XHY #15: "Death Be Not Proud"

(Gets a bit heavy at the end.)

Comments

Since my last dip into the Byrnezone was a pleasant surprise, I've managed to work up the energy to tackle another Hidden Years comic, which has been sat on my living room table for months now.  I'm not kidding myself that it will be any good, but at least dealing with it will push me over the top into the final third of the book's run.

Hmm.  Well, it doesn't start off too promisingly, in the sense that I can't for the life of me tell what in God's name is going on.  We kick off with the X-Men returning home from their latest mission, except that last issue left them at the Worthington family mansion.  I guess Byrne's realised he's testing our patience with his pages-long flashbacks, and has moved on to re-writing previous scenes instead?  Or maybe this was supposed to be the end of XHY #14, and he swapped around some pages at the last minute to do whatever the opposite of in media res is (ex media res?).  Points for giving it a go, I guess, but not many points, because it's frustrating, confusing and above all, boring.  Actually, I suspect this is all just to cover up Byrne forgetting to explain what happened to Avia after they got back (stuck in some kind of medical cocoon, apparently), but who can tell.

So, we fast forward through a bunch of answers to questions already answerable by long-time readers and entirely irrelevant to newcomers (who can't possibly need to know that a mess they don't get to see was caused by the Fantastic Four) and then we're back at the Worthington place.

Except that we're once going over previous ground, and this time there's no doubt Byrne is re-writing on the fly. This is the second time Bobby has bitched about Warren keeping his family problems secret, and this time Hank takes the exact opposite viewpoint to the one he espoused last time.  Doctor Stuart has now changed his explanation for not letting the Worthington know about Warren's mutations (last time it was to spare Warren's mother, this time it was for his father's benefit; both could be true, but why go over this conversation again just to change it)? Four pages in, and nothing new has happened, except for the bits that happened before and have now been messed around with.  I (and others) have said this before, but this isn't just poor writing; it's genuinely incompetent.

While the original team are stuck in the world's most badly-researched time-loop, Lorna is wandering through Salem Center, lamenting the recent confirmation that she and Alex are still basically outsiders. Bigger problems may be on the horizon, though; three figures are watching her progress and, recognising her for who she is ("that blonde wig is no disguise"), the one calling himself Tad Carter announces he will make "first contact", tripping her up and dominating her mind through means unknown.  She agrees to a coffee date that ultimately lasts nine hours (though you'd imagine a healthy slice of that would be bathroom breaks). At least, that's what Carter calls it; we're forced to let our imaginations loose over what really happened.

On the other hand, if Carter didn't get what he wanted in those nine hours, he's out of luck, because the the instant Lorna returns to the mansion, Alex enlists her in an insane plan to check out a massively powerful mutant signature deep in the Himalayas (if this turns out to be a yeti, I will not be held responsible for my actions), in order to prove that they're not just the guys you leave behind in case you need a lift from Antarctica.

Back at WWIII's place, Doc Stuart is still going on at length about how fragile Warren's mother is.  Interestingly, he caps off this by mentioning she's become a born-again Christian, which carries with it an implication I'm sure could annoy more than a few people, though it says nothing about Christianity in general to note that there exist some people who come to it to gain a crutch, rather than anything else.  Anyway , the sudden conviction that God exists and loves her (which is actually set-up for the conclusion anyhow) is probably less of a logical stretch than the sudden conviction that Uncle Burtram is marriage material.  His tie is crooked and his face is sneering.  He looks like he's thirsting for human blood when he asks Warren to be his best man.

The one thing within all of this nonsense that I genuinely like is the idea that there's nothing that superheroes can do about someone making a shitty choice about who they're marrying.  A very similar idea was played out with much more style (though sock-puppet theatres staffed by filthy hobos with the socks still on their stinking feet would have more style than this) is the Buffy episode "Ted".  The first half of that episode was exceptionally strong, but it couldn't really get away from the central problem that it complexity would drain away the instant the show had to go back to normal, and Ted prove to be a robot built by a madman who is drugging Buffy's mother.

Which reminds me; Burtram proves to be a madman who is drugging Warren's mother.  Ted wanted compliance, however, and Burtram wants dead (though both share the idea that the delivery system  - pizzas in one case and tea in the other - are literally addictive, which makes perfect sense for Ted's MDMA derivative, and none whatsoever for poison).  Worse still, Doctor Stuart is in on the plan, for reasons that aren't so much as touched on.  Valued family friend my arse!

It isn't long before the jig is up, though. Burtram stupidly increases the dose of poison, perhaps terrified his fiance will live long enough to demand her carnal rites on the wedding night, but as a result Kathryn faints in front of the X-Men, and Beast notices the blue tinge to her lips betraying oxygen narcosis, which is a symptom not so much of poison as diving underwater.  You can get blue lips from narcotic drugs, but those don't really tend to involve aqualungs and tremendous external pressure, as a rule.  Still, what's the point in differentiating between all the stratified levels of meaningless shit this book is presenting us with.

