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Post by cellardweller on Sept 14, 2018 20:48:20 GMT -5
I remember this story, and enjoyed seeing Empath having his slimy ass handed to him by the New Mutants.
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Post by rberman on Sept 14, 2018 23:27:01 GMT -5
#44: “Runaway!” (October 1986)
Theme and Focus Character: Legion menaces a village The Story: On Muir Island, David Haller sees Moira McTaggart about to be squished by falling machinery. He allows Jack Wayne, his telekinetic personality, to come to the fore, But instead of rescuing Moira, Jack dumps the heavy machine on both Moira and Rahne Sinclair.  Dani is awakened by Rahne’s pain through the psychic rapport they share. She rouses the New Mutants, and Illyana “steps” them to Muir Island, where they find Rahne and Moira shaken but alive. They track Legion to a pub in a not-really-nearby village but fail to apprehend him. Rahne’s former guardian (and secret father) Reverend Craig chooses this moment to appear and yell at the kids.  They track Legion to a cluster of oil storage tanks, which he attempts to set alight. Illyana teleports Legion to Limbo, where Jack Wayne surrenders control of his body back to David Haller. Back to Muir Island. The end.  My Two Cents: On page one, it looked like we were going to get an overdue Rahne focus issue, but no. We do get to see Rahne acting bitter toward the people of Ullapool, but other than that, this issue was just a one-shot retread of the original Legion arc that put another notch on Illyana’s victory belt. “Illyana defeated the menace with her soul-sword” has been replaced by “Illyana defeated the menace by teleporting it to Limbo, where she reigns supreme” as the brainless solution to every New Mutants conflict. She’s just too powerful to be on a team with these other kids.  A previous issue reported that Dani sleeps in her clothes. We see it, and with a Muppet T-shirt, no less. She’s not wearing her belt with all the blue discs, though.  Muir Island’s location has moved again. Now it is “due north from Cape Wrath,” on northernmost tip of Scotland, whereas previously it was said to be along the jagged northeastern coastline. Later, they go to the previous alleged location of Muir Island, near “Loch Broom and the Port of Ullapool,” quite a distance away. The main reason to have Legion go so far sjust for a drink is so that Rahne can have the obligatory ugly run-in with Reverend Craig. Those New Mutants (Illyana, Roberto, Sam, Xi’an, and Amara) who did not come on the previous Legion adventure are surprised to hear of Xavier’s love child. I guess their friends were unusually discreet about that point. Meanwhile in X-Men (#210): The Hellfire Club wants to offer Magneto a seat on its inner circle and make common cause with the X-Men in the face of government anti-mutant initiatives. The Marauders start slaughtering Morlocks. Peter and Illyana start searching for Rachel by themselves. Magneto sees X-Factor and wonders what their deal is. Meanwhile in X-Factor (#9): X-Factor prevents Freedom Force from capturing a couple of Morlocks. They see Magneto entering the Hellfire Club and wonder what his deal is. The Marauders start slaughtering Morlocks.
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Post by badwolf on Sept 15, 2018 10:22:20 GMT -5
Perhaps Muir Island is like Danny the Street...
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Post by rberman on Sept 17, 2018 21:44:29 GMT -5
Perhaps Muir Island is like Danny the Street... What, an inside joke about a British celebrity? Oh, unstable in location. Yes, it's definitely that. I mean, how hard is it to have a map in your office with the real world locations of various places that you create? |
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Post by rberman on Sept 17, 2018 21:45:25 GMT -5
The Ballad of Betsy Braddock
Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe were assigned to create a modern hero “Captain Britain” as part of Marvel’s foray into publishing in the UK. He had your everyday “scientist attacked by villains and granted power by a mystic amulet” sort of origin story and engaged in typical Bronze Age shenanigans. Issue #8 introduced his sister Betsy as a damsel in distress. She was blonde (like her brother) in that issue but had orange hair by the next issue: #9   She reappeared during the Alan Moore/Alan Davis run which was serialized across various anthology titles that Marvel UK was publishing. In Moore’ stories, Betsy is a fashion model/secret agent, a telepath/precognitive in the employ of S.T.R.I.K.E., the British analogue of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Captain Britain’s stories often involved forays to alternate dimensions in which he met variations on himself. In one storyline, while he was trapped in another dimension, Betsy acquired a cybernetic super-suit and acted in his stead. But she was permanently blinded during a battle with his nemesis, a Deathstroke the Terminator-style master warrior known as Slaymaster:  Claremont is about to bring Betsy into the world of the X-Men and ultimately do some very weird things with and to her.
