda Sefton seem exciting characters in this – obviously relatable humans with dark/wizarding powers but its hard to see how the title can justify two of them and its no surprise that its Amanda Sefton that’s going to take a backseat going forward.

It’s also a notable issue for bringing forward a couple of key developments that have brewing over the last couple of issues of both this title and New Mutants. Firstly Rachel joins the X-men. And Magneto is rescued from the sea. These are going to be important plot lines for Claremont going forward and you can see how much potential he sees in both.

Arguably the Rachel storyline never quite gets its due going forward, but at this stage in the tale there seems a lot of fun to be had at this Summers child from an alternate future stuck in the present.

And as a sucker for original team shots – I love this one!

Fun Panel

Romita Jr delivers another great issue full of dynamic imagery here – but this trippy little sequence still stands out.

Thoughts

After the “love story” of the last issue – this immediate follow-on is an action-packed, monster-loaded thrill of a comic, Die Hard in a Magic Skyscraper as Storm takes on the Dire Wraiths attacking Forge.

The whole issue moves along at a cracking pace, not a panel is wasted as we see the various strands of this skyscraper assault race towards an incredible cliffhanger finale. Even the emotional scene where Storm and Forge meet again is covered in a couple of panels, half of which involve them holding awesome guns for some reason. No, actually, I’ll tell you the reason. Because it looks great and fits an issue that doesn’t scrimp on the action.

Fun Panel

While Paul Smith’s reinvention of Storm was initially striking, it really is John Romita JR that is making the character come alive as a dynamic hero. Given that we know Storm has lost her powers, there’s a risk that she’d be left out of the high stakes action going forward. Or her “powerlessness” would be fudged to allow her to play a part as her team mates take on Gods. But neither really happens. She’s presented as smart and resourceful, with the scope for mistakes but with a reason why she’d take risks. I love reading these action panels.

Any Googling

The first collection edition I had that included this issue became very odd at this point. Primarily because Marvel had lost the rights to ROM at this point and so had to be creative with the presentation on the reprints, omitting the mention of ROM.

Which, of course, begs the question who the f*** is ROM? Originally a toy designed by Parker Brothers (and subsequently acquired by HASBRO), ROM was a Robotic spacenight action figure. That doesn’t seem to have done very well as a toy.

However the Marvel series done in conjunction with the toy seems to have held up slightly better. And from that series come his enemies – the Dire Wraiths. It does seem an odd rival to have – no Dire Wraith toys were launched with ROM at the time. And they’re a surpisingly dark foe for an action figure. Although their murderous stealing of souls, with all the Clive Barker-lite talk of taking over their souls is catnip for Claremont so they fit into this title quite nicely.

In fact its a shame they don’t really do much beyond this story. Elements of their nature keep being dropped in this issue in a way that it utterly bamoozling. They seem to change form to pterodactyl style birds (even Google couldn’t furnish me with a good explanation for that one!) and have a taste for magic. And then just when this nonsense seems to becoming overwhelming, they suffer a bit of a damp squib defeat.

This X-men comic was published in 1984, so when Marvel was running with the ROM title. But this doesn’t really seem like a crossover with barely any mention of it and certainly no promotion of the characters own title even as the X-men defeat his foes (and a hologram of the hero makes an appearance). The ROM comic itself was to last till 1986, which, having started in 1979 seems like a good innings for a title based on a failed toy.

Thoughts

The Sienkiewicz era as artist on New Mutants is a curious thing. Obviously its most famous for his striking artistic style, bringing scratchy, surreal images into a mainstream Marvel comic. And yet, for all its uniqueness, it also introduces a surprisingly large number of ideosyncratic characters and concepts that seem tailor made for his style. But which go on to become ongoing elements in the whole X-franchise.

Warlock definitely qualifies as one of those. Indeed, possibly, the most surprising. As a character he seems so utterly a Sienkiewiczian creation. A character designed to exist only in the visual world that the guy created. His alien form, forever jarringly thrust into the domestic school setting, is shown to defy visual consistency. From the moment he appears in the title, it feels like he exists to show off the artist. A one-off character that will last only as long as the title is visualised in this way.

And yet Warlock outlasts this era. Other artists, who must have frequently despaired at having to feature such an odd character into panels they wanted to render in a more realistic fashion. But they have to as the character persists. And as even in comics, even death doesn’t stop this oddity returning.