The moment Beast realises something is amiss (or more to the point, realises Stuart should notice something is amiss but apparently hasn't), Burtram bursts in wearing his Dazzler gear.  I guess he wears it whilst eavesdropping just in case, despite that being fucking ridiculously risky and totally pointless since Warren knows who he is in any case.  Still, if Uncle B had any interest in avoiding risk, he'd just have taken the massively obvious step of delaying poisoning his fiancee/wife until after her super-powered son had left the vicinity. We're clearly dealing with an idiot.  Written by a fool.

Dazzler's moment of "It was me all along, MWUHAHAHAHAHA!" ends exactly as you'd expect it too, when he exits the building at the crappy end of a ruby-red optic blast.  Before he has time to stand back up, Angel jumps him, and proceeds to beat the ever-loving shit out of him.  Ultimately Scott and Hank drag him off his uncle, and Jean uses her powers to shut down his access to his light show, leaving him defenceless.  Now helpless, and doubtless in no inconsiderable amount of pain, there's only one thing for Burtram to do: immediately rat out his partner.

So why did Stuart do it?  Because he goddamn hates mutants, that's why!  That's why he spent his entire life as a friend to the family!  That's why he's kept Warren's secret all these years!  That's why he poisoned an innocent mother and decades-old friend in order to help out a supervillain who wanted some easy cash!  Because mutants, you idiots!  MUTANTS!!!

I mean, talk about your narcotics.  You'd have to suck up an entire Afghan poppy field to make sense of this crap.  It's like hating Muslims so much you become Catholic so one day you can punch out the Pope.

And then we reach the end.  Warren's mother took too strong a dose of the poison, and within an hour she'll be dead.  This leads us to something that is actually very moving; Angel's unhidden wings leads the woozy Kathryn to assume an angel has taken her son's form, and come to take her home to heaven.  Not wanting to break the illusion, Warren picks up his mother and flies into the sky, to make his way through the clouds until she passes away in her arms.

For all I've hated the journey, that's a beautiful, heart-breaking destination that genuinely chokes me up a little. Maybe that's because Beast's final words here - quoting Shakespeare - "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" reminds me of the song below, and through it a loss of my own four years ago, but I don't think that's fair to Byrne.  This time, this moment, he got perfectly right.



Goodnight, Kathryn.  And goodnight Pauline, too. Wherever you've found yourself, I hope there are cats for you to play with.

Clues

The mangled intro makes it difficult to tell, but I'll assume this story partially overlaps with the last one. The events at the Worthington mansion play out over the course of a few hours.

Date

Friday 11^th to Saturday 12^th July, 1980.

X-Date

X+2Y+99 to X+2Y+100.

Contemporary Events

The Pope concludes his visit to Brazil by sailing down the Amazon river.  No-one at any point attempts to punch him out of hatred for Muslims.

Standout Line

"Your being alive to attend is not required!" - Dazzler

If I ever get married, I'm sending anti-invitation cards to my many hated foes.  At long last, I know what I'll be writing in them.

Alpha Flight #1: "Tundra!"

(Our friends in the north.)

Comments

Oh, damn it all; another John Byrne comic!  Double-sized, as well!  I'm getting round to this now because I'd thought it had a cover date of October, but clearly not.  Clearly my mind is playing tricks on me, hoping to stave off the inevitable.

All that said, there's every possibility 1983 Byrne has more going for him than 21st Century Byrne.  That's certainly true of, say, Chris Claremont.  So let's see what's going on oop North, shall we, and let's all try to get through the whole book, rather than trying to drown ourselves in Saskatchewan snow.

The story itself picks up a fortnight after Wolverine and Nightcrawler joined forces with some of Alpha Flight to battle Wendigo, back in UXM #139 - 140, comics which came out at the tail end of 1980 (just before last Halloween in terms of our timeline).  In that story, Alpha Flight found itself defunded by the Canadian government, and we kick off her watching James MacDonald "Mac" Hudson trying to process his unemployment.

And not just his.  There's the rest of Alpha Flight - Aurora, Northstar, Snowbird, Shaman and Sasquatch - to worry about, along with the lesser-known Beta Flight (Puck and, er, Fish Lady, Iron Gorilla and Two Guys Who Remind Of Those Dudes From "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"), and the new recruits in Gamma Flight (a tall woman, and some guys), as well.  At least James can sponge off his wife until he finds someone to pay him for punching villains in the unmentionables.

Meanwhile, out in the noiseless infinity of the Northern Territory, there camps a dilapidated shell of a man.  His file is filled with unreadable symbols, his head with immiscible thoughts.  Around his head is a circlet of ancient metal. Around his tent is a drawing, scraped into the snow and mud with his own feet, of something; an approaching figure, gigantic and terrifying.  Hundreds of miles away, a well-dressed skull awakens, and informs its grandson that there are things afoot.

