UXM #51: "The Devil Had A Daughter!"

("Oh Romeo, Romeo!  Wherefore art thou a chauvinistic prick?")

Comments

Holy giant space cow!  It's the X-Men do Shakespeare!

No, really.  This is Romeo and Juliet, pretty much.  Polaris is Juliet, and Magneto is both Capulet and Tybalt; he's invoking his patriachal authority and he's spoiling for a fight.

Iceman is Romeo, of course, so blinded by love he's willing to beat down anyone fool enough to stand in his way.  Cyclops is Mercutio, unwilling to fight but prepared to defend his closest friend.  That's why he throws the first punch - once he realises Iceman won't back down, there's no option but to fight to keep the love-blind idiot alive.

This gives Angel the Benvolio role, of course - he talks a good fight but ends up doing sod all.  Given how many gay jokes I've made about Bobby and Hank, I don't really have much choice but to make Beast into Balthasar.

Jean Grey is, er, Mrs Mercutio.  Or Queen Mab, I suppose.  She's certainly done a number on Mercutio, am I right?

That makes the opening scene of the comic the run-up to Tybalt and Romeo's duel, only with Romeo as much an instigator as Tybalt ("A plague on both your houses!", indeed).  The major differences: most of the Montagu clan is on hand to help out, the duel takes ten pages instead of a few lines of stage directions and questionable puns, no-one dies, and it's a bit rubbish rather than one of the greatest plays ever written. [1]

It also doesn't really sit well with 20th Century sensibility, even with - I'd hope - the conventional wisdom of 1968.  Of all the people in the room, it's somehow Magneto who actually bothers to ask Polaris what it is she wants.  Everyone else is to busy arguing whether or not it's fist o'clock (turns out: it is).  Indeed, Beast - motherfucking Beast - concludes that Polaris can't possibly refuse Magneto, due to her "familial duty and... inner need for power!"  Because God knows, no woman can refuse her father when power is involved.  That's... kind of uncomfortable to think about.

As an aside, the dialogue in this issue is really weirdly apportioned to the speech bubbles.  There's an art to splitting up speech, as even Steven and I have learned, you can't just do it at random.  Otherwise you get this kind of thing: 

I've had it up to here with a guy who'd even...

...con his own kid into joining his pillage and plunder act!

See what I mean?  It just doesn't...

... work.  Maybe if had been iambic pentameter, I guess...

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day, with the exception of the last page, which takes place several days later.

Date

Sunday 11^th to Friday 16^th May, 1980.

X-Date

X+772 to X+777.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.47 standard years.

(Iceman is 35 years old.)

"You -- you're chicken!"

Contemporary Events

An F-2 tornado hits Michigan, leading to President Carter declaring it a federal disaster area.

Hugh Griffith, who one an Oscar for his portrayal of Sheik Ilderim in Ben Hur, dies aged 67.

Standout Line

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she."

No, wait.  Wrong one.  Erm...

"...I need this icy protection against a warm hunk of girl like you!"

That's better.

[1] Well, so popular opinion would have it.  I always thought my friend Bronwyn had a point when she described it as "Too self-absorbed children who kill themselves before they have time to figure out that they're both bloody idiots".  She also has been known to point out "It's basically a story about a teenager who persuades a young girl that death is more attractive than finishing puberty".

UXM #50: "City Of Mutants"

(Second generation blues.)

Comments

I think that's the title of the issue, anyway.  It might alternatively be "Hail, Queen of Mutants", but if that's so, Mesmero ("Keeper of the flame of Magneto, emperor of evil mutants!") has put a lot of time an effort into carving CITY OF MUTANTS into the rock face beside his hidden metropolis, and that strikes me as distinctly counter-productive. 

That's another lovely cover, by the way, marred only by the sheer unwavering awfulness of Polaris' costume.  It's little wonder she turns against Mesmero and his plans for her, if that's what he offers her in the way of wardrobe.

M-2 is a great codename for the secret weapon that turns out to be "Magneto the Second".  Shame Cyclops spoils it by claiming he'd already considered it, but assumed it must refer to a son.  See, people?  Unthinking chauvinism can get people killed!

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

Date

Sunday 11^th May, 1980.

X-Date

X+772.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.44 standard years.

(Iceman is 35 years old.)

"Don't do it, Lorna!"

Contemporary Events

Pam Higgins wins the Lady Michelob golf tournament in Roswell, Georgia.

Standout Line

"Time to end this tasteless comedy!" I love this line.  It's pretty difficult to stand-out as a purveyor of panto camp in '60s comics (it's like being noticeably green in a field of grass), but somehow Mesmero manages it.  Props, dawg.

UXM #49: "Who Dares Defy... The Demi-Men?"

("Be sure to wear some flowers in your green hair")

Comments

This is encouraging: only two issues in and Drake has introduced us to two long-running characters, Polaris and Mesmero [1].  I'm not completely clear on why Mesmero considers himself the acolyte of Magneto, given that we've never seen him before, but that's a fairly minor complaint.

Also in this issue: Hank becomes furious when Bobby brings a girl home for coffee.  Surprising, this is not (mind you, Beast is presumably still annoyed that when Bobby suggested taking the plunge and forming a couple, he was only talking about becoming a skydiving act).