One reason is probably that alongside the look, Claremont creates a character that can work within a team book. The alien outsider that the team bond over befriending and helping. An endearing child-like naivete coupled with tremendous power. These are simple, but effective, character tropes. And Claremont does a very good job in using them to bring Warlock into the book.

There’s an extended party subplot here, that gives the girls on the team some nice moments. Although it is never fully explained quite how the students – cut off as they are in the school – know so many locals. A lot of it seems to be an insuder-cameo fest of Marvel staffers which seems an odd thing to draw into a secret teenager party. Things would be very, very wrong if, say, a Stan Lee appeared in this kid slumber party environment and I’m not sure this is hugely better.

Also Rahne continues to seemingly stay stuck in the shame shy, outcast zone without any real development. Her shyness would have been great for getting empathy from teenage readers but as an adult this rendition really continues to grate.

Fun Panel

Pure Sienkiewicz bliss.

It was a Product of its Time

You would think that one of the key jobs any new artists on New Mutants would have to quickly learn is how to draw a credible Magnum PI. He is such a regular on this book by now. Obviously nobody told Bill.

Alongside Mario PI is a trio that embody the 80s. Grinning man I don’t recognise, maybe Sting and a teenage Michael Jackson impersonator who hasn’t bothered to shave off his fluff moustache. Truly a Mount Rushmore of the times.

Thoughts

Another cracking issue, and its interesting to consider that ever since the return from Secret Wars this has increasingly not functioned as a standard team adventuring book. It’s barely about heroes going on missions at all. It is events that are happening to characters we like.

I’ve raved before about Claremont’s ability to craft “downtime” issues. Single comics where we follow the characters between the adventures as we watch them develop before heading off on another mission. This has some of the elements of that, but its now also fired up by grand plots. Major things are happening in this issue to key characters. Honestly, for me its the best of both worlds and I’m enjoying this re-read tremendously.

Fun Panel

John Romita Jr once again excels with a collection of faces across a number of panels that beautifully capture the emotion of the scene.

Any Googling

This issue has Mystique and Destiny plotting, as ever and its stuff that I always enjoy. But on the reread I noticed that there’s an aside on one of the panels, a reference to a future comic that would tell the story of an encounter between Storm and Mystique.

At the time it took four years for this aside to see publication, but thanks to collected anthologies the meeting can be enjoyed right after finishing this issues.

The little story is striking for quite how absurdly horny it is. It is set in the world of transgressive nightclubs, honing in on both Storm’s new look and countless hints that have been dropped about Mystique and Destiny.

Maybe the extent to which this story delves into this world is the reason for the four year delay? Or maybe the story as originally envisaged just was never completed and it ended up being told when Claremont was increasingly open about sexual imagery and implications.

If this sort of stuff had been the original intent, we’re getting out first glimpses of the direction thats going to take the title all the way to Inferno

Thoughts

Another cracking issue, pulling the format of the team comic in completely new directions. Highlight of it all is how it just drops in brand new ideas, effortlessly expaning the universe. Both in scope of the world the stories can take place in, but also the characters playing a part.

This issue introduces the reader to Forge. Another mutants with the mutant power to pretty much invent anything. From the moment he arrives in the story, its clear he’s someone who doesn’t fit into the easy narrative of X-men Good Guys verses Evil Mutants. He’s a more interesting, complicated character than that.

Alongside Forge, this issue has another go at introducing Rachel Summer. We previously saw her in New Mutants, but that felt confused, lost in an issue where challenging art made it hard to really capture major storytelling introductions.

This issue its handled in a much more conventional way. Which also I think just works better. As with Forge, this issue really lays down the parameters as to who this character is.

Its a fun issue that cracks along at a fine pace even as it introduces all these ideas. There’s a lovely cinematic feel to the imagery and the storytelling, and Claremont especially amps up the threat. It all feels like a big melodramatic story in unfolding in front of the reader, one with many different fascinating characters, some fun sci-fo/fantasy concepts and a Great Death.

Fun Panel

Mystique’s Raven just looks awesome. All the time. I know I am biased but I have quite the crush.

