UXM #118: "The Submergence Of Japan!"

(Learnin’ Japanese.)

Comments

Well, that can’t be good.  From the view out in Tokyo Bay it rather looks like the whole of the city is on fire, and potentially much of Honshu as well.  The X-Men leap into action (I notice Banshee is perfectly capable of carrying two people at once now that the script doesn’t require someone to fall almost to their death), helping out the rescue services working throughout the city.  In all honesty, though, for all their power, the X-Men are pretty much just pissing in the wind.  That’s not quite so bad when you have someone who can change the direction of that wind for you, but it’s still a problem.  About the best thing that can be said for the situation is that most of the city is uninhabited, having been evacuated (as Wolverine reveals, demonstrating his ability to read Japanese) following a major earthquake warning.

The X-Men decide to fight their way through the blaze to get to the mansion of their former comrade Shiro Yoshida - AKA Sunfire – in the arguably rather naive hope that he’ll prove to be less of a feckless turf when his own turf is in trouble.

Maybe you can blame the team for trying to sneak in under the cover of fog, but it’s certainly hypothesis rejected on that score.  If the Home Islands have to burn in order for Shiro to not have to stop calling the X-Men “cunts”, then Nihon is just shit out of luck.  It’s fortunate (though also impossibly convenient) that Misty Knight is also on the scene to inject a degree of Western pragmatism into the proceedings, and she quickly ushers our heroes into the mansion to meet Osama-San, Japan’s premier, along with Misty Knight’s partner (and apparently Osama’s niece) Colleen Wing. Cyclops suffers through a very uncomfortable meeting, conducted entirely in Japanese, in which Colleen argues the case for her and her fellow Americans, and Shiro shifts up a few gears with his belligerent, childish arrogance.  “My power alone is sufficient to protect Nippon!” he insists, as though everyone else has failed to notice that there’s only one person in the room who’s already conclusively proved they couldn’t save Tokyo, and it’s him.

Whilst Sunfire is demanding there be a few less super-powered Americans about the place, Misty tries to get hold of a couple more, only to learn that her beau Iron Fist is too busy working cases with Power Man.  Way to manage your priorities there, pal.  I’d have thought the destruction of one of the world’s largest capital cities and the massive danger your girlfriend is facing as a result might trump your bromance with Luke Cage.  But that’s just me.

Speaking of affairs of the heart, though, UXM #118 is proud to present: Lady Mariko.  Continuing our long-running series of raising our eyebrows at the portrayal of women in this comic, it’s slightly weird seeing Logan (or “Lo-“, as we finally learn) treating Mariko like a nervous doe, but I suppose from his warped perspective that actually makes sense. It’s definitely nice to see a different side to Wolverine, in any case. 

Tragically, this international moment of zen is rudely interrupted by another earthquake, one which pretty much destroys the mansion, and which Storm announces has been artificially ignited. Things go from bad to worse ( in several senses) when the deliriously stupid-lookin’ “Mandroids” arrive to “escort” the government officials to meet their master.  Unsurprisingly, the X-Men take exception to this proposal, and a battle breaks out.

For possibly the first time since this new team was assembled, the X-Men finally demonstrate a truly impressive level of ability, and the Mandroids are shattered and smoking within a few panels.  The team’s victory is short-lived, though, as a hologram of Moses Magnum appears from the shell of a Mandroid and announces that at midnight tomorrow, he’ll drop Japan into the Indian Ocean.

Dun dun duh!

Clues

This issue takes place over a single night.  It crosses the line of midnight, but only just, which means it all happens within a single US day.

The narration tells us that the journey of the Jinguichi Maru took six weeks after picking up the X-Men.

"If I were not, I would have kept silent."

Contemporary Events

Fiftieth anniversary of the discovery of the positron by Carl D Anderson.

Standout Line

“We need no American lady detectives!” – Sunfire.

Date


Monday 2^nd of August, 1982.


X-Date

X+4Y+125.


Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 3.55 standard years.

(Storm is 35 years old.)

UXM #66: "The Mutants And The Monster"


(Requiem for a freak.)

Comments

And so it ends. Six and a half years after its first issue, X-Men gets axed.  I don't know for how long Thomas knew this was coming, but I suppose finishing with an issue in which Professor X is saved from the mental-burnout suffered fighting the Z'Nox does at least allow the series to finish as it began, with Xavier leading a slightly expanded team.  It's a shame there's no closure regarding the Bobby-Lorna-Alex love triangle, but that's a minor niggle.

Having said all of that, though, I'm not completely sold on the idea of the final issue being so reliant on a major guest star. I don't know if it was an attempt to boost sales (surely too late?), or just a nod to the general universe the X-Men spent some time being a part of, but it strikes me as an odd choice.  Fortunately, since the Hulk takes the role of antagonist here, it isn't like he takes time away from the main characters, and perhaps this really is a better final mission for the team than just beating up another creation from Thomas' horribly uneven supervillain assembly process.

This is, what, the fourth issue this week where Angel does something totally idiotic and headstrong?  This time it's confronting the Hulk on his own, because he's too impatient to wait for backup.  I'm not sure what the appropriate comparison is like, but it's somewhere between song thrush vs Geoff Capes and hummingbird vs a steroid-hepped elephant [1].  Not good, is my point.

Still, I think this issue's "Most aggravating X-Man" has to go to Bobby, actually, for refusing to join the mission to save Xavier's life so as to make sure Alex can't get a ticket to Lorna's friskoteque whilst he's gone.  Nicely done, you selfish shit.

Clues

This issue takes place over a single day.

Date

Friday 20^th June, 1980.

X-Date

X+2Y+81.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.92 standard years.

(Iceman is 32 years old.)


"For a human popsicle, I guess
I am kind'a hot-tempered!"

Contemporary Events

The Blue Lagoon is released, a film I've never seen but boasts the longest tag-line I've ever read:

Two children shipwrecked alone on a tropical island. Nature is kind. They thrive on the bounty of jungle and lagoon. The boy grows tall. The girl beautiful.

When their love happens, it is natural as the sea, and as powerful. 

They don't write 'em like that any more.  Well, I guess they may have started, and just not finished yet.

Standout Line

"Got to catch him off balance -- while he's gesticulating menacingly over the edge of that cliff!"  Why do villains bother to gesticulate menacingly at all?  Never worked for Shao Kahn, did it?  Every "You will die!" was just one more opportunity to uppercut him into another incarnation.  Amateurs.

[1] If an elephant takes too many steroids, does its trunk shrink?

UXM #65: "Before I'd Be Slave..."



("When worlds collide!")

Comments

Today's theme is leadership, and why everyone in this comic is shit at it.

We start off with a pissing contest between Alex (along with Lorna) against the rest of the X-Men.  The newcomers win, just, by promising they have vital news for the team, but it doesn't seem difficult to imagine that Havok was being deliberately difficult, so as to provoke a confrontation (and who's going to replace that lampost, I'd like to know...).  Just afterwards, Scott admits to feeling resentful of Alex's "obvious ability" at leadership.  That's somewhat ironic, actually, considering how long Havok will spend in later years convinced he'll never escape his brother's shadow.

The more important point, however, is that it leads to Scott once again - albeit obliquely - questioning his own skills as leader, just moments before Professor X returns.

The tale of his miraculous return works better than I'd remembered. I complained when I covered the issue in which "he" died, because the man the team watched perished most certainly had psychic powers. This is explained, however, by the Professor having gifted part of his telepathic gift to Changeling when they swapped places.  For someone who's read the X-Men comics of later decades, this seems completely ridiculous, but at this point, there's no reason not to take Xavier at his word: he'd already given some power to Marvel Girl, after all.  Like the idea of Magneto being a telepath, Xavier's ability to give others his power has long been forgotten, but within the context of this story it makes sense, and actually makes it possible to believe this whole story was pre-planned (so long as we accept that gaining Xavier's powers also makes you think somewhat like him).

Anyway, he's back now, and apparently his time hidden from the world hasn't made him less obnoxious.  A quick few hours of him telling everyone how fucking useless they are, and then he's bundling them into a rocket with the words "You haven't a prayer of victory".

Thanks for that, Chuck.  That's the worst moral-booster I've heard since Theoden and Aragorn tried slight variations on their "We're all fucked, but let's risk our lives anyway" speeches in The Return of the King. I guess being trapped for weeks on end in your own basement really rusts your leadership skills, huh?

Still, time is of the essence. SHIELD makes its first appearance in the comic, and last about three panels before it gets its collective butt kicked by the Z'Nox.  Another noble tradition begins here: SHIELD will never win an air war.