It's slightly more difficult to understand what happened to Lorna Dane in the first place.  Obviously, Mesmero's hypnotic signals explain why she was headed to San Francisco, but it's a little harder to discern how she managed to travel 1200 miles within a page and a half.  To paraphrase From Dusk 'Til Dawn, people don't travel at the speed of light when you call them, I don't give a fuck how hypnotised they are.

Cyclops is also pretty lucky that the "mutant squad" he sees (who I presume are the "demi-men"of the title) and then attacks actually were bad guys.  From what I know of San Francisco, the fact that someone is dressed like a freak tells you absolutely nothing.

Hank once again proves his worth this issue.  Twice over, in fact: he creates a portable Cerebro unit to go mutant-hunting, and also demonstrates that when the X-Men go into battle without him, they end up with Angel shot and nearly killed.  That never happens when the Beast is around.  Uh, unless, y'know, Cyclops does it himself.

Clues

This issue is a bit blurry on the details, but it seems to take place over a single day.

Angel describes the mansion as "a suite of musty, shrouded silent recollections!", which suggests some time has passed.  Mind you, Xavier was so anal he probably kept the place spotless at all times (presumably getting Marvel Girl to telekinetically wield a dustpan and brush).  Combined with Warren's parents being indescribably rich, it's plausible that his definition of "musty" bears little resemblance to what we understand by the word.

Let's assume then that the X-Men broke up a fortnight ago.

Date

Sunday 11^th May, 1980.

X-Date

X+772.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.40 standard years.

(Iceman is 35 years old.)

"You won't thaw out of this
until next Spring!"

Contemporary Events

The mobster Henry Hill (played by Ray Liotta in Goodfellas) is arrested for drugs possession.

Standout Line

"We come not to harm you -- but to  -- worship you!"  Now that's how you write an ending.

[1] The idea of latent mutants is explored for the first time, too.

UXM #48: "Beware Computo: Commander Of The Robot Hive!"

("You will never find a more wretched hive of robot villainy!")

Comments

Well, that didn't take very long: it's out with Friedrich, and in with Arnold Drake (just in time for the comic's fifth anniversary) as well as gratuitous cheesecake, apparently.

Yes, this is the infamous issue in which Jean Grey becomes not only a model, but "the tastiest package of goodies we've opened around here in months!".  It's like watching a car crash, if both vehicles were packed with immodestly dressed babes of brobdingnagian boobage (sorry, Dean Swift!).

Drake attempts to distract us from all this horrible sexism by having Jean secretly avert three "disasters" whilst she's working (though how a photographer getting his hair singed by a falling spotlight could be considered a disaster is not explained), but he then tears off what little camouflage he's assembled by having the boss slime all over Jean until Scott arrives to rescue her.

And what's Jean's response?  To give just as good as Cyclops does?  No.   She just drags him away jealously when the other models take an interest in him.  Girl power, indeed.

It would also help if Drake could keep his stories straight.  Alright, so he co-wrote the previous issue with Friedrich, but you'd hope he'd have at least been sufficiently on the ball to remember that said story (set post split-up) featured Bobby and Hank in New York, which rather contradicts this issue's suggestion that Agent Duncan ordered them to head for California.

Still, I'm not sure story logic is Drake's strong suit.  After all, do robots in "electronic hibernation" really require waking with a "reviva-ray"?  Isn't electronic hibernation just, y'know, being switched off?  For that matter, do you really need to give your robot-crushing device like "the automatic canceller"?  Does the "inverse ninja law" genuinely stretch to super-powered killer robots?

Finally, while I'm not entirely sure what noise is made when you angrily grab someone's tie in a brawl, I'll bet all the money in my pockets that it isn't "WOINNG!".

Still, Drake at least manages to avoid predictability, I suppose.  Like how it turns out that Computo's base was built by Quasimodo.  I did not see that coming.

The back-up strip in this issue is great: a five-page run-down of Hank McCoy's unquestioned awesomeness.  His reading list is especially interesting: "Shakespeare, Plato, Tolstoy, McLuhan, and, uh... Thor!"  I assume that last one is an in-joke, but I prefer to take it literally, and assume that the Thunder God of the Marvel universe also has a side-line in vanity publishing.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once, I saw a crowd
Of trolls to smite 'til each lay still
Beside a lake I at once seized
And then drank dry, for it was mead!
HAVE AT THEE!

Well, I'd buy it.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

There are two things to take into account here.  Firstly, how quickly can Jean Grey get a modelling job.  Secondly, why does she think Beast and Iceman are in California, when the last we saw them they were desperately trying to score some touch from their NY paramours?

I suppose the answer to the former question is fairly unambiguously "Whenever she damn well wants to".  Pretty much the entirety of the X-Men have been salivating over Jean since she arrived at the school (even if last issue's stats seemed to be going through the motions somewhat), so it's not too much of a stretch to assume she'd have no problems landing a modelling gig, even if she's yet to evolve into the pneumatic-breasted woman of the '90s.  As to Beast and Iceman, we can suppose, I assume, that California is indeed their destination, but that they stayed in the Empire State long enough to give their other halves a decent farewell (which, it turns out, said other halves had to pay for, but no-one ever said being a super-hero was easy), and are heading to California as Jean speaks.

Let's set this story as happening the day after Beast and Iceman defeat Merlin, then.

Date

Friday 2^nd May, 1980.

X-Date

X+763.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.39 standard years.

(Iceman is 36 years old.)