Time now for a trip into Quebec, where Jeanne-Marie Beaubier has taken a teaching position at a convent school, having not been able to drop superheroining (as we shall now call it) fast enough.  Today the pupils are irrepressibly excited; Mademoiselle Beaubier's gorgeous brother is coming to visit.  It's pretty funny to watch a half-dozen schoolgirls fawning over a man who will ultimately reveal himself to be gay - it's very easy to see this is Byrne having some fun with this, since as I understand it the decision to make Northstar homosexual had already been made (though Marvel would refuse to allow explicit confirmation until almost a decade later).  Then again, I'm not sure the surge of hormones driving these girls would have any interest in what Jean-Paul does or doesn't want.

Once Northstar can drag himself away from his adoring fans, and discuss the recent break-up of Alpha Flight, things get somewhat more... uncomfortable.  We have very little backstory regarding Jeanne-Marie at this point (her initial appearances in UXM #120 - 121 only reveal that she has little taste for violence), but it's clear something is profoundly wrong, and that she regrets ever becoming Aurora in the first place.  Without knowing the specifics (well, I do, of course, but for the purposes of considering the issue in context, let's pretend I don't), it's difficult to dig too deeply about what's going on, but in brief; I don't think watching a powerful man grabbing a woman and physically forcing her around the room in a rage gets any better when you know they're brother and sister.  Nor does it get any better when Byrne tells us secretly, Jeanne-Marie knows her angry, physical brother is actually in the right.  Or when she faints because it all gets too much for her.  This is not a good way to introduce the first female character in the book.

The second is introduced with an arse shot, because of course she is (I found several scans of this page online, but none of them included the actual panel, which is interesting, and not how I'd always assumed the internet worked).  This is Heather Hudson, Vindicator's wife, who responds to her superheroic husbands complaints about a shitty day by offering a cup of tea and a back-rub.  It would be easy to criticise this as well, but I've offered my girlfriend the same cure when she comes in cursing her boss (who admittedly isn't the Prime Minister of Canada, but I don't think that matters here), so as long as James is prepared to return the favour, we're all OK.

Domestic bliss will have to wait, though; a former colleague phones to warn Vindicator about something weird going over at Resolute Bay.  James flies off to investigate, refusing to call for back-up since Alpha Flight no longer officially exists. Pissed off that her husband is so willing to charge into the unknown alone, Heather enters James' hidden study and sends messages to the rest of Alpha Flight - along with a couple of Beta Flight heroes -  asking them to tag along with Vindicator as he heads for northern Nanavut. 

Our first Beta-Flighter is Eugene Judd, a man with a taste for dive bars and cartwheels, and one of the few heroes in the Marvel Universe who'd both have to look up at Wolverine, and be totally happy to punch him in the face.  The second is the cheesily named Marrina, a green-skinned black-eyed fish-woman-type-thing living on the Newfoundland coast. We're also re-introduced to Walter Langkowski, AKA Sasquatch (think Beast, right down to the dialogue, only orange and capable of turning back) and Anne McKenzie, the Snowbird, who's first to come across the giant figure carved from the snow and soil by the madman we met earlier.

What happens next is gloriously freaky.  The madman is now just a smoking, ruined corpse, sinking into the earth, but he's still moving.  Except now, when he moves, the ground moves with him. Tundra, destroyer of life and abductor of Snowbird's mother, has returned.  Much as I like to give Byrne a good kicking, this is an excellent sequence, ending in a truly exceptional page:

There is simply no way that everyone isn't in massive trouble, right now.

Meanwhile, it's assemblin' time for the mothballed squad.  Marrina gets by a weather ship despite it having sonar so powerful it can pick up a human-sized shape, determine its consistency, and follow it out of the water (to quote the Major, "I didn't know the Canadians were as clever as that, my God!").  Jeanne-Marie has snapped back into being Aurora, which has Northstar concerned despite him having basically assaulted his sister looking for exactly that result.  Also Puck looks for a plane to get him out to Resolute, but fails. Hard to see why he was languishing in Beta Flight, huh?

Nor is there time to wait for him to cartwheel his way onto a flight at Pearson. We're twenty minutes out from Tundra getting sufficient handle on the situation to wipe out, well, everything. Snowbird raises her objection to the idea, and gets a faceful of mosquitoes for her trouble (shudder).  Shaman and Vindicator show up, but the former can't find anything to hang his magic on, and Vindicator can't blast the enemy because it's too deeply connected to the land, and destroying Tundra means curtains for Canada. Clearly there's an environmental message being peddled here: "The tundra!  Just because it's shit doesn't mean we can do without it!".  That's also the best possible remaining approach for the Romney campaign, by the way.

