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Post by rberman on Sept 10, 2018 6:43:05 GMT -5
Iceman #3 “Quicksand!” (February 1985)
Creative Team: Written by J.M. DeMatteis. Penciled by Alan Kupperberg. Inked by Mike Gustovich. Cover by Mike Zeck and John Beatty. Theme: Bobby Drake, This is your life The Story: This issue breaks down into three acts: The nightmare, the exposition, and the confrontation. First, the nightmare. The premature death of Bobby’s father means that Bobby will never be born. As he fads from existence, he has a series of hallucinations. First he regresses to childhood as his mother tells him of her career hopes for him, then turns to ice and shatters on him. Message: His career choice killed her. He then relives his careers in the X-Men, the Champions, and the New Defenders.  Then comes the exposition. Our story gets downright existential as Bobby encounters Oblivion, the personification of nothingness. Apparently Oblivion is not satisfied with being nothing. “I crave life, otherness, companionship, fullness.” By this he means parenthood. Oblivion birthed a child to reflect his image. The child grew up, rejected his plans for her, and now grows strong to challenge her father. His child, in case you haven’t guessed, is Marge Smith, Bobby Drake’s would-be love interest. Oblivion makes a deal, or perhaps an edict: Bobby will return to 1984 and somehow bring Marge back to Oblivion, and in exchange, Oblivion will restore Bobby’s father to life, thus ensuring Bobby’s continued existence as well. What could possible go wrong with this Faustian offer?  So then comes the third act: the confrontation. Bobby arrives in a utopian small town that could only exist in a dream. Marge (now calling herself “Mirage”) has made this place out of Bobby’s imagination so she can hide away happily forever with him. When he presses her to return with him to Oblivion, she destroys the town and shows two personalities at work within her, one representing her father’s wishes and one her own. Bobby helpfully explains to the reader that this is a metaphor for his own career dilemma. When Mirage prevails and apparently kills him, she cries out her intent for vengeance against her father, and she and unconscious Bobby are transported to Oblivion’s realm for a showdown.  My Two Cents: As you can see, DeMatteis is hitting hard on the theme of parent/child conflict revolving around the adult child’s career choices. Bobby and Marge are at essentially this same place in life, with parents who fear that following the non-traditional vocational path will not work out well. DeMatteis’ own father did not live long enough to see him as a successful comic book author. His mother did but still harbored a not-so-secret hope that he would make waves as a “serious” author as well.  Marge’s love for Bobby is the weakest element of the story. As with many love interests, she only exists to meet his needs, and her own reasons for wanting to stay with him forever after only knowing him for five minutes are never explained. If he hadn’t run into her, what agenda did she have for her own life? Jean Grey sings the Glen Campbell song “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” in Bobby’s nightmare. Then Bobby himself quotes the 1976 Jackson Browne song “The Pretender,” which critiques people who adopt materialistic careers instead of following their dreams, saying sarcastically: “I want to be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender.” DeMatteis’ love of 60s/70s pop music has been one of the themes of this series; does that follow through in his other efforts? When Hercules grabs Bobby away from the X-Men, he says, “Steve Reeves,” obviously a reference to the muscleman actor who portrayed Hercules in films in 1958 and 1959. When studying accounting, Bobby sings the song “Cry Me a River,” popularized by Ella Fitzgerald in 1961.