Apparently the ugly spectre of anti-intellectualism is already on the rise in the United States.  I feel terribly sorry for the poor scientist trying to get people to believe the current wave of natural disasters is caused by the gravity well of a new planet.  No-one seems willing to listen to his arguments, despite the fact that the Z'Nox world is clearly visible to the naked eye.  Presumably the party line of the American Right is that it's either a) a sign from God, or b) a Soviet super-weapon.  I suspect the latter, if only because it makes missile strikes more likely.

Not that missile strikes would do any good, of course.  The technology of the Z'Nox is so advanced that only Xavier can counter it in order to build one small rocket capable of taking the X-Men to the Z'Nox HQ.  One might take a moment to lament the fact that the vessel wasn't packed with nuclear weapons rather than hormone-crazed teenagers, but there's always something you forget about in a crisis, isn't there?

Actually, once you think about it, Xavier's plan seems pretty shaky.  The whole thing is reliant on both Polaris and Havok, neither of which the team had met by the time Xavier snuck into his secret bunker.  What would he have done without Lorna to (quite ridiculously) use her magnetic powers to broadcast his brain signals?  Or without Alex (much more ridiculously) to turn the those signals (routed through Jean) into cosmic rays that Scott can then absorb?

Still, I am perversely amused by the overall message here.  Xavier gathers together the love and empathy of the entirety of the human race, and then gives it to Cyclops so he can blow the crap out of the alien spaceship.

Beast and Angel's role in the plan, is pretty good, too.  Stand around shooting everything with laser guns.  Who can't get on board with that?

Clues



This issue takes place over a single day.

The X-Men return to the mansion to find Havok and Polaris distinctly angry at their absence.  "We expected you days ago!"  Presumably, then, the X-Men took of a little time to allow Hank to recover.  It can't have been too long a break, though, since they get back desperate for some R&R.  Let's say the X-Men stayed a full extra day in New York City after returning from fighting Sunfire in DC, and returned to the mansion the following morning.  That puts their arrival as being four days after they left the southern hemisphere, accounting for Alex's comment.

We learn in this issue that Changeling led the team for "those few weeks".  At present the longest the switch could plausibly have been is one week, however, so we'll have to move everything forward a little.  I've added this extra fortnight on below, but since tomorrow will cover the last issue of UXM before it's original cancellation, I'll wait until then to post the revised timeline.

Date

Thursday 19^th June, 1980.

X-Date

X+2Y+80.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.89 standard years.

(Iceman is 32 years old.)

"I've seen scarier stories on Star Trek!"

Contemporary Events

Lauren Lee Smith is born, a Canadian actress who plays the telepath Emma DeLauro in the TV series Mutant X, created by Marvel studios, which debuted in 2001 and was basically a live-action X-Men show.

Standout Line

"Never have we encountered a world of such beauty -- such possibilities for defilement! And the people are handsome and hardy! Captives will provide much sport!  Ahhh... this is a happy day --!" Whatever else you can say about the Z'Nox; they definitely love their jobs.  I almost feel bad for them, not being able to plunder our world and enslave the population.  They were just so excited, like a Dalek embryo on Christmas morning.

UXM #64: "The Coming Of Sunfire!"

(Peace is never found, or won, or even bought; it is merely rented.)

Comments

At long last we leave the '60s behind forever, and enter a new decade.  And what better way to embrace that bright, uncertain future than with a story about the damage caused by the WWII?

It's safe to say that the Japanese are not sensitively or delicately handled here.  It's all "For the glory of the emperor!" throughout, and though it's not unfair to say that a distaste for foreigners is not entirely absent from the Japanese cultural psyche (though you can say that about pretty much anyone, more or less), Shiro and Tomo are just hideously over the top; frothy-mouthed gaijin-loathing nutcases.

If you can get past that, though, this issue is far from irredeemable (even if one rather assumes the reason Thomas takes the next month off is so he can be given some gentle "re-education" on what one can get away with in comics).  As much as Shiro and his uncle are walking time-bombs of xenophobic rage, Shiro's attitude at least can be understood as coming from Tomo, who presumably played a large role in Shiro's upbringing, since Shiro's mother was dead and his father (a diplomat) could have been absent for much of the time.