The aptly-named "Sir Not Appearing In This Issue"

Contemporary Events

The football player Zat Knight is born, which I mainly mention to keep my friend Christopher happy.  "Don't you mock Bolton!  Bolton's your mother!"

Standout Line

"I've even invented a machine that can open pop-corn bags noiselessly in movie houses!  There's only one minor flaw -- the machine makes up three rows of the theatre!"  Ah, Hank.  How I love you.  But how many rows would it take to set up a machine that crotch-punches anyone texting during a movie?  Because I'm pretty sure that would be worth trying.

UXM #47: "The Warlock Wears Three Faces!"

(Deep in the ectoplasmic core of thine own existence...)

Comments

Looks like someone finally paid attention to my suggestions from the future.  Today, for one night only, we present: the Iceman and Beast show!  Henry might refer to himself and Bobby as "The best of friends...", but we know what's really going on here. 

Speaking of Hank, AKA The Only Thinking Mutant In New York, it's nice too see that he shares my opinion that Fred/Amos Duncan is entirely full of shit: "I only hope that person doesn't have to die.. just to prove to the FBI that we should've remained a team!" (sic).  Damn, but than man is smart.  Well, except with women; I really don't see how calling your date a "wondrous wench" is a good idea [1].  It's almost as if he wanted to be dumped, to leave the path clear for someone else...

They seemed to have replaced Bernard the Poet at Hank and Bobby's usual haunt (though not the fishnet-clad dancer, who seems as oblivious to the outside world as always), and "Fat Man" seems decidely less willing to respond to constructive criticism.   Anyone who fails to genuflect to his satisfaction gets a cisit from some decidely unpleasant (to say nothing of pun-reliant) hoodlums.  I criticised this kind of pointless fracas more than once when Roy Thomas was in charge, but at least back then the "X-Men vs. human mook" fracas only got trotted out to pad two-parters.  Why Friedrich thought it was a good idea to make use of it in the middle of a single, fifteen-page story, I have no idea.  Perhaps he was worried that two X-Men battling motherfucking Merlin wouldn't sustain the readers interest. [2]

Actually, that turns out to be true, but that's only because Friedrich decides that the Warlock would become terrified of exploding lights (clearly all that time he spent amassing a secret army of heavily armed hoodlums under the surface of the Earth didn't teach him anything about explosives, or lightbulbs [3]), and then go mad after witnessing the "lambent luminescense" of the lightshow his prosaically-named "killer gem" would generate after being thrown into a circuit board - "just as [Iceman] had figured".  It's hard to believe I spent all this time thinking that Beast was the brains of the operation, now that I know that Bobby can successfully predict the psychological effects of combining arcane artifacts with electrical current. 

Though even then, it takes the vicious and unstoppable assault of modern music to defeat Merlin for good.  That seems distinctly fishy, even by '60s comic standards, but I guess if it worked on Noriega...

Clues

This issue takes place over a single evening.

Bobby mentions that it's been days since the X-Men parted ways at the end of last issue.  Since there's no qualifier ("a couple", "a few", "several") I shall - with my trademark arbitrariness - assume four days have passed.

Date

Thursday 1^st May, 1980.

X-Date

X+762.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.36 standard years.

(Iceman is 36 years old.)

"Maybe if Hank and I talked it over..."

Contemporary Events

The "Special Economic Zone" of Shenzhen is formed just North of Hong Kong by the People's Republic of China.

Standout Line

"In spite of the supremacy of mind over brawn... every man must at some time lash out and prove himself still capable of acheiving victory by the lesser asset!"  I have to say I'm not convinced by the Mahi's philosophy here.  Of course, that might just be because my "lesser assets" in this sense are so much lesser than most, they're hardly worth mentioning.

[1] Unless your date is the incomparably lovely Talia, obviously...

UXM #46: "The End Of The X-Men!"

(No-one tell Ed Tudor-Pole there's a job going.)

Comments

At it's heart, there's an interesting story here (Friedrich's first one to be free from Thomas' influence).  An examination of how Cain Marko might process the death of his step-brother would definitely be interesting, I'd have thought.

At least it would be, if his reaction wasn't to a) lament not killing Xavier personally, and b) accusing everyone of lying to him.  Sure, denial and anger feature pretty strongly in the early stages of grief (or so Kubler-Ross would have us believe), but it's a shame we don't get to see Juggernaut move beyond that before his temporary return to this dimension is up.

We do get to see him fire an awful lot of explodey discs, though, so let's not pretend the adventure was entirely wasted.

Apparently Xavier can't learn from his mistakes, though.  Having secretly hidden Marko in the basement, only for Juggs to rampage through the mansion and almost kill the X-Men, Xavier's next move is apparently to secretly hide a machine capable of returning Marko in the basement, which leads to Juggs rampaging through the mansion and almost killing the X-Men.  At least the professor was sensible enough to ensure the machine would return Cain to the crimson cosmos unless Xavier turned it off. 

Or maybe the idea was that the Professor would only let Cain stay if he completed a set task in a given time-limit.  Perhaps Xavier had dozens of different machines, to allow groups of hopeless reprobates the chance of winning big if they can navigate the fiendish puzzles and obstacles Xavier laid out before him.

Ah, well.  With Xavier dead, I guess someone else will have to pick up the slack.

"Three dead X-Men is an automatic lock-in."