Once satisfied that its attackers aren't worth squishing, Tundra stomps off, growing still larger as he hoovers up the surrounding area. It looks like the fix is definitely in.  Sasquatch arrives, leaping from a nearby helicopter to tear chunks from the enemy, but Tundra punches him into the next province.  Northstar and Aurora fly in and try to tear Tundra to pieces with the sheer speed of their circling, but erosion, as Maid Marian once said, takes quite a long time. The idea of using nature to beat Tundra (as oppose to electro-magnetic blasts, which apparently don't count as sufficiently free-range) appeals to Shaman, who starts pulling together squalls to buffet their gigantic opponent, but there's only so much water in the air.

Until Marrina arrives. Vindicator grabs her from her water spout, allowing Shaman to turn it into another storm, whilst Aurora and Northstar generate sufficient illumination to disorient the beast.  Snowbird watches, and probably feels quite sorry for herself (though at least we know she's alive, unlike Sasquatch, and isn't waiting on the ground for a free runway, as we assume is the fate that's befallen Eugene Judd).

Twelve hours later, and the team have gathered at James and Heather's apartment (much to Heather's annoyance, since Jeanne-Marie keeps staring at James and Heather's role as doting but jealous wife already seems set in stone), including an apparently unhurt Langkowski, and the decision is made both to remain a team even without government funding, and to add Marinna to the mix. Just in time before the end of the comic, a knock at the door announces the arrival of Puck, who demands to be allowed to join Alpha Flight, presumably so next time he can bum a lift.

And that is how the gang got together.

OK, I admit it.  That was perfectly decent.  Some lovely art, the occasional nice idea, and poor old Puck got me smiling.  Maybe it really is more that Byrne just couldn't adapt to modern comics, rather than his earlier work being flawed in any major way.  That said, I'm still not sure I trust him to handle subplots about a gay man and his mentally imbalanced sister.  Indeed, whilst this isn't an accusation I'd personally make, if anyone wanted to argue that there's something problematic about the idea of pushing the idea of a pair of twins being very similar, and then making one homosexual and the other mentally ill, I'd certainly see the point.

I guess we'll just have to see what comes next.

Clues

The narration puts this story as being in late spring or early summer. This directly contradicts UXM #140, the issue to which this is nominally a continuation, so nice work there. Actually, UXM #140 wasn't too solid in terms of its seasons, but in any event, since UXM #141 explicitly takes place in the final week of October, the idea that UXM #140 was set at the start of June is ridiculous.

The story itself takes place over a single day.

Date

Wednesday 10^th of November, 1982.

X-Date 

X+4Y+228.

Contemporary Events

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev passes away, possibly due to vodka or medal poisoning.

Standout Line

"Now he knows it comes only at times of great peril. Peril beyond the white man's science..."

Course, maybe the reason Byrne couldn't adapt to modern comics is casual racist bullshit like this.  It is not and never has been the white man's science, and I think we can trust Dr Michael Twoyoungmen to be smart enough to know that, hmm?

Timeline: 1983 Jul - Dec (Take 4)

July

1^st   MGN #4: Renewal
2^nd  MGN #4: Renewal
3^rd   MGN #4: Renewal
4^th   MGN #4: Renewal
5^th   MGN #4: Renewal
6^th   NMU #1: Initiation
6^th   NMU #2: Sentinels
9^th   NMU #3: Nightmare
9^th   UXM #167: The Goldilocks Syndrome (Or: "Who's Been Sleeping in my Head?")
9^th   MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
10^th UXM #167: The Goldilocks Syndrome (Or: "Who's Been Sleeping in my Head?")
10^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
11^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
12^th UXM Annual 6: Blood Feud!
12^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
13^th UXM Annual 6: Blood Feud!
13^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
13^th DAZ #25: The Jagged Edge
14^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
15^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
16^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
17^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
17^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
18^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
18^th OBN #1: Something Slimy This Way Comes
19^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
20^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
22^nd DAZ #26: Against the Wind
22^nd NMU #4: Who's Scaring Stevie?
23^rd DAZ #26: Against the Wind
23^rd NMU #5: Heroes
24^th DAZ #26: Against the Wind
24^th NMU #5: Heroes
24^th NMU #6: Road Warriors!
25^th NMU #6: Road Warriors!
27^th DAZ #27: Fugitive!
27^th DAZ #28: Vendetta!
27^th NMU #7: Who's Scaring Stevie?
28^th DAZ #28: Vendetta!
28^th NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
29^th NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
30^th NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
31^st NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!

August

1^st   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
2^nd  NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
3^rd   UXM #169: Catacombs
3^rd   UXM #170: Dancin' in the Dark
3^rd   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
4^th   UXM #171: Rogue
4^th   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
5^th   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
6^th   UXM #172: Scarlet in Glory
7^th   UXM #172: Scarlet in Glory
7^th   UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
8^th   UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
9^th   UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
10^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
11^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
12^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
13^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
14^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
15^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not

DAZ #28: "Vendetta!"

(I'm not leaving on a jet plane.)

Comments

(Ooh! 300th post! Break out the cakes!)