In that sense, this is a story about how one's upbringing can dominate your political and moral compasses.  Shiro hates the US because Tomo has told him, over and over, that he should.

And what about Tomo?  How many people did he lose in the Hiroshima blast?  We know his sister-in-law was crippled by the explosion, but how many other family members, or friends, or people he nodded to in the Shinto temple, were annihilated by "Little Boy"?  Maybe his rage is understandable.  The first X-Men issue of the 1970s is hardly the place to go looking for complex political commentary, but to Thomas' credit, he has no problem portraying just how horrific and emotionally damaging the destruction of Hiroshima must have been.  Even Shiro's father, the consummate diplomat (though gifted pimp-slapper), pleads for Sunfire to stop not because innocent lives could be lost in his attacks, but because trying to take revenge for the nuclear strikes will simply start the war all over again.  Peace is something you have to pay for.

Indeed, flense away the Holocaust connection - along with a fair chunk of some of the less edifying dialogue - and this could be a story about pretty much any extremist's desire to take their revenge within an inferno.  That makes Shiro arguably the first mutant the comic has introduced who's powers reflect their emotional drive, but it also allows for the bleakest ending the book has produced since Xavier passed away in issue #42. Tomo ultimately demonstrates two common attributes of the fanatic: the absurdly short-trem nature of their tactical planning and their willingness to turn on their fellow countrynmen whenever they disagree.  When he comes across his brother Saburo, Shiro's father, trying to convince his son to give up his quest for violent revenge, Tomo doesn't wait to see how the conversation ends, or try to offer his own voice as a counterpoint to Saburo's arguments.  He simply shoots his own brother; the father of the man Tomor wants to obey him.

The instant he fires, Tomo's cause is lost.  His life, too; Shiro burns him to ashes almost instantly.  Moments later, as he kneels by the side of his dying father, Sunfire sees the truth: the blast at Hiroshima just claimed two more lives, for no good goddamn reason at all.  The X-Men shake their heads and leave, hoping the next mutant they meet can be reached in time, and Shrio is left completely alone.

Changing direction completley, and just to revsisit something from a couple of days ago: Angel continues his run of headstrong incompetence when he requires saving twice in this issue.  The second time is after Sunfire sets his wings on fire, so there probably wasn't a great deal he could have done about that.  But his first sticky situation comes about when he allows himself to be sucked into a jet engine.

Did Xavier not teach basic physics? Did it not occur to Angel that close-range inspections of planes in flight might carry an element of risk?  Sure, Iceman saves him by creating an ice barrier between Angel and the rotor, but not only was Warren massively lucky that worked, but it involves Bobby essentially rendering one half of the airplanes engines functionally useless.   If it wasn't for the fact that I suspect an "angel-strike" would have been even more dangerous than temporarily blocking one engine, I'd have been severely tempted just to let the blond berk get splattered.  He's been a liability ever since he stopped on Red Raven's island to do some mid-rescue mission sightseeing.

Maybe the other X-Men make him wear his Magento-created costume, actually.  Just as a constant reminder of what a gullible, useless prick he is. They're still calling him "Scottie" from time to time, as well, though at this point I can believe it's just a way of reminding him that Jean had no interest in his advances.

Clues



This issue takes place over a single day.

The X-Men have returned from their trip to the bottom of the world. Given the amount of time they'd have needed to return to the surface of Tierra Del Fuego, and then fly back to New York, it would presumably be at least reasonably late on the following day by the time they settled down in their apartment in NYC.

So let's assume this adventure begins on the following morning.

It's been a while since we saw the local vegetation, actually.  Luckily everything is nice and green, despite this issue being published in January (ten days almost to the day before I was born, in fact).

Date

Tuesday 3^rd June, 1980.

X-Date

X+2Y+64.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 2.91 standard years.

(Iceman is 32 years old.)

"Let's see if these fresh-frozen
flying saucers'll cool things down"!

Contemporary Events

Grand Island, Nebraska is struck by a series of powerful tornadoes. 5 people are killed and over $300 million in damage is inflicted.

Standout Line

"... We'll wait over there, son...!" It's just a little line, from the policeman who's arrived to arrest Sunfire on the final page, but it's a nice understated nod to just how devastated Sunfire obviously is, and a reminder that his last taste of freedom will be kneeling beside the cooling body of his dead father.