Alexa Reads X-Men

X-Men #98 : Merry Christmas, X-Men…

Written by Chris Claremont, Art by Dave Cockrum

In which my least favorite part of the ’90s cartoon shows up.

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Yeah, I’m sorry, but Sentinels are the worst villains ever. You can’t really hate them because they’re just robots with almost no autonomy, they’re metal and thus vulnerable to the most high-profile mutant terrorist, and they cause so much collateral damage that even the most anti-mutant bigot would be calling for them to be taken out of commission after one stepped on his car. Also, MAGENTA??? Yeah, that’ll strike fear into the hearts of those damn muties.

BUT this is a Christmas issue, so it appeals to the part of me that loves Christmas (HINT: It’s the part of me that exists, and most of the parts that don’t).  The X-Men are in Rockefeller Center and the lovebirds (Moira/Banshee, Jean/Scott) are all nice and snuggly, Colossus and Nightcrawler (in his Errol Flynn guise) are flirting with some very appreciative ladies (right there with you, ladies!) and… Wolverine’s “got no use for Christmas.”  Of course you don’t, Wolverine.

Then this amazing thing happens:

EEEEEEEE STAN AND JACK META!!!! (For n00bs: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the X-Men and most of the basis of the Marvel Universe).  I love Stan and Jack meta.  Like how they weren’t allowed in to Reed and Sue’s wedding— the only good thing to come out of the Fantastic Four movies not named Michael Chiklis was Stan’s cameo not being allowed into Reed and Sue’s wedding :D

But this can’t last, because the cover promises:

*sigh*  I really hate Sentinels.

Blah. Fight. Jean gets carried away, Scott’s hanging on to the outside of a skyscraper. Banshee (with Wolverine in tow) and Storm fly up to fight and Storm saves Scott.  And apparently Banshee and Wolverine have been taken prisoner like Jean. 

Then Storm is a badass who blows up a Sentinel with a hurricane.  Yeah Storm!  Fuck those Sentinels!

Anyway, we cut to Xavier on his ~secret vacation~ which is just some manly fishing on one Dr. Corbeau’s yacht.  Dr. Corbeau has two Nobel prizes and is the director of the UN’s Starcore Project, and Xavier is all “You know about space. So how about that crazy dream of mine?  Anything in the Milky Way match what I’m hallucinating about?”  And Corbeau is all “Please don’t take this the wrong way buuuuut…you should see a shrink.”

But no time!  Because, *sigh* Sentinel.  Oh noes.  Xavier’s mental powers are sapped from his crazy dreams, so he can’t fight that well.  Nowhere is it explained how a mental attack can harm an automaton, but whatevs.  They’re Sentinels.  They suck.  Their boat is destroyed.  Xavier is captured.

Anyway, something interesting happens when we find out where Jean, Banshee, Wolverine, and Xavier have been taken.  To Dr. Jumpsuit’s secret lair!!  He’s got them on slabs and monitoring their vitals and all sorts of mad scientist hijinks!  Jean passive aggressively gets him to reveal some of his plan, which is that because the X-Men are the only mutants who can stand up to the Sentinels.  That’s kind of scary to think about, because it means that robots who are so inept that they are inexplicably susceptible to psychic attacks are finding mutants who are so ill-trained they can’t use whatever powers they do have to fight them off.  Xavier really needs to get on recruiting more students, if mutants are to survive.

Anyway, Lang slaps Jean, which pisses off Wolverine enough to make him break free and slice up some redshirts and a Sentinel that happens to be hanging around!  That chases off the survivors and leaves Wolverine to free Banshee and Jean.  Apparently, everyone up till this point thought that Wolverine’s claws were not a part of his body, which is like, dude, how do you not know that?  Haven’t you seen the movie?

Meanwhile, Jean is trying to rip her dress so she can run in it, and Wolverine is more than happy to help:

LOL Wolverine you perv.  You enjoyed that way too much.

They start arguing about whether or not to bring Xavier— Wolverine argues that he’ll be a deadweight, but Jean demands that they find a way.  However, the decision is made for them when (godfuckingdammit) more Sentinels attack.  Even worse, according to Jean, these Sentinels are even weaker and more inept than usual!  What is the point of all of this then??