Somewhere in New York, Rogue is training for a mission.  Actually, by training, I mean she's punching through brick pillars with Dazzler's face on them.  And by mission, I mean punching through a skull with Dazzler's face on it.

Obviously, this is interesting, since by this point Rogue has already been with the X-Men for at least two issues.  I guess Springer didn't get the memo, and/or this was written before the bimonthly schedule was settled upon, and this was supposed to have an August cover date.

Either way, Mystique and Destiny are rather unimpressed by Rogue's obsession - murder without profit being something they are firmly against.  You know how it is with super-powered criminal kids, though.  Can't tell them anything.

Meanwhile, in California, the various twists and turns of last issue are finally being straightened out.  The man in the double bed - who Dazzler and her half-sister Lois were blackmailed into trying to murder, only to be surprised inside the house by their blackmailer, who know wants to do the deed himself - is Lois' father.  He hired the blackmailer to find Lois, which he did, just in time to see her accidentally kill a hobo in DAZ #26. That's when he came up with the idea of blackmailing her into murdering his rich client, intending to do the deed himself and frame her if she chickened out.

That's actually not at all bad, if a little convoluted.  It certainly makes more sense than I figured it was going to. In any case, further bloodshed is avoided when Ken (referred to in a narrative box as Dazzler's "old flame", ouch!) arrives with the cops. Angel contacted him just before leaving to help out Alison (just as well, since all he managed was to get shot like a goon). A few hours later, and Angel is safe in hospital; the blackmailer, Napier, behind bars; and everyone else inside the luxurious limousine of Lois' father.

Having already saved them, Ken has more up his sleeve: the pictures Napier took when viewed in their entirety clearly show the bum Lois killed had attacked her, and the coroner's report has attributed his death to a heart attack.  Lois is in the clear!  Unless, of course, the United States justice system is rapidly gaining a reputation for transparently unfair treatment of mutant citizens, which Ken seems to have forgotten.  If only Ken Barnett could spend more time talking with Ken Barnett about these things.  I don't know why they never get to see each other; their schedules always match up.

It has long been held that good things come in threes (presumably by those who've never heard Bananarama), and so it is this time, as the car's radio begins to play a song Dazzler recognises as one of hers.  Whilst she's been on the run, her single has been climbing the charts.  And if that weren't enough, Lois' father, Brown, is in the music business, and "owns" the "biggest singing star of [their] age!".  He'll even introduce them!  Everything's coming up Milhouse Alison!  Only an attack from Rogue could ruin this moment!

An attack from Rogue ruins this moment. She's had Alison tailed since she left NYC, and this time, she's out for nothing more than blood, and she starts off by wrecking the limo so Dazzler can't absorb any sounds from the horn.  You'd have thought the noise generated by smashing up a car would work just as well, but there you go.  Alison makes a break for it instead.

So begins a game of cat and mouse.  Only the cat can fly.  Though the mouse can drive, as well, which proves handy when Dazzler comes across Brown's garage, and steals a Packard V-12 (that's what the text box tells me, at least; it could be a fucking ice-cream truck for all I know).  Using the horn to charge herself up, Alison is able to keep Rogue at a distance, but she needs something with more juice if she's going to put her pursuer down more permanently.

Fortunately, Brown owns an airfield.  And what's the easiest thing in the world to start up?  That's right; a jet engine!  Dazzler manages to clamber into a mysteriously unlocked cockpit, use her exactly zero skill with piloting to ignite the engine (though only after pressing the button that makes the SPAK! noise so familiar to frequent fliers), keep the plane together and stationary despite it's exhaust spewing out fire, and use the energy to charge herself back to full.  Once again, comics choose not so much to ignore physics as actively spit upon it.

At least this blasphemy against basic science has the desired narrative effect, and Alison is able to process enough power to knock even Rogue out, right in the path of the strangely impotent jet engines!  They still apparently have enough juice to suck a young woman to a rather unpleasant end, though, but Dazzler bundles the supervillainess out of harm's way.  The battle won, she gets back in the Packard, and - feeling uncharacteristically optimistic - heads back to her half sister, her "old flame", and her potentially dodgy link to the next stage in her suddenly burgeoning career.

Clues

This story takes place from late night to late morning. 

Rogue's presence here provides us with problems, as mentioned above.  By now, she's already with the X-Men.  This is easily resolved however by placing DAZ #26 earlier in the time-line; there's no direct link between that issue and its predecessor that we need to worry about. We'll put it back far enough for there to be a week between this story and Rogue seeking sanctuary.

Date

Wednesday 27^th to Thursday 28^th of July, 1983.

X-Date

X+5Y+100 to X+5Y+101.

Contemporary Events

Doctor Ken Masugi, of the Claremont Institute in California, testifies before the Congressional Committee charged with deciding on how to redress the interment of Japanese families by the US during World War II. 