I mentioned not long ago that I thought Xavier's funeral was bizarrely quiet, but apparently our heroes were all the people Xavier had in his life: his will (read by that half of Nelson and Murdock possessing the power of sight) mentions no-one else, not even Agent Fred Duncan, Xavier's friend at the FBI, who has now changed his first name to "Amos" [1]. Obviously this is changed later on, as it becomes increasingly clear that Xavier pretty much fucked his way across the world after his step-brother was lost in Korea.

Whilst on the subject of Duncan, you have to wonder whether the FBI puts any effort at all into ensuring its agents can tie their own shoelaces.  The X-Men at this point are pretty much an elite fighting unit, who have trained for years to support each other in combat.  Why the hell would you split them up?  Duncan argues they're too tempting a target, but you could say that about the Pentagon and no-one seems to think it should become five trapeziums spread out across the Eastern seaboard.

I suppose the "rapid response" argument makes slightly more sense, but the X-Men have a jet, let's not forget.  A jet they attached helicopter blades too just in case they needed to hover above something.  I mean, quite aside from the fact that the jet makes quick call-outs distinctly possible, who's going to actually get the damn thing when the X-Men split up?  I remember arguing with an ex-girlfriend during the stuff-splitting when she tried to tell me my hair-dryer was hers (it wasn't, not that I'm still bitter).   If she'd tried to take my faded red Corsa, I'd have tried to run the bitch over with it.  There's no way I'd let anyone get their hands on my plane, particularly after all the effort I'd gone into to personalising it with VTOL capability (which is so much cooler than platinum rims, by the way).

Still, it looks like this is going to be the status quo for a little while (after all, what better way to recover from a profound personal loss to your adopted family than to immediately split that family up?).  At least it confirms Jean is no longer at college, since her only reason to fear being sent to the other side of the country is how much harder it's going to be for Scott and herself to not ever bother to tell each other how they feel.

This issue's origin story back-up strip concludes the story of Iceman joining the team.  It's not very good, frankly, but it does at least involve Xavier wiping the memories of the Drakes, so they don't remember Bobby's mutant powers of what the professor's school actually entails.  Given that Bobby's father is shown to be an anti-mutant bigot in later years, this is an interesting development.  I wonder how many Thanksgiving dinners Bobby sat through listening to his pop go on about how mutants are all scum?  And even if Drake Senior wasn't so anti-mutant, I'm not sure about the ethics of making parents forget a piece of the identity of their children.  It would be like making Steven Gately's parents forget he was gay, or ensuring Eddie Izzard's parents can no longer remember he was in The Avengers.

OK, so it wouldn't be all bad.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

We learn that it's been weeks since Xavier's death, so we can place this story as occurring a fortnight after the battle with Grotesk.

The strange naked tree disease is apparently still sweeping New York State. 

Date

Sunday 27^th April, 1980.

X-Date

X+758.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.33 standard years.

(Iceman is 36 years old.)

"Don't bet on it, Chuckles!"

Contemporary Events

The Dominican Embassy siege ends, having started 61 days earlier when the embassy in Bogota was captured by armed guerrillas.

Standout Line

"It must have been set to activate automatically at some pre-determined time!"  Well, obviously, Cyclops.  Because what do you do when you've been diagnosed with an incurable terminal illness?  You set your "unstoppable homicidal maniac machine" to activate automatically!  Without letting anyone else know!

Man, Xavier is a dick.

[1] Is it coincidence that this is "soma" spelled backwards?  Soma is a divine drink of prodigious enervating abilities, which presumably means "amos" will be suffused with substandard and soporific mediocrity.  One hopes this is not a moment of honest self-appraisal from Friedrich, but from my memories of his brief run, I am very much afraid it will prove to be.

UXM #45: "When Mutants Clash!"

(That should be "sense-shattering", surely?)

Comments

This issue is actually the first half of a two-part story that concludes in Avengers #53.  Well, really it's the third part of an X-Men storyline that concludes in Avengers #53 - which is a pretty shitty way to treat your readers - but either way it means I thought it a good idea to read the aforementioned Avengers issue immediately after, even if it isn't part of our study.

It's a good job I did, since not only does the story end there (with Toad finally getting pissed off enough to abandon Magneto, and Mags himself falling into the Atlantic and presumed drowned), but it offers a few words of explanation as well. It turns out the disintegrator ray left beside Angel's cage was deliberately put there to allow him to escape.  That's nice to hear, at least, since it retrospectively makes issue #44 look a little less terrible, and that book can use all the help it can get.

After that, though, everything gets ridiculous again.  Magneto boasts that he deliberately placed a homing tracker on Angel so as to arouse suspicion amongst the Avengers.  But why assume Angel would head for the Avengers at all?  It's hundreds of miles to Avenger's mansion (see below); is it really a slam-dunk to conclude that's who he'll ask for help?

On top of that, whilst Magneto's plan to hypnotise the X-Men into attacking the Avengers is pretty cool (a bit over-elaborate, but certainly fun to watch), he laments the fact that Angel escaped too soon for the conditioning to take hold.  So why let him escape so soon?   Why not hypnotise Angel first, then send him out without a homing beacon at all?  Or even get the X-Men to call the Avengers by telephone?  And why start torturing Toad because Cyclops escaped, which is pretty much exactly what Magneto wants?

I suppose the answer to that last one might be that Magneto didn't want Cyclops running around until Magneto had had chance to get his hypno-beam or whatever working.  Indeed, the whole plan might not have worked at all if when Cyclops bumped into the Avengers immediately after they arrived (before Magneto activated the X-Men's post-hypnotic suggestions), he hadn't chosen to be a thoroughly petulant prick.

