X-Men Wedding Special #1

I’ve mentioned before that I only buy trade volumes now, but you guys got me to drag myself to a local-ish comic store, where I picked up this one-shot X-Men story commemorating Kitty and Peter’s upcoming wedding. I haven’t bought a comic book in so long that I didn’t know that they came in open bags now, and they have only in-house ads. This one is 36 pages, with 6 pages of in-house ads (plus interior covers and back cover, so 9 full page ads total), and it contains three stories:

The Dream Before
Writer: Chris Claremont
Artist: Todd Nauck
Color Artist: Rachelle Rosenberg



This is the story that made me choose to buy this particular comic, since “Claremont does X-Men” was the center around which my childhood purchasing/reading revolved. His story is essentially an overview of the life of Kitty Pryde, just as X-Men #138 was for Jean Grey up to that point. The only text is Kitty’s narration.

It strikes me that you probably couldn’t write this sort of story for Peter; there just haven’t been that many that revolved around his choices, besides Legacy Virus, and to a lesser extent Whedon’s run. But with Kitty, “This Is Your Life” has more episodes than will even fit in a one-panel-per-arc story like this one.

I’m also a little surprised that Claremont agreed to do this story. He’s maintained in interviews that Kitty is a lesbian, and that Rachel is the love of her life. But this story plays up a past Kitty romance with some guy named Alasdair Kinross, from a time travel caper to 1936. The ghost of Alasdair smiles approvingly on her marriage plans now.

It’s still ridiculous that Dr. Kitty Pryde is also still a bartender at the Belles of Hell bar; Claremont introduced this bit of absurdity in the Mekanix mini-series (2002-3). But on the bright side, Claremont also hasn’t forgotten that Kitty is a reasonably devout Jew. “Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?” She’s not the only one with God on the mind; Kurt counsels her at one point, “We are as God made us, Katzchen,” and then later, “Heaven – like, I pray, God’s mercy—is infinite.” Not many major comic book characters write religion positively, unless it’s Wicca or some goofy alien belief.

Nauck’s art is OK, on the cartoony side, with lots of slightly overlapping panels.

Boys’ Night Out
Writer: Marc Guggenheim
Artist: Greg Land
Inker: Jay Leisten

Color Artist: Jason Keith


Another brief story: The men of X-Men take Peter to a Las Vegas casino run by demons. There’s a brief tussle until management intervenes. Then the boys head off to another casino for a story to be continued in the next issue of X-Men Gold, which is also written by Guggenheim. I’ve read a few issues; it draws heavily on story elements of the mid 1980s. Anyway, I’d classify this tale as “Mostly harmless.” If Greg Land had to be an artist here at all, I’m glad he was assigned to draw the story with all dudes; it gave him little opportunity for his infamous lightboxing of porn faces onto female characters. The results are fine, better than the other two stories really.

Something Old
Writer: Kelly Thompson
Artist: Marika Cresta
Color Artist: Federico Blee



Finally, the X-ladies take Kitty out for karaoke. She has a talk about boys in the bathroom with Rogue, gets briefly dragged into the sewer for a heart-to-heart talk/fistfight with Callisto, gets a magnum-sized champagne bottle from her absent “frenemy” Emma Frost, and steels herself for a duet of “Islands in the Stream” with Meggan.

All in all, a completely inessential entry into the X-Men story plotwise, but still a fun walk down memory lane.

Earlier this late at night I binge read catching up on

X Men Gold # 21 to 25
Letter 44 issues 2 to 5
Babyteeth # 9
Spectacular Spider Man # 300 to 304

Then this Saturday I might start on Aliens Dust to Dust

Hm, I don't know. He may have that idea now but it's hard to say if that was part of his original intentions back in the 80s/90s.

For apparently, the only real evidence of such a relationship is in X-Men: The End where Kitty is President and Rachel is by her side as FLOTUS but it's not really clear that's what Rachel is.

Iron Man #600, Bendis' last issue for Marvel, is o-kay, I guess.

Tony revives of course, but much is made early on about his guilt over his presumed involvement with Rhodey's death. Tony can try and utilize the same treatment that saved his life in possibly bringing Rhodey back (it seems that he's only near dead-ish) but would Rhodey, the hero, patriot, soldier, friend, want that? All that dramatic build-up over this and after Tony tries...the results don't live up to the drama build-up.

The same with Amanda, Tony's real mother, finding out that Tony's real father is still alive after all these years.

The same with the Hood's attempts to take over control of Stark's international company only to be thwarted by a renewed Iron Man and Doom, who for reasons still quite unknown, follows in the legacy of Iron Man, much to Tony's shock. However, the Hood's final action against Doom may undo all the good that Victor has tried to sow, both in himself and in the world.

Then there's Hickman's Da Vinci who seems set to rebuild a new, better SHIELD with Riri, Toni Ho, Blade, and Miles Morales along for the ride.

Yes, the dialogue is quippy and witty, the art by various artists is good but it all feels so inconsequential as I have to wonder who  will follow up on these last few plot seeds planted by Bendis in his last Marvel issue (or even when). 

Just finished the Shadowland omnibus and one thing that struck me was how much in there made it into the various Netflix series. Joy Meachum, Rafael Scarfe, The Chaste, amongst others all get appearances/name checks. All were pre-existing characters/concepts of course, but when they're all collected in one place it stands out a bit.

I definitely remember scenes in New Mutants with Kitty and Illyana talking about boys.. if that was the plan, it wasn't carried out in the actual comics.

Oh, and also Destiny and Mystique. IIRC, Claremont said that Destiny is Rogue’s biological mom, and shape changed Mystique is Rogue’s biological father.