Perhaps surprisingly, Masugi is critical of the committee for going too far in sympathising with those who share his Japanese descent, arguing that neither reparations nor a formal apology were necessary (both ultimately came to pass five years later). And definitely surprisingly, some bright spark figured the best person to chair the committee was Strom Thurmond, a man who's name is synonymous with racism, and about whom pretty much the best thing could be said is that he died markedly less of an arsehole then one could have guessed from his early campaigns.

Standout Line

"I owe you an apology, Mr. Barnett, that guy does have wings!"

Timeline: 1983 Jul - Dec (Take 3)

July

1^st   MGN #4: Renewal
2^nd  MGN #4: Renewal
3^rd   MGN #4: Renewal
4^th   MGN #4: Renewal
5^th   MGN #4: Renewal
6^th   NMU #1: Initiation
6^th   NMU #2: Sentinels
9^th   NMU #3: Nightmare
9^th   UXM #167: The Goldilocks Syndrome (Or: "Who's Been Sleeping in my Head?")
9^th   MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
10^th UXM #167: The Goldilocks Syndrome (Or: "Who's Been Sleeping in my Head?")
10^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
11^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
12^th UXM Annual 6: Blood Feud!
12^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
13^th UXM Annual 6: Blood Feud!
13^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
13^th DAZ #25: The Jagged Edge
14^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
15^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
16^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
17^th MGN #5: God Loves, Man Kills
17^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
18^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
18^th OBN #1: Something Slimy This Way Comes
19^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
20^th UXM #168: Professor Xavier is a Jerk!
22^nd NMU #4: Who's Scaring Stevie?
23^rd NMU #5: Heroes
24^th NMU #5: Heroes
24^th NMU #6: Road Warriors!
25^th NMU #6: Road Warriors!
27^th NMU #7: Who's Scaring Stevie?
28^th NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
29^th NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
30^th NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
31^st NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!

August

1^st   DAZ #26: Against the Wind
1^st   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
2^nd  DAZ #26: Against the Wind
2^nd  NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
3^rd   UXM #169: Catacombs
3^rd   UXM #170: Dancin' in the Dark
3^rd   DAZ #26: Against the Wind
3^rd   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
4^th   UXM #171: Rogue
4^th   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
5^th   NMU #7: Flying Down to Rio!
6^th   UXM #172: Scarlet in Glory
6^th   DAZ #27: Fugitive!
7^th   UXM #172: Scarlet in Glory
7^th   UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
8^th   UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
9^th   UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
10^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
11^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
12^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
13^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
14^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not
15^th UXM #173: To Have and Have Not

Obnoxio The Clown Vs. The X-Men: "Something Slimy This Way Comes"

(Coulrophobia justified.)

Comments

Well. This is certainly different.

A few words of background for those who don't recognise the name "Obnoxio". Starting in the 1970s and ending at the same time this comic was released, Marvel published Crazy magazine, a humour/satire mag including work from various writers (including Stan Lee,a man I'd ask to writes any actual comedy - let alone satire - with the same enthusiasm and sanguine outlook as I would putting Boris Johnson on a zipline and telling him to let gravity run its course).

I will confess to having read absolutely none of it; perhaps it was brilliant, but I'd think it a warning sign that its stated goal was to create the impression that the writers themselves were insane. Humour and mental illness make for uneasy bedfellows, after all, though in truth my objection is more closely connected to my belief that any time someone is told to write as though crazy, this is what's liable to happen:




No-one wants that.

For most of its run, Crazy's mascot was the wonderfully named Irving Nebbish, but in 1980 he was swapped out for Obnoxio the Clown, a miserable cynic with an addiction to cigars and profanity. That's about as close to an explanation for this comic as I can manage. Given the timing of its publication, I assume it was intended as a sign-off for the character, and by extension Crazy and its staff, but using the X-Men as a vehicle to do it seems ridiculous, like how they finished Enterprise off with an episode in which the Next Gen cast showed up for no goddamn reason at all. I guess money is the only explanation. "At least people might buy the last disc; that shit got Riker and Troi."

Most of this comic lies outside this blog's remit, the story featuring the X-Men lasting only ten pages. As a brief overview, though: mostly, it stinks.The thing with unpleasant protagonists is that they'e got to be funny, or they'e got to be useful, or at least be involved in a plot interesting enough to make getting behind the character a secondary concern. Not surprisingly considering Obnoxio's origin and occupation, Kupperberg goes for the first option, but can't manage to bring the funny. Obnoxio is insulting, but not cutting, curmudgeonly but without invention. He wanders from place to place treating people badly, in away that reminds me somehow of Dennis the Menace Beano strips, only those were much shorter, much faster, and involed a young boy with manic charm and a dog with an endless appetite for small-scale violence. Not getting annoyed at no smoking signs and complaining about having to show up for jury duty.