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Post by rberman on Sept 11, 2018 6:41:19 GMT -5
Iceman #4 “The Price You Pay!” (March 1985)
Creative Team: J.M. DeMatteis writing. Alan Kupperberg pencils. Mike Gustovich inks. Cover by Mike Zeck and John Beatty. Theme: Making Up The Story: Mirage (also known as Marge. Not Dani Moonstar.) hates her father Oblivion for trying to force her to be like himself. He formed her so that he would have someone to love him, so her rejection wounds him deeply, but also becomes an occasion for him to try to get leverage over her.  When Bobby revives and attacks Oblivion, Mirage realizes that she does love her father, and she chooses to be like him rather than pursue a human life. They merge together into one, enriched by Mirage’s experience of love —but not before Bobby reminds Oblivion of his obligation to reverse the death of Bobby’s father in 1942.  Oblivion does this by excising the whole of issues 2-4 from our reality, so that Bobby returns to the bed from which the bounce box had teleported him away back in issue #2. He races downstairs to tell his parents that he is determined not to let his career choices come between him and them, and they reciprocate. Happy ending! Then Bobby goes off on a mission with the New Defenders.  My Two Cents: Mirage’s choice was a surprise; usually the girl chooses the guy over her dad’s wishes in Western narratives. (But not in Eastern ones; see the film “Princess Kaguya” for instance.) But it allows DeMatteis to make his point that whether we follow our parents’ expectations or not, we can and should seek to maintain our family bonds. And vice versa from their side. The cover of the first issue promised, “He’s young, he’s on his own, he’s out for a good time,” and I can’t help but wonder what people thought of this cosmic/family tale after actually buying it. This is one of the most adult (in the good sense) comic books I’ve read, despite the perceived need to spice up this family story with some good old superpower fights. Now I’m going to have to get DeMatteis’ twelve issue series “Moonshadow” to see how he elaborates these themes further without the constraints of X-Men super-heroics. Art throughout this series was by Allan Kupperberg and Mike Gustovich. It’s standard 80s Marvel style, neither exceptional nor bothersome. It told the story clearly. However, letterer Janice Chiang goofed on some pages of this issue, in which Mirage and Oblivion come to look very similar, except that Mirage has skinny bare arms, and Oblivion has muscular purple arms. Sometimes Oblivion’s word balloons point to Mirage by mistake.  Speaking of mistakes, I saw a secondhand report that DeMatteis considered some central aspect of this series in retrospect to be a mistake. I don’t read it that way. I was totally off guard from one issue to the next wondering where this cosmic tale would end up plotwise, while the story about parents and kids really hit me, perhaps because I have a teenage son and think a lot about that topic. But the Marge/Mirage bit does seem underdeveloped. Why was she living next to Bobby’s parents? Why did she flee to the year 1892? Does she have a series of homes all across history so she can experience the breadth of human existence? If so, did she live in the future also? Would she have fallen for any boy, and Bobby just happened to be the guy? These are minor questions that will never see answers.
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Post by rberman on Sept 12, 2018 9:19:17 GMT -5
Fantastic Four versus the X-Men #1 “Are You Sure?!” (February 1987)
Theme: Setting up the rumble   The Story: Franklin Richards has a nightmare in which his father kills his teammates and assumes the mantle of Doctor Doom. Reed’s college journal is the spellbook which brings about this transformation. His mom happens to be unpacking an old crate containing that very journal, and Franklin pleads with her to dispose of it. Instead, Sue reads the journal and discovers a terrible secret. She doesn’t tell us what it is, but whatever it is, it generates a big argument between Reed and Sue and leaves Reed doubting his own goodness and wisdom. Sue appears to be doubting him too.   The X-Men are settling in on Muir Island to tend the casualties of their battle with the Marauders. Peter and Kurt are comatose. Kitty is not only stuck intangible but is slowly dissolving altogether. While on a grocery run, Longshot and Alison Blaire save a fisherman from the water and bring him to Muir Island. But the fisherman is not what he seems…  Magneto resolves to get Reed Richards’ help in tending the wounded X-Men. He helps She-Hulk and The Thing deal with a construction site disaster in Manhattan, which gets him a hearing with Reed. For some reason, She-Hulk accompanies Reed, Johnny, and Ben to Muir Island, while Sue stays home.  Reed has a crisis of confidence and thinks that he can’t help Kitty. This causes Magneto to try to seize Reed’s gadget to use himself, and Wolverine to attack Reed. Well, that escalated quickly!  