That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense

Entering the X-men Universe from her stint as the evil villain in a New Mutants story, Selene continues to just be insanely. unfathomably powerful. She’s immortal and can control all inanimate matter. Including, we learn here, fire. (the New Mutants run also established she was psychic) This combines the powers of about a dozen awesome hereos, and would give Molecule Man a run for his money. Secret Wars 2 is around the corner, a story that will make a huge play on the fact thats he’s an aburdly powerful character. And yet Selene who has virtually the same powerset nevers gets commented on.

Especially as, beyond her arrogant b-movie villain dialogue, she doesn’t seem to have any fatal flaws. They don’t establish any sort of weakness or limiting factor. Its just an insanely powerful character that nobody ever really admits is insanely powerful.

Speaking of insanely powerful, Selene is so over the top that it takes away from the fact that Forge is also a powerset that becomes more insane the more you think about it. He can make practically *anything*. Its a fun gimmick but really is the power of a God! The story sort of expects us to roll with both of these characters as using their insane powersets just enough to satisfy the level of story being told.

It was a Product of its Time

Quality disco looks abound!

Mutant Mailbag Mayhem

Angry Brian Gliechman is not happy about the idea of someone finding new love. Who hurt you Brian??

Thoughts

The first story of the new New Mutants era comes to an end here – and its a fun conclusion that gives all the team some fun to do.

Indeed from the team fighting point of view, the storytelling is quite typically Claremont. Everyone gets a moment in the fight, and there’s fun to be had with all their powers. I’ve praised a fair few X-men slugfests on this score, and the writing’s still got it here. What is different here is the presentation. What other Marvel title will track the course of the fight via a sketchy doodle map? It’s inventive fun.

That said, it doesn’t quite stick the landing here. The resolution just seems a bit underwhelming. Illyana stabs with it with her soul sword. It’s a shame that this victory doesn’t tie in with the backstory and nature of the Demon Bear.

But then that can’t really happen because right to the end, the Demon Bear just remains a vague threat. Claremont drops some of his epic purple prose about it being an eternal evil on this land, but without context it all feels rather meaningless.

And while the Demon Bear is a suitably unsettling villain, coming to it in the re-read it’s striking how often he looks very much like Warlock. Which detracts from some of the more bestial depictions when he just looks like confused/frightened warlock.

Still this has been a fascinating reinvention for the title, that still maintains its power all these years later.

Fun Panel

Another fine moment where the art just sells the threat and unsettling terror of the Demon Bear.

Any Googling

I do find it frustrating that we don’t get much info on the Demon bear. We learn it possessed Dani’s parents rather than killed them. And that’s it. We don’t learn why it did it, or indeed much at all.

This panel does suggest that this might be a Part One of the bigger story, that things might be continued in another title, in this case Doctor Strange. Indeed, because this story still feels incomplete I convinced myself that much be the case. So I went online to find it. Although it doesn’t seem to exist. Which is very odd indeed.

Thoughts

After a slight incoherent ropey start, this issue is when you really get to see what they are trying to do with the title. It’s dark, its striking. It’s also a lot of fun.

The Demon Bear still doesn’t really make any sense – but its giant amorphous monstrous nature fills this issue, creating a large and unsettling threat. It constantly seems on the verge of breaking out the panels, creating a genuinely thrilling danger.

Claremont’s writing is sharper here too. The issue has a single strong focus, and he delivers a growing sense of unnatural threat. Even though the execution left a lot to be desired, you can see why they went for this for the New Mutants movie.

To work though, I think you need a director capable of capturing this unsettling tone, or presenting kids with a danger that is hard to grasp (and, to be fair, a studio willing to back them. Maybe a David Lynch could have pulled it off but it would always be a challenge.

Speaking of directors, we also get another cameo here. It does seem a bit confused – why Hitchcock? As with the previous issue, there’s something jarring about this. Is it meant to be important? Are we, the reader, missing something to explain why he’s here. I know cameos are fun, but in an issue – and an artistic style – that exists to challenge the reader visually and in terms of storytelling, it runs the risk of feeling like the reader has missed something.

But that’s a minor niggle here.

Fun Panel

An image that really shows the title coming together – this is how its meant to work!

Thoughts

We’re back with the New Mutants, and from the opening panel it’s clear that everything has changed. The conventional art of recent issues is gone. So to has the low level storytelling that seemed designed to force the artists to reign in their stylish flourishes.