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Post by rberman on Sept 18, 2018 0:42:05 GMT -5
New Mutants Annual #2 “Why Do We Do These Things We Do?!” (October 1986)
Theme and Focus Character: Doug sings the body electric The Story: Recently blinded heroine Betsy Braddock is kidnapped by Spiral and taken to the mojoverse, where her boss Mojo restores Betsy’s sight with a pair of cybernetic eyes. Mojo, Spiral, and Betsy star in a cartoon called “Wildways” which is oddly addictive. Brian “Captain Britain” Braddock recognizes that his sister is somehow trapped in the cartoon. His attempt to rescue her leads him to a tenement in Manhattan where he succumbs to a mental attack and is de-aged to be a child again.  Mojo kidnaps various viewers of his TV show to make a team under his control: Rahne and Roberto (why do those two always get kidnapped together?), Xi’an’s younger brother and sister, and Butch, Alfie, and Darla, three members of the Bratpack gang of street kids from the Longshot mini-series. All seven captives are aged up to adults and given new costumes and powers.  At the mansion, Doug, Warlock, and (apparently) Roberto are training in the yard when Roberto is squished by a tree. Horrified Doug blames himself for the accident, but Warlock determines that Roberto’s body is actually an android duplicate, so now the kids have to track down the real Roberto.  When the kids follow Bobby’s trail to a tenement, they are defeated by Mojo’s new enforcer team. Dani, Sam, Illyana, and Amara are recruited by Mojo and aged up to adulthood.  Warlock and Doug escape and discover Betsy, strapped in a mojo spider chair.  Doug and Warlock merge into a single being and interface with the electronics in Betsy’s chair, entering the Wildways, a surreal mental landscape where Spiral (initially disguised as Betsy) presides over a carousel of centaur heroes, including themselves.  A bunch of weird stuff happens, but the upshot is that all the heroes are freed from Mojo’s domination and returned to the regular world, where Doug finds himself disconnected from Warlock and cradling a nude Betsy. She finds herself emotionally attached to Doug as a result of their ordeal, so she comes to Westchester to live at the X-mansion.   My Two Cents: This issue accomplishes three purposes, two of which has to do with the New Mutants. First, it folds the Longshot mythology into the X-Men, with the appearance of Spiral and Mojo. This thread will bear fruit in the next chapter of the story, when Longshot himself literally drops into the world of the X-Men. Spiral doesn’t make any mention of her Freedom Force activities, which is just as well. She’s back in her element here as Mojo’s sassy henchwoman.  Second, this issue inaugurates Chris Claremont’s quest to unit his previous work on Captain Britain with his current X-Men gig. Claremont had been the original Captain Britain author, and following a celebrated run written by Alan Moore, artist Alan Davis took the scribe’s pen. Claremont not only wanted access to the Captain Britain character set (icy Saturnyne, the mercenary Technet, the loopy cross-dimensional stories characterizing Captain Britain), but also to bring artist/writer Alan Davis into the Marvel USA creative family following the cancellation of the second Captain Britain series in February 1986. Claremont and Davis would work extensively together on the Excalibur series starting in October 1988.  Third, Claremont gives full spotlight to Douglock. Some have seen the merger of these two characters as a cipher (heh) for a gay relationship, but to me it seems more like Shazam-type wish fulfillment, with Warlock giving Doug the power he so desperately wants, and Doug giving Warlock identity and direction. Yay, a story that’s not about Illyana! (Which is good, because adult Illyana is surely powerful enough to defeat the rest of the team easily.)  Also, Alan Davis gives us the most Sienkiewiczian Warlock of anyone not named “Bill.” Check out the non-concentric circles!  De-aged Captain Britain and Amara are running around together for much of the story, but it’s just filler that doesn’t contribute to the overall story.  This is the first issue in which the Bratpack are called by that name; they were just a bunch of kids in the Longshot miniseries. Amara’s letter to her father Lucius Antonius Aquilla asks, “How flies my dearest eagle?” This is a pun since “Aquilla” is the Latin word for “Eagle.” Amara has a bust of her father on her desk’s bookshelf. Darla’s adult villain form is “Jubilee,” but not Jubilation Lee, a later character with similar fireworks powers. 
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Post by badwolf on Sept 18, 2018 9:45:44 GMT -5
I love how Spiral talks back to Mojo. |
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Post by rberman on Sept 18, 2018 14:38:50 GMT -5
I love how Spiral talks back to Mojo. Yeah, with Mojo she's the best, because he has the power to do terrible things to her and everyone else, but she knows that he just doesn't care what she says, so she can get away with saying whatever she wants. |
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Post by rberman on Sept 18, 2018 23:38:14 GMT -5
X-Men Annual #10 “Performance” (October 1986)
Theme and Focus Character: Muppet Babies The Story: Mojo is using Psylocke’s cybernetic eyes as cameras for his new X-Men themed TV channel. Ratings are good, but to spice things up, he drops Longshot into the middle of a Danger Room practice session. His arrival showers the X-Men with slime which has no immediate effect. But when they awaken the next morning, they are all teenagers, and getting younger by the minute.   Douglock says the goop is related to the power that changed the New Mutants and Bratpack into adults in New Mutants Annual #2. Therefore Mojo must be behind this latest prank. The impulsive X-children pile into Xavier’s limo and drive to the outdoor Delacorte Theatre, home of Shakespeare in the Park, where Mojo drafts them into the stage play A Comedy of Errors. The New Mutants put on their graduation costumes, and Illyana teleports them to the Delacorte Theatre. The X-Men are returning to adult age, with powers, and under Mojo’s domination, so the two groups fight. Magneto’s Mojo costume is a Nazi soldier, which I guess is supposed to imply that Mojo is making each person into what they hate.  As the battle wears on, Mojo loses his control on the X-Men, so eventually everyone turns on him and he must flee, just as Nightcrawler was about to stab one of Spiral’s swords deep into his guts. By the way, Kurt’s new costume rules. He should keep it.  Mojo returns to his own dimension. He doesn’t care that the X-Men escaped his control and almost killed him. All that matters is that it made a good movie, with huge ratings resulting in blockbuster financial success. My Two Cents: After all the grim stories in recent X-Men and New Mutants issues, Claremont seizes upon the anything-can-happen madness of Mojo for some unbridled cute goofiness. Just watching kindergarten versions of Wolverine and Ororo run around is worth the admission price, so don’t you dare ask very reasonable questions about what happens to the adult-sized adamantium in Logan’s skeleton as he shrinks from pint-size to travel size.  The last time we saw Longshot, he and Ricochet Rita and Quark were heading back to the Mojoverse to start a revolution among the humanoid slave class (in Longshot #6). That must not have gone too well. Rita and Quark are not mentioned, and evidently Longshot has been recaptured by Mojo and restored to an amnesiac state, thereby wiping out all the personal progress he made during his miniseries. I guess his plan died along with the hope of an ongoing Longshot series.  As you may recall, Colossus’ armored form has bare thighs, but his human form has blue tights because someone thought bare legs would look weird. In this issue, his thighs are bare in both human and armored form, and it looks fine. This should be the norm. It would make more sense.  Spiral’s thoughts give us confirmation of her previous relationship with Longshot, which we sort of knew anyway from previous hints.  The only misfire in this issue is the New Mutants’ new graduation costumes, which must not have gone over well since they are back in their student uniforms in subsequent issues. I like 'em alright, though.  Fan response to this story must have been strong, because a future X-Men story would depict Mojo making actual Peanuts-aged X-Men of his own as perpetual characters. Easter Eggs and Eye Candy: Pick any shot of the grinning X-babies. They’re all fun.  Lockheed disguises himself as Superman, including the partially seen chest insignia. But in later shots when you can see the whole thing, it’s a big “W” instead.  The Bratpack get a cameo in the Shakespeare audience, and I have a feeling that the faces around them are well known too. The upper left looks like TV character George Jefferson, and the lower left like Vincent Price.  Thor’s froggy friends from the sewers of NYC make a cameo as well. I was not reading Thor when this first came out and found this panel and the Bratpack one completely baffling. The frogs are sitting at the feet of Walt and Louise Simonson.  The theater crowd also includes Robbie the Robot:  Also an adult Charlie Brown (zigzag sweater, bald except for a single lock of hair) and some sort of clown mannequin at the top:  Also the Creature from the Black Lagoon:  Also, the speakers in this panel appear to be Joker, Clark Kent, and Lois Lane:  The stage of the Delacorte Theatre contains a replica of Spiral’s Body Shop(pe). Costumes available inside include Wolvesbane mask, Priest clothes, and Rachel the Hound.   I like Adams, but I can see where Liefeld and others followed some of his bad habits, like the ridiculously long legs everybody has in this shot.  Not only does Ororo have a framed portrait of herself and Kitty, but close inspection reveals Peter Rasputin as the artist. This would have been completely illegible in the original comic book.  The end credits of Mojo’s movie show him in an Alfred Hitchcock-inspired silhouette, as well as a new meaning for “MGM.”  I just know Gumby is in this issue somewhere. He’s got to be, but I can’t find him. Also, I do not know what book this is supposed to be in Ororo’s library, but it seems like something in particular: 
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Post by badwolf on Sept 19, 2018 15:25:16 GMT -5
I thought the graduation costumes looked pretty good too, particularly Magik, Karma and Wolfsbane.
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Post by cellardweller on Sept 19, 2018 19:43:01 GMT -5
X-Men Annual #10 “Performance” (October 1986)
The only misfire in this issue is the New Mutants’ new graduation costumes, which must not have gone over well since they are back in their student uniforms in subsequent issues. I like 'em alright, though. Fan response to this story must have been strong, because a future X-Men story would depict Mojo making actual Peanuts-aged X-Men of his own as perpetual characters. Count me as one of the people who liked (at least some) of the graduation outfits for the New Mutants. I always thought that Magma's, Karma's Wolfsbane's and Magik's outfits were well done here. |
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Post by cellardweller on Sept 19, 2018 19:47:06 GMT -5
New Mutants Annual #2 “Why Do We Do These Things We Do?!” (October 1986)
Darla’s adult villain form is “Jubilee,” but not Jubilation Lee, a later character with similar fireworks powers. I often wondered if this was a "test run" for the Jubilation Lee character. The original outfit is a bit much, but the powers seem to be the same. There is even a variation of the expression the "first" Jubilee uses in the middle panel above, in the first appearance of Jubilation Lee.  |
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Post by rberman on Sept 20, 2018 5:30:34 GMT -5
#45: “We Were Only Foolin’” (November 1986)
Theme and Focus Character: A very special suicide episode The Story: The kids attend a dance at Salem Center’s public high school. Kitty Pryde is jealous of the attention Illyana gets. Finally Kitty dances with a shy new student named Larry Bodine. He and Kitty have a great time together at the dance, and at the after-party at Harry’s Hangout. The kids take advantage of spiked punch to get buzzed. But the evening sours. Some mean kids at the dance pass Larry an X-Factor flyer, threatening to out him as a mutant. They meant it as a joke, not knowing that Larry really is a mutant who can make sculptures from light. He gets progressively nervous and starts telling anti-mutant jokes. Kitty and the New Mutants give him the cold shoulder and go home.  Rahne follows Larry home to make sure he’s OK and discovers his mutant secret. She returns to the mansion to explain the situation to the other kids. But then Larry gets a threatening “X-Factor is on the way!” prank call from the mean kids, and he commits suicide off-panel. Magneto informs the kids the following morning, and they debate the morality of suicide as they practice in the Danger Room. As the only kid in the county who ever talked to Larry nicely, Kitty gets tapped to deliver a message about him to the Salem Center high school assembly.  My Two Cents: This is one of the best issues not only of New Mutants but of Marvel Comics, one I remember very well thirty years after the fact. Who needs supervillains when you have thoughtless teenagers running around, salving their own insecurities by harassing other people? The climax of this issue is Kitty’s memorial speech about the value of tolerance. Claremont exploits Kitty’s status as a peer of the New Mutants; she seems totally at home in this issue, which is mainly about her and Larry, with the other kids just onlookers who comment like a Greek chorus.  Claremont also shines at showing the kids’ varied reactions to the suicide, from Roberto and Illyana’s indifference to Amara’s approval of the bravery she perceives in the act, to Warlock’s bafflement that anyone would surrender life for any reason. Dani reflects on her lesson with Pat Roberts that she “can’t save everyone” from death. Rahne has to be talked down from taking vengeance on the bullies in the mall’s food court.  This issue also serves double duty as Chris Claremont’s rebuke to Bob Layton and Jim Shooter for the absurd premise of the X-Factor comic book, that the original X-Men would deliberately fan the flames of anti-mutant sentiment by posing as professional mutant hunters and also separately as dangerous “X-Terminator” mutants.   Barren trees reveal that this Spring Mixer dance takes place pretty early in the spring. Warlock impersonates Jimmy Cagney to scare off a lout harassing Dani.  Claremont places the restaurant Harry’s Hideout “at the junction of Greymalkin Lane and Route 126.” Alas, Route 126 of New York State runs its entire expanse north of Syracuse near the Canadian border, nowhere near Westchester. Meanwhile in X-Men (#211): The team tries to protect Morlocks from slaughter by the Marauders. An attack leaves Kitty stuck intangible and Colossus comatose. Storm tells Wolverine he can kill the Marauders as long as he brings one prisoner back. I guess Logan should apologize to Rachel for mutilating her over Selene in issue #207. Meanwhile in X-Factor (#10): The team tries to protect Morlocks from slaughter by the Marauders. Meanwhile in Thor (#373): Thor’s frog allies tell him of the slaughter of the Morlocks. Thor investigates the sewer and finds Angel being tortured by a Marauder.
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Post by badwolf on Sept 20, 2018 12:29:48 GMT -5
This issue also serves double duty as Chris Claremont’s rebuke to Bob Layton and Jim Shooter for the absurd premise of the X-Factor comic book, that the original X-Men would deliberately fan the flames of anti-mutant sentiment by posing as professional mutant hunters and also separately as dangerous “X-Terminator” mutants. I loved that it also confronted an issue that was never addressed by X-Factor: the effect their existence would have on people like Larry.
Whenever someone starts a discussion about "comics that made you cry," this is the first one I think of.
I agree with everything you said...a masterful issue.
I always thought that Barry Windsor-Smith's rendition of Illyana on the cover looked like actress Sarah Polley:
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Post by rberman on Sept 21, 2018 6:09:07 GMT -5
#46: “Bloody Sunday” (December 1986)
Theme and Focus Character: Everybody is powerless to help  The Story: A mixed force of X-Men and Morlocks arrived at the mansion bearing many casualties. Nightcrawler is gravely wounded, and Kitty is stuck intangible after a vicious attack by the Marauders which has left most of the Morlocks dead. Illyana travels to Muir Island and yanks Moira McTaggart unceremoniously from her shower to help provide medical care. The kids try to help out, but there’s not much they can do. Rahne makes sandwiches for the wounded; Roberto enrages her by eating one of them.  It gets worse. Xi’an’s brother and sister don’t answer the phone at their apartment, so Illyana teleports Xi’an there to check on them, and the empty apartment promptly explode. The other kids travel to Manhattan (Warlock makes a convenient vehicle) and find Illyana and Dani unharmed. But where are Xi’an’s siblings?   It gets worse one more time, as Warlock’s dad Magus appears from nowhere to grab all the kids. Illyana saves the day™ once again by transporting her friends to Limbo, but Magus swears to find them. My Two Cents: Just as the death of Phoenix came from an unscripted moment in which John Byrne showed a planet full of aliens on the planet that Phoenix was eating, so also the Mutant Massacre storyline evolved out of a chance piece of art. Chris Claremont wrote a story about a tribe of mutants living in the abandoned subway tunnels of Manhattan. Artist Paul Smith decided to draw a crowd scene with hundreds of Morlocks in it. Woah, thought Claremont. Too many; there’s no way such a big civilization is living undetected. So here we get a story to fix this perceived plot problem. It also gave Claremont a reason to shake up the X-Men line-up, which has been unchanged since Rogue joined a few years back. I don’t understand the bit about Xi’an’s siblings having an apartment. They are the wards of Tandy “Dagger” Bowen’s uncle, who is a priest in Manhattan. He has a priory adjacent to his church. Don’t they live with him? How can they have an apartment of their own to blow up? This tie-in is sort of the worst of both world. It disrupts the New Mutants storyline yet leaves them bystanders in their own book. It’s Team America all over again, with the kids expressing their frustration at not being able to fix any of the disasters playing out around them.  Magus is another problem, being way out of their league. We’ve seen him throw half a star at Warlock. Will the New Mutants really be able to put up any meaningful opposition? Tune in for the next issue!  Meanwhile in Power Pack (#27): The Power kids get a premonition that their Morlock friend Leech is in danger. They enter the sewers and have to get rescued from Marauders by the X-Men. Go home, kids! Meanwhile in X-Men (#212): Wolverine rescues the Morlock healer from Sabretooth and brings the healer to the X-mansion to help with casualties. Rogue and Tom Corsi prepare against a siege. Meanwhile in Thor (#374): Thor rescues Angel from the Marauders and returns him to X-Factor. In the process Thor gets a broken arm, which Hela tells him is cursed never to heal. Meanwhile in X-Factor (#11): Fighting between the Morlocks and Marauders, as well as between two factions of Morlocks. Boom-Boom squabbles with her boss, The Vanisher. Apocalypse begins gathering soldiers to be his Four Horsemen.
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