The Marvel Fanfare run ends with Paul Smith’s first X-men adventure. It’s great to see his first take on the characters, given his future brief but highly influential run as main artist.
Ka Zar returns from an impossibly convoluted absence (it gets explained in this issue but I still don’t really understand it) and helps the X-men defeat Not-The-Tolkien-One Sauron. Angel once again gets more to do than at any time while actually getting his face on the top left box of the X-men front covers.
One big disappointment with this issue is that after the first two issues set up the fact that the Bag Guys have an Evil Laser that can turn you into a Monster appropriate to your powers, and with the last issue ending with Colossus being transformed by that Evil Laser, there is virtually none of that in this issue.
There’s so much visual and storytelling fun that could be had with Evil Mutated versions of Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm and Wolverine on the loose. Maybe taking on Angel, who’d finally get to be centre of a heroic story. Instead we learn they are being mutated, only for Sauron (Not-The-Tolkien-One) to restore them to normal as a food source. And then the normal X-men escape. And win.
Karl Lykos gets cured of being Sauron (although that’s obviously not going to last) and we get a happy ending to a pretty inconsequential four issue story.
Fun Panel
A brief glimpse of cool monster Nightcrawler.
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
Sauron (Not-The Tolkien-One) is going to increase his power geometrically. How exactly is that going to work? He’s going to be better at geomatry? Super shapes?
It was a Product of its Time
There’s something dodgily colonial in the presentation of “ignorant swamp savages” and the way the text wants us to hate them. As if White Saviour Ka Zar wasn’t bad enough.
The regular team on the X-book are all in place for this third issue of Marvel Fanfare, which also brings in Storm, Colossus, Wolverine and Nightcrawler from the X-men. (Cyclops is apparently ill, and Kitty is looking after him. Probably because she feels guilty as he’s likely caught form her the flu that kept her out of Issue 145)
The X-men are travelling to the Savage Land, summoned by Angel after the last issue ended with Sauron unleashed. The quartet selected for the mission make a good team, and its weird that Angel is probably getting more to do with these X-men than he ever did during his recent brief stint as a member of the team.
I feel I have to be honest and say that I find Sauron an underwhelming villain. On paper, a good man with a Mr-Hyde alter-ego that happens to be an Evil Pterodactyl with Hypno-powers that needs to drain life force to survive should be great fun. But it never quite lands to me. His villainy just seems too pedestrian compared to that insane premise, while there’s no real connection to his Good Karl Lykos persona that could be explored. Sauron’s just an evil bastard. With a Tolkien-rip-off name.
On top of that, I love the Savage Land as a lost land of mystery but this issue sets up the fact that the place is surrouinded by the UN in an attempt to preserve this unique habitat. This certainly feels credible, but I think it detracts from the true nature of the Savage Land as a dangerous unexplored wilderness. It becomes the Savage UN Nature reserve which is a lot less fun.
Fun Panel
This story represents the first appearance of Vertigo. A brutal savage granted powers by EVIL SCIENCE. Also a weird trippy bathing suit costume. The design of the lower half of the costume is however potentially problematic, and there attempt to address it doesn’t really make it any better. Indeed, scanning through these issues, the artists definitely have an odd time trying to make that lower circle work. Is it part of a swimming suit? Is it black underwear? Every issue so far has tried a different tack to avoid looknig very, very wrong indeed.
The Savage Land adventure continues, with Spider-man and Angel now transformed into monstrous versions of themselves and taking on Ka Zar. Golden’s art, while still feeling scrappy to me, works a lot better with such fantastical concepts in a over-the-top setting.
I do find Ka Zar a less interesting character than his pet Sabre- Toothed Tiger, so he’s got a hard job carrying a comic in my book. There’s enough fun distractions in this book – especially the Man-Spider – but compared to the previous X-man Savage Land adventure its all feeling a bit underwhelming.
Fun Panel
It feels mean, but when the hot blonde damsel in distress of this issue – Tanya Anderssen, gets turned into a neanderthal by EVIL DON’T ASK HOW IT WORKS SCIENCE, that this is how it looks just seems laughable.
I knew it reminded me of something…
None More Claremont
These issues of Marvel Fanfare come with a single page “Editori-Al” comic strip, where editor Al Milgrom explains the nature of the title to readers, and then delivers some behind-the-scenes in-jokes. It’s cute but I imagine would get pretty wearing very quickly. This Claremont speechbubble seems telling. Already Claremont has a reputation for longtunning plots (and if they think he’s writing long running plots now, they ain’t seen nothing yet!).
That he’s already being comically quoted as asking “The main character — is there any reason he can’t be a woman?” though is interesting. It’s a perfectly great question for any writer to ask and, I think, we’re just beginning to see its impact on the main X-title.
The Marvel Uncanny X-men Omnibus I’m reading takes in a comic I hadn’t ever read (or even been aware of !) before buying it. The first four issues of Marvel Fanfare, an anthology title intended to be high end in terms of paper quality and content.
It’s understandable that a title might want to open with a Spider-man story – here venturing back to the Savage Land. It works well enough as a part one, setting up the story and with a cracking cliffhanger. But I do struggle with Michael Golden’s art – he draws slightly odd looking humans and while his fantastical stuff is fun we have to wait half the comic to get there.
By the end, though, we’re in the Savage Land. Which should set things up nicely for issue 2.
The X-men are back in Science-Fiction Epic Fantasy country with this Annual, and unfortunately it yet again doesn’t quite live up to quite how good that could be. Arkon is back for another appearance in an Annual and again he heralds an issue that feels stuffed with padding alongside a thin story. And this time there isn’t even COLUSSUS RIDING A SPACE DRAGON INTO BATTLE to rescue things.
More disappointing this feels like a new peak in Claremont’s habit of telling key moments of the story ‘off-panel’. Throughout this issue there are important story moments that would be great to see, but instead we have to make do with being told. Including the actual defeat of the issue’s Big Bad Badoon Brother Royal.
It’s a frustrating thing to keep being told stuff and not shown it. Given the constraints of page counts and publishing deadlines, I can understand it happening sometimes and can roll with it. But its so frequent in this issue that it ends up detracting from the enjoyment. Nightcrawler heroically saving Wolverine but nearly dying? Given everything thats been building with their relationship, I’d love to have seen that. Instead we just get this.
These narrative fill-ins also extend to convenient plot contrivances. Nightcrawler needs to explain how the Stargates can be destroyed. Luckily he conveniently asked a loads of questions about them earlier. No you didn’t see him do that. But he definitely did. As he tells us as he destroys them.
All of this would be a lot more forgivable if it was still helping to tell an interesting plot. But instead we get all of the cliches of lazy pulp epic sci-fi fantasy – daft psuedo-science, two dimensional aliens lusting after Earth women and convoluted exposition. And precious little of what makes it great – epic world-building, high concept ideas and, I appreciate I am harping on about this, HEROES RIDING SPACE DRAGONS INTO BATTLE.
Fun Panel
Ever wondered who would win in a fight, The Thing or Colossus? More important, ever wondered what the two would look like doing stretching exercises in a sauna while wearing underpants?
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
Another cliche of the genre that can work really well is melodramatic romance. It’s also an area that Claremont can successfully write in. Unfortunately he drops the ball here. Arkon and Storm’s romance seems to come out of nowhere and never once strikes me as credible. I’ve spent too much time with Storm by now, and especially got to know a lot about her character that the way she behaves in this issue makes no sense. If this is an issue where Storm falls in love, I want it to mean something. I want it to make sense given every development the character has had over all the previous issues. This has none of that.
Conversely I still know nothing of Arkon. He probably falls in love every five minutes, like a friend of Bertie Wooster transplanted to the world of Conan.
Any Googling
Another moment where the issue’s narration seems to drop a massive bombshell revelation, shorn of any context. Storm and the Black Panther shared a moment together! Really? I don’t recall that in any issues so far.
Even more crucially, if this development took place in another comic, this story doesn’t even bother to tell us where this event took place. It just adds to the frustration in this Tell, Don’t Show storytelling. This is far too big a revelation to drop in like this.
Googling reveals that the issue can be found in Marvel Team-Up 100, which is actually included in the Marvel omnibus I’m reading. It’s an all-too-brief back-up feature that doesn’t really have the time to explore the central conceit. Once again telling us, not showing us that the two adventured for a time together when younger. It’s nice to see a but more Claremont/Byrne, but it really does have the most astonishing mistake in the colouring – a white Afrikaner hurling racist abuse is shown on panel as a black South African. Which is regrettable.
It was a Product of its Time
The Fantastic Four appear in this Annual, classic sixties heroes that seems to being out classic sixties sexism in Claremont’s writing. Sue is either at home in the kitchen preparing food for the Fantastic Four, or shes a prisoner of an evil alien lizard being leched over. It’s such a contrast with what he’s doing, primarily with the supporting cast, in the main title that’s it becomes even more jarring.
Big Milestone Number issues don’t always deliver. The previous blog mentioned the dreadful Avengers 200, and even X-men 100 was mostly the conclusion of an underwhelming Sentinel story.
But there’s no denying that X-men 150 is a milestone that fundamentally changes Magneto, creating a take on the character that has not only lasted but become iconic even outside comics.
This issue is the beginning of Magneto’s journey from a two-dimensional cliche of comic book villainy to a potentially sympathetic ruthless fighter against oppression.
It’s also an issue that celebrates some of the standard plots that have defined it since the relaunch. Once again the X-men have a mission to infiltrate a bad guys super lair and thwart their evil plans. It’s amission with twists and turns, that shows how the X-men have progressed as a team. And just how dangerous Magneto is.
And then, at the very end, a cute gag.
Fun Panel
Claremont writes another Evil Lair Attack that is so cinematic. If they don’t launch MCU mutants with a Proteus story, this could be the way to do it.
None More Claremont
A key moment in Claremont’s reinvention of Magneto. From this panel onwards, the character is transformed into the version famous today.
Primarily concerned with setting up a Big Event Issue 150, the story here is secondary. What this issue is all about is Magneto.
We get a potted history of his status as the team’s first and greatest foe. We get the X-men returning to Antarctica to confirm that the villain is very much alive and plotting something. And we get reminded that Cyclops is currently the “guest” of Magneto on his Atlantic Cthuloid Atlantean Castle Complex.
All of this conveniently frees up space in the next issue to not go over all this old ground and get straight to that issue’s story. Job Done.
Fun Panel
Kitty’s teenage exuberance shines through in this issue. From her outrageous teen skating costume, to her reckless stowaway routine and finally her insecure internal monologue as she tries to come good.
That Don’t Make A Lick of Sense
Quite how Magneto rescued Garokk when he tumbled to his doom is not quite clear. Those previous issues seemed to make it pretty clear he’d fled long before the X-men’s Savage Land adventure.
If we squint a bit at the plot, I guess you could suggest he was sneakily hiding nearby all the time. But even that doesn’t quite explain why Garokk- an ancient God with his ruthless utopian ideals to rule the Savage Land – seems to have accepted becoming Magneto’s shuffling servant Igor
Sometimes with Claremont’s comics you come across an issue that you know has the same page count as all the other comics. and yet even as you’re reading the issue it just seems to go on and on. But in a good way.
There is just so much stuff in this issue. It’s not an epic in terms of plot, it’s not a wordy, lengthy exploration of an idea. It’s just packed full of ideas, character moments, settings and storylines. Halfway through you feel like you’ve already covered a normal issue and a half of these things, and yet still it ploughs on. Before ending on a great cliffhanger.
It reminds me of Issue 122 – Trial of Colossus, which knitted together a load of interesting minor moments – but this one ever finds time to add a plot, of sorts, to the mix. Namely the first appearance of Caliban, nearly causing an incident in a nightclub. It’s a relatively minor plot, but Kitty learns a simple message from it that feels important to the character.
Meanwhile Angel leaves. His brief return to the title ends with his just casually flying off a few pages in. Cyclops got a whole issue of flashbacks and he’s still not really left the title! It does feel like whatever plans they had for bringing Angel back ultimately never came to fruition, maybe it was just a hangover from the Byrne era?