(There's also a house ad that's in appallingly poor taste, in which Obnoxio recommends a ficticious suicidal reader simply buys more Marvel comics. Sure, the early '80s isn't a place anyone would look for sensitivity regarding mental illness,but it's impossible to imagine how even at the time anyone thought this a sound advertising strategy.)

Let's move on to the X-Men story, shall we? Xavier has hired Kitty's favorite clown, Obnoxio, to MC a belated surprise birthday party, clowns being exactly what every 14 year-old girl wants to have show up to her birthday, especially when surrounded by the adults she insists are her peers. Unfortunately for Obnoxio, his visit takes place on the same night the villainous Eye-Scream plans to attack the X-Men. Eye-Scream causes Cerebro to explode as a distraction (at least, I think that's what's happening), which works better than he could have hoped when the X-Men promptly finger Obnoxio as their assailant. Charles figures out their mistake and lowers the temperature-around Eye-Scream, freezing him solid, but Obnoxio is sufficiently angry about this case of mistaken identity to storm out.

There are exactly two things here that save the story from total worthlessness. The first is Eye-Scream, a mutant who can transform into any flavour of ice-cream he desires. That's entirely a one-joke concept, with his repeated use of ice-cream-based puns ("It will make my job as simple as pie -- a la mode!") maybe constituting one more, if you're feeling generous, but it's a quite funny idea, and with only ten pages there's not time for it to outstay its welcome.

The second rather neat part to all of this is Kupperberg's decision to give the X-Men the kind of dialogue they haven't enjoyed since Stan Lee's tenure (the pages are numbered, too, which we haven't seen in some time). Again, that would be tiring in a longer comic, but here it works just fine.Watching Xavier describe Kitty as "The X-Men's youngest member " to himself, or hearing Warren say "The high-flying Angel will provide back-up, Sprite!"as he hides behind a teenage girl is legitimately funny. It's also true that anyone who doesn't at least smirk at the idea of using an inflatable rubber chicken as a diving bell has chosen the wrong form of literature.

None of this is an attempt to argue this book is particularly good, only that it isn't devoid of interest. Almost thirty years after the fact, this comic exists within a range that can't end at anything better than "interesting curiosity". My suggestion - and I realise that I've just written a short essay on the subject -is that we try really hard topretend that none of this ever happened. Including the Enterprise finale, obviously.

Clues

Since this issue takes place around Kitty's birthday, there are two places in the timeline it could potentially fit. One is the first time Kitty was described as being 14, in UXM #160, the other is after the team returned to Earth following their kidnapping by the Brood (UXM #161-167), during which time Kitty turns 14.

We can immediately dismiss the former option, since at the time the X-Men resided in Magneto's former base on the mysterious island of Cthulhuripoff. The latter option works pretty well, if we assume Professor X's decision to hire Obnoxio is in part an attempt to cheer Kitty up after booting her from the team. It also makes more sense of Sprite's claim that she forgot her birthday, since she was in another star system at the time. There's the question as to where all the snow has gone, of course,but as usual in these situations, we can simply blame Storm. Goddamn you, Storm!

Angel's presence needs to be considered as well, but it's not at all difficult to imagine he's visiting his former home and team-mates, especially since it's only a day or two until Wolverine, the reason Angel quit in the first place, is headed for Japan.

The story itself takes place in approximately real time.

Date

Monday 18^th of July, 1983.

X-Date

X+5Y+109.

Contemporary Events

Standout Line

"Mommy, was the circus mugged?"

UXM #173: "To Have And Have Not"

(Turning Japanese.)

Comments

With most of the X-Men coughing up their stomach linings, we'll be focusing on Wolverine and Rogue this issue.  They're smashing their way through Tokyo, looking for someone who knows where Nabatone Yakuse (the crimeworld "mediator" from last issue who seemed to know far more than he should), and they're not too picky who they have to repeatedly hit in order to get the information.  Eventually someone cracks - as an alternative to bleeding to death from the face - and our heroes are on their way.

Nabatone's hideout turns out to be deserted, barring the occasional automated laser cannon.  The strain on our duo is probably more of a threat, though.  Rogue's stolen powers might well make her immune to getting shot, but they're also a constant reminder of why Logan hates her as much as she does, and her flirty attitude isn't helping either.  We don't quite get an answer for those fans who've always wondered if Wolverine's claws could cut through Rogue's skin (and these people exist, I promise you), but we certainly come close.  Indeed, probably the only thing that prevents a murderous scuffle is the discover of Nabatone's long-dead body.  They've been punked!

On the other side of town, meanwhile, Yukio and Storm are dithering over whether to hole up for the night or head for the hospital and their critically ill friends, but bands of roving thugs keep showing up to render their discussions moot.  Unfortunately for the waves upon waves of hapless mooks, Ororo has finally made her choice between extreme self-control and total self-release, and she's gone for door number 2, the one adorned with a wood relief showing a one hit point lickspittle taking a lightning bolt to the testes.