My Two Cents: This series has three main plots, two of which are on the surface. The X-Men plot concerns the race to save Kitty Pryde from completely dissipating. The Fantastic Four plot concerns Reed Richards’ incriminating journal. The collision of these plots will indeed involve “Fantastic Four versus X-Men” fights, as the mini-series title promises. But third plot exists in subtext, with the two teams representing John Byrne and Chris Claremont in their fractious collaborations to tell character-driven, continuity-faithful stories. See my post here for a precis of their friendly-ish rivalry over the years. Claremont had been denied access to the Fantastic Four and their related characters like Galactus and Doctor Doom; those characters were locked up in John Byrne’s playhouse, and indeed he put them to good use. But as of January 1987, John Byrne was publishing Superman comics for DC, having left Fantastic Four a few months before. So while Roger Stern was writing the Avengers vs X-Men mini-series and Fantastic Four, Claremont finally got a chance to use the FF and Doctor Doom in a story. You many notice that the emotional focus in this mini-series is on Reed Richards, with the presence of Magneto and the pressing need to help Kitty Pryde only serving to motivate the X-Men to do some downright hot-headed things. Claremont isn’t just yanking John Byrne’s chain, though. He’s using his brief opportunity to write FF to address one of the most glaring plot holes in the Marvel Universe: How did a super-genius like Reed Richards fail to realize that his spacecraft needed thicker shielding against cosmic rays? The meta-answer is that Reed Richards was not always a super-genius; originally he was just a rocket scientist, not the smartest man in the universe. But even a rocket scientist would think about radiation, I suppose. In this issue, the answer is just, “I should have thought of that. What a moron I truly am.” But another answer will be suggested as this series progresses: Reed knew that the Fantastic Four’s original trip into outer space would expose them to deadly cosmic rays; in fact, he was counting on it! That’s not the way Reed remembers it at all. But then he starts questioning his memory. Was he really that ruthless and just blocked it out? Is his whole career a lie?   Muir Island is said to be in the area of water called Little Minch near the village of Ullapool on Scotland’s very irregular northwestern coast. This does not fit with the location given in New Mutants. Ullapool is quite a ways from here down a long inlet. Rahne Sinclair is from Ullapool or very nearby, since every time she goes there, her former guardian Reverend Craig pops out of the woodwork to yell at her for being a demonspawn mutant. The cover represents the content of Franklin Richards’ nightmare. Images of Wolverine menacing innocent people were surprisingly common on covers. But even more surprising is that Claremont actually wrote the final scene in which Wolverine threatens to murder Reed if he can’t help Kitty. Is this the same Logan who was going to murder Rachel for trying to murder Selene because “X-Men don’t kill”? Claremont is all over the place on this topic, much like the question of whether Batman or Doctor Who approve of guns.
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Post by rberman on Sept 13, 2018 7:43:05 GMT -5
Fantastic Four versus the X-Men #2 “Truth & Consequences” (March 1987)
Theme: The retcon of the story The Story: As Wolverine threatens to shishkebab Reed Richards, a general melee breaks out, and when the dust has settled, Human Torch has badly burned Ororo.  The fisherman that Longshot and Alison rescued from the ocean turns out to be a Doombot in disguise. He offers to help save Kitty Pryde’s life; Reed Richards warns that this will prove a Faustian bargain. The X-Men spend the whole issue anguishing about accepting Doom’s help.  Having failed to be much use, the Fantastic Four return home. Ben reads Reed’s college journal which upset Sue last issue; now he is upset as well. According to the journal, Reed deliberately exposed his team to cosmic rays in hopes of creating super-heroes to defend the Earth against cosmic threats. Johnny and Ben stalk off in anger at this revelation.  My Two Cents: Claremont seems more invested in the FF story than the X-Men story. He’s weaving together several continuity elements, most notably the flashback issue Fantastic Four #271 in which a pre-FF Reed Richards defeats Gormuu the alien monster, combined with a reference to Charles Xavier’s research on mutations, and of course a potential retcon of the circumstances resulting in the FF’s trip to space in their original appearance.  I wonder what medical show Moira’s lingo was cribbed from. Her instructions are a little off. She asks for “SNA 12” meaning “SMA-12” (sequential multiple analysis of 12 common blood components including the “electrolytes” that she asks for separately in the same breath). Also, “debrisement” should be “debridement,” meaning the excision of nonviable tissue. Oh well! Details.  This series features pencils by John Bogdanove and pencils by Terry Austin, who must be following Bogdanove closely since the results are not nearly what I’d wish for Terry Austin work. The results are similar to what John Romita Jr was doing on X-Men at the time, which I was not overly thrilled with. The Thing looks uniformly good, however. X-Men editor Ann Nocenti edits this as well, while Fantastic Four editors Mike Carlin and Don Daley are listed as “consulting editor.” I really don’t know why She-Hulk came along on this jaunt to Muir Island. She’s not part of the Fantastic Four any more, and she didn’t do anything. She was just one more character to draw. Maybe it was just Claremont tweaking Byrne since Shulkie was one of his favorites?