Well, they keep fighting and toppling Sentinels until Bashee just grabs them and and screams their way towards the nearest wall to burst out of—only for something to go wrong:

OOOOH DAVE COCKRUM MORE LIKE DAYUM COCKRUM, AMIRITE?.  Seriously, that is a beautiful tonal shift right there. It’s all “HEROICS AND HEROISM AND BADASSERY AND oh shi—”  And that asterisk cutting his scream off is a really nice touch.  You can just hear it rapidly decrescendo.

And for even more suspense we cut to the X-Mansion where apparently in the comics you don’t need a telepath to operate Cerebro, because Scott’s using it to turn up no trace of Jean or the others, which everyone points out must mean they’re dead.  But Scott refuses to believe that, dammit!  However, a weary and damp Dr. Corbeau turns up at that moment, and recalling something the Sentinel said about solar flares, he figures out where the Jean, Xavier and the others are.

MUTAAAANTS IIIIIN SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!

Okay, this was worth Sentinels (well, sort of).  How do you escape space when your captor is the only one with a spaceship??  Claremont, you win this round.  But I still hate Sentinels.

mundoh asked: I can't wait until you get to #102...

Almost there! (Is that where Jean becomes Phoenix? DON’T TELL ME!!)

X-Men #97 : “My Brother…My Enemy!”

Written by Chris Claremont, Art by Dave Cockrum

In which the Summers Brothers level JFK airport. WAY TO GO, SCOTT >:(

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Xavier is having nightmares, and Cockrum is a master:

A man after my own heart, Xavier decides that coffee is the best way to calm his nerves. Moira hears him in the kitchen and joins him. He’s concerned he is losing his mind, and Moira urges him to tell the rest of the X-Men. But in his paternal fashion (one of my favorite things about the character that I have a sneaking suspicion gets ruined by later writers), he doesn’t want to, and even apologizes to Moira for asking for her to come stay at the mansion.

I have to hand it to Claremont and Cockrum for letting the visuals tell the story wherever possible— it is very clear from art and the dialogue that the two were once lovers, though the scene contains nothing more explicit than hand-holding and Xavier saying “I had no right to ask you, not after…” And actually, that brings up something that irritates the hell out of me about media and fandom— the insistance that without explicit affirmation of a relationship, a relationship does not exist, to the point where if a writer admits ex parte to intending a relationship between two characters without explicitly saying so in the text, that many fans, both in favor and against the relationship, will castigate the creator for not making it explicit.

The best example I can give is from Harry Potter, where JK Rowling revealed, in response to a fan’s question, that Dumbledore was gay and had been in love with Grindelwald. She was flamed by people who whined that she was violating the “Death of the Author” (as an aside, anyone who uses “Death of the Author” in such a context is a n00b who hasn’t actually read Barthes’s essay. [/English major]), and by people (including many Grindeldore shippers) who accused her of cowardice for not saying it outright in the books. My response to both groups was “Did you really need Rowling to paint you a fucking picture after the endless descriptions of how beautiful Grindelwald was and how deeply obssesive Dumbledore’s friendship with him was, to the point of violating every one of his core values? SRSLY U GAIZ.” I should hope that most readers past a certain age (with the exception of those on the autism spectrum) are sophisticated enough to grasp the nuances of human interaction. But I digress. 

I know that they will eventually make explicit reference to Charles and Moira’s relationship, but I’m glad that won’t be a “reveal”.  Thank you for having faith in the reader’s intelligence, Claremont.

We cut to Polaris and Havok in their new ranch, the first time we’ve seen either since they left the X-Men.  We witness their domestic bliss, and then we see it destroyed by some shadowy figure zapping and brainwashing them to be evil and attack Xavier.  Polaris gets a new costume that clashes with her hair but sticks with Colleen Coover’s rule that villains wear green and purple.

Then, Xavier is finally going on his secret vacation, and all the X-Men, save Wolverine, Banshee, and Moira see him off at the airport.  Seriously, Moira?  You’ll wake up in the middle of the night to comfort your friend/ex-lover, but you can’t wait an extra hour or so to hang out with your new boyfriend and miss seeing him off at the airport?  (Whatever, I still love you, Moira.  You and your machine gun.)