While Storm is embracing her inner sadist, Rogue and Wolverine are hot-footing it back to the hospital, assuming Viper will take advantage of their absence and mount an attack. Which, in fairness, she does, though the Odd Couple show up before anyone's blades can enter anyone else's flesh (anyone with a name, anyway; guarding unconscious superheroes must come with some pretty spectacular danger pay). Rogue takes on the assembled swarm of Hand ninjas, and Wolverine spends four pages fighting the Silver Samurai in near-total silence. I assume Claremont is trying to recapture the atmosphere he and Frank "increasingly utterly unbearable" Miller applied to such effect in the Wolverine mini-series, and in truth Paul Smith comes close to pulling it off.

Logan breaks Harada's arm and is all for moving up the skeleton, but Mariko intercedes, preferring to see her half-brother humiliated, rather than perforated. Further debate on the topic is cut short when Viper arrives, pointing a gun at Wolverine and Mariko and ordering them to release the samurai. It's an odd kind of Mexican stand-off, this, with Viper and Logan threatening each other's other half. That said, the fact that Kenuchio-san had to get a limb snapped before he could be as helpless as his sibling rather underlines the problem with Mariko, which is her lack of agency. Aside from being nice to Rogue (aka the woman who tried to kill her fiance's oldest friend), Mariko's only real choice through all this was to confront her half brother, and even that got co-opted by Yukio.

Of course, if we're going to talk gender politics, it's worth noting that not only did this issue quickly pass the Bechmel test, but that when Harada passes out in agony, Logan is the only male among the six characters still standing. So it's not all bad.

The moment the Samurai goes down, Viper opens fire, but Rogue appears in time to operate as a superhuman shield. Viper is firing something much worse than bullets agony, though; Rogue quickly absorbs enough energy to cause serious damage, but the blaster overloads before she does. Weaponless and sans samurai, Viper withdraws. Rogue looks horribly like she's going to be taking her own journey soon enough, but Logan donates his healing factor as repayment for shielding Mariko.

A week goes by, and we reach the eve of the wedding, at Mariko's ancestral home just outside Agarashima. Mariko is waltzing around in an ecstatic haze; it's sickening. She's so out of it, she can't even remember when strange men show up to wish her well in distinctly sinister tones. Maybe, though, that's because something else has just occurred to her.

The big day. The guests of good cheer: the now-recovered X-Men (with Rogue in a wheelchair); Charles and Lilandra; Lorna and Alex; a somewhat uncomfortable-looking Corsair, and Scott and Madelyne, whose arrival nearly causes an intergalactic incident when Lilandra makes the entirely reasonable assumption that she's in the presence of the Phoenix reborn. Charles intercedes, insisting that Madelyne has no connection to Jean Grey (with rather more confidence than Scott can summon), and all is once more well.

Except that someone is missing. Well, two people, including Carol Danvers (nice work there, Charlie), but I'm talkin' bout Storm, who arrives late in skin-tight leather and sporting a mohawk. Kitty is horrified by the idea her friends might unilaterally decide to change their style (this is one of Sprite's tantrums that actually works really well, it being about the common teenage desperate need for utter stasis in their surroundings, even as they desperately wish they themselves could change as quickly and completely as possible), and it always did strike me as quite silly, but really the only problem here is how inappropriate her get-up is for a wedding. Style crises can wait, lady, this is about Logan and Mariko.

That was the plan, anyway. At the height of the ceremony, Mariko suddenly calls everything to a halt. Logan is a foreigner, gaijin, and unworthy (you might think halfway through the wedding attended by the Emperor himself is an inelegant time to raise such objections; I believe Robby Hart once made a similar point). Mariko is icily unconcerned, the guests are thunderstruck, and Wolverine is utterly crushed.

The stranger standing outside, though, looks delighted. He also looks more than a little like Jason Wyngardes, aka Mastermind, aka the man directly responsible for turning Jean Grey into the Dark Phoenix. Which means, needless to say, that things are about to get very bad.

(By the way, this issue represents the twentieth anniversary of the X-Men's existence.Which isn't bad going. On the other hand, it's taken me more than fifteen month to get this far. Once the '90s arrive, I'm in real trouble. Perhaps I should start measuring my own progress as well as the comic's, and ultimately disappear into an endlessly recursive self-referential analytic tunnel.)

Clues

This issue begins soon after the last one concluded, and takes place over eight days.

Date

Sunday 7^th to Monday 15^th August, 1983

X-Date

X+5Y+156 to X+5Y+164.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 3.67 standard years.

(Colossus is 26 years old.)

"It is good to be out of  hospital, tovarisch."

Contemporary Events

Meryl Streep's daughter Mamie is born, as is the almost unbearably cute Tina O'Brien.

Standout Line

"Take a hike, shorty! Lemme do mah good deed f'r the day." - Rogue.

Actually, this is really only noteworthy in context: one of the most ridiculous "Talking is a free action" moments I've seen in some time. Observe: