X-Men And Alpha Flight #1: "The Gift"

(Heroic hyperinflation.)

Comments

It's that rare beast: the two-part mini.

Philip Sandifer once said over at his gaffe that two-part Doctor Who stories (of the original flavour) are pretty much unworkable by the structure of the show: the first episode has to mark time until it can whisk away the curtain for the big reveal, then the second episode has to rush through everything necessary to tie the story up.

Nowadays, of course, twenty-three minutes is easily sufficient time for Who to burn through a resolution, but by the same token, half an episode of noodling would be unthinkable.  Similarly, with 48 pages each, it's entirely possible the resolution to this two-parter will tick all the right boxes.  But it sure feels like we're treading water here.

So, with more than two standard-length comic books to fill before we really get to the point, what's a writer to do with two super-teams. The answer is obvious: FIGHT!

First, though, we have to get through the introductions.  I'll start off here by noting that figuring out where to pitch the opening of your cross-over miniseries strikes me as a legitimately tough job.  With Uncanny X-Men and Alpha Flight the first and second most-bought comics of December 1984, a certain degree of cultural suffusion must be going on even for non-readers, but by the same token, it's clear Alpha Flight isn't some minor concern kept afloat by the most dedicated buyers of Uncanny X-Men. Both books would have had fans that needed to be caught up on the current goings on in the other title.  Add to that the people who buy neither, and are buying this out of curiosity (bear in mind this is 1984, before either X-books or miniseries in general had become slightly less common than hydrogen molecules), and the fans of both titles, and you have a difficult juggling job to do.

All of which is to say this wasn't a pass you'd surprised to see fumbled.  And fumbled I think it was.

Not completely, by any means. The summary of Alpha Flight is short and effective, picking up on Sasquatch's recent problems with his powers without any references that would confuse the newcomer.  The characters are sketched fairly well with minimum dialogue, and while one might wonder at Aurora's opening moments involving her offering Walter Langkowski some non-specified sexual release in Shaman's clinic so as to cheer him up, I've had offers like that myself, though at least the bearer of the proposition had the courtesy to suggest it in my own office.

The problem here is the X-Men. We get a page of the New Mutants goofing around for absolutely no reason I can think of (maybe this will get a call-back next issue, though the title of the mini makes me think that would be its own problem) before heading over to the mansion to watch a training session with the X-Men.  Man, Claremont loves him a training session, doesn't he? Despite the fact that they almost invariably are interrupted and/or go horribly wrong.  You'd think after a while the team would go on strike until Xavier takes health and safety a bit more seriously.

On this occasion the proverbial spanner in the works is Rachel Summers, who suffers a kind of psychic seizure which someone overrides the computer to create a tactile hologram of her future. This sort of thing drives me crazy.  Not just because the idea Rachel can manipulate code with her mind at astonishing speed (which is fine for a mutant power, but not when dropped into an established character's repertoire without explanation), but the idea that losing control can lead to such a specific, complicated and precise reprogramming.  It's like suggesting da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in thirty seconds because he stubbed his toe.

What this really is, of course, is an excuse for Claremont to keep his plates spinning RE Uncanny subplots.  Which isn't this comic's job.  Claremont did a fairly good job of keeping his previous miniseries walled off from more general concerns, but here there's nothing that distinguishes this from one of his double-sized UXM issues.  Which, as I've argued before, is fatal for a miniseries - if you're not using it to do something different, don't bother, and "the X-Men meet Alpha Flight and the resulting fight lasts a bit less time than usual" really isn't going to cut it.

(On the other hand, I really rather liked the return of Cyclops, mainly because Claremont makes it very clear that the dude is entirely happy being out of the superhero business and with his new wife (we have them as having been married for eight months now). It's nice to not see him brooding over whether he's made the right choice and blah blah blah.  The inclusion on his northbound flight of a flagrant mutant hater is also a nice set-up for what's coming later: the discovery of a device that can make everyone into a de facto mutant isn't one that's going to thrill the whole world, whatever mutants themselves are hoping for.  Scott's loadmaster mentions The Lathe of Heaven, but for my money the relevant sci-fi classic here is the Forever War, and the time-drifting heterosexual who comes back to Earth to find the whole planet has become gay whilst he's been away.)

Right, so, plot. Rachel's freak-out is over a vision she's had of Cyclops and Madelyne being shot out of the sky by an atmospheric special effect Cyclops says reminds him of Shaman's powers.  This being a superhero comic - general motto "There ain't nuthin' mellow 'bout melodrama!" - Rachel considers this ample provocation to fly to Canada and attack Michael Twoyoungmen along with anyone nearby.  Naturally, the X-Men find themselves dragged into the resulting fracas until Xavier can wrench Rachel's mind out of her body to give her a stern talking to.

Which doesn't really cut it, to be honest.  As Shaman points out, it's sheer luck no-one was killed because Rachel thought her father thought Shaman might be behind the crashing of his aircraft which might possibly have been deliberate.  Indeed, one thing Rachel does - to reach inside Aurora's head and switch her personality back to Jeanne-Marie - is so fucking disgusting I'm amazed Xavier doesn't try to mindblast her back to the future on the spot. I realise that it might be by own history that makes me boil with rage at watching a woman's mental disorder fucked around with whilst taking superfists hitting superfaces in my stride, but at least when two superheroes trade punches, they have an idea of what damage they'll do to each other. Rachel is taking an instrument she cannot possibly understand (for all that she can access it in ways we can't) and screwing with it to make her plan to maim or kill someone she's angry with.  Fucl, quite frankly, that.

(Of course, if I'm so enraged by Rachel's actions here, can I justify Xavier's decision to return Aurora to the forefront of her brain? Is meddling any better when you're restoring the status quo, especially when "the status quo" basically just means the state of affairs that happened to be in effect when you arrive?  This one I'm less sure on, but I'm vaguely on Xavier's side, figuring a rapid return to what you've found offers the greatest chance of allowing whatever approach Aurora/Jeanne-Marie, her family, her friends, and her doctors have figured out is what is best for her.)

Once the truth comes out, then the traditional internecine slap-down comes to a close. With Scott's plane missing at the same time Cerebro picked up a massive mutant signal near the crash and Snowbird having one of her periodic collapses over major mystical uprootings, the decision is made to find the source of the problem.  The X-Men and Alpha Flight are joining forces.

(Meanwhile, for reasons as yet unexplained, Loki of Asgard has travelled to the realm where the Gods of the Gods reside, to ask for a boon after saving Earth.  The unfathomable beings who reside there make the entirely reasonable point that redemption is not usually quite so quid pro quo as Loki is making out here.  Thor's half-brother is stung by the rejection, but vows that saving humanity once isn't good enough for these meta-deities, he'll just have to put on a repeat performance.)

Interlude

The world turns, and the combined forces of the X-Men and Alpha Flight - including Northstar, who is presumably only there because Aurora is too enraged with Rachel to let the team in on Northstar's terrorist past - are headed north in a DeHavilland Otter that anyone but Claremont would just have called a plane.  The trip offers an opportunity for bonding and youthful angst, but frankly none of that is as interesting as Nightcrawler's pilot cap thing.  He looks so dapper!  Has there ever been a more interesting confluence of interests within the same X-Man?

Once they get to their destination they find first a glorious golden city in a meadow amidst snowbanks, and then Cyclops, sans ruby glasses.  He's been cured!

This is where things get interesting, and also aggravating.  Scott and Madelyne, along with their loadmaster and passengers, have found a shaft of light in the Arctic Circle that turns any non-mutant that touches it into a superhuman.  Maddie herself is now Anodyne, and has the power to heal, hence Cyclops' new and improved non-death eye.  Others have the abilities to generate food, or buildings, or control animals.  But it's Anodyne who is the most interesting, because she epitomises the insane plan of Scott's companions to bring peace and goodwill to all men by using the strange light to make everyone into a superhero.

Let's put aside for now the utterly insuperable logistical problem this plan entails.  Let's not even linger on the surely self-evident truth that humanity managed to cycle through a bewildering array of atrocities against itself in the millennia before mutants came along in anything like contemporary numbers; returning everyone to a level playing field won't work better this time just because we have all sorts of interesting new ways to tear pieces out of each other. Instead, we'll focus on the horrible arrogance at play in the idea that the best idea for the world is for everyone to become the same.

The specifics of this need some careful unpacking, because no-one needs or wants to hear a white guy arguing that it would be a bad idea for oppressed minorities to suddenly become the only game in town (Claremont's Lathe of Heaven reference at the start of this issue suggest that's exactly where's he going, alas).  We could try and skirt around this by pointing out only Cyclops (to the best of our knowledge) is the only mutant in the group, but there I'm not sure we need to. I think even I can safely point out the problem here: mutants are a fictional minority, but the ideea of forcibly pulling a minority into the majority is already a suggested course of action in the real world.  Whether it be the idea of praying people straight, giving deaf children cochlear implants, or discussing methods by which to prevent autistic children from being born, the idea that certain people are to be considered disadvantaged and require "improving" is a pernicious and common one.