(Mind you, if this issue is anything to go by, attacking people because they ask him to stand still for a minute is very much what Cyclops does.  "[N]o-one tells Cyclops to halt--", "[N]obody tells an X-Man what to do!"; it's a master-class in aggressive childish preening.)

By that point we're in Avengers #53, which makes it all Roy Thomas' fault (again), but the only thing more irritating than watching one superhero pick a fight for absolutely no reason is for that superhero to then flee the battle he initiated, asking himself "Why did they treat me like an enemy... WHY??

One interesting development amongst the chaos: the conversation Quicksilver has with Cyclops (once the latter has stopped trying to chop Quicksilver into chum on general principle).  Not only is it another example of pre-Claremont argument on how mutants should treat humans (which once again takes baby steps towards developing an honest-to-God theme), but the idea of Cyclops angrily rejecting the idea of a mutants-only island where homo superior can exist away from the press of humanity is brilliantly ironic, even if it took 40 years for that to become apparent.

Once again, the issue ends with a back-up strip about the X-Men's formation.  We're still following the events that led to Iceman signing up.  This is a deeply strange story, actually.  Iceman is arrested, basically for walking whilst mutated, but decides to sit and wait for charges to be pressed so he can clear his name in court.

Cyclops, though, has decided that the law of the land can't be trusted, and so breaks into Iceman's cell and, when Bobby refuses to leave, actually tries to knock him unconscious so that he can be dragged to freedom!

That, to me, sounds an awful lot like something an X-Man villian would do, and raises all sorts of questions about where Xavier sees  the team's position in the grand scheme of things.  Indeed, all Cyclops' manages is to badly beat Bobby up, and cause an angry mob armed with shotguns to give chase.  The issue ends with the sherrif - who was adamant that Bobby would get a fair hearing up until Cyclops staged a jail-break - threatening to shoot Iceman if he doesn't immediately surrender.  I'm not sure whether we're actually supposed to be rooting for Cyclops here.

Mind you, that's not exactly the rarest of circumstances...

Clues

This issue starts very soon after the last one ended.  Angel has now arrived at New York.  How long the flight took isn't discussed, but we learn in Avengers #53 that it takes a quinjet less than half an hour to find Magneto's hideout.  A half-hour flight at full speed for a quinjet would cover about 800 miles.

Comparing that to (what else?) the velocity of an unladen swallow, it would have taken Angel 19 hours to fly that far, assuming top speed could be maintained indefinitely. 

Of course, Angel bigger than a swallow, but that's not to say he's necessarily faster (though he'd presumably need fewer rests).  There's also the stop at Red Raven's base to consider.  All in all, it seems reasonable to assume that this issue takes place the day after the previous one.

Date

Wednesday 23^rd April, 1980.

X-Date

X+754.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.30 standard years.

(Iceman is 36 years old.)

Contemporary Events

The brilliant named Nicolas Douchez is born.  He doesn't seem to be very famous, from what I can tell, but then I used up all my football knowledge with that Brazil crack yesterday. 

Standout Line

"[A]s Cyclops ponders what may well be the most fatefully important decision in his career..." Sometimes, the level of insane hyperbole this comic generates is quite exhausting.  Cyclops most fateful decision so far?  Which of three doors he should enter to follow the Toad. 

I'm not saying stopping Mortimer before he can tell his master about the escape would be a bad idea, mind you.  Just maybe slightly less important than deciding whether to trust a man claiming to be Xavier when he tells you how to save the world from eternal slavery.

UXM #44: "Red Raven, Red Raven...!"

(For the love of God, why?)

Comments

At long last!  This issue marks the end of Roy Thomas' reign (Friedrich wrote the script for this one, but it's Thomas at the helm). Truly it was an era of mediocrity.  Not to mention time-wasting.  If Roy Thomas was a female footballer, even the Brazilians would think he was milking it.[1]

Let's look at the board, shall we?  Stan Lee penned 19 issues that took place over seven months, from the X-Men's point of view.  Roy Thomas penned 25 issues that took place over seventeen months.  That's a truly miserable compression constant of 1.47 standard months to every Marvel month!  And it would have been even worse than that if the Factor Three story (and its later references) hadn't allowed me to ignore Thomas' increasingly ludicrous attempts to tie his storylines into real-time events.

It's safe to say this was not one of my favourite eras for the comic, even when taking into account the time in which it was written.  Goodbye, Roy Thomas: we hardly liked ya.

It would be nice if I could at least say that Thomas went out on a high, but that would be a lie.  In fairness, messy handovers are very common in comics, so I'm prepared to cut it at least some slack.  It's still unrelentingly stupid, though.  We start where we left the action in issue #43, with Magneto towering over our fallen heroes.  Initially he plans to kill them, but then Quicksilver - the same Quicksilver who only last issue Magneto promised to punish and then didn't for no reason at all - objects.

Magneto then flies into a rage, immediately reverses course ("I must have time to savor the sweet nectar of victory!") and puts the X-Men in the individualised prisons he had already built for them.  Why were they there if the plan was to kill the X-Men as soon as super-humanly possible?  How are we supposed to take Magneto seriously if Quicksilver can say or do anything and without him doing more than bellow and bluster?   Why does Magneto change his mind again when Toad notes the X-Men have been arguing with Quicksilver?  Why doesn't he do anything about it? 