Bill Sienkiewicz’s art is still exciting to enjoy today, but its incredible to think how audiences at the time would have taken to it. The X-titles were already a Big Deal in the world of comics. And suddenly Marvel have decided to turn one of them over to images like this:

I do think, though, that thr art sometimes becomes to scratchy for my taste. The inking seems so incredibly heavy that it makes everything seem so much darker than it needs to be. There are beautiful moments of colour that help offset that, but its a mix that still hasn’t been perfected yet. I’m not sure it ever is, although it’ll be interesting reading this to find out.

Alongside the fact that the art can sometimes get difficult to follow, Claremont also isn’t at his surefootedness when it comes to plotting. It’s really hard to grasp some of the key story developments in this issue – and a couple of times it felt like I was the one who had missed something. This is definitely true in relation to the Demon Bear. We’ve had references to a bear that killed Dani’s parents, hints at a bad feeling that something is coming and in the final panel of the last issue an amusingly cuddly rendition of the thing – but the actual fundamental nature of the antagonist, and why it is coming for Dani, hasn’t really been explained.

Of course, good horror can thrive on mystery but all too often it feels like the characters know far more about why this threat is so important and why it is dangerous than we do, which engenders a feeling that we’ve just missed something. And when you get that feeling from a story and the art becomes hard to follow the issue is exacerbated.

Still, this does feel like the shot in the arm the title needed. It was never going to succeed on Team America guest appearances alone!

Fun Panel

Sienkiewicz’s art is rightly famous for its stylistic invention – but he’s also capable of really quite beautiful, simple moments. I love Illyana in this panel – wonderfully expressive and striking.

Any Googling

I mentioned above the problem with Claremont’s storytelling here and I can think of no better example of this than the arrival in present day Marvel of Rachel Summers.

Even with the benefit of having read so many of these titles before, I found myself perplexed by all this. I genuinely felt that I might have missed a chapter somewhere – skipped an important issue as to why she was here. Indeed, I even when to Google to assuage myself that I had not skipped or misread an issue.

It’s such a bizarrely handled introduction for the character who is going to become an important player in X-men stories over the next few years. Still, I do think she’s quite an interesting character, so its fun to see her turn up.

Thoughts

So, the Kitty/Colossus relationship finally comes to an end – at least as far as Claremont is concerned. And for me, it works in the first part of the issue. Colossus breaks up with Kitty, who then goes through all the stages of teenage heartbreak. Crying, while the older, wiser X-men tell her the truth that this will pass, and broken teenage hearts will mend.

And then the issue takes quite a weird turn. Wolverine forces Colossus to the bar. And then gets him beaten up by Juggernaut. Because of his mistreatment of Kitty. The thing is, I don’t think any of this works. I don’t get Wolverine’s point here at all.

It’s understandable that readers who like Kitty Pryde feel sad and angry over the fact she’s heartbroken and being made to cry. It’s a shame they’re breaking up because it will make her cry. BUT its not a shame they’re breaking up because they are kids, with an age gap. They don’t have a romance for the ages, they have a teenage crush. And if Colossus no longer has that crush, its the right thing to do to break up the relationship.

I think what Claremont might be trying to do here is have it both ways. The teenage romance is dying, but Wolverine is suggesting that they had a love that should have lasted. They were potentially a romance for the age, like Scott and Jean. They’re breaking up now, but maybe they might come back?

All of which lands on the icky side of the underage romance. And so the fight and the whole “moral lesson” side of things just feels weird to me. This issue has something of a classic reputation for its emotional storytelling, but for me this is a moment that misfires.

That said, the issue itself, is not without its highlights. Mystique is back and she’s being awesome. I aboslutely, completely and without any reservations love, love, love this panel. So much so I made a t-shirt out of it.

Honestly – I’m not lying – an actual t-shit.

There’s also a lovely slice of horror cliffhanger at the end, revealing that Selene from the New Mutants is now in the X-universe. It’s very similar to the reveal of Emma Frost a few issues earlier. What can I say, I’m a sucker for Evil Woman Reveals.

Fun Panel

John Romita Jr absolutely delivers in this sequence. All of Kitty’s facial expressions here capture a teenage heart breaking, and as a result inspires a strong emotive reaction from the reader.