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Post by rberman on Sept 14, 2018 7:20:59 GMT -5
Fantastic Four versus the X-Men #3 “By the Soul’s Darkest Light” (April 1987)
Theme: Spinning wheels The Story: Dr. Doom heals Ororo’s burned arm and gives her some flowing white robes (again; see below). Robot sentinels erroneously target Rogue, giving her, Dazzler, Longshot, and Havok something to do for a few minutes (and three pages). Later there’s a one page exercise sequence involving Ororo and Longshot.  Kitty Pryde spends four pages planning suicide by intentional dissipation in order to save her team the prospect of working with Dr. Doom. But a psychic projection of Franklin Richards talks her out of it.  Reed Richards spends 3 pages being glum, but he feels better when reading Franklin a bedtime story. Seeing Reed’s affection for Franklin, Sue becomes convinced that the compassionless journal must be a forgery. Encouraged by her faith in him, Reed resolves to go back and try to help Kitty as best he can. (5 pages)    Ben Grimm trudges down to a bar on Yancy Street, drinks for a while, and rescues a toddler from a car wreck. (5 pages) Johnny confesses to Alicia Masters that he’s glad he became the Human Torch. Both of them return to FF HQ and decide to join Reed on his journey to Latveria.  My Two Cents: The story in this issue is really only five pages long, the part with Reed and Sue. Everything else is just filler, spinning wheels. I guess we needed two page of Ororo’s arm getting healed also. Her white robe reminds us of the last time she met Dr. Doom, when he turned her into a statue dressed in clothing like that, and she got so claustrophobic that she called a hurricane down on his castle, and he realized not to mess with her. In the previous two issues, intangible Kitty was still wearing her aviator suit. But in this issue she’s stark naked. Maybe this was supposed to signify her deteriorating condition, but c’mon guys, she’s like fourteen years old. Couldn’t you have shown her clothed body getting progressively distorted? The Comics Code was pretty much just a theory by this point. The Ben Grimm sequence was largely filler, but there was a nice gag when he leaves the bar without demolishing it in some kind of brawl, and all the locals breathe a corporate sigh of huge relief.  The previous two covers misleadingly presented Franklin Richards as being in danger from Wolverine. But this cover is just a total lie. It shows Havok, Wolverine, and Rogue wearing Dr. Doom masks, defeating the FF and then attacking Franklin. Was this intended as straight-up deception, or did the plot of the interiors change after the covers were drawn? I suspect that when the fourth issue was made extra-size (32 pages), some of the pages from this issue were moved into that issue, necessitating the writing of new filler for this issue. Oh well, at least we know what’s coming next!   
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 9:10:54 GMT -5
I'm really want to read this and I'm going to email my LCS if they can find me a copies of these three books rberman and I did not know that these two groups fought each other! |
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Post by rberman on Sept 14, 2018 11:24:54 GMT -5
I'm really want to read this and I'm going to email my LCS if they can find me a copies of these three books rberman and I did not know that these two groups fought each other! It's available in various trade paperbacks. I own it in a big hardback "Marvel Universe: Chris Claremont" omnibus as well as in the recent X-Men "Epic Collection Vol 12: The Gift" compilation. However, I do not have Roger Stern's "Avengers versus X-Men" miniseries which came out around the same time. P.S. Be sure to get all four books in the Fantastic Four vs X-Men series, not just three! |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 11:30:22 GMT -5
I'm really want to read this and I'm going to email my LCS if they can find me a copies of these three books rberman and I did not know that these two groups fought each other! It's available in various trade paperbacks. I own it in a big hardback "Marvel Universe: Chris Claremont" omnibus as well as in the recent X-Men "Epic Collection Vol 12: The Gift" compilation. However, I do not have Roger Stern's "Avengers versus X-Men" miniseries which came out around the same time. P.S. Be sure to get all four books in the Fantastic Four vs X-Men series, not just three! Thanks this will help me out tremendously. I'll email in a hour from now when the store is open for business. |
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Post by rberman on Sept 14, 2018 23:28:36 GMT -5
Fantastic Four versus the X-Men #4 “A Matter of Faith” (June 1987)
Theme: The big fight The Story: Franklin and Kitty recap some of the plot of the first three issues for the benefit of new readers. (4 pages) The FF fly from New York to Latveria, recapping the rest of the plot. (9 pages). So if you’ve read the other three issues, you may as well start on page 10, which starts a three page sequence of the X-Men practice-fighting, and Alison flirting with Havok. Is he not married to Polaris at this point? Also, the FF have once again brought She-Hulk along even though she was completely absent from the last issue, supposedly having gone home after they returned to New York and went to bed.  Magneto spies the approach of the FF strato-jet, assumes they’re back for another fight, and he grabs their ship from the sky. The X-Men attack. Franklin, flying astride Lockheed (!), rebukes the grown-ups, and they stop fighting.   Everybody heads inside Doom’s castle. Doom and Reed argue about the best way to save Kitty, and once again Franklin intervenes with a cute puppy dog face to get them back on track.  One last hurdle to be overcome to save Kitty: Reed remains distracted by the revelations in his college journal, which he has brought along on this trip. But by thinking really hard about it, Reed is able to put aside his misgivings and focus on the task at hand, and Kitty is saved. Sue suspects that Doom was somehow behind the diary, and that it’s a forgery, but no evidence of this emerges.   My Two Cents: This issue offered no surprises, no last-minute twist about Doctor Doom’s sudden interest in helping Kitty Pryde. He was just doing it to show that he was smarter than Reed, but in the end it took both of them to save her. The main moral drama happened inside Reed Richards’ head, as he grapples with the implications in his journal. Sue may believe that Doom somehow planted a fake journal, forged in her husband’s handwriting, deep inside a sealed box in FF headquarters, but Claremont leaves the answer ambiguous. Reed himself admits it could be true, Sue’s faith in him notwithstanding.  The X-Men do not come off well at all in this series. They have two modes: Standing around impotently, and unreasonably attacking the Fantastic Four. One gets the impression that they were included simply because they were big sellers, but Chris Claremont of all people should have been come up with some kind of plot for them. Surely Doom and Magneto in a room together could generate some interesting conversations. But not here. I had assumed that Franklin’s appearances away from New York were astral ghosts, but Lockheed is able to lick him and perch on his shoulders, so something weirder is happening.  “I should have left Franklin behind,” reflects Sue as she’s flying to meet (and maybe fight) Doctor Doom. True enough. Claremont doesn’t have the FF characterizations down, does he? Doom says that he and Reed are “as much alike as Cain and Abel, as David and Jonathan.” These two biblical examples are opposites; Cain killed his brother Abel, while Jonathan assisted his brother-in-arms David at great personal risk. Remember the “Franklin in danger” covers? Now instead we have “Franklin Ascendant,” which is fine. But check out the background image of Wolverine, Ororo, and Magneto impaled through the heart and hanging on trees. Pretty graphic there, Mr. Comics Code! And once again, the cover fails to remotely depict anything that happens inside the comic. 
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Post by rberman on Sept 30, 2018 13:58:20 GMT -5
Fallen Angels #1 “Runaway” (April 1987)
Theme: Temper Tantrum The Story: Magneto feels ill-prepared to administrate the Xavier School, prepare report cards for the New Mutants, or shepherd them through their many recent emotional traumas. He prevails upon Moira McTaggart to come from Scotland help him, and Moira brings along the young mutants Siryn and Madrox.  During a soccer game, Roberto DaCosta and Sam Guthrie collide; they end up in a pile, with Sam’s elbow striking Roberto in the throat. Roberto lashes out instinctively with his powers, giving Sam a concussion. His friends are enraged by his lack of control. Humiliated, Roberto decides to run away. He wanders the streets of Manhattan aimlessly until he finds a Korean tween named Chance in jeopardy from a pair of alleyway robbers. DaCosta accosts the thieves but finds his super-strength mysteriously abandoning him at the pivotal moment of combat…  Who is Siryn? This series pulls in numerous neglected characters from Marvel’s D-list, so we’ll spend a little time looking at each one of them. In Spider-Woman #37 (April 1981), Chris Claremont introduced Theresa Cassidy, the teen daughter of Banshee who shares his costume and powers, helping Juggernaut and Black Tom Cassidy rob a bank. The X-Men arrive to free her from Black Tom’s service.  In X-Men #148 (August 1981), Theresa is introduced to the father who didn’t know she existed, and that’s the last that’s seen of her until Fallen Angels.
 My Two Cents: Mary Jo Duffy’s series, originally known as “The Misfits” (presumably after the punk band of that name), was announced in 1985 through in-house splash page ads, and Marvel Age #37 (April 1986) ran an interview with Duffy about it.  But the series was delayed, expanded, and finally took a team of artists to come to fruition. Kerry Gammill gets a “co-created by” credit and the initial pencils, including this issue, having been approached by Claremont and Duffy at a convention concerning the assignment. Tom Palmer is on inks, so it looks great. This issue serves to isolate Roberto from his team, giving him an opportunity for a spotlight adventure. The only other New Mutant up to this point to have a spotlight series was Magik, whose mini-series grew organically from her untold backstory.  Roberto had a great opportunity for his own side story back in New Mutants #37 when he left the team just before the Beyonder showed up to murder them all. He even went to Manhattan, which is where this story is taking him. But perhaps because Fallen Angels wasn’t ready to fall onto shelves, Claremont instead sent Roberto and his mother on an unseen trip back to Nova Roma in the Brazilian rain forest. This issue instead finds another reason for Roberto to leave the team: He’s hurt the best liked member of his squad. He’s also the youngest and most temper-prone New Mutant, so stalking off in a “nobody likes me anyway” huff is a reasonable thing for him to do. However, he’s a rich kid. As seen in New Mutants #37, he has a chauffeur he can call whenever he wants to travel, and he’s loaded with cash too. No reason is given for why he’s destitute, wandering the streets of Manhattan without even being harassed by the pickpockets who can tell he has no money. I wonder whether Kerry Gammill played soccer. He draws the kids wearing cleats but no shin guards, which is asking for pain on somebody’s part for sure.  This issue features, as far as I know, the only time that an injured mutant is taken into Salem Center to see a doctor that Xavier keeps on retainer, rather than being treated in the mansion’s well stocked and futuristic infirmary. Where is Sharon Friedlander, the school nurse? I suspect Duffy didn’t want to be too tied to Chris Claremont’s detailed X-mythology, and may not have even been aware of it all. For instance, Moira McTaggart was already at the X-mansion in New Mutants #46 (December 1986) to help following the massacre of the Morlocks. This story was probably written before that one but released afterward.  A kid on the street tries to sell a calendar of “oriental beauties” with proceeds benefiting “Reverend Yune Kim Park and the Glorification Church.” This is a reference to Reverend Sun Young Moon’s Unification Church, widely considered a brainwashing cult of the 1970s and 80s. We will eventually learn that Chance was raised in the Glorification Church but has rejected her parents’ religion.
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Post by rberman on Oct 1, 2018 22:33:35 GMT -5
Fallen Angels #2 “I’ll Take the High Road and I’ll Take the Low Road and I’ll Get to Sunspot Before Me” (May 1987)
Theme: Thug Life The Story: As Roberto and Chance grapple with two knife-wielding assailants in an alley, a young women named Ariel opens a nearby door and beckons Chance through. Warlock shows up to rescue Bobby from the two toughs, but when Bobby opens that same door, the other side reveals only an empty store-room, not the lighted den into which Chance and Ariel had fled through that same door.  Roberto is really hungry, and Warlock convinces him that since Roberto thinks he’s a bad guy for hurting Sam, he should just steal to get money for food. This bizarre and out-of-character logic convinces Roberto, who rips the hinges off a nearby door only to discover that it’s a Roman Catholic Church, apparently disguised as a storefront. He flees the friendly approaching priest, who is then assaulted by three toughs who want to ransack the place. They in turn are routed by a mysterious figure named Gomi and his two lobster companions (yes, you read that correctly) before they can complete their theft.  Siryn and two dozen copies of Madrox search for Roberto in Manhattan.  Madrox does find Roberto and Warlock, just as Gomi and former X-Men villain The Vanisher also arrive and invite Roberto to join their gang, the Fallen Angels, at something called the Beat Street Clubhouse. Bobby and Warlock accept, disappearing with Gomi and three copies of Madrox through a door just as Siryn arrives; when she opens the door, it leads only to a restaurant. Who Is Madrox the Multiple Man? The title of this issue refers to a character who can be in many places at once. Jamie Madrox first appeared in the Wein/Claremont written Fantastic Four Annual #4 (February 1975) as a man who, since infancy, would divide into duplicates upon the application of kinetic energy.  Claremont adopted him into the X-Men extended family, and Madrox regularly appeared in Muir Island scenes between X-Men #104 and 131, but always as a background character. So this series will be the first real exploration of the implications of his power set and personality.  My Two Cents: Holy tonal shifts, Batman! The first issue was a serious character drama full of teen angst as Roberto deals with the guilt of having hurt one friend and disappointed his others, and Magneto calls for professional assistance to deal with traumatized teens. Now suddenly we’re deep into whimsy with a pair of sentient lobsters and uncharacteristic behavior from both Roberto and Warlock. The story is still in set-up mode, finally getting Roberto, Madrox, and Warlock “down the rabbit hole” through a magic doorway so that their adventure can begin in earnest next issue.  “Beat Street” was a 1984 film about a chipper gang of DJs and breakdancers in New York City. It was influential in spreading awareness of hip-hop culture across both the United States and Europe. However, every current member of the Beat Street Club here is white. (Roberto is only just joining, and will soon be called an ape by a current member.) A missed opportunity. I also do not at all believe that Magneto and Moira would have sent Siryn into Manhattan with Moira rather than (a) sending (or being unable to stop) some of the kids who actually knew Roberto, like maybe Rahne with her tracking ability, (b) calling in some X-Men to help, like maybe Wolverine with his tracking ability, (c) Calling other Manhattanites like Father Delgado and Father Bowen who have helped Roberto the other times that he’s gotten into trouble in the big city. Warlock’s ability to find Roberto in Manhattan is consistent with the tracking ability he used to locate Legion in Scotland back in New Mutants #44 (October 1986). Do I believe that Warlock would have run off to find Roberto without bringing his bosom buddy Douglas Ramsey along? Nope, but we have to go with it. Cypher will just have to languish without a focus mini-series in which to shine. Siryn’s mini-Cerebro may be programmed to ignore all the X-Men’s signals, but what about the Morlocks living in the sewers? Are they all gone after the Mutant Massacre? “Ariel” was a code name considered for Kitty Pryde. Fitting for a Jewish character, it’s a name for Jerusalem and means “Lion of God,” as found in verses like Isaiah 29:1: “Ah, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped! Add year to year; let the feasts run their round.” But Kitty Pryde moved on to other code names. And this Ariel reference is to the trickster character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" anyway. Gammill and Palmer handle art again, with good results.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2018 8:58:50 GMT -5
rberman, I just finished speed reading the Fantastic Four versus the X-Men and like you said in your reviews that I was kind of disappointed in not having a reasonable dialogue and that's kind of let me down here. I find Franklin a little bit a dodo bird and that's one of the reasons that I don't care for Reed and Susan's Sons. If I had it my way, they should be childless and stick being Superheroes. I like the interactions of all the players here -- The Thing was good here and your reviews here kind of hit all the right places and I understand exactly where you are at here. Not bad at all; and pleasantly surprised by this four issues mini-series.
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Post by badwolf on Oct 2, 2018 10:05:01 GMT -5
I find Franklin a little bit a dodo bird and that's one of the reasons that I don't care for Reed and Susan's Sons. If I had it my way, they should be childless and stick being Superheroes. I don't mind Franklin when he's being written well but he has to be the most inconsistently portrayed character in the Marvel universe. In FF/MTIO he appeared to be around 10-11 and then in Power Pack he was back to being a toddler. I think later it was explained to be a result of his reality-warping powers which is why no one ever noticed, but I don't understand why editorial didn't force writers to be more consistent about it. |
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Post by badwolf on Oct 2, 2018 10:07:31 GMT -5
I remembered Madrox from some of those X-Men issues and though I didn't know the character well, it seemed to me he had been de-aged for Fallen Angels. Maybe it's just a matter of different artist styles but I never could quite reconcile it. As for the series, I remember feeling that it was aimed at readers a little younger than I was (I was 17 when it came out.) Good art though. |
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Post by rberman on Oct 2, 2018 10:52:42 GMT -5
Fallen Angels #3 “Every Card Is Wild” (June 1987)
Theme: Exposition dump The Story: The Vanisher welcomes Roberto, Madrox, and Warlock to the Beat Street Clubhouse where he presides as Fagin over his gang of street urchins, which includes Gomi (and his pet lobsters), Ariel (who can make doors open onto different places), and Chance (no powers as far as we know). Bobby hears their various stories in different degrees of detail. Vanisher is riled that yet another filly in his stable, Boom Boom, prefers the company of X-Factor. Turns out Boom Boom is getting bored with them anyway, so Ariel makes a doorway into X-Factor headquarters, allowing Boom Boom to return to the Beat Street Clubhouse. Bobby Drake and Hank McCoy appear to be in their mid 30s now.   One of Madrox’s duplicates has gone astray from his “look for Roberto” mission, helping a woman carry her copious luggage from the Port Authority Bus Station to her apartment. He’s starting to feel independent, not willing to join back together with the other Madrox duplicates. If this sort of auto-mutiny happens with any frequency, there could be quite a few rogue Madroxes running around out there.  Another Madrox is with Siryn, perplexed at how the door through which Roberto fled now leads to a seafood restaurant. They stay to eat, then eventually track Roberto to the Beat Street Clubhouse. He doesn’t want to go back to Westchester with them. Ariel convinces everyone to step through a doorway and out into an open meadow. Where are they now? Where did the door go? Background: Who is Boom-Boom? The bizarre “Secret Wars II” series (#5, November 1985) introduces a new young mutant named Boom-Boom, a runaway from an abusive home, whose power is to make tiny bombs with detonation pauses of varying length.   Then in X-Factor #11 (Dec 1986), Boom-Boom is living in Manhattan, committing petty crimes for a gang headed by Vanisher, but she gets annoyed and rats him out to X-Factor. She maintains a fractious relationship with both Vanisher and X-Factor in subsequent issues.  My Two Cents: The best thing about this series so far is that it provides a reasonable scenario for how a young mutant might go bad. Roberto has always been volatile and impetuous. Estrange him from his friends and give the wrong people a chance to accept him into their number, and he might very well start to do progressively evil things. This is exactly how criminal gangs recruit their members. Vanisher makes a right creepy “disreputable uncle” figure, one with apparently no sexual interest in the three young women in his gang. He’s still quite the creep, and a much more interesting character than the generic villain of his original X-Men appearances. However, the jaunty tone of the series works against such “corruption of youth” elements. Essentially it’s taken us three issues to get Roberto, Warlock, Siryn, and Madrox into this weirdo club, and the actual adventure is only beginning as they step through Ariel’s door on the final page. It seemed like Roberto was the protagonist at first, but he spent this issue just sitting around listening to backstory from the other characters. That's because this issue was not part of the original four-issue plan. It's filler. The clubhouse shows a wide variety of décor, from a mounted deer head to a Rodney Dangerfield “Back to School” poster to man-cave accoutrements such as a video game and a well-stocked rack of LPs. Half-eaten cans (of beans?) are everywhere, spoons still sticking from the cans. Gomi talks of his appreciation for Talking Heads albums and also a British cabaret comedy duo who released “The Bestiary of Flanders and Swann.” The specific song he mentions (“The Hippopotamus”) is their most famous, but it’s not actually on the album in question. Gomi’s backstory is that his cousin Ramon the scientist gave him cybernetic implants in hopes of giving him telekinesis like his dream woman, Marvel Girl. The flashback raises all sorts of questions: • Where did they get a wall-size signed poster of Marvel Girl? The X-Men are outcasts; I doubt they sell branded merch at Spencer’s Gifts next to the black lights and lava lamps. • Ramon somehow recognizes that Phoenix is the same person who used to be Marvel Girl. That’s no mean feat, considering the size and coverage of the Marvel Girl cat mask. • Ramon wants to make a new Marvel Girl to replace the “ruined” real one who became Phoenix. I can’t make much sense of this motive, but I guess Ramon is just crazy. • Gomi is surprisingly nonchalant about being chloroformed and having machines installed in his head that give him very poorly controlled telekinetic blasts. He is portrayed erratically, sometimes being quite smart and other times quite the moron.  Don and Bill the lobsters talk in pictograms and emoticons which my six year old was immediately able to understand. They are silly but fun. Three issues in, and thanks to the extra issues added late in the publication cycle, we’re already on a guest penciler: Marie Severin. The results are fine, especially with Tom Palmer giving consistently on inks, but it hints at chaos behind the scenes. But Hank McCoy looks really off-model. Hank looks more like his usual stocky self in the X-Factor #17 version of this same scene (see below). 
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