(Also, why the hell is there a cutting torch lying around the X-Men's cell?  I'm guessing it's been planted there, probably by Scarlet Witch; we'll have to wait and see).

Once we get past all of this lunacy, Angel manages to escape Isla de Magneto and head for help (specifically the Avengers, who Angel is very chuffed about thinking of, despite the fact Cyclops had already ordered him to find them), and then things somehow conspire to become more stupid.  Angel takes shelter from the storm on a tiny atoll that then becomes an island, and he decides he'll go exploring because, quote "...Magneto wants us to join him!  He won't harm the others for a while!"  You know what might have changed his mind on that, Warren?  The fact you've escaped!

At that point, he really deserves getting a beating from Red Raven, one of the self-described "supreme race of birdmen!" (not so supreme that you're not functionally extinct, Tweety!).  That fight lasts for all of two pages before Raven decides he can trust Angel ("I can sense that you also are different from ordinary humans!") and starts laying out the specifics of his secret and sacred duty.

WHAT THE FUCK?  If you're the sole hope of reviving your race, what could possibly possess you to spill the beans to a guy who a) you met three minutes ago, and b) spent two minutes and fifty-five seconds of that trying to punch you in the face?  Hell, whilst we're on the subject, why not take the simple but effective security precaution of locking your front door?

Of course, this is a man who took twenty-one years to realise he wasn't actually born one of Superioraceofbirdmen, despite the fact that he hasn't got any sodding wings!

The whole thing is one long, stupefying explosion of plot and character logic filmed in slow-motion by  a swine-flu afflicted David Lynch .  Only without even any hot lesbians. 

Clues

This issue picks up directly from the last one.

We learn something from the back-up strip this issue - Iceman first came to Xavier's attention in 1963, during late autumn or early winter.  Since the first issue of The X-Men was published in September '63, this winter is presumably meant to be January or Febuary of that year.  That means the birthday cake Xavier unveiled way back in issue #4 must indeed represent a year since Cyclops first joined him.

We'll have to fiddle with these ideas to fit them into our timeline, but we put the beginning pages of issue #4 as taking place on the twenty-third of April, 1978, we'll put that day in 1977 as being the day Scott and Xavier did battle against Jack of Diamonds, and have them discover Bobby Drake in October of that same year.

Date

Tuesday 22^nd April, 1980.

X-Date

X+753.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.26 standard years.

(Iceman is 37 years old.)

 Contemporary Events

Canada announces it will boycott the Moscow Olympics, following the USSR invasion of Afghanistan.

Standout Line

"But, since I know now I can lick your weight in hobbits any day..."  I... what?  Just... what?

[1] Eat my timely sporting reference!  EAT IT!

UXM #43: "The Torch Is Passed...!"

(Worst... reimagining... ever!)

Comments

Xavier's funeral seems remarkably sparsely attended.  His five X-Men and a priest?  I realise that there's still decades to go before we learn of Moira MacTaggert, Amelia Voght, and Gabrielle Haller, but surely someone should have shown up, Xavier's years as a recluse notwithstanding [1].  Hell, even Cain Marko might have wanted to be there, if only to check his half-brother was definitely dead.

At least Quicksilver shows up (somewhat late, because nothing suggests problems with punctuality like super fucking speed), which is a nice touch, and a reminder that Xavier's influence extended beyond his five students.  Of course, having Pietro take a moment to pay his respects just makes Magneto's ranting look even more ridiculous.  "My only regret is that it was someone else who snuffed out his worthless life... and not I, Magneto!"  Man, that is some classless bullshit, right there.

Apparently Magneto has himself another secret island headquarters.  At a certain point, you'd be expecting people to be monitoring those things, wouldn't you?  Or is everyone tied up with staking out volcanic cave systems?

In addition to his new digs, Magneto seems to have regained the Toad from his interstellar exile.  Ordinarily such unexplained developments annoy me, but I have to confess that "The Intergalactic Flight Of Toad The Adventurer!" doesn't really sound like a particularly engrossing tale.  Even if he does get chased through the stars by an implacable, emotionless foe, BSG it ain't.

"Stop staring at my arse, Callis, you slippery nonce!"

 Using previous ship losses to triangulate Magneto's whereabouts and then head off on a ship filled with tempting cargo is quite a nice idea, actually.  Cyclops gets points for that.  On the other hand, if that was your plan, wouldn't you put at least a little effort into ensuring Magneto couldn't actually use the cargo of massively powerful computers you're using as bait?  Not to back-seat super-hero, or anything.

Clues

The trees seem bare right now, but that could still be the after-effects of the strange blight that's been bothering them for weeks.  In any case, the publication date of this issue is all of a fortnight earlier than our estimated date of Xavier's death, so even if Thomas' is up to his old trick of synchronising seasons, we should still be alright.  I've assumed arranging Xavier's funeral took about a week, which doesn't seem an unreasonable period.

The X-Men's encounter with Magneto takes place "a few days later", which would put it on the Tuesday.  I guess Jean Grey is taking some time off from college, though that doesn't seem too unreasonable given her loss.

Date

Saturday 19^th to Tuesday 22^nd April, 1980.

X-Date

X+750 to X+753.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.22 standard years.

(Iceman is 37 years old.)

Contemporary Events

A general strike breaks out in Algeria in protest against the co-ordinated arrests of various Berber activists, students and doctors.

Standout Line

"Quiet, all of you!  We've got to hear every word of this!"  For once, Cyclops is entirely right to harangue his fellows.  You know what you keep your mouth shut during?  Your mentor's video will.

[1] In fairness, they do mention that both Agent Duncan and Banshee were on the guest list.  That still doesn't explain why there were no generic mourners.  Generic mourning is critically important!

UXM #42: "If I Should Die..."

("Except it's a hoax, obviously.")

Comments

Hmph.  This is frustrating.  After several issues putting together what we might term a "plausible deniability" scenario regarding Xavier's death, they make it abundantly clear in this issue that the man who dies in Angel's arms is very much the real deal.  His thought bubbles make it clear he has access to psychic powers, which he then uses later on against Grotesk.

I suppose you could just about forge a twisted argument that says Changeling is deliberately thinking like Xavier in case Grotesk has psychic powers, and that the real Xavier is monitoring the situation and using his own powers when called upon, that would rather defeat the point of Xavier building his psi-proof chamber to sit in whilst Clarence pretended to be him.

It's a real shame, because it would have worked perfectly with a little tweaking (most obviously a vaguer internal monologue from Xavier, and an alternative to trying to mind-punch Grotesk).  It would also have made the idea of "Xavier" wearing the latex mask to get into the lab pretty cool: Clarence having to wear a normal disguise to disguise the fact he's a master of disguise.  That's a brilliant little multi-layered idea.

Alas, it was not to be. 

Cyclops seems to be getting more creative with his powers.  Using it as a retro-rocket is a really nice idea, as is fractionally opening his visor to use his blasts to slow objects in motion.  The fact that he successfully does this with Angel, who was so badly hurt the last time he made contact with Cyclop's force beam he claimed Cyclops tried to kill him, is quite fitting, even if I suspect it's coincidental.

Clues

This issue follows on directly from the previous one.  The strange mix of bare and full-canopied trees is still in evidence. Maybe there's a blight going round.

Date

Sunday 13^th April, 1980.

X-Date

X+744.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.21 standard years.

(Iceman is 37 years old.)

"Just call me a cock-eyed optimist, ugly!"

Contemporary Events

The last day on Earth dawns in which you cannot acquire an Iron Maiden album. How had civilisation survived so long?

Standout Line

"[I] shall teach you the meaning of fear, masked one... with this massive apparatus!"  Maybe that radiation surge helped Grotesk out a little bit more than we thought, if you get my meaning?

(His cock is big, is my point).

UXM #41: "Now Strikes... The Sub-Human!"

("Ah, alpha particles.  Is there anything they can't do?")

Comments

First thing's first: I love that cover. We're still squarely in the "more vibrant colours means more awesome" era of comic books (to the extent to which that was an era, rather than an almost immutable law), so something comparatively understated like this is a joy to see.  It even has (whisper it) atmosphere, something the comic has decidedly lacked until now.

Radiation really is a wonderful all-purpose plot device, isn't it?  This time around it not only wipes out Grotesk's entire race, but it also makes him ugly, super-strong, and inflicts him with amnesia that can only be cured by him reciting the entire story to himself.  It's Roy Thomas' very own sonic screwdriver. 

At least Grotesk's motivation - his entire civilisation was accidentally wiped out and he blames humanity - makes for a better driving force than that of most of the villains we've seen so far.

Another X-Men tradition gets its initial airing, as we get our first glimpse of the "impending secret catastrophe makes Xavier a total dickhead" phenomenon.  Indeed, he acts so unbearably during the X-Men's training session that I initially thought he'd been already been replaced by Changeling, until he started being a prick telepathically.  Two demerits apiece for Hank and Bobby because they rushed into the Danger Room in civvies?  What a turd!

(Besides, if anything regarding Hank and Bobby's behaviour in this issue should raise eyebrows, it's how they respond to a brutal attack on their subway car by waiting for the lights to go out and then taking their clothes off.  Just sayin'.)

I can't help thinking Mr Clancy might be a bit too jittery to sit on a board of trustees.  Turning on a dime from "this machine cannot possibly work" to "this machine could be used to destroy the planet!" is a fairly remarkable transition, and indicates rather strongly that he should probably try to cut down on the coffee (I think Al Gore talked about a similar type of reaction in An Inconvenient Truth; perhaps they've met).

I adore the fact that Cyclops immediately concludes that all this secretive business between Xavier and Jean is because the professor is in love with her.  Right or wrong (who knows when he gave up hope of offering her a few, ahem, "private lessons"), it's completely believable that a teenage boy as deeply in love as Scott is(which is to say all teenage boys everywhere, ever) would be incapable of imagining any relationship between Jean and another man which didn't involve the latter lusting after her.  This is why we should slap people who claim to miss their lives before they turned twenty.

The five-pages-at-a-time origins story continues in this issue.  Once again it's mostly forgettable, save for it demonstrating that Xavier apparently had telekinetic powers once upon a time, and for showing us that, amazingly, Thomas hasn't entirely mined out the potential uses of radiation, having added "can give you hands made out of diamonds" to the list of possible side-effects.

Mind you, this is Marvel we're talking about, here.  They should just come up with a "random response to radioactive bombardment" table and have done with it.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single night.