And if this were Claremont's point, I'd be right behind him. But if it is, why does Anodyne get to "cure" Puck of his dwarfism? Yes, she asks his permission, but all that means is the average-sized guy writing this comic believes dwarves don't want to be dwarves anymore (this is mitigated by the pain Puck's dwarfism causes, but with the amazing powers at Anodyne's disposal it's hard to credit the idea that she couldn't relieve his pain without changing his height).  And this is why it doesn't work, because Claremont is setting himself up to decide who should and shouldn't be happy for a move into the mainstream.  There's still another double-size issue to deal with, so it's possible this will be dealt with far better next time around, but right now things are looking somewhat bleak.

Speaking of which, the issue ends with Snowbird missing from the plane - despite being only hours from death - and Shaman's medicine bag is suddenly overflowing with gribbly demons with a taste for human flesh.

How will our heroes get out of this one?

Clues

This story takes place over a night and the following two days.

This is a difficult comic to place in the wider continuity - something we're going to have to get used to as the train-lights of the '90s rush toward us.  Since Sasquatch is still, er, a Sasquatch, this issue has to take place before ALF #23.  Really, it has to take place before ALF #21, since that was the issue Snowbird first suffered from the attacks that led to her leaving the team and Langkowski leaving (briefly) this mortal coil.

On the other hand, Talisman's involvement means the book has to fit in after ALF #20, since that issue concludes her introductory story.  And naturally, ALF #20 and #21 are two parts of the same story, which then bleeds into ALF #22.

There's nothing for it but to split the time-frame so Snowbird's part in ALF #21 gets pushed forwards.  Then we can assume this adventure takes place immediately after Aurora leaves Northstar in disgust at the conclusion to ALF #22.

We might therefore want place this adventure the day after ALF #22, and save Snowbird's collapse for whenever this two-part miniseries concludes.  This doesn't quite track with the X-Men's activities, though, since this period falls between UXM #189 and #190, whilst Logan and Kitty are still in Japan.  They get back in UXM #192, though, so we'll simply place this new story inside the months-long gap in that issue.  The result is moving ALF forward by a week and a half or so, but that's not particularly serious.

Date

Friday 4^th to Sunday 6^th May 1984.

X-Date

X+6Y+64 to X+6Y+66.

Contemporary Events



(Even if you hate Belle and the Devotions, you should watch the preamble to this video.  It features continental linking that is almost impossible to comprehend ever being suggested seriously, and for an added bonus boasts that curiously '80s ability to simultaneously be utterly recognisable as of its time and utterly unrecognisable as having belonged to this planet, ever.)

Standout Line

"Jean-Paul. teamed with a woman?!?" - Heather.

I continue to love the efforts of first Byrne and now Claremont to rub Northstar's sexuality in the CCA's conservative, bigoted face.

UXM Annual #8: "The Adventures Of Lockheed The Space Dragon And His Pet Girl Kitty"

(Jerkanory)

Comments

Now that Kitty and Logan are back in circulation, we can finally double back and tackle this annual from 1984.

As far as I'm concerned, this annual really doesn't work. Like, at all.  Of course, that immediately raises an obvious question: what exactly does a workable annual look like?  What, in the end, are annuals actually for?

Spoilers: I've never been able to work that out.  Annuals, to me, exist in some some strange limbo, torn between two competing aims. You want an annual to be an event, so that you can persuade more people than obsessive completists to part with their money, but you don't want to make that event too vital to the parent book, otherwise you risk infuriating regular readers who didn't shell out (though of course trying this can increase sales, so Marvel isn't above giving this a try from time to time; see Transformers annuals, my young life ruined by missing).

One way to get out of this bind is to try a story that's of particular note because of it's approach, rather than it's plot.  Interesting artistic visions, uncharacteristic focuses, that sort of thing.  Claremont seemed entirely cognisant of this fact, judging from his previous efforts.  Interstellar hi-jinks, gothic horror, visits to Dante's vision of hell - these are all departures from the norm, albeit not ones that only exist in annuals (see the Brood Saga, for instance).  There's also a sense of playfulness that often creeps in; again, this is hardly unheard of in UXM proper, but the temporary cessation (or at least downplaying) of the various melodramatic plot threads perhaps gives the whimsy more chance to shine through.

This approach was ramped up considerably in UXM Annual #7, in which the X-Men chased a playful alien across the world (and through Marvel's main office) in what proved to be an interstellar scavenger hunt.  Here, further notches are cranked up as Illyana regales her friends with a tale from her own imagination.  The central problem here - along with the fact that this is an idea re-heated from UXM #153, which was also rubbish but at least had bamfs in it - is that one can only dial up the whimsy so much that any claim to being an "event" of any kind is thoroughly defenestrated.  Does anyone really need forty pages based around a young girl telling a fluffy story?

Well, obviously, it depends on the story.  Fairytales, even those set in space, shouldn't be casually discarded.  But Claremont just simply isn't any good at them.  He can ape structure (here Kitty goes on a quest to find the woman who killed her parents, which is nothing if not a tried and tested foundation), but his attempts to layer that structure with the kind of imagery and dream-logic that clothe the best fairy tales come to absolutely nothing.  Too much effort goes into working "real" people into the storyline so that Claremont can imagine them in different settings - Illyana is an AI, Storm a hotshot pilot, the White Queen a murderous space buccaneer - for anything interesting to actually get done.

OK, that's not 100% fair.  There is something going on here, namely Illyana attempting to send messages to Piotr and Kitty (and possibly Ororo) through the story.  It's not just a sci-fi tale - a dull and silly one at that; ultra-ice? Flying through black holes? - it's a metaphor for recent developments in the comic.  Which, fine, except that a) said metaphors are bulldozer unsubtle, and b) where the fuck does Illyana get off trying to give advice to specific people in front of the entirety of the New Mutants and the X-Men?  Trying to give Storm a lesson on the importance of not giving up?  I mean, sure, that has a nice resonance considering what Magik went through with a much older Storm in her miniseries earlier that (publishing) year, but even so.  Way for the able-bodied white kid to tell the crippled black woman how she should be processing her feelings.

(I should note here in the interest of fairness that it's not clear Illyana is doing this intentionally.  She might just have worked Storm's condition into the story without thinking about the effects.  That makes things better, admittedly, but it doesn't solve the problem by any means.  You think Storm wants to be reminded of what's happened and how terribly it's affected her?  For that matter, you think Charles is happy to be reminded he could have ruled a galactic empire with his soul-mate had his duty not gotten in the way? Christ, Illyana. Wanna throw in a reference to Wolverine getting jilted at the Shinto altar while you're at it?)

Really, the only way to salvage this mess is to focus entirely on Illyana's message to Kitty.  Putting her centre-stage in her little story is actually quite an interesting move, allowing as it does for her to pull in aspects of three of the times Kitty has been kidnapped.  The space setting and heavy featuring of Lockheed (who ends this tale, and I'm not even slightly kidding, fucking an entire planet of lady-dragons who have lost their men and need to get themselves in the family way as quickly as possible; because handing over the same Y chromosomes to an entire world couldn't possibly lead to problems) suggest the tussle with the Brood.  Having the White Queen as the villain (who interestingly here can turn herself and others into diamond; clearly somewhere Grant Morrison was taking notes) suggests Kitty's first adventure with the X-Men. Lastly, the death of her father (here literal rather than symbolic) and the attempts to re-write her mind call to mind the events in Japan that led to Sprite becoming Shadowcat. 

The common theme to all three of these stories is that Kitty ends up triumphant at least in part because she is underestimated by her foes, so the fact this happens in Illyana's story as well is either a nice nod to tradition, or a stark demonstration that Claremont really needs to find a new theme for Kitty. Given I'm on record here as hating the constantly reiterated idea that everyone, friend or foe, fails to recognise her unquestionable awesomeness, you can guess which side of that particular line I fall on.

The one indisputable triumph is Illyana's message to Kitty, just because it's so utterly bonkers.  I might not be in favour of telling your best friend to suck it up and cut their ex a break in front of all said friend's peeps (and the ex in question), but if you're going to do it, you should at least do it by explaining how easily the boot could've been on the other foot if your friend had fallen in love with a pirate space dragon.

I mean, life is about messing up, right?  No way to avoid it.  So you may as well do it in the most jaw-droppingly ludicrous method imaginable.

Clues

This story takes place over a single evening.

Date

Saturday 5^th May, 1984

X-Date

X+6Y+64.

Contemporary Events



Standout Line

"Lockheed is indeed alive and unharmed... Albeit perhaps a trifle... worn out." - 'Kurt' leads the rescue mission onto Planet of the Horny Dragonladies.

TWTYTW: 1984

The best way to summarise the X-books during 1984 is probably with two numbers: 6 and 800.  The former is the number of years the original X-Men comic had been running for by the point it had produced as many issues as our merry mutants romped through in 1984 alone.  The latter is, give or take, the number of comic pages Chris Claremont wrote (or co-wrote, for 88 of them) over the same year.

That's a pretty impressive output, if not in terms of rate, then certainly in terms of focus.  Claremont remains the unquestioned master of the X-universe at this point, cranking out more material than ever before.

It wouldn't last, of course.  The point at which it becomes clear Claremont has become a victim of his own success is still to come, but already the waters are being tested with the Iceman limited series, and with Hank McCoy appearing in Beauty and the Beast.  Claremont had done very little with either character at this point, of course, and one could argue that in 1984 more readers would associate them with the Defenders than with the X-Men, but between these two titles and the continuing (if inexplicable) success of Alpha Flight, it's becoming increasingly clear that whatever magic formula Claremont used to make his band of mutants such a runaway triumph, it didn't actually require him to be at the reins.

In short, then, this year probably marks the zenith of Claremont's work on the X-Men. In terms of control, at least, not necessarily creatively.  Though while we're on the subject, let's talk about the creative side. There's still plenty of ideas tossed out that will remain important to the franchise to this day - Warlock, the Hellions, Forge - but the overall impression here is of things unspooling.  There's nothing wrong in extended storylines, of course, it's one of Claremont's best features as a writer.  But the effect of his approach here is to lead to is too many issues that do nothing but mark time, or which finish a major story half-way through and then start off in a crazy new direction, or which spill over from one title into another in a way that must have been frustrating to anyone not having the time or money to keep up. 800 pages is a pretty big commitment in an industry that charges as much per square inch as comics companies do.

An argument could be formed from this that Claremont has at this point overextended himself, but I think the truth is slightly different. I think the problem here is that Claremont's obvious talent for generating ideas and for characterisation, as hyperbolic as he is in both instances, doesn't translate into a firm enough understanding into structure.  Two twenty-two page comic books is not the same prospect as a single double issue. A story that lasts two and a half issues needs to be reworked.  Oh, and if you insist on linking multiple titles, for God's sake get your timings right.

For all that some sniff that comics have never managed to recapture the wonders of the Silver Age - an argument I don't have much time for, actually, but that's a conversation for some other time - it strikes me as hard to argue that comic writers in general have become much, much better at figuring out how to use the nature of a comic book sensibly.

Elsewhere in the X-books, Dazzler continues to limp towards cancellation as the plan to make Alison an actress fighting selfish humans rather than villainous super-people fails to provide the hoped-for boost.  Which is a shame, really, since it does have some nice ideas, and allows the anti-mutant angle to breathe more than the main title has arguably managed since God Loves, Man Kills.  On the other hand, the painful slog of Dazzler's own graphic novel suggests that the idea has very much run its course, and with the title relying more and more on removing Alison's clothes at every available opportunity, there's little feminist case one can make right now for the only female-focused X-book (now that New Mutants have added Doug and Warlock to the team) to keep going.

(Maybe if they'd handed the title over to Ann Nocenti, we might have concluded something different.  Certainly the appearance of the first female writer in the X-Universe - arriving in December to give us the first issue of Beauty and the Beast - is worthy of note.  It would have been interesting to see what a female writer could have done on Dazzler.  That said, her first issue of BAB was far from free of problems, so who knows how that would have gone).

Finally, we got our first full year of Alpha Flight. Which, yes, is reliably uninspiring and frequently causes great problems for anyone reading it from a feminist perspective.  But at least the year was bookended by "Snowblind", which I still think is really funny, and "...Dreams Die Hard", which is proof that a tremendously anal approach to continuity can genuinely result in interesting comics (at least when Byrne is working in characters Claremont wrote, rather than the endless parade of self-referencing that helped ruin Hidden Years).  I'm still not looking forward to Byrne's '85 output, but if I'm being honest, he hasn't completely squandered his goodwill just yet.

Beauty And The Beast #1: "Beauty And The Beast, Part 1"

(A creature of surpassing ugliness.)

Comments

Released (at least nominally) in the same month, it's tempting to view Beauty and the Beast as a a close companion to the Iceman mini-series.  Not only did they start at the same time, but both are four issues long, and both feature a long-absent member of the X-Men (Beast hadn't been part of that team for over a decade in real-time by this point) and current member of the New Defenders taking some well-deserved - and obviously doomed - downtime.

There is an important difference between the two, though.  Back when I talked about Bobby Drake's newest escapades, I suggested that we didn't need to search too hard in an attempt to justify the series, because having Iceman back for a little while was of interest in itself.  In theory, the same should be true of Henry McCoy.  Hell, it should be vastly more true, on account of Beast being the greatest X-Man ever create.

The problem here is that Beast is utterly unrecognisable here.  There is literally nothing beyond his look and name that connects him with the character we spent more than half a decade with in the '60s, or even the rather more brash iteration we saw in Amazing Adventures after his self-inflicted transformation. Beast does not say "Wotta view!" He doesn't comment on the arrival of another mutant by saying "Get a load of horse-face."  He doesn't grab hold of people and threaten them because he doesn't like the way they're talking to women - if he did think some prick was bothering a woman, he'd have much better ways of locking that shit down - and he doesn't do it out of unthinking jealousy.  And he certainly doesn't give a woman shit because she turns him down when he announces she's leaving with him.

I mean, it's hard enough swallowing this kind of unpleasant chauvinist attitude - a strange thing to write about when reading the first X-book to be written by a woman - without it coming from so educated and thoughtful a character.  There is nothing here, nothing at all, that doesn't feel like this is a team-up between Dazzler and Generic Male Superhero.  Indeed, the title seems to be the only reason they've included Hank at all; there's clearly no interest in doing his character justice.

Whilst Beast is utterly unrecognisable, Dazzler by contrast is wearyingly familiar.  When last we saw Dazzler - in her very own graphic novel no less - she was finding herself increasingly out of sorts as she tried to fit in with Hollywood in order to kick-start her career, only for the people she trusted to betray her.  This time around, she's finding herself increasingly out of sorts as she tries to fit in with Hollywood in order to kick-start her career, only for the man she trusts to betray her.  Er, yay?

That's not entirely fair, I grant, because of the two set-ups, I think this is the more interesting.  OR at least, more grim, and really I don't see the difference between those two adjectives anyway.  Whatever else one wants to say about Beast's behaviour here, he does at least have good instincts.  "Horse-face" is part of Hugo Longride's mutant theatre, and under the guise of helping her career Alex has been systematically ruining what little reputation Dazzler has left, so that she has nowhere else to work but his exploitative freak-show.

The idea of people making use of mutants like this hasn't really been used too much up to this point - there was the occasion Mesmero hypnotised the X-Men into thinking they were carnival attractions, but the grotesque idea wasn't really made use of - and given how often it happened to people born with non-standard body shapes here in the real world (see, for example, the 1932 film Freaks, which depending who you talk to is either a reaction to such mistreatment, or an example of it in itself).  It's something of a shame that Alison is portrayed as being stupid enough to not realise Longride is doing her more harm than good - this is, what, the third time in a row this has happened - but again, that's more of a criticism of this story directly following MGN #12 than a problem in its own right.

What the issue does has to own for itself is how little it does with this idea, though.  It also has to answer for how unimpressive Dazzler comes across here. Longride is apparently applying psychological pressure in order to break her will and leave her helpless to resist him. All of which apparently requires almost no effort on his part.  A fall into a swimming pool, a shitty newspaper story about her, and Dazzler is already close to collapse, to the point where she has to flee the city because her light powers are out of control.  It's frustrating in the extreme to see a genuinely capable (if frequently aggravating) female character to be reduced to a damsel in distress, especially since one of the best features of the fairy tale this takes its name from is the idea that its Beauty who saves the Beast from himself.

Here, Beast appoints himself protector and saviour of Beauty, and it's all very unpleasant. Quite aside from the gender politics issues, Beast acts in an appallingly judgemental way towards Longride's mutant charges, to the point where one calls him on the hypocrisy, and he still dismisses them as "decrepit people".  When Alison disappears - having run to the coast to hide - he immediately assumes the horse-featured mutant he threatened at the previous night's party is responsible, and heads to the guy's hotel before attacking him without warning.

Think about that for a moment. Beast physically attacks a fellow mutant based on a jealous hunt and rumours spread about the group of mutants he belongs to.  The fact that this mook - Rocker by handle [1]- turns out to know Longride is planning something nefarious for Dazzler is entirely beside the point.  This isn't how heroes are supposed to behave.  This isn't how Hank is supposed to behave.

All this comes together when Beast overhears Rocker receiving a tip on Dazzler's whereabouts, and heads to the coast to find her being sheltered by a group of squatters in a nearby house.  There he finds Dazzler pumping out massive wattage, and promises he's arrived to protect her.  You know, from light.  Light she's generating herself.  Actually, proper Beast could probably manage that.  New and unimproved Beast? Shit out of luck, I'm guessing.

But I guess we'll find out next issue.  Next year, in fact, since this post brings us to the end of 1984's X-books (except for that year's Uncanny X-Men Annual, which will have to wait until Kitty and Logan get back from beating up ninjas).  Everyone break out the tiny flags!  Woo!  Tiny flag waves! WOO!

[1] This is probably Doctor Doom's bastard child.  I didn't know he had one until this issue, but given Doom's presence in the prologue it's clear he'll be showing up, and Rocker's shared love of horsie-based statuary and dislike of knocking on the door during the appreciation of same makes guessing his identity reasonably simple. Let this be a lesson to you, kids! Dabble in the black arts; end up with unacceptably equine children.  It could happen to you! 

Clues

Like ICE, there's little here to tie the issue to wider X-book continuity, other than the fact that the events of the Dazzler graphic novel are described in the past tense.  Since they share no cast members, we can actually run this simultaneously with Bobby Drake's latest adventure, though this issue takes place over a much longer time frame of around a fortnight.

Date

Saturday 30^th September to Saturday 14^th October, 1984.

X-Date

X+6Y+213 to X+6Y+227.

Contemporary Events

The Brighton hotel bombing: the IRA attempts to assassinate Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet.  Five people were killed and several more permanently disabled, but the Prime Minister herself escaped injury.

Standout Line

"Best thing for my hangover is to just relax and look at my sculpture collection." - Rocker

Iceman #1: "The Fuse!"

(Supersexyicecoolalienfightin'familyman)

Comments

Things are really starting to speed up now, this is the third X-Men miniseries kicking off in 1984 (or the fourth, depending whether this shipped before or after the first part of Beauty and the Beast).  Usually, we'd spend some time trying to figure out this book's justification as part of the larger picture, but things are a little different this time.  First of all, Chris Claremont is entirely absent here, which means we can already offer "X-Man written by someone else".  Second, there's the fact that Ice-Man has been off our radar since 1975 (I may be forgetting a cameo here and there, but the point stands regardless).  Let the New Defenders fans figure out why they might need to read four extra issues of Iceman antics.  We have our old friend back.

So there isn't really a need for this story to justify itself in the same way as, say, Kitty Pryde & Wolverine does.  Nevertheless, we can manage it pretty easily.  Indeed, if there's a problem here, it's that there's too much being juggled here.  In this issue alone Iceman meets up with, in no particular order, his disapproving and smothering parents, a mutant-hating local cop, two interstellar criminals, and the drop-dead gorgeous redhead next door.

The clear implication here is that Iceman has a ridiculous amount on his plate to simultaneously juggle: a difficult family situation, angry racists, rampaging supervillains, and a seemingly hopeless love life.  This is pretty close to the Dazzler template I've spent so much time complimenting over the last year.  We could, if we wanted, argue that a male protagonist going through the same motions as a female one has a built-in audience of all those folks who would have enjoyed Dazzler had they bothered to pick it up, and we'd be right, for all that "let's target the readers with outdated gender perceptions" isn't a sales policy I'd want to back.

Really, though, we don't need to.  There's an even more obvious link here.  Indeed, given J.M. DeMatteis' later career, we could almost consider this a warm-up.  Change smothering parents who hate their son's superheroics for a kindly aunt unaware of them, and swap racist cop Ralph Ratchit (what, no "R"?) for an intolerant and intolerable newspaper mogul, and what we have here is obvious: Spiderman.

(Really, it's the gorgeous redhead next door that gives the game away.  That, or I'm just making links based on half-buried memories of '80s children's shows.)

What's important here though isn't the similarity of set-up, it's the difference in character.  Peter Parker is utterly fixed on trying to do the right thing by as many people as possible, and so ends up pulled in multiple directions.  His desires are clear, but conflicting at best and incompatible at worst.  In comparison, Bobby Drake hasn't the faintest idea what he wants, so he ends up bouncing from distraction to distraction, which may or may not involve trying to stop people from destroying the world.  What's interesting is how the two very different approaches seem to lead to pretty similar escapades.

There's also the delirious rush of squeezing the entirety of Spiderman's shtick into a single issue.  Bobby is on the way to a family reunion when he spots  gorgeous girl Marge and tries to impress her, leading to him being harassed by a bigoted cop, so he runs, only to find the same girl outside his house since she lives next door, and so he gets a chance to chat her up at the family reunion only for supervillains to jump in and try to kidnap him (or more likely, Marge), leading to the trashing of Marge's house, after which the supervillains teleport out just in time for Iceman to be left holding the metaphorical baby when racist cop shows up to arrest him.

It's fun to see it all squeezed together like this.  It's probably necessary as well; you don't want for people to figure out Spiderman's collection of animal-themed grotesques fulfils a role in the narrative that you can't necessarily replicate with generic antagonistic aliens (who by the way seem to be putting an awful lot of hope in an agent named Idiot).  Every truly great hero is defined by a strong rogues' gallery, and I'm not really seeing that here.

Our standard disclaimer applies here, of course; it's only the first issue.  The cover for the second issue seems to bear so little connection to what we've seen here that any attempts to guess what's coming seem doomed to failure.  If things can continue in this gloriously, defiantly deranged fashion, I may not even care.

Clues

This story takes place over the course of a single day.  With Iceman so far out of the loop in terms of X-books, there's not a lot to tie this in with events elsewhere, but Iceman does mention Dazzler's recent publicity problems.  We'll therefore set this just after the events of MGN #12.

Date

Saturday 30^th September, 1984.

X-Date

X+6Y+213.

Contemporary Events

"Kiss rocks?  Why would anyone want to - oh, wait, I get it."

Standout Line

"That was another joke, by the way."
"I kind of thought it was."

Bobby Drake struggles to land his humour with the girl next door.

(Also: post 400.  Woo-hoo!)

KPW #2: "Terror"

(Rank ninjustice.)

Comments

Last time we dropped in on this miniseries I suggested it was struggling for a clear purpose.  After reading this issue, things aren't any less murky. Not because there's no sense of what Claremont is trying to do, but because there's so many possible themes here that I'm struggling to figure out which one we're supposed to be grabbing hold of.

It now seems that the sturm und drang surrounding Kitty's dumping by Peter isn't going to feature as much as I'd already assumed.  By this point, Kitty is just tagging it on to the end of reasons why her life sucks, as oppose to it informing her actions in any real sense.  Indeed, this may be where we stumble onto what's really going on here.  Claremont may be suggesting this is an opportunity for Sprite to mature somewhat.

This is a plausible conclusion given events, but we should note that Claremont has chosen an odd vehicle for the idea.  In this issue Kitty is captured by Ogun (one of the Japanese gangsters she saw pressuring her father in Illinois, and who reminds her of Wolverine enough to make it clear this is not a dude with which to be fucked), and is brainwashed into becoming a deadly ninja.

I admit it makes some sense for someone to think Kitty would make an excellent assassin; she's small, light and athletic, and she doesn't need anything so prosaic as doors.  Quite how Ogun knows this ahead of time I'm not sure - maybe he doesn't, and indoctrinating teenagers is just how he rolls in general - but fair enough.  But it's worth noting this isn't the only time Claremont uses the plot-line of a sinister Asian villain brainwashing a western woman into becoming his private assassin.  The fact that this of all things could become a recurring theme is... interesting, to say the least.

We'll deal with that in more detail when the idea resurfaces with Psylocke ("Lady Yellowface", as Abi calls her), though.  For now we'll focus on what this developments suggests.  As I say, it can feed into the idea of Kitty growing up, though the idea this is happening due to a malevolent external pressure causes of all sorts of problems with that as a metaphor.  It's one thing for characters to mature through adversity.  It's quite another to do through experiencing what is quite clearly abuse.  The potential problems of a character arc that can be summed up as "now that adult male has physically and psychologically dominated me, I no longer mind about my teenage crush dumping me" surely need not be stated.

On the other hand, perhaps something else is happening here.  The shock reveal at the end of the issue is that Ogun reminds Kitty of Wolverine because her friend was actually trained by Ogun as well.  Perhaps this is as much about Wolverine's past as it is Kitty's future.

Of course, that carries its own problems.  Kitty's mind-domination is a problem if she's the heroine of the story, but it's no easier to deal with if it's there simply to give Wolverine something to react to.  We're in refrigerator territory, here.

Ultimately, though, this is a second issue of set-up.  Which isn't necessarily a problem in a six-book series. Kitty and Wolverine are in place, and with Logan threatening Ogun's associate Shigematsu with death if he doesn't secure the release of Kitty, and Ogun himself ordering Sprite to murder her former friend, it's not hard to see what shape issue #3 will take.

Still, though.  Where is this all going?

Clues

It's difficult to tell how long this story plays out over, since there's no indication of how much time Sprite spends being taught to become a ninja.  Clearly it's all going on in her subconscious, since she can't literally have been turned back into a toddler and raised as an assassin, but the necessary time-frame needed for the brainwashing is unclear.

On the other hand, it seems likely Wolverine's appearance towards the end of the issue takes place soon after he arrives in Japan.  That, combined with Kitty saying she spent the night in a sewer, suggests this all happens the day after Kitty's arrival in Japan.

Date

Sunday 5^th February, 1984.

X-Date

X+5Y+342.

Contemporary Events

Argentinian soccer star Carlos Tevez is born.

Standout Line

...Yeah, I got nothing.  There's nothing here that's good enough to note, and the weirder stuff has that whole psychological abuse thing hanging over it.

ALF #17: "...Dreams Die Hard"

(One step forward, two steps back.)

Comments

At last we come to our final glass of 1984 vintage Byrne.  What's more, it tastes surprisingly good. 

Perhaps this is because Byrne has set himself a specific task here; work the upcoming new, Guardian-less era of Alpha Flight into its formation in-universe, and to the first appearances of Wolverine and Guardian themselves within the X-books.

That's a really nice idea, and if it shifts the book away from developing a story towards solving a continuity puzzle, well, that's the sort of exercise I appreciate.

We begin in November of 1980, on the first day James Hudson shows his wife his costume.  It may well have been ready earlier, but that doesn't matter.  Alpha Flight begins with Heather and Mac together, discussing the future.  In a little over three years, he will be dead, but today he's got other problems.  Wolverine just quit to join up with a wheelchair-bound bald guy (brilliantly described as a "big-wig"; I thought it was funny, anyway) from the US.  When first we saw this, it was nothing but a quick nod to Wolverine's character. Seen from the Hudsons' perspective; it's a devastating betrayal.  After finding Wolverine and taking him in, and after years of supporting him as he acclimated to society once more, he storms off and leaves the country because... well, why, exactly?

This idea that Guardian and Heather are responsible for Logan being who he is is a great one.  It ties them into the wider story, it enriches Wolverines back-story (back in the days when it could be enriched, rather than simply made more complicated), and it gives the entirety of Department H and Alpha Flight's appearances to data a cyclical quality.  Wolverine quit the day Alpha Flight as we know it began, and returns to apologise for that action the day it is born anew.

It even makes sense of how different James Hudson's character seemed in his comic compared to his appearances in Uncanny X-Men, where he was pretty much a dick.  Seen in the light of his fury over his friend abandoning him - without so much as a thank you for helping him regain his sanity, or a promise not to start carving people up if they annoy him - Mac's obsessive need to recover Logan makes much more sense.  This is exactly the sort of thing these "fill in the blanks" stories should be doing; offering us old events from new perspectives, so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.  This is not an easy trick to pull off, and Byrne goes even further by working in the relevant pages of UXM #109, which Bryne himself drew, and trying to make sure his dialogue and Claremont's don't clash.

Really, it's an achievement worthy of respect, and the most fun I've had reading Alpha Flight since the wonderfully cheeky "Snowblind".  And as I say, it feeds into where the title is going next.  Where Heather has seen her husband's death as a reason to disband the team she helped create, both Wolverine and Puck insist the real conclusion to be drawn here is that it's time she led the team herself.  She has no powers, but neither did James.  There's no earthly reason that Heather can't follow on in her husband's footsteps, and having a comic I've previously criticised for its gender politics explicitly point this out has to be considered significant progress.

So, nice work all around, really.  Kudos.  Very tasty.  But what's this lurking at the bottom of the glass?  Why, it's an epilogue which utterly ruins everything.  We learn in the final three pages that Walter Langkowski has built a machine to "help" his lover Aurora.  Aurora thinks the device will remove her link with her estranged brother, allowing her to access her maximum power levels without having to be in physical contact with Northstar.

What the machine actually does is turn mutants into humans. They retain (most of) their powers, but the X-gene.

Which is just disgusting.  In later years, the X-books will get a lot of mileage over the question of whether a mutant who desires to become a baseline human should have that right, but this is something different.  This is a man deciding what's best for his girlfriend would be if he changes who she is. 

It's perhaps tempting to link this into the recurring theme in this book of men having to rescue women from themselves, but - subheading notwithstanding - let's not go down that route just yet.  For all I know Byrne is setting Sasquatch up for a big fall here.  He may come to regret his hubris.  For now, let's pin the blame on the character rather than the author.

Because Sasquatch has really fucked up here.  He's justifying his meddling on the idea that Aurora will be more or less unaffected by the procedure (she'll "still have a version of her powers"), but of course, that isn't the point.  The point is that our identity and our genetics cannot always be separated. As much as racism is a hideous thing, it would be an appalling idea to start subjecting, say, black people to a procedure that makes the observer think they look white, without even telling them.  Self-identity is the absolute bedrock of who we are, and for all but the most centred (or narcissistic) or individuals, the reflection of that identity we gain from others is of critical importance.

Walter's thoughts on the matter betray his horrible attitude: "...I care about Aurora, and that gives me the right to try and protect her".  Duuuude, no.  You don't get the right to do things to people because of how much you love them.  Down that path lie the monsters.

Like I say: for now, this is a character problem, not an author problem.  I'll have to see how this story thread develops before I can say more.  Really, though, this is an ugly, ugly start.  Can't I read just one Alpha Flight issue without wanting to take a shower?

Clues

The majority of this story takes place in one day, presumably very early morning on the day after Marrina's squamous brother was declared missing presumed exploded.  The Aurora subplot is listed as "not quite meanwhile", so I'll place it a day after, mainly just to have a new date to find contemporary events for.

Date

Saturday 14^th to Sunday 15^th April, 1984.

X-Date

X+6Y+44 to X+6Y+45.

Contemporary Events

Welsh comedian Tommy Cooper dies on-stage following a massive heart attack.

Standout Line

"Canada's not just the kind of country that breeds world-conquering types." - James Hudson.

NMU #22: "The Shadow Within"

(Slice of lifelessness)

Comments

Well, this is a gyp.  There's only eighteen pages here, four of which are taken up with another of Claremont's unbearably fairy tales.  We’re marking time here, basically.  I’ve said before and continue to insist that issues in which the team take a breather amidst their adventures can often be some of the most interesting books the range can offer, but that isn’t what’s happening here.  This is just a string of very brief vignettes intended to lay groundwork for future stories.  It has no structure of its own; nothing to point to and say “This is what NMU #22 is doing”.

There is one exception to this, which is the opening scene.  Here, Nightcrawler attempts to teach Cannonball some basic acrobatic moves, theorising that if Sam can somersault in-between blasts, it might make it easier for him to manage turns mid-flight.  That’s a great idea; it’s a logical move for Sam and a smart use of Kurt’s history.

After that, things start to fall apart.  There’s a half-page of Xavier and a recently arrived Moira inspecting Warlock.  There’s a brief scene in which Selene reveals herself to the high priest of her cult, who – once over his shock – sends her to the Hellfire Club to use as a base.  We dip into the Club itself to see Sunspot’s father beginning his new life at what might as well be called Clandestine Evil Inc.  Dani chats with her parents.  Life goes on, everywhere.

The closest the issue gets to a coherent theme is the difficulties Roberto and Rahne are suffering.  Roberto is having trouble with keeping his hands from becoming claws, which is interesting.  Rahne is writing short story which becomes tangled in her dreams, which in turn begin to manifest in reality.  I’ve said already that this story/dream is awful – Claremont seems to think that all a fairytale needs is cuteness and as many scene changes as possible, and so basically pisses all over Aristotle and the Brothers Grimm, which is actually quite an achievement in so short a space – but it’s not entirely without point.  It seems pretty clear from the two New Mutants who are unsettled and the appearance of a black knight and a maiden of pure white that this is a reference to Sunspot and Wolfsbane’s encounter with Cloak and Dagger back in the previous year’s Marvel Team-Up Annual #6. 

Not having read that particular book, I’m at the mercy of the internet to fill in the details.  I wonder how many readers at the time were left baffled here.  Frankly, even having made the connection this issue is a disappointment.  If the link to Cloak and Dagger is missed (easily done given how they’re presented; which I’d say was commendably subtle were it not a reference to a book from a different series), this issue could well have come across as a real stinker.

Clues

The story takes place over a single evening and night.

Rahne mentions its summer, continuing to take its cues from (I assume) Thor.  Again, though, this just doesn’t match up.  Later issues of Kitty Pryde and Wolverine confirm this: Kitty has been in Japan no more than a week when the global blizzard hits, and she left America during the winter.  There’s simply no way to match all this up.

That said, unlike UXM #188, there’s no references here to KPW, so we can move this issue towards warmer weather with far less fuss.  The fact that Xavier and Moira are in the early stages of investigating Warlock suggests it can’t have been long since the team returned from London (where they were stranded following NMU Annual #1), but we can imagine they took a week off in Britain to see the sights.

Date

Wednesday 8^th May, 1984.

X Date

X+6Y+69

Contemporary Events

The USSR announces it will be boycotting the ’84 Olympics in LA.

Standout Line

"Our costumes signify our abandonment of the modern age -- with its cloying ethics and bourgeois mercantile principles, where society is bent on protecting people from themselves at any cost -- for a far simpler one... where a man was limited solely by the scope of his imagination, his ambition, and bound only by his own personal sense of honour.  

Society -- the common herd -- means nothing, the individual all."  

Ayn Rand as interpreted by Sebastian Shaw.  Hell, one wonders if Ron Paul's favourite writer originally intended a longer title for her masterwork : Atlas Shrugs; Sebastian Shaw Absorbs Resultant Kinetic Energy; Punches Titan In Crotch.

UXM #188: "Legacy Of The Lost"

(Running in circles, appearing in triangles)

Comments

In which we continue Claremont's experiments in sensible structure.  "Legacy of the Lost" is essentially two short stories, each of which is followed by a teaser for later tales.

Story 1

Here we return to Eagle Plaza, and Storm, Rogue and Colossus, who along with Forge have been attacked by some kind of mystical shadow-creature, which is presumably working alongside the Dire Wraiths.  Things look pretty bleak, but fortunately Forge manages to keep it together.  In fact, he keeps it together to a ridiculous extent, somehow figuring out that the creature is busy converting its victims into monsters, and only his prosthetic limbs is slowing the process down with him.  That Cheyenne magic he keeps ignoring looks like some pretty hot shit right now.

The giant dark-monster has made one mistake; it's holding Forge by his mechanical leg.  Thinking quickly, the Maker instructs Storm to shoot his leg off so he can escape.  Thinking slowly, the monster tries and fails to compel Storm to drop the gun, rather than taking the far more sensible approach of grabbing Forge by his other leg.  Still, it all works out, as Forge escapes in one of the most unintentionally hilarious panels I've seen as he hops downstairs to safety.

Whilst Forge escapes, searching for Naze, various other characters deal with the attack in their own ways.  Nightcrawler - apparently held in reserve - teleports to his sorceress girlfriend/foster sister Amanda and takes her into the fight (much to her annoyance, as she was busy serving peanuts on a plane flight at the time).  Xavier, who clearly is monitoring the situation - sends Magik to the building to start slashing at things with her soulsword.  It's not clear how she manages to suddenly have perfect control over her stepping discs (is Charles helping out somehow), but this is an early example of the X-teams working in concert to ensure the most suitable mutants are deployed in a given situation.  This idea will be picked up on or utterly ignored from this point on, depending on the writer.

Meanwhile, Nate has a plan of his own.  Except he's clearly not Nate anymore.  Who he is seems less clear.  For a while I thought he might have been taken over by the enemy of his people he hasn't shut up about since his introduction.  But then the massively powerful entity he makes contact with here seems more likely to be the villain in question.  So who's in Nate?  A Dire Wraith?  Can they do that?  We know they can make themselves look human, but can they possess people?  Is it another strand of whatever is attacking the X-Men?  Or is that a form of Dire Wraith in itself anyway?  There's a lot going on here, and I'm clearly not getting it all.

Whatever is in Nate, though, it's begging for help from the creature it's summoned in Naze's sanctum, but Mr Evil simply isn't interested, and claims both souls inside of Nate's body (though oddly this doesn't quite kill him).

Back with our heroes, and Amanda and Illyana both have some success at distracting the shadow-creature, but they're clearly fighting a losing battle.  Fortunately, Forge is on hand to sort everything out (presumably after failing to find Naze he must have hopped back up the stairs, and man am I upset that we didn't get to see that).  It's become clear that something is running interference on Amanda's spells, and Forge has the answer: the Dire Wraith Storm abandoned in the snow last issue might not be as frozen stiff as presumed.  One 'Crawler port later, Forge coldly shoots the last Wraith in the head (remember, kids, killing is a moral abomination unless they don't really look like you), and Amanda is free to banish the larger monster downstairs.

With the battle over there's just a couple of things to mop up.  Colossus has to deal with the revelation that his younger sister is a sorceress, which he takes very well, choosing to focus on the fact that whatever she has become, she has not become anything other than his sister.  Forge also has to deal with the fact that even after saving her life at least twice, Storm has no intention of forgiving him for that life suddenly not containing any flying around or weather manipulation.  He'll be seeing her again, she promises.

Meanwhile...

Interlude

It's strange what gets you a reputation.  I once saw a biography of Salvador Dali called The Great Masturbator, which seems like an odd way to introduce the dude who painted The Persistence of Memory.  And look what happened with the Bermuda Triangle.  All you hear about that place is how it nicks, like, all the shit, all the time, when what's really weird about it is that you can't sail through it for more than five minutes without bumping into Magneto.

Last time we saw Magneto on Earth, he was hanging around Legally Distinct From Ry'Leh Island inside the Triangle, and now here he is again, presumably having landed in the Atlantic after Warlock smashed his asteroid a few months back.  Once again, it's Lee Forrester who finds him, which is likely to be an awkward reunion.  "Didn't you try to kill my boyfriend?"  "Didn't he leave you for an exact duplicate of his dead ex?".  Ouch.

Story 2

It's time for a little politics.  The topic of discussion: the federal action that cost Storm her powers.  Things have reached the point that even the usually serene Nightcrawler is urging action.  Between Gyrich blowing mutants from the sky and Kelly's Mutant Affairs Control Act gaining support in the Senate, things are reaching a crisis point, and Xavier doesn't seem to have any idea what to do about it, beyond pointing out Storm was hit by accident.  Which given that's only because Gyrich was aiming at a different mutant he planned to cripple without trial is a ridiculously and unpleasantly obvious dodge.

In fact, Xavier doesn't come across too well here at all.  Kurt is clearly having a crisis of faith, openly musing about quitting the team over fears that he's wasting his time.  He deserves far better than Xavier asking him if he'd rather hang out with Magneto instead, and then suggest Kurt is running away. 

But then, what else can Charles say?  This has always been the horrible truth; the elephant in the room.  No amount of superheroic punching can stop bigots - and those willing to function as bigots in the interests of acquiring power - from peddling their crap.  Professor X's only response to this has always been "maybe things will get better", and it's becoming clear that even his X-Men are no longer buying the line.

It would have been very interesting to see where this discussion went next, but things are interrupted when Kurt points out Jean Grey died following Xavier's dream, and Rachel -psychically listening in outside the door - freaks out.  She's already come across evidence that she's in the wrong past - Illyana is the wrong age, Storm should have her powers and a better hair-cut - but learning Jean Grey is dead just days after she thought she heard her over the phone (actually, it was Maddy Pryor) is one twist too much.  It's time to zap Nightcrawler with psychic bolts until he admits he's lying!

Xavier manages to stop Rachel from actually killing Kurt and, once she calms down a little, Rachel basically tells him to stop his bitching.  After all, her world is massively worse than the one he's living in, and she never gave up.  In response, Nightcrawler makes the entirely reasonable point that Rachel's nightmarish future is proof that the X-Men are spinning their wheels, and the fact that he and his future wife are gunned down in cold blood by mutie-haters doesn't really inspire him to stick around.

Rachel isn't finished yet, though, and reveals her trump card: the X-Men make a difference by simple example.  Even if they can't beat the politicians and the media bigots and the groundswell opinions that threaten to swallow them, they're a symbol of hope in times that hope is all there is to hold.  Whether this is a good enough reason to sign up for a life most likely to end bloodily in a decade or so, I don't know. 

But it's enough for Kurt.

Epilogue

It's a busy day on the New York docks.  Lots of fish to place in ice, and eventually bellies.  For stevedore Jaime Rodriguez, though, it's mainly an opportunity to be mentally compelled to slice open a turbot and acquire a mystical necklace, which promises him the world...

Clues

The majority of this issue takes place on the same day as UXM #186 -187, though there's a coda that we can assume takes place on the following day.