Nightcrawler has a new “image inducer” which he can use to make himself look like Errol Flynn and flirt with the ladies :D.  Oh Kurt, why aren’t you real? And my boyfriend?  But no time for my love, because this happens:

I’m trying to remind myself that this issue came out before Star Wars, let alone Return of the Jedi, but that’s not working and I’m laughing hysterically as I imagine Jean Grey with a squid head.  (Also, they spelled Havok’s name wrong.  It’s really bothering me more than it should.)

Polaris knocks Jean out with a magnetic pulse, and IT’S ON!!!  The X-Men spring into action, fighting to keep Havok and Polaris from reaching Xavier’s plane.  In the ensuing epic fight scene, Havok blows up an entire 747 (one that is “undergoing routine maintenance” the caption assures us), Colossus gets thrown through the landing gear of another, causing it to collapse and a wing to break off, and Polaris almost makes Storm drop Jean as she’s flying her unconscious body to the roof for safety (why the roof? IDK, I guess that’s where you keep stuff if you can fly).  And frankly, the Storm’s lightning attacks and Polaris’s magnetic blasts probably knocked out just about electrical system and computer in a 5 mile radius.  Anyway Xavier’s plane got away at the very beginning of this fight, so a lot of the suspense was kind of lost right off the bat.  But we do find out who is controlling Havok and Polaris!

Why am I not surprised Scott’s own faily alter ego is behind all this.  JESUS, SUMMERS >:(  And actually, crazily enough, that asterisk is referring back to one of the few pre-Reboot issues I’ve read, because Jim Steranko drew it.  However, I don’t remember a damn thing about the story, except that the art was pretty underwhelming considering who was drawing it (Steranko, for his part, has admitted to phoning in those issues.  All you really should care about is the fact that he designed that logo you see above.)

Anyway, Havok manages to break through the mental controls enough to tell Scott they’re being mind-controlled, which makes it all the more frustrating for him when Eric the Red escapes with Havok and Polaris in tow, which leads to a pretty awesome progression of character moments, followed by the big reveal/cliffhanger, all on one page:

As much as I can’t stand Scott, and as much as I love Wolverine (in the context of this run, at least) I laughed really hard when Scott laid smackdown on Wolverine.  Also, this page totally proves my point that Storm could make Wolverine do his chores from the chore wheel.

Now, the last panel is a O_o? moment.  So the guy in white is Dr. Lang from the issue before, cool, I’ve got that, and I guess he’s giving marching orders to Eric the Red.  But am I to understand that he is being toyed with?  That even he is not in total control of what he’s doing?  So who’s the other guy?  I know it’s not Magneto, because Claremont says in the intro to the TPB I have that Magneto had been de-aged into a baby at this point.

Yep.  De-aged into a baby.  LOL COMICS.

FRIDGE LOGIC MOMENT:  Wait a minute.  Wolverine’s not supposed to be there.  This page is actually the first time he’s appeared in this whole issue, and they explicitly say he’s not there earlier.  Either THIS IS A TIP-OFF of some sort, or the creators forgot he wasn’t supposed to be there. (I kind of suspect it’s the latter.)

deadwalrus-deactivated20111030 asked: I anticipate with eagerness your reading of the "Executions" storyline re-introducing the Shadow King. Oh what silliness is therein.

*Googles* Which starts at #268.

Careful now, I’m trying not to think about how long this whole project is going to take.  You’re going to give me an aneurysm D:

X-Men #96: “Night of the Demon!”

Written by Chris Claremont, Art by Dave Cockrum

In which THANK GOD THE WRITING ACTUALLY BECOMES READABLE.

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I really want to elaborate on my lead there.  I really enjoy the campiness and the melodrama of Silver Age writing, and the previous issues, as much as I made fun of them, were still compelling enough to keep on with.  But I was starting to dread the prospect of reading who knew how many issues before the style became more modern and readable in the way that I have become accustomed to.  Well, now it becomes clear why people seem to forget that Len Wein was involved at all in the Big X-Men Reboot.  Chris Claremont’s writing is leaps and bounds beyond the heavy-handed Silver Age Marvel style.  And while it still has its moments of melodrama, it is far more deeply character-focused and makes the X-Men far more human and real.  Not only that, but Cockrum’s art vastly improved too, no doubt thanks to the visual wiggle room that’s left when you’re not trying to cram in ten plot points per panel.

Secondly, I made a note about this when reading Giant-Size #1, but I didn’t bring it up to keep the post manageable.  But since it’s on the cover, I’m going to address this— Professor X’s blanket.  Dude wears a suit, yet lays a blanket over his legs at all times.  What on earth for?  (I bet he masturbates under there.  LOL PERV.)

Onto the plot: We open with Cyclops’s manpain over Thunderbird’s death, angsting through the woods.  He curses the heavens and cuts loose with his optic blasts, destroying an odd-looking obelisk that would never actually exist in upstate New York:

Cut to the Danger Room, and we really start to see shades of what Wolverine will become.  

This is the magic of Wolverine— I still think that sounds pretty badass, and he totally appeals to my id.  Even though I see him all the damn time in comics, movies, cartoons, (and on bananas and written in the sky), I still read this early appearance and think “Damn, I hope this guy’s in this comic a lot!  I want to see more of him!”

Damn you Claremont, you’re going to make me read his first miniseries, aren’t you?

Anyway, Xavier is about to go away on a mysterious vacation he won’t give anyone any details about (MUST…RESIST…”ROMANTIC GETAWAY WITH MAGNETO” JOKE) and he’s asked Moira MacTaggart to take care of the mansion and the X-Men while he’s away.  Banshee immediately starts hitting on her.  (Keep in mind, these X-Men are all adults.)  Also, why is she coming in now?  Surely the X-Men have been taking care of the Mansion and themselves for a while now, possibly with a chore wheel.  (I wonder which chore Wolverine refuses to do?  Don’t say all of them, because Storm can totally make him do all but one.)

We cut to a secret base led by one Dr. Lang, who is apparently trying to be taken seriously by the government while looking like some kind of throwback pulp space hero.  His plan?  

For some reason, the feds decided against giving him billions of dollars.  Possibly because his plan to kidnap the only mutants people like (Yeah, apparently that used to be a thing for the X-Men.  Who knew?)

Back at the X-Mansion, Xavier is still dodging questions about where he’s going (LOL), assures everyone they can trust Moira (though Banshee needs no such reassurance), and then asks where Scott is.  Scott responds by crashing through the wall and landing in a heap on the coffee table.  Why?

THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR BLOWING UP MYSTERIOUS CAIRNS, SCOTT >:(

An epic battle ensues, and Nightcrawler sets my heart a-flutter, as usual ♥

MY HERO.

And of course, Wolverine gets another character defining moment after he slices up Kierrok, he says:

“Ten years o’ psycho-training. O’ hypnotism. O’ drug therapy.  O’ prayin’…an’ I cut him to pieces without a thought.”

NGL, I would so dig that if Wolverine was still a new character.  But unfortunately, Xavier decides to check to see if Kierrok is only mostly dead, and does a mind probe.  Anyone could tell him it was a stupid idea—in fact Scott does—but it does allow me to show you what I meant by Dave Cockrum’s art getting a chance to shine:

*_______________________*

Kierrok comes round, and the battle resumes.  And then the MOST UNEXPECTED THING EVER HAPPENS.

Moira, you were wasted in the movie *_________*

A weakened Xavier vests Storm with the task of sealing the cairn, and we get a cool bit of character development as she fights demons, literal and metaphorical.  We get a flash of her as a happy child in Egypt, and then one of her buried under a pile of rubble.  The memory causes her to totally explode and destroy what remains the cairn, which “seals” it, killing off Kierrok and the other demons around it.

The issue closes with a teaser that calls back to Dr. Jumpsuit, as his government liaison’s plane is found in a burning heap, and an ominous caption proclaims:

“And miles away, a man who has done enough this night, watches this scene on his command console…and laughs!”

I have a hunch who the villain of the next few issues is going to be…

X-Men #95 : “Warhunt!”

Written by Len Wein and Chris Claremont, Art by Dave Cockrum

In which someone dies after about five fake-outs.

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It says right on the cover “Not a hoax!  Not a dream!  This issue an X-Man dies!” but I have to admit the intended suspense of the various fake-outs were lost on me until about halfway through when I realized “Why do the X-Men approach every injured or temporarily missing teammate with premature mourning?  Are they expecting someone to di—ohhhhh.”  But I’ll get to that.

We rejoin our heroes as they are in freefall and somehow manage to be very chatty and are able to discuss their predicament, practically calling a committee on how to deal with the fact that they are all hurtling to earth at terminal velocity.  This is seriously the worst thing about old comics, TOO DAMN MUCH TALKING.  People give Bendis a hard time—hell, I give Bendis a hard time—about his “talking heads” comics, but at least they’re generally not explaining exactly what is happening in the panel and at least express emotions appropriate to the situation.

That said, they do manage to get across the fact that Nightcrawler cannot teleport to the ground because he will sustain the same momentum and so will still break every bone in his body if he tries, which I thought was a nice touch.  This leaves Storm and Banshee to take their five teammates to the ground.  However Banshee says he can only carry one and Colossus says he can handle himself.  Which means two things:

1. Cyclops is left to just keep freefalling, which he does with astounding nonchalance, until Banshee can come back for him.  This is, of course, nonsense, because there is no way Banshee could get Thunderbird safely to the ground at a slow enough speed so as not to break Thunderbird, but fast enough to reach Cyclops before he hits the ground.  But LOL COMICS he manages it.  It just really annoyed me because they seemed to acknowledge physics a bit with Nightcrawler.
2. Colossus handling himself basically means he’s cool with just making a crater with his fine metallic self.  This leads to the first death fake-out, which totally failed on me because he totally jumped out of the Blackbird in Giant-Size #1.  PROTIP: do not attempt to create potential death drama by showing a character doing something he had survived no fewer than two issues ago.  Or ever.

Anyhoodle, Nightcrawler bamfs into Valhalla base and runs into the frog-man from last issue, whom he calls “Herr Frosch” before knocking him out and letting the X-Men in.  NIGHTCRAWLER, PLS 2 B MARRYING ME, KTHXBAI.

The X-Men then have to contend with poison gas and being shot at before being attacked head-on by the Ani-Men.  The fight is plenty exciting except for ATTACK OF BAD SILVER AGE WRITING!

“Who grabbed my arm!?!”  Who talks like that!?!  Especially since Colossus frickin’ announced himself as he did it!  Seriously, I have my limits for this kind of thing, and I don’t want to think about how much longer I have to go through this kind of writing.

They defeat the Ani-Men with 18 minutes to spare before the whole base is supposed to self-destruct, apparently, and Banshee and Thunderbird are out cold.  Scott makes the executive decision to leave them behind.  On the one hand, that makes the most sense, but on the other hand, it still seems like a dick move.  But it turns out to be a good move, since they come to just in time to witness Count Nefaria make his escape in his plane.

Thunderbird leaps on to the plane as it’s taking off and starts to tear it apart with his barehands like a total badass, while Banshee flies alongside all “What are you doing?? I could totes get this guy without risking life and limb!!”  Meanwhile inside, the self-destruct system was apparently conveniently destroyed in the fight with the Ani-Men, as Xavier’s disembodied head tells the rest of the X-Men, before popping over to John Proudstar’s head to join Banshee in begging him to get off the plane.  But Thunderbird is having none of it.

This is a little heavy-handed with the whole ~Apache Warrior~ thing, but I can respect that Wein/Claremont are trying to give him some dignity as a Native character, which was very absent for any minority characters for a long time in comics history. But of course, this means one thing…

The other X-Men get out of Valhalla base just in time to see Nefaria’s plane explode, and Xavier, connected to Thunderbird’s mind sees and feels it all…

Goodnight, sweet prince.

I’ve got to say, it’s not perfect, but they did a damn good job giving Thunderbird a hero’s death.  And while I gave him a hard time for being a dick, I never really held that against him, since he was dealing with Cyclops, after all (JESUS, CYCLOPS >:( ).  John Proudstar is a character I would very much to have like to see in his own book, since he obviously wasn’t meant for teamwork.

Well, X-Men come back more than Jesus, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

Sooo, someone thought it would be fun to tell me what happens in #95.  Granted, I read it last night before going to bed, so nothing was spoiled, but still.  Not Cool.

Now, I know nothing can really be done about malicious spoilerers, and I also already know a lot of what’s to come, because I have used Wikipedia to try to understand the X-Men over and over, but for the sake of this experience, if you ever feel the urge to bring up something to me that happens in a later issue, DON’T.  kthx.

In other news, I have Disqus attached to these posts, so feel free to come in and discuss, in a non-spoilery way, your opinion on these issues and the X-Men in general!

X-Men #94 : “The Doomsmith Scenario!”

Written by Len Wein and Chris Claremont, Art by Dave Cockrum

The new and old teams sort themselves out and apparently no one tells Beast anything

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This issue opens soon after where GSXM #1 left off, back in the X-Mansion and everyone deciding whether to stay with the team or move on.  I would like to take this time to voice my annoyance at all my fellow geeks who saw X-Men First Class and whined that “it wasn’t the real first class”.  For one, LOL complaining about movie continuity.  For two, LOL complaining about X-MEN continuity.  Also, the way they talked, I never would have expected that Havok and Banshee were around this early in the game, yet here they are!  But that’s just a pet peeve with the fandom.

Anyway, Sunfire is obviously the first one to piss off and tell Xavier never to call him again.  GOOD RIDDANCE.

Storm, Wolverine, and Banshee are all “what the hell, this was fun,” but, oh noes!  Drama!  Most of the original X-Men (being Angel, Jean Grey, Iceman, Havok, and Polaris) are pulling out and everyone is sad, especially Cyclops who angsts about wanting to stay and help train the new recruits.  All this emotion annoys Wolverine and he attempts to turn Iceman into snowflakes.

After a night of cursing the heavens about how it’s only a matter of time before he kills someone with his horrible deadly eye-lasers, Cyclops decides to stay, which basically means breaking up with Jean, I guess?  I don’t know, they’re acting like they’re never going to see each other again.  Also, she’s wearing a really classy hat that I approve of:

Anyway, Scott moves on to show everyone that remains (which also includes, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird) the Danger Room and begins training them.  Thunderbird remains about as much of a dick as last issue and I wonder why he didn’t leave with Sunfire.  He and Cyclops start bickering and Xavier sends his disembodied head to scold them both.

I AM THE PROFESSOR, GREAT AND POWERFUL!!  But no seriously, WTF Xavier??  That is just so terrifying, and the way his power works, you know they’re just looking at nothingness, looking like absolute lunatics to anyone the Professor doesn’t let in on the hallucination.

Chapter 2: “Death O’er Valhalla High!”

“Chapter” is apparently code for “scene change” because now were at a NORAD station called Valhalla.  But all that’s important is that this happens:

The Ani-Men (yes, that’s their name) kick some ass and take over the NORAD base, before handing it over to their “lord and master” Count Nefaria.  Yep.

Apparently he’s the one who turned them into half-animal monsters and he’s making them do his bidding by promising to turn them back.  Yeah, I know I’d trust a dude named “Nefaria”

Back at the X-Mansion, Nightcrawler continues bamfing his way into my heart by giving Cyclops a pep talk about the whole Thunderbird situation, only for Xavier’s disembodied head to interrupt.  Count Nefaria Skyped the Avengers and made some super-villainish demands!  Beast (apparently an Avenger now) contacted Xavier to fob off the job onto the X-Men.  He is also shocked to see a bunch of strangers in the briefing room, because apparently none of his old friends care enough about him to tell him when they move.

