If the last issue felt like it was designed to win over the teenage boy crowd, this issue turns all that up to eleven.
Ninjas are added to the mix. Alongside a hot, sexy street fighter that really, really wants to get it on with our surly troubled hero.
Miller is playing to all his strengths art-wise, the fights and city scapes are vibrant and brilliantly engaging. And Claremont has pretty much perfected his Wolverine-narrative voice by this point. Paternalistically guiding the reader through the story with gruff explanations as to what is going on and dad-factoids about the world of the story.
Fun Panel
Miller is enjoying himself when it comes to Japanese imagery throughout this miniseries.
There’s a huge swathe of Western cliches about Japan running through the heart of all this. The look, the codes of honour, the geishas, kabuki etc. It’s tapping into all the elements that were being exported into the West via populist pulp vhs films, topped up with a genuine enthusiasm for it all.
This enthusiasm just about rescues it, I think. In the big book of Foreign Stereotypes that this title has travelled in, this is a much more interesting place that Nightcrawler’s Germany or Banshee’s Oirland.
Any Googling
The Hand show up in this issue, which raised the question of where this army of ninjas come from. Was this there first appearance?
Apparently not. Miller had already created the Hand for his run in Daredevil, appearing a bit earlier in issue 174. Hired by the Kingpin (who else?) to eliminate Daredevil.
Anyone reading the regular ongoing titles of Uncanny X-men and New Mutants would have been aware that Wolverine had his own mini-series. Both titles have made a point of stressing that Wolverine is absent because he’s off having his own adventure.
It’s pretty clear from the focus that the title has been giving him, and the response in the letters page, that Wolverine was already the character from the relaunched X-men that’s struck a chord with comic book reading audiences. He’s a tough loner, underestimatd by many, seemingly surly and antisocial but ultimately a great friend to have. With all theses factors you can see why teenage boys latched on to the character.
Despite that obvious success, the striking feature of the mini-series is that it seems to be leaving nothing to chance. This is a series that seems designed to land with that target demographic. It has ninjas and sumo wrestlers and Japanese gangsters, all ridiculously cool even then. Frank Miller was already a hot talent in the industry, bringing a grim and gritty earnestness to his work. These aren’t comics for kids. They are a teenagers take on adult.
And Claremont writes perfectly for Miller’s strengths, perfectly in tune with this teenage level of adult seriousness. It’s a love story – but there’s nothing sappy or girly about it. It’s about a woman who must deny her love for our hero due to her obligations. And the suppressed sacrifice of the hero to respect that. Domestic violence is clumsily dropped into the story to up this grim n gritty seriousness quotient.
And yet, despite my issues with the tone – this is still strong inventive storytelling – both in terms of Miller’s pages of gorgeous art and Claremont’s approach to Wolverine’s first solo adventure. I loved it as a teenager when I was clearly slap bang in the middle of its target audience, but its still an engaging ride today.
Fun Panel
A neat follow on to yesterday’s full page New Mutants punch-up. Miller’s dynamic take on Wolverine fighting is influential stuff.
None More Claremont
The introduction of Wolverine’s “the best there is…” line was clearly one of the key moments in Claremont devising who this character was. A take that becomes so insanely popular, and a catchphrase that still resonates.
And so the New Mutants lose a member. The last issue ends with a big explosion, and this one begins with the team looking back on how they survived, but that Karma is now missing. And then, almost immediate the New Mutants embark on a new Brazilian adventure.
It all feels rather abrupt and jarring. I guess there’s quite a lot of overlap to her power with what Psyche can do, which might explain wanting to write her out but her backstory has been explored quite a lot so far, seemingly setting up a story. Which is now kicked into the long grass.
(Speaking personally its Rahne in the team that on this re-read has been the one I’d have ditched. Her 1850s puritan persona just gets grating in these issues – her constant shock and belief that things the others are doing “ain’t right” never feel like anything more than when a non-English speaking X-man drops a word of their native tongue into their English speech bubbles. But, on the other hand, her power is more interesting.)
It then feels extra weird that the New Mutants just decide to get over it. And end up partying in Brazil. I do love these moments, the teens getting to grips with carnival season is well written as long as you can forget all the business with Karma. If these were carefree teens (or as carefree as mutant teens can be) then it all makes sense. But they shouldn’t be. They’ve just lost a friend! It feels weird.
As long as you can park that jarring feeling though, this is a strong issue. The commitment to low key storytelling mean that the antagonist the New Mutants face in this issue is a Big Guy With An Axe. Called Axe. It feels like the right level of threat, and it feels credible when they win. And after some scratchy art last issue, Buscema’s back to his best here. A nice, colourful dynamic issue.
Fun Panel
Sunspot taking down Axe is a lovely full page of simply, yet effective, comic book slugging.
None More Claremont
Claremont is famous for deliberately leaving loose plot strands dangling to come back to at a later date. And no doubt that was his intention with Karma and the dialogue on this panel.
But it really doesn’t ring true. The loss of a kid is a big deal. And if the narrative stresses that the level is so great that the New Mutants can’t handle this, only the X-men can – then I want to see the X-men handle this as a priority. Except I know they don’t. The X-men just continue having completely different adventures. And Karma is just, well, gone.
If Kitty had gone missing, the entire X-franchise would have dropped everything until she was recovered. The fact that after a few pages, the New Mutants have dropped their search for her, and Xavier alludes to an X-men hunt that never happens really feels like doing the dirty on the character of Karma. I can buy her being written out if Claremont felt her, and her powers, weren’t quite working. But not like this.
The New Mutants/Team America team-up continues – a comic book event so huge Team America yet again fail to get any mention or appearance on the cover.
While the New Mutants seeks to rescue Psyche from Viper’s clutches, Team America seek to steal a precious item to stop Viper killing her captive.
The end result is two underwhelming base attacks. Claremont is normally really good at these but there’s a lack of invention and tension to both missions.
Team America’s is especially daft. These Macho Macho men argue, rough house and successfully steal a diamond from AIM. Whose fortress then explodes. For no good reason. But Team America survive. For no good reason. Leaving a plot strand that we’re never ever going to see again.
The New Mutants mission is slightly more fun. Their diverse powers help keep things interesting. Before it ends with their antagonists fleeing. For no good reason. And then another explosion. For no good reason.
All of this isn’t helped by art that feels at moments like it’s up against a really tight deadline. Scrappy, small panels. And a real lack of dynamism.
Fun Panel
Despite my criticism, though, Buscema does a great opening panel.
The style of the New Mutants comic feels like they’re deliberately avoiding large showpiece panels to help sell the low-level nature of the adventures. But it’s good to have them occasionally.
As a title New Mutants continues to perplex. Last issue was an interesting exercise on taking what – in a super hero universe – would seem like a low key threat and taking it with real world seriousness. This issue is all about motor bike heroes, samurai and a hit evil chick in a sexy outfit. This doesn’t so much feel like a comic that has an absolutely rock solid vision and direction behind it, more that product of trying to cram in everything an eleven year old boy might want in a comic.
It trundles along nicely enough, with a servicable plot. But it feels like such a weird conconction of ingredients that it’s hard to get a handle on what type of comic this is. Mad stuff seems to happen that doesn’t really make much sense – Psyche is a secret masked bike-riding hero what?? – and it all slowly grinds to a surprisingly verbose and underwhelming cliffhanger and set-up for next issue.
Any Googling
Halfway through this issue, I think most readers nowadays would have one perfectly reasonable question. Who the **** are Team America.
It turns out they were a project Marvel took on to align with an existing toy range. It doesn’t seem like the editors were that enthused by the concept, but they launched a Team America title in January 1982. Reading about that title and the central concept makes a bit more sense of this issue of New Mutants, although it really doesn’t explain what they are doing here.
Not least because by the time they turn up to adventure with the New Mutants, their own title had been cancelled two months earlier with Issue 12. If this was intended to be cross-promotional, its one that had already missed the point by publication date. I guess its revealing that the cover makes no mention of Team America guesting in this issue becuase by the time they were bringing it out, what would be the point. The comic was dead, the toy range was winding up and the general public had clearly sent a message that they did not care for Team America. Reading this comic, you get the impression Claremont didn’t either.
Back to the New Mutants and the title’s dedication to low-level threats is evident here.
It’s a story about stalking and threatening incel behaviour years ahead of its time.
There’s a nice balancing act going on here between teens possessing superpowers tackling the problem caused by an abusive teen exploiting his ability to be anonymous. Dilemmas requiring superpowers spring up (woman and child in danger from a speeding car, building on fire that just happens to full of explosives) but it’s still at heart a story that takes the low level threat seriously.
The reality of it is hammered home at the end. There is no real happy ending, just an abused and damaged teen taking into care and therapy that might not work. You can’t help but feel that in the X-universe as presented so far, the likes of Xavier could have come up with a super power fix for the issues antagonist. A bit of mental jiggery-pokery to eliminate a child’s pain and enjoy something close to a normal life. As a moment it illustrates, I think, how Claremont is trying to define the title’s feel and world distinct from the cosmic and crazy world of the X-men.
Sal Buscema takes over on art duties here – and he does a serviceable job. I get the impression that they wanted him to draw in a manner that wouldn’t mess with the basic look of the comic already established by Bob McLeod. Ironic given what’s to happen when Buscema moves on.
It seems strange that the big launch of a brand new X spin-off loses its artist and co-creator so early. Which may explain the caution in keeping the same look going. McLeod apparently asked to leave the titles as he felt that drawing and inking a comic every month meant he wasn’t producing to his potential. It’s a shame we never got a proper run at delivering the title Claremont/McLeod envisaged. Buscema does a good enough job but in continuing a style that was deliberately quite conservative to begin with it makes the title feel quite lifeless that might not have happened if the artist who had originally helped envisage this approach stayed on to show how it worked.
Fun Panel
Were all teens at the time obsessed with Magnum PI? You’d think so given the way the New Mutants won’t shut up about him.
This issue is most famous for Rogue joining the X-men, but even though that would normally be more than enough, its so much richer than that. It’s an issue that focuses the storytelling on the trauma and suffering of three characters, and in doing so sets up dramatic arcs that are going to be some of the most memorable moments of the Claremont Run.
What’s more, all three characters are women.
Claremont’s been building up women within the supporting cast of the comic for many, many issues now but the core of the team has remained numerically male-dominated. That’s pretty much changing at this point – Rogue joining Storm and Kitty on the team (while Cyclops already has one foot out the door) isn’t some tokenist appointment. It’s practically a mission statement as to what this comic is going to focus on.
In this issue, Rogue joins. Having pleaded with Xavier for help to assist the problems she’s having after absorbing the powers and memories of Carol Danvers. Illyana’s traumatic abuse at the hands of Belasco is revisited, introducing the idea that this story is not yet over. And Storm continues to evolve into a leader, while struggling with her own doubts and the failure of those around her to take her position seriously. All these lay down ideas and plots that the title will be exploring for years to come.
And that’s not even all of it. Cyclop’s new (ahem) flame Madelyne Prior gets her own moment as we learn she was involved in a plane crash on the same day Jean Grey died. And Carol Danvers returns to the mansion to discover Rogue there and make the decision that if they want her as a member, she’ll be off. A story arc opening and another closing. This is fantastic stuff.
Fun Panel
Walt Simonson comes on board for a guest penciller spot and knocks it out the park like… well like a Carol Danvers meeting Rogue in the Xavier Mansion.
In my opinion the best Claremont issues manage to balance a number of distinct stories within the limited page count. They won’t just include action and excitement, but quiet, personal moments. As the reader we’ll learn something about the characters, maybe when one of them makes a decisive decision – and the characters themselves might learn something about each other. There’ll be a touch of romance, melodrama and a genuine sense of threat and death. For all these reasons, I think this is one of my favourite issues.
Also the best issues have Mystique and Destiny in it. Another plus for this one.
And finally the issue will dangle a brand new idea/concept that the title will go on to develop, and which is genuinely inventive and intriguing.
From the first page to the end, this is a great issue.
Fun Panel
Paul Smith’s creative visual use of “Bamf” as Nightcrawler attempt multiple teleports is subtle, yet striking.
Any Googling
This issue tells the story that Rogue has run away from Mystique and Destiny. As a member of their Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, she’s only featured in the comic before, when Carol Danvers and the X-men come across her on an espionage mission in the Pentagon.
This blog has also taken in her appearance in Avengers Annual 10, primarily because its such an important development for the character that is so important to who she is during the Claremont Run.
But, as the text boxes make clear, this is only a fraction of Rogue’s story up to now. In the Avengers Annual 10 blogpost I mentioned the planned issues of Ms Marvel that were to see Rogue attack Carol Danvers and steal her powers (we only seem the aftermath in comics published at the time). This time I went and researched the Dazzler issues pointed to in this issue.
It’s fascinating to explore this early Rogue history. Especially in issues not written by Claremont. It’s hard to see any indication of Rogue’s upcoming repentence here. She’s a hot tempered bad girl, in a comic that frequently feels incredibly dated in its visuals and dialogue. Dazzler is the fifties Good Girl, conventionally good looking and charming to everyone. Rogue the angry fifties beatnik who (gasps) doesn’t even seem to like men.
It’s slightly surprising that all these early Rogue appearances do not appear to have ever been collected into a single volume. Or even been a time periods that a subsequent writer has decided to do a flashback mini series about. They make for interesting reading, and probably do belong in a completists collection.
One aside from reading the Dazzler issues is that we learn that Rogue is only after Dazzler to get to the X-men. And that she is (briefly) placated by being told that the X-men (currently out on their Brood space adventures) are Dead. Alongside the origins of the New Mutants, the suggestion that the X-men are Dead seems to be important here. Which is curious because its something that you don’t get the impression that anyone thinks the X-men are really dead if you just read Uncanny X-men. They’re off on an adventure. I guess the dead angle was more useful for those other stories – and wasn’t really needed in the main one.
Anyway – here’s the last of Rogue from the Dazzler title. Finally defeated, apparently, by Alison – and dumped into a car and returned to Destiny and Mystique. The next thing she does is flee and get on a bus heading for Westchester…
The mythology of the X-universe takes another leap this issue as we are introduced to the Morlocks (the name Ugloids teased last issue never ends up being used). A whole peoples hidden below New York – mutants that due to their looks and powers are completely ostracised.
So far most of the mutants we’ve seen have been the cool kids with super powers. Students that can hide in human society thanks to their looks. Only Nightcrawler doesn’t fit that bill, but his demonic look marks him out as both quite stylish and pretty cool. Plus when required he can bust out an image inducer.
Set against these heroes the Morlocks present a true underclass. They are drawn as freaks, reminiscent of the homeless. As outcasts, their emnity has been directed towards the “pretty” mutants and Angel in particular.
So this issue sees Angel return to the title. Last time he was on the title he didn’t really get anything to do. He celebrates his return then by still getting absolutely nothing to do. Meanwhile, we are informed in this issue that Wolverine is away, off on a solo adventure in his own spin-off mini series. Without wishing to sound like a rose-tinted nostalgic its fascinating that this is an era where a spin-off featuring a title’s most popular character means that this character isn’t featured in the main book anymore.
In his absence, though, this is a great issue for a trio of the new X-men. Colossus, Nightcrawler and Storm make a fascinating small team and there really isn’t enough of them here. Paul Smith is especially great at stressing how visually distinct they are as a trio, while also capturing what makes each individual character design awesome.