We do have a problem here, which is that the issue explicitly states that the blizzard brought about by events in Thor is described as particularly strange given it has hit in midsummer.  Without reading the relevant issues, I can't be sure, but I'm guessing this is a reference to something stated in Thor's own series.  Certainly it makes limited sense here, with Kitty and Logan still in Japan.  I guess it's possible they stay in Japan through much of winter, all of spring, and the first month or so of summer, but I suspect not.  We may have to return to this after covering the conclusion to Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, but for now I propose this be ignored as a reference from outside the X-books, and therefore inadmissible.

Date

Sunday 1^st to Monday 2^nd April, 1984

X-Date

X+6Y+31 to X+6Y+32.

Compression Constant

1 Marvel year = 3.49 standard years

(Rogue is 27 years old as of July 2013)

 

"All that horror..."

Contemporary Events

Shawn Roberts is born in Ontario. In later life he will become known for appearing in both Romero's zombie franchise and in the Resident Evil series, in the latter of which he plays Wesker.

Standout Line

"Of the X-Men you gathered: Banshee and Storm, maimed -- Thunderbird, killed! Jean Grey, KILLED! Where will it end?!" - Nightcrawler

NMU Annual #1: "The Cosmic Cannonball Caper"

("We stole this planet with rock-and-roll!")

Comments

1. Focus-wise, this is something of an odd fish (though given the bewildering abundance of piscine variation, just how batshit a fish’s construction would have to be before it could be reasonably labelled ”odd”. is not clear). Considering this is the junior team’s first annual one might expect a team-focused story, particularly given the title’s two new arrivals. Instead our focus here is mainly upon Sam.
   
   Since the parent series has spent so much of its time recently focused first on Magma, then Magik, and finally on Dani Moonstar, a case could certainly be made that Sam deserves his turn in the harsh glare of audience focus - arguably he’s the least developed of those characters introduced back in ”Renewal”. Even granting that idea, however, it’s a strange choice to apply that idea to a special, rather than in the on-going series. Particularly when an immediate consequence is that Warlock and (especially) Doug Ramsey are relegated to mere afterthoughts. Warlock’s ability to appear human isn’t even mentioned until a dozen pages in and if Doug has indeed joined the team there’s no evidence of that here.
   
   
2. I’ve said this before, but if Claremont can repeat himself I don’t see why I can’t: I hate ludicrous coincidence in comic books. Our group of mutant teenagers go to a gig that just happens to be headlined by a closeted mutant, who just happens to be outed that night by an angry ape-croc from space? I call bullshit on that, my friends.
   
   Of course people have been making this point since Aristotle, so I needn’t rehash the general case (though I will note once more that I personally find it professionally insulting). I do think, though, that the problem is particularly severe here.
   
   The X-books have an overarching theme that makes them so interesting; the choice between revealing oneself in order to fight for acceptance, and hiding from the struggle in the hopes of escaping notice. Even the New Mutants, who are not intended to man the barricades, have clearly taken the more dangerous path. Just turning up at Xavier’s door carries its own risks, after all. How one chooses to live one’s life as a mutant is a central question across the line.
   
   And it doesn’t apply here, as our heroes get caught between an alien killer and a teleporting rock-star whilst on their downtime. That’s just a bog-standard superhero plot (in structure if not specifics) that any book could use under any writer, so long as neither took themselves too seriously. It would be far too strong a statement to argue this isn’t the sort of story the X-books should ever do, but if you’ve slicing out the central metaphor you need to have something interesting enough to replace it. Nothing like that is evident here.
   
   
3. Cheney as a character is a real problem here. Rewarding Sam with a kiss for saving her life (following our extra-terrestrial’s first attempt on her life) could perhaps be dismissed as merely terribly presumptuous - stemming perhaps from daily experience of desperate fans screaming for her body. Once Lila upgrades to kidnapping Sam and repeatedly propositioning him - whilst occasionally nibbling on his earlobe – though, we reach genuinely unsettling territory. Imagine an adult man whisking away a teenage girl to his house - with no way for the girl to get back - and demanding she change into more revealing clothes in preparation for a later two-person party, all whilst repeatedly touching her and consider just how likely that man would be to avoid jail time once the girl found her way home.
   
   
4. At last, the plot. When Lila Cheney isn’t dodging alligarillas or committing obvious sexual assault she lives in an abandoned Dyson Sphere, planning to steal the planet Earth in order to sell it at auction. Only two things stand in her way: the New Mutants, who have used Warlock’s various abilities to track Sam, and her drummer, who wants to sell her out to another alien who’s not keen on bidding for a second-hand planet with six billion sentients on the clock.
   
   The two groups arrive simultaneously, and immediately the aliens attack our friends. The fight is strangely rushed; Rahne, Dani and Warlock being captured immediately, and Sam and Lila being subdued off-panel. This is ridiculous. There’s space in this annual for Sam and Roberto to lust after Lila, and for various comments about Sam’s new look (best described as ’80s gay German parody-metal), but not for the epic arrival of a living starship into a Dyson Sphere or to see Lila and Sam fighting for their lives?
   
   In fact pacing in general seems pretty off here, with the conclusion to this tale happening at far too fast a pace. The aliens haven’t managed more than some preliminary throat-clearing in their post-battle gloating when those New Mutants still free crash the party and defeat them. We’re then told that battle damage during the resulting fracas has damaged the teleport web Lila intended to use to steal Earth, meaning that it will now destroy the planet instead. Who the hell builds something like that? Who masters the technological miracles necessary to transport matter instantaneously across the galaxy and doesn’t think of a feature that will move it when it’s about to explode?
   
   Fortunately, Doug is able to read the instructions helpfully written on a nearby wall, and disaster is averted. Grateful for the save, Lila teleports the New Mutants back to Earth, though London we learn is the best that she can do.
   
   
5. Lila’s post-scenario contrition leaves as great deal to be desired. All that de facto date-rape was a terrible start, and she makes no effort to redeem herself here. The sum total of her justification for trying to sell her entire planet into slavery is that she was sold into slavery first. Sam more or less swallows this whole, but he’s a teenager in love. We should try to be more objective.
   
   So let’s be objective. This is an utterly appalling justification: I suffered an indignity and hated it so therefore everyone on the planet should be subjected to it too? That’s disgraceful. There are children not yet born when Lila was sold and she intends for them to be slaves. There are people who’ve never heard of her and aren’t from her country and have never possessed any form of influence upon the government who happened to be in power when she met her fate, and she wants them to suffer as well. She wants Tuvalu to be enslaved, for God’s sake. What did Tuvalu do to her? Don’t they have enough to do what with global warming and all? Let us not forget our Russell:

   I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.

6. To summarise: an obvious sex-pest tries uses her past as an excuse to attempt an atrocity but changes her mind when her life is saved in improbable circumstances at improbable speed. This annual could transmit botulism to every reader and not be any more objectionable.

Clues

According to Sunspot, Lila’s gig is ”on Saturday”. This in turn means it can’t be Saturday when he acquires the tickets nor is it likely to be Friday. We’ll therefore kick this issue off a few days after NMU #21.

It takes the Warlock-craft a day to get to Lila’s sphere following the gig, and much of another day before they get anywhere in their search.

Date

Sunday 1^st to Monday 8^th April, 1984

X-Date

X+6Y+31 to X+6Y+39.

Contemporary Events

RAF Major Sir Arthur Travis ”Bomber” Harris passes away. Harris is something of a controversial figure these days due to his ”bomb the shit out of everybody” policy during the Second World War.

Standout Line

Sunspot reacts to Sam’s extreme wardrobe change.

“Sam?! My dear friend, what have they done to you? The fiends! Let me at them -- How dare they torture you..."

Kitty Pryde And Wolverine #1: "Lies"

(The Cross Time Zone Caper.)

Comments

For those keeping score, this is the fourth X-Men miniseries to date, all of which were released within the same three year period, and all but one of which were written by Claremont alone - the fourth being a collaboration with Bill Mantlo.  The X-juggernaut (if you'll forgive the phrase) has well and truly begun rolling.

As usual with these minis, then, the most immediate question is: why?  With two slices of Claremont action per month already available, what can we find here that we can't get elsewhere?  The three previous miniseries each had an answer, even if in the case of X-Men vs the Micronauts it wasn't really anything more than uncamouflaged commercialism.  Magik: Storm and Illyana filled in a back-story that one could at least make a strong case for being worth telling, for all that the end result left me cold.  Wolverine did best of all, being a brooding, exquisitely-presented tour through Wolverine's character, with added ninjas.

So what does this title bring to the party?

The first clue, as one might expect, comes in the name.  This is not Wolverine and Kitty Pryde.  Even in the mid '80s, with Wolverine-fever still far from peaking, giving Logan second-billing is a very notable choice, particularly since it was he who headlined the first X-Men spin-off in history (if we exclude the Dazzler ongoing, and for these purposes I think we should).  This is a story about Sprite, first and foremost.  Indeed, in this first issue, Wolverine hardly appears at all; literally being on page for a single panel and thirteen words of dialogue.  This is Kitty's time to shine. 