Following standard practice, we'll set this the day after the previous adventure.  Iceman certainly notes that they could have done without a giant monster smashing up the NY subway system so soon after Factor Three and Frankenstein's Monster.

Something strange is clearly happening to the trees hereabouts; some are still in full bloom, others are completely bare.  Obviously Thomas is trying to throw me off the scent...

Date

Sunday 13^th April, 1980.

X-Date

X+744.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.17 standard years.

(Iceman is 38 years old.)

"Holy cow!"

Contemporary Events

The 6221 Ducenetesima asteroid is discovered in the main belt by Antonin Mrkos.

Standout Line

"It cannot be mere chance! They must be directed at me... from the outer world!" It's Writing 101 time again, folks: if a coincidence is so ridiculously unlikely that your own characters refuse to believe it, you probably shouldn't try to get it past your readers either.

UXM #40: "The Mark Of The Monster!"

("Also, I think the Wolf Man was a hairy vampire possessed by a demon, and that Abbott and Costello were talking insects in thrall to undercover dinosaurs!  From the future!")

Comments

I have no idea what Xavier has been smoking this issue (who can blame him for wanting to chill out following the Factor Three crisis, I suppose), but I don't want any.  "I've always suspected [Frankenstein] was based on an actual occurrence-".  Why? Shelley herself stated it was just something she literally dreamt up (which may or may not have been whilst she was also smacked off her Georgian tits). "And now I'm sure of it!" Because someone has found a body in the ice dressed up like Boris Karloff?  You can't fool anyone by painting him purple, pal, those neck-bolts were Jack Pierce's idea, they had nothing to do with Shelley's original, and if Xavier wasn't so busy slapping Iceman around for not having read the book, he might be able to remember that.

Even all that is surpassed moments later, though: "I suspect that the supposed "monster" was in truth a super-powerful android!... [B]y examining him, I may prove that his creator.... was a mutant!"

No more drugs for that professor.

Still, as mental as he's clearly become, he turns out to be right.  It is an android, and one that can't stand the deep cold, because cold is well-known as being bad for computers, as we all know.  Presumably that's why what finally activates the monster is his discoverer lowering the temperature of the ice block.  That's right, lowering it.  Dr. Powell's assistant objects on the grounds that the government want first crack at The Amazing Purple Rip-Off, but it would make far more sens if he objected because Powell is clearly a total fucking idiot.  That's like trying to investigate the wreck of the Titanic by dragging it deeper into the Atlantic.  Clearly, the real enemy this month is the disease that's struck the whole of the city, turning academics into imbecilic jelly-brains.

Not that the professor's completely lost it.  He still has the wherewithal to steal a helicopter from the government and wipe the minds of those who try to stop him (because there's nothing more important than making sure a mad android doesn't smash up a single boat which he'll total at his own peril in any case), and manages - ridiculously - to read the robot mind of the creature in order to learn his origin. 

Turns out, he was sent as an ambassador of peace by a race that lived in tropical climes.  Not explained, however, is why people who live in hot temperatures can't create machines that work in the cold, or why they'd assume the best form for a diplomat to take is an eight-foot-tall monstrosity with super-strength.  Also unknown is how Shelley ever heard about the monster, since it apparently never met a single human, having been put on ice by his creators after it went HAL 9000 on their beach-loving asses.

So, to sum up: Xavier is convinced a book explicitly declared to be fiction is actually true, only except for all the bits about the protagonist's work, creations and experiences, and that what's described as a odd assortment of dead flesh must actually be a robot.  He then learns that his guess was true, but that it's impossible the original writer could possibly have known that in any case.

David Icke would think that Xavier was jumping to conclusions, and disproved by the evidence presented to him.  About the best thing you can say about any of this is that it makes it far easier to bear Xavier's death in a couple of issue's time.  Apparently the man was on the verge of raving insanity in any case.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

It's a bit of a muddled issue this time around.  The first page states that the story takes place in Autumn, and that the air is "cool".  You could argue that this implies it's late Autumn, but the trees are still very much green.  Added to that is the clear fact that when Professor X was kidnapped in issue #33, it was during the winter. That makes it impossible for this to be Autumn, since Banshee makes it clear in issue #35 that he had been in contact with Xavier only a few weeks earlier, and issues #35 to #39 take place over the span of a few days at most.

The only possible explanation might be that the X-Men have done nothing of note for the six months following the defeat of Factor Three (in fairness, they'd have earned it), but the same text box which informs us that its autumn also describes the X-Men taking a "momentary breather" after saving the world.

I think we're going to have to ignore the "autumn" label; it just contradicts too much of what's gone before.  Let's give the X-Men a week off, instead.  That sounds quite "momentary" as these things go, and allows us to place this issue at the weekend, explaining what Jean is doing there.  In truth, I think the "Jean goes to college" plot has been more or less abandoned at this point, but since we're four issues from the end of Thomas' run, it makes sense to wait and see how Gary Friedrich handles the issue when he takes over in issue #45.

Date

Saturday 12^th of April, 1980.

X-Date

X+743.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.13 standard years.

(Iceman is 38 years old.)

"I was just havin' some fun, Beastie!
Can'tcha take a joke?"

Contemporary Events

A coup d'etat ends 130 years of democratic presidential succession in Liberia.

Standout Line

"We''ll never know how Mary Shelley learned any of this -- but, perhaps it's just as well!" Translation: this whole escapade made no sense to start with, then contradicts itself at the end in any case.