Fun Panel
Trying to capture the awesome Atlantean Cthulu Island Complex with the thick spine of an omnibus proved impossible.
Any Googling
Tracy? Tracy?? Who on Earth in Tracy??
None More Claremont
The developing friendship between Nightcrawler and Wolverine remains a joy, this issue devoting a couple of pages to it. Claremont does a great job avoiding any Odd Couple cliches. They are fundamentally different, but they are also becoming friends.
It was a Product of its Time
Obviously I don’t entirely know what was huge at the time, but this feels slightly dated already. A Seventies Disco Blast that maybe felt very last decade in August 1981.
Time the great levellers has done away with the ins and outs of what’s hot and what’s not, and now it’s just something great from yesteryear.
Having noticed how little paneltime Nightcrawler gets early in the run, he’s really coming into his own now.
He opens this issue in a great full page panel – and it’s obvious Cockrum enjoys drawing him as his escape and his return to try and rescue his friends is superb visual swashbuckling.
He isn’t quite the finished article as a character though. It’s made clear a number of times that, alongside his appearance, he has a Demonic aspect to him that comes out in growling and howling when riled. A potential Mr Hyde subplot that never really materialises.
Overall, this is a fun finale to this epic Cockrum relaunch three-parter. The ending is a little bit lightweight – it all just stops because Doom decides it does, and Arcade seems fine after an apology. But as an exercise in twists and traps, and Claremont’s endless inventive fun with super powers it’s great.
Last but not least – Angel finally gets to do something. Good for him!
Fun Panel
Big fan of the sequence where Nightcrawler and Wolverine take down Doom. Cockrum captures just the right mix of goofy but with a real sense of threat.
None More Claremont
As the front cover trumpets – this issue Storm goes rogue. Which isn’t quite accurate. In reality Storm goes Dark Phoenix.
Claremont writing another female X-man go Godlike/Crazy/Hysterical/Weird so soon after that classic storyline does feel like a rehash. Her power is unleashed and uncontrollable, she denies herself and becomes even cruel, possessing only a vague sentiment towards her closest friends.
It’s a sad cliche in comics that female super heroes that become too powerful seem to inevitably become hysterical and dangerous. Phoenix and the Scarlet Witch being the two biggest examples. This issue hints at the same well-trodden path is being considered for Storm.
I’m glad they ultimately don’t go down it. One of the implications of this issue – the power levels displayed are Storm’s innate power potential – gets quietly dropped going forward. It’s a shame that they couldn’t just reconcile a woman with Godlike powers and not going insane in the story. Instead she’s de-powered (literally for a time).
Interestingly Claremont was going to explore a character embracing incredible powers and the consequences of it when he brought Rachel Summers into the story. It’s an intriguing experiment and we’ll come to that later but ultimately it probably illustrates just how hard this character is to write without falling back into establish cliches.
It was a Product of its Time
Oh – and obviously Storm’s clothes mostly fall off when she becomes a God. Because Reasons.
The Cockrum Relaunch Story continues, with the All-̶N̶e̶w̶ Quite Old Actually X-men going on a mission in Murderworld. The issue wastes little time in getting to what Murderworld stories do so well, individual heroes caught in their own personal deathtraps before breaking out and into each others and generally building the chaos.
It’s great stuff, and once again, reinforces my idea that this version of Arcade would be great for a modern MCU movie. I am struggling to think who they might cast, though. I initially think of someone like Sam Rockwell, Ryan Gosling or even Simon Helberg but they’re probably too old now. Arcade has to be a young spoilt brat. Someone on a Disney or Nikolodeon kids TV show suddenly given a darker edge. Half the cast of Glee turned out to be one the Dark Side, so maybe there’s someone working in those type of shows today that could fit the bill.
Fun Panel
The ending to Don’t Look Now We could have had.
It was a Product of its Time
I’m a big fan of Polaris’ costume. Even by the standards of comic book heroes, its insanely impractical. It doesn’t even feel like a product of the early eighties. It has real fifties vibes. In an awesome way.
The X Marathon 