Scott pulls a dick move and tries to tell Thunderbird he can’t come because of a minor injury he sustained in the Danger Room.  Guess who reacts badly to that command!  Xavier tells Scott to stop being a dick and lets Thunderbird come.  Wolverine threatens to cut Nefaria into very tiny pieces, and it’s at this point I really grasped how much of a minor character Wolverine used to be.  He’s barely in this comic— and not the way he’s barely in a lot of comics but they still slap him on the cover anyway to make people buy it, I mean here he is on the team yet still has very few lines and does nothing to help move the plot forward.  Craziness.

Anyway, they hop in the Blackbird and fly over to Valhalla.  Nefaria, expecting the Avengers, is nonetheless pleased to find the X-Men coming to fight him, because they are apparently his “greatest foes”.  Then why did you call the Avengers first, Nefaria?  Are you cheating on the X-Men??

He launches some bombs that they outmaneuver, which makes him so angry his monocle pops out:

Sorry man, but to quote Monica Rambeau, X-Men come back more than Jesus.

So, anyway, he hits another button that makes the jet completely disappear D8  The issue ends on the magnificent cliffhanger of all the X-Men in freefall, doomed to their deaths (except, presumably, the ones who can fly.  Or teleport.  And whoever they can grab onto.)

Giant-Size X-Men #1 : Second Genesis!

Written by Len Wein, Art by Dave Cockrum

In which everyone (except Nightcrawler) is a bit of a dick.

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I’m pretty excited to really start reading the X-Men, having loved the concept and many of the characters for some years, thanks to the cartoons, movies, and the scattershot comics I’ve read that they’ve appeared in.  That said, I’m going to have to brace myself and be prepared to grade these earlier issues on a curve.  Because, oh the Silver/Bronze Age melodramatic dialogue!  Oh the bizarre plot points!  I mean, objectively I know that superhero comics today deal with stuff that’s just as ridiculous, but something about the issues from this time feel so different— possibly it’s just the dialogue.  But anyway.

Chapter I (Yes, there are chapters)

This issue opens with Professor X getting a new team together, to help him ~save the world~.  We will soon find out that this is a slight exaggeration, one that no one ever calls him on.

First he gathers up Kurt “Nightcrawler” Wagner from Germany.  I’ve got to learn to keep the movies as separate as possible from the comics in my mind, because right now it doesn’t seem like Nightcrawler has any powers— he just looks like a demon.  When’s he going to become a teleporter?  That’s the best power ever!  I’m going to cut him some slack though, because for the rest of this new-team-round-up, everyone else is a bit of a dick, and he’s not.  So Nightcrawler’s on my good side.

Next Xavier goes to Canada to get Wolverine (who’s a bit of a dick, but that’s no surprise), Banshee is an Irishman in Tennessee for some reason (he’s not really a dick, but he’s only got two panels), and then we get to Storm in Kenya.  Storm is apparently worshipped as a goddess in Kenya, which I at first thought seemed a little racist.  But then it occurred to me, who’s really more “superstitious”: the people who plead with the woman right in front of them to control the weather as they can empirically observe her do, or the society that has some vague idea of some invisible omnipotent being who basically does fuck-all ever no matter how much you beg?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Storm is also a bit of a dick, but she is a goddess, so whatevs.

Xavier then tracks down Sunfire from Japan, joining him for some sake in his garden.  And this is where I start to think— supposedly there’s some urgent matter these mutants must attend to, why is Xavier a) sitting down to enjoy some hot booze, and furthermore b) travelling all over the world to find mutants?  How is he getting to all of these places?  Kurt’s not taking him, he’s not a teleporter yet.  Whatever jet technology he might have still probably barely mitigates the pinballing he’s doing around the world.  Surely there were plenty of mutants on the Eastern Seaboard he could have used?

Anyway, Sunfire’s a dick and just barely accepts Xavier’s request.

As for the next stop on the mutant world tour, even though he’s obviously supposed to be the “sympathetic Communist”, Peter “Colossus” Rasputin is a dick because he destroys his neighbor’s tractor (to be fair, to save his sister) and was then all “Damn, I wonder how they’ll be able to afford a new one.  Yes, strange bald man, I will travel halfway around the world with you right now!”