Not that she's all that interested in shining, what with Colossus having broken her heart.  This is our second clue as to what is going on here.  Claremont is using this opportunity to explore Kitty's response to being heartbroken, in a way he'd never have the space to do in either UXM or NMU (though he has the sense to skip the first week of endless weeping). That's a strong rationale for a character piece, for all that I have comparatively little love for the character in question, and for all that Claremont isn't really the writer I'd choose for the role (hyperbolic teenage rending of garments being a topic that desperately needs a writer stronger on dialogue and implication).

Note that I say "character piece", not "six issue limited series".  If the main thrust of this book is to explore Kitty's emotional fall-out, then it's reasonable to ask how long we could possibly take the results.  Claremont is walking a fine line here.  Too much melodrama and the whole thing will collapse, too much skipping around Japan fighting ninjas and there's a risk the whole exercise become superfluous; something we've all seen before.

Oh, did I mention Kitty's skipping around fighting ninjas?  That seems to be the basis of the plot here: Kitty discovers her father has been extorted into selling the family bank to the Yakuza - small Illinois banks being prime targets for Japanese gangsters - and is being shipped off to Japan to meet his new boss, and she surreptitiously tags along.

In this first issue, it's tough to know where this is headed, though of course no-one gets any prizes for figuring out this story is Nippon-bound so as to tie into Wolverine's past (his only appearance here is answering Kitty's international phone call for assistance).  It's not clear how returning Wolverine to the grimy world of Tokyo assassins will work alongside Kitty's domestic problems - certainly Sprite would have been horribly out of place in the previous Wolverine mini - but we'll figure that out further down the road.

For now, Claremont's interest is in putting Kitty through the wringer; without cash or sensible clothes, Kitty quickly ends up soaked in Tokyo rain and trying to steal money from cash machines in order to get a place to stay.  In the process she trips an alarm, leading to her being chased by the cops, featured on the Japanese equivalent of Crime Stoppers, and fighting a nasty (and ridiculously quick-developing) case of the flu.  Plus, she finds her father just in time to see him agree to funnel laundered money through his bank.  She even loses her favourite pair of skates.

Is the plan to try the patented "strip everything away from a character" approach here? It's too soon to tell.  Right now, all we really have are questions.  Which is fine; there's five issues for this to crystallise. Whether or not it does, of course...

Clues

This issue begins a week after Kitty and Peter's break-up in UXM #183.  Since that would make it a Saturday, though, and hence unlikely to be a day the bank is open in the late afternoon (actually, maybe US banks do that, I couldn't say), I'll knock things back to the Friday.  The flight to Japan presumably takes us into the following day.

Date

Friday 3^rd to Saturday 4^th February, 1984.

X-Date

X+5Y+340 to X+5Y+341.

Contemporary Events

The first transfer of embryos from one woman to another resulting in a live birth is announced.  Republicans across the US start planning ways to use this to prove women love getting things inserted into them under all circumstances.

Standout Line

"Traffic's lousy, as usual. The airport is jammed, as usual.  The cabby gets lost, as usual."

Maybe I wouldn't have picked this line if I wasn't flying to France next week.  But I am, so I did.

ALF #16: "... And Forsaking All Others..."

("Anything could happen in the next half hour!")

Comments

It's time to dig out the running shoes in our sprint towards the finish line as the "what lurks beneath Lake Ontario" plotline finally reaches a conclusion.  For those who have forgotten, last issue saw the reappearance of the missing-presumed-exploded Master of the World (self-declared), who's apparently swapped his gigantic alien colonisation vessel for a snazzy submarine.  Apparently being buried beneath the Arctic Circle for four hundred centuries doesn't mean you can't watch Stingray.

Separated at egg secretion?

(Actually I'm being unfair here.  The Master can't possibly have cribbed this design from Gerry Anderson, since it's taken five millennia to construct.  One wonders how much of that time was sunk into the flared nostrils.)

 Not only does the Master have a snazzy new ride, he also has a plan, and an explanation as to why he isn't dead.  It turns out he deliberately orchestrated Alpha Flight's attack on the alien ship that captured him all those eons ago, mainly because it wouldn't let him leave even after it got tired of dissecting him.  Once free and safely away in the Fishmobile, he was able to prepare the next stage of his plan, which is... well, I'm not sure.  He admits to having wanted Marrina dead originally, since her intended role as a destroyer of species makes her too dangerous to have around.  So why has he kidnapped her and regressed her into the very mental state that requires?  Why has he brought her into the depths to meet the only other surviving member of her race?  How did we get from executing genocidal bio-constructs to arranging blind dates for them?  Not that rendezvous goes tremendously well, the two aliens seemingly attack each other the moment they're introduced.

Whatever the Master is up to, there's only Namor and Puck around to stop him, which is more than a little tricky considering they're being almost totally dehydrated/asphyxiated in order to keep them quiet.

Almost only counts in horseshoes and Hold Steady albums, though, and Puck has a plan.  From watching the Master take such interest in Marrina's courtship ritual/battle to the death, Puck figures the man is a sucker for a good mystery - which is a hell of a leap, but it's not like the guy has much in the way of options - and makes use of a handy trick he picked up in the Orient to stop his heart and breathing for a few moments.  The Master is indeed taken in by this trick, baffled as to how a man locked in an airtight container almost devoid of oxygen could stop breathing and die, and he removes Puck from his tube.  Immediately Puck recovers, attacking the Master, freeing Namor, and stealing their foe's helmet in short order (no pun intended).

Puck's intent is to use the helmet as a missile, cracking the pressure-glass that keeps out the lake so as to get Namor to water.  The manoeuvre is partially successful, in that - with a little help from Namor's fists - the glass does indeed break, but the submarine's control systems were in that headgear, which the Master had rather rashly superglued to his face.  Ooh, he's ever so cross, and his mood doesn't improve when Marrina's playmate shoves his tentacles into the sub and starts thrashing around. In short order the craft is pretty much hollowed out, and its time to abandon fish-ship.  Namor wants to stay to help his girlfriend, but Puck takes the entirely practical position that he'd rather not drown whilst he tries to talk Marrina out of killing all humans.  As the old saying goes, not dying horribly is the better part of valour.

Namor does as he's asked and gets Puck to safety, moments before the sub explodes, taking the alien killer with it.  Of the Master and of Marrina, Namor can find no sign, despite hours of searching.  Heartbroken, the King of Atlantis returns to his dominion.

Which is when Marrina cones out of hiding.  She's been back on the shore all along, waiting for Namor to leave, having concluded she cannot trust herself to be around him.

On the one hand, I really like the idea that Marrina has concluded she needs to figure her own way in the world rather than relying on Namor.  Certainly, given this book's tendency to repeatedly have women forced to entirely rely on men to save them - in one way or another - is both desperately cliche and very annoying.  On the other side of the scales, though, this is basically another story about a woman not being able to control themselves, and ton this occasion it's quite literally because they've met a member of the opposite sex that renders them utterly unable to think rationally.  It's presented here as part of whatever genetic engineering Marrina and her male counterpart were subjected to all those centuries ago, but at heart this is still a story about a girl who falls for a bad boy because she can't help herself.

Anyway.  All this high-octane carnage means there's less time than usual for Byrne to wander around his other simmering plots, but we do get to see him birth a whole new one! Former Gamma Flight member Madison Jeffries responds to a summons from another former Gamma alumni, paraplegic Roger Bochs, who wants the "transmutator" to help him.  First of all, he wants assistance in ensuring his Box robot cannot be hijacked from him as Jaxon did back in issue #12.  Secondly, he wants Jeffries's help in tracking down Jaxon along with Delphine Courtney.  We last saw the villains comatose and actually a robot, respectively, but according to Bochs, they escaped, and it's time to bring them to justice!

Oh, also, Wolverine visits Heather in hospital to try and cheer her up.  Props for Marvel not splashing his guest appearance all over the front cover, I guess.  Perhaps they figured Namor was enough.

Clues

The majority of story takes place in approximately real time, but the coda takes place just before dawn the day after the Master's return.

Date

Friday 13^th to Saturday 14^th April, 1984.

X-Date

X+6Y+43 to X+6Y+44.

Contemporary Events

US President Reagan promises more aid to El Salvador in attempts to lower the risks of the USSR gaining influence in Central America.

Standout Line

"A complex pattern of cause and effect has been unravelling itself beneath these dark waters, and now, at the very center of evil, one man has seized control."

The center of evil, my friends.  Not the centre of National Exhibition.  Not even the centre of Pompidou.  The center of evil.  The midpoint of malevolence.  The very radial intersection of rampant infamy!

Oh, my friends; the center of evil.  Oh.  Oh.