Still, this is another of those first chapters that sets up the story by having the X-men seemingly defeated. The moments where the X-men go down fighting feel suitably grave and serious. This, alongside a seriously ill Kitty, makes for a great cliffhanger.
Fun Panel
I only noticed when I started this issue that the gallery of faces have returned to the top left of the front cover. In recent issues, this had been replaced by a dynamic team shot by (I think) Cockrum. It’s insanely busy but it works quite well. That said, it does rather set the team line-up in stone. If one of that exciting group where to be replaced by someone else, you’d need to get a whole new dynamic shot done. Or employ some suitably Stalinist phototampering skills to replace the Nikolai Yezhov of the team
I wonder if any keen readers at the time spotted the change and predicted that the new headshot logo would make it easier to alter the line-up on the title. Because big changes are coming!
Any Googling
This issues marks the debut of one of the X-universe’s more interesting minor characters. The Morlock leader Callisto.
Now, as a Sci-Fi nerd I understood the reference to The Time Machine in the name of the mutated underground tunnel dwellers. But why Callisto?
I knew it was a name from Myth. And also a moon of Jupiter. But does this name mean anything related to her role in the title?
Googling meant it was hard to tell. Callisto in Greek mythology was a Nymph who is raped by Zeus and becomes pregnant. This angers a female god – who exactly it is is inconsistent across the various tellings of the myth – who turns Calliso into a bear. A bear that ends up having a child and then – through various different explanations – the two of them become the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.
It’s hard to see much of this Callisto in there – although several of the myths do mention that as a nymph she flees into the wilderness to live with the wild beasts. This feels like a stretch and there’s possibly an obvious cultural reference I’m missing here. I may have to come back to this.
One side-note that clearly does not apply in this instance is that Callisto – as a famous nymph who hangs around with other nymphs and in some versions of the story is seduced by Zeus disguised as another nymph – was a popular subject for renaissance painting. But one of the reasons for this is that scenes from her story could be used as a pretext to paint groups of busty, naked women, teasing a hint of lesbian erotica. This doesn’t seem Claremont’s style, even if that suggest an obvious revamp in the nineties that was thankfully avoided.
None More Claremont
Claremont is upping the sexy quotient quite a bit in the title right now. And Paul Smith is along for the ride!
Mutant Mailbag Mayhem
During the Claremont/Byrne run, the letters page teased the fact that a Colossus returns to Russia story was just around the corner. It never turned up. And now they promise another one coming soon. Claremont never really got round to telling his Colossus/Russia story. Nor developing the dangling plot line of a dead Cosmonaut brother. I wonder what he had planned?
In my last post I complained that God Loves, Man Kills came between the previous issue and this one. Splitting up a great ending with an awesome first panel.
However when actually re-reading all these comics, I felt that Issue 168 makes a pretty good bedfellow with that graphic novel.
The reason being that back-to-back they display the two extremes of Claremont’s talent for melodrama. While the graphic novel shows his capacity for grandiose politics with the emotional grab of classic Hollywood worthy pictures, here we see Claremont’s strengths as a writer of interpersonal drama. And on that score, this issue sings.
The threat of Kitty coming off the team is used as a springboard for multiple storylines. Highlighting how she, and her colleagues, react to the news. We also see the same X-men getting on with their lives, reconnecting with partners and just generally being humans.
Alongside all the great writing for the characters enjoying downtime, Claremont creates an adventure plot for Kitty, adding into the mix a fan pleasing new tiny Dragon character.
And then after all this fun, and pleasing melodramatic hijinks, Claremont ends on a cliffhanger worthy of the most high concept soap opera.
Fun Panel
Quite possibly the best single panel first page. And the pinnacle of the Paul Smith point.
Compared to opener, this later Paul Smith Point never stood a chance
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
I wonder what happened to the use of the word Ugloids? By the time the next issue gets released, we’re dealing with the Morlocks and the word never gets used. Maybe Ugloid didn’t quite feel as literary anymore.
Either way, Angel and the Ugloids is a band name still begging to be picked up by someone.
The X Marathon 