However, no one is a bigger dick than John “Thunderbird” Proudstar (HAY GUESS WHAT HE’S NATIVE COULD YOU TELL?)  He’s super fast and strong and has he wrestles a charging bison with his bare hands as the caption tells us:

The Apache were meant to be hunters, warriors—not sad-eyed, simpering squaws…

WOW.  It appears Len Wein is a bit of a dick himself.  Let me break this down for you: 1) Squaw is a controversial word amongst indigenous North Americans (Wiki it for more info), 2) It’s an Algonquian word, not Apache, and 3) It does refer to women, so LOL SEXISM >:(

Anyway, Proudstar is just one of those people who’s just pissed at the world, so how does Xavier convince him to come?

Charles Xavier: Not above using racism to get his way!

I think the point we’re supposed to get from all this is that the X-Men are the opposite from the Avengers, that they’re not “joiners.”  But really, the message we get is that in order to be an X-Man, you have to be a bit of a dick.  Or a blue demon.

Chapter II: “…And When There Was One!”

So they all get back to Xavier’s mansion, and he gives them all telepathic English lessons (lulz) and costumes made from unstable molecules (LOL).  Sunfire is immediately all “YOU ARE WASTING MY TIME, XAVIER!” and I’m all, Dude, no one made you come.

But soon Cyclops comes in and is all, “Xavier called you all here [from every possible corner of the world for some reason when this is an emergency situation and requires swift action] because my fellow X-Men and I went looking for some crazy powerful mutant on a desert island.  There was a burst of Kirby krackle and they all disappeared.  My eyes stopped being death lasers for a while, and I was so upset about that I came home.  Now I remembered that my girlfriend and brother are still out there and for some reason we need at least seven mutants from outside the tri-state area to bring them back.”

Sunfire of course says “HELL TO THE NO” and leaves.  I can’t exactly blame him, because Xavier made this sound like something of global importance, rather than him putting his own students in harm’s way.  The rest are all, “Whatevs, we’ll come,” and take off in a jet.  Next thing you know, Sunfire’s banging on the windows demanding to be let in, as if that won’t cause EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION, SUNFIRE!!  Are you a goddamn cat, Sunfire?  First you’re not interested, then you are, then you’re pissy and sulky and want out, and now you want in to a flying jet??  Make up your goddamn mind! >:(

Chapter III: “Assault Force!”

So they’re flying over Krakoa, the island in question, and everyone’s bickering, because getting along with other people on a life-or-death rescue mission is for losers, OBVIOUSLY (this book is so painfully aimed at outcast teenagers, but I can’t help but love that about it.)  Everyone is paired up and they jump out of the jet at various points on the island, leaving Cyclops and Thunderbird (a name chosen for him by Xavier apparently.  Because that has no unfortunate implications) to land the jet.  They’re soon fighting their way through sentient vines towards a temple Cyclops doesn’t remember being there before.  WHAT PART OF THIS SEEMS LIKE A GOOD IDEA, SCOTT?

Everyone else has the same basic idea (that’s convenient) and show off their powers to make their way over to the temple— including Nightcrawler teleporting :D!  Best. Power. Ever.  And what do they all find inside the temple?

Ewwwwwww.  (Though, to be honest, I’m half expecting these to be love tentacles from an alternate dimension voiced by David Cross)

But alas, this is no Yivo, but—

OK, now that’s actually a pretty cool twist— the island is itself the mutant that Cerebro picked up on, and it was specifically guiding Xavier to the far-flung mutants he picked up, I guess because he thought they’d be tastier.

Anyway, there is an epic battle where Storm uses her lightning and Polaris (the green-haired girl from the tentacle panel up there) uses her magnetic powers to—um, disrupt the island’s gravity and fling it into space?  Ok, now that’s far-fetched.

Iceman constructs an ice bubble for them all to bob around in while the water rushes into the now empty space, creating an otherwise deadly whirlpool, and the jet is conveniently buoyant so they can get on and go home with a lighthearted:

“What are we going to do with thirteen X-Men?”

Only thirteen?  If the X-Men’s biggest problem today was juggling thirteen members, I wouldn’t have to be doing this whole project.

HAY LOOK WHAT WAS IN MY MAILBOX WHEN I GOT HOME :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD